‘You could say that. Son of a docker, who was the son of a docker. Born and raised less than half a mile from here. Right where all those Japanese motors are lined up waiting to be moved on around the country, that’s where our old house was. Solid old homes knocking out solid families. You can imagine the draw this place was to us kids.’
Bliss could. They stood looking out over the dark waters of the Thames, the lights of Gravesend and Milton winking at them from the opposite side of the bank, illuminating the river as it flowed gracefully between the north and south of the city. Bliss huddled into his fleece-lined jacket, glad he always came prepared with one in the boot of his car. The wind nipped in off the river here as it made a harsh turn on its way to the London Gateway, and beyond that both Canvey Island and Southend, seaside towns where Bliss had spent some time as a kid. The thought brought back memories of kicking a ball around with his father, visiting the fair whilst licking ice-cream from a cone, and fish and chips for dinner before the drive home. South of the river you had Margate and Ramsgate, but for Bliss the sea would always be represented by Southend and the place his family and friends only ever referred to as ‘the island.’
They waited thirty minutes beyond the appointed time.
Visibly troubled, Pursey suggested they get back in the car and give his inside man’s flat a drive-by. Pursey was more placid now, but growing increasingly anxious about his colleague. Bliss drove west out to Aveley, no more than twenty minutes at that time of night. The inside man lived on the second floor of a three-storey block of flats on an old council estate that had recently been renovated by private investors. After the first drive-by, Pursey asked Bliss to pull the car over. Bliss slipped into the kerb and the two of them sat for a few seconds staring straight ahead.
‘Light on in the bedroom,’ Pursey said. ‘No tape across the lower pane of the window, which means he’s on his own.’
‘That’s good, right?’
‘I’m not so sure. If he’s up there and on his own, why has he not replied to my text message?’
‘Maybe he left the light on accidentally when he went out earlier. Maybe he’s not home at all.’
Pursey dialled the house phone. No answer, and no voicemail cutting in. He tried the man’s mobile again. Same result.
‘I’m starting to feel antsy about this now,’ Pursey admitted. ‘I’ve never known him take this long to respond before.’
‘Would you recognise his car?’ Bliss asked.
‘Of course.’
‘Is it worth risking a drive onto the estate and seeing if his motor is there?’
Pursey considered the suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t normally, but after everything that’s happened tonight I need to know he’s all right.’
Bliss pulled out and drove onto the estate through the first available entrance. The car park was virtually full and completely still, like a graveyard for mechanical items. They drove around a couple of times before Pursey asked Bliss to pull over again.
‘Back there, about nine or ten cars on the right-hand side. Focus Estate.’
Bliss glanced over his shoulder. ‘He always uses his motor when on a job for Bird? By that I mean, did he ever get picked up by someone else on the crew?’
Pursey shook his head. ‘Always drove. Nobody comes past him on the way as far as I know. But he told me he always liked to have his own wheels on hand, just in case.’
Bliss exhaled. ‘In that case, we have no choice. We have to go up there.’
Pursey looked at him. ‘No, I have no choice. I have to go up there. I don’t know what I’ll be walking into, so you don’t have to get involved.’
‘I’m already involved. Besides, I’m not going to let you walk into the unknown without backup.’
Pursey nodded his appreciation. Bliss steered the Insignia over to the side where it would be out of the way should anyone be looking to use the car park within the next few minutes. He followed the broad-shouldered DI into the building, Pursey’s nylon jacket hissing as he walked. There was a lift, but Pursey opted for the stairs. On the second floor he turned left and walked along an external landing. On the way up he had outlined the layout inside the flat. Central entrance, kitchen to the left, bedroom to the right, ahead and to the left a bathroom and toilet, just the other side of that a living room, next door to a second, smaller bedroom. The kitchen light was off, and Bliss pressed his nose against the glass to see if he could spot anything inside. He shook his head at Pursey. The front door was closed, locked, and appeared undisturbed. No scuff marks on the lock, no chunks missing from the frame. Pursey then crouched beneath the bedroom window, before popping his head up to peer through the net curtains. He glanced back at Bliss and shook his head.
Still nothing.
Bliss mimed knocking with his fist.
Pursey thought about it before nodding once.
Bliss rapped on the door with his knuckles. Not loud, but enough to gain the attention of anyone inside. After twenty seconds he repeated the action.
Still no response.
Pursey pulled out his mobile and jabbed a number. He put his ear to the glass of the bedroom window. Bliss lifted the door’s letterbox and did the same. The call rang out, but neither of them heard a thing.
The DI indicated downwards, and the two of them crept back to the stairway and headed down to the ground floor and out of the building. The wind had picked up, and drove into the two detectives. Their clothing snapped and rumpled to a vague natural rhythm. Bliss felt a little unsteady on his feet, but he leaned into it.
‘I don’t think anyone was inside waiting for us,’ Pursey said. ‘But neither do I think my man was in there, either.’
Bliss shook his head. ‘Me neither. You can just tell when a place is empty, and that flat was.’
‘So where the fuck can he be? The bedroom light is on, his motor is parked up, but he’s nowhere to be found in the middle of the bloody night. That doesn’t make any sense to me.’
Bliss glanced across at the Focus. He could just about see inside the vehicle, and something about it bothered him. He raised a finger and walked pretty much on his toes across to the car. The closer he got the more his gait became stilted in a weird crouching run. He reached the rear end of the Ford almost on his haunches. Raising his head he peered through the cold glass.
The man in the driver’s seat was slumped forward over the steering wheel. Bliss did not know the full story, but the bullet holes in the man’s head and the blood and brain matter spread across the windscreen, dashboard, and side window told him enough.
31
At his desk by 7.30 on Sunday morning, having driven straight to Thorpe Wood from Essex, Bliss prepared his story for either the Superintendent or DCI Edwards. With Jez having been charged and Pursey’s inside man murdered, there was no way Bliss could keep his involvement under wraps. If he did not report it first, the lapse would eventually catch up with him. The biggest gap in his story was how he had managed to link Darren Bird with the Livingston murder, and somehow he had to relate a viable reason without revealing his contact with the SIS agent.
Bliss had already left a text message for Emily, letting her know he was fine and that he would see her later. That was shortly before the circus came to town following Pursey’s call to report the murder of his inside man.
While they were waiting, Bliss and Pursey broke into the murdered man’s flat. It was not the scene of any crime that they were aware of, so it felt like the right thing to do. Between them they searched every inch, finding no evidence of his dealings with Bird’s crew. What they both agreed upon, however, was that the flat had been tossed. Neither professionally nor poorly, searched without leaving behind an obvious trail. But Bliss noticed how both the bedsheets and duvet were misaligned in the gap between the mattress and the base. Nobody would leave a bed made that way, and when the two detectives shifted the mattress they found its centre sliced open. Pursey observed how untidy every single drawer in the flat had been when he checked,
as if someone had scattered items whilst looking for something specific.
‘They were suspicious of him,’ Pursey said afterwards as they leaned over the balcony and watched the array of flashing lights moving towards them like a blue tidal wave. ‘They searched the place, and it seems as if they found something incriminating. Then they waited downstairs for him to arrive home, jumped into the back as he released the door locks and popped him before he had a chance to react.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bliss said. He felt bad for the man.
Pursey nodded. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
Bliss had stuck around in order to confirm the events of the evening, eventually providing a written statement to Pursey’s DCI. Afterwards, Bliss made a few calls and discovered that Jez was being detained, awaiting formal charges. The suspicion was that she may have informed Bird of a traitor within his ranks, but Pursey had repeated his version of events and swore that he had never revealed the identity of his man to the NCA officer. No matter how he felt about her betraying the op, he would not see her go down for something he knew her to be innocent of. Bliss had believed Jez when she told them that Bird was convinced he had a traitor amongst his ranks. He offered the opinion that Bird may have set up the entire false trade in order to pinpoint his rat, providing information to a select few men. Perhaps even one man. The insider.
Having been allowed to leave shortly before 3.30am, Bliss had taken an uncomfortable nap in his car before heading north once more. He managed little more than a doze, his mind alive with images and thoughts he could not shake off. The night had turned sour, and still he had no idea exactly where Darren Bird fitted into his own on-going operation. Eventually he settled on telling his superiors that he was aware of Bird’s reputation from his time at the NCA, and given the possible link to drug dealing had used his own time to follow an uncertain lead. He had not done so whilst on duty, so there would be no repercussions.
Walking into his office that morning, gloom encroaching with him, Bliss had entered not with his usual grim purpose and determination, but with a sense of dread that made him want to pack up some boxes and walk away for good. Whether as a result of the awful events of the past few hours or something more profound, he did not know. Still, as he slumped into his chair the thought troubled him.
In looking through the logs he noted that Bishop had taken receipt of the security video which was taken the last time the tree branches had been torn away or pulled back to create the perfect view. Bishop reported having watched the footage, which had occurred the weekend before Livingston’s murder, but that it revealed only a flurry of hands and arms and nothing of any genuine interest. The last line of the update mentioned a number of similar files, dating back to the previous year. Bishop had viewed several of them, but not one revealed anything other than arms and hands. There were none covering the winter months. Bliss imagined that the bare tree branches provided a good enough view, and that it was only when they became laden with leaves that the trimming back was deemed necessary.
Though the footage itself was a bust, Bliss was extremely interested in the fresh information. The existence of so many files told him that the murder – or at the very least, a murder – had been planned a long time ago. He pondered that for quite a while, wondering whether Livingston been the intended target at all.
When a call came through to his desk he thought it would be somebody demanding a follow-up to what had taken place down in Essex, but instead it was a journalist from the local newspaper.
‘I wondered if you had anything to say about your side of the investigation into the death of an RAF officer,’ Sandra Bannister said. Bannister was relatively new to both the city and the job at the Peterborough Telegraph and, following the previous major investigation into a series of rapes and murders, had impressed Bliss with her integrity and desire to report the facts as they were known rather than comment in her articles.
‘Off or on the record?’ Bliss asked.
‘I think you know the answer to that, Inspector Bliss. But even off the record would satisfy my curiosity.’
‘Off it is then. And for once, Ms Bannister, I am in full agreement with my superiors. Splitting the investigation was definitely the way to go. What’s more, if I had been asked I would have chosen the half I was given.’
‘So you weren’t asked, then?’
Bliss laughed. ‘Given everything is pretty much in the hands of MI5 and the CTU now, I could have been left with nothing. As it is, I’m following up where I believe our answers lie.’
‘Interesting. So you don’t think this is anything to do with terrorism?’
‘I don’t. And no, I can’t reveal why. I can tell you nobody here is entirely convinced, and the aim is to rule it out as opposed to in.’
‘So what can you tell me about your own investigation, Inspector. And this time I do mean on the record.’
‘Will you be quoting ‘sources’, Ms Bannister?’
‘Please, call me Sandra. And yes, if you’d rather.’
Just as he was about to speak, something popped into Bliss’s head. He ran it through a couple of internal filters before continuing.
‘Well then, Ms Bannister, I can tell you that we are looking at a potential drug-related incident. However, as of today we are also assessing whether the murder of airman Duncan Livingston could be a case of mistaken identity.’
That notion did not exactly jibe with Livingston’s story to his parents about a promotion and a large salary increase, but it was certainly feasible. The young man had been with three other RAF officers on the night. Perhaps the team needed to take a closer look at them all, not just the victim. It had only just occurred to Bliss, but it felt right enough for him to want to know more.
When the journalist attempted to probe deeper still, Bliss quickly shut her down. ‘One last thing then, Inspector,’ Bannister said. ‘I’m writing a book about your major investigation last autumn. Clearly I cannot write about you and not mention what happened in the city back in 2005. I would very much like it if you would do a series of interviews with me, so that I can authenticate the details.’
Bliss felt a numb sense of dread. Dredging up the past was seldom a good thing when it came to murder investigations, and the thought of having to relive the events of thirteen years ago was more than he could bear.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Bliss said. ‘And I would suggest you leave it alone.’
‘Inspector, I’m writing the book come what may. I would have thought it was in your best interest to ensure the facts are correct.’
‘Since when have facts and selling stories been one and the same thing? You just want an official tagline to go with the spin you will put on everything.’
‘With respect, Inspector, you don’t know me well enough to make that call.’
‘With respect, Ms Bannister, I thought I did know you. Apparently I was wrong.’
Bliss dumped the call before the journalist could react. With a bit of luck, Bannister would find it harder to sell her idea to a publisher than she believed. It was difficult to see how she could develop a book by using scraps of information gleaned from various newspaper articles. For it to succeed she needed someone in the know. Someone who was there and lived both events. Bannister needed him, and that was the one thing he had control over.
He felt a little bad about dropping her the way he had. She had played fair with him so far, and he perhaps ought to have given her the benefit of the doubt. He decided an apology could wait, and planted a reminder in his head to check out the online feed later to see what she had written.
Still expecting an early summons from one of his superiors, Bliss headed over to the incident room to see if any of his team had arrived. There was no requirement for those off duty to attend, but given the critical nature of the case and the opportunity for overtime, he thought a few might turn in.
Bishop and Short were huddled together with Ansari at the young DC’s desk. All three looked up as Bliss entered.
/> ‘Blimey, you look rough,’ Short said, eyebrows arched.
Bliss grinned. ‘Thank you for that, Sergeant. You can go off people, you know?’
‘Sorry, boss. But you do appear to be shattered.’
‘Nothing a decent night’s sleep won’t cure.’ Bliss had previously made up his mind not to inform the team about his connection with the failed raid in Essex. The Bird lead was nowhere at the moment, and he thought it would only confuse matters. It would spill out soon enough, at which point he could mop up the dregs.
‘We’re pooling our combined brain cells,’ DC Ansari explained.
‘Yeah, and getting nowhere,’ Bishop added.
‘Well, here’s a thought,’ Bliss said, planting himself down into a nearby chair. His body ached all over, but his lower back had taken the brunt of the previous day’s lack of rest and several hours of driving. ‘We’ve found no connection between our airman and the drug trade locally. Not even an unverified whisper. So what if our fake Jihadists got it wrong? What if they were after an RAF officer, but somehow misidentified him that night?’
DS Bishop was already nodding, clearly intrigued by the suggestion. ‘It’s conceivable, boss. But it does mean going back to the RAF and looking harder at his friends who were with him that night.’
‘Maybe even beyond that small group,’ Short said, immediately buying into the new theory. ‘If they got it wrong on the night maybe they got it wrong altogether.’
Bliss twisted his mouth into a pout. He let that sink in for a few moments. ‘We have to allow for the possibility. Problem being, there has to be in excess of a thousand people working on that base, so if you’re right it would be an impossible task.’
‘So we start with Livingston’s closest friends, the ones who were with him that night in the pub.’
Bliss agreed. ‘It’s worth some time probing. After all, it’s not as if we’re inundated with ideas.’
‘It’s an ugly notion.’ Ansari visibly shuddered as she said it. ‘To lose your life that way is horrible enough, but if it was the result of a mistake…’
If Fear Wins (DI Bliss Book 3) Page 23