“And after that, it was quite a relief just to say what everyone wanted me to say. I didn’t want to go home, you see, not with Mum dead, and Edward next door and everyone knowing. I couldn’t possibly have gone home.”
“How did you know your father had done it?”
A whimper of pure pain, like a wounded animal’s, crooned from Olive’s mouth.
“Because Mr. Crew was so beastly to me.”
Sorrow poured in floods down her cheeks.
“He used to come to our house sometimes and he’d pat me on the shoulder and say: “How’s Olive?” But in the police station’ she buried her face in her hands ‘he held a handkerchief to his mouth to stop himself being sick and stood on the other side of the room and said: “Don’t say anything to me or the police, or I won’t be able to help you.” I knew then.”
Roz frowned.
“How? I don’t understand.”
“Because Dad was the only person who knew I wasn’t there, but he never said a word to Mr. Crew before, or to the police afterwards. Dad must have done it or he’d have tried to save me. He let me go to prison because he was a coward.” She sobbed loudly.
“And then he died and left his money to Amber’s child when he could have left a letter, saying I was innocent.”
She beat her hands against her knees.
“What did it matter once he was dead?”
Roz took the cigarette from Olive’s fingers and stood it on the table.
“Why didn’t you tell the police you thought it was your father who had done it? Sergeant Hawksley would have listened to you. He already suspected your father.”
The fat woman stared at the table.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“You must, Olive.”
“You’ll laugh.”
“Tell me.”
“I was hungry.”
Roz shook her head in perplexity.
“I don’t understand.”
“The sergeant brought me a sandwich and said I could have a proper dinner when we’d finished the statement.” Her eyes welled again.
“I hadn’t eaten all day and I was so hungry,” she wailed.
“It was quicker when I said what they wanted me to say and then I got my dinner.” She wrung her hands.
“People will laugh, won’t they?”
Roz wondered why it had never occurred to her that Olive’s insatiable craving for food might have been a contributory factor in her confession. Mrs. Hopwood had described her as a compulsive eater and stress would have piled on the agonies of the wretched girl’s hunger.
“No,” she said firmly, ‘no one will laugh. But why did you insist on pleading guilty at your trial?
You could have made a fight of it then. You’d had time to think and get over the shock.”
Olive wiped her eyes.
“It was too late. I’d confessed. I had nothing to fight with except diminished responsibility and I wasn’t going to let Mr. Crew call me a psychopath. I hate Mr. Crew.”
“But if you’d told someone the truth they might have believed you.
You’ve told me and I’ve believed you.”
Olive shook her head.
“I’ve told you nothing,” she said simply.
“Everything you know you’ve found out for yourself.
That’s why you believe it.” Her eyes flooded again.
“I did try at the beginning, when I first came to prison. I told the Chaplain but he doesn’t like me and thought I was telling lies. I’d confessed, you see, and only the guilty confess. The psychiatrists were the most frightening. I thought if I denied the crime and didn’t show any remorse, they’d say I was sociopathic and send me to Broadmoor.”
Roz looked at the bent head with compassion. Olive had never really stood a chance. And who was to blame at the end of the day? Mr. Crew?
Robert Martin? The police? Poor Gwen even, whose dependence on her daughter had mapped Olive’s life. Michael Jackson had said it all: “She was one of those people you only think about when you want something done and then you remember them with relief because you know they’ll do it.” It had never been Amber who set out to please, she thought, only Olive, and as a result she had grown completely dependent herself. With no one to tell her what to do she had taken the line of least resistance.
