by Oliver Tidy
Romney and Marsh viewed the scene from their temporary exclusion zone, each occupied with their own but similar thoughts. A uniformed officer entered the room behind them. ‘Excuse me, sir.’
Romney recognised the constable beside him as the one who had been at the petrol station. ‘Yes, what is it?’
‘The couple who own the place have just arrived.’
Romney and Marsh exchanged a look. ‘Tell them we’re coming.’
It had begun to rain and so the officer had thought it better to ask them into the building, seeing as they owned it. They stood looking frightened and bewildered. Romney, doing a good job of filling the corridor with his size, approached them, Marsh trailing in his wake.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Romney. This is Detective Sergeant Marsh. You are the owners?’
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘Clive and Dorothy Logi.’
‘What’s happened?’ said Mrs Logi.
‘Do you mind telling me who called you?’
‘Peter did. Peter Roper. He works for us on the night shift.’
Romney turned to Marsh. ‘Find out where he is, will you? Hang on.’ Turning back to the couple, he said, ‘How many staff have you got on tonight?’
‘Two. Same as every night,’ said Mr Logi. ‘Peter and Jane Goddard. They do most of our night shifts.’
Romney turned again to Marsh. ‘Both of them.’ When Marsh had left, he pointed in the direction he had come from and said, ‘We can’t go up there for a while. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘Yes, we have rooms here,’ said Logi. He took out a small bunch of keys and went to a door to the left of them. Unlocking it he reached in and flicked on the lights and then stepped back for his wife and Romney to precede him.
It looked a comfortable little bolt hole, thought Romney. Nicely furnished, creature comforts, magnificent original fittings in the fireplace and panelling of one wall. His eye was drawn to a bookcase where interesting spines stood uniformly to attention encouraging further investigation.
‘Very nice,’ said Romney. ‘Shall we sit?’
The couple sat to the front of the settee hands clasped in front of them, anxiety distorting their features. Romney took a wing backed chair and fairly slumped down into it. Something caught his eye on his trousers and he saw to his horror evidence of his recent interaction with Julie Carpenter. Something of this must have communicated itself to Mrs Logi, for when Romney looked quickly up trying to cover the stain with his arm, he glimpsed a knowing disapproval lurking around her eyes.
‘What were you told on the phone by...?’ he’d forgotten the man’s name already.
‘Peter,’ prompted Mr Logi.
Marsh entered. They all looked up at her. Feeling that she should, she said, ‘Both have been taken to the hospital, The William Harvey.’
Renewed concern lined the Logis’ faces.
‘You were saying,’ said Romney.
‘He rang us and said that there’d been an intruder.’
‘What time?’
‘One fifteen. No wait, we set our bedside clock five minutes fast. One ten.’
‘Was that his word, intruder?’
Logi thought. ‘Yes, I’m sure it was.’
‘What else did he say?’
‘He said there’d been an intruder and that Jane and he had been attacked. He said that he’d phoned the police and that we should get here as quickly as we could. He sounded very frightened. Very shaken. He’s a good lad. They both are. Good I mean.’
Romney said, ‘I don’t want you talking about what I’m going to tell you outside of this room. Is that clear?’ They both nodded. ‘But you have right to know what went on here, as the owners. It appears, and I only say appears at the moment, that there was an intruder tonight and that he knocked unconscious the man who works here and raped Ms Goddard.’
There was a sharp intake of breath on the sofa and Mrs Logi put her hand up to cover her mouth.
‘Oh, bloody hell. Poor Jane,’ said the man. He reached for his wife’s hand and she grabbed it in both of hers.
‘How many residents do you have?’ said Romney.
‘Sixteen at the moment,’ said Mr Logi.
Mrs Logi had found a handkerchief from somewhere and was holding it tightly to her face.
‘You’ll be wanting to see them, no doubt,’ said Romney. ‘A PC has been keeping them upstairs. Perhaps you should go and reassure them. They’re quite safe, but they must be made to realise that they cannot come down until we say so.’
‘Of course,’ said the man.
‘Sergeant Marsh, go with Mr and Mrs Logi. If anyone saw anything useful I want to speak to them.’
‘Sir.’
‘Oh, one last thing, is the front door locked at night?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Logi. ‘We’re most insistent about that. Residents’ security is of paramount importance.’
They all rose. Romney held his coat across his trousers.
‘Has this got anything to do with that rape at the petrol station?’ said Mrs Logi, finding her voice.
Romney met her frightened stare. ‘I’m not at all sure about that, Mrs Logi, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t share that theory or anything of the details that you will probably find out in due course.’
The Logis and Marsh moved off towards the staircase. Romney revisited the kitchen. He was standing there thinking when a sonorous voice that he recognised began to make itself heard in the hallway. He braced himself.
‘Hello, Tom,’ came the deep bass of Superintendent Falkner. The superintendent, who appeared to suffer from an absolute lack of appreciation of the concept of personal space, sidled up to Romney so that their shoulders were touching.
‘Hello, sir,’ said Romney, attempting to hide his despair at his governor’s arrival while simultaneously striving to create a mixture of professional pleasure at being graced with the presence of the senior officer and personal dismay at their meeting under such awful circumstances. To his own ear he just sounded annoyed.
Falkner spoke quietly in Romney’s ear. ‘I hate the stink of these places. Cabbage and piss; the odour of God’s waiting room.’
‘What brings you out here, sir?’
‘You know how it is, Tom. Anything with a whiff of serial about it and we’ve all got to look particularly concerned. Talking of whiff, can you smell that?’
‘Smell what, sir?’
‘Sex, Tom. Reeks of it in here.’ Romney drew his coat tighter about him and put his hand to his face. ‘Same as the other one?’
‘It looks like it, sir. Similar MO, but until we speak to the victims we won’t know for sure.’
‘You need help?’
It was a question that no officer in charge of an investigation wants to consider. Asking for, or having help thrust upon one, looked bad and, to Romney, would always suggest incompetence on the part of the officer in charge, or just as bad, a lack of confidence on the part of his senior officer. He didn’t want to contemplate it.
‘No, sir. Thank you.’
‘OK. I’ll back you, for now. You’ve got a week, or until he strikes again, then we’ll have to see. We’ve got to play the game, Tom, you know that. We’ve all got to play the bloody game. If you’ll take my advice, stop wasting your time on that suicide. If this does turn serial, we’ll all come under scrutiny and it won’t look good if it seems you’ve been flogging a dead horse, so to speak, while some pervert’s been raping his way around Dover.’ He sniffed the air again and Romney flinched. ‘Right, that’s all. I’m back to bed. See me tomorrow.’
He breezed out as quickly as he’d blown in and after a minute Romney was left wondering whether the visit had been a figment of his imagination.
Marsh entered the room and came to stand by him. ‘I thought that I heard the super down here, sir.’
‘You did. Just putting in his appearance. Showing his support. Playing his part.’
Marsh sniffed. ‘Can you smell that, sir?’
�
��Cabbage and piss?’
‘No, sex.’
Romney reddened and felt it. It made him awkward. ‘Don’t you start. Anyone upstairs got anything to say?’
Marsh looked at him strangely. ‘No, sir. Apparently, none of them saw or heard a thing until we arrived.’
‘Well they’ll all need interviewing properly, but that can wait till the morning. Diane?’ he called to the three similar figures. She looked up from under the kitchen table that Jane Goddard had been strapped to and raped. ‘How much longer do you think that you’ll be?’
‘Twenty minutes, thirty at the most.’
He nodded his thanks and smiled. To Marsh, he said, ‘I’m going home. Tell the Logis not to come in here until this lot have finished with it. Then get off. I’ll organise a uniform to stay here tonight. Nothing else is going to happen, but I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.’
Romney sat in his car and reflected on it all. He ran his fingers across his face and the smell of Julie Carpenter’s nether regions filled his nasal passages. A serial rapist. In all his years of policing, he’d never encountered a serial anything. He hoped that the newspapers didn’t get wind of it.
***
9
‘Hello Peter. I’m Detective Inspector Romney and this is DS Marsh.’
‘Sit yourselves down, won’t you?’ said the lad’s mother. ‘Would you like tea?’
‘Thank you, that would be very kind,’ said Romney.
Romney and Marsh removed their coats and settled themselves into the good leather furniture. ‘How’s the head?’ asked Romney.
‘Sore.’
‘Stitches?’
Peter Roper shook his head. ‘They glued it.’
‘We appreciate you talking to us so soon, Peter,’ said Romney. ‘How do you feel? Must have shaken you up?’
‘I’m OK.’
The youth perched on the sofa opposite the police officers reminded Romney a lot of Park. The same gawky features, spindly limbs, spotty face and aura of apathy. It added to the whole surreal nature of the similarities surrounding the two rapes. Rapist aside, the fact that both were committed at night and at work premises; both attacks were made on locations where only the victim and a co-worker were present; both attacks used the co-workers – both young men – who were forced to restrain the victims before being bludgeoned unconscious and who were both so similar in age, appearance and character. Such similarities should have narrowed the tracking of the assailant significantly. How many people would know such details of the two places of work and the patterns of the employees that went with them? But, so far, even after all their digging around, not one link could be found to tie the two businesses together. Romney refused to believe that there wasn’t something.
‘We need to know exactly what happened last night. The quicker we’ve got that information, the better the chance we have of catching whoever is responsible before they do it again.’
‘You think that they might strike again?’ said Mrs Roper, bustling back in with a tray of tea things.
‘We have to consider that possibility, Mrs Roper,’ said Romney.
She set the tray down between them and sat on the sofa next to her son.
‘Thank you, Mrs Roper,’ said Romney. ‘I wonder if you’d mind if we had our chat with Peter alone. DS Marsh can take care of the tea.’
She looked momentarily taken aback. ‘No, of course not. I just thought that, you know, he might need me.’
‘It really would be best if we spoke to him alone. He’s a big boy now. I’m afraid it’s the way it has to be.’
‘Right, well, if you want me, I’ll be in the kitchen. I’ve got things to do.’
She rose awkwardly and left. Marsh poured tea into the delicate porcelain cups. The youth declined.
Peter Roper might’ve been through an horrific experience, but, like Park, the DI wanted to give him a good shake and wake him up, slap some life into him. Where was their spark, their spunk?
Marsh laid her new digital recorder on the table between them.
When they were all set, Romney said, ‘Just tell it as it happened. If we need to stop you for anything, we will.’
The youth nodded, drew a breath and said, ‘Me and Jane were sitting in the kitchen. She was doing her studying and I was watching the television. That’s how it is most nights when they’d all been tucked in – the old people. About eleven-thirty Jane said she heard something in the house.’
‘You’re sure of the time?’ said Romney.
Roper nodded. ‘The programme I was watching had just finished. Sometimes one of the old folks gets out and walks about a bit. We have to get them back to their rooms before they wake everyone else up. But when I went out into the hall there was this bloke standing there in the shadows. He had a gun.’
‘Think carefully, Peter,’ said the DI. ‘Are you sure that it was a real gun? Describe it to me.’
‘I don’t know if it was real, but it looked it. It was black, a pistol. Big.’
‘What about the aperture of the barrel?’ said Romney. ‘How big was the opening?’ Roper made a small circle with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. It was too big to be an air-pistol. ‘What happened then?’ said the DI.
‘He pointed it at my face and told me to turn around.’
‘Anything unusual about his speech?’
‘He was foreign.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I hear them in the town.’
‘Could he have been putting it on? Faking it?’
‘I don’t know. It sounded just like them to me.’
‘Can you remember exactly what he said to you?’
‘Something like, be quiet and turn around. I felt the gun in my back and him pushing me towards the kitchen. When we got into the kitchen he grabbed me by the collar and stuck the gun into my neck. He told Jane to get up and stand in front of the table.’
‘Again, can you remember his exact words?’
‘Just something like, get up and stand there. I can’t really, sorry.’
‘All right. Go on.’
‘He took out these plastic ties and told me to tie Jane to the table legs.’
‘Did you know what he was going to do to her?’
‘No. I didn’t have any idea. I thought he was going to rob the place. Use me to tie her and then tie me.’ Romney nodded for the youth to continue. ‘Jane started to cry and he took out a knife. He told her if she made a noise, he’d cut her. Then he threw this hood at me and told me to put it on her. I didn’t have any choice did I?’
‘It might have got much nastier if either of you hadn’t done what he told you to.’
‘He waved me to him with the knife. He was still pointing the gun at me. He got behind me and hit me and that’s the last thing that I remember until I came around later.’
‘Had he bound your hands too?’
‘Yes. Behind my back.’
‘How did you make the emergency call?’
‘I managed to get a knife out of one of the drawers and get it so I could cut through the plastic.’
‘And Mrs Goddard?’
‘I cut her free before I called the police.’
‘Did you touch anything?’
‘I just covered her up and then cut her free. And then I used the phone in the hall.’
‘Describe him. What was he wearing?’
‘Dark clothing: a hoody, black jeans and he had a balaclava on over his face. He was quite tall. About your height.’
‘Do you know what he did to Mrs Goddard?’ said Romney. The youth nodded and looked down at his hands, again. ‘Don’t go discussing this with anyone Peter. Is that clear? People will ask you what happened and you must tell them that you can’t talk about it. All right? Don’t lie. Just say you’ll get in trouble with the police if you do. Is that understood?’ The youth nodded. ‘We need the details kept secret and think of Mrs Goddard. She won’t want that kind of information bandied about.’
As they were le
aving the DI turned back to Peter Roper and said, ‘Was the front door locked, do you remember?’
The youth thought a moment. ‘I should think so. It was always locked at night. Mr Logi is very strict about it.’
In the car outside the Ropers’ post-war semi-detached bungalow, Romney said, ‘What do you think?’
‘Definitely weird, sir. Whoever this bloke is, he seems to know such detail. He just walks in, frightens the life out of everyone, has them doing exactly what he says, no problems, no fuss, no bother. He has his dirty way with the women and then disappears. He’s like a ghost.’
*
At the station Marsh learned that Jane Goddard was still at the hospital. She hadn’t woken from the sedation. It was early afternoon. Marsh left word that she be notified the moment the woman regained her senses.
Romney visited the superintendent. Falkner had made it clear that he expected regular updates regarding any developments in the case, and progress.
The local paper rang fishing for details about the incident. The reporter who spoke to Marsh did his best to get an admission that the incidents at the petrol station and the old peoples’ home were related. Marsh passed him on to the DI who passed it up to the super. Superintendent Falkner used his influence with a contact high up at the paper and received assurances that the newspaper would play down reporting of the incident in return for exclusive access to the story when the police finally had something they could share. It was an easy promise to make, said Falkner to Romney. Might be harder to keep.
When Romney came out of his meeting with Superintendent Falkner he found a message waiting for him that he should call down to forensics who had good news for him. It was Diane Hodge who he was asked to hold for. When she came on the line her perky voice was bubbling with enthusiasm.
‘Good afternoon, Inspector.’
‘Mrs Hodge.’
‘Call me Diane, won’t you? And it’s Miss, just for the record.’
‘OK, Diane. What have you got for us?’
‘Good news.’
‘I could use some.’
‘Traces of semen, and a pubic hair that doesn’t belong to the victim.’