Missing: Presumed Dead

by James Hawkins

  Samantha dropped the April edition of Cosmopolitan into a litter bin and picked through the tourist brochures as she checked her watch for the umpteenth time. “Won’t be long,” he had said over his shoulder as he took the first of the stairs. Typical of a man, she thought, probably on the phone chatting to a mate. “I’ve got this bird waiting for me in the bar ... won’t get a lot of sleep tonight if you know what I mean ... nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”

  Detective Sergeant “Pat” Patterson wouldn’t be getting a lot of sleep either. Mrs. Patterson would see to that. Jointly charged with Mason for conspiring to steal a stuffed goat, for destroying it by arson, and for uttering death threats by computer, he faced many a sleepless night. But Detective Constable Bob Dowding would be available to keep him company – Mrs. Dowding would see to that.

  Bliss’s key turned easily in the lock, too easily, but he had dropped his guard. With his mind adrift in a wash of carnal thoughts, it was easy to assume the maid had left it unlocked by mistake. I hope Samantha was serious, he said to himself, as he bounced across the room shedding clothes and shoes, heading for the bathroom, carelessly missing clues in his excitement: man sized footprints in the carpet pile; a waft of aftershave; a trace of cigarette smoke from a smoker’s clothing.

  With only his boxer shorts remaining he eyed the huge feather bed and smiled at a fleeting image of Samantha’s cute body curled into it. Shower or bath? Shower of course. She’s waiting at the bar – she might change her mind. Somebody else might snap her up. The floor squeaked – It’s fifteenth century, what do you expect?

  Then the bathroom door opened by itself.

  Samantha slipped the last of the brochures back into the rack, “Stonehenge – four thousand years of astronomy,” and found herself irrationally wondering if there were a backstairs or fire-escape. Finally, with growing concern rather than annoyance, she sauntered to the reception desk.

  “Yes, please. I help you,” said the Swedish girl as Samantha made a show of checking her watch.

  “Mr. Bliss has been a long time,” she remarked, as if in passing. “He hasn’t gone out has he?”

  “He is talking with his friend I expect,” she said, casually turning to check the key board.

  “What friend?”

  The receptionist looked around. “He was here earlier. Wanted to know which room Mr. Bliss was in. Said he hadn’t seen him for a while.”

  “Oh no.” Samantha’s heart sank. “Tell me you didn’t tell him.”

  “Ah ... I don’t understand.”

  “Did you tell him which room?”

  “Yes. He said he wanted to surprise ...”

  “Phone!” she screamed, nearly taking the girl’s head off.

  “What?”

  “Give me the damn phone,” she screamed, snatching it from under the young woman’s hand. “Get the manager. Give me a pass key. Oh Christ – you stupid, stupid girl. Have you the faintest idea … Hello – YES – THIS IS AN EMERGENCY – Police and hurry ... You stupid girl ... This is Sergeant Holingsworth, I’m at the Mitre Hotel ... Oh, you stupid girl ... ”

  “Wait at the reception, Serg,” the duty officer at Westchester station had said, but how could she wait? Wait for what? What would it be this time – another sawn-off shotgun, a Kalashnikov or a booby-trapped bomb?

  “What’s his room number?”

  The girl was white. “Seventeen Madam.”

  “Give me the key,” she screeched, already running for the stairs, then she stopped and turned with a terrifying afterthought. “You’d better get an ambulance.”

  “Yes, Madam – Sorry, Madam.”

  “... Stupid girl ...”

  A confusing maze of corridors confronted her at the top of the stairs and the rooms seemed to have been numbered by a dyslexic painter using a magnifying glass. She passed his twice, her heart pounding as she raced around the narrow twisting corridors, too blinkered by fright to spot the blind alley with his room at the end.

  Eventually, on the point of returning to the receptionist for directions, she spotted the room and crept cautiously up the narrow alley knowing she had nowhere to duck if the door flew open and the killer came out, guns blazing.

  The keyhole was peeping-tom proof and, sweeping her hair to one side, she clamped an ear to the door. Damn hotel doors, she thought, hearing only a mumble of voices. “Shoot you ... Revenge,” somebody seemed to be saying.

  Oh my God! Now what?

  Knock?

  Are you crazy?

  With her blood rising, she slumped to the floor and checked her watch. Where the hell is the tactical support unit – they’ve had ... one minute! I don’t believe it. Only one lousy minute. I’m going in.

  Wait for the armed unit. He’ll kill you.

  He won’t. That’s what upset him in the first place. That he’d shot a woman.

  Taking a deep breath she slid the old-fashioned brass key into the lock with the stealth of a burglar. Now stop, wait and listen. She jammed her ear back against the door – damn these insulated doors. It was only a murmur. What was it? What was he saying? “Kill you?”

  Holding her breath, she turned the key with the trepidation of a bomb disposal officer. It turned forever then jumped with a solid “clunk” that shook her rigid. Run, she told herself, but it was too late, her hand had frozen to the polished marble handle and another hand was turning it under her fingers. Let go! Let go! she screamed inside, but an iron grip wrenched open the door and dragged her sprawling across the carpet into the room, flat on her face. Her hands flew protectively to her head and she was readying a scream when Bliss beat her to it.

  “Samantha,” he cried. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Dave?” she queried feebly as she turned to look up from the floor. “Are you alright?”

  “Of course I’m alright,” he said, standing over her next to a stranger. “This is Superintendent Wakelin from Scotland Yard ... Superintendent meet Sergeant Holingsworth,” he laughed, dragging her to her feet.

  “Oh. I see ... Super … Superintendent ... ah ... nice to meet you,” she stammered, brushing herself down, then the room exploded around them in a blast of light and sound.

  They were still laughing about it twenty minutes later when Daphne showed up to join them for dinner in a new hat that could have doubled as an umbrella. “Bought for the occasion,” she said. What occasion? Bliss wondered with a smirk: a ritual blinding?

  “Painful pink with chicken pox,” was how Samantha described it later, when they were alone. “You know what they say, Dave,” she sniggered, “red hat – no drawers.”

  “That’s our Daphne for you,” he replied.

  “What’s happening? What’s going on?” Daphne demanded as the two of them giggled over Martinis and a bowl of olives at the bar. “Oh – olives. My favourite. May I?”

  There had been a bit of a misunderstanding, he explained, sliding the bowl in front of her and ordering her a Pernod, thinking there was little point in telling her about Mandy’s killer.

  The “misunderstanding” involved six heavyweight wrestlers wearing police uniforms and crash helmets, and a thunderflash which had scorched a hole in the carpet, shattered a mirror, and left Bliss, Samantha and Superintendent Wakelin wondering if an atom bomb had dropped on the room next door.

  “It was all my fault,” Samantha explained apologetically. “I was so certain the killer was in your room I told them to blast their way in.”

  “They did that alright,” Wakelin laughed, his ears still stinging. But, when the smoke had cleared, they’d rejoiced in the bar like freed hostages as Wakelin explained the reason for his visit to Samantha. “Mandy Richard’s killer has done his last blagging.”

  “Blagging?” she mouthed to Bliss.

  “Armed robbery,” he explained. “Met police slang.”

  “He scored an own goal,” continued Wakelin, still talking in code.

  Bliss checked her face for signs of bewilderment, but she understood. “When?” she asked.<
br />
  “A few months ago we think. He was doing a mole job under a security warehouse with a couple of heavies. Using jelly. Looks as though they hit an old sewer – red brick – probably thought it was the building’s foundations. Then Boom! And they were up to their armpits in you-know-what. Anyhow, they were found last week – the bits the rats had left – and a few of the fingers still had prints on them.”

  “Nice,” said Samantha, grimacing at the thought.

  Daphne watered her Pernod still looking to Bliss for an explanation. He straightened his face. “My old superintendent came to see me and told us a funny story.”

  She popped an olive. “What?”

  “It’s safe for you to come back to London now,” he had said and Bliss had immediately looked to Samantha. She smiled. What does that mean? he wondered. What sort of smile is that? Say something Samantha – anything ... “Stay.” “Go.” ... Say something.

  “Can I let you know?”

  “Of course ...” Wakelin started, then viewed him questioningly. “I should have thought you’d be only too keen to get back home. We’ve taken good care of your place – new paintwork; new door ...”

  “I’d just like a bit of time to consider it,” he said, not wanting to think about the door, the steel prison door, and gave Samantha another glance. Look at me – damn you. Say something. Plead with me not to go. Beg me to stay here. Tell me there’s hope; there’s a chance. Being on your own’s not all it’s cracked up to be – ask Daphne.

  Wakelin was still in the dark and blundered in the wrong direction. “I can understand you being wary about coming back. It’ll take awhile to sink in ... Why not take a couple of weeks leave – as much time as you like. Call me tomorrow ... the day after ... whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’ve just got a few loose ends to tie up here.”

  Loose ends – Samantha Holingsworth you mean. Go on – tell her how you feel about her. Look into those mysterious eyes and say, “I think I love you.” But I hardly know her. I thought I said no more Titanic relationships; no more trails of emotional debris.

  “I’ll call in a day or so, Guv. Like I said, I’ve just got a few things to do ... can’t leave them in the lurch.”

  “Understood, Dave. No pressure. You do what you’ve got to do.”

  What have I got to do? You could keep running. From what? And what about Samantha? Can you stop her running – running from relationships and commitment?

  She’s not unlike Daphne – waving her knickers in the air for England then spending the rest of her life running from the consequences. And Doreen – her race almost over. If ever a woman had a reason to run it had been Doreen, and yet in some strange way she had not run, or had she – from the truth.

  “I’ll let you know, Guv.”

  Daphne was still awaiting an explanation of Superintendent Wakelin’s visit and Bliss straightened his face as he turned. “An old acquaintance of mine has dropped himself in the shit,” he said, causing Samantha another fit of the giggles, leaving Daphne none the wiser. “Shall we go into the dining room?” he added, rising from the bar. “And I want you two ladies to order whatever you’d like – my treat. And,” he gave Daphne’s arm a complicitous squeeze, “we’ll have champagne.”

  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.”