Deadly Sin (31 page)

“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.

“Arizona,” admits Cindi Langdon, a petite college girl with a blond ponytail and a disarming smile.

“Really?” he says.

“You sound surprised.”

“I was expecting a cockney gorilla with a hyena,” admits Bliss as he follows her pert figure into the security office and accepts the offer of coffee.

“We've got a few of those too,” she laughs, handing him a cup. “But they're just teddy bears beneath the skin.”

“Grizzlies,” he mutters under his breath, reflecting on the monster he and Peter Bryan spotted yesterday, then he turns with a quizzical eye on the perimeter surveillance monitors. “Imports and exports,” he muses aloud. “You must handle some pretty high-end stuff to warrant this.”

“Nah,” laughs Cindi. “It's just a garage and workshop for our embassy vehicles. We just don't advertise the fact.” Then she drops her tone to a conspiratorial whisper. “We don't know who the good guys are anymore.”

That explains the tight security and the classified licence plate, he tells himself, scanning the rows of parked vehicles inside the hangar until he spots the pickup. But it doesn't explain why an official American vehicle was being used by a couple of pavement artists.

“So, what exactly were you searching for?” inquires Cindi with her hands on the controls.

Mavis and Trina's search for the missing envelope has led them to the municipal dump, but they've run into a road-block. “You're joking,” laughs the gatekeeper as truck after truck rumbles past on the dusty approach road. “I've had ten loads from the Council already this morning. Anyway, it's more than my job's worth to let you in.”

On the other side of the city, Anne McGregor and Joan Joveneski have no problems getting in the front door of St. Michael's, but they run into a gatekeeper at the front office.

“Sorry,” says Davenport. “She's just not up to having visitors.”

“We're not visitors,” insists McGregor. “We're police officers, and we want to talk to her about allegations she made regarding her neighbours.”

Davenport stands firm. “Sorry,” he repeats. “She won't be able to help you at present.”

“Now look here …” starts Joveneski, but the superintendent pulls her back, saying, “In that case we'll talk to her daughter. Is Mrs. Semaurino here?”

“No. She's gone.”

When is she coming back? Address? Telephone number? Full name? are all questions that leave St. Michael's manager dancing with a red face.

“Hold on,” says McGregor with a wary eye. “Are you trying to tell us that you have absolutely no information about Miss Lovelace's next of kin?”

“Well …”

“What about in her file? I assume you keep patients' records.”

“File …” he echoes vaguely, not daring to open his
desk drawers, and then the front door flies open and Amelia Brimble walks in with her mother.

“I wanna word with you,” snorts Betty Brimble, going for Davenport's jugular, and his legs give way.

“Hi, Daffy. It's me, Amelia,” the young girl tries a few minutes later while the others stand over the inert figure seeking signs of life.

The youngster's cheerful voice breaks through the protective layers and touches Daphne, but this is another of Davenport's tricks that she has been expecting ever since her so-called daughter showed up, and she refuses to be drawn.

“Daphne … Miss Lovelace …” tries Anne McGregor gently, moving in for a closer look. Then she turns to Davenport. “How did she get the bruises on her face?”

“She fell,” insists the manager, finding his feet and stepping in quickly, but Amelia is right behind him.

“Hilda smacked her in the gob,” says the girl defiantly, and then she spins accusingly on Davenport. “An' he chucked me out when I tried telling you yesterday.”

It is no great surprise to David Bliss to find that the CIA's Lefty and Pimple are at the centre of things when he arrives for Edwards' eleven o'clock meeting.

“This is Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones from Homeland Security,” says Edwards by way of introduction, and Bliss barely controls himself.

“Something funny, Chief Inspector?” questions the ex-superintendent, and then he turns the tables. “I hope you don't mind, but I told them that you would be happy to help demonstrate —”

“I certainly will …” cuts in Bliss, but he hits the floor before he can say “not.”

“Right,” says Edwards, casually stepping over Bliss's slumped body to address Fox and the other commanders. “The full effect lasts from ten to fifteen minutes depending on the amount of agent administered, as well as the age, weight, and general physical condition of the victim.”

“S'cuse me, sir,” pipes up Pimple as he puts the lid on the aerosol can. “But we prefer the term ‘Temporarily disabled person' or simply ‘TDP' rather than ‘victim.'”

“Sorry,” apologizes Edwards. “I suppose it's like calling a freedom fighter an enemy combatant. It just depends whose side you're on.” And then he is barraged by a dozen questions about the gas and its after-effects.

“Gentlemen,” he says, holding up his hands. “By the time we've had coffee and a bite to eat, Chief Inspector Bliss, our TDP of the day, should be in a position to answer for himself.”

“So, precisely what is the CIA's role in all this?” Bliss demands of Edwards, once he's shaken off the grogginess and the meeting has broken up.

“That's highly classified information, Chief Inspector,” says Edwards. “I'm quite surprised that you would even ask.”

“Classified?” says Bliss, then he tosses a firecracker. “Do you mean ‘Classified' as in the licence plates on a certain American embassy pickup truck?”

“How the hell d'ya know that?” demands Edwards in a single word.

“I didn't,” lies Bliss with a deadpan face. “But now I do.”

“Leave it alone, Bliss. And I'm not gonna warn you again.”

“I'm warning you,” says Trina Button to Patrick Davenport, as she stands at St. Michael's front door with
Mavis and Angel as backup. “Either let us in to see her or I'll call the police and tell them you're keeping her prisoner.”

“Look, she's just very tired. Her daughter was here —”

“What do you mean, her daughter?”

“Miss Lovelace's daughter, Isabel …” starts Davenport, although the look on Trina's face tells him that he is horribly off track, and he grinds to a halt.

“I don't know what you're playing at, young man,” steps in Mavis. “But I've known her since we were at school together, and I know for certain that she doesn't have a daughter. So you'd better let us in this instant or I'm going to the police.”

“The police are already aware,” says Davenport, on firmer ground, but, as for Daphne's daughter, he is quickly coming to the realization that he may be on quicksand. “You'd have to ask Mrs. Semaurino about that yourself,” he says, with an uneasy feeling that he too should be asking questions about the missing woman.

“So where is she?” demands Trina, but she draws a blank from the confused man as he stands firm and turns them away.

The identity and whereabouts of Isabel Semaurino are also high on the agenda for Superintendent Anne McGregor as she calls a detective inspector and half a dozen officers into a huddle for a late-morning briefing.

“I think someone's trying to pull a fast one,” admits the senior officer once she has recounted the highlights of Daphne's dash for freedom. “She was yelling that they were going to kill her and give her house to her daughter. So what happens when I turn up and want to speak to the daughter? She's vanished and they have no record of her. And this is the interesting bit: everyone, apart from the high priest in charge of the place, tells me there is no daughter.
I've even checked with D.C.I. Bliss at the Yard, and he's known the old lady for years.”

“I've known her for years too,” chips in one of the detectives. “And I never knew she had a daughter.”

“David,” Trina yells into her cellphone as soon as Bliss answers. “You've got to get down here right away.”

“Trina …”

“They won't let me and Mavis see Daphne, and they're lying about her having a daughter.”

“I just heard that from the local police,” admits Bliss. “But I don't know what you expect me to do.”

“Arrest them or get a court order or something …” she starts, but he stops her.

“You don't need a policeman, Trina. You need a lawyer.”

The sudden and seemingly mysterious disappearance of Isabel Semaurino has Davenport frenziedly quizzing patients and staff for any details that may help him find her. And then his phone rings.

“I am the lawyer representing Miss Daphne Lovelace,” says Samantha Bliss, once she has been briefed by Trina, and Davenport is momentarily off balance.

“Oh … no … no …” he starts, but he quickly recovers. “Actually, she already has a lawyer. Robert Jameson of Jameson and Fidditch.” And then he overstretches. “In any case, I assume her daughter will be dealing with her affairs from now on.”

“What daughter? She doesn't have a daughter.”

“S
t. Michael the Archangel, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil,” Patrick Davenport prays in a sing-song voice as he clasps his hands in supplication and kneels on the floor of his office with the door firmly closed, and then he risks the ire of his Almighty by asking for a personal favour. “I pray that you always have guided me wisely in the past,” he carries on. “But now I need to be certain that I have made the right decision. Please give me the strength to do what is right and just, irrespective of the consequences.”

“Brenda said you wanted to see me,” grumbles Hilda Fitzgerald, storming in without knocking as she dries her hands on a tea towel. “I'm trying to get lunch finished up.”

Davenport rises slowly and eyes his sister carefully before saying, “Daphne Lovelace doesn't have a daughter.”

Hilda shrugs. “It weren't me who said she did.”

“Hilda …” starts Davenport warily, hoping not to trigger an explosion. “I just want to be absolutely certain that you aren't involved.” He stops as momentary anger flares in her eyes, but he doesn't back off. “‘Have faith in me,' you said. ‘Trust me,' you said, and I did.”

“And that's what I'm sayin' now. It's nothing to do with me.”

“But you also promised not to hit anyone again.”

Fitzgerald shrugs. “She drove me to it. The old bat was just winding me up. Now, unless you want burnt tapioca pudding …”

Davenport's face suggests that he is prepared to accept a culinary catastrophe as he pushes one more time. “Give me your word, Hilda. Just to put my mind at rest.”

“Look, Pat. I ain't telling you again. Isabel whatser-name is nothing to do with me. I dunno who she is or what she's up to. I thought she really was her bloomin' daughter.”

“Well, she's not,” he says. “She definitely doesn't have a daughter.”

“So what's her game?”

“What's
their
game?” Davenport muses aloud, reminding himself that it was the police superintendent who first introduced Isabel Semaurino as Daphne's daughter, and he picks up the phone as Hilda marches out.

“I'm with a client, Patrick,” snaps Robert Jameson after Davenport has hustled the lawyer's receptionist. “What's the panic?”

“I think the police have put in a plant …” the anxious manager is saying when Jameson stops him with a deliberate cough.

“Not on the phone. Meet me in the lounge at the Mitre in half an hour.”

Anne McGregor is also hustling now that she realizes that she may have taken the wrong bus, and she brainstorms
with Matt Roberts, the station's detective chief inspector, once she has expressed her fears.

“Get a statement from the young girl who was taking care of her,” she says, starting a checklist. “She reckoned that they were knocking her about.”

“I'll arrange for photographs of the injuries and get forensics to look for possible weapons,” adds Roberts.

“You'd better get the police surgeon to take a good look at her. She was fighting fit when she clung on to me. God knows what happened to her once they got her back there.”