The Autumn Tree (DI Bliss Book 8)

by Tony J. Forder

  ‘I realise I’m not flavour of the month around here,’ he said, ‘but tell me you wouldn’t have done the same in my shoes. Any of you? If you’d been given the cold shoulder and all the grunt work?’

  Warburton eased herself off the desk on which she had been perched. She pushed back her wavy brown hair and said, ‘I’m proud of the way this unit works with others, Glen. I was an outsider myself not so long ago, yet I was welcomed and treated like any other member of the team. Our joint task forces have been collegial, and our relationship with ERSOU in particular has previously been a good one. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but the big difference in your case was your initial attitude. So yes, you probably were treated with a lack of respect. But that’s because you didn’t even try to earn it.’

  He took the rebuke well, his eyes locking with theirs in turn. ‘You’ll get no argument from me on that score. As DS Bliss pointed out, I was a bit of a prick. But I didn’t have that equipment seized out of spite, nor to get one up on this unit. You were busy, I knew I could help, so I took it upon myself to get that part of the job done. I didn’t want any squabbles over who did what, either. I realise I went about it the wrong way, but if you’re at all interested, I think I have some good news for you.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Bishop growled, eyeing him warily. ‘Redeem yourself.’

  Ashton nodded. ‘I brought myself up to speed with the case file. So far, you’ve been unable to confirm who the other killers were. Understandable, really. People in that kind of business are hardly likely to concern themselves with genuine names. But this is where ERSOU comes into its own. First of all we drilled deep into Dark Desires, looking at all the men who’d previously requested girls willing to be choked. The site required legitimate identification, so we have a list of authentic names.’

  ‘How does that help to match them against our killers?’ Bliss asked. ‘The intel is one-sided.’

  ‘Because even Knowles had to have a way of letting these men know he had girls willing to go further for less money. As we already knew, he also used a dark web chat room. In there, the members use fictitious names only, lacking proper ID.’

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ Bliss said. ‘If the users have fake names, how were you able to pick out Knowles?’

  ‘With him, we were able to work backwards. We began by looking at what he was doing on there in the first place, so were able to look out for the kind of messages he’d be posting. See, the only real secret a dark web user has is their name. What they want or what they offer is usually pretty transparent. In this case, we looked at posts from somebody calling themselves DogOwner, who offered for rent young animals not requiring a slip lead.’

  ‘The fucking evil bastard!’ Bishop said. ‘A slip lead prevents choking.’

  ‘Precisely. So Knowles was easy to find, but identifying his clients from their user names alone would have been a nightmare.’

  Warburton raised her eyebrows. ‘Would have been?’

  Ashton nodded. ‘The type of men who use these boards almost always use several others across the web. ERSOU’s proprietary software examines the use of language, to help us build up a profile of these people on the dark web – the algorithm seeks out the same linguistic idiosyncrasies. These men had to have started off with normal agencies, or using one or more of the numerous websites out there matching sexual preferences with the right women. Also, they love a good message board where they can discuss their perversions with others. We have undercover investigators and officers posing as people with similar tastes, which makes it relatively easy to get involved in the discussions.’

  ‘And I’m guessing you got hits,’ Warburton said.

  ‘We did. It’s not an exact science. But I do have a list for you, containing thirteen possible suspects. We can’t narrow that down any further with software alone, but I thought that’s where Major Crimes might be interested in taking up the final part of the challenge. I think your team is best placed to whittle it down to find your killers.’

  ‘Our killers, Glen,’ Bishop told him. He gave a firm nod of appreciation. ‘What you did was uncalled for, but you’re forgiven.’

  ‘By everyone?’ Ashton glanced around, including at Chandler, who had joined them and had been listening for some time.

  The silence was electric for a few moments, but Bliss took it upon himself to close the distance between them more than metaphorically. He stepped forward, holding out his hand. ‘You have a lot to learn, Glen’ he said. ‘But so did we all at one stage in our careers. We could probably have dealt with you differently, and I’ll take the blame for that. The main thing is, you did right by us in the end. You did right by Operation Phoenix. Which means you also did right by the victims. That earns you a lot of points.’

  While Bliss was speaking, Chandler had taken a call. She looked at him when her own conversation ended. ‘That was Belmarsh. They can confirm that Drake borrowed a phone and spoke to Nicola Parkinson while we were en route. Seems he asked her if she knew why we were paying him a visit.’

  Bliss grimaced. ‘Just as we thought: she must have realised we were going to talk to him about Dark Desires, and that once we did he’d be wondering about her.’

  ‘Only we know she didn’t have anything to do with it. So why would she do a runner?’

  ‘Guilty by association, maybe. After we spoke to her about it, she must have wondered if somebody else in the organisation was pulling a fast one behind her back. If they were, it was happening on her watch. Perhaps we’ll never know if she had any suspicions about her own son. Also, what are the chances she wasn’t siphoning off some of the cash that passes through her hands? If Drake was about to get busy digging into the way his organisation was operating, she probably realised she couldn’t stand up to that kind of scrutiny.’

  Chandler sighed. ‘Perhaps we’ll get to ask her sometime.’

  ‘What a pleasant thought that is.’

  ‘What d’you reckon will happen with her boy?’

  He fired off a look of disgust. ‘Who the fuck calls their son Troy these days? I don’t know, Pen. He might be as gullible as he’s being made out to be. I’m not sure if we have anything on him – not yet, at any rate. Still plenty of time for all that over the coming months while we’re putting our case together.’

  ‘What a family, eh?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bliss said, turning away. ‘And the real kick in the balls is they might all be innocent this time.’

  He caught Bishop’s eye and indicated towards the door leading back into the passage. Outside the incident room, Bliss told his colleague he was stepping aside as Phoenix neared the end of its first phase. ‘You spoke well earlier, Bish. Now you need to do so again. Pull it all together. Savchuk is going to cough. Gul and I are waiting to hear back from her brief, but she’ll go.’

  Bishop’s face creased into a frown. ‘But you were as much a part of this as anyone, Jimmy; more so, if the truth be told. Why won’t you be part of the celebration?’

  ‘Because this is your team. You led them. If I’m in the room they’ll have one eye on me and may not know how to respond.’

  ‘If this is my team, you’re one of my team members. You deserve to be in the room, and you deserve the pint I want to buy you afterwards.’

  ‘I’m still part of your team, Bish. And you can buy me a drink tomorrow night. You get out there and tell them what they need to hear. Besides, I’ve got something else I need to take care of.’

  ‘One of these days you’ll have to tell me what you’ve been up to on the QT recently.’

  Bliss smiled. ‘Yeah. One of these days. Probably best kept for when you’re not my boss.’

  ‘Acting boss,’ Bishop reminded him.

  ‘Perhaps. Anyhow, embrace the victory. Enjoy it. They don’t all turn out like this.’

  ‘I’ll take the win, but in terms of a victory, it feels quite hollow. Perhaps the list Glen has for us will change that.’

  ‘Then keep them at it. He and Gul worked well
together. She understands the language. Between the pair of them I think they can help us track down the men responsible. We find them, we take covert photographs of them, and then we have Knowles confirm ID on them. He’ll be as helpful as he can be because he doesn’t want any of the actual murders coming back to him.’

  Bishop heaved a long sigh. ‘Where do these people keep coming from, Jimmy?’

  ‘I have no idea. I think I’d rather we were dealing with a single serial killer than multiple murderers. One sick mind as opposed to five.’

  ‘Yeah. And these were just the men who eventually went too far. The names Knowles gave us during his interview runs into more than a dozen of these fucking perverts. And how about the ones we know nothing about or weren’t a match for our purposes?’

  Bliss nodded and turned to leave. ‘Try not to think about them, Bish. Spend too long considering the numbers and you’ll never do the job again. Let’s savour the moment before we knuckle down to pull in these other sick fucks.’

  ‘Are you sure you won’t stay?’ Bishop asked, pleading one last time.

  Bliss was certain. Earlier, he had taken a call from DI Nicholls, whose team were set to effect the arrest of Neil Watson. Nicholls had wanted to know if Bliss fancied being there. As if the wildest of horses could keep him away.

  ‘Cheers, but no,’ he said to his friend, colleague, and reluctant boss. ‘I have one last job to attend to today.’

  Fifty

  Having worked closely with George Moss, DI Nicholls believed the plan he had pieced together ought to work beautifully. Moss would ask Watson to meet him for a drink, dropping a few hints that he was starting to feel the burden of the secret he’d been keeping. The pub in which they met would be filmed and recorded, with everyone in it a member of the team, including the woman behind the bar. Moss’s job was to put Watson on the defensive, getting him to talk and to admit to arranging the alibi. They had the man’s blood-drenched clothes, but a confession would be a nice addition.

  At the appointed time, Moss called Watson to encourage him out for a pint. When he sensed reluctance, he suggested they meet in order to discuss some misgivings Moss had about the alibi he had provided. Watson eventually agreed, and a time was set.

  Unfortunately, that was as good as it got.

  Bliss was already on his way over to rendezvous with the Hinchingbrooke team when he took a call from an anxious Moss, who was almost gibbering with fear.

  ‘It’s blown,’ he said. ‘Neil is onto me! Now what the fuck am I going to do?’

  Bliss spotted a place to pull over so that he could focus on the phone call. ‘Hold on, George. Calm down, pal. Explain yourself. What do you mean, it’s blown? Why do you say he’s onto you?’

  ‘Because he fucking called me back, that’s why! He told me something didn’t feel right about me asking for a meet-up the way I did. Then he said he wasn’t coming, and if he found out I was working with you lot he’d put me in the ground.’

  ‘Shit!’ Bliss emptied his lungs, cerebral wheels spinning all the while. ‘But it sounds to me as if he only suspects something might be up at the moment, George – there’s no way he can know for sure. I’ll call DI Nicholls and have him and his people step down so Watson has no way of knowing they were ever there.’

  ‘Oh, terrific. I can’t tell you how safe that makes me feel. I’ll sleep easy in my bed tonight now, won’t I?’

  ‘George, believe me, you’re going to be fine. You played your part, and he’s never going to find out about it because we’ll back off and wait for a better time. Thing is, you have to concentrate. Did it sound to you as if he was going to leg it?’

  ‘He thinks you lot are waiting to slap the cuffs on because I gave him up. Of course he’s legging it.’

  ‘All right. Settle yourself down, pal, or you’re going to stroke out. Listen to me. This is very important. Do you have any idea where he might go?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? I’ll tell you where he ain’t going, shall I? Anywhere I know about.’

  Bliss was struggling to steady his own breathing. It was Harvey’s arrest, but it was he who had stuck the key into the slot and started winding the mechanism. If Watson got away this would be his failure, too. More than that; if they drove him away now, where might he end up next? And what might he do there that nobody would be prepared for?

  ‘George,’ he said. ‘Don’t panic. I need you to find some backbone. Forget what you think you might know; tell me only what you do know. He’s been living in Peterborough for a while. You must have got closer to him over time. Slow your brain down and tell me about the people he pals around with and where I might find them. I know some of the places he might go before getting out of Dodge, but he must have other friends we know little about.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Bliss, he’s not hanging around in the city. He’s going to scarper. He might… Oh, fuck!’

  Bliss felt an instant chill rip through his body. ‘What does that mean, George? What have you just thought of?’

  ‘Is our deal still on even if I didn’t tell you everything?’

  ‘Not if you lied to us, George. It doesn’t work that way.’

  ‘No, I didn’t lie. But I didn’t tell you something because it didn’t occur to me at the time.’

  ‘So tell me now and worry about your own neck afterwards. Otherwise it’ll be me you have to fucking run from.’

  ‘Fuck! I thought you didn’t need to know. It didn’t seem to matter before. Shit!’

  Bliss closed his eyes. Teeth barely parted, he said, ‘I swear, if you don’t tell me right now, George, you’re going to need a zip to hold your insides together by the time I’m finished with you.’

  ‘All right. Stop messing with my fucking head. Thing is, there’s a woman Neil started seeing. Divorced sort. Lives over at Thorpe Meadows.’

  A coldness the like of which Bliss hadn’t felt in years crawled between his shoulder blades like a trapped insect. His jaw set so hard he thought it might break. ‘Are you sure?’ he snapped. ‘I mean, are you absolutely certain about this?’

  ‘Yes. One hundred percent.’

  Bliss felt his stomach fall away, as if he were trapped in a lift hurtling down its shaft without any brakes. His plan all along had been to enrage Neil Watson to the point where the man lashed out – but it was supposed to be at him. He was the aggressor, the man winding Watson up at every turn. All of the recent intelligence he’d seen insisted Watson had no woman in his life. If it had, he’d never have gone ahead.

  Intelligence was wrong, it seemed. Teddy Barr had not discovered the relationship, either. Knowing precisely how the police would think if they knew Watson was seeing another woman, he’d kept it quiet from all but his closest friend.

  What have I done? Bliss thought. Did I wind the man up only to propel him into another act of violence against a woman and…?

  ‘Tell me she doesn’t have children,’ he said. ‘Please tell me that, at least.’

  Moss was silent for a couple of seconds. Then, through a low whimper, Bliss heard the man say, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…’

  Fifty-One

  Thorpe Meadows abutted the city’s rowing club and sculpture park, close to the Boathouse pub often frequented by Bliss and his team. Having obtained the address and wrestled a promise out of Moss that he would call Nicholls, Bliss pushed his Mondeo as hard as he could on roads that were wet and treacherous. The moment he brought the car to a screeching halt, he heard a commotion that drew cold dread into his heart.

  He climbed out and slammed the door behind him. A vocal gathering of neighbours lurked on the pavement, while others stood on their own balconies. Horror and a peculiar instinctive excitement painted ugly masks upon their faces. Bliss raced up the stairs until he reached the landing on which an affixed plastic card revealed the correct floor. From there he found his way easily, the loud cries, screaming and muffled thuds pulling him in like a tracking beacon.

  Bliss had to push his way past the few
neighbours who had been brave enough to draw closer to the source of the ruckus, if not intervene to stop it. When he arrived at the door to Poppy Myler’s flat, it stood wide open. The din from inside had grown exponentially louder, its source there in its entirety the moment he crossed the threshold.

  The passageway was mercifully narrow. If not for that, Bliss estimated he might already be attending a double murder scene. Neil Watson was too broad, too muscular to move easily within the confines of the hall. As it was, his arms flailed, one hand clenched around the thin end of a baseball bat, the other clubbing at a much smaller woman whose bloody face strained every corded vein as she howled and screamed, desperate to maintain her protective stance over a young boy who cowered and wept, snot streaming from his nose and tears spewing from both eyes.

  Bliss made a swift calculation and knew immediately what he had to do.

  He took two long strides and hurled himself at Watson’s wedge of a back, bringing the meaty sides of his two balled fists around in a wide arc to thud into the man’s ears. Watson’s head was a solid mass, his neck and back and shoulders and arms bulging with power and strength. In his current state, any attack on these areas would be futile; the pumped-up beast was impervious to anything Bliss might have been able to summon up.

  But his ears were vulnerable, and the pounding Bliss gave them caused Watson to shriek like a whistling kettle reaching boiling point.

  Watson’s arm flapped backwards uselessly as he attempted to swat Bliss away. The baseball bat rose and fell against the solid hallway wall, gouging out a large chunk of plasterboard and lodging against it before the rounded wood could cause any damage to flesh and bone. The bat fell to the floor. Bliss used the momentary advantage to strike again, this time one-handed at the nose sticking out from the turned head like the gnomon of a sundial.