Be My Girl

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘No problem,’ Ed said.

  Sam continued: ‘I also want someone from your team in the CCTV control room, Gary. If he is going to show up, there’s a good chance he’ll be early to check out it’s not a set-up. I want that van on plot and someone monitoring the CCTV before we respond to his text. Will your people be going into the coffee shop solo?’

  Ross shook his head.

  ‘No, some will be alone but some will go in pairs. Don’t worry, they’ll look like customers and customers only. Amber won’t know who they are.’

  ‘Bless her,’ Sam said, her voice suddenly softer. ‘She won’t even know if he’s there. Her safety is paramount, Gary, even if that does mean compromising some of your people as far as identifying them is concerned.’

  Ross nodded. ‘Understood. If we need to identify ourselves we will, but hopefully it won’t come to that. We’ll be in the shop from 12.30pm.’

  Sam swept a hand through her hair and puffed out her cheeks.

  ‘Let’s get cracking, then. There’s no room for mistakes. We’ll only get one chance at this.’

  ‘Will do.’ Ross stood up and walked out of the office.

  ‘Ed, I’ll call Amber. Respond to the text at 12.30pm. Gary’s people will be on plot by then. Did you manage to get hold of Wright?’

  ‘He’s working it up now, but I’ll go and check how he’s doing.’

  ‘Was Wright alright, or did he kick off?’ asked Sam, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  ‘Inspector ‘Never’ did indeed kick off, but he knows he can’t win. No doubt he’ll go and whinge to somebody.’

  ‘I want the area flooded with cops tomorrow and Saturday night,’ Sam said. ‘I want them on foot in plain clothes and I want them on pedal bikes and in cars so they can respond to anything that comes in. We can’t rely on catching him today, and we can’t bank on it being Crowther. We can cancel it if needs be, but let’s have it sorted just in case.’

  ‘Yeah, he knows what’s required,’ Ed said.

  Sam was only too aware how many plates they had spinning. She needed to stay focussed and not allow herself to give more credence to one line of inquiry than another. Today could be the day the case was solved or it could be the day that saw them dumped back to square one. The ‘square one’ scenario would call for some thought around re-motivating the team. If their man was a no show, and if Crowther turned out to be in the clear, everyone on the inquiry would feel deflated. Sam’s job wasn’t just about catching the bad guy but keeping everyone motivated when the investigation took a knock-back. No SIO could ever close any serious case without every member of the investigation team giving 100%.

  Sam knew the stakes were high and a sense of foreboding overcame her… a niggling feeling that he wouldn’t turn up. Was Crowther too good to be true? Would they get any DNA off the condom wrapper? What if, despite all of her plans, he struck again? The last thought caused her to shiver. She knew it was a real possibility. How does he know where they live? How did he discover where she lived? Would he attack her? Sam picked up the receiver on the cream-coloured desk telephone and quickly punched Amber’s number on to the big display. Four rings later and Amber’s voice said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Amber. It’s Sam.’

  ‘Hi Sam. How are you?’

  How am I? Sam never ceased to be amazed by the resilience of victims. After everything Amber had been through, here she was asking how Sam was.

  ‘I’m okay, thanks. Amber, there’s been a text received on your phone. It looks like it’s from him. He wants to meet you. We’d like to do it this afternoon.’

  ‘I thought we were doing it tomorrow,’ Amber spluttered.

  ‘We were, but now that he’s texted today, we thought ‘strike while the iron’s hot' so to speak.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘We need you to leave home at 12.30pm and walk to The Little Coffee Shop on Warkworth Drive. Do you know it?’

  ‘I do,’ Amber said. Sam could hear a level of timidity in her voice.

  ‘Are you still okay to do this?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. It’s just a shock doing it today.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m discussing this on the telephone and not speaking to you in person, but I can’t take the risk of him watching your house.’

  ‘I understand, Sam. How will it work? What do I have to do?’

  Sam relayed everything that Amber needed to know… wear a scarf; be in the shop for 1pm; sit in the window; take her scarf off and put it on the table if she was approached.

  From experience, Sam knew there were so many things that could go wrong on surveillance, and when a victim was involved, the risk only increased. The more instructions you gave them, the more likely they would be to get it wrong.

  ‘Amber, there’ll be undercover police officers in the coffee shop, and undercover police officers following you all the way. I promise your safety is paramount. We’ll arrange the meeting for 2pm. If he doesn’t turn up, leave the shop at 2.30pm. I know that we’re asking you to sit in the shop for over an hour, but we need you there early in case he shows. Is that okay?’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll be okay. I hope he turns up. I’d like to see his face.’

  ‘Once you take your scarf off, we’ll have someone approach you and say ‘hello’. They’ll address you by name. Your attacker will probably walk away. We’ll get him outside. If he doesn’t move, we’ll take him in the shop. Can you manage that?’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  Sam admired Amber’s courage. She was adding to her ordeal, but hoped that Amber’s bravery would be rewarded with a result.

  Once again she reflected on what she was asking of this victim. That phrase, ‘what a job’, flashed through her mind.

  ‘I’ll call you at 12.15pm. I need to know what you’re wearing to help our undercover team identify you. You won’t know who they are but I promise they will be with you every step of the way. Don’t look for them. They’ll be there.’

  ‘I know, Sam. Thanks.’

  ‘It’s us who should be thanking you, Amber. You are a very brave young woman.’

  Sam then spoke more slowly and quietly. ‘Amber, remember this. You know that we are going to be there. He doesn’t know that we’re coming. This is a chance for you to control him. Here’s your chance to take the control off him.’

  ‘I’ll go and get ready. I’ll speak to you at 12.15pm.’

  Amber put down the receiver and found she was shaking. Could she do this? She had never considered herself brave. But what was the alternative? Sam was right. This was her chance to have control over him. Holding that thought, she started some deep breathing exercises in an effort to control her trembling.

  Breathing under control, she went upstairs and pulled open the wardrobe doors. Sam had said she would ring back and ask what she was wearing. What do you wear to face the monster who raped you?

  Amber pushed the coat hangers back and forth along the rail, pulling things out, discarding them, throwing them on to the bed. It was too cold for a dress. Should she wear jeans, or leggings and a short skirt? How short? Which top?

  She stepped backward, eyes fixed on the clothes still hanging up, sat on the edge of the bed, and lay back, sinking into the pile of garments.

  I can’t do this. Her hands covered her face. The shaking returned, more violently than it had been downstairs, and she questioned whether she could even leave the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ‘Everything okay with Amber?’ Ed asked as he returned to Sam’s office.

  ‘Think so. All ready with the surveillance team?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re all deployed now. They’re on their way.’

  ‘Arrest team sorted?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re deployed too,’ Ed said.

  ‘We just have to wait now then.’

  ‘Always the worst.’

  Worse than you think, Ed. He’s not coming for you.

  Dave Johnson came back in and told them he
had just spoken to the Fingerprint Bureau. Whoever the fingerprint on the wrapper belonged to, it didn’t belong to Terry Crowther or the three sex offenders.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Ed said sourly.

  Sam, too, couldn’t keep the disappointment from her face but said: ‘We still go with Crowther. I accept it’s a blow that it’s not his prints, but there’s all the other stuff with him. Let’s get him in as planned if the surveillance turns up nothing.’

  Queuing to get into the Warkworth Drive shops car park, the driver of the small, white Peugeot van slammed the palms of both hands on to the top of the shiny, worn-smooth steering wheel.

  ‘Bloody dinner time,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘This should have been done at seven. Less planning, more fuck-ups.’

  There were at least three cars in front of him looking for parking spaces and the smells of pies, pasties, and fish and chips filled the air.

  He looked out of the driver’s window and caught sight of the van’s signage reflected in the baker’s shop window – ‘Peterson’s Plumbing Services’.

  He hated being rushed. It always led to complications.

  He needed the van in position. The longer he sat there, the greater the chances of drawing attention to himself, and the van.

  A white-haired, overweight elderly woman in a silk headscarf slid into the driver’s seat of a parked Nissan Micra and seemed to take an eternity to start the engine. How long does it take to put your bloody seatbelt on? The white reversing lights came on, and the car backed out of the space slower than a silkworm with a hangover.

  Driving past the vacant space, he stopped sharply and slammed the gear stick into reverse, passers-by turning to stare as the crunching noise reverberating around the car park.

  ‘Shit. Shit.’

  He got the angle all wrong and had to drive back out. He inadvertently slipped the clutch and revved too hard.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell.’

  With blood pressure rising, he put the van back into reverse, and parked between the white lines. It wasn’t ideal. He would have liked the van nearer the coffee shop, but with some adjustment of the cameras, it would do. It would have to do. He couldn’t wait any longer. The text message would be sent at 12.30pm.

  Convinced that he would be able to alter the cameras and get a visual on the coffee shop, Gary Ross slammed the door shut, pulled the hoodie over his head, stuffed his hands into its side pockets, and walked away from the van with his head down.

  Amber was running out of time. She stood in her bra and pants, her hands holding a handful of make-up remover cloths covered in the cosmetics she had applied and then removed.

  She took a deep breath, dropped the cloths on the floor, jumped into a pair of faded jeans, and grabbed a top off the bed.

  She had been standing by the telephone for ten minutes when it rang. Grabbing it from the cradle before its first ring was complete, she told Sam she was wearing a knee-length blue wool overcoat, blue jeans, a red scarf, a blue hat, and a pair of white Karrimor Alaska trekking boots.

  She replaced the handset and stood with her back against the front door, her body over heating – a combination of hot radiators, outdoor clothing, and increasing anxiety. She watched the second hand on her wristwatch, each circuit signalling she was a minute nearer to leaving the house.

  Fifteen minutes later, a plain-clothes policewoman jumped from the passenger seat of a battered pale-green Citroen as Amber locked her front door and walked through the gate on to the footpath.

  The surveillance team preferred old cars, the kind which could be changed regularly and manufactured by companies not usually associated with supplying police vehicles. Driving around in shiny new Fords, Vauxhalls, BMWs and Land Rovers was a sure way of attracting the attention of the career criminals normally the targets for surveillance.

  Amber found it impossible to resist looking around, but everything, and everyone, resembled normality… buses and cars travelling along the road and a few hardy souls walking, braving the elements.

  She had never really studied people and considered what their lives were like. She may have looked at them, watched them even, but she never thought about them. Like most, Amber was too wrapped up in her own world to consider anyone else’s. Today, walking towards a rendezvous with him, followed by invisible police officers, she saw everybody and, for the first time in her life, wondered what was happening in their worlds.

  Were they happy? Were they sad? Were they – like her – victims? Were they being slowly defeated by debt or watching onceloving relationships break down? Had they recently lost a loved one? Were they terminally ill?

  She turned up the collar of her coat, thrust her hands deeper into her pockets, and fought the urge to power walk. She had 30 minutes to get there, a walk easily completed in 20.

  She hadn’t seen anyone resembling police officers. She had to trust Sam and accept that they were following her.

  The female surveillance operative followed Amber on foot for about 100 yards, speaking carefully into her body-mounted covert radio. Her long brown hair hid the earpiece. The microphone attached to the jumper under her coat was so small it wouldn’t be noticed. At worst she would look like she was talking to herself, or into a concealed mobile on voice mode. Her comments would be brief, and within minutes someone else from the team would take over.

  She turned left and walked down another street. Amber walked straight ahead, and was picked up by a male officer on foot on the opposite side of the road. Nothing difficult about this surveillance; they knew exactly where Amber was heading. The unknown factor was whether the rapist was following her.

  A young woman hurried down a driveway towards the front door, carrier bags pulling at her arms, her fingers stiff and white after being wrapped around the polythene handles in the cold damp air. Amber watched her place the bags on the floor, fumbling for her house key, and tried to remember the daily routine of her life before he broke in. It was useless. Every waking hour she thought of him.

  How old was he? How tall? What did he look like? Where did he work? Why did he do it? Why me?

  He consumed her thoughts, this animal who was with her for such a short time, but who in that time had shattered her life, breaking her into a thousand pieces, like a barman dropping a beer glass. He used her for his pleasure, or whatever it was he did it for, without a thought for her. She was a piece of meat – nothing to him, not a human being, not the daughter of devoted parents.

  But perhaps Sam was right. Maybe this would give her some control back? Shards of glass were not usually put back together but perhaps she could be.

  With each step the constant rubbing on her right calf was becoming more and more irritating, and she berated herself for not having the foresight to wear woollen socks.

  The cold steel of the carving knife hidden in her boot was causing far more discomfort than she imagined, scratching away at the same patch of smooth skin above her ankle, the scratch becoming a graze, the graze becoming a cut.

  A few cuts were a small but worthwhile, price to pay. Nothing seemed more appropriate than repeatedly thrusting the knife into him, penetrating and violating him, Sheffield’s finest as unwelcome an intruder into his body as he had been into hers.

  She had to trust Sam, but at no time had there had been any mention of Sam having to trust her.

  Chapter Thirty

  He bounced up off the driver’s seat when the double beep signalled a text message. 12.35pm. How long had he been driving around? He had left the phone switched on in case Amber texted. The ‘caller ID’ told him it was from Amber. His hand was shaking as he opened the message, trying to drive and read at the same time.

  Warkworth drive 2pm the little coffee shop

  His heart pounded and his palms began to sweat. Was it a trap? Why did she want to see him? Curiosity? Did she like him? He liked her. Maybe she was the one.

  If she had reported the rape to the police, details of the attack would have been released to media, just like the others,
but he wasn’t totally convinced. You could never be so blasé as to be absolutely, rock-solid sure about anything. But if she had reported, surely it would have been in the press?

  He rubbed the sweat off his forehead. He would go, but he wouldn’t respond to her text. He needed to get the car home. He needed to be quick. He would get there early, watch her go in, see if she was being followed, see if she spoke to anyone. Would he be able to talk to her? He doubted he would. Asking her about the condom wrapper had seemed a good idea, but if he had left it, as she hadn’t reported what he had done, surely she would have thrown it away.

  But what if she wanted to meet him? What if she was the one? He would have to make the first move. If he didn’t, his chance of seeing her again would vanish. It would be nice to speak to her. Maybe this time she would speak back. That would be even better, a two-way conversation.

  He would go into the shop. He could look at her, and then decide whether or not to approach her.

  Outside the coffee shop she could feel the acid bile rising in her throat until it filled her mouth, causing her to contort her face and squeeze her eyes tight shut. She forced herself to swallow the warm liquid before opening her mouth and sucking in clean, fresh air. If he was watching, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her vomit in public.

  She blew her nose on a used tissue from her pocket.

  Breathing deeply and taking small steps, Amber walked into the warm shop, the bell above the door ting-a-linging. The aromatic smell of ground coffee and cinnamon bagels added to her nausea.

  She dashed to the toilet, locked the door, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Running the cold tap, she put the cupped palms of both hands underneath it and threw water over her face, not stopping until her cheeks felt numb.

  Pulling open the door, she glanced around and saw a man and a woman sat together drinking coffee, and one man sitting alone reading a tabloid newspaper. Two young women were serving behind the counter.