The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  After cabbing it home, Bliss spent the next few hours sitting in his recliner. No music. No lights in the garden, illuminating its careful design for him to admire. No phone. Not even another drink. Instead he stared up at the ceiling, trying to work out if more could have been done to turn the case around sooner.

  In the wider scheme of things, Bliss believed the team might need more than his own sworn statement in order to charge Knowles with every crime they suspected him of having committed. Thankfully, evidence was steadily mounting. He had groomed young women; not for himself, it seemed, but to make money out of their abduction, misery and even murder by turning them out to men whose repugnant desires knew no boundaries. The numerous items of clothing found in containers beneath his home might prove to be enough physical evidence of his connection to them, but Bliss was convinced his team would find whatever was necessary to make a solid case. Knowles did not come across as the type to confess in the way Youngs had, but neither was he a man capable of carrying out his sordid plans without making mistakes along the way. His ownership of the kennels and the wealth of forensic materials discovered there, together with the statement made by Abbi Turner’s killer, added all the weight they needed to secure a conviction.

  His thoughts drifted back to the clothes. Bliss remained intrigued by the unidentified items, those which did not belong to any of the known victims. It occurred to him that Knowles might well have been in a relationship at one time, the clothes perhaps a legacy of that. Finding out who the woman was and what had become of her might make for another strand of Phoenix.

  But what of the other men – those whose hands had stolen the breath of four women, including their chalk pits victim? If any records of communication between these killers and Knowles had ever existed, it seemed unlikely that they still did. Forensic and DNA evidence gathered by the Met had not led them to identify the men responsible. But if Knowles could be persuaded to give up names – assuming he knew them – progress could well be made. Some form of leniency in terms of prosecution might have to be offered to induce him to provide suitable information. After all, the killers had learned of his young captives via a chat room he had set up. Finding these men without Knowles’s help would be a tough ask. It was a dispiriting thought, but Bliss believed in the team. If any group of people was capable of pulling this case together, they were.

  As usual, the hard work began here. Banging up the people responsible in a holding cell was one thing; sending them to prison with a heavy sentence, quite another. He slowly drew his hands down the length of his face. Feeling old and tired was par for the course these days, but the alcohol swirling around in his bloodstream might keep him pickled for a good while yet.

  His thoughts turned to Sandra Bannister. Unsure of what precise details he felt comfortable seeing on the home page of the Telegraph’s website, he’d already skipped three calls from her. Tomorrow would do. It’d have to. In any case, he was in no condition to discuss Phoenix with any reliability or without emotion.

  Thinking about websites sent his mind in the direction of Dark Desires. Glen Ashton had been noticeably absent all afternoon, and Bliss wondered if they’d see the ERSOU man again. If the investigator regarded what he’d done as a minor victory, good luck to him. Tougher times lay ahead.

  Yet still Bliss was intrigued. Though their job was to bring an investigation to the point where it could be prosecuted, there was satisfaction to be gained from simply knowing the answer to a puzzle. He’d forgotten to ask if anybody had followed up on his request for Lewis Drake to be spoken to again; that was something he’d have to check on in the morning. It bothered him, though. If Parkinson really had spread the rumour of a contract being taken out on her life, it was a pretty elaborate escape plan. And to what ultimate end? To perhaps deflect attention away from the real reason she and her children had fled? He also wasn’t totally convinced by the notion of Nicola having put the entire business in her son’s name. Was it genuinely possible for her not to have known about it until recent developments threatened to interrupt the progress of her rising star?

  The more he thought about it, the more his headache worsened. He took a couple of cocodamol with some water and staggered up to bed. He’d needed a stress-relieving drink or several after work, and they’d all known going in that they were out on the lash. The consumption of alcohol changed nothing, however; all of their problems would still be there the following morning when they dragged their bleary-eyed selves back into HQ. But the break from the intensity of any investigation was a necessary aside. This one more than most.

  As he climbed into bed, Bliss’s eyes fell upon the other side of the duvet, which was creaseless. The stark image of Abbi Turner lying cold and still in that desolate bunker cemented itself in his mind. Within moments he was creased double, weeping hot, salty tears, one clenched fist pressed against his mouth. The sobbing and moaning felt as if it lasted hours, though his incapacitation over this young woman he had never known in life lasted only minutes. Perhaps only as long as the difference between her final gasps of life and her ultimate death. Between salvation and damnation.

  When he finally came to lay his head on the pillow, Bliss had already started to drift away. But into the darkness he took with him Abbi Turner’s final moments, ensuring his deep sleep would not last long.

  Forty-Seven

  There wasn’t a great deal of talk the following morning, but the effort was undeniable. Bliss arrived shortly before eight, and for once he was the last member of the team into the unit. He felt proud of his colleagues and the way they went about their work – yet he had to remind himself this was no longer his team. It was his temporary DI who deserved any congratulations going around.

  Bishop pulled everybody into a huddle to begin with. ‘We had both a good and a bad day yesterday. Losing a victim we were working so hard to find is devastating, but we have her killer in a cell, and that’s all he’ll know for many years to come. Her abductor will be checking in with us soon enough, and although he has information we need to draw out, he’s another one who won’t be tasting free air for a good while. Take the wins, people. You all worked hard to achieve them. As for the loss… what’s done is done. The post-Phoenix review will pick the bones out of it, but you have to be content with knowing you did everything you could. That we even came close to being in time was a minor miracle. Let’s make sure we do our jobs now and hand the CPS a winner.’

  After a stuttering start, things began to move swiftly. Lewis Drake’s solicitor phoned and asked to speak with DCI Warburton. She insisted her client had no knowledge of where the Parkinsons might be hiding out, but that he would be sure to pass that information on the moment his own people located them. Bliss scoffed at hearing this. There was no chance of Drake leaving that particular situation alone, and if his crew discovered Nicola and her offspring first, they would never be found again.

  Within minutes of that call ending, however, a CHIS provided a possible breakthrough. According to this one-time druggie, now a registered informant, Nicola Parkinson’s parents owned a cottage on the Norfolk coast in a place called Mundesley. Bishop decided he couldn’t spare any of his team, particularly when they had no idea if the Parkinsons had even fled there. He put in a call to Cromer to ask for a local traffic crew to visit the address, which was nine miles south of their location.

  While the team waited to hear back, DCs Hunt and Ansari carried out their second interview with Alex Youngs. Bliss and Chandler observed the early exchanges. The detainee was not the open book he had been the previous day, engaging with his solicitor more often and declining to comment much of the time. His guilt was not in question; a statement in which he had admitted to strangling Abbi Turner had already been logged into evidence, all of which had been captured on the room’s audio and visual recording devices. The two detectives were attempting to tie up some loose ends, but the man was having none of it.

  ‘Maybe you should have used that fucking piece of pipe on him after all,’
Chandler whispered.

  The previous afternoon, Bliss had admitted his initial lust to exact brutal revenge on the man for what he’d done to Turner. He looked across at her and simply shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ She brushed a sympathetic hand over his upper arm. ‘As difficult as it is not to at times, we don’t allow ourselves to become like them. But if ever a bloke deserved a hiding…’

  Clicking his tongue on his teeth, Bliss said, ‘With a bit of luck, Pen, somebody will seek him out inside prison and choose to inflict unimaginable pain on him every hour of every day for as long as he lives. My crushing his head with that length of pipe would not have been anywhere near enough suffering for Mr Youngs.’

  Chandler nodded along. ‘True. We can only hope.’

  ‘Imagine if someone put the word out about the kind of man they’re dealing with.’

  She gave him a sideways look. ‘That would be wrong of us, DS Bliss.’

  The smile he returned was not a humorous one. ‘Indeed it would, DS Chandler. But mistakes happen.’

  They returned to the incident room immediately upon hearing of Cromer’s response to Bishop’s request. The traffic crew had indeed found Nicola and her two children at a house overlooking the beach at Mundesley. However, all three related the exact same story: they were hiding from a killer contracted by Lewis Drake. With all three refusing to attend Cromer station for further voluntary interviews, and no reason to arrest them, the attending officers had obtained a clean mobile number for the Thorpe Wood team to use if they wanted to pursue the matter directly.

  Which Bliss most certainly did.

  ‘Now what do you want, you persistent old fuck?’ she asked by way of a response to his call.

  ‘Dark Desires,’ he said. ‘I want to know more about it.’

  A deep exhalation crackled down the line. ‘I told you before, I don’t know anything about any site on the dark web. You’re wasting your time. And mine.’

  Bliss analysed her voice for stressors. He heard only irritation. ‘Okay. So tell me, Nicola, do you genuinely believe your old boss has a hit out on you? Is that the truth?’

  ‘Of course it is. Why would I make up some crazy shit like that? Especially when it implicates Lewis Drake, of all people. I’d be bloody mad to do something like that.’

  He hadn’t thought of it that way before. He understood what she meant, and her denial sounded genuine. Bliss began to wonder if Troy had led his own mother astray, insisting that Drake had taken a hit out on them all. He tried another tack. ‘I’m going to send you a series of photos, Nicola.’

  ‘They’re not dick pics, are they? I don’t think my image software magnifies enough for that.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. Call me fussy, but I like my women to be… well, human. No, the photos are from our evidence file. They reveal the details of invoices issued to an offshore company with connections to your son. Your main focus needs to be on what the invoices are for. You’ll see there’s a good deal of IT equipment, software, plus an office space and some heavy-duty broadband connectivity. Almost as if whoever bought all that kit was running… ooh, let’s say a website of some description. Have a look. I’m sending it now.’

  He’d already prepared the files and the message. All he had to do was hit send. He did so, and then waited. He heard Parkinson’s phone ping. He waited some more. After a few minutes of complete silence, she said in a hard and toneless voice, ‘These prove nothing. You could have knocked them up yourself. What am I supposed to say to this shite?’

  ‘I’m gathering additional proof, Nicola. All the evidence we have so far tells us either this is Troy’s company or he’s at least financially involved in some way. And as we speak, the finest technical minds in the NCA are going through the data stored on those devices. We’ll make the case against him. Have no doubt about that.’

  Exasperated, Parkinson’s voice became shrill. ‘What’s your game, Bliss? Even if everything you said was true, why would you tell me? Do you not think I’d warn him?’

  Bliss huffed. ‘Oh, I’m sure you would – even though your own flesh and blood cut you out of a deal that must have made him millions. That has to sting a bit, Nicola. But family is family, I suppose. No matter how much they screw you over. I warn you, though, once we do make our case, we’ll find him wherever he goes. He’s not getting out of the country any time soon, so that narrows things down a bit for us.’

  ‘So what’s your bloody angle? Why call? Why all the questions?’

  They had reached the stage at which Bliss had run out of information. From this point on he was reaching, grasping at invisible straws and hoping for something to stray within his desperate clutches.

  ‘It’s the young blonde,’ he said softly, remembering the irregular thought patterns of recent days.

  ‘What young blonde? What are you banging on about, Bliss? Are you talking about my daughter? You want to drag her into this as well?’

  ‘No, no. I don’t think so. Listen to me. The flat our chalk pits victim rented was cleaned out by a group of foreign men and a young blonde. Our witness thought she might be local, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Either way, for me that’s the piece that doesn’t fit. See, as far as we were concerned, Drake or someone working for his organisation – possibly you – had signed off on taking out our victim because she was earning on the side. We assumed the people who cleaned out the flat were working for you, too. Only, that can’t be the case if you genuinely had no clue she had her own sideline. And as much as I despise you, Nicola, I believed you when you told us that. We also know who killed her, and why. But nobody responsible for her death cleared out her flat, either.’

  ‘I’m still not seeing how this has anything to do with me or my family,’ Parkinson snapped.

  ‘Me neither. But I’m getting there, so bear with me. Thing is, logic tells me if it wasn’t our killer and it had nothing to do with her main employer, there has to be a connection to her sideline.’

  ‘Are you suggesting my boy is involved in her murder?’

  ‘Not really. Because I suspect if he was, either he’d have been there himself for the clean-up, or the blonde girl in question would have been your daughter. If neither of those things are true, I’m missing something. And you might be the person to complete the puzzle for me.’

  Parkinson’s sudden outburst of laughter bordered on the hysterical. ‘What on earth makes you think I’d help the likes of you?’

  As reluctant as he was to use the ploy he had in mind, Bliss felt he had no real alternative. ‘That’s an easy one,’ he said. ‘Because there’s a good chance that your son has also been had over. Tell me – is there a young, slender blonde in his life, Nicola? Someone close? Someone he might have helped get started in her business, without having a clue what it actually entailed?’

  The ensuing silence told Bliss his guess had been correct. This was the moment to leave a space for Parkinson herself to figure out the pros and cons, the result of which could only end in his favour. When she eventually replied, her voice sounded hollow and uncertain.

  ‘Troy was seeing a girl a while back. Young, blonde and slim, just like you described. She’s not local, though.’

  ‘I can’t promise you anything if he’s also involved, Nicola. But if you give me a name, I can tell you this much: I won’t push for him as a co-conspirator if I truly believe he knew nothing about this sordid business.’

  Another pause. For a moment Bliss wondered if he’d lost her. Then he heard her release a long, pent-up breath.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘Her name is Yeva.’

  Forty-Eight

  ‘Law of averages,’ Bliss said, meeting Savchuk’s stubborn gaze across the table. ‘We pulled five of you from the container that day at RAF Wittering. Stands to reason there’s no way all of you would prove to be fine, upstanding citizens.’

  Bishop had asked Bliss to sit in on the interview with DC Ansari, who would conduct much of it. The feeling was that his connect
ion might make the difference. They sat in what was the largest of the interview rooms, yet four bodies inside that ten-by-twelve space had always felt stifling and uncomfortable. Now it was undeniably claustrophobic, and Bliss was pleased they’d had no need of an appropriate adult as well.

  Savchuk’s solicitor cleared her throat before responding to his comment. ‘You have provided no evidence to suggest that my client is not the fine and upstanding citizen you speak of. Please move on.’

  Bliss turned his gaze upon Pru Harrington. No duty solicitor for Yeva Savchuk; Harrington worked for perhaps the best firm of solicitors in the city. She and Bliss had crossed paths before, and they did not like each other.

  ‘See that folder my colleague DC Ansari has placed on the table? It contains all the evidence we need. Your client paints herself as a hard worker for a genuine establishment, yet we know she also used to work as an escort to supplement her salary, and we have witness statements to that effect.’ Bliss raised a hand to prevent the solicitor jumping in. ‘And before you act all outraged and tell me being an escort is not a crime, it reveals a prior degree of deception and manipulation when talking to us.’

  Harrington, dressed in a two-piece trouser suit and looking sharp and elegant, turned her best full-lipped smile on him. ‘That wasn’t what I was about to say. I was going to make it abundantly clear that unless that folder also happens to contain proof of my client’s involvement in this site on the dark web, our time here will be brief.’

  Bliss glanced across at Ansari and nodded for her to pick things up. Leaving the folder unopened, the DC took time to gather her thoughts before speaking.