by Luca Veste
‘Must have been about ten, ten thirty at night,’ Vicky continued, seeming not to notice Murphy. ‘Maybe a little later. He wasn’t someone I’d seen before, not on our patch anyway.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Do I have to say?’ Vicky replied, eyeing DC Hashem with suspicion. ‘Only I don’t want to have a load of us lose a good patch.’
‘It would help a lot,’ DC Hashem said, scribbling notes in her pad.
‘Can you promise not to stop us working down there?’
DC Hashem turned and looked at Murphy, who decided to give her a small nod.
‘Fine, it’s down near Regent Road, near the old warehouses. Bankfield Street. We keep moving about, but that’s more or less where we feel best. Usually all we get is lonely auld fellas, desperate for a bit of attention. Can do five or six of them before midnight.’
‘This guy was different, though,’ Murphy said, steadying himself as he moved a little and the sofa made a loud creaking sound. ‘Sam. He didn’t just want a handjob in the front seat of his car?’
‘No, not at all,’ Vicky replied. She had become almost emotionless, her words coming out in a stiff, staccato manner. ‘He pulled up alongside us – there was only three of us standing there at the time, but we weren’t stood next to each other, of course. He checked us all out, then came to a stop beside me.’
Murphy looked her over, wondering if there was something about her appearance which marked her out. She looked younger than the age he knew her to be. Small, diminutive. She could easily pass for a teenager on a dark night. He logged it for further thought.
‘He rolls down the window and I speak to him. He’s not bad looking at all, which meant I didn’t worry at first. He seemed normal. Young, fit. Looked like he’d had a shower, which if you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing, you suddenly start appreciating a lot more.’
DC Hashem gave her a tight grin which didn’t travel to the rest of her face. ‘What did he say to you?’
‘He said he needed someone for a few hours,’ Vicky continued, shaking her head as if she was trying to free the memory of what had happened that night. ‘Offered me a ridiculous amount of money.’
‘How much?’
‘Five ton.’
Murphy’s eyes widened. From what little he knew about the business, five hundred quid was more than women working on the street would usually make in an entire week.
‘I couldn’t really turn that money down,’ Vicky said, looking away from them now. ‘He was in a really nice car, wearing a suit which looked really good, and I just trusted him. He had one of those faces. Of course, when I found out who he was, I wasn’t surprised that he was doing so well. He could sell a lie like no one I’ve ever met before.’
‘What kind of car was it?’ DC Hashem said, not looking up from her notepad.
‘Silver Audi,’ Vicky replied without missing a beat. She then reeled off the first part of his number plate without pause as well. ‘I knew he had the money, but I still wasn’t sure, like. Then he said he’d pay me half up front, the rest when we got to where he wanted to take me. I didn’t really think twice, to be honest. Just gave the nod to the other girls, just in case, then got in the car.’
‘What happened next?’
‘He drove into the city centre, which made me feel a bit safer, then past Lime Street and up that road that goes towards the uni there. Parked up in a car park behind the building and we went up to his apartment. It was all normal until we got inside.’
Murphy made a mental note to check the car park behind the apartment block, to see if there were any records kept by on-site staff. If there were any staff, of course.
‘The lights were all off and he only put on a couple of lamps. Couldn’t really see much, the lights were all red, but it didn’t look like what I’d been expecting. It wasn’t lived in, you know what I mean? He made me take my clothes off and change into something else.’
‘What did he make you wear?’
‘It was like a schoolgirl outfit, which isn’t really out of the norm. Had to do that before. It was when he took me into the bedroom that things got worse. I didn’t want to be tied up, I never normally let that happen, but he wasn’t even listening to me by that point. He was stronger than I’d thought he would be, so I just let him get on with it. All I could think of was the money. It was more than I’d earned in a long time and it wasn’t like he was hurting me then.’
Murphy could sense where things were leading and held a hand up to stop Vicky. ‘Are you comfortable with me being here, Vicky? I can step out if you want.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Vicky replied, fixing him with a stare. ‘It’s not like you’re anything like that. I can tell.’
Murphy wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or not. He decided he would be.
‘He had me in different positions, but it was never any effort to move me. He was just throwing me around, wherever he wanted me to go. He took pictures, I know that. There was a tablet or something on one side and he kept picking it up. There was no noise from it, but I know what he was doing. At first, he was just using things on me, without lube which hurt like a motherfucker, but I just got on with it. I was talking to him at first, like I thought he’d want, but he made me stop. Took my knickers and stuck them in my mouth.’
It was DC Hashem’s turn to squirm uncomfortably now, but thankfully Vicky was still oblivious to the two of them.
‘It turned bad pretty quick. He had me on my front, arse in the air, which I thought was just going to be the sex thing and we’d be done. Then he moved away and I could feel something being stroked against my back. Something thin. I knew what it was when it came down on me.’
‘Cane?’
‘Yeah, I think so. You tell me,’ Vicky said, standing up and turning around. She lifted her top and revealed her lower back. The marks were faded, but still noticeable. Criss-cross lines of red and silver. Murphy tried to count them from where he was perched, but gave up after a couple of dozen.
‘Christ,’ DC Hashem said under her breath. ‘How long did he do this to you?’
‘I didn’t keep track of the time, to be honest. Bit hard to, you know, when you’re trying to stay alive through the most pain you’ve ever been through. And I’ve given birth three times, so I know pain.’
‘Did he stop at that?’ Murphy said, half-expecting the answer to be negative.
‘No, he wasn’t done by a long shot. Once he’d whipped me raw, he . . . he had sex with me from behind, but he had his hands around my neck as he did. At first, it was just pressure on the back of my neck, but then he moved his hands to the front, so he was proper choking me.’
‘Ya lahwy,’ DC Hashem said under her breath, earning a sharp look from Murphy. It was bad enough when Rossi had an outburst in Italian, now he had someone exclaiming in Arabic.
‘I started seeing spots,’ Vicky said, continuing as if she hadn’t heard DC Hashem say anything. ‘Thankfully, he was finished before I proper went under. I thought he was going to kill me. I thought I was done, finished. I thought I was going to die in that room, after everything he’d done to me.’
‘After he was, erm, finished, what happened?’ DC Hashem said, more pale than Murphy had ever seen her before.
‘There was like a switch that went on. Not that he went back to being nice or anything. He just threw my clothes at me, untied me and wanted rid of me as soon as possible. I bolted out the door, half-dressed, but he brought me back inside to give me a bit of a speech. Told me he’d track me down, kill me, my family, all that sort of thing. If I talked about what happened there, of course. I was so scared, I just did as I was told and agreed to everything he had to say. He gave me the rest of the money, said he’d find me if I told anyone, then got me out of the door. Bastard didn’t even give me a lift back.’
Murphy closed his eyes for a second, swallowing down the bile of information they’d just been given and trying to make sense of it.
‘Why didn’t you tell anyo
ne what happened to you, Vicky?’ DC Hashem said, notepad forgotten now as she leaned forwards with her elbows on her knees. Murphy could see she wanted to reach out and touch the young woman, but there was no chance of that happening.
‘Apart from the fact he threatened me? Who would have believed me? I went to the hospital, but didn’t really tell them anything and they weren’t interested in knowing. I found out who he was a day or two later, when I was still in two minds about what to do. I knew I wouldn’t have stood a chance. I went to his apartment by choice, took his money, and that was it. I would have been laughed out of your place. Even if I was a normal girl he would have still won. His type always do.’
Murphy wanted to argue with her, but found it difficult to disagree. No matter his personal feelings on the matter – he would have a very different form of justice for any man who did what Sam Byrne obviously enjoyed doing – the fact remained that it became an argument between two sides. When you factored in that only six per cent of rape cases reported actually resulted in a conviction, it was clear which side was winning.
He gripped the side of the sofa a little harder and wondered if it would be better to let Sam Byrne rot, rather than waste his time finding his murderer.
* * *
Rossi waited for Simon Jackson to formulate a response to DC Kirkham’s question, trying to keep a sly smile from passing her lips. The young man was floundering, beginning to speak, before stopping himself and trying again.
‘It’s a very simple question, Mr Jackson,’ Rossi said, standing up and walking past him and over to the wall. ‘Why would you keep a photograph of yourself with our murder victim hanging up on your wall if he was just an acquaintance you had little to do with?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on, you can do better than that. You don’t get to the position you’re in here, with a lovely wife and young child to boot, if you can’t answer easy questions.’
‘I like to keep things. For sentimental reasons.’
‘You think of Sam Byrne in a sentimental way? That’s a little surprising given what you’ve said so far.’ Rossi was closer to him now and could see the beads of sweat start to form on his forehead. She lifted the photograph off its hook on the wall and looked at it more closely. Sam Byrne was centre stage, dressed in black tailcoats and wearing a large bow tie. The rest of the group were similarly attired, all wearing the same uniform.
‘That’s you there, isn’t it?’ Rossi said, moving to Jackson’s side and holding the photograph at his eye level. She could see his breathing become shorter and heavier. ‘Right next to Sam Byrne. Nice outfit.’
‘Do I need to have someone here?’ Jackson said, noticeably paler now. ‘I’m not being accused of having anything to do with what happened to Sam, am I?’
‘Of course not,’ Rossi said, moving away from him and taking her seat, still holding onto the photograph. ‘As long as you tell us the truth from now on, I won’t take your lies as evidence that you are trying to hide your involvement in my investigation. Sound fair?’
Jackson swallowed and wiped a sleeve across his brow. ‘OK, that’s fine.’
‘Let’s start with the rest of the people in this photograph. Can you tell me their names?’
‘Starting from the left,’ Jackson said, leaning forwards as Rossi placed a finger underneath each face. ‘That’s Paul Wright, James Morley, Timothy Johnson, myself, Neil Letherby, Sam, Matthew Williams, and Christopher Roberts. Eight of us. We were the original members. More joined later.’
‘And what is this? Some kind of club?’
‘Of a sort, yes,’ Jackson replied, some colour returning to his cheeks now. ‘We met in the first months of university. We had something in common, all of us, in that we were supposed to be elsewhere. Our families had all had high expectations for us, Oxford or Cambridge, that sort of thing. We’d all been privately educated, but not applied ourselves enough to join the elite. So, we created an elite ourselves.’
‘And what did you do in this club?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary. We held parties, helped each other out in our respective studies, that sort of thing.’
‘Why would you pretend not to be close to someone you were patently very involved with?’ DC Kirkham said, looking up with his pen in hand. ‘That doesn’t make much sense to me.’
‘I . . . I panicked. That’s all. I have a highly pressured job here. I can’t have anything like this going on around me. I don’t want to be involved in things of this sort. It was all such a long time ago.’
‘We’re talking a few years here,’ Rossi said, growing impatient with Jackson’s explanations. ‘It’s hardly like you haven’t seen each other in decades. You’re not old men reflecting on a youth gone wrong. This is recent enough that you need to be upfront with us.’
‘I understand.’
‘When was the last time you saw Sam?’
Jackson hesitated, the colour draining from his face as quickly as it had returned. ‘Years ago. Probably about the time when we graduated . . .’
‘I hope you don’t play poker,’ Rossi said, giving Jackson a stare. ‘You have a terrible tell when you’re lying.’
Jackson didn’t say anything at first. Rossi remained mute, waiting for him to speak first.
‘I’ve seen him a couple of times since then, but not for anything more than a brief catch up. The group of us would check in from time to time, but honestly, I have no idea how this has happened to him. I have nothing to do with that, no involvement whatsoever.’
Rossi somewhat believed the latter part, but there was something about the beginning of the sentence which didn’t ring true.
‘Just a catch up? Nothing more than that?’
‘Nothing,’ Jackson replied, his voice quieter. ‘We all went our separate ways after graduation. I couldn’t tell you anything about his life now, other than what I have read in the papers. A Tory MP in Liverpool . . . that would have been something.’
‘It would have been something all right,’ Rossi said, sniffing at the thought. ‘How about any of the others?’
‘The same. An occasional email or text. Christmas cards, that sort of thing.’
‘There’s nothing else you think we should know?’ DC Kirkham said, pen poised in the air, pointing directly at Jackson. ‘Anything that will help us in this enquiry? I don’t really want to have to come back here.’
Jackson shook his head slowly, but Rossi wasn’t convinced by the performance.
‘Here’s my card,’ Rossi said, placing her details on his desk in front of him. ‘If you remember anything else, if there’s something you want to tell us later, get in touch.’
‘I will, of course,’ Jackson said, reaching across and picking up the card. ‘Huh, that’s funny.’
‘What is?’
‘I knew a Rossi, or something similar sounding anyway. Back in first year, he came to a couple of the meetings. Could have been Roserto or Roberto. Rossini? Something like that, I think. Can’t imagine there are many Italians in Liverpool.’
‘More than you think,’ Rossi said, her pulse quickening. She glanced at DC Kirkham, who was busy packing up his stuff. ‘Used to be a little Italy near Lime Street, you know.’
‘Hmmm,’ Jackson said, his brow furrowing as his face creased up in concentration. ‘His name was Vincent or Victor. One of the two.’
‘Can’t help you,’ Rossi said, heart hammering against her chest. ‘Well, I think we have enough here, don’t you, Jack?’
Kirkham looked at Rossi then at Jackson, frowning a little. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘If we need anything else, we’ll be in touch,’ Rossi said, standing up and turning to face Jackson. She shook his proffered his hand. ‘You have been very helpful.’
‘I’ll send something to the family. It seems right to.’
Rossi was already halfway out the door and didn’t respond. She was too busy wondering what her brother had become involved in. Her heart rate didn’t decreas
e as they made their way to the car, or on the drive back into Liverpool. Just the single thought running over and over in her mind.
Don’t be involved in this, Vincenzo. Don’t be involved in this.
Twenty-one
It was mid-afternoon by the time they had all reconvened back at the station. Murphy was chewing on the last bit of his sandwich, putting off the inevitable march over to DCI Stephens’s office and presenting the mess of the case they had so far.
‘At least we have names to go through now,’ Rossi said across the desk to him. Murphy was still a little annoyed by her lateness that morning, but was more concerned by what he was sensing from her now. There was something going on behind the DS’s eyes, but he couldn’t work out what it was.
‘That’s definitely an avenue to explore,’ Murphy said, putting his suspicion to one side. There was more to worry about right now. ‘Along with the fifteen million other things that seem to be going on.’
‘No suspect, though,’ Rossi replied, swiping her hair away from her face. ‘That’s an issue.’
‘You’re telling me. All we seem to have at the moment is a bunch of blokes looking like dickheads in bow ties, a girl turning up at the parents of the victim saying she’s been raped, and a sex worker explaining in great, horrible detail how her blood turned up at his apartment. I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if this whole thing started to get worse before it got better.’
‘One thing at a time? The usual?’
‘The usual, yeah,’ Murphy replied, gathering his notes up and accepting the inevitable. ‘I’ll speak to the boss and then we’ll have a gathering.’
‘A gathering? I like that. Makes it sound like we’re going to have an office party or something.’
‘You supply the vol-au-vents, I’ll bring the cheese and pineapple on the sticks.’
Rossi laughed, but it was only on the surface. There was definitely something going on, Murphy thought, but he put it down to relationship issues again. He stood up and made his way over to DCI Stephens’s office, taking in a deep breath before knocking and entering.