Recompense Read online

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear that,’ Ben replied returning to the room.

  ‘Time?’ she repeated.

  ‘Just after one am. I’m starving. You?’

  ‘Actually, I am,’ she said. ‘Is it too late for a takeaway?’

  ‘I don’t eat takeaway food,’ replied Ben. ‘But I can rustle you up some fishcakes.’

  Kirsty frowned. ‘Fishcakes?’ she said.

  ‘Yep,’ he grinned. ‘I got Netty to jot me down her recipe while I was with her. I’d forgotten how much I missed them. Mum’s were never quite the same.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Kirsty. ‘If it’s your grandmother’s recipe.’

  ‘Good. You can chop the onions.’ He opened the fridge and brought out a bowl of cooked fish, coriander, eggs, spring onions. A variety of other ingredients appeared on his black granite breakfast bar.

  Kirsty applied herself to chopping spring onions – and re-chopping them when told they need to be finer.

  Poole roughly chopped up the fish, laughing at Kirsty’s upturned nose. ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,’ he said. ‘Salt fish. I like to have some ready these days.’ He placed a large pan of oil to heat on the hob and popped the fish in a large bowl, with the onions, coriander, eggs, milk, a splash of a yellow sauce and flour. He whisked everything together until it was a consistency he liked. He tested the oil with a temperature probe and placed spoonfuls of the mixture in the pan. They sat in silence listening to the bubbling oil as the mouth-watering smell wafted around them. Turning them over to brown on the other side, Poole was smiling and dancing to an unheard rhythm. Scooping the deep fried shapes on to kitchen paper to cool, he placed more spoonfuls in the pan of oil.

  ‘They should be cool enough now,’ he said. He picked one up and broke it in half, offering her the morsel. ‘Try that and tell me that’s not the best fishcake you have ever eaten.’

  Kirsty took it from his hand and nibbled at the edge, before biting into the fluffy, spicy titbit. The expression on her face was enough to tell Poole that she was in heaven.

  Later on 15th July 2018

  Jane rang the doorbell and waited, although she wondered why she had rung at all. The dog had heard her as soon as she opened the gate and started barking immediately. Now she could hear him snuffling excitedly on the other side of the door and the thump of his tail on the wall.

  The door opened a crack and then closed. Jane heard the chain rattle and the door opened again. The black and tan bombardment began as Jane tried to edge her way into the house.

  ‘Danvers, get down,’ Sarah Jenkins shouted at him. ‘Let Jane in the door, you silly dog.’ She stood aside to let Jane in the house and then squeezed past the six-legged maelstrom crouched in the corridor, to push the door shut and put the chain back on as Jane played with the dog.

  The trio made their way into the sunny kitchen at the back of the house and Sarah let the Doberman out the back door to chase shadows and magpies.

  ‘I’m sorry to call on a Sunday,’ said Jane

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s lovely to see you,’ Sarah replied. ‘It’s been far too long. How’s work?’

  ‘Oh, you know, busy,’ said Jane wishing she had a better excuse for not visiting sooner. ‘How about you? Are you going back to work soon? Or are you still intent on writing your book?’

  Sarah took two mugs from a wall cupboard and turned to face Jane. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said. ‘Not to either question. Writing about him, I think it’s too soon. Too raw, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do,’ said Jane. She knew Sarah’s experience meeting a serial killer on the team’s last big case had left the reporter damaged physically and mentally. She had planned to write a book about it, but Jane knew that finding the words was proving tougher than Sarah had ever expected.

  ‘I never realised how hard it is to write a book,’ Sarah said. ‘I am, was, a reporter so you’d thinking finding words would be easy. But this is rough. I get so angry with him. Then I feel so dirty and disgusted. Then ashamed. Then angry again.’

  ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ asked Jane, taking the offered coffee and a seat at the breakfast bar.

  ‘Yes, I took your advice and I now see a therapist every other week. It’s helping but it’s slow progress. At least I get out of the house, and I have Danvers to thank for that. I know some women become cocooned, almost imprisoned in their homes, afraid to go out. Afraid it will happen again.’

  ‘Is that how you feel?’ Jane reached across and squeezed Sarah’s hand.

  ‘Even that,’ said Sarah looking at their hands together. ‘Even that is hard to cope with.’

  Jane snatched her hand back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think.’

  Sarah slipped off her stool to let the dog back into the house. ‘I guess it’s one of those things that you don’t understand until you experience it. Even then, not everyone is the same. I’m lucky, I know I am, because he didn’t kill me. And I blame myself. Yes, I do,’ she said in response to Jane’s protest. ‘I went to find him. I was seeking him out for a story. Well, I got one, except I can’t write it.’

  ‘You decided not to prosecute in the end?’ said Jane.

  ‘Oh, come on! What would be the point? He was already going to prison for the murders. I thought about it, but I would have been on trial too. What did I expect? I was in a pub used by prostitutes, dressed like a prostitute. I was asking for it. That’s what the defence barrister would say and the jury would believe him over me.’ Danvers came to his owner’s side and licked her hand. She slumped to the floor and cuddled him. ‘For me it just wasn’t worth the effort, although the CPS still wanted to go ahead with a prosecution. They offered me special protection. Giving evidence by video-link so he couldn’t see me nor me see him, but I was unable to face living though it all over again. I meet with other rape survivors now and most of them feel the same. That the justice system lets them down.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Jane felt helpless.

  ‘Well, like I said. I still feel lucky. I’m getting help and I am talking about it. Many women don’t, they just suffer in silence. So much has been stolen from them, their freedom, their sex lives for example, and they just live their life on high alert in case it happens again. At least I have Danvers to be on alert for me,’ she said, laying her cheek against the back of the dog’s neck. ‘Is that why you’re here? To talk to a rape survivor first-hand?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Jane began before she realised that she was lying. ‘Actually yes, I suppose. If he’d not been charged with the murders would you have wanted to prosecute him then?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Sarah said. ‘I would have been on trial too and he would get the chance to relive the whole thing in glorious detail and I wasn’t ready for that.

  So tell me, how is your case coming on? I’ve been following it in the news. What kind of mutilations? I’ll be honest with you, if I’d been able I would have ripped Latimer’s eyes out and torn his balls off for what he’s done to me!’

  Jane, halfway through dunking a biscuit, looked at Sarah, her mouth open and, as she realised that her hunch had been correct, part of her biscuit fell off and plopped into her mug.

  Later

  Gippingford Police HQ

  Carlson walked into the squad room to be met by a group of excited and expectant faces. ‘What’s up with you lot?’ he said, suspiciously.

  ‘It was something that Aspen said at the party,’ Poole replied. ‘I think when we left we all had the same idea.’

  ‘Which was,’ said Carlson suspiciously.

  ‘Investigate revenge movies, sir’ said Jane.

  Carlson sat himself at a desk in the squad room and sipped the carton of tea from the coffee machine. Pulling a face he placed the cup on the desk. He preferred to get his tea from the local café but it was closed on Sunday mornings. He looked around at his team raising a single eyebrow as he did so. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Poole? You begin.’

  ‘Well, guv, it�
��s just like Jane said. We all went back to our homes and checked out a number of revenge movies. There are any number of top five, top ten lists etc. Obviously, and I think we all concur,’ he looked around at the team, ‘our murders fit in with taking revenge. We said from the very first one, didn’t we, that it was an extremely unusual means of mutilation. At least here in Britain. It may account for the different mutilations we saw on Jones and Waite.’

  ‘Explain,’ said Carlson.

  ‘Well, guv, as you may or may not know, Jane has been keeping in touch with Sarah Jenkins and, well you tell it, Jane.’ Poole sat back in his chair and Jane took over.

  ‘Thanks, skip,’ Jane said. ‘I saw Sarah Jenkins this morning. I pop round every couple of months and we have a natter. You remember she wanted to write her story?’

  Carlson nodded. ‘Get on with it,’ he said.

  ‘Well she’s been struggling and we talked about why. Then she started telling me about everything she felt she’d lost after the rape. She’s often hinted in the past, but she told me outright this morning. I hadn’t made the connection until we got talking at your party, so I focused on revenge films where the retribution was taken out against rapists. I think that’s where our killer may have got his idea from.’

  ‘His?’ said Carlson. ‘You don’t think it’s a woman?’

  ‘I’m not sure to be honest, sir. How could a woman have carried our first victim to the abandoned house?’

  ‘If she carried him,’ said Tim. ‘A woman could have lured him there and then killed him once he was in the basement.’

  ‘But he would have been too sick to walk, surely?’ Jane rounded on Tim.

  ‘Okay, enough,’ said Carlson. ‘Focus on the CCTV for now, both of you. We need to find out who owns the pale car.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ they both replied dutifully.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  17th January 2017

  Bristol

  ‘When you were here before Christmas, you’d had an argument with Jenni. Perhaps we could start today by talking about that? How did it start, Lissa?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to talk about it, Torrie,’ Lissa said. ‘It was all so silly. I’d just had a row with Mal and Jenni turned up all excited about her trip with her parents and I was in a bad mood.’

  ‘Your argument with Mal caused the bad mood? What did you argue with Mal about?’ asked Torrie softly.

  ‘He was using my car again and he’d not bothered to ask. He just assumes that I’m always going to say yes. He’s taking me for granted and it’s just beginning to wind me up, that’s all. Then I took it all out on Jenni. She thought I should go back to the Abbey for a while.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  Lissa looked at her. ‘You know, with how things are right now, it seems like a really good idea. It would stop Mal in his tracks, that’s for certain.’ She laughed out loud.

  ‘How would it stop Mal?’ said Torrie. ‘Isn’t he independent of you?’

  ‘My parents would take the car back to Nunney and he’d not be able to use it all the time for his little trips.’ Lissa smiled triumphantly.

  ‘What little trips is he making? You’ve not mentioned them before,’ said Torrie. ‘Where does he go? Do you know? Do you ever go with him?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t,’ said Lissa, shaking her head violently. ‘I’d be too scared.’

  ‘And what does he get up to on these trips of his? Does he share that with you?’ Torrie sipped her water and watched Lissa’s reactions.

  ‘He says…’ Lissa began, ‘he says that he’s sorting things out and that I shouldn’t worry. He says he’s taking care of everything.’

  ‘What does he mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s been acting weird since we looked at the images on the memory card,’ replied Lissa. She kept her head down, refusing to look at Torrie.

  ‘Are you sure that you don’t know what he means?’ Torrie persisted.

  Lissa shook her head, still dodging Torrie’s gaze.

  ‘Lissa?’ Torrie said. ‘Talk to me.’

  Lissa gazed around the room, her eyes resting on the pictures, on the books, anywhere but looking at Torrie. ‘I think he’s found them,’ she said finally.

  ‘Who?’ said Torrie. ‘Your rapists?’

  Lissa nodded again, twisting her hands in her lap. ‘It seems so weird to call them mine,’ she whispered. ‘It’s like claiming ownership of something that was never mine in the first place.’

  ‘That’s a good point,’ said Torrie. ‘So, do you know what Mal plans to do with the rapists if he should find them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ whispered Lissa. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘How are you dealing with all of this, Lissa? It must be a terrible worry?’

  ‘It is,’ Lissa replied, pulling her sleeves down and holding the hems in the palms of her hands. ‘But I’m doing okay.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Torrie, leaning forward. She opened her hand and, reluctantly, Lissa placed hers in the outstretched palm.

  Torrie eased up the sleeve and winced as the saw the cuts. ‘Oh, Lissa,’ she breathed. ‘I thought we’d got past this.’

  Lissa snatched her hand back. ‘We had,’ she said. ‘I was doing really well. It’s just that bloody Mal and his stupid ideas.’

  ‘So, you do know what his ideas are?’ said Torrie. ‘You do know what he plans to do?’

  Lissa nodded.

  ‘Will you tell me?’

  Lissa shook her head. ‘He’d kill me,’ she said.

  ‘Right, then I think we need to get you back to the Abbey as soon as we can. Just you sit back down and I’ll call the Abbey. It will be alright, wait and see.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Lissa. ‘Thank you.’

  Torrie rose and Lissa could hear her on the telephone. She seemed to be having a disagreement with someone. Lissa gnawed on her thumbnail as she listened to the muted conversation. She knew she should have told Torrie all about Mal and his plans before now, but somehow it had all seemed rather silly.

  Now, she sat shaking, terrified to go back to the flat in case he had returned.

  When Torrie returned to the room however, it appeared that all was not fine. ‘They have no free beds at the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Dr Last is going to ring around to find somewhere else that can take you. In the meantime, he suggests that you go back to the flat. Have Jenni come and sit with you. Would you consider going back to your parents’ house for a while?

  ‘No,’ said Lissa. ‘I can’t do that. They overcrowd me. They constantly spy on me. I feel like I’m under surveillance. It’s all too much.’

  Torrie nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘That can happen all too easily. Is there anywhere else that you could go where you would feel safe?’

  ‘My grandmother had a lovely little cottage in Cornwall. Near the coast. I spent a lot of time there as a child. I really loved it there.’

  ‘Is your grandmother still there?’ asked Torrie.

  ‘No,’ said Lissa. ‘She died a few years ago. I expect the cottage has been sold.’

  ‘To be honest,’ said Torrie. ‘That’s almost good news. I think we should focus on getting your drinking under control and I’m not sure that you can do that on your own just yet, can you?’

  ‘What do you suggest? Alcoholics Anonymous? I’m not an alcoholic,’ muttered Lissa.

  ‘How many units do you drink a day,’ asked Torrie.

  Lissa shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she said.

  ‘How many bottles of vodka do you buy a week?’

  Again the shrug.

  ‘Is it all vodka or do you vary it with wine or alternative spirits?’

  ‘Just vodka. It does what I need.’ Lissa sat, all her focus on her twisting hands. Unable to look up and face her inquisitor.

  ‘What does it do, Lissa,’ asked Torrie softly.

  ‘Blocks everything out. As if it didn’t happen.’

  ‘How well does that work?’r />
  ‘S’okay for a while and then they all come back,’ Lissa said. She flung herself back in the chair and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Can’t you hypnotise me, take me back to a time before it happened and wipe out the rest of my memory.’

  ‘Hypnosis has been used to treat PTSD,’ Torrie said slowly. ‘But some results are more positive than others. Some people have had very bad reactions to it.’

  ‘Such as?’ Lissa sprang forward in her chair. Her interest piqued in case there was a fix-all cure for her problem.

  ‘Well, one of the main problems as I mentioned to you before,’ said Torrie tentatively, ‘ is overwhelming you with memories of the attack and re-traumatising you all over again. There is a danger that all the work and progress that we have made so far is what gets wiped out, rather than erasing the memories that you’d rather not face.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Lissa, deflated. ‘Sounds like I’m stuck then.’

  ‘What barriers are there to facing what happened?’ Torrie perched herself on the edge of her chair. ‘What stops you dealing with the trauma?’

  Lissa grabbed a tissue from the box on the table. ‘I feel as though if I put it all in a little box, I can file it away where it can’t harm me anymore.’

  ‘Repressing feelings isn’t always a good way to deal with them, though,’ suggested Torrie gently. ‘I’ve tried to encourage you to talk about the attack so that we can deal with each feeling as it arises. Tell me, how do you feel about the men who raped you?’

  ‘Angry,’ Lissa mumbled. ‘Very, very angry. But that’s not nice. That’s not what nice people do. That’s how I was brought up, sweep it under the carpet and don’t talk about it anymore.’

  ‘How’s that carpet looking now?’ asked Torrie.

  ‘It’s all bumpy and I can’t shut the door,’ replied Lissa sheepishly.