A Year Less a Day

by James Hawkins

  Mort says nothing and lets the tension build as he stares ahead to watch a slab-sided leviathan of a ship being loaded with containers.

  “D’ye know how I got this?” Mort snorts eventually, sticking the stump of his right arm in Tom’s face. “’Cos I screwed up bad. Now,” he adds menacingly, “unless you want this to happen to you, you’d better stop that Button bitch from asking anymore questions—know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, but ...”

  “I mean,” Mort carries on as if Tom hasn’t spoken, “look at it from my point of view, Tom. You give Jackson’s bit of slack my ten grand, she gives it to her old man, and he gives it back to me. I mean—what sort of f’kin business is that? Know what I mean?”

  “But I didn’t know he owed you the money, Mort; honest,” whines Tom. “She told me he was dying.”

  “He wuz, you f’kin prat. He wuz dying. He wuz dying to get away from her, the fat cow, and his bitching mother, and he wuz supposed to pay me to make him die—know what I mean?”

  “You didn’t tell me ...” Tom starts but Mort holds up his amputated arm in warning.

  “See that?” says Mort, using the stump to point at a container rig entering the dock area, and they watch as the huge truck is manoeuvred alongside the berthed ship in the port below them.

  “Yeah,” says Tom.

  “That container is stuffed chock-full of the finest British Columbian product that money can buy—know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, Mort.”

  “Good. Well there’s another twenty just like that one. And the last f’kin thing I need is for any nosy stupid bitch to make waves with the law—know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, but ...”

  “Good. So, how are you gonna stop the Button woman from lousing up my entire f’kin organization?”

  It is mid-afternoon by the time Trina has finished her rounds, and she is completely unaware of the danger she is facing as she heads off to interrogate the pharmacists at the two potential drugstores. Tom is on the tail of her Volkswagen in his beat-up Toyota, but he’s still smarting from his previous confrontation with her, so he has devised what he believes to be a safer approach, and once he is certain that she is headed away from her home, he spins back.

  Trina’s house appears deserted as Tom drives by, then he parks around the block while he writes a note with a felt-tipped pen on a ragged piece of paper.

  Trina’s driveway is clear when Tom returns on foot a few minutes later, but he thinks of himself as a pro, so he also checks the garage, and even scrutinizes the neighbours’ windows for signs of life, before pulling on a pair of surgical gloves and slipping around the side of the house.

  Ruth is in Trina’s kitchen, with its spectacular garden outlook, and is preparing dinner for the Buttons—oyster paella for the adults; spaghetti Bolognese for the teens, but she has other plans for herself; Mike Phillips is taking her out to dinner—again.

  “I’ve got something very serious I want to ask you,” he had said when he’d phoned earlier, and her heart had momentarily skipped, though something in his tone suggested that it wasn’t necessarily good news.

  Ruth sniffs and licks at the tears dribbling down her cheeks as she chops onions for the pasta sauce, then, when she looks up to wipe her eyes, she catches a movement in the garden through the mist of tears. “What the hell ...” she starts, and stares in disbelief as Tom takes a final furtive look around before grabbing the guinea pig out of its cage.

  “That’s Tom ...” she muses, then she dashes for the phone as something solid slams into the wooden back door and makes her jump.

  It has taken Trina nearly an hour to find one of the pharmacies that may have sold Zofran in blister-packs, and she has just managed to beat a slow-footed pickup driver into a parking space when her cell-phone rings.

  “Trina Button ...” she starts, but is cut off by Ruth’s wail.

  “Trina,” she screams. “It’s me. You’ve got to come home now.”

  “But I’m ...”

  “Now Trina, please,” she cries. “Tom’s trying to break in.”

  “Oh, man!” Trina moans, then yells, “I’ll call the police,” as she steps on the gas and dings the fender of a parked car. “Stupid place to park,” she screams, as she scorches away with one hand on the wheel and the other on her phone, dialling 911.

  The police arrive first, and Ruth still has a carving knife in her hand as she answers the front door to a couple of uniformed officers with guns drawn.

  “Mrs. Button?” queries one of the officers, trying to look past her into the hallway.

  “No, I’m Ruth Jackson,” explains Ruth, but does-n’t realize that the guns are trained on her.

  “Put the weapon down, ma’am,” says one of the officers, a lumpy female.

  “It’s just a kitchen knife ...” Ruth starts, but the woman isn’t listening and keeps up the pressure.

  “I said ‘Put the weapon down.’ This is your last chance.”

  “OK, OK,” says Ruth, but she’s frozen with fear and doesn’t move.

  “Intruder is armed with a knife,” the male officer calls into his radio, and Ruth goes cold as she relives the recent past.

  “Please don’t shoot,” she pleads as the guns hold steady. “You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill my husband.”

  “Put the weapon down now,” spits the female officer. “Put it down.”

  “But I haven’t ...”

  “Put it down,” yells the man, and the knife clatters onto the ceramic tiles at Ruth’s feet.

  “Good. Now step away from the weapon and put your hands on your head.”

  Trina’s arrival brings a degree of sanity to the situation as she skids her Jetta to a halt with the aid of the parked police cruiser, and she runs up the driveway shouting, “Police brutality! Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. You’ve got the wrong man.”

  “Oh, for chrissake. Not you again!” exclaims the female, recognizing Trina from her imbroglio with Sergeant Brougham earlier in the day, and Trina whips out her tape recorder and presses ‘Record.’

  “I think he’s gone,” Ruth tells them shakily after Trina has smoothed things over. “I would have gone after him, but he looked so fierce.”

  “Did you recognize him ma’am?” asks the female officer as she guides Ruth back to the kitchen.

  “Yes. He’s Tom something-or-other. Inspector Wilson knows his name.”

  “Inspector Wilson?” queries the officer and Ruth regrets saying it as she finds herself explaining her recent spell of incarceration.

  “And you think this is revenge for cutting his throat?” asks the male officer skeptically, but Ruth is absolutely positive.

  “I knew he’d track me down eventually.”

  “So, did he take anything?” asks the woman constable, moving on, and Ruth points to the empty cage in the garden. “Just the guinea pig.”

  But Ruth is wrong. Tom hasn’t stolen the furry little creature. It is still there, in the back garden, though not in its cage. It is now skewered by the slender blade of a stiletto and pinioned to the back door, where it hangs lifeless, like a child’s stuffed toy on a coat hook. Tom’s warning note is pinned against the door by the poor creature’s body.

  “Oh my God,” keens Ruth at the find, and Trina rushes to comfort her.

  “Buddy has been watching too many Godfather movies,” says the constable as he prepares to withdraw the blade.

  “Wait a minute,” yells Trina, letting go of Ruth to grab the policeman’s hand. “He moved.”

  “I don’t think so,” says the officer as an unmarked cruiser screeches to a halt in the street and Mike Phillips comes running.

  “Are you all right, Ruth?” Phillips says as he bundles the crying woman into his arms, but Trina won’t release the uniformed officer’s arm, shouting, “I think he’s still alive. Call a vet.”

  “It’s dead. It’s got a knife sticking ...” begins the constable, but Trina pulls rank and rounds on him. “Constable, I’m personally a
cquainted with your Sergeant Brougham. Now call a vet before I tell him what a jerk you are.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” says the officer. “But I’ll get into trouble ...”

  “DS Phillips, RCMP,” says the Mountie stepping forward. “Call for a vet, officer. I’ll take responsibility.”

  “Right Sergeant. If you say so,” he says and, as he radios his station, Mike Phillips carefully extracts the blade and releases the crucified animal while Trina begins mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  “You’re joking ...” laughs the constable, but he gets a black look from Phillips as Trina delicately massages the tiny body while gently blowing. Then she stops and shrieks, “Yes!” as she feels a tiny organ bumping away under her fingertips. “His heart’s still beating,” she yells, heading for the kitchen. “Quick. Put the oven on, Ruth.”

  “What?” exclaims the officer.

  “We might need to warm him up.”

  By the time a vet arrives, the little animal has pulled itself together without the need of heat, and is frantically scooting around the kitchen floor.

  “It’s a miracle,” says the smart young vet as she lifts the plucky little rodent and carefully examines him on the kitchen table. “The knife must have missed all the vital organs. I’ll have to take him for an X-ray and observation, but he seems fine.”

  Trina laughs in relief, but Ruth’s mind is clouded by the thought of Tom’s misspelled threat, scrawled in a pretty shade of salmon. “YOU’VE BIN WARNED. YOUR NEXT,” says the note, now in an evidence bag in the constable’s hand, and Ruth turns to Trina.

  “I ought to find somewhere else to live. I’ve caused you so much trouble.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s me he’s after, Trina. It’s me who owes him the money.”

  “Not after this you don’t,” says the constable, flourishing the note. “Uttering a death threat should keep him locked up for quite awhile.”

  “Maybe I should take Ruth on a little vacation for a few days, just until he’s caught,” suggests Phillips, and Trina sees a twinkle in his eye.

  “You’ll have to take my kids as well,” she teases as she gives Ruth a cheeky nudge. “They’ll starve to death without her.”

  “First, we’re going to dinner,” says Phillips as he hands Ruth her purse, but she turns to her friend.

  “I haven’t finished cooking ...”

  “Get out of here,” laughs Trina, bundling her toward the basement apartment. “Go and gussy yourself up for the nice man while I make him a coffee. And hurry up.”

  The restaurant Phillips has selected for dinner is a ritzy Japanese diner just off the waterfront, and they sit waiting for their soup while watching the water-busses buzz back and forth across the harbour.

  “You remember I said I wanted to ask you something,” says Phillips with a serious mien, and Ruth confesses that she had forgotten amidst the after-noon’s brouhaha.

  “This isn’t going to be easy ...” Phillips carries on, as if to himself, leaving Ruth wondering if he is about to propose.

  Oh, God. This is too soon, she says to herself. Jordan’s only been gone a couple of months.

  Three and a half months, contradicts another voice. Remember the date on the death certificate.

  “The fact is, Ruth,” Phillips starts hesitantly, “that I need to talk to you about your mother.”

  “My mother?”

  Tough luck, says the voice, but inwardly she lets out a sigh. Not that she wouldn’t love to marry him, it is simply that she is still burdened by Jordan, and the visit to Dr. Fitzpatrick hadn’t helped, even if she had told Trina that it had.

  “What about my mother?” she wants to know and Phillips puts on his policeman’s mantle as he explains that his detachment is looking into the disappearance of a number of women from Vancouver’s streets.

  “You said that she just vanished,” he reminds her, then swears her to secrecy before admitting that a serial killer could be at work. “Wouldn’t you like to know what happened to her?” he asks, but she starts to shake her head, saying, “She wasn’t a good mother ...” But it’s a line that has run its course and she knows it. “It’s been more than twenty years, Mike. I don’t know what to think anymore. I suppose I was always angry with her for running off and leaving me.”

  “But what if she didn’t run off? What if someone had killed her and that’s why she never came back?” he asks as gently as he is able.

  “It never occurred to me,” she admits, and her mother’s character begins to change in her mind when Phillips questions, “Did she physically abuse you?”

  “Never ... Not really. Sometimes she’d be mad at me because it was hard to find somewhere to stay with a kid. But I guess I should be grateful that she always tried and didn’t just dump me in a home or leave me on some-one’s doorstep. She always managed, somehow.”

  “What do you remember about her?”

  “I’ve blocked her out for years, to be honest, but I was thinking of her when I was arrested; wondering if she’d ever been in that same cell. I think that was the worst thing about being inside, Mike. Thinking that my mother might have been stripped and shackled just like me; thinking that when she’d come home covered in bruises that she may have got them the same way that I did. And she didn’t do anything wrong either—not unless trying to stay alive is wrong.”

  “There are some people who would say that what she was doing was wrong,” he says, carefully distancing himself from the accusation.

  “Mike, I know what she did,” says Ruth. “She was a hooker, but what else could she do to survive? She didn’t have much education, and her people had nothing. So she sold the only thing she had.”

  “Her people?” Phillips questions.

  “Coast Salish First Nations,” explains Ruth, flooring Phillips.

  “She was a Native?” he breathes in total surprise.

  “Yes, Mike. And so am I—well, part Native. Don’t say you didn’t notice.”

  “But I didn’t,” he protests. “It never occurred to me.”

  Ruth takes a moment to peer questioningly into his eyes before warily asking. “Does it make a difference, now that you know?”

  Mike Phillips may be able to plug his tears, but he can’t cover the crack in his voice as he lovingly takes her hands. “I fell in love with a woman, Ruth, not a colour or a race. I fell in love with you.”

  “Thank you,” she says, gripping his hands. “Though God knows why you would feel that way—knowing what you do.”

  “All I know is that you are a wonderful person who doesn’t deserve all the crap that’s been thrown at you, and I’ll do my best to make up for it.”

  Ruth smiles through tears of gratitude as their meal arrives, then asks, “What can I do about my mother?”

  “We have an idea where she could be, Ruth. Would you give us a small blood sample, so that we can test for DNA?”

  “Yes,” says Ruth, unhesitatingly. “Of course I will.” It is already dawn in Westchester, England, when Mike Phillips takes Ruth back to his hotel in Vancouver and guides her upstairs to his room. And, on the other side of the world, a man rides out of the stable yard at Thraxton Manor unaware that a telephoto lens is tracking him as he gallops off across the field toward the barns.

  “It’s the best I could do, sir,” says the photographer an hour later as he drops the fuzzy photographs on Donaldson’s desk. “I hope it’s the right guy. He moved so quickly that I had a job to get a good focus.”

  “I don’t know,” admits Donaldson, “I’ve never seen him.” Then he takes a closer look. “What’s happening in the background? Do you know?”

  A bevy of workmen fixing up the old barns have been caught in the photographer’s lens, though he had been so focussed on the galloping horseman that he hadn’t noticed.

  “It looks as though they’re doing the old place up,” continues Donaldson, peering deeper. “I’ve got a feeling Ms. Lovelace mentioned that he had plans for the place. A
nyway, I’m sure she’ll recognize him easily enough. Thanks, Bob.”

  Daphne has no doubts when Donaldson lays out the photos on her dining room table a little later. “That’s him, sir. That’s the impostor. Are you going to arrest him?”

  “I don’t think we have any evidence that he’s done anything wrong, Daphne,” protests Donaldson. “He denied being Jackson when Dave asked him. Plus, he happens to own a fair chunk of Westchester real estate.”

  “Successful villains don’t live in Council houses, Superintendent. You should know that,” she chides lightly.

  “But Daphne,” Donaldson remonstrates, “you’ve absolutely no reason to say that he’s a villain.”

  “After the way he spoke to me,” she complains with resentment, “and the way he just tossed my furniture polish in the bin—that was a brand new aerosol, Superintendent. And it wasn’t one of those cheapie things from ValueSpot either; they don’t last two minutes. ‘This is for Thraxton Manor,’ I told the Mr. Benson in the hardware store, ‘I only want the very best.’ And Jackson, or whatever his name is, just ripped it out of my hand and chucked it in the bin. Honest people don’t do things like that.”

  “It’s not exactly the most heinous crime we’ve had this year, Daphne,” mutters Donaldson, but she is determined to press her point.

  “It may not be much to you, but six pounds is six pounds. And I still say he’s a crook.”

  “What do you plan to do with the photo now, Dave?” Donaldson asks Bliss, hoping to change the subject, but Daphne rises to make a point.

  “I think I need a soothing cup of tea,” she says, crossly. “I assume you’ll stay for some Keemun, Superintendent?”

  “How could I resist,” says the officer, seizing an opportunity to placate her. “The tea at the station hasn’t been the same since you left.”

  Daphne hesitates for a moment with the idea of volunteering to take back her old job at the police station, but thinks better of it. “Young women today have never been taught to make tea properly, that’s the problem,” she says, heading for the kitchen.