“You’ll be hearing this officially in the next few days but I’m damned if you should have to wait for it. Mr. Crew is on bail at the moment, charged with embezzlement of your father’s money and conspiracy to defraud. He may also be charged with conspiracy to murder.” There was a long pause before Olive looked up.
The strange awareness was back in her eyes, a look of triumphant confirmation that made the hair prickle on the back of Roz’s neck. She thought of Sister Bridget’s simple assertion of her truth: You were chosen, Roz, and I wasn’t. And Olive’s truth? What was Olive’s truth?
“I know already.” Idly Olive removed a pin from the front of her dress.
“Prison grapevine,” she explained.
“Mr. Crew hired the Hayes brothers to do over Sergeant Hawksley’s restaurant.
You were there, and you and the Sergeant got beaten up. I’m sorry about that but I’m not sorry about anything else. I never liked Mr.
Hayes much. He always ignored me and talked to Amber.” She stuck the pin into the tabletop. Bits of dried clay and wax still clung to the head.
Roz arched an eyebrow at the pin.
“It’s superstitious rubbish, Olive.”
“You said it works if you believe in it.”
Roz shrugged.
“I was joking.”
“The Encyclopaedia Britannica doesn’t joke.” Olive chanted in a sing-song voice: “Page 96, volume 25, general heading: Occultism.” She clapped her hands excitedly like an over boisterous child and raised her voice to a shout. ‘“Witchcraft worked in Salem because the persons involved believed in it.” She saw the frown of alarm on Roz’s face.
“It’s all nonsense,” she said calmly.
“Will Mr. Crew be convicted?”
“I don’t know. He’s claiming that your father gave him the go-ahead, as executor, to invest the money while the searches were made for your nephew, and the bugger is’ she smiled grimly ‘if the property market takes off again, which it probably will, his investments look very healthy.” Of the other charges, only the conspiracy to defraud Hal of the Poacher had any chance of sticking, purely because Stewart Hayes’s brother, a far weaker character than Stewart, had collapsed under police questioning.
“He’s denying everything, but the police seem fairly optimistic they can pin assault charges on both him and the Hayes boys. I’d give anything to get him for negligence where your case was concerned. Was he one of the people you tried to tell the truth to?”
“No,” said Olive regretfully.
“There was no point. He’d been Dad’s solicitor for years. He’d never have believed Dad had done it.”
Roz started to gather her bits and pieces together.
“Your father didn’t kill your mother and sister, Olive. He thought you did. Gwen and Amber were alive when he went to work the next morning.
As far as he was concerned, your statement was completely true.”
“But he knew I wasn’t there.”
Roz shook her head.
“I’ll never be able to prove it but I don’t suppose he even realised you’d gone. He slept downstairs, remember, and I’ll bet a pound to a penny you slipped out quietly to avoid attracting attention to yourself. If you’d only agreed to see him, you’d have sorted it out.”
She stood up.
“It’s water under the bridge, but you shouldn’t have punished him, Olive. He was no more guilty than you are. He loved you. He just wasn’t very good at showing it. I suspect his only fault was to take too little notice of the clothes women wore.”
Olive shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“He told the police your mother owned a nylon overall.”
“Why would he do that?”
Roz sighed.
“I suppose because he didn’t want to admit he never looked at her. He wasn’t a bad man, Olive. He couldn’t help his sexuality any more than you or I can help ours. The tragedy for you all was that none of you could talk about it.” She took the pin from the tabletop and wiped the head clean.
“And I don’t believe for one moment that he would ever have blamed you for what happened. Only himself. That’s why he went on living in the house. It was his atonement.”
A large tear rolled down Olive’s cheek.
“He always said the game wasn’t worth the candle.” She held out her hand for the pin.
“If I’d love him less I’d have hated him less, and it wouldn’t be too late now, would it?”
