Deadly Sin (15 page)

Mavis Longbottom has called each day since she heard the news on Wednesday, saying, “I feel so bad. I really should visit.” But Davenport persuaded her otherwise. “Not until she's properly settled in,” he advised. “It would just upset her even more.”

However, Mavis found Samantha Bliss's phone number in her address book — Daphne had once given it to her as someone to contact in case of emergency — and she gave the young lawyer a call.

“I'll let Dad know,” Samantha quickly said. “Only he's in Scotland at the moment.”

Bliss was in Edinburgh on Wednesday with Michael Edwards, meeting Prince Philip's psychiatrist. Edwards chose the restaurant — the Wichery, just outside the castle's gates. “Home Office perks, old boy,” he explained with a grin and a wink when Bliss whistled at the prices.

“Amnesia of the whole day — blotted it all out,” Professor Peter Morteson informed them over the lobster-topped seafood platters, and Edwards questioned whether or not Prince Philip might have deliberately wiped his mind.

“It's possible, Michael,” said Morteson, making it clear by his tone that he would need to do much more research before committing himself. “There's plenty of
anecdotal evidence that people can black out horrendous memories — selective amnesia.”

“But getting dressed wouldn't have been traumatic,” suggested Bliss. “Why wouldn't he remember putting on his uniform? And why did he put on his uniform in the first place?”

The psychiatrist shrugged. He only asked questions. He didn't have answers.

Tony Oswald visited Daphne on Thursday. “Just to see how you're doing,” he said, but she eyed him as a complete stranger, wrapped her housecoat tightly around her bosom, and steeled herself to run.

“Her mental capacity seems to be deteriorating quite rapidly,” the social worker pointed out at the patient evaluation meeting afterwards, although Paul Davenport had an answer.

“We don't know how long this has been going on, Tony. Most people cope if there's no one to notice when they cook dinner at three in the morning or put their pants on back to front.”

“True,” Oswald replied, then Amelia chipped in.

“She seems quite upset about her cat.”

“We don't allow pets …” jumped in Davenport, but Oswald laughed.

“It's all right. She doesn't have a cat.” Then he explained how Daphne had rambled to the arresting officer about the cat's collar, adding, “But I had a good look around and couldn't find anything. And the neighbours said they'd never seen a cat.”

“I'll talk to her about it,” said Davenport. “It was probably a childhood pet. It's amazing how the early memories seem to stick when everything else goes.”

Samantha Bliss is someone else worried about the failing memories of the aged.

“You're fuckin' useless, Dad,” she complained bitterly Thursday evening when Bliss admitted that he had forgotten to telephone St. Michael's to check on Daphne.

“Language!” he retorted, then protested that between the Queen and Daisy he already had his hands full.

“What's happening with Daisy?” Samantha wanted to know, but Bliss was evasive.

“We'll probably sort something out,” he replied, without admitting that Daisy was still being cagey on the phone and insisting that she would only talk face to face.

“Daavid. Zhis is very difficult for me,” she'd whimpered when he called back as promised on Monday evening, and he sympathized. After all, she'd stood by him when he was driven off the rails by the reignition of an old flame — a woman of such beauty that he even changed his novel, and the course of history, in an effort to win back her love. But when his scheme backfired and he was badly burnt, Daisy was there to salve his wounds.

“I'll come as soon as I can,” he'd told her, but was mindful of the stern warning he'd received following his late arrival in London that morning. “Don't you dare leave the country again without permission,” Commander Fox had barked, and he made it clear that any future absences would be treated as a serious disciplinary matter.

Winifred Goodenow, Trina Button's mother in Vancouver, is also under notice.

“If you run off just once more …” Trina angrily warned when Inspector Mike Phillips brought Winifred home on Monday evening minus her slippers, but the elderly woman's only concern was her footwear.

“I want my pumpkins … I want my pumpkins …”
she moaned constantly until Trina bought her another pair on Friday.

Friday was the day that David Bliss's daughter visited Daphne and found the old soldier steadfastly slow-marching the invisible labyrinth on the lawn at St. Michael's.

“Round and round she goes,” explained young Amelia Brimble to Samantha as they watched from the sidelines. “Nattering away to herself like a little clockwork mouse.”

“Daphne was quite shitty with me,” Samantha told her father, calling him from her cellphone. “I said I'd look after her affairs pro bono — as a friend. But she got quite snotty and said she already had a lawyer, thank you very much.”

“Judging by what she did to get nicked, I'm not surprised,” said Bliss, and he promised to visit on Sunday afternoon — Edwards permitting.

Sunday lunchtime comes early at St. Michael's.

“We give the most of the staff the afternoon off,” Patrick Davenport explained to Daphne on her first day, and now, as twelve o'clock approaches at the end of her first week, Daphne shuffles back along the sterile corridors to the common room where meals are taken by residents fit enough to leave their beds.

The altar and the tableau of death have been stored away for another seven days, and Daphne spots an opening alongside a wheelchair-bound resident she befriended yesterday.

“Worn those feet out yet?” laughs the man as Daphne sits, and she gives him a smile of recognition.

“John Bartlesham,” he introduced himself after watching Daphne's two-hour stint on Saturday, then he joked, “You're not Scotch, are ya?”

“No,” replied Daphne frostily. “Why?”

Bartlesham laughed. “The way you were goin' round and round with yer head down I thought you were a Scotchwoman who'd lost a penny.”

John is still very much alive, but he is trapped in a body broken by his years as a demolition contractor.

“Eighty-two years and a few months, that's me,” he told Daphne proudly from his wheelchair as they sat together under the shade of a knobbly oak of similar age. “Three-quarters of a million hours, give or take a few thousand,” he detailed, having had plenty of time for calculations. “Seven hundred and fifty thousand hours of living and learning, eating and drinking, blowing stuff up and ripping it down. Now my turn's come.”

But unlike the buildings he has demolished over the years, John is going neither easily nor with a bang. He is weathering slowly like a farmyard's massive old barn — built to withstand a century of storms — whose cornerstones are slowly buckling under the weight.

“Mince and mash,” says Hilda Fitzgerald as she slaps plates onto the table in front of the two seniors.

“That makes a nice change,” sneers Bartlesham, then he takes out his dentures for inspection before cheekily asking, “Any chance of watery rice pudding for dessert?”

Daphne eats in silence as her mind traces and retraces the labyrinth while she seeks answers. Then Amelia Brimble appears in the doorway and sings out, “You've got a visitor, Miss Lovelace,” as if the elderly woman has won the lottery.

“Really?” says Daphne with little enthusiasm, but she has only completed the first week of a life sentence and has yet to grasp the fact that getting a visitor is winning the lottery.

“C
hief Inspector …?” queries Daphne, pulling up short as she shuffles into the visitors' room.

“It's David,” corrects Bliss with a warm smile as he puts down a bag of grapes and advances with his arms out. “How many times have I told you? You're not on duty anymore.”

“Oh. Yes … silly of me,” she replies, but she dithers and shies away as he tries to enfold her. “I keep forgetting things,” she admits as her face flushes.

“Don't worry,” says Bliss, guiding her to a cracked leather armchair. “It happens to us all. Anyway, thank goodness you remembered I was a chief inspector.”

“So I did,” says Daphne, brightening, and then she sinks. “But they say I forget most things.”

The visit lasts an hour but is over after three minutes: the weather; the food; Prince Philip; the Queen … all as good as can be expected. Then they start again: the food; the heat; the Queen; Prince Philip …

Bliss searches for an exit. “Would you like to take a walk?”

“No, thank you.”

“I could take you out for a little drive,” he suggests bouncily as he starts to rise, but Daphne shakes her head.

“They don't like us going out. Worried we might not come back, I expect.”

“Probably a liability issue,” acknowledges Bliss as he sits down again. “Is there anything you need?”

Daphne's face says she has something on her mind, but the thought and the expression vaporize after a few seconds. “No. I can manage, David. You just look after the Queen.”

“See? You remembered my name.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“It must be the tablets,” she says, then starts at the beginning again. “It's jolly warm today, isn't it?”

Samantha is breathless as she picks up at the first buzz. “Dad,” she blurts, “I just climbed a mountain — my first one.”

“What?”

“I just had this incredible urge to climb, so we drove to Wales.”

“What?”

“Don't keep saying ‘what' like that.”

“Sorry, Sam. It's just that most pregnant women want anchovies or a Humphrey Bogart movie.”

“I know,” she says. “Bizarre, isn't it.”

Absolutely terrifying
, thinks Bliss, but manages to stop himself from castigating her. He doesn't want to encourage her to do it again. “I thought I'd let you know that I've visited Daphne.”

“How is she?”

“Confused,” says Bliss, and realizes that he is also
talking about himself. “One minute her memory seemed okay and the next it was fuzzy.”

“Meaning?”

“I don't know. I couldn't figure her out. I'm wondering if she just got cheesed off always being on her own.”

“Like you?”

“I'm not,” he protests, but she laughs over him.

“Parachuting next week.”

“Don't you dare,” he shoots back, but she's still laughing as she flicks the off button.

The idea of aging on his own nags Bliss as he drives through Westchester to check on Daphne's house. The shuffling inmates of St. Michael's may be only one generation ahead of him, but as he waited in the entrance lobby for a staff member to take him to the visitors' room, the white-haired Lilliputians who eyed him suspiciously could have been aliens.

Twenty years — thirty at best
, he warns himself as he turns into Daphne's road, and then he jams on his brakes at the sight of a mob. Ten skinheaded teenagers, led by all three of Rob Jenkins's sons, swashbuckle their way down the road towards him and force mothers to grab youngsters off the street. Then a small pebble pings off Bliss's roof.

Bliss winds down his window. “All right, lads,” he calls as he flashes his police ID to the leaders. “What's going on?”

“What d'ya want, granddad?” challenges the eldest Jenkins.

“Police,” says Bliss, nodding to his card as he opens his door.

“We ain't done nuvving,” spits Jon-Jo.

“Someone just threw a stone —” Bliss starts, but derisive laughter and four-letter words drown him out.

Ten to one. He's had worse odds in his twenty-eight years in the Force and fought his way out of them, but he
can feel the heat as they swarm in. Just one spark and he will be in the midst of an inferno, so he backs down.

“Just watch it, that's all,” he says as he slides back into his seat.

“Up yours, granny,” sneers a jug-eared lout, and his car takes a beating as they thump and kick their way past.

A young mother reappears, questioning, “Are you all right, sir?” as the hooligans turn the corner.

“Shaken,” admits Bliss, as he dials 999. “Do you know who they are?”

The woman's face says yes, but she quickly backs off. “I ain't gonna get involved. I got young kiddies.”

“I'm police,” says Bliss, offering his card, but it backfires as she lashes out and storms away, yelling over her shoulder, “Then you oughta be locking that damn lot up instead of little old ladies.”

Daphne Lovelace, he guesses, and a few minutes later he is standing, slack-mouthed, in the remnants of his elderly friend's front garden, together with the uniformed constable who arrested her.

“She would slash her wrists …” Bliss says, shaking his head in dismay at the hacked-down shrubs, trampled perennials, heaps of garbage, and graffiti-sprayed walls.

“I bet I know who did this,” muses the constable, Roger Ingliss, with an eye on the Jenkins household, as they approach Daphne's front door.

Bliss's hand goes to his nose. “What the hell …”

“Shit,” says the constable pointing to the excrement smeared over the doorstep and crammed through the letterbox.

It is nearly midnight by the time Bliss arrives home, and he rips off his clothes inside the front door and heads for the bath without checking for missed calls.

“Sporadic gunfire was reported across a number of
cities this evening,” the nighttime newscaster is trumpeting as Bliss finally slumps in front of the television in his dressing gown, then his phone buzzes.

It is Daisy. “I've been calling …” she sobs, and he explains that he put his cellphone in his car while he climbed through a smashed window into Daphne's house, then forgot it as he spent the rest of the evening cleaning up and making good.