Daphne shook with laughter. “Well, I’m not that bad.” Their table would be half an hour, the head waiter told them dourly as he appeared from nowhere and fussed around, precisely centring a large bowl of mixed olives on the table in front of them, his stiff demeanour clearly a rebuke.
“Anal retentive,” whispered Daphne behind the waiter’s back and they both roared.
He was back in a flash, “You’re not here to enjoy yourselves” written all over his face. “May I get you some drinks while you are waiting for the table, Sir?”
“I’ll have a large Pastis,” said Daphne. “I have a feeling that you’re going to question me about France, so I may as well get in the right frame of mind.”
“Not question,” he said. “That sounds so harsh, so intrusive. I was merely hoping you’d be able to give me some background on Major Dauntsey and the war that’s all. Anyway,” he added, “to be truthful, I was quite looking forward to just spending an evening with you.”
Daphne beamed as he ordered the drinks. “Wartime is basically the same as peacetime, Chief Inspector, only everything seems to happen so much faster, that’s all.”
He frowned in thought, then smiled. “That leaves me with an image of Plato and Diogenes having this great philosophical argument based on the premise that war is actually peace. And please call me Dave. We’re not on duty now.”
Daphne rolled the phrase round her tongue. “War is peace,” she intoned. “It sounds like Newspeak but, in a strange way, it’s not untrue. Things get built, damaged and destroyed in peace and war; people love and lose; friends come and go; some make fortunes, others lose everything; people die of diseases and injuries. It is just as though the movie of your life is run through the projector at ten times the normal speed. Fifty years crammed into five. So, war is peace – speeded up.”
“You make a very credible argument, Miss Lovelace,” he said as if he were an adjudicator, “and you sound as though you quite enjoyed the war.”
“I can’t deny it was exciting.”
“Surely the constant fear of being wounded or dying takes the gloss off it.”
“Haven’t you heard, Dave – it’s only the other chap who gets killed.”
“And what about those who survive?”.
She toyed with the olives, segregating the green from black and keeping those stuffed with pimento to one side. Finally, satisfied with her handiwork, she sat back and took a couple of sips of Pastis. “Survival is a question of relativity,” she said eventually, without taking her eyes off the olives. “I suppose that in one way or another no-one survives war, but then again, no-one survives life either.”
“But there are winners and losers in life, even if the end result is the same. Surely everyone loses in war.”
Popping a stuffed olive into her mouth she chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before replying. “I suppose the really lucky ones were those who were wounded enough to be shipped home a hero, then recovered quickly and took advantage of the sympathy before the rest got back.”
“Would Major Dauntsey have been in that category?”
“I doubt it.”
“I know the rumour about how he got his regiment wiped out by the way,” he said as if he’d discovered some monumental secret. “Making his men tidy up the battlefield before they retreated.”
“Who told you?”
He thought about teasing her then changed his mind. “Someone called Arnie.”
“Agh,” she spluttered. “Dear old Arnie. Trust him.”
“Was he right? Is that what happened?”
“So they say, Chief Inspector,” she said non-committally, then tried to change the subject. “Talking of wounds ...”
“Dave!”
“Alright . . Have it your own way ... Dave. How is the W.P.C.? The one who was hurt this morning?”
Bliss had visited the young woman in hospital, still irrationally feeling that the explosion could have been attributed to his adversary.
“Detective Inspector Bliss,” he introduced himself, “How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad, Sir,” she replied and struggled higher in the bed.
“Don’t get up,” he said kindly. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
The ward sister sidled up to him. “Miss Jackson will be fine, Inspector.”
“Oh good. I’m pleased to hear that.”
“Mainly bruises and a few cuts,” continued the motherly figure, reaching in front of him and pulling back the sheet to expose the policewoman’s naked torso. “See.”
Later, he tried to decide who had blushed the most, him or the W.P.C., as the sister’s finger pointed with great precision to each of the tiny cuts the young woman had received from flying glass. “Look at this one,” she said as if Bliss were an intern. “Missed her nipple by a whisker.” Bliss looked, and the policewoman’s nipple stood stiffly to attention under his gaze.
Gallantly, he tried to look away but the sister wasn’t finished and she tenderly lifted the other breast saying, “The cut under here will be painful for a while – see.” He looked at the red welt under the fold of the breast and was flung back in time again – to the bank and Mandy Richards. To her dismembered breast.
“Thank you, Sister,” he said curtly, grabbing the sheet and tenderly covering the policewoman as he mumbled, “Sorry, Miss.”
“She’s fine,” he replied to Daphne. “They released her this afternoon. She’ll be back on duty in a few days.” But he couldn’t help thinking that, from now on, there would be an awkward moment every time they passed in a corridor or met in the mess room.
The head waiter was back for their order. Daphne said she would take a chance on the Escargot and, as she had already set her mind on lamb, would go for the cutlets campagnarde. Bliss was still undecided and was interrogating the waiter on the composition of Les Crudités when a bellboy interrupted.
“Excuse me. Are you Mr. Bliss, Sir?”
“Yes,” he answered warily.
“There’s a phone call for you, Sir, in the lobby.”
He started to rise automatically then froze. No-one knows I’m here, he said to himself and quizzed Daphne. “Did you tell anyone we were coming here tonight?”
She turned it into a joke, replying huffily. “Chief Inspector – I have my reputation to think of.”
“I thought so,” he said, sitting slowly, his mind in turmoil.
“They said it was urgent, Sir,” chimed in the bellboy, waiting impatiently to guide Bliss to the phone, and collect a tip.
Bliss didn’t budge. He was being jerked around by a demonic puppeteer from the past. Every time a phone rang it jangled his nerves – was it the killer: threatening; vowing; abusing; or was it a sad-sounding administrator from a hospital ... “Mr. Bliss? ... It’s your daughter ... shot; stabbed; slashed.” Every hand that knocked on his door held a Smith & Wesson or a stiletto. Every letter or package was a bundle of death or disfigurement. And, if he didn’t pick up the phone or answer the door, and if he didn’t open the mail – the killer had won.
“Who is it?” he asked the bellboy with a crack in his voice.