The Sculptress

The Sculptress Read Free Page B

Book: The Sculptress Read Free
Author: Minette Walters
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Antrobus
against her chest. The cat, purring noisily, licked her
nose. It was only cupboard love. She was hungry.
‘Still, I wouldn’t get too excited about this, if I were
you. Olive may refuse to see me again.’
    ‘Why, and what’s that awful row?’ demanded Iris.
    ‘Mrs Antrobus.’
    ‘Oh God! The mangy cat.’ Iris was diverted. ‘It
sounds as if you’ve got the builders in. What on earth
are you doing to it?’
    ‘Loving it. She’s the only thing that makes this
hideous flat worth coming back to.’
    ‘You’re mad,’ said Iris, whose contempt for cats
was matched only by her contempt for authors. ‘I can’t think why you wanted to rent it in the first place.
Use the money from the divorce and get something
decent. Why might Olive refuse to see you?’
    ‘She’s unpredictable. Got very angry with me suddenly
and called a halt to the interview.’
    She heard Iris’s indrawn gasp. ‘Roz, you wretch!
You haven’t blown it, I hope.’
    Roz grinned into the receiver. ‘I’m not sure. We’ll
just have to wait and see. Got to go now. Bye-ee.’
She hung up smartly on Iris’s angry squeaking and
went into the kitchen to feed Mrs Antrobus. When
the phone rang again, she picked up her gin, moved
into her bedroom, and started typing.

    Olive took the pencil she had stolen from Roz and
stood it carefully alongside the small clay figure of a
woman that was propped up at the back of her chest
of drawers. Her moist lips worked involuntarily, chewing,
sucking, as she studied the figure critically. It was
crudely executed, a lump of dried grey clay, unfired
and unglazed but, like a fertility symbol from a less
sophisticated age, its femininity was powerful. She
selected a red marker from a jar and carefully coloured
in the slab of hair about the face, then, changing to a
green marker, filled in on the torso a rough representation
of the silk shirtwaisted dress that Roz had been
wearing.
    To an observer her actions would have appeared childish. She cradled the figure in her hands like a tiny
doll, crooning over it, before replacing it beside the
pencil which, too faintly for the human nose, still
carried the scent of Rosalind Leigh.
     

Two
    PETER CREW’S OFFICE was in the centre of Southampton,
in a street where estate agents predominated.
It was a sign of the times, thought Roz, as she walked
past them, that they were largely empty. Depression
had settled on them, as on everything else, like a dark
immovable cloud.
    Peter Crew was a gangling man of indeterminate
age, with faded eyes and a blond toupee parted at the
side. His own hair, a yellowish white, hung beneath
it like a dirty net curtain. Every so often, he lifted the
edge of the hair-piece and poked a finger underneath
to scratch his scalp. The inevitable result of so much
ill-considered stretching was that the toupee gaped
perpetually in a small peak above his nose. It looked,
Roz thought, like a large chicken perched on top of
his head. She rather sympathized with Olive’s contempt
for him.
    He smiled at her request to tape their conversation,
a studied lift of the lips which lacked sincerity. ‘As you please.’ He folded his hands on his desk. ‘So, Miss
Leigh, you’ve already seen my client. How was she?’
    ‘She was surprised to hear she still had a solicitor.’
    ‘I don’t follow,’
    ‘According to Olive, she hasn’t heard from you in
four years. Are you still representing her?’
    His face assumed a look of comical dismay but, like
his smile, it lacked conviction. ‘Good Heavens. Is it
as long as that? Surely not. Didn’t I write to her last
year?’
    ‘You tell me, Mr Crew.’
    He fussed to a cabinet in the corner and flicked
through the files. ‘Here we are. Olive Martin. Dear
me, you’re right. Four years. Mind you,’ he said
sharply, ‘there’s been no communication from her
either.’ He pulled out the file and brought it across
to his desk. ‘The law is a costly

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