The Punishment She Deserves

by Elizabeth George

  “Oh, you must not, you must not!” her mother cried. “Palash! Palash! Madhur wants Rajni, and Ambika will hurt herself if you do not come! Palash!”

  There was a pounding of footsteps above them. Then an equal pounding as a large figure in a dressing gown hurtled down the stairs. Yasmina’s father was saying, “Yes, yes, Vedas. Palash is here. But Madhur is dead. In India, Vedas. So long ago. You’ve only forgotten. Rajni and Ambika are gone, my dear. And who is this that you’ve opened the door to when I’ve told you . . .”

  His words died off when he saw Yasmina clearly. And then it was only, “You.”

  Yasmina did not wait for any other reaction from him. She said, “What’s happened? Mummy is . . . Dad, are you caring for her by yourself? How long—”

  “Get out,” he said. “This is what came of it all. Every one of them as if they were sheep and you the shepherd.”

  “Palash,” her mother said. “Palash, when will Ambika come? And Sevti? Why do we not see Sevti? Did she not go to the market for us?”

  He said to his wife, “Vedas, you must rest your mind. Go into the kitchen and wait for me there.”

  “But should we not offer Madhur tea?”

  “Yes, of course. Fill the kettle, Vedas. Just water in the kettle. Do nothing more.”

  She looked as if she were concentrating on this idea of water in the kettle. She murmured “water” to herself as she wandered off, stumbling against a pile of newspapers in the sitting room, distracted enough by this that she knelt in front of them and began to sort through them, making an arrangement whose purpose was clear only to her.

  Yasmina watched her with a sense of growing desperation. She said, “What can I do? Tell me what I can do. Where are they?”

  Her father’s nostrils flared as if he smelled an unpleasant odour emanating from her. He said, “Leave us. You are dead, and no spirit of any daughter of mine may enter this house.”

  Yasmina took in any and its larger implications. She said, “You drove all of us away?”

  “You did this,” he said. “If they are dead to us, it is as you wanted it. You have driven a stake into my heart. You have destroyed your mother’s mind. And this is what’s left: what you see before you. Now leave us to our grief and our shame.” He turned her bodily, pushing her in the direction of the door.

  She grew stiff with resistance. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Why can’t you see that?”

  “Out!” And now he raised both his voice and a fist. He advanced on her as he had done in her past and as, undoubtedly, he had done to her sisters.

  She backed away from him but still said, “Where are they? What has happened to my sisters? Where are they, Dad? Tell me.”

  “They are dead to us!” he roared. “Be gone with you and leave us in peace! Nothing has changed here and nothing will.”

  ROYAL SHREWSBURY HOSPITAL

  NR SHELTON

  SHROPSHIRE

  Barbara Havers had been sorry to miss the Big Moment, but when Lynley had explained his plan to lead Ruddock into incriminating himself, she immediately recognised it as their best chance to sew up not only the death of Ian Druitt but also the rape of Missa Lomax. When she’d heard him call her name as she waited with the patrol officers in the corridor of the Ludlow nick, she knew he’d been successful.

  The rest of their encounter with the PCSO was form rather than substance. He’d been handcuffed much as he’d handcuffed Ian Druitt, he’d been led to the patrol car, he’d been carted away at speed. She and Lynley would next see him inside an interview room at the Shrewsbury station, but before that occurred, they had to deal with Clover Freeman.

  Lynley rang Chief Constable Wyatt from the nick’s car park, with Barbara listening to his end of the call. After an interminable wait—and why did waiting for the CC seem to be de rigueur, for God’s sake, Barbara wondered—Lynley revealed only that he and Detective Sergeant Havers were about to leave Ludlow for West Mercia Headquarters, where they would need to speak to the deputy chief constable on the matter of Ian Druitt’s death. If Wyatt could see to it that she didn’t leave the premises . . . ?

  Lynley listened for a moment to whatever Wyatt was saying to him while Barbara waited like a horse at the starting gate. She was muttering, “Come on, come on,” when Lynley rang off, saying to her, “She’s not gone into work.”

  “Christ! She’s done a runner.”

  “I don’t think so. She’s rung in and told them she was going to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to her son. She said her husband spent the night with him and she needed to spell him there.”

  “So you think . . . what? She’s sitting there waiting for us to fetch her?”

  “I think she’s still in the dark about what’s going on here. If we can get to her quickly, chances are we’ll still find her that way.”

  They set off at once. The distance wasn’t great, but it had to be travelled on a road without a single dual carriageway, and twice they were significantly slowed by lorries. Without the benefit of lights or siren, they had to wait for opportunities to overtake the slower vehicles. Barbara found her anxiety growing by the moment, made worse by Lynley’s determined calm.

  She believed that Clover Freeman would have long ago destroyed the evidence handed over by Ruddock, if Ruddock had handed it over at all, which was still open to doubt. They would then be reduced to he-said-she-said, because both of them damn well knew that even if Ruddock had rolled his body all over the clothes they’d found beneath Brutus’s bed, there would be DNA from everyone else on that clothing as well. Since at her own admission Ding had performed sex acts for Ruddock in order to keep him from taking her home—drunk—to her mother, Ruddock’s DNA could be explained away using Ding’s own behaviour with the PCSO to do it.

  Lynley took a different position about the evidence. He pointed out to her that if they had learned nothing else about Clover Freeman, they had learned that she appeared to maintain control over her son in whatever way she could. Ruddock had been employed as a virtual spy on her behalf, and the boy had been tasked with engaging in a mother-approved form of social activism by volunteering at Ian Druitt’s after-school club. As he grew older and more difficult for his mother to manage, she was going to need something very special to keep him within her sphere of influence. Evidence of an assault upon an unconscious girl worked quite a trick at doing that.

  “That would mean she reckons he did it,” Barbara said to Lynley at the conclusion of his explanation.

  “Ruddock certainly went to every effort to convince her of that.”

  “So why not get rid of the evidence once she’s got her mitts on it?”

  “Keeping it gives her power.” Lynley eased the Healey Elliott into the right lane. He changed down gears and floored it, which allowed them to sail by a tractor and two cars. His own motor was ancient, but it had been built for speed. Barbara glanced at him as the trees along the verge became blurs of green. He looked quite satisfied with the car’s performance.

  “That’s one bloody big risk, you ask me,” Barbara said. She was not referring to overtaking the other vehicles.

  “It is, but she would have seen the payoff. I daresay she’s told herself that everything she’s done has been for Finn’s own good. That would make her actions easier for her to swallow.”

  “Makes one wonder, though,” Barbara said as she thought everything over. “I mean, aside from whatever Ruddock told her, she must have a reason for thinking Finn was the one who assaulted Missa Lomax.”

  “He appears to be doing everything he can to alienate her,” Lynley pointed out. “It’s likely he’s a decent sort at heart, but what he’s done to his appearance alone suggests a form of rebellion that she wouldn’t like. Doubtless there’ve been others over the years.”

  At Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, Lynley presented his warrant card at reception. A phone call brought a uniformed officer to spe
ak with them. When Lynley assured the man that he wished to speak to Finnegan’s mother and not to Finnegan himself, the officer said, “The dad’s the only one here.”

  “We were told she’s come to take over from Mr. Freeman,” Lynley said. “Did she not?”

  “She was here for a bit but then she left,” the officer said. “I s’pose the dad didn’t want to leave the boy.”

  “We’ll need to speak to Mr. Freeman, then,” Lynley told him. “It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  The officer considered this one. He spent a moment sucking his teeth as if with the desire to clean them of bits of breakfast.

  While he was doing his teeth sucking, Lynley added, “This will take less than five minutes.”

  “Right. It’s only I’m not meant to let anyone into the room.”

  “We’re happy with the corridor,” Lynley told him, to which Barbara added impatiently, “Or the rooftop, the car park, the inside of a lift, or standing next to a wheelie bin.”

  The officer jerked his head to indicate they were meant to follow him. When they reached Finn Freeman’s room, the door was closed. The officer told them to wait as he ducked inside. When he emerged, Trevor Freeman was with him.

  Freeman looked like a man whose life had been steamrollered. He said, “You’re not to talk to him. He’s in and out of it, his memory’s been affected, and unless—”

  “We must talk to your wife, not your son,” Lynley cut in. “He’s recovering, I hope?”

  “He will do, eventually. D’you have the bloody sod who did this?”

  “We have a tentative identification made by someone who was in the house. The tool he apparently used has gone to forensics for fingerprinting as well. Mr. Freeman, we’ve been told that your wife was here briefly and then left. Have you any idea where she’s gone?”

  “She had a phone call,” Freeman told them. “She said it was headquarters and stepped out of the room. I presume it was Wyatt asking her to come to Hindlip.”

  “Why?” Barbara asked.

  “Because she left. I mean, she didn’t come back into the room.” Freeman looked from Barbara to Lynley, his expression becoming wary. “What’s this about? I know what’s been going on, by the way, and let me be clear. My son did not rape anyone, and he did not sodomise anyone. He didn’t even know that a girl was passed out in the house that night. Someone got inside the place because—”

  “We know,” Lynley cut in. “An arrest has been made.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you more at the moment. There are interviews to conduct and the victim and her family to be informed. We do need to speak to your wife first, however.”

  “Shall I ring her mobile? Or her office?”

  Lynley considered this. After a moment, he said no. Barbara knew that putting the wind up at this juncture was the very last step he would want to take. He would be seriously doubtful that Clover Freeman had actually been called to Hindlip, but he’d also be wanting to make sure of that without anyone’s ringing her office or her mobile.

  He thanked Freeman. He wished him well. He said he hoped Finn would make a swift and complete recovery. He said that he would be in touch.

  Barbara followed him, then, as he retraced their route to the lift. She had a very bad feeling about what they’d learned. She was not surprised when, as they left the hospital, Lynley put in a call to the Shrewsbury nick and asked for the duty sergeant. For with its lights and siren, the patrol car carrying Ruddock would have made vastly better time from Ludlow to Shrewsbury than they had done, even with the Healey Elliott’s speed and Lynley’s dexterity at overtaking slower vehicles. Upon being booked, Gary Ruddock would have requested and been granted the phone call owed to him. There was little doubt he would have made that call to Clover Freeman who, from the hospital, was mere minutes from the station.

  “She’s going for the evidence,” Barbara said, as Lynley waited to be put through to the duty sergeant. “She has to be, sir. She needs to get rid of it.”

  “That’s one scenario,” Lynley agreed.

  “There’s another?”

  He didn’t have a chance to reply as he began speaking, presumably to the duty sergeant. Had Gary Ruddock been brought to the station? Yes, he had. Had he been booked? Yes, he had. Had he asked for a phone call? Yes, he had. Lynley listened to what Barbara thought was an answer lengthier than was required. At the end of this, Lynley said, Has anyone asked to see him? Yes, someone had. Again he listened. Barbara wanted to rip the mobile from his ear or shout to put it on speaker, but she had to wait. Lynley thanked the man and ended the call.

  He said to her, “She’s been there.”

  “Did they actually let her see him?”

  “It’s not likely that a duty sergeant would refuse the deputy chief constable’s request for a word with the bloke just brought in on charges.”

  “He did make his phone call to her, then.”

  “The sergeant didn’t have it verbatim for me, but Ruddock evidently said to whomever he rang that he’d been arrested, and they needed to talk. The sergeant reckoned he was ringing his solicitor. But I think you and I can rely upon that constituting Gary Ruddock’s message to the DCC that she was to come at once. Once she arrived and asked to see him, I think we can assume he told her everything, with a few careful lapses in the information.”

  “But he wouldn’t have said he’s the one who assaulted Missa Lomax. Would he?”

  “I daresay he’d’ve wanted to keep her believing Finn did it. If he told her we’re closing in on Finn, she’ll get rid of the evidence. She might have kept it in order to keep the boy under her thumb, but with him now in the spotlight as a suspect in the assault of Missa Lomax? She’d want to be rid of it as soon as she could manage it.”

  “She can’t risk dumping it anywhere near her home,” Barbara said. “She’ll know we’ll search every dustbin, skip, and wheelie bin in Worcester if we have to.”

  “She certainly can’t risk dumping it at work,” Lynley pointed out, “for the very same reason. So where does that leave us?”

  Barbara thought of the potential locations. They knew very little about the DCC. If she’d been carrying the evidence round in her car all these months, she could easily dump it anywhere. She could toss it onto a verge, she could fire up her barbecue and burn it, she could find a superstore and slip it into a wheelie bin there, she could take a flight to Timbuktu, for all they knew and there she could—

  “The airfield, sir,” Barbara said. “She’s a member of that glider club along with Rabiah Lomax and Nancy Scannell. Remember the photo? If she uses a glider, she can easily get to a reservoir. Or to the middle of a moor. Or to just about anywhere. She can dump the evidence and as long as the place is remote enough or inaccessible enough, no one will find it.”

  “Where is this airfield?” Lynley asked.

  “On the high moors above Church Stretton, middle of nowhere. Me and the guv talked to Nancy Scannell there.”

  “Can you find it again?”

  “I can bloody well try. It’s on the Long Mynd.”

  “Do you know the name of the airfield itself?”

  Barbara searched for it in her memory. It had to do with the Midlands; she recalled that much. Then it came to her “West Midlands Gliding Club,” she told him.

  “Ring them, then. Tell them to stop her if she wants to take out the glider.”

  Barbara snapped her fingers, good cheer descending upon her as she recalled a delightful, vital fact. “The consortium’s glider is damaged,” she said. “That’s what was going on at Rabiah Lomax’s house when we arrived to speak to her. Remember? A meeting about the damaged glider. Clover Freeman may not know that that glider’s going nowhere, no matter what she wants.”

  “They may well have extra gliders available for individuals who don’t have the funds to purchase their own. Or for p
eople wanting lessons. Or for people wanting to go up for a lark in the company of an experienced pilot. If that’s the case—if there are spare gliders—we must stop her from using one, so make the call, Sergeant. Then get us to the gliding club as quickly as you can.”

  IRONBRIDGE

  SHROPSHIRE

  When Yasmina arrived home, she found that Timothy was not only awake but also climbing the slope towards their house on New Road, ascending from Wharfage. She pulled alongside him and lowered the passenger window, asking, “Would you like a ride the rest of the way?”

  He looked towards her but shook his head. He gestured for her to go on, which was what she did. She was able to park in their garage for once, and when she got out and came round to the front door, she saw that he was two houses away, so she waited. If he was surprised to see how she was clad, he made no mention of the ethnic clothing. He merely went into the house, leaving the door open for her to follow.

  She saw him pass through the entry and from there he made his way to the kitchen. She herself climbed the stairs. In the bedroom, she removed the sari and its accompanying garments. She folded them neatly for their return to the attic. Then she dressed as she would normally.

  When she descended to the kitchen, she found him making a sandwich. He glanced round as she came into the room, saying, “D’you want something? Making two is as easy as making one. It’s going to be cheese, pickle, onion, and tomato. I started to walk to the market but . . . I don’t know. It seemed out of reach.”

  She said that she would be grateful for a sandwich. He made it in silence. She wanted to ask him what it was that had managed to get him out of bed, but she held her peace. Instead she put water in the kettle and set it to boil. She got out the tea—Earl Grey for him, Darjeeling for her—along with two person-size pots. She let hot water run into these to warm them as she made tea sachets for them both.

  He finally said, “It was Mum. She rang one of the neighbours.”

  “What d’you mean?”