It was neither. “Sir?” Carl Vincent’s voice, as recognizable to him already as the regular members of the team. “Sir, I think you’d best come in.”
The man sitting in Resnick’s office was forty-two or — three; his hair was medium brown; quite thick, slightly long at the back and in need of a trim, perhaps, where it was beginning to curl around his ears. He had a neat beard, tight to the jaw line; spectacles without rims. He was wearing what seemed to be a good suit, navy blue, one narrow stripe of a darker blue alongside one of gray. The knot of his tie was precise and unfashionably small.
“This is Mr. Cheshire,” Vincent said, standing between Resnick and the door.
Resnick nodded and when Cheshire offered his hand, Resnick shook it, observing the slight tremor, the patchiness of sweat.
Resnick moved behind his desk and sat down; motioning for Vincent to close the door and do the same.
“Why don’t you tell the inspector,” Vincent said, “just what you told me?” And then, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
Cheshire’s accent was regulation, well-educated, whatever local variation might once have been present was now almost totally submerged. “Ever since I read the story in the newspaper,” Cheshire said, “the man who was attacked in the Recreation Ground, I’ve been considering coming to see you. You see, I couldn’t be certain, positive that it was the correct thing to do.”
“If you’ve got information for us, Mr. Cheshire, anything that might help us with what happened …”
“No. No, you see …” A nervous glance round towards Vincent, who nodded encouragingly. “It isn’t about that, at least not directly.”
“Go on.”
“Several months ago, six, six to be exact, six months and seven days, I was attacked by a man on the Promenade alongside the park, the same park.” Cheshire removed his glasses from his face and rested his head forward at an angle into the palm of his hand. “I was … I was struck to the ground and almost throttled from behind. I was threatened with what would happen to me if I screamed … and then I was forcedly … I was raped, Inspector, that’s what happened. Six months, a little more than six months ago.”
It was quiet in the room, just the breathing of three men above the barely audible electric hum.
“This incident,” Resnick said, “you didn’t report it at the time?”
Cheshire shook his head.
“Not your doctor, hospital …?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone about this at all?”
“No, I did not.”
“It’s okay,” Vincent said reassuringly.
“I feel as if I’m being accused here.”
“No,” Vincent said, glancing across at Resnick.
“No, Mr. Cheshire,” Resnick said. “I assure you, that’s not the case at all.”
“Because if I hadn’t thought this important, I would never have come forward at all.”
Resnick nodded. “We understand that.” And then, “And the reason you’ve come forward now, you think there might be a comparison between the two attacks …?”
“Well, yes.”
“A possibility they might have been carried out by the same man?”
“Yes, of course. I mean, it has to be likely, doesn’t it, after all?”
“There’s something I have to ask you, Mr. Cheshire,” said Resnick, leaning slightly forward, hands loosely joined. “When you were in the Recreation Ground that evening, had you gone there with the possibility in mind that you might meet someone, for the purposes of sex?”
“Look, I’m sorry …” Cheshire was on his feet and turned towards the door, Vincent half out of his chair to intercept him.
“Mr. Cheshire,” Resnick said. “Mr. Cheshire, please sit down.”
Cheshire took a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket and wiped at his face, cleared his nose, turning back to face Resnick. “I’m sorry.” He resumed his seat. “And yes, your assumption, as to my reasons for being there that night, they are correct.”
“And this wasn’t the first or only time you had been there in similar circumstances?”
A slow shake of the head.
“Are you married, Mr. Cheshire?”
He glanced towards the third finger of his left hand, the indentation gone now but the skin where the ring had fitted still a touch paler than the rest. “Not any more.”
“Your job?”
“I work for an investment company, pensions and loans.”
“And this side of your life, no one else knows?”
Avoiding Resnick’s eyes. “That’s correct.”
“The person who attacked you,” Resnick asked, “can you describe him?”
Cheshire shook his head.
“Not in any way at all?”
The silence was long. “He was strong,” Cheshire finally said. “Very strong. I thought, of course there is no way to be sure, but I thought he might have been under the influence of drugs.”
“Because?”
“His strength seemed so unnatural, and his anger. I think-I thought-he wanted to kill me. That was what he really wanted to do. And instead he … he … he tried to cause me all the pain he could.”
Cheshire’s glasses fell from his hand and he cried. Fingers meshed across his face, he cried. After some moments, Vincent went over and stood close beside him, resting a hand across his shoulders. Only when Cheshire had begun to recover himself did Vincent move away to his own chair and sit back down. Resnick fetched a glass of water and Cheshire sipped at it, then gulped, choked a little, thanked him, wiped at his glasses with his damp handkerchief, set them back on, took them off again.
“There’s one more thing,” Vincent said quietly, “I wonder if I could ask you, about what happened.”
Cheshire nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Penetration, when it took place …”
“A bottle,” Cheshire said, eyes clenched shut, remembering. “He used a bottle and then smashed it on the railings when he was through.”
Forty-three
If Hannah had woken earlier than usual that morning, and looked out from her upstairs window, she would have seen several men in overalls down on their hands and knees among the bushes which grew along the railings separating the Recreation Ground from the Promenade. She would have wondered exactly what, with their reinforced gloves and careful manner, they were looking for.
Up early himself, scarcely able to sleep, Resnick had driven out there and stood, hands in pockets, while the officers were making their search. He was present when one of the men, triumphantly, uncovered one section of bottle, a piece broken away from near its mouth and now wedged full of something dark, excrement or earth or both. Inside a curved oval of glass, there were dried streaks of what was almost certainly blood.
Just to contemplate what had happened, how these things could have come to pass, was enough to make Resnick drive the ends of his fingers hard into the palms of his hands. He used a bottle and then smashed it on the railings when he was through. Who, Resnick wondered, did the person who could perform such an act hate most, his victim or himself? Who was suffering the most pain?
He walked down towards the small row of terraced houses nearest to the church. No lights showed on the ground floor of Hannah’s house; one only, burning high towards the roof. He thought of knocking, but knew he would be waking her for nothing; there was precious little time for anything approaching conversation and there was nothing he might say at that moment that he could imagine her wanting to hear.
Resnick got back in his car and drove the short distance along Derby Road towards the station. Millington and Carl Vincent were sitting at one side of the CID room, Lynn Kellogg standing close behind them. The latest list Jane Prescott had supplied from Intelligence was on the computer: names of those cautioned for violent behavior during recent Gay Rights rallies in the city center. Four charged with various breaches of the peace, 1993, charges dropped before coming to court; six officially warned, three charged, 1994, charges dropped; four warned, two charged, 1995, charges dropped.