The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  Chandler went through a wall calendar looking for names. She found seven, but each was female. She made a note of them anyway. Bliss found an address book. It mostly contained details scrawled on Post-it notes. After finding two numbers associated with male names, he called DC Hunt to ask him to run the numbers and when he got hits, put them through a PNC check.

  They were halfway through their living room inspection when Hunt called with answers. The name Ian came back to a hairdresser who worked from home, while Jakub was a Polish national who provided a handyman service.

  ‘I called both men once I knew who and what they were and had checked their records,’ Hunt told Bliss. ‘Ian did our girl’s hair once every six weeks. Last time was a month ago. Jakub built some cabinets for her.’

  Bliss had spotted the shelves. Built from limed white oak, they had a cabinet-maker’s finish about them. Perfect joints, no screws; the work of a craftsman. He admired them more closely as he went through Abbi’s small collection of Blu-Rays and CDs. In his experience, people often hid letters and notes between book covers, but as there were no books to be found he thought perhaps he might stumble upon something tucked between the various cases. Once again, he completed his search with nothing to show for it.

  Chandler had completed her own exploration of the soft furnishings and the coffee table drawers. Groaning a little as she stood upright, she turned to him and shook her head. ‘Forensics might come up with something – but whatever it is, it won’t be obvious. I have to think the reason we’ve found nothing is because there’s nothing here to find.’

  ‘That’s what bothers me. No computer, laptop, tablet, or even a games console. Don’t you find that odd?’

  ‘Not really. These days people have everything they need on their phones. Plus, whatever she had could have been stolen.’

  Frustrated, Bliss let go a deep sigh. ‘I thought we might find what we needed here. No idea what it might have been, but I felt sure we’d find some indication that this man actually existed.’

  ‘You think he might not?’

  ‘He could be nothing more than a fantasy. Plenty of girls who do what Abbi does for a living yearn for that one man who will take them away from it all. Perhaps that’s all he was. Somebody who lived only in her imagination.’

  Chandler let out a sudden groan and cursed. ‘I forgot to do the bins in the kitchen. We’ll leave the main ones outside to CSI. You never know, though. The recycling bin might hold something for us.’

  Alone in the living room, Bliss walked across and stood on the threshold. He surveyed the entire room section by section, seeking something out of place – an item you had to stand back from in order to fully appreciate its significance. His eyes moved beyond the chessboard and a moment later hesitated. He glanced back. Had his attention been snagged? If so, by what? He moved a couple of steps closer. The game looked to be no more than eight or nine moves old. One piece captured by each player. No discernible pattern that he could see, though he was hardly a player of distinction. He moved in for a closer inspection.

  The pieces themselves and the board appeared to be made from ebonised mahogany and sycamore. A nice-looking set. Bliss struggled to see what his mind had clearly latched on to. Thirty-two chessmen. Four bishops, four knights, four rooks, two queens and two kings. Sixteen pawns. Equal numbers in the ebony-tinted mahogany and sycamore. Except…

  The white king was not made from sycamore at all. Neither did its styling match the other king. It was close in both colouring and shape, but Bliss could tell it was not part of the set. It did not match. Remembering its position on the board, he picked up the piece, then did the same with the black king. The latter was a good deal heavier. Indeed, the fake one felt almost hollow.

  Puzzled, Bliss brought the item up to his face for closer inspection. He blinked a couple of times. Took out his reading glasses and squinted at it, rolling it over between his fingers. That was when he noticed the crack running around the neck of the piece, and a moment later he realised it was not a crack at all but an engineered join. Holding the base firmly, he pulled on the top of the king and it popped off in his hands.

  The king was not a chess piece at all; or at least, if it was, its appearance was one of disguise. Because in removing the cap, Bliss had exposed its true identity. The chess piece was, in fact, a USB stick.

  Forty

  Impatient to discover more, Bliss had fetched his backpack from the boot of the car. From its largest zipped pouch he withdrew his spare laptop and powered it up. He and Chandler sat at the tiny dining table, trawling through the contents of the chess USB stick.

  ‘I bet you anything you like most of this is also in the cloud somewhere, synced from her phone automatically,’ Chandler said as Bliss scrolled down a list of folders.

  ‘I’ll take that bet.’

  ‘You would. Old people like you and young people like Abbi think differently. It’s second nature for them to let their technology do the heavy lifting.’

  Bliss nodded, ignoring the jibe about his age. ‘I know all that. But you’re forgetting who probably has her phone. He would’ve wiped the storage clean.’

  Chandler sucked on her lip. ‘Of course. But I bet it’s backed up, so we might still be able to retrieve it.’

  ‘He probably deleted that as well. The provider may have backups themselves, but if the more recent files were only removed last week, I’m betting they’re gone for good.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to rely on data retention rules, so let’s hope she kept everything on here.’

  ‘Let’s hope.’

  Bliss saw nothing obvious in the list of folders, and so navigated back to the top of the list and opened up the first. With his partner looking over his shoulder and remarking on the content as they waded through the stored data, they had reached one labelled Misc before they struck gold.

  The third image was the first to also feature a man. It looked like a selfie, taken by Abbi. She wore a full-lipped pout. The man was smiling, but had a hand raised to partially obscure his face. The next one seemed to have caught the same man unawares. This time he was sitting in Abbi’s living room. Above average height and build, with thick dark hair; if this was Des, he looked like an everyman. His lips curved upwards into a smile, but the rest of his face told Bliss the response was not genuine. The man’s eyes, in particular, were narrowed in concern.

  ‘What does this one say to you?’ Bliss said.

  Chandler bent forward to study the picture. ‘I’d say he’s not as happy as he might first appear.’

  ‘My thought exactly. I wonder if Abbi noticed it.’

  ‘You think this could be him?’

  ‘Candid shots, here in her home. He’s not a client. Not at the moment this was taken, anyhow.’

  Chandler leaned on Bliss’s shoulder. ‘There are no clients at all so far, I’ve noticed. No people other than Abbi herself.’

  ‘That’s to be expected. Would you allow yourself to be photographed if you were about to carry out some sordid act on a young girl?’

  ‘True enough. So why did he?’

  Bliss started clicking through the rest of the images in the folder. ‘Because by this stage he’s moved on from being her client. He’s something else to her now, and he has to play along. If he’s pretending to be her boyfriend in order to lull her, take himself off the books so nobody knows they’re seeing each other, he can’t react negatively if she takes the odd snap of the two of them together. Besides, he knows he’s about to have full access to her phone and all of its data.’

  Bliss scrolled back a couple of shots. He made the image larger and centred it over the man’s chest. ‘Can you make out what that says?’

  Chandler leaned in closer, forcing Bliss to move his head out of the way. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It breaks up more the further you zoom in.’

  Bliss resized smaller and squinted. The man wore an olive-green fleece. On the left-hand side of the chest was some writing over what appeared to be a small im
age. The whole thing looked like a logo of some description, but the poor quality made it indistinct.

  ‘You think Gul might be able to do something with it?’ he said.

  ‘Absolutely. Our tech guys taught her well.’

  Bliss had never been a fan of hope, but he began to feel its grip, a tightening claw swelling his chest. He nodded absently, as if to himself. ‘I think this is our man,’ he said. ‘I reckon this is Des. And if that’s the case, then that logo might be the stroke of luck we were looking for.’

  ***

  Upon their return to the incident room at Thorpe Wood, Bliss immediately took a call from Belmarsh. He was desperate to reveal their breakthrough to the team, but was equally intrigued to find out why he was being contacted by the prison. Lewis Drake’s solicitor explained to him that they were being joined in a conference call by the deputy governor. This was in response to DS Bishop’s earlier conversation with prison staff concerning Lewis Drake’s contact with the outside world, following the visit by Bliss and Chandler.

  Drake’s solicitor announced herself as Geraldine Murray. She wasted no time informing Bliss of her concerns regarding the interview having taken place without Lewis Drake having the benefit of legal representation. She was hardly pacified when he reminded her that not only had her client agreed, but also her office had been informed prior to the prison offering its own approval. Even so, Murray moved on to assure him that Drake had neither taken nor received any phone calls since the interview.

  ‘How certain can you be that he had no use of a mobile phone?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘I object to the implication!’ Murray snapped. ‘My client understands this would be a breach of his conditions.’

  ‘I’m sure he does. But my question was to the deputy governor, not you, Mrs Murray.’

  Simon Price had been DG for five years. That was all Bliss knew about the man, but he hoped he would be honest as opposed to being an arse-coverer. ‘I understand what you’re getting at, Detective Sergeant,’ Price said, ‘and under normal circumstances I don’t think I could speak with any genuine conviction. However, as Mrs Murray is well aware, her client was in a state of frenzy following the interview yesterday morning. So much so that when he demanded to make a phone call and was denied immediate access, he became unhinged. As such, Mr Drake has been in isolation ever since.’

  Bliss took a breath. He knew what the follow-up question had to be, though he hated having to ask it. ‘That only means he’s had no contact with fellow prisoners, sir. How about prison officers?’

  ‘I’m way ahead of you. First of all, let me say that in this secure unit, Mr Drake only ever comes into contact with our most experienced, most trusted officers. Even so, I’ve personally spoken to the two who have communicated with him since his isolation. They insist there is no possibility of Drake having made a call himself. Nor has he had the opportunity to pass along a message for somebody else to make a call on his behalf. He’s had no external access of any kind.’

  ‘You can guarantee that?’ Bliss prompted.

  ‘Insofar as I am able to guarantee anything. I trust my staff, DS Bliss.’

  Almost before the DG had finished speaking, Geraldine Murray pounced. ‘Now that we’ve established my client’s situation, Detective Sergeant Bliss, would you please inform me as to why this is so important to you at this time?’

  He gave a wide smile of satisfaction. ‘You know, I don’t believe I will, Mrs Murray.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Is this the way you choose to behave after you’ve received our full cooperation?’

  ‘Your cooperation came at your own insistence. My job here was to establish whether Lewis Drake had communicated with anybody on the outside since my colleague and I spoke with him. Any cooperation you speak of has come from Mr Price and the staff at HMP Belmarsh rather than yourself.’

  ‘In which case, I demand to know why.’

  ‘You can demand all you like. It changes nothing.’

  ‘Then I demand to speak to a superior officer. Immediately.’

  ‘You’ll find quite a few of those in the armed forces, Mrs Murray. If you’d like to speak with a senior officer, however, please do call Thorpe Wood police station. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to avoid – sorry – take your call.’

  Bliss thanked the DG for taking part, was solicitous in saying his goodbyes, but by the end was glad to be off the phone. He looked around for DS Bishop, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Gul!’ he called out. ‘Do you know where the boss is?’

  Ansari looked up from her computer keyboard, smiled and raised her eyebrows. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Bish.’

  ‘He’s meeting with the DCI. What’s up, Jimmy?’

  Bliss walked over and leaned on one of the new Perspex screens that separated the work pods. He relayed the content of the call he’d taken. ‘What do you think it means?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps Drake didn’t put out this hit on Nicola Parkinson after all.’

  ‘Maybe. But from what you say, we’ve still got to at least consider the possibility.’

  Gratton was sitting close by and had been listening in. ‘Who else would?’ he asked. ‘And why? Lewis Drake had good reason. Who else is losing out by Parkinson and her kids making a killing from this website?’

  Bliss frowned. It was a good question. If Drake wasn’t in the frame, it wasn’t immediately obvious to him who else fitted. He put a couple of fingertips to his forehead, an ache having formed above his left eye. When he looked up again, his gaze fell upon Ansari once more. ‘Have you seen Glen? Is he with the boss and the DCI?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. He said he was stepping out to make a couple of calls. We were working on the location of the Dark Desires server. I have to say I wasn’t at my most enthusiastic at the time. We were all agreed it was for evidentiary reasons only, not something that was going to break the case wide open. But now I think about it, Glen was much the same for a good thirty minutes or so, muttering to himself in that disgruntled way of his. Then he went silent on me, for which I was thankful. Moments later he said something beneath his breath, got up and walked away. I’ve only just noticed he’s not come back.’

  ‘He’s probably pissed off at having all his hard work being shifted down our list of priorities,’ Hunt said. ‘Maybe he’s moaning to the DI over at Cambridge about how he’s being given all the shitty work.’

  ‘I hope that’s all it is.’

  ‘What do you mean by that, Gul?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘I’m just reminding you all that Glen is NCA. If he found something, came across a piece of information that might be useful, do we know for sure he wouldn’t take it to them first and leave us to find out about it later?’

  Gratton was already on his feet and heading for the door. ‘I’ll check the stairway and the canteen,’ he said. ‘If he’s on the blower to someone, I’ll see what I can pick up.’

  ‘You think he’d do the dirty on us?’ Bliss asked Hunt and Ansari.

  The pair of them looked on as their colleague left the room. Hunt thought about the question, and gave a slow nod. ‘I think he might. And to be honest, I don’t know that I’d blame him.’

  Forty-One

  Warburton and Bishop entered the room just as a tense situation had begun to escalate. DCs Hunt and Ansari stood virtually toe to toe, their faces flushed and eyes lit from within.

  ‘You’ve been whining about the same thing for the past ten minutes, John, and I’m sick of it,’ Ansari said, her voice loud and rising in pitch with every word. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about how badly we supposedly treated Glen Ashton.’

  ‘It’s an opinion,’ Hunt replied, leaning forward. ‘And I’m entitled to it every bit as much as you’re entitled to yours.’

  ‘The difference is, I’m not spouting mine for the sake of it. I’m only reacting to you complaining all the bloody time.’

  ‘And why shouldn’t I? You might be happy working alongside somebody while he’s getting sh
afted, Gul, but I’m not. He got a rough deal, and you know it.’

  The disagreement might have ended there – just two stressed colleagues seething at one another before deciding to walk away – but that was the moment when DC Gratton entered the fray. He took Hunt’s side.

  ‘We pushed him out into the fringes on everything,’ he claimed, drawing a supportive nod from Hunt. ‘I know he came in here with a superior attitude, but once he buckled down he was only ever useful to the investigation. He found himself stuck on nothing jobs with us time and time again. So, no, I wouldn’t blame him, either, if he’s taken fresh information to his own people back at ERSOU.’

  Bliss kept his thoughts to himself, allowing Bishop to step in to defuse the situation. ‘Is that how you two regard the actions I gave you both?’ he demanded, looking from Hunt to Gratton and back again. ‘John, you’re the more experienced, so you can go first. Is that how you feel about the task of locating that server?’

  Hunt stood his ground. He was not one for confrontation, but this time he looked as if he was about to dig his heels in. ‘If I’m being honest, yes: it felt like a nothing job at this stage. I realise we have to cover every aspect, and gaining evidence along the way is vital. However, with everything else that was going on I thought it was a job we could delay until we’d at least identified our man.’

  ‘I see.’ Bishop cleared his throat, buying time. ‘It didn’t occur to you that one of the reasons why I decided to keep you on it was because the Parkinsons might pull the plug at any moment? And I do mean literally. Down the server, switch it off, physically remove it from its current location, destroy the contents of its hard drives.’

  Hunt stared back at Bishop. His defiance wavered only momentarily.

  ‘We don’t know for sure that it has anything to do with the Parkinsons.’