Claire McNab: Dead Certain

Suddenly feeling weak with love for him, she said softly, “Darling, have a good time. I wish I were going with you.”

A few minutes later the phone rang again. “You work too hard, Carol,” Madeline Shipley said. “I just caught your aunt and she said you were there. I’m at home, alone. Will you call in? Have a drink with me?”

Carol felt an unsettling combination of wariness, grief, indefinable longing, and sexual hunger. “I’m tired, Madeline, and I’ve got another hour here, at least.”

“You’re not that tired. It’ll only be for a while…”

“You just won’t give up, will you?” said Carol, with a reluctant smile.

“Never. Carol-”

“Okay. I give in.”

Carol’s light tone disguised the jolt of excitement that made her hands unsteady as she replaced the receiver. What was it that made her so cautious? Her natural reserve? Allegiance to Sybil? Suspicion that Madeline could get under her defenses?

She smiled as she said aloud, “Courage, Carol. You’re not a virgin.” And maybe , she thought, Madeline’s only offering a drink …

“Whiskey?”

“Please.”

Carol seated herself in a lounge chair and looked around the room with feigned interest. Madeline handed her a cut-glass tumbler and sat down opposite. “Tell me about Sybil.”

Carol’s chin came up. “There’s nothing to say.”

“Of course there is, but you don’t want to say it. That’s all right. It would help, that’s all.”

Before Carol could give the acerbic reply that would deliver a verbal slap, Madeline added, “Me, Carol. It would help me .”

“Help you? How?”

Her eyes were intent. “I’d know the situation. What I was up against.”

“I don’t want to play games.”

Abruptly, Madeline was on her feet, pacing. “It isn’t a game, Carol. I’m very serious.”

Taking a gulp of her drink, Carol thought, I should go… but I don’t want to . Madeline had moved behind her chair. Without turning her head, Carol said flippantly, “You aren’t going to attack me, are you?”

She heard the click as Madeline put her drink down, then the light touch of hands on her shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

Looking up at her, Carol said severely, “I’m taller than you and I outweigh you. And I’m a police officer. You haven’t got a chance.”

Madeline’s copper hair brushed her cheek. No , Carol thought as she willingly lifted her mouth to the kiss. She broke away to say, “I’ll spill my whiskey.”

There was a tremor in Madeline’s voice. “Drink it, Carol. I want to taste it in your mouth.”

“This is-”

“Right. You were going to say this is right?”

Carol half laughed, half groaned. “You’re implacable. Is it any good putting up a resistance?”

“Only if it’s a token one.”

Go for it ? thought Carol, knowing already the decision was made. She put down her drink, stood, opened her arms.

Madeline kissed her lightly, withdrew. “Do you like to be teased?”

“No.”

“Of course you do. You’re just not used to it.”

Carol was focused on Madeline’s curved lips. She wanted to kiss her aggressively, forcefully. To have her respond with compelling ardor. To have her heart race as hers was racing…

Madeline stepped back. “Come to bed.”

In a dream of passion Carol followed her. She was her center, her focal point, her target. Nothing else mattered.

Madeline was half-laughing, dominant. “Don’t undress, Carol. I’m going to make love to you first with your clothes on… slide my fingers into your hidden places… set you on fire.”

Carol, her voice husky, said, “I’m that already.”

Madeline chuckled softly, her voice a caress. “It’s only a little flame, darling. I’m going to make it a bonfire, so that you’re consumed entirely.”

She pushed Carol gently against the wall, leaned into her, a knee between her legs, slowly began to unbutton her shirt.

This is so different , thought Carol, shutting her eyes. She suddenly felt free to do anything, say anything, be anything. “Madeline…”

“It’s all right darling. Let me show you what you really want, what you’ve always wanted.”

Her breath caught at Madeline’s touch. The barrier of her clothes was at once an impediment and an excitement. Madeline’s mouth was hot against her throat. Hands sliding under her bra, tantalizing with the lightest of contacts. Carol made an inarticulate sound.

“Don’t hurry me,” said Madeline. “I won’t be hurried.”

Her touch was soft, maddening, provoking-but never quite enough.

Carol could hardly speak. “This is cruel.”

“This is what you want.”

Madeline’s fingers burned as they entered her. The compulsion of desire licked at her thighs, flamed in her groin. “I’ve got to lie down.”

“No, Carol, you’ve got to stand up.”

Never like this. She couldn’t see, could only feel-surging, scalding waves of sensation. “I’ll fall.”

Madeline’s commanding voice whispered against her cheek, “Be brave, darling. You can do it.”

Knees locked, head back, moaning with the delight of the pulsing ache that transfixed her, Carol abandoned herself to her body’s hunger. And with that submission came deliverance. Held tight in Madeline’s arms she shuddered with release. “Oh, God.”

“Now you can lie down,” said Madeline.

Carol called an early morning meeting with Bourke and Anne. It was a relief to concentrate on her work: whenever she relaxed her guard, burning thoughts of Madeline, of her own startling abandonment, dislocated her steadfast image of herself. And Sybil-she didn’t want to consider the conflicting emotions of guilt and resentment that resonated there.

“Have you both read The Euthanasia Handbook ? Yes? Tell me how you’d make absolutely sure your suicide would be a success.”

Anne said, “I’d do everything Collis Raeburn did, except I’d take something to settle my stomach, to make sure I didn’t vomit and so not absorb enough drugs to kill me.”

“Plastic bag,” said Bourke.

Carol nodded. “The author makes the point several times that unless a doctor’s actively involved, things can go wrong with drugs. You might fall unconscious before you take enough, or vomit before they’re absorbed properly, or you might have some tolerance that means you’d lie there for days until someone finds you still alive.”

“So what you do,” said Bourke, “is wait until you’re almost asleep, pop a plastic bag over your head, tie it round your throat and doze off. Then you suffocate, but you don’t know anything about it.” He added jocularly, “It’s the best way to be dead certain.”

“There was no plastic bag,” said Anne, “and he choked to death on his own vomit.”

Carol spread out the scene-of-crime photographs. “Two things,” she said. “First, look how clean he is. The post mortem says there was some half-digested food in his mouth and trachea, but there’s nothing on his face or on the pillow. He was unconscious, so how come he’s so neat? Second, look at this necktie on the carpet by the end of the bed. What’s it doing there? Everything else has been put away and Raeburn’s wearing casual clothes, so he doesn’t need a tie.”

Bourke was frowning over the photographs. “So the murderer uses Raeburn’s necktie together with a plastic bag to make sure he dies-but why not leave it over his face? After all, it makes the suicide look even more convincing.”

“I don’t know,” said Carol. “Maybe it looked so bizarre, so horrible, that whoever it was took the plastic bag off once he was dead.”