Free The Sculptress by Minette Walters

Lives in the flat above it.’
    ‘And how do I find Wenceslas Street?’
    ‘Well, now’ – he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully – ‘by
far the easiest way is to hang around for half an hour
till the end of my shift. I’ll take you.’
    She laughed. ‘And what would your girlfriend say
to that?’
    ‘A ruddy mouthful. She’s got a tongue like a chainsaw.’
He winked. ‘I won’t tell her if you won’t.’
    ‘Sorry, sunshine. I’m shackled to a husband who
hates policemen only marginally less than he hates
toy-boys.’ Lies were always easier.
    He grinned. ‘Turn left out of the station and Wenceslas
Street is about a mile down on the left. There’s
an empty shop on the corner. The Sergeant’s restaurant
is bang next door to it. It’s called the Poacher.’
He tapped his pencil on the desk. ‘Are you planning
to eat there?’
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s purely business. I don’t intend
to hang around.’
    He nodded approval. ‘Wise woman. The Sergeant’s
not much of a cook. He’d have done better to stick
with policing.’

    She had to pass the restaurant to reach the London
road. Rather reluctantly she pulled into its abandoned
car park and climbed out of the car. She was tired,
she hadn’t planned on talking to Hawksley that day,
and the young constable’s light-hearted flirtation
depressed her because it had left her cold.

    The Poacher was an attractive red-brick building, set
back from the road with the car park in front. Leaded
bay windows curved out on either side of a solid oak
door and wistaria, heavy with buds, grew in profusion
across the whole façade. Like St Angela’s Convent it
was at odds with its surroundings. The shops on either
side, both apparently empty, their windows a repository
for advertising stickers, complemented each other
in cheap post-war pragmatism but did nothing for the
old faded beauty in their midst. Worse, a thoughtless
council had allowed a previous owner to erect a two-storey
extension behind the red-brick frontage, and it
gloomed above the restaurant’s tiled roof in dirty
pebble-dashed concrete. An attempt had been made
to divert the wistaria across the roof but, starved of
sunlight by the jutting property to the right, the probing
tendrils showed little enthusiasm for reaching up
to veil the dreary elevation.

    Roz pushed open the door and went inside. The place
was dark and deserted. Empty tables in an empty
room, she thought despondently. Like her. Like her
life. She was on the point of calling out, but thought
better of it. It was all so peaceful and she was in no
hurry. She tiptoed across the floor and took a stool at
a bar in the corner. A smell of cooking lingered on
the air, garlicky, tempting, reminding her that she
hadn’t eaten all day. She waited a long time, unseen
and unheard, a trespasser upon another’s silence. She
thought about leaving, unobtrusively, as she had
come, but it was strangely restful and her head
drooped against her hand. Depression, an all too constant
companion, folded its arms around her again,
and turned her mind, as it often did, to death. She
would do it one day. Sleeping pills or the car. The car,
always the car. Alone, at night, in the rain. So easy
just to turn the wheel and find a peaceful oblivion. It
would be justice of a sort. Her head hurt where the
hate swelled and throbbed inside it. God, what a mess
she had become. If only someone could lance her
destructive anger and let the poison go. Was Iris right?
Should she see a psychiatrist? Without warning, the
terrible unhappiness burst like a flood inside her,
threatening to spill out in tears.
    ‘Oh, shit!’ she muttered furiously, dashing at her
eyes with the palms of her hands. She scrabbled in
her bag for her car keys. ‘Shit! Shit! And more bloody
shit! Where the hell are you?’
    A slight movement caught her attention and she
lifted her head abruptly. A shadowy stranger leant
against the back