On the screen, DSI Conway was nodding emphatically. ‘That’s not a bad idea, Max. I can push back anything I have arranged for tomorrow.’
‘Are you looking to delay until the morning?’ Bliss asked. He was concerned about the men whose body parts were now in evidence stores. He couldn’t be certain if any of the three were still alive but, unlikely as it seemed, it remained a genuine possibility.
‘You worried about our victims, Inspector?’
‘Of course. If any of them are still with us, we can be sure they’re not in great condition. Without wishing to state the obvious – the sooner we find them, the better chance they have of survival.’
‘For what it’s worth, I agree with DI Bliss,’ Riseborough piped up. ‘Locating these men must be our priority. That’s been my position all along.’
‘And I don’t disagree,’ Conway said. ‘But if either Carlisle or Swift are involved somehow, the more we know about them before we go in, the better. Our questioning is likely to be different, plus deep background checks should help us identify those locations even sooner.’
‘Which all takes time to gather,’ Chandler said – grudgingly, Bliss thought. He spun the wheels. He was a fan of the phrase ‘More haste, less speed’, and he saw the merit in Conway’s tactic. Going in blindly now was unlikely to provoke the kind of reaction they sought from either Mrs Carlisle or Freddy Swift, whereas a knowledgeable approach would likely garner insight as well as answers.
‘All right, let’s leave it until tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘I want contact details and a summary on both men sent to all JTFO members overnight. I’ll obtain addresses from Sandra Bannister. We’ll start with Swift, and later move on to the wife of our missing gangster – she lives not far from our HQ.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ Conway said. ‘I’ll bring DS Baker with me.’ Baker was the female detective with whom Bliss had spent his Saturday evening in Swindon.
Bliss drew in a deep breath. ‘Ah, in retrospect, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘Sir, we have things covered at this end. With respect, you have your own case running down there, and I think it’d be better for you to concentrate on the finer details of the Price case. It’d be terrific if you could get the info I need relating to Swift and Carlisle over to me tonight or first thing in the morning. Whatever you can tell us about the case may help us establish current connections. Attending to these matters rather than taking time out to drive up here and shadow us would be the better option.’
Bliss knew Conway would be disappointed, but he couldn’t let it sway him from doing the right thing for the investigation. After a slight pause, the Superintendent agreed to his suggestion, his reluctance obvious.
‘I take it the same goes for me – in which case, what would you prefer we do?’ Riseborough asked. He sounded glum, like a man shoved to the sidelines.
‘Continue with the CCTV and see if you can follow our man any further,’ Bliss said. ‘It’s an important lead, Max, and one we need running down as far as it will take us. Also, although we spoke with Vicki Harrison this morning, it’d be better if your focus remained on Tommy and his background. I’m sure the list of his associates is deeper than the one we currently have, especially in respect of his past. I’d be particularly interested in any possible connection with either Ben Carlisle or Freddy Swift.’
‘Your wish is my command, Inspector.’
Bliss caught the sarcastic edge. ‘I’m not trying to throw my weight around, Max. I just think it’s a bit too early for us all to meet under the same roof again. We’ve yet to fully explore our own cases, which means there’s further intelligence to gather. Another day could make all the difference. Please feel free to disagree with my judgement.’
Riseborough said nothing, seemingly pacified. Bliss moved on, reminding everybody of the media blackout regarding the names of their victims, in addition to the details that were deliberately being withheld. All statements were also to be vetted prior to release. He wanted press briefings to be short and on point, offering further details as soon as circumstances made them available.
Afterwards, Bliss spent time asking himself if there was anything he had missed. The thought of three men possibly clinging to life by a thread while he, his team, and members of the JTFO went home, had dinner, enjoyed a night in front of the box, and got a good eight hours of sleep, squirted something hot and irritating into his gut. The benefits of down time were obvious, but he seldom indulged himself. For him, there would be no relaxing overnight, yet no matter how stressful it became, it was nothing compared with the suffering of those men.
Assuming they were still alive.
Twenty
Bliss brought home a bag of takeaway and went back over the case files while he scooped mouthfuls of lemon chicken and egg fried rice into his mouth with a spoon. He found it difficult to switch off at the best of times, but while three terribly wounded men were potentially struggling to stay alive, the op felt like a worm eating its way through his brain.
If he was wrong, and this investigation had nothing to do with torture, the men were assuredly already dead. But the hand removal convinced him he was right, because it had been severed from a living person. This made him suspect that Harrison, at least, was being kept alive. If the victims had only hours left, Bliss didn’t want to waste them by watching TV or listening to music. He couldn’t believe his search of the files would uncover anything he and his team didn’t already know, but every so often the same information revealed itself differently; every so often, it was enough to see the slightest little detail out of context.
He barely tasted the food. It was fuel at best, not a meal to be enjoyed. He read the summary reports twice. The first time, he assumed the three men were the victims of revenge. On the second run, his mind came at it from the point of view of one of the original attackers going after everyone else who was either involved or knew who was. Bliss grew more frustrated the longer he thought about it; neither approach sparked fresh ideas. It was what he’d expected. None of the information or evidence they had gathered so far pointed to where these men were, or who their attacker was.
Bliss briefly contemplated calling in his team and ordering a late-night unannounced run at Geraldine Price’s family. The list of possible suspects in her torture and murder was extensive, and almost certainly not yet fully known. But if revenge was the motive for this current spate of criminal activity, the number of possibilities reduced to the obvious four men: the woman’s husband, son, father and brother. At a push, they might include Price’s daughter as well, but these felt like crimes committed by a dominant male.
Time was when he would have gone ahead without further thought, but experience forced him to hit the pause button this time. If any of the men were involved, they were patient and they were clever, and unlikely to fold at the first hint of pressure. The task force would need solid evidence before going in hard. It was always better to already know the answers to the questions you asked. The urge to act was compelling, but Bliss saw sense in tapping the brake and taking the investigation where it led them rather than attempting to force it in a specific direction. Impatience was one of his faults, but it was a work in progress.
There was another solid reason to hold back, too: the Price family were, first and foremost, victims of a despicable crime back in 1994, and without demonstrable evidence implicating them in the current crimes, they deserved the benefit of the doubt.
As Bliss washed his dinner down with a bottle of Old Peculier, his thoughts turned to the signature aspect of the JTFO operation. Geraldine Price’s abduction, in addition to the grotesque flesh-slicing prior to her death, steered the investigation towards her horrific ordeal being the original trigger. Looking back at that period, Bliss realised how much ground he had covered over the decades. He had been a detective for just shy of three years when Price was murdered. Tiny nuggets of memory rolled around inside his h
ead, bumping up against his consciousness. Vague, fleeting glimpses into the past; he had been aware of the case, but working hard on his own.
It wasn’t only his career he was focussing on at the time, either. Two months after the Price murder, he and Hazel married, following a four-year courtship. Although she, with her mother and his, had taken on most of the planning and arrangements, the prospect of becoming a husband and potentially going on to have his own family had occupied Bliss’s thoughts to a significant degree. Life took over, and somehow the tragedy in Hoxton that February largely passed him by.
Stirring himself from his musing, Bliss found himself turning to look down the hallway and wondering about the stray lab. While his takeaway was being prepared, he’d popped into a local grocery shop, emerging with a tin of moist dog food and a pack of the dry stuff. He didn’t know the animal’s preference, but he wanted it to eat again if it was waiting for him. When he pulled up on his driveway, he wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed not to find the dog there, but he hoped its absence had a positive explanation rather than the one he feared. Before dishing up his own dinner, he’d taken a quick walk around the neighbourhood, checking out alleyways and passages, but he caught no sign of the animal. By the time he returned home, Bliss was asking himself why the lab had found its way under his skin. A question for which he had no answer.
Switching back to the job at hand, he noticed a mail from Conway waiting in his inbox. Its attachment contained the details he had requested, including Freddy Swift’s statement from his questioning about Geraldine Price’s murder. It took Bliss twenty minutes to go through it all, but although he made a few notes, he found nothing significant. By this time, Sandra Bannister had sent out the information she had promised him, and the list of actions was also available online. There was nothing else for Bliss to do.
He closed down his laptop, still dissatisfied. Forward momentum from a fresh lead was all very well, but it got them no further in identifying where these three men were or had been held. Bliss’s thoughts strayed to the victims once again, and his chest tightened. He felt helpless, but he knew that if any of them were still alive, his feelings paled into insignificance by comparison.
One glance at his wristwatch told Bliss it was now gone 9.00pm. He’d intended to phone his friend, Lennie Kaplan, looking to arrange a curry night, but the uniformed Inspector had a family and it was past the cutoff point for calls. Instead he sent a text, realising he had finally given in to the demands of the modern world in which communication never ceased. Rather than expose himself to the chilly attitude of Sandra Bannister, he sent her a text as well, thanking her for sending him the addresses for Carlisle and Swift. He was considering what to do with the rest of his night when his phone rang. It was Bannister, getting back to him in person.
‘Thanks for calling.’ He kept his tone neutral, hoping she would do the same.
‘No problem. Why the text? Did you think I was going to bite your head off?’
‘More worried about frostbite, I think.’
‘I thought perhaps it was something like that. I’m sorry, Jimmy. On reflection, I held it against you for far too long.’
‘You had a right to be angry with me. But yes, I did think you would have been over it by now.’
Bannister chuckled. ‘I was over you a long time ago, believe me. It was just the rejection I struggled with.’
‘I think we came at it from different directions,’ Bliss said gently. ‘We’d not even been on a single date – not counting a brief lunch or two – so I thought it was best to nip it in the bud, before…’
‘I understand. I understood at the time. But you took me by surprise when you asked me to dinner, Jimmy. And then your ex turned up unexpectedly and suddenly you didn’t want to know me any more.’
‘It wasn’t quite the way you’re painting it, though I understand why you’d feel that way. I’m sorry, Sandra. I had every intention of taking you to dinner after inviting you out. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t at all sure we were a good fit, but I admit I was keen to find out. I liked you. Still do. But Emily coming back into my life and being interested in me again felt more natural, and the history between us made a difference. But, if it helps, I ended up shutting her down as well, and life moved on.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I finished things with Emily, too. More accurately, I prevented anything from starting up again in the first place.’ Bliss realised he’d never fully explained this to Sandra before. He had ended whatever it was they had before the selfish side of him could begin a relationship that had no chance of going anywhere because of his illness. Without going into great detail, he quickly explained about the moment he’d had his vertigo attack as he was about to call Emily and ask her over.
‘So you’re on your own again?’ Bannister said.
‘I am.’
‘I… suppose I assumed you were still with her.’
‘No. As it happens, Penny tried to force us back together again only the other night. Our evening was pleasant and went smoothly, but I didn’t have an attack, and nor was I called out to a job. It wasn’t a fair test.’
‘And you still believe those are two valid reasons not to enter into a long-term relationship?’
Bliss didn’t even have to think about it. ‘I do. I may not always enjoy coming home to an empty house, having nobody close to turn to – other than my colleagues – but it gives me peace of mind. This way I’m not inflicting my condition or my commitment to the job on anyone other than myself.’
‘Then what you’re saying is you don’t trust me or Emily to accept the challenges that go with being part of your life.’
‘No, that’s not it at all. Irrespective of whether you’d chosen to go along with it, being in or out of a relationship was always my choice. I didn’t want to be, and I still don’t.’
‘So you won’t be seeing Emily again, even though you enjoyed your evening together?’
‘Not quite. I’m unsure what to do next. We’ve agreed on a dinner. But seeing is one thing, being together quite another.’
‘You’re a strange and complex man, Jimmy Bliss,’ Bannister said on a long exhalation.
Bliss made no reply. There was nothing to say.
He thought of giving Emily a call afterwards, to show there were no hard feelings about the ambush – he knew it hadn’t been entirely Penny’s doing – but decided it was too late. His eyes fell upon his laptop. One final look at the case file before bed. An hour; two, at most. He fetched himself another bottle of Old Peculier, but as he moved to sit down he heard a knock at his door. The sound jarred because it was so rare. Bliss frowned. The one person he could think of who would come over on the off-chance at this time of night was Chandler. Still carrying his beer, he went to the door and opened up.
‘Hello, Jimmy.’
Bliss stood there silently for a moment, which stretched out so long Emily decided she needed to speak again.
‘We decided you were being stupid about not having a full-time relationship with anyone because of your illness, but we’d still see each other on a part-time basis. Correct?’
Bliss cracked a weak smile. ‘First of all, I don’t think we agreed I was being stupid. Secondly, you decided for us, Emily.’
She shrugged. ‘We can debate who decided what and when once we’re inside. You are going to invite me in, aren’t you?’
He shifted sideways, nonplussed by her appearance at his house. However light her tone, they certainly had not agreed on anything like this. He watched in bemusement as, instead of walking straight in, Emily first stooped to pick something up off the floor. When she eventually straightened, Bliss saw she was carrying an overnight bag. Emily seemed amused by the look he knew had to be spread across his face.
‘I don’t suppose you saw a dog out there, did you?’ he asked. ‘An old lab?’
Emily shook
her head. ‘No. Why?’
Bliss shrugged. ‘It’s not important. So, what are we doing here, Emily? What is this about?’
As she stepped across the threshold, Emily lightly brushed her fingers over his cheek and kissed him on the same spot. When she drew back, her eyes were warm and her wide smile was switched to full beam. ‘One of us had to make this move, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘And we both knew it was never going to be you.’
Twenty-One
Following the Second World War, the exodus of Londoners from their bomb-blitzed homes into new towns like Harlow, Stevenage, Basildon and Hemel Hempstead resulted in a considerable expansion of the original developments. These moves were a means to an end during a time of mass rebuilding and housing shortage, particularly in the East End of London, around the docklands. Official new towns breathed life into the fringes of Greater London, while at the same time allowing for the regeneration of blitz-torn pockets of the capital.
Although Freddy Swift was not among those on the list provided by Vicki Harrison, his name came up several times in association with four of the men who were listed. Friends of friends. Men who ran together back in the old days. Yet Swift was into his seventies now, and the appearance of an older man among the broadening array of possible suspects caused Bliss some apprehension. From what he imagined of the crimes under investigation, it would be nigh on impossible for a man of Swift’s age to pull this off on his own.
Nobody would realise it to look at the place, but the Mead Park industrial estate on the northern rim of Harlow was fast becoming the centre of the UK’s porn industry. The nondescript single-storey unit leased by FS Film Productions was tiny compared with many of the vast warehouses and hangar-like units populating the estate. At the door, he and Chandler had to lean on a buzzer and show their warrant cards to a security camera perched high in one corner of the entrance porchway. A short and narrow corridor with toilets on either side led to a set of double doors. Bliss pushed his way through and waited for his partner. As they entered the main part of the structure together, a tall, upright man of advanced years was there to greet them.
Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7) Page 15
