The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  “I don’t think we need to be concerned with that at the moment,” Lynley replied. “We just need to keep in mind that the stole’s size indicates it would go on last, as the final bit of whatever else he had on.” He went to the large cupboards on one side of the room, opening them to reveal black cassocks and white surplices.

  Havers, as he reckoned she would do, twigged at once. “If the stole goes on last, it comes off first. When you open the cupboards with the larger pieces, your back is to the set of drawers on this side, where the stoles are kept. But Ruddock would have seen him take off a purple stole, right? So if he’s our bloke, why wouldn’t he pinch the purple stole? Or any purple stole?” She opened the drawers to see how many stoles there were. “There was only one purple one. There’s only one of each. So what happened? If Druitt took it off, why not just pinch it when his back was turned?”

  “Perhaps Druitt didn’t take it off over there with the rest of the stoles. Perhaps he removed it on this side of the room and placed it on the bottom of the cupboard while he hung up his surplice, removed his cassock, hung it where it went, and then turned to cross the room and put the stole where it belonged.”

  “Giving Ruddock time to ease the drawer open—”

  “And perhaps it was even more than one drawer.”

  “—and pinch the first one that he came across. But why wouldn’t he see the difference?”

  “If he’s not a churchgoer, he wouldn’t know there was a difference. Besides that, he’s not yet sure how he’s meant to do away with Druitt. He only knows that he must.”

  “Then that means . . .” She seemed reluctant to say it, which was out of character in Havers and spoke of her reluctance, at the end of the day, to see how badly a copper can go wrong.

  “Yes. Druitt wasn’t brought into the station because of paedophilia. He wasn’t awaiting transfer to Shrewsbury. Those nineteen days are what tell us that, Barbara. You saw that the moment you caught the date of the original phone call that set the ball in motion.”

  “Ruddock was obeying orders from the first. If he’s our man, he’s not the only one.” After a moment of thought, she said, “Bloody hell, Inspector.”

  “Indeed,” he replied.

  He turned back to her so that they consider their next move. That was when her mobile phone rang.

  ST. JULIAN’S WELL

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  When Rabiah rang off, she returned the detective sergeant’s card to where she’d shoved it after her first encounter with the Metropolitan Police. She went back to the sitting room, where Missa was huddled into a corner of the sofa, clutching a pillow to her chest like a child with a security blanket. She had made it clear in Ironbridge that she would go through the story another time only if neither of her parents was present. There was nothing that the police could do now, not at this extreme of time, she’d declared. Because of this, Rabiah had given the girl her full support when it came to returning to Ludlow without Yasmina. As for Timothy, he’d taken himself out of the picture at the conclusion of Missa’s story.

  It had been as dreadful listening to her tell the story a second time as it had been the first in the privacy of the Goodayle home. This time, however, had been made even more difficult by Timothy’s reaction. Once he understood that what had happened to Missa had not happened at her grandmother’s house, his demands of the girl became as furious as they were adamantine.

  “Who was it?” he demanded past Missa’s tears. His voice was loud and rocklike. “Who? Think! You must know!”

  “Stop it!” from Yasmina, who’d risen to her feet and tried to move him away from their daughter.

  Missa cried, “I don’t know! It was dark and I couldn’t—”

  “Then who gave you the cider and why the hell did you keep drinking it?”

  “Don’t make this her fault,” Rabiah ordered her son.

  “We were celebrating.” Missa tried to breathe past her terrible sobbing. “End of term. We . . . finished exams. We were . . . Don’t tell Justie. Please don’t tell Justie.”

  “You goddamn tell me—”

  Rabiah intervened, for it was clear her granddaughter had had enough. She said, “Ding came to fetch her for an evening out. I told her to live a little for once. I went to bed because I knew she’d be out late. I’d already paid for the driver to fetch her to Quality Square and then to bring her home, so I thought everything was taken care of.”

  “I was too drunk,” Missa wept.

  “So she spent the night at Ding’s, and that’s where this happened.”

  “I couldn’t go home to Gran, Dad. I couldn’t do that to her.”

  “So she passed out on Ding’s sofa, and someone inside that house sodomised her because she’d blacked out and if everything went as he hoped . . .”

  “Oh, Missa,” Yasmina cried.

  “—she wouldn’t regain consciousness during the act and the only way she would know exactly what happened was from the blood and the pain the next morning.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Yasmina cried.

  Timothy said, “One of those boys in that house gave you that cider and you will tell me which one it is because he’s going to pay for this. Who was it?”

  “I never would have made you return to Ludlow if I’d known.” This from Yasmina, who was extending her hands to Missa, but clenched as if waiting for handcuffs to be put on her. “Why did you never tell me?”

  “It was my fault.” Missa’s voice grew louder. “Don’t you see that? I was drunk because I liked the taste. No one made me drink it. No one drugged me. It’s on me that I did it, and all I want is to forget it all, which is what I’ve wanted from the first. So I won’t tell you anything else because it’s my fault and I got what I deserved for being so stupid and drunk that I couldn’t even go home.”

  “No!” Yasmina approached her as Timothy had done. Missa shrank from her advance. “You’re punishing yourself.”

  “No!” Missa shouted. “No! No!”

  “But Missa, my love, you must see now that—”

  “Stop it!” she shrieked as she covered her ears. “Gran brought me here to tell you and I told you and I won’t talk about it any longer!”

  “Christ! Christ!” Timothy cried. He ran from the house.

  And now, in Ludlow, Rabiah and Missa waited. Sergeant Havers had said to Rabiah, “We’ll be there directly, quick as we can.”

  Twenty minutes after the phone call, they turned up. Rabiah had never thought she’d be grateful to have Scotland Yard on her doorstep another time, but she was now. She ushered them into the sitting room, where Missa remained. Sergeant Havers took a notebook and a mechanical pencil from her bag, depositing herself in a chair next to the fireplace. Inspector Lynley sat on the ottoman that served duty as a coffee table. He said with quite a lovely smile, “Ah, Missa. We meet at last. We’ve heard about you from Greta Yates and from your friend Ding. We understand you were an exceptional student here during autumn term.”

  Rabiah could see Missa’s grip tighten on the pillow she still held. The inspector, perhaps, saw this as well, because he next said, “Are you well enough to speak to us? This can wait if you’re not feeling up to it just now.”

  This, Rabiah saw, garnered him a look from the detective sergeant. It said, Are you mad? as clearly as if she’d spoken it.

  Lynley then said, “I ask because sometimes speaking to the police is unnerving for an individual, especially for a young person. I know your grandmother has a solicitor. Would you be happier if he were present?”

  This second bit from the inspector resulted in another look from the sergeant. This one appeared to be asking, Have you gone straight round the bend?

  Missa said, “No! Gran, I don’t have to—”

  “No, no. You don’t,” Rabiah told her. “It’s entirely your decision, my dear. He’s my o
wn solicitor, but you don’t have to have him present. I’ll stay with you, if you like. Or I can leave you alone with the police.”

  Staying was Missa’s preference, so Rabiah joined her on the sofa as she’d done in Ironbridge. Missa told the story as she’d told it before. Sergeant Havers wrote at a pace suggesting she was taking down every word. Lynley merely listened gravely.

  When Missa was finished, Lynley was silent for a moment. He seemed to be considering every aspect of what she’d said. Finally, he responded with, “I am so profoundly sorry.” After another moment, he went on. “Am I correct that this was what you were talking to Ian Druitt about?”

  Missa shook her head. There was fringe on the pillow she held and she began to twist it between her fingers. “He rang me because of my tutor.” She went on to explain the chain of phone calls that ended up with Ian Druitt contacting her. “He asked did I want to meet with him, because the college was concerned how I was doing. I didn’t want to talk to him but I did because . . .” She looked away. Her brow furrowed as if she were trying to sort out what had gone on in her psyche that she’d agreed to meet with Ian Druitt.

  Rabiah offered the answer when she said, “Because that’s what you’ve always done when an adult asks for your cooperation.”

  Missa gave a small moan. She nodded. “I talked to him about wanting to leave college. I told him about the coursework being too difficult, but he could see there was something more because, obviously, it hadn’t been too difficult in autumn term. He probed and pressed. He was very kind.”

  “So you told him what you’ve told us just now?” Lynley asked.

  “Not all of it. I just couldn’t.”

  “Do you mean the sodomy?”

  “I couldn’t tell him that part. It was . . . too horrible. And anyway, it was too late to do anything. It was months and months too late and, really, all I want now is for Justie not to ever know.”

  Lynley nodded. “That’s understandable. But can you tell me what you mean when you say ‘too late’?”

  “There wasn’t any evidence.”

  Rabiah saw the sergeant raise her head quickly and look to Lynley, who said, “When something like this happens, there’s always evidence. There wouldn’t be any on your body by the time you spoke to the deacon, of course, as you would have healed and the DNA would have been long gone. But elsewhere . . . What did you do with your clothing?”

  “That’s just it,” she replied. “I had it.”

  Sergeant Havers was the one to say, “You have it?” so quickly it was as if she couldn’t contain herself.

  “I put it in a bag,” Missa said. “My underwear. My tights. I shoved them to the back of a drawer because . . . I didn’t want ever to forget what happened to me because I’d been so stupid one night.”

  “You weren’t stupid and you aren’t stupid,” Lynley said as his sergeant went on with, “Is all of it here? Is it in this house? Did you take it to Ironbridge?”

  Lynley shot her a look that silenced her. To Missa he said, “You merely made a mistake, like millions of other young people your age. You were badly hurt from it—”

  “Because I—”

  “Not because of anything. That’s where you’re going rather wrong. You’re seeing these two events as related. You were drunk ergo you were viciously assaulted. But while these events occurred one after the other, the first did not cause the second.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve been—”

  “That’s what you can’t know.”

  In the silence that followed, the sergeant said, “Sir . . . ,” with an urgency that the inspector didn’t seem to feel. Rabiah was conscious of gratitude sweeping over her at the compassion this man was taking the time to show her granddaughter.

  Missa said, “I . . . I suppose.”

  Lynley said, “I’ve been a cop for a good many years so I feel confident about saying you must go beyond supposing.” He glanced at Rabiah. She nodded and let her lips form the words Thank you. He went on. “Can you tell me about the clothing? You shoved the undergarments to the back of a drawer? Then what?”

  “That’s why I know it was too late. I gave them to Mr. Druitt. He said he would give everything to the police and they would test it and I wouldn’t have to talk about it ever again to anyone.”

  “What happened to the results of the testing? Did he tell you?”

  “He said he got told there wasn’t any evidence. I mean there wasn’t any evidence of anyone . . . you know.”

  Rabiah saw the sergeant start to speak but stop herself as Lynley lowered his head for a moment and appeared to consider what Missa had told him. Then he said, “What about the rest of the clothing you had on that night, Missa? What did he say about that?”

  She shook her head. “There wasn’t anything else. The clothes I was wearing? That night? They weren’t mine.”

  Rabiah felt like someone seeing the dawn for the first time as she suddenly understood the rest of the story. “My God,” she murmured, “of course they weren’t yours.”

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  Ding could easily ride her bicycle to pay a call upon Francie Adamucci because Francie lived just beyond the old almshouses in Ludford, not far from the bridge. As it was fairly early, she found Francie still at home as she’d reckoned she’d be. She was about to set off on her own bike, but when Ding coasted onto the semicircle of gravel driveway at the house’s entrance, Francie paused, looked wary—which was something of a surprise when one considered how casual she was about everything—and said, “Hey.”

  “Can we talk?” Ding asked. “You put me straight into it with the cops, Francie.”

  Francie looked behind herself at the windows of the house, as if she expected eavesdroppers or something. The only thing that was visible, though, was a deep windowsill that held a display of African-looking stuff: carved figures, a couple of tattered baskets, a truly hideous mask. Ding reckoned it was all there to prevent break-ins. With taste like that, who would want whatever else was inside?

  “Yeah,” Francie said. “I’m sorry, Ding. It more or less slipped out. It was all the rubbish with Ruddock. Gosh, that sounds like a song or something: the rubbish with Ruddock. Or the title of a book.”

  That was vintage Francie, Ding told herself. She could derail any conversation within ten seconds. Not that she intended to. It was simply how her crazy brain worked.

  “So. Whatever. Can we talk?”

  Francie shrugged. “It’s geography anyway. Like I care? The world’s going to be destroyed by some idiot shooting off nuclear missiles at some other idiot anyway. I don’t know why I bother. Come on.”

  It hadn’t been Ding’s idea to go inside the house, but that was where Francie headed. Ding said, “Are your mum and dad . . . ?”

  Francie laughed shortly. “You think they’re here? It’s the twenty-third of May. There’s got to be some major ethnocultural-whatever event going on somewhere on the planet.” She shoved her key in the lock and opened the door.

  Ding left her bike propped up against one of the pillars in front of the house. She’d never been to Francie’s, so she hadn’t known it was a serious-looking structure probably listed by the government. She said as she followed in Francie’s wake and found herself in a soaring entry, “What was this place?”

  Francie looked round as if seeing the building for the first time. “Clueless. No central heating, no double glazing, plaster cracking, chimney’s useless. All I want in life is to end up in a place built anytime after 1900. I’m out of here as soon as I can manage it.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “What?”

  “The house. I mean, where I live . . . my mum. You’ve seen it. Why’d you never say?”

  “At least your mum’s trying to do something with it. This place’ll crumble round everyone’s ears before my parents realise they might wa
nt to take a look round and see if it’s even liveable. You want something?” She led them to a kitchen that at least had been modernised into what appeared to be postwar condition. “I can do us some toast. There’s Marmite.”

  Ding had no appetite. There was a battered table in the centre of the room with stools round it, and she sat on one of these. For her part, Francie hopped onto the work top, found a banana hidden behind a pile of carrots and onions on the windowsill, offered it to Ding, and when Ding shook her head, peeled it for herself.

  “The cops said you were seen with Ruddock like I was,” Ding said. “Why’d you never tell me, Fran?”

  Francie chewed the banana and scratched the side of her head. “It only happened once—I mean when he tried his game with me—so it didn’t seem like a big thing. And anyway I dealt with him. It was totally different to how it was with you.”

  “How?”

  “He couldn’t threaten me.” She waved casually round the kitchen but it seemed she meant the entire house when she said, “D’you really think my mum and dad were going to agitate themselves ’cause Frances is drunk? That would’ve required them to be involved in something beyond their ‘ethnocultural-whatever experiences.’ So he couldn’t tell me that he was going to do something to force me to return home if I didn’t play his game since I already live here. Swear it, Ding, I never had the first clue what that bloke thought he’d ever get from me.”

  “Is that why it only happened once? That he put you in his car?”

  “Well . . . it was two times, but the second time I met up with him. See, I told him that first time that if I fancied blowing him—which at that moment I did not, officer—then I’d go ahead and do it. But as I didn’t, he could just take me home if that’s what he wanted to do.”

  “Did he?”

  “’Course. I don’t know what he thought was going to happen, but Mum and Dad were like, Don’t wake us again, Constable, or whatever you are. And then when he left it was all Francie, for God’s sake, give up the drink before you pickle yourself. And that was it. Sometimes, Ding, I got to tell you it truly helps to have parents who do maximum laissez-faire. They’re bloody lucky, they are, that I gave up trying to get their attention directly they missed my tenth birthday.”