Missing: Presumed Dead

by James Hawkins

  “Perhaps you could give me a bit of background information first,” he half whispered anxious to be discreet.

  “Like what?” she boomed, as if he’d made a smutty suggestion.

  “Oh,” said Bliss, taken aback. “I just wondered what you know about the Major and his wife – were they close?”

  A teenaged girl, her unrealistically large bosom encased tightly in an all-white nurse’s outfit, had drifted into the hallway and was hovering. The matron looked at her queryingly, as if expecting her to provide the answer, but was apparently disappointed in the blankness of the response. Am I missing something? wondered Bliss, and waited while the matron re-arranged her apron, her hair, and her face, while considering the prudence of her reply. “From what I understand Mrs. Dauntsey had been separated from the Major for sometime,” she answered with obvious disapproval. “She never spoke of him, not to me anyhow. Young Mr. Dauntsey said there was a distance between them.”

  “So she wasn’t excited at the prospect of his visit?”

  “I got the impression she never really expected to see him again. I’m not aware she was expecting a visit. She certainly never said anything to me about it. Not that she would. Not her – not that one. Thinks she’s too good for us does Mrs. Dauntsey.”

  “Has her husband visited her since she’s been here?”

  “Not as far as I know ... There’s no need to look at me like that, Inspector. This isn’t a prison, you know. Our guests don’t have to get visiting orders; unlike yours.”

  “No, no, I wasn’t being critical. I was just wondering why he should suddenly decide to visit. Maybe he was hoping to get a mention in her will.”

  “Oh no. Mrs. Dauntsey doesn’t have much. That’s why she’s in here – if she had money she’d be in Golden Acres over at Fylingford.” She lowered her tone reverently, “That’s where all the moneyed people go – this is a council home. No – I think you’ll find it is the Major who has the money, not her.”

  “She’s got cancer, I’m told.”

  “Mrs. Dauntsey has Invasive Ductal Carcinoma,” she said with her nose in the air. “Nurse Dryden will take you to her in the day lounge, although I think it would be wise if only one of you should visit her – two hulking great men might be too much for her – scare her to death.”

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked the nurse on the way to the day room.

  “Not really. It’s just that saying ‘cancer’ round here is a bit like calling a refuse disposal officer a ‘bin-man’ We try to avoid the word as far as possible – it frightens people.”

  “I see.”

  “Mrs. Dauntsey will be in her usual place,” continued the nurse, opening the door and steering Bliss toward a frail woman with parchment skin and white hair who immediately demonstrated her determination to guard her territory by picking her handbag off the floor and cradling it to her chest. “I’ll leave you to it,” whispered the nurse, implying that she wished him luck.

  Dowding, slicking back his hair, slipstreamed the young nurse toward the kitchen with the promise of a hot coffee and the hope of something more stimulating, leaving Bliss to approach the newly widowed old woman. “Mrs. Dauntsey ...” he enquired with an overly patronising air.

  She viewed him warily. “What are you going to stick in me now?”

  “No. I’m not a doctor. I’m a policeman ... I wonder if we could go somewhere private,” he added, aware of the anticipatory hush his presence had caused among the twenty or so inhabitants.

  “Private – in here?”

  “Do you have a room?”

  “Don’t worry about this lot,” she swept a frail arm around the room. “They’re all dead.”

  He looked: most were immobile, heads flopped, mouths agape. Some were staring at him – desperately hoping to find the eyes of a husband, brother or son, then looking ashamedly away as his eyes met theirs. He felt like the grim reaper, and some of them looked fearfully at him as if he were.

  “What d’ye mean – dead?” he questioned.

  “Dead is what I mean, Inspector,” she said, making no attempt to keep her voice down. “No longer part of life. Oh, they all eat and sleep; most of ’em stink; some even talk sometimes – rubbish usually, but this is just a holding pen. They’re just waiting for a plot at the cemetery or a slot at the crematorium.” She pulled him closer with the crook of a bony finger. “Just waiting for their fifteen minutes of flame,” she said, without a trace of humour.

  Bliss smiled briefly then fought to select a suitable expression to presage his doom-laden message, but his face blanked while an eighteen-year-old memory came flooding back: a memory of Mrs. Richard’s quizzical face, incapable of comprehending the disaster, incapable of absorbing the horror of young Constable Bliss’s words – “I’m very sorry Mrs. Richards but your daughter has been shot and killed.”

  “Dead?” she had queried.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “She can’t be dead; she’s getting married next week,” she shot back defiantly, as if he were deluded.

  She’s dead – and I killed her, he wanted to scream, his conscience trying to drag the admission out of him. Then a policewoman with a bush of red hair bubbling out from under her little blue hat had stepped in front of him and forestalled his confession. “Mrs. Richards,” she said, softly, “there’s been a terrible accident in the bank ...”

  It was no accident, thought Bliss, biting back his anger. It was some petty mobster with a sawn-off shotgun.

  “There’s been a shooting, and unfortunately your daughter, Mandy ...”

  “She’s just gone to the bank to get the money for her honeymoon. She’ll be back in a minute ...” said Mrs. Richards, still uncomprehending, but at least beginning to accept that the police visit was somehow connected to her daughter.

  Bliss shook his head and quickly dislodged the old memory. “Mrs. Dauntsey,” he started, biting the bullet, “I’m afraid I have some really bad news ... Your husband has been killed.”

  The news stunned her, leaving her head twitching repeatedly from side to side like a malfunctioning automaton and her mouth stuttering, “N ... N ... No.”

  Deciding there was never going to be a good time to tell her about Jonathon, Bliss pushed on. “I’m also sorry to have to inform you Jonathon has told us he did it.” A strange look of confusion swept over her and, too late, he realised he had on the wrong face. He still had on his “This tragedy causes me as much pain as it does you” countenance, when he probably should have switched to an expression of “Your son is really in the shit.”

  “Jonathon couldn’t have done it,” she retorted with a degree of positiveness that made him realise he would have an uphill struggle persuading her any different. Every mother feels that way, he thought. The prisons are full of men unjustly convicted, in their mother’s eyes. But she was still shaking her head fiercely, “Jonathon did not and could not have killed his father.”

  “Do you know why he would want to kill your husband?”

  “But I don’t understand ... He couldn’t have … It’s not possible ... Not my Jonathon ...”

  “Is there any reason why Jonathon might have killed your husband?” he tried again, rephrasing his question, convinced she was able to comprehend what was happening.

  “Take it from me, Inspector, he didn’t do it.”

  “He says he did.”

  “You just bring him in here. I’ll soon get at the truth.”

  You’re probably right, he thought, guessing she was not above giving him a clip around the ear. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  Bliss left Mrs. Dauntsey and her living mortuary after a few minutes. “I’m feeling rather tired,” she had said somewhat pointedly, giving him no option but to excuse himself.

  As he got up to leave a hushed voice somewhere behind him murmured, “Bloody whore.”

  “What?” he said, spinning around, fearing he’d misheard. No-one moved. The “dead” were as lifeless as ever. Had he heard it
or was it extra sensory perception, a powerfully malicious thought pulsing through the ether and colliding with his brainwaves. Perhaps I dreamt it, he thought, seeking the eyes of those closest, hoping to establish contact, but the eyes were as lifeless as the bodies and he brushed it aside. “Goodbye, Mrs. Dauntsey.”

  “Fucking whore – needs locking up.” There it was again. He hadn’t misheard this time, and the vehemence in the words stopped him in his tracks.

  “Sorry – did you say something?” he asked one old lady, noticing her eyes open. She closed her eyes slowly, as if deliberately shunning him, and he turned back to Jonathon’s mother. There was nothing in her face to suggest she’d heard, although there was no doubt in his mind she was the target of the abuse. “I’ll probably have to come and see you again,” he said, listening carefully for the whisper, hearing nothing.

  “I won’t be around a lot longer.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that ...”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I used to think I’d live forever, but I guess God has other plans.”

  He mumbled, “Sorry,” though it sounded forced, and as he turned to find the matron sweeping across the room toward him, wondered if he was sorry she wouldn’t live forever, or sorry that God had let her down.

  “Is there any hope for her?” he asked, his mind still spinning with the whispered accusations, as the matron guided him out onto a damp grey flagstone terrace having pointedly said, “You can get out this way, Inspector.” He got the message – she doesn’t want the police to be seen leaving by the front door – probably makes the undertaker carry the coffins out the back way as well.

  “There’s always hope, Inspector,” she replied. “But whether or not one’s hopes are fulfilled is a matter of perspective.”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “Most of our patients hope to die quickly and painlessly, Mrs. Dauntsey’s no exception. It’s her son who can’t accept the inevitability of her passing.”

  “It’s the one’s who are left behind who suffer the most, Matron,” he said, and felt the pain of the truth in his heart. “It’s very peaceful here,” he added conversationally to lighten the tone.

  “Sunday afternoon is our noisy time – families coming to say goodbye to Gran or Gramps. If the kids aren’t wailing and crying, their parents are.”

  “What about the Major? Did he ever come on a Sunday.”

  “Like I said before, I’ve never seen him. I suspect this would have been his first visit, although I wouldn’t know for certain. But her son is here all the time – even when she’s asleep – the drugs you know – sits there holding her hands, crying silently. Nothing dramatic, just the odd tear, bleary eyes, occasional sniffle – pretends he has a cold. Keeps his Kleenex in a briefcase – thinks we don’t notice. It’s rather touching really and quite uncommon. You see this is just a dumping ground. By the time we get them most of the relatives have had enough.”

  “Can anything be done for Mrs. Dauntsey?”

  She shook her head with a finality that eclipsed any words. “Don’t tell her son though. He dotes on her. He’s got a notion into his head about some sanatorium in Switzerland – some quack making a fortune out of desperate people with elaborate claims of a cancer cure. He’s promised to take her there.”

  “Could it help?”

  “Might extend her life for a few weeks – if the journey doesn’t kill her, but if it did, it wouldn’t be anything to do with the drugs – purely psychosomatic – even with something as physical as cancer the patient’s will to survive can prolong life. Belief in a cure is often the only cure someone needs, but Mrs. Dauntsey’s cancer has metastasised throughout her body.”

  “I reckon I could get a date with her,” muttered Dowding as the top-heavy nurse was closing the side-door behind them a few minutes later.

  “Would that be alright with your missus then?” asked Bliss with a smirk.

  Dowding, taking the hint, slunk to the car.

  “You drive,” said Bliss throwing him the keys. “It’ll take your mind off naughty thoughts – anyway, I don’t know my way around yet.”

  “Sergeant Patterson called on the radio while you was with Mrs. Dauntsey, Sir,” he said unlocking the door. “He’s checked all the hospitals – negative.”

  Bliss was surprised to find the Black Horse open for business, and, by all appearances, doing a roaring trade – gawkers, he had no doubt.

  “Who authorised this?” he demanded of the uniformed policeman hemmed against the bar by the throng of rumour driven drinkers.

  “I did,” boomed the landlady from across the bar, her voice as brassy as her hair – a Michelin woman with spidery legs that threatened to collapse under the weight at every step. “What’s it got to do wiv you?”

  Silence spread in a wave through the bar like a scene from, Showdown at the O.K. Corral.

  Bliss introduced himself without pleasantries, saying, “Right. I want this bar closed immediately ...”

  “Oh no you don’t. You lot have caused enough inconvenience without costing me a day’s takings.”

  “This is ridiculous. This is a murder scene – it should be entirely cordoned off ...”

  “Not fucking likely – who’s gonna pay me staff? You gonna pay ’em, are you? This is the biggest crowd I’ve had since Christmas.”

  The constable threw up his eyebrows in exasperation as if to say, “See what I’ve had to deal with.”

  “This is Mrs. Bentwhistle, Sir. She’s the landlady ...”

  “Bertwhistle ... ” she corrected. “And before he gets the chance to stitch me up – I’m the one who cleaned up the mess they made here last night.”

  “I want to speak to you about that,” said Bliss as coldly as he could.

  “Don’t blame me – nobody told me not to clear up, and they’re bloody lying if they say different. All they said was, “Don’t let no-one go up there – and I didn’t, but I weren’t having those stains drying in. I only ’ad those carpets put down last year ... or maybe the year before. It were the year our Diane got married ...”

  “The damage has been done ...”

  “Well, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do no damage; I didn’t ask him to do his old man in, not in my pub, I didn’t.”

  “What time did the Major arrive last night?”

  She turned away and threw down a large gin in disgust. “Gawd – how many more of you are goin’ to ask me that?”

  “Sixish,” answered the constable. “That’s what she told me, Sir.”

  “What did the Major say?”

  “Nothing – not to me anyhow. I didn’t see him. He went straight up. Jonathon came to the bar and got the key; said his dad was tired.”

  “So, he didn’t come through this way.”

  She shook her head. “Went up the backstairs.”

  “No-one saw him,” said the constable butting in. “We’ve asked everyone.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Well – all those who were in the pub and outside at the time.”

  Bliss was unmoved. “I still want this place closed, and all these people out until I’m satisfied there is no evidence.”

  “You ought’a be out catching criminals,” grumbled a loudmouth as he was led from the bar. Bliss ignored him.

  “Now,” he said, feeling he was getting somewhere. “Let’s begin again.”

  An hour later, without a scrap of new evidence, Detective Inspector Bliss, feeling more cheated than unjustified, allowed the bar to re-open and retreated to the police station. Superintendent Donaldson was back in his office, according to the counter clerk, and was anxiously awaiting his arrival.

  Some serious bloodletting on my first day, he thought as he trod the superintendent’s corridor for a second time that day. Just what I need. And, with a readied apology he tapped gingerly on Donaldson’s door. “You wanted ...”

  “Bliss ... Dave ... Come in. Sorry I snapped at you earlier ... tired you know ... lot of strain. Chocolate digestive?�
�� he added, holding out the packet as a peace offering.

  Bliss relaxed with a “Thanks.”

  “So, I understand from Patterson that we’ve made some progress even if we haven’t found the body.”

  “Just the duvet really. His mother says he didn’t do it but she’s in a wheelchair in a ...” he paused, finding himself on the verge of saying, “concentration camp,” reconsidered and said, “She’s in an old folk’s home.”

  “She was bound to say it wasn’t him.”

  Bliss nodded in agreement. “The complexion of this case is changing ...” he started.

  “Rapidly going down the toilet if you ask me,” broke in the superintendent. “Initially, I thought we’d get the whole thing sewn up in a few hours, now we’ve got blokes running round in circles just bumping into each other. So what precisely have we got?”

  “It might be easier to analyse what we haven’t got – no body, no motive and very little physical evidence.”

  “No, I disagree. We’ve got plenty of evidence ...”

  Bliss, sensing Donaldson was about to catalogue the evidence at the Black Horse, held up a hand to stop him making a fool of himself. “Patterson hasn’t told you about the balls-up at the pub then?”

  “What balls-up, Inspector?” The superintendent’s eyes demanded a response and his entire demeanour darkened as Bliss explained how the landlady had sterilised every inch of the crime scene; wiping out footprints, fingerprints and blood stains; vacuuming up every trace of fibre and hair; even spraying disinfectant everywhere to mask scents that the dogs may have picked up.

  Donaldson deflated into his chair like a punctured inflatable doll. “Oh my God, Dave. How did this happen?”

  “I’m assuming everyone dashed off after the suspect, or were tied up taking statements from the witnesses.”

  Donaldson, realising he was personally in the firing line, pulled himself together, shot out of the chair and stomped around the office. “That’s obstruction. She knew very well she wasn’t supposed to touch anything. I told her ... You don’t think she could be in on it do you?”