For a brief moment Grace Marshall returned a look of deep thought. Then, narrowing her eyes, exposing her laughter lines, she said, “bugger it. We’ll both be bad cop. We’ve got enough evidence to send him away for a bloody long time.”
“That’s my girl,” he replied, opening the door and entering the soundproofed room.
Steve Paynton was already seated behind the table, hands clenched together in front of him. He glanced up at them, unclenched his hands and tugged at the front of the all-in-one white forensic suit.
“Why the fuck have you put me in this?” he demanded truculently.
“Your clothes have been seized for forensics,” Hunter responded.
“What forensics? You’ve got fuck all on me.”
Grace and Hunter sat down opposite. Hunter slid the file across to Grace. They had already decided, given Steve Paynton’s attitude towards women, that it would rattle him more if she was to lead the interview.
Grace opened up the file, being careful not to show the photos they had found, and then she switched on the tape recording machine.
“This interview is being tape recorded,” she began, and went through the preliminaries; the opening preamble to any police taped interview, the caution and confirmation that he did not wish the services of a solicitor.
“Don’t fucking need one” he asserted.
Grace chided him child-like with a wagging finger, demanding he refrain from swearing for the purposes of the tape, and then continued with her questioning, but in a calm-matter-of-fact manner, in an effort to throw him off.
“We have a statement from a Susan Siddons, whom I believe you were once in a relationship with Steve?”
“No comment”
“Susan says that on a regular basis you would beat her. Is that correct?”
“No comment.”
“Are you going to sit there all day saying no comment?”
“No comment.” He stared hard into Grace’s eyes and smirked.
Grace patiently went through the statement taken from Susan Siddons, outlining every one of the beatings Steve had dealt her. He continued to respond with ‘no comment’ and then Grace changed tack to discuss the assaults on Carol Siddons, Sue’s daughter. His only change in answer came when he was asked about the time he was caught urinating on the girl.
“Look it’s her word against mine. Sue is an alkie. If this gets to court she’ll be torn apart in the box by my brief.”
“She wasn’t an alcoholic till she met you,” Grace snapped back.
Hunter touched the back of Grace’s hand and shot a quick glance at her, raising his eyebrows.
Grace knew that he was silently willing her to not let Paynton get under her skin.
She took a deep breath and then flicked over to the pages of Margaret Brown’s statement.
“Do you remember Mary Bennett?” Grace said referring to Margaret’s original birth name.
“Should I?” he replied arrogantly and then leaned back in his seat, clasping his hands behind his head.
“You should do. You were in a relationship with her for two years during the nineteen eighties.”
“A lot of water under the bridge since then, Constable. Refresh my memory.”
Grace again patiently read over Mary’s statement, careful to detail every incident of assault and introducing the numerous times he had raped her whilst being in fear of being beaten.
“Rape you say.” He rocked forwards and stroked his chin. “Definitely not rape. I would say it was consensual sex. She liked it rough if I recall. Don’t all women?”
Grace took another deep breath, exhaled slowly.
“Mary says she came home from bingo one night and found you had stripped her five year old daughter Samantha and were photographing her,” she said calmly.
Grace saw an immediate reaction to his look. His face had lost that cockiness.
He said after a long pause “No comment.”
Then Grace took out some of the photographs they had recovered from the tin under the bath. They were in two separate evidence bags, each one containing a number of images.
She slid out five photos from one of the bags.
“For the tape” she continued, “I am now showing the defendant exhibit one - five colour photos of a pre-pubescent girl. She is naked in each one and two of them focus on her genitalia.”
The colour drained from Paynton’s face. Grace knew that she had him.
She continued. “These have been identified by Mary Bennett as being those of her daughter Samantha, then aged five, and corroborate her statement. Can you tell me why we found these hidden in your house?”
He remained silent.
Grace opened up the second exhibit bag and removed four faded photographs. She slid them across the desk directly in front of his face.
“I am showing the defendant four colour photographs of a pre-pubescent girl.” She paused staring into Steve Paynton’s ashen face. “Two of these are naked, and two show the girl wearing just a pair of white panties,” she continued. “This girl has been identified as being the daughter of Susan Siddons - Carol Siddons, - whose body was recently discovered buried on the site of the old Manvers Colliery.”
“Whoa. Whoa.” he shouted. “Just a minute, where’s this fucking going? You’re trying to pin her murder on me aren’t you?”
“Never mind you shouting the odds saying we’re trying to pin the murder of Carol Siddons on you,” Grace retorted her own voice now raised a pitch higher. “We know you lived with Carol and her mum for some time. We also know that you were violent towards them, and you have a history of violence, and now we have found these nude photographs of Carol when she was only a child hidden in your bathroom. Join the dots Steve.”
He dropped his head into his hands, and then rubbed his forehead feverishly.
After about thirty seconds he stopped, snapped bolt upright and banged his hands on the table. “All right you’ve got me,” he snarled. “But I ain’t done no murder. I had nothing to do with killing Carol or any other girl. Yes I photographed them, but it was fun like, I’m no pervert. And yes I’ll admit that I slapped Sue and Mary about but that’s it. Okay? That’s it.”
“Come on now Steve, you’ve made a start now. That’s the hardest part over. Now just get it off your chest and tell us the rest. Shall I make it easier for you.” Grace reached forward fixing his gaze with her own.
A mixture of fear and hate played across Paynton’s face.
Grace continued. “I think as Carol got older she got the courage to tell you what you had done was wrong and that she was either going to tell her mother or the police. You couldn’t afford that to happen and you realized you had to silence her once and for all.”
“No.” he shouted and banged a fist on the table “You’re twisting this. Yes I photographed her, but that’s it. I didn’t harm her like you’re saying. I didn’t fucking kill her.”
* * * * *
Hunter ‘high fived’ Grace and punched the air as they left the interview room an hour later. The interview hadn’t ended entirely as they had wanted, but they had made a pretty good start to one of many questioning sessions that would be conducted over the next thirty-six hours. Steven Paynton had fully confessed to the brutal beatings against both women and went some way to admitting he had forced Mary Bennett to have sex against her will.
Hunter knew that at least would give CPS enough evidence to consider a charge of rape.
Finally Paynton admitted taking indecent photographs of Samantha Bennett and Carol Siddons when he had been living with their mothers. But no matter how hard they had pressed they couldn’t move him on Carol’s murder. Hunter hoped that would be only a matter of time.
- ooOoo –
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAY TWENTY: 25th July
The headline ‘DEARNE MURDERS – SUSPECT HELD’ brought a smile to his lips. He’d read the storyline in the local Barnwell Chronicle several times and the thought that someone else was taking the
rap for him only boosted his confidence.
He knew it would mean that those around him would be more relaxed and less suspicious, enabling him to go about his activities again without raising so much as an eyebrow.
He rested the compact digital camera on the sill of the open car window, monitoring the crowd through the two inch screen. The camera had been a marvellous buy for the price. Small and discreet enough to hide in the palm of his hand and yet powerful enough with its 10X zoom to pick out the finest detail at fifty yards.
He checked and double checked his rear view mirror again, and then scoured the faces of the bustle of parents hovering outside the school, attentive to any suspicious reaction, especially as he had now parked in the same spot for the past week whilst he waited and watched out for her. He took a fleeting glance at his watch again. She was late today. Or had he already missed her. He hoped not. He especially liked to see her in her school uniform. And he also knew that this would be his last opportunity to catch her in her uniform for some time; the school’s were breaking up today for the annual six-week summer hols.
At the edge of his peripheral vision he caught sight of her, coming his way from a different part of the school. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds just as she emerged from a row of trees close to the boundary fence. For a second it cast a halo effect on her mane of blonde highlighted hair, and he snapped off a shot. He wasn’t too concerned about the composition of the shot because he knew he could play with the image later on his computer to get the effect he wanted. He wondered why she had been so late for him. He zoomed in and caught the frown creasing her pretty face. Something or someone was troubling her. He snapped another shot of her chewing at a finger. She looked particularly attractive today. Was that a hint of mascara around her beautiful brown eyes?
He took another picture of her climbing into her mother’s car, catching more thigh than normal as her short, grey school skirt rode up her legs, before she went partially out of his sight as she slammed the passenger door shut. There was a brief exchange of words between her and her mother before they pulled away from the kerb. He wondered what that was about.
Dropping the camera onto the seat beside him he took another glance around. He let out a deep breath as soon as he was satisfied he had not attracted any unwarranted attention, and then he put his car in gear and slowly crept away.
He drove the three miles to his usual quiet spot and veered off the road onto the dirt track to the woods. He edged slowly along the tree line until he was on the long stretch where he knew he would have a good view of anyone approaching from a distance, and then he turned off the ignition.
He wound down both front windows to listen to the sounds around and picked up his camera and started to go back through the images he had captured. He was particularly interested in the ones he had caught of her two nights ago when he had crawled to the bottom of her garden, waiting for her to go to her room. It had reminded him of his teenage years when he had sneaked around his neighbours’ properties with the camera his father had left him, snapping away as they emerged from their bathrooms.
When she had come from the shower he had set the camera to video mode, watching her as she gently rubbed the moistness from that long mane of hair. He particularly liked the way the light glistened on her face and neck and shoulders. He had captured her petite, slender form perfectly.
Viewing this was almost as good as being in the room itself with her.
He found himself getting excited again. He felt the rush of desire as a burst of testosterone surged through him. He set the camera on the dashboard of his car, switched to playback mode, cranked back his seat, unbuttoned his jeans and began to masturbate.
* * * *
“Harder, faster.” barked Jock Kerr, setting all his weight behind the leather punch-bag. “C’mon son, thirty more seconds, put it in.”
Hunter’s gloved hands pummelled the sand-filled bag in piston-like fashion. Every muscle in his arms felt as though it was on fire and beads of sweat ran from his forehead, down the sides of his face and neck, adding to the already soaked patch on the front of his gym vest.
“Okay son, that’s it. Good work, call it a day,” ordered his father in his strong Glaswegian lilt.
Hunter punched the bag twice, hard for luck, then dropped his guard and rested his chin on his upper chest taking in great gulps of air. He felt physically drained almost to the point of sickness, and yet he was mentally alert, pleased that he had managed an hour of his father’s training. Hunter loved his boxing sessions in his father’s gym. His passion for them was almost on a par with his painting, but unlike finding enough time for his art, he knew he could always squeeze in an hour or two at the gym several times a week. It also gave him quality time with his dad, and it had the added bonus of sharing a well-earned pint or two with him after in his local working-men’s club. Inevitably conversation revolved around Hunter’s job or the distant memories of his father’s boxing days.
On a repeated basis he found himself listening to the potted version of his father’s life changing experiences. The same story, over and over again, of how he had boxed since he was a young boy back in his native Scotland. Explaining in detail how he had been introduced to it by his father, Hunter’s grandfather, so that he ‘could stand up for himself.’ He had very quickly discovered he had a natural flair for the pugilistic art, and so as a teenager he had been taken on by an ex-professional at one of Glasgow’s leading clubs and had been coached to a high level. Then he would re-run some of the fights in animated fashion, especially when he had got to the part where he told Hunter he found himself selected to compete in the Commonwealth games. And especially how, at seventeen, he had won a Bronze medal and that had carved the way for a professional career. His story tailed off when he told him about the bout which ended his career. He picked up a nasty cut just above his eye, where the flesh is at its thinnest, and despite several skin grafts, the scar opened with every fight and so at twenty-two years old his career was over.
Then with immense pride he would pick up the story again, telling him, that rather than turn his back on the sport he was good at he had worked even harder and immersed himself fully in the training side of the game. His father’s story always ended on a note of sadness as he explained how he had soon come up against the seedier side of the fight game, finding himself constantly warding off some of the undesirables, especially those involved with the Glasgow gangs.
Hunter always wondered why he would go quiet at this point of the story and would find something else to say or do. Though his father would return to the story later, telling him that when he discovered that he had a child on the way, he decided he had had enough of Scotland, and moved down to Yorkshire with his pregnant wife, where he began a new phase in his life, setting up one of the best boxing gym’s in the area, which earned him a very good living. He always ended his life tale by putting an arm around his shoulders and telling Hunter that his birth six months later changed his life.
Hunter leaned against the tiled wall of the shower area rolling his neck slowly whilst the warm jet of water swept away the sweat from his head, along the curve of his back, and away down his legs. That felt really good, he said to himself as he shut off the shower and padded into the changing area. As he dried himself he switched back into work mode, recalling the previous night’s telephone conversation with Barry Newstead.
He had kept in daily touch with Barry since the interview with Susan Siddons, updating him as to the latest developments in the investigation into the two murders. He had also shared the predicament of Paul Goodright, particularly raising the issue of how he could legitimately introduce the cardigan as evidence without it being subject to too much scrutiny, especially if it proved to be a vital piece of evidence to the enquiry. If anyone could resolve this, he had told himself, it would be Barry. After all he had employed so many unorthodox methods in his past; Hunter had no doubt that he would have been involved in something pretty similar over the ye
ars, especially the era which Barry had moved in during his career. The phone call yesterday evening had proved him right.
“I’m your guardian angel,” Barry had begun. “Meet me in the pub after work tomorrow, and bring that young Goodright with you. He can keep me in beer all night whilst I reveal all and keep him out of the proverbial shite.”
As he had pressed the phone to his ear Hunter could almost visualize the smug grin on Barry’s face as they discussed details of when and where they should meet.
He dressed hurriedly, slinging on a T-shirt over a pair of jeans, and then stuffed his sweaty training gear into his bag. As he left the gym he could hear his father turning off the lights and closing doors behind him throughout the building.
Hunter popped the locks of his car and was about to open the driver’s door when the shuffle of feet resounded behind him. Before he had time to turn his head he felt a sharp blow to his back, directly over the region of his right kidney. The sickening stab of pain was instantaneous and his knees buckled beneath him. A sea of stars blurred his vision as he reached out to stop himself falling further. Another blow caught the side of his head, sending him crashing against his car door and throwing him onto his back. He let out a groan as he slumped to the pavement, but instinctively snapped open his eyes to see who his attacker was. There were three men towering over him and he instantly recognised two of them; Steve Paynton’s younger brothers; David and Terry. David, the younger of the two, was grinding his fist into the palm of his other hand. A menacing grin ripped across his face.
“Our Steve’s asked us to pay you a little visit. He just wants you to know that thanks to you and that fucking black tart of yours he’s on the Nonce’s wing at prison and we’re here to pass on his regards.” He sneered. “Oh and when we’ve finished with you we’re off to see to that black bitch as well.”
Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr) Page 12