Rope Enough (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 1)

by Oliver Tidy

  At the best of times the tension between the few but significant competing factions of local criminal fraternities in the town was like a tinder-box. Almost a year before there had been a similar incident provoked by the vicious assault on a Kosovan by some of the locals. On that occasion the Kosovans had gathered a sizeable force intent on vengeance and had – with a fervour that brought to mind news-film of the ethnic cleansing of their homelands that had served as an excuse for most of them to seek asylum in the UK – gone about destroying a snooker hall and hospitalising several of those unfortunate enough to have been looking for a quiet night on the baize. As it turned out, the Kosovans hit the wrong venue. They should have been at the pool hall around the corner.

  Romney guessed that Stamp would have revealed to Avery the possibility that her attacker was eastern European and Avery would have put two and two together and made his usual five.

  Romney doubted that the accuracy of Avery’s assumptions would have been uppermost in his mind. He knew Avery well enough, through experience and reputation, to be one who quickly resorted to physical violence when things weren’t going his way. The locals he was able to influence and command needed little reason, or excuse, to go and fight another battle in the interracial and intercultural turf war.

  There existed in the town a clear and hostile undercurrent of resentment that a wide consensus of local opinion harboured for the immigrant population that had been foisted on them as a community, like a mini-invasion. In a town that had seen better days economically, for local residents who were struggling with the expense of life and lack of work, it was widely viewed as adding insult to injury as they had watched a steady stream of eastern European refugees trickle into their town assisted by aid packages that included free accommodation, free transport passes and food vouchers. Unlike the bureaucrats who made such decisions from their leafy shires – distant and unaffected by such policies – many of those who had to live with the reality of the situation on a daily basis found such arrangements difficult to stomach.

  Despite the political incorrectness of the sentiment, Romney, with personal and professional experiences of the influx of displaced humanity, didn’t blame the locals for their views. Many of the ethnic population who had settled had sought only to create little enclaves of their former communities and on the whole showed a distinct lack of respect and gratitude towards the culture and the community that had to suffer them. Dover would have to brace itself for further violence, thought Romney, in the inevitable tit for tat.

  As the duty sergeant had said: it was like the old days when Dover had been a proper garrison town supporting a much larger soldiering population than they currently did. Nights of inter-subculture violence had been a regular feature of a policeman’s life and local news reporting. Were those days returning, Romney wondered, only the combatants changed?

  Wherever he was and whatever his circumstances, man, it seemed to Romney, would eventually resort to the tribal animal that he basically was, and once these tribes were established the violence would not be long in coming.

  *

  Romney returned to his department. Marsh was waiting for him with an expression on her face that made Romney forget what had already ruined his day.

  ‘What’s up, Sergeant? You look like someone pinched your new toy.’

  ‘They have, sir.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Someone broke into my car last night and took my digital voice recorder.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Romney, not particularly sounding it. ‘But you should know better than most not to leave valuables in your vehicle.’

  ‘It had Claire Stamp’s testimony on it, sir.’ The DI stared at her, disappointment settling on his stern features. ‘I hadn’t written it up,’ she added. ‘I was going to do it at home.’

  Romney shook his head once and sighed heavily. ‘Make it top of your list to get another statement pretty bloody sharpish and file a bloody crime report.’ He turned his back on her, went into his office and shut the door.

  Romney rang through to the forensic laboratory and asked to speak to one of the technicians involved with the rape case. The voice of the female SOCO that Romney recognised from the petrol station crime scene came to the phone.

  ‘Morning, this is DI Romney. Who am I talking to?’

  ‘Diane Hodge. How can I help you Inspector?’

  ‘I’m calling about the rape at the petrol station.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That strip of plastic – the top off a condom packet – was it identified to a particular brand, yet?’

  ‘Give me a moment would you while I dig out the information?’ Romney waited and listened to the woman’s fingertips tapping away at her keyboard. ‘Let’s see. Yes,’ she said. ‘Lovetex was the make.’

  ‘Good,’ said the DI, pleased for the crumb of evidence, which would lend weight to his belief that this had been a pre-meditated sexual assault. ‘Were any tests performed on it?’ He waited again while she checked her screen.

  ‘It was too small to lift even a partial print from. Sorry.’

  ‘What about a saliva test?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Romney was glad that the phone system was between them. He was no prude amongst his peers, but he was prone to awkwardness when discussing things of a sexual nature face to face with women not that much older than his daughter. And in this case, especially, it was clear to him that any half-intelligent person would quickly make the connection that what he was about to suggest was probably based on personal experience. On top of this, the probability that whoever he was discussing it with would then make the short leap of the imagination to visualise him struggling in the throes of sexual passion to tear open a condom packet and do whatever a logical imagination would lead one to suppose came next brought him further discomfort.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘it’s possible, as he was wearing gloves the whole time, that he may have had difficulty opening the packet.’

  ‘Ah, of course,’ said the woman. ‘I see what you’re getting at. They can be slippery, can’t they?’ To Romney’s relief it seemed a rhetorical question. ‘And if you can’t get into something with your digits, what do you use? Your teeth,’ she finished. ‘I’ll do it myself this morning, Inspector. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the results.’

  He thanked her and hung up. Romney looked up to see Marsh hovering at his door. Frowning, he beckoned her in.

  ‘Sir, looks like we have a jumper in the town centre.’

  ‘That’s uniform’s job,’ he said, turning his attention back to his desk.

  ‘Sorry. I mean had a jumper. White female. Dead in the parking area at the rear of Priory Towers on Priory Road.’

  Romney looked up and said, ‘That’s Claire Stamp’s address.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Is it her?’ he asked, a suggestion of melancholy in his tone.

  ‘She needs an official identification, but the general description fits. Uniform are there. I said we’d be along shortly.’

  *

  Twenty minutes later they were standing in the rain under a thick blanket of oppressive low cloud that had blown in from the Channel with the changing tide. They stared down at the twisted corpse of Claire Stamp. A uniformed constable, dutifully accepting his drenching, held up a corner of the tarpaulin covering her. Romney was keenly aware of the drumming of the intensifying downpour on his umbrella. The pathetic sight of the woman, not so much older than his own daughter, lying on her back on the brick paved area behind the communal bins was one of the saddest he had ever had to witness. She wore only a flimsy night dress, plastered to her body by the rain to reveal her most private parts through the gossamer-thin material. The welts from the rape at her wrists and ankles looked even angrier against her ghostly white flesh.

  Maurice Wendell, the local pathologist, waited patiently to get on with the unpleasant task ahead of him in the most miserable of conditions.

  The quiet and
the visible eerie exhalations in the cold of those gathered sombrely around the body under their umbrellas, heads bowed, lent the scene a funereal feel.

  Choking off the wretchedness he was feeling, Romney said, ‘Any idea how long she’s been here?’

  ‘Most of the night, I would say,’ said the pathologist.

  When had she jumped, thought Romney? As he and Julie Carpenter were laughing their way through the previous evening’s meal? As they were frenziedly stripping each other for intercourse in the warmth of her bedroom? As he was reaching the intensity of his climax? Or as he lay nestled, spent, against the woman, whose bed he had shared, sleeping contentedly?

  Although the scene gave him little hope, resembling as it did the macabre tableau of the ultimate self-criticism that he had witnessed a handful of times in his long career, Romney said, ‘Any evidence of foul play?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’ Romney shot the pathologist a querying, almost hopeful look. ‘Around the neck, can you see the bruising? That’s consistent with strangulation.’

  Romney crouched down and gently pushed aside the mass of sodden hair that had gathered around her throat.

  ‘Sir,’ said Marsh.

  ‘What is it?’ The DI was looking closely at the neck of Claire Stamp, an idea forming.

  ‘She had those marks on her neck yesterday evening. I met her on the seafront. She showed them to me.’

  Romney stood and gave Marsh his full attention. ‘Go on.’

  ‘As I was driving home last night, I saw her sitting alone on a bench staring out over the Channel. I stopped, bought her a cup of tea. We talked.’

  ‘And those marks were definitely on her then?’

  ‘Yes. It was one of the reasons she was there.’

  Romney looked back down at the corpse. ‘I see,’ he said. His disappointment was obvious.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ said the pathologist. ‘Might be of interest to you.’

  ‘Yes, Maurice, what’s that?’

  ‘Let me start by saying that I’ve not seen a lot of suicides from jumping, but the few that I have, none of them landed flat on their backs. It doesn’t strike me as a natural position for someone who jumps to be able to land in, deliberately or otherwise.’

  ‘You’re suggesting she could have been pushed?’

  ‘All deaths from falling could be the result of a push, Inspector,’ chided the pathologist gently. ‘That’s where you come in. I’m merely providing you with the benefit of my experience.’

  The pathologist and Romney had shared many crime scenes in their long careers in the town, and each had a healthy professional and personal respect and liking for the other. Because of this, the pathologist’s remarks, which may have seemed pompous and unnecessary, even something to be taken issue with, by another unschooled in the way that they behaved towards each other around such horrors, were all but ignored by the DI.

  Romney thanked the older man and turned away from the body. ‘I’ve seen enough. We’ll leave you to it. Come on, Sergeant, let’s take a look around the flat.’

  ‘What about Avery, sir?’ said Marsh, as they went in search of the building’s superintendent and access to the apartment.

  ‘He won’t be bothering us in the near future.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Don’t you know? He’s back in the nick.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll tell you all about it on the way up.’

  The building’s superintendent had been loitering in the lobby out of the weather, waiting for the police that he knew would come. He led them up to the flat. Romney thanked him and sent him on his way, closing the door behind him.

  The officers retraced the steps they had taken only the day before. The flat generated a chill, peculiar silence, as though the extinguished life-force in the car park had a symbiotic effect on the apartment. It hadn’t seemed particularly welcoming, or homely, on their previous visit. Now, it felt positively vacant.

  Marsh explained to Romney why the mother was no longer there. She had walked in on the scene that they had left the day before and decided she’d been there long enough. She’d packed her bag and left. Romney aired the thought that he wouldn’t be the one who made the call that got her back for the official identification of the body. The implication being that Marsh would. He added that the woman would now be someone who would need to be spoken to officially, whatever the outcome of their further investigations – suicide or murder.

  ‘Do suicides shut doors after them?’ said Romney, taking in the firmly closed patio doors that led to the balcony beyond and from which Claire Stamp had plunged to her death. ‘That’s two things that give me hope this isn’t a suicide.’

  ‘I’ll tell you a third, sir. When I was having my chat with her last night, she was making plans. She might have been sitting on a bench on the seafront in the middle of winter in the dark, but she wasn’t there thinking about walking into the sea. I’d swear to that.’

  ‘You might have to.’

  ‘She told me that Avery had been physical with her. That’s when she showed me the marks around her neck. She said that was it for her. He’d told her to get out anyway. She was thinking of going to stay in Blackpool with her sister.’

  ‘You’re sure she wasn’t just telling you what was necessary to get rid of you? Maybe you had stumbled on her as she was going to do away with herself in the Channel and she changed her mind and came back here to do it anyway.’

  ‘No, sir. She didn’t strike me as the least bit suicidal.’

  ‘Well, if she didn’t jump then she was pushed. And who could have pushed her?’

  ‘Anyone.’

  ‘True, but why? There’s always got to be a bloody good reason for something like that. Why would anyone want to push her, throw her off the fourth floor? Who would have the motive and the opportunity?’

  ‘Avery?’

  ‘Naturally, he’d be my first choice. Perhaps she had something on him that she’d be able to screw some money out of him over.’

  ‘She told me that he had agreed to give her some money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Didn’t say, but I got the impression she wasn’t worried about funds. Maybe he changed his mind while she was out.’

  ‘So maybe he had the motive, but did he have the opportunity? I’m not talking about access to the flat, we know that. I’m talking about was he down at The Castle smashing immigrants’ skulls, or, worse still, already under arrest?’

  A long moment’s silence was enough depressing contemplation for Romney. ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a good look round. We’ll keep an open mind on how she got down there. You know what we’re looking for specifically: suicide note, sign of a struggle.’ He broke off. ‘I don’t suppose?’ He fished a pen out of his pocket and moving to the patio doors used it to apply pressure on the handle. The door began an easy slide. ‘Too much to hope it’d be locked.’ He slid it shut again looking through the glass at the balcony. ‘Best let SOCO have a look out there before we go traipsing around.’

  After a cursory look around the lounge the pair moved off and began their search of the rest of the apartment. It was understood between them both that what they were looking for in the other rooms was anything of an illegal nature that could be linked with Avery.

  They met again in the corridor a few minutes minutes later. Neither had uncovered anything notable.

  ‘Right,’ said Romney. ‘I’ll get back to the station, find out the timings for last night’s unfolding events. I’ll send Grimes over here. I want you two to interview as many of the neighbours as you can find. Place like this, someone must have seen something. Wait for Grimes and then start with the caretaker.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Claire Stamp’s testimony. Of the rape.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Well that’s gone now hasn’t it? Where did you lose it?’

  ‘It was on the front seat of my car when I stopped to tal
k to her on the seafront.’

  ‘Have you reported it?’

  She shook her head. ‘The car wasn’t locked.’ Romney’s face maintained a blank look. ‘I came back to the vehicle after I’d had a cuppa with her, and it was gone.’

  ‘Anything else missing?’

  ‘Some change.’

  ‘I can see why you wouldn’t want to report it. Not a great advert for car security, are you?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m sorry.’

  Despite deserving to have a strip torn off her for both her lax example and the loss of the testimony, Romney felt reluctant to do so given the selfless act of charitable kindness that she had demonstrated by stopping and talking with the victim. That kind of policing Romney liked.

  ‘When did you last see her?’ he said.

  ‘Outside the Blue Moon cafe about seven-thirty last night. I offered her a lift home, but she wanted to walk.’

  ‘Well, given that she wouldn’t have been able to sign the thing, making it a legally admissible document, I can’t see that it makes much difference. Just try to be a little more careful in future.’

  She followed him down the hall towards the front door. As they passed the open lounge a mobile telephone chirped for attention.

  ‘Sir?’

  Romney had missed it. ‘What?’

  ‘A mobile phone just went off.’

  They re-entered the lounge and stood listening. After a moment’s silence Marsh started to ferret around. She found it under a cushion on the sofa.

  ‘It’s new. It matches the one she had the box for. She must have picked it up or got someone to get it for her.’ Marsh pressed a couple of buttons unlocking the functions. ‘It’s a picture message.’