No Cherubs for Melanie (37 page)

Cupping her face in his hands he touched his lips to her tear-swollen eyes then bundled her into his arms.
“It's OK Samantha, I understand. We'll find him; I know we will. Now what's this about a restaurant?”

“He wanted to know who owned Gordonstone's restaurant,” she mumbled into his chest. “Apparently there was a partner who now owns it all — not Margaret. Whoever inherited it obviously had the best motive for killing him.”

As her anger gradually subsided under Bryan's soothing touch, Samantha gave thought to his assessment of her father's confusion over her success, concluding that he had often been faced with similar dilemmas. He brought me up to be a free spirit, she thought to herself, allowing me to find things out the hard way, yet constantly worried to death I would become independent. It was the same with Mum, she realized with reflection. Dad always wanted her to be her own person, to have her own life, and look what had happened: George. It was the same with his job. He fought and struggled for promotion, then resented the responsibility that came with it and yearned for the days when he had pounded the beat without a care. Every time in life he thought he had won, he'd lost.

“He's a good man,” she said aloud and was surprised to hear the words. She had meant it only as a silent tribute. “You are right,” replied Bryan, knowing immediately whom she was referring to. “But where on earth is he?”

“Wherever I was supposed to have sent the money,” she replied guiltily.

Bryan struggled with that proposition. “But what I still don't understand is, if he didn't get the money, why didn't he phone?”

She lifted her head and spoke as if talking to a child. “Because Margaret doesn't have a phone.”

“So why didn't he go back to wherever he phoned from before?”

She didn't reply but her fixed glare along the beach, toward Stacy's store, indicated her beliefs. Bryan interrupted her pre-occupation, dropped to his knees in front of her and, holding her hands tightly in his, delved into her eyes. “Could your dad have lied to you?”

“No!” she insisted, trying to jerk her hands away.

He held on tightly. “Just think about it. Maybe he wanted to get away completely — from everything.”

“No. He was here, I know he was.”

Bryan wanted to believe her.

“He even told me about an eagle, a bald eagle I think. Margaret had rescued it. He couldn't have made that up. They had even given it a name — Eddie…” She paused, peering intently into his eyes, noticing how the colour had deepened under the sapphire sky. “Do you know what this is like?”

He raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“This is what an innocent man must feel like when he's accused of a crime and all the evidence points directly at him. He knows very well he didn't do it, but because he hasn't got a cast-iron alibi the bloody police won't listen to him.”

Bryan felt the sting. “It's not that I don't believe you Samantha, it's just…” he dried up.

“Precisely. There is no evidence on my side, so you'll go with the opposition.”

Bryan stood and slouched across the beach to let a few handfuls of sand trickle through his fingers into the lake while he mulled over the situation.

“Have you ever prosecuted an innocent man, Chief Inspector?” she called without getting up.

He turned quickly, emphatically. “No.”

“Do you think any policeman would admit to prosecuting an innocent man?” she continued.

He could see which way she was headed and didn't like it. “Possibly not.”

“Possibly?” she queried

“All right. No, they wouldn't. And, yes, before you ask, I would agree that sometimes innocent people are convicted. So what do you expect me to do?”

“I expect you to believe me when I say that Dad phoned from that place.”

“OK. Let's say I believe you.”

“No. No. No,” she shook her head irately. “You don't get it, do you? I don't want you to say, ‘Let's say I believe you.' I want you to say, ‘Samantha, I believe you, — now how can we prove you're right?'”

“But we've spoken to people at the store and looked at the books. I don't know what else you expect.” He dropped his voice an apologetic notch. “I'm sorry, Samantha, but he's not here.”

But she wouldn't let him off the hook. “I'm not some silly complainant who needs to be humoured. When that plane comes back you are going to be getting onto it alone. I'm not leaving here till I've found him. Oh,” she had an afterthought. “And you can forget that cozy tête-à-tête you've planned, and the postprandial bonk.”

“That's not the most romantic proposal anyone's ever made to me,” he laughed, walking back up the beach. “But I wouldn't say no.”

She stood, aggressively. “Well you won't get a chance to unless you start getting serious about finding Dad.”

“Gone fishing,” read the sign on the store door when they returned for another go at Stacy.

“It's locked,” cried Samantha in dismay. Apart from a couple of mongrels play-fighting in the scrub
just off the beach, there was no sign of life. “Keep watch,” she whispered.

“What are you doing?”

“I'll see if I can get in round the back.”

“Samantha…”

“What are they going to do — shoot me?”

She was back in a flash. “It's tight as a virgin's fanny,” she complained, slumping disconsolately on the verandah.

“Wherever did you learn that language?” he laughed, finding her expressions so incongruous with her lawyerly accent.

“My clients mainly.” She switched topics and pointed to the hastily scribbled sign on the door “I bet that sign was put up for our benefit.”

“How do you work that out?”

“Deduction,” she said, swinging an arm in a wide arc around the village. “There's no more than twenty houses in the whole place; everyone would know where Stacy was if he wasn't at the store.”

“So, what are you suggesting?”

“Dad was here. I know he was. He probably still is.”

“Well, let's examine the evidence,” he began, holding up his hand to stem her anticipated protest. “I'm not doubting you. I'm just trying to establish if there are any clues to his exact whereabouts. Now, how do you know your Dad was in Canada — for sure?”

She played the game reluctantly. “His phone calls.”

“Now, don't get upset, but you know as well as I do that he could have been anywhere when he phoned, unless… Did you call him?”

“No,” she shook her head, disappointed. “Wait, I remember.” Her excitement bubbled over. “He reversed the charges once. I gave him hell, but the operator said, ‘Will you accept a transfer charge call from Toronto, Canada?'”

“Fab. Now we're getting somewhere. He was in Toronto, anyway. Now, what do you know for certain about Margaret?”

“I know he got her address from a private detective in Toronto.”

“Brilliant,” he said, and meant it. “If a PI can find her, then the local police shouldn't have a problem. Now, what else do we know about her?”

“He told me about the eagle.”

“But that's not admissible evidence, it's hearsay.”

“I know,” she nodded. “But he couldn't have made that up — not Dad. He's not that creative.”

Bryan conceded the point with a nod. Bliss's flat had been a testament to his creative ability.

“What about Stacey's address and postcode? I wrote it down,” she said, grubbing around in her purse to find the scrap torn from the corner of a scratch pad.

He wrinkled his nose in a less-than-encouraging expression as she handed it to him.

“This is good evidence,” she insisted. “It's a note made at the time. I wrote down exactly what he said, I'm sure I did … Bear Lake Post Office, Bear Lake, Ontario, Y3Z 4R1.”

Bryan scrutinized the scrap carefully for several seconds then made up his mind. “Why are they lying? All of them.”

“You believe me,” she shouted, flinging her arms round his neck and kissing him.

“Well, you present a very compelling case, Miss Bliss.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector.”

“Does this mean the dinner is back on?”

She looked askance. “You're not just…”

“No. I'm not just agreeing with you to get you in the sack.” He smiled. “I do believe you — honestly.
Although I still don't know why these people would lie about a complete stranger, and I don't know how we're going to get them to tell the truth.”

They tried Stacy again, when he eventually returned in his aluminum fishing boat. “Lake trout,” he called cheerfully, holding up a string of mottled lapislazuli fish as he ran the boat ashore. “Like a couple?”

They were both hungry, and the plane wouldn't be back for another hour. “Why not,” Bryan whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “We might get him talking.”

Samantha agreed. “Will you cook them for us?” she called as he waddled his way up the beach.

“Sure thing. Barbecued with loads of butter and a mound of fries, that's how I like 'em.” His belly gave testament to that. Some of the fish were still kicking as he unlocked the door and let Samantha and Bryan in. “Freshest fish you ever had,” he stated conversationally. “You just help yourself to seats and I'll have these beauties ready in a flash.”

“Thanks,” they mumbled.

Samantha, totally unconvinced by his swagger of innocence, stuck her mouth to Peter Bryan's ear as they followed him into the big room. “I still think he knows where Dad is.”

They sat in the window, looking out over the lake, marvelling uneasily at the utter peacefulness, wondering how long it would take for consummate boredom to turn into insanity, and thinking how different it would be if they were back amidst the freneticism of London.

“What's the time in England?” she asked out of the blue.

“About eight o'clock,” Bryan answered vaguely.

She looked around at the deserted store cum café. “That's odd.”

“What?”

“When Dad called last week to ask for the money it was about this time, but I remember a background ‘rhubarb' of voices and chinking glasses. I thought he was in a bar; it sounded like a bar.”

“Maybe we have got the wrong place,” he said, looking round at the empty turn-of-the-century store with its incongruous nineteen-fifties' freezers. “My father had a freezer like that,” he announced, pointing to the massive American machine, which could have been a tank if it had tracks. “He bought it from a GI and always called it his ‘Third Reich' freezer.”

She screwed up her nose confusedly.

“Bloody cold-hearted and built to last a thousand years,” he laughed.

“There we go folks,” said Stacy, producing the two plates of trout and chips with a flourish as he came from behind the counter. “Now, can I get you a drink?”

“Beer,” they agreed. “And please join us,” insisted Bryan.

The trout was delicious, but Stacy gave nothing away as he balanced, overflowing, on an adjacent stool, professing his willingness to help, promising to put the word out, pledging to do all he could, vowing to call Samantha with any news, however meagre.

“It's quiet today,” said Samantha, still thinking about the noises she had heard on the phone. Like a freed hostage trying to help the police locate the place they had been held captive by recalling the ambience.

Stacy stared slowly around the empty room, as if he needed to check that he hadn't been suddenly inundated. “About usual,” he said. “I don't get many folks in as rule.”

Stacy refused to accept payment as they readied to leave, saying, “It don't cost me nothing.” He reassured Samantha with his greasy, stubby fingers on her forearm that he would call the moment there was any news. Her flesh crawled from his touch but she didn't jerk away, thinking that, in some way, she might be able to judge his sincerity through his fingertips. But she only felt the grease and tried one last time. “You are certain you've never seen him?”

He shook his head sadly. “Sorry, Miss. Like I said, I'll call.”

“That's good timing,” said Bryan as they walked toward the wooden dock and saw the small police plane streak across the lake in the late afternoon sun. “What do you want to do?” he asked. “You said you wouldn't leave without him.”

“I don't know anymore. I've sort of burnt out my neurosis. I'm running on empty.”

Bryan summed up the situation pragmatically. “There's nowhere for us to stay here and we haven't got
clothes or anything. Let's go back, find out Margaret's address and call on her tomorrow.”

It sounded simple enough and Samantha felt a tingle of excitement as the Mounties' plane churned up the unnerving tranquillity by swooping out of the sky and skimming to a standstill with the grace of a swan. But the excitement turned to consternation with the thought that she would be leaving without her father. “I suppose another day won't make a lot of difference,” she said, more to appease her conscience than to please Bryan.

The pilot kept the propellers turning as he leant out of the cockpit window, shouting above the engines. “Any luck?”

Bryan shook his head. “No. He's never been here.”

Old Jock, holding open the door, proffered his shoulder for Samantha to lean on as she boarded but, on an impulse, she stepped back. “Wait a minute.”

“What?” said Bryan.

“I ought to have checked my answering machine at home.”

“You've had all day.”

“It didn't occur to me,” she called, angry with herself. “He's probably left a message to say where he is, wanting to know where the hell is the money. That's it, that explains everything.”

The pilot was mouthing irritably, “What's happening? We've got to go. We're late already.” His words were whipped away by the propellers' wash. But Samantha shut her ears and was already running back down the short wooden dock toward the store. “I won't be a sec,” she shouted over her shoulder.