Deadly Sin

by James Hawkins

  “Some very nice music,” suggests Bliss, but his son-in-law is on a soapbox.

  “They’re like travel agents plugging package holidays at a tourism fair,” claims Peter Bryan, as he mimics a Bible-barker. “‘We’ve got the best deals on heaven,’ yells a guy wearing a bishop’s mitre. ‘Constant sunshine; lots of old friends; great for family reunions; strawberries and champagne; harp and lyre orchestras.’ Then an evangelist in a Stetson waves you over. ‘Don’t listen to that lot of old fuddy-duddies, Dave. We’ll give you all that, plus — and you are just gonna throw your hands in the air and burst into tears when you hear this — you will get to sing in the choir.’ ‘Really?’ you say. ‘Oh, yeah. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord. Everyone gets to sing in the choir in our heaven.’ ‘That’s very tempting,’ you’re saying, when this guy in a white robe drives up in a Mercedes. ‘You come with me, mister,’ he says in a dodgy accent. ‘We go for very short ride and then I take you to special place with seventy-two virgins — all very nice girls — just for you.’ ‘Well … I don’t know,’ you say. ‘I’m not sure I feel comfortable getting into a car with a suspicious-looking package on the floor and an Mk 47 on the back seat.’ ‘Forget heaven and all that nonsense,’ calls out a guy in a turban at the next booth. ‘We offer a full return package. Come with us and in no time at all you’ll be back. And, who knows, you might be a maharajah next time.’ ‘Are you serious?’ you say, then this chap with a beanie…”

  “All right,” laughs Bliss, “you’ve made your point. So I guess my grandchild won’t be christened then.”

  “Ah. Now that would be a very dangerous assumption for any man, Dave. Especially one married to your daughter.”

  “Sad news,” says Davenport, waking Daphne with an early-morning cup of tea and a consolatory milk chocolate digestive on Tuesday morning. “Our dear friend Emily passed over during the night.”

  “Oh my goodness. I had no idea,” says Daphne, but it’s not until Amelia bustles in with clean bedding that she gets some answers.

  “You’re getting a new roommate today, Daffy,” says Amelia, ripping off Emily’s sheets, as if the change is something for Daphne to relish.

  “It’s Daphne, my dear, not Daffy. I’m not a duck.”

  “’Course you’re not,” agrees Amelia, then she laughs lightly. “I bet you were quite a lady in your day.”

  “My day,” muses Daphne sadly, realizing that, like Emily Mountjoy, her day is nearing its end. “What happened to Emily?”

  “You do ask a lot of questions, Daffy.”

  “That’s because I forget everything.”

  “Well, I couldn’t say for sure. You’d have to ask Mr. Davenport.”

  “I think he told me, but I must’ve forgot,” she replies offhandedly. “I don’t want to bother him again, he’s such a nice man.”

  Amelia scrunches her face in mock pain.

  “Isn’t he very nice?” whispers Daphne, but Amelia knows the signatory of her wage cheques and keeps her own counsel. However, the ferocity with which she shakes the duvet into its cover is answer enough.

  “Does he live here, in the home?” probes Daphne once the dust has settled.

  “No,” snorts Amelia. “He’s got a blisterin’ great mansion on King’s Road. I have to go up and clean sometimes when his maid’s on holidays.”

  “He has a maid?” queries Daphne, surprise lifting her voice.

  “An’ a cook, an’ a gardener,” confides Amelia as she clears Emily’s bedside table of its meagre contents, then she wistfully stares at the family photograph.

  “Was her family with her when she died?” asks Daphne.

  Amelia frowns in puzzlement, then catches on. “Oh. This ain’t Emily’s family. Emily didn’t have no family … not a soul.”

  “So who …?” Daphne nods to the photograph.

  “Oh. That were Mrs. Johns. She had your bed before you. She used to talk to Emily a lot. So when she passed on I thought Emily might like it — to remind her.” Then she proffers it like a prize. “Would you like it, now?”

  “Thank you,” says Daphne, looking as though she might treasure it forever, then she ferrets into her slipper for another five-pound note and asks Amelia to buy her some Tums for her indigestion.

  “Mrs. Fitzgerald has some —”

  “No. I tried the ones she has — they don’t work,” cuts in Daphne with a smile. “I always have Tums, but don’t tell anyone. They’re only indigestion tablets, but I don’t want to upset Mr. Davenport.”

  “Okay, Daffy.”

  “And keep the change, dear.”

  The undertaker’s black van is paying its second visit of the week. It picked up two passengers from St. Michael’s on Monday, and Emily Mountjoy has company on the road to the funeral parlour today.

  “It’s this bloomin’ heat,” moans Hilda Fitzgerald when she finds Daphne to tell her that Mr. Jameson has returned with some papers for her to sign. “Four gone and it’s only Tuesday.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” sighs Daphne, patting the cook’s hand as if she has suffered a personal tragedy. And Hilda smiles her gratitude before explaining that Robert Jameson, the lawyer, asked her and Patrick Davenport to witness the papers granting him power of attorney over Daphne’s estate. “If that’s all right with you,” she adds as she escorts Daphne to the office.

  “Sign here … here … and … here,” says Jameson, proffering his gold-plated Schaeffer Executive to Daphne, once he has expressed the honour he feels at being chosen to represent her.

  Daphne takes the pen and weighs it carefully. “This is right, isn’t it?” she asks of those around her.

  “Yes. Of course,” says Davenport. “Mr. Jameson has power of attorney for several of our guests, and everyone has been very satisfied with his services.”

  “Very well …” she starts, then pauses with a thought. “But what if my memory comes back?”

  “You can rescind at any time,” soothes Jameson as he dabs his brow. “You needn’t worry.”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, dear,” chimes in Hilda in the background.

  “Right,” says Daphne as the tension dissipates from her face. “I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Good,” says Jameson, then his face drops as she hands him back the pen saying, “I think I should get a friend to look at it first. If that’s all right with you.”

  “What about the Reverend Rowlands?” suggests Davenport, stepping in quickly. “He told me that he’s known you for quite some time.”

  “Has he?”

  “Shall we ask him?”

  “Round and round,” says Amelia, watching Daphne from the kitchen window as lunchtime approaches. But Daphne has only one eye on the ground. With the other she is watching the ambulant residents shuffling slowly towards the common room, and she is carefully timing her footsteps as she circumnavigates the lawn.

  Nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, she calculates, for a single circuit that carries her around one quadrant of her imaginary labyrinth, but her scheme only needs one — the one that keeps her out of sight of the common room windows.

  “Lunch, Daffy,” calls Amelia from the kitchen door, and Daphne pauses to reply, “Another ten minutes, Amelia.”

  “It’s mince. I’ll keep it warm,” yells the girl as she ducks back in to start serving.

  Two minutes, Daphne gives herself as she begins walking again, but this time she is checking the car park. Most of the staff spots are empty. Amelia’s bicycle is propped against the “Visitors” sign, but there are no cars. And she saw Patrick Davenport and Robert Jameson leave together in the lawyer’s flashy yellow Lotus, en route to a Rotary Club lunch at the Mitre.

  “One minute,” she says, and peers at the kitchen window. “Good,” she breathes to herself, knowing that Hilda, Amelia, and the rest of the staff are delivering meals and helping residents to eat. Just one more check — Hilda’s husband, the part-time preacher and gardener.

  Samuel Fitzgerald has a shed filled with mowers, cutters, c
lippers, and all manner of gardening supplies to one side of the lawn, and with a slight deviation, Daphne sneaks a look through the window.

  The gardener, with a Bible open on his lap, is laid back in an old Windsor chair with his feet up on a wheelbarrow and his eyes firmly closed.

  “D-Day,” says Daphne triumphantly, and instead of looping back at the end of her labyrinth, she keeps walking — straight past the old oak tree and onto the gravel driveway. The wrought iron entrance gates are wide open, and she picks up the pace as she makes for them. Once she clears the gates all she need do is take a sharp right through a beech thicket and she will emerge at the bus stop on the High Street. From there — the world.

  Fifteen yards to the gate and Daphne’s feet are going as fast as her heart. She risks a quick look over her shoulder — all clear. Another twenty-five paces and she will have put the scent of stale urine behind her forever.

  Ten paces and she can smell the fresh air. She takes a deep breath and sighs in satisfaction. Just five more paces to the gate — ten feet — and the air around her explodes in a cacophony of sound and lights.

  She freezes momentarily and considers running, but footsteps are already pounding down the driveway behind.

  “Miss Lovelace. Miss Lovelace,” calls Samuel Fitzgerald as he catches up to her and gently leads her back towards the home. “You can’t go out that way, dear. You’ve set off the alarms.”

  chapter nine

  The soft summery air of the Pacific tears at Winifred Goodenow’s lime green headscarf as she stands on the prow of a car ferry and watches the jagged mountains and lush forests of British Columbia’s offshore islands rush towards her in the early-morning sunshine.

  A multicoloured flotilla of pleasure craft dot the surrounding sea as the giant ferry from Vancouver cuts a deep furrow across the blue ocean; ahead, close to a rocky islet alive with squabbling seals and cormorants with their wings hanging out to dry, the resident school of orcas breach to blow.

  “Whales. Just off the port bow,” sings out the First Officer on the ship’s P.A., and a hundred passengers in shorts and T-shirts stream out of the lounges and restaurants to watch.

  Amid the excitement, no one notices Winifred’s bloodied bare feet, and neither the taxi driver she waved down in Vancouver nor the ferry’s ticket seller at the port cared about her oddball appearance — after all, she paid.

  “She’s wearing an orange linen tablecloth with bunches of petunias and a red wine stain … Bordeaux, I think.” Winifred’s daughter, Trina, anxiously gushes, as she contorts the brain of yet another Vancouver City policeman. “No,” she adds, staying his hand. “It was an Okanagan Cabernet Sauvignon —”

  “Madam,” cuts in the officer. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, it does. You’ve no idea how difficult Bordeaux can be to get out. I’ve tried all sorts of —”

  “Madam. I don’t care what kind of wine it was,” he shouts. “What do you mean when you say your mother’s only wearing a tablecloth?”

  “Well, not just a tablecloth,” says Trina, and the officer’s face relaxes a notch. “She’s also wearing a lime green tea towel and a couple of dishcloths. Though I’m not sure what she’s done with the dishcloths.”

  “Oh, no! Not you again,” spits Sergeant Dave Brougham, walking in off the street to start duty, and Trina immediately lunges forward into the virabhadrasana yoga pose.

  “What on earth are you doing now?” inquires Brougham, as she roots herself to the spot on one leg and thrusts her arms out in front of her as if readying to dive.

  “Preparing for battle,” says Trina determinedly. “Mother’s gone again. We have to find her.”

  This is Winifred’s fourth escape in just over two weeks, and each time Trina has taken greater precautions, even locking away her mother’s clothes and shoes each evening. But somehow, during the night, the determined woman levered her way out of the basement window after rifling the dining room linen closet.

  With the brightly coloured tablecloth wrapped around her, sari-like, and the tea towel scarf covering her head, Winifred blends with the throng of gaily dressed holidaymakers as she leaves the ferry and jostles for a place on a sightseers’ bus.

  “Ticket holders only,” yells the driver amid the crush, but Winifred pulls her tea towel over her face to slip under his radar and is tucked tightly into a corner when they set off to explore the island.

  “Don’t waste your time, Constable,” orders Dave Brougham as he slides behind the inquiry counter and gives Trina a look of undisguised contempt. “Get hold of Inspector Phillips over at the RCMP. He found her twice last week.” Then he snorts derisively. “Hah! Typical of the Mounties — they don’t always get their man, but they can always find a woman when they want one.”

  “What about Daphne Lovelace?” queries Trina. “She’s bound to know where Mum is.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere sensible,” says Brougham as he takes off his jacket and grabs a pen. But Daphne’s number strikes him as odd, and as he picks up the phone, he questions why a woman in England would know where to look.

  “Because Mum and her are the exactly same age and have the same birth sign,” says Trina, as if it should have been obvious.

  Daphne couldn’t answer her phone if Brougham called. She is confined to her room, and she too has had her clothes and shoes confiscated, although she dug in her heels, asserting angrily, “You said I could leave if I wanted to.”

  “Only with permission, Miss Lovelace,” Davenport said firmly, adding, “I’ve asked Doctor Williamson to give you something to calm you down.”

  “I’m quite calm, thank you. I just want to leave,” she shot back, hauling herself off the bed, but Hilda Fitzgerald hauled her back on.

  “Now stop being silly. You’ll upset Miss Montgomery,” the matronly domestic assistant said as she firmly locked the squirming woman down. But one look at her new roommate told Daphne that she had another Emily Mountjoy as company — a skeleton with a pair of dead eyes staring sightlessly into a grim future — so she snapped back, “And what will you do if I don’t?”

  “God will punish you …” began Patrick Davenport, then he questioned with a skeptical eye, “You haven’t been taking your tablets, have you?”

  “I have.”

  “Don’t lie,” he warned. “You know that lying is a sin.” And he rummaged through the drawer in Daphne’s bedside table until he found a half-eaten packet of Tums. With triumph written on his face he demanded, “All right. So where are the tablets we gave you? What did you do with them?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” bluffed Daphne, knowing that Amelia, who had the job of watching to make sure she swallowed her daily dose of tranquilizers, never noticed her palm them in exchange for a couple of Tums.

  Doctor Williamson’s arrival saved her. “I hear you’ve been a naughty girl,” he said as he shot a sedative into her arm a few minutes later, and within seconds she was asleep.

  Winifred Goodenow’s unauthorized daytrip to Vancouver Island comes to an abrupt end when her plan and her makeshift sari simultaneously unravel as she painfully totters towards the ferry in the afternoon’s warm sunshine.

  “No ticket, no ferry,” lectures the collector loftily from his booth when she mumbles that she has lost her return ticket, then he looks down at her and shrieks, “Oh my dear Lord!”

  The sun may still be shining on the west coast of Canada, but it is well after midnight in Westchester as Daphne surfaces dozily from the drug. It takes more than ten minutes for her to shake herself awake, but her body is still heavy and her head light as she single-mindedly drags herself downstairs to the payphone in the entrance foyer.

  The two night attendants have finished their rounds — thirty-seven patients and one cadaver, none of whom, they hope, will give them any more trouble — and they have turned down the lights and are both flat out on settees in the common room.

  Daphne creeps past in the dimness and has gently picked the phone off i
ts cradle before realizing that she has no coins. “Reverse the charges,” her mind tells her, but it doesn’t give her instructions.

  “Hello … hello,” she whispers when a woman asks her to insert a coin, but the sound of her own voice makes her jump, and she drops the phone and scuttles to a dark corner.

  “C’mon. Pull yourself together. You can do it,” she tells herself as her mind spins, but she’s woken one of the orderlies.

  “Who’s there?” calls the woman as a tinny voice joins in.

  “Please hang up and try your call again … Please hang up ….”

  “Who is it?” demands the orderly, hastily straightening her hair and her bosom as she emerges from the common room.

  Daphne cringes into the doorway of Patrick Davenport’s office and feels it give behind her.

  “Who’s there?” continues the orderly, and then she spots the phone. With a puzzled look she replaces the receiver, shrugs, and heads back to sleep.

  Inside the office, Daphne lays on the floor fighting for breath. You’re too old for this, she tells herself. You can’t do it. Go back to bed. But she has the labyrinth in her head now, and the voice of Angel Robinson encouraging, “So, you learnt that it was up to you to fight your way through.” So she hauls herself up to Davenport’s desk and grabs his phone.

  The only light is from a security lamp outside the window, and the numbers swim on the page of her address book. Four wrong numbers in succession — all irate at being disturbed in the early hours — but she gets Bliss on the fifth.

  “David,” she whispers, but his sleepy mind warns him it could still be a dream.

  “Hello — who is this?” he asks as he tries to surface. “Daisy, is that you?”

  She tries again. “It’s Daphne …” she says, and although the words start off sensibly in her mind they’re tangled by the time they reach her mouth.

  “I don’t know what you’re saying,” Bliss interjects irritably as Daphne rambles about religious zealots, labyrinths, angels, and forced injections. But he is still half asleep himself.