Be My Girl

by Tony Hutchinson

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  13 Bamburgh Way was a newly built linked terrace house. Probably two bedrooms, Sam thought as she opened the car door. She would visit Amber alone. Ed would knock on a few doors, talking generally about the previous rapes and his search for suspicious people, vehicles or any other information. He wouldn’t even mention the attack on Amber.

  Opening the wrought iron black garden gate, Sam walked up the path passing a postage stamp-sized lawn surrounded by winter flowering plants. A small two-seat wooden bench, painted pale blue, rested tight against the wall under the front window, the position ideal for enjoying the sun with the garden facing due south.

  The front door opened as Sam’s outstretched arm, fist clenched, reached out to knock.

  ‘I saw you coming.’

  The barefooted-young woman, wearing a baggy washed out grey velour tracksuit, wore no make-up around her misty blue eyes or on her full, plump lips. Doesn’t want to look feminine, Sam thought.

  Sam followed her into the house, the front door leading straight into the small living room with an open staircase, bay window, and walls painted in a beige emulsion.

  ‘Please sit down,’ Amber said, indicating a red reclining leather chair.

  Sam spoke quietly, anxious to show as much empathy as she could muster, while her eyes took in the battery of a mobile lying next to the TV, the body of the phone on the floor nearby.

  ‘Amber, I’m so sorry that I have to meet you under these circumstances. Please understand that I will do everything possible to help you. Have you told anyone what happened?’

  ‘No. I have no family here. No close friends.’

  Sam was straining to hear, but understood how difficult this must be for Amber. Asking an emotionally and physically tormented victim to speak up wasn’t an option.

  Amber sat on a small, cream leather cube-shaped pouffe with her hands clasped on her knees. She was hunched and sat much lower than Sam. Was this a sub-conscious choice? Did she consider herself less worthy? Lower self-esteem?

  Sam did her best to put Amber at ease, asking what had brought her to the North East from the South West.

  ‘Is my accent that pronounced?’

  Amber explained that she moved to Seaton St George from Bristol in November to take up a new job with the local council. Sam listened, nodding, as Amber told her that she was now on the sick with depression, albeit having lied to the doctor about its cause. She hadn’t told anyone about the attack.

  ‘Would you tell me about it, Amber?’

  Amber slowly nodded.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea first,’ Sam suggested. ‘Shall I do it?’

  ‘No. It’s okay. I’ll do it. But you can help.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  The kitchen was small, spotless, and the black mock-granite workbench held few appliances – a kettle, a juicer, and a small black microwave. Next to the cream-coloured Dualit kettle was a small, brushed stainless steel jar, which contained the teabags.

  Waiting for the kettle to boil, Sam learned that Amber was renting the property, deciding whether she liked living and working in the area before committing to a mortgage.

  The milky tea she made was a complete contrast to Ed’s industrial effort.

  ‘Shall we sit down and have that chat then?’

  Amber nodded, and led the way back into the living room.

  ‘Amber, we have a specialised facility called a ‘SARC’, which stands for Sexual Assault Referral Centre. In there we have medical facilities, a centre manager, and access to rape crisis counsellors. If you like, I can take you there and we can chat. Or we can stay here.’

  ‘I’d prefer to do it here with you for now.’

  ‘That’s fine. If you’re able, tell me what happened, and then we can take it from there. Take your time. I’ve got all the time in the world. Is that okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Amber bowed her head, revealing a flash of black roots around the centre parting of her other otherwise short, thick blonde hair, and stared at the plain cream carpet, the mug of tea by her feet. Sam may have to gently encourage her through the interview but for now, as much as her heart went out to the young woman, she needed her to plunge into that pool of horror and relive that night, together with all the emotions that went with it.

  Sam had undergone specialist sexual offences training years ago but she no longer interviewed people. It was years since she had interviewed a victim.

  She would arrange for a written statement to be taken from Amber, and Bev Summers, who Sam trusted implicitly, would take it. For now, though, as Amber had called her, it would be Sam who would be first to hear her story.

  Amber’s right thumb slowly rubbed the top of the ring on her left hand. Her eyes, staring at the gold, didn’t lift when she spoke. Her voice was quiet and slow.

  ‘I feel so ashamed. Why did I not fight back? Why did I let him do it to me?’

  Sam shuffled as close to the edge of the reclining chair as she dared.

  ‘Amber, none of this is your fault. I can only try and imagine what you must be going through. You’ve done nothing wrong here. You’re the victim.’

  Amber didn’t look up, but her voice was suddenly louder, quicker. ‘I tried to reason with him, begged him not to, but it was no use. I knew what he wanted and I knew it was going to happen. I was too scared to fight back. Then it was just survival.’

  She picked up her mug and sipped on the tea. Sam waited for her to speak again, waited for her to dive back into that pool.

  Amber stared at the floor again, her voice once more a whisper. ‘It was all about survival. I just felt that if I didn’t fight back, he’d do it and then he’d leave me alone. I thought if I fought back, he’d kill me. It was horrible. Horrible.’

  Her shoulders shook and she let out a howl. Sam moved out of the chair, knelt down, and put her arm around Amber.

  Amber sobbed into Sam’s shoulder. ‘I should have fought. Let him kill me. Anything’s better than this. I just gave in.’

  Sam paused.

  ‘Amber, we’re all different. Victims of rape react in many different ways, but please believe me when I say many of those victims react in the same way you did. I will do everything I can to help you, but I would like you to help me.’

  ‘How?’ Amber asked, moving out of the embrace and raising her watery eyes to look at Sam.

  ‘I need your help to catch the man responsible for the attack. I need you to try and remember as many details as you can. You don’t need to do that now. I’ll arrange for a specially trained female police officer to help you do that. For now I would just like you to tell me in your words what happened, just so I can establish if it’s the same man you heard me talking about on the radio. Can you do that for me please?’

  Amber nodded, wiped away the tears that were now trickling down her cheeks and moved back on to the pouffe. ‘I’ll try.’

  Sam believed in allowing rape victims to be involved in the investigative decision-making process. She felt it gave them back a degree of power and control, something that had been ripped from them during their ordeal.

  Amber recounted the details of the attack without interruption from Sam, who instinctively knew it was the same man. Now it was three rapes in three months. The worrying trend was that the gap between the first and second was much greater than that between the second and third. With his confidence in evading detection increasing, Sam knew he would strike with increasing regularity.

  Amber’s attack had occurred in the early hours of the Saturday morning. Her window was broken the same Friday night as Emily Sharpe’s. The same night the police stopped Terry Crowther.

  Her attacker had worn a mask, brandished a knife, and tied her up.

  ‘When he spoke to me… afterwards.’ The mug shook in her hand as she took another sip. ‘He called me his babe. Can you imagine what that felt like?’

  Sam shook her head.

  ‘Disgusting. That’s what it was. I just lay there.
I couldn’t move and I had to listen to him call me that after what he’d done.’

  Amber looked upwards and stared at the ceiling in silence. Thirty seconds passed before she looked at Sam. ‘At least I can’t catch anything, or be pregnan,t thank God.’

  She saw the questioning look in Sam’s eyes.

  ‘He was wearing a condom.’

  ‘How can you be so sure, Amber?’

  ‘I found the wrapper on the floor, just under my bed, about two days after the attack. I’ve never had a boyfriend since I moved here. It can only have been from him.’

  Sam took a deep breath, forcing herself to ask the next question in the same way she had asked all the others, not wanting to betray her investigative excitement, not wanting to portray the importance of such a small item, not wanting to upset Amber if it had been thrown away, and with it, the forensic opportunities a discarded condom wrapper could yield.

  ‘Do you still have the wrapper?’

  ‘It’s in the pedal bin which is now in the shed. I had to get the bin out of the house. I couldn’t bear to touch the condom, so I used a pair of tongs to pick it up off the floor.’

  Sam could have hugged her.

  ‘The tongs are in there as well. There’s some other rubbish in the bin, but it’ll still be there. I haven’t emptied it. I don’t want to touch it, not even to put it in the wheelie bin.’

  Sam paused. She had two more questions – phone and pizza.

  ‘Amber, did he try to contact your mobile?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Somebody called it. My mother always rings the house phone and I knew it wasn’t her number anyway. When it went off, I just threw it against the wall. The battery flew out. The mobile’s not been on since.’

  ‘Can you remember when that call was?’

  ‘About three days after. Maybe the Tuesday.’

  ‘Do you ever have pizzas delivered, Amber?’

  ‘Once. I didn’t like the look of the pizza man.’

  ‘Which pizza shop did you order from?’

  ‘Romeo’s. Do you know the one I mean?’

  ‘I know it,’ Sam said, her expression giving nothing away but her thoughts conjuring up images of Terry Crowther. ‘What do you mean you didn’t like the look of him?’

  ‘Just the way he looked at me. He made me feel uncomfortable. You know?’

  A vacant expression crossed Amber’s face. She turned her head away from Sam. When she looked back, her mouth was open and her forehead creased. Again she spoke louder and faster.

  ‘Why do you ask? Oh my God. Was it him?’

  ‘Amber, I’m sorry to say, I don’t know who it is. What I will say is this: we might not know who he is at the minute, but we’ll catch him. You have my personal assurance of that.’

  Tears welled in Amber’s eyes.

  Sam spoke quietly. ‘I want you try to remember any people who have visited your house lately, or who know that you live alone. Tradesmen, people at work, anybody that comes to mind. You don’t have to do it now. Just give it some thought, please.’

  Sam spent the next 10 minutes explaining how the police investigation would be conducted. Sam would wait and introduce Bev to Amber, a smooth transition from one police officer to the next.

  Once Bev was sat down in the house, introductions complete, Sam stood up. Amber jumped up, flung her arms around Sam and hugged her, pulling her tight into her body. Amber was in no hurry to end the embrace. Had she been, she would have seen the tears in Sam’s eyes.

  Sam walked towards the car and called Dave Johnson. She asked him to arrange the recovery of the pedal bin. The condom wrapper was the investigation’s first forensic opportunity and her main concern was to transform that opportunity into a credible piece of scientific evidence.

  She would have a lengthy discussion with a forensic scientist. It was vital that the examination was conducted in such a way that swabbing for DNA didn’t remove fingerprints or that the lifting of fingerprints didn’t damage any DNA. One scientific examination should never be at the expense of another. There were also other costs to consider. The pressure to get a result didn’t exempt her from the cold reality of finance. Every penny spent on a major investigation had to be accounted for – number of officers, how much overtime, hire cars, and the rest. Forensic examinations were just a part of the list.

  Amber agreed to hand her mobile to the police. Sam wanted it ‘interrogated’ by an expert for texts, voicemails, and incoming calls.

  Ed was leaning on the bonnet of his car, the door-to-door inquiries fruitless. Too many unanswered knocks. Dave Johnson would need to assign the house-to-house team to return after 6pm.

  As Sam put her mobile in her pocket, Ed spoke.

  ‘I got a call from Inspector Wright when you were in the house. Inspector Never as most of the detectives now call him.’

  ‘What did he want?’ Sam asked, opening the passenger door and making no effort to hide the irritation in her voice. ‘Oh, let me guess. When can he have his staff back?’

  ‘Right on the money. He’d heard the house-to-house was almost done and reckons he needs his lot back. Local resident groups moaning about not seeing their neighbourhood cop.’

  Sam’s voice was edged with anger.

  ‘It’s about time some of those tossers manned up and told their bloody resident associations that some things take priority over anti-social behaviour and dog shit on the pavements.’

  She slammed the car door and settled into the seat. ‘Well, whatever he’s heard, there’s more house-to-house to be done round here now. It’s the same attacker. He’ll have to manage without them for another couple of days. He’s paid to manage his resources, so that’s what he’ll have to do. If he goes higher up the chain to argue for them back, I’ll deal with it and him. Inspector Never. Well named. Never right. Never goes above and beyond. Tosser.’

  Ed’s elbows were on the wheel, his head resting in his hands. Sam’s silence indicated he could now start the car.

  ‘Ed, there’s so much information, so many victims and broken windows, we need to keep on top of it all. A nice visual timeline will help everyone. Get an analyst into the HOLMES room to pull together a Sequence of Events. Amber was attacked in the early hours of the Saturday morning. Crowther was out and about that night.’

  She looked out of the window, her brain spinning with all the information.

  When she turned back to face Ed, he caught sight of the fierce determination in her eyes. Had he not seen it, the tone of her voice would have made it just as clear. ‘And I want no mention of Amber to anyone. Not a soul. Lay it on thick with Bev Summers and Dave Johnson. Tell them they are the only people who know about this. I don’t want it getting out. If it does, I’ll be gunning for them. I’ve already warned them, but I want you to reinforce it. The CSI supervisor won’t say anything. I’ve warned him as well. If Jason Stroud is our rapist, and I hope to God he’s not, then let him believe that Amber hasn’t reported.’

  ‘Okay,’ Ed agreed.

  ‘And another thing: we need to bring Terry Crowther in, but we’ve nothing on him. If he sits and refuses to answer any questions, we’ll have to let him go. To say that the circumstantial around the theft of Danielle’s knickers is thin is an understatement. Other than that, we’ve got nothing. It’s not a crime to deliver pizzas and eye up the customers. It may not be pleasant and he might be a creep, but it’s not an offence. It’s not against the law to be out jogging in the early hours, either. We need to get something else. One way or the other we need to eliminate him.’

  ‘Or get him charged,’ Ed responded, taking one hand off the wheel and rubbing his eye.

  ‘Absolutely. And what about Duncan Todd? Why did Brian Banks, if Todd’s to be believed, have him beaten up? Does Banks know something we don’t? Let’s have someone pay a visit to Todd. Why doesn’t he want to make a complaint? Why does he think Brian Banks was behind it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘And Jason Stroud. We know he’s got a mask.’

  Sam star
ed ahead, thinking through the implications.

  ‘Jason. I can’t get him out of my head either. And how’s our man getting to and from the scene of the attacks? That Mr Noble, opposite Danielle, is adamant that he heard no vehicle. Is he on foot?’

  ‘Could be,’ Ed offered. ‘Makes sense. On foot you hear police cars, other vehicles. It’s the easiest thing in the world to hide behind a wall. Burglars have been doing it for years. And as you said, Terry Crowther was stop-checked jogging the night Amber was raped.’

  ‘Terry Crowther. Back to him again,’ Sam said.

  ‘And we’ve got the local sex offenders to eliminate,’ Ed reminded, exhaling loudly as he pulled away from the traffic lights. ‘The problem here is if we’re not careful, we’ll have detectives running around like terriers in a field full of rabbits.’

  ‘That’s where we earn our money,’ Sam told him. ‘Keeping the whole investigation on track.’

  The talking stopped. Sam ran a mental checklist through her head, satisfying herself that she hadn’t missed anything obvious. She needed to catch this man.

  ‘He’s getting more confident, Ed,’ she murmured.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Kirsty had her window broken four months ago. Three months ago he rapes Kelly. He’s waited over two months before attacking Amber but only three weeks before raping Danielle. The gap between attacks is decreasing. He’s getting more confident.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sam leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. She knew they had to work fast but she was acutely aware that any procedural mistakes would see the offender walk free from court. Everything had to be lawful. It had to pass the scrutiny of barristers, sitting in chambers or court, far removed from the realities of a fast moving investigation. If a judge ordered an acquittal on the grounds of a procedural breach, the only thing Sam, as the SIO, would be able to look forward to was a sideways shunt into an office job, separating those paper clips, or whatever it was some police officers did.

  Sam was a woman in a hurry as she strode through the police station, Ed matching her stride for stride, Sam’s words as brisk as her walk.