Seeing his colleague’s face turn ashen, Bliss smiled and said, ‘You’ll do fine. Can I offer one more piece of advice, though?’
‘Of course. Anything.’
‘Get yourself a new whistle. Tuck yourself in. Put a shine on those shoes.’
Bishop looked down at himself, smiled sheepishly and nodded.
‘Shall we see about our victim’s home address?’ Bliss said. He found Bishop’s steady gaze. ‘Boss?’
Twelve
It didn’t take long for Bliss to discover the details of their victim’s landlord. Built by the Peterborough Development Corporation in the 1970s, Bretton was the city’s first major township of new council housing. The property Bliss and Bishop visited that morning had exchanged hands on several occasions since being purchased under the right to buy scheme, and was currently owned by a housing entrepreneur born and raised locally. As was the case with many similar properties, what had once been a single house had since been redeveloped into two individual flats with shared facilities.
Tim Beaumont had initially been amenable to letting them look at the ground floor flat, provided they obtained a warrant. Speaking to him on the phone, Bliss had agreed, but in exchange he expected to be given copies of all of the landlord’s relevant safety and insurance certificates relating to each of his properties. They’d compromised on a thirty-minute inspection with no need for paperwork either way.
Bishop took the keys from the man and told him to wait outside until he and Bliss were done. Beaumont did not argue.
Once inside the property, Bliss was surprised at how spacious the accommodation was. The original dining room had been converted into a bedroom, and was twice the size of Bliss’s own. The living room was again much larger than his. He mentioned the generous proportions to his colleague.
‘That’s why these properties are so sought after,’ Bishop said. ‘Especially compared to some of the homes being built over in the Hamptons. These early PDC places have huge rooms, plenty of cupboard space, and come with parking bays. It was a big step up for many of those who moved here. Nice houses… until they weren’t.’
Bliss knew what he meant, and corrected him. ‘The houses are still the same, Bish. It’s the people who made the area what it’s become.’
Bishop nodded absently. ‘I remember my parents being on the waiting list, before they got offered a place in Werrington. It was the same deal there, with the huge rooms and built-in cupboards. Before that we were squeezed into a poky little place in Woodston, so it felt like a palace to us when we finally moved in. Mum and Dad are still there, though I know my old man wants to move when he retires. He’s had enough of the place.’
Bliss remembered the home he’d grown up in: a tiny two-up, two-down in east London. Bethnal Green in the sixties had a far from uniform architecture. The Bliss house stood in a street spared from the Blitz bombing campaign, but if you turned one way at a junction you might well encounter prefabricated homes; turn in the opposite direction and it would be new-build estates. Many old-timers from the area believed the Luftwaffe had done them a favour, but Bliss had only fond memories of the house he grew up in.
Whatever the relative merits of spacious living, their victim seemed to live a reasonably spartan life – apart from the clothes she chose to wear. Her wardrobe was choked with garments, either hanging or folded neatly on shelves, numerous shoes and boots arranged in pairs beneath. Other than her attire, the bedroom was curiously lacking in personality. No paintings on the wall, no photos in frames, no cuddly toys, no shelves laden with knick-knacks collecting dust. On a chest of drawers, Bliss found a single bottle of perfume, together with a bag of makeup and a double-sided mirror. He found the top drawer crammed with sexy lingerie, the next overflowing with more regular underwear, and the final drawer full of tights, socks, and jeans. Nothing personal. The bed was made, he noticed, its patterned duvet wrinkle free.
Meanwhile, Bishop had been searching the living room. From what Bliss could tell when he joined him, this room presented more of the same. Not that such conditions were unusual. In his experience, working girls tended to live in one of two ways: either they adorned their home with all manner of things cute and pretty, putting elements of their personality on display as if this might somehow obfuscate what they did for a living, or they surrounded themselves with the bare minimum because such a place could never truly represent a home to them.
‘This flat is clean,’ Bishop said, putting voice to the exact same thoughts Bliss had been having. ‘And I don’t just mean the lack of obvious personal items. There’s nothing at all to suggest anybody was living here. None of the usual documentation, no bills, no invoices. It’s as clean a place as I’ve seen.’
‘Too clean.’ Bliss nodded. ‘I agree. Other than her clothes, there’s bugger all here. I’m beginning to think our victim didn’t live here at all. This was a habitat to entertain men in, and that was it. A place of business. No more than that.’
‘But didn’t she already have one of these? The place in Woodston that was mentioned on the escort agency website?’
‘Yep. But we also know she spread herself around.’
‘So we’re no wiser.’ Bishop shook his head and cursed beneath his breath.
Bliss understood his frustration – but one thing had occurred to him. ‘Not quite. I had half a mind that our victim might have been murdered here. But I see no sign of that, do you?’
Bishop glanced around. ‘Nothing obvious. But if she was strangled, that wouldn’t cause a great deal of mess. Whoever did it could have cleaned up after themselves.’
‘Judging by the marks on her wrists,
