‘So the sixty-four-thousand dollar question: did he jump or was he pushed? Was he overcome with remorse for what he’d done, or was he overpowered for what he might do, for what he knew and might reveal?’ He drew thoughtfully on the cigarette. ‘Let’s imagine that our little scenario is correct – that both were rapists, and they worked as a team each helping the other to fulfil their twisted fantasies.’ Marsh stared intently at Romney’s face. ‘As of yesterday, Park knows we’re on to him. But he also knows that by some stroke of good fortune he’s untouchable because Claire Stamp, the only person who can refute his claims that they were at it, is dead. The fly in the ointment for him is Peter Roper. There is nothing to tie him with either attack other than the testimony of Peter Roper. Because Park knows what we know and how we tied him in with the attack, he realises that sooner or later we’ll work things through ourselves and go looking for Roper with some awkward questions or worse.’
‘So he lures him out here in the middle of a winter’s night and pushes him off a cliff? said Marsh. ‘It’s possible, sir. But if it’s true, how are we going to prove it?’
Romney smiled at her. ‘I just have to know it for now, Sergeant. We’ll get round to doing something about it later.’
Romney’s phone rang. He answered it, listened attentively and thanked the caller. ‘Carl Park has just walked into the station.’
‘An attack of conscience?’
‘He has no reason to avoid us now, does he? Roper is dead.’ Romney ground out the cigarette under his heel, picked it up and threw it into a nearby bin.
As they reversed out of the parking space the group of men carrying Peter Roper came into view behind them.
Romney said, ‘Phone the station. Tell them to put Park in a holding cell until we get there, and then get a uniformed female sent round to the Roper’s home. Tell them to get her to wait for us outside.’
***
33
Mrs Roper looked as though she hadn’t slept at all. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on the previous night. Her red sunken eyes looked pleadingly from one to the other of the three police officers standing on her doorstep.
Romney said, ‘May we come in, Mrs Roper?’
She nodded and stepped aside without a word. Romney went through to the lounge that they had sat in only a few days before chatting sympathetically to her son over tea and biscuits. He was a rapist then. Now he was dead and almost unrecognisable.
‘All right if Constable Welsh puts the kettle on, Mrs Roper?’ said Romney. The woman seemed to be having trouble registering his words. Romney nodded to the officer and she made for the kitchen. ‘Sit down, please, Mrs Roper.’
Obediently she sat. ‘He’s dead isn’t he?’ she said, in a quiet voice.
‘Yes, Mrs Roper. I’m very sorry for your loss.’ Her head shook, as though with a mild palsy. ‘How do you know?’ said Romney.
With a trembling hand she pushed a button on the mobile phone she had been clasping and turned the screen for them to read. A message read, ‘I can’t go on knowing what I did to those two poor women. I’m sick. I can’t control myself. Forgive me mum. Your loving son.’
Romney took the phone from her and scrolled down to see the time it had been sent: twelve-twenty-two the previous night.
‘How did he die?’ she said.
‘He was found this morning at the foot of Dover Cliffs.’ She closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until Romney said, ‘You will have to formally identify the body, I’m afraid. But I have to tell you that it is definitely Peter. I saw him myself.’
She looked deeply into his eyes then: wanting to know something but afraid to ask.
‘Is there someone we can call for you?’
‘My sister lives in the town. She’s coming soon. What did he do? What did he mean, he’s sick?’
‘We have good reason to believe that Peter was involved in two serious sexual assaults.’
The remark stirred some life into her. ‘What? Sexual assault? Peter? No. No. I can’t believe that. He was a gentle boy. I can’t believe that.’
‘I really am very sorry,’ said Romney. ‘When we were here last night, we recovered certain items that we have reason to believe were used in two recent serious sexual attacks in Dover.’ The woman’s lips moved, but no sound came out of her mouth. ‘Mrs Roper, the evidence against your son is compelling. But we think he wasn’t working alone. Did he have any close friends, any visitors to the house, anyone that he would meet up with?’ She shook her head. ‘Does the name Carl Park mean anything to you?’ Again she shook her head. ‘I do need to ask you one last question: your shed, is it normally kept locked?’ She looked at him as though he’d spoken a foreign language. ‘I’m sorry to ask, Mrs Roper, at a time like this, but it’s very important to our investigation and what we found in there last night.’
‘It’s never been locked,’ she said.
Before they left, Marsh forwarded the text message to her own phone. It was all they had to suggest how Peter Roper came to be at the bottom of Dover cliffs. They left Constable Welsh with Mrs Roper and headed back to the station.
‘What do you think now, Sergeant?’
‘It’s very convenient and tidy for Park. It could also be true.’
‘Is that still the devil’s advocate talking?’
‘I was thinking more of his solicitor, sir.’
‘Same thing, Sergeant. Same thing.’
*
Park’s solicitor had still not arrived. Romney and Marsh sought out the officer who Park had volunteered himself to.
‘How was he when he came in?’ said Romney. ‘What did he say?’
‘Looks tired, guv. I’ll give him that. Claimed to have been walking the streets all night. Couldn’t sleep. Said he phoned his mother this morning, and she told him we were looking for him, so he came in straight away. I asked him why he hadn’t had his phone on. He said he turns it off when he’s got things on his mind. Of course, he’s lying. He was no more walking the streets all night than I was. If he’d been out and about, he’d have been spotted by someone. Everyone was looking for them, stopping all possibles. He’d have also been wet. It snowed, sleeted and rained most of the night. Probably holed up somewhere out of the way and out of the weather.’
Romney needed to satisfy a curiosity. He asked which cell Park was being held in. He took Marsh and the duty sergeant with him. As the cell door was opened, Park raised himself up from where he’d been lying down.
‘Morning, Carl,’ said Romney.
Park looked tired and drawn. He seemed to have retreated back into the Carl Park that Romney had encountered on the petrol station forecourt: listless and sullen – his alter-ego.
‘Why am I here?’ he said.
‘A few questions.’
‘I told you all I know.’
‘Things have changed,’ said Romney. ‘See you soon. We’re just waiting for the duty solicitor.’
The door closed as Park was saying something.
As they walked away, Romney said, ‘If he was up on the cliffs last night, he wasn’t in those shoes and probably not in those clothes.’
*
In CID messages awaited Romney’s attention. Forensics had confirmed that the cable ties recovered from the Roper’s shed were of the exact same type and brand as those used in the rapes. The hood that was recovered contained hairs that matched both rape victims.
Marsh phoned down to request an urgent confirmation regarding whether the as yet unknown sample from the rape of Jane Goddard was a match with Peter Roper.
Another message from the computer technician indicated that he had found things that were pertinent to the investigation. A third message from Falkner required an update as soon as was convenient. Romney knew what that meant.
Romney threw back the last of his coffee in preparation to go off and see the station chief. Marsh would find out what the computer technician had uncovered. She was about to leave when a thought occ
urred to her, ‘Assuming that Park did push Roper off the cliff, how did he get him up there?’
‘From the moment Park left the station he knew we were on to him. First thing he does is call Roper and tell him to get himself out of sight. Last thing he wants is us getting our hands on him.’ Romney thought for a moment as something registered. ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘The cliff tops are close enough to be able to walk to and remote enough that anyone who wanted to keep out of the way and out of sight could disappear quite easily for a few hours, especially in this season when walkers are few and far between. Dotted along the top are ruined gun-emplacements from the Second World War. They’re open to the elements, but some of them can still provide good shelter. You’ll often find a tramp dossing down up there in summer months. They would make a great place for Park to have told Roper to wait for him.’
‘But how does he get him to the edge and off?’
‘We haven’t found the gun yet. Park turns up and starts waving a pistol about. He could get Roper to do anything, which, if I’m right, would also tell us that the gun is real. Roper wouldn’t be afraid of a fake.’
‘These gun-emplacements, would they make good places to hide things?’
‘Like soiled clothing and muddy footwear?’
‘And a pistol. What about the text to Roper’s mother?’
‘Park gets Roper’s phone off him, sends him over the edge, sends the text to coincide with the time of death, and then chucks it over the cliff after him.’
It was, they agreed, a perfect scenario for them, except for one thing: a lack of evidence.
A phone call informed them that the duty solicitor had arrived and was eager to get on with their interview with Park.
‘He can wait,’ said Romney. ‘See what the geek’s got and meet me in ten minutes.’
*
Falkner listened to Romney’s news with dismay until the revelation of the text message received by Roper’s mother. Brightening, he said, ‘A suicide note of sorts, and an admission of guilt. That tidies things up a little.’
‘Only if he sent the text and jumped,’ said Romney.
‘You don’t think he did?’
‘I don’t like it, sir. It’s too convenient, too tidy.’
‘You have an alternative theory, I suppose?’
‘I think that Park knows a lot more than he is saying. He’s downstairs. His solicitor has just turned up. Do you think I could bring you up to speed after I’ve interviewed him?’
‘All right, Tom. Whatever you think is best.’
*
Marsh was waiting for him outside the interview room.
‘Ready?’ he said.
Her grim expression indicated the opposite. ‘I think you should see what’s turned up on the hard drives of their computers before we speak to Park, sir.’
***
34
Romney followed her down a flight of stairs and along a dimly lit corridor to where, in the bowels of the station, the in-house computer technician laboured away in his lair. His department, a windowless room, was mainly given over to workbenches lit by portable spotlights on which were strewn the insides of several electrical items. His job was to keep the station’s computer and communication systems working to optimum capacity at all times.
For one man it was proving a full-time job. As well as this, he was also increasingly employed in the fight against crime in the area. Too many criminals were lulled into believing that a simple password on a home or business computer was security enough to protect them from prying eyes. They were leaving incriminating evidence, literally, just lying around for the police to harvest evidence from for prosecution. And CID in particular was knocking on his door for assistance with increasing regularity.
A man with designer stubble and designer glasses looked up from an assortment of electrical bits and pieces that would have had Romney reaching for a dustpan and brush.
‘Hello, Inspector.’
‘Hello, Adrian,’ said Romney. ‘Don’t you miss the real world stuck down here?’
‘If what you bring me to look at is typical of what goes on in the real world, I’ll settle for something a little more virtual, thank you.’
He led them across to a bench where the computers of Roper and Park were set up. ‘Whoever these belong to are in need of some sort of counselling, if you ask me.’
‘We’re not,’ said Romney, in a not unfriendly tone. ‘What have you found?’
‘Some disturbing images and unusual Internet activity. The hard drives of both have some pretty horrific hard-core porn files downloaded on to them. S&M mostly. Quite specialised. Certainly not your average porn sites. You’d need to know where to look to get access to some of this stuff. Internet histories show a lot of common portals accessed in similar time frames.’
‘So you think they might have been exchanging information?’
‘Undoubtedly. What they’ve been accessing is too random, common to both and obscure to be attributed to haphazard Internet browsing. I haven’t had the time to access their email servers yet, but my guess is that we’ll find that’s the source of the links of their common viewing.’
Romney breathed out heavily and checked his watch. ‘What did you want me to see?’
‘This file is common to both computer hard drives. It’s downloaded from a Russian website. I should warn you, it’s quite disturbing.’
‘Just play it,’ said Romney.
It was high quality film in respect of its technological considerations. The subject matter, however, reflected the lowest qualities of Man’s perverted imaginings and actions. It was filmed using a hand-held camera and the cameraman used his artistic licence throughout to pan and sweep and zoom and tease. The photography gave the production an added dimension of realism, although it didn’t need it. There was no doubting that the violence was genuine.
The scene opened with a woman being dragged shouting and screaming into a room in which four men were waiting – big men in comparison to her small frame. The room was dimly lit from a central, bare bulb and, apart from a table in its centre, was without furniture.
The men wore balaclavas. The woman’s hands were bound in front of her. She had a sack over her head tied at her neck. The men were all fully clothed in similar drab military uniforms that looked genuine but of low quality. Romney was minded of the armies of eastern Europe. The woman who screamed and shrieked constantly and unintelligibly in a foreign language wore the clichéd clothing of a country peasant.
She kicked out blindly at her captors who seemed to delight in her confusion, panic, distress and helplessness. The men dodged in and out for a few minutes poking, goading and shoving her. Once she fell over to howls of laughter. She was quickly on her feet again and lashing out. One of her kicks caught one of the men in the shin. It looked real and painful. This impression was reinforced by his reaction. He shouted and hobbled out of range to the guffaws of his confederates. He was back in seconds giving her a clout to the side of her head that, with its power and surprise, sent her reeling into a wall with force.
Romney was no stranger to violence. He’d witnessed it on CCTV and in the flesh as part of his job. He knew real violence when he saw it. Real violence couldn’t be faked. He realised that what he was watching was real violence, and he began to feel physically sick.
She was slower to right herself. The combination of her wild lunges and the blow were exhausting and subduing her. From the laboured heaving of her chest, it could be understood that the oxygen in the thick hood was proving harder and harder to find.
Another man reached for her shirt and ripped a large section of it from her. She rounded in his direction only to have another man behind her grab a fistful of her billowing skirt and yank it. It unbalanced her and she fell again. He came away with flap of it. He held it aloft as a trophy to the cheer of his comrades. From here it turned to a game. She would dodge and screech and flail; they would grab and pull and yank and cheer and slowly she was st
ripped down to her underwear. Her tears and sobs of frustration were coming hard and fast. If she had been in any doubt of her fate, that was clearly being eroded.
At a signal two of them grabbed her and held her tightly. Another moved in and the blade of a knife flashed in the light. When he stepped back, she was completely naked apart from her ankle boots. He held her underwear aloft and there was more cheering. Romney’s eye was drawn to the thick thatch of dark pubic hair that she now attempted to cover with her bound hands.
Until she was naked, it had been difficult to guess at her age with any confidence. Now that she was fully exposed, he guessed her to be in her late teens or early twenties.
When she fell to her knees, Romney reached over and stopped it. The cessation of the animal noises left a disturbing quiet in the room. He looked at the timer for the film. It had taken less than ten minutes for him to go from businesslike and focussed to utterly sickened.
Romney said, ‘Have you seen it through?’
‘Yes,’ answered the technician. ‘I would rather not have done, but that, unfortunately, is part of my job.’
‘What happens?’
‘They throw her on the table, hold her down between them and take it in turns to rape her. Then they stand around her broken body and pose for a final shot, much like men do when they’ve bravely shot an endangered species of animal. The film stops after that. I have no idea what happened to the woman.’
‘Do you have any idea of the film’s origins or its authenticity?’
‘I can only guess, but this looks the real deal to me. Whoever staged it was aiming at what’s known in the trade as vintage pornography, but the quality of the production and the film suggests something much more recent. It strikes me as a fantasy being lived out rather than a war crime, which is what it’s tipping its hat at.’
‘And this is on both of the computers’ hard-drives?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you say when it was downloaded?’
The technician clicked the mouse a few times. ‘Two months ago on this one.’ He moved to the other computer. ‘And the same for this. Same date actually.’