by Hunter, Cara
‘Ev in yet?’
Quinn shakes his head. ‘Haven’t seen her. I think Asante’s about somewhere. Try the coffee machine.’
‘It’s too bloody hot for coffee,’ mutters Baxter, though that doesn’t stop him heading off in the same direction. By the time he gets back, Ev’s at her desk, pulling out her notebook. Baxter goes straight over to her.
‘Morning,’ she says brightly, then frowns slightly. ‘You OK?’
Baxter moves a bit closer and seems about to reply but then something changes his mind and he turns away.
Quinn turns to look: that ‘something’ was Somer, coming in from the corridor. Quinn’s eyes narrow. He picked up a bit of an undercurrent on that score yesterday, but no one actually said anything. And Somer does look more preoccupied than usual, no question. She’s keeping her head down, staring at her paperwork, avoiding conversation, which isn’t like her. He sees Ev go over and say a word or two in a low voice but she gets nothing but a brief shake of the head by way of reply.
They have to wait another quarter of an hour for Fawley, which isn’t like him either, and by the time he turns up the silence in the room has started to become uncomfortable. But either he doesn’t notice or simply isn’t interested in pleasantries this morning. He just pulls out a chair and nods at Quinn.
‘Right,’ says Quinn, snapping into DS mode. ‘We’ve had Fisher’s blood test and tox screen back, and the bloods confirm she’d been drinking –’
Fawley’s staring at his phone. ‘Which is no great revelation, seeing as she told us that herself.’
Quinn ploughs on. ‘Her blood alcohol was easily over the drink-drive limit, but not high enough to cause a blackout on its own. However, according to the tox screen she’s taking medication for anxiety.’ He looks down at his tablet. ‘Something called Fluoxetine. Basically the same as Prozac. She’s on quite a low dose, but apparently it can cause drowsiness if you drink when you’re on it.’
A glance up now. ‘But not actual blackouts?’
Quinn shakes his head. ‘Not usually, but no doctor’s going to get on the stand and rule it out one hundred per cent. At least according to Challow.’
‘What about the DNA?’
Quinn swipes his screen. ‘Ah, now that’s where it gets interesting. Fisher’s DNA was definitely present on Morgan’s arms and hands. Fisher’s lawyer will obviously claim that could have got there just from casual social contact or being in the house, but she’s going to find it a hell of a lot harder to explain why it was also on Morgan’s face and all over his privates.’ He looks around with a smirk. ‘He didn’t get that from passing her a glass of chardonnay, now did he?’
Baxter grins, but Fawley is frowning. ‘Define “privates”.’
Quinn flushes a little. ‘Sorry – basically down towards his groin. Definitely under where his shorts would have been so there’s no way –’
‘But not on his penis?’
Quinn shakes his head. ‘No. Just in that general area.’
‘And the scratches?’
‘Yup,’ says Quinn. ‘They were down to her too.’
Ev nods. ‘All of which tallies exactly with what he told us.’
Fawley glances at her. ‘I think we all know where you stand.’
Ev’s eyes widen. ‘I didn’t mean –’
Fawley turns to Quinn. ‘And Fisher?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing on her body or under her fingernails, but given she’d showered we’d pretty much discounted that already.’ He stops, makes a face. ‘Look, I know the DNA backs up Morgan’s version of events as far as it goes, but it’s also consistent with a bit of consensual fumble that just petered out. He says he told her to stop, but we’re never going to prove that. The only people who’ll ever know the truth are the two of them.’
‘Make that the one of them,’ says Baxter, folding his arms. ‘Fisher doesn’t remember either way. Allegedly.’
Fawley puts down his mobile, takes a breath. ‘OK. Just because we don’t have sufficient evidence to run with this won’t stop people expecting us to. Or assuming that if we don’t, it must be down to either bias, incompetence or undue influence.’ He stands up now, tucks his phone into his jacket. ‘I’ve arranged to see the CPS specialist rape prosecutor this afternoon. If they say it’s worth pursuing, we’ll keep pushing; if they don’t, we can drop it with a clear conscience and reasonable air cover.’
‘If you drop this case it’ll be because I say so. And not before.’
They swing round. It’s Superintendent Harrison, in the doorway.
‘And in the meantime, perhaps someone could explain to me how come it’s suddenly all over the bloody internet?’ Fury is pulsating off him like microwaves.
Silence.
You can almost hear people holding their breath, but Fawley stares him out. ‘I wasn’t aware that it was –’
‘Sharpen up, Inspector,’ says Harrison, striding across the room and thrusting a sheet of paper in his face. ‘Look at this stuff – Twitter, Facebook – the press office are imploding – I’ve had Fisher’s lawyer on the phone, the ACC wants someone’s head on a spike –’
And it’s not going to be Harrison’s. That much is clear.
‘I can assure you, sir,’ Fawley begins, ‘that no one on my team has been speaking to the press.’
Because it just isn’t worth it. Because this is exactly the sort of shit that was bound to follow, and they all know it.
But Harrison isn’t listening. ‘Don’t assure me, Fawley. If your lot didn’t do this, find out who did. And fast. Otherwise it’ll be your sorry arse in front of the ACC explaining why not.’ He hurls a glance round the rest of the team. ‘And in the meantime, I suggest the rest of you just do your bloody jobs.’
He casts another furious stare at Fawley then sweeps out of the room, taking all the remaining oxygen with him.
* * *
Sent: Tues 10/07/2018, 10.35 Importance: High
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: FATAL INCIDENT ALERT: WALTON WELL BRIDGE
At approx 01.25 hours this morning, 10/07/18, a crew of Network Rail engineers working on the line north of Oxford station saw suspicious activity on the above bridge. A freight locomotive was due to pass along the line, but the crew were able to phone through to the driver and halt the train at the last moment. However, the person discovered below the bridge was found to be already deceased. There were no identifying items or documents on the body. The initial assumption was suicide, but examination at the scene identified some injuries that may not be consistent with a death consequent on a fall from height. That being the case, I have fast-tracked the PM.
C. R. Boddie will officiate, and one of my officers will attend.
I will keep you informed.
Karl Jacobs
Inspector, British Transport Police, Oxfordshire
Oxford Railway Station, Park End St, Oxford OX1 1HN
* * *
Baxter puts his hand up for tracing the Twitter rumour on the grounds that it would have come his way anyway, and he knows from experience that stepping up is a better look than crapped on.
He has a private bet with himself that Fawley will be chivvying within the hour, but it’s barely half that when he looks up from his computer to see the DI standing there. He looks harassed, more harassed than usual, even allowing for the super-charged Super.
‘Any progress?’
Baxter sits back. ‘Well, I think I may have worked out which account it started from. Fisher’s never mentioned by name but if you’re part of that whole Oxford thing I bet it’d be pretty bloody obvious who they’re referring to.’
Fawley comes round and stands behind him, bending over the screen. ‘Show me.’
The phone rings now and Quinn picks up. ‘CID.’ He listens for a moment, then, ‘OK, give me that address again – 62a Shrivenham Close, Headington. Right. We’ll send someone over.’
He puts the phone down and gets to his feet, tugging his jacket off the chair. ‘Ev? Think I’ll need you with me on this one.’
She looks up. ‘Problem?’
‘Woman’s been reported missing. Didn’t turn up for work today and hasn’t been answering her phone. A colleague’s just been over to check and found the front door open but no one inside. That was Uniform on the blower – given no one’s seen or spoken to her for over twelve hours they don’t want to take any chances. They want one of us to take a look.’
* * *
[ARCHIVE OF TONY BLAIR ACCEPTANCE SPEECH, ELECTION NIGHT 1997. FADE TO ‘THINGS CAN ONLY GET BETTER’ – D:REAM]
[FADE OUT]
[JOCELYN]
Things may have been about to get better for the country, but for some people 2nd May 1997 marked the very worst of times.
A young girl called Paula, for one. She spent that night in A&E at Manchester Royal Infirmary, after being attacked and sexually assaulted.
And for Gavin Parrie, that night triggered a chain of events that led eventually to his arrest, conviction and 18 years’ imprisonment for the rape and attempted rape of seven young women in the Oxford area.
So how did an isolated albeit brutal incident in Manchester get linked to a series of assaults that took place almost a year later, and nearly two hundred miles away?
I’m Jocelyn Naismith, and I’m the co-founder of The Whole Truth, a not-for-profit organization that campaigns to overturn miscarriages of justice. This is Righting the Wrongs, series 3: The Roadside Rapist Redeemed?
Chapter two: Paula
[THEME SONG – AARON NEVILLE COVER VERSION OF ‘I SHALL BE RELEASED’]
[JOCELYN]
We’re calling this young woman Paula, but that’s not her real name. Her case has never come to trial, and her identity has always been protected, but even if we can’t divulge her name we’ve been able to piece together a broad narrative of her life from people who knew her.
Paula had been in the care system since she was 6 years old. Her mother was a drug addict, and she never knew her father. Like Gavin Parrie, she’d dropped out of school early, and by 16 she was earning her living as a sex worker. None of that, of course, excuses what happened to her, but it does explain what she was doing in a known red-light area, in the early hours of the morning.
But Paula wasn’t raped by a client, nor by one of the regular cruising punters. She’d never seen her assailant before. But she did see him. And in due course she was asked to identify him in a line-up. A line-up that included Gavin Parrie.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We know why Paula was on Lockhart Avenue that night. But what about Gavin – was he there, and if he was, what was he doing?
The answer, of course, is simple.
Sex.
By early 1997 the relationship between Gavin and his wife, Sandra, was breaking down.
[SANDRA]
‘All we seemed to do was argue. About the kids, the house, money. Especially money. His brothers both had proper trades but he was still stuck doing casual work, and going cap in hand to them for the odd labouring job here and there. I think he just found it humiliating, especially with Bobby, him being younger and all that. In the end he spent most of his time sitting about on the couch all day watching TV and drinking cider. And then he’d be out all hours at night and rolling in pissed just when I was trying to get the kids up for school.’
[JOCELYN]
It was hardly the healthiest of lifestyles, and it must have been about this time that Gavin started to develop Type 1 diabetes, though that wouldn’t be formally diagnosed for some years yet. And just to flag: that’s another one of those apparently insignificant facts that will turn out to be important later.
But back in 1997, it wasn’t just Gavin’s health that was in trouble.
[SANDRA]
‘It got to the point when it was really taking a toll on the kids – they were tiptoeing round him all the time, and Stacey started getting into trouble at school. That’s when I knew I’d have to do something. It just wasn’t fair on them, never mind me. Though I want it on the record that he never ever hit me. Yeah, he was an angry man, bloody angry, but it was all directed at himself. He thought he’d failed. As a husband, as a dad. As a man.’
[JOCELYN]
Sandra doesn’t want to be interviewed about this on air, but it’s clear from talking to her that this wasn’t the only aspect of the marriage that had gone wrong. The physical side of the relationship had all but disintegrated too, especially after the birth of their third child, Ryan, in 1995. It wasn’t long before Gavin was turning to prostitutes for sex.
It was just another example of Gavin’s habitual bad luck that he chose May 2nd to make his first foray into the Manchester red-light district. He was driving a white van at the time – another hand-me-down from his younger brother, Bobby. A number of the girls working that stretch remembered seeing it.
This is ‘Lexi’. That’s not her real name. She’s worked Lockhart Avenue for ten years. She knew Paula back then, and remembers what she was like.
[‘LEXI’]
‘She was a nice kid. Really small and skinny. Some of the older girls used to mother her a bit. I guess they were worried that she was attracting the perverts, looking so young and that. She wasn’t as fragile as she looked, though she was deffo a bit dense sometimes. Naive, you know? Which is the last bloody thing you need in this job. You have to get good at spotting the weirdos. The ones who just want to hurt you. She was crap at that.’
[JOCELYN]
Paula may well have been a little naive, but she didn’t become a victim because of it. She didn’t go with the wrong punter, because it wasn’t a punter who assaulted her. The man who attacked her grabbed her from behind, dragged her into the undergrowth and bound her wrists with cable ties, before attempting to rape her.
And if you think some of that sounds familiar, you’re right: all of these came to be hallmarks of the predator the press would later christen the ‘Roadside Rapist’.
But all that was months in the future. In 1997, all the police knew was that Paula had been viciously assaulted. And they faced an uphill battle finding who did it because there was no DNA, and no forensics. But they did have one thing on their side.
Paula saw who did it. Only for a moment, as he scrambled to his feet and ran off into the night. But she saw his face.
So all they had to do was find him. Because they knew that as soon as they got him into an ID parade, they’d have their man. Simple, right?
Wrong.
[DESMOND WHITE]
‘The first time I saw Gavin was in the custody suite at Northampton Road police station.’
[JOCELYN]
That’s Des White. He was Gavin’s solicitor back then. Or rather he was the Legal Aid lawyer who happened to be next on the roster the night Gavin was arrested.
It was just after eleven on May 5th, three days after Paula had been attacked. But a lot had happened in those three days.
[DESMOND]
‘There was a huge police operation in Lockhart Avenue after the assault. And for the most part the girls were very cooperative. After all, they didn’t want a sexual predator on the loose any more than anyone else.’
[JOCELYN]
As it turned out, none of the girls had seen what happened to Paula, though one of them did see a man in a dark hoodie running away about the time the attack took place. But that wasn’t much use on its own. The police needed more. And after a couple of days, they got it.
The CCTV trawl yielded footage of a white van accelerating away from the area. It was Gavin’s van, still registered at the time to his brother, Bobby. Though it didn’t take the police long to trace who’d really been driving it that night.
Armed with the van’s number plate, they started to piece together Gavin’s movements in the hours leading up to the assault. Soon they could not only place him at the scene, they also had footage of him filling up the van earlier that evenin
g, at a petrol station two miles away.
He was wearing a dark hoodie.
[DESMOND]
‘It was all circumstantial, of course. It didn’t prove anything. But it was enough for an arrest, and it was enough to get Gavin into an ID parade.’
[JOCELYN]
Gavin was taken to the Northampton Road station and questioned there for several hours, throughout which he steadfastly refused to answer any questions. But the police weren’t that concerned. They still thought they had their man. All they needed was Paula to identify him and the case would be closed.
Gavin was Number 3 in the identity parade. He remembers it vividly, because he’d always thought 3 was his lucky number. And perhaps he was right. Because when Paula was asked if she recognized anyone in the line-up, she answered immediately, and without hesitation.
No.
[DESMOND]
‘That should have been the end of it. But things don’t always go the way they should, especially when it comes to the criminal justice system. The police didn’t believe that Paula hadn’t recognized him – some of the officers were openly speculating that she’d been intimidated – that Gavin must have got to her somehow and scared her into keeping quiet.
And then the following day the police came up with yet more CCTV, this time showing Gavin in the vicinity of Paula’s flat on the morning of the day he was arrested. They said he must have found out where she lived and followed her there, but luckily we could account for him being in the area, because it was only half a mile from the Job Centre. And throughout the whole debacle Paula’s story never changed – she hadn’t been threatened by anyone, and she didn’t recognize anyone in the line-up for the simple reason that they had the wrong man. So in the end the police had no choice. They had to let Gavin go.’
[JOCELYN]
And that really was the end of it. Or, at least, so Gavin thought.