by Leah Hope
When Mark Addison rang later that day to let Gil and Bridget know that Paul Goodland and Joshua “Josser” Cookson had both been charged over the burglaries at the Elms, it did little to lift Bridget’s mood. Even Gil’s suggestion that they eat out at a new gastropub that had just opened on the Esplanade couldn’t cheer her up. She agreed to go of course, Gil had been talking about the place for the last couple of weeks and had been desperate to try it out, so Bridget didn’t want to let him down.
Later that evening as the pair tucked into a huge bowl of mussels in white wine, Bridget had to admit the food was good. The soda bread that accompanied the dish was home-made, which always went down well with the former pastry chef. Dessert was lemon meringue pie, another of Gil’s favourites, and when Bridget declared it as good as any she had ever eaten, he knew the place was on to a winner. Unusually for Bridget, she had drunk several large glasses of white wine in quick succession so was feeling pleasantly relaxed. Any more relaxed and I’ll be on the floor, she said to herself, but then promptly ignored her own advice to slow down by emptying the remains of the bottle into her glass.
“Shall I get us another?” Gil asked, feeling in the mood for another glass himself.
“Oh go on then” Bridget replied, slurring her words slightly.
As Gil joined the queue at the bar, Bridget glanced casually around at the surroundings. The rustic look was certainly appealing and the black leather tub chairs were not only stylish but very comfortable. She could easily understand how the place had become so popular in just a few weeks. As her eyes took in a poster advertising a live music night featuring a local band, Bridget froze. That’s it, she said to herself, I knew it would come to me when I stopped thinking about it!
As Gil returned to the table with a newly-opened bottle of Muscadet, Bridget hardly waited for him to sit down before nudging him painfully in the ribs. ”That’s it look!” she said excitedly, pointing at the wall behind Gil’s head. Rubbing his ribs, he turned round painfully in his seat and looked in the direction that Bridget was indicating.
“What?” he said blankly.
“That poster.”
“What about it?”
“That’s what I was trying to remember.”
“Sorry Bridge but you’ve completely lost me. I had no idea you were trying to remember anything.”
“That’s just typical of you”, Bridget replied crossly. “Half of what I say goes completely over your head. Not that I ever say anything that important, I’ll admit, so it doesn’t really matter but this, well this is….”
“Bridget, just slow down and tell me what this is all about.”
“Well you know that something was bugging me about the other night at Jerry thingamabob’s.” Gil was about to confess that in all honesty he still had no idea what Bridget was talking about but thought better of it and just nodded instead. “I’ve been racking my brains for the last couple of days trying to recall what it was and when I looked at that poster it just popped into my head.”
“What did?”
“Rembrandt.”
“Rembrandt?”
“Yes, the Dutch painter, who else!”
“Sorry, I’m still….”
“Oh Gil do try to keep up. The poster says that local band Rembrandt will be playing here next Saturday night. Rembrandt is Dutch, the capital of Holland is Amsterdam and that’s what I was trying to remember.”
“Amsterdam, why?” Gil answered, by now so thoroughly perplexed his head actually hurt.
“Don’t you remember that posh couple on our table, oh what was their name, sorry it’s gone but never mind. Well he said to that other couple, you know the couple I mean, I think he’s a hairdresser or something, that Jeremy and Tania were going to Amsterdam again this weekend.”
“Is that it?”
“Well that’s all he said but the hairdresser’s wife, was she called Michelle? Or was it Zoe? Anyway, she said something like “they go there quite often don’t they.”
By now, Gil was completely lost and put Bridget’s ramblings down to the unusually large amount of wine she had quaffed. His head was now beginning to throb and he wanted nothing more than to go home and have a nice cup of tea and an early night. He knew he should ask what the significance of Michelle/Zoe’s response was but was losing the will to live. Bridget leapt in to fill the silence.
“So what springs to mind when you think of Amsterdam?”
“Canals, bicycles, er cheese…”
“Yes, good, good. Anything else?”
“I don’t know Bridge, it’s a bit late for twenty questions. Give me a clue.”
“Expensive shiny things.”
“Cars?”
“Oh for goodness sake. Diamonds Gil. Diamonds.”
“What about them?”
“That’s why Jeremy and Tania are making frequent trips to Amsterdam. To steal or smuggle diamonds.”
“But how on earth do you come to that conclusion? Maybe they just like the place. It’s very popular you know, what with all those art galleries, canals….”
“Yes I know all that Gil but with their sort of money you think they would go further afield, somewhere more exotic, somewhere different. So why do they keep returning to Amsterdam, tell me that. Well I know you can’t so I’ll tell you. Amsterdam is, or rather was, the diamond capital of the world. I think Antwerp has overtaken it now but it still has a lot of importance. Somehow, and this is the bit I’m unsure of, the Marshall-Dobbs are up to something very shady indeed. My money is on diamond smuggling. And I’ll give you three guesses where they hid the gems.”
“Teddy bears!” Gil said, suddenly sitting up, his eyes shining brighter than a set of car headlamps in the fog.
“Bingo!”
“But wait a minute Bridge, I know it all sounds very plausible but isn’t it a bit of a quantum leap? I mean apart from frequent trips to Amsterdam, the rest is just speculation. Isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is. But can you think of any other explanation that fits?”
“Not really. But I know a man who can, or at least who can tell us if you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Mark you mean? You're right, we need to speak to him as soon as possible”, Bridget replied as she glanced at her watch. “It’s too late to call him tonight, besides, we’ve both had quite a bit of wine and I don’t want him to think it’s the drink talking. I want to present this as a serious proposition. We’ll call him first thing tomorrow.”
*
Gil decided to call Mark’s personal mobile at eight the following morning, hoping to catch him at home before he left for the station. He set his alarm, just to be on the safe side.
Bridget was already in the kitchen when Gil arrived at a quarter to eight. “Toast?” she inquired, picking up the bread knife ready to cut a couple of thick slices from the fresh loaf she had just started.
“Please. I’m just going to give Mark a call so could you bring it into the study for me. A cup of coffee too if there’s some going.”
Bridget arrived in the study with Gil’s breakfast just as he was putting the phone down. “That was Jenny. Mark’s already left but she’s going to ask him to call us. He’s got a few meetings on today but she promised to tell him it’s urgent.”
“Then I’m sure he’ll call as soon as he can. He knows we wouldn’t bother him unless we had to.”
Neither Gil nor Bridget could settle to do anything meaningful while they waited for Mark to call. Bridget had learned from experience that baking whilst being even remotely distracted could result in disaster. Using salt instead of sugar on one such occasion had taught her a lesson she had no intention of repeating. Gil had intended to spend a few hours at the garage going over some spreadsheets with Mick but, like his sister, he knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate so pottered around the garden instead.
They were put out of their misery at just after eleven when Mark called. He was between meetings so couldn’t spare more than a few minutes but had be
en curious as to what their urgent news could be. When Bridget told him of about her theory that the Marshall-Dobbs were diamond smugglers she could almost hear his jaw drop to the floor. He recovered well though and whilst he agreed it was a line of inquiry he hadn’t remotely considered, he promised to give it serious thought and call back later. Before he rang off he added that there had been some developments in the search for Malcolm Cresswell and hoped to be able to update them later.
Bridget was clearly relieved that Mark hadn’t dismissed her theory out of hand. But she had to admit that, paradoxically, she was having second thoughts about it herself. She wondered if the amount of wine she’d consumed the night before had dulled the rational part of her brain and allowing such a madcap theory to emerge. Even though Gil hadn’t said anything, she had the sense that he might be feeling the same. Bridget eventually brushed off the wave of negativity on the basis that she’d done her bit. It was up to Mark now to decide if her theory had legs or not.
It was just after four o’clock when Mark rang back. He told her he was just around the corner in his old office having spent the afternoon tying up some loose ends of a case he’d been involved in six months ago. He could pop over if it was convenient. Bridget’s delight at the prospect of Mark’s visit soon turned to annoyance when Gil announced he was going upstairs for a nap. She could tell him all about it later. Hmm, we’ll see about that she thought.
“Well I have to say Bridget, you certainly bowled us a curved ball there” Mark said as Bridget showed him into the living room half an hour later. “As I told you, I’ve had the feeling for a while now that something was not quite right with our saintly Mr Marshall-Dobbs. We’ve called in a few favours with a couple of our more trusted narks and it seems you could be on to something. We don’t have any concrete evidence yet but we’re putting Jeremy and Tania under close surveillance to see if we can flush them out.”
“I just hope I’m not making a fool of myself Mark, but more importantly I hope I’ve not set you off on some sort of a wild goose chase. I know how stretched resources are at the moment.”
“You let me worry about that Bridget. We wouldn’t be doing anything at all if we felt your theory didn’t have any merit. But talking of making a fool of yourself, I think my team may have done just that. You recall that Sheila Cresswell’s sister, Shirley Wheeler, is in Canada visiting her daughter.”
“Yes you told us that she had been hospitalised after a fall so couldn’t come home when she heard about her sister’s disappearance.”
“That’s correct. But we never take anything we are told on trust, everything is checked out thoroughly.”
“Don’t tell me she’s not in hospital! Is she even in Canada?” Bridget said with alarm.
“Oh she’s in Canada all right. She’s been in Vancouver General Hospital for the last week. But a probationary detective constable on the team who’d been given the task of verifying her flight details messed up, big time, and that’s putting it politely. He had the task of tracing her flight, which he did, and wrote the date down on his pad. Almost immediately afterwards, he had to go home when he was struck down by a sudden bout of gastric flu. Very annoying but these things happen. But what the idiot failed to do was to mention what he'd found out to anyone and he’s been away for three weeks.”
“He must have had a very severe bout of flu to be off sick for three weeks, poor man.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly brimming over with sympathy Bridget. But it gets worse. So after Sherlock Holmes returns to work, he’s off on a diversity awareness course for a week so he only gets back to his desk today. And, surprise, surprise, he’s forgotten he didn’t tell anyone what he’d found out just before he went off sick and of course, there’s no trace of his note on the pad to remind him.’’
“So was there any significance in the date he wrote down?”
“You could say that yes. It only came to light when he piped up in this morning’s team briefing to ask why we weren’t questioning Shirley Wheeler when she’d clearly still been in the UK at the time of her sister’s disappearance! My heart nearly stopped when I thought I’d missed it. But when miladdo sees my face turning purple it all comes flooding back to him and it’s his turn to have a heart attack.”
“Oh dear, he’s let you down badly hasn’t he poor chap.”
“Poor chap! He will be when I’ve finished with him. I can tell you one thing though, his probationary period has come to a very abrupt end. He’ll be back in uniform next week if I have anything to do with it.”
“So what was it exactly the constable found out?”
“Well you recall we were told by Rachel Cresswell that her aunt was in Canada. She wasn’t sure of the date she left, hence our call to the airline. Well it turns out she flew out of the UK, two days after Sheila went missing. Which of course gave her plenty of time to impersonate her sister on the day trip to Calais.”
“I knew it! I was pretty sure the woman we met was a close relative as the resemblance was so strong. So do you really think that’s what happened Mark?”
“I’d put money on it. We’re trying to get hold of a photograph but haven’t had any luck so far.”
“Have you spoken to Rachel Cresswell? It looks as if she’s been deliberately vague in what she told you. But, there again, I think you said she lives in London so maybe she didn’t know too much about her aunt’s exact travel plans.”
“We’ve spoken to her flatmate who told us Rachel’s “away” but doesn’t have a contact address. Oh and before you ask, we’ve spoken to her employer in London who confirmed she’s on two weeks annual leave. She’s not answering her mobile either so that’s more than enough grounds to raise a suspicion in my book.”
“So do you think she’s with her father somewhere?”
“Who knows. If she is with him, I’d like to know the reason. I can’t for the life of me think why she would be involved in her mother’s death. Unless of course she’s not dead. If that’s the case, and I’m beginning to come to the conclusion that it is, then what are they all hiding from?”
“I really do think that photo of Sheila holding the teddy bear is the key Mark. But how or why that led to her sister impersonating her is a mystery.”
“You can say that again. None of it makes any sense.”
Both Bridget and the Chief Inspector paused to reflect for a moment or two as If willing the answers into their heads. Bridget broke the silence by suddenly jumping to her feet and apologising profusely for not offering her guest some refreshments. “Whatever will you think of me, I’m such a terrible host.”
“Whatever your faults Bridget, and I hasten to add I’ve yet to spot one, being a terrible host is certainly not one of them” Mark replied with a grin. “But if you’re offering, a cup of tea would be lovely thanks.”
“Carrot cake?”
“Does it have frosting?”
“Lashings.”
“Bring it on!”
Bridget returned several minutes later with a tray of tea and cake for three. “I think I can hear his lordship stirring upstairs, he must have smelled the cake” she said rolling her eyes.
“Did someone mention cake?” Gil asked with a quizzical look on his face when he strolled into the living room moments later. “Oh hello Mark, sorry I wasn’t around when you arrived but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Old age I guess!”
“No need to apologise Gil” Mark replied through a mouthful of cake. “I think a siesta is a very civilised thing to do. I often wish I could catch a few minutes in the middle of the afternoon, I’m sure it would be very refreshing. Lord knows I could do with it at the moment.”
“So where are things now, are you any further forward?” Gil asked, topping up everyone’s tea.
“I’ll fill you in later Gil, it will save Mark going over everything again”, Bridget said rather tersely.
“Actually Bridget, I think some sort of a recap would be a good idea” Mark said sipping his tea. “The
investigation has several strands to it and it seems as if I’m just about keeping all the plates spinning, if that’s not a bit of a mixed metaphor. So, what do we know exactly? Well firstly, I think we can now say categorically that the woman you both spoke to on the ferry was definitely not the real Sheila Cresswell. I haven’t got round to speaking to her GP yet about the limp but I see no need to now. I think it’s also safe to assume that her sister Shirley Wheeler impersonated her. The reason for which is still unclear. Secondly, three people, Sheila and Malcolm Cresswell and their daughter Rachel Cresswell are missing. My gut reaction is that they’re all together somewhere. Now whether that means they’re in a safe place or are in some sort of danger is anyone’s guess.”
“Sorry to interrupt Mark” Gil asked “but have you spoken to the son again? Sorry I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Yes one of my officers is going to see Jamie at his place of work this afternoon. Let’s hope he hasn’t done a bunk too otherwise I really will think I’m losing the plot” Mark replied with a heavy sigh, his face clouding over.
Bridget couldn’t help but notice that the Chief Inspector suddenly seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. He’d faced difficult situations before of course but this time he seemed different, defeated almost. Maybe the pressure and responsibility of his new rank was becoming too much. Bridget hoped he hadn’t made a dreadful mistake in going for a promotion that would no doubt mean financial gain, but at what cost?
“Speaking to Shirley Wheeler is now top priority of course” Mark continued, glancing at his watch. “Around now, one of our counterparts in the Canadian police force should be on their way to the hospital to carry out a preliminary interview.”
“Ooh, will it be one of those Mounties do you think?” Bridget asked excitedly. “They always look so smart in their red tunics.”
