A Year Less a Day

by James Hawkins

  A few minutes later, Daphne perches on the edge of the driver’s seat with her face rammed into the windshield. “Don’t worry. I was driving before your dad bought his first Playboy,” she says as she peers over the top of the wheel and hits the gas. “I’d forgotten just how much fun it was,” she says, screeching the car around the first bend at sixty kilometres an hour as Bliss grips his seat.

  “There’s no rush, Daphne.”

  “Sorry, David. But I don’t get the chance very often.”

  She slows a touch and concentrates furiously as she zips along the twisty road, but Bliss is more tense than ever and is about to suggest that he should take back the reins when he spots a warning sign in the gloom. “Daphne. Speed!” he cautions, and a second later the flash of a radar camera dazzles them. Bliss grabs the wheel as Daphne heads for an oak tree and he shouts, “Slow down, Daphne. Slow down.”

  “Stupid place to take pictures,” bitches Daphne, temporarily blinded.

  “It’s a speed trap,” says Bliss.

  “That could cause accidents. I jolly well hope they catch people.”

  “They just caught you.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize,” says Daphne, then she cheers up. “Never mind, I can afford it. You wouldn’t believe how much the force is paying me to take care of you.”

  “Mind the truck!” Bliss yells as she lets her concentration wander again.

  “Oops. Not very good in this light I’m afraid.”

  “Pull over Daphne. My leg’s better now.”

  “Only if you’re sure.”

  “Westchester,” announces the city sign not a moment too soon for Bliss, and he stretches thankfully as he exits the car. “I only hope you don’t lose your license,” he says as Daphne opens the front door for him.

  “Oh, no. Don’t worry, that won’t happen;” then she drops her voice, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve never had one.”

  “What?”

  “Well it always seemed such a lot of bother ...”

  “Daphne ...”

  The blinking light on Daphne’s answering machine in the front hallway gives her cover as she rushes to press ‘play,’ saying, “I expect it’s for you, David.”

  “How d’ye know ...” he starts as Mike Phillip’s voice fills the hall. “Hi, David. I was just wondering if you’d got anywhere on the Beatles’ case. Only it’s kinda urgent now.”

  “I wonder what’s happened,” queries Bliss.

  “I sure hope we can trace her father,” Phillips says, as he and Trina stand, sad-faced, over Ruth’s motionless body.

  “I’d rather find Jordan,” Trina replies, then remembers the phone call she’d taken at Donut Delight. “It’s probably nothing,” she continues, pulling out the crossword puzzle, “but some guy phoned and said that a Jordan Jackson rented an apartment from him three months ago.”

  Phillips scans the address, and is saying, “It’s worth a try,” when Trina notices his watch.

  “Oh, look at the time. I’ve got to go to work.” Then she grabs Ruth’s hand and softly calls, “Don’t worry. Mike and I will take care of you.”

  “What about the address?” queries Phillips as Trina heads out.

  “I’ll meet you there at three this afternoon,” she calls over her shoulder and Phillips turns to sit by the bed, telling Ruth, “Hang in there. If anyone can sort this out, she will.”

  “Mike,” shouts Trina dashing back into the room a minute later. “I need a ride.”

  It’s long past four and DS Phillips checks his watch again. If it hadn’t been for a procession of interestingly shady characters ebbing and flowing through the front doors of the decrepit apartment block in front of him, he would have quit earlier, on the assumption Trina had given him the wrong address.

  “Sorry. Guinea pig escaped,” Trina blurts, dashing up to his car just as he turns the ignition. “Have you been here before?” she asks, as she slips into the passenger seat holding a copy of the Sun.

  “What are you doing?” he puzzles, as she holds the paper in front of her face and peeps through the hole torn in the middle of her picture on the front page.

  “Stakeout,” she whispers, squinting through her own navel.

  “Put it down,” laughs Phillips. “You’ll get us arrested.”

  “I don’t mind,” she says. “I’m getting used to it.”

  “Trina ...”

  “All right,” she says, then asks again, “Do you know this place?”

  “Yes and no,” answers Phillips watching two tight-skirted women steadying a grinning john as he staggers into the lobby with them. “Lamb to the slaughter,” chuckles Phillips. “He might make it to the elevator, but that’s the only ride he’s gonna be getting from those two today.”

  The women are back out, divvying up the contents of the man’s wallet before Phillips finishes. “See what I mean?” he says. “Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “I’m more worried about Ruth,” says Trina, urging him out. “Come on. Let’s talk to the super.”

  “Come up. I’m in 201,” the man tells them through the intercom, but as they head for the elevator, the smell knocks them back.

  “Oh my God,” mutters Phillips, as his hand goes to his nose.

  “You should have my job,” says Trina cheerfully, as she pushes the elevator button, but when the door opens she shrinks back. The drunkard is there, standing in the corner that he has mistaken for a toilet.

  “Oh, shit,” moans Trina, and they take the stairs.

  “I phoned ’cuz I noticed your picture in the paper,” says the superintendent with a leer, and Trina is grateful that she has Phillips standing behind her as she faces the wispy little man who seems to be the source of much of the stink. “Jordan Jackson rented a unit here, apartment twenty-four,” he tells them, and the description he gives certainly matches Ruth’s recollections: tall, in his forties, with mousy hair. As for his illness, “It’s an apartment building, lady, not a fancy nursing home. We ain’t equipped to look after sick people. He’d get visitors—I’d see people coming and going.”

  “Who?”

  “Asking questions like that around here ain’t very sensible, if you follow.”

  “But he was definitely sick?”

  “Oh yeah. Some guy from health services came in during the week, but most of the time he was on his own. Slept a lot, I expect. Had cancer you know.”

  “And you’re sure his name was Jordan Jackson?”

  “Yeah. It’s in my book. Here—have a look,” he offers, and Mike Phillips takes the opportunity to scan the page for familiar names.

  “How did he pay?” asks Phillips.

  “Cash.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “What are ya? Cops or something?”

  “No. We’re just Jordan’s friends ...”

  “Then you oughta know,” he says, slamming his book.

  “Know what?” asks Trina.

  “Know he’s dead, of course.”

  “It has to be a different Jordan Jackson,” resolves Trina as she sits with Phillips in a nearby coffee house mulling over the information, but the problem they face is that the tenant had paid cash for three months in advance, and the superintendent hadn’t taken any other details. “Money talks,” he’d told them. “And Mr. Jackson certainly had that. So I’m fucked if I know why he’d wanna die in a dump like this.”

  “To start with, this guy’s been dead for over a month,” continues Trina as she tries to untangle the two Jordans, but Phillips wants straight facts.

  “According to Inspector Wilson, no one has seen Ruth’s husband since early September. He could have died anytime between then and now.”

  “But where was he being treated?” shoots back Trina. “Who was the doctor? No, it must be another guy with the same name.”

  “Of the same height, same description, suffering from the same disease?” queries Phillips skeptically.

  “But he couldn’t have been living her
e and at the café ...” Trina is protesting when she slowly dries up and allows Phillips to ask the obvious.

  “OK, then. So who, apart from Ruth, will swear he was at the café during that time?”

  “What are we going to do, Mike?”

  “Dig up some evidence,” says Phillips. “If he died, there has to be a death certificate and a buried body somewhere.”

  “But where?” asks Trina, knowing that the superintendent had been of no help when Phillips had inquired about a funeral.

  “Who would’ve gone?” the old man had shrugged. “I don’t think he had relatives or friends. I just got a phone call from the hospital saying that he’d passed on and they’d make the funeral arrangements.”

  Trina had seemed surprised, saying, “I didn’t know they’d do that,” but the man had shaken his head solemnly, and said, “Well, no one else wanted him.”

  “Would you recognize him?” Phillips had asked as they’d prepared to leave.

  “I doubt it. Like I said, he sort of kept out of the way. Have you got a picture?”

  They’d had no picture of Jordan Jackson to show the old superintendent, but, in England, Bliss is having much more luck. While the Beatles’ group photo had not made it into that day’s paper, it had bounced back on the editor’s desk with a complete list of names within a few hours.

  “It’s a copy of one from our photographic department,” he explains to Bliss on the phone the following morning. “One of the reporters thought he recognized it and pulled the original from the archives. We never published it at the time, but whoever took it wrote all the names on the back. Now who were you looking for again?”

  Bliss would be surprised if Freddie Longbottom made the list, although, knowing Daphne, he wouldn’t be totally stunned. “Any chance you could email it to me?” he asks, without mentioning Freddie. “I expect Mrs. Longbottom will recognize the names.”

  “Sure. And I’ll get someone to check records. We might have something current that will help you track some of them down.”

  “Thanks,” says Bliss, giving his email address as Daphne stands over him.

  “We could be in luck,” he tells her as he puts down the phone.

  “I knew you’d do it,” she beams, full of admiration. “You are such a clever man.”

  Trina is having less luck in Vancouver. No further credible news of Jordan Jackson has surfaced overnight and, while Ruth’s condition has remained stable, she’s no nearer consciousness. The police are stepping up inquiries, believing that the best defence is a good offence—and there is no better offence than murder for keeping the public’s mind off the odd black eye in the cells.

  Hammer Hammett, on the other hand, is milking Ruth’s injuries as he prepares a flurry of lawsuits, and Trina has been trying to warm up the Sun to campaign for a public inquest. But it’s the weekend before Christmas, only two days of mayhem before the annual round of disenchantments, recriminations, family arguments, and suicides begin. Everyone has more weighty things on their minds than a touch of police brutality.

  “If she had a handful of kids it would be a different story,” the Saturday journalist at the Sun had told Trina. “Something very serious like, ‘Father of five missing as mother fights for life,’ would probably make the front page.”

  “Or another picture of me with my boobs out,” she’d added pointedly, and he’d slunk off saying he would see what could be done.

  “I don’t know why we don’t have Christmas in July like the Australians,” Trina is complaining to the crossword gang mid-morning in Donut Delight. “Most people would be away at the beach, and the stores wouldn’t be half as busy. Plus, it wouldn’t be snowing or raining.”

  “Well, it’s almost over. Only tomorrow, and that’s a Sunday, so most places will be closed,” says Darcey.

  “Tomorrow?” puzzles Trina, checking the date on the paper and exclaiming, “Shit!”

  “What?” chant Maureen and Matt in unison.

  “Christmas shopping,” shouts Trina, already on the move. “I knew I’d missed something.”

  “What did you forget?” calls Darcey, with a suggestion or two in mind.

  “Christmas,” she yells, tearing for the door. “I forgot Christmas.”

  “Can you believe that?” says Maureen, as Trina hits the street at a run. “She didn’t touch the crossword.”

  A black BMW with ominously tinted windows purrs to life as Trina rushes out of the donut shop, then follows her as she races to the parking lot for her car.

  Trina drives as scatterbrained as she thinks, and the BMW on her tail raises the ire of numerous seasonally-challenged motorists as the driver flits from lane to lane to keep up with her zippy Volkswagen.

  The two leather-jacketed figures that emerge from the BMW to stalk Trina into the mall are too large to be shadowy, and they stand out amid the desperate throngs anxiously seeking the perfect Christmas icon among the piles of glittering trash.

  Trina scurries from store to store, losing her escort in the maelstrom, as she grabs gifts for her husband, two teenagers, and two sets of parents. “Make sure the receipt’s in the bag,” she calls, knowing that most of the stuff is for her two teenagers and is only on loan until Boxing Day: “Yuk! It’s: Pink! ... Green! ... Shiny! ... Greasy! ... Dorky! ... Dweeby! ... Yuk! Mother, how could you?”

  “Take it back and exchange it, then.”

  Trina has the VW almost full by the time she hits the garden centre, then heads for the supermarket, with the BMW still in tow.

  Filling buggies on the run and dumping them at strategic spots, Trina darts around the supermarket like the winner of a monster-grab competition.

  “All four buggies ma’am?” says the guy on cash, and she scratches her head.

  “I thought I had five,” she says, and is threatening to dash back into the aisles to search when the mumbling of an insurrection in the ranks behind her changes her mind. “Don’t worry. As long as there’s at least one turkey, that’ll do.”

  Trina’s car was already sprouting gifts, with a tree and an ornamental concrete birdbath tied to the roof rack, but by the time two bag boys have helped her to empty the second cart, the small Volkswagen is completely full. “If you get in, we could pack it in around you,” suggests one of the youths, but Trina has a better idea. “Taxi,” she yells, and five minutes later she has a convoy snaking behind her as the black BMW follows the cab.

  “She’s f’kin bonkers,” says the BMW’s driver, Mort, the one-handed English creep from the porn studio, as Trina scorches her way through intersections and past patiently waiting traffic jams, with the cab racing to keep up. The two goons in the back of the Beemer snort agreement, while Tom sits in the front passenger seat concentrating on the fleeing VW as they weave through Vancouver’s maze of one-way streets.

  “Leave her to me, Mort,” says Tom, puffing himself up. “It should be easy enough to get her to back off.”

  “I don’t wanna see no more stunts,” warns Mort.

  “’Course not.”

  “No more titties on the front page of the dailies. Know what I mean?”

  “Don’t worry, Mort. I can handle her.”

  “You’d better.”

  “We could always pull the plug on Ruth,” suggests one of the goons in the back.

  “Be subtle, my boy. Be subtle,” says Mort. “Tom here is gonna take care of everything, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, Mort. You can trust me.”

  “We’ll just see where she lives,” says Mort, ignoring an angry horn blast as he runs a red light. “Maybe she’s got kiddies at home. It’s always useful to have a backup plan. Know what I mean, boys?”

  “Sure, Mort. Whatever you say, Mort,” says Tom, mindful of the loaded pistol by the side of Mort’s seat.

  “Hi, guys—where’s your dad?” shouts Trina as she opens the front door into the spacious hall. The taxi driver is anxious to unload, and already has his hands full of groceries as Trina rushes back to the car to help.


  “Hi, Mom,” comes the delayed response, but Trina is temporarily distracted by the black BMW that is slowly cruising by.

  “Ma’am?” says the cab driver, holding the bags out for her.

  “Oh, sorry,” she says, getting her mind back in gear and giving the driver her sweetest smile. “Put that straight in the freezer, would you?” Then she rushes back inside to yell up the stairs. “I said, ‘where’s your dad?’”

  “It’s not really my job ...” the driver tries as he staggers past her with a month’s supply of meat, but Trina bolts back to her car muttering, “Teenagers,” as she wrenches a boxed bicycle and a snowboard from the trunk.

  “Grab this,” she says, handing the cab driver the bike. “Stick it in the garage will you?” Then she races for the front door with half a dozen food bags and a DVD player.

  “I still don’t know where your dad is,” she yells, as she rushes up the hallway and trips over a pair of frozen turkeys.

  “Where is the freezer ...” the driver starts as he struggles in with the bike.

  “Basement,” she shouts, then backs off. “Sorry. Thought you were one of the kids. Freezer’s in the basement. You can’t miss it.”

  Dumping her bags on the kitchen table, Trina is shouting, “We could use a hand here, kids,” as she sprints back to the car and starts piling boxes onto the driver.

  “This isn’t my job really ...” he’s protesting, and Trina has nothing but empathy. “I know it isn’t. This is really kind of you.” Then she yells past him. “Rob and Kylie will you please help? And where is your father?”

  “Thanks ever so much,” she says, as the driver staggers into the house with boxes of assorted slippers and a Christmas tree. “Just put the tree in the family room,” she adds, then shrieks, “Rob ... Kylie. Santa won’t come if you don’t help.”

  “Do you want me to decorate it as well?” the driver snarls as he dumps the tree in the hallway.

  “Oh, you needn’t ...” Then she pauses. “You were joking, right?”