“Through an existing hole,” conjectured Samantha, picturing the scene.
“Quite,” he said, impressed. “Imagine: Jonathon has got behind him with the loaded gun. He tips his head back trying to see the boy and ‘Bang.’ Point blank range. The bullet pierces the skull, goes through the brain like a hot knife in butter, shoots out of his eye and up into the wall.”
“Ugh,” she screwed up her nose at the thought.
“If Doreen or another adult had shot him the bullet would have gone down into the floor. It had to be someone short; a nine-year-old; Jonathon.”
“And you think Doreen covered up for him?”
“She had too much to lose by his death. Though I doubt she did it on her own.”
“Arnie?” she mouthed.
Bliss raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup.
With the re-enactment in the turret room completed, Arnie’s face had dropped when Bliss and Samantha said they were heading for the hospital to check on Jonathon. “You ain’t goin’ back to the Mite’er then?” he said, clearly salivating over a Guinness. When Bliss shook his head, he whined, “I wouldn’t ’a told you about the bloomin’ stairs if I’d known that.”
Bliss turned on him sharply – face to face. “I should be careful what you say if I were you, Arnie, before I start wondering how Mrs. Dauntsey managed to get the body up those stairs on her own, how she plastered up the ceiling, and how you didn’t notice a body when you took out the staircase. ”
“He went purple,” laughed Samantha as they drove away. “Talk about apoplectic. I was wondering if he was ever going to catch his breath.”
“It’s almost a pity we can’t offer opinion in evidence,” sniggered Bliss. “That’s not the first time I could have said, ‘The defendant looked as though he’d pooped himself, Me’lord.’”
The psychiatrist came to find them halfway through a third coffee. “I’m glad you’re still here,” he said, looking anything but glad. “Mr. Dauntsey is asking to speak to you.”
“What’s happened?” asked Samantha
“It seems as though his conscious mind has finally accepted the situation.”
“That he shot the man he thought was his father?”
The psychiatrist wagged a warning finger. “Just because he admits killing him doesn’t necessarily mean he did it.”
Bliss gave the finger a critical stare and winced at the ragged nail-less flesh and raw cuticles. Psychiatrist, analyse yourself, he thought, and pondered what defences the doctor was cooking up for Jonathon: false memories; guilt complex; retaliation for abandonment. Should I tell him not to bother? he wondered. Should I remind him of the age of criminal responsibility? No – let him have his fun.
Jonathon was a different person on their return. (“Fascinating subject,” said the psychiatrist later. “He’s a nine-year-old in a man’s body.”) The tension had dissolved and his puffy red eyes were lowered in contrition. “I believe I owe you an explanation, Inspector.”
Bliss knew he should be furious – an entire week chasing a dead pig. But Jonathon’s little-boy-lost expression took the sting out of him. “I’d like to know why you did it.”
Jonathon’s face lit in a happier memory. “We used to play wars. I was his little captain, he said; even let me wear a cap. I’d set all the soldiers up – just where he told me.” He paused to stare at the ceiling, then corrected himself. “He couldn’t really talk, but he sort of grunted and pointed with his swagger stick until I got it right.”
The spark in his face faded as a darker memory returned.
“If I didn’t get them just right he hit me with the stick ...” he was saying when tears replaced the smile and he searched his pockets for a tissue.
“Here,” said the psychiatrist offering a well-used box.
“Thanks ...” Jonathon continued, talking to the floor. “Anyway, he’d get me to move his toy soldiers around in battles; manoeuvring battalions or regiments – sometimes entire armies.” He paused, marking time, an alarm sounding in his mind, holding him back, telling him to stop.
“Go on,” said Bliss, and caught a glare of rebuke from the psychiatrist.
“Shush.”
“Each figure represented a hundred or a thousand men,” continued Jonathon after a few seconds, “and the Royal Horse Artillery, his regiment, always had to be in the vanguard, with the gun carriage party leading the way.” Then he froze, his eyes found his foot and the twitching re-started.
“I thought he was going again,” Samantha had said in the car on their way back to the police station. But Jonathon hadn’t “gone.” He was fighting an ancient battle.
“One day I knocked over the major and knelt on him by accident,” he began again, his voice faint, his eyes riveted to his foot. “He was very angry – screaming, ‘Bring him here. Bring him here.’ I saw the tears. I’d never seen him cry before. ‘My major – Look what you’ve done to my major,’ he was crying. ‘It’s only a toy,’ I said, but when I gave it to him he grabbed me.” He paused, tears streaming, and a bubble of silence grew around him – pressurising the small office to bursting point.
“I should have been in bed,” he started again, releasing the valve with a noisy snort. “Mum told me never to go into his room alone.”
“I’m not surprised,” mused Bliss silently.
“But sometimes I’d pretend to go to bed then creep to his room to play with the toys. He was my dad ...” His face crumpled in tears once more. “It was all my fault – I’d squashed his favourite toy.”
“What was your fault?” asked the psychiatrist, anxious not to let the silent tension re-build.
“I was in my pyjamas,” Jonathon mumbled, focusing sharply on the psychiatrist, barely whispering. “And he pulled them down. It was our little secret. He made me promise never to tell.”
Horrific remembrances turned his face into a battlefield of emotions and his eyes swam around the room as if trying to escape the images in his mind. “If he was asleep, I would have my own pretend battles,” he continued, finding a lump of dried chewing-gum on the floor as a focal point. “But when he was awake I had to do exactly what he wanted.” He took his eyes off the floor and looked pleadingly at Bliss. “You do know what I mean, don’t you, Inspector?”
Bliss nodded sombrely.
“I was ashamed. I knew it was wrong, but he was my dad,” he continued, covering his eyes with his hands, trying to block out the images. “I couldn’t tell Mum. He said it was our little secret. Then one day I said, ‘Stop, Dad – I don’t like it. You’re hurting me. Stop. Please stop.’ But he wouldn’t stop ...”
Jonathon was back in the turret room – a frightened nine-year-old with his pyjamas round his ankles. “I picked up the gun ... Please stop, Dad ... Stop, Dad ... Stop it ... Stop it ...”
The gun went off inside Jonathon’s mind and the whole room jumped as he screeched. “I shot him.”
Nobody spoke. What to say?
“What happened afterwards?” asked Bliss, once the air had settled, hoping to establish Doreen’s involvement – just for the record.
Jonathon dabbed his eyes. “Nothing really. It was as if nothing had happened. His room was always locked and Mum told me he’d gone to live in Scotland where he wouldn’t be able to hurt