Читать книгу Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. - James Hawkins - Страница 10

Mike Phillips is a recently promoted inspector with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver, and he is growing accustomed to becoming embroiled in murder cases involving his English counterpart, David Bliss.

"I could get shot for this," says Bliss as he opens his cell phone and flicks through the digital address book looking for his Canadian colleague's number. "It's my job to make sure that people don't short-circuit the system," he continues irritably as he taps in the number of the officer with whom he had once teamed up to trace a serial killer. "That's what Interpol's for," he carries on as he waits for the connection. "If everyone made their own enquiries with foreign forces there would be anarchy."

"Oh, you can be such a stuffed shirt sometimes," says Daphne snatching the phone. "The closest I've ever been to being on the force was cleaning the constables' toilet down at the police station. So unless you think that applies…" She pauses, with the phone close to her ear, mouthing "Voice mail," then adds, "He's on leave — Hawaii for two weeks," as she waits to leave a message, but then she changes her mind and slowly closes the phone. "Minnie and I were planning on going to Hawaii," she tells Bliss, with a sniffle of unfulfilled nostalgia, and then she brightens with an idea. "What about Trina?" she says, pulling out her diary and searching for a number.

"I don't know…" begins Bliss hesitantly, having mixed feelings about the zany Canadian woman who had become enmeshed in Phillips's mass murder case and had found a kindred spirit in Daphne.

"It can't do any harm," continues Daphne as she punches in the international code. "We only need the phone number of the company, and then we can ask them about Minnie's money ourselves."

"I still think I should do it officially through Ottawa," Bliss is saying as Daphne listens for the ringing tone.

"Don't you worry, David. I'll talk to her," says Daphne sarcastically. "I wouldn't want her getting into trouble with Interpol as well."

"Vancouver Zoo. Monkey House," answers the voice on the phone, and Daphne puts on a puzzled face.

"Is that you, Trina?"

"Oh. Hi, Daph. Yeah, it's me. Hang on. There's a guinea pig on the loose…" Then she yells, "Kids!" with such force that Daphne ducks.

"Sorry, Daphne," says Trina, coming back on the phone. "It's a madhouse here. I was just making some curried banana cake."

Daphne grabs a pen from Bliss's breast pocket, enthusing, "It's one of Trina's recipes."

"Hold on a minute," complains Bliss, grabbing it back as Daphne begins writing in her diary. "And that's my personal cell phone you're using."

"Oh. Sorry, Trina, I'll get it later. David's worried about his bank account now he's a lowly chief inspector. Oh. Did you know Samantha, his daughter —"

"Daphne… please," implores Bliss.

"Oh. Hang on, Trina. He wants to talk to you himself."

"Trina, do you know a place called White Rock?" asks Bliss without wasting expensive seconds on pleasantries.

"Sure. Just south of here on the American border. Hey, have you got another murder for me?"

"No… Well, yes, in a way. One of Daphne's friends has been killed, and for some strange reason she sent all her money there last week — more than twenty thousand dollars, judging by the receipts," explains Bliss, before giving Trina the details of the money transfers, each for a little under five thousand pounds.

"Ten-four," says Trina once she has the information.

"What does that mean?" queries Bliss.

"No idea, but the cops always say it on television… or is it ten-ten?"

Trina Button puts down the phone as her husband, Rick, wanders in from the garage with grease-stained hands.

"Rick, you'd better put a padlock on the guinea pig cage. I've got another murder case."

"What… What are you talking about, Trina?"

"Surely you remember? The last time I was on a case the mob tried to murder him."

"Trina," Rick reminds her gently, "you were never on a case. You are a homecare nurse who just got caught up in some nasty business, that's all. Anyway, you don't have time for this now. I've almost finished the machine and Norman is on his way over for the inaugural run."

"Great!" shrieks Trina. I'll be out in two minutes. Just gotta make a call."

CNL Distribution is a multimillion-dollar corporation with shareholders who prefer to remain unlisted — everywhere, and the phone book offers Trina no help. Neither does the directory enquiry operator. With Rick calling, "Hurry up, Trina," she quickly tries the Western Union office in White Rock, but draws a blank there as well.

"I've no idea," says the clerk tersely. "We don't ask our customers their business."

"Do you have a phone number, then?"

"Sorry, ma'am. Can't help."

"Come on, Trina! Norman's almost here," calls Rick, and a moment later Trina is joined by her two teenagers, Rob and Kylie, as she stands in the garage with tears of joy streaming down her face.

"It's beautiful, Rick… It's absolutely beautiful," she blubbers, then she turns to an elderly-looking man who has just wheeled himself into the garage in an electric wheelchair.

"Look, Norman," she says, pushing her children aside for the newcomer, "isn't it wonderful? Rick is so clever, isn't he?"

Norman Spinnaker is, like all of Trina's patients, facing a bleak outlook. Diabetes has blocked his blood vessels and robbed his legs of the strength to carry him, while nephropathy has destroyed his kidneys. Without constant dialysis, or a transplant, Norman is well aware that he is never more than few days away from meeting his maker. But thanks to Trina's unbounded optimism, he looks to his uncertain future with more confidence than a teen pop idol.

"I think it's… um… fabulous," says Norman, critically eyeing the machine that Trina insists will save his life. "But are you sure about the power-to-weight ratio?"

"Absolutely," says Rick. "C'mon Trina, climb aboard and we'll give it a trial run."

"Yes!" exclaims Trina, and she punches the air triumphantly.

The machine is a two-person quadricycle which has been fashioned from a kidney-shaped fibreglass bathtub complete with faucets, shower and soap rack. Wheels, and a nautical steering wheel from a marine junkyard in West Vancouver, have been added by Rick, along with a brass bulb horn that he had liberated from a vintage Model T Ford in his college days. A limp Canadian maple leaf flag hanging from the top of the ten-foot shower pole caps off the bizarre-looking machine, and Rick gives the pole a shake as he explains in a madinventor's voice, "Shipmates and shipbrats… Note that this apparently standard shower unit is, in actual fact, the mainmast, from which a shower-curtain sail can be suspended. And this," he carries on as he triumphantly pulls a large yellow plastic duck from a bag, "this is the figurehead which I shall now fasten to the plughole puller while naming this vessel… " He turns to Trina with a questioning look.

"The Kidney Queen," suggests Trina regally.

"Absolutely," agrees Rick. "The Kidney Queen. God bless her and all who pedal in her."

"She's terrific," says Trina, running her hand over the canvas lawn-chair seats. "What d'ye think, kids?"

"You're crazy," spits Kylie. "Like, you really think you can pedal that all the way to New York?"

"No problem," says Trina as she hops in and tests the pedals. "It's all downhill from here. Check out a map."

"Mum," questions Rob, "why are you doing this?"

"To raise money for kidney transplants —" she begins, but her fourteen-year-old son cuts her off.

"No, I meant, why are you making me look such a dweeb?"

"A dweeb?" questions Trina, and she looks to Rick for support, but he's busy watching a spider on the ceiling.

"Yeah, Mum," carries on Kylie. "It's kind'a embarrassing. My friends all say you're weird."

"Hold on a minute, you two," says Norman, coming to Trina's side. "I think your friends must be weird. You're lucky to have a mother — what's that smell?"

"Oh — oh," cries Trina, leaping out of the machine and racing for the kitchen. "Flaming banana curry cake."

"You were saying, Mr. Spinnaker?" questions Kylie.

Trina's intended Kidney Run to New York is seven months away, but her goal to raise a million dollars for kidney transplants is already looking shaky. Her primary problem is that she lacks the wholehearted backing of the local Kidney Society. Indeed, the president and members of the steering committee have been frantically distancing themselves from the scheme from the moment Trina announced her plans.

Until Trina's arrival, the Society's fundraising committee had been both inoffensive and ineffective due to the advanced years of most of its members. And how Trina, in her late thirties, was elected to the chair of the committee at her very first meeting is still a matter of some debate, although some of the blame has been laid at the feet of Maureen Stuckenberg, the Society's perennial president.

"We need someone with bright new ideas," Ms. Stuckenberg insisted, and the group unanimously voted for Trina, knowing that any event requiring most forms of physical activity, financial input or personal solicitations by members could easily be discussed to oblivion within a year or so.

"Just propose a few of your best ideas," the president had told Trina a few weeks before the annual committee meeting, not knowing of Trina's passionate nature and unswerving doggedness in her desire to do good, and Trina arrived at the meeting weighed down with graphs, sketches and a slew of fundraising manuals, and quickly set the stage.

"You have to personalize the plea to open purses," she explained poetically to the group. "I mean, look at the opposition —"

"We don't think it's helpful to characterize other charities in that manner, Trina," Maureen Stuckenberg admonished. "We are all in the same boat when it comes to raising money."

"Okay. But we haven't got a bunch of goggle-eyed pot-bellied orphans on our side," Trina continued, undeterred. "To really squeeze the pips you need something zappy, like a kid with no legs or a hole in his face you can get your fist into."

"Trina…" the President warned.

"Well, let's face it. Most of our people are just ugly, fat old fogies with nothing to show for their complaint but a dodgy urine sample. I mean, all they do is sleep."

"Trina. We are not in the business of exploiting the suffering of our patients."

Trina's mumbled retort — "Everyone else does" — didn't sat well with the executive, and she found herself with an increasingly hostile audience as she worked her way through her presentation.

Dances, duck races and fashion shows were all shrugged off without debate; lawn mower marathons, telemarketing and pet shows were given the cold shoulder; and Trina was getting down to the wire when she suggested inviting Martha Stewart to design a commemorative kidney-shaped teapot.

"Okay," she told the committee in desperation. "Idea number twenty-seven. We could do the same as the Women's Institute in northern England. They made a mint selling their own Christmas calendars."

"At last," Maureen Stuckenberg muttered under her breath, and immediately garnered nods of support from around the table.

"Shall we take a vote on that, ladies?" she proposed loudly, and had a full show of hands, until a spoilsport — Trina's geriatric predecessor — demanded details. "What kind of calendar was it? Recipes? Knitwear? Cute little cuddly animals?"

"No. Just portraits of the president and all the members," Trina responded imperturbably.

"Well, that sounds very sensible, Trina," Maureen Stuckenberg carried on, primping herself up and slicking back her eyebrows. But the spoiler had a cautious eye on Trina and insisted on specifics.

"Well, actually," Trina mumbled, with her head in her papers, "they all posed in the nude."

Ms. Stuckenberg came close to meltdown, but Trina was running out of options and persisted. "You needn't worry, Maureen. I mean, most of them weren't particularly good-looking, either."

"Trina. Our Christmas fundraising event has been very successful for the past twenty-seven years without smutty ideas like that," the president fumed indignantly, and bristled still further when Trina pointed out the obvious irony in the Kidney Society's seasonally appropriate sales of cholesterol-loaded Christmas cakes, giant chocolate bars and sugar-coated butter shortcake to a diabetes-prone, overweight populace with a forty-percent chance of developing kidney failure.

"It's like the Cancer Society selling cigarettes," Trina complained, but she was immediately shot down by Ms. Stuckenberg.

"Don't be so foolish."

"Or Alcoholics Anonymous pushing booze."

"Trina…"

"Or Gamblers Anonymous running bingos."

"This is ridiculous."

"Or Girl Guides selling chocolate cookies."

"Trina… the Girl Guides do sell chocolate cookies," Ms. Stuckenberg shot back.

"Well, they shouldn't. What kind of message does that send to impressionable young girls with weight issues and zits? No wonder teen suicides are on the rise. Maybe I should help them with their fundraising as well."

"I wish you would," Ms. Stuckenberg muttered through clenched teeth, adding, loudly, "Have you got any other bright ideas?"

Idea number twenty-eight, "the guinea pig Olympics," was dismissed without debate, and the twenty-ninth, "the Kidneymobile international marathon," was only adopted because it was already seven-thirty in the evening and several of the members were dozing off.

"As long as you're prepared to do all the work," Ms. Stuckenberg opined without troubling the group, "I don't see why we shouldn't adopt this idea."

"Thank goodness," Trina muttered, knowing that her thirtieth and final idea — totally naked ballroom dancing — was unlikely to get much applause.

By the time Daphne closes the door to Minnie's flat and walks with Bliss back to his car with her head down, it has started raining again in Westchester.

"I wonder if it will ever brighten," she says with an eye towards the leaden sky, but Bliss knows where her mind really is, and she confirms it a second later as she climbs into the passenger seat. "I still can't really take it in, David. It's a bit like getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking."

"Superintendent Donaldson has invited us to dinner…" starts Bliss, hoping to cheer her, but she shakes her head.

"You go. I think I'd rather have a bit of time to myself if you don't mind."

"Okay. I'll drop you at home, and I'll try not to be too late. I have to get back to the office first thing; if I know Edwards he's already interviewing my replacement."

Dinner with Superintendent Donaldson at the Mitre Hotel is, like all meals with the great man, akin to culinary mountaineering, a point emphasized by the senior officer himself when he polishes off the entire bowl of bar nuts while awaiting the menu. "If it's there, eat it. That's what I say."

Mike Mainsbridge of the Transport Police has joined his fellow officers with the apparent aim of discussing tactics in the ongoing investigation, but he shows more interest in picking up tips on treasure hunting as he quizzes Bliss over his celebrated discovery of treasure in the Mediterranean Sea.

"What's the chance of finding more of the stuff?" he asks with an air of indifference that fails to disguise the fact that he may be planning an early retirement. "I mean, how did it get there, and how would someone actually go about searching for more? Where would someone start?"

"Personally, I think I'll start with the deep-fried double-cream Brie," interjects Donaldson, and Bliss is also working on his choices as he deliberates whether or not to reveal details, to explain that a bunch of renegade Nazi officers had fooled the world near the end of the war by pretending to dump several tons of stolen Jewish gold into Lake Toplitz in the Austrian Alps, when in fact they had loaded their loot into ancient Roman wine amphorae and sunk them off the craggy coast of a Corsican island.

"The breeze just happened to be blowing my way, I guess," says Bliss cryptically, knowing that his discovery had been predicated on the direction of the notoriously fickle Mediterranean winds. But Mainsbridge wants specifics. "Yeah. But how did you work it out?"

"Ah. You'll just have to wait for the book to come out," laughs Bliss, and refuses to be drawn further as he scans the menu.

"So you are going to write it, then?" Donaldson queries, but Bliss shrouds his plans with vagueness. "Who knows? I'll probably get around to it one day."

"Why not now?" asks Mainsbridge doggedly.

Because, though Bliss is loath to admit it publicly, a certain female by the name of Daisy LeBlanc would rather he keep her family's skeletons in a securely locked armoire. And Daisy, pronounced "Dizzy" in her Gallic tongue, is one person in the world whom Bliss would rather not disappoint at present.

"I hear you've got something going with a little French…" says Donaldson with a wink, leaving the sentence in the air.

"How the hell…" Bliss shoots back, then realizes that Daphne has been at work. "Go on," he laughs heartily, "call her a frog. Yes, if you must know. As Daphne said to me recently, I may not be a spring chicken, but I've had an offer."

Daisy's very tempting offer, to throw up her life as a French real estate agent to become Mrs. Chief Inspector Bliss, has been on the table for more than a month, but any delaying tactics on Bliss's part have been more to do with his contemplation of becoming Mr. Provençal Real Estate than a desire to fob her off.

Since his celebrated discovery he could leave the police force, and England, at any time and find fortune in his fame by chronicling his adventures, or so he is told. But first he has an obligation to redeem himself in the eyes of his colleagues by putting the skids under the universally despised Chief Superintendent Edwards.

Bliss's promotion to Chief Inspector, touted as a reward for his discovery of the missing treasure, had, he knows, roots that reached much deeper into the murky political underworld of the police force, and he is well aware that Chief Superintendent Edwards had a hand in the decision. "Always keep a dangerous dog on a very short leash," Edwards once told him, and he was convinced he had drawn Bliss's teeth by giving him a plum job with an office down the hall from his own.

"Interpol Liaison Officer," said the freshly painted sign on Bliss's door, and he was well aware of the jealous scuttlebutt amongst some of those in the junior ranks who weren't privy to his motives. "So Edwards walked, then," one of his colleagues said sourly after Bliss failed to show up at the disciplinary hearing that should have got the megalomaniacal Chief Superintendent off everyone's back.

"Just give it time, Bill," Bliss replied, knowing that, while Edwards might have escaped on this occasion, he was still firmly attached to the other end of the leash.

Daphne's house lights are spilling onto the darkened street as Bliss arrives after midnight. That's very unusual, he is thinking, having expected her to be in bed, but as he steps out of his car he's almost flattened by a musical din.

The third movement of Elgar's "Enigma Variations" is playing so loudly on Daphne's record player that she fails to hear Bliss at the door, and he's finally forced to bang on the window. It takes her almost a minute to answer, and he immediately senses a problem as she leans heavily on the door jamb.

"David… I maybe… What? What is it?" she asks, seeing his look of concern. "What… What're you looking at me like that for?"

"Are you all right, Daphne?" he wants to know as he escorts her to the living room and turns down the music.

"Yes. Well, let's just… um… Well, there's a letter from Minnie."

"Perhaps you should sit down," he says, and reaches out to guide her.

"I'm all right… I can manage. Thank you," she says curtly, and firmly throws off his hand.

"I know."

"Well, don't push, then… You don't need to push… I'm perfectly capable…"

"Just come over here and sit down," he tries again.

"You're pushing. Don't push… D'ye wanna scotch?"

"No…"

"There's some gin," she starts, then exclaims, "Oops!" as she loses her balance while reaching for the empty bottle. "Hold tight, Chief Inspector!" she yells as she falls against him. "Lower the gangplank — I'm coming aboard."

Daphne and Bliss crash together on the settee, and Daphne giggles for more than a minute while Bliss extricates himself and props her against the settee's arm.

"What's this about a letter from Minnie?" Bliss asks, and her laughter turns to tears.

"The stupid fucking — oops, sorry, Chief Inspector, sir," starts Daphne, then she pulls herself together and sits upright. "S'cuse me… Little Miss Potty Mouth…Where was I? Oh, yes. Silly billy — hah-hah, Minnie's a silly billy."

She looks to Bliss, pleading for sympathy as her eyes fill up, and she sniffs loudly as she says, "She's a — She's a dead silly billy, David."

"I know."

"D'ye know… D'ye know… D'ye know what she did?"

"No."

"She's a silly — oops, I already said that… She… Are you sure you don't want a scotch?"

"No, honestly —"

"I think I'll have another."

"Are you certain?"

"No… No… Well, all right, just a teensy-weensy — hah-hah, teensy-weensy, teensy-weensy. Hah-hah, that's funny — teensy-weensy, teensy-weensy, teensy-weensy… That's funny, isn't it, Chief Constable?… Oops, now I've insulted you."

"Daphne, love, what about Minnie?"

"Stupid fuck — oh, I already said that. Look…" then she slides onto the floor and crawls towards the coffee table on all fours. Missie Rouge rises from the carpet, her red-haired hackles rising, and backs away warily as Daphne barks at the confused creature. "Woof-woof… woof-woof… hah-hah…"

"Daphne…"

"Oh, yes…" she says, raising herself onto her knees and saluting firmly. "Daphne Ophee… Ophee… Daphne Ophelia Lovelace, number 7311281 reporting, Mr. Chief Constable, sir."

"What about Minnie?" demands Bliss.

Daphne falls back to the floor and grasps a letter from the coffee table. "Wrong address," she says clearly as she holds the letter triumphantly aloft for a second, then she crashes headlong onto the carpet.

"Oh, shit!" mutters Bliss as he rushes to her aid.

Five minutes later, Daphne is in her bed, snoring loudly, and Bliss leaves her door wide open so that he can listen to the reassuring sound as he returns to the living room and Minnie's letter.

My dear friend, starts the letter, as Bliss helps himself to a large scotch and carries on reading. I don't know how to tell you the bad news. I was so looking forward to seeing all those lovely places you're always talking about — you've been so lucky, but I'm afraid I just got carried away and I don't think I can afford it now. I know I've let you down, but please try to forgive me. You're the only friend I have and I can't bear the thought that I've hurt you. Please forgive me.

"‘Ms. D. Lovelace, 27 Stonebridge Road,'" says Bliss aloud as he reads Minnie's handwriting off the envelope, and he sees the problem immediately. It's Stone bank, he says to himself, then he checks the postmark and realizes that the letter has been bouncing around the sorting office for over a week.

"It sounds suspiciously like a suicide note," Bliss is telling Donaldson by phone a few minutes later, as he relays the letter's contents. Which leaves us with something of an embarrassment, he thinks, though he doesn't say it, realizing that Donaldson is quite capable of working out the ramifications for himself.

"Why the hell did she book that trip if she knew she couldn't afford it?" soliloquizes Donaldson as he looks for a scapegoat while Bliss is wondering who is going to tell the media, the coroner and Stapleton's lawyer that the young man may not only be innocent but may actually be a hero, that Minnie Dennon may well have jumped?

"The media will bloody love this, Dave," fumes Donaldson, on the same page as Bliss. "I can see the headlines now. I mean, they've made such a big deal about her death, they'll look more stupid than us if they have to admit that Stapleton's innocent." Then he perks up and grasps at straws. "Of course, we don't know for sure that she planned it. And the boy certainly stole her purse."

"Or simply kept hold of it because he was traumatized," adds Bliss, snapping the straw.

"Thanks, Dave. I needed that," says Donaldson. "Can we discuss this over breakfast?"

"Sorry, guv. I have to leave at seven-thirty, assuming Daphne's slept it off by then. I'll call you from the office."

Seven-thirty sees the early-morning sun streaming into Daphne's living room, but if Daphne is awake, she's not co-operating. She had slipped to the bathroom at seven o'clock, and Bliss had put the kettle on with a sigh of relief, but her bedroom door had gently closed a few minutes later, and she still hasn't resurfaced.

I bet she's waiting for me to leave, thinks Bliss, and he is tempted to do so, but the morning television news changes his mind when it is revealed that thirteen pensioners have killed themselves overnight in different parts of the country. "This brings to twenty-seven the number of seniors who have taken their own lives in the past three days alone," the newscaster says as she introduces a spokeswoman for Age Concern, saying, "I understand agencies like yours are becoming disturbed at this apparent epidemic…"

This is just synchronicity, he tries telling himself, though can't shake off the feeling that Minnie's death may have somehow sparked a series of suicides by elderly people.

By nine o'clock he's pacing. Daphne has obviously been awake for some time and he's beginning to wonder how long she can hide.

I could take her a cup of tea, he thinks, but he convinces himself that it might be better if she were to deal with her grief in her own way. In any case, he has his own grief to deal with in the form of Chief Superintendent Edwards.

"Good morning, sir," he says brightly as Edwards answers his phone at first ring.

"Ah, the hero's return."

"Actually —"

"Just give me five minutes, then pop along and see me, will you, David. I've got something that I think you're going to enjoy."

"Bad news, I'm afraid, sir," says Bliss, bracing for the explosion. "I didn't quite make it back last night."

"David," calls a pathetic voice from the top of the stairs, "are you on the telephone?"

"Can I call you back?" whispers Bliss, not wanting Daphne to overhear, but Edwards is seething.

"No, you f'kin well can't —" he's shouting as Bliss mutters, "Sorry — battery's dead," and hits the "off" button.

The degree of Daphne's degeneration is alarming. Without her false teeth and her customary blush of makeup, she has gained thirty years, and her puffy bloodshot eyes merely add to her age.

"You should stay in bed," says Bliss, guiding her back to the bedroom. "I'll bring you a cup of Keemun tea."

"I'll be all right," she says, but her tone lacks conviction. "Maybe an Aspirin."

"I'll find some," he tells her as she slumps onto the bed.

"You do know what that letter means, don't you?" she says, focusing on him for the first time and expecting a response.

"Well, I don't know…" he waffles, but she's clearly reached her own conclusion and doesn't want to be contradicted.

"David. You've no idea how many deaths I've had to deal with," she says, her wounded conscience dragging her down. "I've lurched from funeral to funeral my whole life, and I've arranged quite a few of them in one way or another."