Crazy Lady by James Hawkins Read Free Book Online

you say that to all the girls.”
    â€œOnce upon a time,” he replies. “Once upon a time.” And ten minutes later, with the old man tucked under a blanket in front of a warm fire, she’s on her way to clean up Mrs. Stewart.
    â€œSorry, had a bit of an accident in the bed,” says the septuagenarian without getting out of her chair.
    â€œWhat a surprise,” mutters Trina
sotto voce
, saying aloud, “Never mind, accidents happen.”
    â€œDo they, dear?”
    â€œEvery day apparently,” mumbles Trina as she pulls on rubber gloves and heads for the bedroom.
    Back in Westchester, Daphne Lovelace pours herself a cup of Keemun tea musing, “It’s the Queen’s favourite,” and tries another phone call with Plan B in mind.
    â€œAllo,” answers a foreign-voiced female, once Daphne has been connected to the apartment of David Bliss in St-Juan-sur-Mer on the French Côte d’Azur.
    â€œIs that you, Daisy?” queries the Englishwoman, recognizing Bliss’s Gallic companion, and within seconds she is talking to the man himself: Chief Inspector David Bliss, Scotland Yard detective turned author.
    â€œDavid. How’s the old novel coming along?”
    â€œIt’s not easy, Daphne,” he says, but is too polite to add, Especially when people keep interrupting me. Instead he asks, “So, what can I do for you?”
    â€œJanet Thurgood…” begins Daphne, then she gives a brief account of her meeting with Amelia Drinkwater.
    â€œJust this once,” Bliss warns, once he’s taken a few notes. “Try bugging Superintendent Donaldson at Westchester police station if you want anything else. I’m trying to work.”
    â€œDavid. You sound cross with me.”
    He softens with a laugh. “Not really. It’s just that I didn’t realize how difficult it was to write a book. And the commissioner has only given me a year off.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œDon’t worry. I’ll make some inquiries and get back to you.”
    RCMP Inspector Mike Phillips in Vancouver is also making inquiries. Janet’s hasty departure from Trina’s basement suite can mean only thing, especially in Sergeant Brougham’s mind. “Why else would she have run?” he demands, spreading his hands wide to invite suggestions, but while most ten-year-olds might easily come up with a dozen possible reasons for a person not wishing to beinterviewed by the police, Sergeant Brougham has one and doesn’t await contradiction. “She shoved him over the top, bet my pension.”
    â€œIt was a heart attack,” reminds Phillips, but that doesn’t stop Brougham.
    â€œYeah, well, anyone would have a heart attack if they’re chucked down a basement into a fish tank.”
    Phillips lays a cautionary hand on Brougham’s shoulder. “Dave, think about it. Roddy Montgomery was twice — correction, three times — the size of this woman. You saw her, for Chrissakes, she’d have a job pushing a few grams of pot. How the hell could she have pushed him over those railings?”
    â€œYou just wait till the DNA results come back,” continues Brougham, unfazed. “I’d bet my old granny that she was the one who attacked him. She certainly fits his description.”
    â€œSo do half the hookers and druggies of Vancouver, Dave. Anyway, the DNA will take at least a week, perhaps two. We’d better find her before that.”
    The finding of Janet Thurgood has been on Trina’s mind all morning, and with her daily doses of diarrhea and vomit behind her, the homecare nurse flipped through the section on disguises in her private eye’s manual and prepared for a sortie into Vancouver’s underworld.
    Now she makes a final check of herself in the mirror, as suggested, and smiles at the result. A Yankees baseball cap, a pair of shades, and black lipstick top off her eye-popping luminous