The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  “Where did you go?”

  “It was slippery and everything because of the snow and I knew he could catch me up fast if he came after me, so I ducked into where the rug shop is? Just along the street?” She pointed in the general direction. “There’s wheelie bins there and I hid behind them. But it was freezing and it started snowing again so I was there maybe a quarter of an hour? Twenty minutes? Something like that. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I went to the pavement and peeked round and there was no patrol car in front of the house, so I went home.”

  “And Missa was there, on the sofa, in the sitting room.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ding said. “I didn’t even look in there. I reckoned that she’d rung the bloke who took us up to Quality Square. She had his card and all that. So I thought she’d gone home. All I did when I got to the house was run upstairs.”

  “You found her the next morning, I presume?” Lynley said.

  “Not even,” Ding told him. “See, she wasn’t there. She’d . . . she must’ve rung the bloke to fetch her at some point, like I said, because she wasn’t there in the morning either.”

  Lynley looked away from her. He’d had his eyes fixed on her so steadily that Ding felt as if he’d been reading her brain so that, no matter what, he’d know the truth. As she was waiting for what would come next, a white van stopped in front of the house and out of it hopped three blokes who went to the back of it, opened its cargo hold, and began pulling white boiler suits over their clothes. She’d seen enough detective programmes on telly to know this was the crime scene team. The inspector told her to wait, went over to have a word, and then returned. Shortly thereafter, the first two of them went into the house carrying impressive toolkits while the third unspooled the yellow crime scene tape that they were always unspooling on telly.

  Once all of the crime scene team were inside the house, Lynley spoke to her again. He said, “When did Missa tell you what had happened to her?”

  “A few days later. I could see that something was wrong, and when she told me, see, I thought it was Brutus. He’d kept on with the cider, see. He knew it would get her completely wrecked. And he has . . . Brutus has this thing for girls. He can’t leave ’em alone.”

  “Beyond that, is there anything else that told you it was Brutus?”

  She had to look away. It was his eyes, she reckoned. He was a handsome man anyway, but his eyes made one want to . . . She didn’t know, only that they were deeply brown and they wanted her to tell the truth. When she looked back at him, the eyes were still waiting. She said, “When I got up to my room, he was there.”

  “Brutus?”

  “We slept together most nights, and there he was like always. He woke up when I came in and he wanted sex, like usual. But I didn’t. He was annoyed for a bit but we fell asleep. Then I woke up later and . . . You see, he wasn’t there. After Missa told me what she told me? I thought it was Brutus who did it to her only it turned out he was in the bathroom and he’d passed out and slept there in front of the loo. He said sometime during the night he woke up because Finn was peeing over him and not being especially careful where it all went. And he was laughing the way Finn laughs like sort of a gotcha laugh. Only, you see, I never knew any of that. I only knew that Brutus wasn’t there when I woke up.”

  “You didn’t look for him?”

  “I didn’t think to. Why would I? Only when Missa told me what had happened, I worked it out. Or at least I thought I worked it out. But I couldn’t ever be sure, could I? And Missa didn’t know.”

  “Missa explained to us that she told Mr. Druitt. He could see something was very wrong and he got the story from her. She seems to have wanted no one to know, as she considers it her fault. So how did you get the story from her?”

  “Oh, I could tell . . . like Mr. Druitt, I expect. Plus, she felt dead bad about my top because she knew it was expensive and I don’t have a lot of money for clothes.”

  “Your top?” He looked perplexed.

  She explained how she had lent Missa clothing for the evening, how she’d even brought her a fancy bra as a Christmas gift. Missa had worn her own knickers and tights and the like, but the skirt and top were Ding’s. “Missa didn’t even own anything that said party, if you know what I mean, so I gave her something to wear. She knows I’ve been buying my own clothes since I was something like eleven years old. I like to keep them nice. When she gave them back, she apologised because the top got ripped and then she started crying.”

  “So she told you then.”

  “She was so out of . . . I don’t know. She was way beyond how she should’ve been about a ripped top, which I reckoned I might be able to have repaired anyway. She told me because that’s what I said, that I could maybe get it repaired and it was okay, but she wouldn’t stop crying and I kept asking and the story came out. She asked me please please not to tell anyone because she was so . . . I guess humiliated, which is how I pretty much would’ve felt as well. I promised not to tell and I put the clothes in my cupboard but I couldn’t stop wondering if Brutus . . . you know. Then she talked to the deacon and he wanted her to hand everything over for testing—what she was wearing—and I . . . I’m sorry but then I lied. Because . . . see, I couldn’t face it might’ve been Brutus. I just couldn’t. So I lied to her and I know it was wrong to do that but I did. I told her I chucked the top into the rubbish and I’d worn the skirt so much after what had happened that it finally needed to be dry cleaned.”

  “But that’s not what actually happened?”

  “I kept it. I kept both of them—the skirt and the top. And then one day I lost my temper bad and I threw them at Brutus.”

  “What did he do with them? Do you know? Did he take them from your room, for example?”

  “Oh, I threw them at him in his room, not mine.” She hated to tell the rest of it because of how dumb it all had been for so very long between Brutus and her. But she continued. “See, Brutus brought a girl home to spend the night, and he’d never ever done that before. I’d been protecting him for ages because, like I said, I was scared it was him who’d hurt Missa. Then all of a sudden there he is, fucking . . . sorry . . . doing it with this random girl and he’d let her spend the night, like right in my face? I was over the edge at that. So I got the clothes and I banged on his door and I threw them at him and screamed about how I’d been protecting him when all along I could’ve just turned the top in to the cops. The skirt as well. He might’ve tossed them out after that, but I don’t know.”

  Lynley nodded. He looked back at the house. He looked at some ancient pocket watch. Then he said to her, “Take me to his room, Ding.”

  Which was what she did.

  ROYAL SHREWSBURY HOSPITAL

  NR SHELTON

  SHROPSHIRE

  After Finn was moved from casualty to a hospital room, Trevor told his wife he would spend the night at their son’s bedside. It was, at that point, after ten P.M. He said to Clover that one of them needed to rest and to be clear-headed should any crucial decisions about Finn’s treatment need to be made in the morning. He would ring her at once should anything change in his condition. He would also ring her if Finn regained consciousness. That latter was unlikely, they’d been told, so far as the night went. As to Finn’s recovery, there might be some memory loss, but that would be assessed once he was fully conscious, and it was likely to be only temporary.

  Clover didn’t want to leave at first, but Trevor managed to convince her of the good sense of doing so. She wanted a police officer posted at the door to Finn’s room in the event his attacker showed up, and while Trevor didn’t think that was necessary, he accepted it. Since the female detective from the Met had been the person to explain the incident to them, there was a chance she was still hanging about and Trevor definitely didn’t want her gaining access to Finn.

  Clover was in a state of anxiety when she finally departed. Trevor assured
himself this was understandable. He couldn’t consider anything else about Clover’s concerns just then because he wanted nothing to play on his features other than his disquiet about her level of exhaustion and the need for her to have her wits about her should a crucial decision need to be made. The reality, however, was that he wanted to be completely alone with his son should Finn regained consciousness. He was attempting to come to terms with what Clover apparently believed: that Finn was capable of sodomising a girl.

  Before they’d been allowed to see Finn, Trevor had insisted that Clover give him every detail of the supposed crime. So he knew that the housemates had been drinking heavily in a pub on the night in question, which had been in December after exams, that they’d been carted home by Gaz Ruddock, that one of them—Ding Donaldson—had done a runner, and that later that night someone had attacked another girl who was passed out on the sitting-room sofa. At the end of her recitation, Clover had said, “Do you understand my concerns now?”

  He had said that he did. When he went on to tell her that this wasn’t something Finn would have done, however, she raised her hands in defeat and spoke about the matter no further.

  Trevor remained silent and watchful in the room with Finn. The hours crept by with no change. A member of staff came into the room now and then to check the boy’s vital signs, and when a police officer arrived to take a position outside the door, she popped her head into the room to let Trevor know all was well, whatever that was supposed to mean. He was thus mostly left with his thoughts, and he directed them towards trying to dredge up anything at all that indicated to him there was a part of Finn that he did not know.

  Finn regained consciousness just after four in the morning. Trevor was dozing in a chair next to the bed in the darkened room, but he was instantly awake when he heard the boy’s voice murmur, “Mum?” Trevor rose, switched on a dim light, and reached for the plastic container of water that had been placed on the side table.

  “I’m here, Finn,” he said. “Mum’s getting some rest at home. Thirsty?”

  “Yeah.” Finn went for the straw and drank the container dry. “Thanks,” he said. And after a moment, in an exhausted and somewhat blurred voice that reminded Trevor so much of his son as a child awakened from sleep, “Dad, who was that bloke?”

  “The man who attacked you? We don’t yet know.”

  “I heard . . . a ruckus is what . . . what it was.” Finn’s lips were so dry that they looked painful. Trevor made a mental note to purchase some balm for him. There had to be a shop on the premises. “Firs’ I thought it was some random girl’s father? Like . . . beating on Brutus because . . .” He paused. “Any more water?”

  “I’ll fetch it. Finish what you were going to say.”

  “Jus’ that I reckoned . . . it was . . . like Brutus fucked the wrong girl for once? An’ here was her dad to do business on him? On Brutus?”

  “Would that be like Brutus?”

  “Fucking . . . like . . . the wrong girl? Oh. Sorry. About fucking, Dad. I mean, he does it to any girl willing.”

  “What if the girl isn’t willing?”

  Finn frowned. One of his eyes was closed and his head was wrapped in white bandaging. Aside from the injuries to his skull, he had a fractured clavicle, about which nothing could be done since it would heal on its own, a fractured shoulder, and a broken wrist. He said with a wince as he moved his head, “Far’s I know, there’s not . . . like . . . a girl been unwilling. Don’t know what it is about him, do I. He’s got, like, a magic dick or something. Could I have water?”

  Trevor hastened to get it from the basin. He let the water grow cool from the tap, and he wondered about it all: truth, lies, actions, reactions. And then he wondered about his wondering. He returned to the bed and helped his son drink.

  He said to him, “Finn, something happened back in December, at your house.”

  Finn rested his head back on the pillow and shut his eyes. “Wha’?” He sounded drowsy.

  “A girl was very badly assaulted. She was on the sofa in your sitting room, and she was drunk.”

  “Ding, y’ mean?”

  “Another girl. She’d gone out with Ding, and apparently she didn’t want to go home drunk. Does this ring a bell?”

  Finn seemed to be searching for the correct memory. He said, “S’pose it doesn’t make sense it was Ding. Far’s I know . . . she always made it up the stairs. If she was too . . . pissed and all that? Brutus would help her.” He was quiet for a moment before he added, “They were like, you know, sleeping together? When Brutus wasn’t doing some girl on the side? He can’t resist women like they can’t resist him.”

  “Do you remember this incident? When a girl slept on the sofa?”

  Finn’s eyes remained closed and Trevor wanted him to open them. While the room remained dim from the single light he’d switched on, it still seemed that if he could see Finn’s eyes, he’d know the truth even though he told himself he did know the truth already. Finn would never . . . because he couldn’t . . . because he wasn’t the person his mother was declaring him to be.

  Finn murmured, “Incident?”

  “In December, Finn. It was all of you: getting drunk, being carted home, Ding running off, another girl being with you? She would have gone into the house with you. Ding wasn’t there but this girl was.”

  “S’pose.” Finn’s voice was low. He was drifting off.

  Trevor touched his undamaged shoulder and said, “Finn, in December, this was. Do you remember?”

  The boy nodded. “December,” he said. But that was all.

  24 MAY

  IRONBRIDGE

  SHROPSHIRE

  When Yasmina awakened, it was five A.M., two hours before her alarm would ring. She found herself in the same circumstances in which she’d gone to bed on the previous night: alone in the house. While she’d learned from Rabiah round half past eight that Missa would remain in Ludlow for the night, and she’d not actually expected Sati to return home if Missa didn’t come to fetch her, Yasmina had thought Timothy would arrive back at some point, even if his return happened in the wee hours of the morning. But he had not done so.

  Despite the hour, she rang Rabiah. It seemed possible that Timothy might have ended up there. But he had not turned up, and Rabiah’s tone—when she learned from Yasmina that Timothy was missing—spoke of all the scenarios she was entertaining: drink driving, fatal accident, overdose of opiates, God knew what else.

  “Missa . . . How is Missa?” Yasmina asked her. “Were the police difficult? Did they treat her badly?”

  “They were quite gentle with her. It wasn’t at all as traumatic as it was when she told you and Tim.”

  “Will you tell her I’ve rung? That I am so terribly sorry for . . . I don’t know what, Mum. What I’ve put her through . . .”

  “This is no one’s fault but whoever it was who hurt her, Yasmina. But we all must prepare . . .”

  In Rabiah’s hesitation, then, Yasmina could tell that something else had occurred during the previous day. She could also hear her mother-in-law’s reluctance to share the information with her. So she pressed her with, “Mum, you must tell me whatever else has happened. I can tell something more is going on. I’m that worried about Timothy. If it’s to do with him, please tell me.”

  A patrol officer had come by asking for a photo of the family, Rabiah admitted. Specifically, a picture that had a clear shot of Tim was wanted. When Rabiah had asked why it was needed, the patrol officer said he didn’t know, just that it was wanted.

  “I had to give him one,” Rabiah told her. “I did ask him where he was taking it. At that point he became quite cagey. Yasmina, my dear . . .” She was silent then, and in that silence it seemed that Rabiah knew very well why a photo of Timothy was needed.

  “He’s done something,” Yasmina said.

  After that phone call, she dressed for her workday be
cause she could not think of what else to do. Her choices at the moment were severely limited. Should she go to Sati, Yasmina knew the girl would ask about Missa, but Yasmina had neither the strength nor the imagination to tell her youngest daughter anything at this point. Until she herself knew more, Sati was going to have to find the inner resources to get through the day alone.

  It wasn’t long after reaching this conclusion that Justin arrived to tell Yasmina what she already knew: Missa had never gone to work yesterday and, what was worse, she had not returned last night.

  “She came upstairs to dress,” he told Yasmina. “She said that Rabiah wanted her to speak to you and she didn’t see any way other than doing it. And then she never came back.”

  “She went to Ludlow,” Yasmina told him.

  “Why? She’d been crying. When she came upstairs, her face was blotchy and . . . I could tell she was crying and she wouldn’t tell me why, and what I want to know is what you lot did to her because she said she was meant to talk to you and let me tell you I know you don’t want us marrying no matter what you say. I was that stupid ever to think . . . I want to know where she is.”

  “She’s with Rabiah.”

  “You lot are trying to separate us. Missa told me you’d do anything to stop her, like maybe even making her go to India.”

  “That isn’t true.”

  “And I rang her. Over and over starting when she didn’t come to work. She’s not answering, so what’ve you lot done with her mobile?”

  Yasmina could sense the danger here: a strong young man filled with anger that she knew was righteous. She said to him, “I’m going to give you Rabiah’s number. Ring it and she’ll—”

  “I’m not having that. You tell me what’s happened!”

  “Missa will have to tell you. I can’t, not after everything else I’ve done. Things for which I am responsible and sorry. Truly sorry, Justin.”

  When he took in these last statements, Justin altered. He said quietly, “I love her that much. Is she coming back?”