“Gawd knows – the poor blighter never came back, did he? Missing in action, they said.”
“Oh. I thought you meant he was alive ...” started Bliss, formulating a further question when inquisitiveness got the better of the old man. “What’s this all about? Mebbe you’d best come ’round here. I’m back of the old cattle market.”
“I’ll take you, Guv,” said the sergeant when he asked for directions. “You’ll never find it without a guide – unless you use your nose.”
Sergeant Jones was right about the nose – though it wasn’t the market giving off the stink, it was the ancient clapboard house lurking behind it.
The old man took even longer to answer the door than the phone, but each time Bliss knocked anew, his crotchety voice drifted through the splintered woodwork. “Alright, alright, I’ze a coming.”
And, when the door finally creaked open, it revealed a Dickensian scene of poverty, together with a decayed man who fitted the setting perfectly. “Come in,” he said amidst a waft of hot stench which hit the two officers and had them scrabbling for handkerchiefs.
“’Tis the cats,” explained Tippen, a straggle-haired geriatric, sideswiping a ginger tom with his ivory-handled walking cane. “You’ll get used t’it in a mo. Come along in – I were just ’aving me tea. I’ll make ya a cuppa.”
“Not for us,” said Bliss sharply, remaining rooted to the doorstep as the old man shuffled back into the house, his shabby black clothing blending into the gloom.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he called, the pallor of his face showing up as he turned back to the door. But Bliss was having difficulty motivating himself to follow into the murky labyrinth of narrow corridors, looking, as far as he could tell, as if they had been tunnelled through mountains of newspapers and ceiling high heaps of rotten clothing. It was a hellish version of Alice in Wonderland, he realised, complete with black rabbit in a waistcoat. Sergeant Jones finally nudged him into action, and together they struggled forward against the tide of decay, grateful they had passed on the old man’s invitation to his tea party.
The sergeant was still retching an hour later as he sat at the police canteen bar, slugging down a third whisky, shaking his head, muttering, “I can’t believe it,” for the twentieth time. “I’ve never smelt anything like it. Did you see all that shit?”
“Everywhere,” replied Bliss, scrutinising his feet at maximum range. “I’ll have to throw these shoes away. I’m not having them in my car.”
“I’m not sure it was all cat shit either,” said the sergeant, sniffing his jacket with care.
“I’d rather not think about it.”
“I’m gonna burn this uniform.”
“A good dry-cleaner will probably get it out.”
“Sulphuric acid wouldn’t kill a smell like this.”
“I’d best be off,” said Bliss, rising. “I’ll leave it to you to contact Social Services and make arrangements to get him out and cleaned up.”
“Thanks, Guv. They’re gonna love me.”
“I bet you’re glad you came with me now,” he laughed.
Sergeant Jones scowled in mock anger. “I’m just glad you got the information you needed.”
“Oh yes,” he said, picking up an envelope containing the tattered remains of a photograph which the old man had miraculously found amidst the garbage. “I think I’ve pretty much got the case wrapped up now.”
There were two uniformed men in the photo and Bliss had recognised them immediately: the Major and the Captain – two soldiers in battledress standing just a little too close; smiling just a little too much; and, fifty years on, their eyes still sparkling for each other. The picture had slotted into place in Bliss’s mind the moment he took it from the grubby claws of the old man, and everything suddenly made perfect sense: Rupert’s nancy-boy reputation; his whiny accent; his sudden marriage to Doreen; his retention of the dead man’s dog tags. And, when he turned the photograph over, Captain David Tippen’s neatly caligraphied hand spoke directly to him: “This is me with my very best friend, Rupie.”
“He should never ’ave gone in t’army,” the old man had said with nostalgic concern. “He didn’t ’ave the constitution for it, he were too much of a mummy’s boy ... Killed her it did, when he didn’t come back.”
“Imagine Doreen,” Bliss had postulated to the sergeant on their way back to the police station. “She marries a bloke who gets shipped off to war before he has a chance to get his leg over, then he comes home looking like Dracula and announces his dick’s been blown off. ‘But don’t fret about it, my little turtle-dove,’ he says, ‘’Cos I’m a poofter anyway.’”
“No wonder she bumped him off,” laughed Jones. “My missus would kill me if I told her that.”
Bliss closed his eyes in thought, “The only real problem I’m left with is – who did Jonathon kill in loco majoris?”
“There’s no shortage of candidates,” said Jones. “Have you any idea how many doddery old codgers are reported missing each week?”
“That’s assuming it was a doddery old codger and not just someone who happened along at a convenient moment, and assuming whoever it was was missed. Just imagine if it was someone like old man Tippen.”
“Do I have to?”
“Well, you know what I mean. Who would complain if he disappeared? He could’ve lain dead in that place we’ve just left for years without anybody caring.”
“Judging by the stink I think he had.”
Bliss laughed, “Did you hear what he said when I asked him where all the newspapers had come from. ‘I must’ve forgot to cancel them when me eyes went.’”
“I wonder how he paid for them?”
“Gawd knows – he probably nicked ’em.”
Parking at the rear of the Mitre hotel on his return to Westchester, Bliss couldn’t help feeling a trifle foolish as he sneaked in the back way with his suitcase – feeling like a runaway lover slipping back home, red-faced, after vowing never to set foot in the house ever again, half expecting the door to be locked and another man in his bed. The smiling Swedish receptionist held the door for him and added to his discomfort by welcoming him back with professional effusiveness. “Oh. Good evening, Mr. Bliss, it is so nice that you are back – no?”
“No ... I mean, Yes, it’s nice to be back.”
“There’s a letter for you in reception,” she said, adding to his feeling of belonging. And, as he struggled his suitcases through the antique filled lounge and up the wide staircase to his room, he found himself soothed by the warm sensation of homeliness in the now familiar surroundings.
The letter intrigued him. Who knows I’m staying here apart from Superintendent Donaldson, Sergeant Patterson and Daphne? But the prospect that Mandy’s murderer could have located him barely touched his mind. The plain white envelope had a fresh clean smell, and was certainly too small to contain even a trace of explosive, but it certainly gave his heart an unexpected kick as he read the short note.
“Please give me a call – Kind regards: Samantha Holingsworth.” And a phone number.
“Did I leave my pen in your car, Dave?” she asked, recognising his voice immediately.
It sounded like an excuse, but he happily went along with it. “I don’t think so, but I can check.”
“What about ... ” they started in unison.
“You go first,” he said.
“No ... after you.”