A tranquilizer gun, a syringe full of anaesthetic, CS gas, velvet-lined handcuffs, and a straitjacket all make it to his list before he scrubs them out. “This is impossible,” he tells himself under his breath as his mind goes back to his meeting with the assistant commissioner and the two Americans.
“The President had good reason to suspect an attack on the Queen was imminent,” one of snappily dressed foreigners claimed, and Bliss plays with the notion as he gathers a handful of dailies off the newsagent’s stand and tries to piece together a consensus.
The heat wave is still taking the brunt of the blame, as it was supposed to do, but several of the trashier tabloids are backing the conspiracy theorists, even if they have peppered their columns with words such as speculative, unproven, and wacky.
“The Duke: Electronically Implanted?” runs one headline, although the editor has been wise enough not to blame any particular faction. Internet bloggers and loony American televangelists, on the other hand, have no such qualms and are universally pointing their fingers towards the Middle East.
So, questions Bliss to himself as he waits for Fox, I wonder what Lefty and Pimple actually know.
“What’s the CIA’s involvement?” he asks as soon as he gets in the car, daring Fox to come up with a denial.
“They tipped us off, though God knows how they figured out something might happen.”
“I’d call it an educated guess, only I wouldn’t want to give them that much credit.”
“Now, now, Dave. Be nice about our cousins,” says Fox, but Bliss can’t help wondering aloud about the bloggers’ assertions.
“What if someone has implanted Prince Philip with some kind of chip?” he asks rhetorically as Fox concentrates on a busy roundabout. “What’s their motive? The Queen hasn’t got any political power. She hasn’t even got a lot of money anymore. J. K. Rowling’s got more than her, and she’s an author.”
“Aren’t you writing a book?” asks Fox.
“It’s finished.”
“Wow. Good for you. So now you’ll make a fortune.”
“Yeah. Right,” chuckles Bliss. “Do you know how difficult it is to get published?”
“Well, you could always use this case to write another one.”
“Possibly,” says Bliss with little interest.
“Obviously you couldn’t write about our royal family, though. You’d have to fictionalize the whole thing and call it Camelot or something.”
“Why?”
“Because they’d sue the pants off you if you didn’t.”
The rain stops as suddenly as it began, and the sun turns up the heat as they approach the city centre.
“It’s gonna be another scorcher,” croons Fox, but Bliss has his mind on the Home Office appointee.
“Some clueless bureaucrat, I suppose,” he moans as they drive down Whitehall.
“You know him,” says Fox. “That’s why he asked for you to be assigned.”
“I don’t know anyone at the H.O.,” protests Bliss bluntly. “It’s out of my league.”
“Edwards, Michael Edwards,” says Fox with a mischievous smirk, and Bliss feels his face draining.
“Not —”
“That’s the one,” steps in Fox. “Ex–Chief Superintendent of the Yard,” leaving Bliss simultaneously slack-mouthed and steaming.
“I don’t bloody believe it,” he seethes, recalling the tyrannous reign of the senior commander whose career skidded to a halt when he was caught taking backhanders from a suspected murderer and driving under the influence. “I thought we’d seen the last of that bastard.”
“Language, Dave,” warns Fox insouciantly. “Our Mr. Edwards is flavour of the month at the big house.”
“How the hell did they fiddle that?”
“C’mon, Dave. Don’t be naïve. That was his reward for going quietly.”
“But he was supposed to plead to drunk driving.”
“He did. But you know how it works. They wheeled him in front of a smiley magistrate one misty dawn while the press and everyone else were still in their pits, and the Beak says, ‘How d’ye fancy a conditional discharge?’ ‘Suits me,’ says Edwards, and next minute — he’s walking. I’m surprised they didn’t give him a couple of quid from the poor box to pay for his bus fare home.”
“Bugger,” spits Bliss. “But how the hell did he get into the Home Office?”
“He probably put someone’s bollocks in a vice and started turning,” says Fox, knowing first-hand of Edwards’ proclivity for blackmailing his way into or out of any situation.
“Knowing Edwards, it was the Home Secretary himself,” mutters Bliss angrily as they get out of the car.
chapter six
Tony Oswald is tall, beefy, and midnight black. He could easily have been recruited as a “heavy” for the mob — almost any mob — but his mother rarely let him onto the streets alone after dark.
“I could bloody kill my mum,” he often swore at the youth club, Boy’s Brigade, and amateur dramatics, though he wouldn’t say that now as he parks his Peugeot, plucks his briefcase off the back seat, and strolls up the street to Daphne’s house.
Jon-Jo, the most junior member of the Jenkins gang, sits astride his father’s Yamaha with a sneer and a cigarette as props, and waylays Tony on his way to Daphne’s front door.
“Hey, bro. Whassup?”
Oswald stops, gives the youngster a brilliant smile, and breaks into stage Yorkshire. “By gum, lad. Tha’art bin watching them ald ’merican fillums. Thy needs t’pull thy socks up.”
“Wha?” says Jon-Jo with a furrowed brow and a full glottal stop.
“Now’t,” chuckles Tony as he walks on.
Daphne is watching — peering through a tight crack in the parlour curtains. She slipped home after dark on Sunday evening, cutting through the copse at the end of the cul-de-sac, and collapsed onto the settee too exhausted to make it to her bedroom. Apart from a couple of fitful hours while awaiting bail, and a couple more on a solid railway station bench, she has not slept for two days — one of which she spent walking the labyrinth.
Her phone rang Sunday night until she finally pulled the plug, but she can’t switch off the front doorbell.
“Ms. Lovelace,” Tony Oswald calls loudly after the third ring and a couple of hard knocks.
Daphne steps back from the window, her heartbeat thumping in her ears, and quietly picks up the brass-handled poker from the fireplace.
“Ms. Lovelace,” he tries again in polished Oxbridge. “It’s Tony Oswald from Social Services. I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time.”
“Social Services,” Daphne echoes under her breath, but she’s seen the agony-filled images of smashed-faced septuagenarians crying into television news cameras — once proud veterans beaten into shamefacedly admitting the loss of their life savings, their confidence, and their independence. “He said he were from Council or summink,” they whimpered, adding tearfully, “He even had a briefcase,” as if no self-respecting con merchant would ever stoop so low.
“Ms. Lovelace,” Oswald tries again and is about to give up when a thin voice stops him.
“How do I know?” sings out Daphne from the hallway.
“Here,” he says, trying to push his identity card through the letterbox, but the metal flap is stuck: plastered shut with masking tape. “Superintendent McGregor asked me to look in on you,” he carries on. “She was worried.”
Daphne bends. “You’ll have to wait,” she yells. “I’m not dressed.” Then she races upstairs and pulls on some clothes.
Daphne’s mahogany umbrella stand never aspired to be a Sheraton or Chippendale, but it has dutifully done everything asked of it for more than eighty years. At the height of the Blitz, in 1941, it stood guard against the might of the Luftwaffe; solidly blocking Daphne’s parents’ front door against bombs, shells, and shrapnel. None ever came. But each night, as her father manhandled the heavy piece into position, he would confidently announce, “It’ll take more
than Jerry and his flying circus to get past this bugger.”
The umbrella stand has gained weight in direct proportion to Daphne’s age, and by the time she has pulled it away from the door she is breathless.
“Won’t be a mo,” she wheezes, pulling herself upright on the doorknob, then she has another attack of nerves and grabs a silver-handled walking stick that Mavis presented to her on her eightieth.
“I won’t be needing that bloomin’ thing for yonks,” Daphne snorted as she dropped it into the stand, and it has been there ever since.
“All right,” she says, primping herself up, and she pulls back the latch and flings open the door.
“Ms. Love…” starts Oswald, then his huge nigrescent eyeballs pop. On the outside of her pink winceyette pyjamas, Daphne is wearing a pair of tiger-striped knickers and a lacy bra embroidered with tiny red hearts.
“Come in,” she chirrups. “I was just going to make some tea — Keemun. It’s the Queen’s favourite, you know.”
“Right …”
The kitchen is hot and dark — the curtains are firmly clamped in the middle with clothes pegs. A couple of wooden chairs have been piled onto an oak sideboard, complete with crockery and a withered geranium, and the assemblage has been forced against the back door.
“Can’t be too careful,” whispers Daphne, sensing Oswald’s concern. “They could get in anywhere, you know.” Then she carefully removes a cork from the tap in order to fill the kettle.
“Right …” says Oswald as he slowly takes in the rest of the room. The fireplace chimney is stuffed with an old blanket, the light switches and ventilator have been taped over, and the upended kitchen table is jammed against the pantry door.
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” says Daphne as she lights the gas under the kettle. Then she gives a nod in her neighbours’ direction and snorts, “As long as they don’t blow it out again.”
“Right …” says Oswald again, then he pulls a couple of kitchen stools up to the sideboard and invites her to sit.
“I’d like to talk about what happened Saturday if that’s all right with you,” he starts as he takes out a notepad and pen, then he reels off the list of her transgressions. “Burglary, possession of an offensive weapon, criminal damage, and assault on Superintendent McGregor.”
“Offensive weapon?”
“The crowbar.”
“That was their own fault. Who keeps a crowbar on the dining table?”
“But you smashed their television and slashed their speakers with it. That’s criminal damage.”
Daphne boils. “Damage!” she screeches. “Damage! Did you see the way they’ve wrecked Phil and Maggie’s place?”
“I understand it’s their place now,” says Tony with a consoling hand on her forearm. “They can do what they want —”
“It’s not theirs,” she fumes, snatching away her arm and getting up to fill the teapot.
“What are we going to do with you, Daphne?” Tony asks, shaking his head. Then Daphne brightens with an idea.
“Maybe it’s time I went into an old people’s home,” she suggests as she sits down with the pot, and she has in mind the Church of England seniors’ residence where Maggie Morgan died. “That place on Grove Road would do. St. Martin’s, I think.”
“St. Michael’s,” corrects Tony, and then he looks deep into her eyes and softens his tone sympathetically. “I do understand how difficult this must be for you, Daphne,” he says, as if making it plain that whilst there are many different ways to get into a seniors’ home, there is generally only one way out. “But it’s probably wise, and it’s good that you have faith in God.”
“Doesn’t everyone when the time comes?” asks Daphne with an innocent mien as she pours clear hot water from her teapot. “Sugar?” she questions, offering Oswald a silver saltcellar.
“Umm,” he hums. “Do you have any milk?”
“It’s already in,” says Daphne shirtily. “You always put the milk in first. Everyone knows that.” Then she picks up her cup of hot water and sips it with a rapturous expression. “Oh. Now that’s what I call a good cuppa.”
“Surprised, Chief Inspector?” says Michael Edwards with a grin as he holds out a hand to Bliss.
Disgusted would be another way of putting it, but so would appalled, shocked, and angered. “G’morning, sir,” Bliss replies coldly, head down as he makes a play of opening his briefcase. “Sorry I’m late.”
“I didn’t expect any different,” mutters Edwards as he props his weight against a leather-topped office desk and throws down a file marked “Top Secret.”
Keep cool, Bliss cautions himself. Pretend the conniving little creep is just another civil servant.
“So. Let’s roll up our sleeves and see what the wizards of the Yard have conjured up,” carries on Edwards mordaciously. “Let’s put all our cards on the table.”
Bliss doesn’t have any cards and he knows it, so he bluffs: “Increased observation; separation whenever possible; get the Queen to wear body armour —”
“Yes, yes, yes,” cuts in Edwards, then he wanders the room for a minute, throwing out his own suggestions: “Beef up the Queen’s protection team; arm selected palace staff; put something in Philip’s drinks …” He pauses and goes to sit at the desk, but stops himself. It’s a form of Pavlovian reaction — his pain receptors recalling the time Bliss angrily overturned a heavy wooden desk on him and broke his wrist. So he firmly plonks his backside on top of the desk, leans menacingly over his erstwhile attacker, and hectors, “That’s all very well, Chief Inspector, but a five-year-old playing cops and robbers could have told me that. I was expecting something better. C’mon, man, stop piddling about and give me some bright ideas. Something I can take to the Home Secretary.”
Beyond invoking Sharia law and lopping off the aging prince’s right hand, Bliss doesn’t have more to offer. But he isn’t in the Home Secretary’s sights. Michael Edwards, a man who could have doubled for the Fuehrer had he grown a moustache and learned to paint, is in the hot seat — he’s the so-called security expert. After thirty years of bulldozing his way through the corridors and typing pools of Scotland Yard, where officers and secretaries alike would whisper to newcomers, “Cover your backside, protect your crotch, and never, ever bend over,” he’ll be the one who gets screwed if anything happens to the Queen.
“Sorry, sir,” says Bliss. “But I’m only the punkah-wallah. I thought you were supposed to be the guru.”
Edwards “Harrumphs” his derision, then pointedly sits at the desk as if offering Bliss a rematch. “Well, let me tell you what I’ve got …” he starts smugly as he begins to open the folder, then he stops, taps the “Top Secret” designation, and warns, “If this leaks, I’ll know exactly where to look. Capisce?”
“Si,” says Bliss and watches as Edwards ceremoniously puts on his glasses, pompously buffs his fingertips on the palms of his hands, and then cautiously extracts a single sheet as if he expects it to explode.
“Hmm,” Edwards hums as he carefully scans the document, then he looks up, questioning. “What do you know about MK-Ultra, Chief Inspector?”
Bliss lets an expression of deep thought blank his face, while wondering if now is a good time to tell Edwards that he has left his fly open and his shirt tail is poking out.
“It sounds like a hemorrhoid cream or a spermicidal condom to me,” he says eventually, leaving Edwards to find out about his fly for himself, and then he sees the vexed expression on his former commander’s face and pushes further. “I’ll go for the hemorrhoid cream myself. There’s nothing worse than a pain in the backside.”
Edwards gets the message, but he has Bliss on his hook so he would rather let him squirm.
“I could’ve guessed that you wouldn’t know,” he says as he returns the paper and closes the file without explanation, then he changes tack. “I’ve asked for a meeting with His Highness’s psychiatrist. You might wish to attend.”
“He has a psychiatrist?” says
Bliss in surprise.
“So would you if you had a family like his,” sneers Edwards. “Kings, queens, jacks, and a bunch of bloody jokers. Anyway, I’ll pass on your suggestions to the Home Secretary, and in the meantime, we expect you to do your best.”
“My best? How?”
“Well, I understand you’re authorized to use force if necessary.”
“Yes. But what if he gets hold of a gun?”
“Then you’d have to shoot him, wouldn’t you,” says Edwards, straight-faced.
“At least I’d go out of the Force with a bang,” laughs Bliss.
“You’d go down in f’kin history, mate. The cop who plugged His Royal Pain-in-the-backside. Immortal, that’s what you’d be. But isn’t that what you’re after?”
“No, it’s not,” spits Bliss, miffed at the suggestion, while inwardly wondering if he could get away with murdering the man in front of him on the grounds of temporary insanity or extreme provocation.
“Then why’d you write a poxin’ book?”
Now I get it, thinks Bliss as he is escorted by a tight-lipped security guard to the street. No wonder Edwards asked for me. They want a fall guy. If Phil flips again and actually harms her, they’ll all point at me and say, “Ask him. He was supposed to protect her.”
“Your visitor’s pass, sir,” demands the guard, with his hand out at the door, and Bliss sinks under the weight of the hot, humid air as he hands over the pass and walks off towards Scotland Yard.
The robotized voice on Bliss’s answerphone seems to have run out of patience as she intones, “You have … thirty-seven … new messages. To listen, press …”
Daphne, Trina, Samantha, Donaldson — he skips, one after another, until a familiar voice stops him.
“Daavid. Where are you? Angeline said zhat you were here?”
The next six calls begin similarly, and he cuts the recording and phones.
“Daisy …” he starts, pronouncing it en français, like “Dizee,” and she jumps in.
“Daavid. What happened? I look everywhere for you. Angeline, she said …”
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