Deadly Cry (DI Kim Stone #13) - Angela Marsons Page 0,13
the woman’s take-charge attitude. Sometimes it was what people needed at times like this.
‘Oh, and Inspector,’ she said with her hand on the door handle, ‘please cancel that liaison officer. My brother has me. He doesn’t need anyone else.’
Eleven
‘It was around one thirty in the morning,’ Lesley began with a faraway look in her eyes.
Stacey guessed that was the last memory she had of being carefree and unafraid.
‘The last act had finished a while before and security were ushering us out the gates. Taxis and parents’ cars lined the road, even at that time. I lived less than a mile away, so hadn’t asked anyone to pick me up. I said good night to my friends, and they piled into different cars and carried on up the road. I could still hear the beat of the band in my ears, which is probably why I didn’t hear anyone behind me.’
Lesley paused as a dozen ‘if onlys’ appeared to surge through her mind.
‘I was about halfway home when I felt a searing pain to the back of my head,’ she said as her right hand touched the spot. ‘I didn’t know I’d been hit. I didn’t know anything until I regained consciousness and, even then, the blinding pain came second to the smell.’
‘The smell?’ Stacey queried.
Lesley nodded. ‘I was face down in someone’s front garden. My head was being held against the dirt amongst a bed of geraniums; it’s a smell I’ll never forget. I can’t smell it now without wanting to burst into tears.’
Stacey knew that some victims retained triggers from their attacks that brought the memories flooding back, even if the attack was not at the forefront of the mind. It could be the sound of traffic, a car horn, certain words or phrases used by the attacker. For Lesley, it would be the cloying scent of geraniums.
‘I felt the suffocation of the smell before the thundering pain in my head or the realisation of what was happening. His hand was holding me down exactly where I’d been struck, and he was assaulting me from behind. Any movement and the pain brought nausea up to my throat. I thought I was going to choke on my own vomit. I thought I was going to die,’ she whispered, blinking back the tears.
Stacey nodded but said nothing. She didn’t want to rush her along. The story had to be told at her own pace, in her own way.
‘It was only then that I became aware of what was being done to me. I could feel something cold and hard being pushed in and out of my vagina. My shorts and underwear were around my ankles, and he was positioned on my left side, one hand on my head and one… well…’
Stacey nodded, trying to keep her face expressionless in spite of her growing rage. She didn’t need the girl to keep repeating it. The ordeal was horrific enough the first time.
‘I tried to scream, but my mouth was face down in the dirt. I tried to struggle, but my body was beyond exhausted, as though every limb was being held down by lead weights. It carried on for a few more minutes and then it was over. I could still smell the flowers, but the weight disappeared from my head. I still couldn’t lift it. I didn’t even know I’d been crying; the tears had mixed with the dirt. Suddenly, the silence was overwhelming.’
Stacey waited.
‘Eventually, I managed to crawl to the front door of the house and hit the front door. At first, the elderly man who lived there thought I was drunk and threatened to call the police. I just croaked out that I’d been raped. He called the police, and then sat beside me, careful not to touch me but just telling me he wasn’t leaving me and that the police were coming. Ten minutes later they did.’
She opened her hands expressively as if to say, ‘that’s it’.
Stacey had been forming a list of questions in her mind as Lesley had been speaking. Right now, she was at a loss to understand why this woman had been denied the opportunity to testify on the stand. She was clear, concise, had a good memory of events which she recited calmly.
Stacey knew her questions had already been asked at the time of the attack, but maybe the retelling of the event had brought up some forgotten detail.