Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc.

by James Hawkins

  “What a load of twaddle,” Mainsbridge whispered in Bliss’s ear as they watched on one of the station’s sets.

  “As a result of precipitous action by the police,” Goldsmith continued smarmily, “and before they had established the full facts of this case, my client had been arrested and incarcerated in a penal establishment where he was seriously assaulted and sodomized.”

  “Serves the little bugger right,” muttered Mains-bridge, and seemed unconcerned as Goldsmith had wrapped up his address by saying, “It is my client’s intention to take action against the officers involved for unlawful arrest and unreasonable detention, and to demand a public enquiry into the laxity of the prison service.”

  “The Lord gave…” continues the bishop with reverence, “… and the Lord hath taken away.” Though Bliss can’t help wondering if it might not be more appropriate to hold the railway company responsible for that.

  “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” concludes the bishop, and Daphne sniffs loudly as the coffin containing a substantial amount of Minnie is slowly wheeled past them on her way to her final resting place.

  “I hate to say it, David,” says Daphne, as she takes Bliss’s arm to escort the entourage out of the cathedral to the waiting hearse, “but I can’t help feeling that young Master Stapleton got exactly what he deserved. Poor Minnie was so looking forward to that trip.”

  “Obviously,” responds Bliss, and for that reason he hunts out D.I. Mainsbridge from amongst the throng of mourners.

  “Let’s have another look at that tape from the railway station, Mike,” says Bliss. “It’s not that I buy Stapleton’s mouthpiece’s story, but something doesn’t add up here.”

  “What?”

  “Well,” starts Bliss, “we have the remains of the deceased’s coat, her handbag and her purse. Yet we don’t have a railway ticket.”

  “And…?”

  “I’ve checked at the station. There is no record of anyone buying a ticket around that time.”

  “So…?”

  “So, what was she doing there without a ticket?”

  “Meeting someone, perhaps.”

  “Then they should have shown up on the next train.”

  “Stapleton could have stolen the ticket with the money…”

  “If he stole the money.”

  “But, if he didn’t, who did?”

  The missing money is still plaguing Bliss an hour later as he and Mainsbridge rerun the digitalized version of the surveillance tape for the nth time.

  “It doesn’t look as though her bag’s particularly stuffed,” says Bliss, peering closely as a smudgy figure moves across the platform one frame at a time.

  “Ten grand in big bills doesn’t take much space, Dave.”

  “True,” agrees Bliss, then he follows Stapleton’s progress as the shadowy teenager creeps out of the darkness and begins his run.

  “See,” explains Mainsbridge, pausing the image. “She starts to turn just as he reaches for her bag, then, ‘Bang!’”

  “He reckoned she jumped.”

  “I s’pose it’s possible,” admits Mainsbridge. “It’s dark, foggy. The old bird is miles away in Kathmandu or Kuala Lumpur. He sneaks up behind her at a run and scares the crap out of her — ‘Boom!’ — she leaps like a rabbit with a shotgun shell up its bum.”

  “So, you think he might not have planned it.”

  “Hey, Dave. Don’t worry. It’s still manslaughter, even if he gets away with murder, and it won’t matter a monkey’s fart how much steam his mouthpiece blows.”

  A phone call cuts into their conversation, and Mainsbridge hands the receiver to Bliss. “It’s a Chief Superintendent Edwards for you, Dave.”

  Bliss’s face falls as he briefly cups his hand over the mouthpiece and mutters, “Damn!”

  “Dave, old chap…” explodes Edwards with uncharacteristic bonhomie. “Congratulations — that was a good collar, well done.”

  “Thank you…”

  “What’s all this crap from his lawyer? Is he smoking something, or is he talking out of his backside?”

  “Well, there are a few —”

  “Rubbish, Dave. I’ve seen the video. Christ! The whole damn world’s seen the video. It’s cut and dried — nail the nasty little bastard’s bollocks to the floor.”

  “It’s just that —”

  “Like I said, Dave, nice one.” Then his tone takes on a sarcastic edge. “By the way, are you still working for us, or have you joined the turnip crunchers permanently?”

  “I was just waiting for the funeral…”

  “Okay. I’ll expect to see you first thing tomorrow morning, then.”

  “Yes —” Bliss starts, but the line is dead and he’s still shaking his head as he replaces the receiver.

  “Who the hell was that?” queries Mainsbridge.

  “Edwards,” replies Bliss. “Senior delegate of the sore-backside brigade at H.Q. He’s bleating about me still being here. I’ve told Daphne that I’ll go with her to the bank to sort out Minnie’s affairs later this afternoon, but after that I’ll have to get back to the big house.”

  “No sweat, Dave. They reckon it’ll be weeks before Stapleton’s fit to plead. Anyway, I’ve got all the evidence I need.”

  Mark Anderson, Minnie’s bank manager, is well aware of his customer’s demise but, other than offering his condolences, he’s unwilling to discuss her affairs with anyone, even a chief inspector from Scotland Yard, until Daphne puts the bite on him. Staring him coldly in the eye, she queries, “Aren’t you the Mark Anderson who grew up on Batsford Street?”

  “Yes,” he responds cagily.

  “I thought I recognized you,” says Daphne triumphantly, and then her face sours as she closely scrutinizes him. “That’s the trouble with small towns, Mark. I’m sure we all do things when we’re teenagers that we hope will be forgotten… although I doubt that Detective Chief Inspector Bliss would be too interested in hearing about —”

  “All right… All right,” steps in Anderson, smiling wryly as he turns puce. “I’m sure Mrs. Dennon wouldn’t have minded me telling you that I spoke to her about her account. It was my duty when she applied for the overdraft. After all, she was asking for a lot of money for someone with only a state pension to sustain her.”

  “So, what did she want it for?” asks Bliss, wondering how Minnie had sold him on the idea of a world tour.

  “She said it was some kind of business partnership,” continues Anderson. “Something so big she couldn’t tell anyone for risk of ruining the deal.”

  “And you didn’t need a business plan or some kind of collateral?” asks Bliss in surprise.

  “Some of our more senior customers can be very persuasive, Chief Inspector,” Anderson admits, giving Daphne a poisonous glare. “Anyway, in view of the circumstances, the bank has written off the debt.”

  “I guess Minnie knew about his past as well,” says Bliss as they leave the bank. “What on earth did he do as a teenager?”

  “I’ve absolutely no idea, David,” chortles Daphne, “though something certainly made him poop his pants.”

  “You are incorrigible, Miss Lovelace,” laughs Bliss, taking her arm and leading her up the High Street towards Watson Street and Minnie’s last known place of abode.

  Nothing has changed in the flat since Bliss’s previous visit. “There’s no point in going through the cupboards again,” he is saying as he takes a contemplative pull at a corner of carpet while Daphne scours the little sitting room and rechecks the cushions of the settee, saying, “God knows what she did with the money. She certainly didn’t buy furniture. This lot wouldn’t get ten quid at auction.”

  “What’s going to happen to it?”

  “I’ll probably chuck it out for the dustmen,” suggests Daphne, and Bliss looks up with a thought.

  “Bingo,” he yells a few minutes later as he squats on the floor of Minnie’s kitchen next to a garbage bag he’s dragged out of a bin in the backyard.

  With one han
d over his nose, Bliss is holding up a crumpled piece of paper to Daphne with the other.

  “What is it?” she asks, keeping her hands in her overcoat pockets.

  “This,” he says, unfolding it and flattening it on the floor, “is a Western Union receipt for four thousand, nine hundred pounds. And I bet there’s another in here if I dig deep enough. Thank God the garbage hadn’t been collected.”

  “But, I don’t understand…”

  “It’s the missing money, Daphne. Stapleton didn’t steal it. She sent it to…” Bliss pauses while he deciphers the writing on the receipt. “She sent it to Canada.”

  “She didn’t know anyone in Canada,” spits Daphne indignantly. “Why on earth would she do that?”

  “I think it’s a company name,” says Bliss, reading aloud. “‘CNL Distribution, White Rock, British Columbia.’”

  “Call Mike, your Mountie friend in Vancouver,” says Daphne, indicating Bliss’s cell phone. “He’ll know.”

  chapter four

  Mike Phillips is a recently promoted inspector with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver, and he is growing accustomed to becoming embroiled in murder cases involving his English counterpart, David Bliss.

  “I could get shot for this,” says Bliss as he opens his cell phone and flicks through the digital address book looking for his Canadian colleague’s number. “It’s my job to make sure that people don’t short-circuit the system,” he continues irritably as he taps in the number of the officer with whom he had once teamed up to trace a serial killer. “That’s what Interpol’s for,” he carries on as he waits for the connection. “If everyone made their own enquiries with foreign forces there would be anarchy.”

  “Oh, you can be such a stuffed shirt sometimes,” says Daphne snatching the phone. “The closest I’ve ever been to being on the force was cleaning the constables’ toilet down at the police station. So unless you think that applies…” She pauses, with the phone close to her ear, mouthing “Voice mail,” then adds, “He’s on leave — Hawaii for two weeks,” as she waits to leave a message, but then she changes her mind and slowly closes the phone. “Minnie and I were planning on going to Hawaii,” she tells Bliss, with a sniffle of unfulfilled nostalgia, and then she brightens with an idea. “What about Trina?” she says, pulling out her diary and searching for a number.

  “I don’t know…” begins Bliss hesitantly, having mixed feelings about the zany Canadian woman who had become enmeshed in Phillips’s mass murder case and had found a kindred spirit in Daphne.

  “It can’t do any harm,” continues Daphne as she punches in the international code. “We only need the phone number of the company, and then we can ask them about Minnie’s money ourselves.”

  “I still think I should do it officially through Ottawa,” Bliss is saying as Daphne listens for the ringing tone.

  “Don’t you worry, David. I’ll talk to her,” says Daphne sarcastically. “I wouldn’t want her getting into trouble with Interpol as well.”

  “Vancouver Zoo. Monkey House,” answers the voice on the phone, and Daphne puts on a puzzled face.

  “Is that you, Trina?”

  “Oh. Hi, Daph. Yeah, it’s me. Hang on. There’s a guinea pig on the loose…” Then she yells, “Kids!” with such force that Daphne ducks.

  “Sorry, Daphne,” says Trina, coming back on the phone. “It’s a madhouse here. I was just making some curried banana cake.”

  Daphne grabs a pen from Bliss’s breast pocket, enthusing, “It’s one of Trina’s recipes.”

  “Hold on a minute,” complains Bliss, grabbing it back as Daphne begins writing in her diary. “And that’s my personal cell phone you’re using.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Trina, I’ll get it later. David’s worried about his bank account now he’s a lowly chief inspector. Oh. Did you know Samantha, his daughter —”

  “Daphne… please,” implores Bliss.

  “Oh. Hang on, Trina. He wants to talk to you himself.”

  “Trina, do you know a place called White Rock?” asks Bliss without wasting expensive seconds on pleasantries.

  “Sure. Just south of here on the American border. Hey, have you got another murder for me?”

  “No… Well, yes, in a way. One of Daphne’s friends has been killed, and for some strange reason she sent all her money there last week — more than twenty thousand dollars, judging by the receipts,” explains Bliss, before giving Trina the details of the money transfers, each for a little under five thousand pounds.

  “Ten-four,” says Trina once she has the information.

  “What does that mean?” queries Bliss.

  “No idea, but the cops always say it on television… or is it ten-ten?”

  Trina Button puts down the phone as her husband, Rick, wanders in from the garage with grease-stained hands.

  “Rick, you’d better put a padlock on the guinea pig cage. I’ve got another murder case.”

  “What… What are you talking about, Trina?”

  “Surely you remember? The last time I was on a case the mob tried to murder him.”

  “Trina,” Rick reminds her gently, “you were never on a case. You are a homecare nurse who just got caught up in some nasty business, that’s all. Anyway, you don’t have time for this now. I’ve almost finished the machine and Norman is on his way over for the inaugural run.”

  “Great!” shrieks Trina. I’ll be out in two minutes. Just gotta make a call.”

  CNL Distribution is a multimillion-dollar corporation with shareholders who prefer to remain unlisted — everywhere, and the phone book offers Trina no help. Neither does the directory enquiry operator. With Rick calling, “Hurry up, Trina,” she quickly tries the Western Union office in White Rock, but draws a blank there as well.

  “I’ve no idea,” says the clerk tersely. “We don’t ask our customers their business.”

  “Do you have a phone number, then?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Can’t help.”

  “Come on, Trina! Norman’s almost here,” calls Rick, and a moment later Trina is joined by her two teenagers, Rob and Kylie, as she stands in the garage with tears of joy streaming down her face.

  “It’s beautiful, Rick… It’s absolutely beautiful,” she blubbers, then she turns to an elderly-looking man who has just wheeled himself into the garage in an electric wheelchair.

  “Look, Norman,” she says, pushing her children aside for the newcomer, “isn’t it wonderful? Rick is so clever, isn’t he?”

  Norman Spinnaker is, like all of Trina’s patients, facing a bleak outlook. Diabetes has blocked his blood vessels and robbed his legs of the strength to carry him, while nephropathy has destroyed his kidneys. Without constant dialysis, or a transplant, Norman is well aware that he is never more than few days away from meeting his maker. But thanks to Trina’s unbounded optimism, he looks to his uncertain future with more confidence than a teen pop idol.

  “I think it’s… um… fabulous,” says Norman, critically eyeing the machine that Trina insists will save his life. “But are you sure about the power-to-weight ratio?”

  “Absolutely,” says Rick. “C’mon Trina, climb aboard and we’ll give it a trial run.”

  “Yes!” exclaims Trina, and she punches the air triumphantly.

  The machine is a two-person quadricycle which has been fashioned from a kidney-shaped fibreglass bathtub complete with faucets, shower and soap rack. Wheels, and a nautical steering wheel from a marine junkyard in West Vancouver, have been added by Rick, along with a brass bulb horn that he had liberated from a vintage Model T Ford in his college days. A limp Canadian maple leaf flag hanging from the top of the ten-foot shower pole caps off the bizarre-looking machine, and Rick gives the pole a shake as he explains in a madinventor’s voice, “Shipmates and shipbrats… Note that this apparently standard shower unit is, in actual fact, the mainmast, from which a shower-curtain sail can be suspended. And this,” he carries on as he triumphantly pulls a large yellow plastic duck from a bag, “this
is the figurehead which I shall now fasten to the plughole puller while naming this vessel… “ He turns to Trina with a questioning look.

  “The Kidney Queen,” suggests Trina regally.

  “Absolutely,” agrees Rick. “The Kidney Queen. God bless her and all who pedal in her.”

  “She’s terrific,” says Trina, running her hand over the canvas lawn-chair seats. “What d’ye think, kids?”

  “You’re crazy,” spits Kylie. “Like, you really think you can pedal that all the way to New York?”

  “No problem,” says Trina as she hops in and tests the pedals. “It’s all downhill from here. Check out a map.”

  “Mum,” questions Rob, “why are you doing this?”

  “To raise money for kidney transplants —” she begins, but her fourteen-year-old son cuts her off.

  “No, I meant, why are you making me look such a dweeb?”

  “A dweeb?” questions Trina, and she looks to Rick for support, but he’s busy watching a spider on the ceiling.

  “Yeah, Mum,” carries on Kylie. “It’s kind’a embarrassing. My friends all say you’re weird.”

  “Hold on a minute, you two,” says Norman, coming to Trina’s side. “I think your friends must be weird. You’re lucky to have a mother — what’s that smell?”

  “Oh — oh,” cries Trina, leaping out of the machine and racing for the kitchen. “Flaming banana curry cake.”

  “You were saying, Mr. Spinnaker?” questions Kylie.

  Trina’s intended Kidney Run to New York is seven months away, but her goal to raise a million dollars for kidney transplants is already looking shaky. Her primary problem is that she lacks the wholehearted backing of the local Kidney Society. Indeed, the president and members of the steering committee have been frantically distancing themselves from the scheme from the moment Trina announced her plans.