Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7)

by Tony J. Forder

  Harrison turned her pained expression towards the DS. ‘Because I know my husband, love. We met when we were sixteen. He was solid and he stayed that way. We all kept our distance from the Doyles. It was them what came the other way, and my Tommy was as angry as anybody when they did. I’m not denying he knew them. All I’m saying is, he wouldn’t have worked with any family from the outside.’

  The man’s wife was certainly confident of her husband’s fidelity when it came to the crews he worked with. It didn’t surprise Bliss, but he was disappointed by it, nonetheless. He had hoped to tie Tommy Harrison in with the Doyles, because he suspected the family had more to do with Geraldine Price’s murder than they’d let on during the original investigation – or at least, one or more of them had knowledge of it and knew who was directly involved. Bliss had also asked himself whether Tommy and Geraldine living on the same estate was significant, or just a twist of fate. Putting it to one side, he turned his attention back to the daughter’s husband.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind my asking,’ he said, ‘but a few moments ago when Mrs Harrison cast aspersions on the Irish, you flinched. Was that a direct response to her slating the Irish people as a whole, or the Doyle family in particular?’

  Bliss saw Vicki’s face cloud over as she turned to look at her son-in-law. The daughter, meanwhile, sat facing forward, both cheeks turning pink. As for the man himself, he glared at Bliss, a tic pulsing beneath his left eye.

  ‘Sir?’ Bliss prompted, not about to let him off the hook.

  ‘I’m half-Irish. Vicki knows but doesn’t seem to care. I’m used to her ranting when she’s fuelled up on vodka, but even when she’s sober it seems like she wants to blame us all for what a single family did.’

  ‘You can always fuck off out of my house if you don’t like it,’ Harrison barked. She pointed towards the door as if he might have forgotten the way during the time he had been in the living room with her.

  ‘You think I’d be here if it weren’t for Phoebe?’ He gave his wife’s arm a squeeze, but refused to look at her mother.

  ‘You’d have no bloody reason to be, you doughnut.’

  Wedged between the squabbling pair, the daughter closed her eyes and appeared to shrivel into herself.

  Bliss glanced up at Chandler. Her focus was on the three people sitting on the large expensive-looking sofa. He jabbed an elbow into her side, and asked the question with his eyes and an almost imperceptible hike of his shoulders.

  Do you have anything more to ask?

  Chandler shook her head. The look she gave him suggested she was as sick of these people as he was. As the family argument continued to rage back and forth, Bliss worked through what he had learned. He believed Vicki Harrison when she claimed her husband had never had anything to do with the Doyle brothers. But what he wondered now was why none of them had asked why he and Chandler were there.

  ‘I don’t mean to interrupt this latest edition of Happy Families,’ he said, punching the words out to cut across the raised voices. ‘But I’m finished asking questions, so I need you all to calm down and listen to what I have to say.’

  Something about his tone or manner snagged Vicki’s attention. She stopped mid-tirade and looked directly at Bliss. In her eyes, he saw the first dim light of fear dawning.

  ‘My Tommy is all right, isn’t he?’ she said, a pleading edge to her question.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Bliss replied after a momentary pause. ‘I can’t tell you exactly how he is, because the truth is – we don’t yet know. We don’t have a clue where he is, either. But there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, Mrs Harrison: your husband is far from all right.’

  Sixteen

  On the drive to Theydon Bois, Bliss had noticed a mobile café in a lay-by just after the M11 slip road. Heading back the same way, he now saw a Transit van and two heavy goods vehicles parked up beside it, which implied the food was fit for human consumption. He told Chandler to stop and offered to buy them both lunch.

  At the long white trailer’s counter, Bliss asked the man behind it if he sold Earl Grey tea. The look he received in return was withering. ‘Not unless he’s the Earl of Lidl, mate,’ the café owner said, cackling at his own dry wit.

  Bliss responded with a lukewarm smile to match the quality of the joke – and the tea, no doubt. ‘I hope it’s not too late for you to ask for a refund,’ he said.

  The man’s eyebrows converged. ‘Who from?’

  ‘The customer services training camp. I reckon you’re about to get the lowest mark ever recorded.’

  The owner said nothing, responding instead with a wide grin as Bliss ordered two coffees and two bacon rolls. He waited close by to make sure none of it received a phlegm topping.

  While they consumed their lunch in the car, he and Chandler explored in greater detail the list of names Vicki Harrison had provided. Shortly after Tommy had been exposed as the man to whom the severed hand had once been attached, his entire criminal record had been made available to the joint task force, and the records included known accomplices. Chandler accessed the information on her phone and compared the list with the one Mrs Harrison had given them. Of the six names she had written down, only one did not match those on the police database: Phillip Walker.

  ‘We should start with him,’ Bliss suggested. He dabbed a fingertip on the sheet of notepaper Chandler had propped up against the steering wheel. He left behind a blob of tomato ketchup, but made no move to wipe it away. ‘In case either of us gets hungry later,’ he explained.

  Chandler stopped chewing her roll for long enough to say, ‘Makes sense. Paying this man a visit, I mean. Not the “saving ketchup for later” nonsense, which is straight out of Jimmy Bliss’s Culinary Tips for the Insane. He’s in North Weald, which isn’t too far from here.’

  ‘Precisely. We get him over with on the way home. I want to run the other names by Conway and Riseborough before we look into them. This one doesn’t seem to be on our radar, though.’

  ‘Which makes him even more interesting.’

  Bliss liked the way his partner thought. In his experience, the higher you looked up the criminal ladder, the less likely it was to find somebody with a record or featuring in any police intelligence data whatsoever. These men – and the occasional woman – were generally the brains of the outfit, people who kept to the shadows and out of the spotlight. They led from a distance, keeping their muscle at arm’s length. If he and Chandler were right, this detour on their way home might prove invaluable.

  ‘You were quiet back there,’ he said, mopping his lips with a paper serviette. He also checked the mirror to make sure there was no sauce smudged around his mouth. ‘At Harrison’s drum. You usually have one or two insightful questions, but… nothing.’

  Chandler finished eating and wrapped everything up in the grease-stained bag her roll had come in. ‘To tell you the truth, I felt a little bit out of my depth. You know the Harrisons of this world from your time in London – and working for the NCA, I suppose. I meet organised criminals on the odd occasion, but these old-time villains seem to be a different breed altogether.’

  ‘For the most part, their reputations are well-earned, and they did live the life. I knew many of them, and even regarded a few as friends at the time. But there were also some real scary bastards out there.’

  ‘Like this Doyle family, yeah?’

  ‘Them, and many others like them. Psychopaths, Pen. Pure and simple.’

  ‘Makes you wonder how they ever get someone remotely normal to share their life. Look at Vicki earlier. The woman was inconsolable – her daughter, too. They don’t even know if the man is dead, but their grief was genuine. They have hearts, they have compassion. How does that stack up with what they know about his past?’

  Bliss understood what his partner meant. The incongruence had always baffled him as well. ‘I think if you tell yourself somethi
ng long enough, you end up believing it. In all likelihood, Vicki Harrison may have told herself a thousand times that her old man couldn’t possibly have been responsible for all the things he’s meant to have done.’

  ‘You think the three of them will keep the news to themselves, as we asked?’

  ‘I reckon so. I think you made yourself perfectly clear. If they think there’s the slightest chance of him still being alive, and that by spilling their guts they’d risk putting him in greater danger, then yes, they’ll keep schtum.’

  It was barely a fifteen-minute drive from the lay-by to their destination, during which Chandler did her best to tease information out of Bliss about Emily Grant. He was equally determined not to give too much away, other than suggesting he was looking forward to their meal over the coming weekend.

  ‘So, no intention of backing out due to work commitments?’ Chandler said.

  She dropped the remark in casually, though he sensed it was anything but. Bliss had asked himself the same question. The months had flown by since he had last considered dating Emily. At the time, he had also been growing increasingly fond of Sandra Bannister from the Peterborough Telegraph. Following a particularly gruelling few days working the case in which he had met Molly, he finally made up his mind which path he wanted to take. He and Sandra had not been on a single date, although they were all set to make it work. But Bliss had realised two things as he sat at home contemplating his future: first, they were from different and radically opposed worlds, and their jobs would have them butting heads all the time. The thought of being with her was a pleasant one, but he saw no future beyond a few brief assignations. And second, he had never entirely shaken Emily from his mind, often yearning for what might have been, and mourning lost opportunities.

  His decision made, Bliss had succumbed to a vertigo rush which all but wiped him out for the best part of two hours. While he recovered, with a drink in one hand and a heavy weight lodged inside his chest, he realised he couldn’t inflict his illness on Emily. It wouldn’t be fair to her, even though the two had met around the same time as he had received his diagnosis. She knew more about his condition than most but, like him, it had also altered during the intervening years. His disease was chronic and would now never leave him. It was a progressive one, too, his ultimate prognosis unknown. He was happy they had spoken since, but looked no further ahead than their next meeting.

  He didn’t answer Chandler’s question directly, and they rode in silence until they reached the home of Phillip Walker. When Chandler pulled up outside the man’s residence and killed the engine, Bliss surveyed their surroundings. The apartment complex stood on an estate not far from the North Weald airfield, around the corner from a large industrial park. Peering up at the stained exterior of the building, he gave a low grunt.

  ‘What?’ Chandler asked, following his gaze. ‘You asking yourself if this is the home of a criminal mastermind?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was doing,’ Bliss said. ‘But you know something, Pen, I can see the brains of a criminal enterprise living in a humdrum gaff like this. Who would suspect them of having untold wealth stashed away in an offshore bank account?’

  Nodding, Chandler said, ‘Or this could be his crash pad – his proper home elsewhere, perhaps registered to a partner or his business.’

  ‘The thought never occurred to me. You may well be right.’

  They had to walk around the other side of the complex, through a maze of passageways and up a flight of stairs, to find the front door. Neither of them was surprised to hear the bell’s chime playing Rule Britannia. When there was no answer, Bliss rapped his knuckles on the door, following up with a thump using the meat of his fist. Still no response. He peered through the letterbox, put his ear to it for a moment. He neither saw nor heard anything to warrant a hard entry.

  ‘Can you hear cries for help or sounds of a disturbance inside, Sergeant?’ Bliss said, raising his eyebrows at his partner.

  ‘That depends, boss. If we crash our way in and find evidence but no bodies, our warrantless search will be challenged. We lose the decision, we lose the evidence. You want to risk that on what we have now? If so, then yes, there are clear cries and loud disturbances going on behind that door.’

  Bliss heard what Chandler left unsaid. She thought they should wait until they had more than a name scrawled on a scrap of ketchup-smeared paper. He scowled but drew back, wanting to take the door off its hinges but knowing his DS was right.

  After hanging around for a further ten minutes, Bliss decided to head back to HQ. He had no way of knowing where these interviews were leading, but he was keen to start looking at the Geraldine Price case. He asked Chandler to call Phillip Walker and arrange a suitable time for an interview. A short while later, having received no answer, she left a brief message on the voicemail.

  Bliss remained contemplative as Chandler drove them back to Peterborough. Eventually, he and his team were going to have to dip a toe into the murky waters of the Geraldine Price investigation. Based on his own experiences, Bliss expected complications. The big push for computerisation within the service had come in the early seventies. In 1974, the Police National Computer system was established, with the first HOLMES database emerging over a decade later. However, police officers and detectives had been less than keen to use the computers available to them for anything other than intelligence searches, and were often uncomfortable entering data into a system they did not fully understand. This had led to paper-based recording systems being maintained for many years longer than they ought to have been, and the process of moving them across to a digital store was laborious and prone to human error. The PNC existed in a variety of forms for more than twenty years before it finally became a reliable case file storage system.

  Currently when somebody was arrested, their details were fed into three main electronic records: the PNC, the national DNA system, and the IDENT1 fingerprint database. The three worked together seamlessly to maintain an overall profile of the arrestee. Not all older case files had been transferred manually from microfiche, however, which was a problem cold case investigators often ran into. In addition, some records were inevitably lost or misplaced during the transfer. With the Geraldine Price investigation having taken place early in 1994, Bliss was confident that at least a portion of the data he required would be missing. This always led to confusion, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know.

  DNA was a less obvious route. The first British murder conviction to be based on DNA fingerprinting had happened just three years before Price had been murdered, and in 1994 it was still not standard procedure to obtain swabs, because no national database yet existed. Add to that the condition of the body by the time it was discovered, and Bliss was in little doubt that he would find no DNA evidence whatsoever.

  By the time he got back to Thorpe Wood, Bliss had already decided to enlist the computer skills admirably demonstrated by DC Ansari. He’d have a chat with her, explain what he was thinking, outline the data he hoped to find, and leave her to it. Before doing so, however, he wanted to familiarise himself with the main players. The starting point – as ever – was the case file log.

  The first thing he noticed was how little information the file itself contained. Modern case files held ample links to a complete range of information, but what he saw on the monitor as he sat in his office was extremely limited in scale and scope. Knowing the basics, as related by Conway himself, was a decent start, but the Super had spoken from memory, which was as prone to failure as any other storage device. Reading through the log, Bliss was pleasantly surprised to find the case and its evidence unfolded along the lines described.

  He saw photos of the victim for the first time. Conway had called Geraldine Price a looker; if anything, he had understated her attractiveness. A stunning woman with blonde hair cut short into what Bliss imagined was a ‘pixie’ style, the array of images revealed close-ups of her
face and wider-angle shots of her from a greater distance. Price was the full package, but Bliss’s attention was caught more by her smile and bright eyes than any other features. The parted lips and even teeth spoke of confidence and enthusiasm, a lust for life and all it could offer. Beneath long and curving eyelashes, intelligence gleamed and passion burned. Until this point, the victim had been merely a name to Bliss. Now he saw the woman she was at the time of her death, and he was easily able to visualise the one she had hoped to be. Anger at her sudden and unnecessary murder swelled inside him.

  Moving on to the crime scene photographs, Bliss heard himself gasp as the establishing shot came up on screen. Taken from above, it portrayed Price as she was found on a small patch of land off Wharf Road, alongside the canal basin. The plot was overgrown with dense hedgerow and tall grass, wild with neglected plantation and thick bushes, and she was not easy to spot. It had taken a passer-by leaning over the bridge wall to identify what the youth initially thought was a damaged mannequin. A keen photographer, he had pulled out his Nikon, replaced the standard lens with a zoom, and zeroed in on what he imagined would be a fun shot. In his statement, he told police he didn’t think he would ever get over what he had seen through that lens.

  As he scrolled through the photos, Bliss started to feel sick. This once beautiful woman had been rendered unrecognisable. Puffy and discoloured, her marbled and stained flesh had a wax-like sheen to it. The scenes of crime officers had done a fine job in distinguishing between bite marks and deliberately sliced sections of flesh, confirming Pete Conway’s recollections. A great deal of attention had been paid to the area in and around her groin. Geraldine Price’s pubic hair was matted with dried blood, her labia shredded in places, with ragged tears revealing the punishment she had endured. Bliss noted deep lacerations on both sides of the vulva, caused by a sharp blade. In two close-up shots, he saw what appeared to be indentations, which he thought had been caused by the hilt of a knife.