Bishop huffed through his nose. ‘You said it. Pristine. We agree the place is far too clean. Perhaps that’s because it was all done afterwards.’
‘I’m not ruling it out. But like I said, who is going to…’ Bliss broke off, catching hold of the thread Bishop had thrown out there. ‘Fuck it! Let’s have him in here.’
Bishop stepped back outside to fetch Beaumont, the man surly and resentful as he stood between the two detectives. Bliss gave his colleague the nod before returning his gaze upon the landlord.
‘Mr Beaumont,’ Bishop said. ‘Did you send in a cleaning team, or did you take care of the place yourself?’
The man tried hard to look bewildered, but overplayed his hand. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know nothing about nothing.’
Bliss clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘I fucking hate double negatives,’ he muttered softly.
Bishop continued to confront Beaumont. ‘Maybe you looked the other way while somebody else cleaned the place out. If that’s the case, you did nothing wrong, sir. You have nothing to reproach yourself about. That said, what you choose to do now, what you opt to tell us now, will dictate your immediate future.’
Once more, Beaumont went for perplexed but missed by a long way. ‘I have no idea what you’re getting at. What are you trying to suggest went on here?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mr Beaumont. I’m saying somebody cleared this place out and cleaned it up in the process; trouble is, they did too good a job. Either you allowed them to do it, or you commissioned the job, or you did it all yourself. Whichever of those it was, I have questions for you. You can answer them here and now, or you can answer them after you’ve been held in a cell for a few hours. Your choice entirely.’
Bliss waited for the bluff to play out. Most civilians were clueless when it came to the detaining of a person for questioning. The only way he and Bishop could compel the landlord to accompany them back to HQ was to arrest him. He could agree to go with them or decide to settle things immediately, as Bishop had mentioned. Equally, he had every right to walk away and there would be little they could do about it. Fortunately, Beaumont’s increasingly relaxed stance told Bliss he was ready to talk.
‘I had a call from my tenant on the top floor. He said there were people he didn’t recognise downstairs, walking in and out of the flat. I asked him if the tenant was with them, and he told me he hadn’t seen her in several days.’
Neither Bliss nor Bishop had so far mentioned their victim by name. They had agreed on the strategy during the drive over, hoping that either Beaumont himself would mention it, or that they would find documented evidence. This was the moment to draw it out of him, Bliss felt.
‘What’s her name?’ he asked. ‘The tenant of this flat, I mean.’
Beaumont looked uneasy. ‘Come on,’ Bliss urged him. ‘It’s a simple enough question. What’s your problem?’
‘She told me her name was Nuri. She had all the required documents to that effect, even a bank account from which she paid her rent every month by direct debit.’
‘That all sounds above board. I’m still not seeing your difficulty.’
‘It’s just that I overheard her talking on the phone one day and she called herself by a different name entirely.’
‘I see. And that was?’
‘Majidah. Majidah Rassooli.’
Bliss looked at Bishop and nodded once. He left the two men to it and stepped out of the flat, moving into the kitchen where he could not be overheard. He called Chandler and she picked up on the third ring.
‘What’s up, boss? You and Bish enjoying your jolly boys’ outing?’
He grinned. Her upbeat nature almost always made him feel better. ‘Remind me to have a word with you about that afterwards. Things have changed, and we all need to move on. But it can wait until later. I have a new name for you to run through the system – hopefully a real one this time.’ He gave her the name and asked her to pass it on to Glen Ashton too, together with a request that he run it by his people.
‘Is that all?’ she asked.
‘For the time being. We got that from the landlord. He was telling us about a few people being here at the flat yesterday. Seems they were cleaning up and clearing out. What with that and us traipsing all over the gaff, I don’t think there will be any pickings for CSI, but you’d better call them out to this address anyway. I’m doubtful, Pen, but this could be our original crime scene.’
‘Will do. Oh, and boss…’
‘Yeah, I know. Don’t call you Pen.’
He cut the connection before she could respond. He knew that would irritate her, which brought out another grin.
Back in the living room, Beaumont had decided to sit while Bishop grilled him hard. Bliss said nothing, listening to his colleague’s technique. The interview stage could be a trying one for all concerned, but Bishop was good at questioning people. The aim from the police side was to run through a list of events and hope to catch the suspect in a lie. If that happened, it would be used against them as the interview progressed. The hardest part was knowing what to ask and what to hold back. Bliss liked the way Bishop wrung so much out of the landlord while saying so little himself.
Beaumont claimed to have encountered three men and a woman. Each of them had carried black bin liners out to a waiting
