Читать книгу Missing: Presumed Dead - James Hawkins - Страница 7
ОглавлениеChapter One _____________________________
The chill of emptiness unnerved Detective Inspector Bliss the moment he strolled into the foyer of his new station. The public enquiry desk seemed abandoned: not simply unoccupied; not merely devoid of the usual mob of whiners – seeking or leaking information. It was, he thought, more like the Marie Celeste – hurriedly deserted. An early morning cup of Orange Pekoe still steamed; a ledger, opened, had been neglected mid-entry; a gold Waterman fountain pen, nib exposed, ink drying, lay across the page.
David Bliss tested the air carefully, almost fearing something noxious, but found only the familiar scent of pine disinfectant and floor wax. He sniffed harder and the sound of his snort echoed off the bare walls and subsided to silence, absolute silence. A tingle of unease rippled his spine and prickled hairs on the nape of his neck. A sudden inexplicable wave of fear told him to run, but the same fear nailed his feet to the floor and made him suck in a sharp breath. What’s happening? he puzzled, spinning nervously around.
Then a vivid memory came flashing back – a memory of his early days in the police, working a shift on a similar public enquiry counter at a station in the leafy suburbs: fender benders between Jaguars and Rolls Royces; stock market fraudsters and bent C.E.O.’s; shoplifters nicking Foie Gras and bottles of Veuve Clicquot from the Deli.
A disgruntled queue had formed as he patiently took a detailed description of a missing cat from a faded old dame, her few remaining teeth as green as her blouse, but her pearls still gleamed. “This is the sixth time in two weeks,” she admitted, making P.C. Bliss wonder why he should bother. Behind her, an Andy Capp figure in tweed jacket and flat cap stood patiently in line and, when his turn came, he slung a jute sack on the counter.
“What d’ye make of that then, Guv? Found it in me garden when I wuz diggin spuds.”
Young P.C. Bliss, unthinking, mainly concerned at getting the grubby bag off his desk, quickly picked it up and unleashed an unexploded twenty pound WWII bomb which rolled across the desk and dropped to the floor with an almighty bang.
“It’s a bomb,” breathed Bliss, and all twenty people crammed into the office froze in a moment of absolute terror. Waiting – for what? The police to do something? An explosion?
“Everybody out!” he had yelled, coming to his senses, and had never forgotten the sight of a dozen people piled in an untidy heap at the foot of the station steps.
“Yes?” said a face peering round a door, startling him out of his memory and breaking the tense silence. “What d’ye want?” the face continued with irritation. Why irritated? wondered Bliss, aggravated by the sharpness of the man’s tone. Had he interrupted some important police business? More likely, he guessed, he had put a temporary brake on the morning rumour mill that was just getting steamed up for the day over a coffee in the back room – who’s screwing who; who’s in the shit; who’s been passed over for promotion. He let it go, thinking it pointless to make enemies the first day in a new job; a new force, and, wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers he carefully controlled his voice. “I’m the new detective inspector. Is Superintendent Donaldson in his office yet?”
The counter clerk’s expression metamorphosed from annoyance to deference and a body emerged round the door to support the face. “Sorry, Sir. I didn’t recognise you.”
“No reason why you should, lad – I’ve never been here before. Just transferred from the Met. Now where do I find the Super?”
“Come,” called a muffled voice a few seconds later as a half packet of chocolate digestive biscuits disappeared into a drawer marked “confidential.” Bliss wiped his sweaty palm down his trousers again, preparing for a handshake, and swung open the door.
“Breakfast,” mumbled the senior officer, turning away, dusting crumbs off his shirt, ignoring the outstretched hand. “You must be D.I. Bliss,” he said, picking up a file, using it to wave Bliss to a deeply buttoned leather armchair. “I hope this has nothing to do with your arrival.”
“Sorry, Sir,” said Bliss, dropping his six-foot frame into the proffered chair, smoothing the creases out of his new suit. “I’m not quite with you.”
“Bit of a coincidence,” continued Superintendent Donaldson with a trace of maliciousness, his head buried in the file. “God sends us a hot-shot detective from the hallowed halls of New Scotland Yard, and we get our first murder in six months.” By the time he looked up, he had found a welcoming smile to mask the sarcastic smirk.
Bliss let the jibe go. “Murder,” he breathed as his pulse quickened again. So that’s it, that’s the reason for the unnatural quietitude. A murder in a small town – enough to wipe a Royal scandal off the front page of the local rag and fill the marketplace tea shops with a knot of nattering spinsters who, on other occasions, might sit silently aloof, absorbed in the Church Times or Victorian Gardens.
“You didn’t arrange this, did you?” added Donaldson, tapping the folder, now smirking. “You Scotland Yard types have a reputation for pulling clever stunts ...”
“Actually, Sir. I was never at the Yard. I kept my distance – too many chiefs and not enough Indians for my liking.”
The superintendent lowered himself behind his desk, studying the newcomer with a censorious glance and toying with one of a number of stainless steel stress relievers that littered the leather surface. “So how do you feel now you are one of the chiefs?”
Brilliant start, thought Bliss, feeling the sting of the remark, “I didn’t mean ...” He paused as the other man raised a hand.
“It’s O.K., Inspector, I know what you meant,” said Donaldson, speculatively teasing a silvery ball on Newton’s Cradle, as if deliberating whether or not it would crash into the other balls on release – almost daring it not to cause an equal and opposite reaction. “Felt the same myself at times,” he continued, “Still do on occasions. But you’ll soon discover, if you haven’t already, that however far up the ladder you go, there’s always another bastard above waiting to kick you down – chiefs have other chiefs on their backs you know.” Then he released the ball, flinging it forcefully against the pack and smiling as the silvery balls swung and smashed back and forth in gradually decreasing reverberations.
There’s no answer to that, thought Bliss, refusing to be drawn. “What’s this about a murder, Sir?” he said, easing himself forward in the chair.
The superintendent smoothed his moustache thoughtfully, loosening a flurry of biscuit crumbs. “It happened yesterday, last night ... I tried to get hold of you ...”
“I was up in town tidying up a few bits and pieces – if I’d known ...”
“Oh, don’t apologise, you weren’t due here ’til today; I just thought you’d like to get your feet wet as soon as possible, but I’m winding you up really.”
“You mean there wasn’t a murder.”
“Oh no, au contraire. There was certainly a murder, but even us country bumpkins could solve this one.” He flicked open the file as if needing to check details, but the bags under his eyes confirmed he’d been up half the night keeping his finger on the pulse. “I’m getting too old for this lark.”
You look it, thought Bliss, guessing he might find a copy of the pension regulations uppermost in the other officer’s desk.
“About 9.30 pm. Disturbance in the Black Horse public house on Newlyn Road,” began the superintendent, skimming the page.
“Bar fight?”
“No – it was upstairs.” He paused, looked up and explained. “They let out a few rooms – bed and breakfast. Damn good breakfast it is too; you should give it a try – Bacon, sausage, mash ...”
Bliss coughed pointedly. Donaldson caught his look of impatience and returned to the file, “At least twenty witnesses in the bar heard the commotion. Mind you, another twenty or so claimed to have been in the bog at the time – you know the deal – ‘Sorry, Guv – didn’t see nor ’ear nuvving.’ Four people came forward claiming they saw a body being dumped in the back of a pick-up truck behind the pub, then driven off like a bat out of hell. There were obvious signs of a struggle in the room: broken ornaments; smashed glasses; blood all over the shop; duvet missing off the bed.” He looked up again, “Used it to wrap the body we suspect. Bloody fingerprints on the door handle and more on the banister rail down the backstairs. We’ve recovered the weapon – steak knife, absolutely plastered in blood and dabs. The landlady identified it as one taken up to the room earlier.”
“Do you have a suspect?”
“Not a suspect, Detective Inspector,” he said, rising in confidence, “we have the murderer. He’s made a full confession, on tape, properly cautioned. In fact the tape’s being transcribed right now. He is one: Jonathan Montgomery Dauntsey, 55 years, of this parish.”
“And the victim?”
“Believe it or not he stabbed his own father ... sad that.” He paused and waited while his face took on a sad mien. “Tragic ... It turns your stomach a bit to think someone’s own kid could do that.”
“It’s quite common actually.”
The superintendent brightened. “Oh I know – anyway it keeps the clear-up rate healthy. Where would we be without domestics, eh? We used to call ’em Birmingham murders you know.”
Bliss nodded, he knew, but the superintendent carried on anyway, “We used to reckon that the only murders the Birmingham City boys ever solved were domestics.”
“I know, Sir – but it’s a bit different today.”
“Oh yes, Dave – political correctness and all that. Gotta be careful we don’t upset anyone, eh,” he continued, his expression giving the impression that political correctness was fine – in its place. “Anyway,” he carried on cheerily, “Welcome to the division – and welcome to Hampshire. I’m pretty bushed after last night’s shenanigans so I’ve arranged for one of your sergeants to show you the ropes while I get a few hours kip this morning. Everything’s taken care of with the murder – just a few loose ends ...”
“Loose ends?”
Superintendent Donaldson hesitated, deciding whether any of the loose ends were worthy of mention, even rifling through the slim folder as if hoping to find a missing clue. “Well, we haven’t found the body yet,” he finally admitted. “But,” he pushed on quickly, “that’s just a formality. It was a bit of a fiasco last night to be honest. Coppers rushing around in the dark bumping into each other, falling into ditches, that sort of thing.”
“You know where the body is though?”
He nodded tiredly and gave the Newton’s balls a gentle workout. “The general area – I’ll introduce you to your staff and they’ll fill you in. The deceased was a pongo by the way, at least he had been during the war, a Major Rupert Dauntsey. One of those who insisted on keeping his title after the war,” he continued, disapproval evident in his tone. “You know the type: pompous stuffed shirt, wouldn’t make a brothel bouncer in real life. Shove a swagger stick in his hand and poke a broomstick up his ass and bingo, an ex-C.O. with a snotty accent and a supercilious way of bossing the locals around and weaselling his way onto every committee going: golf club; church restoration; anti-this; anti-that; pro-this; pro-that.”
Bliss caught the drift, “Not one of your favourite ...”
“Never met him,” cut in the superintendent shaking his head. “Although I probably bumped into him at the Golf Club Ladies Night or Rotary Dinner ... I just know the type.” Then he spat, “Army,” as if it were a four letter word, pulled himself upright in the chair and punched a few numbers on the intercom. “I’ll get D.S. Patterson to brief you properly,” he said, studying the ceiling, listening to the distant buzz of the intercom, awaiting a response. “Sorry to throw you in at the deep end like this, but I’m sure you won’t find it heavy going.”
Ex-Royal Navy, thought Bliss, recognising the older officer’s vernacular and diction and found confirmation on one wall where a serious-faced young naval officer peered out of a row of rectangular portholes against a background of ships, dockyards and exotic landmarks.
No-one answered the intercom. “Might as well take you below decks – show you your office on the way,” he said, coming out from behind his desk. Then he paused with his hand on the brass doorknob and turned, his face taut with seriousness. “Dave, it’s only fair I put you in the picture ... I know why you’ve been sent here. The chief has filled me in.” He caught the look of alarm on Bliss’s face, put on a reassuring smile and added quickly, “Don’t worry. No-one else knows and it’s entirely up to you what you tell them. But a word of warning – the other ranks will be watching to see how you perform. Keep an eye on them. There’s one or two not above putting a spanner in the works just to see how you handle yourself.”
“I understand, Sir,” replied Bliss, immediately knowing that the local detectives would undoubtedly find sport in trying to put one over on a new boss – especially an outsider, particularly one from London. “And I would really appreciate it if no-one else is told,” he added.
“You have my word, son. Your secret’s safe with me – just keep your head down for a while.”
“I intend to.”
Introductions were brief, the C.I.D. office had suffered a similar fate to the enquiry office. The previous evening’s shift had worked all night and gone home. The early shift had already taken their place, donned rubber boots and were forming search teams and fanning out into surrounding areas of woodland and wasteland. Only Detective Sergeant Patterson remained. He had been on duty for fifteen hours and it showed in his dreary eyes and slept-in appearance.
“How’s our murderer this morning, Pat?” said the superintendent, waving Patterson back into his chair as he languidly signalled his intention of rising.
“Sleeping like a bloody baby actually, Sir. It’s alright for him – some of us have been at it all night, tramping through the bloody woods – look at the state of my ruddy trousers ... it’s not s’posed to be a mudbath in the middle of June.”
“No joy with the body, I guess ...”
“Not yet – but we’ve got half a dozen more dog-handlers coming over from H.Q. They’ll soon sniff it out; he couldn’t have taken it far.”
“It,” thought Bliss, rolling the monosyllable round in his mind. “It” – the Major would have been a “Sir” yesterday, a man with a lifetime of knowledge and experience, a commissioned officer no less – a man of substance. One ill-tempered jab with a steak knife, and now he’s just an “It.”
Leaving Bliss cogitating on the frailty of human existence and the D.S. worrying about his trousers, Donaldson excused himself. “Call me at home as soon as the body turns up,” he added on his way out.
Bliss slipped into a convenient chair. “The Super tells me that apart from finding the body everything else is sewn up.”
Sergeant Patterson’s face screwed in mock pain, exposing prominent gums and yellowed teeth. “Actually, Guv, the scenes of crime boys have been on the blower – there’s been a bit of a fuck-up at the pub I’m afraid. Everyone was so excited running round after matey last night that no-one thought to tell the landlady to keep her hands off the crime scene. Apparently she’s cleaned and disinfected the whole place. Scrubbed the backstairs – ‘Not having people tramping blood in and out of the bar,’ she told the forensic guys. As if anyone’d notice.”
“Shit – what about the weapon?”
“We’ve got that alright. One of the uniformed lads marked and bagged it.”
“Thank Christ for a woolly with a brain.”
“A woolly, Guv’nor?”
“Metspeak for uniformed officer, Pat. I’m surprised you’ve never heard it before. Woolly ... woollen uniform?”
Patterson sloughed off the information with a grunt then returned to the investigation in hand. “It’s a good job we got the confession.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“We haven’t told the old boy’s wife yet. She’s in a nursing home ... Cancer,” he mouthed the word with due reverence. “She’s not got long by all accounts. We went to tell her last night but the matron said the shock might kill her so it’d be best if we left it ’til about ten this morning when the doctor does his rounds.” He checked his watch. “You’ll have plenty of time to get there.”
“Thank you very bloody much.”
“Tea – Sergeant Patterson.”
Bliss, still jumpy, jerked around in his chair and was disturbed to find that a diminutive grandmother figure in a blue polka dot dress had crept up behind him.
“Are you the new ...” she began.
“Detective Inspector – Yes.” Bliss finished the sentence for her. A delicate hand shot out in greeting, and Bliss found himself rising in response.
“Daphne does a bit of cleaning up around here,” explained the detective sergeant.
“A lot of cleaning up, if you don’t mind,” said Daphne in a manicured voice, straight out of a 1940s Ealing Studio movie.
Bliss took the hand and was surprised at its softness – none of the bony sharpness of old age he’d expected.
“I suppose you’ve heard about the murder last night,” she said, peering deeply into his eyes, keeping his hand a few seconds longer than necessary. “Awful business – killing the old Major like that.”
“You knew him.”
“’Course I did – everyone round here knew him – well, did know him – if you take me meaning. I could tell you one or two ...”
“You wanna watch our Daphne, Guv,” butted in a young detective wandering into the room and perching himself against a nearby desk. “She’ll have you here all day ... Tell him about your UFO, Daph.”
“Shut up, you,” she said, bashing him playfully with a hastily rolled Daily Telegraph, forcing him to retreat from desk to desk.
Bliss smiled, amused at an elderly woman behaving like a playful adolescent.
“No respect,” she panted, returning. “Would you care for a cuppa, Sir?” she asked, looking up at him with smiling eyes, not at all embarrassed by her youthful exertion. She looks exhilarated, thought Bliss, noticing the slight blush in her cheeks, although there was no doubt that overall Daphne was fading – her skin, her hair, even her clothes, had a washed-out look, though her eyes were as sharp as her tongue. Despite the fact she was old enough to be his mother, Bliss found himself attracted by her eyes. She’s still got teenage eyes, he thought to himself, entranced by the sharp contrast between the burnt sienna pupils and almost perfect whites.
“Wouldn’t have the tea if I were you, Guv,” called Detective Dowding from across the room. “She makes it from old socks.”
“Don’t listen to him, chief inspector,” she said making eye contact, crinkling her crows feet into laughter lines.
“Inspector ... Daphne,” he reminded her. “I’m only a lowly detective inspector.”
“You look like a Chief Inspector to me,” she said, then amused herself and the others by summing up her reasoning as she closely inspected him. “Distinguished, greying a bit around the edges; chiselled nose with an intriguing kink in the middle, puts me in mind of a boxer I dated once – he became a politician, ended up in the Lords – never stopped fighting.” She paused as an obviously pleasurable memory flitted across her face, then returned to Bliss. “Well-spoken, not like this crowd ...”
“Bit of a beer belly,” interjected Bliss with an embarrassed laugh.
“Um,” Daphne sized up his midriff with an approving eye. “Comfortable, I’d say. Well fed – good home cooking – doting wife, I suspect – plenty of steak and kidney pies and rice puddings.”
He wasn’t going in that direction. “So what was this UFO?”
The detective constable laughed from a safe distance and put on a suitably alien voice. “It was real spooky, Guv – Ooooooh. Go on, Daph. Tell the boss.”
Indignation sharpened her tone. “I didn’t say it was a UFO. All I said was there were some strange lights in the field.”
“It was an extra-terrestrial abduction,” continued the detective, still in alien character, clearly enjoying tormenting her. “They grabbed an earthling and right now they’re dissecting his brain somewhere on another planet.” Pausing to laugh, he went on, “And the aliens made crop circles, didn’t they, Daph?”
“I didn’t say they were circles,” she shouted, “I just said the corn had been trampled, that’s all.” Then she stomped out muttering fiercely about how in her day people were taught to be polite to little old ladies.
“What’s that all about?” laughed Bliss.
“Somebody nicked a pig from the farm at the back of her place and drove it through the cornfield,” explained the sergeant. “She must have seen the bloke’s torches.”
“Pig rustling?” queried Bliss with surprise.
“Yeah, Guv. You ain’t in London now. They used to go for cattle, but too many people are scared of mad cow disease.”
“And chickens,” chimed in the detective across the room. “Then there was the sheep over ...”
“Alright,” shouted the sergeant. “This ain’t All Creatures Great and Small, Dowding; we’ve got work to do. And you’d better start by getting Inspector Bliss and me some tea, seeing as how you’ve pissed Daphne off.”
“Daphne’s always pissed off, and always nosing and ferreting around in other people’s business.”
“You don’t like her ’cos she solves more crimes than you do,” laughed Patterson.
“That ain’t true.”
“What about that fraud job?”
“I could see it were a forgery.”
“Funny, you never mentioned it until Daph pointed it out.”
Ten minutes later, fully briefed on the murder, Bliss found himself in the cells being politely, though firmly, told to mind his business by a rather serious man with a gold-plated accent. A man who, in any other circumstances, would have been placed as a bank manager or gentleman farmer.
“Mr. Dauntsey, Sir,” Bliss had begun deferentially once he’d introduced himself. “I’m simply asking you to be reasonable. It must be obvious to you that we will find your father’s remains eventually. Wouldn’t it be sensible to tell me where we should look?”
Bliss sat back on the wooden bench studying the government grey walls – wondering how long it would take for the blandness to drive you crazy – awaiting a reply, realising the incongruity of the situation, realising that in past similar situations, confronted with obstinate prisoners holding back crucial bits of evidence, his language and demeanour had been entirely different.
“I’m afraid I really can’t tell you that, Inspector. I’m sure you understand,” said Dauntsey as if he were a lawyer claiming the information was privileged.
“But you’ve admitted slaughter ...” he started in a rush, then paused, slowed down, and sanitised his words. “You’ve confessed to a homicide. What possible difference would it make if you were to tell us where to find the body?”
“None – probably. But, as I’ve already made perfectly clear to the superintendent and the sergeant, I cannot tell you.”
Bliss, realising that civility was unlikely to get the answer he required, briefly considered switching to something more assertive, even aggressive – “Look here you little ... ” – but found his confidence draining in the face of a man with whom he’d prefer to be playing golf. He was still thinking about it when Dauntsey rose and waved him toward the door. “Now if that’s everything, Inspector – I’m sure you have many things to do.”
Dismissed! By a prisoner. “Now look here,” he began forcefully, then he let it go. “I’m just on my way to inform your mother. Do you wish me to tell her anything on your behalf?”
“There’s no need to distress my mother, Inspector. She’s sick enough without having to worry about all this.”
“Are you crazy? Are you asking me not to tell your mother that her husband’s dead, and her son did it?”
“All I’m saying is, she is so terribly ill that she might not understand that it was for the best; that it was just something I had to do.”
“You had to kill him?”
“Yes – Like I said in my statement, it was for the best all round. I’m sure you understand.”
“Is that your defence?”
“I don’t have a defence, Inspector – I don’t need a defence. Ultimately, there is only one judge to whom I have to answer; he will understand I am sure.”
“That may be so, but in the meantime you’ll have to explain yourself to twelve befuddled jurors and a cynical old judge, and they’ll take more convincing than you saying that it was something you just had to do.”
“Inspector. Have you ever read The Iliad?”
Bliss paused to allow the spectre of deep thought to pass over his face then answered, “Not as far as I recall. No.”
“You wouldn’t understand then,” said Dauntsey turning away, leaving Bliss feeling somehow diminished. It’s not my fault, he wanted to explain, Homer wasn’t exactly flavour of the month at West Wandsworth Comprehensive School.
“Try me,” he said, unwilling to let Dauntsey think he was in control.
Dauntsey took in a slow breath. “Then the father held out the golden scales,” he began, speaking softly to the wall, “and in them he placed two fates of dread death.”
The silence held for a full minute before Bliss could stand the tension no longer. “Sorry – I don’t know …”
Dauntsey spun round accusingly. “I said you wouldn’t understand.”
“Enlighten me then.”
“Sometimes, however unpleasant it may seem, we are each confronted by impossible choices and, when that happens, all we can do is let fate take a hand in the outcome.”
“And you’re saying that the circumstances were so compelling you had no alternative.”
He nodded, “I believe the Americans call it being caught between a rock and hard place, Inspector.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“I think I’ve said enough – good morning, Inspector, and thank you for your understanding.”
“He’s round the twist.” Bliss’s voice echoed along the cell passage to Sergeant Patterson as he slammed the cell door behind him.
“Careful, Guv. Don’t give him a defence. He might get some high priced trick cyclist to declare him non compos mentis.”
“Yeah, and six months later pronounce him cured. Then he’d be out of the nuthouse and walking the streets the same as you and I.”
The sergeant nodded. “Apart from the fact he’d have a piece of paper declaring him sane – whereas you and I ...”
They had reached the main cell block door. Patterson rattled the thick iron bars to catch the jailor’s attention and, as they waited, Bliss put two and two together and came up with four and half. “I’m sure we’re missing something important here, Pat,” he began, a fog of ideas swirling in his brain but failing to coalesce into anything tangible or sensible. “Dauntsey’s far too intelligent ...” he paused and thought about his choice of words. “No, it’s more than intelligence: He’s too cunning to get caught like this. I mean, it’s pathetically incompetent to slit his old man’s throat in a public place with half the town listening.”
“It happened on the spur of the moment. No-one’s suggesting it was premeditated – just a sudden argument.”
“But what about the body, Pat? Just imagine if you were to kill me right now – no pre-planning, heat of the moment argument. What would you do with the body to ensure no-one found it?”
The sergeant put on his thinking face. “Concrete overcoat,” he suggested after a moment’s pause.
Bliss lit up. “Office block – new bridge, that sort of thing.”
Patterson nodded, though with little enthusiasm. “There’s plenty of buildings going up around here. But aren’t we forgetting something, Guv?”
“What?”
“Yesterday was Sunday, and it was pissing with rain. Who’s gonna be pouring wet concrete?”
Bliss got the message but was stuck on concrete. “What about cement boots – then dump him in the river.”
Patterson was already shaking his head. “The river ain’t deep enough, plus the fact that’d have to be preplanned. Where would he get a load of quick drying cement at half past nine on a Sunday night?”
“Wait a minute, Pat. You were the one who said it wasn’t premeditated. I’m still not convinced. I think he carefully plotted the whole thing. Like I said, he’s cunning.”
“What about all the witnesses in the pub then; who’s gonna be daft enough ...?” He left the hypothesis unfinished, unwilling to waste his breath.
“Could be part of the plan,” mused Bliss, grateful that the arrival of the jailor saved him from having to explain his reasoning.
“Don’t worry, Guv. We’ll soon find the body, once the dog teams get going.”
“I’d like to agree with you, but I’m beginning to think that my money might be safer on Dauntsey.”
They wandered abstractly back to the CID office, both hoping to arrive at some earth-shattering explanation that would spectacularly solve the case of the Major’s missing body. Neither succeeded.
“I still don’t understand what they were doing at the pub,” Bliss said, throwing himself into a comfortable-looking moquette chair. “Did Dauntsey give a reason in his confession?”
Patterson raised his eyebrows at the chair. “That’s an exhibit, Guv,” he said apologetically.
“It should be in the property store then,” Bliss said, rising, giving the chair an accusatory stare.
“Sorry, Guv – I’ll get Dowding to deal with it. Anyway, Jonathon Dauntsey said he was visiting his father who had taken a room at the Black Horse.”
“Why? He had a perfectly good house up the road.”
“I assumed it had something to do with his mother being in the nursing home.”
“You can’t afford to assume anything in this game. You know that, Pat. Anyway, all is not lost; I’ll ask his mother. Easier still – Get someone at the pub to ask the landlady if she knows.”
Patterson picked up the phone and was listening to the br-r-ring as Bliss paced meditatively, throwing out his thoughts at random. “Doesn’t make sense ... What’s the motive? ... Why were they there?”
Someone at the pub answered the phone. “Let’s find out, shall we?” said Patterson asking to speak to one of the detectives.
The officer was back on the phone in less than a minute. “According to the landlady, the Major didn’t live down here – he ran the estate up in Scotland, and Jonathon Dauntsey told them his father preferred to stay at the pub because there was no-one at the big house to cook and clean – what with his wife being in the nursing home ’n all.”
“One mystery cleared up, Inspector,” said the sergeant replacing the receiver, relieved that the mystery had not been of his making.
“I wonder what did happen then.”
“We’ll know as soon as the body turns up.”
“If it turns up,” said Bliss, reflecting uneasily on the prisoner’s supreme confidence. “What about a motive, Pat? Have you any ideas?”
“He says he had his reasons ... and don’t forget, Guv, we’ve got the confession.”
“I’ve had at least three murder cases where innocent people have confessed.”
“Why?”
“Just to get their fifteen minutes I suppose. But this one’s different – I’ve always started with the body before – two bodies in one case. Anyway, enough speculating. I guess we’d better go and see his wife; it’s nearly ten.”
The enquiry counter was under siege as they headed out the door. “Bloody vandals ... trampled flower beds ... tyre tracks in the grass ... half-filled a grave ...” A balloon-nosed madman in a dog collar was blasting away at the clerk with a pew-side manner he’d honed as a prison chaplain.
“What do you mean, young man – ‘it’s not a crime’?” griped the vicar, “I’d like to speak to someone in authority ...”
“Serg,” the clerk caught them with a look of relief, “is it a crime to fill in a hole?”
“Not as far as I know, lad – never has been. Now digging one ...”
“What about the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act?” demanded the vicar.
Patterson flipped through his memory of legislation but couldn’t place anything relevant. “Sorry, Sir, I’m in a bit of a rush.”
“Wait,” said Bliss, half out the door. “What did he say, Pat?”
“Something about a ... shit!” he turned. “When was this, Sir?”
“Last night ... sometime after evensong. I was ...”
“Where?” Bliss demanded hastily.
“St Paul’s. In the churchyard, of course. It took three days to dig, what with all the rain. The funeral’s in less than two hours. The family will be furious. They had to get special dispensation from the diocese. Officially the churchyard’s been closed to new internments for the past ten years ... no ... I tell a lie, longer, probably twelve or more ...”
“Sir,” Bliss tried butting in again, but the vicar, having got an ear, was unwilling to relent.
“All recently departed are supposed to go to the town cemetery,” he continued. Then added, “Or the crematorium,” with a little shudder and a face that said he felt that if God approved of cremation he would have equipped humans with an ignition cord.
“Sir,” Bliss tried again, more forcefully. “Please tell me exactly what has happened.”
“Like I said, Constable, someone’s driven over the grass and ...”
“No. What did you say about a grave?”
“Filled it in – that’s what I said. During the night. What I want to know is what you intend doing about it. The funeral starts at eleven.”
“I’ll send a team of men to dig it right away, Sir.”
“Please be serious, Constable ...”
“Actually, Sir, I’m an Inspector and I am quite serious. If you’d care to return to the churchyard we’ll be along in a few minutes. You can show the men where to dig; we’ll have it out for you in no time.”
“Well, I never,” said the vicar, shuffling toward the door, his faith restored, muttering his intention of writing to both the Chief Constable and The Times.
Sergeant Patterson pulled Bliss to one side as soon as the old man was out of earshot. “Guv, we can’t let that funeral go ahead. It’s a crime scene – Forensics will be there for hours scavenging for clues.”
“I know that – but I’m not going to get into an argument with the local bishop yet. As soon as we find the body we’ll look as surprised as anything and we’ll have no choice but to postpone the funeral and cordon off the entire area. He’ll be more than happy to co-operate, but if we suggest it now he’ll start bloody moaning.”
“Good thinking, Guv ... And didn’t I tell you he wouldn’t have taken the body far?”
“Get the car warmed up; I want a quick word with our man,” said Bliss, angling himself back toward the cells, refusing to offer hasty praise.
“We’ve found your father’s body,” he said, poking his head round Dauntsey’s cell door, not bothering to enter fully.
“I somehow doubt that, Inspector,” replied Dauntsey with a polite cockiness that immediately annoyed Bliss.
“Are you going to tell me where it is then?”
“Inspector! If you think I’d fall for a silly trick ... I don’t play those sort of games.”
“Suit yourself. I’m off to church.”
Dauntsey’s face remained impassive. “Say one for me.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to need it,” he retorted.
No sooner had they got into the car than the question which had hovered on Patterson’s lips for the past hour sprang out. “So what brings you to the sticks, Guv?”
“It’s no big deal,” he replied with a dismissive shrug, knowing that he was lying, knowing that it was a big deal – a very big deal – and he quickly changed the subject with a note of triumph. “I told you Dauntsey was cunning, Pat. I saw it in his eyes the moment I met him.”
“Not cunning enough for you though, Guv.”
Bliss picked up the sarcastic vibe and brushed it aside. “Nothing to do with me, Serg – it’s just Lady Luck.”
“I guess he wasn’t supposed to get away with it.”
“Cunning though – what a place to hide a body. Who would ever think of looking in a grave, especially when there’s another occupant?”
“D’ye realise we would never have found it, even with an infra-red from a helicopter. The detector would have picked out a new grave alright – even the body ...”
Bliss nodded. “And the Vicar would have said, ‘That’s old Mr. So and So. We buried him this morning.’”
“Talk about a close call, Guv.”
“That’s Lady Luck for you – even moaning old clerics have their uses.”
“It’s not getting the luck, Sergeant; it’s knowing what to do with it that counts.”
Bliss drove to the churchyard, explaining, “I may as well get to know my way around, Pat.”
But no sooner had they pulled out of the car park than Patterson started digging for more information. “So where were you stationed last?”
“Various nicks ... I got around a fair bit.”
“Which ones?”
“What is this, Pat, the third degree?”
“No. I just wondered why you chose to come here, that’s all.”
Why am I here? he wondered, letting his mind drift, driving on autopilot.
“Watch out!” yelled Patterson, suddenly realising that Bliss had missed a fast approaching red light.
“Shit,” shouted Bliss, standing on the brakes, slewing to a halt with the bonnet nosing into the junction. A cyclist, head down against the drizzle, skimmed across the front bumper, then turned in her saddle to give Bliss a pugnacious glare and stab a rude finger in the air.
“Little cow,” said Patterson, then gave Bliss an accusatory look. “You nearly clobbered her.”
“Sorry,” he said, his voice strained by anxiety, his hands frozen so hard to the wheel he could feel the vibration, his pulse racing through the roof.
“I thought you’d seen the light,” continued Patterson, unaware of the turmoil in the mind of the man next to him.
“Sorry,” he said again then excused himself with a mumble about the unfamiliar roads, the lousy weather and his pre-occupation with finding the Major’s body.
It only took a couple of minutes to the churchyard. The vicar was ahead of them, sheltering under the thatched lych-gate, his black robes and white collar standing out sharply against the fuzzy backdrop of the Norman church, its squat square tower drifting in and out of the murky grey drizzle like a castle’s keep in a fairy tale.
Under the vicar’s direction, Bliss and Patterson tiptoed toward the freshly dug grave, examining the ground ahead, skirting every depression that bore the least resemblance to a footprint or tyre mark. Bliss took the lead, warning the other two of potential evidence with the dedication of a shit-spotter leading a party of ramblers across a cattle field.
“Watch out there ... Mind that ... And there ...”
“I thought you said it had been filled in,” Bliss said with annoyance, reaching the grave, and sensing the presence of the vicar as he peered into the seemingly normal grave.
“It has,” he shot back belligerently. “It should be eight feet deep. It was yesterday. I checked it myself after communion. Mrs. Landrake, the widow, came with me. ‘Want everything to be just right for my Arthur,’ she said. Anyway, it had to be eight feet to give enough depth for her to go on top of him when her turn comes.”
Bliss wasn’t listening, his mind had wandered into the past, into another churchyard, standing by another grave, thinking of another body, but the vicar was unaware and prattled on. “I even fetched my measuring pole to be sure. Old Bert, the gravedigger, can be a bit spare with his measurements at times – tries to get away with the odd six inches if he thinks he can. Anyway, look at it now, it’s barely six feet, and the bottom looks like a ploughed field. I want my internees to rest easy ... well, as easy as they deserve, but look at that. Like a ploughed field,” he repeated. “That’d be like sleeping on a crumpled sheet ...”
With his mind miles away, an eighteen-year-old memory was consuming Bliss, edging him toward the grave, threatening to topple him into the pit. Patterson grabbed his arm. “Look out, Guv!” he called, pulling him from the brink.
Persuaded by the iron grip, he stepped back onto the duckboard, but his thoughts were still in the past, in a grave with a young woman’s coffin.
“I thought you was gonna faint, Guv,” said Patterson with a note of apology.
“No – No. I, I’m alright,” he stuttered. But Patterson was too pre-occupied with the arrival of the search team’s mini-bus to notice the shaking hands and perspiration-soaked forehead.
“We’re gonna need a ladder, Vicar,” said Patterson, heading off toward the mini-bus, leaving Bliss alone with the grave and his eighteen-year-old memories. He tried to break away, to take off after Patterson but the images in his mind were too strong and kept him glued to the grave. He peered in, almost expecting to see a coffin. He knew which coffin: not a flashy one, little more than a plywood box with brassy handles.
“We bought it with the honeymoon money,” the occupant’s husband-to-be explained at the little gathering in the local pub afterwards – sausage rolls, pickled onions and pints of best bitter ale around a pool table shrouded in a white bed-sheet.
“I would willingly have paid ...” started Bliss but the young victim’s grieving mother had cut him off.
“It’s alright, Constable. Very thoughtful of you, but there was no need.”
Why was she so damn nice? he wondered. He’d killed her daughter, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he? But they didn’t see it that way. They never had.
“It wasn’t your fault, Mr. Bliss ... Dave, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Richards, putting a chubby hand consolingly on his arm while dabbing her puffy red eyes with a Kleenex.
“Yes. It’s Dave.”
“Thought so,” she continued, still dabbing. “Anyway, Dave, the family don’t blame you. You wuz only doin’ yer job. There wuz nuvving else you could’ve done.”
I could have kept my bloody mouth shut, he thought, but found it more consoling to agree. “You’re right, Mrs. Richards, but I still feel responsible for Mandy’s ...”
Mrs. Richards crumpled in a gush of weeping, and the family led her to a corner couch and poured more gin into her.
“At least it was quick,” said Mandy’s serious-faced intended, still not fully grasping the fact that he was attending his fiancée’s funeral on the same day he’d planned to marry her.
“Yes. It was quick,” agreed young Constable Bliss, and he found himself repeating the old joke about a Scotsman who’d drowned in a whisky vat. “Was it quick?” the mythical coroner asked the investigating officer hoping to allay the relatives fears that their loved one lingered in agony. “Och no,” replied the policeman. “He got out twice for a pee.”
“I don’t get it.” Mandy’s ex-fiancé had said, leaving Bliss praying for an earthquake or other calamitous event to cover his embarrassment.
“Sorry,” he said when it became obvious that God was not on his side. “Bad joke – tasteless ... I need another drink.”
Sergeant Patterson was back, a straggly line of uniform and civvy raincoats snaking along behind him. “Better rope off that area with the footprints and tyre tracks first,” he called.
The line stopped, and Bliss felt the piercing stares as the men checked him out. Patterson’s told them who I am, he realised, and quickly pulled himself upright and straightened his thoughts.
The first of the men dropped, uninvited into the pit as soon as the ladder was lowered. “Throw me a shovel,” he shouted, with the enthusiasm of a treasure seeker – but wasn’t that what it was, thought Bliss, treasure – to a policeman. He won’t be so bloody keen when he’s seen as many mutilated bodies as me.
“Somebody give me hand,” called the man in the grave.
One look down into the slab-sided pit was enough for most of the men, and a dissenting jeer spread through the crush as some inched away. Sergeant Patterson volunteered a six-foot two-inch hulk who unwittingly drew his attention by attempting to disappear inside a five-foot ten-inch overcoat. Murmurs of derision, coupled with relief, rippled back through the crush.
“Good ol’ Jacko ... Shall I ’old yer coat?”
“Get stuffed.”
“At least Dauntsey gave his old man a decent funeral – more than most murderers do,” said Patterson as soggy clods of earth started to land with wet thuds at their feet. “Almost seems a shame to dig him up; we could just leave the poor old beggar in peace.”
Bliss stepped back, pretending to avoid the flying dirt while trying to get the memory of Mandy Richards out of his mind. You’ve hardly thought of her for years, he remonstrated with himself, forget it. “Messy business ... murder,” he mumbled, attempting to keep the conversation alive. “Thought I’d be getting away from all this down here.”
“Tell me to mind me own business if you like, Guv, but is that why you’re here – to get away from summat?”
Bliss stared back into the grave looking as if he might divulge his reasons, but a shout from the grave saved Bliss from answering, not that he had an answer – not a particularly plausible one anyway.
“I think there’s something down here,” called one of the men in the pit, and D.C. Jackson took it as a sign to quit.
“Keep diggin’, Jackson; what’s up wiv ya?” shouted the sergeant.
“It’s me back, Serg. You remember,” he said, with a poorly executed expression of pain.
Sergeant Patterson chuckled. “Yeah, I remember Jacko, but I heard it got better after the Chief Super’s visit last week.”
Poorly stifled laughter animated the bystanders. Jackson turned pink and bent to his shovel.
“What’s that about?” Bliss whispered to the sergeant.
“I’ll tell you later, Guv,” said Patterson, hearing the approaching vicar.
“Those men shouldn’t be trampling over ...” the vicar was whining, but was cut off by an excited voice from the grave.
“Got it!” shouted one of the diggers.
“Got what?” asked the vicar, his voice lost in the press of men straining to peer into the pit.
“Get back,” shouted Bliss, shouldering a couple of constables aside for a clearer view. “What is it? What’ve you found?”
The vicar’s scrawny body slipped easily through the gap and he tugged at Bliss’s sleeve. “What exactly did you expect to find, Inspector?”
Bliss, feeling exonerated, shot back confidently. “What else would you expect to find in a grave, Sir, but a body?”
“A body?” breathed the vicar, then he had a revelation. “Do you mean the Major’s body?”
“Precisely, Vicar – no wonder Jonathan Dauntsey was so cocksure we’d never find his father. He figured that if he put it under ...”
“Sir, Sir,” Jackson’s voice was calling him urgently from the grave. “It ain’t the Major, Sir. It’s just some old bones.”
“How old? Show me.”
Jackson used the discovery as a means of escaping the pit and quickly clambered up the ladder with a handful of bone shards. “There’s a load of ’em,” he said, handing Bliss the fragments that had aged to a dark sepia.
“Ancient burials,” said the vicar, dismissing the human remains with little more than a glance. “The church was erected in 1145 on the site of a Saxon burial site. The Normans commonly built on sacred ground.” His eyes glazed and he took on a faraway look as if in personal remembrance of medieval Britain. “Do you know, Inspector, the Normans gave us some of our most magnificent Cathedrals and ...”
“You were saying about the ancient burials?” Bliss butted in gently, steering the vicar’s historical sermon toward more relevant matters.
“Oh ... Yes. Well, people have been buried on this site for centuries, and bones have a habit of migrating under the ground. I sometimes think it is because they are unhappy where they have been placed – like uneasy spirits always wandering …” Seemingly realising that he, too, was wandering again he paused and succinctly explained. “We clear the gravestones every few hundred years and start all over again, so wherever you dig you will probably find some remains. It’s wonderful to think that all the ground we are standing on was once the mortal bodies of parishioners – the wonder of God, eh, Inspector? – dust to dust.”
“Wonderful,” repeated Bliss, fearing he might retch.
“There’s something else,” called the other digger still hard at work.
Jackson slipped back down the ladder, keener now, and two minutes later a blood stained duvet had been dredged out of the mud in the bottom of the grave and hauled to the surface.
“Any bets that this is the one from the Black Horse,” said Patterson.
“Nobody will bet against it,” said Bliss peering expectantly into the hole, waiting to see the Major’s body emerge.
“That’s it, Guv,” Jackson called a few minutes later. “We’ve hit rock bottom. He ain’t here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“What’s that?” called Bliss, pointing, having noticed a small blob with an unnatural shape.
“Just a lump of rock,” said Jackson slamming his shovel into it.
The “rock” sheared in two with a dull thud and took him by surprise. “It’s soft, he said, bending. “It’s metal I think, Guv,” he added brushing away some of the mud. “It’s an old kid’s toy. A mangled horse with a rider.”
“I think it’s a tin soldier, Guv,” said Patterson, reaching into the pit and taking it from Jackson.
“Lead, I would say,” said Bliss, feeling the weight as he took it from the sergeant. “Where was it, Jackson?”
“Don’t rightly know, Sir – under the duvet, I s’pose. I never noticed it ’til you mentioned it.”
“It was probably dropped by one of the kids that play in here,” suggested the vicar. “They’re a bit of a nuisance to be honest. Or a grieving parent may have placed it in a child’s coffin – favourite toy, that sort of thing.”
“Why was it flattened then?”
“Jackson and his clumsy boots probably did that,” said Patterson.
“Possibly,” mused Bliss. “Anyway, this doesn’t help us. Where on earth is the Major’s body?”
