Missing: Presumed Dead ib-1

by James Hawkins

  Detective Sergeant Patterson and his superintendent had hit the town centre at afternoon rush hour en-route back to the police station and Donaldson had pulled some papers from his briefcase to occupy himself, but Patterson was incensed by what had occurred and had whinged angrily about the magistrate from the moment they left the court. “It really pissed me off when she asked if he had any complaints about the way we’d treated him,” he moaned angrily. “What did she think — that we’d used thumbscrews?”

  “Probably,” mumbled the superintendent without consideration.

  “Did you hear her sweet-talking him?” continued Patterson, then he mimicked the old woman’s crackly voice. “‘Now then, Mr. Dauntsey. Are you going to tell the police what happened to your father’s body?’ And what did he say in that smarmy voice of his? ‘I feel it would be best if he is allowed to remain at peace.’ Huh! It’s enough to make you chuck-up.”

  Donaldson was trying to concentrate on his work and his tone had a tinge of annoyance. “Just don’t chuck up in the car, Sergeant.”

  Patterson wasn’t listening, his mind was still back in the court. “It got me the way she says, ‘In view of the fact that he won’t tell me, I see no reason why he should tell you.’ I do — If I had my way I’d put me boot in his bollocks — that’d make him squeal.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it, Sergeant, but it’s purely academic. We still haven’t found the body and he’s been granted bail. Now … if you don’t mind …”

  But Patterson was boiling and couldn’t resist grumbling. “I thought she was gonna give him twenty quid out of the poor box.”

  Donaldson’s look of annoyance eventually shut him up but half a minute later a defective traffic light gave the sergeant time, and an excuse, to start talking again. “Bloody light’s broke,” he moaned, then abruptly changed the subject. “Mr. Bliss is gonna be pretty upset when he gets back.”

  Donaldson ignored him. The silence sat heavily for a few seconds, then Patterson tried prodding, “He’s gone to London — It must have been something important.”

  “’S’pect so.”

  “He seems like a good man — our new D.I.”

  “Uh — huh,” nodded Donaldson his head still buried in paperwork.

  “I expect he’ll find it quiet here after the Met.”

  “Probably.”

  “I mean … It’s not always this busy. We don’t get a murder everyday.”

  “Thank God.”

  “So, was he actually at Scotland Yard? — our D.I. Bliss.”

  “Guess so.”

  “I jus’ wondered, ’cos I was talking to someone at the Yard yesterday and they didn’t know him.”

  “It’s a big place.”

  “Yeah — but you’d think they’d … ”

  Donaldson looked up and protested. “Sergeant … Are you trying to drive this car or drive me round the bend?”

  “Drive the car, Sir.”

  “Well shut up and drive then.”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  Bliss was still driving; still trying to get a look at the Volvo’s number plate and the face of the driver; still trying to remember the face beneath the mask.

  It was the bank’s under-manager who had eventually steeled himself to unmask the robber, although it wasn’t concern for the lifeless man’s well-being that had overcome his reticence. The manager was at lunch and he had been left in charge. Having one dead body in the foyer was going to be difficult enough to explain, he didn’t want two, if he could avoid it.

  Bliss, engrossed in his attempts to revive Mandy Richards, hardly noticed as Margaret Thatcher’s face was peeled away revealing an unconscious thug with blood oozing from his mouth, nose and scalp.

  “Oh my God!” breathed the under-manager assuming the worst, but, freed of the mask, the robber soon began to stir.

  “Tie him up,” shouted Bliss, but the youthful executive shook his head.

  “He isn’t going anywhere — only the hospital.”

  In the aftermath of the botched robbery Bliss had found himself caught up in a controversy and knew his colleagues were weighing up the odds between him receiving a commissioner’s commendation for bravery, a charge of attempting to murder the bank robber or the station “Tosspot” award for stupidity.

  “You’ll get something for this,” everyone agreed, and in his own mind he wouldn’t have felt maligned if he’d been convicted of attempted murder, or, at a minimum, an offence of causing Mandy’s death by reckless over-enthusiasm.

  The commissioner’s commendation won the day, but he had quickly squirrelled the vellum certificate into a rarely visited drawer.

  With his mind agitated by the disturbing memories, Bliss had been letting the car drive itself and was horrified to find his speed had crept to more than a hundred miles an hour. Easing his foot off the accelerator he realised that subconsciously he had been trying to outpace the Volvo. And, once he’d slowed, he did his best to remember the bandit’s face and found himself replaying the trial in his mind. What had he claimed in his defence? “I never meant to hurt no-one. It were the copper’s fault. If he hadn’t shouted about having a gun I would never have shot.”

  His assertion hadn’t saved him. “You have been found guilty of murder in the first degree,” the judge had said sagely, adding, “Life imprisonment is the only punishment which I am permitted by law to impose.” And, despite the seriousness of his words, he obviously took great satisfaction saying it.

  Following the verdict Bliss had turned to the public gallery in time to see a light of triumph flash across Mrs. Richards’ face, then she crumpled under an emotional millstone and burst into tears, overcome by relief that she had finally laid her daughter to rest. But the drama wasn’t over. The prisoner’s dock erupted in violence as a couple of burly guards moved in on the convict.

  “It’s that fuckin’ copper what should go down. Him and is big mouth,” he yelled as the jailers tried to take him from the dock. “He’s the one who should go down, not me. I’m innocent,” he screamed as he flailed his fists at the men. “I wouldn’t shoot no woman. What sort of scum do you think I am?”

  The three bodies sank briefly beneath the dock’s parapet as the guards smothered the enraged prisoner, before dragging him to his feet, with his arms painfully up his back, as the judge added fourteen days loss of privileges to his sentence.

  “Take him away,” ordered the judge and the prisoner shot Bliss a venomous look that penetrated his skull with a viciousness that hurt.

  “I’ll get you for this … pig,” he screamed, then he screamed again as one of his elbows dislocated.

  “Forget it,” everyone said afterwards, but the impact of the killer’s words had eaten away at Bliss for weeks. Forget what? That he’d been accused of murder or forget that he had caused Mandy’s death. He was innocent, everybody said so. But innocent of what? Innocent of crime. But what about impulsive behaviour and misjudgement — was he innocent of that.

  “It was just bad luck,” they said and he had to agree.

  It was bad luck — bad luck for Mandy that he had been in the bank that day. If he hadn’t been there the killer would have walked away with a bagful of loot and the only losers would have been the insurance company.

  Getting off the motorway without being seen by the driver of the Volvo seemed, to Bliss, to be his safest option and, as he spotted a coach slowing to take the exit into a service area, he took a chance. Pulling sharply in front of the coach, ignoring the driver’s angry fist, he slipped into the deceleration lane. Then, shielded by the monstrous vehicle, he drove into the coach park and hid amongst the herring-boned ranks of leviathans. Had the Volvo followed? He couldn’t tell — the coaches blocked his view.

  Keeping his head down, Bliss infiltrated the snake of passengers spilling out of one of the vehicles and had taken a dozen paces before realising he had joined a party of shrivelled pensioners. He was sticking out like a sunflower in a cabbage patch. Telling himself that it was unlikely t
he killer would risk accidentally hitting a little old lady mid-afternoon in a busy car park, he stayed with the group and made it safely to the self-service restaurant.

  Security cameras scanned the room and, picking out a table in full view of one of them, he slunk into a seat opposite a lumpy girl with a Neanderthal brow. With his head bowed he searched the crowded room, seeking a single man doing the same. He came up blank. Everybody seemed to be in pairs or groups — but hadn’t he joined a group and, looking across at the girl in the opposing seat, wasn’t he now part of a pair.

  The girl caught him looking. Her hooded eyes under heavy brows viewed him critically for a few seconds then, as if he were her audience, she sniffed loudly and openly swiped a dribble of snot off the end of her nose onto her sleeve. Having fixed his attention, she delved into a ragged canvas handbag and, with a victorious grunt, flourished a blue airmail envelope and began unfolding a dog-eared letter. Her rubbery mouth formed each word as she read silently from the flimsy paper for a few seconds, then she paused, looked up, and laughed uproariously. Bliss shrank himself lower in the seat as her laughter drew looks from across the room, thinking, just my luck — a loony tune.

  Every few words in the letter brought another gale of laughter and the girl, seemingly unaware of the commotion she was causing, read further and laughed even louder. Bliss frantically searched for some means of escape, fearing he’d become caught up in some sort of performance art, a fringe festival event perhaps, but all eyes were on the girl. Any movement on his part would have drawn attention. He was trapped between a killer and a nutter.

  “Have you been here before?” she suddenly enquired, with a fixed stare that pinioned him to his seat.

  “A few times,” he mumbled.

  “I’ve been here six times.”

  Something in the earnestness of her tone made him suspicious. This was a motorway service area, not the Tate Gallery or even Disneyland. “Six times?” he queried.

  “I was Anne Boleyn’s principal lady-in-waiting once,” she insisted haughtily, and leant over the table to whisper confidentially “You wouldn’t believe what I used to do for Henry when she wasn’t up to it.”

  Bliss swallowed hard. “And the other times you were here …?”

  She leant back. “I was a cat once.”

  Without the demented laughter the crowd began shrinking away, pretending disinterest, pretending that they had never been interested. Bliss readied to leave, waiting his moment until all eyes were elsewhere, but a strong feeling of Deja-vu suddenly held him in check. This wasn’t a bank, the eccentric woman wasn’t a killer, as far as he knew, but the whole situation seemed to have taken on the same surrealistic quality as the time he’d bludgeoned Maggie Thatcher’s effigy half to death, following Mandy’s murder.

  As he rose, a tingling sensation on the nape of his neck convinced him the killer was present and he quickly scanned the faces searching for the Volvo’s driver. No-one looked even faintly familiar. Then he paused in terror as a voice behind him shouted, “Oy!” It was the lunatic — he kept walking. “You never know,” she called after him with absolute sincerity. “You might have been someone famous too.”

  Five miles further on the driver of the blue Volvo had pulled into an Esso station and was on the phone, his hand shaking as he whispered into the mouthpiece. “I’ve lost him,” he admitted, and before he took a breath to explain, the handset exploded in his ear.

  “Shit — How? Where? When?”

  “I think he caught on.”

  “You useless piece of dog’s …”

  “I couldn’t help it — he seemed jumpy.”

  “Of course he was jumpy — wouldn’t you be if you were being followed by an incompetent turd like you?”

  “Look, don’t blame me. I didn’t ask to do this. You should’ve done it yourself.”

  “All I wanted was a clean job — Oh forget it. I’ll do it myself. You’d better come back.”

  Bliss dawdled in the service area for over an hour, vacillating between brazening it out, on the betting the killer wouldn’t strike in such a public place in broad daylight, and slinking back to the car with his head down. In the end he decided to call for assistance and, without giving his name, phoned Scotland Yard from a booth and requested D.C.I. Bergen.

  “He’s on a course, Sir,” said the operator.

  Police College — Bliss had forgotten. Junior command course — having his brain adjusted and his elbow lubricated.

  “What about Superintendent Wakelin?”

  “Can I ask who’s calling?”

  “Michael — just say Michael. He’ll know.”

  A few seconds later the dead air was replaced by the hollowness of a speaker phone, but no voice.

  “Superintendent Wakelin?” Bliss enquired speculatively.

  The silence continued for a split second as the man at the other end struggled to place the voice “Oh Dave — Yes … Sorry. How are you doing?”

  Bliss hesitated, “It’s Michael, Sir.”

  “Oh shit, of course. Sorry, Dave — I mean Michael. Fuck — this is confusing, isn’t it? Would you like to call back and start again?”

  “No, that’s alright, Sir. I’m on a pay phone.”

  “Thank Christ. Well what can I do for you … Michael?”

  “Can we meet?”

  “Sure. When? Where?”

  “Eighteen hundred hours at location B, if that’s convenient.”

  A slight pause signalled uncertainty. “Location B,” he repeated vaguely.

  How the hell did this man ever become a superintendent? He’s got a brain like a sieve. “Location B …” Bliss was about to explain, then lost his patience. “Haven’t you got the list of locations? … It’s that pub near Camden Lock.”

  Samantha was next and his daughter answered her mobile phone at the first ring. “Dad — Where are you?”

  “How’s your mother?” he countered, wary of giving anything away.

  “Dad — I’m expecting a call.”

  Did he detect a touch of aggravation? “Oh sorry — I just need a few things from your attic.”

  “O.K. I’ll be home at …”

  “No,” he cut in, “I don’t want to come round. Will you bring them to me at the usual place?”

  “Dad — surely we don’t still have to do that. It’s been more than six months …”

  “I can’t take the risk, Sam. I have enough on my conscience already … if anything happened to you.”

  “You don’t think he’s still out there do you?”

  “I was followed today,” he admitted.

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t worry, I lost him.”

  The phone went silent at her end. “What’s the matter, Sam?” he asked eventually.

  “You know what’s the matter — I’m scared shitless. I don’t know why you don’t just stay in the safe house until they catch him — he’s a maniac.”

  “I’ll be alright — I’m beginning to wish I’d never told you.”

  “Well, perhaps that goes for me too. But whether I know or not doesn’t change the fact that I could become an orphan any day now.”

  “Sam, that isn’t going to happen. Anyway, you’re twenty-eight. You don’t become an orphan at that age.”

  “Don’t be picky. What do you need?”

  He gave her a list, set a time, and with a final fruitless search for the Volvo around the service centre, set off for London.

  Tottenham Court Road was more or less on Bliss’s route, once he’d reached London. He parked the Rover under a “No parking” sign, stuck a “Police — on duty” card in his windscreen and told himself that he wouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes.

  The shop window was exactly as he remembered it from when he’d dragged Samantha there at the age of ten. The visit had been more his treat than hers — one of the times when a son would have come in handy. An antique bow window of tiny mullions, set in a latticework of lacquered wood, bulged out over the pavement, an
d a life-size guardsman, as stiff as the plywood on which he was painted, stood sentinel at the door.

  The entirely appropriate smell of polished leather and Brasso had not changed, neither had a tinny electronic bugle sounding reveille overhead as he opened the door under the sign, “The Little Soldier — Dealers in miniature military memorabilia.”

  A tall man with a well-disciplined moustache, a full head of grey hair, (fractionally longer than regulation and afflicted with an unruly curl), modelling a sharp mohair suit, came smartly to attention behind his counter. “Can I be of assistance, Sir?”

  “Just looking,” he lied, annoyed at being pounced upon before he’d had a chance to draw breath, and he took his time studying an army of vividly painted small soldiers artistically arranged on a battlefield of green baize. “Very pretty,” he said finally sensing the man standing impatiently alongside him.

  The instant frown of disapproval told Bliss he’d chosen the wrong expression. “These are historically accurate reproductions of military personnel … not Barbie dolls, Sir,” said the dealer, his officer’s accent as crisp as the creases in his trousers.

  Bliss mumbled something that could have been mistaken for an apology and dragged the plastic bag containing the remnants of the toy soldier out of his pocket. “I wonder if you can tell me anything about this?”

  The look of abhorrence on the dealers face seemed fairly clear as he took the pieces and “tut-tutted,” leaving Bliss in no doubt that, in his Lilliputian world, the miniature statuary had never been a Rodin or even a Royal Doulton. In fact, Bliss was quite prepared for him to pucker his mouth, spit drily in disgust, and drop the pieces disdainfully into a garbage bin. But he didn’t. He studied them seriously, minutely examining each piece with a jewellers loupe, “tut-tutting” again and again until Bliss could stand it no longer and made a move to examine one or two of the other armies in the room.

  “How did this happen?” asked the dealer without taking his eye off the magnifying glass, as if sensing Bliss’s lack of attention.

  “Dropped,” suggested Bliss nonchalantly.