‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ Palmer asked, leaning forward in his chair. ‘About my innocence, I mean?’
Bliss looked around the room. Small but tasteful, a few nice older pieces of furniture that looked like they might be worth a bob or two. Judging by what he’d seen and heard earlier, the Palmer’s didn’t have much going on between them. He was the earner, while all her efforts went into making them a nice home. No time for anything other than the appearance of a happy life together. Bliss wondered if Mrs Palmer knew about her husband’s proclivities, perhaps even approved of them.
‘Innocence?’ Bliss said. He gave Palmer a look of both contempt and pity. ‘You may not have murdered Jodie, but as for you being innocent… I suppose you’ll be your own judge of that in years to come.’
As Bliss now thundered back towards Peterborough along the road that ran alongside the Ramsey ‘Forty Foot’ drain, he glanced to his left and saw only blackness. Pretty much what Jodie Maybanks had seen for too much of her short life. Bliss knew the river was lurking just a few yards away, but saw only occasional glimmers of light reflecting off the water. He could never remember where the drain’s peculiar name originated from, it being neither forty feet wide nor deep, but several signs along the grass verge reminded him that a combination of road and river had claimed numerous lives over the past few years. The camber of the road leaned towards the river, providing good drainage, but it made for an anxious journey, particularly at night. Bliss was thankful when the river angled sharply away and the road followed a different course.
Ahead, Bliss could see nothing coming towards him across the flat lands. He checked his rear-view mirror, but still there was no sign of headlights. He looked up again. Something. Just a flash, but something not quite right. Scarcely had his eyes moved back to the windscreen when he felt the collision.
The shunt from behind threw his body forwards, the seatbelt biting into his chest and shoulder, snapping Bliss back again against the seat. Pain flared across his neck and spread instantly across his shoulders. Tiny pinpricks of light danced before his eyes. Whatever had slammed into him had appeared out of the darkness like a shark striking without warning from the murky depths of the ocean.
‘Bastard!’ Bliss cried. About to stamp on his brakes, he sensed movement and his gaze was drawn to the mirror. Immediately alert to the fact that he was about to be rammed again, Bliss pressed down hard on the accelerator. From behind he heard an engine roar, and fear settled on him like a thin film of sweat. He switched his attention back to the windscreen just in time to manoeuvre across a hump-back bridge, his stomach dropping away as the Vectra seemed to leave the tarmac for a moment. On the other side of the bridge, Bliss shifted down into fourth gear and put more weight behind his right foot.
Seconds later he was blinded by dazzling white lights reflecting off the rear-view mirror. Full beam headlights that were moving closer, growing larger. His mind attempted to wrestle its way through the flood of adrenaline, and Bliss thought about the layout of the roads ahead. Even at this speed he was more than ten minutes away from a built-up area and decent street lighting.
The headlights snapped off again, drawing Bliss’s eyes back to the mirror, a curious spectral glow clinging to the periphery of his vision. A halo effect. This time he saw the pursuing vehicle’s grille, high up off the road, like a row of gritted teeth. It smashed into him at an angle, propelling the Vauxhall’s rear end out and to the right. Bliss snatched the steering wheel back, the car fishtailing, but somehow managing to stay in lane.
‘You fucking prick!’ he cursed at the top of his voice. What the hell was going on here?
Bliss felt his chest pounding, as if someone inside was hammering a fist against his ribs in a wild bid for escape. A thin trail of sweat trickled down from his brow. Above the roar of blood pounding in his head, Bliss heard the howling whine of his car’s engine. Still in fourth. Rev counter approaching four thousand.
He found fifth clumsily, gearbox howling in confusion, accelerator still pressed all the way down, the speedometer nudging ninety. Eyes back on his mirror. This time the chasing vehicle was right on him when its lights blazed once more. Bliss was prepared for the jolt, but at such a high speed his grip was loosened for a second and the wheel almost got away from him. His fingers tightened, but the Vectra was snaking back and forth across the road as it struggled to straighten.
Up ahead, Bliss could see a faint amber glow. A small village. The road he was on cut right through its heart. His mind was filled with desperate possibilities: a pedestrian crossing the road, a car pulling out of a side street, him losing control and careering into someone’s house. Something cold seemed to wrap around his heart. He had to do something about this right now.
Without pause to question the sanity of his decision, Bliss stood on his brakes and threw the gears into reverse, the transmission screaming in protest at him now. Eyes on his mirrors he turned the steering wheel sharply and somehow managed to avoid the onrushing vehicle. As it flew by his door he saw that it was a large Mitsubishi four-by-four, a Shogun, the big fat spare wheel clinging like a limpet to the rear panel. Its brake lights flared and the vehicle shuddered to a halt. Bliss turned his wheel all the way now and swung the Vectra right around, ending up facing the way he had come. A quick glance told him the Shogun was doing the same. But he’d gained a few valuable seconds.
Bliss floored it. Back in fourth he steered off to his right and away from the road that led towards the river. The headlights behind him winked out one more time. Fifth now and engine racing. Looking for a wide turnoff that might lead to a farm or even just a field. He had to get out of the car, because whoever was chasing him was so much better at this than he was.
Again his head snapped forward and the Vectra’s boot flew open as it was struck from behind for a fourth time. For a moment he thought he had everything under control, but then he felt the rear end slide out and, as he tried to correct it, the car went into a spin. Bliss braked, but not hard, desperate not to flip the car over. Went with the skid. Almost side on now, the Shogun hit the front end this time and the Vauxhall was sent hurtling off the road and down a small embankment. Bliss jammed on the brakes this time, sending the car into one more slide before it came to an abrupt halt in the bottom of a shallow ditch.
Adrenaline still pumping furiously, Bliss took deep breaths so as not to hyperventilate. His chest and shoulders were aflame. He leaned on his door and forced it open, threw off his seatbelt and pulled himself up and out of the car. Leaving the engine running, exhaust fumes pumping out into the chill night air, Bliss half ran, half crawled along the ditch, moving upwards at a slant like an animal. He threw himself to the ground and peeked over the top of the rise at the road. Expecting to see the big four-by-four parked up, its occupant or occupants moving through the darkness towards him, Bliss was astonished to find the road empty, the Shogun nowhere to be seen.
Bliss rolled over onto his back and took several deep breaths, gulping in some much-needed air, willing his heart to slow down before it burst apart. When he thought he could manage to talk, he made a call and went back to his car to switch the engine and lights off. Twenty minutes later his eyes started to follow the blue-and-whites as they made their way along the Fenland roads towards him.
Chapter 21
‘They breathalysed you?’ Bobby Dunne said. ‘They fucking breathalysed you? Those wankers. Tell me who they are and I’ll go and kick their fucking arses.’
Bliss was sitting with Dunne and Chandler in his own living room. It was just after ten thirty, and other than a minor residue of shock and a few bumps and bruises, Bliss was feeling pretty much okay. Having dismissed the pleadings of the ambulance crew to allow them to take him to hospital and have a casualty doctor check for concussion, he persuaded the attending police officers to run him straight home. Bliss had given himself a while to calm down and collect his thoughts before calling both Penny and Bobby, summoning them to a low-level war cabinet at his house.
Six months earlier, Chandler had been the first person to actually visit Bliss’s home, which was all red brick and stained hardwood, rooms so small you’d have to cut a cat in two if you wanted to swing it. During that initial visit, Chandler pointed out that Bliss had, a couple of years after moving in, not yet unpacked all his boxes. Half a year on, nothing much had changed.
Bliss was touched by his colleagues’ resentment at the way he had been treated, but he held up a hand and firmly shook his head. ‘No, leave this one alone, Bobby. Believe me, it’s not a fight we need to have. I could see they were building themselves up to do the breath test anyway, but actually I was the one who insisted on it. Pre-emptive strike, as it were.’
‘You did? Why?’
‘I don’t want to give Sykes any ammunition. This way, having them stick to procedure, he can’t come at me some time in the future and claim abuse of position.’
Chandler was nodding. ‘That makes sense. Especially given the volatile relationship you two have.’
Dunne agreed. ‘You probably did the right thing. It stinks, but no harm done I suppose. So, this motor that shunted you off the road. A Shogun, you say?’
‘I’m sure of it. Big bastard, and heavy with it. Bull bars, the lot. No number plates, though. Neither front nor back.’
‘Actually, that’s quite interesting,’ Chandler said. ‘It suggests the vehicle was owned by the driver. If it had been nicked, surely they’d’ve just kept the plates on.’
‘I had the same thought,’ Bliss admitted. ‘Not that it gets us very far.’
‘Might do later on,’ said Dunne. ‘You think whoever drove the motor was also responsible for killing poor Bernie Weller?’
Bliss spread his hands. His mind replayed the incident. ‘Could be. At one point I’m certain they tried the tactic of angling me sideways, the exact method Glazier described. But you know the weird thing is, I didn’t get the impression they were trying to kill me. I think it was more some kind of warning, a threat perhaps. Maybe put me out of action for a while, but not actually kill me.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Chandler asked, clearly dubious.
‘Mainly because they waited until I’d driven past the river. If I’d gone off the road into the Forty Foot, I most probably wouldn’t have come out again. But the roads elsewhere are all soft verges and shallow ditches. They had several miles of that road to choose from, but they only made a move just as the drain went one way and I went the other. Also, if they did want me dead, why didn’t they stop to finish the job?’
‘Good point.’ She frowned. ‘I wonder if whoever did this only intended to warn Bernie off as well.’
‘That’s a sobering thought.’
‘You could be reading too much into it, boss,’ Dunne said, shaking his head. ‘Whoever was driving the Shogun might not have wanted to tangle with you close to the drain in case they got it wrong and ended up in there themselves. As for not stopping, if they were on their own they might not have fancied themselves one on one with you.’
Bliss ran a hand across his face. The episode spun a continuous loop inside his head, and he felt goose bumps spread across his arms. Not for the first time that night he asked himself if he had come close to death. While he couldn’t be certain of anything, the answer was that he didn’t think so.
‘What you say is true enough, Bobby, but it still doesn’t feel right. I’m not sure I can explain it, but while the driver was persistent, I’m not convinced they intended to kill me.’
‘Could it have been Palmer?’ Chandler asked.
‘I doubt it. After I called you two I phoned Thorpe Wood and had a PNC check run, and the only car the Palmers have registered is a Mazda sports job. The Lexus I saw in their drive is probably a company car. Anyway, Palmer’s no longer high on my list of suspects.’
‘Because he was in Japan when that kid was murdered?’ Dunne scoffed, much as he had when Bliss first told them about the meeting. He screwed up his face. Sniffed contemptuously. ‘He could have ordered it. Made sure it coincided with him being away. What better alibi?’
‘Yeah, I know. And I’ll have someone go through his bank account details for that year if they’re available, see if he withdrew a large sum of cash before he left. We’ll also have someone check his itinerary and records in full, make sure he didn’t forget to tell me about a quick trip back to Blighty. But having spoken with the man, I have to say I don’t think it was him. He seemed genuinely shocked, and I don’t buy the hired hitman theory, either. Everything that seems to have happened to Jodie Maybanks, the car screaming after her, the strangulation, it suggests something personal. Emotional. Besides, no hitman is going to do it that way.’
‘How about Palmer’s wife?’ Chandler suggested. ‘What if she found out what was going on? Or maybe Jodie turned up at the Palmer home and told the wife about being in the family way. That’s personal. That’s emotional.’
Bliss gave himself a few moments to think about it. Eventually, he shook his head. ‘I’m still not convinced. I can just about buy Palmer himself having some influence and being able to get to officers involved with the investigation. But Mrs Palmer? I don’t see it, somehow.’
‘Maybe she killed Jodie, then panicked and told her husband, who then put the squeeze on.’
Bliss nodded. ‘It’s a good argument, Pen. No question. But you didn’t have the advantage I had of speaking to Palmer. He had no idea. I’m convinced of that.’
‘Well, if you’re right, that leaves us with the scrote of a dealer Jodie knew.’
‘It does. But again, I’m sensing something working in the background of this. Someone maybe pulling a few strings, perhaps taking out Weller as well. And what I don’t see is some pusher having that kind of clout.’
‘But we’ll check him out, yes?’
‘Of course we will.’
‘But you don’t think we’ll have any joy.’
‘No, I don’t. I’m afraid I come back to my original line of thinking: that it’s someone far closer to home.’
Dunne snapped his fingers. He shook his head and his eyes became hooded. ‘Speaking of which. I got a worrying call earlier tonight from Mia. She told me that an old colleague of mine, Alan Dean, who just happens to be the primary officer involved with the Jodie Maybanks MisPer case, was found shot dead in his home last week. The night of his retirement, actually. Not a suicide, either. Local CID are working along the lines of a burglary gone pear-shaped.’
‘Shot dead?’ Bliss hissed air between his teeth. ‘Another cop involved with this case. How bloody convenient. I’m not buying that line of bull about the burglary, that’s for sure. Fuck me, people, first it’s Weller, and now we have another of our own murdered as well. This is getting nasty. Someone has decided it’s time to shut a few mouths, permanently, and the spur seems to be Jodie’s remains being dug up.’ Bliss shot a nervous glance at his two companions. ‘This has got to be coming from the inside. You two know it as well as I do.’
Penny Chandler put both hands to her face and drew them slowly down her cheeks. Pale and drawn, she sat alongside Dunne on the living room’s only item of furniture – there wasn’t even a coffee table to hold their drinks – and Bliss had dragged in a high-backed dining chair from the kitchen, on which he perched uneasily. Chandler gazed across at him now.
‘This is fucked up, boss,’ she said. ‘Seriously fucked up. I think we should turn this over right now. Drop the whole thing in Sykes’s lap and see what he makes of it.’
Bliss shook his head. ‘I’m not prepared to do that at this stage. If he even suspects that another cop is responsible, he’ll drop it like a fresh turd and bury it as deep as he can. Somewhere the stench will never notice. No, I want to know more about this before I make any firm decisions. I want to know who’s responsible. Only then will I consider going through the proper channels.’
‘I’m with you,’ said Dunne. He took a swig from his mug of white coffee, sweetened with three sugars. ‘This has got t
o be handled delicately for now, then passed on to the right man at the right time.’
‘But Sykes must be clean,’ Chandler argued. ‘He wasn’t even stationed in Peterborough when all this happened.’
‘Sykes is a political beast, Penny,’ Bliss reminded her. ‘You know that much. I don’t want him putting a career ladder in place again on the back of doing a favour for someone higher up. This needs to go to someone who will run with it. But we need to dig deeper ourselves. Are you okay with that, or do you want out?’
He met her gaze. Saw a small glimmer of fear in her eyes. Bliss understood. This was more than a rap on the knuckles or a backward step regarding promotion if it all went tits up. People were being murdered.
‘Neither of us will think any less of you, Pen,’ he urged softly, hoping she’d walk through the door he’d opened for her, but knowing that wasn’t her way. ‘I mean that. This has little chance of ending up well. There’s no way I’ll bring Mia Strong into it now, and if I were you I’d walk away with my head held high.’
Almost as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d blown it. Chandler was shaking her head and jabbing a finger at him. ‘No. That’s just it. You wouldn’t walk away. You’re not now, and you wouldn’t even if you were in my position. And I know why, too.’
She got to her feet. Walked around the centre of the room for a few seconds, nodding her head, fists clenched tighter with each stride. ‘You can’t walk away from this now,’ she said, a look of triumph in her eyes as she swung her head to face Bliss. ‘And the reason you can’t is because this is much more than a case number to you. More than a cold case. More than a Jane Doe. No, this is Jodie Maybanks. And no matter that it was drug and sex fuelled, it was her life to live and it was far too short. No one had the right to take it away. This investigation has moved on, hooked a place inside you. The truth is, boss, you want justice for Jodie Maybanks.’
For a moment Bliss made no reply. Then he clapped his hands together. ‘Very impressive, Penny. Very impressive indeed.’
Bad to the Bone Page 20