LITMIR.BIZ

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to scream. “There’s a madman with a gun or a knife just waiting for me to walk out into the lobby. No-one knew I was coming here tonight – it has to be him.”

      “Chief Inspector – Dave,” said Daphne laying a hand on his arm. “Are you having a funny turn again?”

      Bliss gave himself a shake. “Sorry – Yes,” then he pulled a note out of his wallet and offered it to the boy. “Find out who wants me will you – tell them I’ll call back.”

      “Sure – I mean, of course, Sir.”

      “That was ten pounds, Dave,” said Daphne with a note of surprise as the boy took off. He hadn’t noticed and didn’t care. He suddenly had a new and more serious worry. What if the killer had rigged the phone? What if he’d crammed a walnut-sized lump of plastic explosive and a high frequency trigger into the handset?

      “Mr. Bliss?” the muffled voice on the other end would have asked.

      “Yes,” he would have replied, pressing the handset tighter to his ear, trying to identify the voice. Then, with an inaudible beep from the other end, “Boom!” The handset would take off his head. But what if the killer doesn’t wait to identify his target? What if the bellboy picks up the phone again and says, “Hello?” Ten quid isn’t a lot to pay someone to be executed.

      I’ve got to stop him, thought Bliss, starting to rise in panic, already hearing the “boom” of the blast in his mind, but he was too late. The boy was back. “It was the police station, Sir. They asked if you could you call straight back, it’s very important.”

      Bliss slumped back in the chair and blew out a breath in relief, but he could still feel the blood pulsing through his temples. “Thanks, son,” he murmured, pulling out his mobile and calling the station.

      Within seconds he was patched through to Patterson at the Dauntsey house. “What is it, Pat?”

      “We’ve found the Major, Sir.” Then he paused just long enough to force Bliss’s hand.

      “Alive or dead?” enquired Bliss obediently.

      “Very dead, Sir.”

      The intonation in the sergeant’s voice spoke volumes, leaving Bliss simultaneously confused and annoyed at having to follow up with a supplemental question.

      “Sergeant, death is similar to pregnancy in at least one respect, as far as I know – you either are or not. Which applies to the Major?”

      “Oh. He is definitely dead, Sir.”

      “Good ... No, I don’t mean ...” Then he erupted. The tension of receiving the unexpected phone call was bad enough, without Patterson piling on the pressure by playing guessing games. “What the hell are you trying to tell me, Patterson?”

      “Well, Sir, according to the doctor, Major Dauntsey’s been dead at least forty years.”

      Returning to the restaurant’s lounge, in a daze, he had been surprised to find his seat occupied by a smartly dressed older man with a prosperous toupee and gold rimmed spectacles that looked to be the real thing.

      “This is Andrew,” explained Daphne as the man rose and politely held out his hand. Bliss looked to her for an explanation as they shook. “Andrew is a very, very, old friend,” she gushed.

      “Daphne ...” Bliss began, then noticed her radiance had taken on a additional glow.

      “Here, less of the old – Daphne,” laughed Andrew. “I’m just not as well-preserved as you that’s all.”

      “Well-preserved,” she echoed. “Here, I’m not a bloody pickle,” and they both laughed.

      “Look I hate to interrupt ...” Bliss tried again.

      “Andrew’s a widower,” she whispered aside, making it sound like an accomplishment. “Sit down, Chief Inspector, you’re making the place untidy.” Then she turned back to her friend and demurely fanned herself with her hand. “Ooh. That Pernod has gone straight to my head.”

      “Daphne – I have to go. Something major has turned up ...” he said, but Andrew talked over him.

      “Well, do let me get you another then, dear heart,” he said, in an accent redolent of colonial service in the 1920s – Singapore or the West Indies perhaps.

      Bliss’s double-entendre had missed its mark. “Don’t worry about me,” proclaimed Daphne loudly. “Andrew will take me home, won’t you?”

      “I’d jolly well love to, Daphne old girl. But we have to eat first.”

      “Oh, of course – Silly me. Well off you go, Chief Inspector. Toddle off, there’s a dear. And thank you so much.”

      The heavy hint – the bum’s rush. This hasn’t happened since Samantha’s teenage trysts, he thought.

      “Da-a-ad,” she’d whine ...

      “O.K. I get the message,” he’d reply. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

      “Nice to meet you ... See you tomorrow, Daphne.”

      Neither had looked up as he raced away.

       Chapter Eight

      7am, Friday morning and Westchester mortuary was being prepared for the last rites of Major Rupert Dauntsey, (Retd.). A cluster of spotlights flickered coldly into life above an operating table and illuminated an arctic scene. The glare of stark snow-white windowless walls reflected off the glassy sheen of steel refrigerator doors, and the milky marble floor offered neither warmth nor comfort. A couple of masked attendants, in white one-piece suits, skated around the central table, laying out trays of surgical instruments, checking the identity of the body, then blanketing the remains in a stiffly starched sheet.

      “Now if you would lie perfectly still, Sir, this won’t hurt a bit,” jested one of the attendants, for the benefit of a small procession of sombre-faced students who shuffled into the room and hung about near the door.

      Detective Inspector Bliss and Sergeant Patterson strode through the group with a bravado of experience and took ringside seats; they already knew what to expect; they knew the horrors lurking beneath the sheet.

      Seating himself, Bliss scented the air with a degree of trepidation and was pleasantly surprised. It was more disinfectant than decomposition, though nothing could mask the unmistakeable ambience of death. Over the years, thousands of tortured souls had each shed a layer of agony in this room as they passed on their final journey, and he shuddered at the chilling concentration of disembodied spirits. He had been here before, many times – not this particular mortuary, but a dozen similar ones – and found himself mentally readying for the attendant’s scalpel to unzip the bloated bag of flesh. With the realisation that he was steeling himself against the gagging reek of methane gas and butyric acids, he relaxed. He had already viewed the Major’s body – this one would be different.

      That reminds me, thought Bliss, I still haven’t discovered how Patterson tracked me down at The Limes on Wednesday evening.

      “Serg,” he started, but the students were beginning to drift into surrounding seats. “Never mind – I’ll talk to you later,” he added, but the powerful memory of the fearful seconds, when he had fully expected the bellboy’s head to be blown to pieces, had re-run in his mind repeatedly over the intervening thirty-six hours and did so again. He closed his eyes for a moment thinking, What if? What if? – How would you have lived with yourself after that? But it hadn’t happened. The boy had returned safely.

      The muted buzz of dreadful anticipation amongst the students was quelled by a sudden flurry of activity in the doorway.

      “Sit,” said the pathologist galloping into the room, the tails of his whitish coat flying, his footfalls still echoing along the corridor. “Good morning students and guests,” he started, then snapped the sheet off the body and bowed respectfully,

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