Missing: Presumed Dead (46 page)

The long-stemmed red rose on Samantha's side-plate brought a thoughtful glance in Bliss's direction as she carefully placed it to one side. Daphne stuck hers to her nose. “That's nice of you, Dave. I haven't been given a red rose since ...” The heavy scent reddened her eyes and she pulled a lacy handkerchief from her sleeve, “ ... Silly me.”

Robert, “Your waiter for this evening,” introduced himself as “Robêrre” with a gallic roll despite his unmistakable Hampshire accent. “May I take your order?”

Bliss, still overawed by the fact Samantha, armed with a handbag, had burst into his room fully prepared to confront a madman with a machine-gun, simply followed her lead – Venison pâté followed by salmon. Daphne, with a mischievous wink, ordered in French, forcing Robêrre to acknowledge his linguistic shortcomings, and as he slunk away, pink-faced, Bliss turned to her.

“Come on, Daphne. I'm dying to hear how you got the O.B.E.”

Her face went from day to night.

“I could always dig up the honours list and find out,” he nudged gently.

The handkerchief resurfaced. “I was a courier,” she admitted and might have meant UPS or Federal Express had it not been for the agony on her face.

“I've never seen so much pain in someone's eyes,” said Samantha, after Daphne had excused herself to find a bathroom.

“Was it pain or fear?” asked Bliss rhetorically, wishing he had never asked about the O.B.E.; wishing he'd never seen it on her dining room wall.

Samantha shook her head in wonderment. “Who would have imagined it? Daphne, the police station cleaning lady, smuggling defectors out from behind the iron curtain. I simply can't believe it.”

“I can,” replied Bliss. “I can see her crossing over on forged papers; leading men across minefields; hiding them in false-bottomed boats; fast-talking them past itchy-fingered border guards. I can see it.”

“But who was Michael Kent?”

It was Michael Kent who had caused the pain in her eyes. Michael Kent who had grabbed her from the clutches of Hugo in Paris, and the man who'd talked her into snatching people trapped by the advancing red army after the war. Michael Kent who'd been caught, tortured, tried and executed. Michael Kent who'd taken her heart to the grave and had sent her scurrying to the sanctuary of the Mitre's bathroom.

“Michael Kent was the guy who found her in Montmartre after the war,” he explained to Samantha, though he knew nothing more – only what he could read into the look of dread on Daphne's face.

“No wonder she had no problem getting Doreen out of the nursing home,” laughed Samantha. “It was hardly in the same league as smuggling a rocket scientist out of east Germany under the Rusky's noses.”

With the ghosts out of her attic, Daphne returned to tackle the remaining escargot with enthusiasm, announcing, “I've decided to give up my job.”

“Why?” asked Bliss and Samantha in tandem.

“Oh, I only did it for a little extra pin money to top up my pension.”

That's rubbish, thought Bliss, knowing she'd not bothered to take her wages unless they were forced on her.

“It was a bit selfish of me really, when there's so many young mothers who could do with the money,” she continued, failing to mention that Superintendent Donaldson had finally put his foot down, telling her point blank to hand in her keys.

“It's time I looked for something a little more challenging,” she added.

“Parachute instructor perhaps,” joked Bliss and got a frosty stare.

“Don't mock, David. I'm not over the hill yet.”

“Sorry, Daphne,” he said. Sorry that despite her knowledge, and capabilities, at aged seventy-five nobody was likely to give her a chance. And sorry that such a gutsy old lady was about to join Doreen on the downhill slope to the graveyard. “I'm sure you'll find something ...” started Samantha, but Bliss was quick to change the subject.

“There's only one thing that still puzzles me,” he said, speaking to his reflection in a silver salt-cellar. “Who the hell was Jonathon's father?”

Daphne laughed. “You still haven't worked it out?”

“Do you know?”

“I asked Doreen.”

“She told you?”

“Not exactly – but she wouldn't deny it.”

“Deny what? Come on, Daphne, spill the beans. Who was it?”

“Do you remember when I told you about the day Rupert and Doreen were married, just before D-Day?”

“And you rushed around touching statues' thingies,” he laughed.

“Only one,” she protested. “Anyway, you're getting away from the point. Do you recall I said the most surprising thing was that the crusty old Colonel treated her as if she were a princess.”

“And I asked you if you meant like Cinderella.”

“Well ... What do you think the King would have done with Cinderella if the Prince went dragon slaying the day after the ball? Played scrabble maybe?”

“Well I'm damned,” laughed Bliss. “You mean the old Colonel stood picket duty while his son was away fighting for God and Country.”

“That's the long and short of it, Dave,” she nodded. “I suppose somebody had to keep the home fires stoked. Quite a man was the Colonel – gawd knows how he sired such a poor specimen as Rupert.”

“That's incredible,” breathed Samantha. “So that means Jonathon is actually a Dauntsey. He's actually half-brother to Rupert.”

“And heir to the Dauntsey estate in his own right,” added Daphne, having already given it some thought.

“Wait a minute – my entire case has just fallen apart,” said Bliss, slumping back in mock disappointment. “Jonathon killed Tippen, but wasn't responsible because of his age. The money from the estate in Scotland was lawfully his, so his mother didn't steal it. And he was perfectly entitled to batter the toy soldier and throw it away – it belonged to him.”

“But what about the Major's pension?” protested Samantha. “They certainly weren't entitled to that, and over fifty years it must have run into hundreds of thousands, even a million.”

“That was fraud,” agreed Bliss. “But it wasn't Jonathon's fraud, it was his mother's, and I've no intention of prosecuting her on her death-bed. Anyway, it may sound Clintonesque, but she could claim that because she was never actually informed of the Major's death, she was entitled to assume he was technically still alive.”

“Nobody would believe that,” cried Samantha.

Daphne gave a little shudder. “I can't help feeling that life, purely as a technicality, gave Rupert little satisfaction.”

“Satisfying or not, he may have achieved something none of us ever will,” replied Bliss.

“What?”

“Immortality.”

“I don't understand.”

Bliss cupped his wine glass in his hands and peered meditatively over the rim. “Can you imagine how much red tape you would have to cut to change military records more than fifty years old? It could take forever to get the Army eggheads to admit they sent the wrong man home. The chances are that, on paper at least, Major Rupert Dauntsey will outlive us all.”

“Jonathon stole the pig,” piped up Samantha, still determined to pin something on him, though her tone suggested it was an academic exercise.

“But where's the evidence?”

“You ate it,” she laughed. “But you've got his confession. He confessed to killing his father.”

Bliss threw up his hands in mock horror. “No more confessions, please. I can't take any more confessions. I will never believe another confession as long as I'm on the job.”

“He was actually telling truth ...” started Samantha, but he cut her off shaking his head.

“You mean he would have been telling the truth if Captain Tippen had been Major Dauntsey, and if Major Dauntsey had been his father.”

“Complicated, isn't it?” muttered Daphne concentrating on the escargot.

“Anyway. Whoever he confessed to killing, he obviously didn't believe it at the time. It must have come as quite a shock when he looked into the turret room this afternoon and it all came back to him.”

“What did the psychiatrist say?” asked Daphne.

“Selective amnesia, amongst other things. In fact I reckon he could retire on this case. I can imagine him touring the country with Jonathon standing in the wings. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, kindly allow me to introduce the world's most screwed up man.'”

“Talk about a dysfunctional family,” mused Samantha. “No wonder Jonathon's weird.”

What had Doreen said about the power of the dead over the living? thought Bliss, recalling that Tippen had kept her trapped for over fifty years. And what about Jonathon? He must have known in the back of his mind that he'd killed the man who had abused him – the man he thought was his father. “The whole thing is a saga of death,” he said, looking slowly from Samantha to Daphne and speaking of life in general. “Dead people, dead relationships and dead animals ...” He paused, almost daring anyone to mention the stuffed goat, preparing to scream, then added. “It was so horrific that Jonathon's mind just shut it out.”

“I don't blame him, I think I'd shut out something like that,” said Samantha.

The main course arrived. Poached wild salmon on a concasse of oyster mushrooms with a creamy dill sauce.

“Absolutely superb,” they agreed.

“It must be Mavis Longbottom's night off,” muttered Daphne maliciously.

Bliss leaned into her and whispered consolingly. “Don't worry, Daphne. The food here isn't a patch on yours.”

She looked up, beaming. “Actually, Dave, I was meaning to speak to you about that. Now I've decided to give up my job I'll have more time on my hands and I was thinking of taking in a paying guest. I was wondering if you'd be interested – all home cooked food of course.”

“That's very tempting ...” he began, but Samantha reached across the table, took his hand tenderly and looked deep into his eyes. “That's very nice of you to offer, Daphne, but he's coming to live with me. Aren't you, Dave?”

The End