Team Spirit (Special Crime Unit Book 1)

by Ian Mayfield

  The door from the examining room opened and Dr Ticehurst appeared, alone. Jasmin stood. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Having a bath.’

  Jasmin nodded, unsurprised. Most rape victims took up the offer after their examination. After a long soak in a bathroom as luxuriously appointed and homely as the lounge, the woman would find a closet hung with a selection of loose, soft clothing in a variety of tastes, styles and sizes: necessary because her own clothes might be needed for forensic examination. Once dressed, she would be ushered back through to the lounge, where perhaps the worst part of her ordeal awaited her.

  Ruth Ticehurst pulled the door to behind her and shoved her hands in her pockets. She looked desultory. ‘I’m none the wiser, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I can’t find any medical evidence of assault.’

  Jasmin sat down, frowning. Dr Ticehurst sat opposite, where she could keep an eye and ear on the surgery.

  ‘When I say none.’ She folded her arms. ‘Very, very faint bruises on her upper arms, positioned where they would be if someone had held her down. People heal at different rates, but as Larissa’s young and healthy I should say at least a week old. Same goes for the vagina. Old bruising, which is even less conclusive because it could have been caused by just about anything, like a stubborn tampon or even vigorous consensual sex.’

  ‘What else?’ Jasmin said, finding she had pen and pad in hand but was writing none of this down.

  ‘I always save the best till last.’ Dr Ticehurst smiled humourlessly. ‘No trace of semen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘At all.’

  Jasmin shook her head. ‘He used a condom?’

  ‘Negative on lubricant and spermicide,’ the FME insisted. ‘There’s nothing. It’s fairly safe to say she has not had penetrative sex, willing or otherwise, within the last forty-eight hours.’

  Jasmin stared at her. ‘Possibly... a foreign object was used?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Dr Ticehurst unfolded her arms and spread them wide. ‘I’m just a medic. It’s your job to find the rest out.’

  ‘But you have examined her,’ Jasmin persisted. ‘You have talked to her. What do you think?’

  ‘Off the record? My impression - and I want to make clear that this is not a medical opinion but the opinion of someone who’s seen an awful lot of women like Larissa over the years - she’s been assaulted all right.’

  ‘Raped?’

  ‘Assaulted,’ Dr Ticehurst looked Jasmin square in the eye. ‘But not recently.’

  Summerfield went straight from his audience with the AC down to the interview room where Zoltan Schneider was grilling Prosser. Zoltan broke off, and accepted the news that Summerfield was now in charge without surprise. He appraised the DCI of his progress. There’d been very little. To each of the accusations put to him, from Denise Cole to Violet McMinn, Prosser had simply replied by shaking his head. He hadn’t yet been tackled on the subjects of Miranda Hargreaves or Lucky.

  ‘He’s in there, pleased as punch with himself, as if he knows something. Fixed smirk on his face all morning. I think he’s set like it.’

  ‘Trying to wind you up,’ Summerfield said.

  ‘Waiting to see if I’ll blow my top when it comes to asking him about Lucky?’ Zoltan smiled thinly. ‘He’s in for disappointment, then.’

  Summerfield nodded, not doubting it. ‘Got the warrant for Albion Street. Wanna come?’

  Zoltan shook his head. ‘Better keep the momentum going. See if his tune changes when I tell him how Pegley shopped him.’

  ‘Don’t forget to let him have a lunch break,’ Summerfield sneered.

  ‘What do I look like,’ Zoltan shrugged, ‘a Nazi?’

  At the front desk stood a willowy, fair-haired young woman in a bank uniform. The receptionist smiled at her.

  ‘My name’s Juliet Gow. I’m here about my friend.’ Behind her round glasses the woman looked anxious. ‘Larissa Stephenson?’

  When a copper is attacked, even civilian staff regard it as against their own. The receptionist didn’t even need to check her message book. She frowned. ‘We were expecting a relative.’

  ‘Her mum’s at work. Larissa asked for me.’

  This time she did consult the book. ‘I’ll get somebody to come and take you up,’ she said, picking up the phone.

  ‘Thanks,’ Juliet said.

  The team that raided 32 Albion Street was five strong. Summerfield had decided to take Jeff Wetherby, who had a better idea what to look for, one of his own DCs and a uniformed female PC in case Prosser’s mother needed sorting. At Jeff’s suggestion, the fifth member of the team was Tom Walker. Vicky Prosser knew him of old. ‘Thought you’d fucking retired,’ she said balefully.

  ‘Afternoon, Vicky,’ he smiled as Summerfield handed her the search warrant. ‘You’ve seen one of these before.’

  ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘Oh, items from various burglaries. Evidence in six cases of sexual assault and rape. It’s all there.’ Summerfield pressed the document into her hand and pushed past her.

  ‘You again?’ she scowled at Jeff as he crossed the threshold. Jeff smiled and went to join DC Peter Moore upstairs.

  An hour later they’d been through almost the whole house and two of them were now up in the loft. A voice echoed out through the hatch and down the stairs. ‘Jeff!’

  Jeff came out from the kitchen, where Vicky Prosser had been persuaded to lay on more tea. ‘Hello?’

  Tom Walker’s uniform-trousered legs could be seen dangling from the loft hatch. They’d been unable to find a ladder, and Vicky had insisted the space was never used, but Summerfield had been of the opinion that someone of Michael Prosser’s height and strength would have no difficulty getting up there without. Tom jumped down and his knees buckled alarmingly before he steadied himself. ‘You got that list of stuff that was nicked?’

  Jeff took it from his pocket. ‘Er, one silver trophy. Brass candlestick. Wooden Welsh love spoon. A plaster of Paris statuette. Possibly some sort of documentation relating to a flute…’

  Tom looked upwards. Peter Moore’s hands appeared through the hatch and handed him down a cardboard box. ‘Look what we found,’ he said, coming downstairs.

  He carried it through to the kitchen table. Summerfield and Vicky Prosser joined the cluster of heads peering into the box.

  ‘Oh, this,’ Summerfield said slowly, ‘is choice.’

  Even neatly packed and wrapped in sheets of paper kitchen towel, it was clear that most of the fifteen or so objects in the box were in some way phallic. They got them out and spread them across the table, a feeling of grim triumph rising within the group.

  ‘Gotcha, you bastard,’ Jeff muttered.

  But there was no trophy and no brass candlestick.

  ‘Keep looking,’ Summerfield said.

  Lucky was still wearing her grey top and jeans when she finally emerged. She shook off Jasmin’s guiding hand and went to sit down next to Juliet, who put her arm round her shoulders. Jasmin sat opposite.

  ‘Do you feel a little better now?’ she asked.

  ‘I felt fine before,’ Lucky said impatiently.

  ‘You were hysterical, almost,’ Jasmin said. ‘I mean do you feel OK to talk?’

  Lucky pressed her lips together and nodded.

  ‘My God, Larissa, what happened?’ Juliet was tearful.

  ‘I got raped,’ Lucky snapped. She looked at Jasmin. ‘Yes, I know what she’s probably told you. So you won’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me,’ she said with a self-contemptuous laugh.

  Juliet looked puzzled. ‘Who did it?’ she blurted out. ‘D’you know?’

  ‘Please.’ Jasmin tried to calm her.

  ‘That piece of shit down in the cells,’ Lucky said. ‘Prosser. Michael fucking Bayliss, as known and loved by Special Crime. And the reason Dr Ticehurst couldn’t find anything,’ she quavered, ‘is because it happened thirteen days ago.’

  There was a box of Kl
eenex on the coffee table. Jasmin reached out and pushed it closer to Lucky as cover for some stunned thinking.

  ‘That’s right. I’m all eager and anxious to please. My career’s just gone into orbit, yeah? I go home at lunchtime to change and that bastard’s waiting for me.’

  Jasmin’s head was in a spin. Two weeks ago. That would have been... What was I doing? With a guilty start she realised she’d been too damn tired to notice much of what was going on around her. The arson had happened around then - that was it, the Tuesday - so it must have been the day she and Nina had first linked the McMinn and Abernetty incidents and... good God. It had been Lucky’s first day.

  There were a million questions. But she must keep a clear head, follow the line. Larissa must be strong to have carried this around for so long, but how close was she to snapping?

  ‘So you know him?’

  ‘Vaguely from school,’ Lucky said. ‘He didn’t have a key, if that’s what you’re worried about. Got in through an open window.’

  ‘Of course.’ Jasmin leaned forward. ‘Larissa, I’m trying to think how to say this. For two weeks you knew who he was, but you worked the rape enquiry and still you said nothing. I don’t understand.’

  ‘I didn’t know! I didn’t know it was him. I sort of decided it couldn’t be.’

  ‘OK.’ She waited for Lucky to grab two fistfuls of Kleenex, cover her eyes and leave them there. ‘Let’s try to figure out - ’

  ‘I know what happened.’

  ‘Sure you do.’ Jasmin swallowed. ‘You were there. Now you came home. Were you alone in the house?’

  ‘Yeah. My mum was at work.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual?’

  ‘Just that Mum’d left the bathroom window open.’

  ‘The bathroom, it is upstairs, downstairs...?’

  ‘Upstairs.’ She bunched her fists, emphasising it. ‘Why it didn’t connect, right? Our guy had never done upstairs windows.’

  ‘You said he was in your room. That’s upstairs also?’

  Lucky nodded. A strand of hair snagged on her cheek and she brushed it away.

  ‘So you didn’t know he was in the house straight away?’

  ‘You’re gonna love this. No, I didn’t know he was there. If I’d known he was there,’ the bitter edge to her voice grew sharper, ‘I wouldn’t’ve stripped off and been prancing about in my best satin undies.’

  Jasmin let it go, but she knew Lucky could read in her eyes the mental note she was making. She had to pick up on the point. A defence QC would be guaranteed to.

  ‘I thought I was on my own,’ Lucky whispered with a note of pleading. ‘I was wearing nice undies because it was my first day in a new job and I felt good. Is that unreasonable?’

  ‘No,’ Jasmin said. ‘So you did not see him until you went into your room?’

  ‘He was behind the door. I saw him in the mirror.’

  ‘Did you call out, scream?’

  ‘No point.’

  ‘Why no point?’

  ‘Nobody to fucking hear.’

  ‘He wasn’t to know...’ Juliet began, but tailed off when she saw Jasmin’s warning scowl.

  ‘The rest of it’s quite straightforward,’ Lucky said, trembling with humiliation. ‘He raped me, on the bed, and then… left.’

  ‘He raped you?’ Jasmin said. ‘He really - ?’

  ‘He really raped me,’ Lucky cried. ‘He didn’t shove a brass candlestick or a statue or a flute up there, he really, really did it.’

  ‘So again because of this, you did not think it was him?’ Jasmin whispered.

  ‘Because he didn’t... use... a foreign object,’ Lucky said. ‘And the name was wrong too. Everything was wrong. When we were at school his surname was Prosser.’ She looked at Juliet, who nodded dumbly. ‘Where he gets Bayliss from I have no idea.’

  ‘Haven’t seen this guy since school,’ Juliet told Jasmin. She looked shellshocked. ‘He was in our class. Jesus.’

  Jasmin nodded, a haze before her eyes. She was trying to remember her training, trying to imagine herself inside the attack, to empathise and know better when to be gentle with the victim, when to press. This time she couldn’t do it. Lucky was one of their own and this couldn’t, shouldn’t have happened.

  ‘Did he have a weapon?’ she said.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘A knife?’ She felt sick. ‘A gun? Anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Lucky, I must ask this. Did you try to stop him?’

  They stared at one another.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you say, “Don’t,” or anything that - ?’

  ‘No,’ Lucky said, on the brink of more tears.

  ‘No?’

  ‘But, Larissa...’ Juliet said.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You’re a copper. You’ve been trained.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Lucky blinked desperately and turned to Jasmin. ‘Want to know why I didn’t? It should be bleeding obvious.’

  ‘I don’t -’ Jasmin said, at once aware and furious with herself that this sounded like the waffling it was.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Lucky said. ‘Nor do I. Two weeks of endless, sleepless nights, asking myself. I’ve got four years in now, I’ve faced down G20 demonstrators, street robbers, kids with knives. I can look after myself, I know I can; I’ve proved any number of times I can. And some sick scumbag breaks into my house and forces me to have sex with him. I did everything wrong, Jasmin. I didn’t scream. I didn’t fight. I did everything he told me. I lay on the bed when he told me. I even took off my own underwear, can you believe that?’ She turned to Juliet. ‘You’re right. I should’ve used my training. What I should’ve done was bite his fucking nuts off. He knew I was Job. I had every bloody opportunity and I did nothing to stop him!’

  Now she cried. She collapsed onto Juliet and bawled into her neck, her friend’s trembling arms trying absurdly to protect her against the nightmare that had already happened. Jasmin felt helpless. This was not discreet, ladylike weeping. This was the howling of a soul in anguish, a flood of tears flung before a burst dam of fear, anger, shame, frustration only Lucky could feel but could make the others shrink from in horror.

  To stem the torrent took twenty minutes and the rest of the Kleenex, shared between the three of them. There were damp spots on Jasmin’s notebook. Lucky looked ghastly, her eyes and nose red and swollen, whipcords of wet black hair striping her cheeks, thick smudged mascara scarring her face like burns. She looked up with an expression you saw on the faces of beggars outside East Croydon station.

  ‘I get it,’ Jasmin said, her voice shaky.

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘I begin to.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad,’ Lucky snapped, ‘because buggered if I do. So tell me, Jasmin. What do I do now? Tell me!’

  To her despair, Jasmin couldn’t answer. She felt terribly that she was letting Lucky down.

  She got home at eight with no appetite. Instead she settled down with Nostromo, of which she was now in sight of the finish. By ten she was onto the last three chapters and dead beat. She undressed, went and had a bath, poured herself into bed and turned the light out.

  Every time she closed her eyes, she could see Larissa Stephenson sitting in the rape suite, saying things she didn’t want to hear, things she couldn’t bring herself to believe. She tried to tell herself a female cop was at the same risk of attack, remote though that might be, as any other woman. But surely, surely a cop ought to know enough to dissuade a potential rapist, or at least put up a fight. Damn it, she’d seen Prosser. Sure, he was tall, intimidating, evil-looking if you liked, but there was nothing to him. No way should he have been able to overpower a fit young woman like Lucky without even a struggle.

  Yet that was what he’d done to five other women, some who could defend themselves, some who couldn’t; more if the reports were true, reports of boxes filled with dozens of objects whose original owners might never be traced.
Even without those facts, there was no doubting Lucky’s upset, the raw, violated distress as she cried until her lungs withered. She heard the doubts still pitter-pattering at the back of her mind, and felt ashamed. Who could tell how they’d react in a frightening situation? Jasmin, whose attitude had always been that any intruder she disturbed would not remain in possession of his dick for very long, was no longer so sure.

  Now wide awake, she listened with raw nerves to the passage of an express train outside her window; to the engulfing, angry silence that surged in its wake.

  She swore, got up and got dressed.

  The 468 bus stopped two minutes from her front door and ran beyond midnight. One came by with considerate promptness and she rode it to the Swan and Sugar Loaf in South Croydon. Using the map app on her phone, she found her way to a big Edwardian house whose walls were cloaked in Virginia creeper. She pushed open the gate and stepped onto a path through an unkempt front garden. The hall light was on.

  Jeff Wetherby seemed only mildly surprised to see her. With the nervous embarrassment of the unprepared host, he ushered her into a large, sparsely furnished room at the back of the house, with original fixtures that even included a disused socket for a bell rope. French windows opened onto a patio, a rockery and a long, large lawn. These, like the front, looked wild, but it was too dark to make out much detail.

  Jasmin was speechless. All she had in the world would fit into one corner of this room.

  ‘Have a seat,’ Jeff offered, ‘if - ’

  But she was still taking things in. ‘Big, huh?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘Ah! Right,’ she said abruptly, his invitation registering. She chose an armchair and flopped into its enveloping depths. With a heavy sigh she leaned back, kicking off her shoes.