The Punishment She Deserves

  Greta Yates turned out to be a ginormous woman with a chesty way of breathing and a voice that suggested she wasn’t able to get enough oxygen. The trip from her office door, where she’d called out Ding’s name into the waiting area, back to her desk chair brought enough blood to her face that Ding feared the woman would start bleeding from her eyeballs. She sank into her chair, then pulled a box of tissues from a drawer in her desk. This she plopped onto a stack of folders so tall that Ding wondered what they represented: her workload or a lack of organisational skills.

  The tissues turned out to be for Ms. Yates’s use. She blotted her face with two of them and blew her nose on a third. Then she folded her hands—displaying a huge emerald ring that was either totally phony or a testimony to serious family wealth—and she favoured Ding with a look-over. Her first words stated the conclusion she’d reached:

  “Parties, pubs, or a boyfriend? I’ve seen that you don’t live at home. Have you lived away from your parents before now?”

  The mention of parents in the plural grounded Ding in an excuse. While it wasn’t the truth, it also wasn’t a lie. And it took absolutely no effort on her part to summon tears when she spoke of it.

  It was her dad, she said. She felt her chin quivering. It was an accident, she said. It happened at home. They had a putrid, petrified wreck of a house near Much Wenlock, and all of them were meant to work on making it liveable for the family. She herself went home at the weekends to help with the project. The wiring was being replaced and her dad was upstairs. . . . A long hesitation, she found, was the very thing to build not only suspense but the dread of being fairly certain what was to come.

  It was the electricity, Ding said, because although she knew the story was false without knowing why she knew the story was false, it remained the fiction that her mum clung to just as she had done the first time, when Ding had recovered enough to say, “But, Mummy, what was he doing?”

  Ms. Yates was all sympathy at once. She was all “I’m very sorry. When did this happen? Why wasn’t your tutor advised?”

  It had happened fourteen years in the past, but Ding could hardly tell her that. So she said, “Round Easter.”

  “Have you spoken to anyone about it?”

  Ding shook her head. “We keep things rather close, my family.”

  “But you surely can see from what’s happened with your performance here at the college that you mustn’t hold these things inside.”

  She did see that, Ding told her. But it was too difficult at present. It felt so raw. She simply could not speak of it. But she knew she had to because, obviously, she wasn’t coping well and her work at the college was showing this. She understood that. She really did.

  “You now know I’m here,” Greta Yates said. “If you need to talk, please do stop by.”

  Considering everything on the woman’s desk, Ding couldn’t see how Ms. Yates would have time to do anything but give cursory comfort, cursory advice, or cursory warnings about the consequences of one’s failure to attend lectures and tutorials. And what did it matter anyway, because everyone lied—including herself—and as a result there was no comfort available anywhere.

  So Ding thanked the counsellor and explained that, while she had been in a terrible funk, she was coming out of it. She could feel the difference in her. She thought it had to do with the arrival of spring and what spring meant: hope, rebirth, rejuvenation, blah blah blah.

  “Will you be able to get back to your studies?” Ms. Yates asked. Her voice was warm enough but it still managed to be monitory.

  Yes, Ding told her. Dena Donaldson would now be able to get back to her studies. Ms. Yates could expect that without a doubt.

  “Sometimes,” Ding said, “it’s still difficult but I do think I’m through the very worst of it.” And she wanted to believe her own declaration even as she knew it was just another lie.

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  Rather than stopping immediately in Temeside when they left the hotel, Havers directed Lynley back to the police station first. She had something she wanted him to see, she told him. When he had the car in gear, she directed him first to Broad Street, where they dropped down to the river. From there, they cruised east to Temeside till they came to Weeping Cross Lane. A left turn and they were less than one minute by car from the nick. She pointed out that the businesses along the route were set back far enough from the road that no one driving, biking, walking, rollerblading, or hopping along on a pop stick would be caught doing so by a CCTV camera on a building.

  “In other words,” she concluded as Lynley pulled into Townsend Close, “you’ve got a nice quick route from the house where Finnegan Freeman lives. I made the walk myself, sir. I reckoned then—and I reckon now—it’s an interesting detail.”

  “It’s even more interesting now we know what Ruddock was up to in the car park when Druitt died.”

  “It would’ve been a simple matter for someone to get to the station using that route. No one would think twice if they saw someone walking or biking in that street. It leads up to town, it leads to the rail station, it leads to Tesco. You name it, sir. And it would’ve been another simple matter to get past the patrol car—unseen—and into the station. Then it would’ve been a short stroll down the corridor to the office where Druitt was stowed.”

  Lynley followed the direction of her gaze, which was on the station’s car park. “Let’s learn what’s what with Finnegan Freeman,” was his conclusion, to which he added, “And there’s something else we might want to toss round.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “DCC Freeman and Ruddock.” Lynley reversed and they returned to Lower Galdeford. They cruised back along Weeping Cross Lane and from there to the river. “If Trevor Freeman feels he can make a request of Ruddock involving Finnegan, then Ruddock obviously knows Trevor well. Why not the DCC in addition to Trevor? And perhaps those two know each other well enough to get up to unofficial business together.”

  “I can see them as lovers,” Havers said. “She’s got to be less than twenty years older than he is, and those years don’t count for much when you’re as fit as she is. Which makes rolling round naked—”

  “With a young PCSO—”

  “—something we can’t cross off the list. She could be using the husband’s phone to set things up.”

  “As you say, nothing can be discounted.”

  They reached the home where Finnegan Freeman lived, a very short distance from Weeping Cross Lane. They parked farther along, and mostly on the pavement, before walking back to the house, where they rapped on the door then rang the bell.

  The door was opened by a young man dressed so dapperly that he looked like a model for menswear. He was accompanied by a girl with mounds of tumbling dark hair. Their fingers were twined together as if their intention had been to leave the house and not to answer the door. That indeed turned out to be the case.

  He said, “Oh. Sorry. Can I help you? We were just heading out.”

  Lynley showed his identification and introduced Havers. Before he could explain why they’d come, the boy said, “You lot must want Finn.”

  “Why do you say that?” Lynley asked him.

  “’Cause if there’re coppers at the door, fact is they don’t ever want anyone else.”

  “And you are?”

  “Bruce Castle,” he told them. “I live here as well. This is Monica.”

  “Jordan,” she added.

  “She doesn’t live here,” Castle said. “Come inside. I’ll see about Finn.”

  He left the door gaping open and walked to the foot of a stairway close by, yelling, “Freeman! You’re wanted by the filth again.” Then he said to Lynley with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, “Sorry. Slipped out. Too much telly.” And then once more in the direction of the upper floor, “Freeman! Pull it out of her and get down here, wanker!” which
caused his companion, Monica, to giggle nervously.

  No answer to Bruce Castle’s shouts. Finn Freeman was either comatose or not at home. Castle turned to them and said, “You lot want me to . . . I don’t know . . . tell Finn he’s wanted? Have him ring you? Let you know if he shows his face?”

  Lynley took out a card and handed it over. Havers did the same, for good measure. Castle shoved the cards into the breast pocket of his tailored shirt and told them they could always wait if they wished. Or they could come back. They could even surprise Finn if they had a mind to. “Door’s never locked,” he informed them with a casual shrug. “So have at him if you want. Morning’s generally best. The earlier the better.”

  Then he was off, towing Monica along, leaving the door gaping open behind them.

  “We could turn over the furniture,” Havers said. When she glanced into the sitting room, she added, “Such as it is. Which it isn’t. Bloody hell. How do people live like this? The place’s a rubbish tip.”

  “It’s the resiliency of youth,” Lynley answered. “We’ll come back. As Mr. Castle just informed us, I expect early morning will do the trick.”

  They shut the front door behind them. As Havers headed to the street, Lynley checked to see if Bruce Castle had spoken the truth. He had done. The door was easily opened. That was to their advantage if they wanted to rouse Finnegan Freeman at dawn.

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  Ding was trudging along Temeside with the house in sight when she saw Brutus. She didn’t know the name of the girl who accompanied him, but she could tell by her expression that she was yet another of Brutus’s mindless conquests. Ding found, oddly, that she wasn’t bothered. Put up against having to face Greta Yates and experiencing yet another round of having to manufacture believable tales, Brutus leaving the house with whoever she was traipsing along behind him didn’t seem to matter.

  Brutus, remaining true to form, of course, thought she was going to care mightily. He, of course, thought she was going to cause a scene. Ding couldn’t blame him as that had been their routine, but instead of the usual, she said to him, “Just tell me Finn has actually gone to a lecture for once and I’ll be happy.” Before he could reply, she said to the girl with him, “I’m Dena. Ding, actually. I’ve got the room next door to Brutus.”

  “Monica,” the girl said, with quite a pretty smile. She’d worn braces. Her teeth were way too seriously perfect.

  It was clear that Brutus didn’t quite know what to make of this. He said, “You just getting home, Ding?” and his tone was suspicious, as if what he thought was that this was yet another game in which Dena Donaldson made yet another ridiculous attempt to stimulate him to raging jealousy.

  She said, “Had to have a chat with the counsellor.” She ran her hand through her hair, which she realised she’d not brushed before leaving the house earlier. “I’m knackered. I need some sleep. Tell me no one’s home.”

  “No one’s home,” he said.

  “Except the police, Bru,” Monica said. “They’re still inside.” She looked over her shoulder and added, “Oh. There they are. I guess they decided not to wait.”

  “More cops wanting a word with Finn,” Brutus told Ding. He peered at her closely, as if attempting to read her in an entirely new way. “You sure you’re okay?”

  She was, Ding thought, more or less. One thing was certain, though: She did not want coppers to be part of her day.

  There were two of them: a blondish man dressed the way she expected Brutus would have dressed if he were ten inches taller and twenty years older, and a rumpled-looking woman with short, shaggy hair that appeared as uncombed and unbrushed as Ding’s hair was. She said to Brutus, “Who are they, then?” and he removed two cards from his pocket and handed them to her.

  “You can give these to Finn when you see him. No clue what they want to talk to him about, but it’s probably Druitt again since that’s what it was last time.”

  Ding looked at the card and took in the fact that the two officers were detectives and that once again someone from London had been sent to Ludlow. She said to Brutus, “If I see Finn, I’ll tell him.”

  “Why wouldn’t you see him?” Brutus sounded suspicious. How odd, she thought. He still thinks I’m playing a game.

  She said to him. “Just now, I don’t much feel like seeing anyone. Nice to meet you, Monica.” Which, really, was all she wanted to say.

  She saw that the cops were looking her way. She reckoned they’d caught sight of Brutus handing over their cards to her. That would mean a deduction on their part that she was also someone who knew Finn Freeman and was thus worth talking to. But she didn’t want to talk to cops. She’d managed not to the first time they’d been in Ludlow and she intended to manage not to this time round as well.

  She was considering the best way to avoid them when her circumstances underwent an alteration. For just as she was about to head in the direction of Lower Broad Street with the pretence of sauntering to a lecture at the college, which would take her away from the position the cops had adopted on the pavement as if waiting for her, Rabiah Lomax not only drove by, but she also honked. She gave Ding a signal with her hand that unmistakably telegraphed Wait right there. She parked not far from the weir, got out, and called, “Dena Donaldson, I want a word,” which of course got the cops’ attention.

  They looked over to where Mrs. Lomax was slamming shut her car door. Then they looked from Mrs. Lomax to Ding. Then they looked at each other.

  None of this, Ding reckoned, was going to do her the least bit of good.

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  Rabiah saw the Scotland Yard detectives a moment after she called out to Ding. She didn’t have time to develop any theories about what they were doing at the building where Ding lived or about what they might conclude seeing Rabiah Lomax in the same location. The only activity that she had time or the inclination to engage in was whatever activity it was going to take to keep Dena Donaldson from doing a runner.

  That she wanted to was clear. She gave a quick glance round, and half a turn in the direction of the Ludford Bridge. She called, “You and I need to have a talk, Ding. Come here at once. And as for you two”—this she added towards the two detectives who were already crossing the street in her direction—“I’ve got no time to have another confab with the Met. My attorney is called Aeschylus Kong. He’s in the directory. Ring him and ask for an appointment if we need to speak to each other again.”

  Ding hung back. The detectives did not. When they reached her, Rabiah said, “What is it about having family difficulties that you lot don’t understand?” And then, “Ding, you heard me. Go into the house and I’ll be there presently. Do not even think about doing a runner. I can chase you down and am happy to do it.”

  Ding apparently took her seriously as well she might since she knew Rabiah was a marathon winner while Ding herself probably wouldn’t have made it one hundred yards without needing to catch her breath. So she grabbed at the chance to scurry to the house, looking neither at Rabiah nor at the cops.

  The male—Rabiah remembered his name, Lynley—said to her, “This won’t take longer than a minute or two, Mrs. Lomax.”

  The female—God, what was her name?—said, “We’ve got Ian Druitt’s mobile, Mrs. Lomax. You had seven appointments with him but there’s not a single call to or from you on his mobile’s records.”

  “What about it?” she snapped. “Do you not see I’ve no time for this rubbish?”

  “It seems you would have needed to arrange your appointments,” Lynley said. “Will you tell us how you managed that without ringing him?”

  “Oh, don’t be absurd,” she said. “I have no idea what number I rang to speak with him. For all I know, I rang the vicarage. I didn’t have any other number, least of all his mobile’s.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “What I’m s
aying is that I have a family situation I’m dealing with at present. So I’ve more important things to do than providing you with instant answers to whatever questions you decide to ask me. Now, as I’ve said, he’s called Aeschylus Kong. Your sergeant here has already met him.”

  That said, she left them and plunged across the street, where she strode to Ding’s front door and didn’t bother with the bell or knocking.

  She found the girl in what went for the sitting room, which was sparsely furnished and looked as if it hadn’t been hoovered, dusted, or had its uneaten crusts of pizza, empty yoghurt cartons, and balled-up crisp packets removed since the beginning of autumn term. It also smelled disgustingly of boys’ shoes and underwear. Rabiah couldn’t begin to comprehend how Ding lived in such a place.

  The girl was sitting on a chintz sofa that was stained with substances that Rabiah didn’t wish to identify. She had her knees together and her legs splayed out from them at angles. She looked like a schoolgirl who knew very well she was in for a dressing-down.

  “Just what the bloody hell is going on?” Rabiah demanded. “That’s what I want to know and that’s what you’re going to tell me. I’ve spoken to Missa.”

  Ding touched her upper lip with her tongue. “Oh. Is this to do with Missa?”

  “You know damn well it’s to do with Missa. So let me repeat the initial question: What the bloody hell is going on?”

  Ding shook her head, her expression perplexed. “Really, Mrs. Lomax? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Then let me clarify. I’ve got cops sniffing round my family. Missa claims that the reason for this is spelled D-e-n-a. I didn’t hand you over to them just now because I want to get to the truth. Either Missa is lying or you’re lying or you both are lying. But in any case, we’ve reached the finish line when it comes to all that. Do you want to talk to me or to them? Make up your mind before I lose patience with you.”