Deadly Sin (29 page)

Patrick Davenport's door is closed as Isabel slides out to sign back into the Mitre for a few days, and she doesn't hear Hilda Fitzgerald's derisive laughter as her brother attempts to censure her.

“Christ, you're such a drip. What'r'ya gonna do. Fire me?” mocks Hilda. “For God's sake, Pat. Somebody has to wear the f'kin trousers around here.”

“This Canadian woman reckons she's some kind of detective.”

“So. What can she do? The old baggage fell over and hit her face — big deal. The old crumblies are always on their bums —”

“No,” cuts in Davenport, although he lacks conviction as he tries to explain that it is Daphne Lovelace who is supposedly a detective.

“Yeah. And I'm the queen of f'kin Sheba,” laughs Fitzgerald as she lets herself out and slams the door.

Daphne's front door still bears the shoulder marks of Anne McGregor's driver when Trina Button arrives with her mother in tow.

“Sorry, luv,” says the carpenter brought in by the police. “I don't know nuvving. Maybe the neighbours …”

“They've locked her up again,” yells Misty Jenkins above the baying of the pit bulls as soon as Trina inquires. “And not before time. She wuz a damn nuisance.”

“You're new here, aren't you?” says Trina, once she has processed the information and decided that she would have visited anyway had she known of her friend's plight.

Misty tosses her head. “So?”

“Nothing,” says Trina guilelessly. “I just remember an elderly couple …”

“That's right,” Misty steps in quickly. “Dad's brother — Uncle Phil — and Aunt Margaret. He died a month or so ago and they didn't have no kids so dad got the place.”

“And gave it to you?”

“Well, we got kicked out of our other place 'cos of the dogs.”

“Dangerous Dogs — 24 Hr. Guard,” reads the oversize warning sign on the closed gate of an industrial compound, bringing Bliss and Bryan to a halt in their search.

“Eyes,” cautions Peter Bryan nodding to several motorized surveillance cameras, perched atop masts, that are swivelling in their direction.

“Well, this isn't another fruitcake factory, that's for sure,” says Bliss as he spells out the visible security measures: “Retinal scan entry system; triple-mesh, fifteen-foot fence with razor wire topping; reinforced concrete anti-blast berms; high-intensity halogen spots and floods.”

“He doesn't look very friendly,” warns Bryan as a uniformed gorilla emerges from the main building and is dragged by his Doberman towards the gates.

The sign over the retinal scanner reads, “Continental and International Imports,” and Peter Bryan jots down the telephone number.

“We could pull rank,” suggests Bliss, but the approaching primate doesn't look as though he's likely to do more than grunt, so they take off and leave him scratching his dog's ears.

“Leave a message,” echoes Bliss once he has called the number, but his cellphone buzzes the moment he's cut the recording off.

“It's nearly four-thirty, Bliss,” steams Michael Edwards.

“Shit,” mutters Bliss under his breath. “Just on my way, sir. Ten minutes.”

“I just want a few minutes with her, that's all,” explains Trina to Patrick Davenport, but the manager is holding up the front door post and shows no sign of bending.

“The doctor's examining her. In any case, she wouldn't know you. I'm afraid she's not doing very well.”

“What d'you mean?”

“Well,” sighs Davenport. “The Good Lord wants to see us all eventually.”

“Look here,” says Trina as she plants herself on one leg and takes up the vrksasana tree position, “I am a Canadian medical professional and I want to see her right now.”

“I thought you said you were a detective.”

“I happen to be a nurse as well,” she fiercely claims, without admitting that most of her time is spent mopping up vomit and changing colostomy bags for Canadian wrinklies. “So I am perfectly capable of deciding her condition for myself. This isn't a prison, is it?”

“Sorry,” says Davenport starting to close the door. “Anyway, her daughter's with her.”

“She doesn't have a daughter …” Trina is saying as the lock clunks firmly into place.

“We could move her to the hospital,” explains Geoffrey Williamson to Isabel Semaurino as they talk over Daphne's lifeless form. “But she's probably better off here at the moment. Although, as things progress, we might have to introduce a feeding tube.”

“Will that hurt?”

Williamson gives her a straightforward look, saying, “It's good that you're here, Mrs. Semaurino, because we will have to make some very difficult decisions in the next little while.”

“I understand,” says Isabel, although she feels herself getting off script again and reaches out to trace a finger over Daphne's face. “What happened?” she questions, gently stroking the bruise.

“Easily explained,” says Williamson as he lets himself out. “She probably fell when she was running away.”

Daphne is still falling — deeper and deeper inside her mind — as she wills herself to stay out of the light. Michael Kent is with her, begging her to let him take the rap. “We both tell them you knew nothing, all right,” he whispers through shattered teeth in the darkness. “You were just a passenger — a friend. You knew nothing.”

“But they won't let me go.”

“Yes, they will,” he insists as they huddle together on the stone floor of the old prison. “They'll let you go so they can track you to find out who you report to.”

“Mother … Mother …” calls a voice from outside, but Daphne shuts down right away, knowing it's a trick. “They might try to trick you,” Kent carries on in the blackness. “They'll tell you I pointed the finger at you. They'll mess up your mind. Don't believe them — everything they tell you will be lies.”

“Daphne, can you hear me?”

“But what about you?”

“Save yourself. It's too late to worry about me.”

“Mother …” Isabel tries again, squeezing Daphne's hand and chattering into space. “I really would like you to know something about me before you go.”

Daphne is still in Prague, trussed together with the man she loves, and she would rather die than live with the torment of his torture.

“I've got two children,” Isabel is saying, but Daphne won't hear as she blots out all the pain — past and present — and wills herself to sleep. “They're grown-ups now, of course. Luigi and Maria — they're sort of everyday spaghetti names in Italy — did I tell you that's where I live, in Tuscany? Anyway, that's the problem with having an Italian husband. They have this tradition about naming kids after grandparents. ‘Think I'm going to call my kids Annunziata or Pancrazio and you've got another think coming,' I said to
Marco — that's my husband, Marco. He's okay. Well, he was okay. Real machismo kinda guy — tight leather pants, hairy chest, and a way with words.” She pauses with sweet memories that sour almost as fast as Marco. “Of course, he's Italian, so it turned out that I wasn't the only one he was talking to … But we sorted it out eventually.”

Daphne's dark tunnel suddenly has a dim light at the end. She sees it coming and quickly turns back.

“Mother. Mother?” calls Isabel earnestly, sensing a slight shift in Daphne's aura, but Daphne has gone again.

“It seems so funny calling you mother considering we've never really met,” Isabel carries on once the air has stilled. “Where was I? Oh, Marco. Well he thought he could sing — like I said, he's Italian. He thought he was Mario Lanza until Elvis came along. Of course he's old now. Italian men do that — they're twenty-one from the time that they're ten until they're about fifty-nine, then wallop, they suddenly realize that their hair and teeth are going and they flop into a chair in front of the television, prop themselves up with grappa and pasta, and wait to die.”

Anne McGregor is on her way to the front door in civvies as Trina Button steams in demanding to see Ted Donaldson.

“He's gone, madam,” explains the duty constable.

That's not good enough for Trina. “Get him back immediately,” she demands. “Someone is killing my partner.”

“Are you talking murder?” asks McGregor as her shoes squeak to a halt on the polished tile floor.

“Excuse me,” says Trina, edging McGregor aside. “I was talking to this nice young man.”

“I'm the new superintendent,” insists McGregor. “So please talk to me. Now what do you mean — murder?”

Trina's complaint is convoluted by the fact that she continually runs back and forth to the window to make sure Winifred hasn't escaped from the car, and McGregor tires. “Wait a minute,” says the superintendent, pulling Trina to a stop. “The only facts that you have offered me are that Mr. Davenport won't let you see Miss Lovelace. Everything else is pure speculation.”

“Yes … No … Well, it's a matter of intuition,” insists Trina. “It's what differentiates a good detective from a bad one.”

“How would you know that?” asks McGregor, beginning to wish that she had kept walking.

Trina senses the skepticism and decides it is time to draw upon her inner strengths, so she twines one leg around the other and her right arm around her left, in the eagle pose, and meditates for a moment.

“What on earth …?”

“The garudasana pose!” exclaims Trina loftily, and then, filled with the confidence of an eagle, she explains, “I am a Canadian law enforcement professional, and Miss Lovelace is my associate.”

“What?” scoffs Anne McGregor.

“Excuse me, madam,” breaks in the duty constable as he spots Winifred out of the window. “The lady that was in your car seems to be heading towards the cathedral across the park.”

“Oh, Mother,” sighs Trina, but she keeps her pose — at Winifred's present speed she will arrive just in time for morning communion.

“She does have the O.B.E. you know,” says Trina switching back to Anne McGregor.

“Your mother?”

“No. Daphne Lovelace. She solved the Creston murders last year, and then there was the big drug bust at Thraxton Manor —”

“Wait a minute,” cuts in McGregor. “I remember the
Creston case. A Scotland Yard man solved that.”

“Chief Inspector Bliss,” agrees Trina. “But call him and ask who really solved it. He'll tell you. It was me and Daphne Lovelace.”

“I haven't got his number —” starts McGregor as an excuse, but Trina has.

“Trina. I'm in a meeting,” groans Bliss as Edwards pulls a nasty face.

“David. You've got to help. They're killing Daphne.”

“Oh for God's sake, Trina …” he is complaining as McGregor takes the phone.

“Chief Inspector. It's Anne McGregor,” she says, and she waits for an intonation of recognition before asking, “Just put my mind at rest. Did Miss Lovelace solve the Creston murder cases last year?”

Trina folds her arms smugly as the superintendent's face reddens.

“Oh … Thank you, I had absolutely no idea.” McGregor is saying a minute later when she has heard how Daphne nailed the killers after discovering a baby's body in a monkey's grave, while at the other end Michael Edwards is marching up and down in front of Bliss, spitting, “Chief Inspector. Would you please turn that f'kin thing off.”

“Sorry, sir,” says Bliss, switching back. “You said the Americans had an idea?”

“Finally,” says Edwards, rolling his eyes. “Yes, it's a new knockout spray. One puff will drop an attacker in less than two seconds.”

“What about side effects?”

“Acceptable.”

For whom? Bliss wonders, picturing his head on a block if Prince Philip has a heart attack and falls backwards down a flight of steps.

“Anyway,” continues Edwards. “We're meeting his people here at eleven tomorrow and we'll have a demonstration. Try not to be late.”

“Is that it?” Bliss says.
You dragged me all the way here just to tell me that?

“Unless you've something else on your mind, Chief Inspector.”

“I'm still concerned about that pickup …” he starts, just to poke a stick into Edwards' cage.

“I warned you …” yells the Home Secretary's pit bull, and Bliss backs out, laughing to himself.

“Prairie farmers in Canada reckon they can see their dogs running away for three days,” laughs Trina Button to Mavis Longbottom as they stand by the cathedral's labyrinth watching Winifred's slow-motion approach across the park.

“She's like a toddler on the run from kindergarten,” agrees Mavis before turning back to the case of the missing documents. “It's lucky I met you. I've been going round in circles worrying what Daphne will say when I tell her.”

“Don't worry. I've brought in the police,” explains Trina as Winifred finally arrives.

“They wouldn't let me see her,” complains Mavis, pointing to Patrick Davenport. “I've said all along that there's something fishy about that place.”

“Superintendent McGregor will get to the bottom of it,” Trina assures her as her mother takes off again, into the labyrinth. “We have an understanding.”

“Is this the El Camino?” calls Winifred over her shoulder as she shuffles into line behind a gaggle of nuns.

“Yes, Mother,” calls Trina, and the old lady's eyes light up as she picks up the pace.

“I can't fathom the damn thing out myself,” bitches Mavis before explaining that she blames herself and the
labyrinth for Daphne's predicament. “She was all right till I brought her here — apart from the neighbours.”

With Daphne's accusation over the theft of her neighbours' house still ringing in Anne McGregor's ears, and the terror in the old lady's eyes when she was dragged away, Misty Jenkins is first in line for a visit.