We all liked Amber.”
“The parents found her very difficult. She wouldn’t mix or make friends. She was shy, I suppose, because of her size but she had a way of looking at you that wasn’t normal.”
Beyond the sensationalism, there had been nothing to write about. There was no police investigation to report Olive had phoned them herself, had confessed to the crime in the presence of her solicitor, and had been charged with murder.
Because she had pleaded guilty there had been no salacious details from a lengthy trial, no names of friends or associates to draw on, and her sentencing had rated a single paragraph under the headline: TWBNTY-FIVE YEARS FOR BRUTAL MURDERS. A conspiracy of journalistic apathy seemed to surround the whole event. Of the five cardinal his of the journalist’s creed Where?” When?” What?” Who?” and Why? the first four had been amply covered. Everyone knew what had happened, who had done it, where, and when.
But no one, it seemed, knew why. Nor, and this was the real puzzle, had anyone actually asked. Could teasing alone really drive a young woman to such a pitch of anger that she would hack her family to pieces?
With a sigh, Roz switched on the radio and fed Pavarotti into the tape-deck. Bad choice, she thought, as “Nessun Dorma’ flooded the car and brought back bitter memories of a summer she would rather forget.
Strange how a piece of music could be so evocative, but then the path to separation had been choreographed around the television screen with “Nessun Dorma’ triggering the stops and starts of their rows. She could remember every detail of every World Cup football match. They were the only peaceful periods in a summer of war. How much better, she thought wearily, if she had called a halt then instead of dragging the misery out to its far more terrible conclusion.
A net curtain, in the semi to the right, number 24, twitched behind a Neighbourhood Watch sticker which proclaimed itself loudly against the glass. A case, Roz wondered, of locking the stable door after the horse had bolted? Or was that Same net curtain twitching the day Olive wielded her chopper? Two garages filled the gap between the houses, but it was possible the occupants had heard something.
“Olive Martin took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks…” The words circled in her brain as they had done, on and off, for days.
She resumed her contemplation of number 22, but watched the net curtain out of the corner of her eye. It moved again, plucked by prying fingers, and she felt unreasonably irritated by the busybody spying on her. It was an empty, wasted life that had time to stand and stare.
What sort of interfering old bitch inhabited there, she wondered? The frustrated spinster who got off on voyeurism? Or the bored and boring wife with nothing better to do than find fault? Then something clicked inside her head, a realignment of thought like the points on a railway line.
Just the sort of busybody she wanted, of course, but why had that not occurred to her immediately? Really, she worried about herself. She spent so much time in neutral now, just listening to the footfalls, leading nowhere, that echoed in her memory.
A frail old man opened the door, a small, shrunken person with transparent skin and bowed shoulders.
“Come in, come in,” he said, standing back and ushering her into his corridor.
“I heard what you said to Mrs. Blair. She won’t talk to you, and I’ll tell you something else, it wouldn’t help you if she did. They only came four years ago when the first youngster was on the way.
Didn’t know the family at all and, as far as I know, never spoke to poor old Bob. What shall I say? She’s got a nerve. Typical of today’s youngsters. Always wanting something for nothing.” He muttered on, leading the way into his living room.
“Resents living in a goldfish bowl but forgets that they got the house for a pittance just because it was a goldfish bowl. Ted and Dorothy Clarke virtually gave the place away because they couldn’t stand it any longer. What shall I say? Ungrateful girl. Imagine what it’s like for those of us who’ve always lived here. No bargains for us. We have to put up with it, don’t we? Sit down.
Sit down.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re from Mr. Crew, you say. They found the child yet?”
He stared into her face with disconcertingly bright blue eyes.
Roz stared back, her mind racing.
“That’s not my province,” she said carefully, ‘so I’m not sure where they are on that one. I’m conducting a follow-up of Olive’s case. You did know that Mr. Crew is still representing her?”
“What’s to represent?” he asked. His eyes strayed in disappointment.
“Poor little Amber. They should never have made her give it up. I said it would cause trouble.”
Roz sat very still and stared at the worn carpet.
“People don’t listen, of course,” he said crossly.
“You give them well-meant advice and they tell you you’re interfering.
What shall I say? I could see where it would lead.” He fell into a resentful silence.
“You’re talking about the child,” said Roz at last.
He looked at her curiously.
“If they’d found him, you’d know.”
It was a boy, then.
“Oh, yes.”
