If Fear Wins

by Tony J. Forder

  ‘I have no concerns in that area, Inspector.’ She threw a glance Chandler’s way. ‘I have my best team on it. I know you don’t need the pep talk or any extra pressure. You continue doing your job and we’ll have our answers. Whether we like them or not.’

  27

  Bliss followed his partner into the incident room. Where once a fug of cigarette smoke would have clung to the ceiling, now there was a dark pall of gloom, an air of despondency that felt like a physical presence lurking in the background. Reports had come in overnight of three racially motivated attacks, presumably prompted by the media information. First, a local Mosque had been firebombed. The building was not in use at the time and the homemade incendiary device had caused little damage, but the intention to do so was clear. Shortly afterwards, a group of four white teenagers were set upon by a ten-strong gang of men of Middle Eastern appearance calling for action against the ‘infidel oppressors’, which was followed an hour later by a car mounting the pavement and almost ploughing into three women wearing burkas, before speeding off again. A few hours in and the pushback had already started. Moreover, no further leads had come in either overnight or from early morning visits to known dealers.

  Bliss spoke to what remained of his congregation. He said all the right things, attempted to raise their spirits and inspire positivity, but felt afterwards that he had failed miserably. His team were bright. They would not be fooled by such overt insincerity. Bliss did not want them as demotivated as he felt, but they knew him well enough to realise when he was reverting to upbeat bullshit rather than genuine self-belief. He felt as if he was trying to wade through quicksand and carrying the full weight of the case deeper into the mire with him.

  As he was about to leave the room, DS Bishop was on his way in. ‘No luck with interviews so far, boss,’ he said, pausing in the open doorway. ‘We’ll update the logs and get back out there.’

  Bliss thanked him. Hand on the door, he hesitated as something out of nowhere popped into his head. ‘Bishop,’ he said. ‘When you arrived at the crime scene the other day you said you had looked up mispers and had come up with a missing woman in addition to our airman. Did you follow that up by any chance?’

  ‘Not since the victim’s gender was identified, boss. Why?’

  ‘Nothing really. Reaching, I suppose. I took a look at the case notes on the day but not since. I’ll check it out myself.’

  ‘Check what out, boss?’

  Bliss shook his head and slapped his thighs. ‘I wish I knew, Sergeant.’

  There was no logical reason to even try to connect a missing woman and a murdered airman. Yet two things had occurred simultaneously to Bliss. First, that the clothes had been found by the riverbank at around the same time as Livingston’s smouldering body was discovered. And second, there was only a mile or so as the crow flies between that riverbank and where the RAF officer met his grisly end. No good reason to tie them together, but the more Bliss thought about it there seemed no good reason not to at least follow it up. It felt like he had nothing to lose, and potentially everything to gain.

  The relevant log file had grown. The dive team had found nothing and were no longer searching. Bliss understood that if the woman had gone in for a skinny dip she could easily have been pulled away by the current. Equally, if she was not alive when she went in, then her body would still have drifted. The problem was they had no start to the time window, so it was impossible to even guess at how far the body might be from its insertion point. It was hardly the weather for swimming in the river, but it took all sorts.

  Looking at the list of items discovered on the bank, Bliss thought it odd that the silver earring had been left behind. He wondered what had become of the other one. When he looked at the clothing items, Bliss was puzzled more by what wasn’t listed. The lack of a jacket jarred, but a woman in distress might easily stumble from her home without one, whatever the weather. No trousers or dress, though the cotton top mentioned was heavy and long and Bliss guessed it might have been worn as a dress. The lack of shoes was something that stood out. If you were going to strip off your clothing, including your underwear, why would you keep your shoes on when entering the river? That did not make much sense.

  A note attached to the crime report raised the point that some people opted to disappear off the grid by pretending to take their own lives, meaning it was possible that the woman had not gone into the water at all. A follow-up note remarked that in such cases the so-called victim usually left some form of identification.

  Bliss followed the reasoning. He agreed that this was unlikely to be somebody looking to disappear. Whatever the theories, the one certain result of the investigation so far was that no one had yet been reported missing, and no body had been discovered. It was a mystery, but so far no evidence pointed to any crime being committed. It felt like another dead end.

  The lack of a handbag bothered Bliss. The lack of ID and phone concerned him, also. It was possible that someone else had stumbled upon the discarded items before the dog-walking couple and had made off with a bag containing a purse and mobile. If that was the case, why had they not also taken the earring? Bliss could not understand that. He re-read the report, but saw nothing noting the precise location of the earring when it was discovered. On a whim, Bliss called the number provided by the dog-walking couple.

  Don Walters was surprised to be hearing from a detective, but was only too happy to share his experience and thoughts relating to that morning. Spring had found its feet in recent weeks with the usual mixture of sun and showers. Monday at just around dawn had seen both, resulting in a fine drizzle as the pale yellow sun started its climb. Not that the weather mattered either way to Don and Delia Walters when it came to walking their beloved lurchers. Come wind, rain, blazing hot sunshine or frozen snow, the dogs got their daily walk. Lately, Don Walters had taken to considering the walks to be as much for his own benefit as they were for the dogs, especially since the diabetes diagnosis. As for his wife, she enjoyed these pre-breakfast walks most of all as they helped build a healthy appetite.

  Walters was a chatty, friendly man, and Bliss let it play out.

  Living where they did in Wansford, with the thundering traffic of the A1 on one side and the placid waters of the Nene river to the other, there was only ever one choice when it came to a walking route. Rosie and Angus scampered ahead, stretching limb and sinew. Creatures of habit, they took the well-worn orbital path through an overgrown field in a clockwise direction. In this way it took them twenty minutes to reach the riverbank. Three minutes later the couple came upon the pile of clothes, Rosie sniffing at it suspiciously and whimpering deep in her throat.

  Delia’s first thought was that someone had simply decided to go for a swim. After suggesting as much to her husband they stood there for a few minutes looking down at the river but saw no one splashing around. Don was the first to reveal his unease, but the clothes clearly belonged to a female, so it was Delia who sifted through them. Their next thought was that the clothes were those of a homeless person; they stank to high heaven, and were ravaged by ingrained dirt and foul stains. But it was the bra and panties that made Delia take out her mobile phone and dial 999, whilst she stooped to pick up an earring in the shape of an eagle.

  ‘Can you recall precisely where your wife found the earring?’ Bliss asked at that point, interrupting the man’s flow.

  ‘I certainly can, as I was looking straight down at the jumble of items when she did. It fell out of one of the bra cups as my wife moved the clothing. It had been covered up by the underwear.’

  Bliss thanked the man and ended the call. He thought about it for another minute or so. The fact that the earring had been tucked away inside the clothing gave greater credence to the possibility that a bag had also been discarded, but had been stolen before Mr and Mrs Walters arrived with their dogs. It remained a mystery, but with no body and no missing person’s report, it was likely to remain so until one of those two facts changed. Either way, it did no
t look to be tied up with his own investigation. It had been a long shot, and Bliss was not entirely dispirited.

  Throughout his career, Bliss had worked on many investigations that turned cold and had eventually been shelved in favour of subsequent cases requiring a full complement of resources and fresh thinking. He readily accepted that it was not possible to solve every crime. The majority of major crimes against a person are carried out by people known to the victim. Whether enemies or friends, work colleagues or love rivals, even family members, attacks were usually unplanned and left trails Inspector Clouseau could follow. Of the remaining crimes, a decent percentage go unsolved. The violent murder of airman Livingston could not be one of those. Somehow, Bliss and his team had to find a way through the morass. He could not allow it to be otherwise.

  Bliss realised he had forgotten another strand he was keen to tie off. He pulled up a number from his mobile phone contacts list and dialled out. Karen Bailey answered cheerfully. Bliss gave his name to the barmaid and let her know he was following up on things in order to close off certain elements of the case.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, Miss Bailey, but whereabouts are your family located at the moment, and for how long have you been there?’

  ‘You mean which travellers’ camp?’

  ‘I do, yes.’

  ‘We’re over at Oxney Road in the Newark district.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Oh, a good few years now.’

  ‘And have you looked at moving elsewhere in recent months? I mean, that’s a pretty stable and static camp. I wondered if you were settled there or took the travellers tag more seriously.’

  ‘Why are you asking me this, Inspector? What can it possibly have to do with Duncan?’

  ‘Loose ends. That’s all it is. We spoke to you formally, so when this is all put to bed we have to run down every scrap of evidence, including backgrounds on all participants. You never know, one day we may need you to speak up for Duncan in court. Unfortunately, admin requires us to make a note of not only the current addresses, but also recent and potential future ones as well. Nothing more than that, I can assure you.’

  Bliss told the lie easily. He felt it was justified, and in some ways genuinely believed he was simply running a lead down as far as it would go. He would not feel bad about it.

  ‘Okay. No, we’re not looking to move on. We’re happy where we are. And Inspector, I hope you find whoever did such a despicable thing to Duncan. He didn’t deserve that.’

  Bailey was right about that. Bliss closed the call with a sincere thank you. He was satisfied. The connection had been a loose one at best. But he felt better for having chased it. He was pulling at threads. Sometimes they came loose and could be discarded, and other times they unravelled in a way he could not have anticipated.

  The rest of the day, however, unfolded much like the morning. Interviews with drug dealers failed to provide any meaningful leads, and served only to frustrate and annoy the detectives involved. Both Fletcher and Edwards were conspicuous by their absence, and once again there was no sign of the CTU or Munday. Bliss believed they had shipped themselves back down to Cambridge, his immediate superiors clearly leaning towards the only evidence so far provided.

  In some ways he could not fault their reasoning. So far this investigation had thrown up one doubt after another. Bliss could not imagine which direction it would head in next, and he was extremely uncomfortable with that.

  28

  On his way home, Bliss stopped off at a little Co-op store on the corner of Oundle and St Botolph roads. He managed to find a space in the tiny car park, picked up a plastic basket on the way in and started shopping for a few items. He spent a few minutes in one aisle searching for a decent red wine. As he stood there looking at the shelves laden with different brands from all over the world, Bliss became aware of a figure close by that did not appear to be moving anywhere. When he looked up, a man was standing barely two yards away. He carried no basket, had both hands in his coat pockets, and was staring right back at Bliss.

  ‘Can I do something for you?’ Bliss asked. He wondered if this was someone with whom he’d had dealings in the past. A criminal he had failed to recognise. Perhaps even a past colleague.

  ‘I do hope so, Inspector,’ the man said. He stood a little over six foot, seemed well put together, and beneath the overcoat which was undone wore a suit that looked as if it cost as much as Bliss earned in a month.

  ‘You have me at a serious disadvantage.’ Bliss stepped away from the display of alcohol to face the stranger. ‘Do we know each other?’

  The man shook his head. ‘No. You don’t know me at all, and I only know of you.’

  ‘Then what is it you want?’

  ‘You asked if you could do something for me. Actually, as it turns out, you can. You can forget all about Simon Curtis.’

  Bliss set the basket on the floor by his feet. All at once he had the feeling this encounter was far more than it had first seemed. He kept his gaze firmly on the stranger.

  ‘Why should I do that?’ he asked. ‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’

  ‘Why? One good reason is that you really ought to be concentrating your efforts on finding out who torched and killed a young airman. A simple suicide should not be taking up either your time or your thoughts.’

  Nodding, Bliss gave a half-hearted smile. ‘Ah. You’re from the Security Service, I take it. One of Munday’s MI5 cohorts come to apply a bit of leverage, is that it?’

  The man snorted in derision. ‘That mob from Thames House?’ he scoffed. ‘Please. Give me a little credit. No, Inspector. I’m here telling you to back off because your country’s Secret Intelligence Service from Vauxhall Cross demands that you do.’

  Bliss felt his mouth fall open. He gathered himself quickly. ‘Six,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ the stranger responded. ‘Six.’

  They sat together in Bliss’s vehicle for very nearly an hour. The man from MI6 did not offer to introduce himself, and Bliss declined to ask. He knew that even if the man gave a name it would be false. Equally, long before the man he came to think of as simply ‘Six’ acknowledged the truth, Bliss realised that Simon Curtis had not been in any witness protection program. He had been an SIS agent working so far undercover it had become a genuine new life.

  ‘It sounds to me as if your man got found out,’ Bliss said, still attempting to assemble the information. ‘Got himself dead in the process.’

  ‘It does appear that way, yes.’

  ‘Well, I can see you’re terribly cut up about it.’

  ‘I didn’t know him, Bliss. Protocol insist we use non-colleagues for this sort of thing. The mopping up, for want of a better phrase. That way emotion cannot become a factor.’

  ‘Some, surely. You might not have known Simon Cur… whatever the hell his name was. But he was one of your own all the same. That has to hurt.’

  ‘It does.’ The man from MI6 acknowledged this with a nod and a jaw set firm. ‘But it’s worse when it’s a friend, hence our adherence to procedure.’

  Bliss caught the shift in tone. ‘Sounds like the voice of experience,’ he said.

  ‘It is.’

  Bliss did not care to dwell on what theatre of action that loss might have occurred, and the man from MI6 did not elaborate.

  ‘Whatever your man was working on, it got him killed.’

  ‘We have to allow for that possibility, yes.’

  ‘But you won’t be telling me what that was, will you?’

  ‘No. That’s not happening.’

  Bliss refused to be annoyed. It was to be expected. Another matter did bother him, though. ‘His house in Holme… that was you and your people that hit that yesterday?’

  ‘My people, yes. In a way, that’s really down to you. The moment we became aware of the wife sniffing around a cop, who for whatever reason decided to go digging for information, we understood we had to do more than we already had. Until that point we were w
orking on a less-is-more strategy. We had settled on a plan to enter the house covertly one day while the wife was at work, scrub the laptop’s hard drive after first copying its data to an external drive, remove whatever else we needed without her ever knowing we had been inside her home. But then you came into the picture, began to make a nuisance of yourself, and we felt we had to act swiftly in order to prevent you accessing his notes or computer. We had no idea if any of it contained compromising material, but we could not take that chance.’

  ‘You know you scared her? His wife? Don’t you give a shit about that!?’

  ‘You sound angry, Inspector. I wonder why. I’m aware of your prior relationship with Mrs Curtis, but perhaps I misjudged its impact and there’s more to it than meets the eye.’

  Bliss bit so hard on his bottom lip he drew blood. ‘When we’re done here, you’ll pay for frightening her,’ he said.

  The younger man shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Bliss. Mainly because if you tried, I would embarrass you. But you won’t because in time you’ll realise we had no alternative. It was the only thing to do, and you would have done it yourself in similar circumstances.’

  Bliss squinted at him. ‘Embarrass me?’ he said. ‘I guess we’ll see, Mr Spook.’

  The man turned away from him as if such veiled threats were insignificant and unworthy of his attention. He gazed out of the side window. It was a practiced move, attempting to show both disdain and disinterest. But Bliss noticed the agent following Bliss’s own reflection.

  ‘Let’s get back to business,’ Bliss said. He was furious, but keeping his powder dry. ‘You want me to drop my interest in Simon Curtis and his murder, which will involve lying to his wife. And in return you do nothing at all for me. Or her, for that matter. No insight into the work he was doing. No information about how he got himself murdered. That doesn’t sound like a good deal for me or Emily.’

  ‘It’s a great deal for you,’ the man argued. ‘You get the top prize of not having us fuck with you for the rest of your life, of us not fucking with everyone you know and their lives.’