Finn, Isabelle saw, was watching the girl. His expression seemed speculative at the same time as it bordered on hostile. “Don’t you have somewhere you’re s’posed to be, Ding?” he asked. “I mean, you were leaving, right?”
Ding picked up her rucksack and settled it back on her shoulders. She seemed unoffended by Finnegan’s tone. She said, directing her final words to Isabelle, “I hope you get the information you need.”
“From Finn, I assume?”
“Oh yes. Because like I said—”
“Yes. You and Brutus didn’t even know Ian Druitt, did you.”
LUDLOW
SHROPSHIRE
Ding took her bicycle as if she meant to ride it to her geography lecture. And she might actually have done this had she not been unnerved coming down the stairs to find a Scotland Yard detective in the sitting room. That—and the short stretch of conversation she’d had with the woman—put paid to all scholastic intentions. But for the next few minutes she needed to maintain the appearance of cycling off to the lecture, so she set off in the direction of Lower Broad Street. This, should she turn into it, would take her up to the narrow stretch of Silk Mill Lane and one of the college lecture halls. However, she didn’t turn. Instead, once she was out of sight of the house, she coasted into the car park of the Persian carpet shop. Like every other Persian carpet shop in England, it was having a going-out-of-business sale. A large banner fixed across the front window declared this to be a fact. Although it was faded from however many years it had hung there, the shop owners had so far not twigged that this was a clue about the truth of their declaration of finality.
There was, as always, a pile of rugs outside of the shop. Ding stopped next to these, hopped off her bicycle, and began earnestly flipping up their corners as if in a hunt for the perfect one for her bedroom floor. Within moments, she was joined by the shop owner, who was not, as one might expect, Middle Eastern, but rather a Scot whose Glaswegian accent was virtually unintelligible. Had he been speaking Farsi, she would have stood a better chance of understanding him.
She told him she was just looking at what he had on offer and when he said whatever it was that he said, she replied with, “Not now, thank you.” Mostly, she wanted to be off the street until the coast was clear to return to the house.
Ding knew that her answers had scarcely been believable. Her brain had started to whir insanely the moment Finn told her who the woman was. The last thing she’d expected when she’d come down the stairs so innocently was to find a police detective having a chat with Finn.
She stalled by means of the rug pile for ten minutes, perhaps more. This required her to engage the Scotsman in a conversation that seemed to have as its topic the reverse side of the carpets. Once again, she had no clue what he was actually telling her, but since he was gesturing and running his hands against the back and since she did catch hold of the words hand and knot, she nodded and told him, “Yes, I see.” Fortunately, this appeared to be all that was required of her. After those ten minutes, she said, “Thanks awfully,” and rolled her bicycle back to the street.
The police detective’s car was gone. Ding was safe. It took less than one minute to pedal back to the house, where she dropped her bike in the front patch of concrete. Once inside, she closed the door as quietly as she could and hurried towards the stairs. But it was pointless. She heard Finn call out, “Hey, you,” from the sitting room. She paused and saw that he was lounging as before on that ugly sofa they’d found in one of Ludlow’s bazillion charity shops. He was picking something out of a burrito, wiping his fingers on the sofa’s upholstery.
She said to him, “Someone might actually want to sit there, Finn?” in reference to the finger wiping, which appeared to be depositing streaks of bean juice—or whatever it was inside of a burrito—on the faded fabric.
He ignored the comment and said to her, “What was that supposed to be about?”
“What?”
“All the ‘me and Brutus’ shit. You were making it only too seriously obvious that you wanted the cop to keep her eyes on me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s the case, is it?” He inspected the bitten end of the burrito, seemed to find it sufficiently edible, and took a mouthful. “Sure as hell didn’t seem like that to me.”
He rose. The sofa retained the impression of his arse. It retained the impression of the cop’s arse, for that matter. He approached her and said while chomping through his food with more noise than seemed to be required, “Got to tell you, Ding. I don’t what you’re on about these days.”
“I’m ‘on about’ nothing.” She headed for the stairs but he adroitly blocked her way. She said, “Let me go, Finn.”
“What? I’m stopping you or something?”
“You’re in my way.”
“Don’t like that, eh? Tell me this, then. What the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like someone thinking bad of me when I haven’t done anything.”
“Specially if that someone’s a cop, eh? Now why’s that? You hiding something?”
“No!”
“Well, let me tell you, that’s not what it looked like to me.”
“I can’t help what it looked like to you,” she said. “Now get out of my way.”
Ding pushed past him and ran up the stairs. Behind her, she heard Finn say, “I’m not exactly stupid, Ding,” which was the last thing she heard before she strode to her bedroom, closed the door, and locked it behind her.
She hurried to the small clothes cupboard, and she began removing its contents. She was in haste to get to what she wanted, but she didn’t pull things out and drop them onto the floor as if in a scene from a film in which her depicted actions were meant to telegraph panic to the audience. Instead, she took them from the rod and placed them carefully on the bed.
Because of her family’s circumstances, she’d been forced to purchase her own clothing for years. She’d done so by cobbling together funds from offering herself as a childminder, a shop assistant, a weed puller, a feeder and walker of dogs, a waterer of plants, and just about anything else she could come up with in her limited free time since she was twelve years old. So she treasured every shoe, skirt, pair of jeans, jersey, pullover, and boot that she possessed. She gave away nothing until it was threadbare. She simply couldn’t afford to.
But now . . . She had to rid herself of two pieces that were dear to her heart. They were at the farthest reach of the cupboard, and she had to dig through her winter clothing in order to find them where she’d placed them together on a hanger. She’d buttoned her red wool coat over them and that was what she ultimately pulled out of the cupboard and carried to the bed. She undid the buttons and gazed at the hidden skirt and top. Before she could dwell on how much they had cost and how she would miss them, she scooped them up, and from the floor of the clothes cupboard she grabbed a carrier bag.
It was impossible for her to shove the skirt and the top inside the bag indifferently. She folded them neatly instead. Then she folded the bag itself upon the clothes, and this she put into her rucksack. For just a moment, she tried to tell herself that she really didn’t need to do this, but the problem was that she couldn’t depend on that being the case.
LUDLOW
SHROPSHIRE
Barbara Havers knew that she needed to get to the call centre in Shrewsbury. She wanted to listen to the message about Ian Druitt that led to his being taken to the Ludlow station on the night of his death. Although she’d read the transcript of that message in the IPCC’s report—at this point she had the bloody thing memorised—she believed that there was still a chance that something in it had been missed by the previous investigators. It could be anything: from the pronunciation of a word that would prove peculiar to a single individual involved in the circumstances of Druitt’s life to some kind of background noise that co
uld be connected to a person they hadn’t considered yet.
She knew quite well that when it came to listening to the call to 999, she was going beyond what she’d been told to do by the DCS. But she assured herself that she owed it to the dead man to leave no stone unturned if she could help it.
Shrewsbury was just a bit more than thirty miles north of Ludlow, and those miles were a direct route along the A49. Barbara felt certain she could make a dash up there and back within two hours with no one the wiser. But she required Gary Ruddock either to allow her to use the patrol car or to drive her to Shrewsbury himself. He said he would drive her.
He had managed to get them some ten miles along the way when her mobile rang. She dug it out of her bag and gave it a look although she was certain who the caller was. It was, and she let it go to message. She would tell Ardery that she hadn’t heard it. In the loo was always a good excuse. She’d have to work a bit on the reason she didn’t return the call, but she would come up with something by the time she saw the DCS.
Five minutes later, however, her mobile rang again. This time Ruddock glanced at her when she didn’t answer it. She said, “Men,” with a sigh and rolled her eyes.
Ruddock might have gone for that had his own mobile not rung some thirty seconds later. Without a look, he took the call, saying, “PCSO Ruddock, Ludlow,” followed by a moment of silence as his caller spoke, after which he said, “Oh, aye. She’s just here. I’m taking her up to Shrewsbury to—”
Barbara groaned. Ruddock listened to his caller. Then he handed the phone to Barbara, saying apologetically, “Your guv.”
Before she spoke, Barbara wondered how the hell Ardery had come up with Ruddock’s mobile number. But it wouldn’t have been difficult, she realised. A phone call to West Mercia Headquarters would have taken care of that. She said in a rush that would give Ardery no time to wonder why Barbara hadn’t answered her own mobile, “Guv, after looking at the CCTV film, it occurred to me that the logical next step was—”
“Were you given leave to take another step?” Ardery asked. “I recall uttering the words ‘full stop.’ What I don’t recall is also telling you to take any further action. Sergeant, are you at all capable of recognising how an investigation is organised? It’s from the top down, by the way, and not the opposite.”
“Guv—”
“Have Ruddock turn the car round at once and return to Ludlow.”
“—it’s only that—”
“There is no ‘Guv, it’s only that,’” Ardery snapped. “There is only what I authorised you to do. And if you get it into your head that there is the tiniest possibility—getting tinier every moment—that I might agree to some additional action on your part, your next move is to speak to me about it and obtain my permission. Am I being clear? Or is there something about the chain of command that you’re simply incapable of ever understanding?”
“You’re being clear.” Barbara’s spirits could not have sunk much deeper. She had, at one point, given a stray thought to the ludicrous idea that she and Ardery were beginning to get on. What a howler, she thought. She said, “Will do as ordered, ma’am.”
“How pleasant that sounds. When can I expect to see you?”
“We’re maybe twenty minutes out from Ludlow.”
“I’ll expect you here in twenty-five, then. If it stretches to thirty, we’ll have something to discuss. Do you understand?”
“Do.” But Barbara hated to leave it like that, with her being disciplined by her superior in the presence of the PCSO. The embarrassment, the frustration, the sheer inability to make any point at all with Ardery, prompted her to pretend that the two of them had at least something to discuss beyond her apparent inability to adhere to Ardery’s plans for the investigation. So she said, “How did you get on with Finnegan Freeman? Anything useful?”
“More of the same. According to him, Druitt was nothing short of the Second Coming. What an eyeful he was, however.”
“Druitt or Freeman?”
“The latter. I feel for his parents.”
“Got it,” Barbara said and added, “See you soon.”
To which Ardery replied, “Soon is what I’m depending upon, Sergeant,” before she cut off the call.
Ruddock shot her a look, saying, “Progress somewhere at least?”
“Who the hell knows,” Barbara told him. “We need to head back. I’ve got twenty-five minutes to be in her presence. If I don’t make it in time, one of us turns into a pumpkin.”
LUDLOW
SHROPSHIRE
They made it back to Ludlow in exactly twenty-two minutes because the PCSO was good enough to put some speed into their journey. But Castle Square was so crowded with market stalls, shoppers, and tourists that the only way he could have deposited her in front of Griffith Hall would have been to drive on the pavement to reach Dinham Street at the other end of the square.
Ruddock barely had enough room to pull the car to the kerb. Directly in front of them, in addition to the lines of stalls, there were individuals who’d decided to transform the place into something of a car boot sale without the car boots. Their wares were spread on blankets. Some of them blocked access to the market.
“Damn,” the PCSO said, and then to Barbara, “I have to run this lot off ’least twice each month. They’re not meant to be in the market and don’t they show up anyway.”
As he shouldered open his car door and got out, Barbara did likewise. She saw a familiar form among those individuals flogging bits and bobs from their blankets. It was the old dosser and his dog, whom she’d seen on her first walkabout. She said to Ruddock, “Who is that bloke? The one with the Alsatian?”
Ruddock followed her gaze and said, “That’ll be Harry.”
“I saw him the other night. Sleeps rough?”
“He does,” Ruddock said. “I keep hoping he’ll move on to another town, but he seems dug in. He’s not bothered you, has he?”
“I’ve not even spoken to him. Is he a fixture in town?”
“Oh, he is that.” Ruddock nodded to her, then, and set off to deal with the blanket-goods floggers. Barbara was sorry she’d brought up Harry since Ruddock headed straight to him to make him the first of those who were ordered to clear out of Castle Square. Ruddock squatted and seemed polite enough, but Harry didn’t look inclined to cooperate till Ruddock began picking up his items for sale and putting them into a neat pile.
She strode quickly in the direction of Griffith Hall, preparing herself mentally for her encounter with Ardery. By the time she went in the front door, she thought she might have come up with a way to get back into the DCS’s good graces.
Ardery was waiting on the hotel’s back terrace, an expanse of flagstones and urns of bright flowers overlooking a lawn that dipped in the direction of the distant river. She was seated at one of the outdoor tables, rapidly tapping something into her mobile. Considering that this could well be a message having to do with her aborted trip to Shrewsbury, Barbara wanted to interrupt the DCS before she hit send since there was only one person with whom Ardery would want to share information of Barbara’s misdeeds.
She said heartily, “Guv. Here you are,” and went to her, pulling out one of the other chairs at the table and plunking herself into it. She said, “You’re right. I’m dead sorry. Sometimes I get too caught up in things. It won’t happen again.”
“It won’t happen because we’re finished here,” Ardery told her.
Barbara tried to console herself with Ardery’s use of the plural pronoun. She said, “There is this one bloke, though. He wants talking to. With your permission. I’ve seen him about and I’ve got his name and it’s nowhere in the IPCC’s reports.”
Ardery set her mobile on the table. Barbara allowed herself a nanosecond to feel relief that she’d retarded the message’s electronic flight to London and, doubtless, to AC Hillier’s office. Now what she needed to do
was position the DCS to forget about the message entirely.
“Who might this bloke be?” Ardery asked.
“He’s called Harry. Last name unknown at present. He sleeps rough round town. What I’m thinking is that he might have information that could confirm the allegations about Ian Druitt. He could have seen something.”
“Are you saying that this Harry Whoever might have seen Ian Druitt exploring children’s bodies in a public location? You can’t possibly want me to consider that, Sergeant. We’ve not uncovered a single detail that suggests Ian Druitt was a fool.”
“This bloke, though, this Harry . . . ? He might’ve seen Druitt loading one of them into his car, guv. Or walking one of them . . . here or there.”
“He also might have seen Father Christmas loading an elf into his sleigh. All we have is conjecture going in both directions about Ian Druitt: yes he was and no he wasn’t. And that’s not why we’re here anyway.”
“Due respect, guv,” Barbara said evenly, “but there’s been only one allegation that Ian Druitt was messing children about and that one was anonymous. From everyone else it’s been no way, no how, and have you gone bonkers even to suggest it.”
At this moment, Peace on Earth glided through the French windows that led from the terrace back into the hotel. He asked Barbara if she wanted anything. What Barbara wanted was a crowbar to pry open Ardery’s mind so that it could take in what she was trying to tell her. But she reckoned that wasn’t on offer. Since Ardery was having nothing, she was reluctant to go her own way, although the reality was that if there were any biscuits, teacakes, scones, or croissants languishing in the kitchen, she would have been dead chuffed to sink her gnashers into one or three. However, she went for what she presumed was the way of wisdom and said thanks, but no.
Ardery waited till the young man had vacated the terrace before she said, “Let me repeat this a final time: Whether Druitt was or was not a paedophile is not nor has it ever been why we’re here. Yet you’ve continually attempted to guide this investigation into those waters instead of into the waters of his suicide and the subsequent enquiry, which is where we belong. That’s the point: How did this happen, and how did the IPCC follow up on it. We could venture into why some officer at the call centre took the mad decision to have the man hauled into the nick ASAP instead of waiting till the proper patrol officers were free to do it. But the point is that the call centre officer did take that decision based on what the operator heard on the phone. The rest has been a massive cock-up in which a man killed himself rather than have his name, his reputation, and his entire life dragged through the mud.”