Alice Mackenzie had hoped that she and Michael Swift could go out for dinner that night and celebrate the verdict in the Cotterell trial. She thought, as she drove home from the MCU, that this was an example of her job achieving something good. Something that would demonstrate to her socialist parents, who still thought the police were just an oppressive tool used by whichever authoritarian government happened to be in power at the time, the worth of her chosen career path. Something that might smooth the path to inform her parents of her intention to become a detective. She was proud of her contribution and thought that her conversation with Tamsin Cotterell and Cross had been the instigator to having him called as a witness. He obviously couldn’t testify to the CCTV footage but what he’d told them prior to the trial had encouraged them to call Michael to the stand. His evidence had been the deciding factor in the acquittal. It made her all the more determined to go ahead with her application for the DHEP programme. To become a fully-fledged police officer and not just a police staffer. She wanted to be a little more hands-on. Closer to the action. With the power to make change for good.
She parked in the gravelled area outside Michael’s flat in Pembroke Road, gathered her bag and the bottle of wine she’d bought on the way home and got out of the car. She walked up the steps to the front door and searched for her key, balancing her bag awkwardly on her knee. She found it, opened the door and went in. She looked at the mail that had been stacked on the radiator cover in the hallway and walked to Swift’s flat door at the back on the right. She opened that door with another key. She became conscious that the front door hadn’t clicked shut. As she pushed the flat door open she suddenly became aware of the smell of cigarette-infused clothing, stale alcohol and minted breath enveloping her from behind. She turned to look at the front door but as she did so was shoved violently into the flat. Her wrist was immediately wrenched as her hand was still pressing the key in the door. A huge shadow pushed her against the wall of the small hall in the flat. DI Robert Warner then hissed in her ear.
‘You and your boyfriend think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you?’
‘Get off me!’ she screamed.
‘So bloody superior,’ he continued.
She yelled in pain as he grabbed her wrist with his hand and twisted it back. He pushed her into the sitting room and onto the sofa, face down. He put his knee into her back painfully and with his free hand grabbed her handbag. She could hear him rummaging through it before emptying its contents onto the floor.
‘What do you want?’ she managed to say despite the air in her lungs being compressed by his sheer weight. She felt oddly calm despite the fact that her heart rate had gone through the roof and was beating like a bass drum in her ears. She knew he was going to rape her and she began to think rationally what to do. She’d recently had a manicure done. Her nails were long and in good shape. Whatever happened she’d try and scratch the bastard’s face.
As he hauled her back up off the sofa, she became genuinely terrified. It was the thought of this man, this shit of a pig, taking her by brute force. She felt helpless and repelled by the idea at the same time. She might not be able to fight him off but she could still talk.
‘You’re pathetic, you know that?’
He said nothing but frogmarched her through the sitting room into the bedroom. Her arms really hurt where he had hold of her.
‘How long do you think you’ll actually get away with this?’ she asked him. ‘I know there have been others. Ottey knows there are others. We went to Kent. Did you know that? Spoke to Jacky Collins. You do this and you’re going to prison, you sad, bloated old fuck.’
He then did something which she wasn’t expecting. He turned her round and threw her onto the bed. In that second she saw what he had in his hand. The pepper spray from her handbag.
‘Your turn, sweetheart,’ he said, spraying it directly into her eyes. ‘How does that feel?’
She screamed. He covered her mouth. Her hand reached up to her eyes which were streaming. The pain was excruciating but more frightening was the fact that she now couldn’t see a thing. He moved his hand from her mouth onto her sternum and applied all his weight. She heard him fiddle with his belt using his other hand.
‘We all know what happens to rapists in prison,’ she said in short bursts, trying to catch her breath as adrenalin coursed through her body. ‘But a rapist who’s a policeman!’ She laughed. ‘You’ll have no chance.’
She could hear him pulling at his zip and the change or keys in his trouser pockets rattling as they fell to the ground.
‘Bet you didn’t bring a condom. That’s your first mistake. Soon as you’re done, which I imagine shouldn’t take long, I’ll be straight down to casualty for a rape kit.’
‘I’m not that stupid, bitch.’
He pulled her jeans’ zip open and yanked them off like he was undressing a reluctant child refusing to go to bed. Then tore her knickers off so roughly, the elastic caught on the back of her leg like a tourniquet. He pulled it violently using both hands. She screamed again. She felt so exposed, so vulnerable. She reached up blindly for his face. When she found it, she dug her nails into his cheek and scratched him painfully with three gouges that immediately started to bleed. He yelled and slapped her hard with the back of his hand. Drops of his sweat fell on her face. She spat at him. He hit her again. She sensed him leaning back. There was a pause. He was fiddling with something. But he needed both hands. It had to be the condom. She sat up as fast as she could and her face smashed into his nose with a distinct crack. As he stood up straight, she leant forward and reached blindly for his cock. She grabbed it and sank her nails into it as hard as she possibly could. He screamed but she wouldn’t let go. Then he suddenly seemed to pull away from her, her nails making their mark on his engorged penis. There was a loud thud and yelling as two bodies crashed into the wall beside the bed.
‘Michael?’ she shouted hopefully and immediately burst into tears, pulling her legs up around her, still unable to see.
*
‘You sonofabitch!’ Michael screamed. He was on top of Warner now, on the floor, pounding his fists into the side of the man’s head as he knelt on him. Warner, with a huge yell of effort, managed to turn himself round. Michael still held him down.
‘Alice, call the police!’ he shouted.
‘I can’t see,’ she yelled back.
‘What?’
‘He pepper sprayed me!’
As Michael turned to look at her, Warner managed to pull him off and trip his way out with his trousers still round his ankles. Michael gave chase.
‘Michael! Leave him. I don’t want you getting hurt. Call the police!’ Alice shouted after him.