The more he thought about it, the more his headache worsened. He took a couple of cocodamol with some water and staggered up to bed. He’d needed a stress-relieving drink or several after work, and they’d all known going in that they were out on the lash. The consumption of alcohol changed nothing, however; all of their problems would still be there the following morning when they dragged their bleary-eyed selves back into HQ. But the break from the intensity of any investigation was a necessary aside. This one more than most.
As he climbed into bed, Bliss’s eyes fell upon the other side of the duvet, which was creaseless. The stark image of Abbi Turner lying cold and still in that desolate bunker cemented itself in his mind. Within moments he was creased double, weeping hot, salty tears, one clenched fist pressed against his mouth. The sobbing and moaning felt as if it lasted hours, though his incapacitation over this young woman he had never known in life lasted only minutes. Perhaps only as long as the difference between her final gasps of life and her ultimate death. Between salvation and damnation.
When he finally came to lay his head on the pillow, Bliss had already started to drift away. But into the darkness he took with him Abbi Turner’s final moments, ensuring his deep sleep would not last long.
Forty-Seven
There wasn’t a great deal of talk the following morning, but the effort was undeniable. Bliss arrived shortly before eight, and for once he was the last member of the team into the unit. He felt proud of his colleagues and the way they went about their work – yet he had to remind himself this was no longer his team. It was his temporary DI who deserved any congratulations going around.
Bishop pulled everybody into a huddle to begin with. ‘We had both a good and a bad day yesterday. Losing a victim we were working so hard to find is devastating, but we have her killer in a cell, and that’s all he’ll know for many years to come. Her abductor will be checking in with us soon enough, and although he has information we need to draw out, he’s another one who won’t be tasting free air for a good while. Take the wins, people. You all worked hard to achieve them. As for the loss… what’s done is done. The post-Phoenix review will pick the bones out of it, but you have to be content with knowing you did everything you could. That we even came close to being in time was a minor miracle. Let’s make sure we do our jobs now and hand the CPS a winner.’
After a stuttering start, things began to move swiftly. Lewis Drake’s solicitor phoned and asked to speak with DCI Warburton. She insisted her client had no knowledge of where the Parkinsons might be hiding out, but that he would be sure to pass that information on the moment his own people located them. Bliss scoffed at hearing this. There was no chance of Drake leaving that particular situation alone, and if his crew discovered Nicola and her offspring first, they would never be found again.
Within minutes of that call ending, however, a CHIS provided a possible breakthrough. According to this one-time druggie, now a registered informant, Nicola Parkinson’s parents owned a cottage on the Norfolk coast in a place called Mundesley. Bishop decided he couldn’t spare any of his team, particularly when they had no idea if the Parkinsons had even fled there. He put in a call to Cromer to ask for a local traffic crew to visit the address, which was nine miles south of their location.
While the team waited to hear back, DCs Hunt and Ansari carried out their second interview with Alex Youngs. Bliss and Chandler observed the early exchanges. The detainee was not the open book he had been the previous day, engaging with his solicitor more often and declining to comment much of the time. His guilt was not in question; a statement in which he had admitted to strangling Abbi Turner had already been logged into evidence, all of which had been captured on the room’s audio and visual recording devices. The two detectives were attempting to tie up some loose ends, but the man was having none of it.
‘Maybe you should have used that fucking piece of pipe on him after all,’ Chandler whispered.
The previous afternoon, Bliss had admitted his initial lust to exact brutal revenge on the man for what he’d done to Turner. He looked across at her and simply shrugged.
‘Yeah, I know.’ She brushed a sympathetic hand over his upper arm. ‘As difficult as it is not to at times, we don’t allow ourselves to become like them. But if ever a bloke deserved a hiding…’
Clicking his tongue on his teeth, Bliss said, ‘With a bit of luck, Pen, somebody will seek him out inside prison and choose to inflict unimaginable pain on him every hour of every day for as long as he lives. My crushing
