There was no humour in Francie’s laugh. Ding said, “That’s awful, Francie. I never knew.”
“Like I care about them?” Francie hopped down from the work top, tossing her banana skin into the sink and stretching her arms above her head. “Anyway, that first time he tried with me and it didn’t work, I said he should give me his mobile’s number and if I wanted to do it I’d give him a bell. I thought, as if? at first, but one night I was, like, totally blotto, and I decided to see what it was like to do a copper, so I rang him. That might’ve been when I got seen alone with him.”
“Where’d you go? I mean where’d he take you?”
“Car park behind the college. What about you?”
“Police station.”
“Shit. Inside?”
“Mostly the car park but it depended what he wanted.”
“Fucking animal. You need to report him.”
“I told the London cops. I more or less had to.”
“They’ll sort him, Ding.” Francie had been prowling the kitchen as if she couldn’t rest for even a second. But now she stopped to say, “I’m that sorry about it.”
“You didn’t know. I mean how bad it was.”
“Oh right. I mean Brutus, though. I know I said sorry before but I s’pose I’m sorrier and all that.”
“Oh.” Ding wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about Brutus, not after what she’d learned versus what she’d thought. But Francie looked so anxious about things that Ding decided to lay Brutus at rest as well. She said, “You don’t need to be sorry. I never told you he was, like, that special to me.”
“Yeah, but . . . well, I could tell you were totally special to him and I did it anyway.”
“Believe me, Francie, I’m not special to him.”
“Then you don’t know him like you should. You’re absolutely special to Brutus. He’s got a lot to figure out, starting with why he’s got this unquenchable woman thing going on. He might not ever figure that part of himself out since blokes like him gen’rally don’t, right? But you’re the special one. You’re number one to him.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel good: that I’m at the start of whatever bonking queue he’s got going on?”
“Oh gosh, I didn’t mean you should stick with him. What I meant is that how he acts? . . . That’s got nothing to do with how he feels about you. Far as what I think you should do goes, I’d connect the toe of my shoe with his arse if I were you. He’s a lovely bloke but really, why waste your time?”
“Yeah. Really.” Ding found that she was able to smile at Francie, which she certainly hadn’t thought she’d be able to do when she made the decision to come over the river to speak with her. But she now understood the other girl far better than she’d considered possible, and that told her something about looking more deeply at her friends than she’d done in the past by Googling them.
After their conversation, they were at peace with each other. They rode together over the Ludford Bridge and they parted at the bottom of Broad Street with the plan to meet for a Chinese meal in two days’ time. Ding went in the direction of Temeside as Francie shifted gears to climb the hill.
At the house, though, Ding paused because the front door was open and she was certain she’d shut it upon leaving earlier. She hadn’t locked it because they’d lost the keys months ago and there was nothing to steal anyway except their laptops. But even now she had hers in her rucksack and she knew the boys would have theirs as well if they’d left. Still, the door hanging open like that was rather much. It was one thing to be careless. It was another to send out invitations.
Once she was inside, she hesitated because when she shut the door behind her she could hear what sounded like pounding going on above stairs. Then there was a crash, a shout, grunting, and yelling. Then the sound of blows and someone’s voice hurling, “You bloody touched her,” at someone else.
Brutus, she thought. She ran up the stairs. It seemed he’d been caught at last by another girl’s boyfriend.
Ding found him in his bedroom doorway. He was sprawled on the floor on his stomach, and his arm was at such a terrible angle to his body that she fell to her knees, crying his name. But when she touched him, he shrieked like an animal badly shot. She cried, “Is it Finn? Did you fight with Finn?”
But she became aware that the noise hadn’t ceased and Brutus managed to say, “He’s on Finn now,” and she ran to Finn’s room, crying, “Who? What’s happening? Finn!”
The door was partially closed and it was suddenly quiet inside and she was terrified to see. As she was about to push it open, a man stormed out. He looked completely wild, and she thought a meth addict had broken into their house. She shrank back and covered her head to protect herself, but instead of attacking her as well, the man pounded down the stairs.
She saw Finn then. He was in far worse condition than Brutus. His head was bleeding from a terrible gash and his face looked torn up, as if someone had tried to rip off his cheek. She didn’t know if he was still alive.
She flew down the stairs in the wake of his attacker, not because she knew what to do, but because she didn’t.
LUDLOW
SHROPSHIRE
Lynley was concerned when he learned that Missa had told the story of the attack upon her to her parents only that morning. He became worried when he discovered that, at the conclusion of Missa’s informing them of this attack, her father had left the house in an understandably wild state of mind and had not been heard of after that. But when he and Havers ended their drive to Temeside only to find both an ambulance and a patrol car in front of the house in which Dena Donaldson lived, he feared they were too late, the worst had happened, and another tragedy would be piled upon those that had already occurred.
As he pulled to the kerb, Lynley could see that the boy Brutus was being led from the house by a patrol officer. The boy’s right arm was bound in a temporary sling against his chest, and Lynley might have thought that an arrest was occurring save for the fact that the officer paused to wait until a paramedic joined them, at which point he went to the driver’s seat of the car, climbed inside, and started the police lights spinning. Brutus was then loaded into the car by the paramedic, who spoke to the boy, belted him in, and then trotted back to reenter the house. The car pulled away, the siren hooting twice to clear the roadway. The officer made a turn into Old Street, and as this wasn’t the route to the Ludlow police station, Lynley reckoned he was taking the boy to the closest A & E.
The ambulance remained where it was. Havers said, “This is dead bad, sir.”
Lynley said, “I fear the dead part, Sergeant.”
They went inside the house. They were immediately stopped by another patrol officer at the door to the sitting room. He had a spiral notebook in his hand. He barked, “You lot stay right there. This is a crime scene.”
Lynley and Havers both produced their warrant cards. The words New Scotland Yard produced no ready miracles but saved them from being thrown from the premises. The patrol officer said, “It’s been phoned in if you think you’re about to assist where you’re not wanted.”
“We’ve no interest in interfering in whatever’s gone on,” Lynley told him. “But we must speak to Dena Donaldson on another matter and it’s essential we speak to her now. Is she here?”
“It’s Finn. He got Finn!” Ding had been in the sitting room, Lynley saw, where the officer had been in the midst of taking a statement from her. She came towards them, wringing her hands.
“Did you see who it was?” Lynley asked her.
“Didn’t I just bloody tell you lot—”
Ding cut into the officer’s words by saying to him, “I only want to talk to them.”
“You’ll talk to who you’re told to talk to,” the patrol officer snapped.
“That sort of approach doesn’t seem helpful,” Lynley noted.
“To p
ut it kindly,” Havers muttered.
“D’you two want to be thrown—”
“Oh God! He’s not dead, is he?” Ding clapped a hand over her mouth. She was gazing past them.
All of them turned. An ambulance’s trolley was being carried down the stairs by two paramedics, its wheels folded, while from it a drip bag dangled above the form belted into position. A third paramedic shouldered a very large medical kit. The fact that there was a drip bag was reassuring as was the fact that there was no body bag but merely the blanketed boy himself. He wore a surgical collar and his head was wrapped with bandages, while half a dozen butterfly plasters held the skin together on facial wounds.
Lynley said quietly to Havers, “Follow the ambulance. I expect it’s going to the same location as the patrol car. Talk to the boy if you can. Not Finn but the other. I doubt Finn’ll be able to talk for a number of hours.” When she nodded, took the keys, and left him, he turned to Ding and said, “He’s alive, Ding. Brutus has gone with the other officer in the patrol car, by the way.”
“But he didn’t do anything! I saw. There was a man!”
“No, no,” Lynley said quickly. “I didn’t mean he’s been arrested. I expect he’s being taken to hospital. There wouldn’t have been room in the ambulance. They’ll need the space to work on Finn.”
“Don’t make me tell his mum what happened!” Ding said. “Please don’t make me!”
“You don’t need to worry about that. There are procedures to be followed and having you talk to anyone’s parent isn’t part of them.”
“If you’re finished,” the patrol officer said meaningfully.
Lynley, however, had no intention of doing anything save remaining where he was. He said to the officer, “As before, it’s essential I speak to Dena. I’m afraid it can’t wait. It’s on another matter but I think it likely that what happened here is connected.” And to Ding, “Sergeant Havers and I have just come from speaking to Missa. She told us about the assault.”
“There’s someone who already bloody knows about this?” the patrol officer demanded. “Just what the hell is going on?”
“This concerns a sexual assault that occurred in this house last December,” Lynley told him. And then to Ding, “It seems her grandmother got the story out of her and saw to it that she told her parents. I have to ask this, Ding. Did you see what happened here today?”
“I wasn’t home.” The girl first whimpered and then as she continued her voice started to waver. “Brutus . . . He was on the floor and I could hear from Finn’s room . . . There was a lot of noise. I went to the door and . . .” Her eyes filled. “I’d gone to talk to Francie, see. I didn’t think that anyone . . . It’s just that we never bothered with locking up and anyway we lost the keys ages ago. Mostly, we just lock our rooms when we leave, but the house . . . That’s why you lot got inside easy that one morning. Finn went mental about that and his dad said he would handle everything and I suppose we thought or at least I thought—” She stopped. It was as if she’d been struck. Then she suddenly began to pull at her cheeks as if she’d scratch out her eyes and she shrieked, “It’s my fault! It’s my fault! Only I didn’t know I didn’t understand I ran off because I could but she didn’t only I didn’t know and it isn’t my fault that I didn’t know only it is.”
“What the fuck is she on about now?” the patrol officer demanded. “I want you out of here so I can get a straight story from her.”
Lynley turned to him, surprised by the amount of anger he felt of a sudden. For the first time he took in how young the other man was, how inexperienced, how ineffably and inexcusably ill informed. He said, “Come with me, officer.”
“I don’t bloody take orders from—”
“I said come with me.” His voice was louder than he intended. It was also steely. He was suddenly his father for the first time in his life, the last person he’d ever actually wanted to be. He took the patrol officer out of the house, speaking quietly now but with just as much iron intent. “We have a murder, a rape, and now both an assault, and an attempted murder,” he said directly into the young patrolman’s face. “All of these crimes involve the same individuals in one way or another. Now if you wish to stand in the way of an ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation because I’m on your patch, I suggest you think carefully before you take that decision. This isn’t a turf war, is that clear to you? These are human lives and they’re at risk and believe me I am only too happy to take down your details and make certain your career is finished by next week. Am I being clear? Do you have any questions? If so, ask them now because from this moment on, if you wish to remain in this house you’ll do so with your mouth shut.”
The officer opened his mouth but closed it at once as Lynley said, “Yes? What exactly do you wish to say?”
Apparently nothing, for the man went back into the house, where he retreated into the sitting room. He stood at something vaguely resembling attention at one side of the television, and from that moment on allowed Lynley to speak to Ding.
He had no chance to begin because once he was in the room with the girl, she at once repeated, “I can’t tell his mum. Please don’t make me tell his mum what happened.”
“Both Finn’s parents and Brutus’s parents will be notified by the police or the personnel in casualty. You won’t need to be involved.” Lynley indicated the worn and stained sofa, and when the girl sat he joined her there as the only other choice was one of several huge beanbags, which he didn’t fancy having to crawl out of when their conversation was at an end. He said to her, “Did you see the person who was beating Finn?”
She nodded tearfully. “I could see his back and he had a poker.” She pointed to the wrought-iron stand upon which the fireplace implements were hanging. The poker was not among them, so it had probably gone with the bloke when he left the house. “He’d already hit Brutus and he was standing over Finn.” Her eyes grew wide with realisation and she said, “But Finn’s meant to know karate! He’s always going on about how his hands are weapons of death and why didn’t he use his karate?”
“Perhaps he’s not quite as good as he’s told you,” Lynley said. “Or perhaps he simply didn’t have time. He could have been asleep still and then suddenly someone was attacking him. Did you recognise the man? Or was it a boy, someone Finn might have met through his coursework?”
She looked away in that fashion people had when they were attempting to remember exactly what they had seen of a crime. She said, “A man, not a boy. Someone older’n us.”
“Could it have been Missa Lomax’s father?”
“I never met anyone from her family but her gran because Missa lives . . . she lived with Mrs. Lomax when she was here at college. But I never saw her dad.”
“Would you recognise the intruder if you saw a photo of him?”
She didn’t know, she said. All she knew was that he must’ve heard her when she ran to Brutus or maybe he believed he’d finished Finn off. In either case, the next thing she knew was that he was tearing down the stairs and Finn was . . . He was just there and his head was bloody and Ding managed 999 on her mobile once she ran out of the house. She was too afraid to remain inside, she said, because there might’ve been others and she knew she couldn’t defend herself. “Please don’t tell,” she added in a low voice. “I was meant to do something like first aid or whatever but I was so scared and I thought it was maybe a meth addict who was wanting to rob us only there’s nothing to steal.”
“It’s a good wager that this bloke wasn’t an addict,” Lynley told her. “If that’s the case he wasn’t looking for drugs or for something to flog in order purchase drugs. He was looking for exactly what he found: Brutus and Finn. I’m going to ask this officer—” Here Lynley indicated the patrolman who was still in the position he’d taken up, although, Lynley saw, he’d also written notes—“to fetch some photographs from Mrs. Lomax for you to look at. In the meantime,
I’m going to ring your mum.”
She looked struck by horror. “Why?”
He said, “This is a crime scene just now. There’ll be officers coming to take evidence. Beyond that, I can’t leave you here alone after what’s happened.” He took out his mobile and asked her for her mother’s phone number. Ding tried to protest with, “But my mum’ll make me—” and he cut her off with, “I’ll explain everything to her. She won’t be angry. No one’s about to be angry with you, Ding.”
“I don’t want to go home. Please don’t make me go home.”
“It will be for a short time only, just until the crime scene people gather what they can. I promise your mum will understand that.” He tapped her mother’s number into his mobile and when he heard the ringing, he said to Ding, “I’ll make certain she understands that this—here, today—has nothing to do with you.” He waited until he heard a woman’s voice before he covered the phone and added, “But that will be a lie, that last bit, won’t it, Ding? So what I tell your mum when she arrives here to fetch you home is going to depend upon what you tell me now, at the end of this call.” That wasn’t fair: bargaining with the girl when she was so upset. But playing fair had gone by the wayside and playing fair would remain there as long as it took for him to get to the root of all that had occurred in Ludlow since the previous December.
He assured Ding’s mother—who turned out to be not Mrs. Donaldson but Mrs. Welsby—that while her daughter was perfectly all right, something had occurred at her Ludlow residence that would require her to be fetched home for a day or two. Could Mrs. Welsby manage that as soon as possible? No, Ding couldn’t speak with her at the moment as she wasn’t present. But she would be waiting for her mother’s arrival.
When he rang off to look at Ding, he said, “Now tell me about the end of autumn term: about the celebration and about what happened after the celebration.”