Читать книгу Inspector Bliss Mysteries 8-Book Bundle - James Hawkins - Страница 9

Wednesday started early and uncomfortably for Bliss. Blue demons had tormented his sleep, chasing him out of bed and into the office at five-thirty. He walked the half-mile from the hotel, and took pleasure in the birthing smells of the dawn, smells that would be swamped by exhaust fumes within the hour. Baker’s yeast, coffee, and even pungent piles of newsprint stacked against the newsagent’s door hailed the new day, though the stench from the fishmonger’s was clearly more an odour of things past than things to come. Without his car he found freedom in the crisp silence of the deserted streets and dawdled to relish images of the morning: the scattered refraction of steeply slanting sunlight through a jeweller’s display of cut crystal; a tousled cat slaking his thirst at a stone trough after the night’s hunt; and a skein of Canada geese winging noisily overhead in search of pasture.

A half-timbered Tudor Inn at one end of the High Street had thrust its upper storey out over the pavement, and Bliss was engrossed in the elegant sweep of the jetty when a persistent teeth-clenching screech brought him to a nervous stop and had him shrinking into a pharmacist’s doorway. Mandy’s killer was back in a flash and his ears pricked as he tried to identify the sound and connect it to some fearsome weapon. Baffled, he was still deciding whether or not to run, when a pile of filthy overcoats shuffled around the corner dragging a supermarket trolley with a buckled wheel and one lifetime’s agglomeration. He watched silently as the white-bearded man passed, warily taking each step as though he were in a minefield, angrily muttering some unintelligible incantation. How pathetic, thought Bliss, watching the bagman struggling with his load. The poor old sod must be at least eighty and still trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement – maybe he’d do better stepping on a few.

A few minutes later Bliss slipped in the back door of the police station and headed straight for the cell block to check on Jonathon Dauntsey.

“Bail!” he screamed as the unsuspecting custody sergeant filled him in. “They gave him bail?”

“Don’t blame me, Guv,” replied the sergeant, fighting off a gauze of haziness as he neared the end of his night shift.

“I take a few hours off and look what happens – Bail!” he spat, marching off with the feeling that the fifteen minute stroll from the Hotel was going to be the highlight of his day.

He was not to be disappointed. More bad news waited on his desk in the form of a report from Sergeant Patterson.

The re-enactment had yielded grievously little – raising more questions than it answered. Not only were they no further forward in finding the body but, according to Patterson’s handwritten note, the whole Dauntsey case would have to be re-thought as a result of their findings.

The episode, according to the report, had gone much as planned, though Patterson had been somewhat creative in his composition. The planning had been meticulous enough: officers stationed at intervals on the route from the Black Horse to the churchyard; more officers at the pub itself; several patrol cars on the lane to Dauntsey’s house; Sergeant Patterson at the grave where the duvet had been found.

Detective Dowding, since he proposed the re-enactment, had a vested interest in its success and had taken the villainous role of Jonathon Dauntsey. The pick-up truck, not Dauntsey’s, though similar enough in the fading light, had first left the Black Horse at precisely nine-thirty and arrived at St. Paul’s churchyard just forty-five seconds later.

“Amazing how far you can get in under a minute when there’s no traffic,” Dowding said to the constable sitting alongside him, observing and taking notes, then his radio burst into life with Patterson’s bark. “Get back to the pub, Dowding. Half the blokes aren’t in position yet.”

Ten minutes later, with the stray officers rousted out of the bar of the Black Horse, Dowding re-enacted the re-enactment, arriving promptly at the churchyard, slipping out of the drivers seat and reaching for the duvet which, contrary to his wife’s explicit orders, he’d borrowed from the guest bedroom. “Wait a minute,” he said to himself, stopping dead. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“What’s the hold-up, Dowding?” called the sergeant from the side of the newly filled grave fifty feet away.

“Why would he have thrown ...” he started to muse, then shouted his thoughts aloud. “Why would he have thrown the duvet away before getting rid of the body, Serg?”

There was no immediate answer and the performance shuddered to an unscheduled halt as the officers, one by one, were drawn into a debate around the grave. The conclusion was unanimous. Jonathon Dauntsey would not have ditched the duvet with the body still lying in his pick-up – it would have been illogical to do so. The only answer was that wherever Dauntsey had stashed his father’s body he hadn’t wanted the duvet to accompany it, but the evidence road led nowhere from the churchyard and the re-enactment was terminated in as much confusion as it had begun. Most of the men wandered back to the bar at the Black Horse where they had unfinished business. Dowding sneaked home with the duvet hoping his wife hadn’t noticed.

Bliss finished the report, lay back in the chair, let his eyes cloud over, and mulled over the contents. Comprehension came slowly as the spectre of an idea slowly took shape out of a formless mist in his mind.

“The cunning bastard,” he breathed slowly, then gradually opened his eyes to see if the developing idea would evaporate in the harsh light of reality.

“That’s it,” he said aloud, convinced he had resolved the conundrum. I’ve got you, he smiled wryly, recognising the genius in the apparent madness of Dauntsey’s behaviour. You think you’ve fooled us – well, Mr. Dauntsey, you can’t fool all the people ... as they say. You did drop the duvet off first didn’t you – you didn’t care if it was found, in fact you probably wanted it found – but why? What did it prove? Nothing really – only that someone had been bleeding. But I know why you put it in the grave ... the dogs. You guessed we’d bring in tracker dogs but, with the blood-soaked duvet in the grave, the air around would have been awash with the smell of blood, and a river of scent would have flooded all the way back toward the pub. But the trail away from the churchyard, the direction you took your poor father, would have been a trickle in comparison and the dogs would miss it. So, Mr. Dauntsey, what does that tell me? That tells me that the body must be close. Why? Because you only needed to distract the dogs if the body was within a few miles. Beyond that they’d lose the scent, especially if you drove at high speed along busy roads ... You knew that, didn’t you? So, what was your motive?

Bliss closed his eyes again and stitched together a likely scenario in his mind: gamily dispute, about money probably, it usually was; Jonathon upset at the mistreatment of his mother – council-subsidised nursing home – hardly appropriate for the wife of a Major; Jonathon, wanting to take her to Switzerland, needs money – has none – asks father. Father says, “Fuck off” – No, he wouldn’t have said that. “Not jolly likely, old chum.” Someone starts a fight – the old man probably – hot-tempered old soldier type – not having a whipper-snapper telling him what to do, even a fifty-year-old whipper-snapper; Jonathon grabs the knife and the old man – thin skin; no flesh to speak of, blinded by rage, throws himself into battle and gets the knife stuck in an artery. Blood everywhere – bleeds to death before Jonathon’s even calmed down enough to realise what has happened; Jonathon panics, bundles him up in the duvet, dumps him in the pick-up, drives off, then thinks ...

“Oh it’s you, Chief Inspector – I thought I heard voices,” said Daphne blundering in with a bucketful of cleaning materials. “I didn’t expect you in yet.”

He jerked upright and flung his eyes open. Voices? Was I talking out loud? “You’re in early , Daphne,” he said cheerily, hoping he wasn’t blushing.

“I like to get started at six – always have.”

“I should have thought someone of your age would enjoy a lie in.”

The bucket dropped with a clang and she struck back crustily. “Most old fogeys die in bed, Chief Inspector – I minimise the risk by spending as little time there as possible.”

“Oh I didn’t mean ...” he began apologetically, but she was already laughing.

Smiling, he went back to his assessment of the Dauntsey case and picked up a sheaf of papers to give the impression of busyness.

“I’ve got my eye on a nice leg of lamb for tonight,” she said, dusting around the boxes of his still unpacked office.

“Sorry?” he said, looking up, realising he’d missed something important.

“I said I was thinking of doing lamb tonight – have you forgotten you’re coming ...”

His mind was focused on the paper in front of him – a page from a message pad. “No, I hadn’t forgotten ...” he began, then drifted to silence, pre-occupied by what he was reading.

“Seven-thirty or eight?” she asked.

His mind was miles away – Scotland – a purple heather estate on the banks of a loch somewhere in the Highlands – the distant skirl of pipes, the abattoir smell of boiled haggis. “According to this, the Major didn’t live there,” he said waving the paper at her before scrunching it and aiming at a litter bin.

“Didn’t live where?”

His brow creased inquisitively. “Didn’t you say he lived in Scotland?”

“No – I don’t believe I did. I suppose he may have done, but all I said was that I hadn’t seen him ...”

“ ... Since Suez,” he interjected, suddenly remembering that it had been the matron of the nursing home who’d mentioned Scotland. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about that. It struck me as strange afterwards. Why Suez, what made you think of that?”

A look of consternation clouded Daphne’s face and he worried he had offended her in some way. Putting down her can of spray polish, she scooted across to the door and checked the corridor with exaggerated care. As she returned to his desk her thoughtful expression suggested she was considering the wisdom of revealing some great secret, but she shelved the idea at the last moment, saying, “I’d rather tell you tonight – if that’s alright – at dinner.”

“In that case why not let me take you somewhere posh as promised – I could do with something to cheer me up.”

The implication that her leg of lamb would not have cheered him smarted, but she rationalised quickly. “Thank you, that would be nice – at least I won’t have to wash up.”

Bliss was still trying to piece together the newly acquired information from Scotland as Daphne dragged her vacuum cleaner into the next office, and he wandered thoughtfully around the room abstractly picking at files and boxes.

“Whoomph,” the low boom of an explosion shook him out of his thoughts and left him trying to identify the sound. The backfire of a car, was his first thought, but the frequency was too low – so low it was tangible rather than audible – more like a pressure wave pulsing through the atmosphere. The following silence was almost as tangible as the boom of the blast, leaving him wondering if he’d heard anything at all, even dismissing it and fleetingly returning to his inner debate over the Dauntsey murder.

Twenty seconds later he’d reached the part in his hypothesis where Jonathon was grave-side, unrolling the duvet from the body, when a second explosion hit. An explosion of instantly identifiable sounds – the pandemonium of disaster: shrieking alarms, sirens and bells; shouting men; thundering feet; slamming doors; screaming engines and squealing tyres.

Swept up in the excitement, Bliss rushed to the control room where half a dozen shirt-sleeved operators were electrified by the madly pulsating warning lights and flashing computer screens. At lightening speed the control officers were tapping buttons and flicking switches as they struggled to deal with a flood of incoming calls and alarms. And, above the electronic hum, the enlivened buzz of their voices – asking, ordering, directing, informing.

“What’s happening? Where are you? Do this, do that, go there, stop the traffic, secure the area – fire services are en-route, hospitals are being alerted.”

“What’s happening?” whispered Bliss, leaning over one of the women, trying not to interrupt her.

“Shush,” she waved him off with an irritated flick of the wrist and continued calling into her microphone. “Alpha five-niner – location, over?”

“What is it?” he tried again, a note of insistence adding authority to his tone.

She ignored him. “Alpha five-niner,” she continued to call, “State your location – over? I’m getting nothing from fifty-nine, Serg,” she shouted at the man on an opposing console.

“What’s happening, Serg?” called Bliss, but was blanked out as the sergeant stared straight past him, treating him like an inconvenient post.

“Try fifty-four ...” he shouted to the controller. “No, belay that, I’ll do it myself.” He picked up the microphone. “Alpha five-four, alpha five-four. What’s five-niner’s ten-twenty?”

“Am I invisible?” Bliss questioned flippantly. Have I died? Did he get me? Then his thoughts darkened and left him pondering – Is this what death is like? What was that explosion? Maybe I am dead – maybe he did get me. “Sergeant!” he bellowed in something of a panic.

“I’m busy – what do ye want – who are you?”

The loudspeaker cackled overhead. “Alpha five-four to Delta Alpha – I’ve no idea where five-niner is. We’re just arriving at the scene – looks a mess-over.”

Unable to wait any longer Bliss harshly grabbed the sergeant’s shoulder, “I’m D.I. Bliss. Will somebody tell me what’s happening?”

“Sorry, Guv – There’s been an explosion. One of our uniformed ...”

“Where?” insisted Bliss, cutting him off.

“Mitre Hotel in the High Street.”

Bliss felt his knees giving – his hotel, the hotel he’d left only thirty minutes earlier. The hotel where he would have been shaving or showering had he waited for the receptionist’s early call. “Oh God!”

“Are you alright, Guv?”

Now what? Admit I know who did it? Admit it was my fault – again?

“Yes ... yes ... I’m alright. I suppose I’d better get down there. Have you called the Super?”

“Everything’s under control, Guv.”

Not in Bliss’s mind it wasn’t. His brain was exploding with questions. How did he find me so quickly? How did he know I was at the Mitre? Why can’t he leave me alone?

Snatching the keys to one of the C.I.D. cars off a pegboard he paused deep in thought. What if it’s a trap – what if he’s waiting to pick me off? But he quickly shook off the notion of an ambush and ran for the car park, telling himself that the killer wouldn’t risk it with the area swamped by uniformed officers. He will have been long gone, he told himself. Why hang around when the bomb’s achieved it objective?

The car was already on automatic pilot as he shot out of the car park, piecing together the likely scenario in his mind: timed device almost certainly – cheap chain-store alarm clock – made in Hong Kong or Taiwan. That’s prophetic, he thought – identical ones would be waking a million people around the world and this one, attached to a battery, detonator and a lump of Semtex high explosive, had woken an entire city.

He took the roundabout at high speed, slackening off the throttle as the tyres protested. It must have been planted last evening, he mused, under the bed while I was in London – careless, I should have checked. But how did he get in? Slamming the car into fourth, he pictured it in his mind as he tore along the quiet street: a fairly ordinary looking workman in blue overalls carrying an official looking toolbox. “Come to check the plumbing in 203 – you got a leak apparently,” he says to the pretty Swedish receptionist who had charmed Bliss with her brilliant smile and oddball English.

“Oh. I have no understanding – I think maybe I should call to the manager?” she replies, reaching for the phone.

“Well I ain’t hanging around, girl,” he says, turning on his heals. “Maybe I should come back tomorrow when the place is flooded out – I can make more money that way.”

“No, please – it is alright, I am sure,” she pleads, handing over the keys – even placating him with the offer of a cup of tea or a miniature from the courtesy bar.

The High Street was blocked, jammed by the haphazardly abandoned emergency vehicles and the detritus of catastrophe. Bricks, tiles and baulks of timber carpeted the roadway. Broken glass had spewed everywhere, turning summer to winter as Bliss’s footsteps crunched through the glistening ice-like crystals. But he couldn’t hear – every burglar and fire alarm in the street was blaring; police, fire and ambulance. Sirens were still screaming in the distance, clearing a path through thin air as they raced through the deserted streets.

He ducked under the hastily strung fluorescent tape and stopped, perplexed. The Mitre Hotel seemed intact, normal even, apart from the snake of shell-shocked patrons streaming out of the door, clutching themselves in blankets and dressing gowns, and being hurried away by ambulance and fire officers. Still confused, he made straight for a fireman, his helmet and shoulders weighed down with gold stripes.

“D.I. Bliss,” he shouted, hoping the other man wouldn’t ask for his warrant card. “I thought it was the Mitre,” he added, struggling to be heard above the cacophony of sirens.

“So did half the people in the Mitre,” replied the chief, cupping his hand to Bliss’s ear. “The blast shook the shit out of the place.”

“So what happened?”

“Classic gas explosion I would say. I bet someone left the gas stove on and forgot to light it.”

“Where?”

“Tea shop – three doors down from the hotel.”

“Anyone hurt?”

The loudest of the sirens stopped abruptly, leaving the fireman shouting unnecessarily. “Yeah – one of your people, walking past at the time – caught a packet.”

The flush of exhilaration drained from Bliss’s face as the silent radio was explained. No wonder Alpha five-niner hadn’t responded. No wonder the control room staff had been so concerned. Five-niner was already at the scene – lying under the debris. “Is he alright?”

“It’s a she,” replied the officer, having to shout again as the alarm burst back to life. “Yeah ... she’s just shook up. A couple of your lads have taken her to emerg.”

Thank Christ, he thought, asking, “What sparked it off?”

“Time switch possibly,” he shrugged. “Won’t know ’til we’ve made the place safe and had a good look. It was probably carelessness, either that or a phoney insurance claim.”

“I’ll get a detective working on it straight away,” Bliss said moving off for a closer inspection of the wrecked building.

The siren paused again, and he stopped cold as the fire chief shouted after him. “Of course, it could have been a bomb.”

He needed coffee, high roasted Arabica preferably – hot and very strong, but the only café open had Cash & Carry instant – take it or leave it. He took it, but it didn’t stop his hands shaking and it didn’t offer comfort and warmth. Sitting on a ripped vinyl stool in a corner, he listened to the excited babble of early morning workers, each having their own take on the explosion.

Bliss shut out the voices and gripped the counter tightly to stop the shaking. It wasn’t fear, he tried telling himself, not fear for his own safety anyway. It was fear for others, like the policewoman, who might get caught in the shrapnel. I wonder, was she young or old, he started thinking, then stopped himself. Does it matter? She could have been killed.

But it was fear for his family, especially his daughter Samantha, that hurt most, turning him, in his own mind, into a social leper. “Keep away,” he wanted to warn. “Don’t come to my house; don’t stand close to me; don’t talk to me in public; don’t phone me; don’t even admit to knowing me.” And it wasn’t only his family and friends: Every unexpected visitor turning up on his doorstep had been given a verbal rub down by one or other of the protective team cruising the neighbourhood. Complete strangers, innocent people going about their daily lives, had become tainted. People like the sorters at the post office, using plastic tongs at arms length to pick up every item addressed to him like pieces of shitty toilet paper, then dropping them into a blast proof container for x-ray examination. Even electricity, gas and phone bills got the “contaminated” treatment.

“We can’t be too careful when it comes to the safety of our staff,” the postal inspector had said, making him feel even dirtier.

It was the elaborate routine with the garbage that had exasperated him more than anything – three evenings a week segregating paper, metal, glass and food; labelling each bag with as much detail as a laboratory specimen; smuggling it out of the house at night to be shredded or incinerated away from prying eyes. Initially, he had complained to the commander that it seemed unnecessarily circumspect but, inwardly, he knew very well it was not – recognising that a single bag snatched from the kerb under the nose of the refuse collector could yield a Pandorian assemblage of personal information.

Shaking with frustration and anger – wanting to scream, “Come on out you coward – fight me like a man,” he left the café, and the coffee, and walked back to the High Street. The sirens had stopped, firemen with hoses and brushes were sweeping the debris to one side and washing the glass into the gutters. Blue uniforms patrolled the tape barriers, keeping back a curious mob, allowing only shopkeepers and their staff through, to reset alarms, turn off the gas and assess the damage.

Bliss slipped under the tape and stepped gingerly through the debris toward the tea shop. The fire chief spotted him. “It was the gas,” he called.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah – the owner’s over there if you want to talk to her,” he pointed. “The woman in the blue pinny who looks as though she’s had an accident in her drawers. She says she put some meringues in a slow oven overnight – then forgot to light it. She even worried about it when she got home but her husband said she was worrying for nothing – little did he know.”

One look at the mortified woman’s ashen face was enough to confirm the truth in the story and Bliss wanted to relax, saying to himself, “This wasn’t the work of the killer – this was just an accident.” But, he was so wound up it wasn’t that simple. Since the threatening calls and letters, and especially since the bomb, he had become paranoiacally self-centred, finding it difficult to imagine that, in some way, this wasn’t directed at him.

He tried stepping away from himself. “Just look at yourself. Look what he’s done to you,” he said. “The moment they mentioned an explosion you assumed yourself to be the target. Every time a phone rings you think it’s for you, or about you. Every knock on the door and every beep of a horn or shout is to get your attention.”

“Good morning, Inspector.”

Bliss jumped and his head whipped around so fast his neck “cracked” audibly.

“You were miles away,” continued Superintendent Donaldson chattily. “I wasn’t sure you’d be back from London. How did it go – everything alright?”

“Tell him about the Volvo,” whispered the voice in his mind but he brushed it aside. “Fine,” he said, and immediately changed the subject. “The fire chief tells me this was gas ... owner left the stove unlit overnight apparently.”

Donaldson looked around as if he’d just arrived. “It’s a bloody shame. That tea shop used to do a really good cream tea ... I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to try their scones yet, and the strawberry ... ”

“The re-enactment fizzled out, I understand,” cut in Bliss impatiently.

“Patterson called me at home,” Donaldson grumbled. “Interrupted my backgammon night ... just a few of us, once a week – you wouldn’t be interested by any chance would you? My wife always leaves us a nice tray of sandwiches, smoked salmon ...”

“No thanks, Guv ... How come Dauntsey got bail?”

“Don’t ask me. He gave the silly old bitch on the bench his ‘little boy lost’ act; played up to her with that poofy accent of his; she got a damp patch in her knickers and let him out.”

“Stupid cow. Now he’s got plenty of opportunity to cover his tracks.”

“That’s what I thought at first, then it occurred to me that it might be a good thing. Think about it, Dave ... We couldn’t find the body when he was inside, now he’s out he might lead us to it.”

Bliss considered strategy for a moment. “You might be right, Sir. Twenty-four hour surveillance?”

Donaldson nodded. “Already in place – though I’ve had to pull men off the search details.”

“No problem. I was going to do that anyway. All I’d planned for today was a thorough search of his house.”

“Again?”

Bliss nodded. “Really thorough this time ... walls, floors, attics – the works.”

“How about some breakfast?” asked Donaldson chummily. “I know this little place where the sausages are just ...”

“I think I’ll get back to the nick,” interrupted Bliss. “I’ve got a lot to arrange.”

Donaldson seemed put out and turned cold. “Oh, alright. If that’s what you want, Inspector. Was there anything else to report?”

“Tell him about the Volvo,” screeched his inner voice.

What is there to tell?

“You were being followed.”

Possibly.

“Definitely.”

Alright, don’t nag. But even if he was following what does that prove? Bliss looked around at the devastation and reminded himself that he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. You were certain this was a bomb in the Mitre ... remember. There must be a dozen possible explanations for the Volvo driver’s behaviour.

“Give me two.”

O.K. One ... “My wife’s screwing around with someone who’s gotta car like yours” ... and ... Two ... “I thought I recognised you from school and I was trying to get a closer look.”

“Do you believe that?”

It’s possible.

“So is my theory.”

Which is?

“It was the killer, you idiot.”

“Inspector,” prompted Donaldson. “I said, was there anything else?”

“Sorry, Sir ... miles away again. No, nothing else.”

Major Rupert Dauntsey was still on the missing list when D.I. Bliss booked off duty twelve hours later. Declining Sergeant Patterson’s offer of a ride – “I’m going right past on my way back to Dauntsey’s” – he walked back to the Mitre along the High Street.

“Did you hear about the explosion?” enquired the young Swedish receptionist as she handed him his key.

“I did,” he smiled thankfully. Thankful that she was still there, still intact and unblemished. Thankful that it hadn’t been a bomb. “Something for you,” he added, slipping a five pound note into her hand.

“Zhank you very much.”

“No – Zhank you.”

She laughed, totally unaware of how much it meant to him to be able to give her a little something.

Bliss checked his room with care, showered, slipped on a clean shirt and took off to collect his evening’s date. Then he tried to relax as they drove along knotted country lanes in the soft light of the setting sun, but his neck took a beating as he checked for the Volvo. He missed the small engraved sign, “The Limes,” hidden in the bushes, but the driver knew the way and, as they crunched to a stop on the gravel driveway of the Elizabethan manor, a concierge stepped forward with military precision and snapped open Daphne’s door.

Daphne lost twenty years in the warmth of the ancient house’s candlelight, but, even when Bliss had picked her up from her front door in the taxi, she had been radiant. She had flounced out of the house, begging for attention in a black knee-length cocktail dress, an overconfident straw hat kept in check by a wide crimson ribbon with a huge bow and a flowing black shawl laced with gold. “Chauffer driven, Chief 158 James Hawkins Inspector – I am impressed,” she had said, bouncing in beside him.

“It’s only a taxi,” he mumbled, then explained with unnecessary insistence that he had left the car at his hotel, not wanting to spoil the evening by being unable to drink. The truth, though he would never admit it, was that he was petrified of driving his own car and had caged it in a rented lock-up garage. A hire car had been ordered in its place – peace of mind had a price – but had yet to arrive. The journey back from London in the Rover the previous night had taken a dreadful toll on his nerves. Every blazing headlight in his mirror had been a pulse-racing Volvo forcing him to slow down and pull over. On the motorway, convoys of small blue Volvos bore down on him and transmogrified into yellow Chryslers, red Fords and black Jaguars as they swept by.

“Oh la la, the prices – Mon Dieu!” cried Daphne, glancing at the gold-framed menu as they waited in a vestibule while servants flurried around, verbally tugging forelocks, divesting them of coats and hats.

“Oh don’t worry. I’m paying.”

“I’m not being critical – praise, if anything – I was just thinking that anyone with the neck to charge prices like this had better come up with the goods. People have been murdered for less.”

“Mandy Richards for one,” he inadvertently blurted out, surprised to the extent she was in control of his mind.

“Mandy Richards?”

“Murdered for nothing – an old case,” he explained, then realised even her killing had a price – the price of a couple of shotgun cartridges. But it was the robber who had been out of pocket – assuming he’d paid for them. Fifty pence, maybe one pound – was that the value of a life?

“You’ll have to excuse me, Chief Inspector,” Daphne continued, still thinking about the exorbitant prices as they took seats in the sombre sixteenth-century bar. “I don’t get out much anymore. To be honest with you, dining alone is about as exhilarating as solo sex – I suppose it’s O.K., if you’re really hungry.” Then she relaxed back into the chair with a comedic smile. “I bet you’ve never met anyone quite like me before have you?”

He laughed, “Not really.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she said, pushing herself forward again. “Neither have I ... My body seems to have got the message about aging but my mind refuses to go along with it.”

Bliss laughed, then a childhood memory of an elderly Aunt came to him. “She got ‘bugger’ in her mind and couldn’t get it out,” he explained through the laughter. “Everything was ‘bugger.’ She could even slide a ‘bugger’ into the middle of a word. We used to tell our friends we were going to see our Buggering Aunty.”

Daphne shook with laughter. “Well, I’m not that bad.” Their table would be half an hour, the head waiter told them dourly as he appeared from nowhere and fussed around, precisely centring a large bowl of mixed olives on the table in front of them, his stiff demeanour clearly a rebuke.

“Anal retentive,” whispered Daphne behind the waiter’s back and they both roared.

He was back in a flash, “You’re not here to enjoy yourselves” written all over his face. “May I get you some drinks while you are waiting for the table, Sir?”

“I’ll have a large Pastis,” said Daphne. “I have a feeling that you’re going to question me about France, so I may as well get in the right frame of mind.”

“Not question,” he said. “That sounds so harsh, so intrusive. I was merely hoping you’d be able to give me some background on Major Dauntsey and the war that’s all. Anyway,” he added, “to be truthful, I was quite looking forward to just spending an evening with you.”

Daphne beamed as he ordered the drinks. “Wartime is basically the same as peacetime, Chief Inspector, only everything seems to happen so much faster, that’s all.”

He frowned in thought, then smiled. “That leaves me with an image of Plato and Diogenes having this great philosophical argument based on the premise that war is actually peace. And please call me Dave. We’re not on duty now.”

Daphne rolled the phrase round her tongue. “War is peace,” she intoned. “It sounds like Newspeak but, in a strange way, it’s not untrue. Things get built, damaged and destroyed in peace and war; people love and lose; friends come and go; some make fortunes, others lose everything; people die of diseases and injuries. It is just as though the movie of your life is run through the projector at ten times the normal speed. Fifty years crammed into five. So, war is peace – speeded up.”

“You make a very credible argument, Miss Lovelace,” he said as if he were an adjudicator, “and you sound as though you quite enjoyed the war.”

“I can’t deny it was exciting.”

“Surely the constant fear of being wounded or dying takes the gloss off it.”

“Haven’t you heard, Dave – it’s only the other chap who gets killed.”

“And what about those who survive?”.

She toyed with the olives, segregating the green from black and keeping those stuffed with pimento to one side. Finally, satisfied with her handiwork, she sat back and took a couple of sips of Pastis. “Survival is a question of relativity,” she said eventually, without taking her eyes off the olives. “I suppose that in one way or another no-one survives war, but then again, no-one survives life either.”

“But there are winners and losers in life, even if the end result is the same. Surely everyone loses in war.”

Popping a stuffed olive into her mouth she chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before replying. “I suppose the really lucky ones were those who were wounded enough to be shipped home a hero, then recovered quickly and took advantage of the sympathy before the rest got back.”

“Would Major Dauntsey have been in that category?”

“I doubt it.”

“I know the rumour about how he got his regiment wiped out by the way,” he said as if he’d discovered some monumental secret. “Making his men tidy up the battlefield before they retreated.”

“Who told you?”

He thought about teasing her then changed his mind. “Someone called Arnie.”

“Agh,” she spluttered. “Dear old Arnie. Trust him.”

“Was he right? Is that what happened?”

“So they say, Chief Inspector,” she said non-committally, then tried to change the subject. “Talking of wounds ...”

“Dave!”

“Alright . . Have it your own way ... Dave. How is the W.P.C.? The one who was hurt this morning?”

Bliss had visited the young woman in hospital, still irrationally feeling that the explosion could have been attributed to his adversary.

“Detective Inspector Bliss,” he introduced himself, “How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad, Sir,” she replied and struggled higher in the bed.

“Don’t get up,” he said kindly. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

The ward sister sidled up to him. “Miss Jackson will be fine, Inspector.”

“Oh good. I’m pleased to hear that.”

“Mainly bruises and a few cuts,” continued the motherly figure, reaching in front of him and pulling back the sheet to expose the policewoman’s naked torso. “See.”

Later, he tried to decide who had blushed the most, him or the W.P.C., as the sister’s finger pointed with great precision to each of the tiny cuts the young woman had received from flying glass. “Look at this one,” she said as if Bliss were an intern. “Missed her nipple by a whisker.” Bliss looked, and the policewoman’s nipple stood stiffly to attention under his gaze.

Gallantly, he tried to look away but the sister wasn’t finished and she tenderly lifted the other breast saying, “The cut under here will be painful for a while – see.” He looked at the red welt under the fold of the breast and was flung back in time again – to the bank and Mandy Richards. To her dismembered breast.

“Thank you, Sister,” he said curtly, grabbing the sheet and tenderly covering the policewoman as he mumbled, “Sorry, Miss.”

“She’s fine,” he replied to Daphne. “They released her this afternoon. She’ll be back on duty in a few days.” But he couldn’t help thinking that, from now on, there would be an awkward moment every time they passed in a corridor or met in the mess room.

The head waiter was back for their order. Daphne said she would take a chance on the Escargot and, as she had already set her mind on lamb, would go for the cutlets campagnarde. Bliss was still undecided and was interrogating the waiter on the composition of Les Crudités when a bellboy interrupted.

“Excuse me. Are you Mr. Bliss, Sir?”

“Yes,” he answered warily.

“There’s a phone call for you, Sir, in the lobby.”

He started to rise automatically then froze. No-one knows I’m here, he said to himself and quizzed Daphne. “Did you tell anyone we were coming here tonight?”

She turned it into a joke, replying huffily. “Chief Inspector – I have my reputation to think of.”

“I thought so,” he said, sitting slowly, his mind in turmoil.

“They said it was urgent, Sir,” chimed in the bellboy, waiting impatiently to guide Bliss to the phone, and collect a tip.

Bliss didn’t budge. He was being jerked around by a demonic puppeteer from the past. Every time a phone rang it jangled his nerves – was it the killer: threatening; vowing; abusing; or was it a sad-sounding administrator from a hospital ... “Mr. Bliss? ... It’s your daughter ... shot; stabbed; slashed.” Every hand that knocked on his door held a Smith & Wesson or a stiletto. Every letter or package was a bundle of death or disfigurement. And, if he didn’t pick up the phone or answer the door, and if he didn’t open the mail – the killer had won.

“Who is it?” he asked the bellboy with a crack in his voice. “Did they say?”

“They didn’t say, Sir. Just that it was urgent.”

Three pairs of eyes were on him, urging him to go and take the call.

“You don’t understand,” he wanted to scream. “There’s a madman with a gun or a knife just waiting for me to walk out into the lobby. No-one knew I was coming here tonight – it has to be him.”

“Chief Inspector – Dave,” said Daphne laying a hand on his arm. “Are you having a funny turn again?”

Bliss gave himself a shake. “Sorry – Yes,” then he pulled a note out of his wallet and offered it to the boy. “Find out who wants me will you – tell them I’ll call back.”

“Sure – I mean, of course, Sir.”

“That was ten pounds, Dave,” said Daphne with a note of surprise as the boy took off. He hadn’t noticed and didn’t care. He suddenly had a new and more serious worry. What if the killer had rigged the phone? What if he’d crammed a walnut-sized lump of plastic explosive and a high frequency trigger into the handset?

“Mr. Bliss?” the muffled voice on the other end would have asked.

“Yes,” he would have replied, pressing the handset tighter to his ear, trying to identify the voice. Then, with an inaudible beep from the other end, “Boom!” The handset would take off his head. But what if the killer doesn’t wait to identify his target? What if the bellboy picks up the phone again and says, “Hello?” Ten quid isn’t a lot to pay someone to be executed.

I’ve got to stop him, thought Bliss, starting to rise in panic, already hearing the “boom” of the blast in his mind, but he was too late. The boy was back. “It was the police station, Sir. They asked if you could you call straight back, it’s very important.”

Bliss slumped back in the chair and blew out a breath in relief, but he could still feel the blood pulsing through his temples. “Thanks, son,” he murmured, pulling out his mobile and calling the station.

Within seconds he was patched through to Patterson at the Dauntsey house. “What is it, Pat?”

“We’ve found the Major, Sir.” Then he paused just long enough to force Bliss’s hand.

“Alive or dead?” enquired Bliss obediently.

“Very dead, Sir.”

The intonation in the sergeant’s voice spoke volumes, leaving Bliss simultaneously confused and annoyed at having to follow up with a supplemental question.

“Sergeant, death is similar to pregnancy in at least one respect, as far as I know – you either are or not. Which applies to the Major?”

“Oh. He is definitely dead, Sir.”

“Good ... No, I don’t mean ...” Then he erupted. The tension of receiving the unexpected phone call was bad enough, without Patterson piling on the pressure by playing guessing games. “What the hell are you trying to tell me, Patterson?”

“Well, Sir, according to the doctor, Major Dauntsey’s been dead at least forty years.”

Returning to the restaurant’s lounge, in a daze, he had been surprised to find his seat occupied by a smartly dressed older man with a prosperous toupee and gold rimmed spectacles that looked to be the real thing.

“This is Andrew,” explained Daphne as the man rose and politely held out his hand. Bliss looked to her for an explanation as they shook. “Andrew is a very, very, old friend,” she gushed.

“Daphne ...” Bliss began, then noticed her radiance had taken on a additional glow.

“Here, less of the old – Daphne,” laughed Andrew. “I’m just not as well-preserved as you that’s all.”

“Well-preserved,” she echoed. “Here, I’m not a bloody pickle,” and they both laughed.

“Look I hate to interrupt ...” Bliss tried again.

“Andrew’s a widower,” she whispered aside, making it sound like an accomplishment. “Sit down, Chief Inspector, you’re making the place untidy.” Then she turned back to her friend and demurely fanned herself with her hand. “Ooh. That Pernod has gone straight to my head.”

“Daphne – I have to go. Something major has turned up ...” he said, but Andrew talked over him.

“Well, do let me get you another then, dear heart,” he said, in an accent redolent of colonial service in the 1920s – Singapore or the West Indies perhaps.

Bliss’s double-entendre had missed its mark. “Don’t worry about me,” proclaimed Daphne loudly. “Andrew will take me home, won’t you?”

“I’d jolly well love to, Daphne old girl. But we have to eat first.”

“Oh, of course – Silly me. Well off you go, Chief Inspector. Toddle off, there’s a dear. And thank you so much.”

The heavy hint – the bum’s rush. This hasn’t happened since Samantha’s teenage trysts, he thought.

“Da-a-ad,” she’d whine ...

“O.K. I get the message,” he’d reply. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

“Nice to meet you ... See you tomorrow, Daphne.”

Neither had looked up as he raced away.