Rope Enough (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 1)

by Oliver Tidy

  Brought back to the present, Avery’s features and voice had lost all trace of his earlier cocky playfulness. ‘I always pick her up when she does the night-shift. I was there at closing time: tenish. It was locked up and all the lights were out. They never turn all the lights out. They leave them on all night. She didn’t answer her phone, but I could hear it ringing inside. I spent a few minutes banging on the doors. Got no response, so I called you lot.’

  ‘And got yourself arrested.’

  ‘I was upset. They wouldn’t let me in to see what had happened. My girl was in there.’

  ‘I don’t think you would have liked it if they had.’

  ‘What happened to her? What did they do?’

  ‘Did you see anything else? Anyone else that might have a bearing on our investigations?’

  Avery shook his head. ‘I saw no one.’

  After a brief pause, Romney said, ‘The place was robbed and there was a serious sexual assault. That’s what you’ll read in the papers and as you have no lawfully recognised relationship with the victim that’s all I’m obliged to tell you. You want the sordid details of what was done to her, you’ll have to ask your ‘girl’, but I don’t think she’s going to want to talk about it for a while. You can take him back to his cell now, Constable.’

  Avery glowered at the DI. ‘When do I get out of here?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Romney, standing. ‘Assaulting a police officer is still, as I remember, a serious offence. You’ll have to wait and see what the superintendent decides in your case. Given the circumstances, you might get off with a caution, but I wouldn’t count on it. He should be in...’ Romney made a show of studying his watch, ‘...in about an hour or so. Breakfast and a coffee. You might get seen by mid-morning.’

  The constable encouraged Avery – a simmering body of anger and frustration – out of the room.

  ‘You don’t like him, do you, sir?’ said Marsh.

  ‘He’s a thieving, cruel, ruthless, scrote who’s brought more misery to the people of this town in his short and horrible life than the incumbent Conservative government and that, Sergeant, is saying something.’

  As they made their way back to the squad room, Marsh said, ‘What were you suggesting in there, sir? Do you really think that this has something to do with him and his business interests?’

  ‘Probably not, but I’ll take any opportunity to rattle his cage. It’s something that occurred to me last night: there just might be more to this than a straightforward rape and robbery. I spoke to a colleague of mine in regional this morning. Seems that Avery could be branching out in his criminal aspirations. Bootlegging possibly. With the extortionate taxes the government levy there’s a lot of money to be made in contraband cigarettes and booze these days. A lot of money. It’s also an area of enterprise that some of our longer established eastern European resident immigration population seem to have an interest in developing –Kosovans mainly. Perhaps it was a message to him. Apparently, some of the methods they are using to deter others from gaining a foothold in the industry are proving particularly brutal. It’s a lucrative business and they want to protect it. Given his connection to the victim, the possibility that the attacker was eastern European, and the, let’s say, unusual details of the assault, we shouldn’t rule anything out. Ignore possibilities at your peril. Keep an open mind, Sergeant. Always keep an open mind.’

  *

  Despite pressures from the DI, forensics was unable to guarantee that the full results of their tests of samples lifted from the crime scene would be with CID before lunch. Finger prints taken would need to be cross referenced with employees of the garage and they were all being traced and taken.

  A meeting of those assigned to the case determined and settled on several possible avenues of enquiry to be investigated. In order of favouritism based on the facts available these were that the incident was a pre-meditated rape with an opportunist robbery; that the incident was robbery focussed with an opportunist rape; that the incident was part of some kind of turf war.

  Enquiries into employees both current and former covering the time that Claire Stamp had worked there showed only two males. One was the manager who had been called out the night before and the other was the youth, Carl Park. Both were soon eliminated from enquiries with solid alibis. The manager had been at a snooker hall all evening with numerous witnesses to testify to his presence. Park’s lack of involvement in anything other than as a pathetic victim was never in doubt.

  Later, Marsh received word that Claire Stamp had been released from hospital. Enquiries revealed she had returned to her home address. Marsh got hold of her home number and spoke with her. The victim was made to understand the importance of making her police statement at the earliest opportunity and agreed to have Marsh and her DI call on her at her home.

  *

  Within the hour Romney and Marsh were standing outside the apartment building in the town centre that had been given to them as Claire Stamp’s address. A florist was trading out of the ground floor shop. The smells wafting out of the open front door in the gloomy breezy winter’s day were both strange and welcome.

  Romney admired the renovated structure. ‘Difficult to see how someone earning minimum wage can afford to live in a place like this,’ he said.

  They were buzzed in and took the freshly painted and well maintained stairwell to the fourth floor. The woman who met them at the door was not at all what Romney was expecting. She was attractive in her made-up and contrived way but looked much older than he imagined she would. There was a hardness around the mouth and eyes that suggested that life had not been kind to her. Marsh saw immediately the resemblance to the younger version she had spied through the hospital door viewing panel in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘Claire Stamp?’ said Romney.

  The woman raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Blimey, if you’re who we’re relying on to catch whoever did that to my daughter, I won’t hold my breath. You’d better come in.’

  They followed her clicking heels down a narrow dark passageway and through into a lounge bathed with the day’s grey light from a pair of un-curtained patio doors that overlooked a small balcony and then rooftops at the back of the high street. Claire Stamp sat on a white leather sofa – one of the few items in the sparsely furnished room. It had the feel of a place that had the removals men in, and they were nearly finished. Her hair was wet and uncombed. She was wrapped thickly in a white towelling robe. Her feet were pulled up under her.

  Romney realised his mistake immediately. ‘Claire Stamp?’ She nodded and didn’t smile. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Romney and this is Detective Sergeant Marsh. Firstly, can I offer you our sincerest apologies for having to trouble you so soon after what must have been a terrible ordeal? But, naturally, we want to catch whoever did this to you as much as I’m sure you want us to and, well, we need to get on with it, while things are fresh in your mind. If it’s not too difficult?’

  It was the speech that they had agreed Romney, as senior officer present, should deliver. However, Romney hadn’t the training or experience in rape counselling and questioning that Marsh did. Neither would he have that natural connection that women, from whatever their walk of life, would have. Consequently, they had agreed that after his preamble Marsh would lead.

  ‘Very touching,’ said the woman’s mother from behind them. ‘Heartfelt, I’m sure.’

  ‘Mum,’ snapped Claire. Her voice didn’t have the roughness of her mother’s, but her rebuke was clear. ‘Make some tea or something, will you?’

  The older woman turned without another word and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Her heels tip tapped over the tiled hallway to the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry. She’s so angry. It should be me who’s that angry. I am. But, well it’s not your fault, is it?’ She was softly spoken, with the accent of the local grammar school. A stark comparison to her mother.

  Marsh said, ‘All right if we sit down?’

  ‘Yeah,
sure, sorry.’

  The police took off their coats. The room was hot and stuffy. It could have done with some ventilation, thought Romney – some air.

  ‘You know we’re going to have to ask you all about last night?’ said Marsh. The girl nodded. ‘We can wait for your mother to come back, or if you’d like someone else present, for support, we can arrange it.’

  Claire Stamp snorted. ‘My mum’s the last person I’d want in here. She’s only here now because that idiot from the garage called her – told her what had happened and where I was. Sorry, no, there’s no one else I want here. To be honest the fewer people that ever know what he did to me the happier I’ll be.’

  ‘I can promise you that we will keep all details of what you tell us confidential unless we are obliged to reveal them as part of the investigation. I do have to advise you of that fact. I’d like to record what you’re going to tell us, again, if that’s OK with you, Claire? I’ll write up my notes later for you to sign and then destroy the recording.’

  Stamp nodded again and Marsh set up her new toy: a mini-digital recorder.

  The older woman tottered back into the room with a tray of steaming mugs and some wrapped cubes of sugar. There were no biscuits. She set it down roughly on the chrome and glass-topped coffee table.

  ‘If you don’t need me for a few minutes, I’m going out for some fags and fresh air.’

  No one tried to dissuade her.

  A minute later the front door banged. Marsh reached across and activated the recording equipment. She said, ‘Claire, I want you to tell us everything you can remember about what happened last night, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you. Anything and everything in the order that it happened. Take your time. I can switch this off if you need a break.’

  The young woman on the sofa took a deep stabilising breath and said, ‘It was a quiet night. The weather was horrible. There wasn’t much passing trade. We lock up around ten. Start clearing things away and bringing stuff in from outside about nine-thirty. Carl had got everything in. We hadn’t had a customer for a while and then out of nowhere this bloke walks in. He had a gun. A pistol.’

  Romney said, ‘Could it have been a replica, or an air pistol, perhaps?’

  ‘It looked real. It wasn’t an air pistol. My sister had an air pistol when we were kids. I know what they look like. The hole in the barrel was small compared with this. It could have been a replica, I suppose. The thought occurred to me, but then I thought he’d only come to rob the place and I wasn’t interested in finding out how real his gun was.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’ said Marsh.

  ‘He was about as tall as you,’ she said, indicating Romney.

  ‘That’s Inspector Romney,’ said Marsh, pointing at the recording machine.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, he was about as tall as Inspector Romney but not as wide. He was thin. Skinny. He was wearing a hooded top and I think it was a balaclava type mask underneath. I couldn’t see anything of his face.’

  Marsh said, ‘How about his clothes? Anything unusual?’

  Stamp shook her head, ‘Nothing that I can think of – jeans, dark jacket.’

  ‘What about his speech?’

  Stamp went quiet for a thoughtful moment. ‘He sounded foreign. But,’ she paused.

  ‘But what, Claire? Everything remember?’

  ‘I’m not sure if he was putting it on. Faking it. He didn’t say much. He shouted and I was so scared I wasn’t really paying much attention to how he sounded. But. He could have been foreign. I’ve heard people in Dover sounding like him.’

  Marsh moved her gently on. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘He told Carl to lock the doors and turn out the lights. Then he made us go into the back room.’

  ‘Did he look in the till?’

  ‘No. He couldn’t have seen what was in there from where he was standing either.’

  ‘Would you say he was familiar with the layout of the place?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, when he got you into the back room, did he hesitate at all? Did you get the idea that it was unfamiliar to him?’

  Again, Stamp took her time, trawling her memories. ‘He seemed confident,’ she said, finally. Her voice dropped a little. ‘He grabbed me by the hair and pushed me down over the table, putting his weight on me. He threatened Carl to strap my wrists and ankles to the table legs.’

  She noticed both of them cast looks at her exposed wrists. She lifted them and the sleeves of her bathrobe fell down so that they might get a better look. The angry crimson welts stood out against her otherwise pale skin.

  ‘After that I couldn’t see anything behind me. Carl was standing in front of me. He was terrified and useless. The man threw something at him and told him to put it over my head and pull the string tight. It was some kind of cloth bag. It must have been thick because when it was on me, I couldn’t see any light through it and I could hardly breathe. It stank of mothballs. There was more shouting. I heard Carl cry out and fall. For a few seconds it was silent and I prayed he’d just gone to the till to take whatever he wanted and get out. Then I felt his hands on me and I knew what he was going to do. I had to fight back from being sick into the hood. I started to scream and then I felt the point of a knife against my neck.’ She turned her head and lifted her hair so that they could see where the blade had nicked her. ‘He pulled my skirt up to my waist, cut and ripped off my tights and knickers. And then he raped me.’ Her eyes filled with tears at the memory, but she wiped them away, not wanting them to see how a man’s physical violation of her had affected her. ‘He used a condom. I suppose I should be grateful for that. And he was quick and,’ she paused, struggling with how to put it, ‘there wasn’t much of him if you know what I mean? It didn’t hurt. It was just uncomfortable and unwanted. It’s strange,’ she said, meeting their stares in turn. ‘I was raped: screwed against my will by someone I’ve never met, so why don’t I feel worse about it? I mean, it’s the ultimate violation. I can’t help feeling that I should be hysterical, ruined, a total mess. Isn’t that what happens to women after they’ve been raped? But I don’t feel it. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t enjoy it and I’d rather it hadn’t happened, but I don’t feel that it’s going to destroy me. That’s not normal is it?’

  ‘We all deal with traumatic experiences in our own and different ways, Claire,’ said Marsh. ‘The fact that you’re being so strong, so objective about it, shows that you can deal with this. You’re right: for a lot of women who suffer rape, it’s a life-altering experience and understandably so. But if you have the inner strength to deal with the emotions, if you can see that it’s not your fault, you did nothing wrong, you are not to blame, then you will be in a much better position to deal with it. Rape is about men’s need to control women: to own and humiliate them. Often the greatest effect of any rape is the mental aftermath. If you can rationalise your unwilling part in it and move on, if you are truly able to do that, you will make a quicker more complete recovery. But you’ve got to be honest with yourself, Claire. You can be supported through this. There are specially trained, experienced, kind and sympathetic counsellors who can really help. I’m going to leave you some phone numbers including my own. Don’t hesitate to call them, or me, if you need us, OK?’

  Stamp nodded and managed a hint of a smile in thanks. Slight though it was, it transformed her features and was enough to show both of the officers just how naturally beautiful she was.

  ‘Can you remember what happened next?’ said Marsh.

  She went back, again. ‘I suppose I was in shock. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on. I was panicking. Inside that hood I could hardly breathe. I was terrified in case I’d just been infected with something, about what he was going to do to me, whether he was going to kill me. It went pretty quiet. He never said another word. I heard him searching about and then he was gone. He must have gone into the shop, taken the money and legged it. There is one thing that I’m pretty certain of
,’ she drew a deep breath. ‘He filmed what he did to me or at least took pictures.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ said Marsh.

  ‘I heard the electronic sounds. It was the same sound my phone makes when I take pictures or video. You know, that’s what bothers me most about this whole thing. He’s got images of me like that. They’re proof that it happened. They could end up anywhere. I’ll never be able to forget it while they’re out there.’

  Reluctant to dwell on that, Marsh said, ‘That could be a very important detail. What phone have you got?’

  ‘It’s a Nokia something or other. It’s still at the petrol station. Hang on, it’s newish. My boyfriend gave it to me.’ As the words tumbled out of her the realisation of something unpleasant distorted her features. For a moment she looked like she might break down. ‘I’ve still got the manual in a drawer in the kitchen,’ she said, and hurriedly got up to find it.

  The officers had little time to exchange more than a look before she was back clutching a handful of paperwork. She handed the operator’s manual to Marsh, who noted the model number before saying, ‘And then what happened?’

  Claire Stamp repositioned herself on the sofa. ‘And then I had to lie there spread-eagled across that table until the police showed up. I wish I could have passed out or something. I was so uncomfortable and my wrists were agony. I’ve never known pain and frustration like it. It was worse than what he did to me.’

  Romney said, ‘Your boyfriend called us. Were you aware that he was there?’

  Again her face clouded. ‘Yes. I heard someone banging on the windows and then I heard him shouting my name. I didn’t want him there. I didn’t want him to see me like that. I don’t know how he’ll take it. I haven’t seen him.’

  The front door slammed and a tread heavier than the girl’s mother’s approached. The lounge door was thrown open and Simon Avery stood there swaying slightly and leering nastily at the gathering. His face was flushed and his eyes bloodshot. He’d been drinking.