‘Are you suggesting this operation rolls back on investigating the agencies, DS Bliss?’
‘I’m saying I think we have to pause and reflect, boss. Instead of setting aside the pieces that don’t fit our hypotheses, let’s examine them more closely.’
‘Such as?’
Bliss ran a hand over his face and brushed over the tiny scar on his forehead. ‘The location, for one. Why would a punter meet her or take her out onto the chalk pits on a chilly autumn evening? It was unseasonably cold and frosty that night, remember. For that matter, why would she go? I’m not overlooking the fact that he could have picked her up in his car, killed her elsewhere and taken her to the pits afterwards. Only, that doesn’t tie in with her flat being cleaned out the following day.’
‘Which is where the escort agencies come back in,’ Bishop said. He was standing alongside Bliss, and had been happy to take a back seat until he had something to offer. ‘The location of the dumping ground still doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, but her being murdered by her agency bosses is a better fit with everything else, other than the clothing.’
‘So the chalk pits remain an anomaly we can’t yet explain,’ Bliss continued. ‘For either scenario. Her body being left naked isn’t unusual in itself, but we were puzzled as to why the clothes had been left close by. That was another angle we’d not been able to work out, although to be fair, we haven’t yet had the time to focus on it. But in being drawn back to them, I’m finding the whole thing stranger still. The clothes being hers would be one thing, something we’d still have to question. But some or all of them not being hers is bizarre.’
Bishop scratched the back of his head. ‘I have to admit, this aspect alone makes me think we’ve been wrong on both counts so far. It felt staged before – now it feels too staged. And these different sized clothes mean something. I’m with Jimmy. I think we need to take a step back and start looking at this again, from the beginning and from every possible angle. What seemed logical to us from the start still might throw up the answers we’re looking for, but I think we need to fill in the missing pieces of this smaller puzzle before we can move onto the larger picture.’
‘Where will you begin second time around?’ DSI Fletcher asked. She seldom – if ever – spoke at briefings, and her asking a question was rarer still.
Bliss kept quiet. This was Bishop’s moment. Time for the big man to step up and take charge of his team.
‘I think we start by scrubbing the boards, ma’am,’ Bishop said after a slight pause. ‘We piece the investigation together again, only this time with greater focus on the clothing. As a team we need to discuss what we think this means.’
‘And what does it mean to you?’
Bishop shuffled uneasily from foot to foot and wrapped one meaty fist in his other hand. ‘I’d love to have an answer for you, ma’am. But like I said, we’re clearing the boards and starting afresh. It would be wrong to throw wild guesses at this new piece of information. We need to put our heads together and thrash out ideas. It’s what we do. I’ve learned that from the best, and it’s a process that works.’
‘It doesn’t appear to have worked for the past couple of days, DS Bishop. Days that are now lost to us.’
Bliss inwardly winced. Fletcher was not giving him an easy ride. It was her way of testing his mettle. He wasn’t worried; Bishop had the right stuff.
‘That’s the way these investigations sometimes go in the early stages, ma’am,’ his friend said with conviction. ‘We’re still gathering information and evidence. Each piece that comes in can cause you to alter course. I’d say the clothing size issue is a significant one, and when something like that happens you have to evaluate it carefully. Taking a step back to reconsider is never a bad thing. It can clear the mind, sharpen focus. Above all, it can correct thinking.’
Fletcher’s lips twitched. ‘And where does your thinking tell you to start?’
Bishop was ready for her. ‘First action will be to run this new information through HOLMES, ma’am. So far we’ve focussed all our efforts on the victim, which was absolutely the right thing to do. I think from this stage in the proceedings we have to start looking harder at the killer. Because I’m getting the sense that this might not be his first time.’
Seventeen
The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System had been around for thirty-five years. Now into its second incarnation, the additional features of HOLMES II allowed users working serious crimes to interrogate the database using relatively unstructured queries. In this instance, Bishop had asked for the operator to seek information on similar crimes, using a number of keywords associated with their findings. It wasn’t the most reliable of systems, but it usually got the job done.
A uniformed constable by the name of Pickford had been selected for HOLMES duty, and he came rushing over to interrupt the conversation the Major Crimes team were an hour into. He flashed a wad of yellow paper, whose colour told them this was the result of the data search.
‘Look at the first page,’ he said, barely able to contain his excitement. ‘The list of perfect matches.’
Bishop took the printouts from him and set the top page face up on the desk. The others angled themselves to get a clear view.
FEMALE > BETWEEN 17 AND 25
MANUAL STRANGULATION
SEX WORKER
FOUND NAKED
OPEN LAND > SOC OR BODY DUMP
TREE > BODY FOUND BENEATH OR CLOSE TO
CLOTHES > FOUND CLOSE BY
CLOTHES > INCORRECT SIZES FOR VICTIM
BODY DISINFECTED AND WASHED CLEAN POST MORTEM
Bliss recognised the silence that followed: a
