Page 77 of Ticket Out

“Medical supplies?” she asked.

Mrs. Everett pointed with a blood-stained finger to the mirrored wall cupboard above the sink, and Gabriella opened it up to find it was very well stocked.

The sound of Mr. Knife throwing himself against the door again made her flinch, and then Gabriella shook it off.

“Let’s get you fixed up.”

chapterthirty-three

“Detective Sergeant Archer?”

The question accompanied a light knock on his doorjamb.

James looked up from his desk and found two elderly gentlemen standing outside in the passageway. One was wearing a traffic warden uniform, the other a navy wool suit.

“Come in,” he said, standing. “What can I do for you?”

They had to have some pull at the Met, he realized, otherwise they’d have been made to wait downstairs in Reception, and he would have been called down. Someone had let them through.

They exchanged uneasy looks.

“It’s a bit of a strange one, Archer.” The one in the uniform reached over his desk, hand extended in greeting. “I’m Patrick Nelson. Retired sergeant out of the White Chapel nick, now working as a traffic warden.”

“Charles Greenberg,” the one in the suit said, extending his own hand after James had shaken with Nelson. “I used to work out of the Met myself. I’m the head of the Kensington and Chelsea Traffic Warden Center now.”

This was to do with Gabriella.

An icy hand gripped James’s gut, and he invited them to sit with a sweep of his hand as he sat himself.

“Gabriella?” he asked, getting to the crux of things.

“In a word.” Greenberg gave a nod. “But it’s Patrick’s story to tell.”

James turned to the warden.

He cleared his throat. “I switched routes with Miss Farnsworth, for her safety, last week. One of the regulars from my old route, which is Miss Farnsworth’s new route, found me where I usually eat lunch, with a wild story that a man had made forceable entry into a house on the route, and that he’d asked Miss Farnsworth to intervene while he went to get help.”

“You went to take a look?” James was sure they’d have first gone to check before coming to him.

“I got hold of Mr. Greenberg to let him know the situation, and I met him there. It’s not far from the traffic center.”

“There was no sign of anything being wrong,” Greenberg said. “But no sign of Miss Farnsworth, either. She was nowhere on her route.”

“You rang the doorbell?”

They both nodded.

“No one answered, but I thought there was someone there just the same.” Nelson held his gaze, and James could see the shrewd, cynical expression of a seasoned copper in their depths.

“You called the local nick?” James asked.

“The local coppers won’t make entry just on the say so of my informant, and it’s not that I blame them, but I don’t think Teddy Roe would make something like this up,” Nelson said. “He was part of the night crew in the war, pulling bodies from buildings that were hit in the air raids. After what he’d gone through in the Great War, that seemed to tip him over the edge. He’s been homeless since the 50s, and he isn’t always in the present. But he wouldn’t harm a fly, and he doesn’t lie.”

James got to his feet.

“You’re going to do something?” Greenberg looked surprised and relieved.

“Yes.” He leaned over and grabbed his coat. “Let’s go.”

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