Over the following days, the weather was holding over Devil’s Dyke and nothing was allowed to get in the way of the hunt. Fingertip searches by hundreds of officers stretched across the downland as they continued to scour the mud and undergrowth for clues. In the quest to find any minute piece of evidence that bushes, hedges, and grassland might conceal, everything was chopped down just like at Wild Park previously. The rich vegetative landscape was reduced to a wasteland.
The search had been thorough but it was becoming desperate. Claire’s roller-skates and a Cortina floor mat had been found discarded in bushes but there was still no sign of her clothes. Meanwhile, Claire’s interviews were surprisingly fruitful. Any adult with her powers of recollection and description would have been a godsend, but for a seven-year-old, through hours of interviews, to reveal as much as she was able to was exceptional.
She knew a man had done bad things to her. She knew she had to stop him. She knew the grown-ups now talking to her, although strangers, were nice people who wanted to help. She was safe and she had to tell them what happened.
She was out on her roller-skates and had been to the shop but it was closed. She had seen the man mending a red car; he was younger than Daddy. He was wearing a watch. He had grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off her feet and thrown her in the boot. She had taken her skates off so she could run away if she got the chance. It was dark and smelt horrible in there. There were some little holes to see through. Only tiny. Maybe the man had made them so she could breathe.
She knew she needed to get out or at least make a noise to get some help. She found a tool, maybe a hammer, so she thought if she hit the boot lid her mummy or daddy might hear and come and get her. She started banging but then had to stop. It wasn’t Mummy who heard her, it was the nasty man. He shouted, ‘Shut up or I’ll kill you.’ She was scared. She felt around and found a can. It smelt like the stuff Daddy sprayed in the engine when the car wouldn’t start. The man was driving really fast now and the car radio was so loud. He shouldn’t drive like that, he might crash. She was being thrown around the back. She wanted to shout again but thought that if she stayed quiet and was a good girl maybe he would let her go. After a while the car stopped. Perhaps he would let her go now. It was cold when he opened the boot. He helped her out.
It was dark. There were lots of trees. Where was she? She was frightened. She couldn’t see anyone. She was so scared.
He put her in the back seat of the car then took her clothes off. Like Mummy did at bedtime. But then he started doing things to her. Things she didn’t understand. Things she was sure he shouldn’t do. He was hurting her. She wanted him to stop. He squeezed her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She panicked. She wanted to shout but couldn’t. Then she fell into a deep sleep.
When she woke she was cold, lost and her neck hurt. She was in a prickly bush. She knew Mummy wouldn’t find her there. She needed to get out. She’d be in trouble with Mummy and Daddy but still she wanted to go home. Then another car came. A lady got out. She checked whether she was a kidnapper too. She seemed nice and there was a man with her. They gave her a cardigan and coat to keep her warm. She didn’t mind that they were too big. They put her in their car and drove to a building with lots of people. Then the police came.
There were so many lines of enquiry just from that initial simple account. We knew the offender’s rough age and we confirmed the car was red. Bishop was twenty-three and had, as we knew, a red car which was now safely in police possession. Claire had hammered on the inside of the boot and he had threatened her. A hammer was in the boot of the car and the boot lid had tell-tale dents on the inside.
She had found something that seemed to be a spray lubricant in the boot. We had recovered a can of WD40 from where she said. She described the place where they stopped as being cold with trees. That was Devil’s Dyke to a tee, although we already knew that.
Her description of him removing her clothes was telling. Any parent would know that they pull them over the upstretched arms of their toddlers, with the clothes ending up inside out. Would only a parent naturally remove a child’s clothes this way?
Bishop was a parent.
Things were coming together.
After the interview, Claire just wanted to get back to normality as quickly as possible. As a special treat she was allowed to stay up to nearly midnight playing Care Bears with her best friend. She was adamant though that she did not want to go to sleep in case she forgot the man’s face; she knew how important it was to remember it. Heart-breakingly, she kept apologizing to her mum for losing her clothes.
Understandably, but for absolutely no reason, her dad was racked with guilt. He went over and over how he should not have let her out. ‘What if’ this and ‘If only’ that. Despite his family’s reassurance, he could only blame himself.
Forensic pathologists are normally brought in only to examine dead bodies. However, occasionally their skill and experience in hypothesizing how injuries have been caused, especially if the victim has been left unconscious or amnesiac, can be vital.
Once again, the brilliant Dr Iain West was called upon to lend his trained eye and discerning mind to a case involving Bishop. The policy of not using officers from the Babes in the Wood enquiry did not apply to pathologists; they are deployed regionally according to their rota.
His gentle yet methodical forensic medical examination of Claire a few days after the attack revealed more detail. While he could not be sure whether she had been raped, the bruising around her neck and the scarlet pinpricks speckling the whites of her eyes revealed how close to death she had been. This petechial haemorrhaging was the same sure sign of strangulation or smothering that he had found on Nicola and Karen. A clear indication that Claire was meant to die.
Dr West said that she had been only seconds from death. He concluded that, in his attempt to kill Claire, the attacker had used a technique developed among the Special Forces nicknamed ‘the Sleeper.’ This involved squeezing a pressure point in the throat between the knuckles of the first and second finger until the victim passed out.
Claire’s age saved her life. During testing in the USA, most adults passed out after ten seconds of being subjected to this death grip. Any longer would kill. Her tender years meant that her brain was more resilient and able to survive longer. She was a very lucky girl.