17
With a heaviness of heart and a growing sense that the inevitable was fast approaching between them, Rosalyn Simpson watched as Melinda continued stuffing a mishmash of belongings into two rucksacks. She grabbed knee socks, underwear, stockings, three nightgowns from one drawer; a silk scarf, two belts, four T-shirts from another; her passport, a worn Michelin guide to France from a third. Then she went on to the wardrobe where she removed two pairs of blue jeans, a pair of sandals, and a quilted skirt. Her face was blotched from crying, and all the time she packed, she snuffled. Occasionally she withheld a fractured sob.
“Melinda.” Rosalyn tried to sound soothing. “You’re not being rational.”
“I thought it was you.” This had been her most frequent response for the last hour, an hour which had begun with her terrorised screaming, moved quickly on to wildly distraught weeping, and concluded with blind determination to leave Cambridge at once with Rosalyn in tow.
There had been no way to talk to her reasonably, and even if there had been, Rosalyn felt as if she lacked the energy to do it. She had spent a miserable night thrashing round in her bed while guilt spread like a prickly rash on the flesh of her conscience, and the last thing she wanted now was a scene of reproach, recrimination, and reassurance with Melinda. But she was wise enough not to mention any of that at the moment. Rather, she told Melinda only part of the truth: she hadn’t slept well the previous night; upon returning from a morning’s practical, she’d come to Melinda’s room with nowhere else to go to get a bit of rest when the porter had barred her from climbing her own staircase; she’d fallen asleep and hadn’t awakened until the door crashed against the wall and Melinda herself had begun screaming unaccountably. She hadn’t known that a runner had been shot that morning. The porter had said nothing, telling her only that the staircase would be closed for a while. And no word had yet gone out among the members of college about the murder, so no one was in front of the building at the time to pass on gossip or information. But if it was someone from her staircase who had been shot, she knew it had to be Georgina Higgins-Hart, the only other member of Hare and Hounds who lived in that part of the building.
“I thought it was you,” Melinda sobbed. “You promised you wouldn’t run alone but I thought you ran anyway to spite me because you were angry that I’d insisted you tell your parents about us so I thought it was you.”
Rosalyn realised that she did feel some anger. It was a bubbling bit of real resentment that promised to boil over into outright dislike. She tried to ignore it, saying, “Why would I want to spite you like that? I didn’t run alone. I didn’t run at all.”
“He’s after you, Ros. He’s after us both. He wanted you but he got her instead but he’s not done with us and we’ve got to get away.”
She’d taken a tin of money from its hiding place in a shoe carton. She’d rustled up her rucksacks from the back of one of the wardrobe shelves. She’d swept her copious supply of cosmetics into a plastic case. And now she was rolling the blue jeans into cylindrical shapes preparatory to ramming them into the canvas sack with everything else. When she was in this state, there was no real talking to her, but Rosalyn still felt the need to try.
“Melinda, this just doesn’t make sense.”
“I told you last night not to talk to anyone about it, didn’t I? But you wouldn’t listen. You’ve always got to do your precious little duty. And now look where it’s got us.”
“Where?”
“Here. Needing to clear off, and having nowhere to go. But if you’d thought a bit first…If you’d just thought for once…And now he’s waiting, Ros. He’s just biding his time. He knows where to find us. You as good as invited him to blow us both to bits. Well, it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to wait round to have him come for me. And neither are you.” She took another two pullovers from a drawer. “We’re nearly the same size. You won’t need to go to your room for clothes.”
Rosalyn walked to the window. One lone senior member of the college strolled across the lawn below. The crowd of the curious had long since dispersed, as had all obvious signs of the police, making it difficult to believe that another runner had been murdered that morning, making it impossible to believe that this second killing was tied in any way to the conversation she’d had with Gareth Randolph last night.
She and Melinda—glowering, protesting, and arguing against it every step of the way—had walked the few blocks to DeaStu and found him in his cubicle of an office. With no one there to interpret for them, they’d used the screen of a word processor to communicate. He’d looked awful, Rosalyn recalled. His eyes were rheumy; his skin was unshaven and pinched on his skull. He looked devastated by illness. He looked exhausted and torn. But he didn’t look like a killer.
Somehow, she thought, she would have sensed it if Gareth had presented any danger to her. Certainly, there would have been an air of tension surrounding him. He would have shown signs of panic as she told him what she knew about the previous morning’s murder. But instead, he evidenced only anger and grief. And faced with that, she had known for a certainty that he had been in love with Elena Weaver.
Quite without warning, she had felt an irrational twist of jealousy. To have someone—all right, a man, she admitted it—love her so much that he would dream about her, think about her, and hope for a life together…
Looking at Gareth Randolph, watching his hands move over the keyboard as he typed his questions and responded to hers, she felt overcome by the sudden knowledge that she wanted a conventional future like everyone else. This unexpected desire brought an attendant rush of guilt. It swarmed busily round the issue of betrayal. Yet feeling the tricks and twinges of her conscience, she was roused to anger. For how could there be the slightest degree of treachery in yearning for the simplest prospect that life offered everyone?
They’d returned to her room. Melinda’s mood had been black. She’d not wanted Rosalyn to talk to anyone about Robinson Crusoe’s Island in the first place and even the compromise of talking to Gareth Randolph and not to the police had been insufficient to quell her displeasure. Rosalyn knew that only seduction would suffice to woo Melinda back to good humour once again. And she understood how the scene would evolve between them, with herself in the role of sexual supplicant and Melinda grudgingly giving reply. Her solicitous advances would eventually melt Melinda’s indifference while Melinda’s languid and largely uninterested responses would keep her in her place. It would be the delicate dance of expiation and punishment in which they’d engaged so many times. She knew how each movement would play out against the next, all of them acting as a means of proving her love in some way. But while the success of the seduction generally provided a few moments’ gratification, the entire procedure had seemed monumentally tiresome last night.
So she’d pleaded exhaustion, an essay, the need to rest and to think. And when Melinda had left her—casting a reproachful glance over her shoulder just before she closed the door—Rosalyn had experienced the most exquisite relief.
That hadn’t done much to allow her to sleep, however. The satisfaction of being alone did nothing to stop her from writhing in her bed and trying to wipe from her mind all the elements of her life that seemed to be caving in on her.
You made the choice, she told herself. You are what you are. No one and nothing can change that for you.
But how she wanted to.
“Why don’t you think about us?” Melinda was saying. “You never do, Ros. I do. All the time. But you never do. Why?”
“This goes beyond us.”
Melinda stopped packing, holding a rolled pair of socks in her hand. “How can you say that? I asked you not to talk to anyone. You said you had to talk anyway. Now someone else is dead. Another runner. A runner from your staircase. He followed her, Ros. He thought it was you.”
“That’s absurd. He has no reason to hurt me.”
“You must have told him something without even being aware of its importance. But he knew what it meant. He wanted to kill you. And since I was there as well, he wants to kill me. Well, he’s not getting the chance. If you aren’t willing to think of us, I am. We’re clearing out until they’ve nabbed him.” She zipped the rucksack and plopped it on the bed. She went to the wardrobe for her coat, scarf, and gloves. “We’ll take the train into London first. We can stay near Earl’s Court until I get the money to—”
“No.”
“Rosalyn—”
“Gareth Randolph’s not a killer. He loved Elena. You could see that on his face. He wouldn’t have hurt her.”
“That’s a pile of rubbish. People kill each other all the time over love. Then they kill once again to cover up their tracks. Which is exactly what he’s doing, no matter what you think you saw on the island.” Melinda glanced round the room as if to make sure she’d forgotten nothing. She said, “Let’s get going. Come on.”
Rosalyn didn’t move. “I did it for you last night, Melinda. I went to DeaStu, not the police. And now Georgina’s dead.”
“Because you went to DeaStu. Because you talked in the first place. If you’d kept your mouth shut, nothing would have happened to anyone. Don’t you see that?”
“I’m responsible for this. Both of us are.”
Melinda’s mouth drew into a hair’s width line. “I’m responsible? I tried to take care of you. I wanted to protect you. I tried to stop you from putting both of us at risk. And now I’m responsible for Georgina’s death? Well, that’s rich, isn’t it?”
“Don’t you see how it is? I let you stop me. I should have done what I knew was right in the first place. I should always do that. But I keep getting sidetracked.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it always comes down to a question of love with you. If I really love you, I’ll take the room under the eaves. If I really love you, we’ll have sex when you want. If I really love you, I’ll tell my parents the truth about us.”
“And that’s what all this is really about, isn’t it? That you told your parents and they didn’t approve. They didn’t fall all over themselves wishing you well. They played it for guilt instead of compassion.”
“If I really love you, I’ll always do what you want. If I really love you, I’ll have no mind of my own. If I really love you, I’ll live like a…”
“What? Finish it. Say it. Live like a what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“Go on. Say it.” Melinda sounded giddy. “Live like a dyke. A dyke. A dyke. Because that’s what you are and you just can’t face it. So you turn it around and shove it on me. You think a man’s going to be the answer to your problems? You think a man can make you into something you aren’t? You’d better get wise, Ros. You’d better face the truth. The problem’s yourself.” She shouldered her rucksack and threw the other to the floor at Rosalyn’s feet. “Choose,” she said.
“I don’t want to choose.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t give me that.” Melinda waited for a moment. Somewhere on the staircase, a door opened. Quirky music swelled and a wavering, whimsical voice claimed to be u-n-c-o-u-p-l-e-d. Melinda laughed sardonically. “How appropriate,” she said.
Rosalyn reached towards her. But she didn’t pick up the rucksack. “Melinda.”
“We’re born the way we’re born. It’s a toss of the dice and no one can change it.”
“But don’t you see? I don’t know that. I’ve never even had a chance to find out.”
Melinda nodded, her face quickly becoming both shuttered and cool. “Great. So find out. Just don’t come snivelling back when you discover what’s what.” She grabbed her shoulder bag and pulled on her gloves. “I’m out of here then. Lock up when you leave. Give your key to the porter.”
“All this just because I want to see the police?” Rosalyn asked.
“All this just because you don’t want to see yourself.”
“My money’s on the pullover,” Sergeant Havers said. She picked up the squat stainless steel teapot and poured, grimacing at the pale colour of the brew with a “what is this stuff, anyway?” to the waitress who was passing their table.
“Herbal blend,” the girl said.
Blackly, Havers stirred in a teaspoon of sugar. “Grass cuttings, more likely.” She took a tentative sip and scowled. “Grass cuttings undoubtedly. Don’t they have the regular bit? P.G. Tips? Something to wear the enamel off your teeth good and proper?”
Lynley poured his own cup. “This is better for you, Sergeant. It has no caffeine.”
“It also has no flavour, or don’t we care about that?”
“Just one of the drawbacks to the healthy life.”
Havers muttered and pulled out her cigarettes.
“No smoking, miss,” the waitress said as she brought their sweets to the table, an arrangement of carob-chip biscuits and sugar-free fruit tarts.
“Oh, hell and damnation,” Havers said.
They were in the Bliss Tea Room in Market Hill, a small establishment squeezed in between a stationery shop and what appeared to be a gathering place for the local skin heads. Heavy Mettle had been scrawled by an obviously untutored hand in red greasepaint across the latter shop’s window, and the ear-assaulting screech of electric guitars periodically blasted out the front door. In apparent answer to the window decoration, the stationers had countered with Waitless Cowardice across their own glass, a joke that no doubt went unappreciated by the owners and patrons of the neighbouring business.
The Bliss Tea Room—with its plain pine tables and woven grass mats—had been unoccupied by customers when Lynley and Havers entered. And the combination of the music from next door and the health food on the menu was evidence enough that the little restaurant wasn’t long for this world.
They’d made their phone call to Cambridge’s forensic department from a call box on Silver Street rather than from the junior combination room where Havers had started to direct him upon leaving Georgina Higgins-Hart’s bed-sit. He had stopped her, saying:
“I saw a call box on the street. If we’ve got a match on the fibres, I’d rather the news wasn’t overheard and put into the University’s gossip mill before we’ve had a chance to decide what to do with it.”
So they had left the college and headed towards Trumpington where an old chipped call box stood near the corner, with three of its front glass panels missing and a fourth taken up by a sticker featuring a drawing of a foetus in a rubbish bin and Abortion is Murder printed in crimson letters that dissolved into a garish pool of blood beneath them.
Lynley had made the call because he knew it was the next logical step in the case. But he wasn’t surprised by the information which the Cambridge forensic team relayed.
“No match,” he said to Havers as they returned to Queens’ College where they’d left the car. “They haven’t finished with everything yet. But so far, nothing.”
What remained to be tested were a coat, a pullover, a T-shirt, and two pairs of trousers. Sergeant Havers was giving her attention to these.
She dipped her carob-chip biscuit into her tea and took a bite before she spoke again, resuming her theme. “It makes perfect sense. The morning was cold. He’d have been wearing a pullover. I think we’ve got him.”
Lynley had chosen the apple tart. He took a bite. It wasn’t half-bad. He said, “I can’t agree. Not for the fibres we’re looking for, Sergeant. Rayon, polyester, and cotton make too light a blend for a pullover, especially one worn in November to cut the morning’s chill.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that. So he wore something over it. An overcoat. A jacket. He took that off before he killed her. Then he put it back on to hide the blood which he got all over himself when he beat in her face.”
“And then had it cleaned and ready in anticipation of our coming for it this morning, Sergeant? Because there were no stains on it. And if he anticipated our coming to pick it up, why would he just leave it with the rest of his clothes? Why wouldn’t he get rid of it?”
“Because he doesn’t quite know how an investigation works.”
“I don’t like it, Havers. It doesn’t feel right. It leaves too much unaccounted for.”
“Like what?”
“Like what was Sarah Gordon doing at the crime scene that morning and prowling round Ivy Court that night? Like why did Justine Weaver run without the dog Monday morning? Like what’s the connection between Elena Weaver’s presence and performance in Cambridge and her father’s attaining the Penford Chair?”
Havers took a second biscuit, broke it in half. “And I thought you had your heart newly set on Gareth Randolph. What happened to him, then? Have you scratched him off the roster? And if you do—if you put Sarah Gordon or Justine Weaver or anyone besides Thorsson, by the way, in his place—what’s the story behind the second killing?”