No Cherubs for Melanie. James Hawkins
other hand grappling to loosen the clothing around his neck like a struggling lynch-mob victim. A burble of voices began to penetrate the silence, but the owner exclaimed, “Chef!” in surprisingly clear tones and cut the babble as cleanly as if someone had pulled a plug. Then he slumped to the floor with a soft thud.
Less favoured guests — those seated at tables closest to the kitchen — sat mesmerized, their eyes riveted to the creature on the floor. And the expressions on their faces were mirrored in the wide eyes of the kitchen staff who stared, jaws dropped, like toilet sitters when the stall door unexpectedly flies open.
A doctor, attending his daughter’s engagement party at a nearby table, braced himself to rise. His wife’s hand and steely glare dissuaded him.
“He’s drunk again,” he mouthed, his conscience easily assuaged.
The chef de cuisine, ex-army by the trim of his moustache, took control. “Quick, get him in,” he commanded, his voice sharp with annoyance. Three sous chefs grabbed at the owner while the chef turned his attention back to the kitchen and donned his sergeant major’s persona. “Mis en place,” he bellowed, emphasizing the order by slamming a silver serving platter onto a metal table with enough force to buckle the oval dish beyond repair.
The pensive lone diner watched in silent consternation as the macabre tableau unfolded before him, then slid on his jacket, dropped enough cash on the table to cover the bill, and slipped from the room unnoticed.
“Crap!”
The shout pricked the ears of the old ginger cat. He tensed, sank deeply into the knotted shag-pile, and readied himself to pounce. The flying paperback missed by more than a chair’s width and landed with the sound of ripping paper.
“Sorry Balderdash,” his owner called. “I wasn’t aiming at you, old mate. It’s that damn book. Load of bloody —” The doorbell interrupted his apology and, rising slowly from the comfortably decrepit armchair, Detective Inspector David Bliss muttered disgruntledly. “It’s bloody Sunday afternoon.” Then he stumbled as his unbuckled trousers slipped halfway down his thighs. “Who is it?”
The only answer was a second peal of chimes; same chimes, different silly tune. God, how he hated those chimes; his ex-wife’s final kick in the teeth. “You keep the door chimes, Dave,” she had said with a leer, “I know how much they mean to you.”
Still struggling with his zipper, Bliss shuffled to the door, flicked the catch, and was flung backwards by the force of his commanding officer marching into the room.
“Bliss old chap. Hoped I’d catch you. Been phoning for days.” Detective Chief Inspector Peter Bryan kept walking, on a mission, making the old cat leap out of the way as he headed for the far side of the sparsely furnished room. “Your phone’s not working,” he continued, and swept the phone off the glass-topped side table, holding it aloft — a trophy, as the unconnected cord dangled accusingly in mid-air. “Do you want to talk about it Dave?” he asked, eyebrows raised — a priest visiting to enquire why a parishioner has converted to the other side.
“Not particularly, Guv,” replied Bliss, slumping into a chair that could have been chucked out by Oxfam; hiding an obvious rip with his left elbow; missing a couple of nasty cigarette burns. “What do you want?”
DCI Bryan, looking decidedly unpolicemanlike in Sunday jeans and golfing shirt, scanned the room with a scrap merchant’s eye: one dilapidated leatherette armchair, a small dining table that the previous occupiers hadn’t considered worth a struggle down the stairs, a television set that looked as though it may have been installed for the Queen’s Coronation, a couple of other bits, and a pile of tired cardboard boxes. Five quid for the lot.
Bliss saw the look. “The wife cleaned me out,” he protested, making no attempt to clear a space for his senior officer to sit.
“Thank God for that. I thought you’d had burglars,” said DCI Bryan, dropping the telephone onto the table. He checked his fingernails for dirt and selected his most serious expression. “Murder, Dave. It’s murder.”
Bliss relaxed into the enveloping security of the well-worn padded chair and felt the tension drain from him. This was not exactly what he’d been expecting and he joked in relief, “That’s the trouble with Sundays, Guv. Wife, kids, gardening, traffic, being polite to the neighbours. It’s murder. Bloody murder.”
Bryan let him finish. “Very funny Dave. But this is a real murder and I think you’ll be interested.”
Randomly selecting a glass from several on the floor by the side of his chair, Bliss drained the syrupy dregs then stared into the empty vessel, puzzling. Where did that go?
“I’ve decided to quit,” he said finally, as if the DCI had not spoken — as if murder no longer intrigued him.
Peter Bryan studied Bliss’s face for the first time since entering the apartment and shuddered at the realization that only six years separated them. You can count me out if this is what marriage and divorce does to you, he thought, seeing the chaos of the unkempt room mirrored in the older man’s face — unshaven, unwashed probably, and sagged under the twin weights of middle age and carelessness. The sad glaze of hopelessness in Bliss’s eyes startled Bryan. He’d seen the look before: prisoners, lifers usually, resigned to their fate, with nothing worth anticipating beyond the possible introduction of in-cell flush toilets and the certain visit of the HIV nurse.
“Why quit?” Bryan ventured with an upbeat lilt. “You’ve got at least ten good years in you for a full pension, and you are — well, you were — a damn good detective.” Bliss gave a ‘couldn’t-give-a-shit’ shrug, and slumped fully into the chair. “I wanna get on with my life.”
“I didn’t know you had a life to get on with,” Bryan retorted, immediately trying to bite back his words.
But Bliss took little notice. “You said I’d be interested in this case. Why?”
Did Bryan detect a glimmer of curiosity in the other man’s dark brown eyes? “Have you seen the papers?” he asked, but one glance round the room told him, Not.
“Guv, is this some sort of party game or did you bugger up my Sunday afternoon for a reason?”
“Inspector!” the DCI began, then checked himself. What is there to bugger up, he wondered. If this is life, it can only improve. But, Bliss was off duty after all. “OK, Dave. I’ll be straight with you.” He stabbed a finger at the whisky glass. “Word has come from above that unless you stop pissing away your life on gut-rot and get back to work, you’re finished.”
Bliss sneered, “I was right. That’s what I thought you came to tell me. So why give me the whole spiel about a murder?”
“Huh! Well, you were wrong. I was only supposed to tell you about the murder, to see if you had enough bottle to pull yourself together long enough to take the case.”
He’s lying, thought Bliss, but couldn’t avoid looking sheepish. “Try me then — let’s see if I’ve got any bottle left.”
“Does the name Martin Gordonstone mean anything to you?”
“Yeah. He’s that posh geezer who owns a fancy restaurant. Usually pissed as a rat, swearing at customers, chucking them out if he doesn’t like ’em, that sort of thing.”
“Was that posh geezer,” corrected Bryan. “Anything else?”
Bliss missed the innuendo. “Are we back to twenty questions?”
“Sorry Dave. I was hoping you’d remember.”
“Remember what for Chrissake?”
“Nineteen seventy-seven. You dealt with the death of his daughter.”
Bliss’s face went through a contortion that could have been mistaken for heartburn as his mind exploded with memory. “Melanie Gordonstone?” he queried in a disbelieving whisper, “You mean…”
The