“I’m right aren’t I?” he said, prodding her.
It was just a guess, a shot in the dark, but he’d hit the mark and she coloured up. “Maybe.”
“Maybe my ass. You’re a lovely woman. If you’re on your own it’s because you’ve made it that way. And don’t give me the crap about working crazy hours. You’d find time if you wanted to.”
“Being single has a lot of benefits ...” she began, but he cut her off.
“It’s also bloody lonely.”
She used the tissue without taking her eyes off the picture. “It took me years to realise that dead relationships can be as insidious as dead people. I clung to the good memories for ages, going back to the places they used to take me as a child – warm, friendly, happy places. But there was nothing there. Places I loved like the Tower of London and the New Forest had gone cold – horrible, ugly. It took me a long time to realise it wasn’t the places, it was my Dad that made them special.”
“That’s what good Dad’s do,” he said, warm memories softening his voice. “But what about bad memories – didn’t you have any of those?”
“Oh yeah. Lots. It’s the bad memories that warn you not to get involved again.”
“That’s why I feel a certain compassion for Jonathon, whatever he’s done,” he said, feeling her pain and taking the spotlight off her. “I don’t think he even knew who is father is – or was. Did you see how quick Doreen was to hustle him out of the coffee house when she thought I was going to tell him the man in the turret room wasn’t his father?”
“So you think he believed Tippen was his father, and that he had deserted them by going to Scotland.”
“Yes,” he nodded, then paused with a puzzled frown, realising his mistake. “Wait a minute. Jonathon couldn’t have smashed up the toy soldier in retaliation for being deserted.”
“Why not?”
He fell silent for a second, his mind churning. “He must’ve taken the toy soldier before Tippen was killed. He couldn’t have got it later, it would have been sealed in the attic with the rest of the set.”
They had wandered back to Samantha’s bedroom and Samantha had wandered into bed. Bliss hung about indecisively near the doorway, still trying to piece together the toy soldier and Jonathon.
“You might as well get in,” she said, flicking back a corner of the duvet. He hesitated for half a second, slipped in beside her and was asleep before he hit the pillow.
It was 8 am. Somebody had fixed the alarm clock to sound the moment he fell asleep, at least it seemed that way, and he rolled over to find a warm empty space and a delicious memory.
The sizzling kettle hid the noise of his approach as he crept softly behind her in the kitchen and gently nuzzled his lips to the nape of her neck. “Gorgeous,” he breathed. “You’re up early. Where are you going?”
“With you, of course.”
He shook his head. “Not a good idea. Donaldson wouldn’t have bought my ‘sick’ story for one minute. He’ll still have people out looking for me.”
“So?”
“You don’t want to be seen with me – not a good career move.”
“Rubbish. Tea or coffee? What’s your plan?”
The road back to Westchester was a race-track of morning commuters and Bliss found himself watching the other drivers – seeing aliens living in a parallel world; a world in which they would never be shot or bombed; a world where mutilated murder victims would only ever appear in artistically arranged clips on the ten-o’clock news or at the movies: sanitised death; tastefully presented death; socially acceptable death.
“Look at him with his bow-tie,” said Bliss, poking fun at a Bentley driver as he swept majestically past, thinking: I bet his whole world would crash if you took away his cell-phone and cheque-book – he hasn’t got a clue.
Neither Bomber Mason, nor a Mrs. Mason, answered the door at the address registered to the Volvo. The semi-detached house showed no sign of life and even less sign of care.
“Stay there,” he said, leaving her on the overgrown front path as he kicked his way through a patch of nettles to peer into the front window, making a peephole through the grime with a saliva-moistened tissue.
“Nothing,” he said as he came away shaking his head. “If he’s a break-and-enter merchant he must have knocked over an Oxfam shop to get furniture that bad.”
“I guess crime doesn’t pay as much as it used to,” replied Samantha, checking out the empty garage.
“The only people who make it pay today have computers and fancy corporate titles,” he said, leaning heavily against the unyielding front door.
The wooden front gate fell off its hinges under Bliss heavy hand as they left. “Shit!”
“Did you do that on purpose?” laughed Samantha as they scooted back to his car.
“I didn’t think it would break that easily.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Honestly, Sam.”
She stopped with such purpose he heard the squeal of shoes. “Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry ... I ... I didn’t ...”
“My name is Samantha,” she continued, with a resolve that spoke of past traumas and left a question in the air which she defied him to ask.
He didn’t ask. “Sorry, Samantha.”
She lightened immediately and bounced back to his side as they made for his car.
“Breakfast then,” he said, assigning the contraction of her name to a past lover – one of the insidious dead relationships she’d spoken of – and headed for the restaurant where he’d met the Westchester Gazette reporter.
“My Dad always called me Sam,” she admitted sheepishly without prompting, after a few minutes of awkward silence in the car. “It’s sort of special.”
He smiled warmly, “I know how he feels. I call my daughter Sam and it means such a lot to me.”
If he couldn’t see the darkness in her face, he certainly felt the sudden chill in the air and knew the cause. “Bugger,” he said under his breath. “I’ve said the wrong thing again.”
Now what? he worried, as the ragged edge of the town gave way to rolling hills and hawthorn hedges of the countryside, and the oppressive silence became deafening. He looked at the radio, dismissed it as too obvious, and opened his window to the rush of wind. I’ll have to say something in a minute, he thought, as he slowed at the sign, “The Bacon Butty – all day breakfasts,” but Samantha beat him to it.
“There’s Mason’s Volvo,” she said, with so little surprise she might have been pointing out a pigeon or a pony.
It was just pulling out of the car park. “Gotcha,” shouted Bliss, locking his back wheels in a 180° spin, shooting off after it.
Samantha spun her head around. “Isn’t that Sergeant Patterson?” she asked, amazed, seeing a figure coming out the café.
“Where? Are you sure?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only met him once or twice
Bliss stared deeply into his mirror but the man’s image had already shrunk to an unrecognisable size. “Could’ve been anyone,” he muttered.
They caught up to the small blue hatchback in seconds and Bliss