Be My Girl

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘Let’s hope because Amber’s attack’s not been in the media, he thinks she’s not reported. Until today he would have been right. If it’s Jason Stroud, he knows she’s not reported. We can use it to our advantage, whoever is responsible. If we decide to ask one of the victims to meet up with him, he’s less likely to think it’s a trap if he thinks she hasn’t reported. That means it must be Amber.’

  She stopped and Ed instinctively stopped beside her. Sam turned her head and looked into Ed’s eyes. ‘God, at times I hate this job. What we ask people to do.’

  Sam took a deep breath and started walking again. ‘So, we keep it out of the media and away from the team until we’ve exhausted the possibility of a meet.’

  In the HOLMES room, Dave Johnson looked up from his computer and told Sam and Ed of the theft of a pair of ladies knickers from the municipal swimming baths on Monday night.

  ‘Get someone down there to view the CCTV. I know they have it on reception,’ Ed said.

  ‘Ahead of you. They’re on the way there as we speak.’

  ‘Great,’ Sam said. ‘I know it’s a bit of a long shot but keep us posted. Back to the rapes, get an analyst to do a ‘sequence of events’ with what we know already. I want it to show dates and times of the attacks, and the broken windows, and cross-ref that with Crowther’s known movements. Ed and I will prepare an elimination strategy for those we’re going to make TIEs. The usual… forensic elimination, followed by elimination by description, then elimination by alibi provided by someone independent, then alibi by family member, and finally alibi by spouse. You know the score, Dave.’

  He spent that morning walking around the Gull Estate and watched a ‘Mrs Muck Out’ cleaner enter three houses. The third house was exactly what he needed. He knew the woman who lived there, older than he would normally go for, probably mid-30s, but single and fit. A bit posh, always wearing suits, always ‘well turned out’.

  He watched the cleaner leave the house and drive away. It was a big house, not dissimilar to his own. The mock cobbled driveway led to an integrated garage and the green front door, with high green bushes planted down both sides of the drive providing cover from everyone except those directly opposite the house.

  He glanced in all directions, satisfying himself that the street was empty of pedestrians, passing cars, and nosey bastards at their windows. He walked up the drive, bent down by the plant pot next to the front door and found the key underneath. He put the key in his right-hand-side trouser pocket and walked away. The theft had taken less than 15 seconds.

  Less than two hours later, he was back. The street was still quiet. He rubbed the key clean of any fingerprints with his handkerchief and replaced it under the plant pot.

  He headed back towards the footpath confident that no one had seen him. He put his hand inside the inner pocket of his coat and caressed the copy key. His arousal was instantaneous, forcing him to remove his hand from his pocket. He could sort that later.

  Getting the key cut had been simplicity itself. Driving to a North Yorkshire market town about 45 miles south of Seaton St George, he was surprised at how many shops copied keys.

  He opted for a market stall, which he hoped would make it much more difficult for the police to trace the transaction, if they ever got to the stage. It had been a bonus for him to discover that the town had a market on the High Street every Wednesday.

  He would be in no rush to use the key. Certainly not tonight, perhaps not even the weekend.

  What he would do was take every opportunity to build a collection of keys, each one providing entry to their homes, another tangible reminder of past or future conquests, each piece of worthless metal now Midas gold. What was more valuable than intimacy guaranteed?

  He grinned. The keys would add another dimension to future sessions of self-pleasure as well.

  He returned to his car, retrieved a small bunch of flowers, and stood them up against one of the front doors on the Gull Estate. That would give her something to think about.

  Sam and Ed stopped talking as Dave Johnson walked into Sam’s office, immaculate as ever. His suits may not have a designer label, but they were always crisp and neat.

  ‘Great long shot. The results of the CCTV at the swimming baths.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Sam said, shuffling in her chair.

  ‘Ten minutes after the victim and her friends leave, Terry Crowther walks out. We’re checking to see what time he went in.’

  Sliding the chair out from underneath the desk, Sam bounced to her feet.

  ‘Brilliant! Well done. Thanks Dave. Keep us posted.’

  As Dave walked away, Sam let out a two-second-long ‘Yessss’ and shook a raised, clenched right fist.

  ‘Now we can lock him up. Theft. Search his house. Shake the tree and see what apples fall out, so to speak. But first let’s see if we can flush him out.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ed said, with an idea where this was going.

  ‘Let’s see if Amber has had a request for a meet. If she has, let’s see if we can talk her into going.’

  ‘That’s a big ask, Sam.’

  ‘It is, but it’s our best chance at the moment. Amber has said she’ll help us as much as she can. I don’t like asking any more than you do but it could be a game changer.’

  ‘I think you need to be the one to put it to her. Explain how it will work. And tell her there’s a huge chance he won’t turn up.’

  Sam gave Ed the full power of her gaze.

  ‘You think it’s too risky? Another long shot? Too much of a long shot this time?’

  Ed met her eye, matching the intensity, as he remembered very different days.

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he told Sam. ‘It worked for me many years ago. Rapist calls up his victim asking for a meet. At the time I didn’t think he would turn up, but the bastard did! Can you believe it? Things have changed now, I know. We have a duty of care towards Amber that was unheard of back in the early ‘80s. What we did then was very much off the cuff. Now you know the hoops we need to jump through.’

  Sam’s smile was thin and fleeting .

  ‘Tell me later about yours turning up,’ she said. ‘Sounds fascinating. But what if this one does, Ed? We’ll go through all the hoops, of course. If Amber goes for it, we’ll have the surveillance team and we’ll choose the meeting place.’

  She made no effort to contain the enthusiasm in her voice. She leaned across the desk, bent towards Ed. ‘If he turns up, we’ll have him. We’ve probably got Crowther on the knickers at the swimming baths. We’ve possibly got him going to every victim’s house with a pizza, but what we don’t have is him connected to them in any other way. We can’t put him in their houses. The condom wrapper might do that, but we cannot put everything on hold while we wait for the results. We can’t put all our eggs in one basket, but if he turns up, we’ve got him bang to rights. If someone else turns up, we’ve eliminated Crowther and still got the rapist.’

  She walked away from the desk. Ed stood up.

  ‘It’s a potential win-win, Ed.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get in touch with the surveillance team. See what they’ve got on. Let them pick the meeting place. Let them start to plan it. If he goes for it, we’ll need to move quickly, before he gets spooked or bottles it. We should tell him to meet within an hour of us sending the text. That way we pressure him into making a decision. The pressure might make him do something he wouldn’t normally do.’

  Sam nodded, adrenaline spiking and a picture of the trap closing jumping into her mind.

  ‘Sounds good. I like it. You do that. I’ll wait for the results of the examination on Amber’s phone. If he has contacted it I’ll go and see Amber again.’

  ‘Before I go.’ Ed’s voice was discernibly quieter. ‘I’ve checked Jason Stroud’s hours of work over the last four months. He wasn’t at work when any of the attacks took place and he wasn’t on annual leave, either. We’re going to have to speak to him. Obviously you told Celine our conversation with her
was in confidence.’

  Sam nodded but didn’t interrupt.

  ‘We can’t speak to Jason until we tell Celine that we’ll have to disclose what she’s told us,’ said Ed.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Sam said. ‘I’ll contact her. She came to us in the first place with her concerns so hopefully I’ll be able to convince her.’

  Ed clenched his fists, his forearms rigid. ‘The quicker we eliminate people, the faster we’ll catch this bastard.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brian Banks finished work and was in the Golden Eagle by 6pm. The former coaching inn was in a small village a few miles north of the Gull Estate and had a reputation for its real ales.

  Banks looked like a country squire in his light brown highly polished brogues and brown-checked Tweed suit. His ruddy complexion, shaved head, barrel chest, and forearms like Popeye, made him an imposing figure. His booming voice dominated any conversation.

  The roaring coal fire pumped smoke up the chimney into cold air above the rooftops, wrapping the village in a damp, musky smell, like a newly opened bag of smoky bacon crisps. The old, stained oak wooden bar top, in need of a new coat of varnish, had an array of hand-pulled beers from both large, long-established, breweries and new micro outfits that had been springing up more and more. Each and every ale was kept in top condition by a landlord who really knew the ropes.

  The red, flocked wallpaper displayed old black-and-white photographs of the pub, framed in faded gilt, depicting the occasional motor vehicle from a bygone age.

  A dozen people, all known to each other but acquaintances rather than friends and bonded together through their common enjoyment of a pint, stood on a patterned carpet so threadbare not even the oldest local could remember its original colour.

  Banks asked who wanted what and bought four pints of Theakston’s. He passed the drinks around and joined one of the circles of customers.

  As soon as there was lull in the conversation he spoke in a low quiet voice, his gaze moving from one face to another. ‘Our Danielle’s living back at home. Some bastard broke into her house and raped her.’

  A gasp went around the group and then questions were quickly fired, each asked out of concern but asked so rapidly not all were answered or even heard.

  When did it happen? How’s Danielle? Is she coping? Has she reported it to the police? Have they caught him?

  ‘Yes, she’s reported it, but no, they haven’t caught anyone. It was Saturday night.’

  Banks’s body had visibly tensed. His sledgehammer hands were white-knuckled fists and the bulging veins in his neck and forehead looked ready to burst.

  The low sound of his voice through clenched teeth carried only simmering hatred and menace.

  ‘If I get my hands on the fuckin’ cunt, he’ll wish he hadn’t been born. Cunt was wearing a fuckin’ ski mask! A fuckin’ ski mask! Threatened her with a fuckin’ knife! I’ll fuckin’ kill him, kill him if I get my hands on him, but not before I cut his cock off and stick it down his fuckin’ throat! I’ll rip his eyes out and piss in the fuckin’ sockets.’

  The group stood, staring open mouthed. It was the doctor among them who spoke, his soothing quiet voice trying to calm Banks. ‘How’s Danielle coping Brian?’

  Banks shook his head as his fury ebbed.

  ‘How does any girl, any woman, cope with it? No physical injuries to repair, but what must be going on in her head? Jesus Christ. Her mother’s doing her best for her, but she’s devastated as well.’

  Raising his voice and a red flush of anger rising again, he said: ‘I thought that fuckin’ ex-boyfriend of hers might’ve had something to do with it. He got what was coming to him, but the missus said Danielle knew it wasn’t him. Anyway, Todd needed a kickin’ for bloody punching her.’

  ‘Walls have ears, Brian. You shouldn’t be talking about beating people up,’ one of the group warned. ‘Not in public.’

  Brian Banks took a deep breath and lowered his voice. ‘Yeah, point taken. Anyway I’ve put the word out. Five grand to anyone who tips the cunt up. Then he’ll be down the yard. I’ll fuckin’ sort him. Breaking into her house. Believe me, the cunt’ll pay for what he did to our Danielle.’

  He wrapped his lips around his glass and gulped his way through the pint, not taking his mouth away until he had downed the last drop.

  The pub had become a library. No one was under any illusions about what would happen if Banks discovered the identity of the rapist before the police did. Everyone sipped their drinks in silence, each imagining what type of burning and crushing equipment was kept in the scrap yard.

  Not that Brian Banks’s hands would get dirty. He would be in the company of enough law-abiding citizens, people like them, to provide him with a cast-iron alibi.

  Bev Summers had collected Amber’s mobile phone. The subsequent forensic examination showed four missed calls and 11 texts from the mobile that belonged to the rapist. Same number used to contact the other girls; same number the rapist called when he used the victims’ phones in their homes. He hadn’t left a voicemail message, but in all the texts he had asked to meet up. The texts were identical.

  ‘Wood like a meet text me time and place if u fancy’

  Bev excitedly notified Sam. ‘I’m getting the breakdown of when they were sent.’

  ‘Great!’ Sam said.

  ‘He’s persistent, though,’ Bev went on. ‘Plenty of texts. Not just one. And four calls.’

  ‘He is, he certainly is,’ Sam said, considering his persistence as she headed to see Amber.

  She pulled up outside Amber Dalton’s house and stepped into the dark, cold February evening. She walked slowly, contemplating what she was about to ask Amber to do.

  Sam knew that throughout the investigation Amber would be riding a seismic wave of emotion full of peaks and troughs, a nightmare journey few people would begin to comprehend. Consider the path the rape victim has to walk… reliving the attack in microscopic detail for the interviewing detective; each second broken down into written sentences to formulate a witness statement; staring at every man, wondering if he was the one; the temporary elation when there was an arrest; the relief if there was a charge but a growing sense of anger and injustice if there was none; the questions she would ask about him and his life, not wanting to know the answers, but with an overwhelming compulsion to ask; the sleepless nights wondering whether he would plead guilty at court, saving her from the ordeal of giving evidence; the terror of being cross-examined; the elation on conviction or the utter devastation if the jury foreman said ‘not guilty’; whether to reveal the darkness to a future partner and how much detail to tell.

  And it’s all down to you, you absolute bastard, Sam thought.

  She was aware that once in prison he wouldn’t get an easy time from his fellow inmates. Sex offenders never did. Walking up the path, part of Sam hoped that he would get attacked every day; if there was any justice, he would be raped, experiencing the violation and its after effects. Like Ed, she harboured thoughts of brutal vigilante justice, but unlike Ed, she would never speak of them.

  ‘Hi Amber,’ Sam said, smiling as the door was opened.

  ‘Hi Sam. Come in. Any news?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Sam answered as she followed Amber into the warm living room, a welcome contrast to the cold outside.

  Sam once again sat on the red leather reclining chair, but this time Amber sat on a white settee.

  ‘What we do know is that he has sent a text to your phone asking to meet.’

  Sam didn’t want to freak Amber out by saying he had sent 11 texts.

  ‘Is that normal?’ Amber asked, her voice quivering and hands shaking.

  ‘It’s not unheard of, no. Perhaps it’s something we could discuss?’

  Sam knew that she would have to be very sensitive and pick her words carefully.

  ‘Amber, we don’t have many leads at the moment. We have people we are interested in, but nothing concrete.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘Would
you agree to meet him? We would be there to look after you, that I can promise. You would be protected. But if he turns up, we’ve got him.’

  Amber’s eyes opened wide in shock as the enormity of what was being asked hit home.

  ‘Me? Oh God, I don’t know. I don’t know if I could.’

  Amber shuffled forward and sat on the edge of the sofa. Sam watched the shroud of vulnerability drop over her.

  Looking directly at her, Sam spoke in a soft voice. ‘Amber I honestly believe that he’ll attack again. This maybe the way to catch him, to get him off the streets before any other girls are attacked. I know it’s a lot to ask. I’m not sure even I could do it if I was in your shoes. But I’m not in your shoes. I’m in mine. I desperately want to catch him and at the moment, responding to his text and agreeing to meet him might be our best chance. I’m not for one minute guaranteeing that it will work, because it might not. But I think it’s worth a go.’

  Amber stared at the floor, reached forward and slowly rubbed her calves, allowing Sam’s words to sink in. ‘What will happen?’

  Sam felt a bubble of relief and excitement, a feeling that Amber was going to find the strength to agree.

  ‘We’ll select the location, probably a café but somewhere public. We’ll have surveillance officers inside and…’

  ‘Will you be there?’ Amber interrupted.

  Sam stood and moved slowly towards Amber. She sat next to her, leaned forward and took hold of her hand. ‘I couldn’t be there, Amber. We have to work on the premise that he has seen me on TV. We’ll use people unknown to you, and more importantly unknown to him. If you don’t know who they are, you’ll not look and acknowledge them. We’ll have cameras outside. You’ll be perfectly safe. We’ll arrange a signal for you to give should he approach you. We don’t want to be jumping on someone who has just asked you if they can take a spare chair or the sugar bowl.’