Minette Walters - The Sculptress

For Roland and Philip

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

HENRY ST JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE

It was the feeling that the great, deadly, pointing forefinger of society was pointing at me and the great voice of millions chanting, Shame.Shame. Shame. Its societys way of dealing with someone different.

KEN KESEY, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest

Wax Sculpture Malice and superstition were also expressed in the formation of wax images of hated persons, into the bodies of which long pins were thrust in the hope that deadly injury would be induced in the person represented. Belief in this form of black magic never died out completely.

Minette Walters lives in Hampshire with her husband and two children.

She has worked as a magazine editor but is now a full-time writer.

With her debut, The Ice House, she won the Crime Writers Association John Creasey Award for the best first crime novel of 1992. Rapidly establishing a reputation as one of the most exciting crime novelists writing today. Her second novel, The Sculptress, was acclaimed by critics as one of the most compelling and powerful novels of the year and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for the best crime novel published in America in 1993. In 1994 Minette Walters achieved a unique triple when The Scolds Bridle was awarded the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year. Her fourth novel, The Dark Room (1995), was published to further critical acclaim, as was her most recent title The Echo (1997).

In 1996 The Sculptress was adapted as a major BBC1 drama series, starring Pauline Quirke, and became the most successful television drama of recent years.

This success was repeated in 1997 with the BBCs adaptation of The Ice House. The Scolds Bridle, starring Miranda Richardson, Sian Phillips and Bob Peck, is currently in production.

Dawlington Evening Herald, January, 1988

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS FOR BRUTAL MURDERS

At Winchester Crown Court yesterday, Olive Martin, 23, of 22 Leven Road, Dawlington, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal murders of her mother and sister, with a recommendation that she serve twenty-five years. The judge, who referred to Martin as a monster without a grain of humanity, said that nothing could excuse the savagery she had shown to two defenceless women. The murder of a mother by her daughter was the most unnatural of crimes and demanded the strongest penalty that the law could impose. The murder of a sister by a sister was no less heinous.

Martins butchery of the bodies, he went on, was an unforgivable and barbarous desecration that will rank in the annals of crime as an act of supreme evil. Martin showed no emotion as sentence was passed

It was impossible to see her approach without a shudder of distaste.

She was a grotesque parody of a woman, so fat that her feet and hands and head protruded absurdly from the huge slab of her body like tiny disproportionate afterthoughts. Dirty blonde hair clung damp and thin to her scalp, black patches of sweat spread beneath her armpits.

Clearly, walking was painful. She shuffled forward on the insides of her feet, legs forced apart by the thrust of one gigantic thigh against another, balance precarious. And with every movement, however small, the fabric of her dress strained ominously as the weight of her flesh shifted. She had, it seemed, no redeeming features. Even her eyes, a deep blue, were all but lost in the ugly folds of pitted white lard.

Strange that after so long she was still an object of curiosity. People who saw her every day watched her progress down that corridor as if for the first time. What was it that fascinated them? The sheer size of a woman who stood five feet eleven and weighed over twenty-six stones?

Her reputation? Disgust? There were no smiles. Most watched impassively as she passed, fearful perhaps of attracting her attention.

She had carved her mother and sister into little pieces and rearranged the bits in bloody abstract on her kitchen floor. Few who saw her could forget it. In view of the horrific nature of the crime and the fear that her huge brooding figure had instilled in everyone who had sat in the courtroom she had been sentenced to life with a recommendation that she serve a minimum of twenty-five years. What made her unusual, apart from the crime itself, was that she had pleaded guilty and refused to offer a defence.

She was known inside the prison walls as the Sculptress. Her real name was Olive Martin.

Rosalind Leigh, waiting by the door of the interview room, ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. Her revulsion was immediate as if Olives evil had reached out and touched her. My God, she was thinking, and the thought alarmed her, I cant go through with this.

But she had, of course, no choice. The gates of the prison were locked on her, as a visitor, just as securely as they were locked on the inmates. She pressed a shaking hand to her thigh where the muscles were jumping uncontrollably. Behind her, her all but empty briefcase, a testament to her lack of preparation for this meeting, screamed derision at her if I-considered assumption that conversation with Olive could develop like any other. It had never occurred to her, not for one moment, that fear might stifle her inventiveness.

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. The rhyme churned in her brain, over and over, numbingly repetitive. Olive Martin took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done she gave her sister forty-one Roz stepped away from the door and forced herself to smile.

Hello, Olive. Im Rosalind Leigh. Nice to meet you at last. She held out her hand and shook the others warmly, in the hope, perhaps, that by demonstrating an unprejudiced friendliness she could quell her dislike. Olives touch was token only, a brief brush of unresponsive fingers.

Thank you. Roz spoke to the hovering prison officer briskly.

Ill take it from here. We have the Governors permission to talk for an hour. Lizzie Borden took an axe Tell her youve changed your mind. Olive Martin took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks I cant go through with this!

The uniformed woman shrugged.

OK. She dropped the welded metal chair she was carrying carelessly on to the floor and steadied it against her knee.

Youll need this. Anything else in there will collapse the minute she sits on it. She laughed amiably. An attractive woman.

She got wedged in the flaming toilet last year and it took four men to pull her out again.

Youd never get her up on your own.

Roz manoeuvred the chair awkwardly through the doorway.

She felt at a disadvantage, like the friend of warring partners being pressured into taking sides. But Olive intimidated her in a way the prison officer never could.

You will see me using a tape-recorder during this interview, she snapped, nervousness clipping the words brusquely.

The Governor has agreed to it. I trust thats in order.

There was a short silence. The prison officer raised an eyebrow.

If you say so. Presumably someones taken the trouble to get the Sculptresss agreement. Any problems, like, for example, she objects violently she drew a finger across her throat before tapping the pane of glass beside the door which allowed the officers a clear view of the room then bang on the window. Assuming she lets you, of course. She smiled coolly.

Youve read the rules, I hope. You bring nothing in for her, you take nothing out. She can smoke your cigarettes in the interview room but she cant take any away with her. You do not pass messages for her, in or out, without the Governors permission. If in doubt about anything, you refer it to one of the officers. Clear?