Two Thousand and Ten Ch. 05

It felt wonderful to be so close to her, he had to admit to himself - if only it were under different, less traumatic circumstances. As the autumnal morning light filtered brightly through the curtains - a stark contrast to the drab and rainy weather the day before - he yawned, stretched and carefully slid out of bed, trying his best not to wake her. Dressed only in a pair of yellow boxer briefs, he padded into her kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee. Just as he flicked the kettle on, the phone rang.

"Hello?" He answered as he sat on the settee in the living room.

"It's DI Crawley here - who am I speaking to?"

"Peter, I'm Lindi's friend. I thought it best if I stayed with her last night. She's sleeping at the moment. She was a bit unsettled last night as I'm sure you can imagine."

"Okay, well it's probably best not to disturb her. But can you pass on a message for her?"

"Sure." Peter replied.

"Can you tell her that we caught up with Mr. Datchet last night, and that we have taken him into custody. Our officers are searching his house as we speak, and already they have found more material. Some of which is... well, quite disturbing from what I understand. I haven't had a chance to look over any of it yet, and to be honest, I'm not looking forward to it. But it's a necessary evil as far as our job's concerned - if it helps get creeps like this Datchet character banged up at Her Majesty's pleasure, then needs must."

"Okay, I'll tell her." Peter replied, "Will you need her to come to the station or anything?"

"Well, we shall have to take a formal statement from her of course, but that can wait a little while and we can do it at home if that would be more comfortable for her." DI Crawley explained, "We may need to ask her some more questions at a later date, but for now I shall just leave you to look after her. She needs her friends around her at a time like this."

"Yes, of course." Peter answered.

"And we shall have to take a statement from yourself as well. You did, after all, break into his desk."

"Ah. Well, I..."

"But don't worry, we'll turn a blind eye to that little misdemeanour - justifiable cause and all that." Crawley assured him, "But we will need to hear your side of events for our records - just standard procedure."

"Okay, well I was kind of expecting that anyway." Peter replied just as the kettle came to boil.

"Right. Well, I shall leave you to it for now." The inspector said, "I'll be in touch about your statements soon."

Once Peter hung up, he went back into the kitchen and made himself a mug of coffee. He was under no illusion that Lindi would be in for a traumatic time in the weeks and months ahead, through the police investigation, the inevitable court case and the nightmare of being cross-examined that, fortunately, he had been spared during Stevie William's trial. Not to mention the psychological trauma of finding out the man she thought she loved wasn't just a gentle, fun-loving, affable middle-aged guy, but was also a sinister, voyeuristic sex-fiend who preyed on young women and filmed himself abusing them. But he made a pledge, to whatever deity that might be listening, that he would be there for her. No matter how long she took to heal, no matter what cost to himself in time or money, he would support her. She had been there for him and fought for him when he had been falsely accused of rape, and he was going to be there and fight for her when she needed him.

Thursday, September 2nd 2010 - 11:46am

Lindi lay on her back in bed, staring up at her ceiling. How on earth could she have allowed herself to have been taken in by such a horridly abusive man? She thought to herself. He just seemed so... well, nice. There wasn't a single aspect of his personality that seemed out of the ordinary or set off alarm bells, at least not to her. She realised, as she lay there, recalling the things they saw on Clive's stash of memory sticks, that she got off lightly. The things he had been making those poor girls do in the name of satisfying his lust for only-just-legal young women made her stomach turn in disgust. Forcing... things into them, tying them up, inserting himself into them, in every single orifice possible. The only thing he had made her do, was to pose with herself parting her labia, using a vibrator on herself, and filmed her undressing and having sex. Which, looking back at it, was degrading enough, but at least he never did anything painful to her.

But why then had he gone out with her? She was much older than all the other girls in his gallery of abuse, who all appeared to be only just over eighteen, or in their early twenties at most. Why on earth would he be interested in a woman in her mid thirties? She realised she needed answers. And the only way to get those answers was from Clive himself.

Peter had come into her room some time earlier, dressed only in a pair of bright yellow underpants, and placed a tray of fresh coffee and toast on her bedside table. She didn't have an appetite, but made herself eat as much of it as she could. Peter, her knight in shining armour, she mused to herself. Or rather, her knight in yellow boxer briefs - a thought that made her smile for the first time in what felt like weeks, but in actual fact was only a couple of days. He told her Inspector Crawley had called while she was asleep, and had informed him that Clive had been arrested and was now in police custody, no doubt being questioned at that very moment. That news gladdened her immensely. He said he had to go to his office, but that he would look in on her at lunchtime. He also told her he would call her school, but she insisted that she would speak to her headteacher herself instead. He departed with a soft kiss on her forehead that she could still feel even now, hours after he left.

She knew she ought to get out of bed. She knew she ought to freshen up and take a shower. But taking a shower meant having to get undressed. And the thought of being naked took her right back to those afternoons spent in Clive's studio, while he took dozens of pictures of her, naked and in all manner of lewdly seductive poses, all the while he was secretly filming it all via his hidden cameras.

No! She thought to herself, she would not allow what had happened to her in that studio to dictate to her how she lived her life. She would not give in to it. So she threw back her duvet and hauled herself out of bed. She padded into her bathroom, turned on the shower and in a matter of moments, had taken off her bra and panties that she had been wearing since the previous day, and stepped naked into her shower. Instantly, as soon as the droplets of blissfully warm water rained down on her bare skin, she began to feel a little better.

She deposited a generous squeeze of her favourite lavender and waterlily shower gel onto a sponge and began to cover herself in a soft lather of scented bubbles that tickled her naked skin and infused the steamy air with a soothing aroma that made her feel calm and relaxed. After shampooing and conditioning her hair, she rinsed herself off and stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself up in her fluffy white bathrobe. It was then that there came a knock at her door.

She knew who it would be - the only person who ever knocked on her door was Peter; all other visitors to her flat had to use the intercom down at the front door to the lobby. But despite that, she still decided to check through her peephole just to make sure. She didn't want to be paranoid, but a part of her mind still envisioned Clive somehow escaping from the police station, accessing her building by following someone else into the lobby, and then forcing his way into her flat. But of course, as she looked through the tiny peephole, all she could see was Peter stood in the corridor.

She opened the door and invited him in. In his left hand he held a small brown paper bag, in his right he held a huge bouquet of flowers. Pink dahlias - her favourite.

"I thought you might need cheering up." Peter said as he offered the bouquet to her.

"Oh, Peter." She sighed, "They're beautiful!"

"And in here..." Peter continued, holding up the brown paper bag, "Are a couple of Green's bakeries finest smoked salmon bagels."

He kissed her on her cheek as he stepped in.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her as she closed the door.

"A bit better, I guess." Lindi said as she led him into her kitchen, "Well, much better, to tell you the truth. Now that I know they've arrested that sick pervert. God, how on earth could I have let myself get involved with such a sicko?"

"You weren't to know." Peter said logically, as he set the bagels down on the kitchen table.

"No, but you did!" Lindi said firmly.

"Look, I didn't know any more than you did!" Peter defended, "All I had was... just a... a feeling y'know. He just... gave me the creeps a little. If I'd have known for sure that he was such a twisted lowlife scumbag, you would've been the first to know."

"Sorry, I... I didn't mean it to come out like that." Lindi sighed apologetically.

"Shh, that's alright." Peter replied, gathering his friend into a warm hug, "I understand how hard this all is for you. I've been through the same kind of hell myself, remember?"

"I guess we've both been screwed over by members of the opposite sex." Lindi commented, "You with that stupid Stevie girl, and now me with Clive. Ohh, Peter, how could I have been so stupid?"

"You haven't been stupid." Peter assured her, "You're the smartest woman I've ever known. And don't ever let anyone, or anything, ever make you feel otherwise."

"Oh, Peter, what would I do without you?" Lindi sighed into Peter's ear.

"What would I do without you?" He replied.

Thursday, September 2nd 2010 - 2:13pm

"Alice Kingston speaking." Came the voice of Lindi's headteacher down the phone.

"Alice, it's Lindi here." Lindi replied.

"Lindi, how are you? I've been meaning to call you for an update on... y'know your er, unfortunate business." Kingston said, lowering her voice as though she wasn't alone and didn't want anyone to overhear, "But you can guess how busy I've been, what with it being the first week of term and everything."

"No, that's alright." Lindi assured her boss, "Can you spare a few minutes to talk?"

"Of course I can." The headteacher answered brightly.

"Good. Well, I have some good news. At least, it's good news as far as the school is concerned. Clive won't be posting that picture of me, y'know, naked, to FriendNet, or anywhere else for that matter."

"Good." Mrs Kingston replied, "Well, that is a relief. Not just for us I can assure you - I'm genuinely pleased for you too, Lindi."

"Yes, well... the bad news is that it seems that I was just the tip of the iceberg." Lindi continued.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, it seems as though I didn't know Clive anywhere near as well is I thought I did - he's clearly obsessed with young women. The younger they are, the better he likes them, or so it would seem."

"Oh my good lord." The headteacher gasped.

"At least none of the stuff Peter and I saw looked to be showing any girls younger than eighteen," Lindi explained, "but they didn't appear to look much older than that, either. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Peter called the police, and within a couple of hours they were searching his office and they found literally dozens of USB drives, presumably full of yet more of his filth."

"Ugh!" Kingston snorted in distaste, "Men are so disgusting! Beasts with nothing but sex on their minds!"

"Hey!" Lindi chastised her boss sharply, "Don't you ever make such a horrid generalisation! If it weren't for a very special man, I'd still be in a mire of self-pity and staring into an abyss of despair. You can't condemn an entire sex based on the twisted acts of one individual!"

There was a short pause at the other end of the line.

"Sorry, I... I didn't mean it like that." Kingston said eventually, sounding rather contrite.

"Remember that woman in Derringham last year? Women can be sex offenders too, you know!" Lindi went on, remembering a report on the local news from the year before, about a woman who worked in a residential home for adults with learning disabilities, where she coerced a number of young male residents into having sex with her.

"Yes, well... that was different." Kingston said.

"In what way?" Lindi retorted, "Different because it's okay for a woman to abuse young men that either couldn't give consent or were unable to understand what was happening to them, whereas it's definitely not okay for a man to abuse young women under the same circumstances, is that what you're saying?"

Lindi hated people that held double standards, especially those that used the "oh, but that's different" argument, a sentiment that dated back to her university days with her annoyingly vocal radical feminist roommate. Lindi recalled an incident a couple of years earlier, when she had read aloud a newspaper article in the staff room about a husband who had been the victim of an abusive wife. One of her colleagues from the PE department had scoffed that he probably deserved it, an argument that immediately enraged Lindi. He was a victim of domestic violence just like any woman, she had argued back, and it was then that her colleague scoffed "maybe, but that's different - he's a man! A man can't be a victim in the same way a woman can!" The sheer lunacy of her colleague's logic utterly dumbfounded and profoundly saddened her.

"I never said that!" Kingston snapped, "look, we're getting a little bogged down on semantics here. So it turns out your boyfriend is a paedophile..."

"He's not a paedophile ." Lindi corrected, "I'm not sure there is a technical term for... whatever it is that Clive is, a something-else-ophile, or whatever, but all of the girls he's preyed on are barely over eighteen. Well, apart from me, for some reason."

"Whatever." Kingston said, dismissively, "I take it the police have arrested him?"

"They caught up with him last night." Lindi replied, "He'll probably be 'helping them with their enquiries' at this very moment. The thing is... when Peter and I were looking through his sordid gallery of naked girls, there was a striking blonde haired girl that, now that I think about her, I've sort of... remembered this morning where I've seen her before."

"You recognised one of them?" Kingston answered.

"One of my former pupils. Do you remember a girl called Vanessa Firway?"

"Vanessa Firway?" Kingston said, trying to recall the name, "Oh yes - quite a bright girl, from what I remember of her. She left school what, four years ago? She had great potential - I remember the words 'Oxford' and 'Cambridge' being mentioned about her quite a bit at the time. Have you told the police about recognising her?"

"Not yet - I didn't recognise her to begin with, but I remember now she had blonde hair and a little birthmark just above her left eyebrow, and the girl in the picture had both of those - she just looked older than I remembered Vanessa. I reckon the girl in the photographs looked to be about twenty to twenty one years old, at the oldest. Anyway, it seems as though somewhere along the line, her life must've gone badly wrong, thanks to my now ex-boyfriend. I remember she left school at sixteen with eight GCSE's - straight A's right across the board, and then went on to sixth form college where she aced her A-levels, again all with straight A's. I know I'm being paranoid, but, what if something... dreadful happened to her because of Clive?"

"You... you think he might have killed her?" Kingston queried.

"Well, I don't know." Lindi replied, "But something must've happened to her."

"Look Lindi, I'm sure the police will uncover everything in good time - just leave them to do their job and concentrate your mind on getting yourself back together." The headteacher said patiently, trying to stop Lindi from getting too carried away with theories about her former student's fate, "The important thing as far as we're concerned, is to try to get you back to some semblance of normality. Now, the other staff members will never know about any of this, and thanks to you and... what was his name? Peter? The picture that was sent to me will now never find its way to the internet and potentially into the hands of any of our students. And you can return to work without a stain on your character. And if the police uncover anything about Vanessa Firway and come knocking on our door, we shall assist them with their enquiries fully and discreetly."

Lindi ended her conversation by arranging to return to work the following day, determined to return to some semblance of normality as quickly as possible. She disliked being at a loose end in her flat all day, and she would much rather go back to work and have her normal routine of lessons and marking coursework as a distraction to the shocking revelations from the day before.

As soon as she hung up she dialled DI Crawley's number.

"DI Crawley." He answered simply on the third ring.

"Er, hello it's Lindi Vernham here."

"Ah, Ms. Vernham, good to hear from you. How are you bearing up?" Crawley replied.

"Well, I've had better days." Lindi answered, "I mean, it's not every day you find out that the man you thought was the perfect gentleman turns out to be a depraved sex monster obsessed with young women. But at least I have Peter to keep me sane - I don't know what I'd do without him."

"Support from friends is an important thing to have at times like this."

"Yes, well anyway, this morning I remembered something about one of the girls on one of Clive's memory sticks." Lindi said.

"I'm listening." Crawley replied simply, prompting her to continue.

"The one in the memory stick marked 'VF', I think she was an ex-pupil of mine - Vanessa Firway." Lindi went on, "At the time I was so shocked at what I was looking at, I didn't recognise her, but I always remembered she had a distinctive little birthmark just above her left eyebrow."

"Hang on a moment." DI Crawley said at the other end of the line, "Let me pull one of the pictures up to take a look."

There was a pause as Lindi heard the tapping of keys and the clicking of a mouse as the Detective pulled up the photograph that had already been stored in the secure evidence server.

"So she does." Crawley said eventually, "Can you describe it a little further for me?"

"Well, if my memory serves me, it was quite distinctive. It looked like a sort of upside down outline of Australia."

"Hang on a sec, let me zoom in a little here." Crawley said, accompanied by the sound of more mouse clicks, "Ah yes, so it does."

"It's... it's definitely her?" Lindi gasped.

"It would seem so." The detective replied, "But I'd need you to take a look at it to confirm. Would you be willing to pop down to the station to see me?"

"Not if, y'know, he's there." Lindi said with a shudder at the very thought of being in the same building as Clive.

"That's okay. I can come over to you if you'd prefer." Crawley said as the sounds of the busy police station continued in the background, "We can take your formal statement while we're at it - may as well kill two birds with one stone. That is, if you are ready - if you don't feel up to it just yet we can put it off for a day or two, but the sooner we can do it the better."

"No, that's no problem." Lindi replied, "Will you need Peter's statement too?"

"Well it'd be helpful - if he's around to give us a statement."

"He normally gets in at around five, but I can give him a ring to see if he can leave work a bit early."

"No need, five should be okay with us - myself and my colleague will be around later." Crawley answered, "In the meantime, I shall run this Vanessa Firway's name through our system to see if she pops up anywhere."