Missing: Presumed Dead by James Hawkins Read Free Book Online Page B

Major?”
    â€œOh, I haven’t seen him for a long time, Chief Inspector, I’m not in the landed gentry league.” Then she suddenly changed her mind about inspecting the grave. “I’ll walk home from here,” she said, turning and heading back to the gates. “The rain’s eased, and it’s not far.”
    Bliss stopped and watched her, feeling she knew more than she’d let on. Then she paused, and swung around with an afterthought. “Where are you staying?” she called. “Presuming you’re not driving back and forth to London every day.”
    â€œIt’s only an hour or so outside rush hour, but I’ve booked in at The Mitre for a few days ’til I sort something out.”
    â€œWell you won’t want to eat there.”
    â€œI won’t?”
    â€œGood God no, Chief Inspector. Mavis Longbottom’s cooking there – she’s already lost two husbands?”
    â€œWhat do you mean – food poisoning?”
    â€œNo – Lost ’em to other women – doesn’t say much for her cooking though does it? ... Well you’d better come to me this evening.”
    â€œOh, I couldn’t ...”
    â€œDon’t talk nonsense, of course you can. Anyway, it’ll give me a chance to tell you what I know about the Major.” Then she looked at him with a cheekiest of sideways glances, “If you’re interested that is.”
    He would have said as how he couldn’t possibly impose when she held up a hand to block his refusal.
    â€œI shall expect you for dinner at seven, Chief Inspector,” she said, adding without pause for dissent. “I noticed my butcher had a nice tray of pork chops laid out this morning,” as if her directive was not in itself sufficiently compelling.
    Bliss folded. “Alright, Daphne. It’d be a pleasure, but we’d better say eight to be on the safe side, I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a very long day.”
    â€œRoger Wilco. Eight it is,” she said and bounced away like a ten-year-old whose best friend was coming to tea.
    Still half expecting to come upon Mandy Richards name on a tombstone, Bliss made his way to the open grave. No further evidence had been uncovered, and Detective Constable Dowding was only too happy to accompany him to the nursing home. Anything was better than guarding a hole in the ground, in the rain, while photographers and scenes of crime officers bustled excitedly around, seizing on anything that may have the slightest connection to the case.
    The nursing home was not at all what Bliss had anticipated. His vision of a stately stone mansion with wide terraces and sweeping lawns translated into a grubby backstreet terrace of Victorian red-brick, with a narrow raised pavement protected from the road by an iron railing that looked as though it had been hit more often than missed.
    An ancient man with a crinkled spine was polishing a brass plate which was the only shiny thing about the entire place.
    â€œWe’ll be sorry to lose old Mr. Davies,” said the matron, answering the door herself having spotted their arrival from her office window and guessing their identity.
    â€œIs he leaving?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking, Inspector ...” she said, leaving the words to find their own meaning. “Now I suppose you’ve come to see the Major’s wife,” she continued, her voice as starchy as her uniform. “You do realise this could kill her,” she added, as if it were his fault.
    â€œPerhaps you could give me a bit of background information first,” he half whispered anxious to be discreet.
    â€œLike what?” she boomed, as if he’d made a smutty suggestion.
    â€œOh,” said Bliss, taken aback. “I just wondered what you know about the Major and his wife – were they close?”
    A teenaged girl, her unrealistically large bosom encased tightly in an all-white nurse’s