The Dave Bliss Quintet (27 page)

But she held the secret to ransom. “What will you give me if I tell?”

A little pressure applied in the right spot forced her hand.

“It is zhe
billet doux
,” she claimed, as she rose theatrically and clasped her hands to her naked bosom. “He writes of his love for zhe woman and says, ‘ I shall wear zhis mask until you release me by your love. Every day I watch from my cell and see zhe château rise on zhe promontory, and, when it is finished, it will be my gift to you as a symbol of my love. You will be its mistress
and you will raise a white flag which will signal an end to my torment. Flying on the sirocco wind I will haste across the bay and claim my prize. Until zhat day, zhis mask, zhis cell, zhis fortress, will keep me from all eyes. My body shall remain as pure and unsullied as my heart, and only you — my sweet love — will ever look upon me again. I am forever your prisoner.' ”

Curling herself back into Frederick Chapel's clutches, Dorothée had said, “It is very romantic,
n' est-ce pas
?”

“Very.” He laughed, barely able to conceal his incredulity at the thought of all the time and money that had been wasted searching for Richard Cromwell when all along the
prisonnier au masque de fer
had been nothing more than a lovesick romantic. “But who is this man? What is his name?”

“Roger.”

“Roger who?”

Rereading the entry as he sits on his lounger looking over the distant island, Bliss worries about its soppiness. Will anyone believe that a seventeenth-century aristocrat would volunteer to be incarcerated out there, with his head encased in iron, just to prove how much he loved a woman? Is it far-fetched for a man in an era of great romanticism to declare, “No one will look upon my face until you agree to be mine — I will build you a dream château and wait” ?

Is it bizarre? he asks himself, re-evaluating the whole scenario.

No — this is not bizarre, he responds. Pop songs, literature, and history are full of parallels: I'll climb the highest mountain, swim the widest ocean, throw
myself to the waves, build you the Taj Mahal. It was the exuberant era of Louis-Quatorze — long before the base barbarism of the revolution. For those rich enough, or corrupt enough, to afford it, it was a period of grandiose architecture and lavish design; clothes and footwear so elaborate and ostentatious that women couldn't move in them; outrageous food like lark's tongue pie and roast peacock. And, above all, it was a time of great romanticism.

My theory is just as valid as every other, he protests to himself. And more valid than most. It certainly carries more weight than the one proposed by the idiot who came up with “
une femme
.” And what the hell did Nabo the Negro do to warrant inclusion on the list of the sixty most likely candidates?

Go back to basics, he tells himself. Consider the hard facts.

And he starts working through a mental reconstruction of the evidence. The Château Roger was built in 1687, according to the inscription on the gate pillar — the same year as the masked man's incarceration; the geographic location puts it directly across the strait from the fortress; the size and luxuriousness of his cell are more redolent of a premier hotel than a prison; the murals on the wall suggest a joyous gathering — a wedding, perhaps. And, as Daisy would say, “Zhere is no evidence against it.” The fact that everyone has always believed him to be a prisoner does not make it so: everyone believes I'm on convalescent leave; widows here believe their menfolk are still in the château; women believed that Grimes gave them a free pot.

A buzz on the apartment's intercom interrupts his musings. Marcia Grimes, dishevelled, tear-stained, and
distraught, falls through his doorway and crumples, snivelling, “Daisy told me where to find you.”

“The damn woman,” he mutters lightly, but is not ungrateful. He has some choice words readied for Marcia Grimes, but has been stalling until her husband was out of danger.

“They couldn't reattach Greg's hand,” Marcia manages to tell him through the tears, but he shows her little sympathy.

“If you thought that much about your husband why did you go off with Johnson?”

Her tone drops as she confesses, “I guess it was money … ”

But Bliss knows that. He already got that from his daughter. Samantha phoned back a couple of days earlier, bitching about being used, as usual.

“I said I'd pay,” he told her.

“This is the last time, Dad.”

“The last time on this case, or ...” he said, but she talked over him. “It was quite strange, really. I did the village store and the post office. Everyone knew them. Telling me about them playing the happy family: church — sometimes, village fetes, and jumble sales, etcetera, though often they were selling their pots. ‘ Typical artsy couple,' most people said, which probably means they wore weird clothes, smoked a bit of dope, and ate funny grub — sprouty stuff and spinach, I expect. Anyway, the only really strange thing was that they disappeared without trace over a year ago.”

“That's interesting,” Bliss said, wondering what his neighbours would say about him.

“Their place is all boarded up, but it's next door to the pub so I thought I'd get some lunch. But when I
asked the barman if he knew Greg Grimes the whole place suddenly went dead. It was like I'd stood in the middle of a funeral and shouted, ‘ Who farted?' ”

“Samantha,” he laughed. “So what's their problem?”

“Money — isn't that everybody's problem?”

It was certainly Marcia Grimes's problem. “I'd gone without for years for Greg and the business,” she whimpers as she sits on his balcony seeking sympathy in a large cognac, “but we never got anywhere.”

“I think I can understand,” Bliss says, with a touch of malice. “Greg didn't have a yacht and a limousine.”

Marcia finds the yellow smudge of disintegrated lemon on the lawn in the garden below and sticks to it. “The truth is a rich man's bed may be more comfortable than a poor man's, but there's no such thing as a free fuck.”

“Is that what Johnson was hoping for?”

“Not him,” she cries. “Me.”

“Oh,” he says, taken aback, not sure how to respond. “You mean, he wanted more than just sex?”

“He didn't want sex — he wanted power. That's the problem with being rich. When you can buy whatever you want, you don't want anything you can buy. Cars, boats, houses, and people lose all their value. You only want what you can't have.”

“And what does Johnson want that he can't have?” But he already knows the answer. Samantha told him that also.

“What did they say about Grimes and money?” he asked Samantha, referring to the customers in their local pub.

“From what I can gather almost everyone in the village invested money in the venture.”

“So they're all cogs in a major drug ring, then?”

“No — not drugs, Dad.”

“What then?”

“The treasure hunt.”

“Do you mean Johnson and Greg Grimes were both hunting for treasure?”

“No — not Greg Grimes. Everybody thinks the world of him. She's the one everybody's pissed off with. She gave them a line about her partner having found a Roman galley — that it was all a bit dodgy because he didn't have permission to — ”

“Aha, the classic con,” he cut in knowingly. “Tell the mark the venture isn't strictly above-board, maybe even downright illegal, and they fall for it every time. Apart from adding a touch of spice, it also explains how the deal can offer astronomical dividends. But the great thing is that the poor sucker can't complain to the authorities without admitting to being a co-conspirator in a crooked deal.”

“Correct, Dad. So when I started asking questions, they probably figured I was a cop and kept quiet. Then, in the pub, I sort of disillusioned them.”

“How?”

“Dad,” she hesitated, “this has nothing to do with you — I just made a few uncomplimentary remarks about cops.”

“Why?”

“' Cos I got a fuckin' parking ticket, if you must know. I mean — what a prick the cop was … ”

“Yes, all right.”

“No, I mean it. I'd call him a moron, but he's not that bright. So there I was in the pub letting off steam, and when I brought up Marcia's name — well, you know the rest.”

“Any idea how much?”

“No — and they don't know, either. In fact I got the distinct impression most of them didn't know the guy standing next to him had been suckered into doling out some cash.”

“Another beauty of the scam,” he replied, knowing the con man warns everyone to keep it quiet. “So could any of the investors have hired someone to chop off his hand?”

“Hardly likely, Dad. They still don't know their money's gone.”

“The eternal triumph of hope over expectation,” Bliss replied, wondering if he was talking about the investors or the widows of St-Juan.

“Anyway,” Samantha carried on, “they've got no gripes against Greg Grimes — only her. I get the impression she's a bit of a slag — always carping about him not working hard enough, not keeping her in a standard to which she wanted to become accustomed. And I got the distinct feeling quite a few of the men had got some return on their investment already, if you get my drift.”

“I can see that,” he said, realizing that if Greg Grimes could have captivated a bevy of women with his sensuous hands, Marcia had body parts that would have a similarly devastating effect on men.

“She'd been stringing them along for over a year before they disappeared,” Samantha continued, “but what could they do? They're not likely to have receipts, and who would be willing to stand up in court and admit they'd invested in a seriously dodgy treasure hunt? It seems pretty obvious to me their money's gone, but they're still planning early retirements. There's none so olfactori-ally challenged as those who don't want to smell.”

“They should get together with a bunch of widows I know,” he replied.

“Widows?” she asked.

Respecting his promise to Daisy's mother he did not elaborate, though he put Samantha in the picture about the cache Johnson took aboard the
Sea-Quester
off the coast of Corsica.

“Maybe it was treasure,” she agreed. “Maybe they will get their reward after all.”

Sitting back now to take a good look at the dark-haired Marcia, Bliss doesn't find it difficult to believe she persuaded most of the men in the village to invest in a treasure hunt — Morgan Johnson's treasure hunt. She has an attractive cockiness about her, a prick-teaser's hip-sway capable of keeping many guys within sniffing distance, even if there is a hint of fishiness in the air.

“So,” he asks, “what's Johnson's interest in Roman pottery?”

“How do you know ...” she starts, and then gives up the struggle. “He isn't interested, really,” she snorts. “He's only interested in what he can sell it for. He's addicted to money.”

And like every addict, Bliss thinks to himself, he can never get enough; the next Scotch, next snort, or next spin of the wheel is going to make everything right — but it never does. Another few million will buy another yacht or another villa, but with it comes another round of responsibilities and headaches —
la grande servitude.
“If money brings misery, more money just brings more misery,” he muses aloud, adding, “Strikes me if anybody should have something chopped off, it should have been Johnson. And I know what. But what about Greg? If anyone has an eye for the women it seems Greg wasn't far behind.”

“It wasn't women,” she tells him. “I told you. Didn't you listen? He always tried to choose pretty young women.”

“That's what I mean — ” he starts, but she angrily cuts him short.

“No. You don't understand,” she cries. “It was Natalia he was looking for, not some bird for a quick shag. When I left him he coped, but when Johnson turned Natalia against him he went to pieces.”

“What do you expect me to do?” he asks, for Greg's sake — not hers.

“Find out who did it, of course — who cut Greg's … ” She stops, unable to complete the horrific sentence.

“But why now?” he starts, and then pauses. “Oh. I get it. You've spoken to Johnson, haven't you?”

Taking a drink as an excuse, she doesn't answer immediately, and he weighs up her mind. She obviously blamed her ex-lover initially — that's why she warned her husband to keep quiet — so what changed her mind?

“Morgan Johnson says he didn't do it,” she admits finally.

“And you believe him.”

“He's terrified. He thinks he's next.”

Four days sitting on his balcony picking at his nails hasn't brought Bliss any closer to solving his dilemma over the château, and the problem is exacerbated by his inability to discuss his predicament with anyone without giving the game away.

Feeling like a 1945 bomber pilot with a map of Hiroshima in his pocket, he tries to convince himself his revelation isn't going to kill anyone who isn't already
dead. Then he envisions trainloads of grief counsellors and psychologists being shipped in from all over the country to stem the flow of suicides caused by his exposé of the château's past. Where were they when they were needed? he wonders, but the question is six decades too late.

Since figuring out the true reason for the presence of the masked man in the fortress, and the part the château played in his scheme, Bliss fondly imagined being welcomed as a hero, and saw himself shepherding a new era of tourism and prosperity to the quaint little resort that cowers in the shadow of its more publicized neighbours. But now he realizes the effect on the community could be catastrophic. Once he opens the cage and lets the dark genie out no amount of stuffing will get it back in. Maybe it's time, he thinks, maybe they'll thank me — but maybe they won't. And, as preposterous as it seems, he worries many of the château's widows have spent the remainder of their lives in celibacy, mindful of the possibility of their husbands' return — what a let-down when they discover the truth.