A Year Less a Day (38 page)

“But it's barely eleven,” says Bliss, checking his watch. “Maybe she went to visit someone in a hurry. Have you asked the neighbours?”

“David,” insists Minnie, “the milk is on the doorstep.”

“Maybe she forgot to take it in,” he tries finally, though he knows it's not at all likely; knows that, as spontaneous as Daphne may be in certain areas of her life, only matters of State would deter her from an early morning cup of Keemun with fresh milk.

“OK, I'm on my way,” Bliss says, as he makes a run for the parking garage. “And I'll call Superintendent Donaldson.”

Donaldson is having a mid-morning snack in the canteen to keep him going until lunchtime, and is just sitting down with a plate of buttered toast with strawberry jam and cream when Bliss phones.

“Have you got any clues?” asks Donaldson, once Bliss has filled him in.

“You might get someone to have a word with Maxwell up at the manor,” suggests Bliss, devoid of other ideas, but the superintendent is skeptical.

“Surely, she wouldn't have gone back there?”

“She might ...” starts Bliss then carries on to explain that he wonders if it was guilt that drove her to offer to help clean Maxwell's apartment in the first place. “She seems to blame herself for turning him into a villain.”

“Whatever gives her the idea that he's a villain?”

“Oh. She was really narked about her furniture polish, guv. ‘That's theft, Chief Inspector,' she told me, as if she expected me to arrest him. But now she knows he really is Monty Maxwell's son, my guess is that she'll try to put matters right with him, though it's difficult to believe she would have stayed overnight.”

“Do you reckon she's in any danger?”

“Good grief, no. I can't imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”

“Dave. We are talking about the son of a murderer, here,” Donaldson reminds him, but Bliss isn't buying it. “If she is there, she'll have him eating out of her hand. You know what she's like when she turns on the charm.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Daphne Lovelace is certainly at Thraxton Manor, but she doesn't have charm on her mind, nor is the occupant of Thraxton Manor eating out of her hand, although the bull mastiff on guard duty certainly has been. In fact, he has eaten so much that he will happily snooze until noon, given the chance. The large bag of chuck steak that Daphne had brought with her had greased her way into the grounds, though the fact that the big dog had
been introduced to her on her previous visits had helped.

Daphne is pinned down in a foxhole just inside the cover of the trees surrounding the old house, where she has been since the early dawn, monitoring the comings and goings of workers unloading the shipping containers stacked behind the stables. Her lookout post, a natural hollow inside a clump of alder bushes, is equipped with a flask of steaming Keemun and a hot water bottle for staving off the early morning chill, and she has a couple of flashlights and a camera in an old canvas shopping bag at her feet. She's well camouflaged, in a drab olive coat, old brown hiking boots, and a rattan hat interwoven with sprigs of greenery clipped from her garden, and she is peering through a pair of binoculars that hang around her neck.

From her concealment, Daphne is timing each operation as two men inside the container manhandle a skid of plywood onto the tines of a forklift which, in turn, manoeuvres it into one or the other of the enormous barns before returning. She is trying to gauge the best moment to make a dash for the manor's outbuildings without being seen, but she has a problem. Before she can slip into the stables and back into the apartment through the hayloft to search out Jackson's passport or other incriminating material, she has to wait until her quarry has left; something that he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to do.

David Bliss, on the other hand, is in such a hurry that he has twice triggered radar speed cameras as he races to Westchester, and he calls Donaldson again hoping for good news.

“I'm just arriving at the manor,” says the superintendent, once Bliss is patched through to the senior officer's radio, “although I'm damned if I know what to say Maxwell. He must be getting ticked off with people turning up on his doorstep unannounced.”

A Scotland Yard inspector, an RCMP sergeant, and now the local superintendent have all beaten the same path within the past week or so, and alarm bells are ringing off the wall in the apartment above the stables when Donaldson announces himself at the gate. But the voice on the entry phone is more guarded than aggravated as the new lord of the manor says, “Just drive straight up to the stables, Superintendent. I'll meet you at the door.”

The giant gates whirr open and Superintendent Donaldson motors slowly up the driveway as he takes a good look around. Work on unloading the container stops briefly as the men eye the newcomer, while Daphne spots the familiar figure through her binoculars and muses, “Damnation,” under her breath.

“Sorry—I haven't seen her for a week or more,” says the apartment-dweller as he greets Donaldson. “What makes you think she'd be here?”

“Just from what she said to a friend, Mr. Maxwell. Apparently there was some sort of misunderstanding over some furniture polish.”

“Yes, of course. I've still got it upstairs. Perhaps you'd give it back to her. Would you mind? I felt bad about what happened. I guess I was just having a bad day.”

“Don't worry,” laughs Donaldson. “I don't think she intends pressing charges.”

“Hang on then,” says the man and he rushes up the stairs to the apartment two at a time, returning with Daphne's aerosol can in seconds. “Tell her, ‘sorry,'” he says as he hands it over.

“Delighted to,” says Donaldson, then he spots a couple of heavies patrolling the perimeter fence and queries, “You seem to have quite a bit of security for a woodworking shop, Mr. Maxwell.”

“We're pretty isolated out here, Superintendent. In any case—have you bought any wood recently?”

“Yes. I know what you mean,” says Donaldson. “I paid ten quid for a bit of shelving the other day.”

“If you ever need the odd sheet of plywood, give me a call and we'll fix you up.”

“Thanks, Mr. Maxwell,” says Donaldson, as he gets into his car and throws the can of polish on the rear seat, “I might take you up on that.” Then he pauses with an afterthought as he looks around the estate. “I don't suppose Ms. Lovelace would have gone into any of the barns for any reason? Only, she can be very inquisitive at times.”

“You've seen my security, Superintendent. What do you think?”

“Good point,” says Donaldson, adding, “Just give us a call if she's shows up.”

“There's no sign of her at the manor,” Donaldson tells Bliss when he phones him back a few minutes later. “And Maxwell seems a pretty decent bloke. He even gave me her polish back.”

“Well, I didn't get a good feel about him,” admits Bliss. “Don't you have a tame Magistrate who'll give us a search warrant?”

“Dave, there isn't a shred of evidence that she is there. Maxwell is going to be on the phone to the Chief Constable if we don't stop pestering him.”

“I hear you, sir, though I'm buggered if I know where else she might have gone. I'll be at her place in about ten minutes; maybe I'll find some clues.”

Daphne had watched Donaldson's car drive out the gate, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and has just started pouring herself the last of the tea when the scene in front of her takes a dramatic change. A dozen or more men pour
out of the barns and buildings and race toward the stables, along with the unloaders and security guards, and, just when she is thinking that it might be a good opportunity to stretch and exercise away some of her cramps, the men fan out in all directions, clearly intent on finding something—or someone.

“What on earth could they be looking for?” Daphne questions to herself as she sees two men with shotguns headed her way.

Inspector Bliss and Superintendent Donaldson arrive simultaneously at Daphne's to find Minnie sitting disconsolately on the doorstep.

“She's gone for good this time. I know it,” snivels Minnie.

“Rubbish,” says Bliss slumping down beside her and putting his arm around her shoulders.

“Well, where could she be?” Minnie carries on. “I've phoned everyone. No one has seen her.”

“Have you been inside ...” Bliss starts, then lightning strikes. “Shit!” he exclaims, leaping up. “I bet she's still in bed. I bet she's sick and couldn't get up to take the milk off the doorstep this morning.”

“That never occurred me,” says Donaldson, as Bliss starts checking the windows to find a crack.

“Me neither,” admits Bliss, giving Minnie an accusatory stare. “Someone convinced me that she'd done a bunk.”

“I wish I'd made a copy of her door key now,” says Bliss a few minutes later, when both the front and back windows have failed to yield. “Brick through the window it is then,” he adds, but Donaldson grabs his arm.

“Hold on, Dave. If she's like most oldies I bet there's a key under a rock or a flowerpot. It doesn't make any
difference how many times we warn 'em not to.”

“Maybe under the Christmas tree,” muses Bliss, and he can't help noticing that the little fir tree growing in its pot by the back door has developed a second bald spot as he tilts it to look underneath.

“Bingo!” Donaldson exclaims, and a few seconds later they are inside calling, “Daphne ... Daphne ... Where are you?”

The momentary elation of finding the key soon turns to disappointment once the entire house has been searched.

“Talk about déjà vu,” says Bliss as he counts suitcases, then he stops in thought. “Sir,” he calls, and Donaldson barrels into Daphne's bedroom as Bliss points to the bed, “Look. She hasn't made it since she last slept in it.”

“Meaning?”

“She must have left very early this morning. She would never leave her bed unmade all day.” Then he checks her alarm clock. “I knew it—five a.m.”

“But where could she go at that time?” asks Minnie. “There're no busses.”

“She must have walked,” replies Bliss, heading back down the stairs to the sitting room and pointing out that the partially burnt logs and ash in the fire grate tell the same story as the milk on the doorstep.

“This means she left really early for sure,” says Bliss as he prods the lifeless fire. Missie Rouge begging by the refrigerator door offers another clue. “And she must have planned on returning this morning, or she would have fed the cat.”

“I've put out a missing person report to the men on the ground. Maybe I should call the dog teams back in to try and track her.”

“The only place I can think of is the manor,” says Bliss.

“But I've spoken to Maxwell,” insists Donaldson. “She hasn't been seen there since the episode with the furniture polish.”

Superintendent Donaldson's statement is no longer true. While in her day Daphne Lovelace might have slipped stealthily away into the woodland, or even tried to take them out with a knife or a hastily fashioned garrotte, she had been no match for the armed guards who had roughly hauled her out of her trench and marched her to the stables with her arms behind her back.

“Oh, for chrissake. That's all I need,” says the man at the top of the stairs as Daphne is forced inside. “Bring her up and tell the men to get back to work.”

“Maybe we should think this out over lunch,” suggests Donaldson, with an eye on his stomach, as Bliss escorts him back to his car outside Daphne's. “Unless you've got any other plans, of course.”

Bliss is just about to say that he had intended visiting the force's doctor to get signed back to work, when his eye is caught by Daphne's can of polish on Donaldson's rear seat.

“Hey, guv. Did you say that Maxwell handed that polish to you?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Would you get it checked for his dabs, please?”

“Sure, but why?”

“Look, I know Ruth reckoned that Maxwell definitely wasn't her husband, but I'm just beginning to wonder if she lied, and Daphne was right all along.”

“Why would she lie about that?”

“I bet the last thing she really wanted was to find that her husband was still alive, judging by the way that Mike dotes on her. And Mike told me that he'd never seen Jackson before, so he wouldn't have known who he was talking to.”

“Dave,” says Donaldson with a kindly hand on Bliss's shoulder, “don't you think you might be taking this Maxwell thing a bit far?”

“No, sir, I don't. Daphne is certain that he's an impostor, and, to be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever known her to misjudge anyone.”

“And if there are prints?”

“We can send them to Mike Phillips. He'll be back in Vancouver by this evening. Who knows, either Maxwell or Jackson could be on file in Canada.”

“Well, I don't suppose it'll do any harm,” says Donaldson, relenting. “Though I doubt it will do any good either. If she is there at the manor, I'd bet my pension that he doesn't know it.”

It would not be a good day for Donaldson to back a horse, and he could never picture the scene above the stables at Thraxton Manor as the diminutive Daphne, looking like an ad for a shelter for the homeless, clutches her sprouted hat in one hand and her tattered old shopping bag in the other, while Maxwell leans over her, demanding, “Who knows you're here?”

“Lots of people: Minnie Dennon, Mavis Longbottom ... She used to be the cook at ...”

“Shuddup you stupid old bat. Why the fuck could-n't you have left me alone?”

“You should have your mouth washed out with soap ...”

“Shuddup! Shuddup!”

“Temper, temper, Jeremy.”

“I said shuddup!” he screams, and slaps her sharply across the face.