Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. (11 page)

“Doctors are reporting a major increase in the number of people requesting prescriptions for tranquilizers,” reads an editorial in the
Financial Times
, prompting an immediate run on the shares of certain drug companies. While the wives of stockbrokers with holdings in undertakers, funeral parlours, crematoriums, florists, limousines and law firms are already choosing colours for their new Porsches.

Chief Superintendent Edwards is surprised to find Bliss already at his desk when he arrives a little before nine.

“Ah, nice of you to come back, Chief Inspector,” he starts with a smile, then he spots the pile of paperwork on Bliss's desk and puts on a darker face. “I hope you haven't started on that lot yet.”

“Finished,” announces Bliss triumphantly.

“Actually, David,” begins Edwards, in a tone that Bliss immediately recognizes as a precursor to disenchantment, “I'm going to have to cancel your trip. The Home
Secretary has asked the Commissioner to set up a squad to look into this suicide nonsense, and I've recommended that you be appointed to head it.”

“Well, thank you for your consideration, sir,” says Bliss, sweeping his hand over the papers on his desk, “but I'm already prepared for Seattle.”

“Chief Inspector, you know the score,” continues Edwards with his ears closed. “Ten thousand snuff it in an earthquake in Turkmenistan or Timbuktu and nobody gives a toss, but if a few crumblies in Tower Hamlets are considerate enough to bump themselves off to save the taxpayers a few quid, the public expects a bloody special squad.”

“But I've already booked the tickets,” lies Bliss.

“Well, cancel them — what d'ye mean, ‘tickets'?”

“I'm taking Daphne Lovelace,” Bliss explains, careful not to mention that he'd also planned on inviting Daisy.

“You're not still granny-sitting that batty old bird, are you?” scoffs Edwards. “Christ, she was prancing around like a bloody head banger at Peter Bryan's wedding.”

“Well, she's not prancing around now,” Bliss protests. “She needs a bit of a change of scenery.” But it gets him nowhere.

“Cancel, Bliss,” orders Edwards as he stomps off. “And I'll expect a preliminary report on the suicide situation by nine Monday morning.”

How quickly the veneer of niceness slips from the face of the insincere,
thinks Bliss as he picks up his phone and hits the first number on his speed dial.

“
Allô?
” answers a familiar voice as a phone rings in a real-estate agent's in the quaint Provençal resort of St. Juan-sur-Mer.

“
Bonjour,
Daisy,” replies Bliss, “
Comment allezvous, ma petite pucelle?
”

“
Daavid,
” she laughs, “you are still speaking zhe French like zhe Spanish cow —
Tu parles français comme une vache espagnole.
”

“Zhank you,” mocks Bliss with a laugh before inviting her to join him for a week's holiday in Seattle.

October is sliding towards winter in the mountains corralling Vancouver, and the grizzlies are stocking their caves. But down in the wide estuary of the Fraser Valley, where concrete blocks and blacktop ribbons sprawl across a dozen Pacific islands, the balmy sea breezes spread a warm blanket over the city and will continue to do so until the full sun returns with the coho salmon in spring.

“This is the scary part,” whispers Bliss to Daphne as they aim for the airport on Sea Island, and he watches nervously as they skim ever lower over the Strait of Georgia until the undercarriage of their 747 seems certain to catch in the tall masts of yachts sailing the smooth waters.

“I love it,” enthuses Daphne with her face stuck to the window. “And look at all those log rafts. They must be miles long; thousands of trees all pulled by those funny little tugboats — and look at all the trawlers.”

Bliss smiles at his old friend's re-found bounce, and a few seconds later he's thankful for the reassuring jolt
as the indigo water solidifies into tarmac and they glide to a standstill.

“I hope Trina's here to meet you,” he murmurs worriedly as they taxi to the terminal. “I've got to be in Seattle in a couple of hours to meet Daisy.”

“Oh, she'll be here,” answers Daphne confidently, and she is correct. However, Trina is not actually in the arrivals building. The sparkly young woman is outside, in the loading zone, where she is verbally dancing with a blue-suited security guard who is attempting to give her a ticket for illegal parking.

“Where does it say ‘No Bikes?'” demands Trina as she sits in the cockpit of the Kidneymobile with her arms folded, while bemused travellers crowd around.

“Madam — ‘No Parking' means no parking. Look at the signs,” he says as he finishes writing the ticket and fruitlessly searches for a licence plate.

“No.
You
look at the signs, young man,” she ripostes. “There are pictures of vans, cars, buses and trucks, but where is there a picture of a four-wheeled kidney-shaped bathtub complete with shower unit and duck figurehead, eh?”

“Can I take a photo, Miss?” asks an intrigued passer-by, attracted by the gaily coloured nautical bunting strung from stem to stern.

“Sure,” starts Trina, and she primps herself up, but the security guard needs to win at least one battle and spits, “Put the camera away, sir. This vehicle is breaking the law.”

“Come and look at this,” yells a teenage footballer to a busload of his buddies. “This is cool.”

“Stand back!” cries the guard in desperation, and he tries to make a cordon with his outstretched arms, but he's instantly swarmed. “Stop that!” he screeches as the photographer flashes off a dozen shots. Then he gets serious and pulls out his radio.

“Watch this,” says Trina to the growing crowd, and she stands up in her tub to unfurl the makeshift sail from the top of the mainmast. Splashed across the cerulean blue shower curtain dotted with frolicking dolphins is a banner in six-inch-high fluorescent yellow lettering which reads, “Canada welcomes Lady Daphne.”

“Assistance needed arrivals concourse,” a desperate voice is bleating into a walkie-talkie as a motor coach pulls up alongside the Kidneymobile and disgorges fifty home-bound Chinese tourists.

“I's a Lady Daphanee,” calls one of the visitors, deciphering the sign, and out come more cameras.

“This is an emergency!” pleads the security guard as the burgeoning crowd blocks the traffic and motorists start abandoning vehicles to rubberneck.

“It's for charity,” Trina announces loudly, and the Chinese party's interpreter translates to her superstitious flock that a substantial donation will guarantee a safe flight back to Beijing.

“Oh, my!” exclaims Trina as coins and bills begin flooding into the bathtub.

“You can't collect for charity without a permit,” yells the guard, feeling on safer ground, but Trina shrugs. “I'm not collecting — it's the Kidneymobile, not me.”

The crowd intensifies as Bliss and Daphne clear immigration and customs and unsuccessfully search the sea of faces in the arrivals hall for Trina, and five minutes later money from all corners of the globe is pouring into the bath as the English visitors emerge inquisitively onto the concourse. One tourist from Los Angeles wants to know if Trina can break a Canadian hundred-dollar bill, then changes his mind and hands it to her with a smile, saying, “It's only good for Monopoly back home.”

“I could arrest you for taking that,” warns the security guard as he threatens Trina with his pen, but
he's elbowed aside by the throng as more and more travellers empty their pockets and purses.

“But who is Lady Daphne?” queries one of the bystanders as the same question is being asked upstairs in the airport's press office and a reporter is hastily despatched to the scene.

Daphne is wearing one of her hats, a hat of such proportion that it had caused a commotion at the check-in desk at Heathrow because, in its bag, its dimensions had far exceeded the permitted size for carry-on luggage. “No problem,” Daphne had trilled, whipping it out of the bag and plonking it on her head, explaining, “There, dear. Now it's not luggage.”

Trina spots the telltale polka-dot creation and stands in her bathtub to rise above the crowd while she furiously waves a giant Union Flag. “David… Daphne… Over here!” she shouts, and the crowd turns as one and parts.

Daphne takes the sight of a couple of dozen bowing Chinese men in her stride and reciprocates with a series of polite nods as she makes her way through the throng, while Bliss keeps his head down as he trails behind her with the baggage cart.

“What on earth?” exclaims Bliss as they reach the hybrid machine, but Daphne adores it. A few minutes later with Trina — and a fiercely protesting Bliss — pedalling, she is enthroned atop the suitcases in the back of the bathtub and is waving regally to the crowd as they slowly move off. Well-wishers continue pouring money into the tub as they pass, while eager young children push and try to clamber aboard as the vehicle processes slowly towards the parking lot where Trina's car and a trailer await.

“Isn't this fun, David?” screeches Daphne in delight as she keeps up her waving, but Bliss is clearly under strain as he scoffs to Trina, “You're not really intending to pedal this all the way to New York, are you?”

“Exciting, isn't it?” bubbles Trina, and she beams at a press photographer who is running alongside, snapping pictures and making notes. “And it's not too late to volunteer to come with me,” she adds, digging Bliss enthusiastically in the ribs.

“Sorry, I'm busy at that time,” says Bliss.

“But I didn't tell you when I'm going.”

“Oh. Didn't you?” he replies straight-faced, as yet another flashbulb pops in his face.

Bliss is still laughing about Trina an hour later as he approaches the American border in his hired car.
At least she cheered Daphne up pretty fast,
he admits to himself as he slows behind a nondescript white van with Washington state licence plates — just one of a thousand vehicles heading home from British Columbia at the end of another working day — and he watches with a professional eye as the customs officer takes a cursory look at two of the occupants' documents before waving the vehicle through.

“They could be smuggling almost anything in the back of that van,” Bliss muses, his mind on his upcoming presentation, and as he creeps forward with his passport in his hand, he can't possibly imagine how right he is.

“Visa,” demands the pinch-faced officer as he snatches the passport, and Bliss can't resist a wisecrack. “I've only got MasterCard and American Express,” he says with a broad grin.

But the officer is not smiling — has possibly never smiled — and Bliss quickly changes his tune. “Sorry,” he says as he flashes his badge. “I didn't have time to get a visa, but I'm from Scotland Yard on my way to address a conference in Seattle.”

“Just pull over there and report to the office.”

“Do I have to —” starts Bliss, but the officer stares skywards.

“Thanks,” mutters Bliss with a scowl.

Trina Button, on the other hand, is beaming as she and Daphne tip bucketfuls of coins and bills onto her kitchen table in West Vancouver. “Maybe I should just go to the airport every day instead of New York,” she laughs as she picks out the larger bills. “Though it won't help Norman now.”

“Norman?” queries Daphne.

“Yeah, my kidney patient. I was hoping you'd get to meet him, but he passed away over the weekend.”

“Oh, dear. His kidneys finally gave out, did they?”

“No, it was suicide,” whispers Trina, without adding that she's somewhat perturbed because he seemed so upbeat about his chances when he saw the Kidneymobile.

“There are plenty of suicides about in England at the moment,” declares Daphne as she helps Trina sort the coins by denomination and nationality.

“I've heard,” admits Trina. “It was on the news. They're dying like flies, apparently. What's happening?”

“David's got a theory,” continues Daphne. “He thinks it's probably some freaky religious sect like the Branch Davidians, saying, ‘Hand over all your lolly and God will grant you immortality at Armageddon.'”

“Minnie wouldn't have fallen for that, would she?”

“Maybe,” answers Daphne as she dabs at a tear with the back of her hand. “She could be very flighty at times. Though that wouldn't explain why she was so determined to take me on a trip ‘round the world.”

“You were really looking forward to that, weren't you?” says Trina as she hands over a box of tissues, then
screeches in delight. “I know — we could take a trip. Let's surprise David and Daisy. Let's ride the Kidneymobile to Seattle and visit them.”

“I don't think so…” starts Daphne, but Trina is already running for her road atlas. “Look,” she says sympathetically as she finds the relevant map, “I know it's not quite the same as going around the world with Minnie, but the scenery is wonderful; there are mountains, forests, lakes and the ocean, and we can stay in a really plush hotel each night — maybe even a spa.”

“I'm not sure,” says Daphne, though there is sufficient waver in her voice to let Trina in.

“We could get Rick to drop us near the U.S. border, then we'd only need to do about forty kilometres a day,” she says with her finger on the map. “We'll keep to the coast and the back roads so we won't have to worry about traffic.”

“But, I'm not sure David would really appreciate visitors.”

“Oh, rubbish, Daphne,” laughs Trina. “He seems like the kind of person who just loves to be the centre of attention.”

However, thirty-five miles south of them at the American border, Bliss is already the centre of attention, and he is certainly not loving it.