his old tweed jacket.
‘We been round the lanes,’ Danny said. ‘Talkin’ to folks we knows. One feller, he seen a truck like Lol’s gettin’ some attention. Then it was took away.’
‘I don’t-Where?’
Merrily looked from one to the other. Gomer with his cap rolled up in both hands like an overstuffed brown baguette. Danny’s pitted, bearded face expressionless, his mobile in one hand.
Danny said, ‘And then I just had a call… Merrily, this en’t good.’
49
‘No, all right,’ Bliss said, ‘we won’t bring anyone in just yet. We need to gerrit all neat before we make a move.’
Karen Dowell was with him in his office in Gaol Street. Also Darth Vaynor, newly promoted to Position of Trust. On his desk, in white sunlight, a file. Victoria Buckland, aged twenty-five, a woman of violence. Eighteen drink-related convictions, four for assault.
The latest of these included violent assault on a teenage girl during a brawl outside a dance-music venue off Widemarsh Street. The most interesting was the attack on a man she’d been living with. One snappish, hungover Sunday morning, Victoria had stabbed him in the right eye with the broken-off spout of a teapot.
Oh, she was a celeb, Victoria, and cultivating it. The tattoo on her left arm said I DO THE FUCKING.
Karen said, ‘You remember Nerys Edwards, DC at Leominster?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘Bit her on the face.’
‘Victoria?’ Bliss nodded. ‘I do remember her now. I remember the scar. But if that was down to Victoria, she could only’ve been… what…?’
‘Nine.’
‘Mother of God.’
‘Passenger in a car nicked by a couple of kids not much older. It crashed into a lamp-post and Victoria had some bruising and abrasions, so Nerys bends down and lifts her up. Bad mistake.’
‘Not one anybody could feasibly make now, is it?’ Bliss looked down at the picture, winced. ‘I take it we have her on the streets at the right time?’
‘We have her in…’ Darth Vaynor consulted a printout ‘… four or five pubs so far, including the Monk’s Head. We also have her twice in High Town in the early hours. At 1.45, she was depositing a lager bottle tidily in a litter bin.’
‘That’s gorra be a first.’
‘Hard to believe even Goldie Andrews grassed her up,’ Vaynor said.
‘All the way to the hossie,’ Bliss recalled, ‘the lad with the spout, who could’ve died, was still insisting he stuck it in his own eye. Goldie, however, I’m pleased to say, spotted the writing spray-painted in gold on the wall at the top of her naff Hollywood stairs.’
‘You have a way, boss,’ Karen said.
‘Victoria is just the icing, Karen. You baked the cake.’
She’d done some exemplary work on this, must’ve been in long before dawn, on the phone then slipping over to Bobblestock, soon as he’d rung in from Goldie’s, to see Granny Wise’s family. All right, it wasn’t exactly the result he’d wanted. But maybe that was partly why she’d worked so hard on it. Bliss felt grateful and a little ashamed.
‘So we’re gonna do this right, and we’re gonna bring them all in at once. Background again, Karen?’
She had this little family tree drawn on the pad, demonstrating how easily even the most respectable units could become polluted.
‘The late Cynthia Wise, former primary school teacher. Two daughters. One of whom, Lynne, was originally married to a Peter Singleton, a public-health officer with the council.’
She’d got all this from the other daughter, who lived a few doors away from her late mother’s house up in Bobblestock.
‘Lynne and Peter get divorced. There’s one child, Josceline – custody to Lynne, of course. Lynne is then remarried to a widower, Gerald Buckland, father of three, of whom Victoria is the eldest.’
‘Mr Buckland got form?’
‘One conviction for drink-driving, boss. Seventeen years ago. People like Victoria… sometimes they just happen.’
‘What about Joss?’
‘Not known to us in any respect until she and Carly Horne volunteered as witnesses, which somehow always looked a bit iffy to me. A quiet kid, according to her aunt. Possibly too quiet. Still waters kind of thing. After her parents’ divorce, she seems to have blamed them both, withdrawn into herself. Not happy in the Buckland home. Only person she was really close to is her gran.’
‘Grannie Wise.’
Karen smiled sadly.
‘We gorra statement from Auntie, Karen?’
‘No, and we’re not likely to get one. Families, boss. Especially extended families containing Victoria Buckland. But at least I’m confident she won’t be tipping Victoria off.’
‘How close is Joss to Victoria?’
‘The aunt thinks not very, but… Joss is not the most communicative kid, as we know.’
Bliss nodded.
‘Never mind. We’ll get there. DCI know about this yet?’
‘DCI has one or two things to deal with this morning,’ Karen said. ‘You probably haven’t heard, have you?’
Full morning assembly, the whole gang. A strong buzz. Five numbers on the Lotto, everybody waiting for the bonus.
Bliss said, ‘This should be fairly straightforward. DS Dowell will bring in Josceline Singleton and Carly Horne. Arresting both, if necessary. DC Vaynor and a few other biggish lads will pull Victoria Buckland. She’s probably still in bed, so we’ll need a couple of women. Volunteers? Anybody?’
He was coming down now, feeling a bit queasy. Probably just needed more coffee. Rich Ford stood up.
‘I’ll put Family Liaison on standby. Just the three of them, you reckon, Francis?’
‘I’d be inclined to say not, wouldn’t you? We’re looking at Victoria’s known associates. CCTV tells us she was with different groups at different times. Whichever permutation of them killed the sisters would split up afterwards.’
‘Women on women, Francis?’
‘I’m not ruling out this being an all-female attack, no. But…’
‘What about the signs of sexual assault?’
‘Well, yeh, but, Rich, they weren’t big signs were they? It was comparatively superficial, like an afterthought. I’m thinking of damage inflicted by a woman or women to maybe suggest it was sexual?’
‘Revenge, you reckon, rather than racial?’
‘That’s how it looks. In the wake of a fairly despicable robbery and the tragic consequences, a little girl – emotionally insecure – loses her beloved granny. The only relative she’s close to.’
‘Except her big, notorious stepsister?’
‘Yeh, well…’
Bliss had been remembering Joss Singleton, the quiet one with the citrus hair, her mate Carly Horne doing all the talking, casual, nonchalant. Got us an afternoon off college, anyway.
Although you couldn’t help being knocked back by how unshockable kids were these days, he was inclined to
