“What did you want to show me, Harry?”
He was now only a pace behind her, and as she turned to face him, he said, “This.” He stood inside the doorway with his jeans and underpants down to his knees. Mary glanced down at his phallus with a mixture of shock and horror: she was momentarily lost for words. Harry did everything quickly. He took advantage of her fleeting paralysis to spin her around so she was now facing away from him, and in one slick movement, jerked down her jogging bottoms and knickers to her ankles. At that instant Mary quickly regained her composure, realised what was happening, and started screaming.
“No, Harry. No, Harry. Stop! Stop! St.. !”
But her pleading was too late: her assailant simply ignored the impassioned screams. He swiftly had his left arm under her coat and around her chest, and was gripping her right breast in his powerful left hand. His right hand was across her mouth stifling her desperate pleas, reducing them to a barely audible mumble. Her attacker was a perverted sex psychopath: he was unable to rationalise what he was about to do or distinguish between right and wrong. He leant forward with his body and they fell forward into the hay: she face down with him on top of her. He penetrated her from behind and the pain she felt, as he entered her, was excruciating; so too was the pain in her right breast from the vice-like grip of his left hand: this wasn’t just to restrain her as he derived pleasure from this aggressive squeezing.
Again, she tried to scream for help, but he was simply too powerful, and by now she knew her pleas would continue to go unheeded due to the remoteness of the barn. She just hoped someone would hear and come to rescue her from this fiend. No screams – no help. If she had been facing him, her arms would have offered better resistance, but as it was they were useless as defence, pinned face down as she was. In his twisted mind, to him this was a natural act; to her there were only two words to describe her ordeal: violent rape.
Harry Sutton did everything quickly. The repeated penetration was relentless. After a few minutes she struggled less and he took this as acquiescence: she had seen sense and capitulated. He loosened his grip on her mouth and she started gasping, a sure sign, to him, that orgasm was close. To her it was gasping for air and survival. With very little breath in her body, she let out a last desperate scream for help and he immediately clasped his hand back over her mouth, once again restricting her airflow. Harry Sutton did everything quickly. He ejaculated and they both lay still, with him spread eagled across her back. In his perverted mind, she had stopped struggling, and had begun to enjoy the experience.
Her mind no longer existed.
His strong right hand, had not only blocked her mouth, but his index finger had, inadvertently, cut off the air intake through her nose.
Although he was a fit young man, his exertions had made him a little breathless. When he eventually rolled off her and lay on his back beside her, for the first time he realised she was lifeless.
“Come on Mary, I know you enjoyed that. Mary! Mary!”
He initially shook her, before turning her over, and it finally dawned on him what he had done: Mary Cranson was dead. However, the emotion he felt wasn’t remorse, rather the fear of capture. As a closet psychopath, he didn’t panic. He simply gathered her limp body, and her yellow bobble hat, that had come off in the frantic act, and carried her outside. He placed her still warm body in the rear of the UTV in the foetal position, covering it with a tarpaulin, usually used to protect fodder if it was raining. After a last check to see that nothing had been left behind, he roared off heading directly for home. He didn’t see her remaining mitten slither off the seat, disturbed by the rushing wind generated by the speeding UTV, and land on a gorse bush.
When he got back to Black Tor Farm, his father and brother had not returned. He quickly lifted the body from the UTV and carried the corpse to the farthest barn where he covered it in loose hay. His brother returned half an hour later, soon after his father, and helped him finish the milking.
Later that evening, as his father and brother sat resting by the open fire in the farmhouse, Harry Sutton spoke, and he lied.
“One of the lambs I saw this morning up on Hound Tor looked to be struggling to survive and I really should have brought it back to the farm with its mother. I forgot all about it until we finished the milking. It won’t take me long to see how it’s getting on and, this time, if necessary, I’ll bring them back.” With that, he donned his waxed coat and went outside. By torchlight he collected a big black plastic silage bag from one barn and then went back to the farthest barn from the house, where he had left the dead woman. The body was now stone cold and still curled up in a ball: he made no attempt to straighten the rigid corpse. He enveloped it in the huge bag and firmly secured it with some nearby discarded baling twine. He once again unceremoniously dumped her in the back of the UTV and then found three heavy weights, normally used to anchor tarpaulin sheets, and placed them in the cargo bay along with the body.
“Do you want a hand, Harry?”
His brother had come out of the farmhouse just after he had dumped the body in the back. The younger Sutton was momentarily paralysed, but quickly answered his brother realising he may have seen him put something in the UTV.
“No it’s alright thanks, Dick. I’ve put some feed on board as it’ll save us having to do it in the morning.”
With that his brother returned to the farmhouse.
He had already considered various ways of disposing of the body including the slurry pit and a nearby quarry. His chosen option was a watery grave.
After pocketing several more lengths of twine, he started the UTV, switched on the headlights and headed, not for Hound Tor, but for Burrator Reservoir. He had decided to dispose of the body in the man-made deep waters.
He didn’t see a soul as he carefully and furtively drove, initially across the moor and then along the road leading to the water. On arrival his first thought was to use a boat, and deposit the body in the middle of the reservoir. Then again, he reasoned, that would take time, and in the half moonlit night would increase the likelihood of detection as well as tell-tale tracks.
As he deliberated a car’s headlights could be seen in the distance heading his way. He hoped it would go straight on rather than turn and cross the dam, but he was out of luck. The lights swung around and were now heading for where he was parked. He cursed but had time to reverse up a nearby track and switched off his lights. The car sped by and he doubted if the driver had even seen his well hidden UTV. He waited a short while in case another car was approaching. He had been surprised the last car was out at that time of night, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
When it was all clear he drove to the middle of the road that ran along the top of the reservoir dam. Constantly checking that no other vehicles were approaching, he quickly removed the body from under the tarpaulin in the back of the UTV, and balanced it precariously on the two feet wide wall that ran along the edge on the water side of the dam. He took out the weights, one at a time, and then the twine from his pocket: he wanted to put one around the neck of the corpse, one around her middle and the last around her ankles. This would have been possible if the body had been straight: it wasn’t and rigor mortis was not about to let him straighten it. Eventually, he tied all three weights, independently, around the middle of the macabre package, and gave a final tug on each bonding to make sure it was secure. He nudged the black envelope off the narrow ledge and into the clean, yet, at night-time, murky looking, water below. It made a splash as it hit the surface and, after looking furtively around, he briefly risked his torch to see the black bag momentarily float before the metal weights dragged it, reluctantly, into the deep.
He roared off, back the way he had come and was already planning a deep clean of the UTV first thing in the morning: the delayed service would have to wait. In his mind he was already justifying his actions. He hadn’t meant to kill Mary: it was an accident. In his depraved m
ind, neither had he committed the violent rape of an innocent young woman.
TWENTY THREE
The events on Haytor the day before were still vividly in the mind of all who were in attendance. It had started out with one person, then two and finished with many, as police swarmed over the ground around the giant rock.
Inspector King’s gamble had delivered the desired result and, he hoped, Harry Sutton was going to gaol for a very long time. In the immediate aftermath of his stabbing, he was taken to Derriford Hospital, where, under close supervision from two uniformed officers, his wound was stitched. He was then taken to the central police station in Plymouth, but kept well away from Alice Cranson, who was also being held there. They would both be interviewed and then be charged or released within the statutory timeframe.
*
Detectives King and Harris sat opposite Alice Cranson in the interview room; they didn’t need to ask her many questions. She was at peace with herself and just wanted to admit her guilt and let the law take its course.
After the sergeant pressed the start button on the recording machine, King spoke to place on record the date, who was in attendance, and that the interview was being conducted under caution. She had legal representation, but, it transpired, his legal erudition was not required and he barely spoke. Neither did the interviewers have very much to contribute for that matter, as Alice Cranson knew exactly what she wanted to say.
“Inspector King, I’d like to make a statement please. I would be grateful if you’d let me speak without interruption until I have told you what happened on Haytor, and the events leading up to my confrontation with Sutton.”
“I am happy to do that, Miss Cranson; I will save any questions I have until you’ve finished. Please continue.”
“Over the last two months, I have lost the two people I loved most in the whole World. First, Mary went missing, and not knowing what had happened to her was heartbreaking for me, and others, but as her twin sister, I’m sure you will understand, no one has felt the pain as much as I have, not even Tom. Then Josh’s accident was so tragic that, in my darkest hours, I actually did think that life was no longer worth living. But then my despair turned to anger. I thought why should I kill myself and risk giving Mary’s killer satisfaction from my death too? I wasn’t going to let him take anything else from my family. Our parents are already heartbroken over Mary and I simply couldn’t let them suffer the loss of another daughter. Therefore, I decided that suicide would be a total and utter waste of my life, and a betrayal of Mary and Josh. There was nothing I could do for him, except mourn his passing, but I could do something for my sister: I could find the person responsible for her disappearance and, as I know now, her death.
“I was convinced it was one of our so-called friends, as they knew the precise time she would be on the moor. I reasoned that the chances of her being abducted by someone else, who just happened to be passing, were so remote, I dismissed them. I was at a loss as to what to do. One thought I had was to privately confront each in turn, and then judge the reaction I got from accusing them. I didn’t think that would work as the person responsible was already living a lie, and would be quite capable of plausibly denying any involvement. So, two days before the funeral, it came to me that the devastating loss of my fiancé had provided me with an opportunity I decided to seize. I wasn’t overly optimistic that my plan would work, but I had nothing to lose.
“After the funeral, I spoke, individually, and discreetly, to all the people who knew Mary would be on the moor that day. I told them that I would be at the very same spot on Haytor, as my sister had been, at the very same time the next day: our birthday. I found it very easy to give the impression I was preparing to take my own life. Why was it so easy? Because I’ve had those thoughts every hour of every day since I was told Josh had died until my anguish turned to anger.
“My trap was set with me as the bait. The weather that day was favourable for my plan as the impending storm would keep people away from the area. I didn’t want the presence of others to frighten away the person who I hoped would come. I armed myself with a steak knife from the kitchen at my parents’ hotel. As a symbolic gesture, I took Mary’s Punto and parked it where she had parked three weeks before. I walked the same route she must have taken, and after a very short distance, I paused and sensed that this was the very spot from where Sutton had enticed her in to his buggy. As I carried on, the giant rock loomed over me in the fading gloom, brought about by the fast approaching storm.
“I walked around to the other side of the tor, as that allowed me to clamber up to its summit, and from that vantage point I could see below a buggy approaching from the south and when it couldn’t go any further, because of the steepness of the ground, I saw a figure get out and walk in my direction. I knew he could see me as I had my bright yellow coat on. In the failing light I couldn’t see who it was, but I felt sure my trap had been sprung. At that point I still thought that it was Dick Sutton. As he got closer, I took a chance that, for some of the time, he wouldn’t be looking up to where I was standing. In the semi-darkness I knew he would have to carefully pick his way over the uneven terrain. My chances of not being seen ducking down improved as he got closer, as I could just about make out the whiteness of his face, appearing and disappearing as he looked up and down to see where he was going. When he momentarily looked down, I ducked out of sight and clambered down, back the way I had come up.
“I then quickly ran around to the front of the sheer rock face and arranged my body as if I had fallen from the summit. It worked. He came close to me and do you know what the bastard did? He fondled my breasts, and, at the same time, called me a silly cow. He then muttered something that will haunt me until the day I die: he said he had never shagged twin sisters before. At that precise moment, I knew he had killed Mary. He was right there touching me, no doubt just as he had touched her. I had my eyes closed and still thought it was Dick Sutton leaning over me although when he spoke I wasn’t sure. Anyway, I didn’t care as I knew this was the man who had killed my sister and changed my life forever.
“I didn’t want to give him the chance to overpower me. I’d come this far and I wasn’t about to let him survive. I opened my eyes a second before I stabbed him, which was just enough time to aim for his thigh – I wanted to stab him in the chest, but from my position I couldn’t reach any higher.
“I thrust the knife into the fleshy top of his thigh, which was as far as I could reach, with all the fury that had built up since my sister went missing. I was staggered to see Harry Sutton. I shall always remember the look of shock on his face as I suddenly sprang to life and thrust the blade deep into his leg. As he fell back, I screamed at him to tell me what he had done with her. I pulled the knife out and held it against his throat. It was all I could do to stop myself from stabbing him again, but I needed him to answer a question about what he had done with Mary. As I increased the pressure on the blade, which had now penetrated the skin on his throat, he uttered a single word, “Burrator.”
“I pulled my arm back and, from the smirk on his face, I think he mistook that as some gesture of forgiveness: nothing was further from the truth.
“As I now knew the likely location of my sister’s resting place, I, once again, was ready to plunge the knife back into his despicable body, but this time not in his leg!”
Her legal representative sensed that she was about to remove all possible doubt of her guilt, and placed a restraining hand on her forearm – to no avail.
“Inspector, I wanted to kill Harry Sutton and I would have succeeded if you hadn’t stopped me. So I am guilty of planning to take my revenge on the man who killed my sister: the law can do its worst to me: it can’t be any worse than the mental anguish I have suffered over the last few weeks.”
With that, she sat back and stared expressionless at the table in front of her. Clearly feeling moved by what she had to say, King glanced at his sergeant and t
hen the solicitor before speaking:
“So, you are admitting carrying out the premeditated attack on Harry Sutton to avenge the disappearance and murder of your sister?”
Her legal representative answered.
“No, my client is not admitting that. Sutton attacked her by fondling her breasts and she reacted to that sexual attack by stabbing him.”
King saw little point in responding to that statement or asking Alice any questions as he had all the information he needed.
“I’m suspending this interview to consider what charges, if any, will be brought against you.”
With that King and Harris withdrew and left the solicitor alone with his client, no doubt trying to persuade her to withdraw her confession.
The inspector informed the custody sergeant what had been said and a decision was taken on charges. The interview resumed with King, once again, sitting opposite a resigned Alice Cranson.
“We have listened with some sympathy to the incidents that led to the stabbing of Harry Sutton. Be that as it may, you went on the moor carrying a knife, intending to stab whoever turned up. I have sympathy with your plight, but cannot excuse a planned attack of this nature.
“Alice Cranson, you will be charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent. In the meantime you will be remanded in custody until you are called to appear in court.”
Sergeant Harris switched off the machine and took Alice to the custody sergeant to complete the necessary paperwork before she was taken to the cells.
*
The whole area around Burrator Reservoir was cordoned off and an exclusion zone established. Police swarmed over the banks looking for disturbed ground and a rigid inflatable police boat was by now on the surface of the water. King, still unsure if Mary Cranson was in a watery grave, reached for a sherbet lemon. He tried to put himself in the mind of the killer asking himself, if he had wanted to get rid of a body in the reservoir, what would the crazy Sutton brother have done to dispose of the critical evidence against him?
Missing on Dartmoor Page 27