“Oh shit,” he muttered.
“There she is,” shouted Jonathon as if he’d spotted a fleeing prisoner.
“Inspector?” said Doreen, grabbing his arm as if she wanted to make a dying declaration. “The dead are the lucky ones – they never have to explain.”
“Leave my mother alone,” screeched Jonathon, advancing on them.
Then Doreen had her final say, “He only really makes such a fuss of me because he knows when I’m gone he’ll have to live with himself.”
“Mother are you alright? Has he hurt you?” said Jonathon, turning a dozen pairs of accusing eyes in Bliss’s direction.
Daphne turned on Jonathon with such ferocity Bliss wondered if she might kick him. “Don’t be so stupid. Of course nobody’s hurt her. What rubbish – I just took my old friend for a walk and a nice cup of tea. Isn’t that right, Doreen?”
“Yes. And a meringue ...”
“You kidnapped her,” spat the matron, catching up to Jonathon. “And you,” she spun on Bliss. “You were in on this. I shall report you to the Chief Constable. This is a disgraceful way to treat a sick old lady. I’m taking her back to the home this instant.”
“I thought we were the only ones allowed to take prisoners.”
“How dare you – she’s not a prisoner.”
“She could be,” he retorted. “I have sufficient evidence to send her to prison for the rest of her life.”
Something in the sincerity of Bliss’s tone brought the matron up short, then she shook the notion aside. “I don’t believe it.”
“Are you suggesting we disregard the truth in the interest of believability, Matron?” he asked, putting on a Jonathon Dauntsey attitude, but the manageress intervened, pounding her way back across the room, demanding they should leave immediately, threatening to call the police.
Daphne started to open her mouth: “We are the police” on the tip of her tongue, but Bliss got to her in time and caught her arm. “Leave it, Daphne,” he said, not wanting to attract any more attention, knowing that Donaldson would already have an all-units warning out for him.
“Come along then, my dear,” said the matron, in baby-talk, wrestling the wheelchair from Daphne. “It’s your dinner time. The cook made some tasty stewed beef and rice pudding.”
“Just one question, Jonathon,” said Bliss, standing in front of the man to block his exit. “When I told you we’d found your father’s body, you said, ‘I doubt that very much, Inspector.’ Why?”
Jonathon’s face puzzled as if asking, “Is this another trick question?” But Doreen was quick to respond, “Come along, Jonathon. I’ve told the inspector everything he needs to know.” Then, giving the matron a nod to push, she added. “Thank you for the tea and the meringue, Inspector,” as if nothing else had happened.
“She hasn’t changed a bit,” said Daphne as the three of them watched Doreen disappearing through the front door. “Still as flighty as ever.”
“Possibly,” said Bliss. “But I still don’t know who is, or was, Jonathon’s father. And I’m still not sure who blew Tippen’s brains out.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was not until eleven-fifteen in the evening that Samantha slipped the key into her front door.
“Sorry I’m late, Dave,” she called cheerily, hanging her jacket in the closet, sighing “That’s better” as she kicked off her black uniform shoes. “Shit!”
Bliss, worried, dashed out of the living room into the narrow hallway. “What is it?”
“How long have you been here?”
He looked at his watch, confused. “About nine hours, I guess.”
“Nine hours,” she echoed. “Nine fuckin’ hours and already I’m apologising to you for being an hour late getting home from work.”
“Sorry ...”
She caught the disappointment on his face. “No – it’s alright, Dave. It’s not you. It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe I should go ...” he started, half-heartedly, but she flung her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
“I said it was my fault,” she said and clamped her lips on his until he was struggling for breath.
“I’ll stay,” he gave in without a fight. “Anyway, I made dinner for you.”
“You cook?”
“Of course.”
“You can definitely stay.”
“You haven’t tried it yet.”
“Food’s food – and it can’t be worse than mine.”
She rushed to the kitchen – chicken schnitzel with creamy mushroom sauce on a bed of rice. “You cooked this!”
“It didn’t cook itself.”
“Wow!”
“Well?” he said, dancing in anticipation. “What did you find out?”
It was the ownership of the blue Volvo that interested him. He’d spotted it behind the Mitre Hotel following the coffee house encounter with Jonathon and his mother.
“What is it, Dave?” Samantha had asked, sensing him trying to shrink behind a parked car as she, Bliss and Daphne were trying to figure out how to get at his belongings without running into an ambush of Superintendent Donaldson’s men.
“Blue Volvo at ten o’clock,” Bliss had said from the corner of his mouth, seeing it disappearing out of the far end of the car park.
“That’s the car what’s been hanging around my place a lot recently,” said Daphne.
Bliss, wide-eyed in surprise, asked, “I don’t suppose you got the number?”
“Of course I have,” she replied, squirrelling into her handbag and coming up with a neat little diary. “Times, dates and places,” she said. “Six times – seven with today – in a little over a week.”
Samantha stared at the sprightly old lady in disbelief as she used the little gold pen from her diary to write the number on a scrap of paper.
“Do me a favour ...” said Bliss, not recognising the number, passing it to Samantha, “See what you can find out.”
“No problem, Dave. I’m on duty at two.”
“Well?” he said, still desperate to know if it was the killer himself or a hired assassin in the Volvo. But Samantha tortured him with procrastination as she insisted on trying a bite of everything from the pot.
“Orgasmic,” she cried, over a mouthful of the mushroom sauce, “Mason’s his real name – string of aliases ... Is this asparagus frozen?”
“Fresh – just wait a minute.”
“Can’t ... Wow! ... Petty villain ... How d’ye get chicken this tender?”
“You smack it around. Mason what?”
“Bomber is his street name ... Bomber Mason.”
Alarms went off in his mind. His front door imploded again. “A plastics man?”
“No, just a nickname; bit of a piss artist as a youngster; bombed out of his brains most of the time. Nothing recent on the sheet – done time for burglaries; taking without consent; handling stolen goods ... I can’t get over this chicken