‘There are traffic cameras out there on the street,’ Bliss said, pointing towards the tower itself. ‘Plus a surveillance camera across to the left. Looks to me as if it’s facing this way. What with those and whatever we have up by the station, I’m thinking we have a great chance of spotting whoever left the bag, and tracking where they came from and where they went afterwards.’
‘Yes, we’d already clocked those ourselves,’ Riseborough said – a little defensively, Bliss thought. ‘And you cannot believe what a quagmire it led us into. We operate the road safety cameras, obviously, but the surveillance camera is the responsibility of the local borough council, Tower Hamlets. Throw into the mix the London Transport Police and we have three separate surveillance systems, none of them talking to each other. I already have a member of my team chasing up the critical footage from the council – if they can pinpoint the person dropping the bag, it will establish a specific time period for the others to check. Should make life a bit easier.’
‘If it had been a bomb instead of a hand, they’d make it work like clockwork,’ Bliss grumbled. ‘But this is just some poor sod’s appendage, so why pull out all the stops?’
Riseborough smiled for the first time. ‘Things are not quite as cut and dried as they were in your time here,’ he said. ‘The effect of counterterrorism has meant far greater levels of cooperation between all parties. It’s a bind because we have to pull three different surveillance systems together, but we’ll get what we need from them. I’m quietly confident of that.’
‘I hope you’re right, sir,’ Chandler chimed in. ‘This may be our most important breakthrough yet.’
‘Don’t go getting your hopes up, DS Chandler. There is one camera for roughly every fourteen people in London, and given we have both the Tower and the bridge within yards of us, I’d assume the average decreases right here. But there are gaps, and while I’m certain we’ll have footage before the end of the day, I wouldn’t be betting anything on it leading us to our man’s front door.’
Before either Chandler or Bliss had a chance to respond, Pete Conway arrived. ‘This damned case file,’ he said, slapping a hand against his thigh after brief introductions were made. His face was as red as a tomato. ‘The bloody thing eluded me entirely at first. But the moment it clicked into place, the whole torrid episode came flooding back.’
Bliss took one rapid glance at the investigation scene, still in full flow. ‘Something important?’
Conway nodded. ‘And not to me alone, Jimmy. Not just to this particular find, either. I think it explains everything.’
Eleven
‘You remember the Islington crime syndicate?’ Conway said. The four detectives sat in Riseborough’s favoured incident room at Bishopsgate. Its interior was shabby, a coat of paint long overdue, but the room was a decent size and benefitted from large sash windows that overlooked the street. Natural light flooded in, and the windows were raised to create a flow of fresh air. DSI Conway was taking them through what he believed to be a significant investigation connected to the current joint task force operation.
‘The Doyle family,’ Bliss replied immediately. ‘Irish mob. Into just about every despicable racket you can think of.’
Conway nodded. ‘That’s them. They kicked off in the eighties. What with them and the various faces from Hoxton to the east of our manor, Islington and Wood Street nicks were the busiest stations for serious and organised crime in the whole of London. And not a lot went on without the Doyle family either having a slice of the pie, giving their blessing to it, or at least knowing everything about it.’
‘Those were the days,’ Riseborough said. His voice was soft. Reflective. He sat with one arm resting on the other, stroking his chin. ‘It was like the bloody Wild West out there. You name it, they organised it. Serious, vicious crime – so bad the Met convinced the CPS to bring in the security services towards the end of their reign. At least twenty-five murders to their name, and countless violent and armed attacks.’
‘So how do they feature in all this?’ Bliss wanted to know.
‘Indirectly,’ Conway said. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll tell you the story and you can make up your own minds. On the fourth of February 1994, the body of Geraldine Price was discovered in scrubland close to Wenlock Basin, just off the Regent’s canal. She’d long been food for rats, and plenty of them had paid her a visit. We identified her from dental records, but we had a good idea who she was from the moment she was first spotted; Mrs Price had been reported missing by her husband ten days earlier, and the search was widespread. According to her employers, Geraldine left work in Holborn on time, but Mr Price said she failed to arrive home. We looked hard at him, of course. We traced her route home, and we know she got off the bus at her usual stop on City Road. Somewhere between there and her home in Murray Grove, Hoxton, she disappeared. The husband was at home with their two children and Mrs Price’s parents who had come for dinner, so he had a perfect alibi.’
‘And you fancied one of the Doyle brothers for it?’ Riseborough asked. He seemed surprised.
‘No. Not at first. She didn’t fit in with their racket, and never had any dealings with them as far as we knew. But our DCI got so desperate that he contacted the brothers to see if they knew anything about it. He offered them a deal in exchange for information, and Mrs Price turned up a couple of days later. The post mortem told us she had been sexually assaulted on multiple occasions. Objects were used, and there was anal penetration in addition to oral and vaginal. Many of her bones were broken – ribs, jaw, eye socket – so she was heavily brutalised throughout her ordeal.’
Conway paused, took a breath, and sipped water from a bottle Riseborough had pulled from a small fridge before they had taken their seats. He shook his head and exhaled before continuing. ‘I’ve seen sadder and more deranged things in my time, especially cases where kids were involved. But this was one of the most sickening things of my entire career. At the time she disappeared, Geraldine Price was a real looker. Blonde, busty, leggy, gorgeous, she had the lot. Initially we thought she’d been spotted walking home after getting off the bus, most likely by a couple of chancers who liked what they saw as they drove by, and who then snatched her off the street. According to official TOD, she had been dead for two or three days when she was found, which meant she had been kept somewhere for about a week while she was repeatedly assaulted.’
‘You said you didn’t like these brothers for it at first,’ Chandler pointed out. ‘That suggests you did at some point afterwards.’
‘As it happens, Geraldine’s father, Robert Naylor, was a car dealer. He had minor connections to a few of the villains in Hoxton, though was not believed to be one himself. When somebody from the Islington syndicate came calling for protection money, Naylor considered himself already protected by the Hoxton mob and sent the bloke off with a flea in his ear. That same night, his lot was firebombed. There were one or two mid-level reprisals, but the Hoxton faces weren’t one single gang, certainly not on a par with the sizeable outfit the Doyles were running. So Naylor soon found himself adrift. A stubborn man, by all accounts. When the Islington thug approached him again, Naylor refused and set two dogs on the man. We reckoned the brothers might have given permission for a couple of their less empathetic scumbags to pick up Geraldine and have their way with her, showing Mr Naylor how badly they took his refusal to do business with them.’
‘Jesus,’ Chandler breathed. She sat next to Bliss, her jacket removed, hair still braided to keep her neck cool. The beads of sweat on her brow were caused by the heat, but could just as easily have been prompted by the picture Conway was painting of life under the rule of a criminal family.
‘I only ever heard the stories about them,’ Bliss said. ‘Never encountered them, thankfully. Their reach didn’t extend as far east as Bethnal Green or Mile End. But we all took them seriously. “The Krays on steroids” was how we referred to them.’
&nb
sp; ‘Anyhow, the murder of Geraldine Price remains unsolved to this day,’ Conway finished. ‘Naylor never believed the Doyle family were involved. He told us he was badly beaten and had a few fingers broken in response to his refusal to pay for protection, after which he shelled out every week. He saw no reason for them to involve Geraldine too, and the case went cold on us.’
‘Any other suspects?’ Riseborough asked.
‘A number of leads, but none we pursued for too long. Going back to the Doyles, we considered it to be more than an odd occurrence when Geraldine’s body turned up a couple of days after our boss had spoken with them. We did a bit of digging along those lines, but got nowhere fast. We had no information coming in off the street, despite offering decent money for it. I was surprised we never made more ground. I always believed it had to be locals.’
‘Because where they dumped her was half a mile or so from where they must have picked her up,’ Bliss said.
‘Precisely. In the end, we came to the conclusion that whoever did it was passing through. Perhaps stayed with relatives for a week or so. Geraldine Price happened to stray across their orbit at the wrong time. Anyhow, that’s where the carved figures tie things up.’
‘Which is good to know.’ Bliss shrugged. ‘But where do we come in – me and Max?’ He used his thumb to indicate them both. ‘Judging by his lack of input during your story, I’m guessing Max wasn’t involved in the Price case. And I certainly wasn’t.’
Conway reached into his trouser pocket and took out his phone. ‘When the date and case clicked, I did a Google search to refresh my memory. I doubt if any newspapers had an online presence in 1994, although there are archives scanned in now. I found nothing of relevance to us as a group. The three of us, I mean.’
Chandler leaned forward, fanning her neck. ‘So you’re saying there is no connection, other than a natural one?’
‘That’s my guess, for what it’s worth. The way I see it, if we look back over our careers, there are only so many degrees of separation between most coppers.’
‘I’ve heard people talk about six degrees of separation,’ Riseborough said. ‘I’ve never known what it means or how true it is.’
He was an unruffled character, Bliss thought. Seemingly unimpressed by anything he had heard so far, and sceptical of anything he did not understand. But Bliss had read an article on the subject, and thought he could shed light on it. ‘The premise suggests all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. Globally, I don’t see how it stacks up, but I can easily see it being the case in the narrow confines of our job. So, to answer my own question, I don’t think you or I enter into this equation, Max. Its roots begin with one specific crime. As for our connecting lines, I’m all for putting them down to chance unless something convinces me otherwise.’
‘I think we can agree this is primarily aimed at me,’ Conway said. There was a hint of reluctance in his voice, but he embraced the theory anyway. ‘The Price murder, certainly. The case file reference tells us as much.’
Bliss stood up from the table and stretched out his arms, rolling his neck. All the recent hours of travel and sitting in unfamiliar chairs had left him feeling stiff and sore. ‘My gut tells me I agree with you, Pete. But having links to all three locations myself is disturbing.’
‘I’d argue two of those are indirect,’ Conway said. ‘My case at the Long Barrow has a tentative connection to your childhood at best – and anyway, who would know about that? Your posting to Tower Hill all those years ago is hardly a major leap, considering the number of us who have been through the doors of multiple stations over the years.’
Bliss angled his head, squinting at the DSI. ‘That’s true enough. You hadn’t arrived at the scene when I mentioned being stationed nearby, though. For you to know I worked there means you checked out my history.’
Conway didn’t so much as blink. ‘Naturally. You and Max both.’
Bliss wasn’t entirely happy about Conway prying into his records, but he accepted that he would have done the same thing had the roles been reversed. He decided not to take the matter further, or register his displeasure.
Riseborough cleared his throat. ‘I suggest we put it all behind us now and maintain our focus on the specific case itself, which it seems may well have its origins in organised crime.’
Chandler leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. ‘I don’t think you can necessarily draw that conclusion,’ she argued. ‘Just because it was gangland territory doesn’t prove the Doyle family, nor any other gangs, had any involvement in what happened to Geraldine Price.’
‘I have a similar opinion,’ Bliss said, glad to hear his DS expressing the same view. ‘The murder doesn’t have the feel of an organised hit. Price herself doesn’t fit, as far as I can tell, and the sexual component feels all wrong. In my view, the next move is to prioritise the three findings we have so far and the men they have been taken from.’
Riseborough shrugged. ‘I agree with your final statement. However, if we concentrate our efforts on the original case, I think answers may come more readily than if we spend time trying to work out who these sliced and severed items belong to.’
‘Max does have a point,’ Conway said, looking at Bliss. ‘We got nowhere with the contents of our two carrier bags, and there’s no reason to suspect the hand will provide us with any form of identity.’
Bliss did not respond immediately. Something the Super had said was nudging him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He stared off into the distance for a moment before it came to him.
‘This isn’t just about items left for us,’ he said finally. ‘What I mean by that is – our man is not simply slicing off slabs of meat and chopping off hands and offering them to us. We’re forgetting the tiny slivers of tissue he leaves us, too.’
Conway jerked upright in his seat as if he’d touched a live wire. ‘Of course,’ he muttered distantly, snapping his fingers. ‘Of course. The slices.’ Silence followed, but when he spoke again his eyes were gleaming and concentrated on all three colleagues in the room. ‘I told you how, when Geraldine Price’s body was eventually found, it was bitten and chewed to buggery by rats – but I completely forgot about her other wounds. The pathologist’s report mentioned there were sections of flesh excised from the body, around the midriff and thighs.’
Despite his repugnance at the act itself, Bliss felt energised by Conway’s admission. ‘Sliced off, in other words,’ he said.
‘Yes. They were assumed to be part of whatever torture the woman had undergone. Excised or sliced, it all amounts to the same thing.’
‘I don’t suppose she was also missing a hand?’ Chandler asked.
Conway shook his head brusquely.
‘Possibly because she died before they had a chance to remove it,’ Bliss suggested.
All eyes turned to him. Nobody spoke.
He continued, nodding. ‘I think I know what this is. And if I’m right, the removal of body parts only counts for something if the body is alive when it’s done. It’s part of the art.’
‘The art?’ Conway blurted out. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Jimmy?’
‘The cutting. Slowly slicing off chunks of human meat. The removal of hands, feet… parts in general. It’s why scraps of tissue were also placed into the bags with the hand and the other slices. He wants us to know what he’s doing.’
‘And what exactly is he doing, boss?’ Chandler asked. Her cheeks were flushed, the day’s heat coating her skin in a glossy sheen.
Looking up, Bliss blinked a couple of times before forcing himself to reply. ‘It’s called Lingchi. Often referred to as slow slicing or lingering death. It’s an ancient Chinese form of torture and eventual execution. You probably know it by its incorrect Western name: death by a thousand cuts.’
Twelve
Responsible for over four hundred thousand res
idents, workers, visitors and commuters on a daily basis, the City of London Police understandably took a major interest in both financial crime and fraud. Although the administrative headquarters were at the Guildhall in the Moorgate district, the force’s operational functions took place behind the stained grey edifice of its Bishopsgate station in which Bliss, Conway, Riseborough and Chandler now sat grouped around the incident room table.
The four attempted to make sense of their findings. What they had so far was based almost entirely on supposition and speculation, intelligent guesswork – driven by experience and logic, but guesswork all the same. Yet no matter where their discussions took them, invariably they eventually returned to Bliss’s theory.
‘How is it you know so much about this sort of thing?’ Riseborough asked, distaste obvious in his tone and manner.
‘Mostly by chance,’ Bliss replied. ‘Many years ago I had one or two issues with anger management, and somebody suggested I look to meditation and relaxation, which led me to Zen and other eastern philosophies. During my research I strayed into reading about Chinese mysticism, and I caught the tail end of a link that eventually took me to Lingchi. The word has many translations, the best of which defines it as a slow process. We’ve come to regard it as “death by a thousand cuts”, which it isn’t, but I’m convinced it’s what we’re facing here.’
‘If so, then it’s monstrous,’ Conway said. The room was doing him no favours, despite the flow of air. His entire face was red and turning a darker shade every few minutes. The man had removed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar, but he was struggling in the stifling room. At one point he had asked for an electric fan, but although Riseborough had requested one, it had yet to arrive.
Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7) Page 8