‘That must be hard on you.’
‘Not as much as you’d think. Their views are outdated, and so are they. If they choose to live their lives like that, I pity them. I’m proud of the job I do. It has value. It serves the public, and my community is as much a part of that as any other. If they’re happy to call the police in an emergency, why shouldn’t I be one of those who responds?’
Bliss nodded. ‘I’m glad you toughed it out, Gul. I chose you to be a part of this unit because I saw the possibilities, not as part of some diversity protocol – not that I ignore those, but I wanted you to understand why you’re here. You earned it. And you’ll earn every step on the ladder you choose to make. You’re flourishing, and I wanted you to know it was not going unnoticed.’
Ansari thanked him and they moved on. ‘I’m sorry about Savchuk, boss,’ she said as they climbed the stairs. ‘I know you had high hopes for those women we rescued.’
‘I’m disappointed. No denying that. But they’re human beings with human frailties. Maybe it’s me, but she and the likes of Parkinson and Drake are in completely different leagues. I regard her as more naïve than monstrous.’
‘I think we’d probably have to ask the women she uses how they feel about that.’
‘True. Whatever her reasons, they’re the ones being abused on a daily basis. Could be my disappointment clouding my judgement, Gul. She impressed me, that’s all. When Pen and I spoke to her first of all, she really did impress me.’ He sighed as they reached the second-floor landing. ‘Maybe I saw what I wanted to see.’
The incident room was heaving and everybody in it was active. Bliss often told others this was the stage at which the real hard work began. The initial week or two of pursuit would be long forgotten by the time the case went to court. In the meantime it required hundreds of vital hours to ensure the right verdict was achieved. And that was without the assistance provided by criminals themselves, who were so often weakened by time and evidence gathering around them.
While Bliss and Ansari were interviewing Savchuk, Hunt and Chandler had been deep in conversation with Des Knowles. Their initial interview had finished earlier, and the two were discussing their progress with DCI Warburton and Olly Bishop.
‘He’s being cooperative,’ Hunt said, looking pleased with himself. ‘Keen to make sure those men who physically carried out the killings go down for the murders themselves. He’s going away for a long time if we charge him with joint enterprise, and I think he’s reconciled to that, so long as nobody places his fingers around the necks of those poor young women for their final strangulation.’
‘He’s still as guilty as fuck,’ Bliss observed, surprised to learn that their suspect had been so forthcoming. ‘Even if we don’t go for joint enterprise on the murders, he groomed these girls, he abducted them, kept them under lock and key and pimped them out to men, knowing they might end up dead as a result. Did he cough to dumping the bodies?’
‘Yep. He helped each of the killers with the disposal, having first disinfected the bodies. He was living in London at the time of the first three murders, running his operation out of a caravan on the fringes of a dodgy travellers’ site. He moved up here after his grandfather died, having inherited the kennels. Oh, and he tied up another loose end for us: those unidentified items of clothing belong to a woman he lived with. He told us she upped and walked out on him one day, leaving everything behind. We’re tracing her, but it does look as if she’s still alive. He reckons he left the clothing to throw us off the scent, and including hers made him feel as if she might also be a victim.’
Rubbing a thumb over the scar on his forehead, Bliss said, ‘That’s good to know. We’ll need her to make a statement about her time with him. Did he say why he chose the chalk pits last time?’
Chandler nodded and spoke up. ‘He claims the sites themselves were not particularly relevant, other than in avoiding CCTV wherever possible. When you consider previous dumping grounds, I think that’s probably true. He said he’d visited the chalk pits before and remembered that maple tree.’
‘So what’s his deal there?’
‘Nothing special as it turns out; some nonsense about growth, death and rebirth. He thought adding a whole mystical feel to the dump sites might eventually feed the serial killer angle and throw us off track.’
Bliss put his head back and groaned. ‘Sounds like a complete nutjob. Is that going to feature as part of his defence? That he’s insane?’
‘A lot of people believe in a kind of spiritual empathy between humans and trees, Jimmy.’
‘True. But they’re usually sandal-wearing beardy types.’
‘And that’s just the women,’ Hunt chipped in, laughing at his own joke.
Bliss shrugged, sickened by it all. ‘The callous bastard clearly got off on the whole thing. If he’d felt any remorse whatsoever he would’ve covered them up, not left them out on display.’
The DCI was about to comment when Glen Ashton strolled into the room. His arrival was greeted with a low chorus of boos and blown raspberries, not all of it good humoured. He ignored the jeers and headed straight for the more senior detectives. No air of superiority this time, but neither was he cowed.
‘I realise I’m not flavour of the month around here,’ he said, ‘but tell me you wouldn’t have done the same in my shoes. Any of you? If you’d been given the cold shoulder and all the grunt work?’
Warburton eased herself off the desk on which she had been perched. She pushed back
