by Oliver Tidy
By nine o’clock neither youth had been located, and unsurprisingly neither was answering their mobile phones. Both mothers claimed not to know where their sons were. With every minute that ticked by the likelihood of the theory that both youths were culpable in the Dover rapes grew in everyone’s mind.
Unmarked police cars with freezing occupants were stationed outside the young men’s addresses. At nine-thirty and tired of waiting, Romney acted on the search warrants he’d organised for both homes. Marsh and Grimes left for Peter Roper’s. Romney and Spicer went to Carl Park’s.
***
30
Carl Park lived with his mother in a small flat above a newsagent’s shop on the outskirts of the town centre. It was clear from the street that someone was home. Mrs Park took her time answering the door. Romney kept his finger on the intercom until he got a response.
Mrs Park’s annoyed tinny voice burst out of the speaker. ‘Who is it?’
‘Detective Inspector Romney, Dover CID. Open up please, Mrs Park.’
‘He’s not here. I told the last lot.’
‘We’re not here for Carl. We have a search warrant and you have thirty seconds to open this door, and let us in to do our job before we sledge-hammer it open. The police don’t repair them these days. It’ll be very expensive.’
They were buzzed admittance. They took the gloomy, uninviting, staircase. Romney, Spicer and two uniforms: one male one female. The only noise was their boots thumping up the concrete treads.
The door to the little flat was ajar when the police got upstairs. The chain was on. Mrs Park stood behind it. ‘Show me,’ she said. Romney held it up for her. ‘Why? What’s he done?’
‘Open the door, Mrs Park.’ Romney’s patience was wearing thin. She must have sensed it. The door shut, the chain was slid across and the door opened wide.
Before any officer crossed the threshold, Romney said, ‘Is your son here?’
‘No. I haven’t seen him for hours.’
They went in.
Romney said, ‘Which is Carl’s room?’
After a brief hesitation she pointed down the narrow hall. Romney indicated that Spicer and the male uniformed constable should go and investigate.
‘Let’s go into your sitting room, Mrs Park,’ said Romney. ‘I want to ask you some questions.’
She looked at the backs of the retreating officers then back at Romney before turning and going into her lounge. Romney and the female constable followed her in.
An electric fire was pushing out two bars of warmth, and an old television was muted with one of the popular game-shows playing out on the screen. It was a small, dingy room. Untidy with the detritus of daily life. The decoration was shabby and grubby. It gave a good impression of being unloved, just lived in.
Carl Park’s mother sank down into a worn and stained chair in front of the fire. She was much older than Romney would have expected. Her appearance blended seamlessly with the fatigued and dated setting. She picked up a cigarette that had been smouldering in an ash tray and held it. Romney turned off the television and perched on the edge of a settee to her right. He wasn’t prepared to compete with that. Mrs Park kept her eyes on him.
When she spoke her voice had lost some of its hostility, but it was still far from friendly. ‘What’s he done?’
‘We’ll get to that, Mrs Park. Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is he often out for long periods without you knowing where he is?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, he’s not a child, and I’m not as young as I used to be. He does what he likes. Comes and goes as it pleases him.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘This morning. I went out just before lunch. I came home about one. He wasn’t here, and he hasn’t been in since.’
‘Where does he go? Has he got any friends? Places that he hangs out?’
She snorted at the questions. ‘You think he tells me where he is every minute of the day? Have you got kids? Up until a few days ago he had a job at that petrol station. I knew where he was then. Work until eleven, home and bed. He never was much of an early riser. He said they got rid of him.’
‘Friends?’
She made a face. ‘One lad who used to come round for a while. Haven’t seen him for weeks though.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Peter something.’
‘Roper? Peter Roper?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Was Carl home on Monday night?’
She gave the idea that she was considering it. ‘Yes. I’m sure he was.’ Romney didn’t find her convincing. ‘What’s he done?’ she asked again.
‘We want to speak with him in connection with something we’re investigating.’
She fixed him with a tight stare. ‘If you only want to speak to him, what’s with the search warrant?’
‘If we find anything relating to our enquiries, we’ll let you know. Is there a garage or any other building that goes with this flat?’
‘No. It’s just up here. These five rooms.’
Spicer put his head around the door and made a face at Romney.
Romney stood. ‘Stay here, please, Mrs Park.’ He nodded at the female constable to wait with her.
Carl Park’s room was small and messy. The bed took up most of the space. A few posters were fixed to the discoloured walls – groups of scruffy young men sneering at the camera and holding musical instruments. Clothes were scattered around the floor and on the single chair.
‘We’ve been through it all, guv,’ said Spicer. ‘There’s nothing of what we’re looking for here.’
Romney frowned and sighed. It didn’t mean anything to him other than Park was careful. He took one last look around the bedroom, and his eyes came to rest on a laptop computer. A thought occurred to him. ‘We’ll take the laptop.’ He called Marsh. ‘Anything?’
‘We’re in his room now, sir. Nothing so far. Mother’s taking it pretty hard. Can’t think what her little boy could have been up to.’
‘Is there a computer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Bring it in. Don’t forget any outbuildings: shed, garage.’
‘Yes, sir. We’re going there next.’
Something caught Romney’s eye. He went across to the little desk. Two phone chargers were sitting side by side. ‘Can you see a phone charger in his room?’
There was a short delay. ‘Actually, there are two,’ said Marsh.
‘Same here.’
‘It’s not that unusual.’
‘No,’ said Romney, ‘not for people with those kinds of work and social demands. These two don’t fit that profile. I’m betting that checks on their main numbers will show some contact a little while ago and then nothing. They have been clever, or one of them has. My money’s on Park. I’m warming to this theory, Sergeant. I think we have our rapists. And I think that they know we know. Bring in the phone chargers. We might be able to identify the phones.’ Park’s chargers were also bagged and removed.
Carl Park’s mother had little to say to the departing officers.
Romney said, ‘If he contacts you, Mrs Park, tell him to get in touch with us immediately, or better still take a walk down to the station.’ She just glared at him.
The snow was falling in heavier flakes and with greater intensity. The temperature was dropping. If it froze they might have a few inches after all, thought Romney. He spared a thought for the youths they were searching for. He hoped that wherever they were they were bloody cold, hungry and uncomfortable.
Romney’s raiding party was on the way back to the station when Marsh rang. ‘Bingo, sir, in the shed. Cable ties and a drawstring bag that fits the description of the hood used in the attacks.’
Relief flooded through Romney’s system. He had them. He knew he had them. ‘Stay there. Don’t move anything. I want to see it where you found it. We’ll be there in ten minutes. Any sign of the gun?’<
br />
‘Not yet, sir. We’re still looking.’
Romney gave the constable at the wheel new instructions and sat back to savour the moment.
*
Marsh answered the front door. She wore a barely concealed, satisfied look.
‘Well done,’ said Romney. ‘No doubts?’
‘Not for me, sir. Still no gun.’
As they passed the open lounge door, Romney was drawn to stop and look in at the noise being made. Mrs Roper was crying into a handkerchief. A female officer sat next to her. Romney felt some pity for the mother. Her world was about to be turned upside down and she would become a social pariah. Talk about the sins of the fathers, he thought. How many times had he seen the sins of the sons visited on the mothers? Could she be to blame? Should she share some of his guilt? Often he would say yes.
They moved on across the lino of the kitchen, and out through the kitchen door into a small conservatory. Romney noticed details that must have had some importance in the woman’s life up until before his officers had blundered in: a variety of cacti in a range of china and brass pot-holders, a collection of thimbles, a small CD player and a rack of discs. No music would be able to comfort her now. None of the trinkets and ornaments would bring her any joy anymore. When she would come to stare at it, there would be no more significance for the thimble collection than for the plain brick wall behind it.
It was a short walk across pace-spaced flag stones to the small wooden shed. Grimes stood guard outside with a torch, looking cold. But he smiled as Romney approached.
‘Good work,’ said Romney.
Grimes directed the beam of the torch to the rear of the rickety wooden structure. ‘A result, guv.’
Marsh followed Romney in, and the space immediately became cramped. Grimes passed along the torch, and Romney lit up the find.
‘This exactly how you found it?’
‘The blanket on the floor had been thrown over it,’ said Marsh.
Romney picked up one of the cable ties from the small box. It was stamped with the same brand name as the others.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Bag it all carefully.’ He turned to face the two officers. ‘There’s going to be a lot of potential media attention over this – national as well as local. Let’s make sure we play it straight, by the book, no procedural cock-ups. Well done, again.’ He stepped out of the shed and took a lungful of crisp night air that stung his insides. He turned back to Marsh with a thought. ‘Was this locked?’
‘No, sir. Just a broken peg shoved through the latch to hold it shut.’
Romney retraced his steps back through the house, hesitated at the opening to the lounge and then kept going back out to his car and the ride back to the station.
Back in the warmth, comfort and familiarity of his office he made the call to Superintendent Falkner. He detailed the breakthrough but tempered the good news with the bad news that still neither of the suspects had been found. Falkner sounded pleased but equally keen to tidy things up with swift apprehensions of Roper and Park.
*
It was almost eleven when Marsh and Grimes returned to the station. There had been no sightings of the youths, and Romney was resigning himself to the idea that there wouldn’t be anything soon. As happy as he could be with the situation, he sent CID home for an early start.
***
31
Romney rang the station from his bed the following morning. There had been no sighting of either suspect, let alone an arrest. He allowed himself a few minutes thinking, propped up on his pillows. In the absence of the two youths, he had to focus on making the case against Roper and Park. Echoing around his thoughts were Falkner’s warnings from the previous evening. They had evidence. They needed Roper in custody and talking. Romney was optimistic that investigations of phone accounts and Internet activity might reveal further corroborating evidence of association. But to ice the cake, he needed a confession, and it had to come from Roper, and then he had to implicate Park.
Park’s confidence worried at Romney’s sense of optimism. In the interview room the day before, he had given no indication that he could be bullied into admitting his part in things. To Romney’s mind, Park’s story that he and Claire Stamp were lovers was as improbable as it was impossible to disprove. Without the evidence or testimony that they might be able to wring from Roper, Park was going to be impossible to bring to court, never mind convict.
Romney was due to see Falkner at ten. He wanted to be able to tell him that things had progressed. Without the suspects, everything remained supposition and conjecture: incomplete, untidy and unsatisfying.
*
Marsh was already in when he arrived. She was working on the organisation and collation of what they had. At her instruction, somewhere below them in the bowels of the station, the computer technician was busy accessing and recovering what he could from the confiscated computers. Another officer was making enquiries of recent bank account activities of the pair in the hope that any ATM activity might give clues to their whereabouts. An air of muted celebration pervaded CID.
Ten o’clock came without news. Romney left for his meeting with Falkner. Seated, he’d accepted the offer of a coffee – something in the way of premature congratulations – and was sipping from the matching cup and saucer, explaining the events of the previous night when the phone rang on Falkner’s desk. After the briefest of conversations the superintendent passed the mouthpiece to Romney.
It was Marsh. ‘Apologies, sir, but thought you’d like to know immediately: Peter Roper has turned up.’
‘Good. Where is he?’
‘Lying at the bottom of Dover cliffs. He’s dead.’
***
32
The snow that had made a half-hearted effort to make an impact on the town the previous night had given up the fight in the small hours. Ultimately, it had only succeeded in adding to and compounding the boggy conditions of the land.
Romney and Marsh picked their ways across the top of the white cliffs the mile or so to where the team of rescue workers was making its preparations to recover the corpse of Peter Roper. Their wellington boots were soon heavy and cumbersome with the sticky clods of the garden of England that had formed and attached, like some aggressive cancer, on the rubber soles. The brightly clad rescue workers in their orange all-weather clothing formed a little group of industry a little way back from the cliff edge.
A dog walker, taking advantage of low tide, had discovered the body. The mangled cadaver of Peter Roper was lying in full view. He was a tangle of broken and twisted limbs where he had bounced down the cliff-face breaking most of his skeleton in the process. The pathologist was down there already, doing his job, certifying death, recording what was necessary.
Given the apparent state of the body and factors of time, tide and accessibility, the decision had been made to recover the remains by sending down a stretcher, strapping the body to it and hauling it back up. Peter Roper couldn’t suffer any more.
As Romney and Marsh approached, the group began their rhythmic hauling on the ropes system to shouted instruction. There was nothing for the police to do but stand and watch and wait.
A ferry left the port terminal. Following its path with his eyes, Romney could make out a few people braving the biting chill on the exposed windswept deck to gawp across the sea at the operation.
‘You been up here yet?’ said Romney. ‘For a walk or something?’
‘I haven’t, sir, no.’
‘Not your idea of fun?’
‘It’s not that. I just haven’t got round to it that’s all. I was waiting for the weather to improve.’
Romney nodded. ‘It’s beautiful up here in the summer. In fact every season has its attractions, but on a clear summer’s day you can see the coast of France, no problem. And the shipping. Did you know this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world?’
‘No, sir, I didn’t.’
Romney drifted off into his thoughts
and Marsh watched the activity.
They didn’t speak again until Marsh said, ‘He’s coming over the edge, sir.’
They waited until the stretcher had been carried what was deemed a safe distance from the lip of the cliff and set down, before approaching. One of the two police constables in attendance must have passed it around who the two observers were because no one challenged them when they came for a closer look. The body was cocooned in a zippered rubber bag.
To no one in particular, Romney said, ‘I need to see it’s him.’
The rescue workers looked at each other. A constable stepped forward, bent down and exposed the head of the corpse.
While Romney did not pretend to have a strong stomach for the sort of thing that was in the bag, years of policing had left him generally able to cope physically with the awful effects that physics and matter could combine to produce. The young police constable was not there yet. He reeled away from the sight clutching at his mouth and dry retching to the obvious nervous amusement of one of the rescue workers. Romney stopped that with a sharp look. Despite a substantial cranial depression, the smashed nose, empty eye socket, chalk scuffs and the clump of hair and skin that was missing where a collision with something sharp had removed part of his scalp, it was undoubtedly Peter Roper.
Romney maintained a few seconds quiet and then, before turning away and leaving, said, ‘Thank you. Perhaps one of you gentlemen would cover the lad up, now.’ Romney had seen what he needed to.
They trudged back across the top of the windswept cliffs in silence leaving Peter Roper to be centre stage in the funereal procession behind them.
At the back of the car they took off their boots and banged the mud off them. Romney took out a packet of cigarettes, sat on the lip of the open boot and smoked. Marsh had not even known that he did. In answer to her look of surprise, he said, ‘I’m trying to give up.’ He inhaled deeply. The smoke that was eventually released was whipped away by the breeze. As an afterthought, he offered them to Marsh who declined with a shake of her head.