Bliss kept his eyes cast to the floor. ‘Investigator Ashton, that’s going to be the one and only time you get to accuse me of being on the take. Or talk to me in that way. You do it again and I’ll knock you spark out.’
The NCA man bristled and tensed. ‘I wouldn’t make idle threats if I were you.’
‘There’s nothing idle about it. I’ll turn the other cheek when it comes to most accusations, but not that. Never that. Do you understand me?’
Ashton said nothing.
Bliss looked up, his anger bubbling under. ‘Don’t go thinking you can intimidate me with silence. You’re not Jack fucking Reacher. You’re a wet-behind-the-ears NCA investigator who’s trying to climb a ladder before he can even walk.’ He turned to glare at DI Kennedy. ‘I have to hope you’re better than this, Inspector. For that poor girl’s sake. This was all Ashton’s idea, right?’
Kennedy shrugged and gave a sheepish nod. ‘I would have gone a different way. The connection was too flimsy for my liking.’
‘And too bloody obvious. What kind of shit cop criminal would I be if I handed out business cards bearing that message to people I wanted sexual favours from?’
‘The thought did cross my mind.’
‘But we can’t say the same for Rain Man here.’ Bliss hooked a thumb at Ashton. ‘And now I think about it some more, why exactly is he here?’
‘Taking into account her flesh tone and bone structure, our victim looks to be of Middle Eastern heritage. Judging by the clothes she wore and the tramp stamp, there’s the distinct possibility of her having been a sex worker. You know as well as I do that combo sends up a trafficking flare these days.’
Bliss rubbed a hand across his face. He glanced over at the tent covering the young woman’s tiny, doll-like body. The PVC structure looked lost and somehow fragile, as if cast adrift upon a landscape as bleak as anything he had ever seen. It was no place to be remembered by.
‘Which brings us back to my business card, and why she had it on her,’ he said. ‘All right, I’ll tell you about it. Them, to be precise.’
Ashton choked down on a laugh. ‘Oh, so there’s more than one? Why am I not surprised?’
‘Bloody well listen, will you?’ Bliss snarled at him. ‘You might even learn a thing or two. A few years back, my team rescued five trafficked young women from a transport container at RAF Wittering. They were close to death by the time we found them, but those we did find all survived after they’d received medical treatment. I wrote that message on the cards I gave each of them. And yes, I wanted them to know that if they got caught up in anything unsavoury, they could call me. I made a joke of it by writing that phrase, to lighten the mood. But there was nothing offered in return, and you suggesting otherwise turns my stomach.’
‘So why tell us you didn’t know our victim?’ Ashton asked.
Bliss sighed, his breath escaping in a dense cloud of vapour. He closed his eyes, still seeing the naked form beneath the tent. ‘Because I don’t. I gave out five cards to five young women. Girls, really. But your victim wasn’t one of them.’
‘You said this thing at the RAF base was a few years ago. How can you possibly be sure this isn’t one of those girls?’
‘Because they were minutes away from death when we found them. Having spent days in conditions you can’t possibly begin to imagine and would almost certainly not have survived.’
Ashton hiked his broad shoulders. ‘I still don’t understand.’
‘What a shocker. Maybe you’re able to experience something like that and forget all about it afterwards. Me? I remember their faces. I’ll never forget them. I also kept myself informed as to what became of those young women. That poor creature under your forensic tent is definitely not one of the five young women we rescued that night.’
‘Then why did she have your card on her?’
Bliss took a breath. ‘That’s precisely what I intend to find out.’
Two
It was 7.00am, and Bliss found himself sitting on a bench in a long corridor sipping weak vending-machine coffee alongside a bleary-eyed and disgruntled DCI Warburton. Cambridge police station, an anonymous four-storey building adjacent to the fire station and opposite Parker’s Piece park and garden, was not unlike every other older city centre nick. Filing cabinets lining up like suspects around the perimeter of open-plan work areas, each of which was separated into individual bases; overlapping posters depicting actual suspects adorning the walls as if they were abstract works of art; interview rooms created from little more than blank square boxes, designed to be dour and uninspiring; bland, squeaky hallways with discontent brewing behind every door; canteens serving tasteless microwaved food and vending machines spewing out hot drinks you wouldn’t wish to inflict on the drains.
‘Here we are yet again,’ Warburton said, looking as if she was trying hard not to scowl at him. ‘What is it about you and the past?’
‘It’s not by design,’ Bliss protested. ‘They came to me, remember?’
‘Indeed they did. And do you recall why, Jimmy? Because it’s their case. Yet here I am, having been woken at stupid o’clock, because you want to take it from them.’
‘The victim had my card in her possession. That means she belongs to us.’
Warburton swallowed some of her own insipid drink. ‘And yet, as you’ve already admitted to DI Kennedy, she isn’t one of the five girls from your previous investigation. The card on its own proves nothing.’
Bliss sniffed. ‘I’d argue it proves just enough.’
‘You’d argue black was white if it meant getting your own way.’
‘That’s as maybe, but whoever the victim is, she was clearly close to one of ours. Her having my card
