Free The Killing Doll by Ruth Rendell Page A

“I hope you and Peter will join us.”
    “I’ve got to go to a meeting.” The Adonai Spiritists were holding another seance and Dolly had almost decided not to go but she would now. “What friends? Dad hasn’t got any friends.”
    “Quite frankly, Doreen, I think I’m a better judge of that than you are. Of course he’s got friends. If you must know, we’re having my boss Mr. Colefax and his wife and a very nice couple Hal and I got to know at bingo. If you won’t come, I expect my mother will.”
    The dining room had apple-green walls now, beige Dralon curtains, haircord on the floor, aluminum-framed Constable prints, and on the table Ravenhead glass and stainless steel cutlery and tablemats of British game birds.
    Pup didn’t refuse the invitation. He performed an Elemental ritual and went out and bought himself a suit, gray flannel, plain and elegant, and a gray shirt with a small pink and white pattern on it. He thought it unnecessary to mention this to Dolly or that he had cast the I Ching and it had told him that the desires of the superior man are not thus to be pacified.
    He came out of the temple, wearing his robe, and kissed Dolly, who was just leaving for her seance. Just as she closed the front door behind her, Miss Finlay came tearing along at her usual pace. There were police everywhere, she said, and did Dolly know what it was about? When she, Miss Finlay, had tried to get on to the old railway line down the steps at Crescent Road, a policeman had turned her back. There was nothing in the evening paper and she hadn’t got television. Dolly hadn’t got television either, though Myra had just bought a color set. They walked down Manningtree Grove towards Mount Pleasant Green and in that short time two police cars passed them with blue lights flashing.
    Myra’s guests all had television and they had all had their radios on while getting ready to come out. When they were having their pre-dinner drinks in the pine and cane living room they talked about nothing else, not that it wasn’t a horrible thing to talk about, a horrible thing to happen, the man who did it must be a monster, no better than an animal.
    “I’ve yet to hear of animals cutting each other’s heads off,” said Mrs. Brewer.
    Pup said nothing. He was sorry it had happened on the old railway line and inside that very tunnel where, long ago now, he had performed the first ritual of his career. On a fine summer evening like this one it was hideous to think and talk of murder. He was looking at Yvonne Colefax, a very pretty blonde who wore a white dress made of some clinging pleated material. What would make a man want to kill a girl—a girl, of all possible victims—and then sever her head from her body with a hatchet?
    “Unresolved aggression,” said George Colefax as if Pup had spoken aloud. “A hatred of women whose challenge he can’t meet.” He said it with an emphasis that seemed heartfelt and his wife gave him a glance. “Cutting off the head would silence a mocking tongue and make certain the eyes could no longer see him.”
    Myra came in to announce dinner. They trooped into the dining room. Harold had never before sat down to a three-course meal at 8:30 in the evening. All this talk of decapitation made him feel queasy, especially as he was halfway through a book mostly concerned with the torture meted out to Madame de Brinvilliers. He had to sit between Mrs. Brewer and Eileen Ridge, the bingo friend. Myra wore a long green polyester skirt with black daisies on it and a very tight, sleeveless, black polo-necked sweater and all her gold jewelry. Mrs. Brewer, in blue Crimplene, picked at her food and actually sniffed a dish of courgettes in cream sauce. Besides the courgettes, Myra had cooked strange food in elaborate ways, chicken with walnuts, potatoes gummed together with egg and cheese, cabbage that had bits of bacon and caraway seeds in it. George Colefax picked all the caraway seeds out of his very white, even