Bad to the Bone

by Tony J. Forder

  As Bliss checked his pockets and prepared to leave, he realised that the previous night’s mood had gone, had been consigned to the past like so many before it. He had no intention of dwelling on it. There would be more such evenings, and he would handle them in the same way. Accept them for what they were, and move on.

  At one thirty he met Emily at the Windmill Tavern, just a few minutes’ walk from his house. A conservatory-style extension had been added to the old stone building, which was adorned with a lush thatched roof, providing a restaurant that served wholesome, reasonably priced food. Emily was wearing a vivid turquoise sweater and black pinstriped trousers. She looked gorgeous, and today smelled of oranges. They ordered and settled in, Bliss trying to think of the situation as more of a meal with a colleague than a date. That way he might be able to remain calm.

  While they waited for their first course, Emily spent a few minutes telling Bliss about her background: bright kid, shy and somewhat lonely, happy, affluent family, decent degree, a love of anthropology, a good deal of time spent studying and working in many countries spread across five continents, culminating in her job at the Flag Fen Bronze Age site.

  ‘Have you been to see the exhibit?’ she asked him, just as their food was served.

  ‘No. Sorry. It’s just not a subject that interests me.’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Bliss was cursing himself. It wasn’t the best of starts.

  Emily appeared unfazed. ‘Don’t apologise. It’s a vocation that seems dull to most people, but the site is an important one. Perhaps the most important of its kind in Europe. But if it keeps drying out we’ll lose much of it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t even know how old it would be.’

  ‘Oh, only about three thousand years.’

  Bliss was taken aback. ‘Really? I had no idea. It must be fascinating if you’re into that sort of thing. But isn’t it more of interest to archaeologists?’

  She nodded, forking some chicken into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed before answering. ‘Of course, but that’s also my area of interest. They pretty much go hand in hand. Flag Fen itself interests me because of the heritage aspect, but I dare say I’ll move on when a good old bone dig crops up.’

  ‘Do you find it easy to do that? Just up sticks and move on, I mean.’

  ‘It’s one of the plus points of living on my own.’ Emily took a sip of wine.

  ‘You have family though, right? Parents? Don’t they miss you?’

  ‘They live in Canada, so we only get to see each other once or twice a year anyway. It means I can move around at will without that emotional pull.’

  ‘Have you ever tied the knot?’ Bliss asked, downing some of his own house red.

  ‘Yes. It was a disaster, I’m afraid. As much my fault as his. Married and divorced all within three years.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That must have been tough.’

  ‘Not really. The end was fairly amicable. There’s no baggage.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same.’

  Emily looked at him, her eyes glistening. ‘From just those few brief details you gave me yesterday, I can only say I wouldn’t wish such an end on anyone. The fact that it still hurts so much tells me how strong your love was for her.’

  Bliss nodded. ‘Our life together was everything I’d ever wanted. Well, almost. Having a child, despite what happened to Hazel, would have made it perfect.’

  ‘You decided not to start a family?’

  ‘We couldn’t.’ The regret was thick in his voice.

  ‘Your wife couldn’t have children? How terrible for you both.’

  Bliss shook his head slowly. ‘No, it’s me who can’t have children.’

  Emily groaned and rolled her eyes. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to go and have both feet surgically removed from my mouth.’

  Chuckling, Bliss raised a hand and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I came to terms with that situation a long time ago, and you weren’t to know.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Jimmy. I must say, though, you don’t appear to have had much luck when it comes to your personal life.’

  Bliss put away some of his lasagne before responding. It tasted creamy and fresh. ‘I have looked at it that way before. Many times, I must confess. But you know, I consider myself lucky to have spent so many happy years with my wife. Thirteen, to be precise. So that’s the other side of the coin. The one I prefer to see these days.’

  ‘That’s a great outlook to have. I’m a positive person myself, but then I don’t think I’ve been tested in quite the way you have.’

  He drained his glass. ‘I won’t kid you it’s been easy. The night it happened, and for so many days afterwards, I didn’t think I would ever emerge from the despair. I wouldn’t say I wallowed in it, exactly, but it almost sucked me under. Hazel’s death changed me, that much I do know. Something like that can’t fail to change a person. And three years on I’m different again. I’m becoming whole once more. But you don’t forget something like that. You never forget.’

  He pushed out a long breath of air, head down, staring at nothing for a while. Still it had the power to overwhelm him. Moments later he felt Emily’s hand on his, her fingers moving between his own, interlaced. He looked up into her warm and sad eyes.

  ‘I hope one day we’ll be close enough for you to tell me it all,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, let’s enjoy the beginning of what might just be a beautiful friendship.’

  ‘I think I’ve heard that line before. Something like it, at least.’

  ‘Are you a movie fan?’ Emily asked him.

  He thought of his large collection of DVDs and smiled. ‘You might say that.’

  ‘Maybe we can go and see one together.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘What sort of thing do you prefer?’

  ‘I have a wide range of tastes. I’m a bit of a sci-fi nerd, as you know, but I love comedies and good drama. Thrillers, too.’

  ‘Then we’ll go,’ she said. Nodded, as if that made the agreement more firm.

  ‘We will. And soon.’

  A quick kiss on the cheek was all they exchanged when they went their separate ways after dinner. Bliss drove home and sat in the garden for a while, playing with the dogs. It was a cold day and the air was damp, but he kept his jacket on and paid no attention to the weather. Until the rain came, that is, lashing down with a vengeance in heavy sheets, as if making up for being delayed. Bonnie and Clyde drifted into the dining room where their beds were, leaving Bliss to sit alone in the kitchen, staring out at nature doing its work.

  While openly admitting to hating the brutal chill of winter, he loved the rain. For many years as a child he had lived on the seventeenth floor of a tower block in the heart of London’s East End, and a balcony had run outside the length of his bedroom. When rain fell, the sound of it slapping off the balcony rail was like a rare form of music, a discordant harmony that both lulled and excited him. Watching the thick droplets mottle the kitchen window now, Bliss was reminded that he had yet to purchase something that had been recommended to him by the RNID – a device much like a clock radio, but instead of music it played a selection of natural sounds designed to help obscure the din of tinnitus. Rainfall was one of the default sounds.

  Bliss nursed a tall bottle of IPA beer. There was a time when he’d been capable of putting away several pints an hour in a binge session that might easily last half a day. Hazel had weaned him off the booze, to a point where he could now take it or leave it. He still enjoyed a drink, but never again would he allow it to dominate his life. In the months following Hazel’s murder, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to succumb. But the thought of her looking down at him had helped him to steer clear. Virtually. The bottle in his hand was now almost warm, and he tossed the dregs away into the sink.

  Around seven thirty he made himself a sandwich and a mug of black Earl Grey tea. He’d just finished both when the phone rang. He thought it might be his mother,
perhaps even Emily, but as usual it was work. Only this time the call was welcome.

  ‘I just got a call from DC Gillings,’ Penny told him, almost breathlessly. ‘Record Archives came up trumps.’

  ‘In what way?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘In the best way possible. We know who Jane Doe is.’

  Chapter 18

  The semi-detached house was set in a quiet avenue of similar homes built in the nineteen thirties. Like many of its neighbours it had undergone a few cosmetic changes, but structurally it was pretty much as its architects had set out on their blueprint. Modest and unassuming, the house blended in with its surroundings and seemed content with that.

  At just after nine on Monday morning, the avenue’s pavements were pretty much empty beneath another dull, overcast sky that had become gradually darker and filled with swollen clouds. It was the kind of weather that made people think twice about venturing outdoors for no good reason.

  Bliss gathered his thoughts outside the house while his car’s engine cooled. His day had started at seven thirty; he had woken to several minutes of imbalance and dizziness, before the world righted itself just as he stepped into the shower. As a consequence, his mind was still all over the place. At Thorpe Wood, Chandler had confirmed that the name revealed by a missing persons record in archives matched that of one held by the NHS database regarding a steel rod inserted into a female patient’s right leg following a motorcycle accident in Norwich.

  Since calling Bliss on Sunday evening, Chandler had run the name through their own database and had come up with two hits: one for prostitution and one for a class A drugs offence. The mugshot Bliss had seen in the incident room less than an hour ago revealed a pale young woman with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, hair thin and lifeless, skin breaking out all over. Bliss could see that with only a minor makeover the girl would be attractive. Even pretty, if the hard edges were smoothed over, though he got a sense that those edges had been hewn on misery and neglect, and would have taken a lifetime to smooth out. He looked at the face for some while, thought of the skull he had seen in the mortuary. His mind morphed the two images, and he suddenly felt weary with sadness.

  There was a lot of satisfaction amongst the squad in knowing they had put a name to their victim, but for Bliss this was tempered somewhat by the sensation of light-headedness, of walking through cotton wool. His thoughts were fuzzy, and this was no time for distractions. He’d drawn his attention back to the MisPer statement, and volunteered to interview the person who had made that report.

  After a couple of minutes sitting outside the house, Bliss climbed out of his car, walked swiftly up the cracked concrete path and rang the doorbell. Moments later it was answered by a tall woman in her late forties, head peeking around the door. Her eyes looked a decade older than the face they were set in.

  ‘Connie Rawlings?’ he asked, holding out his ID out for her inspection.

  The woman rolled her eyes when she saw who and what he was. ‘It’s just a massage parlour,’ she said. ‘Nothing else. No extras.’

  Bliss shook his head. ‘I’m a DI, Connie. I don’t get involved with taking down knocking shops. It’s not why I’m here.’

  She’d been around long enough to see the sense in that. ‘You here for a freebie, then, love?’

  ‘No. Though I’m sure I’d enjoy every minute. Actually, I’m here to ask you a few questions, that’s all.’

  ‘What about?’

  He nodded beyond her shoulders. ‘Inside would be better, Connie.’

  With obvious reluctance she showed him into a small, neat lounge that was spotlessly clean and smelled of berries. Good quality carpet, hi-tech electronics and luxurious furnishings. Providing massages was obviously a decent living. Rawlings wore a cream silk dressing gown and, he guessed, very little beneath. Her ample bosom pushed the shiny fabric almost to bursting point. As she took a seat opposite, the gown rose up to reveal strong, healthy legs, good calf muscles. She was in good shape.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Connie Rawlings asked. Her manner was brusque, though not unpleasant. All business.

  ‘Jodie Maybanks,’ he told her, checking her face for signs of recognition. Seeing it immediately in those dead eyes.

  Rawlings sucked through her teeth. ‘Now there’s a blast from the past. It’s been a while since I thought about her.’

  ‘More than sixteen years since you last saw her,’ Bliss pointed out.

  She shook her head, eyes scouring the ceiling. Raked a painted fingernail along the groove of her chin. ‘Really? That long? Yes, I suppose it must be.’ Her gaze drifted back to Bliss. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s dead, Connie.’

  Rawlings clasped her hands together and hooked them around her knee, gently swinging her leg back and forth. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. She had one hell of a habit. I’m amazed she lasted this long.’

  Bliss had been watching the striking woman closely. Her reaction came across as perfectly natural. He had debated how much to reveal during this initial interview, but he decided to lay it all out for her.

  ‘Oh, she didn’t last this long. In fact, by the time you reported her missing, Jodie was already dead.’

  For the first time, something approaching emotion touched the woman’s face. The metronomic movement of her leg stalled. ‘Poor cow. It’s odd that I didn’t get to hear about it, though. News like that usually spreads like wildfire in my… circle of friends.’

  ‘Actually, Connie, we’ve only just found her. The remains discovered over at Bretton Woods. You may have seen it on the news.’

  ‘Read it in the Telegraph, actually. So that was poor Jodie. Shame. She was a lovely kid when she wasn’t buzzing.’

  As the national press were not on this, Bliss assumed Rawlings had been referring to the local newspaper, the Evening Telegraph.

  A mobile on a nearby coffee table warbled, vibrating across the slick ash-veneered surface. ‘D’you mind?’ Connie asked. ‘Probably an over-eager punter.’

  Bliss shook his head and waved a hand.

  Connie pushed a button on the phone and greeted the caller. She listened for a moment before speaking again, the lightness in her voice never touching her eyes. ‘Yes, sweetie. It’s sixty for thirty minutes, a hundred for a full hour. That’s a body-to-body massage, some O without, and a full personal. Yes, ten thirty will be fine. We have a mature woman or a teenager, both with stunning bodies, both busty. Mature? That’s fine then, sweetie. We’re in Stanground.’ She gave out the address.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said to Bliss, ending the call. ‘I don’t like to miss out on a bit of business.’

  ‘No problem. Tell me, though, what exactly is body-to-body massage?’

  She laughed, easing the harshness of her features. ‘We spread oil over our boobs and rub them all over the punter. Bit of a tit-roll, you know?’

  ‘And O without?’

  ‘Oral without a condom.’

  ‘And the full personal would be…?’

  ‘Intercourse, yes.’ She laughed once more. ‘Fancy that freebie now, do you?’

  He ignored the question. ‘I take it you’re the mature woman?’

  ‘Well, I’m not the bloody teenager, darling.’

  Bliss felt himself becoming uncomfortably aroused. Connie Rawlings was a sexy woman, and the thought of what was lying there beneath such a thin layer of material was exciting to him. There were many coppers who would take advantage of their situation, and though he’d been tempted once or twice in the past, it wasn’t in his nature. He’d never quite worked out whether that made him a gentleman or a coward.

  ‘So tell me about Jodie,’ he said, getting them back on track.

  ‘Well, we were street girls back then, of course. None of this luxury.’ She glanced around the room. ‘I took Jodie under my wing, that’s all. Not much else to tell. How did you track me down, by the way?’

  ‘Fortunately for us you’re still at the address we have on record for you. From the last time you
were nicked.’

  Again a roll of her eyes. Clearly she believed the police ought to be doing something else with their time other than pulling in easy targets such as prostitutes. Bliss thought she had a point.

  ‘Jodie arrived out of the blue one day. Scared shitless, guilty about selling her body, but desperate to feed her habit. I felt sorry for her. Back then I wasn’t exactly old and wrinkly myself, but she was still a child in many ways. She told me she’d run away from home when she was sixteen. Never did know where from.’

  ‘Actually it was Downham Market. I suppose if she wanted to run away to a big city not too far from home, it was either here or Norwich.’

  Rawlings nodded. ‘I could tell the accent was fairly local. She was a real nice girl. Sweet. Kind. Not hard faced or skanky like some of them. Like I said, I took care of her.’

  ‘So you were worried when she went missing?’

  ‘Of course. The way she talked about her home life, I knew she’d never have gone back to her parents. I checked at her bedsit, but she wasn’t there. After a few days, me and the other girls decided I should report Jodie as missing.’

  Bliss gave a gentle smile. ‘I can imagine how that went down at the time. Her being a brass.’

  ‘Yeah. One missing whore being reported by another whore. The cops went through the motions. We weren’t expecting much, but we thought we owed it to her to do what we could.’

  Bliss pulled a photograph out of his inside jacket pocket. Held it up for Rawlings to see. ‘Is this Jodie?’ he asked.

  The woman nodded once before turning away.

  ‘So when she disappeared off the scene, what did you think might have happened to her?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘Street work can be rough. Dangerous.’ Her eyes clouded over, almost drawing back protectively into their sockets. Bliss imagined she had some horror stories to tell.