“Aren’t I that already?”
“In here perhaps. Not outside. They’ve forgotten all about you outside. It may be better to leave it that way.”
“What would persuade you to write it?”
“If you tell me why.”
The silence grew between them. Ominous.
“Have they found my nephew?” Olive asked at last.
“I don’t think so.” Roz frowned.
“How did you know they were looking for him?”
Olive gave a hearty chuckle.
“Cell telegraph.
Everyone knows everything in here. There’s bugger all else to do except mind other people’s business, and we all have solicitors and we all read the newspapers and everyone talks. I could have guessed anyway. My father left a lot of money. He would always leave it to family if he could.”
“I spoke to one of your neighbours, a Mr. Hayes. Do you remember him?” Olive nodded.
“If I understood him right, Amber’s child was adopted by some people called Brown who’ve since emigrated to Australia. I assume that’s why Mr. Crew’s firm is having so much difficulty in tracing him. Big place, cone on name.”
She waited for a moment but Olive didn’t say anything.
“Why do you want to know? Does it make a difference to you whether he’s found or not?”
“Maybe,” she said heavily.
“Why?”
Olive shook her head.
“Do you want him found?”
The door crashed open, startling them both.
“Time’s up, Sculptress. Come on, let’s be having you.” The officer’s voice boomed about the peaceful room, tearing the fabric of their precarious intimacy. Roz saw her own irritation reflected in Olive’s eyes. But the moment was lost.
She gave an involuntary wink.
“It’s true what they say, you know. Time does fly when you’re enjoying yourself. I’ll see you next week.” The huge woman lumbered awkwardly to her feet.
“My father was a very lazy man, which is why he let my mother rule the roost.” She rested a hand against the door jamb to balance herself.
“His other favourite saying, because it annoyed her so much, was: never do today what can always be done tomorrow.” She smiled faintly.
“As a result, of course, he was completely contemptible. The only allegiance he recognised was his allegiance to himself, but it was allegiance without responsibility. He should have studied existentialism.”
Her tongue lingered on the word.
“He would have learnt something about man’s imperative to choose and act wisely. We are all masters of our fate, Roz, including you.” She nodded briefly then turned away, drawing the prison officer and the metal chair into her laborious, shuffling wake.
Now what, Roz wondered, watching them, was that supposed to mean?
“Mrs. Wright?”
“Yes?” The young woman held the front door half open, a restraining hand hooked into her growling dog’s collar. She was pretty in a colourless sort of way, pale and fine drawn with large grey eyes and a swinging bob of straw-gold hair.
Roz offered her card.
“I’m writing a book about Olive Martin. Sister Bridget at your old convent school suggested you might be prepared to talk to me. She said you were the dos est friend Olive had there.”
Geraldine Wright made a pretence of reading the card then offered it back again.
“I don’t think so, thank you.” She said it in the sort of tone she might have used to a Jehovah’s Witness. She prepared to close the door.
Roz held it open with her hand.
“May I ask why not?”
“I’d rather not be involved.”
“I don’t need to mention you by name.” She smiled encouragingly.
“Please, Mrs. Wright. I won’t embarrass you. That’s not the way I work. It’s information I’m after, not exposure. No one will ever know you were connected with her, not through me or my book at least.” She saw a slight hesitancy in the other woman’s eyes.
