‘I’m sure I speak for us all when I say we appreciate that, boss,’ Bliss said, looking around the room. ‘Not every DCI would be so composed. Nor willing to stand strong with us, for that matter.’
Warburton stared at him in surprise for a second or two, then chuckled. ‘I’ve never taken you for a brown nose before, Jimmy. But please do remove it from my backside before I attempt to sit down.’
This drew some laughter, and Bliss took it well. ‘Yeah, yeah. All I’m saying is thank you for supporting us and keeping the politics out of the room.’
‘I will for as long as I can. Obviously, the fact that the Met had this and handed it over to us is both a poisoned chalice and a challenge. Nobody above the rank of Superintendent relishes the prospect of us having to work in the public eye, and of course their first thoughts are for self-preservation. But you’re fortunate enough to have Detective Superintendent Fletcher as your lightning rod. So, we move onwards and hopefully upwards. Let’s update the room with overnight details.’
It took no more than twenty minutes to make everybody aware of any new information. There wasn’t a great deal to add to the previous day’s tally: they were stalled in tracking down suspect kennel providers, had found no trace of the Parkinsons, there was still no word on who had contracted the hit job from Lewis Drake, and nor did they yet have the required data from the Dark Desires server location. Bishop refused to be bowed, however.
‘Our priorities are clear,’ he said. ‘We have to find another way to trace the man in Abbi Turner’s life. We monitor any and all financial movements relating to all three members of the Parkinson family. Plus, we dig deeper into their backgrounds to see if we can work out where they might have run to. I want you all to contact every CHIS on your books. Spread the word to every colleague out there. We’re offering good deals for anybody who gives us the name of the hitman Drake hired. And it’s only a matter of time before we’ve secured the location of that bloody server – not that I have the foggiest idea how it will help us.’
‘All knowledge is power,’ DC Ansari said, nodding to herself.
‘Of course.’ Bishop smiled, arching his eyebrows. ‘Is that one of my sayings?’
Following a short peal of laughter, Ansari replied, ‘I think it’s Francis Bacon.’
‘The guy from Footloose?’
This time the laughter emerged as a ripping snort. ‘That’s Kevin Bacon, boss. Francis Bacon was a philosopher.’
Bishop shrugged. ‘I’m guessing it doesn’t matter. I take your point, though. As an even wiser philosopher once said’ – here he paused to glance at Bliss – ‘we don’t know what we don’t know until we know it.’
‘I don’t think that was Jimmy, boss. Wasn’t it…’ Her voice trailed off as she noticed Bliss shaking his head.
He didn’t think it served any useful purpose to set Bishop straight at this stage; he had uttered the phrase once, but had taken it from the former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. However, it did flush out a stray thought. There was something he had intended to do, but had been sidetracked by having to visit the kennels. He struggled to bring it back to the forefront of his mind. He was sure it was somehow connected to their hunt for Abbi Turner’s probable abductor. He’d missed something, and it nagged at him like a toothache. He knew if he spun the wheels long enough it would come to him, and as Bishop concluded the briefing, it did.
Bliss made his way over to Bishop, motioning for Chandler to join him. ‘I forgot something,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I had it in mind for us to take a look at Abbi Turner’s gaff. To see if there was anything there that might provide us with insight about this man she was seeing. Later on the thing with the kennels came up and that became our priority, so the home search completely slipped my mind.’
Bishop was already nodding. ‘Yes. Go. Take the door off its hinges – I’ll authorise that immediately because intelligence says she’s missing, possibly the next victim of our killer. Meanwhile, I’ll work with Phil on those bloody awful Parkinsons and this hitman. John and Gul can tag along with Glen in focussing on the server location. Sound good to you?’
‘You’re the boss, boss.’
‘Yes. But does that plan sound okay?’
‘It does, Bish.’ He offered his colleague a sympathetic tap on the arm. ‘Don’t worry yourself into a coronary. You’re doing a great job.’
Bishop swallowed and licked his lips. ‘Perhaps. But I’ll tell you this for nothing: it doesn’t half make me want to be a plain old DS again.’
Bliss pondered his friend’s words as he and Chandler headed over to Turner’s home. He recalled his first step up into the role of Inspector. The day before, his old boss had taken him to one side and spoken at length about the job and the differences Bliss was about to encounter.
‘You always think you’re ready, Jimmy. You have the experience. You have the know-how. You’ve studied and you’ve passed your exams. If you’re lucky, you’ve been mentored well, and you have a clear idea about the way you’re going to handle things differently; we all do. But soon enough, along comes that first major case. Now, in addition to your own responsibilities, you’re also responsible for the work of every other officer in the team. Not only that, you’re accountable. For the case. For them. For everything. And even though you haven’t changed as a person, you’re now an entirely different species in the eyes of people you were working in tandem with only the day before. All of a sudden you’re on the other side of the desk – effectively, you’re management. And you put all
