“This looks different,” he said, driving on and catching sight of a gallows sign outside a barn-like building. “The Carpenter’s Kitchen,” proclaimed the legend under a carved pictograph of a chef’s hat surrounded by saws, mallets and unrecognisable implements.
The earthy odour of freshly milled wood hit them as Bliss opened the solid church-type door. Quickly stooping to avoid the rough-hewn beams at headache height, he ran his eye along the warped plank flooring. “It’s like being below decks in an old Schooner,” he said with unmistakeable delight.
“Look at this,” replied Daphne dashing off to fondle a diminutive wooden replica of Michelangelo’s David.
“’Tis all ’and carved,” said a buckled old man in workman’s overalls and carpenter’s apron, stepping from behind a sculpted pillar. “An’ ’tis all for sale …” he added, his head screwing awkwardly on a spine fixed by years of bending over a workbench.
“We wanted dinner actually,” queried Bliss. “This is a restaurant, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, ’course ’tis — upstairs. You go on up. That boy o’ mine’ll look after you.”
Bliss was having second thoughts, fearful the food might have absorbed the characteristics of sawdust, but at least there were no Volvos in the car park.
“I think it’s rather quaint,” said Daphne, dawdling to admire award-winning turnings and carvings. “Oh look at this cat,” she said, stroking the life-like carving. “It reminds me of my old tom — the General.”
Five minutes later the cat, elm with walnut inlay and bright glass eyes, sat alert on the dining table checking out the dozen or so other guests in the upstairs dining room.
“Sit where you like,” the old man’s “boy” had said, and Daphne placed her purchase on a table sliced from the bole of an ancient tree, every growth ring clearly countable.
“Cinnamon,” she sniffed, then sat and picked a curled stick from a centrepiece of shaved rosewood, sandalwood and cedar. “I love cinnamon,” she added, running it under her nose. “It’s so Christmassy, don’t you think?”
Bliss frowned. “Would you mind if I sat there?” he said, holding out the other chair for her, inviting her to move.
She caught on. “I suppose you want your back to the wall, Chief Inspector — is that a man thing?”
He laughed it off. “No — it’s a policeman thing.”
She moved and the “boy” came back with the menus. Fifty-five guessed Bliss, but Daphne put him in his late forties — he had young hands, she explained later.
The menus were in keeping with the general theme. “I hate this sort of thing,” said Bliss, turning up his nose at the contorted literary, culinary and carpentry amalgamations. “Listen to this — Oak-smoked joint of venison with sauce of wood mushrooms and potato logs.”
“Oh don’t be so stuffy, it sounds rather good, and look they’ve got woodcock and wood grouse. Though I think I’d prefer something I can talk through — I don’t want to have to concentrate, nothing finicky — no bones. And nothing awkward like lobster or spaghetti.”
“I think I’ll have a steak,” said Bliss, reading aloud. “Grilled over charcoal burnt from Oak, Pine and Mesquite.”
“That sounds good,” muttered Daphne, though her face said she was still giving some thought to her selection. “You were very quiet in the car, Chief Inspector,” she said, looking up from the menu. “I guess you have something on your mind.”
Blue Volvos, funny little men snooping into hotel registers and untimely death. “The Major’s face actually …” he started, then paused. “It was pretty horrific. I don’t want to put you off your dinner.”
“No — I’m interested. Carry on.”
“Well, it was only a skeleton but the jaw and cheek bones had been stitched together with silver wire. The surgeon had obviously done his best, but there simply wasn’t enough bone. It reminded me of a horror movie. One of those low budget ones, Frankenstein’s Brother’s Monster or something. Anyway, the plot was that Frankenstein’s brother made an even more monstrous creature out of all the bits the doctor had left over when he’d finished his monster.”
“Are you making this up?”
“No — I don’t think so … Anyway, that’s what he looked like. And I thought it was significant that the pathologist had removed the face bones before showing the students the skull. I guess he didn’t want anybody throwing up all over the mortuary floor.”
“That would be the Major alright,” said Daphne, her face puckering in awful memory of the mutilated face. “He looked a right mess when he came back …”
The barman cut into their conversation. “Would you care for drinks while you’re looking at the menu?”
“I think I need an aperitif — something to bolster me up, something with a bit of body,” mused Daphne. “A Dubonnet, I think, with just a twist of lemon to take the edge off the sweetness.”
“A scotch for me, please,” said Bliss.
“Anything with that, Sir — ice perhaps?”
“Neat, thanks.”
“We do something called a Scotch Pine …”
“Just the whiskey — thank you,” he replied, his tone sharp enough to draw blood.
“That’s why he got the D.S.O.,” continued Daphne, her mind still on Major Dauntsey. “They say that even though he was injured and under fire, he still managed to carry one of his wounded men more than three miles toward a first aid station. He wouldn’t let anyone help — said it was his duty.”
“But I understood he could hardly speak.”
“That was after the explosion,” she nodded in agreement. “The man he was carrying literally blew up in his face and ripped off his arm. A grenade they think — on his belt or in his pocket. Either the pin jerked out or a sniper’s bullet hit it. Anyway, the explosion killed the soldier and blew away half the Major.”
The drinks arrived. Bliss slugged his back. “I needed that. So what was Arnie talking about? He said the Major had got them all killed because he made them tidy up instead of retreat.”
“I heard the rumours,” said Daphne, taking a few thoughtful sips. “He was hailed as a hero at first; given the D.S.O. for the way he’d dragged the injured man out under fire. It was only later, when the few survivors got back, that they started telling a different story; that the whole thing was his fault. But you know what the Army’s like. They’d never admit a mistake — especially when committed by a senior commissioned officer.”
“Sounds a bit like the police force,” muttered Bliss.
“Anyway, what were they going to do — court martial a one-eyed man who didn’t have a right hand to hold a bible or a voice to speak the oath?”
“But was Arnie right? Did he make the men clear up the battlefield before retreating?”
“Who knows?” she shrugged. “It’s the maxim of all peons worldwide. If anything goes wrong — blame the boss.”
“So you don’t believe it then?”
“If he did do what Arnie said then he must have had a good reason. Only idiots set out deliberately to do the wrong thing.”
“But wasn’t he an idiot? Arnie seemed to think so.”
“He went to university.”
“Money,” scoffed Bliss.
“And he became a Major,” she added.
“Influence, connections. Don’t forget, his father was a Colonel. What were the recruiters going to say? Anyway, it was wartime — the ability to breathe was high on the list of selection criteria.”
The waiter was back with a wooden bowl overflowing with cheese sticks. Daphne was still undecided, torn between the wood-pigeon pie and the off-cuts of oak-smoked turkey, and asked for a few more minutes.
“So where do you go from here?” she asked Bliss as the waiter headed for another table.
“We’re just spinning our wheels,” he replied, idly nibbling a stick. “We’re checking for missing persons; waiting for blood tests on the duvet; pulling Jonathon’s house to pieces and digging his garden — the other body has to be somewhere, but we’re stumped until it turns up. I’ll have to talk to Doreen again tomorrow. Somebody has to tell her that her husband’s dead.”