by Bill Rogers
‘How did you say goodnight to the two men?’ asked the detective.
Laura looked puzzled. ‘I just said goodnight, I think. And thanks.’ She sounded apologetic. ‘After all, they’d bought most of the drinks. And I must have had a good time, until it all got a bit too much for me.’
‘No last kiss then?’
‘No. I was really woozy, and I felt a bit sick. I just said goodnight, and went upstairs.’
‘What time was this?’
‘I’m not sure. Three o’clock. Maybe half past? Meredith will know. I undressed, got into bed and went straight to sleep.’
‘Did you put any pyjamas on, a nightie?’
‘No. I just left my thong on.’
‘Okay. You just tell me what happened next, Laura,’ said DS Watts. ‘I promise not to interrupt.’
The student clasped her hands together in her lap, and looked at a spot high up on the wall over the detective’s shoulder.
‘I woke up,’ she said. ‘It was dark. I was on my back. There was this heavy weight on my chest. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. Then I realised there was someone on top of me. I could hear this heavy breathing in my ear. A cheekbone rubbing against the side of my head.’ She paused, took a deep breath, and exhaled. ‘Then I realised that he was moving inside me.’
She switched her gaze to DS Watts.
‘I tried to push him off. Told him to stop. He put one hand on one shoulder, and an elbow on the other, and a hand over my mouth. All of his weight was on me.’
She looked past DS Watts, and directly at Jo. Her eyes were filling up, and her words were a plea for understanding.
‘I couldn’t do anything. I tried, I really tried.’
Jo nodded to show that she believed her, and that she understood. It was as much as either she or DS Watts could do without appearing to influence her testimony. The student looked down at the coffee table, saw the box of tissues, took one and dabbed her eyes. It was the first sign of real emotion since the interview had begun. It was almost as though the full horror of what had happened had just begun to dawn on her. She held the crumpled tissue in her hands.
‘It was all over within seconds after that,’ she said. ‘He just pushed himself up, rolled off me and lay there on the bed. I went to get up and found that my thong was around my ankles. I kicked it off and got out of bed. The top sheet and the duvet were on the floor. I climbed over them, went into the bathroom, locked the door and was sick in the toilet.’
She wiped her mouth with the tissue as though reliving the experience.
‘I stayed in there until the light began to come through the blinds. Then I had a shower.’
She looked up. ‘I know I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t thinking.’
DS Watts nodded.
‘Then I got dressed and went downstairs. Mel was having breakfast. “Where’s Meredith?” I asked. “In bed,” she said. Then she rolled her eyes. “With Tom.” I asked her if Tom’s mate Justin was still here. She frowned. “I didn’t know he stayed over?” she said. Then she stared at me with these big wide eyes, and said, “Laura! You didn’t, did you?” I began to cry. She got up, put her arm around me and that’s when I told her.’
Chapter 28
‘So it was the friend who persuaded her to come in,’ said DS Watts. ‘Good for her. I don’t think she would have done otherwise.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Jo. ‘That other housemate, Meredith, clearly didn’t want her to. Probably felt guilty about introducing them through her boyfriend. And he wasn’t much help either. Going on about Justin being a decent bloke really, and how it would finish his career if she told the police.’
‘He’s a legal executive. He should have known better.’
They were standing in the car park. DS Watts held the brown paper evidence bag containing all of the samples individually sealed in one hand, and in the other a small case holding the original tapes and SD cards on which the interview had been recorded.
‘He must have known how it would play out,’ she continued. ‘Acquaintance rape. A few kisses. No foreplay. Not that that would have changed the fact that she didn’t consent. He used minimal force, but it was still force. So, no mitigating circumstances. If the jury believe her, he’ll get six years minimum. If the full impact dawns on her before the trial, and the harm he’s done becomes more evident, it could be more.’
The Operation Talon detective nodded. ‘I hope it doesn’t, for her sake. That’s one of the crap sides of this job. Knowing that the man getting the punishment he deserves depends on how much the woman suffers.’
‘And providing she doesn’t back out,’ said Jo. ‘She’s too nice for her own good. Can you believe that she actually felt guilty about reporting it?’
‘I know,’ said DS Watts. ‘I do hope she sees it through. The message needs to be out there. No means no. If we don’t get more convictions, then the culture is never going to change.’
She frowned. ‘There is one thing I’m wondering about. I know we’ll have to wait for the tox results, but did she come across to you as though she may have been drugged?’
‘No,’ said Jo. ‘I was thinking the same. She was far too lucid. There were no gaps in her memory, no haziness. Nothing more than you’d expect of someone who’s had a heavy night, and is suffering from a hangover.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ said DS Watts. ‘I did a running score. According to her she had two cocktails, shared two bottles of fizz, then had a third cocktail. I know you can never be sure what’s in a cocktail, but taking the average, and assuming she had a third of the fizz, I make it around thirteen point five units between ten thirty pm and two thirty am. She’d have had about eleven units in her system when he assaulted her. But that doesn’t explain why she still had twenty milligrams per hundred millilitres in her blood thirteen hours after her last drink, and seventeen after she started drinking.’
She disarmed the car, stowed away her bag and case, and opened up her tablet on the car roof.
‘This is something I’ve found really handy,’ she said as she punched in the password, ‘and not just for work.’
The menu screen filled with apps. DS Watts tapped one with her finger and began entering data straight away.
‘It’s a blood alcohol calculator,’ she said, as she beavered away. ‘You just enter the approximate number of ounces consumed, the average percentage of alcohol in the drinks, the body weight in pounds, and the number of hours spent drinking. Or in this case the time elapsed since that first drink.’
DS Watts looked up at her colleague. ‘What would you say her weight was?’
‘Nine stone max,’ said Jo. ‘So, a hundred and twenty-six pounds?’
DS Watts nodded her agreement, entered the figure, and pressed a key. ‘I upped the units to fifteen, and averaged the percentage of alcohol out to twenty point four per cent. That’s on the high side.’
‘Here you go,’ she said, handing Jo the tablet. ‘The BAC percentage result reads “Negligible amount”. And the box labelled “Your BAC analysis” states “You are below the safe driving limit and not legally intoxicated”.’
Jo nodded, and handed the tablet back.
‘I see what you mean,’ she said. ‘Either she wildly underestimated how much she’d had to drink, which is not unknown, or her drinks were spiked. All it would take would be for someone to tell the barman to put another couple of shots in her glass.’
‘Or come prepared with a hip flask,’ said DS Watts. ‘She would have needed to have downed one and a half bottles of wine, and eleven shots of forty per cent spirits to register twenty milligrams when the doctor checked her blood. That’s more than double what she claims she drank. In three and a half hours? My hunch is that he did spike her drinks, assumed that she’d be spark out when he went upstairs, wouldn’t be capable of resisting and would only have a hazy recollection of what happened. We see that over and over again.’
‘You’ll only know for sure
when you’ve spoken to her housemates,’ said Jo. ‘And hopefully had a look at the CCTV in those bars.’
‘When I’ve spoken to them?’ said the detective sergeant. ‘I take it that means you don’t think this has anything to do with your investigation?’
Jo shook her head.
‘Never say never,’ she replied. ‘But there’s not one single point of comparison other than the possibility that he spiked her drinks. This isn’t the work of a serial rapist. This is your everyday arrogant, selfish, sexist chancer who sees it as no more than an entitlement. He’s like an oversexed adolescent, with no sense of consequence.’
DS Watts nodded. ‘Well, if I have anything to do with it, he’ll have plenty of opportunity to ponder the consequences.’
Chapter 29
It was early evening when Jo arrived back at the Quays. Max was seated at his desk, staring at the computer screen.
‘Where is everyone?’ she asked.
He looked up and swivelled to face her.
‘Ram has gone to pick up his mother. Andy’s gone home to his wife and family. Dizzy left at lunchtime. She only came in as a favour – it is Saturday. How did you get on? Any luck?’
Jo dropped her bag on the neighbouring desk, and pulled a chair up close to his.
‘Not for the victim. She woke up in bed and found the friend of her housemate’s boyfriend was helping himself. They’d spent a little over three hours in town drinking together. Talon are dealing with it.’
‘Date rape?’
She shrugged.
‘Acquaintance rape, but it comes down to the same thing.’
‘I thought there was a tattoo?’
‘There was, a small one, on the inside of her right thigh. It was supposedly based on David Beckham’s Guardian Angel. The one across the top of his back? But the tattoo artist made a mistake, so he finished it off as an eagle. She had it done on her eighteenth birthday. Regrets it now.’ She shook her head. ‘Not as much as she regrets being introduced to Justin.’
‘A dead end then?’
‘You could say that. At least as far as Juniper is concerned. How did the rest of you get on while I was away?’
It was Max’s turn to shake his head. ‘Not good, I’m afraid. Ram and I haven’t got anywhere with that list we’ve been trawling through. Nothing jumped out at us that would merit being prioritised. We’ll just have to wait for Sarsfield’s team to work their way through them.’
‘What about the ANPR check on Professor Hill, and the follow-up on those dozen vehicles they stopped?’
‘Still waiting on those,’ he said. ‘They told Ram it would be late Monday, or Tuesday morning at the earliest.’
He logged out of his computer and sat back. ‘Look, Jo,’ he said. ‘There’s bugger all we can do right now. I’m calling it a day. I suggest you do the same. It’s nearly two weeks since you had any time off. And we’ve both been working long days. Let’s go home, enjoy Sunday, and we can come back with clear heads on Monday morning.’
Max was right on both scores. There was nothing more they could do until either the spadework paid off or they had a lucky break, and right now she was too tired and angry to think straight. Jo stood up.
‘I think I’ll pay the gym a visit, then have a soak and crash out. How about you?’
He stretched his arms, and yawned.
‘I intend to have a catnap. They reckon it lowers your blood pressure. Then I might have a jog around the Quays, followed by a big juicy steak with a couple of beers, catch up on some mindless TV programmes and then sleep until midday tomorrow.’
Max levered himself to his feet, and sat on the desk so that their faces were level. He smiled wearily.
‘Or whenever it is I happen to wake up.’
The apartment was in darkness. Jo went through to the bedroom, lobbed her bag on the bed, took her gym bag from the wardrobe and realised that her kit was still in the spin dryer. She retrieved it, found a towel, then packed and zipped up the kit bag. Having checked the phone for messages and finding none, she stormed out, slamming the door behind her. In her haste, she failed to spot the note underneath the TV remote on the kitchen table. A hollow echo scolded her down the staircase and out into the atrium.
It was a short walk through the Northern Quarter to the gym. That was one of the reasons she had chosen it. The other was that it operated twenty-four hours a day. That had been a bonus when Abbie was working nights. Now that Abbie had left, it meant that Jo no longer had to keep any evening sacrosanct. It was a bitter kind of compensation.
Despite the fact that the health club was quiet, Jo had to hunt for a locker. There were too many members ignoring the regulation that forbade them storing their kit when they were off the premises. She resolved to complain on her way out. All it needed was for management to empty everything into bin bags and make the recalcitrants root through the damp and sweaty garments when they next came in. That would put a stop to it.
She made her way to the room set up for the various forms of martial arts training that had become so popular among the twenty- to forty-year-old residents of the city centre, as well as those commuters who came for the pre- and post-work sessions. This was not a programmed session so she elected to put herself through an intensive workout using her own bodyweight. It was the best way she knew of increasing one’s lactate threshold and developing explosive power. Not to mention releasing some of the tension she knew had built up inside her.
It was a punishing routine. Twelve burpees, twelve mountain climbers, and twelve tuck jumps in quick succession. A one-minute rest, then a second set with double the number of reps. And a final set identical to the first.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, wiping the sweat from her face and shoulders. Her heart thumped in her chest, her limbs protested. Good pain, Grant their instructor called it. The muscle burn that told you that your own particular physiology was being adequately stressed. If only, she thought, there was an emotional equivalent. One that leached away the heartache.
She heard the door open, and turned. It was a guy she knew as Nat, another Krav Maga enthusiast. Late twenties. He worked in one of the banks in the Spinningfields financial district, she seemed to remember.
‘Hi, Jo,’ he called. ‘All on your own?’
‘You should be a detective,’ she said.
He grinned, and draped his towels over the upright rower. ‘What a sad pair of bastards we are,’ he said. ‘Look at us. Saturday night, and nowhere to go.’
Jo nodded. It didn’t feel like a joke to her.
‘Do you fancy some floorwork?’ he asked.
She stood up.
‘Why not.’
Nat was good, very good. Eight minutes in, Jo was becoming increasingly frustrated. His extra reach had given him the advantage in the initial set of moves, but her low centre of gravity had given her the advantage in the throws. When it came to the floorwork, his weight and upper body strength was proving difficult to overcome. He was already up three submissions to her one.
‘You’re doing fine, Jo,’ he said, as they squared up for the penultimate time.
It was to prove a costly mistake. She was in no mood to be patronised. He feinted with a straight-arm strike to her left temple, following with a swift jab to the right side of her body. Anticipating the jab, she stepped aside, grasped his wrist with her left hand and pulled him off balance. Looping her right arm around his neck as she fell backwards, she pulled him down on top of her, wrapped her legs around his waist, and completed the choke by forcing her left forearm against her right tricep. As he tried to buck himself free, she tightened the hold and locked her ankles across his groin. He continued to resist.
‘Submit!’ she shouted. ‘Come on, Nat, submit!’
She was angry with him, with Abbie, with the bastard who was going round abducting and raping young women. With herself . . .
She was vaguely aware of someone shouting. But it wasn’t Nat. Why the hell didn’t he submit?
‘Sto
p, Stuart! Stop! For God’s sake!’
A hand grasped her hair in a vice-like grip and pulled, causing her to release the choke to stop her hair being torn from her scalp. She looked up.
Red-faced and angry, Grant stared back. He released his grip, pushed her aside, and knelt beside a semi-conscious Nat. Only then did Jo appreciate the enormity of what she had or might have done.
‘Oh God!’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Nat.’ She stood up and looked down on them both. ‘Is he alright?’
‘He’ll live, no thanks to you,’ said Grant, sitting back on his heels. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you? I thought you knew better than this. What am I always saying? You don’t train when you’re tired. And you never come here to work off your anger. Leastways not on your gym buddies.’
Nat was sitting up, gulping deep breaths and massaging his neck.
‘I’m so sorry, Nat,’ she said again. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
He nodded, and carried on massaging.
‘Why didn’t you submit?’ she asked.
Grant turned on her angrily. ‘Don’t put it all on him!’ he said. ‘You know the rule: any chokehold, three seconds maximum. Then you release, submission or no submission.’
She knew Grant was right. There was no such thing as a safe choke-out, especially a blood choke-out. There was a risk of stroke, seizures, short-term memory loss and coma. Even death had been known to occur. She had been fortunate that Grant had come in. Nat had been luckier still.
They helped her gym buddy to his feet.
‘No hard feelings,’ he said, holding out a hand for her to shake. ‘You were right. It was male pride. I should have submitted.’
‘Yes, you bloody well should,’ said Grant. ‘But that doesn’t let her off the hook. She was the one in control. It was her call. If it ever happens again, you’ll both be barred. Now bugger off, the pair of you.’