“Yes, Mr. Dauntsey,” said Bliss, struggling not to compound the situation by incivility. “What do you want?”
Jonathon pulled himself upright, held his wrists together obligingly in front of him and proclaimed loudly, “I want to confess to a murder.”
A collective gasp brought conversations to a skidding halt and the whole room closed in around them.
Bliss dropped his head back into his hands. “I was having such a good day …” then he looked up. “We’ve already been through this, Jonathon. You got bail — remember?”
“But that was for killing my father. This is for another one.”
Bliss sharpened up with a horrible thought. “Oh God. Please don’t tell me you’ve put your mother out of her misery.”
“No, of course not, Inspector.”
“Well who have you killed this time then?”
“The man in the attic, of course. I murdered him.”
Bliss knew the required response, the catechism according to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act: Jonathon Dauntsey. I am arresting you for the murder of Captain David Tippen. You are not obliged to say anything, etc. But the scene was so ridiculous he couldn’t bring himself to begin. “Sit down and have a glass of wine, Jonathon, you look as though you need it. And for Christ’s sake put your hands down. I haven’t any handcuffs with me and if I did I wouldn’t use them.”
“Righty-oh, Inspector,” said Jonathon, with a lilt of achievement. “As your prisoner, I would be more than happy to do whatever you ask.”
“Cut the crap. Just sit down and tell me exactly how you killed Tippen.”
Samantha tried interrupting from a distance, unaware of the reason for the hiatus. “Dave … ” she called, semaphoring with the handset of a phone.
“Hang on a minute, Sam … sorry … Samantha,” he replied. Adding, in muted tones, “Jonathon’s just confessing to another murder.”
“You’re mocking me,” complained Dauntsey.
“Get on with it — How did you kill him?”
“Aren’t you going to caution me?”
“I’d rather kick you in the … Oh never mind. Yes.
Consider yourself cautioned. Now, how did you do it?”
“I shot him.”
“Where?”
“In his room.”
“No. I meant — where in his body?”
“His head of course.”
“Jonathon. I hate to disappoint you, and I really have enjoyed your little story, but aren’t you overlooking the fact he’s been dead at least forty years.”
“Forty-four, to be precise.”
“So you would have been eight at the time.”
“Nine actually.”
“A little young to shoot someone in the head, don’t you think?”
Samantha, waving with manifest urgency, caught Bliss’s attention for a second time. “Would you excuse me a moment,” he said to Jonathon. “Feel free to leave if you like.”
“Inspector — I’m trying to turn myself in for murder. You could at least take me seriously.”
“I think you’ve overlooked something in your determination to protect your mother,” he said, screwing up his napkin, throwing it on the table and rising.
“What?”
“The age of criminal responsibility is ten, Jonathon. If you went berserk with a machine gun in the middle of Harrods at the age of nine, I could only ask you very nicely not to do it again. So I really don’t give a shit.”
“Inspector — This is absolutely preposterous.”
“It’s the law, Jonathon,” he called over his shoulder, walking away. “Sorry, old mate. Nice try. I’m sure your old mum will appreciate the gesture.”
“But, Inspector …”
Bliss stopped and turned. “Jonathon … Bit of advice. If you’re still here when I get back I’ll nick you for loitering. Now piss off and stop wasting my time.”
Samantha had put the phone down by the time he got to her. “They were asking if we had a control sample to match against the blood in the syringe,” she said. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Jonathon, but they think they’ve got enough for DNA analysis. By the way, what did he want?”
“Oh he’s trying to give himself up again … ” he started, paused, grabbed her wrist and dragged her back across the room. “C’mon. I think I’ve cracked it.”
Jonathon was still at the table, still basking in the spotlight of infamy. “Are you still here?” Bliss demanded, masking his gratification with a scowl, then seemed to relent. “I suppose you’d better come with us then.”
Jonathon brightened. “Are you arresting me, Inspector?”
“No — I’m taking you home.”
Detective Sergeant Patterson was also on his way home, packing bits and pieces of personal items from the drawers of his office desk while Donaldson stood over him in silent anger.
Several stone-faced detectives were busily counting floor tiles when D.C. Dowding, totally unaware of the unfolding drama, entered and bludgeoned his way across the room, lashing out at desks, chairs and people.
“Serg. Any chance of a bed at your place for a night or two …” he began, too wrapped up in a calamity of his own to notice the superintendent. “What’ye doing, Serg?”
Donaldson stepped in. “Sergeant Patterson has been suspended from duty, Dowding.”
“Suspended! Is this a wind up? What for?”
“Do you want to tell him, Sergeant?”
“Bliss stitched me up,” he mumbled to the desk.
“Bollocks,” said Donaldson. “You stitched yourself up.”
“Well Bliss bloody stitched me up,” yelled Dowding and all eyes switched to him.
“Well, D.C. Dowding?” prompted Donaldson, breaking the heavy silence after a few seconds. “If you want to lay an official complaint against your new detective inspector you’d better tell us why?”
Dowding caught the drift in the superintendent’s tone — D.I. Bliss was flavour of the month. In any case, what could he say? “My podgy wife, (thirty going on forty-five; stretch marks; cellulite; the works), up to her neck in snotty kids with shitty diapers, answers the door to a dish with big knockers in a nurse’s uniform.”
“Mrs. Dowding?” Nurse Dryden had queried, her face as innocent as her uniform. “Is Bob home?”
“No, he’s at work. Can I help? Do you want to come in?”
“Are you his mother or his sister?” she chatted innocently as she picked up a toddler and waltzed into the living room like she owned the place, as though she wasn’t about to start a world war.
“I’m his wife, actually,” said Mrs. Dowding with just a trace of unease.
Nurse Dryden crumpled in a perfectly timed outburst of bawling, her hands flying to her face and churning it into a multi-coloured soup of midnight black mascara, sapphire eye-shadow, raspberry-cola lipstick, snot and tears.
Bob Dowding’s wife flew to comfort the stranger fearing her three tots might catch the crying bug. “What is it? What’s the matter?” she asked, cradling the young woman’s head to her shoulder, offering sympathy, guessing it was man-related — wasn’t it always. “Men can be such pigs,” she muttered, without thinking for a moment it was her own pig she was talking about.
Wait for it, thought nurse Dryden, sniffling loudly as she prepared to ignite the fuse, then with a few shoulder shaking sobs she struck the match. “Bob told me he was single.”
“Bob?”
“Yeah. Sergeant Dowding — Bob … I said I wouldn’t sleep with him unless he crossed his heart and hoped to die …”
It was a slow fuse. “You slept with him … my husband?”
“He swore …”
“I bet he did.”
Now for the dynamite. “I think I’m going to have his baby.”
Bliss’s plan to take Dauntsey home took a detour before they reached the car park. Samantha tugged at his sleeve as they made for the rear exit of the Mitre.
“You go ahead, Jonathon,” said Bliss. “We won’t be a second.”
“I might run … ” started Jonathon but Bliss’s cold stare warned him not to continue.
“Don’t you want to know about the hairs on the duvet,” asked Samantha as soon as Jonathon was out of range.