“Nobody saw me. If they had I wouldn’t be here.”
“How did you get into the house? Did you have a key?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” demanded Roz sharply.
“You said you left. I assumed you just walked out as you were.”
Olive’s eyes widened.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” she howled.
“No one believes me when I tell the truth.” She started to cry again.
“I do believe you,” said Roz firmly.
“I just want to get it straight.”
“I went to my room first and got my things. I only went out because they were all making so much noise.” She screwed her face in distress.
“My father was weeping. It was horrible.”
“OK. Go on. You’re back at the house.”
“I let myself in and went down to the kitchen to get some food.
I stepped in all the blood before I even knew it was there.” She looked at the photograph of her mother and the ready tears sprang into her eyes afresh.
“I really don’t like to think about it too much. It makes me sick when I think about it.”
Her lower lip wobbled violently.
“OK,” said Roz easily, ‘let’s concentrate on something else.
What made you stay? Why didn’t you run out into the road and call for help?”
Olive mopped at her eyes.
“I couldn’t move,” she said simply.
“I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I just stood there thinking how ashamed my mother would be when people saw her without her clothes on.” Her lip kept wobbling like some grotesque toddler’s.
“I felt so ill. I wanted to sit down but there wasn’t a chair.” She held her hand to her mouth and swallowed convulsively.
“And then Mrs. Clarke started banging on the kitchen window. She kept screaming that God would never forgive my wickedness, and there was dribble coming out of her mouth.” A shudder ran through the big shoulders.
“I knew I had to shut her up because she was making it all so much worse. So I picked up the rolling pin and ran across to the back door.” She sighed.
“But I fell over and she wasn’t there any more anyway.”
“Is that when you called the police?”
“No.” The wet face worked horribly.
“I can’t remember it all now. I went mad for a bit because I had their blood all over me and I kept scraping my hands to clean them. But everything I touched was bloody.” Her eyes widened at the memory.
“I’ve always been so clumsy and the floor was slippery. I kept stumbling over them and disturbing them and then I had to touch them to put them back again and there was more blood on me.”
The sorrowful eyes flooded again.
“And I thought, this is all my fault. If I’d never been born this would never have happened. I sat down for a long time because I felt sick.”
Roz looked at the bowed head in bewilderment.
“But why didn’t you tell the police all this?”
She raised drowned blue eyes to Roz’s.
“I was going to, but nobody would talk to me. They all thought I’d done it, you see.
And all the time I was thinking how it was all going to come out, about Edward and me, and Edward and my father, and the abortion, and Amber, and her baby, and I thought how much less embarrassing it would be for everyone if I said Ididit.”
Roz kept her voice deliberately steady.
“Who did you think had done it?”
Olive looked miserable.
“I didn’t think about that for ages.”
She hunched her shoulders as if defending herself.
“And then I knew my father had done it and they’d find me guilty whatever happened because he was the only one who could save me.” She plucked at her lips.
