Читать книгу No Cherubs for Melanie - James Hawkins - Страница 7

Death was very definitely in the air, yet not one of the hundred or so designer-clad women in the restaurant’s grand dining room — and only one of the overdressed men — felt the slight shift in ambience that signalled its presence.

The cognizant man, sitting alone beyond the gleam of the chandelier, could have been a public health inspector, but his suit, though aging, was too sharp, his shoes too shiny, and he had a robustness about him that said he’d done more with his fifty years than poke fingers into U-bends and grease traps. Sitting, he seemed tall, but his length was in his trunk; his legs had let him down an inch or two. In deference to the August heat, he’d slung his jacket carelessly over the back of his chair and loosened his tie with casual contempt. However, he meditated over each morsel of food with the morose dedication of a culinary critic. Other guests, uneasily noticing the man’s introspective countenance, and feeling the scrutiny of his nervously watchful hazel eyes, might have quite wrongly imagined that he was the one preparing for the grave.

Heads snapped around as a fat man erupted into the room through a panelled door. A whisper swept across the room, swiftly gaining strength, and was carried by waiters past the lone diner into the bustling kitchen, where it became a cacophony that drowned out the clash of pots and the hum of extractor fans. The chefs tried to pretend nothing was happening but the lower echelon gravitated into a grumbling huddle. “The old man’s pissed again!”

Out in the grand dining room, beyond the soundproof swinging doors, the fat newcomer navigated drunk-enly from table to table and an excited murmur spread from mouth to mouth: The sideshow had started, the evening’s entertainment had begun. Whom would he ridicule tonight? What would he shout?“Are you mad, woman? Champagne with pheasant! Never! I will not permit gastronomic suicide in my restaurant. Mon Dieu!” “Fork! Moron. Yeah, you. You don’t eat oysters with a fucking fork!”

But not tonight. Tonight he was too far gone for repartee, however abusive or one-sided.

A foreign tourist, American judging by his tie, grabbed the arm of a passing waiter and drew his attention to the drunk with a concerned nod.

Without a second glance the waiter leaned forward. “It’s alright, Sir, he’s the owner,” he said with confidence, as if recommending the plat du jour; as if such behaviour should be expected of all London restaurateurs.

The pantomime continued as the slobbering clown fell from table to table, grasping at imagined safety rails, steadying his hand on expensively manicured heads. “Mind the wig, old chap, cost a bloody fortune,” they laughed.

Around the room, twitchy fingers reached for cellphones. Whom to call? The police or the News of the World? The police, probably. Although the owner’s antics may at one time have smudged a column or two in the tabloids, the paparazzi and the public had long since found greater interest in other, more ridiculous, characters.

With a wry smile and without a hiccup, the tuxedo-clad pianist twisted his bow tie drunkenly and swung from Dvorák’s “New World” to the drinking song from Romburg’s Student Prince; few noticed.

Spouting gibberish, insisting that he should be heard, the owner clutched his throat. “Ah… urg… argh,” he gurgled and was misinterpreted by a wispy model-type. “Do you think he wants us to leave, Roger?” she asked her companion in a stage whisper.

“Bloody scandalous… Absolutely disgraceful,” echoed around the room, but to some the drunk’s behaviour was consoling: those able to point and snigger, “Well, at least I’m not as bad as that!”

“Wish I had a camera,” exclaimed one diner, and got a dig in the ribs from his skimpily clad female escort. (“We’ll have to be discreet,” she’d whispered saucily as they’d slipped away from her husband’s dismal book launch party. “Discreet!” he’d cried. “Wearing that!”)

Another diner was suitably armed, toting a video camera brought to record a momentous family occasion. But the celebration of forty years of undying matrimonial fidelity couldn’t stop the husband’s camera eye from roving.

“Please don’t!” implored the man’s wife, feeling the heat from guests at surrounding tables, but, shaking off her admonition, he continued filming.

In less than a minute the bulky figure had reeled his way from one side of the room to the other, leaving a trail of bemused, disgruntled, delighted, and offended patrons. His goal, the kitchen, lay directly ahead of him, and diners on the far side of the room were already losing interest, returning to more mundane matters: platters of undercooked, undersized, and overpriced culinary creations.

The padded service door to the kitchen was flung open and the slobbering owner filled the void like a marauding alien in a movie. A wave of silence spread through the kitchen; whisks, spoons, and knives ground to a halt as one of the monster’s pudgy hands gripped the door frame with white-knuckle force, his other hand grappling to loosen the clothing around his neck like a struggling lynch-mob victim. A burble of voices began to penetrate the silence, but the owner exclaimed, “Chef!” in surprisingly clear tones and cut the babble as cleanly as if someone had pulled a plug. Then he slumped to the floor with a soft thud.

Less favoured guests — those seated at tables closest to the kitchen — sat mesmerized, their eyes riveted to the creature on the floor. And the expressions on their faces were mirrored in the wide eyes of the kitchen staff who stared, jaws dropped, like toilet sitters when the stall door unexpectedly flies open.

A doctor, attending his daughter’s engagement party at a nearby table, braced himself to rise. His wife’s hand and steely glare dissuaded him.

“He’s drunk again,” he mouthed, his conscience easily assuaged.

The chef de cuisine, ex-army by the trim of his moustache, took control. “Quick, get him in,” he commanded, his voice sharp with annoyance. Three sous chefs grabbed at the owner while the chef turned his attention back to the kitchen and donned his sergeant major’s persona. “Mis en place,” he bellowed, emphasizing the order by slamming a silver serving platter onto a metal table with enough force to buckle the oval dish beyond repair.

The pensive lone diner watched in silent consternation as the macabre tableau unfolded before him, then slid on his jacket, dropped enough cash on the table to cover the bill, and slipped from the room unnoticed.

“Crap!”

The shout pricked the ears of the old ginger cat. He tensed, sank deeply into the knotted shag-pile, and readied himself to pounce. The flying paperback missed by more than a chair’s width and landed with the sound of ripping paper.

“Sorry Balderdash,” his owner called. “I wasn’t aiming at you, old mate. It’s that damn book. Load of bloody —” The doorbell interrupted his apology and, rising slowly from the comfortably decrepit armchair, Detective Inspector David Bliss muttered disgruntledly. “It’s bloody Sunday afternoon.” Then he stumbled as his unbuckled trousers slipped halfway down his thighs. “Who is it?”

The only answer was a second peal of chimes; same chimes, different silly tune. God, how he hated those chimes; his ex-wife’s final kick in the teeth. “You keep the door chimes, Dave,” she had said with a leer, “I know how much they mean to you.”

Still struggling with his zipper, Bliss shuffled to the door, flicked the catch, and was flung backwards by the force of his commanding officer marching into the room.

“Bliss old chap. Hoped I’d catch you. Been phoning for days.” Detective Chief Inspector Peter Bryan kept walking, on a mission, making the old cat leap out of the way as he headed for the far side of the sparsely furnished room. “Your phone’s not working,” he continued, and swept the phone off the glass-topped side table, holding it aloft — a trophy, as the unconnected cord dangled accusingly in mid-air. “Do you want to talk about it Dave?” he asked, eyebrows raised — a priest visiting to enquire why a parishioner has converted to the other side.

“Not particularly, Guv,” replied Bliss, slumping into a chair that could have been chucked out by Oxfam; hiding an obvious rip with his left elbow; missing a couple of nasty cigarette burns. “What do you want?”

DCI Bryan, looking decidedly unpolicemanlike in Sunday jeans and golfing shirt, scanned the room with a scrap merchant’s eye: one dilapidated leatherette armchair, a small dining table that the previous occupiers hadn’t considered worth a struggle down the stairs, a television set that looked as though it may have been installed for the Queen’s Coronation, a couple of other bits, and a pile of tired cardboard boxes. Five quid for the lot.

Bliss saw the look. “The wife cleaned me out,” he protested, making no attempt to clear a space for his senior officer to sit.

“Thank God for that. I thought you’d had burglars,” said DCI Bryan, dropping the telephone onto the table. He checked his fingernails for dirt and selected his most serious expression. “Murder, Dave. It’s murder.”

Bliss relaxed into the enveloping security of the well-worn padded chair and felt the tension drain from him. This was not exactly what he’d been expecting and he joked in relief, “That’s the trouble with Sundays, Guv. Wife, kids, gardening, traffic, being polite to the neighbours. It’s murder. Bloody murder.”

Bryan let him finish. “Very funny Dave. But this is a real murder and I think you’ll be interested.”

Randomly selecting a glass from several on the floor by the side of his chair, Bliss drained the syrupy dregs then stared into the empty vessel, puzzling. Where did that go?

“I’ve decided to quit,” he said finally, as if the DCI had not spoken — as if murder no longer intrigued him.

Peter Bryan studied Bliss’s face for the first time since entering the apartment and shuddered at the realization that only six years separated them. You can count me out if this is what marriage and divorce does to you, he thought, seeing the chaos of the unkempt room mirrored in the older man’s face — unshaven, unwashed probably, and sagged under the twin weights of middle age and carelessness. The sad glaze of hopelessness in Bliss’s eyes startled Bryan. He’d seen the look before: prisoners, lifers usually, resigned to their fate, with nothing worth anticipating beyond the possible introduction of in-cell flush toilets and the certain visit of the HIV nurse.

“Why quit?” Bryan ventured with an upbeat lilt. “You’ve got at least ten good years in you for a full pension, and you are — well, you were — a damn good detective.” Bliss gave a ‘couldn’t-give-a-shit’ shrug, and slumped fully into the chair. “I wanna get on with my life.”

“I didn’t know you had a life to get on with,” Bryan retorted, immediately trying to bite back his words.

But Bliss took little notice. “You said I’d be interested in this case. Why?”

Did Bryan detect a glimmer of curiosity in the other man’s dark brown eyes? “Have you seen the papers?” he asked, but one glance round the room told him, Not.

“Guv, is this some sort of party game or did you bugger up my Sunday afternoon for a reason?”

“Inspector!” the DCI began, then checked himself. What is there to bugger up, he wondered. If this is life, it can only improve. But, Bliss was off duty after all. “OK, Dave. I’ll be straight with you.” He stabbed a finger at the whisky glass. “Word has come from above that unless you stop pissing away your life on gut-rot and get back to work, you’re finished.”

Bliss sneered, “I was right. That’s what I thought you came to tell me. So why give me the whole spiel about a murder?”

“Huh! Well, you were wrong. I was only supposed to tell you about the murder, to see if you had enough bottle to pull yourself together long enough to take the case.”

He’s lying, thought Bliss, but couldn’t avoid looking sheepish. “Try me then — let’s see if I’ve got any bottle left.”

“Does the name Martin Gordonstone mean anything to you?”

“Yeah. He’s that posh geezer who owns a fancy restaurant. Usually pissed as a rat, swearing at customers, chucking them out if he doesn’t like ’em, that sort of thing.”

“Was that posh geezer,” corrected Bryan. “Anything else?”

Bliss missed the innuendo. “Are we back to twenty questions?”

“Sorry Dave. I was hoping you’d remember.”

“Remember what for Chrissake?”

“Nineteen seventy-seven. You dealt with the death of his daughter.”

Bliss’s face went through a contortion that could have been mistaken for heartburn as his mind exploded with memory. “Melanie Gordonstone?” he queried in a disbelieving whisper, “You mean…”

The other man, eyes wide in agreement, nodded quickly. Bliss got the picture, found himself sinking into his mind, and his eyes blanked as he focused on the images that sprang up behind them. A child’s white, lifeless body drifted into view, floating face down in a pond, like a scuba diver scouring a reef. Only this diver was wearing neither a snorkel nor a mask. Time hadn’t diminished the memory. His first child fatality as a policeman. His first child fatality, period.

“You’ll always remember your first dead ’un,” the training school instructor had said. “’Specially a kid.” How true, Bliss thought, how true.

He pulled himself back to the present and stumbled over his tongue. “I… I didn’t realize it was him… I had no idea it was the same bloke. I… I didn’t think he was into restaurants.”

“He wasn’t back then,” replied Bryan. “He was a stockbroker. Made a mint and got out years before everyone else lost their shirts on Black Monday. Very lucky or bloody good timing, who knows?”

DCI Bryan was still talking, unaware of the maelstrom raging in Bliss’s mind as he fought to disengage his thoughts from the image of the dead six-year-old, arms akimbo, embracing the water, while a halo of dark auburn hair floated around her head and a school of koi carp curiously inspected the newcomer to their world.

“Accidental drowning wasn’t it?” Bliss looked up. “Sorry?” he said, realizing he’d missed the question; the haunting image was still there, overpowering all his thoughts.

“His daughter’s drowning. Accident wasn’t it?”

“That was the coroner’s verdict.”

“It was an accident wasn’t it?” Bryan asked, his tone lifted a half pitch in surprise.

Bliss pondered for a second then nodded firmly. “Yes.” But his expression wouldn’t have fooled a social worker and he knew it.

Bryan caught the look and tried to make eye contact. Bliss quickly dropped his head for a close study of his left thumbnail but only found the deadpan features of a lifeless little girl. “Was it an accident?” he began quietly, hiding behind the softness of his words. “I don’t know. It was just a bit suspicious at the time, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.” Bliss paused, then added with calculated casualness, “I’ve often wondered if her father did it.”

“Why?”

“It’s difficult to explain, but he was sort of funny, uncooperative almost.”

“No. I meant, why would he have done it? Why would he have killed his own daughter?”

Bliss levered himself out of the chair, fighting against the images in his mind, needing space to think. “Do you want a drink, Guv?”

“Tea would be fine.”

“There’s no milk,” Bliss explained, not apologizing. “I’ve got some of that powdered stuff.”

DCI Bryan pulled a face. “I’ll take it black. So tell me about the daughter.”

Bliss reached the kitchenette in two strides and fiddled unnecessarily with the kettle. He would have been out the back door, if he had one, gulping lungfuls of fresh air and searching the sky for a bird or aeroplane’s contrail, anything to take his mind off the dead little girl. Both hands shook — it could be the whisky, he reasoned, but knew different as he hunched over the sink and stared out the window at his bleak concrete neighbours. Seconds later, dark images of Melanie Gordonstone blotted out the September sun and dragged him down into the sink of scummy washing up water. Plunging his hands in he hoped to find a cup, but felt only a clammy child’s body with stiff matchstick arms and legs — all the elasticity of life gone. Suddenly, the water seemed to boil; he whipped out his scalded hands and found himself confronted with an image of her body, her wet summery dress clinging opaquely to her skin, the thin fabric creased into a fold between her spindly legs. Twenty years later, but he could almost feel the wetness on his mouth as it enfolded her unresponsive lips in a desperate fight to revive her.

“Breathe please,” he had implored, and a bubble of snot had inflated from one of her tiny nostrils.

“Breathe,” he had shouted, as he frantically compressed her androgynous chest, willing the heart to beat, the lungs to inflate, the mouth to suck.

“Where’s your keyboard, Dave?” the chief inspector called, still scouting around the small flat looking for signs of life. “You do still play don’t you? I hope you haven’t given that up…”

But Bliss couldn’t hear. The images in the murky sink water wouldn’t let him go, trapping him in a whirlpool of images that rekindled the panic and fear and left him feeling as helpless as he did at the time.

“Breathe damn you, breathe,” he was still yelling inside when the singing kettle eventually broke the spell. Swiping his hand across his forehead he swept the images away and smeared beads of sweat into his hair, but his voice cracked with emotion as he tried to continue the conversation. More than twenty years and he still choked up at the thought of that floppy little body lying in the sunshine on the pond’s grassy bank.

“I tried mouth-to-mouth…” he called from the kitchenette, his voice trailing off, then, after a moment, he turned abruptly and demanded. “Have you any idea what it’s like, Guv?” He knew the answer and didn’t wait for a response. “How could you know? She was only six for God’s sake. Only a year or so older than my girl at the time.”

DCI Bryan put on a reassuring voice. “Kids are always the worst, Dave. You know that. Give me some clapped out old beggar who kicks the bucket and it doesn’t put me off me steak and kidney; but a kid… ”

Tea in hand, Bliss returned to the main room, shaking his head, interrupting. “No. This one was different. She wasn’t just any kid. She was so pretty. She looked like a little stone angel. What do they call them?” He delved into his memory, came up with another image of the little girl, and answered his own question. “Cherub. That’s what she was like. One of those marble cherubs you see on gravestones.” He paused, and a vision of a stoneless little grave flitted through his mind — a pathetic grave, just a little mound with a numbered marker. But just how big a mound can you make when you’re only six years old, he wondered. “She was the first real dead child I’d seen,” his monologue continued, eyes fixed firmly on a carpet stain, the origin of which he’d long since forgotten. “She didn’t look dead. Just asleep. I kept thinking, She’ll wake up in a minute.” Twenty years worth of guilt bubbled to the surface and his words were hushed as if he were alone with his memory — a memory he would rather not share. “The body was so cold — as cold as marble. She felt like a… like a big plastic doll. Later, much later, I began to think, Why was she so cold? The water was cold but no one ever challenged the time of death.”

“What are you suggesting?”

Bliss looked up sharply, almost caught unawares by he presence of an audience. “I often wondered. What if she’d been dead longer?”

“Why did you think that?”

“According to the parents — her father anyway — she had been missing for no more than ten minutes or so, and his wife backed him up; well, at least, she didn’t contradict him. According to them, Margaret had come running, crying, saying she’d lost Melanie.”

The chief inspector cocked his head, “Margaret?”

“Her older sister.”

“So, they called the police. What’s wrong with that?”

How many times over the years had Bliss asked himself the same question. What’s wrong with calling the police? Nothing. But why not go and look for her first? Why call the police straight away? And, more significantly, why had he never asked those questions of the parents? He had never asked, not really, although Martin Gordonstone had clearly anticipated the questions as he and his wife had greeted Bliss on the front steps of their country retreat, looking like Mr. Snobby Stockbroker waiting to welcome the Porches and Jags of dinner guests.

Bliss took up the conversation again as if the chief inspector was somehow privy to the images in mind. “‘We thought it best to wait for you to arrive,’ Gordonstone said, or something like that.”

“So why didn’t they look for her?” queried the DCI. Bliss shrugged. “I don’t know.” But he was lying. Inwardly he knew only too well — his twenty-year-old conversation with Gordonstone was replaying in his mind with the clarity of a digital tape recording. And he clearly remembered the way that Gordonstone, in doeskin loafers and designer jeans, had lorded over him at the time. “We’re absolutely certain she can’t be far away,” the stockbroker had pompously whined. “You shouldn’t have any difficulty finding her.” Leaving Bliss thinking that the other man felt himself above searching for missing persons, even one of his own.

“It only took me a minute to find her,” continued Bliss. “I remember walking across the lawn into the woods, calling her name, and there she was, face down in the pond. They could have found her if they’d looked.”

“But they didn’t look?”

“Obviously not.”

“And you didn’t find it strange?”

Strange? His mind shuttled back to the pond and the lifeless little bundle of flesh as he picked at a split nail until it broke off and jerked him back to the moment.

“Strange? Not at the time. Afterwards, sometime afterwards, I started wondering about a lot of things but I didn’t know what to do. The coroner’s verdict was clear. No hint of foul play. No unresolved issues. Accidental drowning.” Bliss squeezed the remains from a bottle of scotch into a glass and took a gulp before continuing. “Look, Guv. I’ve never told anyone before but I’m pretty sure he killed his daughter.”

“That’s just your imagination, Dave. Time has a way of distorting things.”

“And sometimes it makes things clearer.”

“True. But why the father?”

“You know how it is, Guv. Sometimes you just have a gut feeling something isn’t right.”

“What do you mean?”

Trying to think beyond the tenacious image of the dead little girl, Bliss closed his eyes and sank back into his chair, leaving the other man with his backside propped against the windowsill. “Gordonstone never really pushed; he was always happy to accept that it was an accident, that she just fell in. If she’d been my six-year-old, I’d have been jumping up and down demanding explanations. I’d have been at the police station every day, banging on doors, shouting my mouth off, wanting to know what was happening, wanting action, wanting answers.”

“And he wasn’t demanding answers?”

“No,” Bliss shook his head with earnestness. “He took it all too calmly for my liking, and I’ll always remember him saying, ‘Well officer, these things happen.’ I think I was more upset than he was.” He took a slow swig, changing his rhythm, buying time to deliberate before deciding to reveal his trump card. “Then there was the sexual thing.” The DCI raised an eyebrow interestedly, and waited.

“The pathologist couldn’t be certain but he thought she may have been interfered with — somebody playing doctors and nurses, mommies and daddies, you know the sort of thing.”

“And you think it was the father?”

“Who else?”

“You tell me.”

“According to the parents they never let her out of their sight except for when she was at school, and even then the mother took her and picked her up.”

“It could have been the mother,” the DCI chipped in, his voice loaded with experience. “It’s not without precedent, although they usually go for boys. And the parents must have let her out of their sight sometimes or she wouldn’t have drowned.” Bliss massaged his forehead with both hands trying to work the knots out of his mind. “According to them she was supposed to be with her big sister, Margaret. The two girls had gone exploring together, and the pond was just behind the house. They’d rented the place for the summer holidays to get the kids out of the city. They’d just arrived and the girls went off to explore while they unpacked.”

“So what did the big sister say?”

Bliss hesitated, staring into his drink and searching for an answer; but all he could see was the little six-year-old cherub with long dark hair and a white marble face.

Peter Bryan prodded, “Well?”

Bliss made a performance of finishing his drink, lighting a cigarette, and checking out a small rip in the knee of his trousers. Finally he threw the empty cigarette packet toward an overflowing rubbish bin and admitted, “I didn’t interview her.”

“Who did?”

Bliss didn’t answer right away, knowing there was no satisfactory answer, and that his brain would always shut down altogether whenever he tried to fabricate something plausible out of nothing.

“Dave, it’s not too difficult. All I’ve got to do is dig up the file.” Bliss held up his hand to silence the other officer and then, in a barely audible whisper, said, “No one interviewed her.”

The DCI dropped his cup onto the windowsill, splintering the atmosphere with an audible crack, then leaned closer to Bliss, his face screwed into a blend of curiosity and confusion. “But surely she was the prime witness. You said the two girls were together. Someone must’ve interviewed her.” The old cat shrank into the carpet again and held its breath as Bliss tried to conjure an image of the elder sister out of thin air and came up in the middle of an impenetrable fog. The chief inspector was still waiting for him when he came out the other side with no sign of relief on his face, and the senior officer picked up the vibes.

“What’s that look for?”

“What look?” said Bliss, trying hard to take the pain out of his face.

“That look that says, ‘Can I trust you?’”

“OK. Can I?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Depends on what you say.”

“In that case I ain’t saying nothing.”

DCI Bryan pushed himself off the windowsill and took up a headmaster’s stance, hands knotted behind back, head craned forward questioningly. “Dave, if you want to get something off your chest, particularly if it might affect this case, you may as well tell me. It happened more than twenty years ago so I don’t suppose anybody will be too worried about it now.”

Bliss feared the sting of the cane hidden behind the encouraging words and appealed to the other officer with eyes wide. “I didn’t do anything wrong, but I’ll be honest I’ve had something on my conscience ever since that case. It might have something to do with Martin Gordonstone’s murder, it might not. I really don’t care anymore so I may as well tell you.”

“Oh, shit. Don’t tell me Gordonstone coughed to murdering his own daughter.”

“No, Guv. Far from it. It wasn’t what he said, it was more the things he didn’t say that bugged me.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“He kept saying, ‘If there’s anything you want to know just ask.’ I’d ask but he never really gave a straight answer.”

“Be specific, man.”

Bliss gave it a few seconds thought. “Well, I remember asking him how long the girls had been gone, and he was sort of vague. He said something like, ‘Difficult to say precisely, officer. We were unpacking and I don’t remember when they left the house for sure. It could have been ten minutes, but it may have been fifteen, possibly longer.’ So I suggested that I ask the sister but he said, ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ve already asked her and she doesn’t have any idea.’ I told him I should still like to ask her and he said, ‘I’ve told you that won’t be necessary.’”

Bryan studied Bliss’s face closely. “So you never interviewed the other girl.”

Bliss shook his head. “Never even saw her. Looking back on it now, I feel bloody stupid. It’s obvious he kept her out of the way, but at the time —”

“What did his wife say?” cut in the chief inspector, like an interrogator keeping a suspect off balance. Bliss got up and started wandering around as if he’d lost a hip flask in the tangles of the shag-pile.

“You did interview the wife?” Bryan asked.

“Oh yes.” Bliss looked up defensively. “Of course I did. Although I never got her on her own. He was always hovering around… comforting her, that sort of thing. What was I supposed to do? She’d just lost her daughter — she was distraught. Plus, it appeared to be an accident, and there were no obvious signs of dirty business. I could hardly insist on interviewing her on her own could I?”

“So what did she say?”

“Guv, this was twenty years ago.”

“I realize that. But you’re right, it could have some bearing on the old man’s murder. Do you remember anything she said?” Bliss’s eyes drifted to the ceiling and became entangled in the intricate pattern of a cobweb as he sought to unravel his memories. “I remember she kept referring my questions to him,” he began slowly. “I’d say, ‘What time did you realize Melanie was missing?’ and she’d turn to him and say, ‘What time was it, Martin?’ Even when she didn’t ask his opinion, she’d look at him while she answered, like she was waiting for a clue, a nod or a wink perhaps, I don’t know. But she never really spoke for herself; never gave a straight answer. She even looked at him when I asked her bloody name.”

“Did you tell anyone about your suspicions?” Apparently confused by the question, Bliss snatched his eyes away from the cobweb. “What suspicions?” he asked, peering into the DCI’s blue eyes.

“That the father killed his little girl.” Bliss thought hard and found himself staring at charges of neglect of duty — perverting the course of justice, even — and he gave his reply the most favourable spin he could. “At the time I didn’t have any suspicions. I was more worried about filling out the forms, doin’ sketch plans of the scene, having the body identified, arranging the postmortem: all the admin crap. Anyway, Gordonstone had a pretty good alibi. He was in the house unpacking with his wife while the two girls were playing together in the back garden.”

“You don’t know that. How do you know the girls were together?”

“He told me.”

“Precisely.”

“Look, Guv. I’ve tortured myself to bloody death over this case. I’ve asked myself a thousand times why I didn’t pull him in for questioning. Why didn’t I bang him up in a cell for a few hours? I could have softened him up a bit; maybe a few threats, arm up his back, good cop–bad cop. You know the routines.”

“Why didn’t you?” Bliss sheepishly studied the back of his hands, searching for a clearer memory of the now dead man. The bastard bullied me, he thought, remembering Gordonstone’s haughty attitude. But this memory had been with him for twenty years and he still found it painful, if not impossible, to articulate. He nearly blurted out, “He bullied me,” but stopped himself, realizing how pathetic it sounded, and knowing he would be asked to cite examples. Turning his hands over, he searched the palms for evidence to support his accusations but drew a blank. Innocuous phrases sprung to mind — innocuous phrases with implied threats. I’m a good friend of Judge so-and-so. I know quite a few of your bosses; we’re in the same lodge. It was obviously just an accident. I’ll give the coroner a ring, let him know; I’m sure we were at school together.”

Leaving his hands, Bliss looked up at his senior officer, seeking understanding, or perhaps compassion. “Gordonstone sort of threatened me with things that sound stupid now. And they weren’t even threats, really. Just by the tone of his voice he somehow pulled rank on me … made me feel uneasy. I remember asking one question he didn’t like, and he stuck his nose in the air and said, ‘Please address any further questions through my lawyer.’ As if he were saying, ‘I’m too busy to deal with a little bit of shit like you.’ Like I said, I’ve never told anyone before, but I’ve often wondered if he killed her. I was just a rookie at the time and didn’t really know what the hell I was doing. But now he’s gone perhaps the wife will talk.”

“Maybe. Although there’s no mention of a wife on his sudden death report. He’s shown as being single.”

“Divorced, probably. I wouldn’t be surprised, the way he bossed her about. What about the elder sister? I often wondered if she knew what was going on. Maybe Melanie told her what her dad was doing. Maybe he was touching her up as well, that’s why he kept her out of the way. Maybe he was screwing them both.”

“I don’t think you’ll get much out of her.”

“She isn’t dead —”

The DCI held up his hand. “No. But she lives somewhere in the wilds of Canada. She didn’t even come back for the funeral.”

“Any idea why?”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe he was playing around with both of them. Maybe she wanted to keep out of his way.”

“Why Canada?”

“For Christ’s sake, Dave, stop bloody grilling me. Just come back to work and you can ask all the questions you want.”

Bliss stared vacantly into his empty glass. “I don’t know if I can. Ten months is a long time.”

“Course you can. It’s like riding a horse. Once you know how, you never forget. You’ll just have to see the Force trick cyclist, get an OK from him. What did your own doc say was the problem?”

The well-rehearsed prognosis rolled off Bliss’s tongue, accompanied by an appropriately miserable expression. “Post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

“The plane crash?”

“That and other things.”

“What things?”

“Divorce.”

“So you’re a bit depressed.”

“Depressed is hardly adequate, Guv,” Bliss began, but laboured to find an alternative way to express the pain of divorce and sat in silent consternation for a few seconds. How can you explain to somebody that your mind has been torn apart? How can you carry on after such a trauma; why would you try? Death is at least final; divorce lingers. Death can be buried but divorce keeps coming back to smack you in the face. “Twenty-five years investment — hard bloody work…” he explained, “then whole bloody lot gets flushed down the pan.”

DCI Bryan softened his voice in sympathy. “Why did she leave, Dave?”

“She’d had enough, I suppose. I think it was the job mainly. She never understood; reckoned I loved the job more than her.”

“Did you?”

The admission stuck in his throat for a few seconds. “Probably.”

“If I had a missus she’d probably say the same. But you can’t hide out here for the rest of your life. You’ve still got your daughter and you’ve still got a job — barely. Who knows, you might even find someone else.”

“I’ve had a couple of tries. I really thought I’d cracked it with the last one…” He paused briefly as a dark memory passed, then brightened himself up for the other man’s benefit. “Anyway, I’m getting too old to try again.”

“Rubbish. I know dozens of men who’d love a second chance. There’s plenty more fish.”

“It’s too much effort. I can’t be bothered any more. At first I thought, ‘Great! Free again, and still young enough to enjoy it.’ Who was I kidding?” He paused and ferreted down the side of the chair squab, suddenly recalling the hiding place for a badly pulped packet of Benson & Hedges. The match shook noticeably as he lit one of the squashed cigarettes, and he stared into the flame for several seconds before blowing it out. “I got so bloody desperate I even started smoking again.”

A smirk spread across DCI Bryan’s face.

“It’s not funny, Guv. Have you ever tried giving up?”

“Never started.”

“You wouldn’t understand then. Took me two years. Always wanting one, always tempted.”

“Oh well. Life goes on.”

Bliss’s reply was loaded. “It doesn’t have to.”

“For God’s sake pull yourself together man.”

Bliss shrugged and gazed silently into the dirty grey cloud of exhaled smoke as if looking for inspiration; searching for a more hopeful future.

Bryan gave him a few moments, then enquired again about the electronic organ that Bliss had played to a rapturous crowd at the pensioner’s concert.

“In the bedroom, Guv,” said Bliss, his eyes immediately lighting up. “I’ve got a new one actually. Cost a bloody fortune.” In an instant he was out of the chair and guiding the DCI to another room, another world — a world of music.

The single bed looked under siege, squashed against a wall surrounded by Yamahas and Technics that, combined, could outperform a thousand-piece orchestra. Bliss waved the DCI to the bed while he flicked a couple of switches and started playing.

“Recognize it?” he asked after a few bars.

Bryan nodded, “‘Time to Say Goodbye.’ That’s beautiful Dave. You’re wasted in the police force.”

“Yeah, I know, Guv. Too bloody sensitive, that’s my problem.”

He finished the song and they wandered back to the main room.

“Look, I’m not going to get on my bloody knees,” said Bryan, “But if you think this act of being round the twist is going to let you retire and draw a cushy disability pension, you’re wrong. You’re as sane as I am. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot in the police force, but you’re one of the best blokes we’ve got and I don’t want to lose you. Got it?”

Bliss nodded.

“OK. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Either see the doc tomorrow and tell him you’re as fit as a bloody fiddle, or damn well resign and stop pissing everybody about.”

Bliss’s eyes found the stain on the carpet again as his senior officer unlatched the front door and stepped out. But Bryan paused on the threshold, jammed the door open with his foot and turned back into the room. He looked as though he was having second thoughts as he called, “Dave.”

“Yes, Guv.”

“Interesting case, eh!” he suggested cheerily. “Who murdered the murderer?” Then his eyes swept the room. “Oh, and get this place cleaned up before the council declares you a health hazard.” The door slammed, and the old cat cringed again.