...I'm so afraid. I can't stay here. If I do, he'll come. He knows where ..." She sobbed anew. "I should never have ...He wouldn't have hurt her. But I thought he should explain to the police ...because if they found it ..."
Meredith said, "I'll come over straightaway. If he bangs on the door, you ring triple nine."
"Where are you?"
"Ringwood."
"But that'll take ...He'll come after me, Meredith. He was so angry."
"Sit in one of the tea rooms then. He won't go after you there. Not in public. Scream your head off if you have to."
"I shouldn't have - "
"What? You shouldn't have gone to the cops? What else were you supposed to do?"
"But how did he know they have those tickets? How could he know? Did you tell someone?"
Meredith hesitated. She didn't want to admit she'd told Robbie Hastings. She picked up her pace to get to her car, and she said, "That bloke Whiting. He'd've gone out there with questions straightaway when we gave him that stuff. But this is good, Gina. It's what we wanted to happen. Don't you see that?"
"I knew he'd know. That's why I wanted you to be the one to - "
"It's going to be all right." Meredith ended the call.
She was, at this point, some distance from Lyndhurst but the dual carriageway out of Ringwood was going to help her. Her nerves begged for the affirmation tape to be played, so as she drove, she listened to it, repeating the phrases feverishly: I love you, I want you, you are special to me, I see you and I hear you, it's not what you do but who you are that I love, I love you, I want you, you are special to me, I see you and I hear you, it's not what you do but who you are that I love. And then I am enough, I am enough, I am enough, I am enough. And when that didn't seem to be the ticket, I am a child of God, beloved to Him, I am a child of God, beloved to Him.
SHE STEAMED INTO Lyndhurst some twenty minutes later. She felt marginally calmed. She left her car by the New Forest Museum and hurried back along the car park's narrow entry towards the high street, where a tailback from the traffic lights for the Romsey Road made crossing between the vehicles easy.
Gina wasn't in the tea rooms. These were closed for the day anyway, but the proprietress was still there doing her evening cleanup, so Meredith knew that had Gina wanted to sit and wait and be perfectly safe, she could have done so. Which meant, she concluded, that Gina had calmed down.
She climbed the stairs. It was silent above, with just the noises from the high street drifting in from the open doorway. As before, it was hotter than Hades in the building, and Meredith felt the sweat trickle down her back, although she knew it was only partly due to the heat. The other part was fear. What if he was here already? In the room? With Gina? Having followed her back to Lyndhurst and ready to do his worst.
Meredith had barely knocked on the door when it was flung open. Gina presented an unexpected sight. Her face was puffy and red. She was holding a flannel to the upper part of her arm, and a seam had given way on the sleeve of the shirt she was wearing.
Meredith cried out, "Oh my God!"
"He was upset. He didn't mean to ..."
"What did he do?"
Gina crossed to the basin where, Meredith saw, she'd put a few pathetic cubes of ice.
These she wrapped into the washing flannel and when she did so, Meredith saw the ugly red mark on her arm. It looked the size of a fist.
She said, "We're phoning the police. That's assault. The police have to know."
"I should never have gone to them. He wouldn't have hurt her. That's not who he is. I should have known that."
"Are you mad? Look at what he just did to you! We must - "
"We've done enough. He's frightened. He admits he was there. Then she died."
"He admitted it? You must tell the police. Those detectives from Scotland Yard. Oh, where the hell are they?"
"Not that he killed her. Never that. He admitted he saw her. They had arranged to meet.
He said he had to know for sure it was finished between them before he and I could ..." She began to