“Yes ma’am, but ...”
“OK. One more load,” she calls, undeterred, and scurries back to the cab to dig out the rest of the food.
Plastic grocery bags slice into her fingers as she gallops back into the house, with the driver running behind her, but she stops at the bottom of the stairs to shriek, “Rob and Kylie. This is your last chance. Where is your father?”
“I already told you twice,” yells Kylie, putting her friend on hold.
“I didn’t hear,” screeches Trina.
“Where does this go, Ma’am?” asks the driver, toting a guinea pig cage.
“Just drop it round the back and plop him into it, would you sweetheart? Where did you say, Kylie?”
Kylie gives up with a sigh, saying, “I’ll call you back Deirdre. Mom’s having a fit,” as she puts down the phone. Then she appears at the top of the stairs. “I’m here, mom.”
“Oh. There you are, love,” says Trina. “I just said, ‘Where’s your dad?’”
“Mom, will you please just stand still and listen? I already told you twice. He’s gone Christmas shopping ’cuz he says you forgot again.”
chapter ten
Half a world away, the experience of Christmas in the Lovelace household is the antithesis of the Buttons’. Daphne has orchestrated the event with military precision and, by the time the turkey is nicely sizzling, she is putting on the final touches.
“Dinner’s at one o’clock, so I told the old fogies to come at about twelve,” she tells Bliss as she blows on a table knife and gives it a shine. “By the time they get their coats off, their slippers on, and their teeth in, you’ll be ready to carve.”
“Me—carve?” queries Bliss.
“Of course, David. I may not look it, but I’m old enough to remember the days when every self-respecting man could wield a knife at the table.”
“Usually in Agatha Christie’s novels,” chuckles Bliss as he stabs himself in the chest with a pen and expires histrionically, exclaiming, “Murder in the dining room.”
“Oh David, you are funny,” she says as she heads for the kitchen. “By the way, I invited Mavis Longbottom. I thought it was only fair after the way you’ve been using her and Freddie.”
“Didn’t you invite Freddie as well?” calls Bliss, seeing an opportunity to shove a copy of the Beatles’ picture under his nose, asking, “D’ye recognize anyone, lad?” just for kicks.
“No. I told you, he’s dead.”
“Oh,” says Bliss, disappointed. “I thought you’d made that up.”
“Freddie was her first,” Daphne explains as she bustles in with a table decoration. “But she’s been through a couple more since him. None of ’em lived very long. Can’t say I blame them.”
“Daphne,” laughs Bliss, and he takes another look at the email from Liverpool. In addition to the four broody-looking men in black at the front of the photograph, the remaining seventeen faces now have names, although, according to the accompanying letter from the newspaper editor, eight are believed dead and four are women.
“At least that cuts the odds to one in five, if he’s one of the lucky ones,” Bliss had told Daphne when he’d printed it out from his laptop, though he still has no plan of action to find Ruth’s father.
“I’ve a feeling we’re going to be distinctly out of place with all these oldies,” natters Daphne as she starts setting the table. “It’s a pity Samantha and Peter could-n’t make it. They really should get flu shots like me, then they wouldn’t have this trouble.”
Bliss keeps his eye on the picture, knowing that Samantha had been working on an exit strategy from the moment she’d been invited.
“Daphne’s really with it,” his daughter had told him. “But I’m fucked if I want to sit around all afternoon with the rest of ’em and talk about the war and the price of incontinence pads.”
“Oh, Sam ...”
“And you needn’t bother with the guilt thing, Dad. Anyway, we’re going to Peter’s. His parents want to give me the once-over.”
“OK,” he’d said, giving in without a fight, knowing that every argument he believed he had won in his daughter’s twenty-six years had generally been an exercise in self-deception.
The Joneses and the Elliotts, sharing a cab, arrive at eleven-thirty, but spend five minutes digging through pockets and purses for precisely ten percent of three pounds fifty-seven.
“He would have been lucky to get tuppence in my day, the way he drives,” bitches Blossom Jones as the taxi speeds off.
“You’re early,” says Daphne opening the front door.
“Didn’t want to be late meeting our famous detective,” whinnies Beattie Elliott, and all four stand in the hallway staring at Bliss as if expecting him to spontaneously combust.
“You’d better start taking your coats off,” says Daphne, breaking the spell. “Dinner will be ready in an hour.”
Phil and Maggie Morgan, the next-door neigh-bours, arrive on time, on foot, and are exhausted. “That bloomin’ garden path gets longer every year,” moans Phil. “Still, it won’t be long before they’re carrying me down it, I s’pose.”
“I hope someone shoots me if I ever get like that,” mutters Daphne in Bliss’s ear as she scuttles around, collecting coats and shoes.
Mavis Longbottom’s arrival is a surprise for Bliss, as she nimbly jumps out of a sporty little Fiat and drags her “latest” toward the house. “Come along, Gino,” she says, pulling an elderly shrew as if he were a recalcitrant child.
“I’ll be surprised if he lasts very long,” Daphne mordantly mumbles to Bliss as she prepares a welcoming smile for the couple.
Minnie Dennon is the final arrival, stumbling over the doorstep, and flinging herself into Bliss’s arms as he stands in the hallway readying a handshake. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t know you had guests, Daphne,” says Minnie, wearing more makeup and jewellery than Elizabeth Taylor, and Bliss laughs as Daphne quickly drags her off. “You did that on purpose, Minnie,” mutters Daphne under her breath.
“I did not ...” protests Minnie, but Daphne drives her toward the kitchen. “You can help me with dinner, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“I was just going to talk to ...”
“Later, dear. I want your opinion on the Brussels sprouts first.”
“So, David,” says Phil Morgan, as the remaining guests crowd in on him with their sherries in hand. “Daphne tells us you got the Commissioner’s commendation for solving murders.”
Murders, robberies, frauds, and rapes ... Daphne’s friends may look fragile, but they suck up the gore of London’s underworld with relish, as Bliss of the Yard fills them in on some of his more interesting cases. “It’s pretty gruesome,” he warns several times, and they grimace with glee as they urge him on.
“Dinner,” calls Daphne, on time to the minute. “Find your seats.” Then she whispers to Bliss. “I put you at the end, next to me, David.”
The table, replete with a holly centrepiece topped with slender white candles in a silver candelabra, is a picture that would be welcome in the pages of Victorian Dining. Daphne has even inscribed place names in calligraphy on hand-laid vellum and, as Bliss sits, Minnie slips into the dining room with the final steaming plates of vegetables and plumps herself into Daphne’s seat.
“I put you over there, Minnie,” scowls Daphne as she makes an entrance with the bird.
“Oh. I’m here now,” Minnie says, hanging on to Bliss’s arm. “Unless David minds me sitting next to him, of course.”
“Minnie,” snaps Daphne, using the turkey as a weapon. “I have to sit next to David to help him carve.”
“I suppose you’re used to slicing up bodies,” says Don Elliot as Minnie moves, but Daphne cuts him down. “David’s a police inspector, not a mortician, Don. He leaves the gory stuff to others.”
Turkey, ham, stuffing, sprouts, and four varieties of root vegetables are garnished with clove-scented bread sauce, chipolatas, bacon rolls, cranberry jelly, and the thickest gravy Bliss has
ever spooned out of a gravy boat.
“Minnie made the gravy,” announces Daphne like a schoolyard snitch. “I think she did it quite well, considering. Don’t you?”
Daphne’s assertion that the oldies would eat little proves entirely wrong as the gang stuff themselves, but later, when Bliss mentions the point over the washing up, Daphne scoffs, “They’re like a bunch of toddlers. They were just showing off because you were here.”
“David made the pudding,” Daphne insists volubly once the dinner plates are cleared, and, despite Bliss’s protestations that he merely stirred, she declares that everyone must try some.
“Oh, I’d do anything for a man who cooks,” grovels Minnie from the other end of the table. “You simply must give me the recipe, David.”
“It’s a secret. Isn’t it, David?” snaps Daphne before he can respond, and Bliss is forced to accept everyone’s congratulations as Daphne douses the candles while he flames the brandy.
“I think we should hold a seance,” suggests Mavis in the eerie blue light. “They always do that in the presence of great detectives.”
“Back to Agatha Christie again,” moans Bliss, but Daphne seems keen. “Maybe we could solve one of your mysteries for you, David.”
“As long as we don’t have to take off our clothes this time. I’m getting past that now,” moans Beattie Elliott.
“It’s a seance, not a witches’ coven, Beattie,” scoffs Mavis. “You never have to take off clothes for a seance.”
“Really?” says Beattie, and Don Elliott turns scarlet as his wife gives him a dirty look.
“But we need an intriguing question,” enthuses Minnie, now back on Bliss’s arm. “What’s the mystery, Mr. Inspector, sir?”
Daphne has an idea as she relights the candles. “Get your picture out, David. Let’s ask who Ruth’s father is.”
“No ...” he laughs.
“Spoilsport,” says Minnie, patting his injured thigh, and he quickly gives in.
With the table cleared, and chairs set around, Bliss brings out the photograph and numbers the five living suspects, explaining, “One of these men may have fathered a child in Vancouver, Canada, in August 1964.”
“Oh, David. Such precision. Most men are so wishy-washy,” fawns Minnie squeezing into the seat next to him, but Daphne is on her back in a flash.
“You’d better sit over there, Minnie,” says Daphne, putting her next to the door. “We need someone frisky to pop up and down to put the lights out.”
“Are you quite sure we don’t have to take off our clothes?” fusses Beattie, and Daphne retorts, “Yes. We’re sure,” a touch heavy-handedly.
The lights go out, and the moonlight streaming through the window casts deep blue shadows. “This is spooky,” whines Blossom. “I’m scared of ghosts.”
“It’s only a game,” snorts Daphne. “Now ... Everyone put your hands flat on the table, and no cheating.”
Mavis waits for a few seconds, until movement stills, then, feeling justified in taking the lead as it was her suggestion, she intones, “Is there anybody there? Is there anybody there?”
“What’s supposed to happen?” whispers Beattie in the dark.
“In the movies, there’s always a knocking sound,” says Don.
“Yes, but in the movies there’s always a dead body when the light comes back on,” adds Minnie.
“Are you all right, Gino?” calls Bliss, suddenly fearful the shrivelled geriatric, who’s hardly spoken all afternoon, may have passed over in the gloom.
“Yes,” replies Gino, and Bliss lets out a sigh of relief as Mavis shushes them before repeating. “Is there anybody there? Is there anybody there?”
“That was a knock,” exclaims Don. “I distinctly heard a knock.”
“Knock once for yes and twice for no,” intones Mavis. “Is anybody there?”
“One,” counts Daphne at the sound of a sharp tap. “Somebody is there.”
A slight movement in the shadows at the far end of the table catches Bliss eye, and he’s deliberating whether or not to speak up, when Beattie lets out an electrifying scream.
“Lights, lights,” yells Bliss, and as Don leaps out of his chair he collides with Minnie and they end up in a heap.
Daphne eventually hits the switch and all eyes are on Beattie as the lights come up. “There was a hand round my throat,” she shrieks. “My pearls ... My pearls have gone.”
“Minnie,” says Bliss, sternly and immediately. “Please give Beattie her pearls back.”
“Oh, David,” says Minnie, her voice dripping with admiration as she pulls herself up from the floor and takes a string of pearls from her purse. “You are a brilliant detective. How did you know it was me?”
“Why did you do that?” wails Beattie, snatching back her pearls.
“Minnie thought it would be fun to give me a real mystery to solve, didn’t you?” says Bliss.
“Of course,” replies Minnie, smoothing Beattie down. “It was only a lark, dear. I wasn’t going to keep them.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” mutters Daphne, but Mavis is anxious to continue. “Quiet everybody. Put the lights out again, Minnie. Someone was calling from the other side.”
It takes a few seconds for the atmosphere to darken, then Mavis starts again. “Is there anybody there?”
A single sharp knock echoes eerily in the stillness and Bliss watches for movement, though he sees none.
“Have you passed over?” continues Mavis, solemnly.
Knock!
“Will you answer a question?”
Knock!
“I see five male faces in the photograph I am holding. Do you see them?”
Knock!
“Which face is the one that we seek?”
If a spirit has been summoned, it seems confused for a few seconds while the silence builds.
“Ask again,” whispers Minnie, and Mavis starts, “Do you see the face?”
“One,” counts Daphne under her breath, then the knocks continue. “Two, three, four, five.”
“Number five,” pronounces Minnie enthusiastically as she leaps up and switches the light on.
“Which one is that, David?” asks Daphne, squinting at the photo as the others crowd around.
“This one,” he says with his finger on a youngish man in the second row, and he consults the accompanying list. “His name’s Geoffrey Sanderson apparently and, according to this, his present whereabouts are unknown.”
“I ... I um ... I’d better make some coffee,” stutters Daphne as she heads to the kitchen.
“Oh, Daphne. I meant to tell you,” calls Minnie in her wake, “young Jeremy Maxwell is back in town.”
“Jeremy Maxwell,” breathes Daphne, and she is stopped in the doorway by the news.
“Yeah. Didn’t you know his parents quite well?” adds Minnie, and Mavis Longbottom furiously kicks her under the table.
“Oh, Mavis. Be careful, dear. You kicked me,” bitches Minnie. But the damage is done. Daphne is clearly flummoxed, and she hovers in the doorway while all eyes are on her. Bliss wants to help her out, but has no idea what’s happening.
“Are you all right?” he asks, and Daphne unfreezes enough to stammer, “Yes ... Yes. I’m fine. And yes, Minnie, you are correct. I did know them.” Then she scuttles into the kitchen mumbling, “I’ll make the coffee.”
“Why did you say that?” hisses Mavis with her sights firmly on Minnie.
“I don’t know what you mean,” professes Minnie, though Bliss sees a hint of culpability on her face and slides into the kitchen.
“Can I help?” he asks, as Daphne busies herself with the percolator, then she turns questioningly. “Do you know what true love really is, David?”
“I think so.”
“I was sure at one time. Absolutely certain. So certain that I would have given my life ... But the price was too high in the end,” she says, then she slams around the kitchen with such aggravation that Bliss backs off.
“I’
ll ask who wants cream,” he mutters and leaves her taking out her frustration on the cupboard doors as she searches for the demerara.
The atmosphere has chilled to such a degree by the time Daphne returns with the coffee that most are searching for their coats and shoes. “That was a wonderful Christmas, thank you,” says Gino, taking everybody by surprise and, as the guests leave, Daphne is at the door hanging fiercely onto Bliss’s arm as if fearing that he’s about to be carried off.
“Can you believe that woman?” she snorts as Minnie trips away into the night. “She couldn’t keep her hands off you for a minute, and she seventy-five if she’s a day.”
“Never mind,” says Bliss, giving Daphne’s hand a comforting squeeze.
Daphne quickly shuts the door as if hoping to keep out the ghosts of the night, but she can’t shut out the ghost in her mind; the one that has been quiescent for many years; the one that has suddenly been re-awoken by the mention of Jeremy Maxwell, and she stands in the hallway with so many unanswered questions on her mind that she runs. “I think I’ll go straight to bed,” she says as she makes for the stairs. “It’s been a long day and I like to get up early Boxing Morning for the hunt.”
“You hunt?” asks Bliss, though he has no great difficulty imagining Daphne riding to hounds.
“Of course not,” she protests. “I’m a sort of saboteur.”
Boxing Day morning dawns cold and dark for Trina as she stops for a coffee on her way to her first patient in Vancouver.
“I hate Boxing Day,” she’d moaned to Rick as she’d leaned out of bed and smacked off the alarm. “I always find at least one of my patients dead.”
“Don’t go then,” he’d said, playfully pulling her back under the sheets, but she’d reluctantly struggled free.
“If I don’t go today, I’ll have three bodies to deal with tomorrow. Anyway, I promised them all turkey.”
“We could feed most of Vancouver with what we’ve got left,” he’d joked. “Take everybody turkey.”
Frost crystals dust the sidewalk like a skim of snow, and Trina’s footsteps crunch in the stillness of the holiday morning as she makes for Donut Delight. Then a light on the street corner catches her eye and pulls her off course.
A Year Less a Day Page 15
