Seaweed in the Soup

by Stanley Evans

  “Close friends address you as Nibsy, and you think I’m silly, Miss Mainwaring?”

  “Oh all right. Call me what you like. But do tell me why am I person of interest to the police?”

  “Because, Nibsy, you own a building recently destroyed by fire. To wit: Nanaimo’s. Twinner Scudd’s place of business. Three people died, and many others were injured. If that fire was an arson blaze, then those deaths will be classed as multiple homicides. You were seen inside the building just minutes before the fire started. I’m surprised police haven’t questioned you already.”

  “A dreadful business. My lawyer is taking care of it. If you are planning to nag me about it, I’d better call her now.”

  “Oh, let’s keep it informal. Besides, when you’re talking to a policeman, you’re not entitled to call for a lawyer unless you’ve been charged with something.” I grinned at her. “Cast your mind back to the night we first met. We were in Nanaimo’s. When you left the outdoor deck after a few minutes of delightful badinage avec moi, you went upstairs with Larry Cooley and talked to Twinner Scudd in his office. Several minutes later, I saw you leave Scudd’s office. In fact, you walked right past me. You looked just as attractive then as you do now, but you were angry. I don’t think you noticed me.”

  “I didn’t notice you,” she said, adding thoughtfully. “I hate that man.”

  “Twinner doesn’t like you very much either, Nibsy, although I can’t think why. I think you’re very nice. Very nice indeed. Not to say lovely and accomplished.”

  “Sarah will be jealous. Aren’t you coming on a bit strong?”

  “I don’t know. Am I? I meant every word that I said.”

  Maybe I’m getting to her, I thought, because the edges of her mouth turned up slightly and her eyes lost focus as her thoughts went inward.

  She had been sitting in a matching leather chair, directly opposite mine. We were facing each other from about six feet apart. Her empty glass was upright on the carpet beside her feet. She picked it up and went slowly across to the bar. My glass was empty again, too, but perhaps she was too preoccupied to notice that.

  Instead of refilling her glass, as she had mine, P.G. Mainwaring took a clean glass down from a shelf and spent more time than was necessary to pour the scotch and add water. She had her back towards me, but I could see her face, reflected from the bar’s mirrored back. Those circles beneath her eyes had grown darker. She was thinking and playing for time. She pulled herself together finally and returned to her chair.

  I gave her another minute, during which time we exchanged timid glances and tentative smiles.

  I remarked casually, “Twinner Scudd is a nasty piece of work.”

  “True. He seems to think I’m a pushover, and we exchanged strong words. Scudd is behind on his lease payments, he owes me a lot of money. My agent hasn’t had any luck getting him to pay up, and Scudd keeps ignoring notices to quit. I decided to talk to him as a last resort before we changed the locks and called the sheriffs.”

  “Did you make any progress?”

  “Scudd is a boor,” she said crossly. “He was rude and difficult, but he did promise to pay his arrears. He’s made similar promises to my agent, so I wasn’t optimistic. As you say, he’s a nasty piece of work.”

  “Is Larry Cooley just your agent, or something more than that?”

  My sudden change of topic caught her unawares. Her eyes widened. “Larry is an employee. What’s to know?”

  “When I saw you two together in Nanaimo’s, he acted as if he were more than that.”

  “So what?” she snapped. “Is that any business of yours?”

  “It might be,” I replied in a soft voice. “You can’t always know in advance about such things.”

  “If you must know, Larry has been acting like an idiot lately. I’m fed up. He’s too forward, doesn’t know his place,” she said, standing abruptly. The glass in her hand spilled most of its contents on the carpet, but she didn’t appear to notice. When I stood up and faced her, she extended an arm towards me, her hand vertical and flattened as if to ward off a blow.

  Without speaking or taking my eyes off her, I took the glass from her other hand and placed it on a side table.

  “I’m frightened, Silas,” she said. “Scudd said that if I didn’t stop bothering him, he’d kill me. He threatened Larry too. I’m just so terribly worried and afraid. And Larry’s gone missing. I have an irrational fear that he might be dead or injured. If they find me, they might kill me too. Why else do you think I’d be hiding in this pokey bloody room instead of living in my house?”

  Shivering and crying, she lowered her hand, moved closer and laid her head against my chest. I put my arms around her and made the sort of noises you use to calm weeping infants. Her sobs faded, and she stopped shivering. She pulled her head back and looked deeply into my eyes. In those depths I saw something that had been staring me in the face all night.

  Her face moved closer, her eyes were bright with desire. When I kissed her, she put her tongue in my mouth. P.G. wanted to get laid. The next thing I knew, she had unbuckled my belt, unzipped my trousers and was bent over the desk with a pair of lovely frilly silks around her ankles.

  “Well hello, sailor,” she grunted, hanging onto her grandfather’s onyx desk set for dear life as I shoved myself in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  P.G. Mainwaring had gone. She didn’t tell me where she was going. I didn’t ask her. I went downstairs to my office instead. To divert my thoughts I switched the computer on, poured myself a hefty dose of rotgut and exchanged glances with PC. Another complicated unpredictable female with a keen understanding of the male psyche. She leapt onto my notepad. After stroking her for a while, my blood pressure probably dropped ten points. “PC,” I said, “I’ve really fucked up this time.”

  No kidding. I poured the rotgut back in the bottle instead of drinking it and went walking in the rain.

  Apart from a couple of security lamps on poles casting moving circles of light as they swayed in the wind-driven rain, the small commercial marina at the foot of Pandora Street was dark. The Johnson Street Bridge loomed blackly overhead. The Polar Girl, Twinner Scudd’s hundred-foot yacht, moved in the harbour’s modest swell. Too big to manoeuvre into any of the marina’s inside berths, the vessel was tied up to the marina’s outermost float. It was white, an Italian-built liveaboard palace all ready for sea. Twin radars rotated; twin diesel engines thudded. The pilothouse and the main saloons were well lit. Eddie Cliffs, Twinner Scudd’s tattooed bodyguard, was moving around on the yacht’s boarding deck. I watched him come ashore. Wearing yellow wet-weather gear, he unhitched the yacht’s spring line from a dock bollard, then went back aboard and pulled the line in by hand. After coiling the line neatly, Cliffs went into the main saloon. Before he disappeared down a circular staircase, I noticed the shiny metallic splint taped across Cliffy’s ruined nose.

  Seagulls, dozing atop pilings, opened their beady eyes and watched me move nearer to the boat and find a patch of shadow where I could see the yacht without being seen. Across the harbour, British Columbia’s legislative building was lit up like a Christmas tree. Occasionally, cars and taxis rumbled across the bridge. Rain trickled down my neck and inside my shirt. More rain fell before Twinner Scudd appeared in the Polar Girl’s pilothouse and busied himself at the steering console. Eddie Cliffs reappeared on deck. Scudd’s head showed at an open window. They exchanged words, whereupon Cliffs unhitched the yacht’s bow line and brought it aboard. White water splashed against the dock when Scudd activated the yacht’s bowthruster. The Polar Girl’s elegant bows inched away from the dock. By then, Cliffs was pulling the stern line aboard. I stopped watching him when a woman who had been lying on a sofa in the main saloon suddenly stood up. She reminded me of someone. She reminded me of Maria Alfred.

  Water churned at the yacht’s stern as twin propellers bit into the water. The Polar Girl was outward bound.

  A police siren bleep-bleeped towards the marina
from uptown and then abruptly faded.

  If I had been drunk, by then I was sober. It was still pouring. I was soaked and a little bad-tempered. The Polar Girl had steamed from sight behind Ocean Point. Walking up Pandora Street to where I’d left the MG, I saw an RCMP patrol car parked outside my office. At that moment, a VPD blue-and-white barrelled around a corner. Its screaming siren sank to a purr as it came down the street towards me. I was still walking, fretting about guilt and the way I’d betrayed Felicity, when the blue-and-white skittered to a halt. Two constables leapt out. One was Harry Biedel, a constable I’d known for years.

  Biedel was about my height. Six-foot four or so, and built like a bull. But Biedal, nearly as old as Lightning Bradley, was slowing down and running to fat. Breathing heavily, he said, “Great weather for ducks, Silas. How’s tricks?”

  “Okay, Harry. What’s up?”

  “Lightning Manners is hot to trot. How come you’re not answering your cellphone?”

  “I’ve been walking. Sometimes I turn my cellphone off, but who cares? I’m not on parade twenty-four seven, Harry.”

  Harry’s voice was jovial, but he looked uneasy. He faked a smile. “Yeah, right. We’re not all married to the job.”

  “Is Manners at headquarters?”

  “He’s on his way. He wants to meet you here.”

  Biedel walked alongside me, and his partner trailed behind as we went inside my building. I was in the corridor reaching into my pockets for a key before I noticed that two uniformed RCMP constables were guarding the door to my office. When I went to put my key into the lock, one of the Mounties raised his hands. He said, “Sorry, sir. All due respect, but you can’t go in just yet. No offence. Our instructions are to restrict you to this corridor until Inspector Manners arrives.”

  According to the name tag pinned to his chest, the speaker’s name was Madison. I didn’t know him. I said, “Do you have a warrant for my arrest, Madison?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Step aside. If there’s no warrant you have no authority, and I’m going in.”

  Madison flushed, but he didn’t budge till Biedel said, “You heard the sergeant, Madison. Let him by.”

  The Mountie held his ground for a moment, and then reluctantly moved aside.

  I keyed my way into the office, trailed by the others. The four of us stood calmly, avoiding each others’ eyes and not speaking, our wet clothes dripping onto the linoleum for a couple of minutes before Manners’ car pulled up outside.

  I was behind my desk when he strode in dramatically, his face like thunder, wearing a rat catcher’s hat, a blue Burberry raincoat, a taupe-coloured suit, and, unless I’m very much mistaken, Ferragamo shoes. I briefly wondered how he could afford such a wardrobe on an inspector’s salary. I didn’t greet him or speak.

  Red in the face, shaking with indignation, Manners pointed a finger at Madison and shouted, “I gave you clear instructions to keep Seaweed out of this office until I arrived.”

  PC—who doesn’t like loud noises and has the gift of being the centre of attention wherever she goes—chose that moment to leave the scrap of carpet behind a filing cabinet where she had been napping. Tail erect, she meandered towards the cat flap.

  “What’s that animal doing here? Is this a bloody menagerie?” Manners yelled, taking a step towards the cat. With the toe of his right Ferragamo, he booted PC across the room. She flew through the air, hit a wall and was still sliding down it when, wild-eyed with rage, veins bulging in my neck, I went for Manners. He was backing away and I was halfway around the desk when Biedel grabbed me. He had played rugby for the Crimson Tide, and tackling skills were entrenched in his long-term memory. By then, Manners had taken refuge behind the Mounties.

  Biedel’s powerful arms held me, and he was quivering. I thought he was reacting to the effort of holding me, but he was actually shaking with suppressed amusement. Nobody else had moved.

  PC was tough—cats bend instead of breaking; she was all right. She slid to the floor in one piece, squeezed meowing through the door’s cat flap and went out. My reptile-brain fight-or-flight response faded; I stopped struggling.

  “It’s not worth it, Silas,” Biedel murmured into my ear. “Hit him after you’ve got your pension.”

  I nodded. He let me go. I sat in the swiveller behind my desk, leaned back, folded my arms and waited for Manners to make the next move.

  He was dabbing his face with a handkerchief that matched his shirt. Nobody spoke, the silence was deafening. After a while, Manners crooked a finger at Biedel, who went across to see what he wanted.

  Manners whispered something in Biedel’s ear and offered him a pair of latex gloves.

  Biedel took his uniform jacket off, rolled up his shirtsleeves, put the latex gloves on, and then he got stiffly down on his knees in front of the fireplace. He reached up into the chimney flue and brought out a small cardboard box that had been lying out of sight on the fireplace damper. His face grave, Biedel followed Manner’s instructions and put the box on my desk.

  Looking at me directly for the first time, Manners said, “Open it.”

  After pondering that order for a moment, I opened a drawer and rummaged among the tea bags, packages of coffee whitener, old socks and paper clips until I found one latex glove. I was still looking for another when Manners snarled, “I am ordering you to open that box. Just do it.”

  “No chance, Nice. No way. Not without gloves. I’m not gonna put my prints on it.”

  “I’ve told you a thousand times! I’m Inspector Manners, I’m not Nice!”

  “You said it, Inspector.”

  “Seaweed. You are under arrest!”

  Manners ordered Biedel to put me in handcuffs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I arrived at headquarters in leg irons, with both hands cuffed behind my back. It must have been about two in the morning by then. The only witness to my indignity was Sergeant Darcy Clough, on duty at the desk. A woman cleaner, mopping the floor, didn’t even glance up from her work.

  They shoved me in one of the first-floor interview rooms. Manners ordered Biedel to stay with me in case I tried to commit suicide or defaced the walls with nasty felt-pen drawings. The minute Manners left, Biedel took my cuffs and leg irons off.

  A few minutes later, Darcy came in with coffee and doughnuts. “Nice is upstairs with the Mounties,” he said. “He’s helping them to compose their statements.”

  “The statements ought to be good, then,” Biedel said. “Nice has been taking creative writing courses at night. Pretentious poetry for mature students.”

  By then I was too weary to care. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Biedel drank both of the coffees, ate my doughnut and tried to keep himself awake playing iPhone games. We were both asleep when Darcy came back at 8:30.

  “CDI Tapp got here ten minutes ago,” Darcy told me. “He went ape shit when he found out you’d been locked up. He’s as hot as a two-dollar pistol. Reaming Nice’s ass for not calling him last night. He’s upstairs in his office waiting for you.”

  Bernie was alone, looking at Victoria from his window with his back towards me.

  “Sit down,” he said, without turning.

  I sat down in a chair, leaned back, put my hands in my pockets and stretched my legs.

  Bernie sat behind his desk, put his hands behind his head and gave me a penetrating look from beneath his heavy dark brows. “Have you had any breakfast?”

  “Not yet.”

  Bernie picked up the phone and spoke to Mrs. Nairn.

  Bernie put the phone down and rubbed a thumb across his forehead. He said sombrely, “Superintendent Mallory will be talking to you in a little while. Me and Manners will be there as well. Would you like me to call the union rep?”

  “Do I need a union rep?”

  “Only if you want to keep your job.”

  “In that case I won’t be needing her.”

  “Pissed off, are you?” Bernie asked, grinning like a hungry hound. “A little e
motional because Nice Manners slapped you around last night.”

  “Is that what he said?”

  “He said something like that. He told me that he treated you like a common hoodlum because in his opinion that’s what you are. Manners is saying that you tried to attack him.”

  “Manners is right,” I said. “I would have attacked him, but for Harry Biedel. I’d have put him in hospital.”

  “So you agree that Manners was acting rationally when he ordered you placed in restraints and held in custody overnight? It wasn’t just pure unreasoning vindictiveness against a pain-in-the-ass junior officer?”

  For a fraction of a nanosecond I thought about bringing Manners’ Ferragamo shoe and PC’s involuntary flight across my office into the conversation, till I thought better of it and kept my big mouth shut.

  Bernie said, “That box they dragged out of your chimney last night. Is it connected in some way with the Raymond Cho case?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what was in the box.”

  “You don’t know what was in the box?” Bernie’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Would you care to make a guess what was in the box?”

  “No thanks. My brain is tired.”

  Bernie raised his hands in a kind of acquiescent apathy. “Well, just so you know, I do have a better opinion of you than Manners, only my brain is tired too. It’s been working overtime since I came to work this morning and found my old buddy up to his ass in alligators again. Again, pal. I think we should call Guinness. A French Foreign Legionnaire holds the current world record for insubordination, but I think you might have him beat.”

  A couple of pigeons flapped in and perched on the windowsill. When Bernie turned in his chair to look at them, his face softened.

  “Tell me, Bernie. Do you know what’s in the box?”

  “Yeah, I know. Superintendent Mallory knows too. Manners knows. For a while, Manners wondered if it might contain an explosive, so he very wisely took it down to Forensics. Forensics was even wiser. They called the bomb squad. Instead of destroying it, the bomb squad took the box outdoors into the police yard, put it in a cage, and opened it with a remote control device. It wasn’t a bomb.”