“You take the next right at the traffic lights and then right at the roundabout.”
Roz put on her indicator.
“Was that Gary O’Brien?”
Marie nodded.
“I suppose the little sod’s been talking.”
“Something like that,” said Roz, avoiding a direct answer.
“Did Gary ever meet this man?”
“No, only Olive. It turned out he’d known her before she used to look after him when he was a child or something so he had no trouble recognising her and didn’t bungle the job by trying to give the letter to the wrong woman. Which, considering what an oaf he was, I thought he might do. Pull in here.” She glanced at her watch as Roz drew to a halt.
“That’s grand. OK, well, the upshot of the whole thing going so smoothly was that Olive’s bloke started to use us quite regularly. All in all we must have delivered about ten letters in the six months before the murders. I think he realised we were doing it on the side because he always came in at lunchtime after Wheelan had gone out. I reckon he used to wait until he saw the old fool leave.”
She shrugged.
“It stopped with the murders and I’ve never seen him since. And that’s all I can tell you except that Gary got really nervous after Olive was arrested and said we should keep our mouths shut about what we knew or the police would be down on us like a ton of bricks. Well, I wasn’t keen to say anything anyway, not because of the police but because of Wheelan. He’d have burst a blood vessel if he’d found out we’d been running a bit of private enterprise behind his back.”
“But didn’t the police turn up anyway about a month later to warn Wheelan against the O’Brien brothers?”
Mamie looked surprised.
“Who told you that?”
“Gary’s mother.”
“First I’ve heard of it. As far as I know they just got bored.
Gary wasn’t so bad because he loved his motorbike but the other two were the most work-shy creeps I’ve ever come across. In the end they were skiving off so often that Wheelan sacked the lot. It’s about the only decision he’s ever made that I agreed with. God, they were unreliable.” She checked her watch again.
“To tell you the truth it amazed me that Gary delivered Olive’s letters so conscientiously. I did wonder if he had a bit of a yen for her himself.” She opened the car door.
“I’ll have togo.”
“Hang on,” said Roz sharply.
“Who was this man?”
“No idea. We dealt in cash and he never gave his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“I’ll miss my train.”
Roz leant across and pulled the door to.
“You’ve got ten minutes and if you don’t give me a decent description I’ll go straight back to your office and spill the beans to Wheelan.”
Mamie shrugged petulantly.
“He was fifty-odd, old enough to be her father if the age they gave for her in the paper was right.
Quite good-looking in a smarmy sort of way, very clean cut and conservative. He had a posh accent. He smoked. He always wore a suit and tie. He was about six foot and he had blond hair. He never said very much, just sort of waited for me to speak, never smiled, never got excited. I remember his eyes because they didn’t go with his hair.
They were very dark brown. And that’s it,” she said firmly.
“I don’t know any more about him and I don’t know anything at all about her.”
“Would you recognise him from a photograph?”
“Probably. Do you know him then?”
Roz drummed her fingers on the steering-wheel.
“It doesn’t make any sense but it sounds exactly like her father.”
ELEVEN
The officer on the gate checked Roz’s name against his list the following Monday, then picked up the telephone.
“The Governor wants to see you,” he said, dialling a number.
“What for?”
