The polished head of a pickaxe catches the sun as it is drawn back to smash a slab, then a replacement stone is lifted off the back of the truck as Bliss, Fox, and the rest of the officers walk down the steps behind the men and drift out of camera range.
“Now watch carefully,” says Bliss after a few minutes, as the taller man puts down his shovel to light a cigarette. His cupped hands shield the flame of a match, but they also cover his face as he slowly pivots three hundred and sixty degrees and even cranes around the cab of the truck. “I reckon he’s making sure the coast is clear.”
“It’s possible,” interjects Bryan as the workman flicks away the matchstick and opens the cab door. With a final furtive look over his shoulder he ferrets underneath the seat and comes out carrying something wrapped in a blanket.
Bliss pauses the tape. “What is it?”
Bryan gives him a quizzical look. “I dunno. An elephant?”
“Don’t be silly, Peter. It’s square — like a box or something.”
“Well, how the hell should I know what it is? I’m not a bloody X-ray machine.”
“I know, I know,” mutters Bliss. “I’ve watched it fifty times and I can’t figure it out. But look what happens next.”
As the picture restarts the man disappears behind the pickup to the spot where they were digging, and seconds later he throws the empty blanket into the back of the truck. Within two minutes all of the tools and the broken slabs have followed the blanket, and the men jump into the cab and take off.
“Absolutely nothing,” says Bliss, freezing the frame and pointing to the pavement. “Not a trace.”
The two men peer intently at the screen for ten seconds, then they look at each other, and five frantic minutes later, with shovels and a pickaxe from the equipment store and a half a dozen hazard cones from the traffic department, they race to the scene in an unmarked car.
chapter ten
“Miss Lovelace is not receiving visitors today,” insists Patrick Davenport when Mavis Longbottom finally decides on direct action and turns up on St. Michael’s doorstep.
“Look, I’ve been calling for weeks,” Mavis exaggerates, digging in. “I need to talk to her about her house and stuff. When can I see her?”
Davenport drops his eyes to the power of attorney’s papers on his desk and quickly flips them over, questioning, “You’re not a close relative or anything, are you?”
“No. She doesn’t have any relatives, not as far as I know. That’s why I want to make sure she’s all right.”
The manager paints on a reassuring smile. “She’s fine,” he claims. “She’s just having a little difficulty adjusting. Now, why don’t you leave us your number?”
Mavis has no choice, but, as she cuts across the lawn on her way out, she hesitates with the feeling that she is being watched and a shiver runs up her spine.
Daphne Lovelace, her old friend, is the person watching. Sitting alongside Esmeralda Montgomery with her eyes focused fiercely on the imaginary centre of the lawn’s labyrinth and wanting to cry out, “Mavis. I’m up here.” But she is bound and gagged — not by ropes or chains, but by the presence of Hilda Fitzgerald and the Reverend Rollie Rowlands.
“The poor old soul’s had a bit of a fall,” explains Hilda, as if her victim has damaged hearing as well as a bloodshot eye, then she flits around, primping up Daphne’s hair and straightening her dressing gown, while the vicar stoops in front of Daphne, pulls what he hopes is a sympathetic grin, and coos, “Oh, you poor thing. Whatever happened?”
The tentacles of a deep bruise spread across Daphne’s face in the shape of a podgy-fingered hand, and her left eye is partially closed by the swelling, but she stays silent, focusing intently on Mavis, her friend, as she disappears through the residence’s gateway.
“She must’ve fallen out of bed in the middle of the night,” sneaks in the home’s enforcer before Daphne can respond. But she needn’t worry. Daphne has no intention of burdening Rowlands with the truth.
“Would you like Hilda and me to say a little prayer for you?” Rowlands prattles on as he sits on his heels at Daphne’s feet. Then he takes her hands and peers into her eyes. Daphne’s contemptuous stare fails to ward him off, and he begins without awaiting a reply. “Our Heavenly Father. We thank Thee for saving our dear sister Daphne from serious injury when she fell —”
“For God’s sake leave me alone,” shrieks Daphne with so much venom that Esmeralda jumps in her seat.
“Oh, dear,” says Rowlands, falling backwards, but Hilda Fitzgerald is quick to grab both him and the opportunity to make her case.
“It’s her mind, the poor old thing,” says the woman, dragging the fallen vicar to his feet before tapping her temple suggestively. “She’s like this all the time — doesn’t know what she’s saying or doing anymore.”
The heavy concrete paving slabs at the foot of the mosque’s steps have the two chief inspectors sweating, until a yellow patch of levelling sand, the size of a snooker table, lays exposed.
“It’s just flippin’ sand,” moans Bliss as he prods at the footings with his pick.
“Maybe it was just a tool in the blanket,” suggests Bryan, but that makes no sense to his father-in-law.
“These things aren’t ceramic bathroom tiles, Peter,” he complains, kicking the displaced blocks. “They weigh a bloody ton.”
“Could it have been a spirit level?”
“No. It was square and boxy. And what happened to it afterwards?”
“Beats me,” says Bryan. Then he stops and watches as pedestrians walk past without missing a step and sightseers hop over the disarranged stones to get to the mosque. “Amazing, isn’t it?” he carries on. “Two blokes in suits drive up in a civvy car and start hacking up the pavement and no one takes a blind bit of notice.”
“True —” starts Bliss, when the wailing of a police siren cuts him off.
“What’s going on here, then?” questions a uniformed sergeant stepping out of the car.
“Who snitched?” asks Bliss, with his ID in hand, and the sergeant gives a nod to the mosque.
“They did,” he says. “They called 999 and said they’d evacuated out the back ’cos you were planting a bomb.”
“We were hoping to dig one up,” mutters Bliss, without explaining. “Tell them not to worry — no bombs today — and we’ll put it all back. But for chrissakes don’t tell them who we are.”
“Were you really expecting a bomb, Dave?” asks Bryan as they manoeuvre the heavy stones back into place.
“I don’t know what I was expecting …” starts Bliss, but he has a very suspicious eye on the grey-robed clerics who have gathered at the top of the steps to stare, then he says, “C’mon. I’ve got another idea.”
“Can you talk or has the cat got your tongue?” Daphne questions Esmeralda once her tormentors have left, but the other woman’s unflinching stare doesn’t give her an answer.
“Humph. They’ve got you have they — the God’s squad,” Daphne rambles on. “That’s what I call them — God’s squad. All high and mighty like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, but they’re a bunch of bloomin’ hypocrites. Knocking old ladies around …”
A glimmer of life appears in Esmeralda’s eyes, and Daphne catches it. “Is that what happened to you?” she asks softly, but the look in the woman’s eyes turns to fear. “You can tell me,” pleads Daphne, laying a comforting hand over Esmeralda’s. “I’m not one of them. I don’t believe in all that religious stuff. All they ever do is try to kill each other.”
Esmeralda slowly surfaces, but she comes out on the wrong side for Daphne. “God will punish you in Hell for eternity for saying such wicked, wicked things,” she admonishes with the malevolent pleasure of a pulpit pedant, as the fear in her eyes turns to pity.
“Is that what they told you?” shoots back Daphne, but she’s too late, Esmeralda has gone back inside.
“Hello, Daffy,” calls Amelia as she flounces in with a lunch tray. “Mrs. Fitzgerald has
sent you a little treat ’cos you’ve been poorly.”
Daphne’s face brightens with a sardonic smile. The old carrot and stick routine, she laughs to herself as she turns to the young girl.
“Well, that’s very nice of her, Amelia my dear. What is it?”
“A lovely bit of poached haddock with a creamy sauce.”
David Bliss also has lunch in sight as he queues in the staff canteen.
“Are you trying to upset our Muslim friends?” queries Commander Fox with a grin as he sidles up with his tray.
“No,” protests Bliss, before explaining the workmen’s suspicious behaviour. “Although I find it funny that they didn’t complain when the other blokes dug up the pavement.”
“Maybe that was because me, you, and half the Met. Police was standing on their front doorstep at the time.”
“Good point, sir.”
“So. What did you find?”
“Nothing,” says Bliss as he takes a double portion of steak pie.
“I don’t suppose you thought of simply asking the workmen what they were doing before you upset our bearded brethren.”
“If only I could,” says Bliss, doubling up on mashed potatoes, and then he explains that he has checked with the Public Works Department and all the contractors authorized to repair the city’s road and none have any record.
“That’s very interesting,” admits Fox, and then he nods to Bliss’s loaded plate. “What’s up — lady of the house on strike?”
“Sort of,” shrugs Bliss as they search for a vacant table, but he is still focused on the pickup truck outside the mosque, explaining that he couldn’t see the licence plates because of the camera angle.
“What about other cameras?”
“No luck so far,” admits Bliss. “But there’s dozens of possibilities.” Then he reels off a list. “Red light and speed cameras. A couple of nearby banks and a warehouse have got security. Then there’s the congestion fee cameras and some intersections with traffic management cameras.”
“Phew!” exclaims Fox as he puts down his tray. “That would be quite a job.”
“Especially as I haven’t got any of the numbers …” starts Bliss, then he drops his plate on the table and jumps up.
“What is it?”
“You know what Newton reckoned, guv,” he says as he readies to run. “What goes down must come up.”
“What about your lunch?” hollers Fox, but Bliss is already halfway back to the surveillance unit.
“Ooh, Daffy. You haven’t eaten your lunch again,” scolds Amelia as if she is dealing with her six-year-old sister. “An’ Mrs. Fitzgerald did it specially.”
“Please don’t tell her,” says Daphne, pulling the girl into a conspiracy. “She’ll be so upset after all the trouble, but I just didn’t fancy it.”
“I don’t rightly know …” starts Amelia, but Daphne slides a twenty-pound note into her hand and whispers, “I’m very partial to the pork pies at Marks and Spencer’s.”
“Well …”
“You could take your young man to the pictures with the change.”
The force’s videographer has his head in a pedophile’s porno collection as Bliss rushes in.
“This jerk needs his bollocks chopped,” says the technician without looking up, but Bliss is in a hurry, demanding all the coverage from the Whitechapel camera for the days following the ill-fated visit.
“At least a week,” says Bliss.
“You’ll have to give me some time,” says the man as he stops a terrified ten-year-old moments before she is raped. “I’ve got to have this ready for court tomorrow.”
“It’s urgent …” starts Bliss, but the videographer is already hitting “play.”
“And so is this. Just leave me a note of what you want and I’ll give you a call as soon as I can.”
A message awaits Bliss as he returns to his office, and he screws up his face at the sound of the voice. “Bliss, it’s Edwards. I’m back from Washington. Call me.”
“So, what’s the current situation?” snaps the Home Secretary’s man as soon as he answers.
“I’ve run across something very interesting,” Bliss tells him, then fills in the details.
The phone goes quiet for a few seconds as Edwards digests the information, then he comes back a different person. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, Dave.”
“What?”
“Well. As you say yourself, there was nothing there.”
“Yeah. But there obviously was —”
“Dave … Chief Inspector. Hang on a minute. You know one of the reasons you and I never got on when we were on the job together … you never did what you were f’kin told. You were always prancing off on your own f’kin hobby horse and leaving everyone else to clean up the shit.”
“Sir —”
“Canada, America, the south of f’kin France —”
“But —”
“No. No more ‘buts.’ Just listen for a f’kin change, Chief Inspector. If I say leave it, I mean leave it. Unless you want the Home Secretary himself to get on the blower and chew yer f’kin ear off.”
That went well, Bliss tells himself as he slams down the phone.
“You look as though someone just pinched your sandwiches,” laughs Peter Bryan as he strolls in.
“Edwards,” spits Bliss, nodding to the phone just as it buzzes, and he is right again.
“Dave … Sorry … P’raps I was a bit hasty,” splutters the ex–chief superintendent. “I’ll come over and see what you’ve got.”
Bliss shakes his head in wonderment as he puts down the phone.
“What is it, Dave?”
“Have a look out the window, Peter. See if there’s a herd of flying pigs, will you,” he chuckles before explaining.
The unease felt by Mavis Longbottom as she left St. Michael’s has been gnawing at her all day. If Minnie Dennon or any of Daphne’s other long-time friends were still alive, she would go back mob-handed and demand admittance. But without them, she needs an excuse — one that Davenport can’t frivolously dismiss — and as she takes the bus to Daphne’s house with the emergency key in her purse, she is hoping to find one in the mail: an unpaid bill, a cheque that needs a signature, a pension payment, or something similar.
Anxiety over of the Jenkins family and their pit bulls has kept Mavis at bay since Daphne’s incarceration, and she steels herself as she walks up the opposite side of the street and crosses at the last minute.
The desecrated garden has recovered a little thanks to Bliss’s work, but the faded remains of swastikas and four-letter words still mar the walls as she approaches the front door.
“Oh, no,” she is sighing aloud, with the key in the lock, when a woman’s voice spins her.
“Are you Miss Lovelace … Ophelia Lovelace?”
If there is a familiarity in the voice it doesn’t register with Mavis as she takes in the visitor, an athletically tall woman in her late sixties.
“No,” she replies, with a quizzical lift, wondering who would call Daphne by her first name, and the woman hovers with a degree of tentativeness before asking, “Does she live here?”
Mavis holds back while she tries to place the woman. Stylishly dressed — en route from a wedding or a christening perhaps — with a floppy-brimmed straw hat. Obviously not a friend; someone official because of the name — a name Daphne hasn’t used since her teenage years — but she isn’t offering a business card … a Jehovah’s witness?
“Well?” questions the woman eventually.
“Sorry … I could give her a message,” suggests Mavis, reluctant to admit that the house is vacant, but a sudden bout of nervousness turns the woman pink and has her backing away, mumbling, “Don’t worry, I’ll come back another time.”
“Can I tell who wanted her?” calls Mavis, as the woman hits the street and almost breaks into a run, and she watches for a few seconds before shrugging. “Weird,” she says and turns to put the key in the lock.
The stench knocks Mavis back as the front door opens. Bliss did his best — picking up the excrement and garbage, scrubbing the carpets, breaking the seals on the doors and other apertures, and fixing the broken window. But the incessant heat and a new round of vandalism have undone some of his handiwork. A dead rat and a fly-infested bag of feces lie on the doormat, surrounded by a pile of flyers and bills. Several houseplants have succumbed to the heat, and the stink of rotting food comes from the kitchen’s refrigerator.
Death surrounds Mavis as she stands in the hall amidst a swarm of flies, and she crumples in tears at the knowledge that, without its exuberant and energetic mistress, the house is just a smelly abandoned building.
The gentle rap of knuckles on wood is as startling as a voice from the grave, and Mavis momentarily shrinks in fear before wiping her eyes and straightening herself with the thought that the strange woman has returned.
“Hello —” she starts as she opens the door, then she shrinks back, slack mouthed, at the sight of Tony Oswald. “Oh!”
“I was just passing and thought I’d check on the house for Miss Lovelace,” says Oswald, introducing himself with his card, and Mavis bursts into tears again.
It only takes half an hour for them to clean away the mess, but nothing will shift the smell from the broken fridge.
“I’d better get someone to come and take it away,” says Oswald holding his nose, leaving Mavis to question how Daphne will manage without it.
“Mavis,” he begins, with a soft hand and a sympathetic look, but she doesn’t wait for the rest.
“She’s not coming back is she?”
Oswald shakes his head in dismay. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But they don’t do return tickets to places like St. Michael’s.”
“I know,” agrees Mavis softly. “I guess I’ve known since she went in, I just didn’t want to admit it.”
“We never do,” he sighs. “There’s no great rush, but she’s going have to decide what to do with the house. Has she mentioned it to you?”
Oswald’s eyes screw in critical surprise when Mavis explains that she hasn’t visited Daphne. She spots the look and is quick to deflect the accusation on to Patrick Davenport.
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