Bad to the Bone

by Tony J. Forder

  In a mobile incident room, Bliss and Chandler spoke to each relevant member of the emergency team in turn, taking notes as the story unfolded, trying to piece the incident together as best they could given the lack of verifiable evidence. All they knew for a fact was that two bodies were discovered inside the burnt-out shell of the caravan, both unrecognisable, both mercifully dead before the flames reached them – if having a shotgun take your face off could be deemed merciful.

  Though Clive and Chloe Rhodes had yet to be formally identified, there was sufficient evidence to presume that they were the deceased couple. The caravan was registered to Clive Rhodes, the Shogun to his wife. A few possessions had been retrieved from the blackened caravan, including a purse inside which Chloe Rhodes’s driving licence had been discovered. Both DS Green, who was the SIO on scene, and the pathologist, Professor Graham Thompson, were in full agreement that murder/suicide was the most likely scenario. Clive Rhodes was the registered owner of the shotgun found on the floor of the charcoaled ruins. Investigations by the fire service and SOCO were ongoing, and would be for some time to come, but the scenario fit the bill. It was the most logical conclusion.

  Under normal circumstances, Bliss would be insisting that the involvement of a third party ought not to be ruled out. But in this case, he hoped DS Green would go along with the easy option. Professionally irritated, Bliss was personally happy that not all avenues were being explored.

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ Green said when only the three police officers remained in the mobile incident room, ‘what are you two doing all the way out here? I mean, I know you’ve explained how the Rhodes come to be here out of season, but not why you’re here today. Did you just happen to pop by to visit a friend?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Bliss replied, sensing the man’s scepticism. ‘We were coming to interview Clive Rhodes about his involvement in an ongoing case back in Peterborough.’

  ‘That’s interesting, Inspector. Do you suspect his involvement to be serious enough to cause this kind of reaction?’ Green jerked his head in the direction of the smouldering ruin still being dampened down by the fire crew.

  Bliss regarded the caravan for a few moments before responding, wondering what exactly had taken place in there prior to the blaze.

  ‘That’s what we were hoping to find out,’ he replied.

  ‘But it might explain it, yes?’

  ‘It might.’

  ‘So, you’re saying Rhodes dumped his kids with a relative and dragged his wife out here, sat around doing nothing much for about a week, then calmly shot his wife in the face, set fire to the caravan, before turning the shotgun on himself?’

  ‘Well, actually you’re saying that. I’m simply agreeing that it could have gone that way.’

  Green regarded him closely for a moment. Bliss gave nothing away. After a pause that went on a fraction too long for Bliss’s liking, DS Green nodded. ‘Fair enough. I guess we’ll see.’

  ‘I’m sure we will. It’s early days for this particular investigation. And on that subject, I wonder if you would do me a professional courtesy, Sergeant. Once ID has been confirmed, and the crime scene report written up, would you contact me directly before anyone else?’

  The tall, thin detective scratched the back of his neck. His cheeks were hollow and he looked in need of a good meal. But his eyes were sharp and intelligent. They flickered now.

  ‘That’s more of a favour than a courtesy, by my reckoning. But I suppose you must have your reasons. With officer involvement this has obviously got to be relayed to the very top, but I’ll give you a heads-up. That’s the best I can do. How long do you need?’

  ‘As long as you can give us.’

  Green nodded. ‘Is there anything else I need to know, Inspector? You know, as a professional courtesy?’

  Bliss smiled. They both knew he could use his seniority to push harder, but he didn’t want to get under the detective’s skin. Also, doing so would be treating Green as he himself was treated by Sykes. Bliss wasn’t about to sink to that level.

  ‘There’s nothing going on here, Sergeant. We’re not covering anything up, and we don’t intend to. The fact is, we genuinely don’t know if our own investigation prompted what happened here today. I admit that our being here right now must seem terribly coincidental, and I doubt you trust coincidences any more than I do. All I can tell you is it’s possible that this tragedy and what we were about to discuss with Rhodes are linked. But now that Rhodes is dead, we may never know for certain. I won’t be happy with that, but I can do nothing about it. Does that satisfy your curiosity at all?’

  ‘I think so. For now. Like I said before, I’ll call you when we have confirmation and give you as much time as possible with it before I have to take it to my boss.’

  Bliss thanked him. He wrote his mobile number on the back of a card, which he then handed to the sergeant. Green glanced at it for a moment before popping the card inside his jacket pocket. There were handshakes all around, then Bliss and Chandler left him to it.

  Shortly after six thirty, Bliss and Chandler sat in a fish and chip restaurant overlooking the Hunstanton seafront, wearily forking fuel into their mouths, faces pale from exposure to cold rain, yet tinged with red as a result of the driving wind whipping in off the North Sea. Bliss could still both smell and taste smoke. The greasy, uninspired food was not the only unpalatable offering they had to chew over.

  ‘This sorry mess makes things doubly difficult,’ Bliss said, munching on what was supposed to be a piece of cod but could have been almost anything covered in batter. He shook his head in exasperation. ‘It was a tough enough job keeping a lid on both Weller and Alan Dean, but this is a far more difficult prospect. Someone is bound to piece this whole thing together once news of Rhodes’s death leaks out.’

  ‘All the more reason to take the case to someone else,’ Chandler reasoned. She pushed her plate to one side, the food barely touched. She took a sip of Coke straight from the can.

  Bliss nodded. An idea had just formed perfectly in his mind. ‘I might just do that.’

  ‘Really?’ Chandler leaned forward. ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Yes. I might take it to Flynn.’

  He saw a certain look appear in Chandler’s eyes. The look that says the person they belong to has come to the conclusion that the person they are looking at has gone completely mad. Or at least has lost the plot.

  ‘Think about it,’ he said, raising a hand to forestall the inevitable complaint. ‘First of all, do you buy this suicide/murder scenario?’

  ‘It’s possible. Sure, why not? Rhodes was starting to look a far more likely candidate than Flynn, that’s for sure. It’s possible that when you phoned he realised we were on to him and decided to take the easy way out.’

  ‘Exactly. It is possible. In fact, it makes a lot of sense. It’s also possible that it didn’t go down that way at all, but that we’re meant to believe it did. And you’re forgetting, Penny, even if Rhodes did shoot his wife before turning the gun on himself, and even if he was also responsible for killing Weller and Dean, Flynn was still involved in some way.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we can kill two birds. I can now go to Flynn and tell him that I’ve been working on this off the record, and am now convinced that Clive Rhodes murdered Jodie Maybanks, and subsequently also murdered both Weller and Dean who covered for him at the time. I’ll also speculate that, once he knew I was on to him, Rhodes took the ugly way out. The two benefits of that story are that, a: the finger gets pointed at someone other than Flynn himself, which will buy us some time, and b: he’d never imagine me going to him with this if I actually suspected him.’

  Penny looked no happier. ‘That’s a bloody huge risk, Jimmy. I know what you’ve said about the whole inquiry being tucked away somewhere, but surely you must know somebody you can go to with it? Someone from your days with the Met, perhaps? Someone with clout who will see that what needs to be done is done.’

  Bliss ga
ve a crooked grin. ‘There speaks someone who seems to have forgotten why I fell out with the Met in the first place.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Who could forget something like that. Yes, so they thought you might have murdered your wife and they thought you might have almost killed another copper she’d been sleeping with. As a consequence you have a dark cloud hanging over your career, and closed records to all but the most senior officers. But you must have some friends down there. Someone senior who believed your side of the story.’

  ‘No one I’ve kept in touch with.’

  ‘At their request?’ she asked, her gaze narrowing now. ‘Or is that another example of you cutting yourself off.’

  ‘If I did it was to keep the associated dirt off them.’

  ‘All very noble, I’m sure.’ She forced Bliss to meet her eyes. ‘But if they were friends, or even just good, honest coppers, they’ll open their doors to you.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. And with something as big as this, I have to be.’

  Chandler let go a long, loud sigh. Now she was frustrated with him, he could tell. Perhaps even angered by his dismissive attitude. Bliss stared out of the window into darkness broken up by multi-coloured lights on the promenade and, beyond those, the faint white glow from whatever vessels were heading out to sea or in to shore. When he spoke next, his voice was low and even.

  ‘Penny, believe me, I’m not taking this lightly. I see what’s happened to fellow officers and it makes me want to pull back for the sake of you and Bobby, as well as for my own safety, of course. But it’s become unwieldy enough, in my mind. Involving someone else at this late stage just creates more cracks in what is already very thin ice. I think I can pull this off by going to Flynn. If he was tense, he’ll relax. This could turn out to be a break. Besides, if you think about it, once he gets to hear about us being here, he’ll wonder what we wanted with Rhodes, and he’ll expect me to have answers.’

  ‘But what will he do with it? Officially, I mean.’

  ‘My guess is he’ll ask me to run with it. Get me to point the finger more firmly at Rhodes. If he’s done nothing wrong, it’ll be the correct thing to do. If he’s guilty of anything, and he can have me pin the whole sorry mess on Rhodes plus a few minor accomplices, he’ll be laughing. Best bit for him is that it’ll be me going to him with the story. He’ll have bugger all to lose and everything to gain.’

  ‘So when he tells you to carry on, you will. Only you’ll be digging up the dirt on him, and not Rhodes.’

  Bliss nodded. ‘Something like that, yes. More like working on both of them at the same time. I’m not convinced either way as to who did what, though like you I’m favouring Rhodes right now.’

  ‘But what about daily reports? What about case notes and records?’

  He grinned. ‘We’re police officers. We’ll be inventive.’

  Chandler laughed, despite herself. She shook her head and sighed. ‘Jimmy Bliss, you are one mad cockney bastard.’

  ‘And you, Penny Chandler, are one lippy carrot-crunching DC.’

  They arrived back in Peterborough a little after eight thirty, the gentle amber glow of the city sky in stark contrast to the depthless black night they’d left behind in Hunstanton. Bliss recalled being puzzled by the night when he first moved up from London, whose skies never seemed to be anything other than bright, no matter what the hour. The difference was that London is a city that doesn’t know the meaning of sleep, whereas Peterborough staggers bleary-eyed through each and every day. Hunstanton and places of its ilk, on the other hand, seem to be in almost permanent slumber.

  Chandler invited Bliss in for coffee when he dropped her off. He accepted readily, coffee meaning exactly that in their case. He liked Penny a lot, and her physical attractions were obvious, but he never really thought about her in that way. To do so would seem almost incestuous, such was their close relationship. Her flat, a modern featureless effort, overlooked the river Nene. It looked lived in, which was something Bliss appreciated. Small, a little cramped perhaps when two people moved around inside, her home was nonetheless welcoming.

  They worked their way through their drinks while seated at the narrow dining table in the open-plan kitchen-diner, which afforded them a view of the river and the Thai restaurant and bar masquerading as a barge tied up by the town bridge. A low thrum of music drifted across to them, which Bliss found to be a pleasant backdrop.

  ‘So, how are things going with Emily?’ Chandler asked him.

  Bliss gave a nod. ‘Pretty good.’ He told her about the walk over by Orton Mere, Sunday lunch, their evening at the cinema. ‘It’s early days, and we’re taking things slowly.’

  ‘And the moment of madness with Connie Rawlings?’

  ‘Was just that. A moment.’

  ‘I hope things work out for you and Emily.’ Her look turned swiftly from warmth to concern. ‘What about your illness, though? I’ve never heard of this…’ Chandler shrugged.

  ‘Ménière’s Disease,’ he reminded her. ‘I’d never heard of it, either. And to be honest, I don’t like to think about it too often. From what I gather it could get a lot worse, stay pretty much as it is now, or even burn itself out altogether. Hardly a definite prognosis. I could easily drive myself crazy thinking about the possibilities.’

  ‘But you think you’re fit for work?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Bliss nodded firmly. ‘My balance is out of whack and I feel rough and tired, but my mind is still sharp. Don’t worry, I won’t let this stupid bloody illness affect anything we do as a team.’

  Chandler gave an easy grin. ‘Fair enough. I trust you on that. Going back to Emily, what does she know about Hazel?’

  ‘The basics. And thank you very much for telling her about me and my wife.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Emily was interested. I gave her just enough to want more.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s ready for the full confession. I’m not quite sure how she’ll take it.’

  ‘You mean you think she might feel less of you?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Penny said, shaking her head. ‘Giving that prick a beating was wrong, but who couldn’t understand why you did it? Killing him would have been easy, but you didn’t take that way out. You didn’t cross that fine line, and if she’s anything like me, Emily will focus on that rather than the hiding you gave that man.’

  Bliss inclined his head. ‘There’s also the issue of me and Hazel being swingers. A lot of people can’t get their heads around that.’

  ‘True. I couldn’t. Still can’t, if I’m being completely truthful. But it’s not the end of the world, either.’

  ‘It was for Hazel.’

  The silence that followed hung in the air between them. Bliss closed his eyes and willed himself not to weep. Guilt rose up within him as it always did, threatening to overwhelm his conscious mind. But he was pulled back from the brink by Penny.

  ‘No,’ she said adamantly. Chandler gave a firm shake of the head. ‘It wasn’t your lifestyle that got your wife killed. It was one man’s warped mind. One man’s inability to cope with rejection. I’ve told you before, Jimmy, if you can’t get that straight in your head then you need to see someone about it. Someone who can help sort you out.’

  Bliss smiled. ‘I can’t believe you’re still trying to get me to see a bloody psychologist.’

  ‘And why not? You’re carrying too big a load, Jimmy. It’s going to pull you under if you don’t shed some weight.’

  Chandler had taken Psychology in college, and occasionally she liked to play at it. Bliss drained his mug and stood. He fastened his jacket, tugged on his overcoat.

  ‘Pen,’ he said, looking down at her, ‘you’re a good friend, and you mean well, but among the vast number of things I’m not ready for in this life, seeing a shrink rates very high right now.’

  Her shoulders slumped. Bliss could tell she was beaten. For the time being.

  He had just stepped inside his front door when Penny cal
led his home telephone.

  ‘You weren’t the only one to have a visitor earlier today,’ she said without preamble.

  ‘What do you mean?’ He tossed his keys down on the kitchen counter and pulled out a stool to perch on.

  ‘On my bedroom wall, right above the bed, was written three words: Leave. Me. Alone. I checked my front door lock and it looks as if it may have been picked. There are some scratches.’

  ‘Have you checked the rest of the flat?’ Bliss felt a bloom of panic unfurl across his chest.

  ‘What rest? You were in the only other rooms.’

  ‘Not the bathroom.’

  ‘Okay, you got me there. But yes, I checked.’

  ‘If it was Rhodes, he was a very busy boy today. Came all the way down from Hunstanton to do this to us, then drove back again. Plenty of time to do it, of course. But the question is: if he’s been living on that caravan site all this time, how did he know prior to my call that we were on to him?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing. It points to Flynn again. I still think Rhodes has been responsible for most of what happened, but I also think Flynn has been protecting him. They were in it together, Jimmy. Still are.’

  Bliss thought she might be right. ‘We have to find out why. As for the message on your bedroom wall, are you okay? You want some backup for the night?’

  ‘No. Thanks, but I think I’ll be fine. As with your dogs, this was just a warning. And if it was Rhodes, he won’t be popping by again any time soon.’

  ‘That’s an understatement. I wonder if Bobby’s been warned off in any way.’

  ‘Knowing Bobby he probably just shrugged it off.’

  Bliss could well imagine that. ‘I guess we’ll find out in the morning. Have a good night, Pen. See you in my office first thing.’

  ‘What about the evidence?’

  ‘Evidence?’