Page 39 of Ticket Out

“Mr. Fischer and Lenny are killing each other. I can hear them!”

The woman hadn’t let go of Gabriella, and she tried to drag her up the stairs into the shop. After a moment’s resistance, Gabriella allowed herself to be dragged.

She couldn’t leave this woman in this state, even if she had no official standing.

As soon as they were inside the shop, Gabriella could hear it, too. Shouting, thumping, things breaking.

“Do you have a telephone?” Gabriella looked around for one, and the woman nodded, her head like a bobble doll, as if she couldn’t stop.

“Behind the counter.”

Gabriella pulled out DS Archer’s card and rang the number. She left a message, because he wasn’t at New Scotland Yard, but she did ask for some bobbies to be sent round, as quickly as possible.

From behind the thin wall at the back of the shop, someone gave a high-pitched scream of pain, and the woman put her hands over her ears. “Make them stop.”

“Wait outside on the steps for the police. I’ll go around the back.” She wasn’t sure if the woman even heard her, but when she made for the door, she heard her shuffling after her, so hopefully she had.

She felt a quick, hard thump in her chest and her breathing hitched as soon as she stepped into the alley.

There were still blood stains on the ground where Patty had lain, and she tried not to look at them as she hurried past. The alley ended in a tight back street with a dead end that she’d never been down before, although she’d noticed it on her rounds when she turned left out of Clematis Lane.

The powder blue Ford Prefect that had been parked in the loading zone the other day was now parked right near a door that seemed to go into the gallery’s back entrance. It was blocking a black car parked a little further along.

The back door was slightly ajar, and Gabriella approached it cautiously.

While she’d been running down the alley, the screaming had stopped, but it had been replaced by quick, shallow breathing, and the sound of someone moving around, their steps crunching on what was surely broken glass.

She pushed the door open a little way and peered inside, wishing she had a weapon to protect herself. What she found was a small antechamber, with canvases stacked against a wall, and a table with some oil paints and an open bottle of turpentine standing on it.

She moved through to the next door, and what she saw inside had her momentarily astonished.

It looked like a laboratory. Long, wooden trestle tables with glass jars and bunsen burners were set out in parallel, and it smelled strange. A man walked through them, shoving equipment onto the floor as he went.

A whimper of sound and a rocking motion caught her attention and she saw a second man in a white coat, curled up on his side next to one of the tables. He was pressing a hand to his shoulder, which was bleeding through the fabric. He glanced up as she moved into the doorway, and gave a groan at the sight of her.

The other man turned at the noise. When he faced her, she saw it was the driver of the blue Ford, the delivery man who’d spoken to Patty that day with Mr. Devenish.

“Shit,” he said.

“You must save me,” the man on the floor panted out, in a thick accent. “He’s trying to kill me.”

“This isn’t your business,” the Ford driver said. “You’re the traffic department, aren’t you? What are you even doing here?”

Before she could answer that, she heard someone coming from behind her, and turned in alarm.

The sight of the tall bobby from the other day had her blowing out a breath in relief. She remembered DS Archer had called him PC Longmore.

“All right?” he asked.

She gave a quick nod. “He isn’t, though.” She tilted her head to the man on the floor. She switched her attention to the driver, who had gone still at the sight of the constable. “And that man is someone I think DS Archer would like to speak to.”

“Is that so?” Longmore shot her a quick look of surprise. He gave the whole scene a quick look-over. “You’ll have to go back round to the shop and call for an ambulance and more support for me.”

Gabriella guessed from this that he’d come on his own, and he could hardly leave. The Ford driver would be out like a shot and gone as soon as the way was clear—it was in every line of his body.

She murmured her agreement and backed out, happy to be free of the strange smell and the stranger atmosphere. She jogged back down the alley to Clematis Lane, and found the gift shop owner sitting on the steps with her hands over her ears.

Gabriella stepped around her, deciding asking permission to use the phone would be a waste of time. She made the calls, and was assured some of Longmore’s colleagues were already on the way.

---