demonstrated her determination to guard her territory by picking her handbag off the floor and cradling it to her chest. “I’ll leave you to it,” whispered the nurse, implying that she wished him luck.
Dowding, slicking back his hair, slipstreamed the young nurse toward the kitchen with the promise of a hot coffee and the hope of something more stimulating, leaving Bliss to approach the newly widowed old woman. “Mrs. Dauntsey ...” he enquired with an overly patronising air.
She viewed him warily. “What are you going to stick in me now?”
“No. I’m not a doctor. I’m a policeman ... I wonder if we could go somewhere private,” he added, aware of the anticipatory hush his presence had caused among the twenty or so inhabitants.
“Private – in here?”
“Do you have a room?”
“Don’t worry about this lot,” she swept a frail arm around the room. “They’re all dead.”
He looked: most were immobile, heads flopped, mouths agape. Some were staring at him – desperately hoping to find the eyes of a husband, brother or son, then looking ashamedly away as his eyes met theirs. He felt like the grim reaper, and some of them looked fearfully at him as if he were.
“What d’ye mean – dead?” he questioned.
“Dead is what I mean, Inspector,” she said, making no attempt to keep her voice down. “No longer part of life. Oh, they all eat and sleep; most of ’em stink; some even talk sometimes – rubbish usually, but this is just a holding pen. They’re just waiting for a plot at the cemetery or a slot at the crematorium.” She pulled him closer with the crook of a bony finger. “Just waiting for their fifteen minutes of flame,” she said, without a trace of humour.
Bliss smiled briefly then fought to select a suitable expression to presage his doom-laden message, but his face blanked while an eighteen-year-old memory came flooding back: a memory of Mrs. Richard’s quizzical face, incapable of comprehending the disaster, incapable of absorbing the horror of young Constable Bliss’s words – “I’m very sorry Mrs. Richards but your daughter has been shot and killed.”
“Dead?” she had queried.
“I’m afraid so.”
“She can’t be dead; she’s getting married next week,” she shot back defiantly, as if he were deluded.
She’s dead – and I killed her, he wanted to scream, his conscience trying to drag the admission out of him. Then a policewoman with a bush of red hair bubbling out from under her little blue hat had stepped in front of him and forestalled his confession. “Mrs. Richards,” she said, softly, “there’s been a terrible accident in the bank ...”
It was no accident, thought Bliss, biting back his anger. It was some petty mobster with a sawn-off shotgun.
“There’s been a shooting, and unfortunately your daughter, Mandy ...”
“She’s just gone to the bank to get the money for her honeymoon. She’ll be back in a minute ...” said Mrs. Richards, still uncomprehending, but at least beginning to accept that the police visit was somehow connected to her daughter.
Bliss shook his head and quickly dislodged the old memory. “Mrs. Dauntsey,” he started, biting the bullet, “I’m afraid I have some really bad news ... Your husband has been killed.”
The news stunned her, leaving her head twitching repeatedly from side to side like a malfunctioning automaton and her mouth stuttering, “N ... N ... No.”
Deciding there was never going to be a good time to tell her about Jonathon, Bliss pushed on. “I’m also sorry to have to inform you Jonathon has told us he did it.” A strange look of confusion swept over her and, too late, he realised he had on the wrong face. He still had on his “This tragedy causes me as much pain as it does you” countenance, when he probably should have switched to an expression of “Your son is really in the shit.”
“Jonathon couldn’t have done it,” she retorted with a degree of positiveness that made him realise he would have an uphill struggle persuading her any different. Every mother feels that way, he thought. The prisons are full of men unjustly convicted, in their mother’s eyes. But she was still shaking her head fiercely, “Jonathon did not and could not have killed his father.”
“Do you know why he would want to kill your husband?”
“But I don’t understand ... He couldn’t have … It’s not possible ... Not my Jonathon ...”
“Is there any reason why Jonathon might have killed your husband?” he tried again, rephrasing his question, convinced she was able to comprehend what was happening.
“Take it from me, Inspector, he didn’t do it.”
“He says he did.”
“You just bring him in here. I’ll soon get at the truth.”
You’re probably right, he thought, guessing she was not above giving him a clip around the ear. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Bliss left Mrs. Dauntsey and her living mortuary after a few minutes. “I’m feeling rather tired,” she had said somewhat pointedly, giving him no option but to excuse himself.
As he got up to leave a hushed voice somewhere behind him murmured, “Bloody whore.”
“What?” he said, spinning around, fearing he’d misheard. No-one moved. The “dead” were as lifeless as ever. Had he heard it or was it extra sensory perception, a powerfully malicious thought pulsing through the ether and colliding with his brainwaves. Perhaps I dreamt it, he thought, seeking the eyes of those closest, hoping to establish contact, but the eyes were as lifeless as the bodies and he brushed it aside. “Goodbye, Mrs. Dauntsey.”
“Fucking whore – needs locking up.” There it was again. He hadn’t misheard this time, and the vehemence in the words stopped him in his tracks.
“Sorry – did you say something?” he asked one old lady, noticing her eyes open. She closed her eyes slowly, as if deliberately shunning him, and he turned back to Jonathon’s mother. There was nothing in her face to suggest she’d heard, although there was no doubt in his mind she was the target of the abuse. “I’ll probably have to come and see you again,” he said, listening carefully for the whisper, hearing nothing.
“I won’t be around a lot longer.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that ...”
“Oh, don’t worry. I used to think I’d live forever, but I guess God has other plans.”
He mumbled, “Sorry,” though it sounded forced, and as he turned to find the matron sweeping across the room toward him, wondered if he was sorry she wouldn’t live forever, or sorry that God had let her down.
“Is there any hope for her?” he asked, his mind still spinning with the whispered accusations, as the matron guided him out onto a damp grey flagstone terrace having pointedly said, “You can get out this way, Inspector.” He got the message – she doesn’t want the police to be seen leaving by the front door – probably makes the undertaker carry the coffins out the back way as well.
“There’s always hope, Inspector,” she replied. “But whether or not one’s hopes are fulfilled is a matter of perspective.”
“I’m not with you.”
“Most of our patients hope to die quickly and painlessly, Mrs. Dauntsey’s no exception. It’s her son who can’t accept the inevitability of her passing.”
“It’s the one’s who are left behind who suffer the most, Matron,” he said, and felt the pain of the truth in his heart. “It’s very peaceful here,” he added conversationally to lighten the tone.
“Sunday afternoon is our noisy time – families coming to say goodbye to Gran or Gramps. If the kids