Crazy Lady (32 page)

“You picked the wrong bloomin' time of the year fer it, missus,” Grainger, the old retainer, said when Daphne found him in the Black Swan and explained her upcoming book about local places of interest. “Everything's in such a bloomin' state at present.”

“Don't worry. I'm not taking photos,” she explained to the cheerful little man and sealed the arrangement with a beer and a slice of pork pie.

Now, with notebook in hand, Daphne shows interest in everything.

“Rhodeedendrums, wisteria, oaks, willows,” he says, waving at various trees and bushes with his walking stick. “And over there is the walled garden.”

“Is that a cemetery?” questions Daphne pointing out a row of small headstones.

“Pets,” he spits, clearly unimpressed at the waste of fertile land. “Dogs, cats, parrots, even a bloomin' monkey.”

“What about the family's graves?”

Grainger uses his stick as a pointer. “Over there in the chapel,” he says, leading her to view a doll-sized church topped with an elaborate wooden spire surmounted by a gilded cross.

“Oh my!” exclaims Daphne, and she is already marching across the lawn when the gardener stops her.

“It's sorta private,” he calls nervously, but Daphne spins with a comforting smile.

“Don't worry. I won't tell anyone.”

Grainger scratches his nose with his stick for a second, and then capitulates. “Can't do no harm I s'pose,” he says, catching up. “None of the family are here at present.”

The walls of the tiny chapel are adorned with an array of religious paintings, but it is a genealogical chart cataloguing the growth of the Creston family since the mid-eighteenth century that immediately takes Daphne's eye.

“Oh,” says Daphne in surprise as she runs her finger down the tree to the 1960s. “I thought Mr. Creston Jr. had three children.”

“Nah. Just the two,” says the gardener unconcernedly. “And they both died.”

“Oh. You saw them then, did you?”

“Yeah. O'course I've been here nigh on fifty years; man and boy.”

“So the babies were sickly?”

Grainger carefully checks over his shoulder then pulls Daphne to a number of stone tablets set into the adjacent wall.

“This one,” he says pointing to a plaque bearing Giuseppe's name, “he was a runty-looking little thing. Nothing but trouble from the day he were calved.”

“And this one?” questions Daphne, pointing to Johannes.

The old man's face warms in memory, and with a toothless smile he says, “He was a bonnie little lad. Chubby cheeks and arms like plump little vegetable marrows.”

“But he died as well,” says Daphne with her finger on the date.

“Yep. Same thing: cot death. That were a bloomin' shame. Bonnie little thing.”

“Not sickly,” Daphne continues, egging him on.

“Not him. Gawd knows how the missus kept him fed. He would a' been a bloomin' bigun if he'd lived — shame.”

“Shame,” agrees Daphne.

“Cot death,” reiterates Grainger, his face saddening.

Michael Edwards' first court appearance is not one of his happiest moments. He and his legal mouthpiece are well aware that the knives are out.

“Anyone else would have been granted police bail to appear at a later date,” complains Martin Shaw as they wait for the magistrate to be robed.

“Your point?” Bryan replies gleefully.

“In my client's opinion you are deliberately humiliating him.”

“Really?”

“And he wishes me to make a formal complaint.”

“Right,” says Bryan firmly sitting and taking out his notebook with an air of determination. “Let me get this down Mr. Shaw and see if I've got it correct. Your client, who is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, wishes to complain about the justice system he was attempting to pervert.” Bryan looks up mischievously. “Would you say that's an accurate assessment of the situation, sir?”

The lawyer throws up his hands in disgust, but in deference to the reputation of the force rather than his errant client, the corps of baying pressmen are led in a circle by a wild goose while the still defiant senior officer is paraded backstage in the magistrate's chamber.

“I am not guilty,” he insists when the charges are read, but the magistrate, specially chosen because of his straightforwardness, looks Edwards in the face and says, “This is a bail hearing, Mr. Edwards, as a man in your position should know. You'll have plenty of opportunity to enter a plea in the appropriate court at the appropriate time.”

“That took him down a few pegs,” laughs Peter Bryan once Edwards has been released and told to hand in his warrant card.

“It just annoys me that the bastard is on full pay,” spits one of Bryan's sergeants, but the chief inspector throws a celebratory arm around his colleague's shoulder, laughing, “Don't worry, Greg. His mouthpiece will get most of it.”

By the time Edwards has cleaned out his desk under the watchful eye of the assistant commissioner, Daphne is back on the phone to Bliss.

“I knew it,” she says excitedly. “There was nothing wrong with the third Creston kid.”

“Daphne, luv,” complains Bliss. “I'm trying to write.”

“I know,” she says, “but the doctor deliberately changed the records to show the kid was weak. And the first one isn't there at all.”

“I'm not surprised,” says Bliss. “He wasn't a Creston, was he? Janet got knocked up by someone else. Didn't you say that was why Amelia Drinkwater was so ticked off?”

“That's right,” admits Daphne. “She lost her boyfriend to a shotgun wedding, and he wasn't the one who'd pulled the trigger.”

“No wonder she wasn't happy with Janet.”

“I guess it's a bit like the way you lost Yolanda.”

“No it wasn't,” replies Bliss fiercely. “Anyway, Yolanda's coming back to me. Amelia didn't go back to Creston.”

While Amelia Drinkwater, née Sawbridge, may not have got back into Creston's life, or his bed, once Janet was shipped off to Canada, she certainly tried: joining the hunt club; buddying up to his friends; switching place cards at formal banquets; “accidentally” walking into him in the High Street; wheedling invites to the Creston estate for family events. Hardly a dinner, ball, or musical soiree passed without Amelia's smiling face, but Joseph Creston never smiled back.

“Why don't you leave me alone, you witch?” he finally spat at her in the middle of Dewminster High Street, and she cried for a week.

“Anyway,” carries on Bliss to his elderly tormentor. “If you want me to do anything else you'll have to wait till I've finished the book — just another week or so.”

“No, David,” says Daphne. “You carry on. I just wanted to let you know that I have everything in hand.”

There is a question hanging mid-air, but Bliss refuses to bite. “OK, Daphne,” he replies. “Good luck.”

“Now,” he says to himself as he views the Château Roger from his balcony, listens to Billie Holiday singing “I've Got a Date with a Dream,” and settles back to work. “The masked man's revenge and the return of his great and only true love.”

The rising sun cuts sharply across the bay of Cannes towards the fortress…

“Trina,” says Daphne, putting the next stage of her plan into action.

“Oh, hi, Daphne,” says the Canadian woman. “You were lucky to catch me. I'm just going to work. What's happening?”

“I'm still on the case,” says the Englishwoman. “No sign of Craddock, I suppose.”

“You're kidding? I said it was a waste of time calling in the police; we would have done better calling a cab. Mike's given up and Sergeant Brougham is so useless he couldn't even catch a cold.”

RCMP Inspector Mike Phillips hasn't given up; he's hit a snag. The full forensic report concerning Janet's confinement is on his desk but he has been sitting on the results for a couple of days. The evidence concerning Craddock's involvement is overwhelming. Janet's DNA from hair, saliva, and other bodily fluids places her squarely in the ex-officer's
hands, but several fingerprints lifted from the bedroom and bathroom at the airport motel point straight to Dave Brougham. And although the picture is grainy and the person kept his head down, the image of the man booking Janet into the emergency room at the General Hospital could certainly be the Vancouver City sergeant.

“So, Trina,” says Daphne with a hint of impending triumph in her voice. “I guess we're going to have to solve this case ourselves.”

“You've got a plan?”

“If you can impersonate Janet.”

Trina thinks for a few seconds then darkens her voice and says, “Well I've lived in Canada for forty years, so I guess I sound kinda Canadian now.”

“That's great,” shrieks Daphne, “but don't overdo it.”

“So who am I going to call? What am I supposed to say?”

“Dewminster 7497,” answers Amelia Drinkwater an hour later, once Trina has convinced Daphne that she knows her lines.

“Is that Amelia?”

“Who's this?” demands the Englishwoman warily, still unnerved over Bliss's visit.

“You don't remember me?”

“Should I?”

“You probably don't recognize my voice. I've been in Canada for over forty years.”

“Janet?” queries Ms. Drinkwater, but Trina admits nothing.

Instead she pauses for a second to let the tension build before saying menacingly, “I know what you did, Amelia.” A sharp intake of breath at the other end tells Trina she's hit a nerve. “You thought you'd get rid of me, didn't you? You thought Joe would throw me out if I lost another baby —”

“No,” cuts in Amelia, but Trina continues in the same threatening monotone.

“You thought he'd come back to you. But you were wrong. Little Joe-Joe didn't die.”

“He did. He did.”

“No, Amelia. You were wrong. And now I'm back…”

“Shut up. Shut up.”

“He's out there, Amelia. Joe-Joe's out there…”

The sound of Amelia Drinkwater's phone hitting the cradle cuts Trina off and she immediately calls Daphne.

“Lets see what happens now,” says the Englishwoman with her fingers crossed.

David Bliss is barely half a page into his final defining chapter when his phone rings. He already has “Yolanda” on his lips when he has to quickly adjust. “Mrs. Drinkwater?” he queries in amazement.

“I may have been a bit hasty,” she says with apparent contrition. “Perhaps you could… um… maybe… um… maybe I do have something for you.”

Daphne Lovelace I could throttle you
, he is thinking as he agrees to return. “The day after tomorrow,” he suggests.

“Is that the earliest?” she asks, suddenly anxious.

“Afraid so. Like I said, I live in France now.”

“She wants to see me again,” fumes Bliss to Daphne a few minutes later.

“I thought she might. That's very interesting.”

“No it's not. It's bloody inconvenient. That's another three days wasted by the time I've flown up tomorrow and flown back again. I'll never get my book finished.”

“Softly, softly, catchee monkey, David,” says Daphne. “Don't be so impatient. She'll come back if she loves you enough.”

“She'll come back if I ever get time to finish my script.”
There may be a depression over Bliss as he packs an overnight bag in St-Juan-sur-Mer and prepares to lock his apartment again, but there is a definite lightness in the air over Scotland Yard the following morning. Canteen workers, cleaners, constables, and even the commissioner have an extra bounce as they go through their daily routines, and while most would be unable to finger the cause, Peter Bryan has no such problem.

“We've got him. We've got him,” he repeats with a smile to everyone who questions hopefully. “Don't worry. We've finally put the skids under him.”

However, by midday, as Bliss's flight lifts off with a roar over the cerulean Bay of Angels and begins its steep climb up the slopes of the Alps, Peter Bryan's euphoria is slipping. Paul Schwartzberg, the senior lawyer in the force prosecution's department, lifts his heavy spectacles to his forehead every time he looks up from the case papers on his desk then flicks them back down in order to read. His glasses go up. “You're going to have to do a lot better than this if it's going to stick.” And down. “Look at this charge — accepting an unwarranted remuneration from Creston.” And up. “You've got no proof as far as I can see.” And down. “Not unless you've got something up your sleeve?”

“No. Not at the moment, Paul,” replies Peter Bryan. “But it's a bit of a stretch for him to say that it's just a freaky coincidence.”

The glasses go up as Schwartzberg gives Bryan an incredulous look.

“OK, Paul, I know,” says the chief inspector. “We're working on getting more. But the attempt to pervert case is solid. That P.C. did a bang-up job.”

The glasses hit the bridge of Schwartzberg's nose with an audible
pop
. “No corroboration,” he says tapping the stack of statements. “His colleague was fifty feet away when it's alleged —”

“Alleged?”

“Yes — alleged,” he says as his glasses go back up again and he gives Bryan a meaningful look as he repeats. “It is alleged that Edwards tried to slip him the cash. What if Edwards says, ‘Liar, he took the money out of my wallet when he was looking for my licence and started waving it in the air shouting, “Bribe”'?”

“Oh, come on,” yells Bryan. “Who's gonna believe that?”

“Twelve befuddled nincompoops called jurors who'll sit to attention every time his defence counsel says, ‘So tell us, Chief Superintendent Edwards…'”

“Yes. I get the picture. We need more.”

“You need a lot more, Peter. Of course he'll probably plead to the Breathalyzer refusal.”