Bliss looked around the table. Nobody appeared to be either willing or able to respond, so he took it upon himself. ‘With respect, I think that would be the wrong move.’
‘Of course you do. Why so this time, Bliss?’
‘Because it reeks of tokenism, and that’s how it will smell to everyone within that community. DC Ansari is a fine detective, but if we would not consider putting someone of her rank or experience out there for standard tactical reasons then we should not do so simply because of her race or faith.’
‘I would think Ansari might welcome the opportunity to appear at such a media announcement, right there within her own community. She would be considered a role model, surely?’
‘I disagree.’ Bliss shook his head, glancing around to size up the mood of the others in the room. Jump in when you have something to say. ‘If she had the rank and if she had the experience to go with it, then I’d have no problem sending her out there – with no consideration for her background whatsoever. Purely in terms of getting the job done. Right now, the DC would know that she was put in that position for one reason only, and if she is even half the copper and person I believe her to be, she will be appalled. And disappointed in us all.’
‘I think perhaps Inspector Bliss is right,’ Doctor Kirmani said eventually. Bliss could tell he’d been against the idea from the beginning. ‘We do not want to send out mixed signals at such a sensitive moment.’
‘I think it best we leave things as they are,’ Fletcher said, looking sidelong at her Chief Inspector. ‘I don’t see it as a worthwhile advantage, and have no desire to risk any potential disadvantages.’
Edwards nodded, but then immediately turned away with a heavy sigh.
There goes our beautiful relationship yet again, Bliss thought miserably.
A short while later the meeting broke up. The man Bliss knew only as Munday, from MI5, said not one word throughout. Bliss watched him watching them, and was fascinated at the minor tics and body movements as each person spoke. Bliss felt that by the end he had come to know exactly what the man was thinking. Yet he also wondered if that was what he was supposed to think and had merely been bluffed.
Bliss had encountered MI5 before whilst working with both SOCA and the NCA. None of them had ever been the James Bond type, more George Smiley. He often wondered whether that was the difference between MI5, the Security Service, and MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, as the SIS personnel were a breed unto themselves. Bliss left the meeting thinking he would need to keep an eye on Munday as much as the spook appeared to be keeping both on all of them.
Having managed to slip away without being collared by Edwards, Bliss headed straight back to the incident room. The first person he clapped eyes on was Bishop, whom he instructed to go straight to the Superintendent’s office. He then gathered everyone else in a group and informed them as to how Operation Compound had been divided up. There seemed to be a general sense of relief that they were not being asked to follow up on the possible terrorism angle, and Bliss was glad of it.
‘Let’s not spread ourselves too thin,’ Bliss instructed. ‘For now, I want us to run with just two theories. Either this was drugs-related, or it was something put together in order to incite racial tension within the city.’
‘What’s your spin on this, boss?’ Ansari asked.
‘I personally think the former is far more likely, but both are worth investigating as far as they will take us. DS Chandler and I will pay a visit to our local band of fascist thugs, and Short, I’d like you, Ansari, Carmichael and Hunt to compile a list of our top drug kingpins and pay them a visit. Go mob-handed. Dogs and weapons. Tasers at minimum. No one is to discuss the possible terrorist aspect whilst outside these four walls. Simply ask whether anyone knew of or had business with Duncan Livingston and evaluate the reaction. Report back at evening briefing, please.’
Bliss checked the time. He was torn between rushing down to Holme to Emily, and following the task he had just set himself. He came to a decision that he was not entirely happy with, but one which would buy him some breathing space.
‘A word please,’ he said to Chandler. Bliss walked briskly to his office, Chandler following close behind. When they were alone he took a breath and dived right in.
‘Pen, I need a favour. I have to buy myself an hour. Something has come up. Something personal that I don’t want to have to go into right now. Thing is, I need to leave immediately and I have to ask if you will cover for me. I have no idea who might want to get hold of me while I am gone, nor when, but I don’t want to have to explain myself when I get back.’
True to form, all Chandler did was nod and meet it head on. ‘No problem. Anyone asks I’ll tell them you’re out scouting the local haunts for our right-wingers.’
‘Good thinking.’ Bliss nodded. ‘Cheers, Pen. I owe you.’
Chandler grinned. ‘Let’s call it even shall we, boss. You save me from being killed by a madman, and later I cover your arse for an hour. That seems equable.’
This made Bliss laugh, and it felt good. The investigation itself was proving problematic enough, but what had initially seemed like a quick job for Emily had now lurched out of control. He had to wrestle that back.
Twenty minutes later he was pulling into Emily’s driveway. A patrol car was also parked up, alongside the Bone Woman’s silver Audi SUV. Following a rapid conversation with the two officers who were sitting drinking coffee with Emily in her kitchen, Bliss persuaded them to remain on site until the CSI team arrived. His intention was to take Emily with him and drop her at his place. At least there she would be safe and he would stop worrying about her while he completed the workload he had ahead of him. Although reluctant to leave her own home, Emily saw sense in what Bliss was suggesting. Reminding her that this was most likely not a random burglary, more a targeted ransacking by someone who may also have been responsible for her husband’s murder, finally did the trick. Emily packed an overnight bag, collected her coat and was ready to go with him all within five minutes. Bliss used those minutes to take a look around inside the office. Two filing cabinets stood upright with one drawer from each jutting open. Notebooks, documents, files, scraps of paper, and a miscellany of office equipment lay strewn across the floor. The office chair had been pulled over, and was still on its side. There was a space on the desk where Bliss assumed the laptop had sat, a vague rectangular outline the only sign that it had ever been there. The raid on this room had been thorough, and to Bliss it did not look like the work of amateurs.
They made the twenty-minute reverse journey back up the A1(M) together. As soon as he reached home, he located his spare key and handed it to Emily as the two stood ill-at-ease in the passageway between the front door and his kitchen.
‘Take this just in case. If you need anything, there are a few shops close by if you make two right turns when you step outside. You should need nothing, but like I say, just in case. Don’t want to lock you in and have you feel trapped. Make yourself at home. I aim to be back by six-thirty, seven at the latest, but… well, you know how these things go.’
‘I do,’ Emily said. Her hands were clasped together, fingers agitating. Bliss understood her anxiety. ‘I remember it well.’
‘I can bring in a takeaway if you like. Then we can have a chat and talk all this through without interruptions.’
Smiling, Emily raised her eyebrows. ‘With you knee-deep in a case, I very much doubt it will be uninterrupted. But yes, food would be lovely. And, Jimmy… thank you. I don’t think I had realised quite how frightened I really was.’
‘You’re welcome. Relax if you can, help yourself to whatever you find. I have a TV and a music system, so go nuts.’
Bliss fetched Emily’s bag from the car and left it on the floor in the living room. He felt a whole lot better when he left. Emily would be fine on her own for a few hours, safe on neutral ground. One less thing for him to worry about.
23
The Anvil stood on Oundle Road close to th
e Valley Park Centre – which was more commonly referred to as Sugar Way, due to it hosting the central offices of the British Sugar company. Although sugar beet production had shut down in the late 1990s and moved to nearby Kings Lynn, the company still employed several hundred people locally, with many IT, HR and communications workers based in the revamped township. Bliss knew this because the more elderly locals still spoke of the stench of beet which spread its pall over the city at one time. They thought less fondly of the short period during which the sugar beet and landfill competed to see which could raise the biggest stink in Peterborough. Little did they know I would come along and claim that title, Bliss often thought when the mood took him.
Opposite the pub was an industrial estate from which the Anvil drew a great deal of its trade. On most afternoons, the estate would find itself short of one half-arsed garage, and the Anvil’s backroom found itself with Doug Ritchie fronting the Britain Unites right-wing group. Ritchie owned the garage, and the three other leaders of BU were employed by him as mechanics.
The two-storey red-brick pub wasn’t much to look at, and the boards outside advertised all manner of events that Bliss would drive a hundred miles to avoid. The two detectives entered via a small porchway that served no useful purpose. Whistles and jeers from a handful of patrons went up the moment Chandler stepped inside. Her legs were hidden from view by trousers, and she was wrapped up warm inside a padded jacket, but to these men she was female and had a pulse, so could be regarded as both fresh meat and an easy target.
‘You lost, darlin’?’ the barman called out as he pulled back on a pump to dispense some casked ale. He was rail-thin, with both a goatee and a man-bun. Bliss despised him on sight. ‘I think the stripper auditions are further down the road, love.’
This remark elicited another barrage of whistles from the drinkers assembled in the bar.
Over the years, Bliss had learned his lesson when handling those who abused Chandler. His only response was to stand back and pity them whilst she took care of it herself. Bliss glanced at his colleague as she aimed a razor-sharp glare in the man’s direction.
‘I wouldn’t let you sniff my mouldering corpse, let alone see me naked, you ignorant maggot,’ Chandler said to Man-Bun, who with each word seemed to shrink into himself an inch.
Without breaking stride, Bliss and Chandler continued to make their way towards the back room.
‘Hey!’ the barman called out. ‘You can’t go back there. Private function.’
Bliss stopped, stood still and without turning took out his mobile.
‘Calling the drug squad, are we?’ the barman said, a smug twist to his mouth. ‘You’ll find nothing here, mate.’
Bliss glanced back over his shoulder and said, ‘No. I’m calling HMRC. I do hope your tax and national insurance contributions are up to date.’
Man-Bun knew when he was beaten. He dropped his chin to his chest and held out a hand as if to grant them permission. Bliss snorted and continued on his way.
Bliss would later swear he heard Ritchie snarl as the door was thrown open. He stepped inside, Chandler in his wake. The room was small and reeked of cannabis. The nicotine-stained walls were a blast from the past Bliss could have done without. Before now he had never laid eyes on any of the four men who gathered in the room, but was aware that Chandler had encountered the group on a couple of previous occasions.
‘Oi, oi!’ Ritchie said, jumping to his feet and tossing them a mock salute. ‘It’s Porky Pig time.’
His three minions bellowed their laughter by rote.
Ritchie was an average man in pretty much every way, it seemed to Bliss. Maybe he pumped a little iron, and the story inked on his arms told Bliss the man liked his tats. But with his beer paunch, balding head and pasty skin, he did not come across as a threat in any way. Which only proved how looks could be deceiving, given his record was sprinkled with ABH and GBH charges. It seemed that when it came to a choice of weapon, Ritchie was a fan of baseball bats and pickaxe handles. He was also most comfortable striking somebody with one only when surrounded by his own mates. Bliss had done his homework.
‘You need some new material, Dougie,’ Chandler told him, taking a few steps closer, adding weight to her smile. ‘Or better still, learn when to keep your trap shut.’
The three stooges got to their feet as one, literally rising to the challenge. Bliss moved between them and Chandler, his eyes taking in each of their faces. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. ‘Right now all we want is a chat. You want a ruck instead, that’s fine by me but you’re going to need a good dentist and surgeon when I’m done with you.’
It was a bluff. Bliss could handle himself, but these three could take him easily. Thing was, he was an unknown quantity, and if he was right about this bunch being cowards to a man, they would think more than twice before risking their bodies in an unnecessary fight. As he suspected, they hung back, tossing uncertain glances at one another more than at him or Chandler.
‘My DI is right, Dougie,’ Chandler said. ‘We’re here to ask a few questions. That’s all. Doesn’t have to descend into anything naughty.’
Ritchie licked his lips. He hardened his stare, but the rest of his body noticeably relaxed. Bliss knew then that the so-called hard man did not have the stomach for it – as much as the rotund bulge beneath the scruffy brown T-shirt suggested otherwise.
‘You’ve got five minutes,’ Ritchie said, crossing his arms and rocking on his heels.
Chandler spread her hands. ‘It’ll take as long as it takes. But I have no desire to spend more time than absolutely necessary with your body odour. So let’s start, shall we? To begin with, where were you late Sunday, early Monday?’
It took only the thug’s furrowed brow to tell Bliss this was a tree not worth barking up. No way was Ritchie faking his surprise at the question. The frown held not the slightest hint of guilt, only genuine bewilderment.
‘We were here until late,’ Ritchie said, looking at his pals for confirmation. ‘Then we went back to my place for a while. When these three left I turned in for the night. Why, what you looking to fit me up for?’
Chandler turned to Bliss and shook her head, She had registered the look, too.
‘Anyone else vouch for that?’ Bliss asked.
‘Yeah, my wife. Actually, a neighbour as well – the tosser complained about the noise. I had to have a word.’
‘That must have been a thrill for him.’
Ritchie just stared at him, a smirk of satisfaction on his face.
‘I want statements off all of you,’ Bliss said. ‘Each of you get yourselves down to Thorpe Wood nick within the next twenty-four hours or I send a team out looking for you. They won’t be as kind or as gentle as me and DS Chandler.’
‘We ain’t done fuck all!’ one of the knuckleheads complained.
Bliss spun and fastened his glare on the man. ‘If you ain’t done fuck all that means you’ve done something, you bloody moron. Like murder the fucking English language, for a start. Just get your statements in and maybe we won’t drag your sorry arse out of bed at stupid o’clock in the morning.’
He took a breath. Disappointment raged inside him. Life would have been so much easier had they been able to pin the young airman’s murder on these idiots, but having spent only minutes in their company, Bliss knew that not one of them had the nous to have come up with such a devious plan. He was frustrated and looking to take it out on someone, though this group of mindless hoodlums were not worth either the time or the physical exertion.
‘Remember,’ he said, raising a finger. ‘One day. Then we come for you, and when we do we’ll come hard.’ He turned to Chandler. ‘Let’s get out of here. We ought to have realised this lot wouldn’t have two brain cells to rub together.’
They left to a chorus of ‘fuck yous’ and ‘wankers’ but it was all pretty low key and uninspired. Bliss felt himself growing hot in the cheeks. This now had to be about drugs, or they were all in for a long, hard ride on
a road none of them wished to travel.
24
The media briefing was as stage-managed as it gets. Fletcher, Haverstock and Kirmani shared a table and each played a part in the unfolding story they so desperately wanted the gathered journalists to buy into. Fletcher was matter-of-fact in terms of the investigation, stressing the fact that a potential terrorist attack was merely one of several leads the team were chasing down. The doctor was at pains to emphasise the exact same thing, beseeching his fellow Muslims to co-operate where required and not to make any early and therefore wrongful judgements. He also reminded all concerned that Islam was a religion of peace, and that if the murder of airman Livingston was committed by three extremists, they should be both exposed and condemned. For her part, Haverstock, the Westminster representative, attempted to reach out to all of the people in and around the city to form a common bond to support the police no matter what direction their investigative path followed.
Bliss watched it unfold with all of his usual cynicism from a safe distance. The official pleas for calm, patience and tolerance had no chance of reaching the furthest extremes of hatred. Mainly because those whose views were forged upon ignorance and idealism could never begin to see reason. The pot would be stirred from both sides, and Bliss feared innocents would pay with blood, broken bones, and possibly their lives. In an ideal world, before any announcement, he would have been given time to follow his instincts and hopefully reveal the murder to be drug-related or something equally socially unprovocative. Reluctantly he accepted that ideal world had never existed, and that heightened security, together with the fear and suspicion it propagated, compelled the authorities to react swiftly and without equivocation.
The team briefing that followed was entirely different fare.
‘You all heard it for yourselves,’ Bliss said, taking in the entire room. Neither of his superiors were in attendance, and there was no sign of the man from MI5 or the pair from CTU. It felt good to be communicating with just his team again. ‘In case you didn’t realise, that was the starter pistol being fired. From this point on we will be scrutinised like never before. Importantly, however, we have been allowed to focus on everything but the terrorism angle. That’s good, because it means we won’t get bogged down by outsiders politicising every aspect of the investigation. On the other hand, all eyes will be on us to find a lead that can shut down the other side of the operation completely.’
If Fear Wins (DI Bliss Book 3) Page 17