Island-in-Waiting (23 page)

“I didn't know,” I whispered sickly. “She didn't say –”

“I appreciate this must seem poor thanks for having spared me, but you see I'm too old not to be cynical. You've obviously been weighing up the pros and cons and I didn't kill Ray just to start paying out to someone else.”

“He was blackmailing you?”

“It wasn't even true,” he continued, as though I hadn't spoken. “I swear to God I never laid hands on any boy in that way, nor wanted to. But I've been paying Ray twenty pounds a month since the beginning of term and he took that as confirmation of guilt. Of course it was stupid of me, but with the mainland appointment in the balance I couldn't afford to take chances. The merest suspicion of such a charge would have wrecked everything and Vivian had set her heart on that appointment. But in spite of the money he was beginning to make hints. You heard him yourself. It wouldn't have been long before people began to wonder.”

Since the beginning of term; ‘Begun in September –'

He expertly manoeuvred the speeding vehicle past a tractor. “Surely you agree that I was justified? I could hardly be expected to sit back and allow him to destroy me. And it wasn't only myself; he was corroding the whole college. Believe me, there will be a lot of people breathing more easily now that he's gone.”

“But I'm not a threat to anyone!”

“Unfortunately you are, since visiting the Cleggs yesterday. Why couldn't you have let well alone? You'd have come to no harm.” There was anguish in his voice, and all the time the needle of the speedometer was flickering steadily upwards.

“Of course,” he went on after a moment, “I'd intended to wait until he'd taken you home and then waylay him, but when I saw you go off alone – I'd been watching all morning through binoculars – it seemed too good a chance to miss. My car was parked out of sight round the far side of the hill and once he was dead it was a simple matter to push him over the steep face. That was for your sake, of course, to save you finding him. I believe I almost bumped into you on the way back. After you'd gone, it only took minutes to wrap him in tarpaulin and bundle him into the boot. I rather enjoyed making use of the guy – a suitably macabre touch.”

The afternoon light was thickening into rainy darkness as we sped along the narrow road and I gripped the cushion of the car seat with both hands.

“Don't be frightened,” he said rapidly, and in the uncertain light I saw that his face was shining with sweat. “There'll be no pain, I promise. We'll just go back to the hilltop, and that's all you will know.”

I drew a long, difficult breath. So instead of simply killing me now, he intended to go to the elaborate lengths of duplicating Ray's murder. Why? Did it mean his mind had become unhinged, stuck in its own macabre groove and incapable of devising another means of disposing of me?

I said carefully, “You won't get away with it a second time.”

“Why not?”

“I was warned not to meet anybody. I only came because I thought you were Hugo. They'll guess it must have been something like that, and only you could imitate him. And what about an alibi?”

“I said I had a dental appointment. Vivian will cover for me.

“But the dentist won't, and they're sure to check.”

He shot me a sideways look from his pale fanatical eyes.

“I know the plan isn't watertight – I hadn't time –”

He was actually apologizing, making excuses! I fought down hysterical laughter. “You panicked, Nicholas. You didn't think it out carefully enough and now it's too late.”

“Vivian will cover for me,” he repeated, and added inconsequentially, “You know, that bastard even taunted me about her.”

“She thinks the world of you,” I said gently, and marvelled at myself. Was it really incumbent on me to comfort my would-be murderer? But all at once there was something so pathetically unsure about him. I had shaken his precarious confidence and he was beginning to crumble. Ordinary people, pushed too far –

“I let her down,” he said jerkily. “She had such high hopes when we married but I've never amounted to very much. Couldn't even give her any children. And now, just when my lifelong ambition was on the point of being realized, this. It's ironic, really.”

“Take me home, Nicholas. Please. You'll only make things worse for yourself this way. You haven't a hope of getting away with it.”

The car began to swerve dangerously and I bit my lip.

“God knows I don't want to kill you but what else can I do? In time you'll put the pressure on as Ray did. You were a friend of his, after all.”

“I was sorry for him,” I said simply. “And now, heaven help me, I'm sorry for you.”

“Don't say that!” His knuckles gleamed whitely on the wheel and as I searched for some way to calm him before he killed us both, a new sound made itself heard above the noise of our motion and the rhythmic sweeping of the windscreen wipers. It was the wailing siren of a police car. Nicholas turned wildly to look at me, seeming, I thought with compassion, about as dangerous as a frightened rabbit. Yet it was important to remember that this was the man who had killed Ray.

“Pull in to the side of the road,” I said steadily. “They won't hurt you, I promise.”

Which was why, as the police car screamed to a halt behind us and Inspector Quiggin came running, it was to find Nicholas Quayle bent over the steering-wheel, his thin body wracked with hideous sobs, while I sat unmoving beside him, my hand on his shoulder. I was wondering who would break the news to Vivian, who only the day before had laughingly told me how much brighter her future was looking.

So it was over. The threatening shadow which had haunted me across five years had come and gone. Tom Kelly was dead, and Ray too. The chain was broken and my temporary ‘gift' withdrawn. For that, at least, I could be grateful. It would be many weeks before the final unravelling could take place but for the moment I had completely exhausted my capacity for fear, pity and regret. My overwhelming need was for the comfort of Neil's arms, and as the police car drew up at the cottage and he hurried white-faced to meet me, I went thankfully into them.