Swansea Girls (10 page)

‘Clay, Jack Clay, sir.’

‘Sounds familiar.’

‘It should.’

‘There we have it. A wild one, eh.’ The sergeant stood back and thought for a moment. ‘There’s no doubt she arranged to meet this Clay outside?’

‘She hasn’t said, but witnesses inside the ballroom corroborate Jack Clay’s story, so it seems likely, sir.’

‘That puts a whole new complexion on things. In my experience couples only leave a ballroom to do the one thing they can’t do inside. It could be she is a professional after all. Arranged to meet one chap, then another comes along, smarter, wearing a dinner jacket more money in his pocket ...’

‘I don’t think either her or Clay had more than a couple of kisses in mind, sir. That path’s too public. Not the sort of place a professional would choose a few minutes before closing time when the entire area is about to be flooded with people leaving the Pier to catch the ten-thirty train back to Swansea.’

‘Sarge?’ a young constable opened the door that led to the public desk. ‘Miss Griffiths’ father is here.’

‘Doctor here yet?’

‘On his way, Sarge.’

‘Send him in as soon as he gets here.’

‘And Mr Griffiths?’

‘Better tell him to come in.’

Chapter Six

‘What happened, Roy?’ White-faced, John Griffiths didn’t even see the sergeant as he rushed through the door. ‘Is it one of the children ... Esme ...’

At a nod from the sergeant, Roy beckoned John towards an interview room further down the corridor. ‘Come in here, John, and I’ll explain.’ Roy opened the door on a cubicle that stank of cheap disinfectant mixed with other odours that didn’t bear thinking about. Deliberately slowing his pace to accommodate John, Roy still had to wait for him after pulling two upright utility chairs from under a steel table.

‘Please, who is it?’

Roy waited for John to sit, then took the chair opposite. ‘There was a fracas down the Pier. Helen’s dress was ripped. Two boys had a bit of a punch-up, probably over her, but it looks like neither she nor them are hurt – not seriously,’ he amended, remembering the blood on Larry’s face and Jack’s suit. ‘But one of the boys has been taken to hospital and we’ve sent for the doctor to check out Helen and the other one to be on the safe side.’

‘If Helen’s hurt or upset, Esme should be here.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘The theatre.’

‘We sent someone down there; it’s locked.’

‘There’s probably an end-of-run party. Her cousin, Dot – Dorothy Ellis who lives above her hat shop in Eversley Road – generally organises them.’

‘I know the place, we’ll send a car.’ Roy looked up as Brian knocked and opened the door. ‘You still here, boy?’

‘Just keeping Martin company. The sergeant asked me to tell you the doctor’s here and he wants him to examine Helen first.’

‘We’re on our way.’ Roy rose from his seat.

‘Martin? Martin Clay’s involved in this?’

‘Only as a witness to the fight,’ Roy replied. ‘Helen’s next door. If anyone can sort out this mess, she can. You go ahead, I’ll see to that car.’

Helen was sitting, shivering, on a chair wrapped in her coat and a blanket.

‘Helen?’

She burst into yet another paroxysm of noisy tears as her father walked into the room.

‘What happened, love?’ John sat on the chair beside hers.

Embarrassed, ashamed and more upset by her father’s solicitude than she would have been by his anger, she plucked at the stitching that hemmed the grey blanket, shredding it.

‘The boy your daughter was with insists she was attacked, Mr Griffiths,’ the sergeant answered for her.

‘Were you?’ John asked, horrified.

‘It was horrible,’ Helen wailed.

‘There’s only one way to settle this, Mr Griffiths, and that’s a full medical examination. We’d appreciate your consent.’ The sergeant handed him a form and a pen.

‘Is that really necessary?’ John glanced across at a screen in the corner and saw a man place a doctor’s bag on a couch behind it.

‘Given the hysterical condition of your daughter and her inability to answer the simplest of questions, an examination is our only recourse,’ the sergeant replied resolutely. ‘It may provide us with the evidence we need to proceed if she has been attacked, and medical attention should she require it.’

Helen hid her face in her hands again, rather than meet her father’s questioning gaze.

‘The form, sir.’

John attempted to read the paper the sergeant had given him. The words wavered on the page.

‘You sign there, sir.’ The sergeant indicated a line.

John looked at Helen again. ‘Helen?’

As her sobbing escalated the sergeant broke in, ‘Believe me, sir, we’ve tried everything to get through to her.’

John glanced from the sergeant back to his daughter. After a few interminable seconds he scribbled his signature. ‘You’ll wait for her mother to get here.’

The door opened and Roy entered the room.

‘You’ve tracked down Mrs Griffiths, Constable Williams?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’ Roy couldn’t bring himself to meet John’s eye. ‘She wasn’t in Eversley Road.’

‘Dot ...’ John began.

‘The shop and the flat above it were locked.’

‘Then she must be home.’

‘They tried there on the way back, there’s no one at your house.’

‘In that case you won’t mind if we go ahead with the examination, seeing as how we have your permission, sir. The sooner it’s over the sooner we can take whatever measures are necessary.’ The sergeant’s tone brooked no argument.

‘Come on, John, I’ll find us a cup of tea.’ Roy guided him out of the room. ‘And then you can talk to Joe.’

‘Joe’s here?’

‘He was in the Pier when it happened but he’s fine. You can see for yourself.’

‘You have a woman officer on duty?’ the doctor asked the sergeant, as Roy closed the door.

‘Not at this time of night but I’ve seen the procedure often enough.’

‘Right, young lady.’ The doctor turned to Helen. ‘Behind the screen, remove all your clothes and lie on the couch.’

The next ten minutes were the most humiliating and embarrassing Helen had ever experienced. As she lay on the examination couch, eyes tightly closed but not enough to stop the tears trickling down her cheeks, the doctor poked and prodded her body as though she were a specimen on a slab. And the whole time he examined her he talked to the sergeant over his shoulder – about the weather, the prevalence of drink-related fights at the weekend and, the ultimate mortification, her.

‘There’s a scratch on her right breast. Do you want a photograph?’

‘Might as well.’ The sergeant’s voice, brusque, deeper than the doctor’s, fell harshly on her ears as he leaned over the couch to view the mark. Helen cringed as the coarse material of his uniform trousers brushed against her bare legs. ‘Could that have been made by a watch strap?’

‘Possibly. It’s not deep.’

Helen winced as the doctor ran his hands over her right breast and pressed down.

‘Does that hurt?’

‘Not really,’ she whispered.

‘Her knickers and suspender belt are intact but her stockings are in shreds.’ The sergeant’s pen scratched over his notebook.

‘Right, young lady, you can dress.’

Realising the doctor was no longer touching her, Helen opened her eyes. The doctor had moved to a sink in the corner, where he was washing his hands.

‘Just your knickers,’ the sergeant qualified as he went to the table to get a camera. ‘I need to photograph that breast.’

That breast,
not
your breast.
The sergeant’s dismissive tone stung as Helen turned her back and scrambled into her knickers under cover of the blanket.

‘No doubt about it, a virgin,’ the doctor murmured but not too low for Helen to hear as the sergeant focused the camera and waited for the flash to charge.

‘You surprise me. Sit on the couch and drop the blanket to your waist.’ The sergeant clicked the shutter.

‘And apart from the scratch, not a mark on her. Your desk sergeant said something about a boy.’

‘He has cuts and bruises. He’s down the corridor.’

‘I’ll find it.’ The doctor glanced at Helen as the sergeant took a second photograph. ‘If you were my daughter you wouldn’t sit down for a week. You had a lucky escape tonight, young lady. Go out in a dress like that again and you might not be so fortunate. One of the constables said you come from a respectable family. They won’t be regarded as quite so respectable if they have to visit you in an unmarried mothers’ home.’

‘He’s right,’ the sergeant added. ‘Put your coat on. I’ll get your father back in here and then perhaps you’ll finally tell us the truth.’

Roy paused as he walked behind the reception desk. Following the duty sergeant’s orders, officers were still interviewing Jack Clay to see if he would change his story to bring it more in line with the one telephoned in by Larry Murton Davies’s solicitor. After hearing both, he doubted it was going to happen. ‘Still no sign of Mrs Griffiths?’ he asked the duty constable.

‘The patrols have checked out both the addresses you gave us twice, Roy. If you’ve any other suggestions I’ll get the boys to call.’

‘When can I take my brother home?’

Roy looked across to see Martin sitting next to Brian in the public area. ‘When our enquiries are complete, Martin.’

‘All he was doing was defending Helen.’

‘Doctor’s examining her now. We’ll know more when he’s finished. Why don’t you go home?’

‘I’m not going anywhere without Jack.’

‘Powell, you’re off duty.’

‘No harm in sitting with a friend; besides, I’m a potential witness.’

Roy decided it wasn’t the time or place to tell the boy he wasn’t doing himself any favours with the brass by sitting with the brother of a suspected felon. Leaving them, he returned to the corridor. The sergeant was showing John into the examination room. Roy caught a glimpse of Helen sitting hunched in her coat. The sergeant closed the door on John and joined Roy.

‘I’d appreciate it if you sit in on this one, Constable Williams.’

‘I know the family, sir.’

‘That’s why I want you in there. Tell me, off the record, what do you think happened?’

Roy took his time over answering. The sergeant didn’t hurry him; Roy habitually thought out every word before he opened his mouth, which was exactly why so many officers sought his opinion – and advice – but this time Roy knew he was being used to find holes in Murton Davies’s solicitor’s argument.

‘Jack Clay’s a wide boy, sir, but I can’t see him going near crache in a dinner jacket, let alone attacking one unless he, or someone he knew, was being threatened.’

‘Then you don’t think Clay attacked this girl and Murton Davies came to the rescue?’

‘Is that what Murton Davies’s solicitor is saying now?’

‘Clay agrees he arranged to meet the girl outside the ballroom. He could have got carried away.’

Roy shook his head. ‘He didn’t have time to do more than take the drinks outside and jump on Murton Davies. It’s obvious, sir, he was protecting the girl. Besides, a good-looking boy like Clay doesn’t have trouble getting girls to go out with him. And every rapist I’ve come across avoids public places. Jack Clay would know that most youngsters leaving the Pier choose to walk past that cliff face rather than take the steep climb to the top of Limeslade. And the bar in the Pier was already closing as he left. Jack would have realised he had only a few minutes at best before the crowds followed. But it’s my guess Murton Davies doesn’t mix with the kind of youngsters who go down the Pier, so he wouldn’t know any of those things.’

‘Did you know it was Murton Davies’s birthday?’

‘Someone did mention it, sir.’

‘Young lad like that, high-spirited, a few drinks, if the girl led him on ...’

‘Everyone’s agreed she was in the ballroom and he wasn’t. So there’s little chance of her leading him on, sir.’

‘Unless she did her leading on outside. But when we get down to it, it’s no more than Jack Clay’s and the girl’s word against Murton Davies.’

‘Was she raped, sir?’

‘She’s a virgin, so you’re right about her not being a professional. The only mark on her is a scratch on her breast, which was more than likely caused by the watch strap.’

‘Then we’ve a case against Murton Davies.’

‘His solicitor has agreed to drop the assault charge against Clay if we drop all charges against his client.’

‘And you’re happy with that, sir?’

‘I think it’s best. The one thing Murton Davies and Clay agree on is Clay threw the first punch so it will be as well if Clay and the girl forgo any idea of counter charges.’ He looked at Roy. ‘You’ll persuade them, Williams?’

‘And there you have it, Mr Griffiths. The doctor made a thorough examination. Your daughter is a virgin, which rules out the possibility that she was raped. He also confirmed she is unhurt apart from a slight scratch on her breast which was most likely made by the watch strap of the young man she was with.’

For Helen, the word ‘virgin’ was the final straw after the indignity of the medical examination. She burst into tears again.

‘All we are left with is the possibility that your daughter was subjected to an indecent assault.’ The sergeant took a deep breath before facing Helen. ‘Miss Griffiths, were you assaulted tonight?’

Helen’s sobs grew louder.

‘Is that a “yes” or a “no”, Miss Griffiths?’ The sergeant drummed his fingers on the table. ‘As you see, Mr Griffiths, it was your daughter’s inability to answer simple questions coupled with the circumstantial evidence that led me to believe a medical examination necessary.’

‘Circumstantial evidence?’ John repeated in bewilderment.

‘I wouldn’t have allowed a child of mine to go out in public wearing a dress like that.’

‘I didn’t mean to ...’

‘What dress, Helen?’

Roy picked up the torn dress from the examination couch and handed it to John. The ruined bodice flopped down over the skirt.

Recognising it as part of the warehouse’s new and expensive winter collection, John rose to his feet. ‘You took this from the warehouse? Did you?’ he repeated softly when Helen refused to answer.

Staring down at the floor, she nodded wretchedly.

‘And how did the bodice get torn?’

‘That horrible boy attacked me,’ she whimpered, struggling to control herself.

‘Who ...? What boy? My God ...’

Roy motioned John back into the chair. ‘Helen, don’t you think it’s time you told us what happened?’

‘That boy attacked me and Jack.’

‘Jack Clay!’ John’s face darkened in rage.

‘I’m going to be sick.’

Quicker than the sergeant, Roy picked up the bin and thrust it under Helen’s mouth, just in time.

‘So that’s it; you keep me here half the night, then you say I can go?’ Jack’s voice rose precariously as he confronted the sergeant.

‘You should thank your lucky stars that Mr Murton Davies isn’t pressing charges. Well-respected family, the Murton Davieses.’

‘And mine isn’t?’

‘Come on, Jack.’ Martin took his arm. ‘Time to go.’

‘He’s right.’ Brian laid his hand on Jack’s shoulder.

‘Martin?’ Roy stopped him, as they were about to walk through the door.

‘Now what?’ Jack demanded.

‘Jack, please,’ Martin pleaded wearily. ‘Go on with Brian, I’ll catch you up.’

Roy waited until he and Martin were alone in the passageway. ‘When I dropped Katie off I found your mother in a bit of a state.’