Rope Enough - The Romney and Marsh Files #1

by Oliver Tidy

  There existed in the town a clear and hostile undercurrent of resentment that a wide consensus of local opinion harboured for the immigrant population, which had been foisted upon them as a community, like a mini-invasion.

  Dover had seen better days economically. For many local residents who were struggling with the expense of life and lack of work, it was viewed as adding insult to injury as they had watched a steady stream of eastern European refugees trickle into their town assisted by aid packages that included free accommodation, free transport passes and food vouchers. Unlike the bureaucrats who made such decisions from their leafy shires – distant and unaffected by such policies – many of those who had to live with the reality of the situation on a daily basis found such arrangements difficult to tolerate.

  Despite the political incorrectness of the sentiment, Romney, with personal and professional experiences of the influx of displaced humanity, didn’t blame the locals for their views. Many of the ethnic population who had settled had sought only to create little enclaves of their former communities, and on the whole they showed a distinct lack of respect and gratitude towards the culture and the community that had to accommodate them. Dover would have to brace itself for further violence, thought Romney, in the inevitable tit for tat.

  As the duty sergeant had said, it was like the old days when Dover had been a proper garrison town, supporting a much larger soldiering population than it currently did. Nights of inter-subculture violence had been a regular feature of a policeman’s life and local news reporting. Were those days returning, Romney wondered, only the combatants changed?

  Wherever he was and whatever his circumstances, man, it seemed to Romney, would eventually resort to the tribal animal that he basically was, and once these tribes were established the violence would not be long in coming.

  *

  Romney returned to CID. Marsh was waiting for him with an expression on her face that made him forget what had already ruined his day.

  ‘What’s up, Sergeant? You look like someone pinched your new toy.’

  ‘They have, sir.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Someone broke into my car last night and stole my digital voice recorder.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Romney, not particularly sounding it. ‘But you should know better than most not to leave valuables in your vehicle.’

  ‘It had our interview with Claire Stamp on it.’

  Romney stared at her, disappointment settling on his stern features. He shook his head once, sighed heavily and went into his office. He shut the door.

  Romney rang forensics and asked to speak to one of the technicians involved with the rape case. He was soon talking to the female SOCO from the petrol station crime scene.

  ‘This is DI Romney. Who am I talking to?’

  ‘Diane Hodge. How can I help you Inspector?’

  ‘I’m calling about the rape at the petrol station.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That strip of plastic – the top off a condom packet – was it identified to a particular brand?’

  ‘Give me a moment.’ Romney waited and listened to the woman’s fingertips tapping away at her keyboard. ‘Let’s see. Yes,’ she said. ‘Lovetex was the make.’

  ‘Good.’ He was pleased for the crumb of evidence, which would lend weight to his belief that this had been a pre-meditated sexual assault. ‘Were any tests performed on it?’ He waited again while she checked her screen.

  ‘It was too small to lift even a partial print from. Sorry.’

  ‘What about a saliva test?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Romney was glad that the phone system was between them. He was no prude amongst his peers, but he was prone to awkwardness when discussing things of a sexual nature face to face with women not that much older than his daughter. And in this case, especially, it was clear to him that any half-intelligent person he was talking to would quickly make the connection that what he was about to suggest was based on personal experience. The probability that whoever he was discussing it with would then make a short leap of the imagination to visualise him struggling in the throes of sexual passion to tear open a condom packet and do whatever a logical imagination would lead one to suppose came next brought him further discomfort.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘it’s possible, as the rapist was wearing gloves the whole time, that he may have had difficulty opening the packet.’

  ‘Ah, of course,’ said the woman. ‘I see what you’re getting at. They can be slippery, can’t they?’ To Romney’s relief it seemed a rhetorical question. ‘And if you can’t get into something with your digits, what do you use? Your teeth,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it myself this morning, Inspector. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the results.’

  He thanked her and hung up. Romney looked up to see Marsh hovering at his door. Frowning, he beckoned her in.

  ‘Sir, looks like we have a jumper in the town centre.’

  ‘That’s uniform’s job,’ he said, turning his attention back to his desk.

  ‘Sorry. I mean had a jumper. White female. Dead in the parking area at the rear of Priory Towers on Priory Road.’

  Romney looked up and said, ‘That’s Claire Stamp’s address.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Is it her?’ he asked, a suggestion of weariness in his tone.

  ‘She needs an official identification, but the general description fits. Uniform are there. I said we’d be along shortly.’

  ***

  9

  Romney and Marsh were standing in the rain under a thick blanket of oppressive low cloud that had blown in from the Channel with the changing tide. They stared down at the twisted corpse of Claire Stamp. A uniformed constable, dutifully accepting his drenching, held up a corner of the temporary covering. Romney was keenly aware of the drumming of the intensifying downpour on his umbrella.

  The pathetic sight of the woman, not much older than his own daughter, lying on her back on the brick paved area behind the communal bins was one of the saddest he had ever seen. She wore only a flimsy night dress. It was plastered to her body by the rain to reveal her most private parts through the gossamer-thin material. The welts from the rape at her wrists and ankles looked even angrier against her ghostly white flesh.

  Maurice Wendell, the local pathologist, waited patiently to get on with the unpleasant task ahead of him in the most miserable of conditions.

  The quiet and the visible eerie exhalations in the cold of those gathered sombrely around the body under their umbrellas, heads bowed, gave the scene a funereal feel.

  Choking off the wretchedness he was feeling, Romney said, ‘Any idea how long she’s been here?’

  ‘Most of the night, it looks like,’ said the pathologist.

  When had she jumped, thought Romney. As he and Julie Carpenter were laughing their way through the previous evening’s meal? As they were frenziedly stripping each other for intercourse in the warmth of her bedroom? As he was reaching the intensity of his climax? Or as he lay sleeping contentedly against the woman whose bed he had shared?

  Although the scene gave him little hope – resembling as it did the macabre tableau of the ultimate self-criticism that he had witnessed a handful of times in his career – Romney said, ‘Any evidence of foul play?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’ Romney shot the pathologist a querying, almost hopeful, look. ‘Around the neck. Can you see the bruising? That’s consistent with strangulation.’

  Romney crouched down and gently pushed aside the mass of sodden hair that had gathered around her throat.

  ‘Sir?’ said Marsh.

  ‘What is it?’ Romney was looking closely at the neck of Claire Stamp with an idea forming.

  ‘She had those marks on her neck yesterday evening. I met her on the seafront. She showed them to me.’

  Romney stood and gave Marsh his full attention. ‘Go on.’

  ‘As I was driving home last night I saw her sitting alone on a ben
ch staring out over the Channel. I stopped and bought her a cup of tea. We talked.’

  ‘And those marks were definitely on her then?’

  ‘Yes. It was one of the reasons she was there.’

  Romney looked back down at the corpse. ‘I see,’ he said. His disappointment was obvious.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ said the pathologist. ‘Might be of interest to you.’

  ‘Yes, Maurice, what’s that?’

  ‘Of all the suicides from jumping that I’ve been called to over the years none of them landed flat on their backs. It doesn’t strike me as a natural position for someone who jumps to be able to land in, deliberately or otherwise.’

  ‘You’re suggesting she could have been pushed?’

  ‘All deaths from falling could be the result of a push, Tom,’ chided the pathologist, gently. ‘That’s where you come in. I’m merely providing you with the benefit of my experience.’

  The pathologist and Romney had shared many crime scenes in their long careers in the town. Each had a healthy professional respect and personal liking for the other. Because of this, the pathologist’s remarks, which may have seemed pompous and unnecessary – perhaps something to be taken issue with by another unschooled in the way that they behaved towards each other around such horrors – were all but ignored by Romney.

  Romney thanked the older man and turned away from the body. ‘I’ve seen enough. We’ll leave you to it. Come on, Sergeant, let’s take a look around the flat.’

  ‘What about Avery, sir?’ said Marsh, as they went in search of the building’s superintendent and access to the apartment.

  ‘He won’t be bothering us in the near future.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Don’t you know? He’s back in the nick.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it on the way up.’

  The building’s superintendent had been loitering out of the weather in the lobby, waiting for the police that he knew would come. He led them up to the flat and let them in. Romney thanked him and sent him on his way, closing the door behind him.

  The officers retraced their steps from the day before. The flat generated a chill, peculiar silence, as though the extinguished life-force in the car park had a symbiotic effect on the living space. It hadn’t seemed particularly welcoming or homely on their previous visit. Now it felt positively vacant.

  Marsh explained to Romney why the mother was no longer there. She had walked in on the argument they had left behind them and decided she’d been there long enough. She’d packed her bag and left. Romney aired the thought that he wouldn’t be the one who made the call that got her back for identification of the body. The implication being that Marsh would. He added that the woman would now be someone who would need to be spoken to officially, whatever the outcome of their further investigations: suicide or something more sinister.

  Romney took in the firmly closed patio doors that led to the balcony from where Claire Stamp had plunged to her death. ‘Do suicides shut doors after them?’ he said. ‘That’s two things that give me hope this isn’t a suicide.’

  ‘I’ll tell you a third, sir. When I was having my chat with her last night, she was making plans. She may have been sitting on a bench on the seafront in the middle of winter in the dark but she wasn’t there thinking about walking into the sea. I’d swear to that.’

  ‘You might have to.’

  ‘She told me that Avery had been physical with her. That’s when she showed me the marks around her neck. She said that was it for her. He’d told her to get out anyway. She was thinking of going to stay in Blackpool with her sister.’

  ‘You’re sure she wasn’t just telling you what was necessary to get rid of you? Maybe you had stumbled upon her as she was going to do away with herself in the Channel, and she changed her mind and came back here to do it anyway.’

  ‘No, sir. She didn’t strike me as the least bit suicidal.’

  ‘Well if she didn’t jump then she was pushed. And who could have pushed her?’

  ‘Anyone.’

  ‘True, but why? There’s always got to be a bloody good reason for something like that. Why would anyone want to push her, throw her off the fourth floor? Who would have the motive and the opportunity?’

  ‘Avery?’

  ‘Naturally, he’d be my first choice. Perhaps she had something on him that she’d be able to screw some money out of him over.’

  ‘She told me that he’d agreed to give her some money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Didn’t say, but I got the impression she wasn’t worried about funds. Maybe he changed his mind while she was out.’

  ‘So maybe he had the motive, but did he have the opportunity? I’m not talking about access to the flat. We know that. I’m talking about was he down at The Castle smashing immigrants’ skulls or already under arrest?’

  A long moment’s silence was enough depressing contemplation for Romney. ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a good look round. We’ll keep an open mind on how she got down there. You know what we’re looking for specifically: suicide note, signs of a struggle.’ He broke off. ‘I don’t suppose... ’ He took a pen out of his pocket and crossed to the patio doors. He used the pen to apply pressure on the handle. The door began an easy slide. ‘Too much to hope it’d be locked.’ He slid it shut again, looking through the glass at the balcony. ‘Best let SOCO have a look out there before we go traipsing around.’

  After a cursory look around the lounge, the pair moved off and began their search of the rest of the apartment. It was understood between them both that while they would claim to be searching for a suicide note, they were also looking for anything of an illegal nature that could be linked with Avery.

  They met again in the corridor a few minutes later. Neither had found anything interesting.

  ‘Right,’ said Romney. ‘I’ll get back to the station, find out the timings for last night’s unfolding events. I’ll send Peter over. I want you two to interview as many of the neighbours as you can find. Place like this, someone must have seen or heard something. Wait for him and then start with the caretaker.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Claire Stamp’s testimony. Of the rape.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Well that’s gone now hasn’t it? Where did you lose it?’

  ‘It was on the front seat of my car when I stopped to talk to her on the seafront.’

  ‘Have you reported it?’

  She shook her head. ‘The car wasn’t locked. I forgot.’ Romney’s face maintained a blank look. ‘I came back to the vehicle after I’d had a cuppa with her, and it was gone.’

  ‘Anything else missing?’

  ‘Some change.’

  ‘I can see why you wouldn’t want to report it. Not a great advert for car security, are you?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m sorry.’

  Despite deserving to have a strip torn off her for both her lax example and the loss of the only testimony they had, Romney felt reluctant to do so given the selfless act of charitable kindness that she had demonstrated by stopping and talking with the victim. That kind of policing Romney liked.

  ‘When did you last see her?’ he said.

  ‘Outside the Blue Moon Café about seven-thirty last night. I offered her a lift home, but she wanted to walk.’

  ‘Given that she’s dead, I can’t see that it makes much difference. Just try to be a little more careful in future.’

  Marsh followed him down the hall towards the front door. As they passed by the open lounge, a mobile telephone chirped for attention.

  ‘Sir?’

  Romney had missed it. ‘What?’

  ‘A mobile phone just went off.’

  They re-entered the lounge and stood listening. After a moment’s silence, Marsh started to ferret around. She found it under a cushion on the sofa. She said, ‘It’s new. It matches the one she had the box for. She must have pic
ked it up or got someone to get it for her.’ She pressed a couple of buttons unlocking the functions. ‘It’s a picture message.’

  Romney glanced at his watch. ‘If you turn up anything with the door-to-door let me know immediately. Understand? Sergeant?’

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Marsh. Her eyes were fixed to the screen of the mobile phone.

  ‘What is it?’ Romney walked over to stand beside her. It took him only a second to realise that he was staring at the semi-naked form of Claire Stamp strapped across the table in the back room of the petrol station.

  The message had been sent a little after one o’clock in the morning. There were three others unopened and lodged in the message inbox of the phone. These had been sent between eleven and twelve-thirty the previous night. It was a short, sustained and nasty campaign of terror. There was one that had been opened. It had been sent, and presumably received, at a little after ten o’clock the previous night.

  ‘The poor cow,’ said Marsh. ‘She told me again last night: it’s what she was most tormented by – the idea that someone had a photographic record of what was done to her.’

  Romney said, ‘This changes things. A lot. This could have pushed her over the edge. Perhaps made her jump.’

  Marsh’s thoughts were following a different line to Romney’s. Turning to stare at him, she said, ‘The rapist must know her. How else would he have her number?’

  ‘And why would she open one and not the others?’

  ‘Maybe she was too shocked, too afraid. She might have broken down.’

  ‘Maybe she was already dead,’ said Romney.

  ***

  10

  Romney hadn’t been back in CID long when he received a call from forensics.

  ‘Inspector, it’s Diane Hodge. We spoke earlier this morning.’

  ‘Have you got some good news for me, Miss Hodge? I could certainly use some.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I have, Inspector. Your instinct and reasoning were inspired and spot on. I did the tests myself. It was as you suggested: I found clearly identifiable traces of saliva: evidence. Do you have a suspect?’