by Oliver Tidy
‘Friends?’
She made a face. ‘One lad who used to come round for a while. Haven’t seen him for weeks though.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Peter something.’
‘Roper? Peter Roper?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
A thought occurred to Romney. ‘Was Carl home on Monday night?’
She gave the idea that she was considering it. ‘Yes. I’m sure he was.’ Romney didn’t find her convincing, but there was little to be gained from calling her on it. ‘What’s he done?’ she asked again.
‘We want to speak with him in connection with something we’re investigating.’
She fixed him with a tight stare. ‘If you only want to speak to him, what’s with the search warrant?’
‘If we find anything relating to our enquiries, we’ll let you know. Is there a garage or any other building that goes with this flat?’
‘No. It’s just up here, these five rooms.’
DC Spicer put his head around the door and made a face at Romney.
Romney stood. ‘Stay here, please, Mrs Park.’ He nodded at the female PC to wait with her.
Carl Park’s room was small and messy. The bed took up most of the space. A few posters were fixed to the discoloured walls – groups of scruffy young men sneering at the camera and holding musical instruments. Clothes were scattered around the floor and on the single chair.
‘We’ve been through it all, sir,’ said Spicer. ‘There’s nothing of what we’re looking for here.’
Romney frowned and sighed. It didn’t mean anything to him other than Park was careful. He took one last look around the bedroom and his eyes came to rest on a laptop computer. A thought occurred to him. ‘We’ll take the laptop. Write a ticket for the mother.’ He called Marsh. ‘Anything?’
‘We’re in his room now, sir. Nothing so far. Mother’s taken it pretty hard. Can’t think what her little boy could have been up to.’
‘Is there a computer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Bring it in. Don’t forget any outbuildings: shed, garage.’
‘Yes, sir. We’re going there next.’
Something caught Romney’s eye. He went across to the little desk. Two phone chargers were sitting side by side. ‘Can you see a phone charger in his room?’
There was a short delay. ‘Actually, there are two,’ said Marsh.
‘Same here.’
‘It’s not that unusual.’
‘No,’ said Romney, ‘not for people with those kinds of work and social demands. These two don’t fit that bill for me. I’m betting that the checks we’re having done on their main numbers show some contact a little while ago and then won’t show any contact between them for a couple of months, or so. They have been clever, or one of them has. My money’s on Park. I’m warming to this theory, Sergeant. I think we have our rapists. And I think that they know we know. Bring in the phone chargers. We might be able to identify the phones.’ Park’s chargers were also bagged and removed.
Carl Park’s mother had little to say to the departing officers.
Romney said, ‘If he contacts you, Mrs Park, tell him to get in touch with us immediately or better still take a walk down to the station.’ She just stared at him.
The snow was falling in heavier flakes and with greater intensity. The temperature was dropping. If it froze they might have a few inches after all, thought Romney. He spared a thought for the youths they were searching for and hoped that, wherever they were, they were bloody cold, hungry and uncomfortable.
Romney’s raiding party was on the way back to the station when Marsh rang. ‘Bingo, sir, in the shed, cable ties and a drawstring bag that fits the description of the hood used in the attacks.’
A relief flooded through Romney’s system. He had them. He knew he had them. ‘Stay there. Don’t move anything. I want to see it where you found it. We’ll be there in ten minutes. Any sign of the gun?’
‘Not yet, sir. We’re still looking.’
Romney gave the constable driving new instructions and sat back to savour the moment.
*
Marsh answered the front door. She wore a barely concealed satisfied look.
‘Well done,’ said Romney. ‘No doubts?’
‘Not for me, sir. Still no gun, yet.’
As they passed the open lounge door, Romney was drawn to stop and look in at the noise being made. Mrs Roper was crying into a handkerchief. A woman PC sat next to her. Romney felt some pity for the mother. Her world was about to be turned upside down and she would become a social pariah. Talk about the sins of the fathers, he thought, how many times had he seen the sins of the sons visited on the mothers. Could she be to blame? Should she share some of his guilt? Often he would say yes.
They moved on across the lino of the kitchen and out through the little kitchen door into a small conservatory. Romney noticed details that must have had some importance in the woman’s life up until before his officers had blundered in: a variety of cacti in a range of china and brass pot-holders, a collection of thimbles, a small CD player and a rack of discs. No music would be able to comfort her now. None of the trinkets and ornaments would bring her any joy anymore. When she would come to stare at it, there would be no more significance for the thimble collection than for the plain brick wall behind it.
It was a short walk across pace-spaced flag stones to the torch-light-illuminated small wooden shed. DC Grimes was standing outside looking cold. But he smiled at his governor as he approached.
‘Good work,’ said Romney.
Grimes directed the beam of the torch to the rear of the rickety wooden structure. ‘A result, gov.’
Marsh followed Romney in and the space immediately became cramped. Grimes passed along the torch and Romney lit up the find.
‘This exactly how you found it?’
‘The blanket on the floor had been thrown over it,’ said Marsh.
Romney picked up one of the cable ties from the small box. It was stamped with the same brand name as the others.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Bag it all carefully.’ He turned to face the two officers. ‘There’s going to be a lot of potential media attention over this – national as well as local. Let’s make sure we play it straight, by the book, no procedural cock-ups. Well done, again.’ He stepped out of the shed and took a lungful of crisp night air that stung his insides. He turned back to Marsh with a thought. ‘Was this locked?’
‘No, sir, just a broken peg shoved through the latch to hold it shut.’
Romney retraced his steps back through the house, hesitated at the opening to the lounge and then kept going back out to his waiting vehicle and the ride back to the station.
Back in the warmth, comfort and familiarity of his office he made the call to his senior officer detailing the breakthrough but tempering the good news with the bad news that still neither of the suspects had been located. Falkner sounded pleased but equally keen to tidy things up with swift apprehensions of Roper and Park.
*
It was almost eleven when Marsh and Grimes returned to the station. There had been no sightings of the youths and Romney was resigning himself to the idea that there wouldn’t be anything soon. As happy as he could be with the situation, he sent CID home for an early start.
***
12
Romney rang the station from his bed the following morning. There had been no sighting of either suspect, let alone an arrest. He allowed himself a few minutes thinking propped up on his pillows. In the absence of the two suspects, he had to focus on making the case against Roper and Park cast-iron. Echoing around his mind were Falkner’s warnings from the previous evening. They had evidence. They needed Roper in custody and talking. Romney was optimistic that investigations of phone accounts and Internet activity might reveal further corroborating evidence of association. But to ice the cake, he needed a confession and it had to come from Roper and then he had to implicate Park.
Park’s confi
dence worried at Romney’s sense of optimism. In the interview room the previous day he had given no indication that he could be bullied into breaking down and admitting his part in things. To Romney’s mind, Park’s story that he and Claire Stamp were lovers was as improbable as it was impossible to disprove. Without the evidence, or testimony to implicate him that they might be able to wring from Roper, Park was going to be impossible to bring to court, let alone convict.
Romney was due to see Falkner at ten. He wanted to be able to tell him that things had progressed. Without the suspects, everything remained supposition and conjecture: incomplete, untidy and unsatisfying.
*
Marsh was already in when he arrived. She was working on the organisation and collation of what they had. At her instruction, somewhere below them in the bowels of the station the computer technician was busy accessing and recovering what he could from the confiscated computers. Another officer was making enquiries of recent bank account activities of the pair in the hope that any ATM activity might give clues to their whereabouts. An air of muted celebration pervaded the squad room.
Ten o’clock came without news and Romney had left for his meeting with Falkner. Seated, he’d accepted the offer of a coffee – something in the way of premature congratulations – and was sipping from the matching cup and saucer, explaining the events of the previous night when the phone rang on Falkner’s desk. After the briefest of conversations the superintendent passed the mouthpiece to Romney.
It was Marsh. ‘Apologies, sir, but thought you’d like to know immediately; Roper has turned up.’
‘Good. Where is he?’
‘Lying at the bottom of Dover cliffs. He’s dead.’
*
The snow that had made a half-hearted effort to make an impact on the town the previous night had given up the fight in the small hours, ultimately only succeeding in adding to and compounding the boggy conditions of the land.
Romney and Marsh picked their ways across the top of the white cliffs the mile or so to where the team of rescue workers was making it’s preparations to recover the corpse of Peter Roper. Romney’s wellington boots were heavy and cumbersome with the sticky clods of the garden of England that had formed and attached like some aggressive cancer on the rubber. Marsh had been fortunate to have been able to borrow a pair from the station. The brightly clad rescue workers in their orange all-weather clothing formed a little group of industry a little way from the cliff edge.
A dog walker, taking advantage of low tide, had discovered the body. The mangled cadaver of Peter Roper was lying in full view. A tangle of broken and twisted limbs – looking like some ghastly item of abstract installation art – where he had bounced down the cliff-face breaking most of his frame in the process. The pathologist was down there already, doing his job, certifying death, recording what was necessary.
Given the apparent state of the body and factors of time, tide and accessibility the decision had been made to recover the remains by sending down a stretcher, strapping the body to it and hauling it back up. Peter Roper couldn’t suffer any more.
As Romney and Marsh approached, the group began their rhythmic hauling on the ropes system to shouted instruction. There was nothing for the police to do but stand and watch and wait.
A ferry left the port terminal. Following its path, Romney could make out a few people braving the biting chill on the exposed windswept deck to gawp across the sea at the operation.
‘You been up here yet? said Romney, just making conversation. ‘For a walk or something?’
‘I haven’t, sir, no.’
‘Not your idea of fun?’
‘It’s not that. I just haven’t got round to it that’s all. I was waiting for the weather to improve.’
Romney nodded. ‘It’s beautiful up here in the summer. In fact every season has its attractions, but on a clear summer’s day you can see the coast of France, no problem. And the shipping. Did you know this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world?’
‘No, sir, I didn’t.’
Romney drifted off into his melancholic thoughts and Marsh watched the activity.
They didn’t speak again until Marsh said, ‘He’s coming over the edge, sir.’
They waited until the stretcher had been carried what was deemed a safe distance from the lip of the cliff and set down before approaching. One of the two police constables in attendance must have passed it around who the two observers were because no one challenged them when they came for a closer look. The whole body was encased in a zippered rubber bag.
To no one in particular, Romney said, ‘I need to see it’s him.’
The rescue workers looked at each other until eventually a constable bent down and exposed the head of the corpse.
While Romney did not pretend to have a strong stomach for the sort of thing that was in the bag, years of policing had left him generally able to cope physically with the awful effects that physics and matter could combine to produce. The young police constable was not quite there yet. He reeled away from the sight clutching at his mouth and dry retching to the obvious nervous amusement of at least one of the rescue workers. Romney stopped that with a sharp look. Despite a substantial cranial depression, the smashed nose, empty eye socket, chalk scuffs and the clump of hair and skin that was missing where a collision with something sharp had removed part of his scalp, it was undoubtedly Peter Roper.
Romney maintained a few seconds quiet and then, before turning away and leaving, said, ‘Thank you. Perhaps one of you gentlemen would cover the lad, now.’ The DI had seen what he needed to see.
They trudged back across the top of the windswept cliffs in silence, leaving Peter Roper to be centre stage in the funeral procession behind them.
At the rear of the vehicle they took off their boots and banged the mud off them. Romney retrieved a packet of cigarettes from the car and sat on the lip of the open boot and smoked. Marsh had not even known that he did. In answer to her look of surprise he said, ‘Now and again I do. I’m lucky like that. Take them or leave them.’ He inhaled deeply. The smoke that eventually came was whipped away on the wind. As an afterthought he offered them to Marsh who declined with a shake of her head.
‘So, the sixty-four-thousand dollar question: did he jump or was he pushed? Was he overcome with remorse for what he’d done, or was he overpowered for what he might do, for what he knew and might reveal?’ He drew thoughtfully on the cigarette. ‘Let’s imagine that our little scenario is correct – that both were rapists and they worked as a team each helping the other to fulfil their twisted fantasy.’ Marsh continued to stare intently at the DI’s face. ‘As of yesterday, Park knows that we know about his involvement. But he also knows that by some stroke of good fortune he’s untouchable because Claire Stamp, the only person who can refute his claims that they were at it, is dead. The fly in the ointment for him is Peter Roper. There is nothing to tie him with either attack other than the testimony of Peter Roper. Because Park knows what we know and how we tied him in with the attack, he realises that sooner or later we might be able to work things through ourselves and go looking for Roper with some awkward questions, or worse.’
‘So he lures him out here in the middle of a winter’s night and pushes him off a cliff? said Marsh. ‘It’s possible, sir, but if it’s true, and it’s a big if, how are we going to prove it?’
Romney smiled at her. ‘I just have to know it for now, Sergeant. We’ll get round to doing something about it later.’
Romney’s phone rang. He listened attentively and thanked the caller. ‘Carl Park has just walked into the station.’
‘An attack of conscience?’
‘He has no reason to avoid us now does he? Roper is dead.’ Romney ground out the cigarette under his heel, picked it up and threw it into a nearby waste bin.
As they reversed out of the parking space the group of men carrying Peter Roper came into view behind them.
Romney said, ‘Phone the station. Tell them to pu
t Park in a holding cell until we get there and then get a uniformed female PC sent round to the Roper’s home. Tell them to get her to wait for us outside.’
*
Mrs Roper looked as though she hadn’t slept a wink. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on the previous night. Her red sunken eyes looked pleadingly from one to the other of the three police officers standing on her doorstep.
Romney said, ‘May we come in, Mrs Roper?’
She nodded and stepped aside without a word. Romney went through to the lounge that they had sat in only a few days before chatting sympathetically to her son over tea and biscuits. He was a rapist then. Now he was dead and almost unrecognisable.
‘All right if PC Welsh puts the kettle on, Mrs Roper?’ said Romney. The woman seemed to be having trouble registering his words. Romney nodded to the officer and she made for the kitchen. ‘Sit down, please, Mrs Roper.’
Obediently she sat. ‘He’s dead isn’t he?’ she said in a quiet, controlled voice.
‘Yes, Mrs Roper. I’m really very sorry for your loss.’ Her head shook as though with a mild palsy. ‘How do you know?’ said Romney.
With a trembling hand she pushed a button on the mobile phone she had been clasping and turned the screen for them to read. A message read, ‘I can’t go on knowing what I did to those two poor women. I’m sick. I can’t control myself. Forgive me mum. Your loving son.’
Romney took the phone from her and scrolled down to see the time it had been sent: twelve-twenty-two the previous night.
‘How did he die?’ she said.
‘He was found this morning at the foot of Dover Cliffs.’ And again, she closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until Romney said, ‘You will have to formally identify the body, I’m afraid. But I have to tell you that it is definitely Peter. I saw him myself.’
She looked deeply into his eyes then, as though wanting to know something, but was afraid to ask.
