Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7)

by Tony J. Forder

  Molly dipped her head. Bliss suspected she was finding it difficult to imagine all of the many possibilities and consequences. The girl’s hard life was behind her now, but its painful legacy could be summoned up in an instant. He gave her the time and space she needed to work through it. When she regarded him once more, Molly was smiling. ‘Is it all right by you if I say yes to them?’ Her voice quivered.

  ‘By me? Of course it is. Why on earth wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Because back in Peterborough when you saved me, I made such a big deal about coming to live with you. I thought you might think badly of me if I agreed to stay with them, to be adopted by them.’

  Bliss shook his head. ‘Not at all. I couldn’t be happier for you, Molly.’

  Through the tears spilling onto her cheeks, she laughed and said, ‘So is it all right by you if I still have a bit of a crush on you instead?’

  ‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.’

  Bliss was thrilled. When he first met her, Molly had been used and abused by suppliers, dealers, and their friends since she was barely into her teens. Nobody would have blamed her if she had been mentally destroyed by everything life had thrown at her. Yet he had taken to her immediately, such was the spirit and wit and temperament she had displayed when confronting such adversity. He believed she would have stopped herself from jumping off the hotel roof at the last second, but was nevertheless so glad he hadn’t allowed her to put his theory to the test.

  The first time she thanked him for saving her life, Bliss had pointed out that for him to have succeeded, she would have to go on and live her life to its utmost, to become the best version of herself she could possibly be. He had given her a second chance, no more. What followed was all down to her. Molly had grasped the opportunity with both hands.

  ‘You’ll have a great life,’ he said. ‘And you deserve to. Don’t ever think otherwise. New parents, new little sister, new home. I hear you’re doing well in school, so you have everything going for you now.’

  Molly’s smile faltered. ‘Does this all mean we won’t see each other again?’

  Bliss narrowed his gaze, reprimanding her with a fierce look. ‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous. Your new mum and dad are terrific people, and they are perfectly happy for us to spend time together as and when we can. And, in case I have to add this for your benefit, so am I.’

  He was touched by the way her smile broadened and weight appeared to lift from her shoulders. Two vertical indents between her eyes also looked to have filled out. The conversation had gone remarkably well, and Molly seemed delighted by the thought of being adopted into the Berry family. He felt happiness radiate off her, and he warmed himself in its fierce glow.

  When his phone rang, Bliss groaned, thinking it would be HQ back in Peterborough; a job for him to pick up and run with, no doubt, despite being off duty. The number he read on the screen of his work mobile was not one he recognised, however. For a second he debated whether to answer it, but then he asked Molly if it was okay. She shrugged as if questioning why he would bother asking. In her previous life, a phone could never remain unanswered.

  ‘DI Bliss,’ he said as he hit the green accept button.

  ‘Jimmy Bliss. I’m glad I managed to get hold of you. I don’t know if you remember me, but this is Pete Conway. DI Conway as was, back in the day.’

  Bliss recognised the name. Conway had joined the Serious and Organised Crime Agency the year after Bliss had taken up a post at the new unit. A couple of years later he’d transferred out again, and Bliss hadn’t thought about the man since. The call intrigued him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Of course. How’s it going, Pete?’

  ‘Not so bad, Jimmy. I’m a Superintendent these days, down in Wiltshire. I contacted Thorpe Wood a few minutes ago, and they gave me your number.’

  ‘Should I be concerned?’ Bliss could not imagine why Conway would be calling him all these years on, and he had no cases running with any connection to the Wiltshire constabulary.

  ‘To be honest with you, Jimmy, I’m not sure. It’s just – we’ve got a peculiar one on the boil, and when we ran the details through HOLMES, your name popped up.’

  Swallowing thickly, Bliss said, ‘Okay. What are the circumstances, Pe… Superintendent Conway?’

  ‘Pete is fine. Anyhow, we can’t make much sense of it right now. But the gist is, a bunch of tourists came across a discarded carrier bag at one of our tourist spots. Inside it they found a reasonably large slice of human flesh. About the size and heft of a chicken breast fillet.’

  Bliss closed his eyes for a moment. Nine days ago, a significant chunk of meat later identified as human was discovered inside a white plastic bag placed in the stone fireplace of the Knights’ Chamber, above the gateway to the Bishop’s Palace at Peterborough Cathedral. So far no identification had proven possible, and no accompanying body had been found; neither had the hospital or walk-in clinic reported any relevant injuries. Despite the two incidents being over a hundred miles apart, he wondered if this was the break his team had been looking for.

  ‘Was there anything carved into your find?’ Bliss asked. With Molly sitting across the table, he deliberately avoided using the words ‘piece of flesh’.

  ‘Regrettably, there was. That’s one of the reasons why HOLMES made the connection between the two cases.’

  The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System was into its second version, which was proving far superior to its predecessor. Bliss thought this kind of specific detail would have been a cinch for the data system to have spat out within seconds.

  ‘Does the detail of the carving mean anything to you?’ he asked.

  ‘No. It’s a series of letters and numbers, none of which suggest a thing to us. And before you ask, no, it’s not the same as in your own case.’

  Bliss cursed silently. ‘Have you had a chance to check blood type?’ he asked.

  ‘I know what you’re getting at, Jimmy. No, we haven’t yet processed blood type because we’ve had this case for just a few hours. But in response to your unasked question, this cut of flesh is not from the same person as the one you have up there.’

  ‘Shit!’ Bliss said. This drew a disapproving look from a couple two tables down, causing him to lower his voice. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because yours is listed as IC1. And I’m pretty sure we’ll be reporting ours as IC3.’

  Until formal identification was made, IC codes determined the perceived ethnicity of a person. Bliss assumed somebody was in the room with Conway, which explained why he had elected to use official terminology. The bloody chunk of flesh found in the bag at the Knights’ Chamber had white skin. Caucasian. Conway was telling him the flesh in their case was black. Afro-Caribbean.

  ‘Yeah, believe me, I realise how that sounds and what it means,’ Conway continued. ‘This whole bastard thing just took a turn for the worse.’

  Bliss was inclined to agree. This was more than he had initially imagined. ‘Are you in your office?’ he asked, checking his wristwatch.

  ‘That’s where I’m calling from.’

  Reluctant as he was to leave Molly earlier than intended, he’d said everything he’d needed to say. The girl was happy. They’d spent time together, and he’d be bailing out on no more than a couple of hours with her. His glance caught her own. She grinned and gave a shy nod, wiser than her years. Molly knew what he wanted from her, and she had willingly acquiesced.

  ‘Wait right there,’ Bliss told Conway. ‘I’m on my way.’

  As he pocketed his phone, Bliss looked across the table. He found it difficult to describe his relationship with Molly. Not father and daughter, nor brother and sister. Closer to uncle and niece, perhaps, or even friends. What he did know was that she was now an indelible part of not only his past and present, but also, he hoped, his future. Though he had only met with her on three occasions since she
left Peterborough on the outward journey to the rest of her life, a special bond and closeness had developed between them. It defied everything that had brought them together in the first place.

  ‘I’m sorry to put the kibosh on our day, but I have to go.’

  ‘I know. Duty calls, and all that heroic stuff.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m no hero, Molly. Believe me.’

  ‘You are to me, Jimbo.’ Molly shrugged. ‘But then, so was Spongebob.’

  Three

  Bliss arrived at the Swindon Gablecross headquarters thirty minutes later than he had intended, having got snarled up in roadworks on the way. What he saw as he pulled up was impressive. The exterior of the fifteen-year-old building was significantly more welcoming than the dour edifice of the Thorpe Wood police station back in Peterborough. It looked like a school or a hospital, its top-to-bottom glass central atrium and surrounding cream walls portraying a corporate facade. Bliss parked up and announced himself to the civilian receptionist, from whom he received a visitor card and lanyard. Shortly afterwards, he was escorted up a naturally lit flight of stairs and along a narrow corridor to the detective superintendent’s office.

  Peter Conway had gained pounds in addition to years, seemingly on a two-for-one basis. The crisp white shirt he wore stretched tight across his stomach, a tribute to the quality of the stitching holding the buttons in place as they strained to break free. His blotchy cheeks and jowls suggested a man out of condition and struggling to cope with the hot weather despite the air-conditioned room. The two shook hands and exchanged the usual pleasantries as Bliss took a seat.

  Conway had provided a few basic facts over the phone, but now announced that he was already late for an important meeting and had little time to elaborate. ‘You ever heard of West Kennet Long Barrow?’ he asked, mopping his forehead with a balled-up wad of tissue paper. ‘I’ve been living here for donkey’s years and I hadn’t. Evidently it’s a minor tourist attraction, especially for those into ancient landmarks.’

  Bliss was already nodding. ‘As it happens, I not only know the place, I’ve also visited it. My parents loved Wiltshire, and my mother was into mythology and the mysteries of the past. Probably her Celtic heritage breaking through. I got into the whole thing as well, though. We did the tour of those ancient sites several times when I was a nipper. Come to think of it, I may still have a cousin living in nearby Calne.’

  Conway rearranged himself in his chair, fingers interlaced across the bulge of his belly. ‘You have me at an advantage. I’ll be honest, when I visited the scene this morning, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. An ancient burial chamber marked by standing stones – as if this area doesn’t have enough of those. An odd place for somebody to dump an excised portion of human flesh, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I would. Only, I’m sure you realise it almost certainly wasn’t dumped.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Conway’s eyebrows angled down towards the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Leaving the carrier bag where it’s bound to be discovered, in an iconic spot… that smacks of deliberate placement to me.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Makes sense. More so since I became aware of the case you have running in Peterborough.’

  ‘Have you had any luck in identifying who…?’

  The superintendent shook his head. ‘Still too soon. Blood testing and DNA analysis will take time. And so far, nobody has strolled into A&E with a chunk of their body missing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath on the DNA if I were you,’ Bliss said. ‘There was no match in our own case.’

  ‘I noticed that on the report HOLMES spewed out. Our own forensic results won’t be available for a day or two. I doubt we’ve had time to gather the swabs and send them off to the lab as yet. We’ve only been on the case for a few hours, Jimmy. I was hoping you might be able to steer us in the right direction.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You’ve been living with this for over a week now. You have the advantage over us.’

  ‘Not necessarily. As of today we’re nowhere, it’s a stalled case, and it’s caused a lot of frustration among my happy campers. If anything, I’m hoping your find will restore some enthusiasm back home. Let’s hope whoever did this made a mistake this time.’

  ‘Interesting. Shame you don’t have more to go on.’ Conway nodded, pursing his lips and gazing upwards, as if digesting the information.

  Bliss smiled but shook his head. ‘No, it’s not. I can tell you already reached the same conclusion. Sir, forgive me, but why are you sitting there stroking my ego? You called me, you clearly wanted me to make myself available for a consultation. Only, you’re off to a meeting and I get the impression I’m being courted for something.’

  Conway chuckled. ‘You always did have a way with words, from what I remember. Blunt to the point of insubordination. Okay, it’s a fair cop. My feeble attempts at making you feel immediately useful have bitten me on the arse, and I apologise. The truth is, I’d like you to stick around. Visit the site and get a smell of it, draw it into your lungs. Check out the evidence exhibits, sit in on a briefing or two. That way we pool and double our knowledge.’

  Bliss ran a hand across his face. ‘To what end?’ he asked. ‘You want me involved because you think there’s more to it?’

  Conway blew out a puff of air. ‘I have questions, Jimmy. It’s early days, but my people are already scratching their heads. You’re heading up an identical case, so in effect we’re both hunting the same person. Rather than leave the fate of this op to my superiors, who’d probably fanny about in numerous meetings before taking the most politically prudent course of action, I’d like to hand operational leadership over to you.’

  ‘Why me, sir?’

  ‘Because despite what you say, you’re over a week further down the line on this. I also know you to be scrupulously fair, so you’ll make sure we get credit for whatever work we do to support you. Plus, you already have a major stake in whatever this turns out to be.’

  Bliss nodded. Now wasn’t the time for humility. ‘Running side-by-side operations with my unit taking the lead isn’t a bad idea. I had a similar role in a case with the Lincolnshire force a while back. We pulled that one off successfully, but it relied on a lot of goodwill. You think your bosses will go for it?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. It makes no sense trying to force it the other way round, and working two entirely separate cases isn’t in the best interests of solving the bloody thing.’

  ‘Then how about your team? How happy will they be playing second fiddle?’

  ‘They won’t be. As you would expect. But if I make it clear this is what’s best for our victim, they’ll have no choice but to get over it.’

  Bliss liked what he heard in the other man’s earnestness. Unmistakably, Conway’s main concern was for the investigation and not his personal glory. The stamp of a decent copper. About to reply, Bliss was struck by a moment of realisation, which prompted a question. ‘The excised flesh,’ he said. ‘Ours was removed from somebody who had a pulse at the time – not a corpse. How about yours?’

  Conway nodded. ‘Same. As far as I know.’

  ‘You working on the assumption they may still be alive?’

  ‘We are. The physical evidence is pretty much secondary, because we think there’s a victim out there somewhere bleeding to death. Pathology will need to confirm, but the crime scene manager was adamant: the flesh was removed from a living person. A man, in this case.’

  ‘Hence the urgency.’ Bliss did not have to deliberate. ‘Okay, I’m on board for the time being. Let’s skip back to the flesh engravings for a moment. Any clue as to their importance?’

  ‘None whatsoever. There’s something about them, though. I feel as if I should know what they mean, but I don’t. None of us do.’

  ‘So what does yours say? The carving?’

  ‘Two let
ters followed by two numbers. FE04.’

  Bliss thought about it for a few seconds. The inclusion of two numbers this time was different. The carvings his team had identified read either WSHO or OHSM, depending on which way around the section of flesh was read. The disparity gave him a queasy feeling; it suggested this case was going in the direction he feared most.

  He quickly switched his mind to other matters. ‘Does the geography concern you at all?’ he said. ‘If our victim in Peterborough was the first to have flesh sliced from his body, why not remove another piece and leave us that instead? Why move down here and risk going for a second victim when you already have one? In fact, why leave anything here at all?’

  ‘I had the same concern while you were driving over here. I did wonder if it was simply a question of logistics: your victim is somewhere in or around Peterborough, mine is in or around Swindon.’

  It made sense to Bliss. You wouldn’t want to drive far with chunks of human meat about your person. Unease bumped up against him once again, disparate thoughts jostling for attention. Two victims plus the engravings in their flesh suggested to him there was more to come. And a fresh victim indicated the first was already dead.

  Conway finished drumming fingers against his stomach and got to his feet with a less than subtle groan. ‘Anyhow, Jimmy, I genuinely have a meeting to attend. I thought you’d want to visit the location while there’s daylight left. I realise now you’re already familiar with the place, but given the head start from your own discovery, I thought maybe you’d spot something we’ve overlooked. Something you might recognise meaning in.’

  Bliss stood. He had fallen into line, but he wanted to make his feelings known. ‘You know I’m going to agree simply because there’s the possibility of the victim still being alive, but you have to know it’s a long shot. Your man may well have been living and breathing when a decent-sized section of his flesh was removed from his body, but the chances of him showing up now are remote.’