Persecution

by R. C. Bridgestock

  Anticipation grew amongst the team as the discovering officer began to force the lid with a jemmy. She shuddered as the stark alternatives crossed her mind. Very shortly she would find out one way or another if the missing girl was inside.

  Charley watched the lid spring open as if it was in slow-motion. There was a resounding thud. The sudden noise sent vibrations through the site.

  A piecing cry which rang through the night came from the officer at the bin.

  ‘She’s here!’

  Charley’s heartbeat kicked into top gear, spurred by a sense of hope at the shout. She moved swiftly forwards through the sea of officers in the process of searching the hundreds of bins, who stepped aside for her, their sharp intakes of breath accompanying her it seemed. When she reached the bin, no one spoke for several seconds, but she could imagine a hundred hearts beating just as fast as hers.

  Annie was one step behind Charley.

  Poking out of the container were a pair of human feet. Pyjama bottoms and knickers were visible around the ankles. The feet were bound with rope.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Annie gasped.

  Quickly the bin was turned on its side, and Charley urged the paramedics forwards. With painstaking care, the body of a girl was pulled free from a nest of rubbish. Having seen Cath Crowther’s picture, there was no doubt in Charley’s mind that this was her. The girl, who had been locked in her own private hell, was gagged by stockings, and was unresponsive.

  Stooping low so she could see the young woman’s face, the paramedic searched for a pulse that she feared would not be there.

  Charley’s attention was on the victim, as she was sure she saw her eyelid flicker at the same time as the paramedic turned to look up. ‘We have a pulse,’ the paramedic said with great urgency.

  Airways cleared, an oxygen mask was placed over her nose and mouth.

  Charley found herself chanting under her breath for Cath to keep fighting, whilst at the same time feeling a sense of relief that the task of finding her was over, and a sense of elation that she was alive – she had to survive.

  Watching the paramedics work on Cath Crowther, because there was nothing else she could physically do, Charley looked for tell-tale signs on the body. There was bruising around her neck.

  Annie was obviously of the same mind. ‘I wonder if the attacker strangled her into unconsciousness, and thought she was dead?’ she whispered to Charley.

  Charley nodded. ‘She would have been dead if she’d been there any longer,’ she replied.

  Cath Crowther was covered in a blanket, lifted onto a stretcher and carried to the nearby ambulance.

  There was no time now for contemplation. However, there was a need for protocol to be adhered to. For continuity, Charley called for PCs Helen Weir and Lisa Bayliss to go with Cath in the ambulance, with instruction that it was imperative, on arrival at the hospital, for the victim’s clothing to be preserved, if at all possible, for forensic examination, and for the medical staff to be made aware of the circumstances in which she was discovered.

  ‘Her clothing could be a crucial link to who is responsible for the attack,’ said Charley.

  Once Charley heard the doors slam and the wail of the siren, she once again looked up to the skies, but this time to pray for Cath’s life, and she thanked God that she hadn’t left the search for her until daylight.

  She was satisfied that Helen and Lisa had enough experience to be aware that, when Cath regained consciousness and was out of danger, anything she could tell them should be recorded by them, their being the officers in attendance. Then the next step in the investigation would be underway.

  A hurried conversation with Mike Blake resulted in his ordering the manpower on site to seal off the area which extended from Cath Crowther’s flat to the recycling site, where a small knot of curious people had gathered.

  Charley contacted the police officer who was still with Cath Crowther’s family, and he was able to inform her that Mr and Mrs Crowther were preparing to go to the hospital as a matter of urgency, in order to be at their daughter’s side. Later, Charley would share with them the full details of the circumstances, but for now, everyone’s concern was the preservation of the young victim’s life.

  ‘Cath Crowther’s attacker would have had to move some bins around, to be able to place the one that she was in at the rear,’ pondered Charley.

  ‘The obvious reason is that he didn’t want her to be discovered,’ said Mike.

  ‘Mmm… He would have hoped that she’d be crushed in the back of a recycling vehicle no doubt,’ replied Charley, as more crime-scene workers began arriving, shouldering her aside.

  Annie and Ricky-Lee joined the pair, eager for further instruction. ‘I think everything is being done to trace and recover any evidence at the scene, we’ve taken every opportunity,’ Charley told them.

  Ricky-Lee produced his best full-on smile, flashing his white teeth for effect. ‘According to Clinton St Hilaire, the head of facilities, we were damn lucky as the bins were due to be emptied early tomorrow morning,’ he said.

  ‘I wonder if the killer knew that?’ Annie asked Charley.

  ‘Let’s say the more I learn, the more I’m confident that he has links to the university in some way.’

  The two officers exchanged looks. ‘That only gives us a few thousand suspects to eliminate,’ said Annie.

  Sandwiches and hot drinks, provided by the hastily summoned canteen staff were welcomed by everyone. Charley caught Mike’s eye, and he winked at her. ‘You did this? Thank you,’ she said. Her lips had a tinge of blue. The night was drawing in fast, and it was getting increasingly cold. Charley held the warm mug cupped in her hands long after the hot drink had been consumed, her eyes unblinking as she remained focused on the scene. ‘I’m really concerned about how our perpetrator has progressed so rapidly to murderous intent,’ she said. ‘He must have given the disposal of Cath’s body a great deal of thought before the act, in the hope that he wouldn’t be caught, and I can’t help but think of the similarities between this and Dani’s experience.’

  As if she had just had a thought she jumped, and her eyes turned to look at Mike. ‘Will you inform the Divisional Commander about the incident?’

  The area around the bins had been subjected to hastily erected intense lighting, by a mobile unit specifically brought over from HQ. The light allowed the immediate area search to continue. Anything discovered that was felt to be of any significance would be photographed and seized as a potential exhibit.

  ‘What would you be looking for Annie?’ Charley asked.

  ‘A discarded adhesive tube for one,’ she replied.

  Charley looked pleased with the younger woman’s response. ‘Do you think that the bin will tell us anything more?’

  Annie shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know, but if we don’t try then we won’t know will we?’

  The search team, picking their way through the piles of rubbish on the ground where the bin was discovered made an early discovery. Working through a smell that would leave a lasting odour on all those in attendance, their eyes were focused downwards, as they examined visually, in situ, a shiny, silver-coloured zip-pull, from an unknown garment, and they called for Charley to look at it. Photographed and seized, only time would tell if this small piece of evidence would be relevant. Charley shuffled away from the scene, careful to not disturb anything, she looked at her feet which were covered in crime-scene covers taken from a Bootie Box. She saw that the bins had already revealed some unusual objects. Alongside the usual tins, plastic bottles and discarded fast-food containers, there were pieces of discarded clothing, a few keys, a suitcase, a mannequin’s leg, an assortment of wigs, broken games, computer parts.

  * * *

  At Peel Street police station, the night team were just setting out in the marked cars and on foot at the beginning of their shift, when Charley and her team arrived back. However, the detectives’ day was still not done.

  Notebook and pen in hand, Char
ley sat in her warm office, her face animated, getting ready for the short debrief of her close team. Her sandwiches that Winnie had brought that morning were the only ones that survived, apart from Mike’s because Wilkie Connor had made short work of the others, much to Annie and Ricky-Lee’s annoyance, and he was not there to suffer the consequences having gone home. Charley paused deliberately at the conference table where the debrief was about to take place, and opened up her brown food bag, and Mike did likewise, to reveal cold bacon and sausage sandwiches.

  Annie threw off her coat and walked directly to the kitchen. ‘I’ll make a tea, shall I?’ she said.

  ‘Bring a knife, and the brown sauce so we can cut them in half to share,’ Charley called after her.

  Annie smiled to herself. That’s just what she wanted to hear.

  The team agreed that the killer took time to study his victims, and plan not just how he could get into their rooms, but also how he would get out. In this most recent crime he had felt calm and confident enough to do the live feed, before moving his victim from the flat to the bin, sealing the lid and dumping it back with the others, awaiting refuse collection. Did he believe he had actually killed her, because that was his intention?

  The luminous waistcoat that he wore suggested to anyone seeing him that he was a workman. Therefore he wouldn’t perhaps attract any undue attention.

  ‘Do you think he works on campus in maintenance?’ asked Annie.

  ‘That’s something that we can’t overlook. I want the CCTV images that we do have from the university enhanced, so that we can see if there is anything else to be learned about the attacker.’

  The disappointment of any real progress in the hunt for the attacker had coupled with the fatigue that Charley hadn’t felt since the lead up to the capture of one of Britain’s most wanted murderers, Titus Deaver, the cannibalistic killer, who had brutally slaughtered his victims including one of her colleagues. Charley knew that whatever the cost, as head of this enquiry, she had to make a concerted effort to display an outward show of hope, calm and assurance for the benefit of the team.

  That night she sat on the window seat in her bedroom, arms folded, knees hunched up to her chin, looking out across the blackness of Marsden moors, and into a clear, starry sky thinking, meditating and pondering over the day.

  The next morning, dark pouches under her eyes were evidence of her lack of sleep, and worry lines showed at the corner of her mouth and eyes. The stolen food bags the previous night had made tempers frayed at the office, and Ricky-Lee announced robustly his threat to ‘get you back’ to Wilkie Connor. This was an attitude which the younger of the two detectives wouldn’t usually use towards his older colleague, an old-fashioned bobby who had, despite the demands of his wife, an invalid for whom he was sole carer, and his own recovery from his accident, succeeded in keeping up with the new technology. Wilkie Connor would be the first to say that he didn’t have the breeding or social skills to talk his way up the ladder of success, but nevertheless, he was extremely good at his job.

  Just when Charley was about to go out into the office and give them what for, Annie, who had remained at her desk with her head down, appeared at her door. ‘Boss, I may have identified a link as to how he selects his victims. There’s this aerobics class, once a week on campus… Helen and Lisa have checked with his other victims, and it appears that each of them have attended this Tuesday night class at some time or another over the past year.’

  ‘Great work. So our man could be a voyeur who then stalks these young women.’

  Annie’s hair was tied up in a knot on the top of her head, showing that she had had no time to shower that morning. ‘Just that. There is a walkway above, which leads into the changing rooms. Anyone can see them, without being seen. The gymnasium is also visible through a wall of windows which overlooks the sports fields.’

  ‘He could then follow them back to their flats…’ said Charley thoughtfully. ‘When’s the next class?’

  ‘Next Tuesday night. Helen and Lisa are arranging observations, and looking at historical CCTV in the immediate vicinity. They have been instructed not to alert security though. Just in case it is one of their team who is responsible.’

  ‘Good. Let’s also use some of our own cameras so if the CCTV is out of action it won’t matter, and we also don’t alert anyone in asking them to get the CCTV fixed.’

  Charley’s phone rang. ‘It’s an update from the hospital regarding Cath Crowther,’ the caller said.

  The SIO closed her eyes briefly. Let it be good news.

  Chapter 18

  No matter how hard it was sometimes to end a debrief on a positive note for her team, Charley always tried. One of the most common phrases she used was one of her Grandad’s old sayings, ‘Tomorrow’s another day.’

  However, on this occasion the news that Cath Crowther was still alive and continued to fight was good enough motivation for everyone.

  At home that night, Charley contemplated all she had witnessed that day; the enquiry was proving to be more complex than she had envisaged it would be at the start.

  Sitting alone on the settee, quiet, in the dark, in front of the same fire that she had sat in front of with her parents as she was growing up, her mind retreated to the special place in her head, to the compartments where she kept her precious memories under lock and key, and she found comfort in them for an hour or two whilst she dozed intermittently.

  ‘Smarter, cleverer men have tried to hoodwink me,’ she mumbled, an hour later as she dragged her leaden legs up the stairs to bed. ‘Whoever you are, whatever you do, you will not get the better of me!’

  * * *

  Charley woke early the next morning and flicked on her bedside light. Disorientated, she picked up her mobile phone and sleepily registered that it showed the time as 5.20. Her exercise routine, since she had returned from London, had mostly been riding Wilson, the ex-police horse owned by her best friend Kristine, but that had slowed almost to a halt lately. At one time she would have jumped out of bed intent on getting a hack in before she went to work when waking so early, but this time she dismissed the thought, turned over, and slept on until the alarm woke her at 6.30.

  When Charley left the house the heavens opened, and within seconds the rainfall increased to a steady downpour. Once or twice she almost lost her footing on the cobbles as she walked to her car, and for once she was glad she wasn’t out riding. Looking down she examined the smooth mud surface of the grass banking, and dodged the rainwater that continually seeped over the pathway from the field’s surface, draining into the gutter that ran alongside the kerb. Her feet were soaked, the penalty for living in a semi-rural location, in the village of Marsden. With its peaks, canals, valleys and reservoirs, the Colne Valley had a wealth of outdoor delights and a rich industrial heritage.

  Saturated by the time she reached the end of the row of terraces, she abandoned her umbrella, and threw it with haste into the boot of her car.

  Charley’s relief at the good news that greeted her was enough to lighten the dampest of spirits. Maddox’s footwear, as well as that of Beth Green, a friend of his girlfriend, whom he had been seen with on CCTV the night before the discovery of Cordelia Le Beau’s body, were proven to be a match.

  Instinctively she knew it was just the information her fatigued team needed to hear.

  At that precise moment the sun shed light upon the detectives through the window. ‘As we suspected, it appears that their drunken night out wasn’t as innocent as they would like us to believe, which would perhaps explain their co-operation,’ commented Mike. Finishing off his coffee with a smack of his lips, he glanced up at the clock in Charley’s office. ‘However did we manage before CCTV?’

  Charley loosened her hands which had been tightly clasped around her mug, and she looked relieved and calmer, somehow. ‘I don’t know, but what I do know is that it isn’t a total deterrent.’

  For a moment they sat in silence, and she contemplated the situation. ‘What I don
’t understand is that the CCTV footage shows Maddox and the three girls together; granted they were off their faces, but obviously out together. Is it possible that two of the pack went their separate ways before they came across Cordelia?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if stepping on the body was a deliberate act, I would have expected the shoe prints of all four to be present.’

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows. If the four separated I’d have thought that it would have been Maddox and his girlfriend who paired off, and the others maybe shared a taxi?’

  Spirits lifted after the finding of a victim alive, the entrance of Winnie into the Incident Room with a delivery of warm breakfast sandwiches was somewhat a treat for Charley and team, whose mood and determination had made them hungry in more ways than one.

  ‘Call a briefing. I think they need to be made aware of this breakthrough sooner rather than later, don’t you?’ Charley said as she stepped out of her office.

  Mike stood. ‘Ten minutes?’

  ‘Ten minutes,’ she replied.

  * * *

  With the whisper of a breakthrough rippling through those present, Charley was pleased to note that all those in attendance at the briefing looked attentive as she greeted them. She informed them that four arrest teams were required to lock up the four murder suspects.

  ‘Why are we arresting all four suspects? Because the CCTV footage tells us that all four were together on that fateful night. We don’t know who was wearing the offending shoes at the time that Cordelia’s body was trodden upon, nor do we know who did what. For example, did they encourage each other, and thereby their actions were a joint enterprise?’ Charley took a moment to collate her thoughts. ‘A priority from subsequent house searches will be to recover the shoes that the prints were taken from, and we need to revisit the CCTV footage to identify the clothing that the four were wearing that night. Where possible, we need to recover those items.’