“Wine as well. You certainly know how to impress a girl ... ummh – a Grand Cusinier ... Yes please, the red. What did you do about Donaldson?”
“I called in sick – left a message with the civvy on the enquiry desk.”
“You didn’t say where you were staying?” her voice rose anxiously.
“Of course not,” he said, pouring the wine. “No-one knows I’m here.”
It was a little after midnight. The dinner had been superb – he’d even made the chocolate mousse. Keep busy, he had told himself, take your mind off everything. And the corner supermarket had been surprisingly well stocked.
“Do you still think Doreen shot Tippen?” asked Samantha sitting next to him on the guest bed, toying with his nose as he lay back on the pillow.
“You’re tickling ... She seems the only one with a motive and he meant nothing to her, neither did Rupert come to that. According to Daphne, Doreen was the town bike before Rupert swept her off her back.”
“Dave ... that’s not nice.”
“Well ... that’s according to Daphne. Anyway, she obviously liked the idea of being the Major’s wife, even if it meant marrying a frog.”
“But the frog’s supposed to turn into a prince, not a toad.”
“Now who’s being unkind? But, seriously, she must’ve thought she’d won the lottery – big house; nice clothes; estate in Scotland.”
“And the world’s ugliest toad.”
“Is that why they say you should be careful what you wish for?”
Samantha reached with her lips and kissed him lusciously.
“What was that for?” he asked dreamily.
“I could tell what you were wishing for,” she laughed.
“What I can’t understand is why she waited ten years to bump him off,” said Bliss, his mind still absorbed by the Dauntsey case despite a stirring in his groin. “She’d got what she wanted, even if it came with more strings than the Berlin Philharmonic. Surely it didn’t take that long to work out that nobody would care if he disappeared.”
“But why leave him in the attic?” she asked, quivering at the thought.
Bliss hugged her warmly and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully, wondering what was above it, in her attic. “I suppose she thought it was the safest place. If she’d buried him in the garden she risked being seen.”
The ceiling still held his attention – battleship grey. Unusual colour, he decided critically, but it matched the rest of the room: mid-Atlantic green – jade with the warmth washed out – highlighted with azure trim and accentuated by navy blue bed linen. The ensemble had a nautical, masculine feel, he concluded.
“How come I slept on the couch last night?” he asked, looking around. “You didn’t tell me you had guest room.”
Samantha coloured up, muttering, “I didn’t want you getting too comfortable.”
“You didn’t believe me, did you?” he said, catching on and sitting up to emphasise his point.
“Well,” she stroked his arm placatingly. “You’ve got to admit it was a pretty lame chat-up line: Someone left me a death threat on my computer; broke into the police garage; incinerated my stuffed goat. Ergo, I need a bed for the night. Would you have believed it?”
“It was true,” he protested. “I couldn’t go back to the Mitre ...”
“I believe you, Dave. I just wasn’t too sure at one o’clock this morning.”
Soothing him down with another kiss she lay next to him, fully clothed, and teased his hair. “Like I said, Dave, I didn’t want you to get too comfortable.”
“I could pay for the room.”
“You will not,” she shot back. “I’m not having you, or anyone else, having rights. As long as you’re a guest I can boot you out anytime I get fed up with you ... Oh don’t look so hurt. I’m just making sure you behave yourself, that’s all.”
“I’ll behave,” he said.
It was close to twelve-thirty. The barman in the lounge of the Mitre Hotel dimmed the lights suggestively, took off his bow tie and yawned with histrionic exaggeration. Detective Sergeant Patterson had worn out the carpet in front of the bar and was taking a circuit around the largely empty room.
“Where the hell is Bliss?” he asked, pausing to give Dowding a shake in passing.
“Oh! Sorry, Guv. I must’ve dozed off.”
“I said, where the hell ... Oh, never mind. Go back to sleep.”
Bliss was drifting toward sleep himself as Samantha soothed the lines on his brow. “I’ll give you a penny for them, Dave?”
“I’m wondering what to do about Doreen?”
“She’s an old lady. She’s dying.”
“So am I. So are you – everyday we get a little closer.”
“That’s morbid.”
“True though. I just find it difficult to feel sympathy for somebody who thought she could sleep her way to a fortune, however small, and was prepared to live a lie for fifty years to keep hold of it. She didn’t give a shit about Rupert Dauntsey – alive or dead.”
“But he didn’t give a shit about her.”
“Two wrongs ... ” he started, then shrugged. “Maybe they deserved each other, though I still can’t forgive her, especially after what Daphne went through.”
“What did Daphne go through?”
“I promised not to tell.”
She caught the lobe of his ear between her teeth. “I could bite ... ”
He told ... D-Day; the dead baby; Hugo – the works.
“Wow,” said Samantha, breathless. “And I worry about finding the odd dead body on the beach. But how did she get the O.B.E.?”
“I’ve no idea. It’s almost as if she’s ashamed of it. She always manages to slide off onto something else whenever she gets close to telling.”
“Goodnight, Dave,” she said, slipping off the bed without warning – just a peck on his lips and a squeeze of the hand.
He tried to grab her but she jerked away, saying, lightheartedly, “I told you – behave or you’ll be out. And I’ll tell Donaldson where to find you.”
“Sorry, Miss,” he joked.
She paused, hand on the door. “Just be patient, Dave,” she said, turning, clearly torn, then made a decision. “You know what they say, Dave – easy come, easy go.” And she was gone.
It was nearly 1 am. Westchester had shut down for the night; the barman at the Mitre had pulled down the shutters and gone home; Patterson was close to giving up. “Why the hell didn’t he tell us?” he said, putting the blame on Bliss for the hundredth time. “He should’ve told us somebody was after him.”
Dowding stirred sufficiently to find a more comfortable position.
Bliss couldn’t get comfortable. It wasn’t the bed’s fault. A maelstrom of thoughts kept him tossing as he tried to unravel the twisted eternal triangle between Doreen, Rupert Dauntsey and David Tippen – who did what to whom, and why? Daphne, the goat and Mandy’s murderer also surfaced from time to time but, amongst the mental turmoil, Samantha was the only constant, a solid ray of sunshine at the centre of the storm – like the eye in a hurricane. And he kept coming