The Finisher

23

Chew on that, Leaman might have added, if Diamond hadn’t blasted him with a fusillade of questions, none of which he answered.

“How’s that possible?... What did she say?... Where has she been?... What happened to her?... Does she have any idea of the trouble she’s caused?”

“That’s all Mrs. Hector said.”

“You didn’t fucking ask?”

“I didn’t take the call myself. It was made to the One Stop Shop down in Bath.”

“I’ve got thirty people searching for her body.”

“I know.”

Even a man with the limited social skills of John Leaman understood that this was not a moment to brag that he’d warned about anaesthetics and wrong conclusions.

In imminent danger of bursting a blood vessel, Diamond spoke his anxieties aloud. “Until I’ve seen her, spoken to her... No, it’s got to be true. It can’t be a hoax. I’ve messed up big time. Better deal with this right away. I’ll be back as soon as I can. We all will. Do me a favour, John, and say nothing to anyone until I get there.”

Having ended the call, with thoughts of disciplinary hearings bombarding his brain, he tried to devise some form of words that would break the news gently to Keith Halliwell and the team.

There was no ducking it.

But before he made the call, the phone went again and this time it was Halliwell and the gloom had gone from his voice. “Better news, guv. We’ve moved on to a place the locals know as Shepherd’s Field and this is the real deal at last, definitely a shaft and clear signs that the undergrowth is disturbed and the iron cover was moved recently. Ingeborg is sending a picture. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you the map reference.”

“Keith.”

“We can’t claim any credit for finding it,” Halliwell motored on. He’d missed the note of caution in Diamond’s voice. “The shaft was known about already. But the turf at one side has been disturbed, so we’re quite excited, here. You’ll see in the picture. Hold on. Ingeborg wants to speak to you.”

“No, stay on the line. There’s something I must—”

Diamond’s mea culpa was drowned by Ingeborg’s excited voice. “Have you looked at the pictures, guv?”

“Before you say any more—”

“Don’t worry. We’re treating it as a crime scene, marking it with do-not-enter tape. Keith has already sent for a SOCO team. If they drive to the end of Beechwood Road they’ll be reasonably near. Shepherd’s Field, it’s called.”

“For fuck’s sake, listen to me, Inge.”

She went silent. He’d never sworn at her before. Never.

“Belinda is alive. She turned up out of the blue today and is back in her bedsit in Spring Gardens Road.”

“What?”

“Somewhere along the line I made an almighty miscalculation. Can I speak to Keith again?”

He couldn’t hear the exchange of words before Halliwell came on. His ears were ringing. He was still punch-drunk from the blow he’d been given by Leaman. Paloma, the medics and his own team had all warned him about the tricks anaesthetics play on the brain and still, stupid arse, he’d insisted he was right.

Belinda’s corpse had been an illusion.

“Is this true, guv?”

“I’m sorry, but it is.” He repeated the little he’d learned from the call. “Obviously I screwed up and I’ll take what’s coming to me, but I’m going to have to ask you to tell everyone the search is over and why. Thank Stanley and his friends and get all the police back to normal duties as soon as possible. I don’t know who you spoke to about the SOCO call-out, but cancel that as well.”

“Okay, guv.” Halliwell muttered something inaudible. Then, “Ingeborg wants another word.”

“Put her on.”

Her voice was sympathetic now. “Guv, think of it this way. Belinda is safe and that’s brilliant news, something to rejoice over. You did the right thing, pulling out all the stops to try and find her.”

“That’s a way of looking at it, Inge. Thanks.”

“What will you do now?”

“Keep my head down.”

“That won’t work for long.”

“I know. I’ll travel back with you lot and then get someone to drive me out to Spring Gardens Road. I want to hear Belinda’s story before the sky falls in.”

He chose to be driven back to Concorde House in the same search and rescue van he’d used as his temporary headquarters. The ride wasn’t comfortable, but he didn’t want the palaver of moving to the people-carrier on crutches, struggling up the steps to sit among a bunch of complaining bobbies. Instead he propped his back against some first-aid packs and slipped his injured foot into a space between two rolled-up stretchers. The van hadn’t gone far over the bumpy field when he regretted the absence of springs underneath him. The bundle of used police tape fell from a shelf and spread over his thighs as if to remind him what a fiasco this search had been. He let it lie there.

Back in Emersons Green, he disentangled himself and prepared to move again. He wouldn’t risk going inside the building and meeting Georgina. With difficulty, he transferred to the passenger seat of Ingeborg’s small car. Not much was said on the drive into Bath. She enquired about his foot and he lied and said he’d forgotten he had one. But when they reached Belinda’s digs, he needed the strong arm of the law — Ingeborg’s — to help him get vertical.

“Shall I come in with you?” she offered when she’d handed him the crutches.

“Good suggestion. Stop me strangling her.”

Little Mrs. Hector had seen them coming and had the front door open, in contrast to their reception last time. She was back in her apron and slippers as if they were her uniform. “What’s happened to you, poor lamb?” she asked.

He glanced at Ingeborg to see if she was in difficulty, but the remark had been directed at him. He hadn’t been called a lamb in forty years.

“Long story,” he said.

“You look dreadful.”

“That’s what all the girls say, and they can’t get enough of me. Is she inside?”

“She hasn’t left her room since she arrived, except to go to the bathroom. I hope you didn’t mind me phoning in. You asked me to tell you if she was back.”

“Public-spirited of you, ma’am.”

“She’s never going to tell you herself, so it was up to me.”

“Did she say anything?”

“When?”

“When she came in.”

“We didn’t speak.”

“Why was that?”

“I was in bed, petrified. You told me she was dead.”

He felt the chill of Ingeborg’s disapproval. “I don’t remember using those words. I said we were concerned for her, that’s all.”

“When a policeman comes knocking on my door, what else am I to think?”

“So she arrived first thing today and let herself in?”

“She has her own key. She went straight up to the room.”

“You haven’t even seen her?”

Her eyes switched to full beam. “God almighty, do you think it’s someone else?”

The possibility hadn’t crossed Diamond’s mind until now. Was this the twist that could yet salvage his career?

Too much to hope. Face it, he thought: nothing has gone right since I started on this quest. I’m screwed.

“No, I believe it’s Belinda. Let’s hope so, for her sake. Would you ask her to come down?”

“Certainly not.”

Thrown by her refusal, he waited for more.

“It could be a stranger.”

“We’re the police, Mrs. Hector. You’re perfectly safe.”

“I’d rather you went up. Oh.” She looked at his crutches. “Would the young lady like to go?”

“Detective Sergeant Smith. What a good idea.” He glanced towards Ingeborg. “See what you can do.”

Mrs. Hector batted her eyelashes at Ingeborg. “How brave. The first door you come to, my love.”

Diamond asked, “Is there somewhere we can have a quiet chat with Belinda?”

“You can use my front room.” Mrs. Hector opened a door off the hall. “It’s not as tidy as I would like.”

While Ingeborg went upstairs, Diamond looked into the front room, which was dominated by a large-screen TV blaring out some noisy show about family feuds. Mrs. Hector’s armchair was squarely in front of it and some upright chairs would be available if the newspapers and magazines were removed from them.

“This will do nicely.”

“It will if your sergeant can tempt her down,” Mrs. Hector said, gathering newspapers to free up the chairs. “Don’t get up your hopes. She’s a very private person.”

He could have said that a locked door was no barrier to the police but he thought better of it.

Although the sound of Ingeborg’s knocking travelled downstairs, the words she spoke couldn’t compete with the TV volume. “Would you like to make a cup of tea?” Diamond suggested to Mrs. Hector. “She might come down for that.”

This had the double advantage of occupying the landlady in the kitchen and enabling Diamond to pick up the remote and silence the TV. Now he could hear Ingeborg saying, “You’re not in any trouble, Belinda. We just need to ask you a couple of questions. Everyone has been worried about you.”

There didn’t seem to be a response.

“It’s essential that we speak to you, not just for your own sake, but for other women who may be harassed or stalked.”

A socially responsible point he wouldn’t have thought to make and so much better coming from a female officer as empathetic as Ingeborg.

But she wasn’t succeeding. The persuasion had to be raised a notch. “It’s just me and my boss downstairs and he’s a teddy bear, really. He’s been so worried since you went missing.”

A lamb and now a teddy bear. He could almost be convinced it was true.

“We know you didn’t finish the race on Sunday and we have a good idea why that was. You’ll be doing a service to vulnerable women. Believe me, Belinda, if we don’t get your help, there’s a real danger of worse things happening.”

The sound of a key being turned in a lock was testament to Ingeborg’s strategy. Diamond limped out of sight, into the living room, more Quasimodo than teddy.

Soft steps on the stairs. No words other than a murmur of thanks from Ingeborg.

Then Belinda was in the doorway, brushing back dishevelled hair, a slender young blonde woman in a grey tracksuit, her eyes red-lidded, cheeks lined with tension. Without any doubt, she was the woman he’d seen in the half marathon getting full-on attention from Tony Pinto.

On first seeing the figure hunched over the crutches, she appeared ready to turn around and dash upstairs again, but Ingeborg touched her arm reassuringly. “Peter had his accident searching for you. Why don’t we all sit down?”

Mrs. Hector appeared with a tray and Diamond noticed she’d put four cups and saucers on it. “I’ll be in with the teapot directly,” she said.

“And then you’ll find something to do in the kitchen, won’t you?” he said. “We need to speak to Belinda in private.”

“She might be glad of my support.”

“Perhaps, but we have to follow our rules and no one sits in on interviews unless they’re solicitors.”

“It’s my own home,” she said.

“Yes, and I’m sure you know of another room you can use for a few minutes.”

She turned away, clicked her tongue and made for the door. “I’ll fetch the teapot.”

“Sergeant Smith will save you the trouble.”

With that settled, and alone in the room with Belinda, he offered her the armchair, but she wouldn’t take it, preferring one of the upright ones nearest to the door. “You look as if you’ve had a hard time,” he said, plonking himself on another chair across the room from her and resting the crutches against a radiator. “We both have.”

Belinda wasn’t for bonding.

Ingeborg returned with the teapot and biscuits on another tray and used her foot to close the door behind her. “We shouldn’t be disturbed now,” she said. “There’s a small TV in the kitchen and I found Jeremy Vine for her.”

Once the tea was handed round, Diamond forced himself to be agreeable to the instrument of his undoing. “We’ve got some catching up to do, Belinda. I can’t say enough how pleased we are that you’re safe and well.”

She refused to make eye contact. Or was too shy.

Ingeborg added, “You’re going to help us understand what happened, aren’t you? Let’s start with the race. We know you didn’t finish because your top with the race number was found in a field on Combe Down, some way from where the race went through.”

Staring down into the teacup, she said in the faintest of voices. “I put it there.”

“Under a hedge?”

“I didn’t want it found.”

“So you rolled it up and buried it under the leaves?”

She rested the cup and saucer on the chair next to her as if preparing to make a statement, but nothing came. Diamond wondered if she was about to get up and leave the room.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?” he said. “You started the race with everyone else. Why did you pull out?”

He shouldn’t have spoken. He was ignored. Didn’t even get a putdown. This would be strictly woman to woman.

He reached for a biscuit just to fill the silence.

Ingeborg had her own more subtle way of eliciting the story. “You enjoy running, do you?”

The answer was a sigh, a faint release of breath that came across as negative.

“Why did you do it, then — to raise money for the charity?”

The murmur she gave was probably a yes.

“With someone in mind?”

She mumbled something inaudible and lowered her head so much that her hair screened her face entirely.

“I didn’t hear.”

“My mother.”

“She’s a heart patient?”

“She died a year ago.”

What can you say to that except the response Ingeborg gave?

“I’m so sorry.”

She was pausing for respect when Belinda used the back of her hand to wipe away tears and added, “I was alone with her.”

“At home? As her carer?”

“I lived there all my life until then.”

The history was becoming clearer, the mother — daughter bond persisting into adult life. No mention yet of her father.

Ingeborg said in a soft tone, “You wanted to give something back so you ran the race?”

The blonde hair shifted slightly.

Diamond watched and listened, took another biscuit and left the talking to his capable sergeant.

“That’s a lovely way of saying thank you,” Ingeborg said with warmth, as if the tiny movement of the head had been a full answer. “A big commitment, though.”

“It took...” The rest was lost. Belinda was still talking to the floor.

“Took what?”

“...took my mind off... off... ”

“The grief. Of course. I mean as well as getting fit, you had to get sponsors. How much did the charity ask you to raise?”

“Three hundred and fifty.”

“Obviously you managed it.”

“Over two thousand.” Spoken flatly, without a shred of self-congratulation, but at least a few more words had come and she’d lifted her head enough for her face to be visible.

“Awesome,” Ingeborg said.

Diamond was in awe himself, at a loss to understand how this painfully shy young woman had raised such a sum. In the past he’d been asked by friends and people at work to pledge small amounts for personal challenges they were taking on for charity, some seriously demanding and some quite silly. He always paid up regardless. It was bound to be a good cause and you don’t turn your back on somebody you know. But how many friends did Belinda have? Even if he was wrong and she had hundreds, he couldn’t imagine her asking anyone to sign up.

The mystery was cleared up in her next utterance. “Crowdfunding.”

Ingeborg smiled and said, “Of course. The internet is your job. You know how to get yourself a page on JustGiving and reach out to people you don’t even know. But two thousand plus is still a marvellous sum.”

“A burden.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“The responsibility.”

“I understand. All those pledges mounting up and the sponsors trusting you to finish the race.”

“Which I didn’t.”

“You pulled out halfway through. What happened, Belinda?”

She shook her head more emphatically and there was a real danger she would go silent again.

Ingeborg was quick to say, “You’ll feel better for explaining. Don’t internalise it. I’ll bet anything you were fit enough to run. You did the training, didn’t you?”

“Mm.”

“I’m trying not to put words in your mouth. You must tell us what went wrong.”

Belinda clearly sensed that she was being edged towards sharing more than she intended.

“You know why it’s so important to us,” Ingeborg added. “I already explained and I think you understand.”

Belinda raised her face and she was frowning as if, in fact, she didn’t understand. Then apparently a new thought dawned and the frown turned to a look of shock and then horror. “Did he find someone else?”

“Who are we talking about here?”

“The man I escaped from.”

A suggestion that hadn’t yet occurred to Diamond. He’d been fixated on Belinda’s story to the exclusion of everything else, even the mortifying mistake he’d made about the body in the quarry. He couldn’t duck the fact that he’d forced his idiotic hallucination on his entire team. Or could he? Was she right to suggest Pinto may have attacked another woman? Was there a body down there after all?

He wanted to pursue this, but he could see that anything he said would destroy the delicate rapport Ingeborg was trying so hard to create. He was torn, feeling uncomfortable staying in the room and possibly inhibiting Belinda from speaking frankly, but needing to hear every word she said. Her story was inextricably linked to his own survival as a senior police officer.

“We don’t know anything for certain,” Ingeborg said, “but you can help by telling us your experience.”

“There was someone else, wasn’t there?” she said, still wide-eyed. “You’re not telling me everything.”

“I could say the same about you, Belinda.”

“He terrified me. He was vile. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

“Deal with what?”

“Comments about my body, suggestions, touching — trying to make it seem accidental.”

“This was during the race?”

“Right from the start, when we were bunched in the pen.”

“He touched you?”

“My bottom, more than once. The second time his whole hand was groping, clutching.” The thought that another woman might have suffered the same and worse had broken the shackles of Belinda’s shyness.

“That’s sexual assault. What did you do — tell him to stop?”

“I was embarrassed.”

“Anyone would be, but he had to be told.”

“I turned my head and couldn’t see him properly. He said, ‘Oops,’ or something as if it was accidental, but I knew it wasn’t. I tried to move away and couldn’t. We were packed in, starting to step forward and people were touching each other accidentally, but this was deliberate.”

Animated by anger, she was speaking with absolute freedom now, vividly revisiting the incident. “I just wanted to get away from him, but when we crossed the start line and started to run, he stayed close behind. You know how you can sense someone’s presence? I went faster, quicker than I wanted to run the race, overtaking other runners, and he kept up, and soon he started saying things.”

“Chatting you up?”

“Trying to. About what a good mover I was and how he liked my action and crude stuff like that. I didn’t know how to get rid of him. He started asking my name.”

“Did he tell you his own?”

“If he did, I didn’t hear it. I was in a bad state.”

“Understandably. Can you describe him?”

“I tried to blank him out. I deliberately didn’t look at his face. All I can tell you is he had a blue headband, yellow top and blue shorts. And he was a lot older than I am.”

Diamond hadn’t any doubt that the groper was Pinto, so the colours of the running kit came as no surprise.

“How long did this pestering go on?” Ingeborg asked.

“All through the first part of the race. Through Sydney Gardens and Bathampton and a long stretch beside the canal. It’s a beautiful part of the course and I’d been expecting to enjoy it, but it’s just a blur. My mind was totally taken up with that horrible man and what I could do to get rid of him. Running faster wasn’t doing any good.”

“He stayed with you all this time?”

“There were a few times when he seemed to go away but never for long. I’d sense him close behind me and the remarks would start up again. Was that a sports bra I was wearing and wasn’t it uncomfortable with so much crammed into it? I was almost in tears. We came to a feeding station and I felt his hand on my back and he said he’d pick up extra water to share with me. I kept telling myself not to speak to him because it would only encourage him, but I blurted out, ‘Leave me alone,’ which he ignored, of course.”

“Weren’t there marshals to complain to?”

“Yes, but what was I going to say? ‘This man is pestering me, and will you please ask him to stop?’ Other women know how to deal with men who come onto them. I’m different. I can handle most problems, but not that.”

“You’re not alone,” Ingeborg said. “It’s difficult for us all.”

“I’m not used to it. I don’t go on dates, don’t go out much at all. My parents divorced when I was four — I was their only child — and my father went to live in Spain, so men are outside my experience. What were you asking? About why I didn’t report this man for pestering me? It’s against my nature to share private things with other people. You can see the effort it’s been telling you what happened.”

“You’re doing okay.”

Doing remarkably well, Diamond thought. Partly this was thanks to Ingeborg’s sympathetic questioning, but mainly the outrage that had needed to be expressed.

“Now I’ve started, it’s easier. I want to relate to other people more and I know I should force myself, but it’s not easy. Anyway, as we went under the Dundas Aqueduct and headed towards Monkton Combe I was already dreading what was to come.”

“The Combe Down tunnel?”

“Yes. I know what it’s like. I’d been in there once on a training run. It should be a fun part of the race, a change of atmosphere. There are lights at intervals and a nice breeze runs through it, but it’s narrow and of course when you’re inside you have to keep going for a mile. There’s no escape. I was already heavy-legged from running faster than I should have done and a mile seemed a very long way.”

“You must have done half the course by then.”

“Much too fast and I was in a pitiful state. I was thinking I was going to collapse in the tunnel and what he’d do if I was helpless. It preyed on my mind.”

“You were under huge stress.”

Reliving it, she drew a sharp breath and brought her hands together with fingers intertwined. “I decided my only option was to drop out of the race and that’s what happened.”

“Where was this?”

“Before we reached the viaduct at Tucking Mill. You go over that and you’re thirty feet above ground so you can’t escape. We were on a winding footpath in the Midford Valley among trees and bushes. He’d gone a few yards ahead of me. I don’t know why. To ambush me when we reached the tunnel perhaps. Anyway, I took my chance and left the footpath and ran out of sight behind some trees. Two other women in the race saw me and laughed, thinking it was a call of nature, I suppose. Actually I just threw myself down and wept.”

“But you’d got away from him.”

“It was very emotional. I felt some relief, of course, but I was devastated to have given up after all the training.”

“Did you think of joining the race again?”

She shook her head. “I was sure he’d be waiting for me if I did, and probably in the tunnel. I was terrified of going in there. I knew my race was over and I needed to think how I would get home from there. It’s very remote.”

“I know it,” Ingeborg said. “I can’t think how you’d get out of there unless you went back the way you came.”

“You mean the half marathon route? I couldn’t do that, facing all the runners as they came towards me, and their comments. I suppose I could have waited until it was over and they’d all gone past, but it would take a long time, maybe another hour or more, and I was already shivering and I needed to move from where I was. The sides of the valley looked awfully steep.”

“They are.”

“I had a rough idea where I was. If I climbed the slope to my right I’d be going towards Bath. Somewhere up there was Combe Down. That’s what I did. I started up the slope.”

“Rough going, I’m sure.”

“I got scratched, but I wasn’t thinking about that. Every step was taking me away from my tormentor.”

“He didn’t follow you, did he?”

“I couldn’t tell, but the thought of him was driving me. By the time I reached the top, I was spent. I flopped down and tried to recover some strength. All kinds of negative thoughts were running through my head, but now that I’d got away from the man, I was shattered that I’d failed to finish. All those sponsors had trusted me and I’d have to tell them.”

“I’m sure it’s happened before. The sponsors can’t ask for their money back, can they?”

“But I didn’t collapse or anything. I copped out.”

“That isn’t true,” Ingeborg said.

“But it is. Let’s be honest. I ran away. I’m going to have to admit it. Some of my sponsors follow everything on social media and I’ve been giving updates on my training and everything. As soon as the results were announced online they’d look to see where I came and find my name was missing. They’ll believe I took their money by false pretences. How can I announce I quit because of some man who grabbed my butt? I was mortified. I still am.”

“He assaulted you and you’re not the first,” Ingeborg said in a salt-dry tone Diamond knew well, holding back her impatience. “He’s a predator. You were a victim, not a fraud.”

“A fraud is what I feel like.” She was getting breathless again and the tears were ready to flow.

Blatantly heading off more emotion, Ingeborg said, “What happened next? We don’t know where you’ve been since Sunday.”

Belinda’s self-contempt ran deep. “I’m a coward. I wanted to hide from him, from everyone. Like I said, I got to the fields at the top and took off my shirt with the number and hid it. I had another layer underneath. Oh, and I untied the chip from my shoe and threw it away. I was thinking if I disappeared no one would know I’d failed.”

“Did you have your smartphone with you?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Sat nav.”

“I didn’t think of that. It goes with me everywhere. That shows the state I was in.”

“And then?”

“After I’d recovered enough to walk again, I made my way towards Combe Down village and came to a road.”

“That would be Summer Lane.”

“It was, and I saw a car drive by. I plucked up courage and waited for more to come along, hoping I would be able to spot a woman driver and wave her down and ask for a lift into Bath. I didn’t want to be alone with a man, dressed as I was.”

“Did you get lucky?”

“Eventually. A woman in a pale green Fiat. It had to be a woman’s car. There were decals of purple flowers on the bonnet. She was so sweet. I told her I’d dropped out of the race and wanted to get back into town and she drove me straight there.”

“Here, you mean? Spring Gardens Road?”

“No. I couldn’t face being questioned by Mrs. Hector. I asked to be put down outside the Francis Hotel.”

Diamond’s self-imposed silence came to an abrupt end. “The Francis? You went to the Francis?” He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d been staying all week in his office in Concorde House. The hotel in Queen Square had been a second home to him when CID was based in Bath.

“It was about the only hotel I’ve heard of. I told them I’d been in the half marathon and needed to rest.”

“They took you on as a guest just like that?”

“I offered a deposit using tap and pay on my phone. I looked like a scarecrow, but they were very understanding.”

“You had no luggage.”

“I said I’d be fetching it later. I just needed to rest, which was true.”

“I bet you slept like a baby,” Ingeborg said.

“Not really. I was deeply worried still and my brain was fizzing, but at least I was resting my tired body. Late in the evening I used room service to get a meal and I did the same next day for breakfast.”

“And that was where you were all this time?” Diamond said in exasperation. She could at least have fled to the Outer Hebrides instead of being under his nose. He shuddered to think what they would make of this at the disciplinary hearing he would surely face. “Didn’t you hear we were searching for you?”

“It wasn’t on my phone.”

“I can’t get over this. You stayed all week in the Francis?”

“I went out and bought some clothes and personal items on the Monday morning.”

“Out shopping in Bath?” It was worse.

“I came back here as well.”

“You couldn’t have done. Mrs. Hector would have told us.”

“She wasn’t here. Every Tuesday morning without fail, she meets her friend Ivy in the cafe at Marks and Spencer for what she calls a chinwag, so I knew I could get in and collect a few things without being noticed.”

“I can’t understand why you went to all this trouble, staying hidden.”

Ingeborg said, “She explained, guv. She was going through an emotional crisis. She needed space to sort herself out.”

“I’m sorry,” Belinda said. “I didn’t expect anyone to miss me except Mrs. Hector and I didn’t know she’d go to the police.”

“We went to her.” He reached for the crutches. He’d heard enough.

“This man,” Belinda said, “has he done this sort of thing before?”

“You did the right thing, escaping from him. Let’s leave it at that.”

In Ingeborg’s Ka, he said, “What did you make of that?”

She started the engine. “Now we’ve met her, I understand why she acted as she did. The upbringing has a lot to do with it.”

“Mother-dominated?”

“So much that I felt as if the mother was speaking. Mealy mouthed phrases like ‘a call of nature.’ She couldn’t tell Pinto to piss off. She’s never heard anyone say that. And yet she’s brave, waving down the woman in the car and marching into the Francis to ask for a room.”

“Desperation.”

“I had to feel sorry for her. She tried so hard to do the right thing, raising that big sum for the heart charity. What do you make of her?”

“I’m biased, aren’t I?” he said. “I went in wanting to feed her to the lions and my heart went out to her when she talked about Pinto trying it on. But now I’m out of there the old antagonisms have come back. Bring on the lions.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. Without meaning to, she dropped me in it.”

“Speaking of which,” Ingeborg said, “is your phone switched off? I had a text from Georgina telling me to make sure you read your mail.”

“Oh Christ. What’s she up to now?”