Crazy Lady (38 page)

The days dragged more slowly than ever for the masked prisoner as he sat in his cell reading and rereading the letter, wondering if it was just another of the illegitimate king's callous deceptions…
Bliss is writing, when Samantha calls.

“I've found her, Dad,” she enthuses, and for a few seconds he's scared to ask if he's missed his chance.

“I don't know,” she replies honestly, when he's plucked up the courage. “But I've had a lawyer friend of mine in Holland track her down to a place on the outskirts of Amsterdam.”

“I could just go to her, Sam…” he starts, but she's less sure.

“Finish the book, Dad. A couple more days won't make any difference.”

“You're just humouring me again,” he accuses. “She's already married isn't she?”

“No, I told you I don't know.”

“Then I should just jump a flight to Schipol today.”

“Dad. Do the book,” she says fiercely. “I've asked my friend to find out the score.”

“OK,” he says, though he yelps in pain as he picks up his pen. “Damn,” he swears, seeing that he has a blister the size of a peanut on his middle finger.

By lunchtime, with the masked prince picturing his great love's carriage heading south from Lyons down the valley of the Rhône towards Avignon, Bliss has written himself to a standstill. He frantically fights off the drowsiness with several strong espressos, but he finally drops.

In London, Trina drags a petrified Clive Sampson onto a tube train, where he sits mesmerized by the flashing lights
and the constant bustle as he admits that he's never previously been further than Saskatchewan.

“We'll do the town: St. Paul's, Buckingham Palace, The Tower, Big Ben,” Trina tells him as she holds onto his hand. “But first we'll see Janet.”

Janet Creston has put on ten pounds and lost twenty years since Clive last saw her, and there have been a number of other changes in her life that have yet to sink in.

”The thing is, Mrs. Creston,” says Edith Milsom, a junior member of Creston's legal team specially chosen because of her soft voice and trustworthy face. “Your husband really loves you. I'm sure you are aware of that.”

Janet's face suggests that she is unconvinced, so Edith sits on the edge of her bed and reassuringly strokes one of her hands as she carries on. “Joseph realizes that you may be a little confused.”

“No, I'm not,” Janet says firmly, snatching her hand away.

“Well. We think you might be…” Edith is trying when the door opens and a trio of visitors arrive.

“Samantha Bryan,” says Bliss's daughter, summing up the situation at a glance and stepping in with an outstretched hand. “I'm Mrs. Creston's personal legal advisor.”

Janet Thurgood looks more confused than Edith Milsom, although she keeps quiet as her husband's lawyer tries to bluff.

“Milsom — Barnes, Worstheim, and Shuttlecock,” says the young woman, putting on her courtroom voice. “We represent Mr. Creston and his companies.”

“Good,” Samantha replies plunking herself down on Janet's bed in Ms. Milsom's place and offering her adversary a business card. “Then please advise your client that all future contact with his wife should be addressed through me. Good day.”

“Her face was a picture,” Samantha tells her father later when she calls to check on his progress. “I think she was about to get Janet to sign a waiver relinquishing her
rights…” she is saying when she pauses, sensing a deep melancholy on the other end. “Are you all right, Dad?” she asks.

“This is useless Sam,” he says. “My fingers are bleeding. I'm still miles away from the end, and she's probably on her honeymoon in Taipei or Timbuktu by now.”

“Dad, listen to me. Think positive. No more excuses. Get that fucking manuscript finished in forty-eight hours or I'll personally ram it down your throat.”

“Language.”

“Yeah and you'll get more if you don't get a move on. It's Wednesday today — Friday at the latest, and book a flight… no…,” she pauses, “I will book a flight for you. Now get on with it.”

“Roger, wilco,” he says and picks up his pen.

“This mask weighs too heavily upon my shoulders,” mused the prince in despair and was sorely tempted to abandon his quest…

Bliss crashes again near midnight. “Sam,” he bleats catching his daughter as she readies for bed. “This won't work; she'll never be able read my writing.”

“Get it typed then.”

“Typed,” he echoes as if it is a foreign word.

“Yes, Dad. You're near Cannes and Nice. There must be loads of typing agencies.”

“French ones.”

“International ones if it's anything like London. Take everything you've got first thing in the morning —”

“It'll cost a bomb…”

“And you care? I thought you loved her.”

“I do, Sam, I really love her, OK. You're right.”

“And if you have to finish the last chapter on the plane to Amsterdam then you can read it to her when you get there.”

“Thanks, Sam,” he says, wanting to ask if she has any news from her friend about Yolanda's marital status, but he chooses not to.

Billie Holiday is singing “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” as he picks up his pen, painfully popping a blister in the process, then writing,
Moonlight bouncing off the Mediterranean picked out the turrets of the Château Roger…

“Joseph Crispin Creston. You are charged that you did, on or about the seventh day of December, 1961, wilfully and maliciously murder…”

“Let's see him try to buy his way out of this one,” whispers Donaldson to Peter Bryan as they listen to Creston's application for bail.

“He'd probably get it if he wasn't already on bail for bribing Edwards,” suggests Bryan and Donaldson pats him on the back. “Smart move that, Peter.”

“I thought so,” says the London officer with a smile.

Bliss is right about the cost of transcribing his manuscript, but he doesn't care. “Whatever it takes,” he says, handing over nearly six hundred pages. “But I must have it by lunchtime tomorrow — two copies.”

The Englishwoman in charge of the agency in Cannes runs her eye over the first few pages. “It won't be perfect,” she begins, but Bliss isn't concerned.

“As long as it makes sense.”

Malcolm Jackson, of Barnes, Worstheim and Shuttlecock, puts up a fight that will get him a seat on the top table of the firm's annual Christmas dinner, and his client walks. But while Creston may be free, he is now severely shackled, and Peter Bryan is on the phone to his
wife in seconds. “He's had to hand in his passport, no contact with Edwards, and — and you will love this — neither he nor anyone representing him must go within five hundred yards of his wife.”

“Brilliant,” yips Samantha, and seconds later she's in her car headed for St. John's Wood.

It is an hour and a half from Westchester to the centre of London on a good day, but today is not good — not for Joseph Creston and his crony.

“We should have taken the chopper,” he moans to Mason as he thrums his fingers on the leather upholstery in the back of his limousine while they slow for yet another set of road works.

“Sorry, J.C.,” says Mason. “But I didn't know if they would let you out.”

“I'm going to fight this,” spits Creston, boiling at the perceived injustice. “They can't do this to me. I'm going to fight this all the way. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, J.C. Very clear.”

It is nearly 4:00 p.m. by the time Creston's limousine pulls up at the front of his towering office building, and he's not at all surprised to see the paparazzi setting up shop against a cordon hastily thrown up by his security staff.

“Shall I tell the driver to take us round the back…” starts Mason, but Creston is in a fighting mood.

“No way. I'm not having some snide reporter saying I weaselled out. I'll front 'em and tell 'em straight out. I've got nothing to hide.”

“Mr. Creston… Mr. Creston…” yell reporters as they scramble to get his attention when he emerges from his car with a celebrity smile.

“Did you do it?” questions a pushy stringer, and Creston asks for silence with a hand gesture and waits until he is sure he is fully in the frame before pronouncing, “I am totally innocent of all these accusations. My lawyers assure me that it is simply a formality and that
the authorities will be forced to drop these scurrilous charges within a few days.”

“What are your plans now?” shouts a reporter from the back, and Creston turns to point at his towering edifice.

“Back to work, of course,” he says and laughs. “Creston chocolates don't make themselves. Someone has to keep the machinery oiled and the vats stirred.”

“Good one,” whispers Mason as the two men head for the plate glass doors, then a plainclothes sergeant and two uniformed constables step across the security ribbon.

“Mr. Creston?” queries the sergeant.

“What now?” he spits, dropping his smile.

“I'm afraid you can't go any further, sir.”

“What?”

“Sorry, sir,” continues the sergeant as if he has never been less sorry of anything in his life. “But I have here a copy of your bail conditions from Westchester Magistrate's court, and I see that you are not permitted within five hundred yards of your wife.”

The cameras move in; the microphones are back on; the security guards are getting squeezed.

“Out of my way,” fumes Creston, and he gives the sergeant a push. The two uniformed men are on him in a flash and wrestle him to the ground.

“Now,” says the sergeant in Creston's ear, while the cameras and microphones zoom in. “Your wife, who I understand is, by reason of the married person's property act, a half owner of this company, is currently in her office together with her attorney. Therefore, you are in breach of you bail conditions.”

Mason stands back and buries his head in his hands.

“But,” continues the sergeant to the prone man, “I'll assume you didn't know that on this occasion and I'm just giving you a warning.” Creston's blood is up and he has no intention of saying thank you as the sergeant continues, “However if you persist I'll have no choice —”

“Mason,” yells Creston, calling for backup.

Daphne Lovelace, watching TV at home, can't resist phoning Bliss.

“Daphne… no… sorry…” he says and he turns off the phone.

“Mason,” shouts Creston as he's pinned to the ground. “Get in there and get her out.”

Sergeant Williams points a warning finger to Creston's right-hand man. “Actually, sir,” he says, “as you are acting as Mr. Creston's representative you are also barred from the building while his wife is in residence.”

“Get in there,” yells Creston, but Mason hesitates, seeing the officer heading his way with deliberation.

“I will arrest you for being an accomplice,” warns the sergeant, and then he turns back to Creston. “And I will charge you with breach of bail if he does try to go in. Understood?”

Tracy Jordan, Creston's uptight receptionist, is totally outnumbered by the invading forces and she sits glumly at the reception desk with Clive Sampson for company. She would call her boss, but Samantha Bliss has made it very clear that no action of any kind will be made without Mrs. Creston's say-so.

“Mrs. Janet Creston is taking over as interim company president until her husband has either served his sentence or has been exonerated,” Samantha dictated to the woman, adding, “Now type that up and send it as a memo to all departments and representatives.”

“I ought to check…” Tracy started, but Samantha stared her down.

“Not unless you want to start looking for another job in the morning.”

Now Samantha says to Janet, “You sit over there,” pointing Janet towards her husband's throne, but the terrified woman shies off.

“I don't think…”

“Hey, look at this,” shrieks Trina from the adjacent boardroom as she punches a button on a remote control unit to make a giant television appear from a trapdoor in the floor.

“All right, Trina,” laughs Samantha, and then she carries on to a bewildered Janet, “We'll give him twenty-four hours to get really wound up, then we'll offer a deal. You get the mansion in Dewminster together with all the household expenses for a minimum of twenty years, an annual six-figure salary, use of the helicopter and Lear jet for a reasonable number of trips per year —”

“Samantha,” says Janet putting out a hand to stop her. “Are you sure? It seems like a lot.”

“A lot,” says Samantha, laughing ironically. “It's nothing after what he's done. In fact there's a very good chance you'll end up with everything if he gets life.”

“But it seems so much.”

“Janet, you've spent forty years in purgatory because that man murdered your baby. This is only the start. Believe me… Oh, that reminds me,” she adds starting a to-do list on Creston's desk pad, “before we leave we need to get copies of all the accounts, bank statements, transactions, and computer programs, and I'll call in a forensic accountant to see if we can screw that freak in Canada who kept you prisoner.”

“I wouldn't mind screwing that freak,” yells Trina, now playing with the control for the automatic Venetian blinds.

As the sun goes down in London, Bliss is still furiously writing, but the end is in sight.

“My love… my one and only true love… she is coming. I can feel her energy getting stronger as her carriage journeys ever southwards, borne on the mistral as it
sweeps down the valley from the mountains…”
he pens, but his right hand and wrist are stiff and sore. He tries switching to the left but gives up almost immediately.

Yolanda — please come back to me. Please come home,
he writes absent-mindedly in the midst of the page and has to scrub out the words for fear that the typist might include them.