Page 28 of Deadly Cry

Stacey guessed town meant Birmingham, and she wondered just how warmed up this lot needed to be. She was grateful she wasn’t sharing a train or bus with them later.

Stacey couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the woman she’d visited the previous day and the woman in front of her. Same attacker, same type of sexual assault. But different outcomes. One who was frightened to leave the house and one who didn’t want to stay in. One who seemingly had few friends and one who appeared to have a houseful. Someone lacking in confidence and someone with more than enough. She wondered if that was the difference in justice: that day in court, closure and the ability to move on. Maybe if she could somehow get justice for Lesley, she could also move on with her life like Gemma.

‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your attack?’

‘Why?’ Gemma asked, meeting her gaze. Any evidence she’d been drinking appeared to have gone.

‘There’s just something to do with another victim that I’m trying to understand.’

‘But he’s not getting out?’

Stacey shook her head. ‘There are no early release plans. It’s the attack itself I’d like to discuss, if that’s not going to be too painful.’

Gemma dropped the cigarette, which had appeared to burn itself out, in the overflowing ashtray. She reached for the pack on the table and lit another one.

Any hint of the inebriated girl was long gone as her trembling hand put the lighter back down. Gone was the confident young woman drinking herself into a party mood. Now Stacey was seeing the victim of a sexual assault.

‘Where do you want me to start?’

‘At the beginning. From the minute you were grabbed,’ Stacey prompted. She wanted the girl’s own words.

‘Okay, I’d just left the club heading for home. Not here, I moved from that place. I didn’t want to live there any more. Anyway, I’d done the walk loads of times. Never any bugger about. It’s through an estate, no fields, alleys or dark corners. Just rows of houses. I was about halfway when I just felt this fucking pain from behind. That’s all I remember. I passed out and when I came to he was lying against me. I was face down with the taste of soil in my mouth. I tried to cough it out before it went down my throat. His hand was pressing hard on the huge fucking lump on my head. I blacked out again. When I came to for the second time he was—’

The kitchen door opened, surprising them both. ‘Hey, Gem, got any?…’

‘Fuck off,’ Gemma shouted to the girl who had put her head round the door.

The girl slid away quickly.

Gemma took a long draw on the cigarette and blew out the smoke slowly.

As though sensing the seriousness of the situation in the kitchen, the music miraculously dropped to a reasonable level. Stacey felt sure that Bertram Jennings, whoever he was, was relieved.

‘Please continue when you’re ready,’ Stacey urged.

Gemma took a deep breath. ‘He was ramming something up and down inside me. It was thick and hard, cold. I felt like it was gonna come out my mouth. The pain blinded me. It was worse than the bang to the head. My mind was screaming for it to stop. I thought it was gonna split me open.’

With Gemma he’d been rough.

With Lesley he had not been.

Yet the crimes had been too similar not to have been committed by the same person.

‘And what happened next?’

‘I wasn’t sure if I’d died cos the pain stopped. I could still feel my insides pulsing and throbbing and the soreness of the cuts, but the blinding pain had gone.’

Gemma’s genitals had been injured.

Lesley’s had not.

‘Then I felt something on my bare arse cheek. Something sharp, but nothing compared to the other pain. I didn’t even realise I’d been cut. Bastard decided to carve me up into the bargain. Couldn’t sit down right for fucking weeks.’

Gemma had been cut.

Lesley had not.

It was the thing that had bothered Stacey most when she’d first read the file: so many similarities but discrepancies too.