"Not the truth, certainly. I didn"t know myself. Whenever she asked, I always said, yes, they"d had s.e.x the night before, just to get away from her. Everyone did. It became a silly sort of game in the end."

"Why did she want to know?"

The woman shrugged.

"I always thought it was because she had a dirty mind. There"s a woman in the village who"s just the same. The first thing she says to anyone is, "Tell me all the gossip," and her eyes light up. I hate that sort of thing. She"s the last person to hear what"s going on, of course.

She puts people"s backs up."

Roz thought for a moment.

"Did Olive"s parents kiss and cuddle?"

"Lord, no!"

"You"re very certain."

"Well, of course. They loathed each other. My mother said they only stayed together because he was too lazy to move out and she was too mercenary to let him."

"So Olive was looking for rea.s.surance?"

"I"m sorry?"

"When she asked you about your parents," said Roz coolly, *she was looking for rea.s.surance. The poor kid was trying to find out if hers were the only ones who didn"t get on."

"Oh," said Geraldine in surprise.

"Do you think so?" She made a pretty little moue with her lips.

"No," she said, "I"m sure you"re wrong. It was the s.e.x bits she wanted to know about. I told you, her eyes had a greedy look."

Roz let this pa.s.s.

"Did she tell lies?"

"Yes, that was another thing." Memories chased themselves across her face.

"She was always lying.

How odd, I"d forgotten that. In the end, you know, n.o.body ever believed anything she said."

"What did she lie about?"

"Everything."

"What in particular? Herself? Other people? Her parents?"

"Everything." She saw the impatience in Roz"s face.

"Oh dear, it"s so hard to explain. She told stories. I mean, she couldn"t open her mouth without telling stories. Oh dear, let me see now. All right, she used to talk about boyfriends that didn"t exist, and she said the family had been on holiday to France one summer but it turned out they"d stayed at home, and she kept talking about her dog, but everyone knew she didn"t have a dog." She pulled a face.

"And she used to cheat, of course, all the time. It was really annoying that. She"d steal your homework out of your satchel when you weren"t looking and crib your ideas."

"She was bright, though, wasn"t she? She got three A-levels."

"She pa.s.sed them all but I don"t think her grades were anything to shout home about." It was said with a touch of malice.

"Anyway, if she was so bright, why couldn"t she get herself a decent job? My mother said it was embarra.s.sing going to Pett.i.t"s and being served by Olive."

Roz looked away from the colourless face to gaze out over the view from the window. She let some moments pa.s.s while COmmon sense battled with the angry reproaches that were clamouring inside her head. After all, she thought, she could be wrong. And yeta And yet it seemed so clear to her that Olive must have been a deeply unhappy child. She forced herself to smile.

"Olive was obviously closer to you than anyone else, except, perhaps, her sister. Why do you think that was?"

"Oh, goodness, I haven"t a clue. My mother says it"s because I reminded her of Amber. I couldn"t see it myself, but it"s true that people who saw the three of us together always a.s.sumed Amber was my sister and not Olive"s." She thought back.

"Mother"s probably right. Olive stopped following me around quite so much when Amber joined the school."

"That must have been a relief." There was a certain acidity in her tone, mercifully lost on Geraldine.

"I suppose so. Except" she added this as a wistful afterthought *n.o.body dared tease when Olive was with me."

Roz watched her for a moment.

"Sister Bridget said Olive was devoted to Amber."

"She was. But then everyone liked Amber."

"Why?"

Geraldine shrugged.

"She was nice."

Roz laughed suddenly.

"To be frank, Amber"s beginning to get up my nose. She sounds too d.a.m.n good to be true. What was so special about her?"

"Oh dear." She frowned in recollection.

"Mother said it was because she was willing. People put on her, but she never seemed to mind. She smiled a lot, of course."

Roz drew her cherub doodle on the notepad and thought about the unwanted pregnancy.

"How was she put upon?"

"I suppose she just wanted to please. It was only little things, like lending out her pencils and running errands for the nuns. I needed a clean sports shirt once for a net ball match, so I borrowed Amber"s.

That sort of thing."

"Without asking?"

Surprisingly, Geraldine blushed.

"You didn"t need to, not with Amber. She never minded. It was only Olive who got angry. She was perfectly beastly about that sports shirt." She looked at the clock.

"I shall have to go. It"s getting late." She stood up.

"I haven"t been very helpful, I"m afraid."

"On the contrary," said Roz, pushing herself out of her chair, *you"ve been extremely helpful. Thank you very much."

They walked into the hall together.

"Did it never seem odd to you," Roz asked as Geraldine opened the front door, *that Olive should kill her sister?"

"Well, yes, of course it did. I was terribly shocked."

"Shocked enough to wonder if she actually did it?

In view of all you"ve said about their relationship it seems a very unlikely thing for her to do."

The wide grey eyes clouded with uncertainty.

"How strange. That"s just what my mother always said. But if she didn"t do it, then why did she say she did?"

*1 don"t know. Perhaps because she makes a habit of protecting people." She smiled in a friendly way.

"Would your mother be prepared to talk to me, do you think?"

"Oh Lord, I shouldn"t think so. She hates anyone even knowing I was at school with Olive."

"Will you ask her anyway? And if she agrees, phone me at that number on the card."

Geraldine shook her head.

"It would be a waste of time. She won"t agree."

"Fair enough." Roz stepped through the door and on to the gravel.

"What a lovely house this is," she said with enthusiasm, looking up at the clematis over the porch.

"Where were you living before?"

The other woman grimaced theatrically.

"A nasty modern box on the outskirts of Dawlington."

Roz laughed.

"So coming here was by way of a culture shock." She opened the car door.

"Do you ever go back to Dawlington?"

"Oh, yes," said the other.

"My parents still live there. I see them once a week."

Roz tossed her bag and briefcase on to the back seat.

"They must be very proud of you." She held out a hand.

"Thank you for your time, Mrs. Wright, and please don"t worry, I shall be very careful how I use the information you"ve given me." She lowered herself on to the driver"s seat and pulled the door to.

"There"s just one last thing," she said through the open window, her dark eyes guileless.

"Can I have your maiden name so I can cross you off the school list Sister Bridget gave me? I don"t want to go troubling you again by mistake."

"Hopwood," said Geraldine helpfully.

It wasn"t difficult to locate Mrs. Hopwood. Roz drove to the library in Dawlington and consulted the local telephone directory. There were three Hopwoods with Dawlington addresses. She made a note of these with their numbers, found a telephone box and rang each in turn, claiming to be an old friend of Geraldine"s and asking to speak to her.

The first two denied any knowledge of such a person, the last, a man"s voice, told her that Geraldine had married and was now living in Wooling.

He gave her Geraldine"s telephone number and told her, rather sweetly, how nice it had been to talk to her again. Roz smiled as she put down the receiver. Geraldine, she thought, took after her father.

This impression was forcibly confirmed when Mrs. Hopwooci rattled her safety chain into place and opened the front door.

She eyed Roz with deep suspicion.

"Yes?" she demanded.

"Mrs. Hopwood?"

"Yes."

Roz had planned a simple cover story but, seeing the hard glint in the woman"s eyes, decided to abandon it. Mrs. Hopwood was not the type to take kindly to flannel.

"I"m afraid I bamboozled your daughter and your husband into giving away this address," she said with a slight smile.

"My name"s-* "Rosalind Leigh and you"re writing a book about Olive. I know. I"ve just had Geraldine on the phone. It didn"t take her long to put two and two together. I"m sorry but I can"t help you. I hardly knew the girl." But she didn"t close the door. Something curiosity? kept her there.

"You know her better than I do, Mrs. Hopwood."

"But I haven"t chosen to write a book about her, young woman. Nor would I."

"Not even if you thought she was innocent?"

Mrs. Hopwood didn"t answer.