“No-one saw him,” said the constable butting in. “We’ve asked everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Well – all those who were in the pub and outside at the time.”
Bliss was unmoved. “I still want this place closed, and all these people out until I’m satisfied there is no evidence.”
“You ought’a be out catching criminals,” grumbled a loudmouth as he was led from the bar. Bliss ignored him.
“Now,” he said, feeling he was getting somewhere. “Let’s begin again.”
An hour later, without a scrap of new evidence, Detective Inspector Bliss, feeling more cheated than unjustified, allowed the bar to re-open and retreated to the police station. Superintendent Donaldson was back in his office, according to the counter clerk, and was anxiously awaiting his arrival.
Some serious bloodletting on my first day, he thought as he trod the superintendent’s corridor for a second time that day. Just what I need. And, with a readied apology he tapped gingerly on Donaldson’s door. “You wanted ...”
“Bliss ... Dave ... Come in. Sorry I snapped at you earlier ... tired you know ... lot of strain. Chocolate digestive?” he added, holding out the packet as a peace offering.
Bliss relaxed with a “Thanks.”
“So, I understand from Patterson that we’ve made some progress even if we haven’t found the body.”
“Just the duvet really. His mother says he didn’t do it but she’s in a wheelchair in a ...” he paused, finding himself on the verge of saying, “concentration camp,” reconsidered and said, “She’s in an old folk’s home.”
“She was bound to say it wasn’t him.”
Bliss nodded in agreement. “The complexion of this case is changing ...” he started.
“Rapidly going down the toilet if you ask me,” broke in the superintendent. “Initially, I thought we’d get the whole thing sewn up in a few hours, now we’ve got blokes running round in circles just bumping into each other. So what precisely have we got?”
“It might be easier to analyse what we haven’t got – no body, no motive and very little physical evidence.”
“No, I disagree. We’ve got plenty of evidence ...”
Bliss, sensing Donaldson was about to catalogue the evidence at the Black Horse, held up a hand to stop him making a fool of himself. “Patterson hasn’t told you about the balls-up at the pub then?”
“What balls-up, Inspector?” The superintendent’s eyes demanded a response and his entire demeanour darkened as Bliss explained how the landlady had sterilised every inch of the crime scene; wiping out footprints, fingerprints and blood stains; vacuuming up every trace of fibre and hair; even spraying disinfectant everywhere to mask scents that the dogs may have picked up.
Donaldson deflated into his chair like a punctured inflatable doll. “Oh my God, Dave. How did this happen?”
“I’m assuming everyone dashed off after the suspect, or were tied up taking statements from the witnesses.”
Donaldson, realising he was personally in the firing line, pulled himself together, shot out of the chair and stomped around the office. “That’s obstruction. She knew very well she wasn’t supposed to touch anything. I told her ... You don’t think she could be in on it do you?”
Bliss shrugged, “I shouldn’t think so.”
“But we’ve got a full confession ...”
“True, although I’m always a tad suspicious of someone who’s keen to fall on his sword. I’d like to re-interview him, in light of the discovery of the duvet. By the way, what did he actually say about the body in his original statement?”
“I’ve got a copy of the tape here,” Donaldson said, dropping it into a cassette recorder and comforting himself with another digestive.
Jonathon Dauntsey’s polished accent and deep clear tone sang out of the machine and contrasted with the country brogue of D.S. Patterson as he answered the standard questions relating to his name, age and address. Patterson then launched into the scripted spiel of: date, time, place and persons present – just himself, Dauntsey and a Detective Chief Inspector Mowbray.
“D.C.I. Mowbray?” Bliss mouthed quizzically at Donaldson.
Donaldson hit the pause button.
“He’s gone on leave – flying to Nairobi this morning – I didn’t have the heart to tell him he couldn’t go.”
“What do you want me to say?” enquired Dauntsey as the machine started up again, his voice sounding more confused than contrite.
“I should remind you that you have been cautioned and we could start by asking you to describe your relationship to Major Rupert Dauntsey.”
“He was my father ... but you know that, I told you that already.”
“Perhaps you could just answer the questions,” Patterson said, as if Dauntsey had strayed from the script and mucked up the tape. “This tape is for the court to hear.”
“Sorry – shall we start again.”
“No! It’s alright ...”
“Well, I do think it’s important to get it right, Sergeant,” he continued, digging an even deeper hole. “Perhaps we should have some sort of rehearsal ...”
Exasperation coloured Patterson’s tone as he firmly rebuffed the offer and began again. “Mr. Dauntsey, how would you describe your relationship with your father?”
“I would say we were quite distant,” he replied, apparently leaning close into the microphone and speaking with a dictationist’s metre.
“You can just speak normally – the microphone will pick you up.”
“Roger,” he said, then added in a stage whisper. “I think that’s what you say, isn’t it?”
Bliss would have sworn Patterson said, “Will you stop fucking about,” although there was no trace of the sound on the tape. However, Patterson clearly did say, “Mr. Dauntsey. Please tell us where you were between nine-thirty and eleven o’clock this evening.”
“I was disposing of my father.”
Bliss hit the pause button this time and gave Donaldson a querying look. “What a weird answer; it sounds more like he was getting rid of a used condom.”
“Perhaps that’s what he thought of his father.”
Patterson was making another point as the tape came back on. “A number of people have advised us that they heard a disturbance emanating from the general direction of your father’s room at the Black Horse public house ...”
Bliss cringed at the witness-box jargon.
“Yes,” said Dauntsey.
“And,” continued Patterson, plodding on through the script he’d mapped out in his mind, “several witnesses allege they saw you placing a large object wrapped in a duvet into the rear of a Ford pick-up truck: registration number ... T173 ABP.”
“It would be foolish of me to deny it, wouldn’t it”
“So you don’t deny it?”
“As I’ve already said, It would be foolish of me to do so, with so many witnesses.”
“So,” said Patterson clearly winding himself up to the pivotal question. “What was in the bundle?”
“I suspect you already know that, Sergeant,” said Dauntsey without any indication he was being anything other than as forthright and helpful as possible.
But