The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  When she took up the vodka, her reason for doing so was clear. She needed it to soothe the worries, to make herself ready to go to her son, to be whole for once instead of someone who had to pretend every second of the day that—

  No. No. That was not it. She would eat. No. She would drink. No. Coffee would help her and then she could get on with life as it was meant to be lived, which was not how she’d been living it.

  She drank from the bottle another time and she told herself that was it. That was all she would have. But the worries got to her and the fact that she couldn’t go to him when she was meant to go to him because she was, after all, the mother who loved him, who’d borne him, who’d changed those nappies and fed him from her breast, and did Sandra do that, did she even know what it was to have a child—two children—growing inside and then clawing their way out with so much pain and suffering and the only way ever to deal with the pain and with the suffering and with everything else that ate at her like some alien imbedded in her soul . . . She had reasons, not excuses, and there were a thousand of them and no one could take them from her and no one ever would.

  She was conscious when the bell went on her door. She was in the sitting room and she hadn’t dressed and it was true she’d been drinking but she was fully conscious. Still, she knew she couldn’t answer that bell. Nor could she answer the knocking that followed a third ring.

  Then it came to her that it was Bob. Of course it was Bob. He was showing mercy and he’d come to fetch her. All she needed was a very quick shower and she would be ready and she’d swear to him anything he wanted her to swear to, just to show her gratitude for coming into London to take her to their son.

  Only. She made it to the door, and by the grace of God she did not open it. But it had been fixed with a fish-eye peephole, and when she looked through it what came upon her was a horror she never expected to feel, not with her life under her own command as it had been for so very long. For standing there in all her workplace finery was Dorothea Harriman, and as she called out Isabelle’s rank in her habitual fashion, she didn’t look like someone who intended to stop knocking anytime soon.

  LUDLOW

  SHROPSHIRE

  They studied the photographs of Ian Druitt’s dead body every which way to Saturday night and beyond. Barbara decided she could have drawn both the body and the scene of death from memory, when Lynley finally called a halt to things. He took up two photos, put the rest into the folder in which they’d been stored, and removed his specs. He said, “We need some air. Come along, although you’ll have to lead as I’ve no idea how we actually reached this room.”

  She did the honours, snatching up her shoulder bag and snaking her way down stairs, through fire doors, and along corridors. When they reached the lobby at last, Peace on Earth was behind reception and he took them in with a glance that, to Barbara, looked like a knowing one. Man-woman-hotel, in addition to several hours’ disappearance of man and woman into the depths of said hotel, apparently led to a single conclusion in his experience. That, she thought, was a bloody good laugh. She almost told Lynley but she wasn’t sure his delicate sensibilities could handle the horror of it. So she let him lead the way out of the hotel.

  He walked in the direction of the castle. She had a sinking feeling that her knowledge of kings, queens, and battles royal was about to undergo an expansion. She headed him off by saying, “It’s the Plantagenets, sir, the whole bleeding kettle of them. I can’t keep them straight.”

  He paused and turned to her. “What are you talking about, Sergeant?”

  “That.” Here she pointed at the castle. “That’s where we’re going, isn’t it? The dungeon, the keep, the bailey, the whatever?”

  He looked from her, to the castle, back to her. He said, “Havers, often I wonder what in God’s name you actually take me for. Although”—and here she could see he was attempting not to smile—“I’m impressed with your knowledge of castles.”

  “Don’t be. It comes from romance novels. Damsels in the dungeon having their bodices ripped and the like. Plus I’ve got The Princess Bride on video. ‘My name is Inigo Montoya’ and all that. I could probably quote the whole film.”

  “Ah. I’m nonetheless quite impressed. As before, however, come along.”

  He did cross the street to the castle, but he chose a bench at the base of the castle wall. There were people round and about, but most of them were walking dogs or airing toddlers in pushchairs. They offered something to look at besides the range of buildings across the street.

  Lynley handed her one of the photos he’d brought with him. “What occurs to you, Sergeant?”

  She studied it. The crime scene photographer had documented every inch of the office in which Druitt had died, and this particular photo took in a corner of it. There, a yellow plastic chair of the stackable variety lay on its side. Above it was an empty bulletin board with lighter patches on it where notices and such had hung. Next to it was the office window. Only part of this was visible and its venetian blinds were tilted upwards.

  “The blinds,” she said. “No one outside the room could see in. But didn’t we already talk about this? As an item to pin something on someone, there’s no value at all. Anyone could have put them in that position.”

  “Completely true. Anything else?”

  She looked closer to see if there was something she’d missed, like . . . She wasn’t sure what, although a declaration of someone’s guilt scratched into the lino would have gone down a treat. She said, “Since there’s just the chair and the bulletin board . . .”

  “Yes. What strikes you?”

  “About?”

  “The chair.”

  “You mean that it’s overturned?”

  “I mean that it’s in the room at all. The other piece of furniture was a desk, as you recall.”

  “Right. But no one’d put Druitt into an office to hold him but not give the bloke a chair.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So you mean . . .” She looked back at the picture and then at Lynley. “You mean this chair, don’t you?” She turned the photo round to another angle. She could feel Lynley watching her and she knew there had to be something he’d seen, but looking for blood or hairs or fibres or anything else was getting her nowhere since, aside from blood—which wasn’t present anyway—the rest wouldn’t be visible in a photograph.

  She thought back to her visits to the Ludlow nick, both with Lynley and earlier without him. When she did so, she understood what he was asking her to see and she felt chagrinned that she hadn’t caught it immediately. “When you and I met with Ruddock,” she said as she recalled the PCSO’s actions that day, “we met in the old lunchroom, where he and I met the first time I was there. But there weren’t three chairs so he had to get another for you.”

  “Indeed,” Lynley said.

  “He rolled a chair in there for you. That’s what you’re getting at, aren’t you, sir? But what’s that mean? The desk chair could have come from anywhere.”

  Lynley took the picture from her and studied it, saying, “It could have done, yes. And it’s not the desk chair itself—that particular chair Ruddock offered me—that’s of interest here, Barbara. It’s the lack of desk chair in this office or this picture.”

  “I see that, but it could’ve been removed, just like Ruddock removed the chair from wherever to give to you.”

  “I daresay it was removed,” Lynley said. “The question we might ask ourselves is why it was replaced with this other?”

  “We could do,” Barbara said. “But that’s thin on the ground, isn’t it? I mean, the other’s more comfortable—the one on rollers—but who wants a potential paedophile to be comfortable anyway?”

  “I don’t disagree. There’s that to be argued, a case of ‘Let’s not make this easy on him,’ but that presupposes the PCSO knew why he was fetching Ian Druitt to the station, and we’ve lear
ned he didn’t know the reason.”

  “Or he says he didn’t know.”

  “There’s that as well.” He put the photo back into the folder and he brought out the other he’d taken from Barbara’s room. This, Barbara saw, was of Druitt’s supine body, the ligature removed and lying on the floor post the PCSO’s attempt to save him. Barbara looked from the photo to Lynley and back to the photo. She was about to ask him what was next when he told her, “Let’s arrange to speak to the pathologist, Sergeant. If we missed something—as we did when it comes to the chair—she might have done also.”

  COALBROOKDALE

  SHROPSHIRE

  Sati had been persuaded to set off to school. Once Timothy was on his feet and leaning against the wall of the shower with the water hitting his head, Yasmina had gone to her youngest child and had assured her that Daddy was fine and that mothers and daughters sometimes argued, which was what she’d witnessed with Missa before she left with Justin. These things happened on occasion, and Sati was not to worry because Yasmina would speak to Missa that very afternoon and bring her home. As for her father, he’d only been asleep, darling, and it was a complicated matter to rouse him because he’d taken a pill last night.

  So Sati had reluctantly gone off to school, clutching her Hello Kitty lunch box. That had left Yasmina able to deal with Timothy. She returned to the bathroom.

  “You could have died,” were her first words to her husband. “How much more do you want to put us through? Sati has watched her older sister die, she’s just watched Missa leave this house with her belongings, and now this. You. Virtually unconscious with your wife beating on your body to bring you round. I might have had to use the naloxone, and she might have seen me do it. Is that what you want? Is that where we’re heading?”

  “We’re already there,” had been his mumbled reply.

  She’d wanted to jump into the shower, to grab on to his curling steely hair and beat his head against the tiles on the wall. Instead she cried, “You’re cursing us. No wonder Missa can’t stand to be here. No wonder she’s left.”

  He opened his eyes at this, raising his head and putting his bloodshot gaze upon her. “At least she has the courage to do something, Yas. That’s more than I can say for the rest of us.”

  Which made her wonder if she’d ever known him. Which made her watch him at the clinic during the day with the window between them, just waiting for the moment when he’d cadge more pills. But she could not remain and monitor all his movements because she had to keep her promise to Sati. So she cancelled her last four appointments for the day.

  The penultimate place she wished to head was to Blists Hill Victorian Town. But the ultimate place was to the home of Justin Goodayle’s family, so she got into her car and drove out of Coalbrookdale.

  Yasmina went directly to the candlemaker’s shop. But there she found another young woman in Missa’s place, explaining to a small contingent of tourists how candles had been fashioned in the days of the Victorians. When she looked in her direction, Yasmina mouthed “Missa?” The girl paused to reenter the present century, saying, “Hi, Dr. Lomax. She’s at the fish and chips shop. Mary Reid got ill and Missa’s the only one on the grounds just now who knows how to work the fryer properly.”

  Yasmina retraced her steps to one of main streets of the town. The shop she was looking for advertised itself easily enough with the tempting scent of frying food and a sign that read FRIED FISH AND CHIPPED POTATOES. ONLY THE FINEST BEEF DRIPPING USED. Inside the place, Missa had her back to the shop counter on which a line of paper cones stood waiting for chips and four customers stood waiting for the cones. Missa was offering them no explanation about her work. What could one actually say about immersing chipped potatoes into hot oil?

  When she turned and saw Yasmina waiting among the others, Missa gave no outward reaction. She merely filled the cones as requested and added to them two orders of the battered cod. The customers left happily, and Yasmina approached the counter. She ordered a cone of chips and when given them, she said to her daughter, “When will you be free, Missa? I’d like to have a word.”

  “We’ve said everything possible on every subject,” Missa said.

  “Nevertheless. When are you free? I doubt you would be very happy to have me lurking in the shop waiting for you.”

  Missa pressed her lips together as she considered this, finally saying, “My final break is in twenty minutes. If you want to wait, that’s fine. You can always look up Justin for a private word in the meantime. I know you like to do that.”

  Yasmina refused to be drawn into defending herself. She said, “I’ll wait at the carousel, my dear,” and with her cone of chips in her hand, she left the shop. She dropped the wretched stuff into a rubbish bin as soon as she saw one.

  The carousel wasn’t far from the big refreshment pavilion, and there were benches nearby where parents could sit and watch their children on the antique ponies. Yasmina found a seat on one and took in what comprised the Victorian funfair.

  There were five stalls featuring games of chance, but the carousel was the fair’s most popular feature for families having a day out with small children. There weren’t a great number enjoying the galloping ponies on this day, but those that were waved and laughed as they rose and fell with the cheerful music while watchful parents and grandparents stood nearby.

  Taking this in, Yasmina’s vision blurred. Her own daughters had ridden those ponies. They, too, had laughed and waved. Missa especially had loved the carousel, had loved the entire Victorian town. Yasmina had encouraged this love with picture books and paper dolls. She merely hadn’t ever thought that Victoriana in this particular fashion would end up as her daughter’s life work.

  She waited patiently. She told herself she would listen to Missa instead of arguing with her or attempting to cajole her. She wanted to do this, she told herself. For if she didn’t manage some sort of peace with her daughter here and now, there would be no resolution to anything.

  When Missa at last arrived, she plopped down onto the bench. She, too, took in the carousel.

  “How you loved it,” Yasmina remarked. “You used to tell me that you would be in charge of that carousel one day. Do you remember?”

  “We’ve beaten Blists Hill to death as a subject,” was Missa’s tart reply.

  “I’m not here to talk about Blists Hill.”

  “So what is it that you’ve come to say? That you’re sorry you promised rubbish weddings and rubbish honeymoons and rubbish dream cottages? Is that why you’re here? Linda was impressed, by the way. She didn’t know you and Dad have access to those kinds of funds.”

  “That’s what you call her now? No longer Mrs. Goodayle, is it?”

  Missa brushed a nonexistent hair off her face. “We’ve discussed whether it’s going to be Mum after Justie and I marry, but that doesn’t feel right to either of us. She said Linda’s fine. She prefers it to ‘Mother Goodayle’ or ‘Mother Linda,’ which she said would make her feel like someone in a convent.”

  Yasmina had no wish to extend further a conversation on the topic of Missa’s future with the Goodayle clan. She said, “I was wrong in what I did. I apologise. I’m here to ask you to come back home. Sati is terribly upset by what’s happened.”

  “Which part of what happened? The part where she knows you’ve tried to use Justin to get me to do your bidding or the part where I called a halt to it all?”

  “This thing . . . your leaving as you’ve done . . . this isn’t good for her to see at her age. I believe you understand that, Missa.”

  “Not good?” Missa’s face settled into that hardness that Yasmina found so disturbing. She said, “We’re not setting a bad example, if that’s what you’re worried about, Mum. You can tell Sati I have my own bedroom. I’m not sleeping with Justin.” She looked away, at the carousel and the laughing children. She took a moment before she went on with, “I still want w
hat I always wanted, what you made me want, matter of fact. White wedding, virginity, pure as the wool of an Easter lamb.”

  Yasmina said, “Sati’s lost Janna. She’s—”

  “We’ve all lost Janna.”

  “—twelve years old. You mean everything to her.”

  Missa gave a short laugh. “What I mean to Sati isn’t important to you, Mum.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Whatever you say. Anyway, me living with the Goodayles? This is only till we have our own place, me and Justin. We’re going to look for a cottage to let. We’re thinking about one above the river. In Jackfield. It has only one bedroom, but we think it might do for now. Of course, Justie will sleep on the sofa till the ‘blessed’ day arrives. No worries, like always, Mum. We’ll get a bigger place eventually, but that’ll take time. Justie’s business is going well but so far his output only pays for supplies, the cost of letting the building at the tile museum, and a bit of extra. Once he’s able to hire a helper, production will increase. That person won’t have as much talent as Justin, of course, but whoever it is can help with the work that’s not so detailed.” She looked directly at Yasmina. “You never thought of him as someone with talent, did you?”

  “Sati is my concern now,” Yasmina said. “I understand that you will do what you will do. Everyone has made that perfectly clear to me. But Sati needs you. That’s all this is: something I’m asking you to do for Sati.”

  “Tell Sati that if we take the cottage, she can come to us,” Missa said. “It won’t be long and then she’ll be free.”

  “Have we come to that, Missa? Is this truly what you want to say to your mother?”

  Missa shook her head. It was one of those maddening movements that declared Yasmina’s questions to be exactly what Missa had come to expect. It was also one of those maddening movements that Yasmina wanted to strike out against. When, she wondered, had her daughter begun this change of personality? More, why had she begun it?