Crazy Lady by James Hawkins Read Free Book Online Page A

orange T-shirt, and a black leather miniskirt decorated with a rhinestone heart over the left buttock tops off a pair of fishnet stockings. The ensemble, confiscated from Kylie’s closet, would be fine for a June evening, and she almost makes it to the front door before it dawns on her that it’s late November, so she slings on an enormous faux mink that not only concealsmost of her costume but makes the baseball cap and shades look ridiculous.
    While Chief Inspector David Bliss might grumble about interruptions to his work, he is not at all ungrateful. In fact, he is quickly discovering that, in common with most authors, he will do absolutely anything other than write. After nearly three months of counting lemons on the tree beneath his balcony, luring gulls with tidbits, and staring for hour upon hour at the undulating sea, he is grateful for a valid excuse to put down his pen and get his teeth into an investigation.
    â€œSo what have you got?” asks Daphne excitedly when Bliss calls back in less than half an hour.
    â€œDoes the name Joseph Crispin Creston mean anything to you?”
    â€œYou mean the Creston chocolate guy?”
    â€œThat’s the one,” says Bliss, then puts on a deep tone to emulate a fifties TV commercial and adds, “We make the best chocolates in the universe. Just ask J.C. himself.”
    â€œThat takes me back a bit,” laughs Daphne.
    â€œWell, I think that was actually Creston Sr. His son is the big boy now when it comes to worldwide chocolate trading. And I mean big. Though it seems he’s been switching stock to diet products since the flab-fighters took over the world.”
    â€œHe can’t lose then, can he?” laughs Daphne. “But what’s his connection to Trina’s lost woman?”
    â€œJanet Thurgood,” muses Bliss aloud. “And I have no way of knowing if it’s the same Janet Thurgood for sure, but Joseph C. Creston Jr. married someone of that name in the late fifties, early sixties. I could probably get someone to dig up the marriage records. Get Trina to find out the date of birth or parents’ name of the woman in Vancouver —”
    â€œToo late, David,” cuts in Daphne. “The woman’s on the run again.”
    â€œThat’s it then.”
    â€œBut what about the dead babies?”
    â€œOh yeah. Well, that’s the clue. Creston Jr. and his wife had three children in four years and they all died of cot deaths.”
    â€œCot deaths?” breathes Daphne.
    â€œSudden Infant Death Syndrome, it’s called now, and doctors are pretty hot at trying to establish the cause, but back in the fifties and sixties it was just accepted that babies sometimes died for no apparent reason.”
    Daphne feels a shiver up her spine as the words of Amelia Drinkwater come back to her. “I was told that she murdered them,” she says with a suitably sinister tone, but Bliss has no knowledge.
    â€œThere’s no record either of them were ever charged with any offence,” he says. “But you could ask Superintendent Donaldson to dig up the files locally — if they haven’t been destroyed.”
    â€œSo, what happened to her? Creston’s wife,” Daphne wants to know.
    â€œYou’d have to ask him.”
    â€œI might just do that,” Daphne replies, her mind beginning to whirl with possibilities as she puts down the phone and searches for Trina’s number again.
    David Bliss’s number is on the radar screen in London. A criminal record search originating from a foreign source has raised a flag in the criminal intelligence section at Scotland Yard, and he gets a call from the duty commander, Chief Superintendent Michael Edwards.
    â€œI thought you were supposed to be on a leave of absence,” snorts the senior officer.
    â€œThat’s correct, sir, working on my novel.”
    â€œWriting a book!” It could be a question, but it’s not.