Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7)

by Tony J. Forder

Bliss watched the sky change colour behind her, pastel oranges becoming dusky, reds slowly turning purple. Thin clouds straggled along the skyline like the contrails of unseen airliners. He used the pause to gather his thoughts before speaking.

  ‘I understand. But you have no idea what you’d be getting into. Emily, my condition isn’t one of the illnesses people create ribbons for. Ménière’s disease robs me of my balance and my confidence. Yes, at the moment I’m able to work – though I’d argue, less effectively as time goes by. But I can physically make it in most days, provided I also rest and take care of myself. That won’t always be the case. I’m going deaf, slowly but surely, and one day I may lose my hearing altogether. My episodes of vertigo have increased, and the duration of each attack is a little longer. The effects are both lasting and severe. And the main reason why I stepped back from us – from any kind of long-term relationship – is because I don’t know how much worse it’s going to be in five years or a decade from now. Like I said, I have no option but to accept uncertainty as my future. And I know you, Emily. If you started a journey with me again, you would stay with me all the way to the end. You’d never consider walking away, no matter how awful it got.’

  Emily’s face crumpled and her shoulders sagged. ‘So when did loyalty and integrity become such a terrible thing?’ The mounting frustration in her voice added an edge to it. ‘Isn’t it something we ought to have discussed? Instead, you told me why we weren’t able to see each other any more and then walked out of my life. I tried talking to you as a friend afterwards, but you always resisted.’

  ‘Because it’s hard for me,’ Bliss snapped back. He checked the tables close by, making sure they could not be overheard. There was nobody else around, but he lowered his voice anyway. ‘You’re not the only one who thought there was something between us, Emily. You’re not the only one who wanted more.’

  ‘But I’m the only one who didn’t get a say in our futures, Jimmy. You didn’t just decide what yours would be – you took mine and tossed it away at the same time.’

  Shoving his glass to one side, Bliss rested his arms on the table and said, ‘Because I wanted you to move on. We went through it all once before, all those years ago, remember? You moved on. You found somebody else, married him. Carved out a life for yourself. I wanted you to do it again.’

  Emily regarded him coldly for a few moments. ‘Is all this because of what happened between us the first time around? Because I walked away from what we had?’

  ‘Do you think so little of me?’ Bliss asked softly. ‘Am I really so small and petty in your mind?’

  Again she seemed to shrink into herself. ‘No. No, and I’m sorry for suggesting it. Look, I understand why you chose to push me away. Of course I do. I’m not insensitive to how you see yourself and your rotten condition. You picture a life of misery for me, only ever getting the dregs of you, the part of you worn down by the daily grind and your illness.’

  He nodded. ‘And it’s not just about my disease. There’s my job to consider, too. You know the kind of hours I do, the pressure I work under at times. You also know how little I focus on other things when I’m in the zone. You can’t possibly want any of that for your future, Emily. You just can’t.’

  When the resulting silence threatened to go on too long, Emily took a sip from her glass and said, ‘Jimmy, as I’ve told you already and I will tell you again now, what I wanted was to be asked. To be able to choose for myself. To have been granted the opportunity to have a conversation like the one we’re having now. I don’t know if you realise, but not allowing me to talk about it with you at the time hurt me. It hurt to know you didn’t trust me enough to make my own decision.’ She shrugged and her narrowed eyes met his. ‘It hurt me so badly.’

  Bliss closed his eyes, wanting to block out the sound of her pain in the same way. In all his soul-searching prior to his decision to step away from forging a relationship with anybody, he had only ever considered the ache and discomfort his situation was sure to cause in the future. Now he realised how foolish and disrespectful he had been – and, to a large degree, how naïve.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. He reached a hand across the table and held it there, palm up. After a brief hesitation, Emily grasped his fingers in hers. ‘Sorrier than you’ll ever know. I’m a bloody fool. There’s no denying it. But you always knew that about me. And of course, you’re right and I was wrong. As I so often am when it comes to this sort of thing. Sometimes I think I’m far more comfortable confronting a seven-foot bruiser armed with a chainsaw than I am a gentle soul like yourself. I should have had this discussion with you a long time ago. Explained myself, listened to you. I’m a berk, Emily. In many ways, I always have been.’

  She smiled, and he could see the weight lifting. ‘You can’t excel at everything, Jimmy. You’re great at your job, you’re wonderful with your colleagues, and especially with your team. If there’s not enough of you to go around outside of work, then those of us who take an interest in you and your life will have to decide if what remains is going to be enough.’

  ‘And would it have been?’ Bliss asked tentatively. All at once, her answer was important to him.

  Her hand squeezed his. ‘It would. And in truth, it still could be.’

  Fourteen

  The major incident room beat like a healthy heart. Exactly how Bliss liked it. During the previous week, the room had taken on a forlorn and sombre atmosphere as the exemplary efforts of the team led them nowhere. He had worked hard to keep their spirits up, but as experienced detectives each of them had endured investigations which for one reason or another never quite got off the ground. There were always a few that ran their course but stalled and fizzled out as the pressure of other cases pushed them further and further down the pecking order.

  Before leaving London the previous evening, Bliss had sent out a text alert to his entire team, advising them of the 8.00am briefing. The forensic investigation following the find at Tower Hill had provided all the momentum he and Chandler had needed to reinvigorate them. A grounded op had found its wings at last.

  Bliss began by outlining the broad details surrounding the discovery of the hand in the carrier bag, then covered the subsequent conversations and discoveries in depth. When he felt his team were sufficiently on board with the development of a three-way joint task force operation led by Thorpe Wood, he moved on to the call DI Riseborough had received from his crime scene manager.

  ‘The fingerprint belongs to a man who was once a major thorn in the side of police in the Islington, Clerkenwell and Hoxton areas of London. Tommy Harrison was a Class A villain back in the day. According to intelligence, he lives well off his reputation, but no longer carries the threat he once had.’

  ‘Did you know him, boss?’ DC Ansari asked.

  The team were aware of Bliss’s background in the Met, so the question was not unexpected. After Riseborough had mentioned it the previous day, his mind had immediately sought to dredge up some kind of memory.

  ‘The name rings a bell,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure he and I never bumped into each other, though.’

  Ansari’s face shone with anticipation. ‘Still, it’s a major breakthrough for us.’

  ‘You’re right, Gul. However, the true significance emerges when we consider the case file reference carved into his hand. Earlier in the briefing, I told you about the awful Geraldine Price murder. Well, it turns out, the investigating team at the time interviewed Harrison as a suspect. He was bailed, but upon presenting himself to police thirty days later, he was released without charge. According to DSI Conway, they liked him for it but were unable to break his alibi. Conway suggested Harrison might not have been one of the men who picked up Price on the night she went missing, but had been involved in her subsequent rape and abuse, and possibly even her murder.’

  ‘Where does the removal of his hand and the disposal of it fit in, boss?’ DS Bishop asked. />
  ‘Conway said the team running the case always believed several men were responsible. It wasn’t unusual for gang members to hold women somewhere and use them for whatever purposes they chose. As sickening as it sounds, most of these women were also tricked out and forced to endure a steady flow of “customers” to make money for the gang. But I don’t recall any of them ending up like Geraldine Price.’

  Bliss broke off there, letting his statement linger for a few seconds. He expected the same rising tide of anger in the others that he himself had felt after hearing about the woman’s horrific ordeal. He wanted to extract every drop of sympathy for Price, because he sensed it would be in short supply for their current victims once the team understood his line of thinking.

  ‘Pen and I went over it with both Conway and Riseborough, and we settled on two particular lines of inquiry: first, was Tommy Harrison’s hand removed by one of his fellow gang members from back in the day? And second, are our other two victims part of the same gang?’

  DCI Warburton had stood at the back of the room in silence until this point. Now, arms folded across her chest, she strode down the short aisle between the desks to join him at the front. ‘So you think these men are being silenced one by one by whoever actually murdered the poor Price woman? A member of the same gang?’

  Bliss nodded. ‘It’s certainly one of the key questions we have to answer.’

  ‘But why? I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Because of the method being used. Geraldine Price’s body was left for the vermin to feast on, but before being killed she’d been sliced up so badly her entire torso was disfigured from the neck down. She may have been alive but on her way out when she was dumped, meaning she wasn’t quite dead when the rats came sniffing around. Our three current victims have been sliced up in one way or another, and what you wouldn’t be aware of until now is that there are clear signs of vermin activity on all the pieces we’ve been left so far. Forensics called to confirm as I was leaving my office for the briefing. Needless to say, we don’t regard these similarities as coincidental.’

  ‘Boss, have you not considered a revenge motive?’ DC Ansari asked. She sat alongside Bishop, her usual partner, in the centre of the room. ‘Someone who was close to Geraldine Price?’

  Bliss dug a hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Twix. He tossed it underarm to the detective constable, whose catch earned a round of applause and a murmur of light-hearted banter from the rest of the team.

  ‘It was the first thing I thought of, Gul,’ Bliss said. ‘And you earn your treat for the best question of the day so far. But DS Chandler said much the same thing during yesterday’s meeting, and Conway wasn’t having any of it. And after hearing him out, Pen and I agreed he was probably right. The reason he’s convinced it has to be somebody who was involved is because of those details I just spoke about. Neither the flesh slicing nor the rodent activity was ever mentioned in public, and the media certainly never got to report on that aspect.’

  ‘Which is why you shifted focus to this Harrison’s gangster friends from back in the day,’ Bishop said. The burly sergeant reposed in his usual languid style, but not missing a thing.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘So you’re certain there’s no way the family learned the details? We’re ruling out a revenge motive entirely?’

  Bliss looked around the room. He and Chandler had spent more time with all this information, apart from the forensic breakthrough about vermin contact with the three recent victims. And although he didn’t want to get sidetracked, he owed it to his team to cover every avenue that had been discussed in London. He spared a sidelong glance out of the window, its tinted glass reflecting away the worst of the sun’s glare. It was going to be another scorcher of a day, and he envied those who were busy enjoying it.

  His eyes travelled back to the team. ‘DSI Conway did spare a thought briefly for Geraldine’s father, because Robert Naylor was a bit of a mad sod and something like this wouldn’t be entirely out of his comfort zone. Conway said he’d follow it up today, but in addition to the fact that Naylor couldn’t possibly have found out about the details I just mentioned, he is also an old man now – more than twenty years older than our three victims, at least.’

  ‘Which does leave Price’s husband and son, boss,’ Bishop said.

  ‘True. But we have the same issue with them. Neither was made aware of those specific facts, so how could they use them against anyone?’

  ‘Okay, yes, I see that. But slicing people up is far from unusual, and any dumped body will encourage vermin activity. It may still be pure coincidence.’

  Bliss ran a hand over his face. He glanced up at the whiteboard before replying. ‘Absolutely. I agree. I don’t think any of us were convinced one way or the other yesterday, and in answer to your original question, the revenge motive is not being ruled out. But we have to start somewhere, and we needed a focal point.’

  ‘So what are the specific plans?’ Warburton wanted to know. ‘Did you reach any form of agreement with Superintendent Conway and DI Riseborough?’

  ‘Yes, boss. The Super suggested we extend the JTFO to include the City of London force. Max Riseborough was reluctant, but he settled for going along with the idea provided he got the okay from his bosses. We should hopefully have confirmation soon.’

  ‘With you continuing to take the lead?’

  ‘Yep. We have the last word on any course of action. We work separately but also as a single unit, run out of Thorpe Wood. We decided to each return to our own areas and operate from there, but coordinate liaison and full cooperation between all three as soon as we get the word from Max.’

  ‘I haven’t spent a great deal of time with them,’ Chandler interjected, ‘but both the Superintendent and DI Riseborough came across as genuine men. We all want the same thing here. As far as we can tell, it’s the Super alone who has a connection to this, with the boss and the DI from Tower Hill being drawn into it by chance.’

  ‘I don’t get that part of it,’ Ansari said, cupping her face in both hands, elbows planted on the desk. ‘Why pull this Superintendent Conway into it at all? Why all the theatrics? Why not take these men out and dump them where nobody will ever find them?’

  ‘Because, irrespective of motive, it’s a game to them, Gul. And most games are no fun if you play them on your own.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Bishop said, a big grin on his face. ‘I can think of one or two.’

  Chandler chuckled. ‘I bet you can, big boy. You’ve been married so long now I’m sure you have to.’

  Bliss joined in with the laughter. It helped break the tension, and although the jokes made at times like this were usually feeble, they always met with his approval. There was a time when he had hated having his briefings interrupted, but he had come around to accepting the benefits of an open forum.

  ‘Leaving aside Bish’s penchant for pocket billiards,’ he said, shaking his head in mock admonishment at his DS, ‘if we’re right, and this is a fellow gang member silencing everybody else involved, then we’re looking at a solid enough motive. As for their choice of method, I’m thinking it speaks to their psychology. If they got a kick out of slicing up Geraldine Price – and perhaps others before and since – and leaving her for the rats, it would be natural for them to do these latest victims the same way. It may even be a signature of sorts. Taunting the SIO from Price’s murder may be the cherry on top – he’s not only reminding Conway that the police didn’t solve Price’s murder, he’s also telling him he won’t get a result this time, either.’

  Ansari nodded as if accepting the premise, but continued to look pensive. ‘But the… death by a thousand cuts, this slow slicing stuff, it’s all a bit contrived, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bliss said. ‘But it’s precisely the sort of thing this kind of personality enjoys most of all. Killing these men is clearly the ultim
ate goal. Taking his sweet time about it is the gravy – not the end result, not the killing. In fact, for all we know, he hasn’t yet killed any of the three victims, which is something we all need to keep in mind. As for why he chose to lure the Superintendent in, I reckon it’s his way of giving Conway the finger. He wants to remind him he’s still out there, with all the same tastes and desires. And he’s telling us all that he’s smarter than we are.’

  ‘Although the boss and I do have an alternative strategy,’ Chandler said. ‘Well, it’s his strategy, really, and I’m going along with it right up until it fails to pan out.’

  This resulted in a wave of casual laughter before Bliss filled them in. ‘As Gul rightly pointed out earlier, we do also have to consider revenge as a motive. Just because we’re aiming our beady eyes and ears at the “fellow gangster” scenario, doesn’t mean we intend to ignore any other reasonable possibilities. An act of revenge would also explain why Conway has been drawn into it, because in the eyes of the family he will have failed Geraldine Price. So yes, we will also take a long, hard look at her family. In fact, I’m seriously considering going all the way back to the original investigation and taking it on with a fresh eye. The way I see it, if we solve the Price case, we might just go a long way to solving our current one.’

  Bliss allowed a minute or so of lively discussion before cutting through it to speak again. He explained the agreements that had been reached the previous evening. Conway and Riseborough had fresh crime scenes to pursue, whereas his own had run dry. The Wiltshire-based DSI was now almost certainly compromised by his connection to the case, so Bliss assigned Bishop and Ansari to work closely with the Gablecross team and make decisions on their behalf. DC Gratton was due back into the fold later that morning after his day in court, but still minus Hunt, so Bliss decided to assign him the task of liaison between the three areas.

  They still had Tommy Harrison to follow up on – provided they got the nod from the City of London police. Bliss accepted the task on behalf of himself and Chandler. He also took on responsibility for delving back into case reference WS-HO-PC-94-04-02.