The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  Inevitably, the conversation turned once again to Belmarsh and the various merits or otherwise of the semi-naked Bliss and Chandler. The pair swapped insults, but when she claimed to still be as ‘fit as fuck’, Bliss had reluctantly agreed. ‘She’d make the Thorpe Wood swimsuit calendar if we did one,’ he announced to the table in general, with an appreciative nod. ‘I mean, she’s no Christina Hendrix, but she has nothing to be ashamed of.’

  Chandler gave a mock shudder. ‘Ooh, such glowing compliments. Be still my beating heart.’

  ‘Give me another crack at that in a year and I won’t have to suck my gut in,’ Bliss said, laughing. ‘I’m going to start helping Barry Griffin with his boxing coaching – hopefully we’ll get a bunch of kids in shape and give them some direction and self-respect. I realised I needed to do that myself if I wasn’t going to come off as a complete berk. That’s why I had that workout yesterday, only it almost killed me. Every muscle in my body ached like a bugger this morning. It took me ten minutes to get out of bed.’

  ‘Growing old is a bastard,’ Bishop said. ‘But it beats the alternative.’

  There was no arguing with that. Meanwhile, Chandler was grinning at Bliss. Finally she said, ‘Poor you, with your man ache. But to prove my heart isn’t as hard as you suggested earlier, I’m going to do you a favour. A friend of mine is a physio who also gives deep tissue massages for a living. Thirty minutes with her and you’ll feel right as rain. If you like, I’ll give her a bell to see if she can slot you in later. She does lots of sporty types when they have muscle issues.’

  Bliss thought about it. He hadn’t had a massage since his fighting days, but he could still remember how loose he’d felt afterwards, the tension kneaded out of his muscles by strong fingers. He agreed and nodded his thanks.

  The conversation turned to a recent TV series featuring UK police; as usual, the team picked holes in the procedures that had been portrayed. Just as Bliss finished eating and had shoved his plate to one side, his personal phone rang. He took the call outside on the stairway.

  ‘Good to hear from you, Teddy,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’ He still felt guilty over the beating Barr had received from Neil Watson, and had been wondering how to help the man out.

  ‘Better than I ought to be. Either I recover more quickly than I thought I did, or Watson’s punches and kicks were less brutal than they felt at the time. Anyway, no real damage done. Superficial cuts and bruises. I’m out and recuperating.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. Makes me feel a bit better.’

  ‘Yeah, you and me both. But it’s not why I’m calling. I thought I’d let you know that your man is currently having a drink with a lowlife by the name of George Moss.’

  This took Bliss by surprise, and he was immediately concerned. ‘You’re still on Watson? Bloody hell, Teddy. I didn’t expect you to carry on following him, mate.’

  ‘Oh, this is for me, Jimmy. Before, it was business and I was on the clock. Now it’s personal.’

  ‘You watch yourself. One more hiding like that and you might not walk away from it.’

  ‘I was careless before. I’m on my game this time. So, Moss… what d’you reckon?’

  ‘I reckon I’m interested. He’s the piece of filth who gave Watson his alibi for the night that poor kid took his final beating.’

  ‘That’s the fella. You have to wonder why they’re meeting at this precise moment.’

  Bliss gave it a moment to consider the implication. ‘Could be nothing more than a friendly drink – they are mates, after all. On the other hand, Watson might be feeling the pressure and warning his pal.’

  ‘You’ve not spoken to Moss yet, have you, Jimmy?’

  ‘I’ve not had that pleasure. No fixed abode, last I checked, so I couldn’t track him down.’

  ‘You in a position to take a break? If you get down here sharpish we could take one each when they leave.’

  Bliss thought about it. He badly wanted to nail Watson. But his immediate allegiance was to Phoenix, four murder victims, and Abbi Turner. ‘I can’t, Teddy. I’m about to finish my break, and we’ve got a real arseache of a case on. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m back in my motor, parked up close to the Yard of Ale on Oundle Road. The pair of them have been inside for a little over twenty minutes.’

  ‘I know the place. I wonder if it’s a regular haunt. Teddy, you were following Watson. Did you see Moss go inside or was he already in there?’

  ‘Watson arrived first and hung about outside. When Moss showed up a few minutes later, they went in together.’

  ‘So it was a prearranged meet. Did you happen to notice how Moss got there? Did he drive or is he on Shanks’s?’

  ‘He walked, as far as I could tell – though I suppose he could have driven and parked out of sight around the back.’

  Bliss’s mind stirred through all of the possibilities. ‘Let’s hope it’s the former, because that might mean he lives close by. Mate, I’m sorry I can’t get away. You’re on your own time, and I know your beef is with Watson. You do what you need to do.’

  ‘Fair enough. But what would you like me to do, Jimmy? You want me to follow Moss?’

  ‘I’d love to know where he’s kipping down. As much as I’ve enjoyed my little chats with Neil Watson, it’d be good to give Moss a go to test how loyal he is to his mate.’

  Barr seemed pleased. ‘Consider it done. I do want to give Watson a taste of his own, but I’m not strong enough yet. I can see how it would help knowing where to find Moss, so leave it to me.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’

  ‘Cheers. And Teddy… take care, mate.’

  Bliss took a deep breath as he ended the call. He gazed out of the stairway window; the dull and dreary day cast a pall across the entire city. He felt it creep through the glass pane to envelop him. Rain was on the way, and as he thought about the phone call a chill ripped through his body. Barr was a decent man, and probably feeling embarrassed at getting caught unawares by the likes of Watson. He sought revenge, but he also understood the longer game. Giving Watson a hiding could wait. Snapping the cuffs on and putting him where he belonged was still the ultimate goal. Bliss knew he could trust Barr to do the right thing.

  As he climbed the stairs up to the second floor and rain began to tap against the window, his phone went off again – this time a text. He was intrigued to see Sara’s name pop up on the screen; he hadn’t expected to hear from her directly at all, let alone so soon.

  The message contained two words, in urgent capital letters: CALL ME.

  Bliss pulled up the number and dialled immediately. ‘Sara? Thank you for your message. It’s DS Bliss. Do you have something for me?’

  ‘Yes. I think I have something to help you.’

  ‘Good. Take your time and tell me everything.’

  ‘I hear from another WhatsApp friend. She know Abbi well. She say she has not heard from Abbi, and Abbi is not answering phone. This we knew already, yes? But when I ask about man Abbi sees often, she tell me Abbi has new boyfriend. He is first client, then boyfriend. Abbi tell her this man is kind to her. He want them to be together.’

  Bliss licked his lips, felt the keen nudge of anticipation. ‘Did she mention a name, Sara? Is this the Des from before? The same man?’

  ‘Yes. But the reason I call is she tell friend one thing I think will help. The man has… I cannot remember word for this, but he has place that take care of dogs.’

  ‘You mean a vet? A veterinarian?

  ‘No. Not this. He take care of dogs when owners go away, yes?’

  ‘He runs a kennel?’

  ‘Yes! That is it. A kennel. She know nothing more than this. But it helps, yes?’

  Bliss felt elation tug at his insides. If the man had not been lying to Abbi and either ran or worked at a kennel, the scope of their impossible search had narrowed considerably.

  ‘It’s a massive help, Sara,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much for letting me know.
’

  ‘You find Abbi now, yes?’

  ‘We’ll do our best. Just know that what you’ve told me might be all the difference we needed.’

  This time when he tucked his phone away, Bliss ran up the stairs; his muscles protested, but he didn’t care. This was the best news he’d had since first laying eyes on Majidah Rassooli’s cold, dead body on the frosty chalk pits of Cambridge.

  Thirty-Four

  However unconnected they might eventually prove to be, breaks in a case often came along together like a fleet of London buses. Bliss had barely finished telling his colleagues about his conversation with Sara when first Glen Ashton and then Chandler received their own rewarding updates.

  The NCA investigator gave a loud cry of triumph and jumped to his feet. ‘Yes!’ he cried, slamming two balled fists on the surface of the desk he’d vacated. ‘We found the source of our dark website – and the device uploading data to it!’

  All heads turned his way. His beaming face shone with excitement. Gone was the naïve posture of previous days; in its place was a man secure in the knowledge that he had earned a reward for a job well done.

  ‘It’s a specialist provider called Zen. Our traces bypassed every VPN and proxy and found their way to the source router. I’m about to begin the process of compelling the company to give us the details of the account owner.’

  This prompted cheers, backslapping and wide grins all round. ‘Great job, Glen,’ Bishop said. ‘You too, Gul. You’ve both worked really well together, and this is terrific news.’

  ‘I’ve just taken an interesting call, too,’ Chandler said. ‘I think the rub of the green is finally shifting our way. A CHIS of mine informed me there’s talk of a hit being taken out on Nicola Parkinson. If it came from Drake – and I think that’s more than likely – he seems to have gone outside his own organisation for once. Clearly he doesn’t know who to trust these days. What’s more, that bitch must have caught wind of it, because she’s had it on her toes and is nowhere to be found.’

  ‘So for once in his life Drake was telling us the truth,’ Bliss said. ‘He genuinely had no idea about Dark Desires. Since our visit he must have put the word out and discovered it was Parkinson raking in the money without cutting him in.’

  Chandler failed to stem the grin spreading across her face. ‘Karma works quickly these days. I wouldn’t want to be in her skanky shoes, with that mad bastard wanting her head on a pike.’

  Bliss shrugged. ‘She deserves everything she gets. I’ve half a mind to forget we ever heard about it and let natural justice take its course.’

  DCI Warburton had been working alongside her team, and now she stepped forward to offer her own view. ‘In the short time I’ve been at Thorpe Wood, I’ve had the misfortune to encounter that odious creature on only two occasions. I don’t think I’ve felt genuinely clean since. I’m inclined to agree with you, Jimmy, except for one thing: collateral damage. If we could guarantee it was that bitch Parkinson being taken out in some dark alley with no one else around, I’d say we have more important matters to focus on than saving her scrawny arse. But these things can get messy, and I’d hate to think that innocent bystanders might get caught up in a bloodbath.’

  Bliss nodded. He’d not been entirely serious himself, and neither he nor any member of his team would turn their backs on a murder threat simply because they disliked the intended victim. It was a perfectly natural instinct to think of someone like Nicola Parkinson as surplus to requirements in respect of the human race. But, despicable or not, she was currently a citizen in need of their protection. That thought led him to another.

  ‘Did your snout mention anyone else on Drake’s shit list?’ he asked Chandler.

  She shook her head, but lines deepened on her forehead. ‘No. Are you thinking about her son and daughter?’

  ‘Yeah. Because even if they’re not involved – and I’m willing to bet my house on both of them being in it up to their horrible necks – they could be snatched up to be used as leverage once whoever has the contract finds out Nicola has done a runner.’

  Bishop reacted before Bliss could turn to him. He jabbed a finger at Ansari. ‘Make sure this Zen broadband provider knows who to get hold of and how. Then I want you to locate the home address for Parkinson and her offspring and get yourself over there right away. Take Glen and Phil with you. Also, let’s have uniform taking the doors off all their known knocking shops. We have to find all three of them before anybody else does.’ He switched his attention. ‘Jimmy, Pen – you want to look into these kennels? I can tell you from experience there are a good twenty or more in the area, and most are in places you might consider ideal if you were going to abduct young women and keep them under lock and key for a couple of weeks. John and I can help you with them.’

  ‘Just a thought, boss,’ Ansari said, piping up. ‘A number of those kennels may be either temporarily closed or have gone out of business altogether in recent times. If you run a Google search, they usually say whether they’re open or not.’

  ‘It’s a good thought. We can start with the ones that are closed, because nobody’s going to be keeping someone against their will at a functioning one.’

  Bliss couldn’t help but wonder if they were missing something that would help narrow their search further, but agreed with Bishop: splitting the team covered both emergency situations. He cared about his task more than the other – in that he’d not spare a second thought for Nicola Parkinson’s plight. In his opinion, whatever lay in store for her was long overdue.

  Chandler had already pulled up a view of the kennels in the wider Peterborough area. Eighteen red droplets freckled the map like blood spatter. Shaking her head, she looked up and said, ‘Good for them, bad for us. This lot seem to have made it through. But we’re looking as far north as Deeping, to the west around Elton, and on the other side we’re looking at Coates and Turves.’

  ‘We don’t know how much time we have,’ Bliss said, looking up at Bishop. ‘But it’s going to take us the rest of today to hit this lot. We need traffic and uniform on it with us.’

  Bishop nodded immediately. ‘Absolutely. I’m sure our favourite DCI’s charms will do the trick there.’

  Warburton rolled her eyes. ‘Why is it always me?’

  ‘You have the rank, boss. I’m only acting. Plus, like I said, you’ve got the charm. And you’re going to need it when people kick off about budgets.’

  ‘Hmm. I’ll let that go this time, Bish. But we may need to have words later. Perhaps a nice new training course for you to attend.’

  Bishop groaned but laughed it off. He turned back to Chandler. ‘We’d best start divvying some of these up. I’m thinking we take the kennels closest to HQ, leave the others to uniform and traffic. Sound good?’

  ‘Yes, boss. On closer inspection, four of the eighteen appear to be for cats only, even though they feature in the search for kennels. I say we leave them out altogether. That leaves us with fourteen. We could take eight, leave the remaining six for other teams.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll take four with John, you and Jimmy visit the other four.’

  It took Chandler a further ten minutes to select the most appropriate location groupings to cut down on the driving time between them. She typed the lists up and printed off hard copies. Not content with that, she sent a list of kennel names and their postal codes to each member of the team, together with a list of who each one was assigned to, selecting a generic name for each of two teams they hoped to pull from other units. This way everybody not only had their own tasks on their phone, but also knew where everyone else was assigned in case of trouble and calls to assist.

  Bliss sat back and took it all in from the sidelines. He’d endured two months of this so far. Having been both responsible for the unit and accountable to the more senior ranks, he currently felt like a spare part. By this stage he’d usually be barking out instructions of his own, making snap decisions, allocating actions to personnel. He’d feel the deep grind of the job i
n his bones. More, he’d feel the weight of it settle upon him. Irrespective of his current position, he continued to feel all of these things. The subsequent welling of frustration was intense, because he lacked the influence to lead.

  Not that Bishop was failing. So far, his missteps could be counted on the fingers of one hand and wouldn’t require the thumb. He was doing the job Bliss knew him capable of, proving himself worthy of the permanent promotion he deserved should he wish to go forward with his career ambitions.

  ‘You’re missing it, aren’t you?’ a voice said, snapping him out of his silent contemplation. Diane Warburton was smiling at him. ‘I know a little of how you feel, Jimmy. Each shift up the ladder leaves you a little bit more detached from the daily grind. Until one day you realise they don’t need you any more. Bit like kids, really. They rely on you for everything for so long, but bit by bit they pull away.’

  ‘Independence,’ Bliss said, nodding. ‘We all crave it, but we never think about the people we become independent from. It’s tougher than I’d anticipated.’

  ‘You’re a third of the way through, Jimmy. These next four months will flash by.’

  ‘But to what end?’

  ‘Keep your nose clean and this will be your unit once again.’

  ‘Perhaps. The cynic in me wonders if that will actually happen.’

  ‘It may not if you don’t let go of your nocturnal activities.’

  Bliss’s eyes widened. ‘Marion Fletcher told you about Neil Watson?’

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t she? That’s how the chain of command works.’

  ‘I take it you don’t approve?’

  Warburton took a deep breath, compiling her response. ‘I feel the same way about Watson as I do that awful Parkinson woman: if they get their comeuppance, I’m not going to lose any sleep. But in his case, not if the cost is losing you, too.’

  ‘That’s nice of you to say so, boss. You want to keep some eye candy around, don’t you?’

  She laughed. ‘How well you know me. Look, Jimmy, I can’t tell you I don’t understand your inclinations, because I do. The DSI showed me the case file, and the investigative notes make it abundantly clear that Neil Watson had been systematically beating that child prior to his eventual and wholly predictable and preventable death. Whether he administered the final blows, perhaps we’ll never know. But he’s equally responsible, if not more so than the woman currently doing time for that poor lad’s murder. I’d like to see him off the streets. But you do realise that if you step too far out of line, it’s not only your job at risk – it’s your freedom?’