‘I’ve got a couple of ideas – leave them with me. We’ll chew them over later.’
After a moment of silence, Chandler said, ‘What’s going on, Jimmy? Why are you cowboying this?’
‘I’m not, and there’s nothing going on. Look, this needs doing, but it doesn’t require two of us this time. I need you lot to focus on other things while I’m taking care of one small part of the op. That’s all there is to it.’
Bliss wrapped the call up quickly, but felt uncomfortable afterwards. In truth, he had not wanted the people he intended speaking to today to taint Chandler, and if he was already here, it made sense to save Bishop and Ansari a long drive at the same time. Not that Chandler couldn’t cope with villains; she had encountered a great deal of ugliness in her career. Drug dealers, especially, were capable of any form of brutality you cared to mention. But in his time working organised crime cases, he had witnessed for himself the worst of humankind. He’d seen the sloppy remains of an entire family fed through an industrial meat grinder, bodies broken down by acid and flame, wounds in flesh caused by all manner of tools and devices, the decaying husks of men and a fair few women virtually unrecognisable as human. There was a certain finality to the work of a genuine, hardened gangster, and if Bliss had an opportunity to keep that dark energy from touching his partner and friend, he would.
In doing so, he recognised a familiar trait. His therapist, Jennifer Howey, had described it as his saviour complex. She believed his desire to save everyone was his way of making up for not being able to save one particular person: his wife. Naturally, he had argued the merits of her analysis, but had ultimately decided it didn’t matter what label she put on it. He was protective of others, and would never regard this side of his nature as wrong. He was certain of one thing, however: if Chandler found out why he had benched her today, it was he who would need protecting.
As he continued his tour of the area, Bliss found himself becoming increasingly dejected. Despite the best efforts of investors, Hoxton was still a dangerous and derelict area of the capital. Loft-style living was chic, but an existence to be enjoyed mainly by those with sufficient money to secure their property against the barbarians at the gate. New developments stood cheek by jowl with dilapidated local authority estates, intimidating warrens in which the criminal element thrived and which the police largely avoided. Bliss had once dated a girl who lived on one of them.
Wenlock Street ran parallel to Murray Grove – the street on which the Price family had once resided – and it was here that Bliss hoped to find one of the most notorious women ever to have survived the clutches of the Doyle family. Her flat was on the third tier of a five-storey block built from bricks the colour of red clay. He tried the lift, but its floor was swimming in the sticky remains of whatever toxic mixture of alcohol, vomit and urine had been left behind overnight. He decided the stairs would be better for his health in more ways than one.
After receiving no response to his first two rattles of the letterbox, Bliss tried again. This time the door was yanked open – almost off its hinges. The woman who stood before him was on the wrong side of fifty, but beyond the bed hair and lack of makeup, it was obvious she took care of herself. She wore a short, flimsy dressing gown over an even shorter, flimsier nightdress. Bliss thought of Freddy Swift, wondering how many of his movies had opened this way.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ the woman barked at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.
‘Mrs Daley?’ he said. ‘Siobhan Daley?’
‘Who wants to know?’ She folded her arms as if challenging him to ruin her day.
‘Police. I’d like a quiet word inside if possible. I can show you my warrant card if you like… but it would be better if you invited me in so your neighbours aren’t aware.’
‘Pull the other one, shit-for-brains.’ She went to close the door on him, but Bliss leaned in to prevent her moving it. He dipped into his pocket to fish out his credentials.
Daley gazed at his card and said, ‘What the fuck do you want?’
Bliss scratched his head. ‘I just had déjà vu,’ he said. ‘It’s almost as if we’ve had this exact same conversation before.’
‘Okay, so you’re a joker. I’m happy for you. So, what the fuck do you want?’
‘I want to come inside. And I think you’re going to want me to come inside, too.’
She looked him up and down, chewing it over. Bliss let the silence work its magic. He was allowed to enter, but not before Daley had rolled her eyes and huffed her irritation. She led him into a narrow kitchen and sat down at a small breakfast bar, where she already had a hot drink and a cigarette on the go. As she perched on a padded wooden stool, she crossed one leg over the other, and Bliss’s attention was caught by a large expanse of thigh. His mind drifted back to Swift, and the thought teased a smile out of him.
Daley had a sip of her drink and took a drag from her cigarette, releasing smoke from the corner of her mouth after savouring it for a couple of seconds. ‘What’s so funny?’
Bliss was about to brush it off, but it occurred to him that the story would make a decent ice-breaker. Without naming Swift, he told her about the porn baron and the clichéd scene he’d thought of when she first opened the door. He laughed and shrugged when he was done, as if to say it was one of those stupid isolated thoughts and maybe you had to have been there.
By way of a response, Siobhan Daley stretched out her evenly tanned bare legs, angling them slightly as if appraising their appeal. ‘You a leg man, Inspector?’ she asked.
Her calves were firm and nicely shaped. Both ankles were marbled with heavy veins, but they were lean and strong-looking, and her toenails were manicured and painted a cherry red. He gave a stiff nod of approval. ‘I’m a great admirer.’
She cupped her small breasts over her gown. ‘Really? What’s wrong with boobs?’
‘Nothing at all. I’m in favour of them as well, generally speaking. But legs are my thing.’
Bliss felt her eyes on him, and he was sure he saw them soften. Eventually her lips curled into a delicate smile. She moved both hands to her lap. ‘I’m sure they are. But we all know what you prefer, don’t we?’
Daley was playing him. Hers was either an attempt to entice so as to establish control, or to belittle for precisely the same reason. He had the authority, but they were on her home ground and she had the allure of experience on her side. It was probably her best card, given the life she’d had. But Bliss was not about to let her have things all her own way.
‘May I call you Siobhan?’ he asked.
‘You can, darling. And you can call me anytime.’ The fluttering eyelashes on this occasion were unnecessary and sad. She was trying too hard, and Bliss saw through the pretence.
‘Siobhan, I realise you opted out of the Doyle family when you ended your marriage to Patrick. From what I understand, walking out on a Doyle was unheard of at the time, and many people regarded you as either the bravest woman in this manor or the most foolish. The Doyles gave you a hard time, I believe?’
Bliss saw all thoughts of sultry flirting fleeing from her eyes. The hardening of her face was immediate, the sneer she now wore filled with resentment. ‘A dog would have been treated better,’ she said, her voice now low and reflective. ‘I was spat at, slapped, punched, kicked. And that was only by the women in the family. Pat slashed me with a knife, cut me somewhere even I wouldn’t show you. His brother, Colm, put me in hospital for two weeks, after throwing me down a flight of concrete stairs. Pat cheered him on as he did it.’
Bliss hung his head and let out a long gasp, hissing between his teeth. ‘But you stuck to your guns. You made it through.’
‘Oh, yeah. I did that. I’d never let them bully me into moving out of the area, either. This place is my home, and it always will be. It’s not been good for my sex life, though, that’s for sure. What bloke in his right mind is going to
try it on with Patrick Doyle’s ex-missus? Most of the family moved away, into their big houses and their fancy lives, but there’s enough of them and their friends around to make sure nobody dare have a crack at me.’
‘You think tongues will be wagging right now if anyone saw me coming inside?’
‘I wouldn’t bet against it.’
One of the reasons Bliss had chosen to come without Chandler was that he thought he’d get a better response on his own. Now, having recognised the issue of perception when it came to male visitors, he wished he’d chosen differently. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘Aw… I just got done telling you how hard it is for me to have a man in my life, so I was rather hoping you’d take your time with me, sweetheart.’
Bliss saw through Daley’s playful brassiness and chose not to play along with her little game; he let her know it with one look. ‘I understand I’m never going to get anything out of the Doyles themselves, but I thought a chat with you might be worth a shot, Siobhan.’
‘About what?’ She drained her mug and took one final drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out in a pottery ashtray that looked as if a child had made it.
‘Geraldine Price,’ Bliss said.
Daley blew out her lips. ‘Now, there’s a blast from the past. I haven’t heard her name spoken in many a year. What do you want to know about Geraldine?’
‘Did you know her?’
‘No. Should I have?’
He shrugged. ‘Hoxton is a decent-sized place, but it’s a pretty small community.’
‘If you mean we were all in and out of each other’s houses, you’re right – but around these parts, there are friends of the Doyles and then there’s everybody else. Pat’s parents and his brothers still lived in Clerkenwell when me and Pat got hitched. He and I moved over this way, which caused a bit of friction at the time.’
‘But who’s going to say a word to him, right?’
‘Too bloody true. Of course, there were a few faces who stood up to the Doyles, but they didn’t last long. Probably supporting flyovers somewhere, if you ask me. Most locals talked a better fight than they gave, but it was the sane thing to do if your enemy was a Doyle.’
Bliss thought she was right about that. He wondered what her life had been like since becoming an outcast in her own neighbourhood. From the limited information he’d been able to gather, the Daley family were no angels, and Siobhan was known to have been involved in criminal activity since she was old enough to bear children. Assault, theft, robbery, and running brothels and a blue movie theatre in nearby Shoreditch all formed part of her arrest record. Yet she had never been charged, often because her victims were either unable or unwilling to provide evidence against her. He had no doubt this woman could be vicious if she were so inclined, but her life had clearly become an existence to be endured over time. He tried to muster up sympathy for her predicament, but failed. Some people regarded Siobhan Daley as a victim herself, but Bliss believed she was rotten to the core.
‘Back to Mrs Price,’ he said. ‘You say you didn’t know her, but you knew of her, yes? Do you mean in respect of what happened to her?’
‘Of course. As you pointed out, the walls are both close and thin along these streets. Not much goes on around here that you don’t get to hear about. And something so awful… the stink never goes away.’
‘I can imagine. But the thing is, we now have a renewed interest in the case, Siobhan. At the time of the original investigation, police decided no locals were involved. Instead, they believed a group of men, ultimately passing through but perhaps staying locally for a week or so, tortured and murdered Geraldine, then dumped her beside the canal and drove away without a backward glance.’
‘And, what…? You’re now saying that’s not the case?’
‘I’m saying we’re looking at it again from a different perspective. Although none of the conversations in question appear on any official records, we know that members of the Doyle family were spoken to by detectives investigating the murder. Basically, there were two theories: either they were involved, or they knew who was.’
Daley snorted, folding her arms once again. ‘I can imagine how they reacted.’
‘It’s fair to say they were not particularly forthcoming. But you were still part of the family at the time. Within their inner circle, as it were. I have to wonder if you remember hearing anything. Any mention of it at all, a slip of the tongue, maybe?’
‘A confession, you mean?’ She shook her head and puckered her lips. ‘Not a chance, Inspector… Bliss, was it?’
‘That’s right. Okay, so nobody in the family coughed to taking part in her abduction, torture, murder, or dumping. But this was a serious crime right on their doorstep – it would have drawn a lot of unwelcome attention, both from us and the media. If they had nothing to do with the murder, I’m sure Pat and the others must have been steaming about that. You must have heard something, Siobhan. Even if it was just speculation.’
Huffing through her nostrils, Daley lowered her eyes. She lit another cigarette and took a long draw on it, resting one elbow on her cupped hand. ‘I can remember one thing. I’ll tell you about it, but then you have to go. I overheard Colm having a rant about it one day. He was looking for information, and he’d put the word out on the street. You’re right – the filth flooded this area for days after she was taken, and longer still once her body turned up. I think if Colm and Pat ever had proof as to who was responsible, they would have acted on it.’
‘Okay. So, no proof, perhaps. How about rumour? A name?’
‘I was getting to that. Look, it’s probably nothing, pure guesswork on my part, but I remember hearing the Walkers being discussed.’
Bliss was instantly alert. It was not a name he had expected to hear. ‘Would Phil Walker be one of them?’
Daley nodded, and took another drag before adding to the smoke coiling in a lazy cloud that nudged the ceiling. ‘There were three of them. The old man and two sons. Phil was the youngest, and by far the worst. On his own, he was a match for any of the Doyles. The Walker gang was small, but they drew other people in. The thing I most remember is, they were organised before “organised” became an actual thing around here. I never heard of any of them getting their hands dirty, you know? But they ran things. No question about it.’
‘And their name was mentioned in connection with what happened to Geraldine Price? You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes. Colm and Pat were totally hacked off about it.’
There was nothing sexual about the woman now. She’d played her role out, and dropped it when he refused to play along. This was the real Siobhan Daley, and she was all business.
Intrigued, Bliss reeled off the other names on his mental list, asking Daley if she knew any of them in connection with the Walker crew. She recognised them all, with the exception of Earl Dobson. He felt a tingle of excitement work its way down his spine, like a trail of cold sweat on a hot day. It was electric.
Phil Walker.
The one name on Vicki Harrison’s list of known acquaintances that did not appear on police records. Dobson was the second victim, Harrison the third. With Ben Carlisle now confirmed as the first, where did Phil Walker fit in? As the next victim? Or the man responsible for slicing pieces off his fellow gangsters?
While they were talking, Bliss had noticed Daley glancing nervously at her phone. At first he thought she was waiting for a call or text message, but then realised she was checking the time.
‘Are you expecting somebody?’ he asked, nodding towards her phone.
Daley shook her head. ‘Not expecting. But if you were seen coming in, those same people will be wondering why you’re still here. They’ll think the worst, of course. They’ll be earwigging to see if they can hear the sound of my headboard bashing the bedroom wall.’
‘You reckon they’d come banging on the
door?’
‘No. But they might tell someone else to do it.’
‘Has my coming here this morning made trouble for you, Siobhan?’ Bliss asked.
Daley wrapped both arms around herself in a tight hug. ‘I hope not.’
‘Let me see what I can do,’ he said, getting to his feet.
Back outside on the landing, Bliss told her to slam the door behind him. He made a meal of it, raising his voice, venting his spleen about people no longer wanting to help the police and telling her she could go to hell along with the rest of them. Anybody observing would hopefully no longer suspect her of having had a man in her bed.
As he drove away, Bliss found it hard to imagine living life the way she had to. Judging by the few minutes they had spent together, Siobhan Daley was no longer the woman she had once been; all her pride and dignity had been stripped away. The price she had paid for her own sins as well as those of the person she’d chosen to marry.
Twenty-Six
Bliss’s second unannounced visit in Hoxton was a complete washout. One of his old informants had lived there, but Bliss hadn’t been in touch with the man since leaving London for Peterborough the first time around. There was always the chance he had moved home – but if so, he would not have gone far, and Bliss was confident of tracking him down. He was ultimately disappointed, though not at all surprised, to discover his snitch had been a decade in the ground due to complications arising from liver disease. His crutch had always been hard booze of dubious quality, and it had eventually seen him off. But in any case, perhaps it would have been a mistake to expect the man’s alcohol-sodden mind to conjure up any worthwhile memories.
The setback left Bliss with time on his hands, which he spent browsing Chapel Street in Islington. The hustle and bustle and cacophony of voices and music jarred at first, but it didn’t take him long to acclimatise. The smells of the street market were completely different from those of his childhood. In those days it had been all fried onions from burger vans; now the deep-rooted odours were a heady mixture of spices. Today’s stallholders were of all creeds and colours, their wares ranging from bright rolls of cloth to fruit and vegetables, from household goods to banks of clothing on wire hangers. From a stall selling music in a variety of media, Bliss bought a Stevie Ray Vaughan live album in mint condition, and a Little River Band CD. Satisfied with his haul, he set off for the short drive to Old Street and parked up a short walk away from the building in which Andy and Stephen Price had their law practice.
Slow Slicing (DI Bliss Book 7) Page 20