‘The device in question belonged to Detective Inspector Riseborough,’ Bliss said. ‘He used his personal mobile phone to make the call to the journalist.’
This time there was no explosion of fury, no dramatic propulsion from the chair. Riseborough sat in silence, eyes downcast, no longer full of bluff and vitriol, attempting neither to deny the allegation nor to explain it away.
DSI Fletcher edged forward in her chair. The blaze in her eyes was not for Riseborough alone, Bliss assumed. ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Max?’ she asked calmly.
For a second or two, Bliss thought the City of London DI would refuse to answer. But when Riseborough spoke, the look he gave Fletcher was one of stubborn defiance. ‘A case based on an illegal, unauthorised trap on any communication device, never mind one attached to a personal contract, doesn’t stand a chance of making it to court. Whatever the rights or wrongs of what I did, you will never bring charges against me.’
Fletcher’s cheeks pinched. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I were you. Let’s not forget that the Express’s article contained incorrect information. They may have fired the shot, but it was off target. Persuading the owners to have their staff member cooperate with us may not prove to be as difficult as you imagine.’
Riseborough’s lips curled into a tight sneer. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But you risk exposing the illegal actions of one of your own senior detectives. I don’t envisage that going down well back at county headquarters.’
‘If you believe I wouldn’t hesitate to throw Bliss to the wolves, Inspector, you are sorely mistaken. However, as I’m sure you are well aware, there are many other ways by which we can compel you to walk away from this. You’re right in thinking we wouldn’t relish a scandal, which gives you leverage. But only to a certain degree. You’re done, as far as your career is concerned. And for what? Why would you leak to the press?’
The mass of contempt ripping across Riseborough’s face created hard ridges of flesh. ‘Oh, please. Let’s be adults here for a minute, shall we? I doubt there’s anybody in this room who hasn’t provided the media with information at one time or another. Not for personal gain, perhaps, but for reasons we felt were right at the time.’
‘But the intelligence you shared with the first leak could have undone a great deal of good work. Don’t you see the difference?’
‘I was angry!’ Riseborough snapped, pointing across the table. ‘With him. Bliss. The arrogance of the man. Gave us all the piddling little jobs while he swanned around breaking new ground. I wasn’t about to stand for it. So yes, I called my contact at the newspaper and yes, I included more intel than I’d intended to. But your man’s decisions forced me to act. It’s Bliss you want to be looking at when all this is done, not me.’
There was stunned disbelief around the table. Nobody quite knew where to look or what to say. Bliss chose not to respond to the accusation, leaving Fletcher and Riseborough glaring at each other. Nothing was said for a couple of seconds, and Conway took the opportunity to speak up.
‘I’m not sure we’re going to get anywhere if this turns into a shouting match with fingers pointing all over the place. That will do more harm than good. Clearly there’s still a great deal to discuss, but at this juncture I suggest we take a ten-minute break, and that when we reconvene, we do so without either of our Inspectors in the room.’
‘If I’m not under arrest, I would like to go home,’ Riseborough said, his tone muted now. ‘You people say what you have to say, but please remember I’ve done nothing you haven’t all done yourselves at one point or another.’
‘I think it best if you do leave us,’ Fletcher told him. ‘Consider yourself on informal suspension. By that, I mean you don’t go near your office and you don’t discuss this meeting or the operation any further with your colleagues until further notice. Understand?’
‘Isn’t that a decision for my own senior leadership team to make?’
‘You are a member of this task force, and as such I am your direct superior at this moment. Believe me, your bosses and I will be having a conversation.’
Riseborough gave no further response. He eased himself up out of the chair and took one last look around the table before marching briskly from the room.
‘I’ll make myself scarce as well, ma’am,’ Bliss said, standing and buttoning his suit jacket. ‘Am I also under informal suspension?’
‘I haven’t made up my mind about that,’ Fletcher said brusquely. ‘You and DCI Warburton will meet with me tomorrow morning at eight sharp – by which time I will have calmed down and had time to weigh up all my options.’
Bliss agreed and left the room. Riseborough was nowhere to be seen, and he assumed the man had not lingered. He knew he should leave the building, but he hadn’t been forbidden to speak to his team first. He imagined the break and meeting in the conference room would give him at least half an hour. It was all he needed.
Down in Major Crimes, he gathered together his colleagues and spoke about the case itself, ignoring Chandler’s eyes pleading with him for an update on the outcome of the meeting. In his opinion, he told them, Phil Walker was most likely still alive, but in a bad way and fading fast. The Tower Hill evidence was still relatively fresh as well, so there was a chance Tommy Harrison had not yet been killed, though death from blood loss or cardiac arrest was a distinct possibility. Survival was less likely in Earl Dobson’s case, he thought, but still conceivable. As for Carlisle, Bliss now considered their own case as a search for a body. But irrespective of what state these men were in, none of the three teams involved had any idea where they were, and this remained a source of intense frustration to all.
Bliss remembered to tell his team about the large number of officers out scouring potential sites within a fifteen-minute drive of Tower Hill. The plan was for the search radius to expand to thirty minutes if necessary. The City of London team had already identified plenty of undeveloped plots of dead ground within the circle.
Having liaised with Gablecross during Bliss’s absence, Bishop reported his own news. Conway’s dig into the archives had apparently proved fruitless. Plenty of names had come up during the search, and his team had two distinct lists. The first identified everybody who had been spoken to in connection with Geraldine Price’s murder; the second highlighted other known faces in the area at the time. One by one the names were being eliminated or retained. The retained list had two sections: men known to be prone to violence, and those who had convictions or charges relating to aggravated crimes. The number of names amounted to three figures in all.
For the next ten minutes, everybody listened in respectful silence to Bliss’s theory. If Andy and Stephen Price really were working with Freddy Swift, he told them, there was nothing by way of evidence to suggest who was doing what, let alone verify the involvement of these three specific individuals. DS Bishop concurred, but made a point of saying it was a valid idea that they should follow up on.
Bliss thanked him, relieved to have somebody on his side. ‘Look, I know it’s a stretch,’ he said. ‘The next action we need to take is to look at Swift’s record to see if either of the Prices ever represented him. Having spent time with the man, I found Swift to be as seedy and pathetic as you’d expect of somebody who earns his living in the sex industry by exploiting others, but I don’t see him as our killer. We may discover he has a lesser role to play. I’m also convinced the slicing is born of personal animosity, which again rules him out, unless he had a closer connection to Geraldine Price than we currently understand to be the case. Having said all that, any connection at all between the three men will be a lead worth running down.’
DC Gratton had been listening intently, but now sought clarification. ‘So you’re suggesting Swift abducted the victims, and also deposited the carrier bags during times when the Prices had concrete alibis. You’re also saying one or both of the Price men carried out the actual torture. Is th
at a fair assessment?’
‘It is. It works. It fits – with the exception of Harrison, to a large extent. Either of the Price men could have tortured him, but at the time his hand was removed they were both still in Manchester. Which means that if Swift is the man working with them, he must have severed it as well as leaving it for us.’
‘That’s not an unreasonable hypothesis, is it, boss?’
Bliss ran a thumb over his scar. He hated getting bogged down in theories he wasn’t entirely convinced of, but he was as capable of being wrong as anyone else and had to admit to the logic of the premise.
‘Not at all. It’s perfectly valid. However, I met all three men, talked at length with them, and I never once got any kind of gut feeling they were involved. But both Andy and Stephen Price are solicitors, which means they’re intelligent and trained to be guarded. Either one could pull it off. I do keep coming back to Freddy Swift, though. Sleazy though he may be, my gut tells me he’s wrong for this. But if we look at our initial group of men, he is the last one standing.’
It was hardly compelling evidence, and Bliss knew he had not hit his mark. He realised he was not completely in the room nor in the moment. Elsewhere, his future was being discussed, and those conversations would not be flattering. He sensed a change in the direction the wind was blowing, and he feared the outcome of DSI Fletcher’s ruminations. He hoped she would agree to one additional day before tossing him and the Peterborough Major Crimes unit off the case. That would give his team twenty-four hours to achieve a result.
Thirty-Six
Bliss quickly left the station after the meeting in the squad room. He was desperate to avoid another confrontation with Fletcher before she’d had the chance to reflect on his actions and decide on his punishment. He stopped off for a drink in the Woodman with the team before slipping away, collecting a pizza from Domino’s, and driving to the marina at Orton Mere.
Bliss seldom made use of the yacht club facilities, though he paid the same annual subscription as everyone else for the privilege of mooring his boat by the lock. The cost did not include either ownership or lease of one of the dozens of wooden huts dotted along the towpath, but he had everything he needed on board the Mourinho.
He’d first bought the fifteen-foot cruiser in 2004, shortly after Jose Mourinho had taken over as manager of Chelsea football club. A lifelong supporter, Bliss had purchased the boat on a whim because of its gleaming royal-blue finish, and named it with the same lack of foresight. He sold it when he left the city, but repurchased it again a year or so after his return. Many people had suggested he change the name, but he was happy to stick with it. His resolve had been sorely tested when Mourinho moved to Chelsea’s arch-rivals, Tottenham, but the truth was Bliss couldn’t be bothered to re-register the paperwork.
By the time he climbed aboard the boat, Bliss had lost his appetite, and he left the pizza box unopened. Dazed by the events of the past forty-eight hours, he sat at the stern, drinking and staring down at the river, feet overhanging the small swim platform. As he sipped his third beer, Bliss thought back to the briefing and marvelled at how rapidly two careers had unwound within the space of a few minutes. It often took decades to build respect, yet a single decision was capable of blasting it apart as if it had never existed. But he had not wandered blindly into the minefield. The moment he requested the phone monitoring he knew his days might be numbered, but he had not allowed that near-certainty to deter him.
As leader, you had to take one for the team every now and again. He would not stand idly by while the leaking of potentially critical information diminished his team’s progress. Exposing Riseborough had been a necessary act, and Bliss was not going to second-guess himself now. It was a decision he would have to live with, no matter what the consequence. He felt like a hypocrite when he thought about his many conversations with Sandra Bannister – the DI had been right to rant about that – yet his conscience was clear in terms of how potentially damaging anything he had given the local reporter had been.
As he twisted the cap off the fourth of six bottles tucked by his side, he became aware of movement nearby. There was nothing unusual about people walking around the area, because boat owners came and went at all hours. But Bliss knew thieves operated locally, so he immediately felt his defensive hackles rising.
‘Permission to come aboard, skipper?’ a voice called out.
Chandler.
Bliss took a swig of his beer. ‘No, bugger off. Why aren’t you at home, curled up on the sofa with Shrek?’
His partner pulled herself up onto the boat and joined him at the stern. The small boat rocked as she sat down. ‘Other than when I’m with Anna in Cambridge on Saturday, he and I will be spending the weekend together, remember. Unless you need me to change my shift around?’
Bliss took a bottle out of the pack and passed it over. ‘I’d forgotten. But no, you stick to your plans. Bish is on duty, and Hunt is due back from his holiday. We’ll manage.’
Chandler didn’t argue. She took two long swallows, then sighed gratefully. ‘I thought I’d pop over to see how you were,’ she said, stifling a gentle belch.
‘And why would you do that?’
‘Because of how the briefing went – and because you sneaked out of the pub without a word. You had that disgruntled look you’ve perfected over the years. I guessed you were coming down to the boat, and I decided I’d better make sure you weren’t thinking of throwing yourself into the mere.’
Bliss laughed. ‘Right. My bet is your fridge was empty and you knew where to come to cadge a free drink.’
She gave an easy shrug. ‘Yeah, let’s not go with that. I prefer my version of events.’
‘So, you still think you’re right?’ he asked. ‘About my idea being way off target?’
‘I don’t think Bish and I are wrong. It’s a long shot at best, boss. You admitted as much yourself.’
‘True. But I’d hoped for a bit more enthusiasm.’
‘I think we may be focussed on the victims. Perhaps we’re not seeing around the edges the way you do.’
‘And I’m not thinking about the victims?’
‘Not in the same way.’ Chandler shook her head, her ponytail slapping against her back. ‘You think they’re dead – if not all of them, most likely the first two, and probably three. You also know exactly what kind of men they are, so although you have some basic concerns for their welfare, you’re not overly bothered about them as people. Your internal focus is on whoever did this to them, so you see it differently to everyone else.’
Bliss turned his friend’s observation over for a while. He drank his beer, wondering what it said about him if Chandler was right.
‘I don’t say it like it’s a bad thing, boss,’ Chandler explained. ‘I know you care. I know you don’t want these men to suffer, no matter what they’ve done. And I know if it ever came down to a choice between saving them or nailing their torturer, you’d choose the former.’
‘But…? Come on, Pen, I know there’s more.’
‘Okay. But… you think finding our man will lead us to his victims, not the other way around. And you feel driven towards that angle because you don’t believe they’ll survive.’
‘You think I’m wrong?’
‘No. But I don’t know if you’re right, either.’
This was precisely why he appreciated her. Chandler could always be relied upon to be honest with him, even if being forthright meant getting on the wrong side of him. The thought brought an unbidden memory to the forefront of his mind. Not long ago, he’d been out in Ireland visiting his mother. One night as they sat out in the garden, the two had discussed his career, perhaps in greater detail than ever before. When he was through talking about himself, his mother remarked upon how often he had mentioned Chandler.
‘Penny is the part of you that makes you whole,’ she told him.
‘I don’t
know about that,’ he’d argued. ‘I did okay for myself when I was with the NCA, and the Met before that.’
‘Of course you did, Jimmy. But doing okay is a far cry from what you’ve achieved with her alongside you.’
It was true. He hadn’t needed his mother to convince him of it. He drifted back to their early days together, the support Chandler had given him when he’d struggled to settle in to his new life away from London. She had later come back into the team because he was leading it again, after more than a decade of making few strides in what felt like heavy water. The NCA’s focus on organised crime was wearing because it never let up; no matter how many bad guys you put away, there were always a dozen more ready and able to take their places. Heading up the MCU in Peterborough was more of a critical role, one with an immediate and obvious impact. He had never regretted returning to the post, and realised how fortunate he was to have Chandler along for the ride.
Many people had made the mistake of believing the two were romantically linked. In his more reflective moments, Bliss would admit he had felt the appeal. Attractive without being obvious, Chandler’s character revealed itself to him every day they worked together. Here she was once again, thinking of him and not taking the rest she was due. It was another of the traits he loved about her. Occasionally he thought of what might have been, but always ended up accepting that any romantic involvement would have put an end to their friendship – and their partnership. This way he got the best of both worlds, and he was content.
‘So what’s your own sense?’ he asked.
Her reply was instantaneous. ‘The truth is, Jimmy, I don’t know if I have one. No matter what they did in the past, I want to find these men alive, and I hate to think of them suffering in the meantime. But I’m finding it increasingly difficult to drum up an ounce of sympathy for anybody involved in this horrible mess.’
Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7) Page 27
