The bulb in the lamp was a dim one and the shade was thick, a waxy yellow, so that the kitchen was in the half-dark. The sky outside was ink blue. He could see a couple of stars. Nothing moved.
After several minutes, Lenny Wilcox sighed. Then sat heavily down, as if she was suddenly exhausted. He knew the signs. She had had enough. She would tell him now.
‘I met Olive nearly thirty years ago. It was instant. Instant. I knew there would never be anybody else, from those first days with her. Her. She was everything. It was the same for us both. But Olive never believed me, not really. She was a terribly insecure person. And it became worse. Everyone I glanced at was a threat. Everyone I knew – if I went to a concert with a colleague, if I was friendly with someone, that was a threat. I couldn’t have stopped it. I came to believe she had to be jealous. It seemed to satisfy something in her. She needed to be jealous. She was jealous of the girls I taught, other women I worked with, there was row after row about it, but in the end I gave up bothering. Nothing I could do. When Harriet came here, Olive was very angry. School was one thing but pupils didn’t come here, she wouldn’t have it. Harriet was special though. Talented. And a very sweet girl. A pretty girl. I was sitting next to her on the piano stool, showing her some difficult fingering in the Schubert piece and Olive came in. Just banged in through the door. That was what she did. She was suspicious. No reason to be but she was and there I sat with Harriet, next to Harriet, at the piano. She went berserk, absolutely flew into a rage. Olive’s rages were frightening. Harriet looked at me in terror. Who was this woman, what was happening? I put my hand round her shoulder to reassure her that it would be all right, I‘d deal with it, and then Olive lunged forward, grabbed her by the arm and shoved her very hard at the same time. I had no chance to stop her, you see. No chance, it was all in a few seconds, and Harriet hit the kerb of the hearth, the stone kerb, right beside the piano. I heard her head crack against it. I’ve heard it every day since. And the next minute, I realised that Agneta was in the room.
‘She’d come very early that morning, around eight o’clock, saying she wasn’t needed any more at the other house, they’d thrown her out. She walked straight in and started clearing up the kitchen, getting out the mop for the floor, just working, working all that day. I suppose I just accepted it. I should have rung them there and then. I mean, why didn’t it occur to me that it was odd they’d dismissed her at such an hour? But I didn’t. I was glad to have her. Olive hated housework, I hated housework. Agneta did it, and everything else. She cooked, she shopped, she just worked. Just worked. I let her stay without a question. I suppose I didn’t want to know anything.
‘I’m not sure exactly when she’d come in. I was in a panic, Olive was raging at me. Agneta must have heard the commotion, probably saw Olive knock Harriet onto the floor. And she saw Harriet lying there. I knew she was dead. You do know, don’t you? There’s a terrible stillness. She wasn’t breathing. Blood was pouring from her head. Agneta just stared. I can see her face. Stared at Olive. At Harriet. She put her hand to her mouth. And I looked at Olive and somehow, without either of us saying anything, we knew what had to happen. I was screaming at Olive that she’d killed Harriet, Agneta was looking at us and she knew everything and we panicked. Olive picked up a heavy brass bell that was on the table. Agneta turned towards her and she … hit her. She hit her on the temple, very hard. She was still shouting, shouting at me in a rage about Harriet – it propelled her. It made her hit out. But I could have stopped her. I know that. I didn’t.’ She was completely still, hands on the table in front of her, face in shadow, eyes oddly bright. ‘That’s what happened.’
‘You had to get rid of two bodies,’ Simon said. ‘That won’t have been easy.’
‘It was terrifying. Don’t let anyone tell you that sort of thing can be done calmly. In cold blood? We were raging with fear, both of us. Only a mad person could have done it without being in fear and dread, trembling with it. We did it and it took a long time. That’s not easy either, carrying dead bodies, lifting them, burying them. They kept on about the shallow graves. Why is that surprising? We didn’t have strength left to dig down six feet, for God’s sake.
‘When we got home that night – in the middle of the night – we drank a bottle of brandy between us and still didn’t sleep. The next day I remember thinking we had no right to be alive. I felt so ill. I didn’t leave the house for almost a week. I couldn’t. Every time I took a step beyond that door I almost passed out. Don’t believe anyone who tells you it’s easy. Don’t believe a word of it. It almost killed us as well. Cold blood? I don’t know what that means. But when nothing happened, no one came to the door, when it was clear no one knew, it gradually got easier. We started to learn to live with it. With the secret. And so that went on, for years and years. And then Olive began to forget. We never mentioned it, never referred to it at all from that day. It just lay there between us but we never spoke of it once. So it was a long time before it dawned on me that Olive actually didn’t remember. She didn’t remember that, and then, she didn’t remember anything.’
They sat on in the half-dark and in silence for a long time.
In the end, Serrailler said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this afternoon?’
Lenny said with infinite weariness, ‘She’s helpless.’
‘Yes.’
‘She has no chance to defend herself.’
‘Nor does she have any need.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Lenny, I’ve seen her. I’ve spoken to her. She is totally unfit to plead. What purpose would it serve?’
‘So you’ll arrest me.’
‘No.’
‘I saw it all. I should have rung the police then. I buried two bodies and I said nothing about any of it for sixteen years.’
‘There are no witnesses and it’s too long ago for there to be any forensic evidence.’
‘Olive knew Agneta’s name. She says her name.’
‘Olive can’t be questioned. The case wouldn’t even get to court. She doesn’t understand what any of this is about.’
‘Now what?’
‘Now?’ Simon got up. He looked at her and felt huge sadness, and pity, and regret. Lenny would go on living with the memory. Olive would not.
He touched her arm gently. ‘Don’t forget to lock up the hen house,’ he said. ‘I know what foxes can do.’
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Dr Jill Barling and Dr Giles Bointon, who have both given me the benefit of their medical expertise.
Barrister Anthony Lenaghan has been faithful and wise counsel on the changing legal aspects of assisted suicide, and kept me well briefed with up-to-date information and judgements.
Thanks also to the anonymous source who has kept me abreast of the likely effect of cuts on the day-to-day running of police forces.
Barbara Machin, who, as creator and sustainer of the BBC TV series Waking the Dead, knows more than most about the investigation of cold cases, has been unfailingly helpful in sharing her knowledge and experience.
Antonia Fraser solved the small problem I put to her by giving me Rachel Wyatt, thereby putting both Simon Serrailler and me in her debt.
I have been cheered on during writing by the encouragement, support, all-round kindness and jokes of my friends on Facebook, quick visits to which during the course of the working day are a solitary writer’s equivalent of brief chats around the office water-cooler. Thank you, therefore: Alex Massie, Amanda Craig, Andrew McKie, Anna Brooke, Bel Mooney, Carol Drinkwater, Caroline Sanderson, Charles Cumming, Chris Ewan, Claire Rutter, Curzon Tussaud, Danuta Keane, Elizabeth Buchan, Emma Barnes, Emma Lee Potter, Eugenie Teaseley, Fiona Dunn, Gill Poole, Helen Hayes, Helen Nicholson, Jack Ruston, James, Malcolm Hugh, Richard, Ivo, Lydia and Berry Delingpole, Janette Jenkins, Jenny Colgan, Jess Ruston, Jo Crocker, Josie Charlotte Jackson, Kitty Hodges, Lesley Jackson, Liam Pearce, Linda Grant, Liz Parmiter, Lynne Hatwell, Mark Billingham, Meg Sanders, Naomi Alderman, Nicholas Da
niel, Nicholas J. Rogers, Nick Harkaway, Nicole Roberts Hernandez, Philip Hensher, Polly Samson, Ray Hensher, Rosa Monkton, Rosalie Claire Berne, Sam Leith, Stephen Gadd, Trisha Ashley, Val McDermid, Valerie Greeley, Veronica Henry, Will Wyatt and Zaved Mahmood.
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Copyright © Susan Hill 2011
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First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
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Table of Contents
Cover
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Susan Hill
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Susan Hill, Betrayal of Trust
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