“She was always your baby—never mine, anyway,” he said.
“You do realize, don’t you, that because you set me up, and because the bad guys in the U.K. got hold of it, a woman called Alma Barrow and her baby died? You realize you’re responsible for that?”
“You may think so, Polly. But that’s ridiculous.” I knew he wouldn’t be willing to take responsibility for that, but I had to say it. It would help lessen the burden I felt myself. In a way, I—and Becker by what he had done—had killed Alma. That was a thing that could never, ever be forgiven.
“What I’ll never get is why on earth you did it in the first place,” I said.
“I didn’t think it was safe for you to go,” he said. “I told you that, and you wouldn’t listen. And I needed to test out the new system. You were a perfect agent, that’s all. You would have been doing something good for your country.”
“And you thought I’d forgive you after I found out what was going on?”
“Yeah—I thought you would. I guess I was wrong.”
“I guess you were.” He got up and left not long after that. My coffee to go was cold by that point, and I tossed it into the bin. The trash. Whatever.
He transferred to Calgary in the late spring. Maybe he’s getting back together with his ex-wife—who knows? And, as Cedric would say, I don’t give a toss.
Lug-nut and Rosencrantz don’t seem to be terribly jealous of Bess, although sometimes her wails make Luggy roll his eyes to the ceiling and sigh like an old man. He used to do that with Rosie when she was very small, too. I’ve explained to him that Bess will eventually learn to bark properly, and he just has to wait awhile.
Eddie’s court case about the marijuana was dismissed, on account of the fact that by then, Becker had transferred to Calgary, and Morrison claimed he didn’t have sufficient evidence to proceed. This was probably an unethical fiddle on Morrison’s part, but we were willing to forgive him. I think the episode scared the daylights out of Eddie, and he told me he’d never touch the stuff again. I’m not sure I believe him, though.
Alma’s death remains unsolved, at least officially. The tattooed guy, whose fake beard had fallen off when he was arrested at Beachy Head, was charged with all kinds of things, including clobbering Hassan and stalking me. He was a legitimate white van man, apparently. His fishy smell came from his part-time job delivering plaice to restaurants and grocery stores in the Canterbury area. His connection with any kind of gang was hard to prove, according to Potts, who was keeping in touch with Earlie. The guy insisted he was working on his own, though that made no sense. I guess he’ll go down loyal to “his people” and come out of jail a hero at some point. They’re still collecting evidence to connect him with the thing that happened at the Cathedral. However, Morrison got an email from Constable Potts the other day, with the news that Maude had identified the guy from a mug-book as the person who had tried to steal my puppet case from the train, and also as someone she thought she had seen in the Right-to-Life crowd, just before Alma went to the loo. Not enough to go on, considering that Maude’s eyesight was so bad, but a beginning, anyway.
The English tabloids had a field day with the whole thing, dubbing it, predictably, “Murder in the Cathedral.” Cedric wrote to say that his B&B was full up with thrill seekers, and the Becket tomb had never been busier.
Richard is still working with Steamboat Theatre, and we’ve seen each other a couple of times. I thanked him for having been part of the rescue squad, and for hanging out in the hospital while I was capering about in coma-land. We’ve agreed to write off our Canterbury dalliance as one of those strangers-in-a-strange-land things, and I think we’re both fine with that. He’s pretty good with Bess, though he handles her as if she’s a fragile piece of priceless stuff, which of course she is. We’re just friends, though. He’s way too young for me, for one thing, and for another, my heart has lodged elsewhere—a development that I couldn’t have predicted at all.
Earlie Morrison has been around here a lot. Bess fits into his lap like a small cat, and he’s trying to teach her cribbage, which is ambitious, as she’s only two months old. Still, she adores him, and you know what? So do I.
Copyright © H. Mel Malton, 2013
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