The black and white photograph had faded to a wash of tonal greys but the front porch of the Dauntsey house and the stiffly composed wedding group were instantly recognisable.
“Well. Do you recognise anyone?” Daphne asked, giving him a few seconds.
“You,” he said, immediately pointing to a slender beautiful woman in a body-hugging dress that made him wish, really wish, he’d been more than just a teenager’s lustful thought at the time.
“Very good, and ...?”
“This must be Doreen ...”
“Oh I remember that terrifying hat?” screeched Daphne. “It was baby-shit brown. They should have sent her to France wearing that – who needs knickers with a hat like that. If that wouldn’t scare ’em off, nothing would.”
“The old Colonel,” laughed Bliss, pointing to the old man, ram-rod straight in his guardsman’s ceremonial uniform. “And this must be Major Dauntsey, when he still had a face worth looking at.”
“That’s right. It wasn’t much though was it?” She turned up her nose.
“What happened to his chin?”
“God knows.”
“And who’s this by his side?”
Daphne leaned closer for a better look. “Oh that was his best man,” she sneered. “Now he was a nancy-boy if ever I saw one. He was the Major’s aide-de-camp, and “camp” was the just about the right word for him. He fussed over Rupert worse than a debutante’s mother. Look ...” she started, then rushed off in search of a magnifying glass. She was back in a flash, peering deep into the picture. “I thought so,” she said, giving Bliss the glass. “Look in his right hand.”
“What is it?” he asked, unable to recognise the object that had caught the glint of the flashbulb.
“Silver-backed clothes brush,” said Daphne, clearly remembering the article. “It was very swish, chased silver with inlaid rubies. He drove me crazy with it – every two minutes brushing the Major down like he was a prize poodle at Cruft’s. He was the sort who’d have creases in his underwear.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head, and by her tone was uninterested in recalling. “A Captain somebody-or-other.”
“Could it have been Captain Tippen?” asked Bliss, remembering the dog-tags in the Major’s trunk, trying a long-shot.
“I don’t know ... ” She screwed her eyes in thought. “Yes I do!” she exclaimed joyfully. “His name was David ... Oh my goodness – I’m not as senile as I thought I was.”
“David Tippen?” queried Bliss.
“Oh, now that would be stretching the grey matter too far, but it was definitely David.”
“I bet it was,” he said, staring into the picture, trying to communicate with the characters. That would explain how Major Dauntsey got the tags – good friends; best man at wedding; dying words as he lies on the battlefield. “Give these to my mother – tell her I loved her to the end.”
“Can I borrow this?” he asked, knowing the answer. “Daphne, you’re a whiz.”
“Thank you, Chief Inspector ... are you going to kiss me again?”
He did, on the cheek, and she held onto his arm as he made his way out with the picture.
“By the way, you didn’t tell me what happened after the war,” he said as they neared the gate.
“I stayed in France ...” she began, the inflection saying there was more, much more, and all of it spun around in her mind until she settled on the salient feature. “Hugo, he called himself. He was an artist.”
“The portrait?”
She nodded with a melancholic smile, “I thought he loved me, but, there again, I suppose I thought I loved him.”
“And Hugo?”
“Hugo ... ” her voice faded and her eyes drifted into the distance. “Hugo loved painting.”
Chapter Eleven
The road out of Westchester hummed soothingly beneath the tyres of Bliss’s liberated Rover, and the frenzied bustle of London offered the prospect of a peaceful haven after the stormy Saturday afternoon meeting.
“The men aren’t very happy about this meeting,” Superintendent Donaldson had snapped, catching Bliss on his way up the front steps of the police station. And the men weren’t happy. Patterson had seen to that, polishing his truncheon amidst the disgruntled throng at the pre-conference moaning session.
“I’m really sorry about this folks,” he had whined, smarmily. “Only this new D.I. wouldn’t listen to me. He thinks he’s still in the effing Met.” Adding, sotto voce, “If he ever was in the Met. I told him you deserved the weekend off but did he care? Did he fuck!”
Bliss was still trying to puzzle out what had happened an hour later as he made for London, driving fast, trying to put the meeting behind him.
It had started badly – feigned illnesses and hastily arranged weddings accounted for the absence of more than half the officers. Detective Constable Dowding’s truancy was especially notable.
“His wife seemed confused when I called,” explained Patterson. “She said he’d already left – said you’d given him a special assignment to work on.”
“I expect he’s following up on a couple of things we came across earlier in the week,” said Bliss, tongue in cheek, nurse Dryden’s mammary assets in mind. “I’ll discuss it with him later.”
“Good afternoon,” Bliss greeted the twenty or so officers as he entered the conference room, and someone ripped the air with a noisy belch.
“Afternoon,” grumbled a few, leaving feet on the desks in a conspiracy of disdain.
“Sorry to spoil your weekend,” he commenced, noticing the intentionally varied assortment of sport and leisurewear and feeling the glare of hostility. “Only, this case is a week old and we don’t seem to be any further ahead really.”
Patterson winced, visibly, but with his mind the way it was, he would have taken a congratulatory pat on the shoulder as a rabbit punch. “So, we’ve done absolutely fuck-all this week,” he grumbled, stabbing himself in the back. “That’s what you’re implying, Guv, isn’t it?” he continued, neatly planting the stiletto in Bliss’s hand. “You’re saying that getting a confession out of Dauntsey, gathering all the evidence, and finding his father’s body was nothing,” he snarled, his enormous fangs drawn. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say that, Sergeant ...” Bliss protested, stung by the criticism, but, with their sergeant’s blood on the floor, several of the men jumped into the fray.
“I found the bloody duvet,” blared Jackson, “and ruined me trousers in that damn grave.”
“And I walked fuckin’ miles doin’ house to house enquiries,” shouted another.
“And what about ...”
“Alright, that’s enough,” roared Bliss. “I didn’t say you hadn’t done anything …”
“Sounded like it to me,” muttered Patterson, twisting the blade one more time.
Bliss spun on him, enraged. “Sergeant Patterson, I said that’s enough. All I meant was ... we haven’t succeeded in solving this case – either case, despite all the work you and the men have put into it. That’s not a criticism, it’s just a statement of fact. Now, if you’ll let me