Page 49 of Ticket Out

While they were standing there, a doctor emerged from the room, and noting Yates’s uniform, started shaking his head. “Mr. Rodney is asleep. I’ve sedated him. He may be pretty fit for someone in his mid 70s, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow morning if you want to speak to him.”

They walked back out together, Solomon Harriot choosing to join them as the doctor didn’t want him there, either.

“Can we give you a lift home, Mr. Harriot?” James asked. He was curious to know where the Trinidadian lived. He wondered if he was Gabriella’s upstairs neighbor.

“You going to the Gate?” Harriot asked.

“The Gate?” James had never heard of that.

“What we call Notting Hill,” Harriot said.

We being those who originally hailed from Trinidad and Tobago, James guessed.

“Then yes. I’d like to speak to Miss Farnsworth while the incident is fresh in her mind.”

That was the truth, but he’d have gone, anyway.

Harriot accepted the offer, and they dropped him off three streets away from Gabriella’s house, in front of a small, single family dwelling. A woman came out while he was getting out the car, as if she’d been watching from the front window, and pulled him into a tight embrace when he reached her.

When James pulled up outside the old converted Victorian, he looked up and saw the light was still on on the top floor.

He suddenly wished he’d made an excuse to lose Hartridge, somehow.

He climbed out slowly, aware it had been a hell of a day, and decided having Hartridge as a chaperone was probably not a bad thing.

“You been here before?” Hartridge asked.

James nodded. “Once, after she found Patty Little’s body.” He didn’t elaborate, and led the way inside. It worried him that the front door was on the latch, and he turned the lock behind them before heading up the stairs.

He knocked softly on Gabriella’s door, aware she might be jumpy after the attack.

“Who’s there?” she called, and he didn’t like the tremble in her voice.

“It’s DS Archer and DC Hartridge.” He felt she deserved fair warning he wasn’t on his own like last time.

There was a moment of silence. “One moment.”

He heard her walk away, and a few minutes later she opened up, clearly having changed out of her pajamas into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She looked rumpled and a little grumpy.

He forced himself not to look at her mouth.

“Sorry to disturb you, Miss Farnsworth,” he said. For the first time since he’d bumped into Yates he looked at his watch and winced. “I didn’t realize the time. But do you mind if we come in and ask a few questions?”

She drew back from the door without a word, walked over to her little round table and sat down. “Did you see Mr. Rodney? Is he all right?”

“The doctor says he’s in good shape, and his nephew says there’ll be a scar, but no other damage.”

She bowed her head, and when she looked up, her eyes glistened. “That he got hurt at all, because of me—”

“Not because of you.” James made his voice very firm. “We don’t know for sure why you were attacked, but if it’s to do with Patty and Sam, then it’s because of Devenish and Lenny and whoever is doing this. Not you.”

She drew in a deep breath. Gave a nod.

“So what can you tell me?” James sat down, leaving Hartridge to stand behind him and take notes.

“I couldn’t see his face. He had on a knit cap, black clothes, and a scarf tied over his mouth. I was looking more at the knife, anyway. He was taller than me, but not extremely tall. George and Solomon,” she flicked a look across the table at him, “and you, would tower over him.”

“Could he have been the man who tried to pick you up in the van?” James asked.

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