Free Lambs to the Slaughter by Sally Spencer Page B

don’t feel like coming in, I’ll get Robert to write me a note – and you can get your mother to do the same.’
    â€˜That might be difficult,’ Louisa mumbled. ‘My mum doesn’t like me missing school.’
    â€˜A bright girl like you could soon talk her round,’ Ellie said airily.
    â€˜And I’m not even sure I’ll see her, because she’s working on this new murder case, and—’
    â€˜Boring!’ Ellie interrupted her dismissively. ‘Murder is so really, really boring!’ She paused. ‘Can you come, Louie – or can’t you? Because I’d like to know right now!’
    It was an ultimatum, Louisa recognized. Say yes, and Ellie would continue to be her friend. Say no, and the older girl would want nothing more to do with her.
    It would be wrong to go to the party – she knew it would be wrong – but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say that to Ellie.
    â€˜I don’t know how I’d get to your house,’ she said, hoping to yet find a way to steer through the two disastrous choices which lay ahead of her. ‘You see, Mum probably won’t be home, and Lily Perkins, our housekeeper, doesn’t drive, so though I’d really like to come . . .’
    â€˜I’ll get Robert to pick you up,’ Ellie said.
    And with those few words, any chance of doing the right thing completely melted away.
    The Lower School had to go to the office if they wanted to make a phone call, but the Upper School were regarded as having earned the privilege of bypassing the secretary, so a payphone had been installed for their exclusive use – and it was to this phone that Ellie Sutton went immediately she had finished her conversation with Louisa Paniatowski.
    The number she dialled connected her to the university switchboard, and the switchboard put her through to her father’s office.
    â€˜I’ve done it, Robert,’ she said, when her father picked up the phone.
    â€˜Good girl!’ Dr Sutton replied.
    â€˜But it wasn’t easy,’ Ellie told him.
    â€˜I’m sure it wasn’t.’
    â€˜In fact, it was very hard work, and I shall expect some suitable reward.’
    â€˜What kind of reward are we talking about here?’ Dr Sutton asked cautiously.
    â€˜You know that ring I showed you in the jeweller’s window . . .’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜That’s what I want.’
    â€˜But . . . but it costs hundreds of pounds!’ Sutton protested.
    â€˜You’re right – it’s far too expensive,’ Ellie said. ‘So I’ll just go and tell that grotty little girl that the party’s off, shall I?’
    Sutton sighed resignedly.
    â€˜You’ll get your ring,’ he said.

EIGHT
    T he two civilian Scenes of Crimes Officers – or SOCOs for short – were called Bill and Eddie, and though they must have had surnames as well, no one in Whitebridge HQ knew what those names were, nor felt any need to find out. Bill was tall and thin, Eddie was small and round, and together, in Paniatowski’s opinion, they were a formidable team.
    It was Eddie who usually acted as the spokesman for the team, and looking round Len Hopkins’ kitchen, it was Eddie who spoke now.
    â€˜The dead feller wasn’t much of a one for what you might call popular entertainment, was he?’ he asked. ‘No television, no hi-fi system, nothing like that.’
    â€˜No, nothing like that,’ Paniatowski agreed.
    â€˜Books, though,’ Eddie said. ‘A
lot
of books.’
    Yes, Paniatowski thought, a lot of books.
    So many books crammed on to the bookshelves in the parlour that the shelves were bending under their weight.
    Books in the kitchen, books in the bedroom, and books in the spare bedroom that looked on to the yard.
    Books on Marxism and capitalism, sociology and the history of the working class, a Bible and a set of religious commentaries.
    And