the Blooding (1989)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  Dawe asked, "What did you think about her?"

  "She were talkative."

  "What did you used to talk about?"

  "Things."

  The sergeant asked him, "Have you ever been with a girl who wants sex?"

  "No."

  "Never? Never interested you?"

  "No. Me dad's warned me," the kitchen porter said.

  Then he began rambling on about motorcycles. He said he had another one he was repairing because the bearings were gone. And suddenly he put himself in another place on July 3 1st!

  The sergeant interrupted, saying, "You're not telling one hundred percent the truth, are you?"

  "I am!"

  "Well I'm telling you that you're not."

  "Can't remember!" the boy said.

  "Well, you said you went straight home on your bike because it was leaking and you'd been doing seventy-five miles an hour, and now you're saying you went somewhere else."

  "I honestly . . . I can't remember!"

  "Well, you've got to remember. It's important to you. I don't think you want to remember. You can't put these things at the back of your mind, or put them out of your mind. Something's happened and you know something's happened. I know you're not telling the truth. Don't sit there worrying about it. What's happened's happened, okay?"

  "You're saying that I got the blame for it and that's it?"

  "Nobody's blaming you."

  Cooke said, "No, but we know that you're not telling the truth, and we must have the truth."

  "A youth identical to you was seen coming down carrying a red crash helmet."

  "It weren't me," the kitchen porter said.

  "A bike was seen parked under that bridge," the sergeant said. "If you stopped and had a chat with her, for goodness' sake, tell us. Because if you tell lies, even though you may not have had anything to do with it, it makes you look worse. I think you stopped and parked under the bridge. You may well have spoken to her. I want you to tell the truth. It's important to you and it's important to everyone else."

  Cooke said, "That's the truth, isn't it? You did stop, didn't you?" The boy replied, "Yeah, I can remember now."

  Cooke said, "You stopped under that bridge, didn't you?"

  "Got under me bike and had a look to see if the oil were coming out." "And what did you say to her?"

  "I just seen her approaching the gate."

  "You were holding your crash helmet in your hand, weren't you?" Cooke asked, but the boy shook his head.

  The sergeant said, "Friday night at ten o'clock two people say you went round to their house and spoke about the body being found."

  "That's what he told me! I'll tell you everything he said to me!" the kitchen porter cried.

  "You've got to tell the truth," Dawe said. "Something's happened, and if an accident's happened, for goodness' sake, say so. If something went wrong, if you did speak to her and something went wrong up that path, it may be that you're not to blame for that. If that's what happened, son, for goodness' sake, tell us. It's important."

  Cooke said, "You did, didn't you? You went up that path." "I went halfway, yeah."

  "If you tried to kiss or cuddle her, and there was a fight or an argument, for goodness' sake, tell us," Dawe said.

  "We've seen it all before," Cooke told him. "You're not talking to your parents now, you're talking to us."

  Suddenly Dawe said, "The thing is, did you intend to kill her?" "No," the boy answered.

  "So what happened?" Dawe asked.

  "Right," the boy said, beginning again. "I seen her walking up the lane. Pulled down the side, got off me bike. Started talking to her. I asked her where Queenie was and Michael. She said, 'I don't know.' I said, `Where you going?' She says, 'I'm going home.' I walked her halfway up the lane and . . . so I walked her halfway up the lane. I goes, 'Will you be all right?' She says, 'Yeah.' So I turns around and come back. Got straight on me bike and goes straight home."

  Dawe said, "And what you're saying now . . . what you said in your first statement was not true?"

  "I were worried stiff." "Why?"

  "Thinking I was going to get the blame for all this! I was just upset! Blamed for it! I can't remember what went on that day!"

  Cooke said, "I'll tell you why you can't remember. Because you're blocking it out of your mind, son."

  "I just can't remember!"

  "But are you telling us now that you walked up the path a little way?" "Only a little way."

  "On the day that she went missing?"

  "No, before! Before the day!"

  "Why did you go round to what's-his-name's house at ten o'clock at night and tell him the body had been found hanging from a tree?"

  "He told me that!"

  "All right, but did you go round at ten o'clock at night?" "Yeah, I went round at ten!"

  "Why did you lie a few minutes ago?"

  "Because I don't know!"

  They stopped the interview then. The kitchen porter was getting so upset he was answering in non sequiturs. He was offered tea and sandwiches.

  Supt. Tony Painter arrived at Wigston Police Station along with Dlnsp. Clancy, and Clancy began with the seventeen-year-old at 11:52 A. M., after once again cautioning him as to his rights.

  It was then that the boy began responding to questions about his sexual needs, and told Clancy about a girl called Green Demon, with whom he'd lost his virginity.

  "Is it right then that you had pretty regular sex with her?" Clancy asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Tell us about that, please. Where did that happen? How often? Things like that."

  "She said to me that she wanted me to have sex with her. I weren't really interested at the time. She says, 'Here's a chance.' I said, All right, I'll take it. Fair enough."

  "You were only a young fellow then. How old were you?" "Fourteen."

  He had it on a railway bank about three times, he told them. "She were laying on her back and I was laying on top of her. The other times after that she was on her hands and knees. All fours."

  "Then what did you do?" Clancy asked.

  "I got her twice like that," he said. "I may have done something by mistake. I could have slipped and gone up her bum but I don't know."

  "So what do you call doing sex like that?" Clancy asked.

  "The phrase we used at school was 'a back shot,' " the boy answered.

  He admitted to losing his temper on one occasion while having sex. He tried to explain the temper loss by relating a fantastic tale: "When I were four years old I got thrown into stinging nettles by other kids! I had to go to the hospital and were put in a dark room for two months. . . ."

  They weren't sure at this point whether or not the kitchen porter, by virtue of his bizarre answers, was consciously constructing an insanity defense. But on the other hand, none of them had ever assumed that their killer would be a normal everyday bloke.

  Then the boy began to respond to questions about Green Demon. He admitted that he'd hit her on. one occasion, and that his younger brother had told him he didn't know his own strength. He said that everyone talked about him behind his back and nobody liked him, especially girls.

  The kitchen porter said, "I call them slags a lot. Anything that comes into my head: slags, dogs, whores, bitches."

  He told them about two girls at Carlton Hayes Hospital whom he referred to in these terms. He admitted to liking girls younger than himself. He talked about premature ejaculation, and how Green Demon would laugh at him when it happened, and how that would make him shout at her.

  When they asked him about buggery, he said, "Oh no! I talked to me dad about that and he told me I mustn't ever do it. I watched films about it though, on a friend's video."

  But when they put it to him that he might have committed buggery with Green Demon, he admitted that once it might have happened.

  "May have slipped," the boy said. "May have done it that way. That one time it felt like I put it in a coil of sandpaper. It hurt me and made me bleed!" />
  With that interview, the detectives had forged a circumstantial link between the killer who'd ejaculated prematurely when he'd killed Lynda Mann, and the one who'd buggered Dawn Ashworth.

  The kitchen porter's parents didn't talk to their son from that Friday morning until Saturday evening. They were told that no one could see him prior to that, not until he'd been charged. That until he was charged, he was only helping with the inquiries.

  Robin and Barbara Ashworth, who were both on compassionate leave from work, were advised by friends and family and even the police to get out and about. For their first outing they decided to go to a market. They needed to get away: A total reconstruction of the murder was being done for a Crimewatch UK show for national television, and technicians were at their house.

  But when they were alone in the market Robin said it was so strange, shopping without her. Looking at the things she'd looked at.

  The thought Barbara couldn't shake was, With all these people milling about in the market, why did it have to be het'?

  It was especially difficult looking at earrings. Dawn had had pierced ears and loved earrings.

  "I suddenly realized how it must have been uppermost in Dawn's mind to look at those earrings," Barbara said.

  Other strange things happened that day. They went to Deer Park and were drawn toward two Airedales at play. They began talking to the lady who owned them and the lady asked where they lived.

  "Enderby," Robin said.

  "Oh, Enderby!" she said. "Wasn't it terrible about the girl who was killed? Did you know her?"

  On that very first contact with the outside world, they didn't know what to say. What could they say? The lady looked from one to the other expectantly, and Barbara finally said, "She was our daughter."

  "Then we realized that sort of thing would happen for a long, long time," Robin Ashworth later said.

  "You don't know whether to let them go on or break it gently to them," Barbara recalled. "That particular lady, we got her name and address. We told her it was all right, that we needed to talk about it. And she did send us a lovely letter."

  "People always say, 'We'll be sure to drop in when we come over that way," Robin explained, looking toward Barbara. "But we never see them again, do we?"

  Chapter 15.

  Resurrection

  After giving the kitchen porter a rest break, enthusiastic detectives began following up on things they'd been told that morning--particularly about the girl with the CB handle of Green Demon. Supt. Tony Painter injected himself into the interviews at 2:06 P. M. But by then, the boy had back-pedaled and was denying he'd had prior sexual experience with Green Demon or anybody else.

  "Me dad would've slippered me if I had," he explained to the man in charge of the murder squad. "And me mum is very strict."

  He assured Tony Painter that he'd never even masturbated, and when the interview turned to what he'd told the policeman who'd first spotted him during the Dawn Ashworth search, he simply denied most of it. He admitted to having told a constable he'd seen a youth on a bike in the vicinity, but nothing more than that.

  When Tony Painter pointed out that the kitchen porter had told the constable a story of having seen Dawn on July 31st, the boy said, "He's just trying to get me in trouble! Then everyone would think I'm the one. And they'd pick on me more than anyone. They'd stop looking for him what done it."

  When Painter reminded him about visiting a friend and reporting that Dawn had been found hanging from a tree, the boy said, "It was him what told me she was hanging by a leg! And he said he heard it from Dawn's older brother. He just wouldn't say it to you chaps cause he don't want to get in trouble."

  But Dawn didn't even have an older brother, and his friend's father had verified what the kitchen porter had told him. When these inconsistencies were pointed out, the boy would, often as not, simply respond inappropriately, as though to another question.

  He referred to Ten Pound Lane as Green Lane, as did many villagers who lived on the Narborough side of the footpath.

  The police had a written statement from a village girl who said, "He followed us around in a strange manner." When the conversation veered to such reports, the boy said, "I follow them around if I fancy them, but I didn't follow Dawn up Green Lane."

  Sgt. Dawe then asked, "Why didn't you report sooner that you'd seen Dawn?"

  He answered, "Me mum said, 'Keep it to yourself. Don't get yourself dragged into it.' That's why."

  He was allowed to rest again and at 4:06 P. M. the interview was resumed with Supt. Painter and Sgt. Dawe. And this time things took a dramatic turn.

  "All right then," the kitchen porter said to Painter, "I saw Dawn walk toward Green Lane. I saw her walk toward the top of the lane. And I saw a man carrying a stick."

  He then gave a rather confused account of walking with her up the lane, and told how he'd noticed the man with the stick following them, later surmising that the man must have waited until the boy was gone before he attacked her.

  Asked if, during the walk, he spoke to Dawn about anything sexual, he cried, "Dawn would not talk about sex or even use rude language because she was not like that!"

  And then he told of hearing about the search for Dawn Ashworth, and of going home and telling his mother, "Oh, Christ, she's gone missing!" And he admitted saying to himself then, "I'll be blamed!"

  After that came the most spectacular moment in a long day: Tony Painter showed the kitchen porter a photo of Dawn Ashworth and said, "I think you were responsible."

  The sergeant added, "I don't think you intended to kill her."

  And the boy looked from one to the other and answered, "I can't remember. I probably really went mad, and I don't know it!" "Did you fancy her?" the sergeant asked.

  "Yeah, a little bit, but I can't remember any more."

  "Describe to me exactly what happened," Painter said.

  To which the kitchen porter replied, "She'd gone down and I started putting me hands on her top! She weren't struggling at the time until I put me hands up her skirt. See, I walked up the lane and commenced to touch her bum. And she moved toward me and tripped over a bit. I continued to feel her and she struggled but I held her down. And then . . . then me head started spinning as if I was drunk! I couldn't remember no more until I were running away. There really was no man with a stick. I just went mad! I couldn't help it! Dawn said she wouldn't tell nobody about it! It was like someone else took over! I just went mad! Like it was someone else in me that told me to do it. I didn't want to do it. Someone were forcing me to do it. Making me arms and legs go all over. At first she let me but then she went down. She struggled and me mind went blank. I don't think it were me that did it. But when I finished and she were getting up I ran off."

  But once again, the kitchen porter quelled the detectives' excitement by backing up and denying what they'd just heard him say. "I never had no sex before," he said. "I don't feel in meself that I was responsible for her death. I feel like it's not me that done it. I walked up there and done a few things and said I were going, and then I went. She was about to get up, and that's the last I seen. Apart from being down toward the bridge I were in kind of a trance making me do it. I can't remember I done it."

  Then he began a rambling, disjointed account of going to his friend's house in Narborough twice on the afternoon of July 31st, and he repeated that his friend had told him about a body hanging by one leg.

  The interviewers informed the kitchen porter that they'd already followed up with his friend who hadn't even seen him that day.

  "He's lying!" the boy said, but then admitted he couldn't actually remember what day it was. He said, "I can only see her walking in Green Lane!"

  Then he became angry and cried out, "I never touched her! Why should I get the blame? I never even talked to Dawn in Green Lane!"

  And suddenly, in the midst of a confession that was confused, disjointed, bizarre, the boy said something eminently sensible: "I want a blood test!"

  When th
e kitchen porter was no longer angry and things were under control, Supt. Tony Painter asked, "If you're now denying everything, why did you say the things earlier?"

  "To settle your story," the boy said sullenly.

  Then they replayed the earlier parts of his confession where he'd admitted attacking Dawn Ashworth.

  "Did you say these things?" Painter asked.

  "Yeah, I should've done what me dad said. Keep it quiet because I've not done a thing."

  "Well, did you or didn't you tell a uniformed officer on Sunday night that you'd seen Dawn walking to the gateway of Green Lane?" "I talked about .. . I discussed it with me father," he said.

  And at the mention of his father the boy suddenly threw himself across the table and started to cry.

  The police, who were now trying to check out every utterance from the mouth of the kitchen porter, discovered another young witness who'd watched the police searching a field on August 1st, the day before Dawn's body was found. The young man said that the kitchen porter had ridden up on his motorbike and casually remarked that the police should search the culverts by the M1 motorway. Another witness had seen him three times during that day of searching. He seemed to have been everywhere that afternoon. Watching.

  During one of his more incoherent statements to police, he mentioned being with another friend on Thursday during the hour when Dawn was murdered, and the next day as well. But the friend was contacted and told detectives that he had not seen the kitchen porter that day or the next.

  v. When the interview was resumed early Friday evening, a question was followed by a suggestion. "You've told us you walked up the path with her. You were laughing and joking and touching her up and she didn't mind it. You don't know exactly what you've done, do you?"

  Once again answering unresponsively, the boy replied, "Not all night. I was probably in the garage."

  Tony Painter said, "You weren't probably in the garage."

  They were all getting tired, impatient, frustrated. The sergeant said, "It's not probably. It's not probably at all."

  "I don't know! I wasn't there, was I?"

  "You were."

  "I know meself I weren't there!"

  "You've told us twice that you were there," Painter said. "You were