Missing: Presumed Dead ib-1

by James Hawkins

  “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 o
live 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 Crudites 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 amp; 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.

  Chapter Eight

  7am, Friday morning and Westchester mortuary was being prepared for the last rites of Major Rupert Dauntsey, (Retd.). A cluster of spotlights flickered coldly into life above an operating table and illuminated an arctic scene. The glare of stark snow-white windowless walls reflected off the glassy sheen of steel refrigerator doors, and the milky marble floor offered neither warmth nor comfort. A couple of masked attendants, in white one-piece suits, skated around the central table, laying out trays of surgical instruments, checking the identity of the body, then blanketing the remains in a stiffly starched sheet.

  “Now if you would lie perfectly still, Sir, this won’t hurt a bit,” jested one of the attendants, for the benefit of a small procession of sombre-faced students who shuffled into the room and hung about near the door.