Missing: Presumed Dead

by James Hawkins

  He wanted to explain, but couldn’t get his mouth working as his thoughts went back to the computerised death threat and reminded him of the bombing. “Thank God for the bomb,” he remembered saying when it had happened, at a time when conversations withered whenever he walked into a room. At least the bomb had silenced the most vociferous rumour mongers, particularly as the chief superintendent himself had provided him with an alibi, sitting conveniently next to him at the annual widows and orphans fundraising dinner when it had exploded.

  Samantha tugged at his sleeve, asking, “Dave – Are you listening to me?” – growing concern supplanting her earlier aggravation.

  “Yes,” he said, responding reflexively, but his mind was still stuck on the threatening message and Donaldson’s obvious scepticism.

  “I just can’t see it, Dave,” he had said, his implication clear despite the unintentional pun.

  “Right, Guv,” Bliss had shot back angrily. “If that’s the way you want to play it. But I expect you to make it perfectly clear in your report, whoever you report to, that Detective Inspector Bliss was absolutely one hundred percent adamant that the words appeared on his computer screen.”

  “But, Dave – you know what our security is like ..?” he paused seeing the determination on Bliss’s face, and relented. “O.K. I’ll get the fingerprint boys to dust around ...”

  “Waste of time, Guv,” Bliss cut him off with the shake of his head. “This guy’s a professional. Do you think he’d be stupid enough to leave prints?”

  Donaldson bit the inside of lip as he wandered to the window, and he idly fingered the catch as he tried to fathom out the modus operandi. “How would you get in?” he asked, looking down at the car park two stories below, challenging himself for an answer as much as he was challenging Bliss.

  “He probably strolled in with a toolbox, like he owned the place,” suggested Bliss. “‘Your whirly thingumajig’s broken down again,’ he calls to the girl on reception, as if he’s fixing it every other day, and she flicks the switch to let him in without a second glance.”

  “Alright. Let’s say I believe you ...” he started positively, turning back from the window. “There are security cameras on all external doors. All we have to do is pull the tapes and put a couple of men to go through them. I’ll get someone on it right away – satisfied?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Sir,” said Bliss. “And in the meantime, I’m damned if I’ll let him get to me. Doreen Dauntsey’s waiting to confess to murdering her old man, and I’m bloody determined to finish this case if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Samantha had waited long enough. “Well, let me guess why you dragged me here,” she said, angrily turning the ignition, preparing to leave. “You’re married and you’re worried your wife will find out about last night ...”

  “No. No. No,” he shouted, gathering his thoughts and panicking at the prospect of losing her.

  She revved the engine threateningly.

  “That’s not it at all. I told you the truth – I’m divorced. Please don’t leave. I need to talk to you ... please.”

  “Well, for God’s sake, what is it, Dave?” she asked, switching off, her impatience suddenly muted by concern. “You look like a man facing a life sentence. Is it something to do with the Major Dauntsey case?”

  “His wife did it,” he replied, neatly avoiding the issue of the death threats again. “I’m certain she wanted to confess this morning but her son, and the matron at the nursing home, kept me from seeing her.”

  “Let’s lie on the sand,” she said, grabbing a thick wool car blanket from the back seat. “And you can tell me all about it while we stare up at the stars.”

  “O.K.,” he surrendered, wondering where to start as they walked the few yards to the beach and spread the blanket just beyond the ribbon of flotsam which marked the tide’s reach.

  “D.C. Dowding drove me to the nursing home,” he explained as they lay listening to the gently swishing surf. “I didn’t want to drive my car after what had happened. Anyway, Donaldson thought I should have backup just in case.”

  “What had happened?” she demanded anxiously.

  He froze again, still reluctant to involve her, then he carried on as if she’d not spoken. “Jonathon and the matron were in her office when I got there, working on a scheme to keep me out I guess.”

  Nurse Dryden had answered the bell, opening the highly lacquered front door and searching beyond him for a recognisable figure. “Is Bob with you today?”

  “Bob,” said Bliss vacantly, having instructed Dowding to remain with the car, forgetting that the nursing home held attractions for the detective beyond the purely professional. “Bob who?”

  “Sergeant Dowding – you know, the one who was with you last week.”

  “Oh that Bob,” he shook his head. “Day off – gone shopping with his wife I expect – probably getting something for the kiddies. You know how it is.”

  Her face crumpled, leaving him questioning his motive – wasn’t that a bit spiteful? ... just because you’re having a bad day. Maybe – But she’ll thank me in the long run; so would her mother; so would Dowding’s wife.

  “Jonathon was spoiling for a fight,” he carried on, sensing Samantha’s growing agitation, “and I thought I’d teach him a lesson for getting that old witch of a magistrate to give him bail. “I’m here to visit your mother,” I told him, seeing him and the matron come out of her office all buddy-buddy. “She asked to see me,” I said, pushing my way past the nurse, but Jonathon, the supercilious little snot, stuck his nose in the air and put on a poofy voice.” Bliss paused, furnishing himself with a passably supercilious impersonation. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Inspector,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. I fear my mother has changed her mind.’ ‘I fear you’ve changed her mind for her, sunshine,’ I said, and told him straight, to get out of my way, that I had every intention of speaking to her myself.”

  “What happened?” asked Samantha snuggling up to him encouragingly.

  “The bloody matron ordered me out,” he said, clearly chagrined. “She rustled her apron at me like it was concealing some sort of secret weapon and waded in to protect the old lady. ‘Mrs. Dauntsey has given strict instructions she’s not to be disturbed again, I’m afraid.’

  “‘Well, I’m afraid that her wishes are no longer material,’ I said. ‘Either I see her now or I shall be back in an hour with an arrest warrant.’ Jonathon laughed in my face. ‘On what grounds, Inspector?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t got a shred of evidence against my mother and you know it.’ He was right of course – unless she comes clean we haven’t a hope in hell of proving it. Anyway, I thought a bit of bluff wouldn’t go amiss.”

  “We may have considerably more evidence than you realise, Mr. Dauntsey,” he had said, before trying unsuccessfully to menace the matron with hints of prosecution for hindering the investigation of a serious crime. But Jonathon quickly stepped in to defend the matron, insisting she was merely protecting his mother’s right to privacy.

  “‘Now, if you’ve quite finished ...’ Jonathon said, waving me away like an annoying kid,” continued Bliss as Samantha lay on an elbow studying his moonlit face. “But I wasn’t leaving that easily. I told him I wanted to know how he came to be in possession of the lead soldier from his father’s collection.”

  “But didn’t you say the Major couldn’t have been Jonathon’s father?” queried Samantha. “I thought Daphne had worked that out from the birth certificate.”

  “She did,” he replied, thinking – clever of you to remember. “And I was tempted to pass the information onto him, but I thought he already had enough on his plate. In any case, the man’s no idiot. I assume he’s worked that out for himself and has kept quiet for his mother’s sake. I get the impression he’d do just about anything for her.”

  “Touching,” said Samantha, laying back and squinting at the moon. “But what did he say about the flattened toy?”

  “Not a toy,” Bliss
retorted, mimicking the clipped military accent of the dealer, “It’s a fine miniature replica, Miss ... Anyway, Jonathon was vague ...” Then he paused in thought. “It’s just struck me – Jonathon’s good at vague – he does vague very professionally. In fact that’s a very good description of him: white male, 5’ 10”, and in all other respects – vague. He’s speaks vaguely – rambles on about inconsequential things that only he understands, and he’s wandered idly through life living off his mother and dead father – step-father I suppose more accurately. He never seems to have achieved anything from what I can tell. In fact, up to now he’s gone through fifty odd years without a scratch – then he cold-bloodedly murders someone.”

  “I guess he’s not so vague now,” chipped in Samantha.

  “You’re right. Anyway, not wanting to make him too happy, I told him that if he hadn’t smashed up the toy ... replica ... whatever, the set his mother is now sitting on would be worth a cool twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “How bloody ironic,” Jonathon had laughed uproariously. “Do you read Shakespeare, Inspector – Julius Caesar?”

  “I have ... some ... a little.”

  “No matter – even you would know Mark Anthony’s speech – ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen,’ etcetera.”

  Bliss nodded, thinking – I’m going to enjoy bringing you down to earth one of these days, as Jonathon threw an imaginary mantel over his shoulder and posed dramatically. “‘I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him,’” he began. “‘The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.’”

  Then he laughed again.

  “So what evil did your father do?” asked Bliss, straight-faced.

  “Oh, that’s very astute of you, Inspector – very astute indeed. I must say I’m really rather impressed with your comprehension.”

  “I’m flattered, but I’d still like to know the nature of the evil.”

  “But what makes you think there was evil?”

  “Everything else in your little speech seems to fit – you certainly put on a convincing show of burying your father, and you’ve just discovered he took something good, and valuable, to his grave with him. That only leaves the evil.”

  Jonathon looked into the distance and spoke vaguely. “Yes. I suppose it does really.”

  “I never did get to see Doreen,” Bliss said, concluding his account to Samantha. “The matron dug in her heels and refused point blank to let me past the front hallway.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Unfortunately, Jonathon’s right. I’ve got no evidence – not enough to get a warrant anyway. Legally, of course, I could just force my way in and drag her out on suspicion, but can you imagine what the press would do with that? ‘Police today sledge hammered their way into an old people’s home to arrest an octogenarian on her death bed,’ he chuckled, and Samantha giggled uncontrollably as he added, “‘Several of the pensioners put up a valiant fight – hurling bed-pans and dentures ...’”

  “Stop, Dave,” she cried through the laughter, “I’m going to wet myself in a minute.”

  “‘Incontinent grannies manned the barricades ..’” he continued.

  “I’m not a granny,” she protested, thumping him playfully. “By the way, talking of grannies, how was Daphne this morning – was she still jealous of me?”

  Bliss chortled, “Did you catch her face when she saw you standing at the door with me last night?”

  “She looked at me as if her cat had dragged me out of the sewer.”

  “It was my fault really,” he laughed. “I got wind of the problem when I phoned to ask if I could bring a friend to dinner. She was a bit huffy, ‘Well, it’s your beef, Chief Inspector,’ she said, but when I said my friend was called Sam she changed her tune.”

  “On no,” Samantha laughed. “She probably thought you were lining her up with a blind date – then I showed up.”

  “Poor Daphne, but I didn’t do it on purpose – it only occurred to me afterwards. Anyway, it serves her right after what she did with that goat.”

  “Dave!” she cried. “That’s sounds positively pornographic.”

  “Hardly,” he said, then amused her with the saga of the goat; what it had cost and the trouble it had caused. And they ended up laughing together.

  “You’re beginning to sound more cheerful,” she said as the laughing died down. “But you still haven’t told me the real reason you called this morning. You had something serious weighing on your mind – I could feel it and I was miles away.”

  “I’ve calmed down since then.”

  “Sit up,” she ordered, then ran her hands over his shoulders and round his neck. “I thought so – tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet. If you’ve calmed down, you certainly forgot to tell your muscles. Come on, open up, tell me what’s bothering you or I’m going home.”

  “Somebody left a nasty message on my computer,” he admitted finally.

  She would have laughed at the stupidity of it had she not caught the seriousness in his tone. “I guess it must have been pretty bad,” she said, hoping to draw him, but when he didn’t respond she tried a different approach. “There’s no way it could’ve been a joke is there?”

  “No, it was no joke,” he shot back adamantly, thinking – there’s more, lots more, but where to start, what to tell – the blue Volvo, the strange man digging for information at the Mitre perhaps. And what about the man who had run from them in the car park? What do I say about him? That I let you wade into a river in pursuit of a murderer. And what about the explosion in the tea shop – wait a minute he said to himself, interrupting his thoughts, surely that was an accident: Bit of a coincidence though wasn’t it? You’re doing it again, he warned himself, recalling what the force psychiatrist had said: “Possibly suffering from delusional paranoia.” He hadn’t forgotten, but neither had he forgotten that the chief superintendent himself had ripped up the report after the bomb had blasted a hole through his front door. “Trick-cyclists,” the senior officer had scoffed. “They couldn’t cure a bad case of verbal diarrhoea.”

  “A swim would do you good – wash away some of that tension,” said Samantha responding to his apparent distress.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “If you don’t start to loosen up soon, you’ll snap something,” she said, getting up and holding out a helping hand. “Come on, you’ll enjoy a moonlight dip.”

  He hung back. “Much as I’d like to, I can’t. I haven’t any trunks.”

  “It’s dark, Dave,” she smiled. “There’s no-one for miles and I promise faithfully not to peep.”

  “I haven’t even got a towel.”

  “You can share mine.”

  Did she say share? he thought, quickly agreeing. “But what about you?”

  “I was in the Girl Guides,” she replied, turning her back, scrunching her flowing hair into a swimming cap that appeared from nowhere, and stripping off to reveal a slinky black costume that took on a silky sheen in the bright moonlight.

  Bliss stood rock still, stunned almost to tears by the beauty of her body, entranced by her strong, almost masculine shoulders, her smoothly curvaceous waist and her firm boyish bottom. Then she turned and the swell of her full breasts took his breath away.

  “Ready?” she asked, and he fought off the rest of his clothes in an instant. “Stay close,” she added, taking his hand, her eyes fixed firmly ahead on the dark horizon. “And stop staring – I’m sure you’ve seen a swimsuit before.”

  He hesitated apprehensively at the water’s edge and Samantha egged him on with a tug, “C’mon, it’s quite warm.”

  But it wasn’t the water holding him back – the nightmarish fleet of death ships still floated in the back of his mind and he half expected to see them, and their grisly immortal cargoes, sailing in from the shadowy distance. But the horizon was clear, the sea had stilled and the ghosts of the dead servicemen had returned to their watery graves for another year. It was D-day plus 3, in the timele
ssness of the hereafter, and the grim reaper had moved on to gather lost souls from the beaches and fields of Normandy.

  “D-Day plus 3,” Bliss mused to himself, his thoughts miles and years away – on the other side of the Channel with a pretty young Englishwoman, brazening her way across no-man’s land on a liberated bicycle, to deliver a baby into the reaper’s hands.

  “Dave ...” called Samantha with alarm, breaking him out of his catalepsy. “You are in a bad way, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry,” he said, clearing his mind and walking forward until the coldness of the water squeezed the air out of his lungs. Samantha sensed the contraction in his hand. “Just relax, Dave – breathe normally, you’ll get used to it in a moment.”

  “Are you sure?” he squeaked, wondering if his testicles would ever recover.

  Once fully in the water, the anonymity of darkness and the reassurance of her firm grasp dissolved his inhibitions and he bared his soul. It only took a few minutes: Maggie Thatcher’s botched bank job; Mandy and her unborn baby; the killer’s threats in court; the letters, phone calls and bomb; the blue Volvo; the funny little man delving through the hotel register and the final, spine-tingling message on the computer.

  She said little, listened well, hummed knowingly at appropriate intervals, and clearly believed every word. “Oh, Dave ... you should’ve told me before,” she said without censure, then queried, “Do you think that man we chased last night was him as well?”

  “I thought so at first, that’s why I told you to stay in the car – not that you listened. Afterwards I realised he was probably just a local car thief sussing out the car park for a worthy motor.”

  He questioned himself later, asking why he had confided in someone who may have mocked his apparent timidity or blabbed to his colleagues. And yet, instinctively, he’d known she would do neither. Anyway, he rationalised, had he not cornered himself by his actions. Wouldn’t it be somewhat disingenuous to swim stark naked with someone late at night on an isolated beach and later claim that you wouldn’t have trusted them to share a Mars bar let alone a personal secret?