Lovelace and Button (International Investigators) Inc. (6 page)

“Then why didn't you stay at the scene? Why didn't you phone the police?”

“With my form, who would've believed me?”

Stapleton's form — a year's probation for indiscreetly lighting up a reefer in a bus shelter occupied by a young constable aiming for a spot on the Drug Squad — has been kept from the press to ensure an unbiased jury, but
his guilt has already been sealed. There is not a person in Westchester who doesn't claim to know the young villain, and there are few who believe that the gallows are too good for him.

Stapleton's shell-shocked parents have been besieged in their tomato-spattered home since the morning papers dropped the news on neighbour's doormats, and uniformed officers have been standing guard around the clock, though they have been unsuccessful in stopping the occasional missile. A tearful televised appeal by the accused teenager's father, Reginald, for his son to be given a fair trial was soundly booed by a lynch mob in his local pub, and the builder for whom he subcontracted had been on the phone, though not to offer support.

“I'm sure you understand, Reg,” he said, without saying anything. “If it was up to me. But the clients won't like it. I've had calls already.”

“Are you firing me?”

“Let's just say we're giving you time to sort out a little domestic problem.”

The feeding frenzy had become insatiable by mid-afternoon on the day following Stapleton's arrest, when a raucous throng had lined the route from the police station to the courthouse as he was transferred for his first appearance. Thousands of keening women threw eggs and hammered their fists on the armoured truck carrying the young prisoner. Reporters, rushing out of the crowd with cameras held high, attempted to scoop a candid picture, and several television stations had cut into regular programming to show the event.
“I am the resurrection and the life…” begins the mitred bishop solemnly, and the cameras home in on him as he proselytizes to Minnie over her flag-shrouded coffin.

The Union Flag, normally reserved for the high and mighty, symbolizes the extent of public feeling and the shrewdness of the church in aligning itself with the proletariat. But the nationwide television coverage has more to do with speculation that a low-grade Royal will put in an appearance rather than any need to appeal to the masses.

“… He that believeth in me, thou he were dead, yet shall he live,” continues the bishop, leaving Daphne muttering under her breath, “Minnie's got a problem, then. She gave up on him years ago.”

The tumultuous public gnashing of teeth that has swept the country since Minnie's death has been driven by the persistent press coverage. For the first few days following the incident, the sight of Minnie being physically sucked off the end of the platform by a two-hundred-ton monster proved infinitely more captivating than the inert body of some eighty-year-old who'd been splattered to death in her bed by a lunatic with a cricket bat.

The digitally enhanced moment of Minnie's spectacular evaporation would certainly win a prize in any competition for the world's funniest video, were it not so macabre, and most television presenters have done their best to make sure that the majority of people watched, by warning them not to. “Viewers may find the following pictures disturbing,” they say in apparent seriousness, and macho teens, inured to video violence, email and text their friends — “Hey. Did you see the old biddy get zapped by a train?”

The major television news networks capitalized on Minnie's spectacular demise ad nauseam, until public
indignation eventually shut them down. But the contentious decision to show the video in the first place, as much as the sight of Minnie being whipped away on the front of the express, has galvanized public opinion. The storm over the bootlegging and leaking of the video has given the government a headache which, by the morning of Minnie's funeral, has become a fullblown depression for the chief constables of the two police forces involved. Yet, despite exhaustive enquiries by both the Hampshire and British Transport Police, the culprit has not been found.

Another government headache, though less agonizing, has arisen over Ronnie Stapleton's treatment in the remand wing of the local prison. The televised image of Minnie's sensational downfall incensed many of the more respectable prisoners. Burglars, bank robbers and everyday car thieves bandied together in their revulsion — deciding that Stapleton's crime was on a par with diddling little children — and arranged a welcome party for him in the prison's shower room.

By Monday morning, when Stapleton had been due to appear in Magistrate's Court for a further remand hearing, Bliss was at Westchester Police Station conferring with Inspector Mainsbridge.

“I've just heard that your prisoner's had a very nasty accident in jail,” said Mainsbridge, meeting his colleague in the foyer.

“Oh God! I feared that might happen,” admitted Bliss as they made their way to Mainsbridge's office. “I bet every old lag in the country has a granny like Minnie, or they'd like to have one. The screws should have realized that was a possibility. They should have put him in segregation, or on the hospital wing.”

“The trouble is that the guards have all got grannies as well, Dave,” Mainsbridge said as he motioned Bliss to a chair, adding, “I thought you would have been glad to be back at the Yard this morning,”

“I'd cleared my desk to make way for Samantha's wedding,” Bliss explained, “so a few extra days won't make a great deal of difference. And I can't help feeling we've missed something, Mick,” he continued. “It just doesn't make sense for Stapleton to have legged it with that much money and then wander the streets in the rain. Why wasn't he getting pissed with his mates or beetling off to Paris for the weekend?”

Bliss and Mainsbridge got an answer, of sorts, a few minutes later when Stapleton's lawyer raised himself to a lofty five-foot-three in front of the cameras outside the empty courtroom.

“My client saw the deceased, Mrs. Minnie Elizabeth Dennon, in a very distressed state,” Goldsmith meticulously explained. “He was concerned about her, so, in a spirit of altruism rarely seen in young people today, he followed her to the railway station to simply make sure she was all right. When he realized that she was standing too close to the edge of the platform for safety, he rushed to restrain her, to save her life, but unfortunately he only managed to grab hold of her bag.”

“What a load of twaddle,” Mainsbridge whispered in Bliss's ear as they watched on one of the station's sets.

“As a result of precipitous action by the police,” Goldsmith continued smarmily, “and before they had established the full facts of this case, my client had been arrested and incarcerated in a penal establishment where he was seriously assaulted and sodomized.”

“Serves the little bugger right,” muttered Mains-bridge, and seemed unconcerned as Goldsmith had wrapped up his address by saying, “It is my client's
intention to take action against the officers involved for unlawful arrest and unreasonable detention, and to demand a public enquiry into the laxity of the prison service.”

“The Lord gave…” continues the bishop with reverence, “… and the Lord hath taken away.” Though Bliss can't help wondering if it might not be more appropriate to hold the railway company responsible for that.

“Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” concludes the bishop, and Daphne sniffs loudly as the coffin containing a substantial amount of Minnie is slowly wheeled past them on her way to her final resting place.

“I hate to say it, David,” says Daphne, as she takes Bliss's arm to escort the entourage out of the cathedral to the waiting hearse, “but I can't help feeling that young Master Stapleton got exactly what he deserved. Poor Minnie was so looking forward to that trip.”

“Obviously,” responds Bliss, and for that reason he hunts out D.I. Mainsbridge from amongst the throng of mourners.

“Let's have another look at that tape from the railway station, Mike,” says Bliss. “It's not that I buy Stapleton's mouthpiece's story, but something doesn't add up here.”

“What?”

“Well,” starts Bliss, “we have the remains of the deceased's coat, her handbag and her purse. Yet we don't have a railway ticket.”

“And…?”

“I've checked at the station. There is no record of anyone buying a ticket around that time.”

“So…?”

“So, what was she doing there without a ticket?”

“Meeting someone, perhaps.”

“Then they should have shown up on the next train.”

“Stapleton could have stolen the ticket with the money…”

“
If
he stole the money.”

“But, if he didn't, who did?”

The missing money is still plaguing Bliss an hour later as he and Mainsbridge rerun the digitalized version of the surveillance tape for the
n
th time.

“It doesn't look as though her bag's particularly stuffed,” says Bliss, peering closely as a smudgy figure moves across the platform one frame at a time.

“Ten grand in big bills doesn't take much space, Dave.”

“True,” agrees Bliss, then he follows Stapleton's progress as the shadowy teenager creeps out of the darkness and begins his run.

“See,” explains Mainsbridge, pausing the image. “She starts to turn just as he reaches for her bag, then, ‘Bang!'”

“He reckoned she jumped.”

“I s'pose it's possible,” admits Mainsbridge. “It's dark, foggy. The old bird is miles away in Kathmandu or Kuala Lumpur. He sneaks up behind her at a run and scares the crap out of her — ‘Boom!' — she leaps like a rabbit with a shotgun shell up its bum.”

“So, you think he might not have planned it.”

“Hey, Dave. Don't worry. It's still manslaughter, even if he gets away with murder, and it won't matter a monkey's fart how much steam his mouthpiece blows.”

A phone call cuts into their conversation, and Mainsbridge hands the receiver to Bliss. “It's a Chief Superintendent Edwards for you, Dave.”

Bliss's face falls as he briefly cups his hand over the mouthpiece and mutters, “Damn!”

“Dave, old chap…” explodes Edwards with uncharacteristic bonhomie. “Congratulations — that was a good collar, well done.”

“Thank you…”

“What's all this crap from his lawyer? Is he smoking something, or is he talking out of his backside?”

“Well, there are a few —”

“Rubbish, Dave. I've seen the video. Christ! The whole damn world's seen the video. It's cut and dried — nail the nasty little bastard's bollocks to the floor.”

“It's just that —”

“Like I said, Dave, nice one.” Then his tone takes on a sarcastic edge. “By the way, are you still working for us, or have you joined the turnip crunchers permanently?”

“I was just waiting for the funeral…”

“Okay. I'll expect to see you first thing tomorrow morning, then.”

“Yes —” Bliss starts, but the line is dead and he's still shaking his head as he replaces the receiver.

“Who the hell was that?” queries Mainsbridge.

“Edwards,” replies Bliss. “Senior delegate of the sore-backside brigade at H.Q. He's bleating about me still being here. I've told Daphne that I'll go with her to the bank to sort out Minnie's affairs later this afternoon, but after that I'll have to get back to the big house.”

“No sweat, Dave. They reckon it'll be weeks before Stapleton's fit to plead. Anyway, I've got all the evidence I need.”

Mark Anderson, Minnie's bank manager, is well aware of his customer's demise but, other than offering his condolences, he's unwilling to discuss her affairs with anyone, even a chief inspector from Scotland Yard, until
Daphne puts the bite on him. Staring him coldly in the eye, she queries, “Aren't you the Mark Anderson who grew up on Batsford Street?”

“Yes,” he responds cagily.

“I thought I recognized you,” says Daphne triumphantly, and then her face sours as she closely scrutinizes him. “That's the trouble with small towns, Mark. I'm sure we all do things when we're teenagers that we hope will be forgotten… although I doubt that Detective Chief Inspector Bliss would be too interested in hearing about —”

“All right… All right,” steps in Anderson, smiling wryly as he turns puce. “I'm sure Mrs. Dennon wouldn't have minded me telling you that I spoke to her about her account. It was my duty when she applied for the overdraft. After all, she was asking for a lot of money for someone with only a state pension to sustain her.”

“So, what did she want it for?” asks Bliss, wondering how Minnie had sold him on the idea of a world tour.

“She said it was some kind of business partnership,” continues Anderson. “Something so big she couldn't tell anyone for risk of ruining the deal.”

“And you didn't need a business plan or some kind of collateral?” asks Bliss in surprise.

“Some of our more senior customers can be very persuasive, Chief Inspector,” Anderson admits, giving Daphne a poisonous glare. “Anyway, in view of the circumstances, the bank has written off the debt.”

“I guess Minnie knew about his past as well,” says Bliss as they leave the bank. “What on earth did he do as a teenager?”

“I've absolutely no idea, David,” chortles Daphne, “though something certainly made him poop his pants.”

“You are incorrigible, Miss Lovelace,” laughs Bliss, taking her arm and leading her up the High Street towards Watson Street and Minnie's last known place of abode.

Nothing has changed in the flat since Bliss's previous visit. “There's no point in going through the cupboards again,” he is saying as he takes a contemplative pull at a corner of carpet while Daphne scours the little sitting room and rechecks the cushions of the settee, saying, “God knows what she did with the money. She certainly didn't buy furniture. This lot wouldn't get ten quid at auction.”