Crazy Lady

by James Hawkins

  “It just annoys me that the bastard is on full pay,” spits one of Bryan’s sergeants, but the chief inspector throws a celebratory arm around his colleague’s shoulder, laughing, “Don’t worry, Greg. His mouthpiece will get most of it.”

  By the time Edwards has cleaned out his desk under the watchful eye of the assistant commissioner, Daphne is back on the phone to Bliss.

  “I knew it,” she says excitedly. “There was nothing wrong with the third Creston kid.”

  “Daphne, luv,” complains Bliss. “I’m trying to write.”

  “I know,” she says, “but the doctor deliberately changed the records to show the kid was weak. And the first one isn’t there at all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” says Bliss. “He wasn’t a Creston, was he? Janet got knocked up by someone else. Didn’t you say that was why Amelia Drinkwater was so ticked off?”

  “That’s right,” admits Daphne. “She lost her boyfriend to a shotgun wedding, and he wasn’t the one who’d pulled the trigger.”

  “No wonder she wasn’t happy with Janet.”

  “I guess it’s a bit like the way you lost Yolanda.”

  “No it wasn’t,” replies Bliss fiercely. “Anyway, Yolanda’s coming back to me. Amelia didn’t go back to Creston.”

  While Amelia Drinkwater, née Sawbridge, may not have got back into Creston’s life, or his bed, once Janet was shipped off to Canada, she certainly tried: joining the hunt club; buddying up to his friends; switching place cards at formal banquets; “accidentally” walking into him in the High Street; wheedling invites to the Creston estate for family events. Hardly a dinner, ball, or musical soiree passed without Amelia’s smiling face, but Joseph Creston never smiled back.

  “Why don’t you leave me alone, you witch?” he finally spat at her in the middle of Dewminster High Street, and she cried for a week.

  “Anyway,” carries on Bliss to his elderly tormentor. “If you want me to do anything else you’ll have to wait till I’ve finished the book — just another week or so.”

  “No, David,” says Daphne. “You carry on. I just wanted to let you know that I have everything in hand.”

  There is a question hanging mid-air, but Bliss refuses to bite. “OK, Daphne,” he replies. “Good luck.”

  “Now,” he says to himself as he views the Château Roger from his balcony, listens to Billie Holiday singing “I’ve Got a Date with a Dream,” and settles back to work. “The masked man’s revenge and the return of his great and only true love.”

  The rising sun cuts sharply across the bay of Cannes towards the fortress…

  “Trina,” says Daphne, putting the next stage of her plan into action.

  “Oh, hi, Daphne,” says the Canadian woman. “You were lucky to catch me. I’m just going to work. What’s happening?”

  “I’m still on the case,” says the Englishwoman. “No sign of Craddock, I suppose.”

  “You’re kidding? I said it was a waste of time calling in the police; we would have done better calling a cab. Mike’s given up and Sergeant Brougham is so useless he couldn’t even catch a cold.”

  RCMP Inspector Mike Phillips hasn’t given up; he’s hit a snag. The full forensic report concerning Janet’s confinement is on his desk but he has been sitting on the results for a couple of days. The evidence concerning Craddock’s involvement is overwhelming. Janet’s DNA from hair, saliva, and other bodily fluids places her squarely in the ex-officer’s hands, but several fingerprints lifted from the bedroom and bathroom at the airport motel point straight to Dave Brougham. And although the picture is grainy and the person kept his head down, the image of the man booking Janet into the emergency room at the General Hospital could certainly be the Vancouver City sergeant.

  “So, Trina,” says Daphne with a hint of impending triumph in her voice. “I guess we’re going to have to solve this case ourselves.”

  “You’ve got a plan?”

  “If you can impersonate Janet.”

  Trina thinks for a few seconds then darkens her voice and says, “Well I’ve lived in Canada for forty years, so I guess I sound kinda Canadian now.”

  “That’s great,” shrieks Daphne, “but don’t overdo it.”

  “So who am I going to call? What am I supposed to say?”

  “Dewminster 7497,” answers Amelia Drinkwater an hour later, once Trina has convinced Daphne that she knows her lines.

  “Is that Amelia?”

  “Who’s this?” demands the Englishwoman warily, still unnerved over Bliss’s visit.

  “You don’t remember me?”

  “Should I?”

  “You probably don’t recognize my voice. I’ve been in Canada for over forty years.”

  “Janet?” queries Ms. Drinkwater, but Trina admits nothing.

  Instead she pauses for a second to let the tension build before saying menacingly, “I know what you did, Amelia.” A sharp intake of breath at the other end tells Trina she’s hit a nerve. “You thought you’d get rid of me, didn’t you? You thought Joe would throw me out if I lost another baby —”

  “No,” cuts in Amelia, but Trina continues in the same threatening monotone.

  “You thought he’d come back to you. But you were wrong. Little Joe-Joe didn’t die.”

  “He did. He did.”

  “No, Amelia. You were wrong. And now I’m back…”

  “Shut up. Shut up.”

  “He’s out there, Amelia. Joe-Joe’s out there…”

  The sound of Amelia Drinkwater’s phone hitting the cradle cuts Trina off and she immediately calls Daphne.

  “Lets see what happens now,” says the Englishwoman with her fingers crossed.

  David Bliss is barely half a page into his final defining chapter when his phone rings. He already has “Yolanda” on his lips when he has to quickly adjust. “Mrs. Drinkwater?” he queries in amazement.

  “I may have been a bit hasty,” she says with apparent contrition. “Perhaps you could… um… maybe… um… maybe I do have something for you.”

  Daphne Lovelace I could throttle you, he is thinking as he agrees to return. “The day after tomorrow,” he suggests.

  “Is that the earliest?” she asks, suddenly anxious.

  “Afraid so. Like I said, I live in France now.”

  “She wants to see me again,” fumes Bliss to Daphne a few minutes later.

  “I thought she might. That’s very interesting.”

  “No it’s not. It’s bloody inconvenient. That’s another three days wasted by the time I’ve flown up tomorrow and flown back again. I’ll never get my book finished.”

  “Softly, softly, catchee monkey, David,” says Daphne. “Don’t be so impatient. She’ll come back if she loves you enough.”

  “She’ll come back if I ever get time to finish my script.” There may be a depression over Bliss as he packs an overnight bag in St-Juan-sur-Mer and prepares to lock his apartment again, but there is a definite lightness in the air over Scotland Yard the following morning. Canteen workers, cleaners, constables, and even the commissioner have an extra bounce as they go through their daily routines, and while most would be unable to finger the cause, Peter Bryan has no such problem.

  “We’ve got him. We’ve got him,” he repeats with a smile to everyone who questions hopefully. “Don’t worry. We’ve finally put the skids under him.”

  However, by midday, as Bliss’s flight lifts off with a roar over the cerulean Bay of Angels and begins its steep climb up the slopes of the Alps, Peter Bryan’s euphoria is slipping. Paul Schwartzberg, the senior lawyer in the force prosecution’s department, lifts his heavy spectacles to his forehead every time he looks up from the case papers on his desk then flicks them back down in order to read. His glasses go up. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than this if it’s going to stick.” And down. “Look at this charge — accepting an unwarranted remuneration from Creston.” And up. “You’ve got no proof as far as I can see.” And down. “Not unless you’ve got something up
your sleeve?”

  “No. Not at the moment, Paul,” replies Peter Bryan. “But it’s a bit of a stretch for him to say that it’s just a freaky coincidence.”

  The glasses go up as Schwartzberg gives Bryan an incredulous look.

  “OK, Paul, I know,” says the chief inspector. “We’re working on getting more. But the attempt to pervert case is solid. That P.C. did a bang-up job.”

  The glasses hit the bridge of Schwartzberg’s nose with an audible pop. “No corroboration,” he says tapping the stack of statements. “His colleague was fifty feet away when it’s alleged —”

  “Alleged?”

  “Yes — alleged,” he says as his glasses go back up again and he gives Bryan a meaningful look as he repeats. “It is alleged that Edwards tried to slip him the cash. What if Edwards says, ‘Liar, he took the money out of my wallet when he was looking for my licence and started waving it in the air shouting, “Bribe”’?”

  “Oh, come on,” yells Bryan. “Who’s gonna believe that?”

  “Twelve befuddled nincompoops called jurors who’ll sit to attention every time his defence counsel says, ‘So tell us, Chief Superintendent Edwards…’”

  “Yes. I get the picture. We need more.”

  “You need a lot more, Peter. Of course he’ll probably plead to the Breathalyzer refusal.”

  “Yes. And get fined a hundred quid, get a slap on the wrist from the beak, and be back at his desk in a week with an even longer list of people to crap on.”

  Including you, Chief Inspector, thinks Schwartzberg lifting his spectacles for the final time.

  Bliss’s cellphone rings as he walks out of the terminal at Heathrow with his eyes on the Hertz office.

  “Dave, I need your help,” says his son-in-law, wasting no time on pleasantries.

  “You’ll have to wait your turn,” Bliss replies before explaining his mission on Daphne’s behalf.

  “Hey. She could be onto something,” agrees Bryan, brightening momentarily before sinking again.

  “Oh, Christ!” exclaims Bliss once he’s heard the dismal prognosis. “What the hell do you expect me to do?”

  “Just give me a few days, Dave,” pleads Bryan. “No. I’ve got to get back to my book. I’m down to the last forty or fifty pages.”

  “Please… Dad. It’s for a good cause.”

  “This isn’t bloody fair. And cut out the ‘Dad’ crap.”

  Amelia Drinkwater has visibly shrunk by the time that she opens her front door to Bliss the following morning. Three anxiety-filled days have weighed heavily on the sixty-something widow, and the state of her hair tells Bliss that she is losing her grip.

  “Come in…” she says, opening the door before he has a chance to knock.

  “David,” he reminds her.

  “Yes, David… Come in,” she carries on and, as he follows her through the gloomy entrance hall towards the sitting room, Bliss realizes that most of the gloominess is emanating from the deflated woman herself.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” she says, waving him to a soft armchair. “And I just wanted to let you know that you’re obviously confused.”

  You didn’t bring me all this way just to tell me that, he thinks as he perches on the edge of a chair, but he knows that she will take her time.

  “I’m not sure,” he says, on safe ground. “Only I understand that there are only two children’s coffins in the family vault, but my mother… Janet lost three children.”

  “How do you know that?” she questions, rising quickly.

  “Sources,” he says.

  Then she picks up a degree of defiance. “And what else do your sources tell you, David?”

  Bliss has an ace in his pocket and he nearly draws it out, but his hand closes as he decides to play her a little further. “Do you think I look like my… like Mr. Creston?” he asks, knowing that physically he is not far away from the tall, manicured executive whose permanent tan marks him as a well-travelled man.

  Amelia Drinkwater looks deeply into his face, and he can tell from the softening of her eyes that she sees what he wants, but she holds back. “Not particularly,” she lies, but the wobble in her voice gives her away.

  Now for the coup de grace, he thinks as he rises with deliberation and peers out of the window into the garden.

  “Actually, there is something else,” he says slowly, building the moment, and then he draws the document examiner’s report from his pocket together with Doctor Symmonds’ bogus medical record and spins on her.

  “This can’t be true…This can’t be true,” she mutters repeatedly as she reads the report, but Bliss keeps prodding.

  “You see — Doctor Symmonds just copied the symptoms from Giuseppe’s death.”

  “But he was dead. He was dead.”

  “No.”

  “He was, I… I…”

  “You what, Amelia?”

  “I…”

  “What?”

  “It was in the paper.”

  “Was it? Are you sure? Do you have it?”

  “Yes… No… You’re confusing me.”

  “How do you know I was dead, Amelia? How can you be certain?”

  Fifty years of guilt finally sink her and loosens her tongue. “Because I kill—”

  “You killed me,” he prods, and she realizes with a jolt that she’s gone too far.

  “Obviously not,” she says, relaxing with a touch of a smile. “I obviously did not,” she adds and a flush of colour rushes back to her cheeks as she believes that the burden she’s carried most of her life has been lifted. “I couldn’t have done, or you wouldn’t be here would you?”

  “Correct,” says Bliss sitting back down and eyeing her critically. “But you thought you had, didn’t you?”

  The colour drains again as a dark memory drags her back more than forty years to the warm August night she crept past Creston Hall to Janet’s house and slipped through an open window into the baby’s room, but now, faced with apparent evidence of her failure, she has no choice but to question what happened.

  “I think my father… Joseph Creston… knew that someone wanted to hurt me,” answers Bliss without pointing at the woman in front of him. “So they got me out of the way and pretended I was dead.”

  chapter seventeen

  Daphne Lovelace is wearing her flounciest hat a couple of hours later as she and Bliss meet Ted Donaldson for lunch at the Mitre Hotel in Westchester.

  “Nice to see you again, old chap,” cries the superintendent as he jubilantly claps the London officer on his back, and then he bends under Daphne’s feathery creation to give her a peck on the cheek. “God, I’m starving,” he carries on as he sits and picks up the menu. “So, what’s this all about, you two? Daphne was so excited when she called I couldn’t keep up with her.”

  “Revenge,” suggests Daphne once Bliss has put the local superintendent in the picture, but Bliss goes deeper.

  “I think Amelia was hoping that if Janet lost a third child, and a bouncy little baby at that, Creston Sr. would insist that his poncy son should turn his todger on someone with a bit more class.”

  “Not that Miss Airs-and-Graces Drinkwater has much of that,” sneers Daphne. “Although I suppose she was a step up from Janet.”

  “I just think the old man wanted a grandson to keep the line going,” suggests Bliss. “These aristocratic families are like that,” he adds, realizing that he is also talking about the political pressure applied to Anne of Austria to produce a male protegé for the House of Bourbon, with or without the aid of her husband, Louis XIII.

  “What about evidence, Dave?” asks Donaldson between the stuffed olives and the cream of mushroom soup, and Bliss shakes his head.

  “Not good at the moment. She’ll probably clam up if she gets herself good counsel, but I think the doctor is the one to go after.”

  “Peter Symmonds changed the records,” explains Daphne pointing to the examiner’s report. “He obviously knew that the sudden death of a h
ealthy baby would raise a flag at the coroner’s office so he rewrote his father’s notes.”

  “But what was in it for him?” asks Donaldson, before realizing that he already knows the answer. “OK,” he says. “Money talks. But why would Creston want to protect Madam Drinkwater?”

  “He didn’t,” responds Daphne confidently. “He thought Janet had done it.”

  “And he loved his wife,” chimes in Bliss.

  “And still does, in a way,” adds Daphne. “That’s why she was smartly shipped abroad after the funeral and locked away with a lunatic so that she could spend the rest of her life in penitence.”

  “She would’ve been better off in jail,” muses Donaldson as he starts on a second bowl of olives. “At least she would have been out in twenty-five. But,” he wants to know between bites, “what happened to the first two kids?”

  “I’ve got a feeling that Lovelace and Button, International Investigators, are going to crack that as well,” says Bliss, raising his glass to toast Daphne.

  “What are your plans now, Dave?” asks Donaldson in the parking lot after lunch. “I could always use a real detective. All I get is bloody carrot crunchers and God’s gift to the fairer sex down here.”

  “Not me,” laughs Bliss, “on either count. But I’m trying to get back to writing my novel. I’ve only got half a chapter left.”

  “Daphne tells me it’s going to be a huge bestseller. She says you’re going to be very successful.”

  “One way or another,” he admits, although he knows that his idea of success may differ from Donaldson’s. “Anyway, my son-in-law wants me in London for a few days, though God knows why he can’t manage without me.”

  “Oh to be so popular,” laughs Donaldson as he drives away.

  D.C.I. Peter Bryan is not high on Bliss’s popularity poll the following morning when they meet in London for breakfast.

  “I could be sunning myself over an onion tart and a croissant in the Med,” complains Bliss as he peers through the café’s grimy window to the grey of a January day. Peter Bryan isn’t particularly happy either. He is still frowning over the possibility that Edwards might already be planning a triumphant return.