Authors: Rebecca Bradley
45
The
room was still dark. I could smell coffee. Something I rarely drank,
yet the aroma was wafting through the apartment into my bedroom where I
now lay, naked and holding a memory of something that should be
covering me with a blush. I groaned and pulled the sheets over my
head.
Thoughts of the previous night were interrupted by soft footfalls coming through the door.
It was five am.
“Morning
sleepy.” Ethan walked in holding a large white cup and saucer in each
hand, the smell of coffee stronger as he neared the bed. He handed me
one of the cups as I shuffled into a more upright position.
“I know you need to get to work, so I thought we could do the morning thing early, rather than miss it out altogether.”
“I don't know what to say. I'm surprised you're the make coffee in the morning type of guy. Thank you.”
He
eased himself down onto the bed and pulled at the sheets while
balancing coffee in hand. “What time do you have to leave?” An innocent
question but filled with a meaning I could clearly see.
I
rolled my eyes as I retrieved memories of what was waiting for me. I
needed to be in early. I needed to check in with DIU, view the images
on Benn's computer and plan another interview around what was in the
partial report. We then needed to push all the evidence we had on him,
give him no place to twist. The only place left for him would be
the straight truth. That was the plan anyway. How many times it ever
went to plan I'm not sure. When you deal with humans things are never
predictable. Fight or flight mode kicks in. Criminals get grand ideas
of how they can get away with crimes, even heinous crimes like
murder. If we planned this right though we'd have our guy.
“So?” Ethan interjected.
“Sorry....
I need to leave in about forty-five minutes. I have so much to do; this
job isn't in the bag yet. We can't be too confident and lose track of
what we're doing.”
He stroked my hair away from my eyes. “Isn't he cooperating?” The movement was soft, sensitive and distracting.
“He likes to talk; we need to get him to talk a bit more honestly.”
“What's he saying?”
I flicked my free hand up and pushed Ethan’s away from my face. I felt uncomfortable.
“You
know I can't tell you, Ethan. Is that the reason you're here? To find
out what's happening on a case?” I pushed the cup onto the bedside
table, frustration scratching away at me.
“Of
course it's not the reason I'm here, Han. I'm here to spend time with
you, to see you. The timing's not great, but don't think I only see you
as an information source.” His voice hardened and the coldness of the
day crept into the room. I wanted the warmth of the night to come back.
I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands.
“You have to go, Ethan. I need to get into work.”
The
cup rattled in the saucer as he put it down. “Okay, okay, but if
Natalie wakes, she's only talking to you through the paper, so you're
going to have to work with me. This...” he said as he waved his arm
across the bed sheets, “last night, was something else.” He sat on the
edge of the bed, pulled on his jeans and, picking up his shirt, slipped
into his pumps. He walked towards the door.
“Last night was great, Han. Don't let it go.”
And he was gone.
46
After
a quick shower and change, I drove to the office. The place was quiet
and still. Paperwork was everywhere. The team were working different
angles, creating mounds of information, not just on the murders, but on
all the people involved. Histories and backgrounds on Rosie, Allison,
Natalie and Colin. We needed to know their lives as well as they knew
them and more. I filled the kettle, flicked the switch on and picked a
green teabag out of the box. The team would start to arrive soon. Plans
for the day ran through my head.
The
click as the kettle boiled brought me back from my reverie. We had a
big hole in our investigation and we needed to find some answers. Time
was working against us.
I
phoned down to the custody suite and spoke with the sergeant on duty.
Benn had had his eight hours and was awake and about to eat the
microwaved cardboard that passed for breakfast down there. As soon as
he'd eaten we were free to go back into interview with him. I needed to
see what was on his computer beforehand. I pulled myself up the stairs,
using the banister rail as a lever, every step an effort. Danny
Scrivens was the only person in.
“Morning, Ma'am.”
“Morning, Danny. What've you got?”
“I thought you'd ask, that's why I brought my lazy arse in early. I'm loading the results up.”
I
leaned in to look at the monitor. “I appreciate it,” I said as I
watched him scroll through different drives until he found the one he
wanted, opened it and clicked through the parameters he wanted to set
for the images to be viewed. The screen loaded with a wave of
thumbnails.
“These
are all the images he has on his computer including deleted files.
There's a lot on here, it could take some time to go through. Do you
have someone who can view these for you?” Danny asked.
“Yes,
I can get someone to come up and do that. Can I have a quick look
through to see what kind of images he has stored on here?” I grabbed
the back of a chair, wheeled it over to where we were and sat down in
front of the monitor.
“Yep. You know the drill. Use the arrows to scroll through. Whoever does the full viewing can categorise any illegal images.”
“Thanks,
Danny.” I started to look through the page of thumbnails facing me.
There was a lot of pornography. The usual stuff was present as well as
more extreme images involving props and weapons. Pins pushed through
the breasts of women as they were strung up in chains being held from
the ceiling, and others whose breasts were bound so tightly in rope
they were turning purple. Faces of pain and agony did not deter the
dominant males inflicting the evils in the name of sexual arousal. This
bloke’s tastes were hardcore, a sexual predator who couldn't fulfil his
sexual needs after gratifying them in a specific way for a period
time. So he craved something a little harder, a little more
extreme until that then failed to raise his interest as it had
originally done and the cycle continued. I knew these images would get
worse. I closed the window down. I had no need to see these. My career
had brought me into contact with sexual predators many times. Their
collections
were disturbing, and the effects of viewing detrimental. It always gave
me a sense of achievement when a child predator was sentenced at court.
What I needed to know from this computer today was if there was any
link on here with Rosie, anything we could use in interview. I'd ask
Ross to view the images. He had his work cut out for him, though, with
the volume Benn had stored on here. He needed to be alert to be able to
identify if the girls were on here at all.
“Thanks. I appreciate the early morning support. I'll send Ross up to do the viewing if that's okay?”
“It's fine. Ready when he is.”
The
incident room had started to fill. Grey was in and hovering, casting
his eye over proceedings. Even though we had Benn in the cells, he
wouldn't look any more settled until we had him charged and locked up
in a prison somewhere. Grey was a seasoned detective and he knew
we still had a long way to go before this was in the bag and Benn was
in front of a judge. He was skimming the room like a good host does at
a party, checking in with everyone, making sure they were up to speed
with their actions. He wanted the team tight and we had that. I trusted
them. As I stood inside the doorway watching him work, he looked over
and saw me.
“Hannah. Good morning. Great to see everyone here so early. Can we have a moment in your office please?”
“Yes, Sir.”
As
we walked I stopped and asked Ross to go upstairs to view the images on
Benn’s computer. “Take a photo of Rosie and Allison with you Ross, to
make sure.”
He walked over to one of the desks and collected the photos before leaving.
“Shall we?” asked Grey as he walked into my office and sat behind my desk. “Okay, Hannah. What does today have in store for us?”
I bristled as he questioned me on the investigation from my chair. As
he wrote his notes, his blue hard-backed notebook began to shift my
paperwork from its given place.
“Other
than the DNA evidence from Rosie Green, what do we have to link Benn to
the murder and attempted murder of Allison and Natalie Kirk?” he asked.
I
took a deep breath before I answered and attempted to keep my face from
showing any signs of annoyance. “Following on from what I said last
night, we're still awaiting forensic results from the dump sites,
post-mortem and his address. The quickest result we will get from his
address will be fingerprints, but he's not denying being in a
relationship with Natalie so there's every reason to expect her prints
and potentially Allison's to be there. CSI's are still working at his
address. As long as we can get a charge on Rosie's murder we can keep
him locked up and that gives us time to continue processing the
evidence from the other scenes.”
He paused, seemed to think, then scribbled in his notebook again.
“Have Rosie's parents been updated?”
“Yes.
I spoke with Martin yesterday, after we arrested Benn. He was going to
see them with Chris, the FLO over there, and let them know. I'll call
him again today and see how the visit went and find out other lines of
enquiry he may have.”
“Okay. Good. What about neighbours of Benn, what do they have to say?”
“We're
a bit thin on the ground with Sally off and Martin in Norwich so I'm
going to borrow a couple of uniform today and get them to do more door
knocking.”
Grey
nodded. My response seemed to appease him. He closed his notebook with
an over exaggerated snap and walked out my office. “Keep me updated
Hannah.”
I let go of my annoyance with a deep sigh, walked around my desk and sat down, claiming the space as my own again.
I
updated my officer’s log, signed through overtime forms and re-read the
notes from yesterday’s interview before Ross came through the door.
“You need to see this, Boss.”
47
She
was hungry and her stomach moved like rolling thunder. It seemed so
long since anyone had come in to feed her. So long since anyone had
been in to see her. She scratched at the dried brown mark on her knee,
her nail bending as she pressed it down to scrape the skin. It was
light; didn't that mean it was morning? She tried to remember when she
had last seen him and couldn't. The mark split in two as the substance
concertinaed under the feeble nail.
It
was quiet. She flicked underneath the bending nail with another weak
nail to remove the grime and strained to hear. It was so often quiet.
The darkness made the quiet much more tangible, like she could reach
out and touch the silence.
Dust
danced in the streams of light shining through the narrow gap where the
dirty curtains hung, not quite drawn together, over the window at the
top of the wall. She continued to scratch at the mark on her knee long
after it had gone. She scraped the bending nail on the plastic beneath
her, just to hear the sound. Why didn't anyone come? She'd been
good. She'd done as she was told and she'd even stopped crying now. It
was quiet, apart from the scratching of her nail on plastic. She didn't
like the quiet. She was a good girl. She was trying.
48
The
eyes of Rosie and Allison stared back at me from the desk where I'd put
their photographs. Absently I flicked the bottom corner of Rosie's
picture. I felt as though I was about to violate them again, even if
they were now a world away.
I
shifted the mouse, bringing the screen back from sleep with a vicious
start, from the quietly moving unobtrusive screen-saver badge of
Nottinghamshire police to a page of thumbnails. My eyes flicked across
from the screen back to the photographs with a sense of sorrow. You
never get used to these things. Maybe slightly removed,
compartmentalised, but never used to.
The
sound of shifting feet behind me pulled me back to the task in hand. No
one wanted to speak. I could feel the collective breath holding of
Danny, Ross and Grey.
“You're sure?” I asked of Ross, looking down at the photographs, not wanting to see it for myself.
“Yes.”
Nothing else was needed. Grey shifted into my peripheral vision, the movement alone telling me he wanted to know.
I
turned back to the screen, leaving my thumb resting on the photograph.
I double tapped the mouse over the first image in the line. The screen
changed. A single image of a female child filled the screen. She looked
to be between about seven and nine years of age. The child was in pants
in front of a backdrop that looked to be a cheap white sheet. She was
smiling for the camera. Ross leaned over my shoulder and pointed
towards the monitor. “There's one on the top row, third one in, and the
second one in on the second to bottom row is also relevant.”
I
ground my teeth together to prevent myself bawling him out. It wasn't
him I was angry with. I closed the window and moved the cursor across
the tiny images. I could see what they all were. Skin tones melding
into one disgusting story. Eventually I steadied the cursor enough to
click on the image Ross had indicated. As it opened, my teeth ground
harder together, the force pushed up to my temples. I looked down at
the photograph of Rosie I was touching, then looked back at the screen.
“Filthy fucking dirty bastard.”
Danny
leaned over my shoulder and deftly moved around in the software. “It's
the whole file these images are stored in that you need to be looking
at. It'll give you a wider picture.” His fingers moved quickly and
soon, two folders were on the monitor, waiting to be viewed in their
entirety. Photographs of both Rosie and Allison were saved in named
folders on the hard drive. One folder contained pictures of Rosie. It
had been given the name
Rosie Shared.
I
recognised the locations in the photos, recalling the dark blue flat
weave of the carpet and the paper falling from the walls. I saw in the
background the very same computer the photographs were now stored in.
The photographs of Rosie had been taken in Benn's dingy two bedroom
terrace house.
Not
for the first time since picking up this case I found myself fighting
to contain a stomach lurching sickness as I worked my way through the
folder with Ross; Grey and Danny apparently doing the same if their
silence was anything to go by. Benn couldn't deny knowledge of Rosie
now, but I still didn't get the link. She was so far away.
I moved through the images in the
Rosie Shared
file, taking in how Benn had started photographing her dressed in a
dirty white vest and pink pants. They didn't look like they had been
washed in a long time. Where were her clothes? What had happened to
her? I knew I needed to check back on the original missing report to
see what she'd been wearing when last seen. The look on her face told
me all I needed to know about how she felt. She was utterly terrified.
There was no colour to her skin, and her mouth, though attempting a
smile, wavered at the sides, cracking in fear, cheeks forced out, eyes
registering every feeling she was pretending didn't exist.
The
collection of images changed and Rosie's two items of clothing made
their way to the floor as she was further posed and she became more
distressed. Her body looked thin, the way I had seen her. The forced
smile so difficult to keep in place now, her mouth a straight line
across her ashen face. Then Benn joined her and the still images made
way for videos, the camera placed in such a way it captured everything.
A picture of violation and horror unfolded in front of us. No one
spoke. Then just when you think you can't be shocked in this job, the
next video started. All the evidence of Rosie's wrist welts and bruises
were played out for us in full colour and with sound. At the end of the
film, the marks around her neck were explained as the silent office
watched Benn pull the belt from around his jeans. As I watched him
pulling at it, it dawned on me what I was about to witness.
No one said a word.