clothes on and I need a bit of Dutch courage.’ She untied the belt, turned her back on him and took the raincoat off, letting it drop onto the carpet. Cardhew’s jaw dropped – she was naked. She glanced over her shoulder at him. 'This way please sir.’
She walked into her bedroom. Cardhew followed, trying not to look at the way her delicious bottom moved as she walked. It was then that he noticed the black stilettos similar to those worn by Lucinda Lovebrace.
She had worked out how she was going to achieve her objective with the minimum of embarrassment, not necessarily to herself, but to him. She looked over her shoulder and pointed to some rope laid out on the bed and talked him through it. ‘As you know, sir, two pieces of rope were used.’ She picked up the short length of rope and sat on the edge of the bed. In doing so, she moved into profile, which Cardhew thought remarkable beautiful. He was trying to think of her as piece of art and concentrate on what she was doing, but that was very difficult when she bent forward to tie her ankles together and her full breasts swung gently to and fro. With her ankles bound, she turned towards him and picked up the long length of rope.
‘This is exactly the same length as that used and it’s the same make and diameter. The gag was spliced into the rope at the halfway mark. I’ve used a small piece of cloth as I don’t want to be completely gagged and hope to describe what I’m doing, or trying to do. When I put this in my mouth I am effectively left with two lengths of rope.’ She demonstrated, crossed the ropes at the back of her neck, brought them to the front and crossed them between her breasts, wrapped both lengths in opposite directions around her waist before crossing them and threading them between her legs. Holding both lengths of rope with one hand, she reached round with the other to take them. Then she crossed them over her buttocks brought them to the front again crossing them under her breasts, keeping them under her breasts as she crossed them behind her back. She paused and spoke through the rope.
‘This is where I had some difficulty in working out how she wrapped them round her neck, in fact, what I’m sure she did was first bring her right hand up, over her left shoulder with her hand going over her head and down to her tummy.’ She demonstrated, completed the same move with her left hand and knotted the ropes together, level with her knees. She looked at him and smiled. ’Have you followed it so far sir?’
Cardhew returned her smile. ‘Yes I have Jenny, and under the circumstances I think you can call me Ian, but, where do you go from there? How do you end up with your hands tied behind your back?’
‘Ah, well sir – I mean, Ian.’ She paused as if savouring the use of his name. ‘The thing is, I’ve never progressed beyond this point, because the fail safe she employed, obviously didn’t work. I’m only going to proceed if you promise to untie me.’ It was said light-heartedly and he answered in the same vein.
‘Of course, how long am I allowed to wait?’
‘It depends on what your intentions are.’
‘Oh, they would be honourable, I can assure you.’
She looked him in the eye. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that, what if I said I was thinking of going back to teaching.’
He scratched at his temple. She was telling him what he really wanted to know and whether she left the force or not, was really academic. He gave her a shy smile.
‘Perhaps they wouldn’t be so honourable after all.
She smiled back. ‘Good. Shall I continue?’
He nodded. Fortunately she was looking into his eyes and not at the front of his trousers where his interest in her was becoming evident.
She carefully measured both pieces of rope against her arm from where she had tied the knot, and tied them together again. Then with the ropes together after that knot she formed them into a clove hitch, slipped it over her wrists and worked it tight.
‘Here we go; this is where I lose all my modesty.’
‘Do you want me to look away?’
‘Not much point in that Ian. If I make this move when you’re not watching, you’ll only ask me how I did it. Anyway, I guess I really lost all right to my modesty when I decided to go through with this.’
‘If it’s any consolation, the rope suits you.’
She laughed as she bent forward, put her hands on the floor and stepped through her arms. Cardhew was amazed at her flexibility. She pulled the rope through until the loop formed by the first knot was under the stilettos. She paused to make sure it was hooked on the heels before slowly pulling her arm up behind her legs, by the time the rope was taut, her hands were level with the back of her knees. Then she moved to the edge of the bed, rolled onto it and executed a backward somersaulted, ending on her side with her wrists up in the small of her back and her ankles touching her buttocks. She moved her wrists up and down to demonstrate how she could tighten everything at will. She tried to speak, but the rope was too tight in her mouth. She looked at Cardhew to make sure he understood.
Cardhew was thinking. Jennie had brilliantly proved that Lucinda Lovebrace could have tied herself up, but there was something missing? He knelt on the bed behind her and examined her wrists. He couldn’t see a fail safe for her. There were the rope tails after the clove hitch. He pulled them one at a time, then together. The only effect being to tighten the knot. Anyway, the ends of the rope on Lucinda were looped through the rope behind her neck and tied back to her wrists. He touched Jennie on the shoulder.
‘Can you hold that for another few seconds?’
She relaxed her hands to give a strangulated, yes.
‘Okay, now, I’m not going to tie the rope off, but I’m going to thread it under the ropes at the back of your neck and take it back to your wrists. Are you alright with that? She indicated that she was. He pushed both ends through together, pulled them back to her wrists. He tugged at it to demonstrate how it pulled her head back into the position they found the victim in. He relaxed the pressure, only to receive a muffled protest from Jennie, who was telling him to do it properly.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded her approval and he pulled the rope tight, tied a knot and got off the bed to stand in a position where the person who must have done that to the victim would have stood.
Jennie was lying on her left side, in exactly the same position. She opened her eyes to look up at him. He was rubbing his left temple again. His right hand stretched out and touched her on her right cheek, on the right side of her nose, then along her top lip to her left nostril. She liked his touch but was finding it difficult to breath and moved her head to convey her discomfort. He moved quickly onto on the bed to untie her and realised when he got to her wrists that by pushing on the ends, rather than pulling he could ease the pressure on the clove hitch and slip it off. He pulled the loop off the stilettos and she gratefully straightened her legs. He untied the rope around her ankles as she pulled the rope out of her mouth and passed the loop over her head. He helped her stand and held her as the circulation returned to her legs.
‘What do you think Ian?’
He grinned. ‘I think you are incredibly beautiful.’
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss.
‘Are you really thinking about going back to teaching?’
‘If it means I can be with the man I fancy yes, but, what was the answer to our experiment? What were you thinking about when you touched my face – and don’t say how incredibly beautiful I am.’
‘Ah, well, if you don’t want the truth; I was thinking about the position we found Lucinda Lovebrace in. You were the same, as near as makes no difference and I can understand how semen was found in her right nostril – but how could it have got into the left one?’
‘Perhaps she turned to look up at him at the point of ejaculation. It could part of what turned her on.’
‘Maybe, but could she have turned her face upwards? It seemed to me that when your head was pulled right back, you would have found that impossible.’
‘Do your want to tie me up again to check?’
‘No, we’ll do it some other time. I think she was left to die, but even if we find out who was with her, it will be difficult to pin a murder charge on him.’
‘Could it be a her?’
He touched her on the nose with his finger. ‘I know where you’re coming from. We have video evidence to show that Julie Bunford shared a session with her, but she has a cast iron alibi – and you spoke to her lover.’
She pulled him close; she could feel his erection building and quite liked the idea of discussing the case as foreplay. ‘Yes, I‘m sure that‘s genuine, Julie Bunford was reluctant to involve her and that’s understandable, but she
