The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  “You would think that, Mum,” Missa said. “You take everything as an insult. But all I did was state a fact.”

  Yasmina looked away from her then, at the endless spinning of the carousel and the children who were so enchanted by the fantasy ride it gave them upon the backs of its artificial ponies. “Then there’s nothing else to be said, my dearest.”

  “Stop calling me that. I’m not your dearest.”

  Yasmina turned back to her. “Of course you are. Despite all this, you remain my child, my dearest child. This . . . this thing between us now, it will pass. Perhaps not exactly as I wish it to—”

  “Not exactly, Mum? What exactly does ‘not exactly’ look like to you? We’re going to get married. I know you’ll still try anything you can think of to stop us, but we will get married. Can you understand that?”

  “Missa.” Everything Yasmina was feeling created a pressure against her chest. So great was it that for an instant she wondered if her heart was failing. “I understand. There isn’t a point to my resisting any longer. I see that. But will you tell me why the urgency of it all? That’s what I cannot understand. The urgency, the rush, as if you feel you must prove something, as if there’s a need for haste.”

  “We want it like that,” she said. “We want it soon. We want it now. Because it’s been decided. Because I’ve decided. Not for you, not for Dad, not for Sati or Granny or even for Justin. I’ve decided for once, and I’ve decided for me.” She stood then, and Yasmina saw with surprise that Missa appeared to be struggling not to weep. She saw it in the difficulty she had with what she said next. “It’s what I want and it’s what I’m doing. That’s all it is.”

  But it wasn’t. It absolutely wasn’t. Yasmina knew it and she could see it. And then the sudden clarity came to her. Yasmina said, so close to a whisper that she wasn’t sure her daughter could hear her, “You’re engaged in a punishment. Aren’t you?”

  “Not everything in life is about you,” was her reply.

  “No, no. You misconstrue,” Yasmina said. “I don’t mean you’re punishing me. I mean you’re punishing yourself. I just don’t know why. But it’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “And not every truth is yours, either,” she responded.

  WANDSWORTH

  LONDON

  She hadn’t stayed long. One glance had been enough to tell her exactly what the detective chief inspector’s spate of illness was all about. She’d come to Wandsworth with—God help us—soup and sandwiches purchased on the way. She’d said, thrusting them towards Isabelle, “We’re all . . . We’re . . . We hope you feel better soon.”

  Isabelle had felt the accusation of spying rise to her tongue. She felt you’re a little copper’s nark, aren’t you looking for a way into the air. She had little doubt that while Dorothea Harriman might keep mum about what she’d discovered when she was anywhere near the officers currently under Isabelle’s command, she would never keep mum round the one officer whom Isabelle wanted least to know about her condition.

  When she’d managed to clear Harriman off the premises, she poured the soup straight down the drain. The sandwiches she stuffed into the rubbish. She didn’t need either, nor did she want the concern they represented.

  She’d phoned Bob repeatedly throughout the rest of the day. He’d not responded. She’d had to attempt getting Sandra to speak to her, which she finally accomplished round six o’clock. She’d only made herself one fortifying drink in the intervening hours. She had no intention of missing another day of work because she was the master of her basest desires.

  Sandra answered her mobile with, “Please stop ringing me, Isabelle. I’m answering this once to let you know I’ll not answer again. If you want to deal with anyone at all, you’ll deal with Bob, not me.”

  “How is Laurence?”

  “Resting and recovering. He wasn’t particularly happy to know his mother would not be able to drive to see him, but Bob managed to get him past it well enough.”

  “Did he give him my message?”

  “I don’t know what your message was and I certainly didn’t think to ask Bob if you sent any fond words to your own child.”

  “Is that Mummy? Is that Mummy? Can I talk to Mummy?”

  James’s voice was so filled with hope that it made a rent in the fabric with which Isabelle girded herself. She said, “Let me talk to James, please.”

  “Bob has told me—”

  “I’m sure he has. I’d like to speak to him anyway.”

  “I don’t think so, Isabelle. Darling, isn’t that film still in the DVD player? You know which one. We were watching it last night.”

  “I want to talk to my mum. I want to tell her about Laurence.”

  “She knows all about Laurence, James.”

  “Don’t punish him like this,” Isabelle said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to hurt me. But James has done nothing except have the misfortune of being born my son. Let me talk to him. Please.”

  That appeared to get through to Bob’s wife because after a moment James’s voice came over the phone saying, “Are you coming to Maidstone, Mum? When’re you coming?”

  “As soon as I can, darling.”

  “Is Laurence going to get well?”

  “Of course he is. You’re not meant to worry.”

  “Dad’s worried. I can tell.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, James. Parents always worry. We even worry when you tie your shoes in case they’re not done properly and you trip over your laces. But if you want to worry, make it twin-brother worry.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s the worry about how you’ll make Laurence feel extra special when he comes home.”

  There was a silence. She could picture his face, screwed up in concentration as he worked on this. Finally, he said, “It’s just that I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Well, let’s see. Do you have something special that you know he likes?”

  “You mean something to give to him?”

  “Maybe something you haven’t exactly wanted to share with him.”

  “My brontosaurus? We went to the museum—the natural history one?—and Dad said we could each have a dinosaur and Laurence chose the T. rex. But that’s what everyone chooses, so I chose the brontosaurus. We took ’em to school but everyone wanted to know about mine because they already knew about T. rexes. Well, everyone does, don’t they? Because of films. No one could believe that the brontosauruses were gentle so I got asked lots of questions while no one asked Laurence anything and he was annoyed. I could share my brontosaurus with him. For a while, I mean. I wouldn’t want it to be permanent.”

  “So you could share it for a while,” Isabelle said. “That would be quite nice, James. You could have it waiting on his bed when he gets home.”

  “’Course,” he said, and he sounded thoughtful. “I could give it to him, couldn’t I, Mum? I could make it a forever present. That would make it truly special.”

  “That’s completely up to you, James. Whatever you decide.”

  “When’re you coming here, then?”

  “As soon as I absolutely positively can.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I’m not able tonight, darling. But soon, I promise. Very soon.”

  A moment later, Sandra was back on the phone, saying, “I hope you didn’t promise him anything. You’ve done that a thousand times before now, and the broken promises—”

  “I said I’m coming and I’m coming,” Isabelle cut in. “James knows it and you can pass it along to Laurence as well.”

  “And have you a message for Bob?” Sandra’s voice had taken on an unpleasant archness.

  Isabelle wanted to say, Tell him he didn’t exactly hit the wife jackpot in either of his marriages, but she refrained. She said, “Please ask him to ring me when he gets home. I’m concerned ab
out Laurence.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are,” was Sandra’s reply before she ended their conversation.

  Isabelle sat on the sofa from where she’d made the call, staring as she’d done before at the hideous unpainted concrete wall outside that acted to retain the earth and the pavement above it. She thought about what Sandra had said and she acknowledged it for the truth it was: She had broken promises to the boys. We’ll do this together. We’ll do that together. I’ll come for a Sunday afternoon in fair weather and we’ll take a boat on the river. We’ll prowl round Leeds Castle. We’ll go to Rye for the day. She was a veritable catalogue of broken promises. She’d given her word and gone against it left, right, and centre. She’d done this not only to her boys, but to Bob and Sandra and to her colleagues as well. Worst of all, she’d broken nearly every promise she’d made to herself. One drink only tonight, Isabelle. Oh all right, then only two. Don’t put those bottles into your bag. For God’s sake don’t store them inside your desk. The list was long. It was probably endless.

  A walk, she thought. She would take a walk. That was the best way to start keeping the promise she made to herself at the moment that she would not drink tonight or tomorrow morning.

  Once outside in the evening air, she made for Heathfield Road. To get there, she had to walk along the grim southeastern boundary walls of Wandsworth Prison. From there she was onto Magdalen Road and it was there the thirst first came upon her. She told it no. No now and not tonight. She picked up the pace till she was on Trinity Road with its shops and newsagents and occasional cafés and an off-licence that she frequented.

  The urge was as great as her thirst, but she said no again. She crossed the road and hurried north to where she would have access to Wandsworth Common. There were trees to walk beneath, there were spots where the occasional spontaneous football match was played. There was once a baseball game going on, although she’d been told it wasn’t baseball but softball, which was apparently a different thing.

  She set off on the first path she came to. She was walking briskly. The evening was mild and there were people about who were greatly enjoying it. A young couple was having a picnic on the lawn; a family had launched three small sailboats on one of the ponds; at a nearby bench two girls sat side by side gazing with fascination at their smartphones; on another bench, an elderly woman with stockings making ripples on her ankles was pulling crumpled bread from a bag and feeding pigeons.

  That was Isabelle Ardery in her seventies, Isabelle thought. Alone in a society where people were never alone, left to feed birds because there was simply nothing else open to her.

  Then, “Granny! Gran!” and two little girls came running to the woman, their parents not far behind them. The husband called, “Mum! Pigeons will eat all of Somerset if they’re given the chance. Feed the swans instead.”

  The woman scooped up her granddaughters. They covered her face with kisses. She kissed them back. They laughed together.

  So it wouldn’t even be that, Isabelle thought. She had to get away from this place before despair overtook her and did not let go.

  She walked. Farther and faster and without looking to see where she was. She was terrified that she’d notice another off-licence if she paid attention to her surroundings. If that happened, she was lost indeed.

  She was taken aback when she saw that she’d walked as far as the Thames, as she hadn’t even set out in the river’s direction. She was even more taken aback when she saw that the bridge spanning it was not the Wandsworth Bridge. For a moment, she was clueless, till a bookshop with which she was familiar told her she was on Putney High Street, which meant the bridge was Putney Bridge, carrying motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians towards Parsons Green on the north side of the river.

  She couldn’t stop. She knew if she did so, the danger would be as enormous as the need. So she headed towards the bridge, and she only slowed when she saw that she was coming to a church and when she knew that she could not walk any farther as pure exhaustion from the day was upon her.

  A sign outside gave the time for services. Evensong was being held. Isabelle reached a decision from among the two possibilities available to her: drink or pray. She understood that she was in a physical state from which God could not deliver her. But there were so few choices available just now. She grasped at the straw she knew evensong was.

  The service had already begun when she entered. There were very few people present. In these days of secularism with people attending church only for Christmas, Easter, marriages, and funerals, Isabelle wondered if priests became discouraged. She would become so, she knew.

  She entered a pew. She sat. Others were kneeling and she realised what an odd duck she was in this place, as she’d not been inside a church since the twins’ christening. She dimly heard the priest intoning some kind of prayer. She came in on, “. . . like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts; we have offended against thy holy laws; we have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And . . .” She closed her ears. She would not listen. There was no God. There was nothing at all. Just the vast emptiness of space in which everyone floated trying to find a place where alone was not as terrible as it seemed since death was alone and death was where they were all heading anyway and “We have done those things which we ought not to have done.” She closed her eyes. She brought her fist to her mouth. Then, “Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults.” She couldn’t listen because she couldn’t bear to hear.

  She opened her eyes and saw the priest in his vestments and it seemed that he was looking directly into her heart. This wasn’t possible since she was so far back in the nave but she could feel his gaze boring into her and it wasn’t him at all but then who was it God or her conscience or an accusation.

  She pulled one of the handmade kneeling pillows from the back of the pew in front of her. She dropped it onto the floor. The words went on and they sought to teach her. But teaching her wasn’t what she needed although it appeared to be what she was offered.

  She struggled for a moment to slide off the bench. No one else was kneeling at this point in the service, but it didn’t matter. She needed to kneel because if she didn’t kneel she was going to leave the church quickly and just as quickly she was going to find a drink. It was the only thing left to her. If there was going to be any rescue, it was going to have to come from her.

  But these people didn’t think so, this small congregation praying along with the priest. They believed something else entirely. And she wanted to believe in something because she could no longer believe in herself.

  She murmured, “Oh please oh please oh please.” Upon the third please she began to weep.

  22 MAY

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  The first phone call came from the assistant commissioner, and Lynley knew better than to let it go to voice mail. Hillier’s good morning consisted of: “Where the hell are we after six days?” Lynley decided not to point out to the AC that, technically, it was only five or, at most, five and a half days since one of them had been nearly taken up with driving to Shropshire via West Mercia Police Headquarters. Before he could formulate an answer of any kind, however, Hillier went on. “I’ve had Quentin Walker phoning me for an update. He’s making noises about the Home Office, although God knows what he thinks that fool of a Home Secretary is going to do about moving things along in the desired direction, whatever the hell that is. So where are you with this, and what have you and the redoubtable Sergeant Havers accomplished?”

  Lynley could picture Hillier’s florid face taking on even more colour as he spoke. That the man was tense was historical fact. That he’d not yet had a stroke was something of a miracle. He replied with, “We’re narrowing things, sir.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “We think the Ludlow PCSO might be someone’s dupe.”

  “What
someone?”

  Lynley didn’t want to say the deputy chief constable for fear Hillier would experience apoplexy. So he went with, “We’re not at the point of questioning anyone, sir. But we’re having a much closer look at the crime scene today and we’re meeting with the forensic pathologist.”

  “So the death is suspicious? Am I meant to tell Walker that?”

  “It might be suspicious.”

  “What the dickens is ‘might be’ supposed to buy me, Inspector?”

  “I reckon it’s supposed to tell you not to say anything to the MP if you can possibly avoid it.”

  “Do I take from that advice the uplifting information that ‘suspicious death’ isn’t going to discourage Clive Druitt from getting out his chequebook and ringing his legal team?”

  “Just now it could well do the opposite.”

  “You know where that leaves me, don’t you? I’m left with saying, ‘They’re moving things ahead and I’ll be in touch.’”

  “I’m afraid that’s the situation, sir.”

  “Christ. I’m sorry I rang you.” On his end, Hillier cut the call. From the incoming number, Lynley knew the AC had made it from his mobile, which had, unfortunately, robbed Hillier of the ability to bang down the receiver, as he no doubt would have liked to do.

  Lynley had just finished shaving when the second phone call came through. He’d let go hoping to hear from Daidre, so he was unsurprised to see that it was Nkata ringing him.

  “Clean as a newborn,” were Nkata’s first words.

  “Have you ever witnessed a birth?”

  “Haven’t, ’nspector.”

  “Nor have I, just photos. Clean wouldn’t be my word of choice.”

  “Got it. Right. But you know what I mean. Rochester, Henry Geoffrey, commonly called Harry? He’s ’xactly who he says he is: professor of history who had to let it go. Panic attacks in the lecture halls, windows wide open in the dead of winter, all the rest. Only thing iffy is a loitering charge, but that went by the wayside long time back.”