Bliss cocked his head as if he’d missed something. “Is there some suggestion he dumped the body in water.”
“No ... but you know what these special operations blokes are like – any excuse to put on their rubber suits and piss about on company time.”
“I suppose the bloody choir will be demanding extra practice time next, so they can give him a good send off.”
Donaldson acknowledged the humour with a wry smile. “What should I tell the marine unit?”
Bliss shrugged, “It’s your decision boss, but I think we’re jumping the gun. I reckon the body will turn up.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll have to make an appeal for information in the local press.”
The mention of the press had Donaldson extricating the packet of digestives from his drawer. “Some bloody newshound who’s had his nose snubbed by us in the past will have a field day,” he exploded. “I can just see it ... banner headlines ...” he carried on, and used a biscuit as a baton to write imaginary letters in the air. “‘Major loss for Hampshire Police – Anyone in possession of the body should hand it in at their nearest found-property office’...”
“Wait a minute, Sir,” cut in Bliss, leaping up as an important notion struck him. “Assuming the Major came down from Scotland to stay at the Black Horse – where are his clothes; his suitcase; his overnight bag?”
Donaldson paused long enough to take a chunk out of the biscuit. “Good point, Dave – get onto it.”
Sergeant ‘Pat’ Patterson was herding the men and women into the briefing room, sending out scouts to drag smokers away from their habit in the prisoner’s exercise yard.
Patterson watched the newcomers settling while letting his feelings leak. “You’re late. The new D.I. will think we’re a bunch of carrot crunchers. You know what these Big City coppers are like – think we spend our time rounding up stray sheep …”
“Or shagging sheep in your case, Serg,” called D.C. Spillings from the back of the room.
A burst of laughter split the expectant air, but quickly fizzled as D.C. Dowding thundered in, his face black with anger, and he rounded on Patterson with clenched teeth and a tight tone. “I wanna word wiv you, Sergeant.”
Spillings heard. “What’s up, Dowding?” he laughed. “Has the Serg shagged your sheep as well?”
David Bliss marched into the room, stifling the last of the laughter, leaving Dowding scrabbling for a seat.
Patterson rattled off a preliminary assessment of the current situation, not that any of the officers needed to be reminded, and quickly handed the floor to Bliss.
“The man we are searching for only had half a face and one arm,” he began after thanking them for their attendance, implying they’d had a choice. “Did we know this?” A sea of blank faces stared at him as if he were an alien. “Well, someone – anyone. Did we?”
A youngish policewoman with sparkly chocolate eyes, frizzy black hair and a smoky voice, finally caved in under his gaze and answered, “No, Sir.”
Bliss homed in on her. “Do you think that this is something that we should have found out – maybe – perhaps? I mean, it does explain certain things – why he didn’t go into the bar at the Black Horse to pick up the key. Why he slipped in the back way. It may also explain why he may have been living on the estate in Scotland.” He glanced at Patterson. “Have we confirmed that by the way?”
Patterson’s face was as blank as the sea around him and he quickly threw the spotlight on Spillings. “Have we confirmed that?”
“No, Serg.”
Patterson suddenly bristled with enthusiasm, as if it had been his idea from the beginning. “Well, get onto it then. Find out where the estate is and get the locals to check it out. How long has he lived there? When he left? Who looks after him?”
Quickly rifling through his notepad Bliss added to the list. “We also need details of his doctor and dentist up there. We’re still trying to establish who saw him last and we need to start putting together a full picture of this man. Talking of pictures – do we have any?”
“I’ll get someone to check out the local paper,” said Patterson, still bubbling with enthusiasm. “He’s the sort of man who’s bound to get his mug in the press from time-to-time; local elections, charity do’s, that sort of thing.”
Bliss stuck in a pin in his bubble. “My information is that he possibly hasn’t been around here for the best part of forty years.”
A gasp of amazement went round the room.
“I guess you didn’t know that either,” continued Bliss sweeping his eyes from face to face, feeling a certain satisfaction in the obvious fact that none of them had uncovered such basic information. “Well, what have you got? What do you know? When was he seen last?”
This is getting boring, thought Bliss, with no-one even intimating they might have a snippet of information. “Do any of you know anything about the man you’re searching for?” he asked eventually, realising that the silence was becoming embarrassing.
“He’s an old dead major,” said one, though it was more a question than a statement.
“And ...?”
“And nothing, Sir.”
“Do you mean to say that’s all you know about the victim?”
D.C. Spillings had a twist of sarcasm in his voice as he answered on behalf of the group. “You’ll probably reckon we’re pretty stupid, Guv, but I s’pose we was working on the assumption we weren’t likely to find two dead old majors on the same day.”
You asked for that, thought Bliss and waited while the laughter died down. “O.K. Spillings – I take your point, but that was yesterday. As time goes on, assuming the body doesn’t surface, it will become very important to know precisely who we’re looking for.”
Most of the meeting was consumed with practical arrangements for conducting house-to-house enquiries and interviewing everyone who had been at the Black Horse during the disturbance, but a few constructive ideas were bounced around. Spillings, still seemingly fixated on the paranormal, came up with a half-serious suggestion that the Major’s body may have been used for some sort of satanic ritual.
The smoky voiced policewoman swung on him sarcastically. “What? You think they’re using crippled old squaddies now in place of beautiful young virgins – I doubt it.”
“No,” shouted Spillings above the laughter, “I just reckon there might be some religious reason why he flung the duvet in the grave, that’s all.”
Even Dowding, his mind troubled by some greater dilemma, managed to come up with a proposal that merited attention. “We could do a re-enactment at the same time tonight – see if anyone’s hanging about the churchyard who might remember seeing Dauntsey on Sunday. We’d get some idea how long he had to get rid of the body as well.”
Arrangements were made for a re-enactment and Daphne breezed in, rounding up discarded coffee cups and stray Kit Kat wrappers, as the meeting broke up. “Good morning, Chief Inspector. How was the Mitre?” she enquired, with a curiously intimate expression.
“Fine thanks,” Bliss replied guardedly, breaking off a conversation with Patterson and praying she would say nothing about their dinner engagement.
“I hope they’re feeding you well,” she added with a wink, obviously taking innocuous delight in having a shared secret.
Thank God, he thought. “Fine, thanks. Yes.”
Dowding was prowling around in the background, just out of range, waiting for an opening. Bliss finally caught on. “Do you want something, lad?”