Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. (19 page)

“Their overnight bags are missing, too,” Phillips reminds him, though Bliss doesn't find that strange.

“They wouldn't go far without makeup and stuff,” he says, “But there's no way she would have stuck to that monstrous hat. And you know as well as I do that the absence of evidence is evidence itself. No scent, no
tracks and no hat means only one thing: they were never there — full stop.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Forget the search team. You're looking in the wrong place. Get a forensic squad to go over the contraption with a fine-tooth comb. Someone must have dropped it off from a truck; it's too big to fit in a car. Check it for fingerprints —”

“We're ahead of you there, Dave,” interjects Phillips. “I had the fingerprint gal look at it yesterday. It was clean.”

“Just the women's —”

“No. Clean — clean… Absolutely, totally clean.”

“Well that's kind'a fishy for a start. Who would have wiped it? I mean, it's hardly a Jag or a souped-up Jetta. No one's gonna hot-wire it to pull off a heist or go for a joyride.”

“I hear you, Dave,” says Phillips. “I'll get the forensic boys on it right away.”

“Check the tires, Mike. If it was wheeled off a truck there are bound to be some residues in the treads.”

“Okay, Dave,” Phillips is saying as Bliss responds to an insistent tug on his sleeve.

“
Daavid,
” whispers Daisy. “Quickly. Zhey are here looking for you.”

The stakeout is tight. Double-manned cars — one at each end of the side street, plus a backup vehicle on the main road — while the driver of the blue Honda has slipped into the restaurant and is interrogating the waitress.

“Sure they wuz here,” she says, nodding to the vacated table. “And they haven't paid yet.”

“Thanks,” says the burly man as he digs a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. “Here. Keep the change,” he
adds, then he dashes off, sounding like a ventriloquist as he mutters into his lapel microphone, “Okay, guys. They're on the move.”

However, in the nearby monastery, Daphne and Trina are clearly going nowhere, and the younger woman is rapidly falling apart under the strain as she snivels over her breakfast.

“All day yesterday I kept telling myself it was just a silly dream, and you just kept smiling and pretending it was a fairy tale. But it's not, is it?” Then she leaps up and screeches at the camera, “Why are you doing this? Why don't you let us go?” before flying across the room and viciously kicking at the door.

“Listen, Trina,” says Daphne, as Trina limps back across the room and crumples into a blubbering ball onto the bed. “When Minnie died I looked into my future and all I saw was dementia, diapers and death. Then you and David gave me something to look forward to.”

“But there's nothing to look forward to in here,” Trina is saying as the door opens and Bumface scoots in, looking as though he's ready to strangle her before backing down and putting on a concerned look.

“Please stop shouting and kicking, Mrs. Button,” he says gently. “We don't want you hurting yourself.”

“I wann'a go home! I wann'a go home,” howls Trina, and Daphne rushes to throw a comforting arm around her while appealing to Bumface.

“Why are you doing this? Can't you see she's frantic to see her family?”

“Well, she should behave herself then,” says Bumface as he leaves.

The Bellingham back street is virtually clear of traffic by the time Daisy, alone, gingerly nudges Trina's car out of the underground garage.

“Just take it easy,” Bliss told her. “Remember: they're after me, not you.” But her hands are fiercely locked to the wheel as she emerges into the daylight and catches sight of the blue Honda.

“Don't be scared,” Bliss had said, but Daisy's foot is shaking as she squeezes the throttle and eases the VW onto the quiet street.

The Honda driver is making a performance of folding his newspaper as Daisy passes, and she might have smiled at his ineptness if she weren't so terrified.

“Once they see I'm not with you they'll back off,” Bliss assured her, but as she nears the main road the Honda is already creeping closer, and a black limousine with an official state licence plate is edging off a hotel's forecourt half a block away.

“Head north, back into the city centre,” Bliss instructed, and as Daisy turns onto the main road she is so nervous that she misses the red light and nearly nails a speedy cyclist.

“
Oh! Pardon… Pardon,
” she cries as the cyclist glowers and swerves around her. Then she checks the mirror, spots the white Ford speeding towards her, and hits the gas in alarm.

“Don't race, whatever you do,” Bliss warned, but with three cars on her tail she panics and reverts to her Gallic driving habits.

“Goddammit,” spits the Honda driver as he realizes what's happening, and he yells into his radio's microphone, “Unit two — Unit two! Try to head her off.”

“Ten-four,” responds the driver of the black limo as he slams his foot to the floor. But Daisy is already gaining on her pursuers as she zips Trina's sporty little
Volkswagen around the streets — weaving from lane to lane with Mediterranean panache, leaving startled American drivers in her wake.

“Unit three!” yells the director. “Go north on Twentieth and try to get ahead of her.”

“Ten-four,” calls the driver of the white Ford, though he's barely finished speaking when Daisy slams her car broadside across the road and slips into a narrow service alley.

“She's trapped,” muses the Honda driver, expecting the Volkswagen to grind to a halt amongst the garbage bins and discarded cardboard boxes, but the lane is wider than most highways in her native land, and Daisy screeches through without slowing. “Oh, man!” moans the lead driver, and he is quickly back on the radio. “All units: she's headed west on 55. I repeat — west.”

“Whad'ya want me to do, boss?” queries the Ford driver, but the driver of the limousine cuts in. “I've got her. She's on 24 going north again.”

Daisy spots the black limo pulling out of a junction ahead of her, and without slowing appreciably she flips the car sideways onto two wheels in the middle of an intersection, spins one hundred and eighty degrees, and takes off south again.

“Okay — back off! Back off all units!” yells the Honda driver, then he calls for reinforcements.

The siren and flashing lights of a police cruiser finally force Trina's Jetta to a halt a few minutes later, and as men come running from all directions, Daisy leaps out of the car and stands with her hands in the air, shouting, “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”

“Boy, that was some fancy driving, ma'am,” beams an officer as he lowers her arms and shakes her hand. Then another front-runner sticks his head into the car, asking worriedly, “But where is Chief Inspector Bliss?”

“
J'ne parle pas anglais,
” claims Daisy, as per Bliss's instructions, but one of the officers speaks French and steps forward to explain that he and his colleagues are a protection team sent to ensure Bliss's safety.

“It's just that the governor heard he'd had a few problems yesterday and wanted to make sure that he got to the conference all right,” the man continues, before questioning, “So where is he?”

Daisy's eyes give the game away, and seconds later the lid of the Volkswagen's cramped trunk opens.

“Chief Inspector Bliss?” queries one of the officers as Bliss unwinds himself and groans in pain.

“Are you okay, sir?” asks one of the men helping him out of the back of the vehicle.

Bliss warily eyes the sharply dressed men surrounding him, demanding, “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Lieutenant Jewison at your service, sir,” says the Honda driver, stepping forward.

“And…?” Bliss queries, expecting to find Brush-head and his sidekick amid the sea of faces with an order for his immediate deportation.

“And, I'm here to put this limousine and official escort at your disposal with the governor's compliments, sir,” the officer continues, smiling proudly.

Ten minutes later, with Trina's car safely stored at the Bellingham police station, Bliss carefully checks the passing road signs through the limo's deeply tinted windows, still half-concerned that his escort might be whisking them to the Canadian border, while whispering to Daisy, “The trouble is, I've no idea who are good guys and bad guys anymore.” But Daisy is more interested in a growing aroma that's permeating the air as they sink into the soft leather seats.

“What's that smell,
Daavid?
” she queries, turning her nose up at his jacket.

“Banana,” he says sourly.

“
Banane?
”

“
Oui,
” he says, cursing Trina for leaving a paper bag of the overripe fruit in the trunk of her car.

On any normal day, the owner of the Volkswagen might have laughed had she heard of Bliss's misfortune, though she is certainly not laughing today. Despite Daphne's repeated attempts to keep up the younger woman's morale, Trina is sapped by the constant anxiety over her husband and children, and by mid-morning she is close to crashing. “It's Thursday,” she sobs. “I only made them food for three days, and I left the bananas in the back of the car.”

“Oh, I'm sure they'll manage,” says Daphne absently as her mind spins with implausible plans to break out of the room.

“Never, never, never, give h'up,” the survival expert had repeatedly insisted. “There is no such thing as a totally h'escape-proof prison, h'and there never will be.”

So what about this place?
Daphne questions herself, then sets out to explore every conceivable escape route her mind can conjure.

“First: try to catch ‘em h'off guard,” the animated bantamweight officer had said as he'd pranced around, punching at an imaginary foe, but Daphne shakes her head at the prospect of taking on Spotty Dick and Bumface. And she similarly dismisses equally impractical notions involving tunnels, explosives and rooftop rescues. The idea of emulating a team of British officers, who had surreptitiously built a full-size glider in the attic of Colditz Castle during the Second
World War, holds her attention far longer than it warrants, and she is finally left with little beyond stealing a monk's habit and impersonating one of the guards. However, Spotty Dick and Bumface have given up their masquerade and now appear in T-shirts and jeans.

“They'll be pigging out at McDonald's on burgers and shakes,” carries on Trina pessimistically, while Daphne is deliberating whether or not it will be possible to climb the razor-wire fence, or whether they should try to hack their way through it with her penknife.

“They're never gonna let us go, are they?” whines Trina, and Daphne finally decides that a serious talk is called for.

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” says Spotty Dick, starting to rise as the two women scuttle back into the bathroom, but Bumface waves him back down.

“Hey, forget it. They might as well have one last fling if they want,” he says and catches a critical look from his partner.

Daphne has picked up on the danger signals as well. “I don't like the way that Bumface is behaving,” she admits with a worried frown. “He's lost his bolshiness. As if he doesn't care what we do anymore.”

“What does that mean?” asks Trina in a whisper.

“It means he thinks he knows what's going to happen to us,” replies Daphne as she recalls the captivity survival officer's warning to “watch h'out for any cold-hearted bastard who suddenly goes soft on you. It usually means he's getting ready to drop a bomb.”

“Maybe they're going to let us go,” suggests Trina, brightening.

“Maybe…” says Daphne, appearing to agree, before adding, “But we've got to stay strong — all right?”

“All right, Daphne.”

“Mustn't let them think we're weakening, okay?”

“Okay, Daphne. But what are we going to do if they don't let us out?”

“Come on, ladies,” calls Bumface from the bedroom. “We've brought you some nice lunch.”

“Thanks,” mumbles Trina, and they emerge from the bathroom to find Bumface wearing something akin to a smile as he puts a laden tray on the table.

“There we are, ladies,” he says as if he's prepared the meal himself, but Daphne has her eye on Spotty Dick, who is skulking nervously in the background, and she waits for a nod of approval that doesn't come.

“It's all my fault, Daphne. I'm always doing stupid things,” says Trina as the two men leave, but Daphne is hardly listening and replies vaguely, “Trying to help Norman and the others wasn't stupid.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because —”

“I'm never going to see my kids again, am I?” keens Trina, unaware of the hiatus as Daphne struggles to get her thoughts together. “H'always watch for a change,” the officer is saying in her mind. “H'especially if the greasy little bastards start treating you really nice.”

“Listen,” says Daphne, sidling up to Trina and stroking the heartbroken woman's hair reassuringly. “You mustn't give up. You've got so much to look forward to. But I've already lived my life — every day is a bonus. It's like being given extra time at the end of a hockey match with the chance to score the deciding goal.”

“You can't. Not stuck in here,” howls Trina.

“You're wrong, Trina. Maybe I've got the chance to score the most important goal ever.”

“How?”

“By getting you safely back home to your family.”

“And how are you going to do that? They're not going to let us go now. You know that.”

“You've just got to follow the White Rabbit.”

“What?”

“Trina. Surely you remember
Alice in Wonderland
?”