‘Which we still know is better than walking the streets,’ Chandler assured him. ‘You did the best you could. Or, at least, you tried to. If she wouldn’t quit, it seems to me you at least showed you cared.’
Bliss sighed as he climbed out. Nodded. ‘I hope she knew that, Pen. I really do.’
He was surprised to find the house empty; he checked his phone and found he had missed a call from Emily while he was in the pub. He grabbed a bottle of Anchor Steam from the fridge, slid open the door leading to the garden, and stepped back out into the cold night air. It was about time to switch on the pond warming device to keep his koi happy. He drained half his beer before listening to the voicemail Emily had left.
Afterwards, he deleted the message and leaned back against the house, eyes on his fish. A tough day at work on too little sleep had left Emily feeling exhausted, so she was going to go to her own home and crash out there. She’d sounded a little sullen, but that could have been tiredness. They had no permanent arrangement as to when she came over or where she slept, so this was not unusual. The fact of this message coming the day after she inadvertently met one of his exes was not necessarily relevant.
Bliss put on a Guster CD. Their Lost and Gone Forever album was his favourite, though he had been promising himself to put together a mixed CD or MP3 collection for the car. First track up was ‘What You Wish For’, and Bliss felt the pull of the lyrics swarming around inside his head; the lines about getting what you deserve and sweeping secrets under the bed got caught up most of all. They remained with him even when the second track came in. Were the secrets he was keeping about to get him what he deserved? Would Neil Watson prove to be the final nail in the coffin of his career? And perhaps even the wedge that drove him and Emily apart for good?
He was out of Anchor Steam, so had to settle for a bottle of Stella next time around. Emily had made sure he had fresh food in the fridge and cupboards, but he wasn’t in the mood to make dinner for himself. He considered calling her, but decided she probably needed the space. He thought that was the real reason she had decided to go home, and wondered what that meant for them both.
When the CD moved on to ‘All The Way Up to Heaven’, Bliss fastened on the lyrics once more. He regarded himself as an atheist; perhaps even an anti-theist. Certainly he had no time for heaven, the great beyond or the comfort of any light at the end of a tunnel. For Wile E. Coyote, that had only ever become an express train about to mow him down, and Bliss gave the concept no greater weight than a cartoon. But if one day he was eventually proven wrong, he hoped that along with his father and wife he would also find his old friend Elaine there waiting for him.
Sixteen
The moment he entered the incident room the next morning, Bliss was hailed by Carolyn Miller. He’d picked up a tray of coffees from a roadside vendor close to home; their cardboard container was yielding to the weight, making the task of carrying them more difficult than it needed to be. He set them down on the empty desk next to Miller’s, relieved not to have spilled the cups everywhere in the process.
‘Help yourself,’ he told her. ‘There’s black or there’s white. That’s about as fancy as my orders get.’
Miller thanked him and took one marked with a fat W. She seemed a little reticent after summoning him across the room, so Bliss encouraged her to tell him what was on her mind.
‘I hope you don’t mind me injecting myself into your case, sir,’ she said, ‘only I noticed something peculiar when I was putting the exhibits away last night. I double-checked as soon as I got in this morning, and felt I had to say something.’
Bliss gave what he hoped passed for a grin, though his early morning attempts were often mistaken for grimaces. ‘Well, now you have to tell me, don’t you? Can’t leave me dangling like that, Carolyn.’
She gave him a grateful nod. ‘It might be nothing, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t tell you. It’s our victim’s clothes, sir. They’re all wrong.’
Curious, Bliss nodded for her to continue. ‘In what way?’
‘The sizes, sir. Whenever we have a new major crime, I tend to familiarise myself with the victims – I can’t help myself. I’ve seen the photos of ours in this case, and she was a tiny little thing – much smaller than me. So you see, while the bra might be about right, nothing else is. I’d say our victim is a size six. However, the knickers in evidence are a size ten, the stockings are way too long, and the dress is a fourteen. If she’d been wearing it, you’d have all noticed right away. It’s way too big for her, sir. It would swamp her. I don’t think the clothes we have are hers.’
Intrigued by this and immediately realising its importance, Bliss asked Miller to open her desk drawer and pull out all the bagged items. When she reached the shoes, Miller paused, running an eye over them. ‘I didn’t think to check earlier, but these look too big to me as well, sir.’
Bliss grabbed a pair of nitrile gloves from an open box and wriggled his hands into them with some difficulty. When they were pulled tight and he was
