Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc.

by James Hawkins

  Mike Phillips’s supposition is correct — although this morning there is no fleet, just a solitary vessel heading shoreward from the fishing grounds. However, the flock of raucous herring gulls hovering expectantly over the Vancouver quayside will eventually be forced to scavenge lunch at the city’s garbage dump — the cargo in the hold of Victor Kelly’s trawler won’t be of any interest to them.

  In London, there is an equally raucous gathering in the foyer of Kensington police station when Peter Bryan arrives to interview Maurice Joliffe. Fuelled by the young bank clerk’s speculation that the bicycle bandit appeared to be in his late eighties, or possibly even nineties, a crush of reporters is badgering the press officer for information and demanding an opportunity to question the elderly man.

  Joliffe is still in the interview room — unaware of the hubbub in the lobby, unaware that he is already being pejoratively labelled “The Grandfather” and that news organizations from around the world are badgering their London correspondents for information and pictures. In truth, considering the gravity of the charges, he should be locked up in the remand wing of Wandsworth jail, but no one wants to risk turning him into a folk hero. Even Wendy Martin, in her hospital bed, can’t help feeling compassion for the distressed senior who had tried so hard to help her to her feet after the shooting.

  “I’m ever so sorry, luv,” the little old man had repeated several times, close to tears. “I must’ve forgotten to put the safety on.”

  If Peter Bryan had been doubtful of a link between Joliffe and the rash of elderly suicides when he first heard of the case, by the time he has been briefed by the robbery squad commander he is convinced. He’s also convinced that the robbery squad have lumbered him with the ancient marauder because they realize there is little mileage in prosecuting someone who’ll probably get more public sympathy than a pill-popping pop star or a drunken footballer. Maurice Joliffe appears equally aware of the dilemma, pleading, “You ain’t gonna send me to jail at my age, are ya?” as soon as Peter Bryan switches on the video recorder and begins the interview.

  “Well,” replies Bryan, trying to sound convincing, “armed robbery with a prohibited weapon is a very serious charge.”

  “Yeah, but I told the girl straight that I wouldn’t hurt her, and I never pointed the gun at her — or the others.”

  “But you shot the police woman.”

  “No, I did not,” protests Joliffe. “It were an accident. The bloomin’ gun fell out’a my pocket. I told her I was sorry — but it were an accident, honest.”

  “Well,” admits Bryan, “it doesn’t look as though you’ve got any previous form —”

  “Dang right I haven’t,” cuts in Joliffe adamantly. “I ain’t never been in trouble before in my life.”

  “Then why do this?”

  The competing thoughts in Joliffe’s mind contort his wan parchment face with such passion that Bryan finds himself wondering if there is another person inside struggling to escape.

  “Take your time,” advises Bryan gently, concerned that the tension will cause a stroke or heart attack as the old man’s eyes and jaws quiver in nervous motion.

  “What’ll happen if I tells you the truth?” asks Joliffe eventually, as he gets a grip on his situation.

  “Well, it’s your first conviction,” admits Bryan, “and considering your age and the fact that no one was killed, you might get probation, although I can’t promise anything.”

  The whirl of indecision continues to haunt Joliffe’s face, and Peter Bryan sits back to take the pressure off the elderly man. But Joliffe has been in turmoil for nearly a week, and he fidgets in indecision for a minute before making up his mind to confess.

  “All my life, I’ve wanted to leave something for the kiddies,” he begins to explain. “An’ not just enough for me funeral. I always had jobs — worked damned hard to put a crust on the table. But there wuz never enough to put any by. Then I ends up on old-age pension and it hardly pays the bloomin’ rent.”

  “Well, ten grand wouldn’t make a lot of difference,” suggests Bryan.

  However, the ten thousand pounds Joliffe had demanded when he robbed the bank was only a fraction of his actual goal. Still, he’s reluctant to acknowledge his true motive without some degree of assurance, and he looks to Bryan for confirmation. “They ain’t gonna send me to jail, are they?”

  Bryan opens his hands wide and disclaims responsibility as he answers, “Maybe not. You might just get a fine.”

  “Oh, that don’t matter,” laughs Joliffe. “I can afford it now.”

  “You’re not thinking of using the ten thousand quid you nicked from the bank, are you?” enquires Bryan hastily.

  “No — ‘course not,” says Joliffe. “I’m a millionaire. Why would I do that?”

  “A millionaire?” questions the detective, surveying the beat-up old man and beginning to wonder if the Mental Health Act might be more appropriate than the Theft Act.

  “Oh, yeah,” continues Joliffe, finally deciding to come clean, and he has a triumphant note in his voice as he announces: “O’course, I’ll only get five million now instead of the ten. Hah — what’s five million when you’ve struck it rich?”

  Peter Bryan eyes the old man sceptically, wondering if it’s the right time to summon the psychiatrist, but he opts for a final question. “What five million?” he asks. “You only tried to steal ten thousand. You’d have to do a couple of hundred banks to get that much.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Joliffe drops his guard and his face lights up as he explains: “It were late last Monday night when I got the call. It were gone ten. I was just watching the news — thinkin’ about turning in — and I thought, ‘Who the ‘ell can that be at this time?’ Well, it was some Yank — at least he sounded like a Yank, though I suppose he was a Canadian. Well, you won’t believe this, but you are lookin’ at the bloke who won the Canadian National Lottery. All ten million of it.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. It’s true. I’ve won the lot. After strugglin’ through life, saving a bit here and a bit there, going without to leave a little nest egg, there I am — a rich man.”

  “Then why on earth are you robbing banks?” asks Bryan incredulously.

  “Red tape,” explains Joliffe succinctly. “See, the way it works is that I have to pay… what did he call it?… a ‘clearance bond’ or something before I can get my winnings sent over from Canada. That’s why I told the girl at the bank that I’d pay it back next week with interest. I weren’t lying — honest.”

  Peter Bryan spends a few seconds digesting the information. Something smells, but the officer isn’t sure if it’s the sweaty old man in front of him or the tale he’s telling.

  “Why didn’t you just explain that to the bank manager and ask for a loan?” asks the detective.

  “I couldn’t,” says the old man as he pulls Bryan closer with a bony finger and whispers him into a conspiracy. “You see, it’s not strictly kosher.” Then, with a wary eye on the video camera, Joliffe continues to elucidate, “Because I ain’t a Canadian citizen there’s some problem with the taxes. And if they found out who I was, well, the bloomin’ taxman over there would snap up half the bloomin’ winnings.”

  “You do realize that you must never tell anyone that you’ve won this,” the late-night caller had warned, once he had explained the taxation situation in detail, and Maurice had quickly agreed. “No, o’course I won’t. Cross me bloomin’ heart.”

  “You see,” continues Joliffe to Bryan, “I promised I wouldn’t say anything ‘cos he was worried we might both end up in jail fer diddlin’ the taxes. But the bloomin’ guvverment’s had enough out of me over the years and I was buggered if I was gonna give ‘em five million dollars — that’s… well, that’s a lot of dough. He didn’t want me to take the risk. ‘Not just for five million,’ he said. ‘Five million?’ I said. ‘You gotta be joking, my son. If I won it, I should have it. It’s mine, ain’t it?’ ‘Oh, you’ve won it all right,’ h
e said. ‘There ain’t no doubt about it.’”

  “Five million dollars?” breathes Bryan.

  “No. Five million wuz the tax. I’d won ten all told, but I didn’t wann’a risk getting him into trouble, did I?” Joliffe continues in explanation to Peter Bryan. “I mean — he sounded such a nice young man. And I could hear the others in the background. They wuz all so happy for me — clappin’ and shoutin’, they wuz.”

  It might have taken more than eighty years, but the little man who’d grown up in the slums around London’s dockyards had finally won something, and he pauses while his face warms at the memory of the cheers and the applause.

  “‘Well done, Maurice,’ they wuz shouting down the phone. ‘You’re a rich man, Maurice,’” he continues with a laugh, adding, “I guess I’ll just have to make do with the five million. I expect it’ll see me out all right.”

  Alarm bells have been ringing in Peter Bryan’s mind for a few minutes — from the moment that the old man’s eyes lit up to announce that he was a millionaire — and the detective questions, “So — when did you buy the ticket, Maurice?”

  “That’s the strangest thing,” replies Joliffe with a laugh. “I didn’t remember buying it at all — but they got all my information right, so I must have done.”

  “And what information was that exactly?” asks Bryan, now knowing that the day that had begun badly for Joliffe was about to get worse — much worse.

  “Name, address and phone number…” he starts, then something in the tone of Bryan’s question alerts him to a problem. “What?” he asks, looking up at the detective and finding Peter Bryan sadly shaking his head.

  “Maurice — is that the information that’s listed in the phone book?”

  “I suppose so. Why?”

  chapter fourteen

  By midday Friday there is little sign that the cloud cover left behind by Thursday’s depression is ever going to break. And as Bliss and Phillips sit in the muggy warmth of a quayside fish restaurant, the English detective wonders whether it will ever stop raining.

  “I can hardly see a thing,” he says, wiping a window in the condensation with a napkin and peering across the fog-shrouded harbour. But there is little to see, apart from a ghostly water bus that fades in and out of the haze as it glides to and from the islands that make up the Vancouver archipelago.

  “Now I know how Rick feels,” he carries on while staring at the plate of haddock and chips in front of him. “It just doesn’t seem right to eat while we don’t know what’s happening to Daphne and the poor guy’s wife.”

  “But what do you intend doing?” asks Phillips, knowing that he need not add, “If the women never show up.”

  Bliss finishes the sentence in his mind. “I can’t just go home and pretend she never existed,” he answers, then puts down his cutlery to stare out of the window into the gloom. “In fact, I don’t see how I’ll ever be able to leave. I’ll be like that dog in Scotland that never left his master’s grave. What was it called — Greyfriars hound or something? Hah! That’s appropriate, isn’t it? Greyfriars — a monastery.”

  “So what are your plans?” persists Phillips.

  “I’m going back in there, of course,” says Bliss determinedly. “I’ll camp on their bloody doorstep if I have to, and I’ll make such a damned racket that they’ll have to give me some answers.”

  “Dave, you can’t be serious. They really will throw you in jail.”

  “Only if they catch me,” he declares, almost as if he’s planning it that way. “Anyway, that’ll give them an even bigger headache. Can you imagine the fun the British press will have with that?”

  “Assuming the Americans admit that you’re there,” says Phillips ominously as Bliss catches sight of the white prow of a vessel nosing out of the mist.

  “Is that a fishing boat?” he asks, picking up his fork and stabbing at the emerging craft with it. But as Phillips squints through the haze, the boat develops into a sleek motor cruiser and he dismisses the million-dollar bauble at a glance.

  “No — not unless a fridge full of caviar and oysters count as catch.”

  “That place has to be pretty heavy-duty,” continues Bliss, unable to keep his mind off the supposed monastery.

  “You’re absolutely certain they are there?”

  “I’d stake my pension on it,” says Bliss, as another boat edges gingerly through the fog.

  “Look. That’s a trawler,” says Phillips, drawing Bliss’s eyes to Kelly’s chunky vessel as it approaches the quay.

  “Oh, yes,” says Bliss, and while the seventy-foot fishing vessel holds no particular significance for him, with nothing else to focus on in the murk he watches the boat manoeuvre alongside where an inspector from the fisheries department waits to examine the meagre haul.

  “How did you make out, Vince?” calls the inspector cheerily as Kelly ties off his lines and cuts the engines.

  “Mainly cat food,” mutters the skipper, sweeping his hand across half a dozen fish-laden plastic tubs on the stern deck. “It’ll be another few weeks before the sockeye come in — if they come in.”

  “The eggheads are predicting a good run this year,” says the inspector, running his eye quickly over the motley assortment in the tubs while picking at it with little interest. But it’s a story the skipper has heard before.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “You just wait,” laughs the inspector over his shoulder as he moseys back to the shelter of a harbour-side coffee house.

  A white Ford van being driven slowly along the quayside catches Phillips’s eye, and he’s just saying, “Hey, Dave, this could be him,” when his cell phone interrupts.

  “It’s for you, Dave,” he says, passing it over without taking his eyes off the van.

  “Dave,” calls Peter Bryan from London, his voice bouncing with excitement. “I think I’ve cracked the suicide job, and it’s got a Canadian connection.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s stopping at that trawler,” says Phillips, his eyes tight on Buzzer’s van. “But I can’t see the plates from here.”

  “Yeah. You’ll never believe what happened to them,” continues Bryan, and he is about to explain the modus operandi to Bliss when Phillips starts to rise.

  “Dave,” says Phillips, grabbing his raincoat and heading for the door, “there’s something funny going on.”

  “What? Hold on — wait,” says Bliss, talking to both men at the same time, then he shouts, “I’ll call you back!” into the phone and takes off after Phillips.

  But the detectives are too late. Buzzer’s white van is already pulling away from the quayside as they emerge from the restaurant and sprint towards the trawler, leaving them with the glimpse of a crew member scurrying back aboard and the sight of the fish trays still on the deck.

  “What happened?” asks Bliss breathlessly as they watch the departing vehicle and clearly see that it bears the familiar Washington licence plate.

  “Come on,” urges Phillips, dragging Bliss towards his BMW at the far end of the quay, but they have no chance of catching the fleeing vehicle and Bliss calls a halt, demanding, “What the hell did you see, Mike?”

  “There were three of them,” he starts, then quickly explains that the men, all bundled in luminescent waterproofs, had come ashore from the trawler, and he had watched, expecting them to start loading the trays of fish into the Ford van. One of the men, the tallest of the three, had opened the rear doors of the van while the other two stood back, then the first man had quickly checked around before ushering the two men inside. “I was just beginning to wonder what they were playing at,” continues Phillips, “when the guy on the quayside slammed the door and the van took off.”

  “With the others still inside?”

  “Yep.”

  “Trafficking,” Bliss immediately surmises, getting a nod of agreement from the Mountie. “They’ve got a nerve,” Phillips says. “Bringing them ashore right under our noses in the middle of the
day.”

  “But why here?” Bliss wonders, though Phillips knows the answer to that.

  “They wouldn’t risk dropping them south of the border. The U.S. Coast Guard is really hot.”

  “Okay. So what do we do?” questions Bliss, knowing he’s way off his own patch.

  “I should really call it in,” admits Phillips, but he questions the wisdom of doing so, considering he’d lied about his wife’s sickness.

  “We could always try to head them off at the border,” suggests Bliss, and they are on the point of leaving when Daisy shows up.

  “How’s Rick?” they ask in unison.

  “He is sleeping like zhe baby,” says Daisy, though she doesn’t mention that she had spiked his tea with a sleeping tablet.

  Rick Button’s wife has also been floored by a soporific and has slept soundly since her capture the previous evening. She wakes mid-afternoon with a mouthful of cotton wool and an empty stomach, but unlike Daphne she has no inkling that the surveillance camera might be inoperative, and she spends several minutes jumping up and down in front of it, calling, “Hey! Let me out… I’m hungry!” and, “Where’s my friend?”

  “Oh, for chrissakes,” mutters Dawson as he hears the woman’s feet pounding overhead and her shouts echoing through the corridors. But without the camera, he’s blind to what’s happening.

  “Steve — Steve! Stop her, for God’s sake!” he yells hysterically as he downs more painkillers. The stress-induced headache, which has maddened him since Bliss’s televised rant, has reached screaming point and is about to be exacerbated by the shrill ring of the hotline from the main gate.

  “I’ve got a couple of official visitors demanding admittance,” the guard tells him when he answers.

  “Shit,” he breathes, sensing that his day is heading south faster than stock in a dodgy gold mine. “Official?” he queries.

  “Head-office types.”

  “Okay, stall them. I’ll be right there,” he says, then turns back to Bumface. “I don’t care what it takes, but you’d better keep those women quiet.”