The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  “Sounds all tangled up,” Havers noted. “If I’m following: what’s going on involves you, Brutus, Dena, and various body parts, yes? A bit of looking for love in all the wrong places, as the song goes.”

  Lynley said, “While all of this is a fascinating study in human relationships, whatever has gone on among the three of you—Dena, Brutus, and you—isn’t what we wish to speak to you about. We’re far more interested in what’s gone on between you and the PCSO here in town. Dena has made a claim that—”

  “What? That I’m blowing him as well? She’s trying to get me into trouble, isn’t she? Because of Brutus. All because of that stupid Brutus. Or is it Ruddock she’s trying to get into trouble? Ha. Let me tell you, carloads of people would be thrilled to bits about that.”

  “Why would that be?” Lynley asked.

  Francie took another sip of her drink. Her eyes narrowed as she speculated. “You two ask round if you want an answer to that. I’m not about to be your Ludlow snout. I have enough troubles already. Meantime, you should look into Ding’s relationship with Gaz Ruddock instead of trotting me out here in the middle of the night for a little chat. In a bloody graveyard, no less.”

  Havers said, “Trouble is you’ve been identified.”

  “As what?”

  “As a woman who’s been seen with the PCSO. Inside his car.”

  “Who supposedly saw me, then? And when? Never mind. Don’t even bother to tell me because whoever said that is bloody well lying.”

  “According to our observer, you were in his patrol car being carted somewhere. What would that be about?”

  “You mean someone’s actually saying I was arrested? I’ve never even broken a law. You can check on your computers or iPhones or wherever you lot keep your information. Frances Adamucci. A-d-a-m-u-c-c-i. Middle name Sophia.”

  “No one’s suggesting you were arrested,” Lynley pointed out.

  Havers added, “What you were up to indicates that arrest was the last thing on anyone’s mind: yours, the PCSO’s, your guardian angel, the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “What we’ve come to understand,” Lynley added, “is that the PCSO has been quite good about handling complaints that deal with the binge drinking that goes on in town. We’ve also learned that he’s loaded drinkers into his vehicle and taken them away. And a final thing we know is that he has a relationship with someone that he wants to keep quiet, especially in light of the death that took place in the local police station. Now which of those categories of relationships with the PCSO is the one you fall into?”

  “Now you’re saying that I killed someone?”

  “That wasn’t one of the categories,” Havers pointed out.

  Francie stamped her foot. She was, Lynley noted, careful not to spill any of her drink. “I don’t have to place myself in any category, and I’m not going to.”

  “Ultimately, you may want to,” Lynley said, “if only to keep yourself clear of suspicion.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  “Accessory to murder.”

  “What the hell? What’s going on? I didn’t do anything and I’ve never done anything. Ding’s gone totally round the bend if she’s—”

  “This isn’t about Ding,” Lynley told her. “She’s told us nothing about you and the PCSO.”

  “Then who said it? You tell me who.”

  “We can’t give you the name,” Lynley said. “But we can tell you that you were identified this very night as having been seen with the PCSO inside his patrol car. We can also tell you that we didn’t at all expect you to be the person identified.”

  “I have never ever been in that patrol car except when he’s carted us home because we were drunk in Quality Square.”

  “Who is ‘us,’ then?” Havers asked.

  “Me and Chelsea and we’ve always been together when it happened and that is it. So whoever told you anything else is lying or has rotten eyesight or wants to get me stitched up for something.”

  “Why would that be?”

  “Probably because I gave whoever-it-was’s boyfriend a blow job, which is what happened with Ding, all right? So if she’s behind this . . . I already said. I didn’t even know he was her boyfriend! I just knew they did it occasionally. But so does everyone else. There’s no strings attached and everyone knows it’s just for a laugh. And if Ding’s not behind this, then you lot better look at whoever it is told you the tale in the first place because I’m telling you right now that person’s winding you up and there’s probably a real interesting reason why. Which is what you ought to be concentrating on instead of taking me into bloody graveyards. You ask anyone over in the Hart and Hind if I ever been alone with Ruddock. You ask anyone drinking outside. You ask anyone in Castle Square. You ask anyone anywhere on the planet. Meantime, why aren’t you lot doing something about Ruddock instead of harassing me?”

  “You’ll need to be more direct,” Lynley said. “Is there something about the PCSO that we need to know?”

  “You want an answer to that, you talk to someone else. Like Ding. Or you talk to him. But no way do you keep talking to me.”

  Having said this, she brushed past them both and headed back the way they’d come. Havers said to Lynley. “On the vehemence scale, that bird’s climbing the charts.”

  “I don’t know whether to believe her or not.”

  “I don’t know whether to believe anyone. But seems to me we’re onto Harry Rochester next. We either got to have his eyesight tested or we got to find out what’s going on with him.”

  “Christ.” Lynley blew out a breath. “It does go on and on, doesn’t it?”

  “Want me to get on it, then?”

  He shook his head. “I expect whatever background information we need on Mr. Rochester isn’t something we’re going to dig up in Ludlow. I’ll phone London in the morning.”

  21 MAY

  IRONBRIDGE

  SHROPSHIRE

  As usual, Yasmina rose before the rest of the family. Early light was filtering through the closed curtains, and she could hear the tree pipits’ high-pitched calling, which always announced their yearly arrival. They liked the woodsy hillside that rose behind the Lomax home, and while their singing was pleasant, its ear-splitting conclusion generally served as a wake-up call, whether one wished to have such a thing or not.

  The birds didn’t bother Timothy. They had done at one time, so he’d taken to wearing earplugs in order to sleep longer than the tree pipits wished him to do. But his need for something to block their noise had disappeared with his use of his “sleeping aids.” Now, if Yasmina didn’t do something to awaken him, he could easily sleep till one or two in the afternoon.

  She found that Timothy’s drug-induced slumber didn’t bother her this morning. Her mood had shifted once she’d brought Justin Goodayle on board with the strategy she’d devised to get Missa back on course.

  She went down the stairs in the silent house. She would have her morning tea at the table in the kitchen that looked out on the hillside. There, a rock rose thrived in one of the sunny spots, creating a haze of pink flowers against deeply green leaves. They didn’t last long—that was their tragedy—but while they decorated the bush they were hard to look away from and Yasmina found that in those quiet minutes of tea and flowers, she could—

  “Good morning, Mum.”

  Yasmina turned quickly towards the sitting room at Missa’s greeting. She saw that her daughter was seated in an armchair with two suitcases on one side of it and three large cardboard boxes on the other. These latter bore a red-lettered advert for breakfast cereal, and the inane first thought that popped into Yasmina’s head was the fact that Missa didn’t eat cereal but rather yoghurt and fruit for breakfast.

  After that, the notion came to her that Missa had actually arrived at her own conclusion, one that told her she didn’t belong in Ironbridge but rather back i
n Ludlow. Following rapidly—in the way scenarios jump into the stream of ideas one has—was the startling possibility that Missa had spoken to Greta Yates on her own and was returning to Ludlow to study independently at her grandmother’s house to catch up with everything she’d missed during the time she’d been gone so that she could take her exams at the end of the current term.

  Yasmina tried to effect surprise, which wasn’t difficult since she’d hardly expected such a quick result. But both surprise and triumph faded when she truly took in the expression on her daughter’s face. Not exactly sullen, but rather unmoving, as if Missa had sat there for hours dwelling on thoughts that had turned her features into concrete.

  Yasmina gestured to the suitcases and boxes. “Goodness. What’s this, my dear?”

  “I’m waiting for Justin,” Missa said. “He and I spoke last night.”

  Yasmina became aware of cool air on her ankles and she wondered if she’d left the kitchen window open last night. She thought she might have done. She’d had so much on her mind. “I’m not certain . . .” she began, but couldn’t come up with what ought to follow.

  “We’ve spoken to his parents,” Missa said. “Well, to his mum, actually. It was Justin who spoke to her. That was the important part. His dad is easy about everything, but mums . . . They can be rather difficult. Can’t they.”

  Yasmina wondered what Justin’s parents had to do with Missa’s return to Ludlow, but she didn’t ask. She had to say something in order to elicit more information, though, so she said, “I don’t quite understand. The boxes . . . the suitcases . . . Are you going somewhere?”

  Missa didn’t reply, and Yasmina felt herself being inspected in a way she’d never experienced from her daughter before. Something insidious seemed to be creeping across the sitting room carpet towards her, seeping from Missa in a lava flow. Yasmina wanted suddenly to stop it or at least to try to redirect it, but she had no words that would not lead directly to those boxes and suitcases and Justin and his parents and what it all meant.

  “You don’t really know Justin,” Missa said. “You think you do. I can see why. He seems so . . . You’d use the word simple, wouldn’t you. Simple in his mind, simple in his actions, simple in his thoughts.”

  “That’s not true, Missa. Justin has always been the loveliest—”

  “Let’s set all that aside.” Missa’s voice altered, becoming quite sharp. “He told me, Mum. A to Z, start to finish, whatever you want to call it. The Big Plan. The Course Objective. You didn’t think he would, but that’s because you see him just like everyone else in your world: clay. He’s not. He’s iron. But more than that, he’s real. He’s shown you that from the first. But instead of real you saw simple, like I said. You reckoned you could use him and—”

  “Missa, I did not!”

  “—and I’d never work it out. What you didn’t reckon was that for him the truth is more important than what he might want or—in this case—what he might be offered.”

  Yasmina wanted to stop her. There was, she noted, an odd new scent in the air. Medicinal, it seemed. She didn’t like it. She would have to speak to their cleaner. Her house smelled vaguely like a swimming pool. They couldn’t have that. She said, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Missa.”

  “Oh my God,” Missa said. “Oh my God, Mum. Just now, just here, in this sitting room, I’m telling you that last night Justin explained the Big Plan. Oh, he started out exactly how you intended: telling me that you were badgering him to speak to me about West Mercia College, that the only way he could manage to get you to leave him be, he reckoned, was for me to go to the college to meet with the counsellor, that he would take me there and all the rest. Only . . . he couldn’t, you see. Not like you thought he would, because what he knew was that the second I got into the car with him to go to Ludlow, I’d see it on his face anyway. So he told me the truth.”

  “Missa, surely you see the importance of—”

  Missa surged to her feet. “I. Do. Not.” Her voice was loud. She would awaken Sati. Things would fall apart from there.

  Yasmina said, “Please. We can talk about this when you’re—”

  “We’re not talking. We are finished talking because talking to you is all about me listening to you and then trying to talk to you and then crumbling and never once saying . . . telling you . . . and I’m done with that. I am done, done, done!”

  “Stop shrieking. You’re going to wake your sister. Or your father.”

  “And that will be bad, won’t it, Mum? They might actually see what you’ve been up to. They might see who you are and what you want and how the only thing that has ever for a moment mattered to you is what things look like, not how they are. And if they see that, you’re finished, aren’t you? Finished the way this family is finished, only you can’t see it and you won’t admit it and I’m not part of it any longer. All right? Do you hear me? Do you?” She grabbed up a framed picture that stood on the table next to her armchair and she smashed it on the floor. “I am not part of this fucking charade! I’m not! I won’t be! I—”

  “Stop it at once! Stop that language and stop this hysteria.”

  “I won’t!” she cried. “I goddamn bloody fucking won’t!”

  And that was on a scream. And that did it.

  Sati came dashing down the stairs. She saw Yasmina and Missa facing off, and she saw the suitcases and the boxes. She began to wail. “Missa, no! No! No! I want to go! I want to go with you! Please!” She ran towards Missa, but Yasmina caught her arm.

  “Sati, go to your room,” she hissed. “Go. At once. Go!” She shoved the girl towards the stairway.

  “Stop that!” Missa shrieked. “Leave her alone!”

  “Missa!” Sati cried.

  “Don’t worry,” Missa called to her. “I’ll come for you. It won’t be long. Sati, don’t worry.”

  Yasmina whirled towards her. “Sati’s going nowhere, and neither are you. Go to your room at once. Take those suitcases with you. We’ll deal with the rest when your father—”

  “You don’t know anything! You don’t know me and you never bloody will because . . . because . . .” She began to weep like Sati, but wilder and with an anguish that made Yasmina grow cold to the roots of her hair.

  She said, “Missa, my God,” but her daughter shoved past her.

  That was when the doorbell rang. It was, of course, Justin. Missa did, of course, throw herself into the young man’s arms. He spoke, of course, as he always spoke, saying, “Steady on, Miss. It’s good. With my mum and my dad, like I said it would be.”

  Yasmina said, “She’s meant to stay here,” which was all Missa needed. She dashed out of the house and into the street where, doubtless, Justin’s car stood waiting.

  Justin remained where he was, clearly torn between going after Missa to offer comfort and fetching her belongings, which he was obviously meant to do. It was, after all, part of the plan he and Missa had concocted during their conversation on the previous night.

  He said, “Dr. Lomax . . . I couldn’t. I had to tell her and then she said she didn’t care about any of it. The wedding, the house, the honeymoon, or whatever.” And here he blushed in that Justin way and said, “I don’t mean we won’t marry. We will, ’course. It’s what we both want. And we’ll wait till we do. For the rest, I mean. No worries there. Mum says Missa can use my sisters’ bedroom. They’re long gone, see, and . . . well . . .”

  He was good enough not to mention the tears that were coursing down Yasmina’s cheeks. He saw them, naturally. He even patted her on the shoulder as he went for Missa’s two suitcases. He would return in a moment for the boxes. It was all so easily accomplished when one made a plan.

  And then they were gone. But there was Sati to be dealt with and her hysterical weeping, which Yasmina could hear even from behind the girl’s closed bedroom door. Only, as she got to the top of the stairs, she saw that
Sati had not gone to her room at all but rather to rouse her father, to get him to intervene.

  “Mummy, he won’t wake up!” The girl sobbed as she pulled on Timothy’s arm and cried, “Daddy! Daddy!”

  Yasmina ran to the bed. She pulled Sati away. She said, “Wait in your room.”

  “But he won’t . . . What’s wrong with him? Mummy, what’s wrong?”

  Yasmina bent over him. His colour was very bad. His respiration was stertorous, but it was there. She said his name loudly. No response. Then she shouted it while behind her she heard Sati sink to the floor, crying “No . . . nooooo . . .”

  Yasmina pulled the covers off her husband. She climbed onto the bed and straddled his body. She made a fist. Fiercely, she began to rub the centre of his chest. She used the weight of her body to put as much pressure into the rubbing as she could.

  Behind her, Sati cried, “Mummy, what’s wrong with him? I’ll ring 999. Should I ring 999?”

  “No, no!” Yasmina gasped. And then to her husband, “Timothy, for God’s sake. Timothy! Timothy!” She could not have him taken to A & E. If that happened, it would all come to light: his usage, his cadging pills from his patients, his full addiction. She said to Sati, “It’s all right, darling. He’s just having trouble. . . . He’ll be all right. See? Sati, look. He’s coming round now . . .”

  And he was, thank God. His eyelids fluttered. He closed them. She slapped him. Hard. He opened them. She jerked him to a sitting position, then to his feet. She said, “See, Sati? He’s up. He’ll be fine. He took a pill last night to help him sleep. I’m taking him into the bathroom now. We’ll need to be private but he’s all right. See?”

  Sati looked stricken. Yasmina felt fury whipping through her body. It seemed to give her superhuman strength. She reckoned she could carry Timothy if she had to but she didn’t have to. He said, “Sati,” although his head hung low. “I’ll be . . . ,” and he sagged into Yasmina.