The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  Bliss began to feel the initial stirrings of irritation. He measured his tone when he next spoke, but added some flint to it. ‘Sandra, I’m not your paid source. You and I have an arrangement. We help each other out as and when it suits. This is a rapidly developing case, and I haven’t had much time to think about your feelings – or your job, for that matter. I called to update you, and would have done so had you answered. Don’t make more of this than it already is.’

  He could almost see her look of fury flare up and diminish as she realised he was right. His mind was in overdrive and his thoughts turned to what she hadn’t yet mentioned.

  ‘This scoop you’re angry about,’ he said. ‘It mentions a potential serial killer, yes? Three murders in London, and the same killer responsible for our victim over at the chalk pits. Is that as far as the story goes?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Are you saying there’s more to it?’

  He could tell by what had not been said so far that only a part of the story had been unearthed – so the leak was probably out of Cambridge, possibly the Met. This was a version missing salient new facts. ‘Sandra, if I tell you something off the record and assure you that I promise to come to you with the full story the moment we break the case, will that pacify you?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on what you tell me.’

  Bliss stiffened. ‘Don’t push it. You want it or not? It makes no difference to me, because I’m not asking for your help this time.’

  ‘But you did. You have. You asked me about Lewis Drake and this dark web business he might be running.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’re beyond that, don’t you think?’

  After a moment she said, ‘I’m sorry. I was angry. I still am. But if you didn’t know, then you didn’t know.’

  ‘Good. And I swear I didn’t. But here’s the thing the leak wouldn’t have mentioned, Sandra: our killer has already taken his next victim.’

  Thirty-Eight

  The first thing Bliss did when he reached HQ was to pull Bishop to one side for a confidential chat. Standing inside his old office once again felt peculiar; he was now the outsider occupying another man’s territory. Yet one glance at the wall put his mind at ease and pinned a smile upon his face.

  ‘You rescued it from what should have been its final resting place, then?’ he said.

  DS Bishop followed his gaze. Nodded. ‘That Pissed-ometer is part of the furniture in this office, Jimmy. It’s a bit more battered than it was before, but the wall looked too bare without it.’

  The cardboard arrow indicated a mood part way between ‘steaming’ and ‘furious’, but for once it was out of kilter with how Bliss truly felt. Bishop must have guessed his train of thought.

  ‘It only went back up first thing this morning,’ he explained. ‘Nobody has had time to adjust it yet.’

  Bliss regarded him closely. ‘Do you know who does it?’

  Bishop gave him a quizzical look. ‘You mean you don’t?’

  ‘No. Not a clue.’

  ‘Good. Let’s keep it that way. So, what did you want with me?’

  ‘First of all, let me say I don’t want to take the piss; I won’t use my previous rank and our relative positions to take advantage. That said, I would like an extended lunch break today. I have a personal issue to take care of. I’m thinking of getting away by midday, back again by one-thirty, perhaps two o’clock.’

  Bishop’s frown formed a fearsome collection of lines and bulges on his forehead. ‘Jimmy, your temporary demotion hasn’t made you a different person. Why would you ever imagine I’d think you were pulling a fast one? I know you. If you need the time, take it.’

  ‘Thanks. If something breaks, the case is still my priority. I’ll drop my plans, you know that.’

  ‘Of course. It didn’t need to be said. Please, do what you have to do. If I see your name on the whiteboard, I’ll know you’re here. If I don’t, I’ll call you if something pops.’

  Bliss was grateful to him. He’d expected nothing less, but he’d owed Bishop the courtesy.

  Moments later, with the team gathered together, they knuckled down to the briefing. It was DCI Warburton who stood front and centre on this occasion. She felt it was time to reaffirm her position as SIO, to make it clear how the investigation was being perceived from the top, and to also discuss the news leak.

  ‘I can’t begin to tell you how angry I am that it’s come to this,’ she said, both angular cheeks inflamed. ‘I’m not going to pretend that none of us consider journalists to be valuable sources of intelligence – nor to imagine that the currency used to obtain access is anything other than case information. But I hope everybody in this room agrees this new leak is a step too far. The one chink of light is that the degree of information released suggests the source is not a member of this unit. If this daily rag had been aware of our interest in Abbi Turner’s disappearance in connection with Phoenix, I have no doubt they would have released those details at the same time. So the leak almost certainly came from somebody close enough to have known about the jump to serial killer status, yet sufficiently distanced to be unaware of our probable abduction. Believe me when I tell you I am personally going to hunt this source down and plug the leak with my boot.’

  ‘What difference do you think it will make to the case?’ Chandler asked. ‘Are we under greater pressure because of it?’

  Warburton nodded. ‘Superintendent Fletcher is – as am I. My hope is that’s where it ends. I’m certainly not going to add to your burden. You run the case as if this news is not splashed all over the front page. You can’t allow it to influence your thinking.’

  ‘I’m sure I speak for us all when I say we appreciate that, boss,’ Bliss said, looking around the room. ‘Not every DCI would be so composed. Nor willing to stand strong with us, for that matter.’

  Warburton stared at him in surprise for a second or two, then chuckled. ‘I’ve never taken you for a brown nose before, Jimmy. But please do remove it from my backside before I attempt to sit down.’

  This drew some laughter, and Bliss took it well. ‘Yeah, yeah. All I’m saying is thank you for supporting us and keeping the politics out of the room.’

  ‘I will for as long as I can. Obviously, the fact that the Met had this and handed it over to us is both a poisoned chalice and a challenge. Nobody above the rank of Superintendent relishes the prospect of us having to work in the public eye, and of course their first thoughts are for self-preservation. But you’re fortunate enough to have Detective Superintendent Fletcher as your lightning rod. So, we move onwards and hopefully upwards. Let’s update the room with overnight details.’

  It took no more than twenty minutes to make everybody aware of any new information. There wasn’t a great deal to add to the previous day’s tally: they were stalled in tracking down suspect kennel providers, had found no trace of the Parkinsons, there was still no word on who had contracted the hit job from Lewis Drake, and nor did they yet have the required data from the Dark Desires server location. Bishop refused to be bowed, however.

  ‘Our priorities are clear,’ he said. ‘We have to find another way to trace the man in Abbi Turner’s life. We monitor any and all financial movements relating to all three members of the Parkinson family. Plus, we dig deeper into their backgrounds to see if we can work out where they might have run to. I want you all to contact every CHIS on your books. Spread the word to every colleague out there. We’re offering good deals for anybody who gives us the name of the hitman Drake hired. And it’s only a matter of time before we’ve secured the location of that bloody server – not that I have the foggiest idea how it will help us.’

  ‘All knowledge is power,’ DC Ansari said, nodding to herself.

  ‘Of course.’ Bishop smiled, arching his eyebrows. ‘Is that one of my sayings?’

  Following a short peal of laughter, Ansari replied, ‘I think it’s Francis Bacon.’

  ‘The guy from Footloose?’

  This time the laughter emerged as a ripping snort.
‘That’s Kevin Bacon, boss. Francis Bacon was a philosopher.’

  Bishop shrugged. ‘I’m guessing it doesn’t matter. I take your point, though. As an even wiser philosopher once said’ – here he paused to glance at Bliss – ‘we don’t know what we don’t know until we know it.’

  ‘I don’t think that was Jimmy, boss. Wasn’t it…’ Her voice trailed off as she noticed Bliss shaking his head.

  He didn’t think it served any useful purpose to set Bishop straight at this stage; he had uttered the phrase once, but had taken it from the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However, it did flush out a stray thought. There was something he had intended to do, but had been sidetracked by having to visit the kennels. He struggled to bring it back to the forefront of his mind. He was sure it was somehow connected to their hunt for Abbi Turner’s probable abductor. He’d missed something, and it nagged at him like a toothache. He knew if he spun the wheels long enough it would come to him, and as Bishop concluded the briefing, it did.

  Bliss made his way over to Bishop, motioning for Chandler to join him. ‘I forgot something,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I had it in mind for us to take a look at Abbi Turner’s gaff. To see if there was anything there that might provide us with insight about this man she was seeing. Later on the thing with the kennels came up and that became our priority, so the home search completely slipped my mind.’

  Bishop was already nodding. ‘Yes. Go. Take the door off its hinges – I’ll authorise that immediately because intelligence says she’s missing, possibly the next victim of our killer. Meanwhile, I’ll work with Phil on those bloody awful Parkinsons and this hitman. John and Gul can tag along with Glen in focussing on the server location. Sound good to you?’

  ‘You’re the boss, boss.’

  ‘Yes. But does that plan sound okay?’

  ‘It does, Bish.’ He offered his colleague a sympathetic tap on the arm. ‘Don’t worry yourself into a coronary. You’re doing a great job.’

  Bishop swallowed and licked his lips. ‘Perhaps. But I’ll tell you this for nothing: it doesn’t half make me want to be a plain old DS again.’

  Bliss pondered his friend’s words as he and Chandler headed over to Turner’s home. He recalled his first step up into the role of Inspector. The day before, his old boss had taken him to one side and spoken at length about the job and the differences Bliss was about to encounter.

  ‘You always think you’re ready, Jimmy. You have the experience. You have the know-how. You’ve studied and you’ve passed your exams. If you’re lucky, you’ve been mentored well, and you have a clear idea about the way you’re going to handle things differently; we all do. But soon enough, along comes that first major case. Now, in addition to your own responsibilities, you’re also responsible for the work of every other officer in the team. Not only that, you’re accountable. For the case. For them. For everything. And even though you haven’t changed as a person, you’re now an entirely different species in the eyes of people you were working in tandem with only the day before. All of a sudden you’re on the other side of the desk – effectively, you’re management. And you put all of those things together, old son, and it… well, it makes all the difference in the world.’

  And it had. The effect was immediate, and life was never quite the same again. Olly Bishop was getting a taste of what Bliss had experienced all those years ago – only these days the responsibility and accountability went even deeper. He’d seen it in his friend’s desperate eyes, heard it in the cracked voice.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Chandler asked. ‘I can smell the gears burning from here.’

  It took a while for Bliss to respond, but when he did his voice was imbued with defiance. ‘I need to clear my head when it comes to our original case, but I’m not going to do that until I know Abbi Turner is safe and this madman is tucked away in a cell.’

  Chandler turned her head away and forced out a long, steady sigh. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this one, Jimmy. His MO suggests he keeps the girls for between seven and ten days. We’re a week in, give or take. I can’t help feeling this might be the one we can’t turn around in time.’

  ‘I can’t say I disagree.’

  ‘You think we might find something at her place?’

  Bliss gave the question a moment of thought. ‘What I think is this: if she fell for this man, if he meant something to her, the one place we’re most likely to find evidence of that is in her home.’

  Thirty-Nine

  An area of cul-de-sacs and uniform semi-detached homes with plots of lawn to the front, Ravensthorpe had been built on the site of the old RAF Westwood base ahead of the new townships being developed in the late seventies. Abbi Turner lived in a shared ownership house. A representative from the housing association landlords met them at the property. Bliss had been perfectly willing to take the front door off its hinges as instructed, but a well-placed phone call from Chandler had secured entry for them.

  The first thing Bliss noticed was how clean the place was. It smelled fresh, too. It was one of the main differences he’d noticed between the escort type sex workers, whose livelihoods relied on their abstinence from both drugs and an excess of alcohol, and those who worked the streets or knocking shops and snorted or injected their way through life. In the homes of the latter, you needed to double-glove and were glad of a mask. These girls with the classier gigs worked hard at staying clean in every way.

  He preferred to search specific areas in tandem with his partner, so the pair got to work upstairs. Of the two main rooms, Abbi appeared to use one to sleep in and the other as a walk-in dressing room and wardrobe. Before touching anything or carrying out his search, Bliss first stood on the threshold to Abbi’s bedroom. Something clicked into place that ought to have occurred to him before. He turned to look at his partner, annoyed with himself for having wasted time.

  ‘Pen, give Bish a bell, would you? Tell him we need a couple of CSIs out here and a bagging team. If this bloke Abbi was partial to ever came here, his hair, prints and DNA could be all over the place. We’ll continue our search, after which they can follow up forensically.’

  While Chandler made the call, Bliss worried about the slip. First he’d forgotten about searching the property, and then he’d failed to extend that action to the crime scene investigators. Both lapses were perhaps understandable given the rapidly changing circumstances, and he’d recovered from them. But they caused a twinge of anxiety in his chest, all the same.

  The examination of the upstairs area proved fruitless. It told them Abbi Turner was a young woman with taste and more than a little sophistication. Her chest of drawers and bedside cabinets contained paraphernalia connected with her work, along with erotic lingerie. Bliss pulled the drawers out of their runners and flipped them over; people often taped items on the underside in an effort to conceal them. He discovered nothing.

  If her dressing table was anything to go by, Abbi liked makeup, perfume and jewellery. Much of the latter was of the costume variety, but in a box mercifully free from a spinning ballerina or the tinkling sound that usually accompanied one, he also noted a few relatively expensive items. She preferred white gold, silver or platinum to yellow gold, and in a Tiffany box he found a simple bangle. To Bliss’s untrained eye, it looked like the real deal.

  Beneath the bed they found only a thin layer of dust; behind the chest of drawers, more of the same. Simple and elegant, the furnishings suggested a young woman whose income matched her taste and keen eye. Bliss found himself becoming impressed with Abbi, which prompted a fresh squirt of adrenaline. The natural urge was to search quickly, but much could be missed if you gave in to that inclination.

  The spare room holding the majority of the girl’s clothes gave up no obvious clues. Bliss was no Vogue reader, but he had always been able to spot quality. Amongst her daily wear items and the more formal and suggestive clothing, he identified simple knee-length skirts and blouses made from good fabrics. Each piece told him a little
more about her.

  ‘Nice clobber,’ he said to Chandler. ‘I bet she wears it well, too. The right hairstyle and scent to match any occasion.’

  His partner agreed. ‘If these aren’t knock-offs, our Abbi is not only a girl of refined tastes – she has the bank account to match.’

  ‘Where are we on her phones?’

  ‘Last I heard, data was starting to come through. Plenty of messages stacking up in her voicemail, but no outgoing texts or calls since last Wednesday.’

  Bliss had one final look around the room. ‘This place was her escape,’ he said. ‘When she was here, she was just a woman who enjoyed fine things and could forget all about her miserable recent past.’

  ‘And much of her not-so-enjoyable present as well, I imagine.’

  He nodded, saddened by the thought of the young woman’s lifestyle outside this house. ‘Perhaps a bleak future, too. But at least she did get some respite here; not all of them do.’

  Before heading downstairs, they carried out a cursory check of the bathroom and toilet. If he had been hoping to see two toothbrushes, Bliss was disappointed. No shaving bag, aftershave or male deodorant, either. No sign at all so far that a man had come anywhere close to sharing Abbi’s life.

  There were only two main rooms downstairs as well. The kitchen yielded nothing of significance, and as they exited it, Bliss had the sinking sensation that the search of Abbi Turner’s home was not going to take them any further in their investigation. He barely said a word as they sifted through the living room. He noticed a chessboard laid out on a stout rectangular side table. Unlike Yeva Savchuk’s, the set was wooden. A game looked to be in progress; he wondered if they’d catch a break and find their killer’s prints on any of the pieces. He’d make sure the CSI team paid close attention to it when they arrived.

  When he and Chandler had entered the house, Bliss had no real idea of what he hoped to find. A brochure or leaflet, perhaps, advertising the kennels their man might have a connection with. One drawer in every home – most often in the kitchen – usually contained such items. Chandler had found Abbi’s and tipped its contents out on the small circular dining table. The two of them ferreted around, but came across nothing useful.