‘George, believe me, you’re going to be fine. You played your part, and he’s never going to find out about it because we’ll back off and wait for a better time. Thing is, you have to concentrate. Did it sound to you as if he was going to leg it?’
‘He thinks you lot are waiting to slap the cuffs on because I gave him up. Of course he’s legging it.’
‘All right. Settle yourself down, pal, or you’re going to stroke out. Listen to me. This is very important. Do you have any idea where he might go?’
‘How the fuck should I know? I’ll tell you where he ain’t going, shall I? Anywhere I know about.’
Bliss was struggling to steady his own breathing. It was Harvey’s arrest, but it was he who had stuck the key into the slot and started winding the mechanism. If Watson got away this would be his failure, too. More than that; if they drove him away now, where might he end up next? And what might he do there that nobody would be prepared for?
‘George,’ he said. ‘Don’t panic. I need you to find some backbone. Forget what you think you might know; tell me only what you do know. He’s been living in Peterborough for a while. You must have got closer to him over time. Slow your brain down and tell me about the people he pals around with and where I might find them. I know some of the places he might go before getting out of Dodge, but he must have other friends we know little about.’
‘I’m telling you, Bliss, he’s not hanging around in the city. He’s going to scarper. He might… Oh, fuck!’
Bliss felt an instant chill rip through his body. ‘What does that mean, George? What have you just thought of?’
‘Is our deal still on even if I didn’t tell you everything?’
‘Not if you lied to us, George. It doesn’t work that way.’
‘No, I didn’t lie. But I didn’t tell you something because it didn’t occur to me at the time.’
‘So tell me now and worry about your own neck afterwards. Otherwise it’ll be me you have to fucking run from.’
‘Fuck! I thought you didn’t need to know. It didn’t seem to matter before. Shit!’
Bliss closed his eyes. Teeth barely parted, he said, ‘I swear, if you don’t tell me right now, George, you’re going to need a zip to hold your insides together by the time I’m finished with you.’
‘All right. Stop messing with my fucking head. Thing is, there’s a woman Neil started seeing. Divorced sort. Lives over at Thorpe Meadows.’
A coldness the like of which Bliss hadn’t felt in years crawled between his shoulder blades like a trapped insect. His jaw set so hard he thought it might break. ‘Are you sure?’ he snapped. ‘I mean, are you absolutely certain about this?’
‘Yes. One hundred percent.’
Bliss felt his stomach fall away, as if he were trapped in a lift hurtling down its shaft without any brakes. His plan all along had been to enrage Neil Watson to the point where the man lashed out – but it was supposed to be at him. He was the aggressor, the man winding Watson up at every turn. All of the recent intelligence he’d seen insisted Watson had no woman in his life. If it had, he’d never have gone ahead.
Intelligence was wrong, it seemed. Teddy Barr had not discovered the relationship, either. Knowing precisely how the police would think if they knew Watson was seeing another woman, he’d kept it quiet from all but his closest friend.
What have I done? Bliss thought. Did I wind the man up only to propel him into another act of violence against a woman and…?
‘Tell me she doesn’t have children,’ he said. ‘Please tell me that, at least.’
Moss was silent for a couple of seconds. Then, through a low whimper, Bliss heard the man say, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…’
Fifty-One
Thorpe Meadows abutted the city’s rowing club and sculpture park, close to the Boathouse pub often frequented by Bliss and his team. Having obtained the address and wrestled a promise out of Moss that he would call Nicholls, Bliss pushed his Mondeo as hard as he could on roads that were wet and treacherous. The moment he brought the car to a screeching halt, he heard a commotion that drew cold dread into his heart.
He climbed out and slammed the door behind him. A vocal gathering of neighbours lurked on the pavement, while others stood on their own balconies. Horror and a peculiar instinctive excitement painted ugly masks upon their faces. Bliss raced up the stairs until he reached the landing on which an affixed plastic card revealed the correct floor. From there he found his way easily, the loud cries, screaming and muffled thuds pulling him in like a tracking beacon.
Bliss had to push his way past the few neighbours who had been brave enough to draw closer to the source of the ruckus, if not intervene to stop it. When he arrived at the door to Poppy Myler’s flat, it stood wide open. The din from inside had grown exponentially louder, its source there in its entirety the moment he crossed the threshold.
The passageway was mercifully narrow. If not for that, Bliss estimated he might already be attending a double murder scene. Neil Watson was too broad, too muscular to move easily within the confines of the hall. As it was, his arms flailed, one hand clenched around the thin end of a baseball bat, the other clubbing at a much smaller woman whose bloody face strained every corded vein as she howled and screamed, desperate to maintain her protective stance over a young boy who cowered and wept, snot streaming from his nose and tears spewing from both eyes.
Bliss made a swift calculation and knew immediately what he had to do.
He took
