Persecution

by R. C. Bridgestock

  Detective Sergeant Mike Blake and Detective Constable Annie Glover were both very capable, and like most things, when you do something on a daily basis, it becomes second nature. That didn’t stop Charley thinking that she could do a good job, but she had to admit that she was best placed watching the interview. Picking up on things that she wouldn’t notice if she were interviewing him herself, because the interviewers would be concentrating on keeping focused, and maintaining eye contact with Russell Peters at close quarters. It always surprised the SIO what she could pick up from outside the room, watching the interview without pressure upon her.

  There was no time to sit back and relax. Consultations were required now with Connie Seabourne at the press office. The information given to her regarding the local twenty-six-year-old man, of no fixed abode, who had been arrested in connection with the recent murders and attempted murder, was not however to be released until Charley gave Connie the green light.

  Charley added to her to-do-list.

  Fingerprint samples and DNA to Forensic for comparison, along with the clothes Peters was wearing.

  Was the zipper on any black hoodie found at his home missing?

  The next call that came into Charley’s office was from an officer at the hospital. The doctor treating Russell Peters was concerned about possible infection, and giving assurance that there were no windows in the operating theatre from which he could escape, he insisted that the two officers guarding his patient were better placed outside the door.

  The SIO’s message to the officers was to keep vigilant. Even with one arm, they had seen his strength for themselves, and albeit injured, he was still considered to be a danger to others. ‘Take no chances,’ she concluded.

  ‘I’ll feel a lot better once he’s back at the station and in the custody suite,’ she told Mike.

  It was over an hour before the doctor came out of theatre. He tugged at his mask, and took the hat off.

  ‘The nurse is just finishing dressing the wound, so it won’t be long now before he’ll be all yours,’ he told the officers and PC Lisa Bayliss with a satisfied smile. ‘Forty stitches have been inserted into his wound, and a sling will be the man’s best friend for a while, until the muscles heal. His ankle is not broken, but it has been badly bruised, so he’ll need crutches and care. We’ve bandaged his foot, and fitted a boot to make it feel more comfortable for…’

  He hadn’t finished his sentence before an alarm rang out loud and clear. Turning, he saw the red light flashing brightly above the door and his eyes grew wide. Loud clattering from inside caused the officers to respond immediately and burst through the door of the theatre, to find the nurse being held hostage with a ligature around her neck.

  Chapter 30

  Using a cable wire that he had ripped out of a monitor and wound around Nurse Beth Tyler’s neck, Russell Peters dragged her backwards. He held it there with his still functioning arm, increasing the tightness until she could barely breathe.

  ‘T-take o-one step closer and I’ll k-kill her,’ Peters told the police officers, his voice soft, yet thoroughly menacing.

  Constable Helen Weir drew her taser, and forced eye contact. He looked at her with a mixture of defiance and contempt.

  ‘Release her, now!’ she ordered through gritted teeth. A few moments later she confirmed her intent. ‘Do it, or I’ll fire!’

  Russell Peters burst into uncontrolled laughter, however within seconds his amusement abated, and he screamed out in pain. As if in slow motion, his hand unclenched and he released the cable just enough to allow Nurse Tyler to stand up straight. She let out a life-saving breath, and with it a strangulated plea for help. Peters lowered his head to Beth’s shoulder, and as he did so he tightened the cable around her neck again. He breathed in deeply at her neck, like a man long deprived of a woman’s scent. The nurse closed her eyes to the harrowing sensation of his hot, moist breath against her skin. ‘No one tells me what to do, d-d-d-do you hear? D-ick tease. Y-y-y-you’re gonna die,’ he whispered in her ear.

  Beth Tyler’s colour instantly drained from her face, her lips revealing a tinge of blue. The last of the life-giving oxygen was being forced slowly from her body.

  Beth could faintly see the police officer waving her taser through the air, but her shouting was fading, as if she were entering a long tunnel. She saw the doctor’s face framed against the bright white lights ahead of her, and she wondered if she was going towards heaven.

  ‘For the last time, release her, now!’ PC Weir instructed Peters.

  His face reddened.

  In a last-ditch attempt to break free, Beth kicked out at his injured ankle.

  Peters cried out in pain, and moved as if to yank the wire tighter, but her dead weight was becoming too much for him to bear in his weakened state. When Peters let go of the cable, she fell in a heap on the floor, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His body now exposed, Helen took the opportunity to fire the taser at Peters’ chest.

  With the hostage shaking on the floor, and the hostage-taker fazed by the taser, the doctor moved swiftly from behind the police officers and dropped to his knees beside his nurse, to administer first aid.

  In frustration, Peters’ body struggled to shake off the effects of the taser. He was without doubt exaggerating his contortions, hoping to catch the officers off-guard, but his efforts were futile. Seasoned officers Helen Weir and Lisa Bayliss restrained him in handcuffs quickly, expertly, and without hesitation.

  With rising anger at his resistance, Helen reacted instantly, holding him down by the shoulders. She glared at him with a visual challenge to carry on resisting her. ‘You’re now under arrest for this serious assault,’ she said, releasing her anger and frustration in her voice. Russell Peters started to cry, his frustration at being trapped for the foreseeable future clearly in no doubt.

  Helen was quickly brought back to reality by the sound of further uniformed assistance arriving on the scene, and Russell Peters was carried unceremoniously by them out of the hospital to the awaiting police van. Satisfied her partner was okay, PC Lisa Bayliss accompanied the prisoner for continuity of the procedure.

  He would remain under constant supervision in a cell at the police station.

  In the rest room, PC Helen Weir saw Nurse Beth Tyler before Beth saw her. She was sitting holding a glass of water, from which she sipped periodically, but slowly and mechanically, as if she were in a daze. It was apparent to the police officer that she was in shock. Her eyes were still red from crying, and the bruises were coming out on her neck. It took a moment for her to realise that Helen was in the room, but when she did, she looked up and gave her a nervous smile.

  Helen approached her slowly, and quietly sat down beside her. Beth looked at Helen but everything was a blur. Her eyes refused to focus. She blinked constantly to clear her vision. The images of what she had witnessed would not go away.

  ‘How’re you feeling?’ Helen asked.

  Beth’s lips formed the beginnings of a word, her bottom lip slightly restricting the top to enable her to make a sound. But nothing happened. She tried again, pushing air up from her lungs and across her larynx, but still nothing happened. Traumatised by the horror of what she’d experienced, she had literally been struck dumb. Her eyes took on a look of panic.

  Helen reached out and tapped her hand. ‘It’s okay. You’re still in shock,’ she said gently.

  Closing her eyes briefly, Beth breathed deeply. Random thoughts came and went inside her head.

  ‘Have you been checked over?’ Helen asked.

  Beth nodded her head. ‘Been prescribed painkillers too. Perk of the job,’ she managed, with a brief smile. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘Can you remember what happened?’ Helen probed.

  Beth’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘I was finishing his dressing, and I told him to keep his arm still. I turned to get the tape, and the next thing I knew…’ Beth put her hand to her neck and winced, ‘he was strangling me.’

  ‘Did he say a
nything to you?’

  ‘Yes, he told me he would tell me what to do, not me him.’ Beth screwed up her eyes and shivered, although it was warm in the room and there were no draughts. ‘His hands were all over me.’ She paused and looked at Helen, as though she was considering her next words. ‘I know I shouldn’t have, but I squeezed his injured arm, and I kicked out at his bad ankle.’

  Helen chuckled. ‘I know you did. I heard him yelp, and that enabled me to taser him. You did well.’

  ‘I’ve dealt with violent patients before, but truly he had the strength of an ox. Tell anyone dealing with him how dangerous he is, won’t you? I’d hate for anyone else…’ Tears welled up in her eyes, and she swallowed hard. ‘Doctor Hayes said that I had a very lucky escape.’

  Helen nodded sympathetically. ‘You did, but you can be assured that Russell Peters will be going away for a long, long time.’

  Beth looked satisfied with what Helen had told her.

  ‘Would it be okay if I call and get a statement from you later, when you’ve had time to recover from your ordeal. We will also need to photograph those injuries on your neck,’ Helen asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Beth replied.

  * * *

  In the office, the phones and printers were busy. Dr Hayes was on the telephone to Charley, when Helen knocked at the SIO’s door thirty minutes later, so she stood and waited to be called in.

  ‘I want to thank your officers for how quickly they dealt with the man who attacked one of my nurses, and prevented her sustaining more serious injury. I also want to apologise to you, for asking you to ask them to wait outside the room while he was being treated. I feel somewhat responsible for the whole terrible incident. I’m in no doubt that had they been in theatre, it is very unlikely he would have, or could have, done what he did to Nurse Tyler. I certainly won’t make that mistake again,’ he said.

  Meanwhile down in the custody suite Mr McCloud, the duty solicitor, had rushed to the cells to take instruction from his client, Russell Peters, prior to any interviews taking place.

  ‘I want you to also inform the prison authorities as to how dangerous Russell Peters is, so that they’re aware from the start of his incarceration just how violent he can be,’ Charley told Percy Shaw the custody sergeant. ‘If Peters can be violent towards those that are helping him, then goodness knows what violence he inflicted on those who he chose to kill?’ she said.

  The thought of his dropping the stone on Cordelia Le Beau’s head, and leaving Cath Crowther for dead upside-down in a wheelie bin was abhorrent to her. What did anyone get out of watching people suffer? The murder of Lincoln Heinz was indeed committed by him, solely in an attempt to cause a decoy there was no doubt.

  In turn, Custody Sergeant Percy Shaw updated Mr McCloud with regard to recent events, and his client’s behaviour. After Russell Peters’ private consultation with his solicitor, Mr McCloud confirmed that Peters was fit and ready to be interviewed.

  Charley had been sat in her office, anxiously waiting for the first interview with Peters to start, and that time had now arrived.

  Her door closed, the blinds shut, and the instruction for her not to be disturbed announced, her eyes were glued to the monitor on her desk.

  The first thing she noticed about Russell Peters was his likeness to the descriptions that had been given by his surviving victims, which was indeed a credit to them.

  She noticed how calm he appeared, after he had shown that he was also capable of intense violent outbursts.

  After Mike began with the necessary introductions for the recording device, Mr Michael McCloud turned to his client briefly before turning to speak to Mike and Annie.

  ‘I have now had the opportunity to have a chat with my client about the serious offences that he has been arrested for, and whilst he is quite able to answer the questions himself, he will decline to respond to anything you ask him, which is, of course, his legal right.’

  Mike addressed Michael McCloud. ‘Of course, it’s your client’s prerogative to remain silent, but it does not deter us from putting our questions to Mr Peters, and giving him the opportunity to answer them. After all, he may change his mind when he hears what we have to say. Only time will tell.’ Mike shuffled the papers in front of him, and cleared his throat. ‘Let’s make a start, shall we? Your client has been arrested for a catalogue of offences, of which you are fully aware. I’d like to start with the murder of Cordelia Le Beau, unless you have a preference to start elsewhere?’

  Mr McCloud turned to his client. Russell Peters shook his head. ‘No, but thank you,’ McCloud said. ‘The murder of Cordelia Le Beau it is.’

  Charley settled herself for the duration of the interview. Interviewing was not about diving straight in, pointing the finger, it was about building a rapport with the interviewee and gaining antecedent history first. There was no confrontation, or any challenges at this stage. A good technique involved patience, it was a slow process, but a necessary one.

  Throughout the first interview, Russell Peters’ face remained bland and uncaring as the detectives asked their questions. He declined to answer, just as his solicitor had indicated he would.

  After forty-five minutes they paused for a short break before resuming fifteen minutes later. In the second interview, the detectives started talking in depth about the murder of Cordelia Le Beau, and it was then that Charley noticed that Peters appeared to become increasingly agitated. He was given every opportunity to speak, with long spells of silence from the interviewing pair to enable him to do so, but he chose not to. Each time the officers revealed further evidence, Peters became animated in his expressions, shuffled around in his seat, or fumbled with the sling on his arm.

  The second break was a longer one, then once again the detectives resumed the interview only to be met with the same wall of silence.

  When Mike pushed Peters about watching the others walk over Cordelia’s body, before he returned to where she lay unconscious, in order to drop the stone on her head, causing the fatal injuries, he could be seen physically squirming in his chair.

  ‘You could have walked away. However, you watched a couple who were worse for drink, walk all over her whilst you hid, watching, and such was your intent to kill her, that you then returned when they left, making absolutely sure she was dead. You’d stripped her in your sexual assault, and left your sadistic work displayed for others to see. There was no need for the extreme violence, or for you to kill her, but it had always been your intention and you did not give up until the deed was done, as you’d planned, to kill this poor defenceless woman.’

  Peters shifted his eyes to look down at the floor between his legs, but still he remained silent.

  ‘You didn’t know this woman, did you? You simply saw her as an easy target because she was on the streets, didn’t you?’

  Russell Peters’ stare remained one of arrogance, and the serious charges he was facing didn’t appear to faze him. There was no sign of remorse, he didn’t respond to any of the questions put to him. Yet looking in on the interview, Charley could see that the detective sergeant’s questions were getting through to Peters by his body language.

  Peters’ silence brought the third interview to an end, as the evening drew in. There would be other interviews to follow in respect to the other crimes he had been arrested for. But the burning question remained, would the prisoner keep up his wall of silence?

  Peters was returned to his cell, and Charley praised Mike and Annie for their persistence and approach to the interview when she welcomed them back into the office, and Tattie supplied them with a warm drink.

  Charley was conscious that twenty-four hours in custody to facilitate the necessary interviews would be insufficient. An extended detention period was available to her via the Divisional Commander, and after consultation with Mike and Annie, she promptly requested the extra twelve hours. This would give them additional time, but still she was aware that even that might not be enough to reach the stage where they were ready to
charge Russell Peters with all the offences that he had to be questioned about.

  Charley, as the SIO, was looking at a visit to the Magistrates’ Court in his final hour of detection to request a further thirty-six hours in police custody to be granted. But Charley would do whatever was necessary to keep him locked up.

  It was pitch-black when she left the station that night. The wind had picked up and a splattering of drizzle sprayed her car door window as she unlocked it. Hurriedly getting into the driver’s seat she slammed the door shut. A thought sprang into her head and she reached for her mobile phone and dialled the custody suite.

  ‘Although Russell Peters hasn’t displayed any suicidal tendencies,’ she said to the custody officer, ‘I am worried that he might consider his sling a means, should he think about it,’ she said. ‘I suggest that everyone is extra vigilant with regard to Russell Peters.’

  Chapter 31

  At seven o’clock the next morning Charley was sitting in her office, with a steaming cup of coffee that Winnie had made for her cupped in the palm of her hand.

  Waiting for her computer to boot up, she gave Winnie a grateful smile, and reached out to give the older lady’s hand a tight squeeze. ‘What would I do without you?’ she said.

  ‘And, I you,’ she replied.

  Whilst Charley read the morning briefing notes, Winnie cleaned the office around her, mumbling under her breath that one day the younger woman might want to stay in bed, to let her get on though.

  When Winnie switched off the vacuum cleaner, and gave Charley a little nudge to move so that she could vacuum under the desk, she also retrieved a newspaper from the front pocket of her apron and offered it to Charley. Taking it from Winnie she read out loud the pencilled name in the top right-hand corner. ‘Divisional Commander’s copy.’ Charley looked at Winnie with a raised eyebrow, to see a mischievous glint in her aged eyes in return.