Missing: Presumed Dead (24 page)

Bliss was breathless with anticipation, “What happened?”

“There were six of them, only boys really – young hoodlums. Today they'd be spraying graffiti on bridges or dealing grass in the Hauptstrasse Burger Bar, but somebody had got them up as soldiers and given them real guns with live ammo, so they felt pretty big. One of them spoke French, badly. ‘What do you have in there?' he asked, pointing his gun at the basket. ‘My baby,' I said. ‘I live over there and I want to go home, my husband is waiting for his dinner and my baby needs feeding.' I don't think he understood, and one of the others kept screaming, ‘Shoot her – just shoot her.' Then one of them said something crude. My German wasn't very good but I knew what he was suggesting ‘Look,' he said, ‘She's got her knickers off already.'”

The main course arrived, served on wooden platters, and Bliss started to eat, silently, dying to tell her to continue, but, sensing the fragility of her condition, left her to choose the moment. Daphne had yet to start her turkey and was pushing pieces of it around her plate, then she slammed her knife and fork onto the table making him jump. “I don't know why I feel I have to explain ...” she began, her fists clenched in fierce anger.

“You don't,” he said soothingly, and reached out to comfort her. But they both knew that she did have to explain – that she would explain – that she needed to explain.

“I wish they had raped me – all of them,” she began again, her voice subdued, and with the words came tears. She wiped them with her napkin then carried on crying and talking at the same time. “It wouldn't have mattered – not really. I would have got over it in time.”

“They didn't rape you?” he asked kindly as she paused to wipe her eyes again.

“No,” she sniffled. “They took the baby. One of them picked it out of the basket. I thought they'd see the radio – I couldn't let them see the radio, so I started screaming, ‘
Donnez-moi mon bébé
– Give me back my baby – Give me back my baby.'”

“‘Do you want your baby?' he said, holding it high in the air, taunting me.”

“‘Give me my baby,' I cried.” And her eyes found the distant spot again as she fought back the tears.

“He threw the baby – not at me – at one of the others, but a shell exploded and he turned just at the wrong moment. He wasn't looking.” She paused to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, then looked right into Bliss's eyes. “They just walked away – ‘It doesn't matter – we'll all be dead tomorrow,' one of them said.” She hesitated for a moment to compose herself, then, more calmly, continued. “I was surrounded by death yet that baby meant everything to me – I'd promised his mother you see.” The tears came again and she started to get up. “You'll have to excuse me, Dave,” she snivelled. “I'm just a silly old woman. I'll be back in a minute – fix up my face.”

He rose with her. “Will you be alright?”

She patted him back down. “I'll be fine. Don't worry.”

Bliss was on the verge of seeking her out when she returned, dry-eyed, though her face was flushed.

“I didn't come back to England after the war,” she explained. I couldn't face my mother and her snotty friends. ‘And what did you do in the war, little Ophelia?' they would have asked, their little pinkies poking the air as they sipped Earl Grey and pretended to be posh. What would I have said? You nearly choked to death when I told you – imagine what they would have said, ‘Oh how dreadful,' she put on a plummy accent, ‘How could you, Ophelia?' Then they would have asked for another cucumber sandwich.”

Bliss found himself laughing – nervous relief, he assumed. Relieved she'd got over the worst – that she was able to make light of it, however dreadful it had been. But the worst was to come.

“It's not funny. You were shocked because you assumed I'd been a nurse. It's so stereotypical – men maim and women mend. But that wasn't me. That wasn't cheeky-faced Ophelia Lovelace from Westchester Church of England School, and Mrs. Fanshawe's ballet class for the daughter's of gentle folk. This was Daphne Lovelace – murderer. I killed people, Dave – hundreds of people. I picked up the dead baby, wrapped it in the shawl, put it back in the basket, then went into that town and found a whole garrison of Germans frantically packing to withdraw. And I got on my little radio and told them to bomb the fuck out of the place – don't screw up your nose like that, I was saying fuck before you were born – I wanted shells raining down on the Germans, pulping them into the ground, pulverising the life out of them. I wanted to kill every last one of them. And do you know – it felt good. It felt so good after what they did to my baby. It felt so good I didn't care anymore. If my radio hadn't worked, I would have stood in the middle of the town waving my knickers at the bombers, screaming, ‘Down here – the fucking Krauts are down here – bomb the bastards to pieces.'”

“Is everything alright, Sir?” interrupted the waiter noticing they weren't eating.

Bliss testily shooed him away. “Fine, fine.”

Daphne sat, eyes glazed into the distance, flicking back and forth as if she were watching the battle going on behind them. As if every flash and blast were being replayed in her brain. “And the bombs came,” she carried on, with powerful emotion. “The shells came, and I was in the middle of it. It was like God had turned the volume up to 11. The noise was so loud I could see it – each new bomb or shell sending shockwaves of sound smashing into the columns of smoke, tearing them apart. Everything was shaking – buildings; trees; the ground. One earthquake after another and I was right in the middle of it. I was the bull's-eye and I didn't care.”

Her eyes drifted to a close as the battle raged in her mind, then they popped open as if she had remembered something really important. “It was in colour – that was the strangest thing really. Not black and white like the documentaries and movies. More colour than I'd ever seen. Not ordinary colours – colours so vivid I wanted to shout, ‘Cor look at that!' Brilliant white and yellow flashes that hurt my eyes, glowing reds and oranges like mini sunsets, spring-green fields and freshly leafed trees. And the sky – the clearest, brightest, warmest blue. It was as if God didn't know there was a war going on. I remember thinking, over and over, why doesn't God stop this – he doesn't care, he couldn't even make the day miserable. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been drizzly and cold. Nobody wants to die on a lovely summer's day. I was so mad with God for doing that I never really made it up with him. I suppose I shall find out soon enough whether or not he ever forgave me.”

“Forgave you for killing Germans?” he asked, unsure.

“Do you think they wanted to die, Dave? Do you think they couldn't see the sky or hear the birds?”

“Your dinner's getting cold,” he said, not having an answer and they ate in reflective silence for a while.

“Have you ever been back?” he asked when the air had settled.

“I go back occasionally,” she answered, concealing, by the languidness of her words, the hundreds of hours she had spent pacing the quaint cobblestone streets, interrogating startled strangers, desperately scouring every face for the young woman. Wanting to say, “I'm sorry about your baby.” Needing to say, “I'm sorry about your baby.” More than fifty years – still trying to make sense and move on, still trying to pull part of herself away. Like a harassed mother dragging a screaming kid from a toy shop window, knowing the moment she lets go he'll race back.

“What about parachuting? Did you ever do it again?” he asked as the platters were taken away.

“I was going to once, just for fun, to celebrate my fiftieth ...” she paused in thought. “Or was it sixtieth? Anyway, when I went to the place they made such a fuss – training course; medical examination; static lines; instructors and such. I couldn't be bothered with all that nonsense and I said, ‘Look here, young lady. I was jumping out of planes while your dad was still in short pants.' It didn't make any difference. They wouldn't let me – not without all the rigmarole.”

Daphne ordered the Black Forest Gâteau for dessert – “There's irony for you – now I'm eating their cakes.”

“The same for me,” said Bliss, too pre-occupied to make his own choice, and they sat in tense silence as the pressure built in his mind. There was more to be said, he knew it – Daphne sensed it. But it was his turn, not hers. Tell her about Mandy Richards, tell her about the baby.

“I killed a baby once,” he announced inside his mind, but the words wouldn't come out. “I was hoping to get away from it eventually.”

What is this? he asked himself. A competition? My ghosts are more frightful than yours. Would it make her feel better? Would it make me feel better?

What would she say? One look at her sorry face gave him the answer: You'll never escape completely.

A wooden cuckoo popped out of a clock and jump started the time.

“So, I suppose you're gearing up for the auction tomorrow,” he said, enthusiastically digging into his gâteau.

Chapter Ten
_____________________________

T
he driver of the blue Volvo shrank quickly out of sight as Bliss drove past on his way up the quiet street to deliver Daphne home.

“I can manage,” Daphne said, as he started to get out to escort her to the door. Ignoring her, he opened the gate and accompanied her up the front path, waited while she flicked on the light and turned the key, then brushed her cheek with a chaste kiss.

“Ooh, Chief Inspector,” she giggled.

“Thank you, Daphne,” he said with a depth of meaning way beyond her comprehension. Thank you for your courage, your sacrifice, your modesty. Thank you for making me realise the insignificance of my fears.

“No ...
Thank you
, Chief Inspector,” she replied, letting herself in. “And I hope I didn't spoil your evening,”

“I learnt a great deal,” he said, heading back to the car and driving off without noticing the Volvo – too many other considerations occupying his mind, too many plans to make, too many demons to slay.

He had intended returning to the Mitre and set off in that direction, but fate snatched the wheel out of his hands and spun him around in a U-turn, leaving the driver of the following Volvo no choice but to dive for cover up a side street. By the time he re-emerged, Bliss had gone – speeding recklessly down dark narrow lanes, inspiration weighing his foot on the accelerator, feeling that, if he drove fast enough, he might somehow break through the time barrier and go back eighteen years. But if he could go back to the bank and fall dead in place of Mandy – would he?

The road became a switchback as he raced headlong into the night and he allowed the car to choose its own path – tearing through villages, laughing at speed limits and screeching at corners. Deep down he knew where he was headed and he finally knew he had run out of road when the tyres scrunched on the sand-swept tarmac of a beach-side car park. The English Channel lay ahead, and, beyond the narrow choppy sea, France.

Two cars, sinisterly dark, sat at either end of the car park and his first instinct was to seek somewhere more solitary, more remote for his deliberations, but, as he rolled to a stop, his lights picked up a flurry of activity on the beach and two figures scurried in opposite directions. Twenty seconds later the two cars burst simultaneously to life and crept away into the night without lights. “Oops,” he said to himself, but isn't that the thrill of adultery – the risk of being caught.

The beach turned inky black as he switched off his lights and cut the engine, then gradually came back to life as his eyes and ears acclimatised, and he sank in his seat, exhausted, letting the gentle swishing of the surf wash over him and erase his stress. Ahead, over the ocean, a couple of hazy lights flickered hypnotically and held his attention, then an armada of grey shadows steamed sluggishly out of the mist and rolled over him. He fought off the drowsiness for a few seconds, swimming back to consciousness a couple of times before surrendering to the waves.

A thousand battleships drifted slowly out of the haze and sailed through his mind as he floated weightlessly on the sea. Above him, the deck rails of the silent ships were lined by grey lifeless men – men with faces pulled gaunt by fear. Silent men, immobile men, dead men. Men who had beaten the bullet and found death before it had found them. Wasn't it easier that way – less painful for all concerned. Wasn't it better that each sombre faced man had already accepted his destiny and said his last goodbye. “Don't worry – I'll make it back,” he would have said with a forced smile, his own obituary already written and in his pocket ready for the burial party to find.
“My Dearest One – I expect
you've heard the bad news by now ...”
or, more often,
“Dear Mum and Dad ...”

Where were the happy cheering hordes that filled the
Pathé
newsreels at the Saturday Matinee? Where were the happy-go-lucky Yanks, Canucks and Aussies who always had a kitbag on one arm and a girl on the other as they headed for the gangplanks?

Endless fleets of ships with countless dead-pan faces sailed by and disappeared slowly over the dark horizon, then he slipped beneath the black oily surface; exhaustion dragging him deeper than dreams, beyond the depths of even the darkest nightmares.

An hour later the cold sea-breeze bit into his bones, rousing him sufficiently to fire up the engine and turn on the heater. Waves of warmth soon lulled him back to sleep and he picked up the dream as Daphne, (or maybe it was Mandy), rode a bicycle up a sun-soaked beach at the head of a column of dead men. Daphne – surely it was Daphne – enthusiastically waved her frilly knickers in the air, and in her basket, the wicker basket slung on the handlebars, was a skull – a grotesque skull, a skull with bulging eyes and a gaping fleshless mouth shouting encouragement.