Persecution

by R. C. Bridgestock

  ‘Description of clothing?’ asked Lisa.

  Stafford shook his head.

  ‘What did you do about the peeping-tom?’

  ‘Says ’ere that we stepped up our patrols for a few nights, and we found nothing. I guess that’s what we did.’

  ‘Did you go and visit Miss Miller in the early hours of this morning, to make sure she was okay? Give her some support and reassurance?’

  Stafford pulled a face. ‘Why would I? We’ve got to be very careful going into young ladies’ rooms in the middle of the night y’know. All sorts of allegations could be made, if you get my drift. Anyway, in the end you turned up, and now t’job’s sorted.’

  Helen’s eyes grew wide. ‘Is it?’

  Stafford looked bewildered. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The police take incidents like this very seriously, especially our Detective Inspector, Charley Mann, head of Peel Street CID.’

  * * *

  Driving back to Peel Street Police Station Helen and Lisa discussed Mr Stafford, and the role of the security guard at the university.

  ‘I wonder what he meant by stepping up patrols?’ said Lisa.

  ‘Perhaps they looked out of the window, or walked to the door. He doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, does he you?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘Jobsworth comes to mind.’ She frowned.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Lisa.

  Helen turned her head briefly towards her colleague who was sat in the passenger seat. ‘I’m wondering how we record this incident in accordance with Home Office guidelines.’

  ‘I guess burglary,’ suggested Lisa.

  ‘Burglary with intent to rape? He hasn’t stolen anything, damaged anything, raped her, or inflicted any harm.’

  ‘He was naked… Do you think it was his intention to rape her, or do you think it was just a student prank?’

  ‘If so then should we record it as a nuisance incident – naked intruder, on campus.’

  Helen pulled a face. ‘I reckon we should send a report through to CID, for the attention and guidance of Detective Inspector Charley Mann and see what she advises.’

  Lisa nodded. ‘I agree. The last thing she’d want, I’m sure, is for something like this to be dismissed. That’s not going to help any of us understand what’s happening on our patch, or the people we are dealing with.’

  ‘True,’ said Lisa, reaching for her phone and starting to type on the keypad.

  Charley’s response to the officers was waiting for them when they got back into the office, and they were pleased with what she said.

  Thank you for consulting, she wrote. The offence of burglary is defined by section 9 of the Theft Act 1968 which now reads:

  (1) A person is guilty of burglary if –

  (a) he or she enters any building or part of a building as a trespasser and with intent to commit any such offence as is mentioned in subsection (2) below; or

  (b) having entered any building or part of a building as a trespasser he steals or attempts to steal anything in the building or that part of it or inflicts or attempts to inflict on any person therein any grievous bodily harm.

  (2) The offences referred to in subsection (1)(a) above are offences of stealing anything in the building or part of a building in question, of inflicting on any person therein any grievous bodily harm … therein, and of doing unlawful damage to the building or anything therein.

  (3) A person guilty of burglary shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding –

  (a) where the offence was committed in respect of a building or part of a building which is a dwelling, fourteen years;

  (b) in any other case, ten years.

  (4) References in subsections (1) and (2) above to a building, and the reference in subsection (3) above to a building which is a dwelling, shall apply also to an inhabited vehicle or vessel, and shall apply to any such vehicle or vessel at times when the person having a habitation in it is not there as well as at times when he is.

  Burglary with intent to rape:

  Section 9 (2) originally referred to the offence of raping any woman in the building or part of the building in question. The words ‘raping any person’ were substituted for the words ‘raping any woman’ on 3 November 1994. This was consequential on the changes to the definition of rape made by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The words ‘or raping any person’ were in turn repealed on 1 May 2004. The offence of burglary with intent to rape is replaced by the offence of trespassing with intent to commit a sexual offence, contrary to section 63 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

  Chapter 1

  ‘This girl, Dani Miller, has been very lucky on this occasion,’ said Charley. ‘The next person might not be so fortunate. I want you to work with Helen Weir and Lisa Bayliss, liaise with the university, the security guards and the Students’ Union, and see if they’ve been informed of any other suspicious incidents that have occurred around the campus recently. I’m hopeful that other people may come forward, in confidence, when they hear about Dani’s experience.’ Charley pulled a face. ‘I know, it might take time, and time is of the essence…’

  ‘At least we’ll know if we’re dealing with an isolated incident, or whether there’s a pattern of events developing, that is becoming increasingly worse as the offender grows in confidence,’ said DC Annie Glover thoughtfully.

  Charley nodded. ‘Exactly. I want an update in fourteen days, but for now, I’ll leave it in your very capable hands.’

  * * *

  The time on Charley’s clock showed 5.10 am. Gale force winds and heavy rain overnight had interrupted her sleep. The bedroom was cold. Outside it was now still and extremely quiet. It was too early for the central heating to kick in. However, a warm fuzzy feeling washed over her when she realised it was Sunday.

  With three soft pillows to her back, and the duvet wrapped around her, Charley sat up in bed, sipping coffee from her favourite mug. It was a present from her best friend, and colleague, Kristine, who had bought her the gift when she was on secondment in London, just before Eddie’s sudden death. She thought about him now. She had found justice for his murder, and that was something to focus on. She was getting better at finding the positives in a situation and banishing the negativity that sometimes plagued her. Being in charge of Peel Street CID, in her home town helped. She liked her job, all things considered, even if she was pleased it was her weekend off.

  Snuggling into the duvet, she groaned with relief when the taste of the liquid caffeine washed over her tastebuds. Enjoying the smell as much as the taste, she soon found her body responding to it.

  ‘Why,’ she sighed heavily, as she rested her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, ‘does the first coffee of the day taste so good?’

  Charley looked beyond her window at the first victims of dawn. The stars that were visible between the clouds winked out one by one, and she counted them as they faded into nothingness. Daybreak was her time, her quiet solitude when she gathered her peace, and turned her soul to nature’s song at the beautiful sunrise that had begun to appear over the horizon.

  Despite the rain that had noisily lashed, thrashed and splattered her window overnight, she never thought of closing the curtains, preferring to look out, as she did, across the rolling Marsden moors, whatever the weather. It was the little things that pleased her, and it made her happy that she lived alone with nobody to think of but herself.

  She took another sip of coffee. As the rain battered down on the roof, she found herself thinking about the torrid nights, such as the last that she had walked the beat in uniform. She had often questioned her sanity. After all, who in their right mind would wander around the dark, deserted city centre streets, alone, in the middle of the night, in all weather conditions?

  The rain started up again. In her mind’s eye she imagined looking down at the water flowing over the toecaps of her shiny shoes. Running over the cobbled street, it flowed along the gutters and g
urgled down the drains, which appeared to be unable to cope with the heavy rain. She shivered at the thought of the rain running down her neck. People often said that ‘rain’ was the best police officer, because it kept people indoors. That was true, for a number of reasons, but it didn’t make being out on the streets in the rain any more enjoyable. She pulled the duvet further up her body.

  Selfishly she took a moment to enjoy the feeling of being able to sprawl out alone in her big, warm bed. Men were off her agenda for the foreseeable future. The question of Charley’s past, and her only long-term relationship, was still commented on by others, especially the dinosaurs she worked with, but these days she refused to be drawn. The fact that her childhood sweetheart and local newspaper reporter Danny-Ray had ended up serving a life sentence for murder when she was the investigator was not one of her finest moments. To say what he had done had left her reeling, and feeling betrayed was an understatement. Never again, she vowed, would she trust someone so wholeheartedly.

  She pushed her memories of that particular case from her mind and closed her eyes once more. Then her bubble was burst by the unmistakable ringtone of her work mobile phone.

  ‘Hello, this is Charley Mann,’ she said quietly. Her voice sounded hoarse to her ears, because she hadn’t spoken to anyone yet, that morning.

  ‘That you, boss?’ said old-timer Detective Constable Wilkie Connor, practically office-bound after being mowed down by the journalist-cum-murderer, Danny Ray, which had left him with life-changing injuries.

  Charley smiled to herself. ‘I hope so,’ she said.

  ‘The body of a partially clothed female has been discovered on the outskirts of the town centre,’ he said, quick and to the point.

  Without pause, Charley swung her legs over the side of the bed. The rush of adrenaline made her heart rate increase. Running her fingers through her tangled hair, she listened intently.

  ‘Your attendance is urgently requested.’

  Chapter 2

  The fact that Charley Mann wore no make-up, and habitually slicked her hair back into a bun at the nape of her neck for work, saved her considerable time when getting out of her bed to attend a scene.

  Connie Seabourne, the press officer, updated her as she got ready for work. ‘The female has been found under the sidings arches on Viaduct Street. Found by a postman on his way to work. Reports suggest that a large stone has been dropped directly onto the victim’s head,’ she said.

  Charley saw her grimace at the grisly news, in her dressing table mirror, but was pleased to hear that apart from the victim having been pronounced dead by attending paramedics in the first instance, the body had remained in situ, and instructions given for the area to remain sealed until her attendance.

  Forty-five minutes after Wilkie Connor’s initial call, the Detective Inspector found herself driving along Northgate and noticed the long railway viaduct straight ahead. In this part of the town, she had been told by her grandparents, farmers themselves, that the inhabitants of the small town of yesteryear came along a quiet lane to the vast open fields with their ploughs and oxen, to prepare their strips and to sow and eventually reap their harvests of oats, peas and beans.

  Viaduct Street had changed very little since she was a child, Charley noted on arrival. The rock-faced stone construction of forty-four arches built between 1845 and 1847, had duly stood the test of time, faithfully supporting the main railway line from Huddersfield along the lower Colne Valley.

  Suddenly the ground where she stood began to shake. Charley stood stoically, and steeled herself for what was to come. Stone dust floated down onto her coat. She closed her eyes, and instantly she was taken back to her childhood. Her elders had watched on, and waited for her to run the first time. She was as frightened then as she was now of the bridge above collapsing, as the train rattled and roared above her. However, like most things in life, she had come to realise, the perception was often far more worrying than the actual event.

  ‘How often does that happen?’ said a wide-eyed Annie Glover, who had crept up behind her, unheard above the noise.

  ‘Oh, about every fifteen minutes,’ said Charley.

  Annie checked the ground beneath her feet, and the animals grazing in the surrounding fields. ‘I don’t think my nerves would stand living here,’ she said.

  ‘No, mine neither, especially after a train derailed and slid off that parapet,’ Charley said, pointing to the archway above, with a stone-cold look on her face.

  Annie cowered. ‘O.M.G!’ Charley heard her say under her breath.

  Patrol Sergeant Peters, walked lazily towards the pair. Before he spoke he gulped down the remains of a takeaway coffee. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, lifting his chin towards Charley in anticipation of his instructions.

  ‘Close the road back as far as the traffic lights on the high street,’ she told him. ‘Including any footpaths that lead into the area.’

  ‘Including ginnels and snickets?’

  Charley nodded. ‘Especially the ginnels and the snickets. The sterility of the area is of paramount importance.’

  Watching Peters direct his available troops, Charley was immediately struck by the paucity of patrol staff. Sadly, no matter how desperate she was for extra hands, there was no magic wand available to conjure up more staff from Peel Street nick.

  ‘First job, telephone HQ and ask for extra resources,’ she said to Annie.

  Detective Sergeant Mike Blake had arrived, and he and Annie Glover followed in the Detective Inspector’s wake.

  The familiar feeling of adrenaline pumping through Charley’s veins kept her on high alert as she walked towards the inner scene. There were so many things to consider and to do after the discovery of a body, that her busy mind chased each one of the well-trodden processes around her head. There was no second chance to secure evidence, so it was extremely important that nothing was overlooked in the next few hours.

  Charley’s instructions continued to roll off her tongue, like the lyrics from a well-known song. A murder scene was her comfort zone. Having learnt from the best as a detective on major incidents, she had also suffered at the hands of misogynistic predecessors, and the equality of opportunity meant it had been a continuous struggle to achieve the rank of Detective Inspector. On the positive side, and Charley always looked for the positives, her experience, both good and challenging had helped her develop a leadership style based on empathy, encouragement and compassion. On promotion to detective sergeant, and upon her immediate secondment to London, she vowed to learn things that would help her police her own town more efficiently and effectively, when she returned. However, in the big city her positivity had been tested. An only child, her mother and father had died, and on her return from her mother’s funeral she found herself plummeted into the investigation into one of Britain’s most notorious killers – a colleague being subjected to a violent death, at the hands of cannibalistic murderer Titus Deaver. Both affected Charley deeply, but the fact that the conclusion at court of the latter prompted her secondment coming to an end, and her return to West Yorkshire, brought about a relief like no other. She now found herself at the cutting edge as the senior officer, the knowledge and skills acquired whilst away meant she relished every opportunity presented to her – more determined than ever to succeed where others had been found lacking.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how many rolls of tape you use!’ she shouted to a pair of uniformed special constables fumbling with the ‘DO NOT CROSS POLICE’ tape. ‘Make sure you protect the outer scene,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll have your guts for garters,’ she added, as she took long strides across the uneven, sometimes boggy terrain.

  Working on the discovery of the body was Neal Rylatt, the on-call duty CSI Supervisor. He was already in the process of screening off the body at the inner scene from prying eyes, when Charley caught up with him. ‘I don’t want any cameras, mobiles or drone pictures appearing on the internet,’ she said.

  The well-seasoned CSI nodded, and continued on regardless,
doing the job he did well.

  Chapter 3

  Charley soaked up the sight of the body like her mind was blotting paper. Her focus such, that everything else around was lost to her.

  The victim lay on her back, the upper torso naked. Her denim trousers were rolled down around her ankles, stopped from going further by a pair of new-looking white trainers, upon her feet.

  The large boulder that covered her head was the size of a football, in a position that hid her face from the investigators.

  The officers stood in stunned silence for a moment. Charley’s eyes flitted about restlessly.

  The tension was broken by Annie’s voice. ‘Ouch, I bet that hurt. Could one person lift that rock?’ she said pointing to the large offending object.

  ‘I’ll tell you when Neal’s finished, and we try to remove it,’ said Mike with a grimace, as he turned to look at Neal who was focused on photographing the scene.

  With a final nod from the CSI supervisor, and the 360-degree footage taken, Mike stepped forwards to help Neal lift the boulder from her face. ‘Ready,’ Neal said as the men faced each other. It took a lot of effort to remove the boulder, to lay it back on the ground with as little movement as possible, to protect any evidence that the boulder may have been hiding from them.

  Hands on his hips, getting back his breath, Mike turned to Annie. ‘The answer to your earlier question is, it definitely takes two to lift the rock,’ he said between gasps.

  Annie’s face morphed into a look of distaste at the gruesome sight. Her face crumpled. ‘Oh my God,’ she said turning away for an instant. ‘I guess that rules out the possibility of anyone identifying her?’ she said turning to Charley whose face was void of any emotion. ‘How does that not make you puke?’ Annie turned away.

  The stillness of Charley’s bent head revealed nothing but concentration. ‘Because, if I ran away so would you,’ she said. ‘The mask of the detective is one that is perfected in time, sometimes we need it more often than others.’ Charley leaned in closer to the mutilated face. ‘An ID is going to be tough, though that’s exactly what her murderer thought too. But, it won’t stop us finding out the truth. Think of a crime scene as a puzzle. Some, like this, are more taxing than others, that’s all,’ said Charley, getting to her feet, and taking a step backwards to allow the men some space. ‘I’m wondering if her killer has displayed her body like this deliberately, for someone to find?’ pondered Charley, as she watched the men go down on their haunches.