by Lisa Cutts
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Sophia, feeling the blush creep up her neck. ‘See you in a few minutes.’
She stepped forward, or as forward as she could without walking into him. Instead of going into the DS’s office, he moved his shoulder out of the way and twisted his torso so that she had little choice but to brush against him as she made her way back towards the incident room.
That she hadn’t imagined.
Chapter 9
‘Right then,’ said Harry, as soon as everyone was seated in the conference room. ‘For those of you who don’t know me, I’m DI Harry Powell and I’m the senior investigating officer for this operation.’
He ran an eye over those seated around the table, some brought in from other departments. ‘I know that a lot of you have come from elsewhere and have your own workloads you’ve left behind to be here. We’ve had to let some of our own staff be released to your departments too, and while it isn’t ideal that you won’t be working within your own specialist roles, I’m afraid that’s the way things are. Thank you for your attendance and continued dedication and professionalism.’
It was all bullshit – they simply didn’t have enough officers, so Fraud were working on murder inquiries and Major Crime were working on fraud investigations.
After everyone had introduced themselves, more for each other’s sake than anyone else’s, Harry got down to business.
‘Before we get started on this, a quick update – and thanks for those of you who worked on the kidnap yesterday. The “hostage” – I use the term lightly – was found safe and well. Safe and well except for the black eye he got from punching himself in the face, taking a photo and sending it to his mum with the message, “If you don’t pay £500 into my bank account they’re going to seriously fuck me up.” He’s been charged and remanded for blackmail and his mother’s mightily pissed off with him.’
A few laughed and a few tutted at the time and energy they had wasted when they all had work stacking up.
‘Getting back to today’s business, this morning I went out to the scene where the body, or what’s left of one, had been found in a field a few miles from East Rise in Lower Lynton. Early indication is that the body is female – it’s badly decomposed, but some clothing and jewellery have been found.’
He paused, gave what was the beginning of an encouraging smile, couldn’t find the energy to finish it, and then added, ‘We think, but this is not under any circumstances to go outside this room at the current time, that this is Jenny Bloomfield’s body.’
Harry once again paused. It wasn’t for dramatic effect, but he wanted to let the information sink in. Most of his incident room staff had worked on the murder of former Detective Inspector Milton Bowman’s wife, Linda. And each and every officer at East Rise knew that Aiden Bloomfield had been convicted of that murder, while his mother, Jenny, had last been seen walking free from the court after the jury acquitted her.
After he adjusted his tie, blew air through the side of his mouth and couldn’t fail to notice the deadpan stares of a few of his staff, he looked down at his iPad and said, ‘Sandra is drawing up a list of actions for allocation so please make sure you all know what you’re doing. There’s an abundance of work to be done, including speaking to Tanya, Jenny’s daughter, which I’ll be doing myself, but without, at this stage, letting on that we believe we’ve found her mum. We need to be positive about the identification before we do that, although from the sounds of it she’s far from daft and will need to be handled carefully.’
He glanced around the room at his team again. ‘It’ll probably be another late one tonight while we get some work under way. Our relevant times for verifying movements, CCTV, ANPR, are huge, meaning a lot more work than I’d like. We’ll have to go back to the date Jenny Bloomfield walked out of court, right up until the body was found this morning.’
Harry knew this would bring the pains on, but he had no choice.
‘The most sensible thing, unless anyone has any other ideas,’ he said open-palmed, nodding encouragement to the room, ‘is to make the first forty-eight hours after Jenny’s disappearance the priority.’
Murmurs of agreement wafted around the table.
‘Right then, I’m off to see Tanya King and the rest of the Bloomfield family. I don’t expect them to welcome me with open arms, especially as Jenny’s been missing for months and they probably feel we’ve done rock all to find her.’
As the detective inspector supposedly rallying the troops, he was aware he was going about it the wrong way.
‘I’m going to have to leave you to it,’ said Harry. ‘DS Sandra Beckinsale’s here to sort out the logistics of everything.’
He aimed this last remark at the detective sergeant sitting beside him, who, if she was perturbed at being left in the lurch at the last minute, did not react or show it in any way.
He closed the door on a roomful of people who were now expected to work round the clock if necessary, at least doubling their scheduled hours.
Then
I waited until dusk – enough light for me to see, but not so much that I could be seen. For several minutes I hung around on the edge of the vandalized kids’ park, glancing up at the second-floor flat, double-checking my earlier recces had been worthwhile.
Shitty little council flat in the bad part of town. Neighbours who mind their own business, with no sense of civic duty. Just the way I liked it.
I saw the light go on, movement behind the ill-fitting curtains and the unmistakable flicker of a television screen.
Show time.
I threw my cigarette on the ground among the rest of the litter, stuck my hands inside my jacket and pushed my fingers into the metal knuckleduster.
If he was lucky I wouldn’t have to use it, but needs must and all that.
Heart beating a little quicker, I let the wonderful adrenalin rush surge through me as I moved towards the front door.
Fortunately, someone had taken time out of their busy schedule to smash the glass panel, giving me access to the door handle and thus the communal entrance. I was inside in seconds.
The concrete stairway smelled of piss and cannabis. I took them two at a time, finding myself on the second floor and outside of flat number eight right on schedule.
A quick glance towards the only other door on this part of the landing assured me that I wouldn’t be disturbed.
I rapped on the door of number eight and stood to the side, counting under my breath, willing the foot-steps to hurry.
As he opened the door, the stairwell light timed out, leaving only the weak light from inside the flat.
I swung inside the flat, knocking him to the floor. The last thing I wanted to do was to touch him, but I had to grab his arm to pull him a couple of feet inside so I could get the door shut. Filthy bastard. Smelled like he’d cacked himself too.
‘Up’, I said. ‘Money and drugs, now.’
‘What? What dr—’
I didn’t have time for this.
As repulsive as he smelled, I leaned down, grabbed him by his greasy cardigan and hauled him to his feet, all five foot five and eight stone of him.
With my free hand, I punched him in the side of the face, a short, sharp connection with his cheekbone.
He cried out, put his hands up to his bleeding torn skin, his bloodshot eyes full of fear.
‘I won’t ask again.’
The pathetic little man pointed a bony finger towards an open door, edge of a bed visible in the gloom.
Not wanting to give him any opportunity to run for it (unlikely), call the police (very unlikely), or pull a weapon on me (laughable!), I dragged him along the nicotine-stained wallpaper to the bedroom.
The entire room reeked of cannabis. My timing, as planned, had been impeccable: his dealer would have dropped his gear off that morning, meaning a full stash was waiting for me, guarded only by this loser who was off his face.
Pushing him to the floor beside the bed, I grabbed the bags of weed, stuffed
them in my pockets and proceeded to empty the nearest drawer from the bed-side table.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t take my medication. I’ve got MS.’
‘Tell someone who gives a fuck. Money. Now.’
He pointed to a small wooden set of drawers on the far side of the bed.
Wary that he was slumped between me and the door, I moved around the room, one eye on his now-swollen face.
To my surprise, the drawer contained three rolls of bank notes, each holding a wad of about thirty notes. I grabbed them, stuffing them inside the front pockets of my jeans, and ran straight out of the flat.
As my feet hit the chewing-gum littered, dog-crap infested pavement, I relaxed and smiled to myself.
Good day’s work.
Chapter 10
Sophia was grateful that Dane had offered to drive them to headquarters for their briefing. It gave her time to study him, with little opportunity for him to do the same to her.
He was an extremely good-looking man, yet clearly he knew it.
Her tone remained as matter-of-fact as she could manage as she said, ‘So, do you live locally?’
Dane glanced across to look at her, a grin on his face. ‘East Rise, born and bred,’ he said, before turning his attention back to the road. ‘I moved away for a bit, pursued other interests before coming home.’
‘Other interests?’
Without taking his eyes off the road this time, he said, ‘I outgrew the place at one point, felt I needed to get away, see what the rest of the world had to offer.’
‘And?’
‘It was interesting, and I can’t deny I had fun, but I thought it was time to come home and settle down.’
Sophia felt her heartbeat quicken a little upon hearing this, the now familiar lurch her stomach insisted on doing whenever Dane made remarks he no doubt considered innocent.
‘You’ve still got family here then?’ she asked, with as much of an innocent tone to her words as she could muster.
Still studying him, she thought she saw his face darken, his jaw clench, but perhaps that was to do with the stress of heavy traffic as they made their way from the coast towards HQ, Sandra Beckinsale’s warning to be on time still ringing in their ears.
‘Not any more,’ he said, face now unreadable as he turned away from her, peering off to his right, checking for a gap in the steady flow of traffic at the roundabout they’d approached.
Aware that now was probably the time to refrain from asking him any more personal questions, Sophia changed tack.
‘I’m not sure why we’re going to work on some bloody fraud job while there’s a new murder to work on. I can’t imagine what the Bloomfields are going through, especially with Jenny’s son Aiden in prison. The family – or at least what’s left of them – must be so distressed.’
For a few seconds, Sophia thought he hadn’t heard her. Before she could repeat herself, Dane said, ‘Poor bastard. Poor, poor bastard.’
‘Jenny?’
He shot her a withering look.
‘No, the son, Aiden. I can’t imagine what he’ll go through when he finds out his mum’s been murdered while he’s banged up. It’s beyond thinking about.’
A conversation such as this with Tom Delayhoyde, her usual colleague of choice for such enquiries, would have by this stage escalated into a row. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have been an argument of any duration and would have most likely ended with Tom apologizing and Sophia telling him to ‘do one’, but this was different.
She wasn’t sure how to interpret exactly what Dane meant, and something about the way he said it made her think that perhaps she didn’t want to know.
Even so, she wasn’t a woman to be stopped in her tracks because someone disagreed with her. Not even when that someone was the best-looking man she had ever seen in the flesh.
‘Yes,’ she said, somewhat tersely, ‘but at least Aiden isn’t bloody dead. No, he’s incarcerated at Her Majesty’s pleasure, being fed and housed by an already overworked, underfunded prison service that can barely cope as it is. Just because his mum’s been found dead – and we haven’t had confirmation it’s her – it doesn’t mean to say he’s innocent or deserving of our sympathy.’
A bemused look appeared on his face as he looked over at her. ‘Have I touched a nerve?’
‘You could say that,’ she replied. ‘Sorry, but you weren’t here when Harry found Linda Bowman’s body. It was a bloody tough murder enquiry, with everyone wondering whether Milton Bowman, one of our own, had killed his own wife, not to mention the ripple effect it had on other officers and the fact their teenage son went to pieces. Life can be bloody unfair.’
He nodded, a slow and measured gesture as if weighing her words carefully. ‘Sometimes,’ he said slowly, ‘life is extremely unfair.’
His words coupled with his expression made Sophia think that there was a story here, something he was reluctant to tell her. Perhaps this wasn’t the time. It didn’t stop her trying.
‘So, what’s led you to that conclusion?’ A pause, hesitation, possibly annoyance, so she felt compelled to add, ‘If you don’t mind me asking?’
There was further silence while she inwardly scolded herself for seeming as though she was appeasing him.
Relief hit her when he answered. ‘My life hasn’t always been, shall we say, blessed?’
Beautiful deep eyes on her again.
‘It’s difficult to know what lies behind anyone else’s façade,’ he said, before turning his attention back to the road. ‘Every one of us acts a part, usually more than one depending on the audience. Put simply, Soph, know your audience and you can get away with murder.’
Chapter 11
Harry spent most of the journey to Ron Bloomfield’s house muttering to himself, still livid that he had been forced to give up staff to help out the Fraud Department. He was only a couple of streets away when his mobile phone rang.
The name ‘Haze’ appeared on his hands-free screen and he smiled. Even though, as the senior investigating officer, he had a very important meeting to attend with a soon-to be-broken family, he wanted to talk to his girlfriend.
‘Hi, love,’ he said. ‘How’s your day off going?’
‘It’s good. How’s your day?’
Harry indicated and pulled the car to the side of the road.
‘Well,’ he said as he gave a long sigh, ‘it’s been quite a turn-up for the books.’
‘That was an extremely lengthy exhalation of breath there.’
‘Sorry, darling, been quite a day so far.’ He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘We’ve got a new job in,’ he said.
‘Okay . . . You going to tell me more or will it wait until tonight?’
‘I’m about two minutes’ drive away from Ron Bloomfield’s house.’
‘Christ, H. What’s happened to him?’
‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ Harry said. ‘We’ve found a body. And we think it’s Jenny Bloomfield. You remember she was released from court when she was acquitted of Linda’s murder? Well, we all thought she’d buggered off with some bloke she’d been shagging. Now, it turns out no one saw her again and it was some time before she was reported as a MisPer by her husband.’
‘Want me to come in to work?’ said Hazel. ‘There’s nothing—’
‘No, darling, no. You enjoy your day off, besides, you’re back tomorrow. Once I’m home, you’ll soon tire of me. I’ll be bumping my gums about what a day I’ve had, and you can work some of that Mancunian charm on me.’
‘I was calling to see what you fancied for dinner.
What do you want me to do?’
‘Eat without me,’ he said. ‘This could take a while.’
He ended the call and drove towards the Bloomfields’ house. When he reached it, he pulled the car over outside the address and walked towards the front door.
He had thought about bringing someone along with him, but this wasn’t going to be easy and he saw no reason why another member of
his team should be shouted at as well.
He had no more time to think about that before the front door opened to reveal a woman whose world had imploded.
Tanya King’s face said it all: anger, despair and hopelessness. Each and every feeling was written on her face.
‘Hello, he said, holding out his warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Harry Powell from Major Crime.’
The broken woman merely nodded at his warrant card and led him into the family home.
Harry followed Tanya into the spacious living room where several other members of the family were waiting. As he entered, they all stared at him. The look was the same: they wanted answers, yet experience told him they wouldn’t be any happier once they got them.
No one was going to be able to appease the Bloomfields, who no doubt were seething with the police and everything they stood for at this moment in time. As a professional detective, Harry knew he had his work cut out and would never get them onside. The best he could hope for was co-operation.
The first thing anyone said after Harry had introduced himself to the room hadn’t been the opening question he’d expected.
A man Harry placed in his mid-thirties stood to the side of Tanya’s armchair, jaw clenched, furrowed brow.
With a strong Australian accent, he said, ‘What the fuck are you doing to get my wife’s brother out of prison?’
Then
I was running out of money, so I got to work.
I’d been busy on my evening walks, taking my time and scoping for opportunity.
Here I was, rear of the 1940s semi-detached house, gloved hand reaching over the top of the wooden gate to draw back the bolt before slipping the other side. Without making any noise, I pushed the six-foot-high gate so as not to alert neighbours if they spotted it swinging open.