Friends for Life

by Carol Smith

  “I’ve just got to go and splash my boots,” he said. “And then, my dear, watch out!”

  • • •

  Beth’s eyes were closed and the lump on her forehead was now the size of a golf ball and fast turning purple, while the rest of her face remained chalk white, drained of all life. Oliver dropped to his knees beside her and felt frantically for a pulse. He placed his ear close to her mouth to see if she was breathing, then contemplated giving her mouth-to-mouth. He sat on his haunches and gazed at her, the woman who had lit up his life for more than two years, and the thought that he might lose her altogether almost made him crazy. Although the day was warm, the breeze through the open door made the kitchen quite cool so he lifted her gently from the tiles where she was lying and carried her carefully across to the sofa, even though he knew he was probably wrong to move her. He looked around for something to wrap her in and found Imogen’s old afghan draped over the edge of the log basket. That would have to do while he called the emergency services and summoned the police and an ambulance to rush her to hospital.

  “Beth,” he muttered urgently, bending over her inert form, begging her to respond.

  “Beth, my darling, please wake up.”

  He smoothed back her hair, matted with congealed blood from a deep cut caused by the rim of the saucepan, and gently felt the pulse at her throat, fluttering feebly like a baby bird trying hard to survive.

  “Beth, my precious. Please don’t die. I love you so much!”

  He bent to kiss her marble forehead, his eyes full of tears, his throat blocked with a terrible grief—then felt the sudden touch of cold steel in the small of his back.

  “Very moving,” said Sally, directly behind him, and he turned to confront a naked Venus, smiling broadly and armed with two knives—the deadly sushi knife, with which she was now prodding him, and the smaller, neater vegetable knife she had used to slash through her bindings while he was downstairs, attending to Beth.

  “Elementary, my dear Oliver,” she said with her radiant smile. “A lady always goes prepared, only you, poor sucker, are far too thick to have thought of that.”

  Chapter Fifty-five

  “Comfortable?” asked Sally solicitously as she rummaged in the fridge for another bottle.

  Oliver lay spread-eagled on the kitchen table, wrists and ankles tightly bound by neatly severed pairs of tights. He could raise his head just far enough to see Sally’s pert backside, still butt-naked, as she moved about in front of him. Beth, behind him, was out of his range of vision entirely. Sally closed the fridge door and moved to the dresser; Oliver heard the pop of a cork. With a bit of luck, she’d get sloshed and pass out but somehow he couldn’t quite see that happening. Sally had a strong head and he had never seen her even slightly out of control.

  “Drink, Oliver?” She was close beside him now and pouring white wine, in a steady stream, onto his face, making him splutter and choke slightly as he moved his head to avoid it. Sally laughed.

  “Had enough, have you? That’s often the way with you big macho men.”

  She stepped up onto a kitchen chair and from there onto the table, to straddle him with her long legs wide apart, grinning down, still swigging wine from the bottle. She certainly had a spectacular body; even in circumstances like this, he could not avoid noticing that.

  “Like a bit of rough, do you, Oliver?” The smile he had once found so alluring was daunting now in its purity, teeth white and gleaming, lips soft as petals; the face of an ingenue, an innocent.

  “Here, take a closer look.” She was standing right over him now, her vagina directly in his line of gaze, and she lowered herself slowly onto her haunches so that he could have licked it had he been in the mood.

  “Nice bit of pussy do you, sir?” she mocked, then straightened up again and stood swaying above him, bottle still to her lips, squinting down at him as she drank. Outside the urgent throbbing of the music grew insistently louder, until it was almost deafening; one of the decorated floats must have stopped nearby, steel bands going at full blast. Sally moved her hips to the rhythm in a parody of a go-go dancer, and the solid pine table on which Oliver was pinned vibrated with her movements and the solid beat from the street.

  “Kinky, are you?” she persisted. “Or is it just that you like hurting women? Typical Englishman, if you ask me.”

  She was mocking him and there was not a thing he could do about it. Damn her to hell, she’d been playing him for a sucker all the time. She tossed the bottle across the room and he heard it smash as it hit the floor. Then she stooped to the chair and came up holding the knife again, waving it in time to the music as she continued her macabre dance.

  Oliver felt himself sweating. The knots at his wrists and ankles were so tight they were restricting his circulation and no matter how hard he jerked at them, he knew they were not going to budge. This little madam had got him fair and square exactly where she wanted him; he shut his mind to what might happen next and hoped he would have the courage not to disgrace himself when the time came.

  She knelt now, her bare knees on either side of his rib cage, her damp, excited vulva pressing down on his scrotum. Her breasts swung above his face as she leaned to lick the wine off his nose and, despite his terror, he felt a reciprocal stirring in his groin. She felt it too.

  “Oh there is still life in the old dog, is there, Oliver?” This time the seraphic smile did reach her eyes; she was laughing at him. “So let’s see what you can do, man.”

  She sank down onto him in a rocking motion but he knew there was no way he was going to get it up. Not now, not like this. She really had to be crazy if she thought there was even a hope in hell that he could.

  Sally moved back so that she could inspect his genitals and slowly caressed his limp penis with the point of the sushi knife.

  “You never did have much in the balls department, did you, Oliver?” she said softly, running the point over them now in a circular movement. “Else you’d have long ago dumped that dried-up prune of a wife and gone to where you were already getting it regularly.” She jerked her head backward, indicating Beth.

  She tickled him again with the cold steel.

  “So you’re not going to miss them now, are you, old boy?”

  The telephone rang and Oliver nearly expired with shock; but at least it served to distract her attention. On and on it rang while Sally squatted there, listening.

  “Maybe that’s the kid at last,” she said hopefully. “Ringing to tell Mama that she’s on the way.”

  She beamed at him, now with genuine pleasure.

  “That’ll be great, won’t it, Oliver? We can both have a go at her in turn, you and me. Do you like fucking schoolgirls, I’ll bet you do. Or is rape more your thing?”

  He’d got to keep her talking. He swallowed several times, to ease his dry mouth, trying not to show his fear.

  “It was probably Duncan,” he said. “He knows you’re here and that I am too. It was he who alerted me in the first place.”

  The smile disappeared; for the first time ever he saw her cross. Her face contorted with hatred and she spat viciously in his face.

  “That’s what I think of Duncan Ross! What a useless bag of shit he turned out to be. All mouth and no trousers, probably a fag. Got something going with him, have you, Oliver? Two pretty boys together? We all know about you English public schoolboys, and he’s obviously no better. Why else would he call you from Australia?”

  The smile was back but only on her mouth. A thin thread of saliva appeared and dribbled unnoticed down her chin. She moved the point of the knife to his chest and ran it lightly down his breastbone, like someone contemplating carving a turkey. Oliver tensed every muscle and tried to control his trembling.

  “Duncan Ross,” she muttered inwardly, obviously nursing a grudge. And then she cut him. A straight, hard, no-messing slash the length of his chest from beneath one nipple. It hurt like crazy but he managed not to groan; just lay there and gritted his teeth as he felt the blo
od beginning to gush.

  “Like that, did you, Oliver?” she asked, idly drawing pictures on his skin with his blood, signing her initials—a sprawling SB. “Well, there’s more of that to come when you’re ready. That’s one thing I can promise you.”

  Sally was stiff, so she got down from the table and paced the kitchen, relishing the breeze from the open door on her skin. Beth was still out of it completely on the sofa, while Oliver seemed to have given up all fight and just lay there, pinioned, bleeding steadily.

  Duncan Ross. She still couldn’t get him out of her heart, the one man in the world she had ever really wanted but who had spurned her. She glanced across at Beth, eyes closed, face chalk white, still scarcely breathing, and her fury grew.

  “What on earth does he see in an old hag like her?” she asked. “Long past her sell-by date? She’s practically middle-aged and never much of a looker. What’s her secret? You tell me, Oliver. What does Beth have that I don’t, eh?”

  He was sinking slowly but the viciousness in her voice brought him round. He took a deep breath and gambled for his life. If it worked and it distracted her anger to him, that was all he could ask for.

  “She’s great in the sack, that’s what,” he said, and waited for the worst. Sally stopped pacing and pondered this.

  “But he doesn’t know about me,” she said, in the hurt voice of a little girl. “I gave him the chance but he wasn’t even interested.”

  “Then he’s a fool,” said Oliver, hope filtering back. “Any man worth his oats would choose you. Just give me the chance.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. Untie me and let me show you. I’ve fancied you rotten since the day I first saw you.”

  There was silence. She was out of his range of vision now and the pacing had stopped. He held his breath. Even the reggae music was growing fainter as the afternoon slumbered on, and still help did not arrive. Nor would it. Since all Beth’s inner circle were out of town and only Duncan, thousands of miles away, had any intimation of what was going on, and what on earth could he do? He had sent Oliver in to rescue Beth and now look what had happened; he had royally fucked up.

  Sally resumed her pacing, muttering now under her breath as if she had forgotten he was there.

  “That two-faced cow, that utter bitch,” she was saying, “acts like a friend, then steals my bloke. She promised me the man of my dreams, said she was my Fairy Godmother, and I believed her. Then he shows up and what does she do. Miss Goody Two Shoes over there? Swipes him from under my nose, that’s what, she who’s already got everything else I ever wanted. Well, she won’t get away with it, not this time. I’m going to teach her a lesson she won’t forget and then I’m going to fix him. I’ll teach him to spit in my eye. Once I’ve finished with her and the kid, he’ll be sorry he ever met her.”

  She laughed.

  “But first, my dear Oliver,” she said politely, returning to stand beside him, “you and I have a little unfinished business.”

  Sally wiped the knife carefully on a tea towel and flexed it over Oliver’s face like a fencing foil. She was streaked with his blood like a Bantu warrior but her eyes were clear and brilliant and her smile as luminous as ever. All signs of her gibbering madness had receded; she was as enticing as she ever had been.

  Oliver closed his eyes in panic and wondered what she had in store for him now.

  “I’ve often sat here and watched Beth use this knife,” she said. “Cuts clean as a whistle, like a wire through butter. You won’t feel a thing, I promise you.”

  She cradled his penis tenderly in one hand and stroked his balls.

  “I mean, old chap, with Beth dead what use will you have for this?” she asked quite reasonably—then winced grotesquely and dropped the knife, clutching her chest and staggering across the room as blood cascaded from an eruption in her shoulder. The steak knife had found its target.

  “Nice shot, what?” said Beth amiably, as she bent to untie him. “I always knew the Nottingham ladies’ darts team would one day stand me in good stead. Old boy.”

  And then she burst into tears.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  “How exactly did you work it out?” asked Beth, as she lay with her head cushioned comfortably in Duncan’s lap, still on the sofa in order to conserve her strength.

  “It was things that were said and not said,” said Duncan, carefully cradling his teacup as he stroked her hair, still trying to fit together the last few pieces. “By her and by the rest of you. You all met in the gynecological ward where all of you were having surgery, yet she was the only one who did not divulge why she was there. Point One. You had fibroids, Viv had a hysterectomy, Georgy was a burst appendix, Catherine an ovarian cyst. All straightforward and aboveboard and all, except in the case of poor Catherine, a total success. So why the mystery? You were the one who picked up on that and it set me thinking.”

  He took a long sip of lemon tea and focused his mind.

  “Then she mentioned a baby in the future from time to time. Almost as if it were a new possibility, something put freshly into her mind. Yet she is thirty-one and has no permanent relationship. Point Two. If she’d been having what the rest of you had, the odds were her chances of conceiving would be lessened, so why—all of a sudden—this interest in babies and conception? Particularly in one so patently unmaternal. Point Three.”

  He bent to kiss her, careful to avoid the swelling.

  “Lastly, there was the thing about her accent. She said she was a New Zealander but she was lying. As she must have lied about so many things. I ought to have picked up on it more than I did but it isn’t that easy to tell, even to a native of those parts.”

  “Why did she lie about that, I wonder? What difference could it make?”

  “Just another red herring to keep us off the track. Also, remember that psychopaths are compulsive liars. There are probably loads of other things she told you that just aren’t true.”

  “You clever boy!”

  “It wasn’t really as clever as all that. If I hadn’t had all that time loafing around in Australia, I probably would never have discovered it. Especially not without the help of my mum, who’s a smart old bird.”

  He kissed her again, tightening his grip with passion, but the telephone rang and Imogen came to interrupt.

  “It’s Vivienne,” she said. “Do you want me to take a message?”

  Beth snapped her fingers for the phone. The party, said Vivienne, would be on the following Saturday, to welcome Georgy and her parents and to celebrate lots of things, most particularly the closing of the case. She was fresh back from Switzerland, full of excitement, and longing to tell them all about the triumphant success of her trip. Everyone was invited, even Eleanor, and this time around they would definitely make it a party to remember.

  • • •

  On this occasion, Sylvia had come to London too and Georgy glowed with pride as she walked with her two distinguished parents into Vivienne’s house, and introduced them to her friends. It was a warm September evening and they were using the conservatory, with access to the garden. Sylvia gazed round with instant appreciation and, watching her, Vivienne knew she had found another friend.

  “Care to see the rest of the house?” she asked, already knowing the answer, and the two women slipped away for a wallow in colors and styles and details of interior design. Emmanuel watched them go, and smiled. In his later years it gave him a warm glow when the women he admired were no longer at each other’s throats, but learning to coexist so they could all be friends. Even Myra had lately come up trumps, something he would never have believed possible if he had not been there to witness it for himself. She had deliberately taken a backseat so that Georgy could enjoy her convalescence and return to her friends in London with her father and stepmother at her side. Myra’s own time would come later; Georgy was committed to returning to New York for Christmas. Until then she was willing to wait.

  Now they were all grouping around him,
keen to hear more details of the crime. Yes, he told them, of course he remembered Sally Brown. Except that in those days she went under her real name of O’Leary. How could he ever forget her, the single most dangerous child killer he had ever had the privilege to assess and help bring to justice.

  “She hadn’t a morsel of remorse or regret,” he told them. “Totally without conscience. Your textbook psychopath.”

  “So why did she change her name?”

  “It was her mother’s name, Brown. She took it with the home’s approval when she finally completed her sentence and they let her go. After all, she’d been in their custody for thirteen years; the least they could do was help to reconstitute her by making it as easy as possible for her to cover her tracks and start again. They also changed her ID number and her Society Security details. Which is how she was able to vanish without a trace.”

  “What about the rest of her family, her father?” asked one of them.

  “Dead. He never really recovered from the original massacre, the loss of his wife, whom he totally adored, and his two small sons, Alec and Ben. He tried to come to terms with Sally’s crime but could never forgive her. In the end, he just gave up.”

  “What happened?” asked Duncan, still fascinated. “He can’t have been that old a man.”

  “Tractor accident,” said Emmanuel, checking his notes. He had expected a reception like this and had taken the time to do his homework. They were a decent bunch, his daughter’s new friends, and the very least he felt he could do was fill in the gaps for them. With luck, not one of them would ever again encounter real evil like this.

  “He died,” he told them weightily, “the very same summer that his daughter came out of jail. Sally went to see him for a final farewell but the tractor ran over him while he was fixing the ignition and she never actually got to talk to him. Or so she says.”

  They were silent, once again stunned by shock. Oh God.

  “As it happens,” he continued, “it turns out he’d already had one narrow squeak before, when she escaped from the convent and hitched to Wagga Wagga. That’s where her father farmed and she was obviously on her way to see him, until she met her sailors and got distracted. So the poor fellow got an extension to his life, without ever knowing it.”