the Blooding (1989)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  By then, two independent witnesses, one of whom was a local farmer, reported having seen a man crouching in the hedgerows on an embankment by King Edward Avenue on the fatal Thursday. David Baker told journalists, "There is every indication that the man seen in the long grass near the bridge on King Edward Avenue and between the crash barrier and the motorway is the same person. We also strongly suspect this man is responsible for Dawn's murder."

  And on the day that police asked the public to help find the running man, Robin and Barbara Ashworth decided to make their first official appearance at a press conference. They were told that it could be enormously helpful to the murder squad and to the public at large. Moreover, it would satisfy the press. They'd talked it over and decided to be fair to the police, to be fair to reporters, to be fair to the public. Robin and Barbara had spent a lifetime trying to be fair, and did so even now when life had been monstrously unfair to them.

  Two police officers, male and female, had been detailed to answer their door, open their mail, and answer their telephone, in order to shield them from press and public. The Ashworths were beginning to learn that murder annihilates privacy. And that the murder of one's child--destruction of all certitude and continuity--is the worst thing that can happen to a human being.

  David Baker was at that first press conference, along with other officers from the murder squad, to provide support and protection. He'd found that, at first, Robin had more trouble holding together while Barbara appeared resolute, asking questions of the police, wanting to know everything.

  For the occasion Robin wore a tan coat, a striped tie, a fresh shirt, but his dark hair tumbled down across his forehead, giving him a rumpled look. His face was gray and he looked several years older to those who knew him. Barbara seemed composed and cool in a pale blue frock with a white collar, and a white jacket draped over her shoulders. But she was pale and dry-mouthed, her upper lip gumming to her teeth as she grappled with the smoldering emotions of the survivor. She seemed to be propping up Robin as they sat before the battery of reporters. She took his hand in both of hers and held on to him, as though he might fall.

  There were some perfunctory police remarks about the duty of family members to come forward if they harbored suspicion about a loved one.

  When it was Robin's turn, he said, "No matter what they feel, no matter what relationship they have to him, they've got to put that aside and do anything to keep it from happening again."

  Barbara's defense at this stage of grief allowed her to draw on the infinite rage of parents of murdered children. She alluded to the shelterer of the killer as being as guilty as the killer himself, but then she caught herself because they were trying to persuade anyone close to the murderer to come forward.

  She said, "Lynda Mann's parents have been very supportive. Obviously, I feel that I don't want to support any other mother going through the same thing. We've got to find the . . ." She paused and momentarily grappled with her fury, but said, ". . . fiend, really, that did this to my daughter . . ." Then she paused again and looked at Robin and squeezed his hand tighter and said, ". . . our daughter . . . to stop it from happening again."

  Robin broke down once, but caught hold. He said, "I warned her and warned her about the footpaths, but she always assured me she went across the footbridge to Narborough. But children, particularly children Dawn's age, think they know best and . . . and if there's a shortcut on a bright summer's day, for sure, they'll use it."

  Barbara Ashworth suddenly looked pale and wan, just before her defenses caved in.

  She said, "You know the pitfalls with a child and you obviously try to shield them, but . . . I thought I'd be the last person that anything like this would happen to!"

  She sobbed then, but Robin picked up for her and resumed the thread of conversation. They both continued bravely until the mob of reporters was satiated.

  The vicar of Enderby issued a public appeal for the killer to give himself up.

  Canon Alan Green, speaking to the Leicester Mercury shortly after hearing that Dawn's body had been found, had this message for the murderer:

  You have committed a dreadful crime and you should give yourself up now and beg the forgiveness of Dawn's parents and the whole community.

  You should come forward and ease your conscience because at some time in the future you will have to face your creator and account for the terrible thing you have done.

  The vicar reiterated that the killer was obviously a sick man, and the vicar, like just about everyone else in the villages, including many members of the inquiry team, continually referred to "good" and "evil," and made appeals to a "conscience." The word "sociopath" was never heard to escape the lips of anyone associated with the inquiry. It was apparently impossible for most to imagine a category of human beings to whom moral judgments of good and evil do not apply. To whom "conscience" or "superego" is irrelevant, because they are simply without one.

  A professor of psychiatry from Leicester University, when interviewed by a television journalist, touched on the theme of sociopathy. He said, "I think it unlikely that the killer is someone ill in the conventional sense, and very unlikely to be someone at the hospital. He may be someone from nearby who no one suspects. He may be regarded by his family as a quiet, even timid man. It's extremely unlikely that his family and friends will believe he could be responsible for these attacks.

  "It's likely that he's vulnerable in ways not apparent. His abnormality is in his mind and bursts out only occasionally. Once an episode of violence occurs it becomes the focus of an inner preoccupation and fantasy, and this increases the likelihood of it happening again."

  The reporter then asked, "Do you really think this increases the likelihood that it will happen again?"

  "I'm certain that's so," the psychiatrist answered. "There's no doubt that this type of crime tends to be repeated."

  David Baker publicly admitted that extensive inquiries were being made at Carlton Hayes Hospital, but he reassured hospital administrators by saying that the hospital had no patients with a record of extreme sexual violence, and the postmortem revealed a "horrific sexual assault" on Dawn Ashworth.

  But despite what Baker said, and despite the opinions of the Leicester professor of psychiatry, members of the inquiry team were being directed to that hospital, whose twin campaniles could be seen from Ten Pound Lane, whose mere presence cast a sinister shadow taller than its giant brick chimney that towered over the villages.

  Even though the journalists loved to write about police conducting searches "inch by inch"--and to show film clips of "fingertip searches," with gloved policemen on all fours, crawling shoulder to shoulder through the fields sifting debris--the fact is that during any police search, most just go through the motions. It's the same in a Leicestershire village as it is in the Los Angeles inner city, and everywhere in between. The officers, particularly the uniformed officers who get stuck with most of the searching, have lots of things they'd much rather do. They don't believe they're going to find anything, and often don't believe there's anything to find. In most cases they're right.

  But in any police search, there are a few who actually look and pay attention. Some even make notes and write down names. One of them noted the name of a young kitchen porter who worked at the psychiatric hospital, and was seen loitering around the area of Ten Pound Lane when it was sealed off from the public by streamers of orange tape.

  The kitchen porter was sighted more than once, seated on his motorbike, watching with great interest.

  Chapter 14.

  Confession

  At the foot of Ten Pound Lane, by the farm gate on King Edward Avenue, the police parked a mobile incident room to take information from villagers and passersby. A large blue notice board said: MURDER HERE. DID YOU SEE ANYTHING?

  After the videotaped reconstruction of Dawn Ashworth's last walk, the murder squad took about two hundred telephone calls, and dozens of people visited the mobile unit.

  The most promising
new lead concerned a motorcycle that had been parked under the motorway bridge. And there were several reports of a young man in a red crash helmet observed in the vicinity of the bridge, sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 P. M. on the day of the murder.

  Most of the dense undergrowth by Ten Pound Lane had been hacked to pieces, leaving splintered stumps and gaping holes in the green tunnel. Still, the missing silver earring was never found, causing the police to wonder if it had been trampled in the field. Or had he taken it away, as a memento?

  An editorial published as a service to the murder squad, headed KILLER IN OUR MIDST, prompted a spurt of calls over a two-day period:

  It is now pretty certain that we have free in our community somebody who is very, very ill or extremely evil . . . sufficiently ill or sufficiently evil to sexually abuse and strangle two teenage girls--girls just like your daughter or the one next door.

  Nearly three years ago, an immense amount of police time and effort, backed by publicity from all the media, failed to trace Lynda Mann's killer. Now, it seems pretty certain he has struck again.

  It is highly likely that he is local, to Leicestershire if not to Enderby or Narborough. Why then has he not been caught? Either he has not been interviewed by police or he has been given an alibi. In other words, he may be sheltered by a loving, but misguided wife, girlfriend, mother or friend.

  That person now has another girl's life on his or her conscience. It is time they made sure that the killer was put somewhere that he can be treated or kept away from teenage girls.

  The odds are that after Friday's murder he is marked. If one of the men in your life has a scratch, a bruise or a cut he has received since Friday it is your duty to tell the police at once.

  If you suspect a neighbour, a friend, somebody who drinks in the same pub or works with you or near you then tell the police, in confidence, of your suspicion.

  Catching this pervert is a job for all of us, not merely the police. For if we don't catch him it could be your daughter next.

  The superintendent who commanded Wigston subdivision, responsible for policing the villages, had a meeting with the Narborough Parish Council and tripled his normal contingent of two beat officers. The county council agreed to cut back the undergrowth further and widen what used to be the most scenic shortcut between the villages of Narborough and Enderby. Some thought it a terrible shame, in that there were remnants of an old Roman road directly beneath portions of that lovely footpath. But members of the parish council remarked that in a world growing ever more mad and violent, how could an English village hope to remain exempt?

  The next headline produced a rash of phone calls: PS15,000 REWARD.

  NEW BID TO CATCH THE KILLER.

  The reward for information leading to the killer's arrest and conviction was offered by a local businessman who asked to remain anonymous.

  Hours after it was publicly announced, an event took place that would produce an infinitely more startling headline the very next day.

  Supt. Tony Painter's murder squad had been assembling some information that actually began to connect with other bits and pieces. Four different witnesses had reported a motorbike. The first saw a red motorcycle parked unattended under the M I bridge at noon on the day of the murder. A second saw a motorbike parked there at about 4:45 the same day. Another saw a red crash helmet hanging from a motorbike near Ten Pound Lane, that sighting at 5:15 P. M. And yet another witness remembered a motorcyclist wearing a red crash helmet riding up and down Mill Lane on the evening Dawn's body was found, and the next day as well--riding up and back, very slowly, past the Ashworth house.

  On August 1st, the day after Dawn was reported missing, but a day before her body was found, a policewoman and a detective saw a youth on a red motorcycle in a red crash helmet taking an interest in the search. He was sighted again, in the same spot, three hours later.

  And most tellingly, a police constable on security duty at the checkpoint on Mill Lane in Enderby--at 9:20 P. M. on Sunday evening, the day after the body was found--was approached by a seventeen-year-old kitchen porter from Carlton Hayes Hospital. The boy was pushing his motorcycle. The officer questioned the boy routinely after the lad volunteered a bit of information.

  "I saw Dawn walking up here Thursday night. Toward the gate," the kitchen porter told the policeman.

  "Thanks," the officer said. "You'll be contacted in the near future by a member of the enquiry team."

  A detective followed it up and spoke to the kitchen porter two days later, when the lad also reported seeing a suspicious boy on a bicycle.

  The most astonishing information that crackled through the incident room on Thursday, August 7th, came from another employee of Carlton Hayes Hospital, a friend of the kitchen porter's. This friend had been on holiday the day Dawn Ashworth went missing, he said, but had gone to the hospital to collect his wages. The kitchen porter visited him at 10:00 P. M. the next night and excitedly told him that Dawn Ashworth's body had been found "in a hedge near a gate by the Ml bridge."

  When the friend's father overheard the conversation he asked the kitchen porter where he'd gotten his information, for it hadn't been on the telly.

  "Someone told me," the boy said mysteriously. "Her body was hanging from a tree!"

  Well, she wasn't found hanging from a tree, but she was certainly concealed beneath tree limbs and other debris. And she was found inside an access gate leading from Ten Pound Lane to the fields, and it was just a ten-minute walk from the M1 bridge. And the kitchen porter had this information twelve hours before the denim jacket had been spotted!

  Still another witness came forth who reported that the kitchen porter, cruising about on his motorbike, had stopped and told him, "Yeah, she was found dead." This, at 1:45 P. M. on Saturday, a few hours after she was found, but nevertheless before the press had even been informed.

  On Friday, August 8th, at five o'clock in the morning, members of the murder squad drove to the young kitchen porter's home near the Fox-hunter Roundabout in Narborough to arrest him.

  The boy's father was a gregarious, self-employed taxi driver in Narborough, and his mother, jolly and warm with a welcoming smile for everyone, worked at the Enderby Leisure Center near the home of Dawn Ashworth.

  When the police knocked, the mother woke up shouting, "Who's that bumping the door?"

  She thought she'd been dreaming at first, but the knocking continued. She got up, put on some clothes and went downstairs. Four members of CID entered the house, informing her that they had to see her older son.

  "Is it important?" she asked.

  "I'm afraid it is," one of the detectives answered.

  "You've not found another one, have you?" she asked.

  "I hope not," he answered.

  Another detective said, "We've come to arrest your son for the murder of Dawn Ashworth."

  "You're joking!" she cried.

  "Do you think we'd be joking this time of morning, dear?" the detective asked.

  The mother later remembered having to catch the side of the settee in the living room to keep from falling down.

  "Where is he?" a detective asked.

  "He's in bed!" she said. Then she gathered herself and shakily climbed the stairs, shouting to her husband. "You've got to come! The police want you!"

  "Don't be bloody daft!" he muttered.

  The first thing he remembered clearly about that morning was getting out of bed and looking at a detective who said, "We're arresting your son for murder."

  "You're bloody joking!" he said. "You're crackers!"

  When the police woke the boy and told him to get dressed, he said, "Is it about some more questions?"

  "Something like that," the detective answered.

  Putting on a track suit and tennis shoes, the boy said, "I've got to be at work."

  "Don't worry about that," the detective said. "I'm arresting you on suspicion of being concerned in the death of Dawn Ashworth. I must tell you, you do not have to say anything unless you
wish to do so, but anything you may say may be given in evidence. Do you understand that?"

  The kitchen porter had his father's thick dark hair, but not his chiseled good looks, and certainly not his assertiveness. The taxi driver was considered a controlling parent, but anyone who knew his son might understand the need.

  The father watched silently while they searched his son's bedroom. When the tallest detective was on his knees searching under the carpet, the taxi driver cried out, "I know my chappie! I know he's not done it because I know my lad!"

  The detective answered, "We know him too."

  And indeed, the murder squad did know a lot already and was about to learn many things about the boy that his parents did not know, and would scarcely believe.

  The kitchen porter was driven to Wigston Police Station where DSgt. Dawe and DC Cooke taped the first of many interviews at 8:09 in the morning. The boy sat at a table facing the two detectives and talked quietly. In that first interview he said he'd known Dawn about three weeks and seen her walking about the village. When they asked about his whereabouts on Thursday, July 31st, he said he'd slept in until ten or eleven because it was his day off. Then in the afternoon he'd taken the motorbike for a trial run at half past four, down along King Edward Avenue toward Narborough village. "I were going toward the motorway bridge," he said. "You know where that is?"

  "Yes," Dawe answered.

  "I looked on the left and saw Dawn approaching the gateway." "How did you know it was Dawn?"

  "By her hairstyle and the way she walked. So I knew it were Dawn," the kitchen porter said.

  "Do you know her very well?"

  "Just by looks. That's all."

  "What was she wearing?"

  "A sort of white skirt and a yellow or white jacket. I thought I'd stop and talk to her and ask her where she were going, and that. Then I thought, I've got to get home and do this oil because it might be running out quick. It got to leaking drip drip drip fairly fast, so I just drove straight home."