Page 12 of Return Ticket

He ushered her in, a cup of tea in hand, and waved her into his visitor’s chair.

“What brings you to headquarters early?” He set his mug down on a spot which, judging from the number of water stains in the wood, was its habitual place, and leaned against the desk.

“The police insisted, sir. They put me in a car and dropped me here.” She hadn’t been able to argue with James without making a fuss. “There was a run-in with a driver.” She worried her lip.

“Tell me.” He steepled his fingers and tapped them against his salt and pepper mustache.

She cleared her throat. “I fined him yesterday, and then today he was parked even worse, on double yellows, partially blocking an entrance, but when I touched his car I got a shock and landed on the pavement. A detective constable was there, investigating that body I told you about yesterday, and he also got a shock.”

“A shock, as in an electrical shock?” Mr. Greenberg asked, voice sharp.

She nodded.

“This is not the first time I’ve heard of this. Someone at the fruit and veg market at Covent Garden said something about trucks . . .” He frowned, trying to remember.

“Yesterday, when I gave him his fine, the man did say something about twenty trucks coming in on market day. I think he’s a farmer.” Gabriella relaxed a little. Not that she was glad someone else had been electrocuted, but that this wasn’t a ‘her’ problem.

“You landed on the pavement, you say?” Mr. Greenberg studied her. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “There was a doctor in the crowd that gathered around. He told me to seek medical help if I feel faint or my heart starts beating too fast, but that I should be fine. Detective Constable Hartridge is also fine, but he and Detective Sergeant Archer want to press charges.”

“Press charges?” Greenberg shook his head. “My counterpart in Covent Garden says they’ve tried that. There isn’t a law against it. The bounder electrifies his car and then backs it into his trucks, all parked touching each other in a long row. No one can put a notice on any of them without being shocked. And because they’re all his private property, he gets away with it.”

“Detective Constable Hartridge made the point that if a child had touched it, they could have been very seriously hurt.” Gabriella was angry all over again just at the thought of it.

“I agree.” Mr. Greenberg turned and faced his map. He’d put it up after the murders she had been involved in a few months before and had begun tracking incidents on it. He picked up a yellow pin and tapped the borough of Chelsea with a finger. “Where did this happen?”

Gabriella got up and pointed to the spot.

Mr. Greenberg put the pin in.

“The yellows are attacks on wardens?” she asked, noticing other yellow pins dotted through the map for the first time. Most of them were in Kensington and Chelsea, but that made sense, because that was Mr. Greenberg’s own area of responsibility. Any other incidents would have to be told to him by the heads of the other traffic warden stations.

“I’ve gone through all the reports, starting from three weeks ago,” Mr. Greenberg said. “I’m also tracking all deaths that involve my wardens, either as a witness or called on as an authority figure.”

The body she’d found the day before was on the map, she’d been here when he’d added it, but now she saw there were two others.

“A homeless man,” Mr. Greenberg said, tapping the red pin that was in Kensington Gardens, and Gabriella remembered hearing about a body being found under the bushes in the park.

“And this one?” She hadn’t heard about another death, and this one looked very close to her own route.

“The body was found in Hammersmith and Fulham,” Mr. Greenberg said. “I only got word of it when I had dinner with some other head wardens last night.”

Hammersmith and Fulham was the borough to the west of Kensington and Chelsea, so that explained why she hadn’t heard anything about this, but as the crow flew, it was close. “Another homeless person?” Gabriella asked.

Mr. Greenberg’s shoulders lifted. “Not sure. The body was found in an allotment garden, half-buried in a trench the gardeners were digging to deal with a flooding issue. I don’t know if the coroner has issued a finding yet.”

She would ask James when she saw him tonight. He had said he would be round to check on her.

She took a step away from the map. “It’s only halfway through my shift, sir, I better get on.”

He looked at her from under bushy gray eyebrows. “You’re going home, Miss Farnsworth.”

She shook her head, holding her hands tight together. “I really am fine. My arm felt strange for a while, and I felt a little dizzy, but honestly, that’s all gone now.”

Mr. Greenberg looked at her. “You’re an adult, and know yourself. If you think you can go on, that’s fine, but if you feel any effects at any time, you come in, is that clear?”

She nodded meekly and left, relieved that he trusted her to know what she could and couldn’t do.

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