“So someone beat her up. An assault that went too far?”
“That’s why I came to find you,” D.C. Potts said. “It occurred to me that it might have been a case of mistaken identity, you see. You looking so much like her. Perhaps someone frightened or molested her, thinking it was you. And if this bloke’s been following you, that makes it all the more likely.”
“But I didn’t have anything to do with the Right-to-Life march,” I said.
“I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick about the protesters,” Potts said, with a touch of exasperation. “It really doesn’t follow that they had anything to do with Ms. Barrow’s death. Now, you say that this bloke with the tattoo has been stalking you—trying to steal your luggage?”
“Yes, it seems that way.”
“Why would he do that, do you think?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I figured he’d decided that the puppet case, which is labelled ‘fragile’, contained something valuable.”
“What does it contain?”
“Puppets. What do you think?”
“And some person or persons unknown attacked Ms. Barrow in the Cathedral, and the puppet she had with her was found torn apart in another part of the church. Doesn’t that suggest a link to you?”
Now that he pointed it out, the link was obvious.
“The customs people at Pearson airport tore that case apart,” I said, “just like Alma’s baby puppet. Although they didn’t dismember the puppets, they did x-ray them. There’s nothing there. What the heck is this guy looking for?”
“Could be anything—drugs, gems, maybe. We’ll have to have a word with him and find out. And I should very much like to examine that puppet case myself, if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest—it’s right there on the table. Though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t dismember the puppets.”
“I’ll be very careful,” he said, and we both went over to the case. I opened it for him, and he proceeded to do the same routine the Pearson airport people had done, albeit with a lot more care.
“You really don’t think the Right-to-Lifers were involved?” I said, over his shoulder.
“It seems highly unlikely,” he said.
“And did you find Alma’s pamphlets? The ones she was handing out during the demonstration?”
“Not yet, no. They probably have no bearing on the case, anyway.”
“I’ll bet they grabbed her stuff, tore the puppet away from her and ripped it up out of pure spite. I saw how worked up they were about her being there. I still think you should concentrate on the lady in the tweed skirt.”
“Well, they’re a peculiar lot, I’ll give you that, but no, we don’t think it’s likely they had anything to do with it, although we haven’t ruled it out completely. The investigation is ongoing. But if the perpetrator was actually after you, Ms. Deacon, then we think you might be in need of some protection.” He had finished his examination of the puppet case, carefully replaced everything and shut the lid gently. “We’ll get hold of this tattooed bloke as soon as possible. He may very well be our man.”
“If anything’s a case of mistaken identity, the fact of this guy following me is,” I said. “Maybe it’s just that I look like his missing girlfriend or something. Oh—wait.” I fished in my purse and brought out Old Reg’s form from the train station. I explained the incident at the baggage lockers and the fact that the thug had apparently filled in Reg’s “proper procedures” form.
“This’ll be false information of course,” Potts said, “but we might be able to get some prints off it, I suppose.”
“It’s covered in mine and the baggage guy’s, mostly, I expect,” I said. I wondered whether or not to tell him about the tiny glimpse I’d had of what might or might not have been my tattooed thug—what I’d seen from the window of a speeding bus on my way to the university the day before. It was hardly credible, just a fleeting glance, and the tattoo I’d imagined could very well have been just a shadow from the curtains. Potts was an observant fellow and noticed that my eyes had sort of glazed over as I weighed the pros and cons of telling him.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” he said.
“Well, just this thing I thought I saw,” I said, and then told him about it.
“Well, it’s a strong possibility. Some criminals are remarkably stupid,” he said. “He’s clearly in the area, after all, and he’s got to be staying somewhere. If you think you saw him in a flat on Castle Street, and that’s the address he wrote down—well, it’s too much to be a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There have been an awful lot of coincidences lately.”
“Well, we’ll pay that address a visit right away,” he said and relieved me of the BritRail form.
“I could have imagined it, you know. Jet lag and all that.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I said.
“The best way you can help, Ms Deacon, is by having a bit of a think about your own situation. And be careful. You don’t have a police record, by any chance, do you?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Whatever makes you think that I might?” I said, as stuffily as I could.
“Just asking. No reason to have people following you about to get information from you? To settle a debt? Nothing like that?”
“Constable, I am a lowly, insignificant and hopelessly innocent puppet maker from rural Ontario, Canada. I am not wealthy. I have never been arrested, and I am not known to Interpol. I don’t consort with undesirables. Heck, I’m practically engaged to a policeman back home, as a matter of fact.” I fished Becker’s ring out from my cleavage and waved it about. He perked up.
“Ah. You’re connected to the authorities in Canada, are you? That’s interesting. Has your fiancé ever worked over here? Arrested anybody? Somebody who might bear a grudge?”
“His father was born here, but that was years ago. I don’t think Mark has ever been to England. Certainly not in a professional capacity.”
“Well, that makes no never mind, necessarily,” Potts said, cryptically. “The Internet dissolves borders, you know. What’s his specialty?”
“He’s a detective in the Ontario Provincial Police, doing some airport security stuff at the moment,” I said. Potts wrote that down.
“Full name?”
“Detective Constable Mark Edward Becker—but jeez, don’t be getting in touch with him, please. He’ll flip out big time if he thinks I’m in trouble over here. He’ll hop on the next plane and try to haul me home.”
“That might not be a bad idea,” he said. “When are you due, may I ask?”
I bristled. “That’s rather a personal question, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Not until the end of April. I don’t plan on podding on British soil, if you’re worried about immigration issues.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean?”
“Just that you ought to be careful, that’s all. If I were pregnant, and there were some unpleasant bloke stalking me, who may or may not have caused the death of a woman who looks like me, for reasons so far unknown, I’d be watching my back. Or I’d be on the next plane home.”
“Thanks for the advice—I’ll be careful. But please don’t get in touch with Becker. This has nothing to do with him. If anything, it has to do with the fact that some local English thug thought there was something valuable in the puppet case I was carrying around at the airport.” We both stood looking at the case sitting innocently on the table. The “fragile” label was peeling off, and it looked a little battered.
“The puppets themselves sell for about five hundred dollars apiece, if that’s any help,” I said.
“Underselling yourself a bit, aren’t you?” he said, which made me smile.
“Thanks. Starving artist, that’s me.”
“Well, that’s all for now, I
suppose. Our people will get this bloke soon enough, I hope, and your worries will be over,” he said.
“Thanks. Do let me know, eh, when you do? I’d like to come by and maybe kick him in the crotch.” Potts winced. “In exchange for the gratuitous grope at the airport, don’t ya know,” I said.
“We can’t allow that.”
“Yeah, well. Too bad.”
“You’re staying at...” he checked his notes, flipping back a couple of pages, “the Pilgrim’s Rest? We can contact you there?”
“That’s right,” Cedric jumped in. I’d forgotten he was there. He had been hovering at my side the whole time, absorbing the conversation like an elderly sponge. “I’ll look after her, sir. Not to worry.”
“Right, then,” Potts said, giving Cedric the once-over. I suppose he passed muster, although he didn’t strike me as the protector type, but maybe the standards are different in England. I felt like I was being handed over. “We’ll be in touch,” he said and headed for the door.
Richard Seth had been waiting and moved in to take Potts’ place. “I liked your presentation, Polly,” he said. “Man, those marionettes make the usual Steamboat stuff look awfully clunky, eh?”
“Different techniques, I guess,” I said and introduced him to Cedric. We made puppet talk all the way out into the parking lot, where Cedric had parked his Reliant Robin in a space marked for motorcycles. It fit, quite comfortably. Richard invited us both to join him for dinner at a place in Canterbury called the Moghul, and we accepted. I love Indian food, and Brent had told me that the Indian food in England was to die for. He squeezed into the tiny space behind the front seats of Maid Marian, which looked painful, but he insisted he was okay. Better him than me, anyway.
At the restaurant, I allowed myself another Guinness. Okay—call me an abusive mom, but neither Cedric nor Richard commented, and the Sprog seemed to like it. Anyway, it was all rapidly soaked up by a thing called Peshawari naan, a kind of flatbread like a pita with a coconut mixture inside it, which I decided was the food of the gods. I gobbled two orders of it, in addition to a big steel bowl of chicken tikka and some gorgeous rice. One day, when I’m a rich and famous puppet maker, with untold millions and nothing to spend it on, I will beg and bribe some nice family from the city to come up to Kuskawa and open an Indian restaurant. I will foot the bill. I will subsidize it generously. There is nothing remotely like Indian food available in my neck of the woods. Oh, we have a couple of what they call Chinese/Canadian places, established during the lumbering days of the 1860s, and still serving fluorescent chicken balls and chow mein, but if you want anything more exotic than that, you have to go to Toronto. Oh, for an Indian restaurant in Laingford. Sigh.
I let the men talk while I stuffed my face. I learned that Cedric had studied theology at Oxford University and then thrown it away at the last minute, just before ordination, to become an actor in repertory theatre in the boonies of England. He’d enjoyed a modest career, touring India, actually, at one point. He seemed to know a lot about Indian food, and the Moghul staff treated him like a regular. He’d retired early, to come and help his mom and sister run the Pilgrim’s Rest, which was one of the older B&Bs in Canterbury, and when his mom died, followed by his sister, Mary (who was widowed young), he went into the full-time hospitality business. He liked it, he said. It was quiet. He’d never married, and I had the impression, without him actually saying so, that he played for the other team, as it were. He and Richard got on like a house on fire, and they left me in peace to do my impression of a starving puppet maker.
I’d told them in the car about Alma’s death at Canterbury Cathedral, as much as I could stomach repeating, and I made light of Potts’ suggestion that it might have been a case of mistaken identity, that the assault had been meant for me. I was still kind of sandbagged by the whole thing, and while both men were obviously panting for more details, they respected my reluctance to dwell on it, which I appreciated. Over dinner, they gossiped about the theatre business instead.
Richard said he’d find his own way back up to the university, and we puttered back to the Pilgrim’s Rest in the Robin, Cedric weaving rather erratically all over the road, probably on account of his having polished off most of a bottle of Chardonnay. He was only going about twenty kilometres an hour, though, and there was no traffic to speak of. If I’d got out and walked fast, I probably would’ve beaten him back home.
The first indication that there was something wrong was when I hopped out to open the gate into the courtyard. I knew I had carefully closed it behind me. I’d heard the lock click shut. Cedric had given me the key to it, but when I touched the latch, the door swung open by itself. Odd, and disturbing. However, I figured it was an old lock and unreliable. When we got to the kitchen door, though, and found that open, too, we got very worried, very fast.
“Did Mr. Binterhof maybe forget his key?” I said, referring to the other B&B resident, the one Cedric had said would be home in the evening. It was ten thirty by that point, and the house was totally dark, not a light to be seen. “Did he break in, do you think?” I hadn’t met the man myself, but the name conjured a stern, Teutonic kind of fellow, possibly capable of a little B&E if he’d been left high and dry on a chilly February night.
“Mr. Binterhof is seventy-four and frail,” Cedric said. “He would certainly not have forced his way in, my dear. I don’t think we should go any further. I think we should call the police.”
“Oh, please.” I said. “We’ve had enough of them for one day, I think.” It was probably the Guinness talking. I pushed open the door and groped around for a light switch. I found it at chest-height on my left and flicked it on. The kitchen was just as we’d left it, although I saw a mug on the counter, with a tea bag left in it. The tea was awfully strong, I noticed, black, really. A moment later, I noticed the pair of feet, sticking out at floor level behind the counter.
“Okay, Cedric,” I said. “I lied. Call the damned police.”
Nineteen
Special watch should be kept over our pregnant women during the year of their pregnancy to guard the expectant mother against the experiences of frequent and violent pleasures—or pains either—and ensure her cultivation of a gracious, bright and serene spirit.
-Plato, as quoted in Big Bertha’s Total Baby Guide
Excerpt from an email to Earl Morrison, OPP:
. . . and you’ll be glad to know that Mr. Binterhof is perfectly fine, although he has a bit of a headache from being knocked out. I’m telling you all this, because I want to get my side of the story in before that eager beaver Potts gets in touch with you guys. Please let Becker know my version first. I’m certain that the break-in at the Pilgrim’s Rest has no connection with me being involved with a policeman—so it’s none of his business. This thug guy is obsessed with my puppet case, and that’s that. Maybe I should mail the puppets back home in a box and leave the damned case out somewhere where he can steal it. Then he’ll probably melt away and leave me alone.
And I’m also pretty sure that the nasty business at the Cathedral was connected to the Right-to-Lifers and had nothing to do with me. I’m quite happy to leave Potts to figure that one out, and I’m determined not to get involved in this one—in fact, I promise I won’t, okay, Earlie? So don’t go getting all worried about me. I’m fine, and I’m not playing Nancy Drew this time.
Perhaps, seeing as you’re using Becker’s computer these days, if an email comes in for him from Potts, you can pretend to be him and answer it. Or better yet, delete it.
This morning, after a session on “Universal Language International Performance: Choosing Materials for International Performing in Puppetry” (which sounds like a real hoot, eh?), Richard Seth and I are going to go visit the Roman Museum, and then The Eastbridge Hospital, which is not a medical hospital, but rather a totally cool 800-year-old building used to house pilgrims. I’m looking forward to it.
Love to everybody, and I hope you have a great cribbage game tonight. Watch out for
George. He moves his pegs ahead when he thinks you’re looking the other way. Polly
The night before, we had called the police as soon as we’d found poor Mr. Binterhof, who was out cold, but came to pretty quickly after Cedric had waved something in a small bottle under his nose. He had been whacked on the head from behind, but for all his age, he turned out to be pretty resilient. They took him away to the hospital, but he came back in the morning, perfectly fit except, as I said, for the headache. Cedric fed us both with a double order of fried breakfast stuff to celebrate his return, and Mr. B. said he would spend the rest of the day resting in bed, if Cedric promised to stick around in case the thug came back. Cedric armed himself with a cudgel thing from his wall display of medieval weaponry and said he would be delighted to provide protection. This was great for me, as it gave the host of the B&B someone else to play white knight for and left me to go about my business without a nanny. D.C. Potts (who, naturally, was the first on the scene after we’d called, with a really annoying “I told you so” expression on his face) had taken away Cedric’s fourteenth century cosh, which had rather obviously been used to bean Mr. Binterhof, as it had been left on the floor by his head.
The burglar hadn’t done much damage in the house, apart from trashing my room pretty thoroughly. I suppose it hadn’t taken him long to find out which one it was, as Cedric had entered my room number next to my name in the guest book on the front counter. I hadn’t locked my door, either, although that probably wouldn’t have been much of a deterrent, as the burglar apparently managed to jimmy the locks on the courtyard gate and the kitchen door. Of course, the puppet case was locked in the trunk of the Reliant Robin at the time, but he couldn’t have known that. He’d gone through all the stuff in my knapsack, including unrolling all my socks and pouring out the contents of my shampoo and talcum powder on the bed, which pissed me off, big time. He’d left a note on my bed, too, scrawled in pen on a scrap of notepaper: “YOU OWE US”. I told Potts I didn’t have a clue what that was supposed to mean.
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