“If you remember, Miss Leigh, I made that very point in my letter to you.”
She nodded gravely, pandering to his ego.
“And as I told you, I don’t want to write Olive’s story simply to cover the pages with lurid details of what she did. But one part of your letter implied an angle that might be worth pursuing. You advised her to plead not guilty to murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Had that succeeded, you suggested, she would have been found guilty of manslaughter and would, in all probability, have been sentenced to indefinite detention. I think you went on to estimate ten to fifteen years in a secure unit if she had been given psychiatric treatment and had responded favourably to it.”
“That is correct,” he agreed.
“And I think it was a reasonable estimate. Certainly she would have served nothing like the twenty-five year sentence the judge recommended she serve.”
“But she rejected your advice. Do you know why?”
“Yes. She had a morbid fear of being locked up with mad people and she misunderstood the nature of indefinite detention.
She was convinced that it meant endless, and, try as we might, we could not persuade her otherwise.”
“In that case, why didn’t you lodge a not guilty plea on her behalf?
The very fact that she couldn’t grasp what you were telling her implies that she wasn’t capable of pleading for herself. You must have thought she had a defence or you wouldn’t have suggested it.”
He smiled grimly.
“I don’t quite understand why, Miss Leigh, but you seem to have decided that we failed Olive in some way.”
He scribbled a name and address on a piece of paper.
“I suggest you talk to this man before you come to any more erroneous conclusions.” He flicked the paper in her direction.
“He’s the barrister we briefed for her defence.
Graham Deedes. In the event, she out manoeuvred us and he was never called to defend her.”
“But why? How could she out manoeuvre you?” She frowned.
“I’m sorry if I sound critical, Mr. Crew, and please believe me, you are wrong in assuming I have reached any unfavourable conclusions.” But was that really true? she wondered.
“I am simply a perplexed onlooker asking questions. If this Deedes was in a position to raise serious doubts over her quote sanity unquote, then surely he should have insisted that the court hear her defence whether she wanted it or not. Not to put too fine a point on it, if she was bonkers then the system had a duty to recognise the fact, even if she herself thought she was sane. He relented a little.
“You’re using very emotive language, Miss Leigh there was never a question of pleading insanity, only diminished responsibility but I do take your point. I used the word out manoeuvred advisedly. The simple truth is that a few weeks before the scheduled date of her trial, Olive wrote to the Home Secretary demanding to know whether she had the right to plead guilty or whether, under British law, this right was denied her. She claimed that undue pressure was being brought to bear to force a lengthy trial that would do nothing to help her but only prolong the agony for her father. The trial date was postponed while tests were carried out to discover if she was fit to plead. She was ruled eminently fit and was allowed to plead guilty.”
“Good Lord!” Roz chewed her lower lip.
“Good Lord!” she said again.
“Were they right?”
“Of course.” He noticed the forgotten cigarette with a curl of ash dripping from its end and, with a gesture of annoyance, stubbed it out.
“She knew exactly what the consequences would be. They even told her what sort of sentence to expect.
Nor would prison have come as any surprise to her. She spent four months on remand before the trial. Frankly, even had she agreed to defend herself the result would still have been the same. The evidence for a plea of diminished responsibility was very flimsy. I doubt we could have swung a jury.”
“And yet in your letter you said that, in spite of everything, you are still convinced she’s a psychopath. Why?”
He fingered the file on his desk.
“I saw the photographs of Gwen and Amber’s bodies, taken before their removal from the kitchen. It was a slaughterhouse running with blood, the most horrifying scene I have ever witnessed. Nothing will ever convince me that a psychologically stable personality could wreak such atrocity on anyone, let alone on a mother and sister.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“No, despite what the psychiatrists say and you must remember, Miss Leigh, that whether or not psychopathy is a diagnosable disease is under constant debate Olive Martin is a dangerous woman. I advise you to be extremely wary in your dealings with her.”
Roz switched off her tape-recorder and reached for her briefcase.
“I suppose there’s no doubt that she did it.”
He stared at her as if she had said something dirty.
“None at all,” he snapped.
