James Hawkins - Missing - Presumed Dead

Under the vicar’s direction, Bliss and Patterson tiptoed toward the freshly dug grave, examining the ground ahead, skirting every depression that bore the least resemblance to a footprint or tyre mark. Bliss took the lead, warning the other two of potential evidence with the dedication of a shit-spotter leading a party of ramblers across a cattle field.

“Watch out there … Mind that … And there …”

“I thought you said it had been filled in,” Bliss said with annoyance, reaching the grave, and sensing the presence of the vicar as he peered into the seemingly normal grave.

“It has,” he shot back belligerently. “It should be eight feet deep. It was yesterday. I checked it myself after communion. Mrs. Landrake, the widow, came with me. ‘Want everything to be just right for my Arthur,’ she said. Anyway, it had to be eight feet to give enough depth for her to go on top of him when her turn comes.”

Bliss wasn’t listening, his mind had wandered into the past, into another churchyard, standing by another grave, thinking of another body, but the vicar was unaware and prattled on. “I even fetched my measuring pole to be sure. Old Bert, the gravedigger, can be a bit spare with his measurements at times — tries to get away with the odd six inches if he thinks he can. Anyway, look at it now, it’s barely six feet, and the bottom looks like a ploughed field. I want my internees to rest easy … well, as easy as they deserve, but look at that. Like a ploughed field,” he repeated. “That’d be like sleeping on a crumpled sheet …”

With his mind miles away, an eighteen-year-old memory was consuming Bliss, edging him toward the grave, threatening to topple him into the pit. Patterson grabbed his arm. “Look out, Guv!” he called, pulling him from the brink.

Persuaded by the iron grip, he stepped back onto the duckboard, but his thoughts were still in the past, in a grave with a young woman’s coffin.

“I thought you was gonna faint, Guv,” said Patterson with a note of apology.

“No — No. I, I’m alright,” he stuttered. But Patterson was too pre-occupied with the arrival of the search team’s mini-bus to notice the shaking hands and perspiration-soaked forehead.

“We’re gonna need a ladder, Vicar,” said Patterson, heading off toward the mini-bus, leaving Bliss alone with the grave and his eighteen-year-old memories. He tried to break away, to take off after Patterson but the images in his mind were too strong and kept him glued to the grave. He peered in, almost expecting to see a coffin. He knew which coffin: not a flashy one, little more than a plywood box with brassy handles.

“We bought it with the honeymoon money,” the occupant’s husband-to-be explained at the little gathering in the local pub afterwards — sausage rolls, pickled onions and pints of best bitter ale around a pool table shrouded in a white bed-sheet.

“I would willingly have paid …” started Bliss but the young victim’s grieving mother had cut him off.

“It’s alright, Constable. Very thoughtful of you, but there was no need.”

Why was she so damn nice? he wondered. He’d killed her daughter, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he? But they didn’t see it that way. They never had.

“It wasn’t your fault, Mr. Bliss … Dave, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Richards, putting a chubby hand consolingly on his arm while dabbing her puffy red eyes with a Kleenex.

“Yes. It’s Dave.”

“Thought so,” she continued, still dabbing. “Anyway, Dave, the family don’t blame you. You wuz only doin’ yer job. There wuz nuvving else you could’ve done.”

I could have kept my bloody mouth shut, he thought, but found it more consoling to agree. “You’re right, Mrs. Richards, but I still feel responsible for Mandy’s …”

Mrs. Richards crumpled in a gush of weeping, and the family led her to a corner couch and poured more gin into her.

“At least it was quick,” said Mandy’s serious-faced intended, still not fully grasping the fact that he was attending his fiancee’s funeral on the same day he’d planned to marry her.

“Yes. It was quick,” agreed young Constable Bliss, and he found himself repeating the old joke about a Scotsman who’d drowned in a whisky vat. “Was it quick?” the mythical coroner asked the investigating officer hoping to allay the relatives fears that their loved one lingered in agony. “Och no,” replied the policeman. “He got out twice for a pee.”

“I don’t get it.” Mandy’s ex-fiance had said, leaving Bliss praying for an earthquake or other calamitous event to cover his embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he said when it became obvious that God was not on his side. “Bad joke — tasteless … I need another drink.”

Sergeant Patterson was back, a straggly line of uniform and civvy raincoats snaking along behind him. “Better rope off that area with the footprints and tyre tracks first,” he called.

The line stopped, and Bliss felt the piercing stares as the men checked him out. Patterson’s told them who I am, he realised, and quickly pulled himself upright and straightened his thoughts.

The first of the men dropped, uninvited into the pit as soon as the ladder was lowered. “Throw me a shovel,” he shouted, with the enthusiasm of a treasure seeker — but wasn’t that what it was, thought Bliss, treasure — to a policeman. He won’t be so bloody keen when he’s seen as many mutilated bodies as me.

“Somebody give me hand,” called the man in the grave.

One look down into the slab-sided pit was enough for most of the men, and a dissenting jeer spread through the crush as some inched away. Sergeant Patterson volunteered a six-foot two-inch hulk who unwittingly drew his attention by attempting to disappear inside a five-foot ten-inch overcoat. Murmurs of derision, coupled with relief, rippled back through the crush.

“Good ol’ Jacko … Shall I ’old yer coat?”

“Get stuffed.”

“At least Dauntsey gave his old man a decent funeral — more than most murderers do,” said Patterson as soggy clods of earth started to land with wet thuds at their feet. “Almost seems a shame to dig him up; we could just leave the poor old beggar in peace.”

Bliss stepped back, pretending to avoid the flying dirt while trying to get the memory of Mandy Richards out of his mind. You’ve hardly thought of her for years, he remonstrated with himself, forget it. “Messy business … murder,” he mumbled, attempting to keep the conversation alive. “Thought I’d be getting away from all this down here.”

“Tell me to mind me own business if you like, Guv, but is that why you’re here — to get away from summat?”

Bliss stared back into the grave looking as if he might divulge his reasons, but a shout from the grave saved Bliss from answering, not that he had an answer — not a particularly plausible one anyway.

“I think there’s something down here,” called one of the men in the pit, and D.C. Jackson took it as a sign to quit.

“Keep diggin’, Jackson; what’s up wiv ya?” shouted the sergeant.

“It’s me back, Serg. You remember,” he said, with a poorly executed expression of pain.

Sergeant Patterson chuckled. “Yeah, I remember Jacko, but I heard it got better after the Chief Super’s visit last week.”

Poorly stifled laughter animated the bystanders. Jackson turned pink and bent to his shovel.

“What’s that about?” Bliss whispered to the sergeant.

“I’ll tell you later, Guv,” said Patterson, hearing the approaching vicar.

“Those men shouldn’t be trampling over …” the vicar was whining, but was cut off by an excited voice from the grave.

“Got it!” shouted one of the diggers.

“Got what?” asked the vicar, his voice lost in the press of men straining to peer into the pit.