James Hawkins - Missing - Presumed Dead

“D.I. Bliss,” he shouted, hoping the other man wouldn’t ask for his warrant card. “I thought it was the Mitre,” he added, struggling to be heard above the cacophony of sirens.

“So did half the people in the Mitre,” replied the chief, cupping his hand to Bliss’s ear. “The blast shook the shit out of the place.”

“So what happened?”

“Classic gas explosion I would say. I bet someone left the gas stove on and forgot to light it.”

“Where?”

“Tea shop — three doors down from the hotel.”

“Anyone hurt?”

The loudest of the sirens stopped abruptly, leaving the fireman shouting unnecessarily. “Yeah — one of your people, walking past at the time — caught a packet.”

The flush of exhilaration drained from Bliss’s face as the silent radio was explained. No wonder Alpha five-niner hadn’t responded. No wonder the control room staff had been so concerned. Five-niner was already at the scene — lying under the debris. “Is he alright?”

“It’s a she,” replied the officer, having to shout again as the alarm burst back to life. “Yeah … she’s just shook up. A couple of your lads have taken her to emerg.”

Thank Christ, he thought, asking, “What sparked it off?”

“Time switch possibly,” he shrugged. “Won’t know ’til we’ve made the place safe and had a good look. It was probably carelessness, either that or a phoney insurance claim.”

“I’ll get a detective working on it straight away,” Bliss said moving off for a closer inspection of the wrecked building.

The siren paused again, and he stopped cold as the fire chief shouted after him. “Of course, it could have been a bomb.”

He needed coffee, high roasted Arabica preferably — hot and very strong, but the only cafe open had Cash amp; Carry instant — take it or leave it. He took it, but it didn’t stop his hands shaking and it didn’t offer comfort and warmth. Sitting on a ripped vinyl stool in a corner, he listened to the excited babble of early morning workers, each having their own take on the explosion.

Bliss shut out the voices and gripped the counter tightly to stop the shaking. It wasn’t fear, he tried telling himself, not fear for his own safety anyway. It was fear for others, like the policewoman, who might get caught in the shrapnel. I wonder, was she young or old, he started thinking, then stopped himself. Does it matter? She could have been killed.

But it was fear for his family, especially his daughter Samantha, that hurt most, turning him, in his own mind, into a social leper. “Keep away,” he wanted to warn. “Don’t come to my house; don’t stand close to me; don’t talk to me in public; don’t phone me; don’t even admit to knowing me.” And it wasn’t only his family and friends: Every unexpected visitor turning up on his doorstep had been given a verbal rub down by one or other of the protective team cruising the neighbourhood. Complete strangers, innocent people going about their daily lives, had become tainted. People like the sorters at the post office, using plastic tongs at arms length to pick up every item addressed to him like pieces of shitty toilet paper, then dropping them into a blast proof container for x-ray examination. Even electricity, gas and phone bills got the “contaminated” treatment.

“We can’t be too careful when it comes to the safety of our staff,” the postal inspector had said, making him feel even dirtier.

It was the elaborate routine with the garbage that had exasperated him more than anything — three evenings a week segregating paper, metal, glass and food; labelling each bag with as much detail as a laboratory specimen; smuggling it out of the house at night to be shredded or incinerated away from prying eyes. Initially, he had complained to the commander that it seemed unnecessarily circumspect but, inwardly, he knew very well it was not — recognising that a single bag snatched from the kerb under the nose of the refuse collector could yield a Pandorian assemblage of personal information.

Shaking with frustration and anger — wanting to scream, “Come on out you coward — fight me like a man,” he left the cafe, and the coffee, and walked back to the High Street. The sirens had stopped, firemen with hoses and brushes were sweeping the debris to one side and washing the glass into the gutters. Blue uniforms patrolled the tape barriers, keeping back a curious mob, allowing only shopkeepers and their staff through, to reset alarms, turn off the gas and assess the damage.

Bliss slipped under the tape and stepped gingerly through the debris toward the tea shop. The fire chief spotted him. “It was the gas,” he called.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah — the owner’s over there if you want to talk to her,” he pointed. “The woman in the blue pinny who looks as though she’s had an accident in her drawers. She says she put some meringues in a slow oven overnight — then forgot to light it. She even worried about it when she got home but her husband said she was worrying for nothing — little did he know.”

One look at the mortified woman’s ashen face was enough to confirm the truth in the story and Bliss wanted to relax, saying to himself, “This wasn’t the work of the killer — this was just an accident.” But, he was so wound up it wasn’t that simple. Since the threatening calls and letters, and especially since the bomb, he had become paranoiacally self-centred, finding it difficult to imagine that, in some way, this wasn’t directed at him.

He tried stepping away from himself. “Just look at yourself. Look what he’s done to you,” he said. “The moment they mentioned an explosion you assumed yourself to be the target. Every time a phone rings you think it’s for you, or about you. Every knock on the door and every beep of a horn or shout is to get your attention.”

“Good morning, Inspector.”

Bliss jumped and his head whipped around so fast his neck “cracked” audibly.

“You were miles away,” continued Superintendent Donaldson chattily. “I wasn’t sure you’d be back from London. How did it go — everything alright?”

“Tell him about the Volvo,” whispered the voice in his mind but he brushed it aside. “Fine,” he said, and immediately changed the subject. “The fire chief tells me this was gas … owner left the stove unlit overnight apparently.”

Donaldson looked around as if he’d just arrived. “It’s a bloody shame. That tea shop used to do a really good cream tea … I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to try their scones yet, and the strawberry … ”

“The re-enactment fizzled out, I understand,” cut in Bliss impatiently.

“Patterson called me at home,” Donaldson grumbled. “Interrupted my backgammon night … just a few of us, once a week — you wouldn’t be interested by any chance would you? My wife always leaves us a nice tray of sandwiches, smoked salmon …”

“No thanks, Guv … How come Dauntsey got bail?”

“Don’t ask me. He gave the silly old bitch on the bench his ‘little boy lost’ act; played up to her with that poofy accent of his; she got a damp patch in her knickers and let him out.”

“Stupid cow. Now he’s got plenty of opportunity to cover his tracks.”

“That’s what I thought at first, then it occurred to me that it might be a good thing. Think about it, Dave … We couldn’t find the body when he was inside, now he’s out he might lead us to it.”

Bliss considered strategy for a moment. “You might be right, Sir. Twenty-four hour surveillance?”

Donaldson nodded. “Already in place — though I’ve had to pull men off the search details.”

“No problem. I was going to do that anyway. All I’d planned for today was a thorough search of his house.”