James Hawkins - Missing - Presumed Dead

“Oh really,” she replied, staying in the kitchen.

He wandered into the kitchen, picture in hand. “Ophelia Lovelace,” it says here. “Paris — September 1947.”

Daphne closely studied the saucepan of gravy atop the stove and stirred it firmly.

“Ophelia?” he inquired, noticing the pink glow to her cheeks, wondering if it were the heat from the Aga cooker.

She didn’t look up from the pot. “The truth is my name is Ophelia — Ophelia Daphne Lovelace. I’m afraid we all lie a little at times, Chief Inspector.”

“That’s not a lie. You can call yourself whatever you want.”

She wasn’t listening, her eyes and mind seemed focused on the pan. “I loathed Ophelia,” she began with surprising vehemence. “Who’d want to be named after a week-willed nincompoop of a girl who drowned herself just because some bloke dumped her?”

“Suicide,” mused Bliss. “Was she a relative?”

Daphne laughed, “No — Hamlet — Shakespeare. Ophelia was the wilting lily who jumped in the river when she thought Hamlet didn’t love her anymore.” Then, sticking her hands assertively on her hips, she spun on him, demanding, “Do I look like an Ophelia to you, Chief Inspector?”

“No,” he laughed. “You look like a Daphne, but I wish you’d call me Dave — off duty anyway.”

“I don’t think I could — you’re cast in the mould of a chief inspector. It suits you. There’s a lot in a name you know. I actually think that some people become famous because of their names. Can you imagine what might have happened if Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill had been called Randy Longbottom — see, you’re laughing already — I mean, who’s going to sacrifice themselves for somebody called Randy or Matt?”

“ … or Dave,” he suggested.

“Oh no. There’s something very noble about David: King David, David and Goliath, David Lloyd George — Yes,” she added with an admiring glance, “David is very noble.”

“I don’t know about that,” he replied, feeling a blush of warmth from the stove.

Daphne gave him an inquisitive look. “I couldn’t help noticing, in the churchyard, you looked distracted, as though you had something on your mind.”

The shooting of Mandy Richards, he remembered instantly, then worked desperately hard to keep the memory from clouding his face again. “Just the death of the Old Major,” he lied, “There’s something very puzzling about the case. I feel as though I’ve sneaked into a play halfway through the first act and can’t pick up the plot because I’ve missed some crucial bit of the action.”

Daphne wasn’t convinced, “And the ghost that’s bothering you?”

“Just an old memory, graveyards have a way of bringing back old memories for me.”

“They do for everyone — that’s the whole idea of graveyards surely. If we just wanted to dispose of our dead we’d take them to the dump … Come on,” she said, brightening her tone and gathering the dishes together. “Stuffed pork chops with young broad beans, the tiniest new potatoes and a nice tender savoy. All out of my own garden — apart from the chops.”

“Wherever did you learn to cook like this?”

“My mother, of course, and in France. I lived there for a while.”

“Hence the portrait.”

“Yes,” she nodded, with a longing glance at the picture in his hand. “Hence the portrait.”

“Wine?” offered Daphne as Bliss seated himself at the head of the table. “This is rather a splendid Puligny Montrachet — I’m assuming you like a red with a bit of heart.”

“Oh, yes. Very much. But can you afford …”

“Don’t worry, Chief Inspector. Like I said, I haven’t always been a cleaning lady; I’m not short of a few bob … Bon appetit .”

“You were going to tell me about the Major,” he said, digging in.

“Was I? Oh yes, well I’m not sure if I have anything terribly useful to offer.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Difficult to say,” she started vaguely. “Time distorts time.” She looked at him across the table, “Is everything alright?”

“Absolutely delicious — this stuffing … mmm.” He let a rapturous mask slide over his face then picked up where she’d left off. “Time — the Major — When?”

She gave it some thought but seemed at a loss, shaking her head. “In thirty years time you’ll probably be wondering who died first, Kennedy or Diana. I won’t be around then, so that’s something I won’t have to worry about.”

“But Major Dauntsey. Can you narrow it down? Was it this year or last?”

“Good God, Chief Inspector, my memory’s not that bad. No, I’m trying to remember whether it was before the Suez Crisis or after.”

“But that was in the 1950s — before I was born … I think.”

“Oh — so it would have been. Yes, I suppose that does seem a long time to you.”

Bliss had frozen, a piece of pork chop hung expectantly in the air in front of his face. “Are you saying you haven’t seen him for forty-odd years?”

Daphne, failing to register the note of astonishment in Bliss’s question answered nonchalantly. “The Major sort of kept out of the way after the war. Not that we saw much of him before the war to be honest. He wasn’t usually allowed to play with us riff-raff. I sometimes caught a glimpse of him peering out at life through the hedge up at the big house, and he’d be at church on Sunday mornings during the school holidays but otherwise …” Her words faded as she failed to come up with any other memories. “We always thought he was a bit of a nancy-boy if you know what I mean — just rumours really — probably because he had a sort of upper crust nasal whine and a silly hairstyle.”

“Nancy-boy?” questioned Bliss, “Do you mean …?”

Daphne was nodding. “Just rumours. He was at Oxford, or Cambridge, and got sent down for it we heard, not that it meant much to us, not that we cared. Although Rupert was about my age, he lived on a different planet. Anyway, he scotched the rumours a few years later when he walked into the lounge at the Mitre Hotel in full uniform, puffed out his chest and announced he was about to marry Doreen Mason, as she was then, and we were all invited.”

“You were there?”

“Oh yes.”

“When was this?”

“A few weeks before D-Day. Everyone scheduled to go was given twenty-four leave, and it just so happened that my twenty-four hours coincided with Rupert’s.”

“Do you mean you were going on D-Day as well?”

“It hardly seems possible now, does it?”

His voice rose with incredulity. “But that was more than fifty years ago.”

“Was it really?” her face blanked as she looked into the past. “Yes, I suppose it was … You can see what I mean about time distorting time. Anyway, a group of my friends were giving me a send off in the Mitre when Rupert marches in with his invite. We all thought, ‘Why not?’ We all knew Doreen anyway — everyone knew Doreen.”

Something in the way she spoke of Doreen suggested an element of unseemliness and he quietly tucked the thought away as the basis for a supplementary question.

“They had the reception at the big house,” continued Daphne, the memories flooding back. “I’d never been in there before, I don’t think any of us had. I’d never seen furnishings like it — the sort of things you’d find in a stately home or a museum. Massive ancestral portraits; fig-leaved statues; settees you could hide under; and the carpets — we had linoleum and a lot of people thought we were posh, but the big house had carpets everywhere, even on the walls. Persians and Afghans, although I didn’t know it at the time. Back then I wouldn’t have known a Wilton from a Woolworth’s Boxing Day special. Doreen was flitting around in her new home with the excitement of a bluebottle who’s landed in a dung heap. ‘Look at this!’ she’d scream, or ‘Look at this!’ jumping from one enormous painting to the next, or from one statue to another …” Daphne paused as a smile spread over her face. “I recall one statue, probably a copy of Michelangelo’s David — Oh, there’s another noble David for you — anyway, it didn’t have a fig leaf, and we all giggled and dared each other to touch its thingy …”