Bad to the Bone

by Tony J. Forder

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Think of how you have been feeling lately, Mr Bliss. Then think of each of those symptoms becoming more frequent and more intense.’

  It didn’t take much imagination. Bliss saw himself stumbling, falling, becoming deaf, eventually being unable to drive. Unable to work? The thought caused his stomach to drop away.

  ‘How do we fix it?’ he asked. Bliss saw the consultant’s face became immediately solemn, and knew it had to be bad news.

  ‘Ménière’s has no known cure,’ Scowcroft told him. ‘However, there are ways we may be able to alleviate some of the symptoms, and long periods of remission are quite common.’

  ‘You mean it could just disappear as quickly as it came?’

  ‘It happens. But I do have to stress that Ménière’s is a chronic, progressive disease. That is to say, although it could just wink out, it could just as easily become worse. It’s very much a disease of peaks and troughs. Unfortunately, there’s more that we don’t know about it than we understand. I’m being as blunt as I can be, because I do think it’s likely that you have Ménière’s in one of its many forms.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘How did I get it?’

  ‘Impossible to say, I’m afraid.’

  Unable to take it all in, Bliss felt on the verge of shock. He could feel his hands shaking, and he quickly clenched his fists in order to stop the jerky movements. The euphoria he’d felt at learning the result of the MRI scan had drained clean away, replaced now by a dread that lay like a rock deep inside his heart. He found it impossible to fully comprehend, with far too many details to consider, and all he wanted to do right now was get out of there and draw some fresh air into his lungs. Despite this, the practical side of his nature compelled him to remain.

  ‘You said there were ways to relieve the symptoms,’ Bliss said. He swallowed. ‘Tell me more.’ Bliss walked out of the hospital at ten fifty. Forty minutes later he was still sitting in the car park. His head was buzzing, and this time the tinnitus was not to blame. It was a peculiar feeling; on the one hand he felt immense relief that his illness was not due to the brain tumour he had feared, and on the other there was the disbelief at what he had learned from Captain Scowcroft.

  Ménière’s. An illness that could send him tumbling to the floor at will, no apparent cure, yet one that could be gone when he woke up the next morning. The disease revolved around problems with fluid and blood flow within the inner ear, causing the sensory balance system to send out wrong signals. Balance, the consultant had explained, depended on the eyes, ears and brain working in harmony. One of them only had to malfunction slightly for the balance to be thrown completely. In the case of Ménière’s, the hearing was also affected, but it was the imbalance and attacks of vertigo that were the main potential physical disabilities.

  Scowcroft had given him a letter for his GP, advising a course of tablets designed to help improve the blood flow. In addition he was to watch his salt intake, and set about improving the healthiness of his lifestyle. She had given him a few leaflets, but had also pointed him in the direction of the Ménière’s Society, a charity dedicated to the illness, for further information.

  ‘Ménière’s Disease is misdiagnosed an awful lot,’ she’d admitted. ‘And we won’t stop trying to nail down possible alternatives. I know it’s not exactly scientific, but with this illness we have a similar line to that of Sherlock Holmes: when you remove everything else, what remains is given the label of “Ménière’s”’

  The irony for Bliss was that he was feeling better today than at any time over the past few weeks. On a purely physical level he didn’t feel as if his life had changed in any significant way, but if the captain’s diagnosis was correct, then there was every possibility of the main symptoms worsening over a short period of time.

  Staring out of his Vectra’s windscreen at the dull, lifeless sky, Bliss’s mind went back more than five years. He recalled in vivid detail how he and his wife were sitting down to dinner when she dropped a bombshell into the conversation.

  ‘I have a lump,’ she told him. ‘A small one, on my left breast. I first noticed it a few weeks ago. I checked it again last night, and I’m certain it’s got bigger. I saw Doctor Lewis this morning, and she referred me immediately to the clinic. I’m hoping for an appointment within the next fortnight.’

  So matter-of-fact. No emotion at all. That was Hazel all over. His wife faced every obstacle, every piece of bad news, with the same strength of character and dignity with which she approached her entire life. Her concern more for him than herself, she’d obviously taken time to prepare and rehearse how she would tell him. During his career, Bliss had been threatened with knives and guns, and had once been shot at. But that day, that gut-shredding moment when Hazel told him about the lump and he realised how much the thought of her being in pain tore at his insides, was the most frightening time of his life. In his head, Bliss knew it could be nothing more than a cyst, but his heart burned the word ‘cancer’ on the forefront of his mind. The thought of his beautiful wife suffering was more than he could possibly bear.

  Ten days later, a cyst was diagnosed and drained away by a syringe. Panic over, move on. But the memory of that day lingered in Bliss’s mind.

  Today was running it a close second.

  Chapter 9

  Bliss decided not to return immediately to work, and instead drove straight home from the hospital. His hands on the wheel were shaky, his head muddled and fuzzy as he made his way through light traffic to his house in the quiet, modern cul-de-sac. Bonnie and Clyde were pleased to see him, but the fuss he made in return was at best half-hearted. He toasted a couple of slices of bread, spread boysenberry jam on one. He also made a tall mug of Earl Grey. Less than halfway through his lunch he realised he hadn’t tasted a single mouthful, and did not want the rest.

  The enormous shock he’d felt at the shattering news presented to him by the ENT consultant was now beginning to wane. The mind made adjustments, Bliss knew. Wrapping itself in a protective cocoon. A coping mechanism he had drawn from many times. Personal fear and concern over his health were replaced now by other thoughts moving insidiously to the forefront of his mind. First came the Bretton Woods human remains, the developing inquiry that had sprung into action as a result of two boys’ desire for immortality. This was followed by the nagging realisation that the phone call from DI Weller, and the man’s subsequent death, were not issues Bliss could readily leave unresolved. Several things about the situation intrigued him, and he reacted to one now.

  He made one short phone call before contacting DS Dunne on his mobile. ‘Are you available, Bobby?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘Just left Huntingdon and I’m heading back up the A1 as we speak. The court let me go early.’

  ‘If only they knew you. They’d lock you up and throw away the key.’

  Dunne laughed. ‘And rightly so. What’s up, boss?’

  ‘We’re going on a trip. A little drive out in the country. You game?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Bliss smiled to himself. He liked that about Dunne; the man just went with the flow and seldom questioned colleagues’ motives. The attitude of a detective who knew what real coppering was all about.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at the Marriot hotel car park in fifteen minutes,’ he said to Dunne. ‘You can leave your motor there safely without it getting clamped or towed.’

  His next call was to Penny Chandler. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked. ‘Any good news for me?’

  ‘Not at the moment, boss.’ The line was crackly, the aged telecommunications system grinding to a stubborn halt back at Thorpe Wood. ‘I’ve got the Bone Woman coming in to see me after her visit to Bretton Woods, but the team are still hard at it.’

  Bliss pictured the smiling face of Emily Grant and wished he could be there. ‘Fair enough. How are you? You sound a bit stressed out.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing. I had a bit of a run-in with Grealish, that’s all.’

 
Sergeant Grealish was a uniform who rarely strayed beyond the confines and relative safety of his HQ desk. Bliss had the man down as an opinionated, bigoted arsehole. ‘What happened?’ Bliss asked her.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, boss. It’ll blow over.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Chandler gave a sigh. ‘He stopped me in the corridor, you know, all red and sweaty as he usually is. He made a few of his more offensive remarks, yanking on his obviously miniscule dick as he did so. I told him where he could stick it. He gave me some shit about sleeping my way into CID. It was bullshit.’

  ‘But it got you wound up.’

  ‘Yeah. I shouldn’t let fuckwits like him worm their way inside my head, but I’d hate to think others share his low opinion of me.’

  ‘They don’t,’ Bliss assured her. ‘Grealish is a knob, but none of his colleagues takes him seriously. Listen, if you meet him in the car park one night after shift, you have my permission to deck him.’

  Chandler laughed. ‘I wouldn’t soil my knuckles.’

  Bliss laughed, too. ‘Good for you. So, how did the briefing go this morning?’

  ‘Not too bad, actually. There really wasn’t much to say other than to put the teams back on the same jobs. How come you’re at home?’

  He realised his number would have been revealed on her telephone screen. ‘I’m not coming back to the office right away, Pen. Something else has cropped up. Something I need to take a quick look at. Listen, do you remember a DI Weller? He was stationed at HQ when I first moved up from London.’

  ‘Vaguely. I hadn’t been here long myself, remember. I never worked with him, but our paths crossed on a few occasions. Why d’you ask?’

  Bonnie’s head appeared between Bliss’s legs, forlorn eyes begging him to take the animal for some exercise. The right paw came up and thumped down on his thigh. Bliss rubbed the dog’s head and shook his own, saying to Chandler, ‘It’s just that Weller left a message on my machine the other day, completely out of the blue, asking to meet up with me. That’s who I went to see yesterday lunchtime.’

  ‘Oh. So how is he?’

  Bliss could tell she was wondering where this was headed. ‘He didn’t show. I was a bit put out, to be honest, so I didn’t give it a lot of thought during the afternoon. But I called his house when I got home last night, only to find out that he’d been killed on his way down to meet me. Drove right off the road.’

  ‘Jesus! That’s awful.’

  ‘I know. It’s dreadful. The thing is, there was something a bit off about his call. Something in his voice, the way he made the arrangements for us to meet. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it felt odd. After which I find out he died on the way down here.’

  ‘And you’re making five out of two and two?’

  ‘Maybe I’m coming up with the correct answer. The fact is, I don’t like that kind of coincidence.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Chandler asked. ‘You said you wanted to take a quick look at it.’

  Bonnie padded away back out into the garden. Bliss had an almost overwhelming urge to join her. Play with the dogs, walk them, live in their carefree world rather than his own.

  ‘Boss?’

  He’d drifted away for a moment. ‘Penny. Yes. I just got off the phone with Weller’s wife, actually. I’m travelling up to Lincoln to see her. I need to satisfy myself that there’s nothing in this, and up there is the logical place to start.’

  ‘You looking for some company?’

  ‘Already sorted. Bobby’s coming with me.’

  ‘Well, we can handle things here for the rest of the day, I’m sure. Is it all right to call this time if something breaks?’

  ‘Of course. And Pen, if you’re wondering why I chose Bobby rather than you, I really am between a rock and a hard place. I figured I’d get grief from you if I left you out, but also if I pulled you off the Jane Doe case. In the end I opted for leaving you where you are so you can gain some valuable experience.’

  Laughter rattled across the airwaves. ‘Me? Give you grief? Wherever did you get that idea? No, I understand, boss. Never crossed my mind to question your decision.’

  His smile grew broader still. ‘No. I’m sure. Look, I’ll come in when I’m done with Mrs Weller.’

  ‘Okay. See you later. Oh, and boss… be careful.’

  As the modern architectural features of Lincoln University appeared to his right, the spire of the city’s cathedral rising up in the distance beyond the scalloped rooftop, Bliss wondered about Penny’s warning. Was there something happening here that he needed to be careful of? And where exactly was his mind leading him with this? That Weller’s death was no accident? That the man was murdered? And if so, why? Unlikely, Bliss’s rational mind insisted. But was it not more improbable that the day after an ex-colleague calls him up out of the blue to arrange a meeting, more than three years after they’d last spoken, that same ex-colleague is killed whilst driving to attend the meeting?

  Shit happened, Bliss knew that. The T-shirts and bumper stickers told him so. The most bizarre, chance happenings occurred almost every single day. But not to him. Not like this. It might be nothing, but he felt he owed Bernard Weller the time it would take to find out the truth.

  This much he explained to Bobby Dunne as they drove hurriedly, the roads swooshing and sometimes swirling beneath the Vectra’s wheels, as rainfall pooled in potholes and collected around unyielding storm drains. The car’s wipers duelled with the beads of rain and spray from other vehicles, but the downpour was winning hands down. When Bliss was through talking, the DS nodded sagely.

  ‘Does seem to be stretching coincidence too far,’ he agreed. ‘On the other hand, I read once about the most incredible coincidence ever recorded. It was about these three ships that sank at different times over a period of a hundred years or so. In each case there was just one survivor, and in each case that man went by the same name.’

  Bliss regarded his companion thoughtfully. It was a wild story, but just wild enough to be true. Unless you believed your destiny was already written, then you had to believe in the power of chance. Chance meetings. Chance happenings. Bliss didn’t like the idea of a preordained destiny, opting instead to believe that choices shaped futures. Every other day you’d pick up a phone to someone you’d just been intending to call, and how often when you were thinking about a song did it come on the radio? At first these things seem extraordinary. Yet further inspection might cause one to question why such things didn’t happen more often. It seemed to Bliss that a belief in fate gave people the opportunity not to take responsibility for their lives. Pro-destiny types took the easy way out, whereas the pro-chance brigade tried to shape their lives as best they could.

  ‘Do you think I’m reaching?’ Bliss asked his companion. It was possible. Being human, he made mistakes. ‘Seeing something that’s not there?’

  Dunne ran a hand down the stubble on his chin. ‘Maybe. But I’m not seeing any downside in checking it out.’

  No arguing with that. Bliss nodded and turned his attention to finding his way, aided by a sweet-voiced satnav woman who occasionally got irritable with him when he didn’t do exactly as she’d instructed. The home they eventually parked outside was a pleasant dormer-roofed bungalow in a quiet, tree-lined avenue. Bliss immediately decided it was somewhere he might enjoy his own retirement.

  Allison Weller was a much smaller person than her husband had been. A number of years younger, too. She looked to be in her late forties, and would have been attractive with a few more pounds on her slender frame. Pale and glassy-eyed, the woman showed them through into the dining room and out into a large and tasteful conservatory. Dark wood built around a brick structure, a light shade of green on the walls, wicker furniture with olive green padded cushions. The windows and French doors opened up to a long, wide garden, fully developed with obvious care. By now the rain had stopped, and there was more blue than angry grey in the sky.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind my colleague
joining us,’ Bliss said, gazing out at a small water feature made from bamboo. The hypnotic motion fascinated him. ‘It’s always good to have another pair of eyes and ears around,’ he explained.

  ‘No, it’s not a problem. Please take a seat. I have the kettle on – can I make you both some tea?’

  Bliss accepted her offer, nodding that Bobby should, also. People invariably seemed to open up more over a cup of tea. It was the British way, tea being almost a linctus for the heart and mind. When Mrs Weller came back with a tray of cups, she handed them out, set her own down on a small round metal table, then began watering a number of plants arranged in ceramic pots along one wall. She seemed preoccupied, as well she might.

  ‘Please excuse me,’ she apologised. ‘But I was part way through this, and I don’t want to forget which ones I’ve done. They were Bernie’s pride and joy.’

  ‘No, you carry on. I’m sorry to be bothering you at a time like this,’ Bliss told her. ‘We won’t take up too much of your time, I promise.’

  Mrs Weller shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about that. You’ve come a long way.’

  ‘It’s not so far. You must have lived in Peterborough yourself when Bernard was stationed there.’

  She paused, looked up as if to recall. ‘Market Deeping, actually. We were there for twelve or thirteen years. I have fond memories of our time there.’ Her eyes drifted away for a moment, alighting on a framed photograph that stood on the table beside her cup. The happy couple on their wedding day. Bernard a good deal lighter, Allison Weller striking and confident. When her mind snapped back into focus, she blinked once at Bliss and asked, ‘Did you know my husband well, Inspector?’

  ‘Sadly not, as I explained to your sister-in-law. We worked only one case together, shortly after I moved into the area. It was long enough for me to realise that he was a good detective, though, and I very much enjoyed his company.’