Deadly Sin

by James Hawkins

  “Sorry, sir,” says Bliss, switching back. “You said the Americans had an idea?”

  “Finally,” says Edwards, rolling his eyes. “Yes, it’s a new knockout spray. One puff will drop an attacker in less than two seconds.”

  “What about side effects?”

  “Acceptable.”

  For whom? Bliss wonders, picturing his head on a block if Prince Philip has a heart attack and falls backwards down a flight of steps.

  “Anyway,” continues Edwards. “We’re meeting his people here at eleven tomorrow and we’ll have a demonstration. Try not to be late.”

  “Is that it?” Bliss says. You dragged me all the way here just to tell me that?

  “Unless you’ve something else on your mind, Chief Inspector.”

  “I’m still concerned about that pickup …” he starts, just to poke a stick into Edwards’ cage.

  “I warned you …” yells the Home Secretary’s pit bull, and Bliss backs out, laughing to himself.

  “Prairie farmers in Canada reckon they can see their dogs running away for three days,” laughs Trina Button to Mavis Longbottom as they stand by the cathedral’s labyrinth watching Winifred’s slow-motion approach across the park.

  “She’s like a toddler on the run from kindergarten,” agrees Mavis before turning back to the case of the missing documents. “It’s lucky I met you. I’ve been going round in circles worrying what Daphne will say when I tell her.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve brought in the police,” explains Trina as Winifred finally arrives.

  “They wouldn’t let me see her,” complains Mavis, pointing to Patrick Davenport. “I’ve said all along that there’s something fishy about that place.”

  “Superintendent McGregor will get to the bottom of it,” Trina assures her as her mother takes off again, into the labyrinth. “We have an understanding.”

  “Is this the El Camino?” calls Winifred over her shoulder as she shuffles into line behind a gaggle of nuns.

  “Yes, Mother,” calls Trina, and the old lady’s eyes light up as she picks up the pace.

  “I can’t fathom the damn thing out myself,” bitches Mavis before explaining that she blames herself and the labyrinth for Daphne’s predicament. “She was all right till I brought her here — apart from the neighbours.”

  With Daphne’s accusation over the theft of her neighbours’ house still ringing in Anne McGregor’s ears, and the terror in the old lady’s eyes when she was dragged away, Misty Jenkins is first in line for a visit.

  “The old lady probably didn’t remember me,” explains Misty once she has quieted the dogs. “We used to come an’ visit when we wuz kids. Then dad and Uncle Phil had some kinda barney and we never came no more.”

  “Can you prove this?” P.C. Joveneski questions as Kevin Scape, her partner, eyes the brand new television critically and tries to match it to one that walked out of the back door of Vision-Superstore on Saturday afternoon.

  “Sure,” snaps Misty, turning her handbag upside down. “Misty Morgan … Misty Morgan …” she says, slapping a birth certificate and a premarital driver’s licence on the table. “And if you don’t believe me, I’ll give you dad’s number and you can ask him yer friggin’ self.”

  “Just doing my job …” explains Joveneski as she scrutinizes the documents and jots down the details, while behind her, Scape runs his hands over the fifty-inch monster and says, “This musta cost a packet. Get it locally, did you?”

  “Here,” says Misty, slamming down a receipt. “Is the old bag accusing us of anything else? Cuz you might as well ask now an’ get it over with.”

  “No. I think that’s all,” says Joveneski as they retreat.

  “I’m not giving up on this,” says Bliss as he and Peter Bryan stake out Continental and International Imports with binoculars. But it is nearing midnight, the roads are deserted, and Peter Bryan is getting an itchy backside.

  “I don’t know what you’re hoping to see without a search warrant,” he moans for the nth time, but they both know that a judge would laugh them out of his chambers.

  “That!” exclaims Bliss and they stare in disbelief as a familiar pickup truck emerges from the hangar doors of the building and drives towards the gate.

  Bryan whistles. “Talk about synchronicity.”

  “Get the camera,” says Bliss as he turns on the ignition and drops the car into gear. “We can’t tail it with roads this dead. We’ll have to risk a drive by.”

  The giant gates are slowly opening as the truck approaches, and Bliss holds back.

  “Get ready … Get ready,” he repeats with his foot hovering on the pedal.

  Security guard Johnny “Tugboat” Wilson, a heavy-fisted, glass-jawed ex-boxer, is at the helm of the truck and is on his way to an all-night gas station a few blocks away, despite the dashboard warning “No Unauthorized Use.” He doesn’t care; it’s only a battered old truck. It’s hardly the ambassador’s limousine or an embassy staff car.

  “I’ll take the pickup,” he called to Johnson, his super-visor, as he grabbed the keys off the depot’s board. “D’ya want anything?”

  “Packet of Dunhill and a bag of salt and vinegar, Tug,” replied the supervisor without taking his eyes off the surveillance monitors. “And don’t be all night, I need a pee.”

  Wilson hits the gate a few seconds early and has to backpedal, while on the road Bliss starts his run.

  “Timing …” breathes Bliss, hoping to pass the gate at the precise moment that the truck is forced to halt.

  But Wilson is in no hurry. “Do you want matches?” he calls into his radio as he idles, and Johnson shouts back, “Nope.”

  “Okay,” says Wilson rolling towards the road.

  “Here we go,” says Bliss, stabbing the throttle.

  Then Johnson spots him and yells “Car!” in Wilson’s ear.

  “Shit!” shouts Wilson, and he stabs the clutch and makes a grab for reverse.

  “Gotcha,” snaps Bryan as they race by with his camera blazing.

  chapter sixteen

  Winifred Goodenow is not running this morning. Her race is over, and in her own mind, she has conquered the world.

  “I did the El Camino,” she trumpets with Olympian pride as Trina wheels her through the Mitre’s lobby in a borrowed wheelchair.

  Imelda grabs the desk bell. “Zhat is very good, madam,” says the Latvian, clasping the antique brass to her chest. “I very please for you.”

  According to Westchester cathedral’s thirteenth-century sundial it is approaching seven-thirty as Trina pushes her mother towards the labyrinth. The path to the cathedral is filled with sinners who religiously attend morning prayers every day in the hope of redemption, but they quickly fall by the wayside when Winifred shouts, “Coming through.” As she passes in her wheelchair, the footsore woman acknowledges their subjugation with a wan smile and a regal wave.

  Mavis Longbottom is in company with Angel Robinson at the labyrinth this morning. The arrangement was made last evening, just as Winifred Goodenow completed her fourth lap. “I can do the El Camino forever,” she triumphantly declared, and then she tripped headlong on one of the flagstones and completely pancaked a bunch of Japanese toddlers.

  “Little children shouldn’t be playing on the labyrinth,” protested Mavis loudly as a dozen parents scrambled to dig out their offspring.

  “Don’t worry, luv,” said a passerby, stepping in to help raise Trina’s mother. “They have earthquakes in Japan. They’re used to heavy stuff falling on them.”

  “I’ll have to get Angel to show you how it works. It just drives me round in bloomin’ circles,” said Mavis, after the last of the bawling tots was carried off, when Trina questioned how the ancient pathway could possibly be blamed for Daphne’s condition.

  “First you need a mantra — perhaps a Rumi poem or a saying by the Dalai Lama,” explains the spiritual guide as she introduces the Canadian woman to the mystical path. Then she continues, “Each journey has three part
s — the way in, the centre, and the way out. And every step moves you away from the past towards the future.”

  “But you always end up back where you started,” says Trina, already well ahead of the guide.

  “Precisely,” agrees Angel. “But that’s what happens in life. We come into the world with nothing and we leave the same way.”

  “Hairless, toothless, senseless …”

  “Not exactly, but you get the idea,” continues Angel before suggesting, “Start with an intention and focus on what you are trying to achieve.”

  Mavis chimes in with an example. “Daphne wanted to put a boot up her neighbours’ backside and get shot of them,” she says, but the look on Angel’s face suggests that such intent could have been an abuse of the labyrinth’s power.

  “You can’t influence other people’s actions or beliefs,” she says firmly. “You can only change the way you see them. And Newton’s laws are universal — every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So when Daphne pushed against the neighbours, she was the one who went flying off into the abyss.”

  “But that’s not fair,” complains Trina.

  “It’s the law of unintended consequences,” replies Angel. “She got exactly what she asked for — some peace and quiet from her neighbours.”

  “That’s the El Camino over there,” Winifred Goodenow explains authoritatively to a couple of tourists from Ulaanbaatar, while Angel continues to Trina, “On the way into the centre of the labyrinth you must anticipate the future as you move away from the past.”

  “But I already know that I’m going to end up back where I started,” whinges Trina. “So when I look forward all I see is where I’ve come from.”

  “That’s what I keep trying to tell her,” mutters Mavis, but Angel takes Trina’s hand.

  “It’s the struggle to achieve and the suffering we all endure on the path of life that’s important,” she explains as she leads Trina into the labyrinth. “It’s not getting there that matters. It’s how we get there and what we learn along the road. Now just follow me.”

  The struggle for life goes on much as before for most of the residents at St. Michael’s, now that the lost sheep is back in the fold, but Samuel Fitzgerald is already lining up the chairs for next Sunday’s service. He only has three so far, but he is definitely expecting a fourth.

  Daphne Lovelace has no intention of having her name attached to a chair and is keeping her head down — way down — which perturbs Geoffrey Williamson as he pays a visit on his way to morning surgery.

  “It’s not a coma,” the doctor tells Isabel Semaurino, who has been at Daphne’s bedside since dawn. “It could be a psychosomatic reaction to her little escapade yesterday, or it may be that one part of her brain realizes that another part is going haywire, so it’s shutting down in sympathy.”

  “I really should get home. My daughter’s baby is due today,” Isabel deliberates as she strokes Daphne’s hand. “Do you think it would be all right for me to leave Mother for a few days?”

  “I don’t see why not,” says Williamson. “Physically, I think she’ll be fine once we get some nourishment into her. Like I said, it’s her mental state that’s worrying. It could be that she’s just lost the will to live.”

  “There is hope, then?”

  “There was when she was still fighting,” admits Williamson, unaware that deep down Daphne is not only fighting but, in her own mind, she is winning.

  “They will keep you alive as long as they believe you have useful information,” Michael Kent is whispering to her in the darkness, and she gambles that Williamson will be told to keep his hands off until Patrick Davenport has his documents back.

  “I have to leave now, Mother,” says Isabel once the doctor has excused himself, but she cannot tear her hands away from Daphne’s serene face, knowing that this may be her only chance to connect. “I’ll come back on the weekend,” she carries on with a crack in her voice. “I promise.” And then she perks up. “Just think — you’re going to be a great-grandmother.”

  The centre of a labyrinth is the mid-point of the journey, and Trina and Mavis pause while their guide explains the next step.

  “Here, in the middle, you should spend a few minutes meditating,” says Angel, closing her eyes in demonstration, adding, “You should feel cocooned, as if you are the centre of the universe. And then, when you are totally at peace, you can begin the rest of your journey. But, just as in life, you can only get out by following the path.”

  “Some people take a shortcut,” refutes Mavis, recalling Minnie Dennon’s suicide and pointing out the fact that there is nothing to prevent someone from simply stepping across the grassy divides and walking away.

  “Where’s the satisfaction in that?” questions Angel, but Mavis is already looking into the not-too-distant future and weighing her options.

  “At least it’s quick,” she mutters, while at the labyrinth’s entrance a small group of befuddled German tourists are getting directions on walking the El Camino from an unofficial guide in a wheelchair.

  “Go round four times and make sure you don’t trip …”

  Anne McGregor is as confused as the tourists as she makes an early start on Joan Joveneski’s report regarding the ownership of the Jenkins house and the seemingly lawful purchase of a television. But the memory of Daphne clinging to her legs won’t leg go.

  “It’s not like Daphne Lovelace to make a mistake,” says Ted Donaldson, when she calls her predecessor, ostensibly to let him know that his elderly acquaintance was totally wrong about her neighbours.

  “The last thing I want is a war with the local bigwigs,” carries on McGregor, revealing the true reason for her inquiry. “But the old cabbage was making some pretty wild allegations — reckoned a Doctor Williamson and a lawyer named Jameson are trying to bump her off to get her estate.”

  “Well, knowing Daphne the way I do — if I was still in your seat, I would listen to what she has to say.”

  “Lovelace … C’mon, you f’kin old witch — wake up. I know you can hear me,” screeches Hilda Fitzgerald through her teeth as she roughly pokes Daphne in the ribs, but Daphne has been here before.

  “Stay down … stay down …” warns Kent in the depths of her mind. “They’re just waiting for you to surface.”

  “Wake up, you —”

  “Hilda!” cuts in Patrick Davenport, taking his sister by surprise. “I told you to leave her alone.”

  “Get stuffed —”

  “I’ve had enough —”

  “Give me a break, you snotty little weasel,” spits Fitzgerald, turning her finger on her brother. “Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s caused nothing but trouble ever since she’s bin here.”

  “Look. Just leave her alone, okay.”

  “Says who? My little brother who used to piss himself every time I shouted at him?”

  “That was thirty years ago …” Davenport is saying as his elder sister elbows him aside and storms out.

  Patrick Davenport opens the curtains a fraction to the morning sun and waits for the room to still as he takes several deep breaths and utters a silent prayer. Then he pulls a chair up to Daphne’s bedside and gently reaches out to her. “Can you hear me, Miss Lovelace?” he begins, his voice dropping until it has the texture of chocolate fudge cake. “I really need to talk to you. Maybe you could squeeze my hand …”

  Davenport’s mellow tones worm deep into Daphne’s mind, and she is tempted to surface, until Michael Kent waves a red flag.

  “I want you to know that I’m not doing anything wrong,” carries on Davenport without encouragement. “I’m just trying to protect your interests — the interests of all of you — and to continue the Lord’s ministry, and I need your help.”

  The flag flaps furiously, and Michael Kent is very close as he warns of an iron fist inside Davenport’s kid glove.

  “You’ll be safe now, Daphne,” continues Davenport, near to tears. “Please believe me. I won’t let anything happen to
you, but I don’t think you understand how important this is. I’ve got to get the papers back, and I think your friend Mavis must’ve given me a wrong number ’cos she doesn’t answer.”

  Mavis is not answering her phone now because she and Trina are stalking the postman. “We could always get your mother to fall on top of him until he squeals,” jests Mavis as they watch him wheeling his bike from house to house, but Trina has a better idea.

  “Fifty bleedin’ quid,” chortles the man as he pockets the cash, and two minutes later the three of them are staring into an empty dustbin.

  “There ain’t nothing worth nicking in there,” yells the homeowner from his bedroom window. “It were emptied a half-hour ago.”

  “Thanks,” yells Trina, and they leap back into the car and hit the trail again.

  David Bliss has also saddled up early this morning and is hoping to catch someone half-asleep at Continental and International Imports.

  “Metropolitan Police. Chief Inspector Bliss,” he calls into the entryphone, and he immediately feels the eyes of a camera on him.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  She doesn’t sound like a gorilla, he thinks as he waffles about investigating a couple of burglaries in the area.

  “We’ve had no problems here at all, sir,” continues the chatty guard. “We have our own security.”

  “I can see that,” says Bliss. “That’s actually why I’m here. I wonder if I could have a peek at your tapes for the last few nights — see if there were any suspicious vehicles or known villains in the area.”

  “Sure — no problem,” she says as the gate clicks open. “Come straight on up. I’ve got some coffee on the go.”

  Interesting accent, muses Bliss, placing the woman somewhere in North America as he tries to pick up clues about the place.

  “Texas?” he queries as an opener when she greets him at the door.