Читать книгу Inspector Bliss Mysteries 8-Book Bundle - James Hawkins - Страница 13

The road out of Westchester hummed soothingly beneath the tyres of Bliss’s liberated Rover, and the frenzied bustle of London offered the prospect of a peaceful haven after the stormy Saturday afternoon meeting.

“The men aren’t very happy about this meeting,” Superintendent Donaldson had snapped, catching Bliss on his way up the front steps of the police station. And the men weren’t happy. Patterson had seen to that, polishing his truncheon amidst the disgruntled throng at the pre-conference moaning session.

“I’m really sorry about this folks,” he had whined, smarmily. “Only this new D.I. wouldn’t listen to me. He thinks he’s still in the effing Met.” Adding, sotto voce, “If he ever was in the Met. I told him you deserved the weekend off but did he care? Did he fuck!”

Bliss was still trying to puzzle out what had happened an hour later as he made for London, driving fast, trying to put the meeting behind him.

It had started badly – feigned illnesses and hastily arranged weddings accounted for the absence of more than half the officers. Detective Constable Dowding’s truancy was especially notable.

“His wife seemed confused when I called,” explained Patterson. “She said he’d already left – said you’d given him a special assignment to work on.”

“I expect he’s following up on a couple of things we came across earlier in the week,” said Bliss, tongue in cheek, nurse Dryden’s mammary assets in mind. “I’ll discuss it with him later.”

“Good afternoon,” Bliss greeted the twenty or so officers as he entered the conference room, and someone ripped the air with a noisy belch.

“Afternoon,” grumbled a few, leaving feet on the desks in a conspiracy of disdain.

“Sorry to spoil your weekend,” he commenced, noticing the intentionally varied assortment of sport and leisurewear and feeling the glare of hostility. “Only, this case is a week old and we don’t seem to be any further ahead really.”

Patterson winced, visibly, but with his mind the way it was, he would have taken a congratulatory pat on the shoulder as a rabbit punch. “So, we’ve done absolutely fuck-all this week,” he grumbled, stabbing himself in the back. “That’s what you’re implying, Guv, isn’t it?” he continued, neatly planting the stiletto in Bliss’s hand. “You’re saying that getting a confession out of Dauntsey, gathering all the evidence, and finding his father’s body was nothing,” he snarled, his enormous fangs drawn. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t say that, Sergeant ...” Bliss protested, stung by the criticism, but, with their sergeant’s blood on the floor, several of the men jumped into the fray.

“I found the bloody duvet,” blared Jackson, “and ruined me trousers in that damn grave.”

“And I walked fuckin’ miles doin’ house to house enquiries,” shouted another.

“And what about ...”

“Alright, that’s enough,” roared Bliss. “I didn’t say you hadn’t done anything …”

“Sounded like it to me,” muttered Patterson, twisting the blade one more time.

Bliss spun on him, enraged. “Sergeant Patterson, I said that’s enough. All I meant was ... we haven’t succeeded in solving this case – either case, despite all the work you and the men have put into it. That’s not a criticism, it’s just a statement of fact. Now, if you’ll let me finish ...” Pausing, he stared the men back into their seats, then started again, this time defensively. “I called this meeting because I have some new information that may assist us. I also want to get your input on what’s occurred so that I can spend tomorrow formulating a strategy, while you lot have the day off.”

Although the motorway was now speeding Bliss away from the town, he was still smarting from Patterson’s assault and couldn’t help thinking there was more to the antagonism than an interrupted Saturday afternoon.

“This is the man we were looking for,” he had said, producing the Dauntsey’s wedding photograph, and Patterson had immediately jumped on him.

“It’s pretty useless showing us that now we’ve found him.”

“This man ... ” continued Bliss, ignoring Patterson while pointing to the Major’s aide-de-camp. “This man may have been Captain David Tippen, something of a Gay Cavalier, if you get my meaning. Anyway, who checked him out?”

“Sergeant Dobson, Guv.”

Dobson rose, shaking his head. “Sorry, Guv, bad news I’m afraid. According to the Ministry of Defence, Tippen’s body was never found, he was listed as missing – presumed dead.”

“Where? What battle? When?”

“I didn’t think to ask.”

“Do you think it might be important?”

“Doubt it, Guv.”

“I was being sarcastic, Sergeant. Of course it’s important – find out please.”

Patterson had his doubts and sneered, “What possible relevance could that have?”

Sensing another insurrection, Bliss quickly stepped in to quash it. “We know Tippen’s dead, we’ve got his tags, but what about his family – don’t they have a right to know?”

“I thought this was supposed to be a murder enquiry,” grumbled Patterson.

I’m going to belt you in a minute, thought Bliss. “Dauntsey obviously knew where the body was,” he explained. “How else could he have got the dog tags. And if he knew, how come he didn’t tell the Army administration, or the man’s family?”

“I still don’t see what that’s got to do with us,” griped Patterson. “I still don’t see the connection.”

Bliss was still trying to work out the possible connection for himself when he drove into the motorway service area where he had escaped from the Volvo earlier in the week. The nutcase was still there, sitting in the same seat, still regressing, bending the ear of some other unsuspecting traveller. “Helen of Troy was my aunty, you know?”

Bliss chuckled as he went past in search of a coffee and sandwich, then he took a nearby seat and tried to take his mind off the meeting by watching her snare unwitting listeners. “Have you ever been here before ...?”

“So what’s this great theory of yours, Guv?” Patterson had asked, still in a snit.

“Personally, I think that flighty, fun-loving, Doreen Dauntsey soon got fed up living with a cabbage, especially an ugly one, so she lured him into the attic and shot him. Then she told everyone he’d gone to stay on the estate in Scotland.”

“That’s not much of a theory,” scoffed Patterson. “Why would he go into the attic? How would he get into the attic – he only had one arm?”

Bliss looked past him again, he had no answer and was becoming increasingly aware of the disgruntled murmuring from the other officers. He needed a juicy morsel to throw at them that wouldn’t be seized on by Patterson.

“What about Jonathon’s victim?” asked a spiky-featured officer, giving him a seconds breathing space. “If the Major was already dead in the attic, who did Jonathon kill?”

“It could have been just about anybody,” he started, then paused, half expecting Patterson to pipe up. “Follow me on this,” he continued, thankful for the silence. “Jonathon was pissed off with his father, seeing him as a failure for allowing his mother to struggle financially, and for deserting them, so he flattened the toy soldier, the Major, in a symbolic act of destruction. The trick-cyclists call it displaced aggression, I think. But it wasn’t enough, nobody even knew he’d done it. So, as his mother’s health deteriorated, he had to do something more to prove he really cared – something spectacular – murderously spectacular. Obviously he couldn’t attack the real man, he had no idea what had happened to him, so he chose a surrogate. But he had to have witnesses ...”

“Why?” Patterson leapt on his back again. “Why not just pull some starving old bum off the street, promise him a meal and a bed for the night, bump him off and bury him?”

Hoping to lighten the atmosphere, Bliss put on a Chinese accent. “Confucius he say – If tree fall in forest and no-one see or hear. Did it fall?” He paused, not expecting applause, but not anticipating the stone-faced silence either. Discomfitted, he pushed on anyway. “He needed witnesses because he wanted to read about it in the papers and hear it on the news, and the only way to achieve that was to sacrifice someone in public – but not somewhere so public that the victim’s face would be seen.”

“What about the duvet?” questioned a grey-bearded officer, showing a glimmer of interest.

“He buried it where he knew it would be found, then threw in the mangled toy as an effigy of the Major. It was all part of the illusion and might have worked if the real Major hadn’t shown up.”

“It’s more stupid than a bloody bedroom farce,” scoffed Patterson under his breath. “Someone ought’a make it into a pantomime. First we got a killer and no body, then a body and no killer, then no body ...”

“So where did Jonathon think the Major was?” asked the bearded officer talking over Patterson.

Bliss was tempted to say Scotland but knew it was an indefensible answer. He knew he couldn’t explain why Jonathon had not gone there to confront the real man.

The Dauntsey estate was still there, according to the Scottish P.C. who had made enquiries. It was occupied by a tenant farmer, the son of the man who had first leased the farm from Doreen Dauntsey a few years after the war. He paid rent once a year, April 1st, rain, shine or snow – twenty and fifty pound notes just as the Major’s written instructions had insisted – to be paid in cash to Mrs. Dauntsey.

“I’ll happily send the Major a cheque,” he’d offered numerous times. “It’ll save you having to traipse all the way up here every year.”

But she wouldn’t hear of it. “My husband insists that I come to make sure everything is in order, Mr. McAllister,” she had said more than once.

“I allus felt like I was buying off a blackmailer or paying a ransom,” he told the Scottish policeman. “A bundle of used notes in a brown paper parcel. She never counted it. ‘Och, I’m sure I can trust you, Mr. McAllister – good day to you,’ she’d say, then take the next train away home.”

“It’s difficult to believe that Jonathon thought his father was still alive,” Bliss told the group, “Although he may have been so much under his mother’s influence that he went along with it for fear of upsetting her. She was apparently quite convincing. ‘He’s in Scotland – at the estate,’ she’d say to anybody enquiring, and they would breathe a sigh of relief, mumbling, ‘Thank Christ for that.’”

“But what about his family?” asked a thick-thighed policewoman in a brave pair of shorts. “What about siblings, cousins, uncles. Did nobody ever check?”

“Obviously not.”

The street had relaxed when Bliss arrived at his house in London. It was Saturday, the double-manned surveillance car was either needed elsewhere or the crew were luxuriating in the rare pleasure of a weekend off. Unfettered residents, taking advantage of the summery weather, tarted up their cars without feeling spied upon, and children took a rare opportunity to kick a ball or throw a stone without getting yelled at by an unnecessarily anxious parent. Only Bliss, and the surveillance officers, knew the last thing in the world they cared about was what some snotty-nosed kid was doing in the street – unless it was a big snotty-nosed kid with a mask and a shotgun.

The normality of the street scene did nothing to allay Bliss’s anxiety which had been mounting ever since the suburbs, when the gradually narrowing streets had closed in around him, tighter and tighter like a strait-jacket cramping his chest, making him want to turn away. But he stuck it out, determined this would be no drive-by, and he forced himself to pull up directly in front of the house. He was going in, going to stay – only a night or two, but, thanks to Daphne, it was time to stop running.

“Is there anything else that I can tell you, or you can tell me before we call it a day?” asked Bliss, wrapping up the meeting. Several checked their watches, praying no-one would ask a question or start a debate.

“What did you make of the syringe, Guv?” said a youngish policewoman in tennis gear, breaking rank with her colleagues and suffering their glares.

“What syringe?” asked Bliss blankly.

“I found it in the ashes of Dauntsey’s Aga cooker,” she explained, having taken the initiative to sift through the ash-bin of the coal burning stove in the kitchen of the old house, thinking it an ideal place for someone to incinerate small incriminating items. “It had exploded in the heat and was all smoky and black, but I managed to find most of it.”

Bliss shook his head – completely in the dark. “Well, where is it?”

“I gave it to Sgt. Patterson on Tuesday, Guv.”

“I didn’t think it was significant,” shrugged Patterson, leaping to his own defence. “It was obviously his mother’s – being ill and all.”

“She’s got cancer, not diabetes,” shot back Bliss, seizing a vengeful opportunity. “Where is it now? In the evidence store or at the forensic lab, I hope.”

Patterson, nailed, turned bright pink. “Um ... It’s in my desk actually, Guv.”

“Well get it to the lab then – right away.”

Patterson wriggled, unconvinced. “It’s burnt ... doubt if they’ll find anything. Anyway, what are they supposed to be looking for? They’ll want to know.”

“A sedative of some sort. My guess is he used it to tranquillise whoever he bumped off, which would explain how he got his victim up to the room in the Black Horse.”

“Have we any idea who he killed, Guv?” It was the policewoman again, thinking – that’ll teach them for glaring at me.

“Well, we know for sure he didn’t kill the Major ...”

“We don’t know that at all,” complained Patterson still clinging to his conviction despite evidence to the contrary. “He confessed – I got his confession on tape.”

“I strongly suggest you listen to that tape again. You’ve been taken for a ride, Sergeant – Jonathon Dauntsey didn’t confess to killing the Major.”

“But ...” protested Patterson. “He said he killed his father.”

“In which case I suggest you check his date of birth. I know the pace of life has picked up in recent years but, unless Jonathon’s mother was ten months pregnant, I think you’ll find he is not a Dauntsey.”

“Thank you for your attention ladies and gentlemen,” he added quickly and was out of the door before Patterson had a chance to respond.

“Thank you, Daphne, you’re a genius,” he said to the corridor wall, took fifty pounds out of his pocket and poked his head back round the door. “All have a drink on me tonight,” he said handing it to the nearest. “Take tomorrow off and we’ll crack this case next week.” Then he raised his eyebrows at Patterson, fully expecting an argument, and was a trifle disappointed when the man begrudgingly nodded his thanks.

Two hours later he stood on the threshold of his house with more than a tingle of nervousness in his groin. You could run, he told himself – it’s an option. No-one would know. You could high-tail it back to the Mitre – you’ve already paid. Then he thought of Daphne, knickerless, charging the German machine gunners on a bike, and he slipped the key into the lock.

Samantha had helped with the decor and choice of fabrics when he initially moved in. “You’re useless, Dad,” she had said.

“I’m a man. It’s not my fault.”

But the decor had changed, the bomber had seen to that, and the hallway was unfamiliar, hostile even as he stepped inside. He stopped, feeling as vulnerable as a naked man in a cell, realising that his home had been violated; that it had been intruded upon, first by the essence of the bomber himself, then by a slew of policemen, scientists, rubber-neckers, reporters, architects, estimators, builders, and a battalion of civil servants. Even the commissioner had been to inspect – it wasn’t every day that one of his officers was bombed out of his home.

“It’s like it were in the Blitz,” one of the neighbours had said with a glint in his eye. “Even the King came to have a gawp then.”

The heavy steel door clanged shut behind him. There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? he breathed in relief. And the decorator’s have done a good job, no sign of the bomb damage ...

“Br-rr-ing.”

He jumped out of skin and the phone shrieked again.

“Br-rr-ing.”

The killer was back – It was less than a minute and he was doing it again.

“Br-rr-ing.”

He must be watching the place – get out, get out before a grenade whistles through a window.

“Br-rr-ing.”

GET OUT NOW!

You are kidding? That’s what he wants. He’s outside right now, leering, a mobile phone in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other.

I thought you were going to stop this.

Tell my pulse that.

“Br-rr-ing.”

Answer the phone.

What – put it to my ear and listen for the “Bang” as my head gets blown off.

“Br-rr-ing.”

Stand back and hit the speakerphone button then. Alright – good idea. “Yes – who is this?”

“Identify yourself.”

“What?”

“I said – identify yourself.”

Don’t tell him – Duck! Duck! “Who are you?”

“This is Tew Park police station – identify yourself.”

“Oh shit,” he muttered. “I’ve set off the alarm.”

He’d forgotten – Big Brother was watching.

“This is D.I. Bliss ...” he started, then pulled himself up. “Sorry – This is Michael.”

“What’s the codeword?”

There was nothing friendly in the demand – and it was a demand. The codeword? His mind was racing – what’s the codeword? “Hang on, I haven’t used it for six months.”

“Police officers are en-route – state your codeword.”

“Sarah.” It came back in a flash. “It’s Sarah.” Ex-wife Sarah – how could I have forgotten? Well, it has been more than five years now.

“Thank you, Michael – you should have informed us you were visiting the property.”

“Yes – sorry. Spur of the moment. I didn’t think.”

That’s what had happened with the codeword, he recalled to himself. You gave Sarah’s name on the spur of the moment – still living in the past – still rushing back to press your nose against the toy shop window.

“A patrol unit will be with you in just a few moments, Sir,” continued the voice on the speakerphone.

“That won’t be necessary officer,” he was saying, but he was staring at the door – the steel anti-blast door with double deadbolt locks – still wondering if a deranged sniper with a high powered rifle was out there just waiting for a chink to appear.

“The unit is with you now, Sir. If you’d be good enough to open the door and just confirm your identity.”

“Wait, wait – How do I know ...?”

“How do you know what, Sir?”

“How do I know ...” his voice faded.

This is stupid, Dave. You’re making an ass of yourself. You’re right.

“If you would just open the door, Sir.”

His hand was on the handle but it wouldn’t turn.

Bang! Bang! Bang! “Open up, Sir – Police.”

“Sorry,” he said a few minutes later as he sat, crammed in the kitchen with two gregarious Bigfoots in blue uniforms. “I really haven’t got a lot to offer you.”

“No problem, Guv.”

“I could do some instant coffee ...” he started, then realised he’d have to turn on the water and scare up some mugs. In any case they were shaking their heads – buckets of beer looked to be more in their line. “I really hadn’t planned on coming back today,” he continued, “but I was in the area and I thought I’d see what the old place looked like.”

“You’re not staying then?”

“No,” he said easily. Thinking – I was going to until I stood by that door not knowing who was outside – waiting for the bullets. Sorry, Daphne old girl – guess I haven’t got the bottle. “No, I’m not staying – I think I’ll go to my daughter’s.”

“Thank Christ for that.”

“Why?”

“’Cos we would have had to park outside all night if you’d been stopping.”

“I’ll only be ten minutes or so,” he said, letting the officers out and closing the heavy door. Then he stood, fixated by the door, seriously debating whether he was inside or outside – not inside or outside the house; inside or outside the door – a mental perspective of a physical presence. With the realisation that he wanted to be the other side of the door he concluded he was actually outside, and left the house as soon as he’d rounded up one or two belongings.

“Don’t wake me up too early,” Samantha, his daughter, had warned, throwing a clean sheet over the guest bed. “Tomorrow’s Sunday – just forget you’re in the police for once.”

“Roger, Sam,” he had said, thinking – you sound more like your mother every day. “Don’t worry, I’m so exhausted I’ll probably sleep all day.”

A swathe of sunlight cut through a gape in the curtains and roused him a little after nine. As he woke, “Samantha” was on his lips and he fought with his soporific memory to retrace the dregs of his last dream.

Sketchy images appeared – cozy memories: a warm dark car; moonlight on a tropical beach; a dark-haired native with an alluring body. Samantha, the sergeant, he fathomed, then realised that despite all the aggravations of the previous day she had been slinking in the back of his mind throughout.

Balancing himself on the brink of wakefulness, he played with the images until she was gambolling naked in the surf. Then the shiploads of dead men started drifting in again and spoiled the picture. Waking himself to escape the nightmare, he was annoyed to discover that Samantha had also dissolved. Be sensible, he told himself. Don’t get carried away. It was 4 am and you were tired and lonely. In the clear light of day she’ll be an absolute dragon. Anyway, she didn’t seem overly keen.

But she said she’d have dinner.

“Maybe,” was what she said. “Maybe.”

“Call me,” she said.

But did she give me a number? – No. Did she tell me where she was stationed?

That’s easy enough to find out – you’re just trying to duck out of it. What are you frightened of?

I told you – she’s probably a dragon, works nights so as not to scare the horses during the day.

You’re frightened of rejection – again.

Ha – ha, very funny.

“Have you upset somebody, Guv?” asked the control room officer at Westchester police station when Bliss called a little after ten.

Does he mean – apart from Superintendent Donaldson, Sergeant Patterson and half the C.I.D.? he wondered, then answered cagily. “Not that I know of. I was just calling to see if ... Why?”

The voice was guarded – circumspect. “Well ... were you expecting a delivery of any sort?”

Oh God – another bomb. Try to sound normal. “No, I wasn’t expecting anything at all.”

“We thought so, Guv. Well, somebody’s playing a nasty joke on you.”

“What is it? What’s happened?” It has to be explosive, or something really disgusting like a box of cow-shit. Damn – they will have instigated full anti-terrorist procedures: evacuation; bomb disposal teams, robotic disarming devices . . . this has got to stop – one way or another.

“Guv – Are you still there?”

“Yes – Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What did you say?”

“I said it were a moth eaten old goat.”

“A what?”

“Some butcher delivered it this morning – reckoned it had come from an auction. I’ve had it put in the isolation cell. He wanted to put it in your office. ‘Not bloody likely,’ I said, ‘You never know what it might have inside.’”

“Daphne!” he swore under his breath but he couldn’t help laughing in relief. “Do you mean it could be a sort of a Trojan goat?”

“A what, Guv?”

“Never mind – it’s O.K., just a mistake I expect. I’ll deal with it. Anything else?”

“Three phone calls for you, Guv.”

“Who?”

“Three women,” he said, the suggestion of impropriety in his tone. “None of ’em would leave a message, said they’d call back, though one of ’em sounded very much like our Daphne – the cleaner.”

Directory enquiries located her number in seconds. “Daphne – this is D.I. Bliss. . . did you phone me this morning?”

“Oh yes, Chief Inspector,” she started, wielding formality as a shield. “I’m glad you called. I wanted to be the first to congratulate you.” She paused for the words to sink in, then added excitedly, “You bought the goat.”

“I did what?”

“Now, you needn’t be cross. I didn’t know what to do and I knew you wouldn’t mind. I bid twenty pounds myself but nobody else seemed interested, then George caught my eye and he looked so downhearted. ‘I thought that friend of yorn were keen,’ he said, his face as miserable as a wet weekend. ‘He was, George,’ I said. ‘He most certainly was.’ ‘Well where is he then?’ he said, forlorn. What could I do, Dave? I didn’t want you getting a bad reputation for welching on your promises, so I bid fifty quid for you.”

“How much?”

“Oh don’t be so ungrateful. I did it for you. Anyway, you were lucky. I thought about bidding against you and pushing the price up to a hundred, but the auctioneer was quick off the mark. “Going, going, gone,” he said, and knocked it down before I could get my hand up, so I saved you fifty quid. George was so thrilled he said he would deliver it personally – he thinks you’re wonderful.”

“A wonderful idiot.”

She pretended not to hear. “Anyway, Dave, that wasn’t why I was calling really – I’ve got some more good news. D’you remember asking me about that Captain at Doreen’s wedding?”

“The Major’s aide-de-camp.”

“Yes. His best man – the one with the clothes brush. Well, I thought afterwards, we were very silly.”

“We were?”

“Oh yes. Very silly. You see, when I thought about it, I remembered he was Rupert’s witness at the wedding. I was Doreen’s ...”

“And his name will be on the marriage certificate,” burst in Bliss, catching on immediately. “I’m in London, I can go to the records office tomorrow ...”

“That won’t be necessary, Dave. I went to St. Paul’s church this morning.

Sunday – “Communion?”

“No – to look in the parish register of course. The vicar found it in a flash. I’ve got it here. His name was Tippen. David Tippen, just like you said, and he gave an address in Guildstone.

“I know the place, I drive through it.”

“You’ll have to go there then,” she said, giving him the address. “I’ve tried directory enquiries and they don’t have a number.”

“Thanks, Daphne – you’re great,” he said and was about to put down the phone when she announced that there was even more good news. Apparently, George, the butcher, had been so impressed by his generosity in buying the taxidermal goat he had personally delivered a joint of sirloin to her, with a request that it should be passed on. “Knowing you haven’t got a place of your own,” she said, “I thought perhaps I could make Sunday dinner, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, say about 7.30 tonight. If you can forgive me by then.”

“I couldn’t, Daphne, really.”

Her voice cracked with pain. “You won’t forgive me.”

“Of course I’ll forgive you – already have. It’s just that I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”

“Oh I see.” But she wouldn’t be beaten. “I’ll cook anyway, and if you’re not here by eight I’ll go ahead and eat on my own. I can always heat yours up later – Bye.”

Putting down the phone, shaking his head at Daphne’s impudence, he suddenly realised why he was still running from a would-be assassin while she had boldly walked through the German lines. She was a woman. Even Mandy’s killer had shown his prejudice – “I wouldn’t shoot no woman – what sort of scum do you think I am?” Why? he wondered. What’s the difference – is it more horrifying for a woman to die than a man. But what if the person in the bank had been Andy instead of Mandy? Would the killer still be trying to exact revenge? At least Andy wouldn’t have been pregnant.

Laying back with his eyes closed, he drifted in thought, realising it was the ethereal nature of the threat that made it so much more frightening – he’d had no problem tackling the killer head-on in the bank, and needed both hands to count the number of armed villains he’d taken down over the years. But he had been able to see them.

“I hope you’re going to pay my phone bill,” said Samantha, bleary eyed, sliding unheard into the room and jumping him out of thoughts.

“Well, I was going to,” he said with a serious face. “But I don’t know if I can afford it now.”

“Why not?” she cried, instantly wide awake.

He kept the straight face. “Well, I’ve just bought a goat.”

“A what?”

“That’s what I said when I found out.”

“Dad, it’s too early to piss about ...” then her face clouded in concern. “Aren’t you taking this country thing a bit far?”

“It’s alright, Luv,” he said, unable to control his mirth, and, sweeping her into his arms, kissed her forehead. “Of course I’ll pay your bill. Although,” he paused and looked to the ceiling as if in deep thought, “perhaps you can help me out with the feed bill.”

“What!”

Daphne, George and the goat were explained with a laugh. “I’ve just one more quick call,” he added as she headed to the kitchen mumbling, “Coffee.”

The brusqueness of the model’s dealer suggested that he had stood to attention to answer the phone. “The Toy Soldier – Sunday – Closed to the public,” he said, though a buzz of background voices suggested otherwise.

“Oh ... I was hoping to have a word ...”

“Call back tomorrow then.”

“It’ll only take a second – I was in your shop earlier in the week …”

“Peter ...” a voice called. “I’ve just taken out your tank, old boy, you’d better pull your socks up.”

“Blast ... Well, what is it? What d’ye want?” he questioned in a tone that said, “Get on with it man.”

“The Royal Horse Artillery gun carriage – you asked me ...”

“Have you got the set?” he demanded, his enthusiasm running away with his mouth.

“Peter ...”

“Not now ... Have you got it?”

These boys are keen, thought Bliss. “Yes, I think so.”

“When can I see it?”

It’s only a toy – not the crown jewels. “Well ...”

“I’m here all day or I can come to you.”

“It’s in Westchester, Hamp ...”

“I know the place – it’s eleven now, I can be there by two, one-thirty at a pinch.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Bliss. “There’s no rush. Anyway, I haven’t asked the owner yet ...” then he paused, thinking, who is the owner? Doreen, I suppose.

“I was only calling to let you know – you seemed rather keen ...”

“Look, I must see it ...” the dealer hesitated for a second then seemingly made up his mind. “I’ll give you five hundred pounds if you tell me where it is and keep quiet about it.”

Bliss’s throat tightened to a squeak, “How much?”

“O.K. ... Seven hundred and fifty, as long as it’s genuine and no-one else knows.”

Samantha was back with the coffee and a puzzled frown. “What is it, Dad?”

He clasped his hand over the mouthpiece and took a deep breath. “I’m missing something here – hold on a minute.” Then he spoke questioningly back to the phone. “We are talking about the same thing I hope. The seven hundred and fifty pounds ... that’s not for buying the set?”

“No, no. That’s just for telling me where it is.”

Bliss held his breath and spoke slowly. “Would you consider making that a thousand pounds?”