Peter James - Dead Like You

The victim, a frightened-looking woman in her thirties, in a white towelling dressing gown with the letters MH monogrammed on the chest, sat, hunched up like a ball on the sofa, arms wrapped around her midriff. She was thin, with an attractive but pale face, and streaked mascara. Her long red hair was in a messy tangle.

Across the table from her sat DC Claire Westmore, the Sexual Offences Liaison Officer. She was mirroring the victim, sitting with the same posture, arms wrapped around her midriff too.

The police had learned, over the years, the most effective ways to obtain information from victims and witnesses during interviews. The first principle concerned dress code. Never wear anything that might distract the subject, such as stripes or vivid colours. DC Westmore was dressed appropriately, in a plain blue open-neck shirt beneath a navy V-neck jumper, black trousers and plain black shoes. Her shoulder-length fair hair was swept back from her face and cinched with a band. A simple silver choker was the only jewellery she was wearing.

The second principle was to put the victim or witness in the dominant position, to relax them, which was why the interviewee – Nicola Taylor – was on the sofa, while the DC was on the single chair.

Mirroring was a classic interview technique. If you mirrored everything that the subject did, sometimes it would put them at ease to such an extent that they began to mirror the interviewer. When that happened, the interviewer then had control and the victim would acquiesce, relating to the interviewer – and, in interview parlance, start to cough.

Grace jotted down occasional notes as Westmore, in her gentle Scouse accent, slowly and skilfully attempted to coax a response from the traumatized, silent woman. A high percentage of rape victims suffer immediate post-traumatic stress disorder, their agitated state limiting the time they are able to concentrate and focus. Westmore was intelligently making the best of this by following the guidelines to go to the most recent event first and then work backwards.

Over his years as a detective Grace had learned, from numerous interviewing courses he had attended, something that he was fond of telling team members: there is no such thing as a bad witness – only a bad interviewer.

But this DC seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

‘I know this must be very difficult for you to talk about, Nicola,’ she said. ‘But it would help me to understand what’s happened and really help in trying to find out who has done this to you. You don’t have to tell me today if you don’t want to.’

The woman stared ahead in silence, wringing her hands together, shaking.

Grace felt desperately sorry for her.

The SOLO began wringing her hands too. After some moments, she asked, ‘You were at a New Year’s Eve dinner at the Metropole with some friends, I understand?’

Silence.

Tears were rolling down the woman’s cheeks.

‘Is there anything at all you can tell me today?’

She shook her head suddenly.

‘OK. That’s not a problem,’ Claire Westmore said. She sat in silence for a short while, then she asked, ‘At this dinner, did you have very much to drink?’

The woman shook her head.

‘So you weren’t drunk?’

‘Why do you think I was drunk?’ she snapped back suddenly.

The SOLO smiled. ‘It’s one of those evenings when we all let our guard down a little. I don’t drink very much. But New Year’s Eve I tend to get wrecked! It’s the one time of year!’

Nicola Taylor looked down at her hands. ‘Is that what you think?’ she said quietly. ‘That I was wrecked?’

‘I’m here to help you. I’m not making any assumptions, Nicola.’

‘I was stone cold sober,’ she said bitterly.

‘OK.’

Grace was pleased to see the woman reacting. That was a positive sign.

‘I’m not judging you, Nicola. I’d just like to know what happened. I honestly do understand how difficult it is to speak about what you have been through and I want to help you in any way I can. I can only do that if I understand exactly what’s happened to you.’

A long silence.

Branson drank some of his Coke. Grace sipped his coffee.

‘We can end this chat whenever you want, Nicola. If you would rather we leave it until tomorrow, that’s fine. Or the next day. Whatever you feel is best. I just want to help you. That’s all I care about.’

Another long silence.

Then Nicola Taylor suddenly blurted out the word, ‘Shoes!’

‘Shoes?’

She fell silent again.

‘Do you like shoes, Nicola?’ the SOLO probed. When there was no response she said chattily, ‘Shoes are my big weakness. I was in New York before Christmas with my husband. I nearly bought some Fendi boots – they cost eight hundred and fifty dollars!’

‘Mine were Marc Jacobs,’ Nicola Taylor said, almost whispering.

‘Marc Jacobs? I love his shoes!’ she replied. ‘Were they taken with your clothes?’

Another long silence.

Then the woman said, ‘He made me do things with them.’

‘What kind of things? Try – try to tell me.’

Nicola Taylor started to cry again. Then, in between her sobs, she began talking in graphic detail, but slowly, with long periods of silence in between, as she tried to compose herself, and sometimes just plain let go, waves of nausea making her retch.

As they listened in the observation room, Glenn Branson turned to his colleague and winced.

Grace acknowledged him, feeling very uncomfortable. But as he listened now, he was thinking hard. Thinking back to that cold-case file on his office floor, which he had read through only very recently. Thinking back to 1997. Recalling dates. A pattern. An MO. Thinking about statements given by victims back then, some of which he had re-read not long ago.

That same wintry gust he had felt earlier was rippling through his veins again.

Friday 26 December

‘Thermometer says tonight!’ Sandy said, with that twinkle in her brilliant blue eyes that got to Roy Grace every time.

They were sitting in front of the television. Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation had become a kind of ritual, a movie they traditionally watched every Boxing Day night. The sheer stupidity of the disasters normally made Roy laugh out aloud. But tonight he was silent.

‘Hello?’ Sandy said. ‘Hello, Detective Sergeant! Anyone home?’

He nodded, crushing out his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re not thinking about work, are you, my darling? Not tonight. We didn’t have a proper Christmas, so let’s at least enjoy what’s left of Boxing Day. Let’s make something special out of it.’

‘I know,’ Roy said. ‘It’s just-’

‘It’s always, It’s just…’ she said.

‘I’m sorry. I had to deal with a family who didn’t have a Christmas or a Boxing Day celebration, OK? Their daughter left her friends early on Christmas morning and never arrived home. Her parents are frantic. I – I have to do what I can for them. For her.’

‘So? She’s probably busy shagging some bloke she met in a club.’

‘No. Not her pattern.’

‘Oh, sod it, Detective Sergeant Grace! You told me yourself about the number of people who get reported missing by loved ones every year. Around two hundred and thirty thousand in the UK alone, you said, and most of them turn up within thirty days!’

‘And eleven thousand, five hundred don’t.’

‘So?’

‘I have a feeling about this one.’

‘Copper’s nose?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Sandy stroked his nose. ‘I love yours, Copper!’ She kissed it. ‘We have to make love tonight. I checked my temperature and it seems like I might be ovulating.’