Bliss laughed, “Just sort of sticking out was it? Although I must admit I didn’t check his birth date.”
“Well, you had no reason to, but I did a little calculation. I’m pretty sure that Doreen and the Major were married on the 27th of May 1944, it might have been the 26th but I think it was the 27th, Anyway, he went off to his regiment the following day, so, unless she was 10 months pregnant when Jonathon was born, he definitely isn’t a Dauntsey.”
Bliss added up the months in his head and laughed. “You’re absolutely right. Although ... what about when he returned ...”
Daphne blocked him with a hand. “The baby would already have been born. In any case, according to Doreen, his thingy was one of the bits which had been blown off.”
The thought set Bliss’s teeth on edge. “Ooh, painful ... So who is Jonathon’s father?”
“You’d have to ask Doreen – but to be honest there’s a good chance she won’t know. Oh dear, that sounds so bitchy, doesn’t it – the sort of thing one of those Hollywood actresses would say.”
The waiter was hovering for their order and Bliss expressed intrigue in the Dovetail pâté as a starter.
“Wood pigeons,” explained the waiter. “Though the chef uses the whole birds not just the tails.”
“Sounds interesting,” he said giving a nod.
“Compote of wood mushrooms for me, please,” said Daphne, adding sotto voce, “I do hope they use bolets du bois and not those tasteless white button things.” Once the waiter had moved off with their order, Daphne continued, “I came across the Major in France. After he was wounded, before he was shipped home.”
Everything suddenly fell into place in Bliss’s mind and he held up his hand, beaming, “I’ve got it now, you were a nurse; Queen Alexandra’s I bet; went in with the troops on the front lines – hence the O.B.E. No wonder you like looking after people, taking birds under your wing.”
“Detective Inspector,” she started, getting his title right for once, pointing up the gravity of what she was about to divulge. “It’s rather sweet that you should imagine me in a blood covered apron, comforting the wounded, but it would be dishonest of me to let you go on believing that, and it wouldn’t be sensible in the long run.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you but I wasn’t a nurse – my job wasn’t to save lives.”
“What did you do?”
Daphne appeared not to hear as she stroked the wooden cat. “I hope you don’t put the General’s nose out of joint, he can be very jealous at times,” she said, then, without changing tone or taking her eyes off the statue, asked, “Do you ever tell lies, Dave?”
“Sometimes.”
“That’s very honest,” she looked up quizzically, “unless you’re lying.”
“Daphne – What on earth are you rambling about? All I wanted to know was what you did during the war.”
With a final stroke of the cat she seemed to make up her mind. Fixing Bliss with a hard stare she stunned him. “I killed people.”
Bliss choked – seriously choked. He’d taken a sharp involuntary breath at the wrong moment and inhaled a flake of pastry from a cheese stick.
“Water,” he coughed, and took several slurps before trying to speak through the spluttering – “You ... killed ... people?”
“I knew I should have lied ... Here, have some more water, you’re going red.”
The waiter was back. “Something wrong, Madam?”
“He’s choking.”
“Don’t make a fuss,” Bliss pleaded, gasping for air.
“More water, Sir?”
He waved the glass away and doubled over with coughing and retching. The lights were going out – fading into a fuzzy haze, his eyes were streaming, his oxygen-starved brain was struggling for a solution and all he could think was – this sweet little old lady’s a killer.
A dozen pairs of hooded eyes sneaked a look, conversations drifted to a standstill. Time held it’s breath. Waiting for what? Then Daphne leapt out of her chair, ran around the table and smashed her fist into his back. Bliss exploded in a fit of coughing, panting and wheezing as he forced his lungs to inhale, but the obstruction had cleared and he gasped himself back to normality.
“You nearly choked to death,” said Daphne, her voice full of concern as she re-sat.
“What d’ye expect after what you just told me?” he replied accusingly.
“I’m not proud of what I did. And quite honestly I’d rather you kept this just between us.”
“But who did you kill? When? Why? – I don’t understand.”
She shut him out again, going back to the cat, then reminding him. “We came to talk about the Major.”
“You can’t do that – You can’t give me a heart-attack then change the subject. This isn’t the Women’s Institute – ‘You can finish the crochet at home ladies, now we’re starting the strawberry jam.’”
“You are funny, Chief Inspector.”
“No, I’m serious. I want to know.”
Daphne spent a few moments brushing crumbs off the table then her eyes locked onto one of the table’s growth-rings and she followed it around until it disappeared under Bliss’s left hand. “People do things in wars,” she began sombrely, concentrating on his fingers. “Disgusting things; things they’d never dream of doing normally; things they’d never admit having done ...” The turmoil of indecision slowed her speech. “I wish I hadn’t said anything ...” she paused then looked up, pleading with her eyes. “Don’t say anything, will you?”
He wouldn’t, he assured her.
“I belonged to a special unit during the war,” she began, explaining calmly. “French-speaking men and women trained for a specific mission during the invasion of France. The Allies were concerned the French would side with the Germans after D-Day and turn on our troops.”
“Why should they?”
“Fear mainly – the Gestapo had rounded up many Frenchmen and sent them to concentration camps. Almost every family had at least one member who’d been arrested and imprisoned and the threat was clear – cooperate or they die. But the French had other reasons.”
“What reasons – surely we were liberating them?”
“That’s true, though some still hadn’t forgiven us for deserting them at Dunkirk and don’t forget we’d destroyed their fleet at Oran – killed thousands of sailors to stop the Vichy Government handing the ships over to the Germans.” Checking to make sure she wasn’t being overheard, she lowered her voice a couple of notches. “And they never liked us very much in the first place.”
“I still don’t understand. What were you expected to do – kill Frenchman before they could kill our people?”
“No – of course not. We were trained to prepare the way for the invading forces – let the French know we were coming as allies to free the country, not turn it into a British colony like the Germans claimed in their propaganda; to warn them to keep away from the coast; persuade them to dig in or hide in the cellars. We were supposed to galvanise the resistance to co-ordinate the blowing up of bridges, derailment of trains, blocking roads, that sort of thing. But the main task was to get behind enemy lines and vector artillery fire onto concentrations of German troops. Once the battle started our people wouldn’t have a clue where the fleeing Jerries were