Olive took another cigarette and lit it from the old one.

"They arrested me."

"No. I mean before that."

"I called the police station, gave my address, and said the bodies were in the kitchen."

"And before that?"

Olive didn"t answer.

Roz tried a different tack.

"The ninth of September, eighty seven was a Wednesday. According to your statement you killed and dismembered Amber and your mother in the morning and early afternoon." She watched the woman closely.

"Did none of the neighbours hear anything, come and investigate?"

There was a tiny movement at the corner of one eye, a tic, hardly noticeable amidst the fat.

"It"s a man, isn"t it?" said Olive gently.

Roz was puzzled.

"What"s a man?"

Sympathy peeped out from between the puffy, bald lids.

"It"s one of the few advantages of being in a place like this. No men to make your life a misery. You get the odd bit of bother, of course, husbands and boyfriends playing up on the outside, but you don"t get the anguish of a daily relationship." She pursed her lips in recollection.

"I always envied the nuns, you know.

It"s so much easier when you don"t have to compete."

Roz played with her pencil. Olive was too canny to discuss a man in her own life, she thought, a.s.suming there had ever been one. Had she told the truth about her abortion?

"But less rewarding," she said.

A rumble issued from the other side of the table.

"Some reward you"re getting. You know what my father"s favourite expression was? The game is not worth the candle. He used to drive my mother mad with it. But it"s true in your case.

Whoever it is you"re after, he"s not doing you any good."

Roz drew a doodle on her pad, a fat cherub inside a balloon.

Was the abortion a fantasy, a perverted link in Olive"s mind with Amber"s unwanted son? There was a long silence. She pencilled in the cherub"s smile and spoke without thinking.

"Not whoever," she said, *whatever. It"s what I want, not who I want."

She regretted it as soon as she"d said it.

"It"s not important."

Again there was no response and she began to find Olive"s silences oppressive. It was a waiting game, a trap to make her speak. And then what? The toe-curling embarra.s.sment of stammered apologies.

She bent her head.

"Let"s go back to the day of the murders," she suggested.

A meaty hand suddenly covered hers and stroked the fingers affectionately.

"I know about despair.

I"ve felt it often. If you keep it bottled up, it feeds on itself like a cancer."

There was no insistence in Olive"s touch. It was a display of friendship, supportive, undemanding.

Roz squeezed the fat, warm fingers in acknowledgement then withdrew her hand. It"s not despair, she was going to say, just overwork and tiredness.

"I"d like to do what you did," she said in a monotone, *and kill someone." There was a long silence. Her own statement had shocked her.

"I shouldn"t have said that."

"Why not? It"s the truth."

"I doubt it. I haven"t the guts to kill anyone."

Olive stared at her.

"That doesn"t stop you wanting to," she said reasonably.

"No. But if you can"t summon the guts then I don"t think the will is really there." She smiled distantly.

"I can"t even find the guts to kill myself and sometimes I see that as the only sensible option."

"Why?"

Roz"s eyes were over bright.

"I hurt," she said simply.

"I"ve been hurting for months." But why was she telling Olive all this instead of the nice safe psychiatrist Iris had recommended? Because Olive would understand.

"Who do you want dead?" The question vibrated in the air between them like a tolled bell.

Roz thought about the wisdom of answering.

"My ex husband she said.

"Because he left you?"

"No."

"What did he do?"

But Roz shook her head.

"If I tell you, you"ll try to persuade me I"m wrong to hate him." She gave a strange laugh.

"And I need to hate him. Sometimes I think it"s the only thing that"s keeping me alive."

"Yes," said Olive evenly.

"I can understand that." She breathed on the window and drew a gallows in the mist with her finger.

"You loved him once." It was a statement, expecting no reply, but Roz felt compelled to answer.

"I can"t remember now."

"You must have done." The fat woman"s voice became a croon.

"You can"t hate what you never loved, you can only dislike it and avoid it. Real hate, like real love, consumes you."

With a sweep of her large palm she wiped the gallows from the window.

"I suppose," she went on, matter of factly, *you came to see me to find out whether murder is worth it."

"I don"t know," Roz said honestly.

"Hall the time I"m in limbo, the other hail I"m obsessed by anger. The only thing I"m sure of is that I"m slowly falling apart."

Olive shrugged.

"Because it"s inside your head. Like I said, it"s bad to keep things bottled up. It"s a pity you"re not a Catholic. You could go to confession and feel better immediately."

Such a simple solution had never occurred to Roz.

"I was a Catholic, once. I suppose I still am."

Olive took another cigarette and placed it reverently between her lips like a consecrated wafer.

"Obsessions," she murmured, reaching for a match, *are invariably destructive. That, at least, I have learnt." She spoke sympathetically.

"You need more time before you can talk about it. I understand. You think I"ll pick at the scab and make you bleed again."

Roz nodded.

You don"t trust people. You"re right. Trust has a way of rebounding.

I know about these things."

Roz watched her light the cigarette.

"What was your obsession?"

She ificked Roz a strangely intimate look but didn"t answer.

"I needn"t write this book, you know, not if you don"t want me to."

Olive smoothed her thin blonde hair with the back of her thumb.

"It"ll upset Sister Bridget if we give up now. I know you"ve seen her."

"Does that matter?"

Olive shrugged.

"It might upset you if we give up now. Does that matter?"

She smiled suddenly and her whole face brightened. How very nice she looked, thought Roz.

"Maybe, maybe not," she said.

"I"m not convinced myself that I want to write it."

"Why not?"

Roz pulled a face.

"I should hate to turn you into a freak side-show."

"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.