Lessons in Murder (12 page)

Carol was ten minutes early and unnervingly polite. Sybil felt a jolt seeing the reality after the image on the television screen. “Would you like a drink?”

Carol shook her head. “Why did you call me?” she said.

Sybil was swept with a totally unexpected rage. “I couldn’t help it! I didn’t want to or mean to!” In the silence that followed her anger evaporated. “Carol, you feel it too, don’t you?”

Carol smiled ruefully and turned away to gaze out at the sea. “Yes.”

The insistent tingle of desire began to spread a slow fire in Sybil. “It’s just some kind of physical thing, Carol. It’ll go, I know it will.”

Carol turned, saying mockingly, “A couple of cold showers and we’ll be all right?” She saw Sybil’s expression and her smile faded.

The air vibrated between them as their eyes locked. “Oh, God,” said Sybil, “I feel as if I’m addicted to you.” Her eyes dropped to Carol’s mouth. “You’re not going to ask me to go cold turkey are you?”

Carol was breathing as though she had been running. “Sybil, we have to be sensible.”

“Can we be sensible tomorrow?”

Carol’s mouth was as deliciously responsive as she remembered it, her arms as strong. Sybil struggled to stand back from herself, to see her want as an irrational physical need, but she began to drown in Carol’s presence, in the warmth, of her skin and the rhythm of her heartbeat. She could not remember feeling like this before—safe and afraid at the same time, torn between the rightness of her actions and the conviction that they were wrong.

Carol began to undress her slowly, letting her hands slide across Sybil’s ribs, around her back, down her hips, all the time kissing her with a controlled passion that aroused Sybil until she was seized with such impatient desire she gasped against Carol’s mouth, “Not too long.”

Carol lowered her gently onto the couch and, kneeling beside it, began to run her fingertips over Sybil’s naked body in complex patterns, weaving paths of sensation that sang in corresponding paths of light against her closed eyelids. She arched under the soft brush of her hands. “Carol, please. I can’t stand it.”

“You can.”

And now Carol’s fingers were in her, and she pushed herself up against their pressure. She was floating in the most exquisite pain, knowing that it would soon explode in waves of release. But the tension grew higher and higher, the sensation more unbearably delightful, until she heard herself call out. And then she came in great shuddering waves that went on and on until she sank exhausted and smiling.

She opened her eyes. Carol, still fully dressed, sat on the floor, her face hidden against Sybil’s side, her pale hair tickling Sybil’s bare skin. “Carol, look at me.”

Carol turned her head. “This must never happen again,” she said.

Sybil sat up, her hands on Carol’s shoulders. “Do you believe I killed Bill? And Tony? Do you really believe I could do that?” She watched the indecision on Carol’s face. “Tell me what you really think—not a lie.”

“I want to believe you had nothing to do with either.”

“You want to believe, but you don’t know, do you? Is that it?”

“Sybil . . .”

“You’d arrest me if you thought me guilty, would you?”

Carol shook herself free and stood up. “Of course. I’d have to.”

Sybil was shaken with anger and fear. Her voice rose as she said, “You make love to me, even though you think I’m capable of murder? Aren’t you frightened of me? Don’t you worry I might slip a knife between your ribs?”

Carol’s face had grown hard with a matching anger, but her voice remained even. “I didn’t realize you had a motive to kill me.”

She wanted to slap Carol, shake her, hurt her in some way. Where Carol had been slow and careful undressing her, Sybil was rough. She felt the pulse pounding in Carol’s throat and knew with a twisting exultation Carol wanted her so much that she could be defeated, as if she were an enemy.

Sybil pushed her back into a deep chair, kneeling between her outstretched legs. Carol’s eyes were closed, her head thrown back, the light catching the line of her jaw. Sybil, aroused, angry and determined to dominate, slid her mouth across the hollows of Carol’s throat. The nipples under her fingers were hard, the tanned skin sweet. She sank her teeth into Carol’s shoulder much harder than she intended and was excited by the murmur of protest. I’ll control you, I’ll play you, I’ll make your body sing for me, she thought.

The world became Carol’s body. She slid her fingers into the wetness and Carol closed around them tighter and tighter.

The scent of Carol’s body was at once familiar and strange. How could I ever imagine doing this, Sybil thought, her mouth seeking and finding the center of sensations. Carol’s breath caught in her throat. Her hands were in Sybil’s hair. “Ah, darling,” she gasped.

The word spun in Sybil’s head. Darling? Carol had only said that in an excess of passion, not as a term of love. Not that Sybil wanted love, she wanted nothing, especially not this physical obsession, not this consuming need. Carol had grown still, rigid—and then, sucking against Sybil’s fingers, her climax began. Sybil raised her head and watched the convulsions ripple through Carol’s body and then the calmness descend, knowing bleakly she was as near to love as she dared to be.

Sybil slept late and woke tired and heavy. Although she knew she should hurry or she would be late for school, she lay there while the events of the evening rushed back: how Carol had calmly dressed, not meeting her eyes; how stilted their conversation had been—and Carol’s last words, “We just have to forget this.”

Sybil had smiled at that. “I’ll try,” she had said.

And when Carol had gone, she remembered the mixture of guilt, alarm and excitement that had filled her. Lying here, images of making love danced behind her closed eyelids and she groaned, half in pleasure, half in exasperation as she began to burn with reawakened desire. How long before she got over this obsession with another woman? How long before this unnatural passion burnt itself out?

Driving to school, she tried to be honest with herself. She wanted to make love to Carol again, and again, and again. It was obviously a mindless physical need to be satisfied before she could resume a normal life. It wasn’t love, and never could be—rather, it was an infatuation that had been caused by the circumstances and her own loneliness. And what was last night to Carol? An unwelcome interlude because it threatened her career? It wouldn’t have the shattering impact it had had on Sybil. After all, Carol had said she’d made love to another woman, or was it women? Sybil felt an unexpected stab of jealousy. Was Carol in a relationship now? Did someone else taste that mouth and feel those fingers?

She swerved to avoid a cyclist who wobbled out from the curb, suddenly aware of how little attention she was paying to driving. With an effort of will she tried to push Carol out of her thoughts, but the moment she relaxed her concentration the pictures seeped back—images of bare skin, of her mouth, eyes, hair—the sound of her silver voice—and with them a longing for her so frightening in its intensity that she caught her breath. “This is just great, Sybil,” she said with an angry irony.

• • •

Bourke put his head round the door. “The Lab rang to say the baseball bat matches Pagett’s head wound, so it could’ve been used in both murders. The blood and hair are from Quade, though. And Alan Witcombe wants to see you. He says it’s urgent.” Carol nodded. Bourke continued, “I’m off to see Hilary Cosgrove again. Her father rang and said she was well enough to answer some more questions this morning. He also confirmed what Sir Richard told you. She is pregnant.”

“Could her boyfriend, what’s his name—Evan Berry? Could he have known about the baby? It’d give him even more of a motive,” said Carol.

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

Alan Witcombe folded his angular body into a chair and glared at Carol. “I’ll not have my wife subjected to filth!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Because my wife’s a light sleeper, she answered the phone when it rang about three this morning. She was horrified to hear a stream of obscenities!”

“What was said?”

“I would not ask Alice to repeat what she heard. Sufficient to say that she hung up as quickly as possible. She woke me, and then the phone rang again.”

“And you answered it this time.”

“Of course. It was some sick, depraved person, spewing forth disgusting allegations in a hoarse whisper.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No, but I don’t think it was a student. What are you going to do about it?”

“We can have Telecom intercept all incoming calls to your number and vet them before your phone rings.”

Witcombe was waspish. “Apart from that perfectly obvious step, what are you doing about finding this pervert? It’s probably the same person who killed Pagett.”

“There may be some link. Could you write down what was said to you as accurately as possible, please. I’m sure you know you’re not the only person to receive these calls.”

Witcombe was reluctant to record the words in writing, but Carol finally persuaded him to cooperate. Handing over the sheet he said, “It’s the moral climate in the school, you know, Inspector. Corruption breeds violence.”

Carol was interested in details about the corruption, but apart from an accurate assessment of Bill Pagett’s character and activities, he was very vague about details and strong on broad, general impressions. Carol read through the words he had handed her. “The person actually started with ‘Alan, Alan darling?’” she said, “Didn’t this make you think it might be a woman?”

“Why? The degenerate who made this call wouldn’t worry about details like that. Have you read it all? Sick!”

The call had contained a series of libelous comments about Witcombe’s sexual inclinations and activities with both males and females, none mentioned by name, until the last—‘Syb’s a randy little bitch for you, isn’t she? Do anything to get it. Have you rammed it home, yet, Alan darling?’

Even Carol’s vivid imagination couldn’t imagine Alan Witcombe and Sybil in each other’s arms. Disconcertingly, she had a sudden vision of Sybil and Terry making love. She forced herself to listen to Witcombe as he said, “Pagett deserved to die for what he did, but no one had the right to kill him.” A look of satisfaction crossed his face. “But at least he’s facing judgment now, and he can do no more damage.”

Bourke came back bubbling with news. “Wait till you hear. It’s the redhead we most admire, our Sybil.” Carol tensed. “Yes?” she said.

“When I told Hilary Cosgrove we knew she planned to see Pagett on Sunday night, she denied it at first, but after a while I broke her down. She admitted sneaking out and walking up the hill from her place—it takes about ten minutes. She says she’d just entered Pagett’s driveway when she heard a loud argument and then a series of crashes and angry voices. She wasn’t sure what to do, and while she was standing there, Sybil Quade comes flying out of the house, leaps into her car, and roars off so fast she nearly skittles Hilary.”

“She’s sure it was Sybil Quade?”

“Positive. Hilary’s in her English class.”

“Did she hear any of the argument clearly?”

“No, only ‘you bastard’ from Sybil. And she says she thinks she was crying when she ran out of the house.”

“What happened then?”

“She said she was confused. She started to walk home again, got halfway down the hill, and then changed her mind. She went back, knocked on the door, and Pagett let her in.”

“And?”

Bourke looked pleased. “The really interesting bit is this,” he said. “When Hilary went into Pagett’s place, she found he wasn’t alone. Tony Quade was there. Not only that, she thinks they were having an argument, but they stopped it when she came in.”

“I can’t believe even Bill Pagett would tell her she had to get an abortion in front of Tony Quade.”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Bourke with sarcastic emphasis. “Pagett showed unsuspected sensitivity. He didn’t mention an abortion, just talked to her for a bit and finally told her to go back home and that he’d see her the next night. But of course, he didn’t, because he was dead.”

“What was Tony Quade doing while all this was going on?”

“Pacing around drinking a can of beer. Pagett was nice enough to drive Hilary home, and when they left the house, Quade was still there. She says he looked angry, but she doesn’t know why. In the car, she started to ask Pagett about Sybil Quade, but when she did, he turned on her, so she shut up.” Bourke shook his head. “Sybil Quade has been lying to us,” he observed.

“Yes,” said Carol.

Chapter Eight

“Mrs. Quade?” Bourke said. “Inspector Ashton has asked me to contact you. I’m afraid there are a few details to clear up, and it would be a help if you could be available this afternoon here at the Bellwhether police station. I’ve already asked Mrs. Farrell to have your lessons covered. Would you like me to send a car for you, or would you rather drive yourself?”

She said she would rather take her own car, agreed on two o’clock as the time, and slowly replaced the receiver.

“What was that about?” asked Terry, who had come into the empty staff room as she had been speaking.

“The police. They want to ask me some more questions.”

Terry was bitterly hostile. “Oh, really? Didn’t that blonde bitch ask you enough questions yesterday evening?” At her startled look he smiled with grim satisfaction. “Yes, Syb. I went round to your place, just to see if everything was all right. And who should I see arriving but Inspector Bloody Ashton.”

“You’re spying on me.”

“I don’t see you have any reason to be angry. At least I’m not lying to you the way you are to me. Why did you fob me off by saying you had a headache?”

“For God’s sake, Terry! Why must you always want something from me? Why can’t you leave me alone?”

Surprisingly, Terry’s face softened. “Don’t get hysterical, Syb. I know you’re under pressure. I wouldn’t say these things to you if I didn’t love you.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” she said, flooded with relief at the realization that he had no idea what had happened between herself and Carol. She suddenly felt immensely tired. “Terry, about tonight . . .”