Missing: Presumed Dead (42 page)

Bliss knew the required response, the catechism according to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act: Jonathon Dauntsey. I am arresting you for the murder of Captain David Tippen. You are not obliged to say anything, etc. But the scene was so ridiculous he couldn't bring himself to begin. “Sit down and have a glass of wine, Jonathon, you look as though you need it. And for Christ's sake put your hands down. I haven't any handcuffs with me and if I did I wouldn't use them.”

“Righty-oh, Inspector,” said Jonathon, with a lilt of achievement. “As your prisoner, I would be more than happy to do whatever you ask.”

“Cut the crap. Just sit down and tell me exactly how you killed Tippen.”

Samantha tried interrupting from a distance, unaware of the reason for the hiatus. “Dave ... ” she called, semaphoring with the handset of a phone.

“Hang on a minute, Sam ... sorry ... Samantha,” he replied. Adding, in muted tones, “Jonathon's just confessing to another murder.”

“You're mocking me,” complained Dauntsey.

“Get on with it – How did you kill him?”

“Aren't you going to caution me?”

“I'd rather kick you in the ... Oh never mind. Yes.

Consider yourself cautioned. Now, how did you do it?”

“I shot him.”

“Where?”

“In his room.”

“No. I meant – where in his body?”

“His head of course.”

“Jonathon. I hate to disappoint you, and I really have enjoyed your little story, but aren't you overlooking the fact he's been dead at least forty years.”

“Forty-four, to be precise.”

“So you would have been eight at the time.”

“Nine actually.”

“A little young to shoot someone in the head, don't you think?”

Samantha, waving with manifest urgency, caught Bliss's attention for a second time. “Would you excuse me a moment,” he said to Jonathon. “Feel free to leave if you like.”

“Inspector – I'm trying to turn myself in for murder. You could at least take me seriously.”

“I think you've overlooked something in your determination to protect your mother,” he said, screwing up his napkin, throwing it on the table and rising.

“What?”

“The age of criminal responsibility is ten, Jonathon. If you went berserk with a machine gun in the middle of Harrods at the age of nine, I could only ask you very nicely not to do it again. So I really don't give a shit.”

“Inspector – This is absolutely preposterous.”

“It's the law, Jonathon,” he called over his shoulder, walking away. “Sorry, old mate. Nice try. I'm sure your old mum will appreciate the gesture.”

“But, Inspector ...”

Bliss stopped and turned. “Jonathon ... Bit of advice. If you're still here when I get back I'll nick you for loitering. Now piss off and stop wasting my time.”

Samantha had put the phone down by the time he got to her. “They were asking if we had a control sample to match against the blood in the syringe,” she said. “I didn't want to say anything in front of Jonathon, but they think they've got enough for DNA analysis. By the way, what did he want?”

“Oh he's trying to give himself up again ... ” he started, paused, grabbed her wrist and dragged her back across the room. “C'mon. I think I've cracked it.”

Jonathon was still at the table, still basking in the spotlight of infamy. “Are you still here?” Bliss demanded, masking his gratification with a scowl, then seemed to relent. “I suppose you'd better come with us then.”

Jonathon brightened. “Are you arresting me, Inspector?”

“No – I'm taking you home.”

Detective Sergeant Patterson was also on his way home, packing bits and pieces of personal items from the drawers of his office desk while Donaldson stood over him in silent anger.

Several stone-faced detectives were busily counting floor tiles when D.C. Dowding, totally unaware of the unfolding drama, entered and bludgeoned his way across the room, lashing out at desks, chairs and people.

“Serg. Any chance of a bed at your place for a night or two ...” he began, too wrapped up in a calamity of his own to notice the superintendent. “What'ye doing, Serg?”

Donaldson stepped in. “Sergeant Patterson has been suspended from duty, Dowding.”

“Suspended! Is this a wind up? What for?”

“Do you want to tell him, Sergeant?”

“Bliss stitched me up,” he mumbled to the desk.

“Bollocks,” said Donaldson. “You stitched yourself up.”

“Well
Bliss
bloody stitched me up,” yelled Dowding and all eyes switched to him.

“Well, D.C. Dowding?” prompted Donaldson, breaking the heavy silence after a few seconds. “If you want to lay an official complaint against your new detective inspector you'd better tell us why?”

Dowding caught the drift in the superintendent's tone – D.I. Bliss was flavour of the month. In any case, what could he say? “My podgy wife, (thirty going on forty-five; stretch marks; cellulite; the works), up to her neck in snotty kids with shitty diapers, answers the door to a dish with big knockers in a nurse's uniform.”

“Mrs. Dowding?” Nurse Dryden had queried, her face as innocent as her uniform. “Is Bob home?”

“No, he's at work. Can I help? Do you want to come in?”

“Are you his mother or his sister?” she chatted innocently as she picked up a toddler and waltzed into the living room like she owned the place, as though she wasn't about to start a world war.

“I'm his wife, actually,” said Mrs. Dowding with just a trace of unease.

Nurse Dryden crumpled in a perfectly timed outburst of bawling, her hands flying to her face and churning it into a multi-coloured soup of midnight black mascara, sapphire eye-shadow, raspberry-cola lipstick, snot and tears.

Bob Dowding's wife flew to comfort the stranger fearing her three tots might catch the crying bug. “What is it? What's the matter?” she asked, cradling the young woman's head to her shoulder, offering sympathy, guessing it was man-related – wasn't it always. “Men can be such pigs,” she muttered, without thinking for a moment it was her own pig she was talking about.

Wait for it, thought nurse Dryden, sniffling loudly as she prepared to ignite the fuse, then with a few shoulder shaking sobs she struck the match. “Bob told me he was single.”

“Bob?”

“Yeah. Sergeant Dowding – Bob ... I said I wouldn't sleep with him unless he crossed his heart and hoped to die ...”

It was a slow fuse. “You slept with him ... my husband?”

“He swore ...”

“I bet he did.”

Now for the dynamite. “I think I'm going to have his baby.”

Bliss's plan to take Dauntsey home took a detour before they reached the car park. Samantha tugged at his sleeve as they made for the rear exit of the Mitre.

“You go ahead, Jonathon,” said Bliss. “We won't be a second.”

“I might run ... ” started Jonathon but Bliss's cold stare warned him not to continue.

“Don't you want to know about the hairs on the duvet,” asked Samantha as soon as Jonathon was out of range.

“Oh yes. I'd forgotten. Jonathon's chronic addiction to confession is beginning to get on my nerves. I've never known anyone so determined to go to jail. Anyway, what did they find?”

“You were right – hair, lots of it.”

“And ... black; brown; grey – what?”

“White.”

“White. That makes sense. I thought he would have picked someone about the same age as his father – some white-haired old bum probably, looking for a warm hay barn to spend the night ...”

“Have you finished?” cut in Samantha.

“Sorry?” queried Bliss.

“You didn't let me finish, Dave. They said it was white hair ...”

“That's what I ...”

“Shut up and listen. It was a white-haired animal, Dave.”

Bliss fell against the corridor wall as if he'd been shot. “Oh no – don't tell me. I don't believe it – Yes I do. No wonder we couldn't find a body. Short white hairs, animal ... four legs. I bet it was that damn goat.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Well thank God for that. So, what the hell was it?”

“You know what these scientific types are like,” she said, pulling out her notebook. “I had to write it down. They said it was almost certainly from a member of the
Sus Scrofa
family.”

“
Sus
what?”

“A common pig.”

Chapter Eighteen
_____________________________

J
onathon Dauntsey stalled at the top of the main staircase, steadying himself against the balustrade. Bliss strode ahead into the turret bedroom with a lightness of spirit he'd not experienced on his previous visits. “C'mon, Jonathon. Are you going to show me where you shot him or not?”

“Is this where it happened?” asked Samantha, peering into the room and up into the gaping hole in the ceiling.

“That's what Jonathon's about to tell us, isn't it, Jonathon?” replied Bliss, turning just in time to see the other man's pallid face disappearing back down the stairs. “Jonathon!” he called, but the fleeing figure didn't flinch.

“He's a strange one,” sighed Bliss, turning back to Samantha.

“Aren't you going after him?”

“No. He'll come back if he wants to ... Anyway, I don't need him at the moment,” he added, sidling slowly around the room, head back, examining the oak-panelled walls and ornately carved cornice just below the ceiling.

“Are you going to tell him we know it was a pig in the duvet?” she asked, staring at the walls with him.

“Not yet. He'll only say something clever like: ‘That's a bit of a swine, Inspector.'”

“Dave ...?” she queried vaguely, still craning.

“What?”

“What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“That!” he cried triumphantly, pointing to a small hole in the panelling high up on the wall.

She squinted. “It looks like a knot-hole in the wood to me.”

“It could be. Let's get a ladder and find out.”

Jonathon was cowering in a cubby-hole behind the kitchen door when they went looking for a ladder, and they would have missed him had Bliss not thought it a likely place to search.

“Oh there you are, Jonathon,” Bliss started breezily, caught off balance at finding him in such an odd place. But Jonathon wasn't there. He was miles away and his blank stare said, “Do not disturb.”

“Jonathon,” said Samantha, easing him out of the recess as she soothed one of his hands, “Why don't you come and sit down and tell us what's the matter?”

He moved like a man on a ledge, taking little hesitant steps; staring, terrified, dead ahead; gripping Samantha's hand with white-knuckle force as she led him toward the scrubbed pine table in the centre of the room. “Get a chair, Dave,” she said from the corner of her mouth. “You'll be alright, Jonathon,” she told him with a concerned kindliness, feeling she should add – don't worry, you won't fall. But the look on his face said he had already fallen.

“He's got a hole in his head, Mum,” said Jonathon, staring right through Samantha and looking deep into the past.

“Sit down ... ” she started, but Bliss gently elbowed her aside. “Who's got a hole in his head, Jonathon?” he probed gently.

Jonathon's face turned to Bliss but his eyes continued to hunt the room with the apprehension of a cornered fox. “Daddy has ... Daddy's got a hole in his head.”

The ambulance had probably been unnecessary. In his catatonic state they could have bundled Jonathon into Bliss's Rover and driven him to the psychiatric wing of Westchester General with as much speed and less commotion, but Bliss was concerned he might suddenly snap out of the trance and become hysterical.

“I've never seen anyone fall apart like that before,” said Samantha as the ambulance pulled away. “What on earth's happened to him?”

“I think he finally solved the case of the dead captain, and didn't like the outcome.”

“What outcome? I thought you said Doreen shot him. I don't understand.”

“Help me find a ladder and we'll know for sure.”

Arnie caught them in the act as they rummaged through a stack of dusty old planks and beams in one of the outbuildings. “Oy. What'ye doin' ...?” he began, arming himself with a handy stick, then he recognised Bliss. “Oh 'tis you again.”

“Hello, Arnie – looking for a ladder. Is there one around?”

“Out back,” he said, staring at Samantha, waiting for an introduction.

“Sergeant Holingsworth,” said Bliss. “This is Arnie. He knew the Major; father worked for the Colonel; likes a pint.”

Her smile disarmed the old man and he beamed, toothlessly, as he led them to the rear of the outbuildings and started hacking creepers off a homemade ladder. “Me old man made this,” he wheezed, prompting Bliss to pull out his cell-phone. “I'll get the station to send a new one.”

Superintendent Donaldson wanted to speak to him, the control room telephonist advised him and put him through to the senior officer.

“Mrs. Dauntsey's here, Dave,” mumbled Donaldson through a mouthful of chocolate biscuit – making up for the missed dessert. “She insists on seeing you; claims she's escaped from a nursing home; wants to let you know she shot the man in her attic; says she used the Major's service revolver.”

“Ask her where he was when she killed him, will you.”

“She said he was in his room in the turret.”

“In his wheelchair?”

“Yes.”

“I guessed as much.”

“Do you want me to have her arrested?”

“No, Guv. But I think somebody should take her to the General hospital to see Jonathon. Confessing may be good for the soul, but those two could keep the Pope boxed in for a month. They should try to get their stories straight.”