by Sarah Flint
The thought provoked a wave of sadness. She opened her front door again, wishing he could be standing on the step, his strong, handsome features smiling towards her, wanting to start over, but there was no one there.
A movement in the bushes startled her. A fox was scrabbling to climb the wooden fence on one side, its claws scraping and gouging at the panels. Or was it a cat? She peered into the foliage, suddenly desperate to know which animal was there, but much as her eyes strained to see the intricacies of its shape and colour, the gloom prevented its identification.
In an instant, her mind fast-forwarded to the forthcoming ID parade and the impossibility of Maryanne Hepworth’s job. Until that moment, she’d not fully appreciated how much the darkness would blight the ease of the task, without even factoring in the trauma. What would be Maryanne’s chances of picking out Karl Ferris when the features of her attacker had been shrouded in darkness? In their victim’s shoes, she doubted, whether, even as a ‘super recogniser’, she would succeed.
She closed the door despondently and trudged towards her bedroom. Tomorrow would be a new day. It would bring new opportunities. She just hoped that with Ferris tucked away in a cell for the night, it wouldn’t bring with it a new body.
*
The man stretched out silently across the mattress, his fingers drumming against the cover. He stopped their incessant movement, lifting them instead to his mouth, brushing the sensitive skin on their tips across his lips, his cheeks, his forehead.
He closed his eyes and imagined the wizened, care-worn skin on the jowls of Violet Nicholson, the ninety-four-year-old lady who lived in the tiny, dilapidated bungalow that backed on to the recreation ground.
It was rumoured she had been a nurse at the end of the Second World War, administering care and medical aid to the troops, but nobody really knew because she was a recluse now, with no family nearby and all her friends long since dead. She lived in a bygone era with no central heating, a kettle that came to the boil on a gas hob and only the most basic utilities.
He traced his fingers down across his face and chin and onto the soft skin of his neck, noticing the slight vibration from the carotid artery.
‘Hello,’ he whispered under his breath, moving his hand gently over his skin, imagining it to be older, wrinkled and so beautifully warm to the touch. ‘It’s so nice to speak to you, Violet.’
His finger located his Adam’s apple and he pressed against it lightly, noticing immediately the constriction on his windpipe.
‘You will talk to me, won’t you, Violet?’
He opened his eyes, staring hard at the ceiling above before pressing harder, restricting his breathing still further. His eyes started to bulge slightly and his head swam hazily. Removing his fingers from his throat, he placed his hand back down on the mattress and started to drum them again rhythmically and urgently.
‘I do hope you have some nice things to say.’
17
Maryanne Hepworth stood at the door to the ID suite, her heart hammering so hard that it felt as if her whole body was about to explode. She was terrified of seeing her attacker, but at the same time she dared not close her eyes for fear of the visions that had taken precedence over her sleep.
Every night since it had happened, she had lain awake, wracked with fear, her ears primed to hear every minute sound, her body so tense that it took a feat of concentration to prompt her to relax. She couldn’t put a word to what had happened. The attack would remain as ‘it’. To call it by name gave the whole awful episode the means to encroach on her every thought. Even staying at Danielle’s house had failed to help as she’d hoped it would. Her sister’s children were still waking at night and their soft footfall out to the toilet in the early hours of the morning was enough to fill her head with nightmarish imaginings; black shadows, sharp knives, violent whisperings.
Last night, with news of the imminent ID parade, she had not slept a wink, too petrified to even swallow a sleeping tablet for fear it would whisk her straight back to her own bedroom; with the fingers of the shadowy figure rough against her skin, his filthy breath warm on her cheek. Even the light from the table lamp at her bedside and the presence of her sister curled up in bed next to her could not divert the terror.
She breathed out slowly, as the seconds crept on to the moment when the door would open and she’d be ushered in to face her assailant, if, indeed, he was in the line-up. The police had a suspect, but until he was identified, either by her or forensics, that would be all he would remain. It was now within her power to turn their suspect into a defendant and she hoped more than anything that she would be able to assist. She had made a promise to do everything she could to help, and she would be keeping it. The man had to be locked away before he could do the same thing again to her – or another woman. She could not stand by and let him ruin anyone else’s life.
A uniformed ‘impartial’ inspector was reading out instructions now. As he said the words, her head turned to mush. She was to take her time, to look at all the men. The suspect may or may not be amongst the line-up. She was to speak clearly if she saw him, be firm in her identification. The glass was one-way; they couldn’t see her, so she was not to be afraid.
For a second, she wanted to laugh. Not be afraid. Not be afraid. Didn’t he realise that every second of every day since it had happened, she’d been afraid – and she always would be while the man was free.
The inspector turned the handle and pushed the door open, indicating for her to follow as he stepped into a viewing gallery.
She turned one last time in panic, feeling her sister Danielle’s hand on her arm.
‘You can do this,’ Danielle said firmly. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’ Her sister gave her arm a quick squeeze, before releasing her grip, the sudden release propelling her forward.
The viewing gallery was small. The inspector closed the door, shutting them into the hot, claustrophobic space. He stood to one side with a clipboard in his hand, ready to note down any comments she might make.
She kept her eyes to the floor, thinking about Danielle’s last words and what she had promised. Her head cleared. She was strong, as her sister had said. She could face her foe.
Six men stood in front of her, each holding a board with a number. Six white men, aged around forty to fifty, all around the same height and build and all wearing the same woollen hat pulled low over their forehead. All six were staring straight ahead, in her direction. She dared not breathe. Even though knowing she was unseen, the blankness of their stares still hammered at the thin protective shell she’d erected in preparation for the ordeal. An instruction was given and all six turned to one side, offering her their profile. She took a breath. A further request was given and they turned to their other side, before swivelling round to again look to their front.
Maryanne stared at each one individually, 1, 2, 3, onwards until she’d taken in the features of each participant. She stared at each man again, her pulse starting to quicken, trying to recall the face of the man in the darkness, staring down at her, on her, leaving her. Was he one of the six? She couldn’t be sure.
She could feel the eyes of the inspector fixed on her, waiting for an answer, but she didn’t know. She looked at the line-up once more. One of the men seemed familiar. He held the number three. His face was one that she recognised, but was he the man in the bedroom, or merely a man she had come across in the course of her day-to-day movements, a man in the street, serving her in a shop, a restaurant? Her head was reeling and her mind playing tricks. Dare she mention number three? Or would a mere nod be enough to send the man down for something he hadn’t done? Might she be responsible for a miscarriage of justice? She couldn’t risk that either.
She opened her mouth to speak, before closing it again abruptly. She was to be firm in her identification, speak clearly, those were her instructions, but she couldn’t be firm, because her memory was not clear. Nothing was clear.
Shaking her head, she stepped unsteadily towards
the door, grasping the handle to get her balance. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she gasped. ‘But I can’t be sure.’
*
Karl Ferris sat in the dock, staring towards the magistrate.
Charlie sat at the rear of the court, staring towards Ferris. She still found him as obnoxious as on their first meeting, possibly more so, but with both Maryanne and the manager of Sunny Meadows failing to pick him out, very soon she’d be watching him walk from the court, still on police bail but free to rejoin his wife in the cheap hotel room at Vauxhall in which they were staying temporarily. The forensic examination of their flat would prevent their return for a good few hours yet.
Maryanne had broken down after her ordeal in the ID suite, distressed at her inability to pick out their suspect, but it wasn’t her fault. They had all known the possibility of an identification had been precarious. Expecting a traumatised woman to be clear which man out of six similar people had broken into her home, in the middle of the night and raped her at knifepoint, was always going to be challenging, but they’d had to try. Unable to speak with Maryanne before the line-up, for fear of accusations of impropriety, Charlie had made sure she was on hand afterwards to offer support, but nothing she could say had eased Maryanne’s sense that she had let the team down. She was inconsolable.
Although acknowledging the fact that number three had been familiar, she couldn’t be absolutely sure he was her attacker. It was understandable, but now, as Charlie sat in court staring at number three, she could barely contain her anger and frustration.
The magistrate nodded towards the clerk and the clerk nodded towards number three.
‘Stand up, Mr Ferris,’ the clerk instructed.
Karl Ferris shifted in his seat, sighing loudly and rising slowly in a measured, pedantic way, as if he had all the time in the world and cared nothing for court protocol.
The magistrate frowned impatiently, waiting as the defendant eventually stood fully upright and looked in his direction.
‘Mr Ferris,’ he snapped, wearily, ‘for the offence of drink-driving, you are disqualified from driving for one year and fined four hundred pounds. For the offence of failing to appear at court, you will be fined a further fifty pounds. You may not care about what you do in your own time, but I hope, in future, that if you are required to attend court, you will see fit to turn up when you are instructed and do not waste both police and court time having to arrest you and process you again. Do you understand?’
The magistrate peered towards Karl Ferris, with as much gravitas as he could muster, awaiting an answer, but Ferris kept his mouth closed and his eyes fixed on a small point somewhere towards the feet of the clerk.
‘I said, do you understand?’ the magistrate bellowed, making Charlie jump slightly. He was obviously going to struggle with Friday’s list, especially with his temper becoming frayed this early on.
Karl Ferris lifted his eyes towards the magistrate and nodded, grunting his acceptance without properly opening his mouth.
‘Well then, if there’s nothing else, you’re free to leave. The court staff will show you what you need to do now.’ He glanced towards the clerk, who nodded his approval, and the usher beckoned towards Ferris, indicating for him to follow.
Charlie waited until he’d left the confines of the courtroom. She waited until he was ensconced in a conversation with the usher in the reception of the court building before pulling out her mobile phone and dialling Hunter, as instructed.
‘Ferris will be leaving through the front doors of the court shortly, guv. He’s been fined for skipping bail and had the year’s ban for drink driving confirmed.’
‘Thanks, Charlie. I’ll let the guys know. They’re all briefed and in position ready. They know what they have to do.’
Ferris was to be kept under surveillance, at least while they had the resources. They couldn’t risk letting him out of their sights.
*
Amy Briarly’s name flashed up on the screen of Charlie’s phone as she got to her car.
‘He’s got bail, hasn’t he?’ she said flatly. ‘I saw on the internet there was a suspect in custody last night. And I’ve just phoned my Family Liaison Officer, who confirmed that he’s been released.’ Charlie noticed the slight note of irritation in her voice and wasn’t surprised. The FLO had been sitting in the back of the court and was supposed to have phoned Amy immediately with an update, not the other way round.
‘Yes, he has, and I’m sorry you had to be the one to make the call.’
‘It’s not your fault, but maybe we could keep in touch, direct, seeing as you’re involved in the day-to-day investigation. It would be easier to hear any news straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were, rather than having to go through a sanitised middleman.’ She paused. ‘I trust you to do the right thing, Charlie.’
Charlie smiled down the phone at the woman’s faith, even though the words made her feel a little more uncomfortable and under pressure.
‘Of course I’ll keep you updated, Amy. He might have got bail, but he hasn’t been forgotten. And, for your information, our suspect mentioned seeing you on the TV.’
‘Well, that’s good to hear. I aim to continue to keep my mother’s murder very much in the public domain. I know it might be a little out of the ordinary, but I’ve other interviews arranged for myself and George imminently.’ She paused a final time, as if summoning up the last scraps of courage to speak. ‘I might be arranging my mother’s funeral in the next few days,’ she said, her voice firm again, ‘but I want the world to know that I shouldn’t be burying her yet.’
18
‘Guys, we’ve only gone and got a fucking match on the Maryanne Hepworth break-in.’ Charlie shouted out in glee, putting her hand across the mouthpiece of the office landline.
As one, the team stopped what they were doing, stood up and looked towards her. She grinned from ear to ear; their action reminding her of a recent documentary on meerkats in the Kalahari Desert.
‘Go on,’ she said, pushing the handset against her ear and repeating the name given out loud. ‘Thomas Houghton, date of birth 9/3/1977. Male. White.’ She pulled out a pen and jotted down his Police National Computer ID number. ‘That’s brilliant, thanks. Out of interest, where did you get it from?’
She listened to the reply, her smile broadening at the words of the lab technician. By the time she put the phone down, the team were already in full swing.
‘Well?’ Hunter joined them from his office, having been informed already by an excited Bet. The team clustered around Paul’s computer, where an image of Thomas Houghton was staring out at them.
Charlie stood, momentarily silenced as she took in the image of their forty-one-year-old suspect. He had shoulder-length, wavy, light brown hair, streaked grey at the sides, thick eyebrows and piercing blue eyes. What struck her, though, was the sadness in his face, the almost total lack of evil. He looked defeated. It was the polar opposite of what she had expected to see and totally took her by surprise.
‘Well?’ Hunter said again. ‘What have we got?’
‘Thomas Houghton,’ she repeated the name. ‘His DNA was found at Maryanne’s flat, on a tiny fragment of condom wrapper, where he has obviously bitten off the corner to open the pack and spat it out. We were lucky. This was the only identifiable sample they managed to find.’ She stared at the image again. ‘He doesn’t look capable of covering his tracks that well, does he?’
‘Well, he didn’t really have to, did he?’ Naz commented. ‘Maryanne pretty much did it for him.’
‘He looks like a druggie to me.’ Sabira said exactly what Charlie was thinking.
‘And he’s quite different to how Maryanne described, with all that hair.’ She squinted at Houghton’s face, trying to imagine it without the hair hanging limply down his cheeks. It had obviously been shoved up into his woolly hat at the time of the break in.
‘His most recent arrest is for possession of drugs, so you’re right,’ Paul was scanning through the record. ‘P
lus, one conviction for handling stolen goods and a few for shoplifting. All in the last year. He’s not the greatest criminal, but, having said that, most druggies are quite streetwise.’
‘And, anyway, looks can be deceptive,’ Hunter leant forward to get a better view. ‘If the rape is linked to Florence Briarly’s murder and the other burglaries, then he is clearly a lot more switched on than he looks.’
‘I wonder why he gave his real name,’ Naz tilted her head towards the screen.
‘It’s easy to throw in a first name.’ Charlie’s thoughts returned to the strange volunteer at the nursing home. ‘Ray, Roy, Thomas. None of them mean anything unless you have a surname.’ So far they had drawn a blank on anyone of note with either first name.
‘This is a bit worrying though.’ Bet read aloud from an intelligence report. ‘Houghton was seen yesterday by a police community support officer, with a guy by the name of Javon Stone, street name Rocky. This Rocky has previous for burglary and associates with some pretty heavy-duty nominals linked to firearms. Houghton was driving a White Honda Civic. The PCSO wasn’t able to stop them but knows them both from frequenting a local crack house.’
She was intrigued. He looked more sad than bad, and she was usually good at reading personalities.
‘So, if he’s our man, then what the hell has occurred in the space of twelve months to make someone of previous good character start taking drugs and be involved in petty crime?’ She paused, knowing she would have to answer the puzzle before she could properly solve the crime. ‘And what the hell could have then happened, to make him graduate to burglary, knifepoint rape and possibly murder?’
*
A light drizzle was falling as they parked up close to Thomas Houghton’s bedsit in their unmarked car. Charlie switched on the car stereo, searching for some music to calm her nerves. In the absence of the PCSO with personal knowledge of Houghton, she was to be the officer charged with identification of their suspect – and today a whole unit of armed Trojan officers would be waiting on her every word. Houghton had carried a knife when he had raped Maryanne, and his recent sighting with Javon Stone had cemented their decision. They would not be taking any chances – but it meant her identification would be key.
