LIKE A SEAL ON A WET ROCK.
Peter James Grimshaw, aged 24, employed as a baker’s assistant, was arrested at his home by Marcus Harding in connection with the abduction, rape, and murder of Emily Black and duly cautioned, advised that he had the right to remain silent but anything he did say would be taken down in writing and possibly used against him.
‘Do you understand, Mr Grimshaw?’
‘No, I don’t understand, I don’t understand why you are arresting me ‘cos I got nowt to do wi’ that murder.’
Ada Grimshaw wept and sobbed, alternatively berating Grimshaw and pleading with the police ‘that he’s a good boy, wouldn’t harm a fly, let alone do ‘owt like that, you’ve got the wrong boy. You’ve got the wrong boy.’
‘We’ll soon find out, missus, and if that’s the case, if he’s not the one, he’ll be back in no time,’ Marcus tried to reassure her. Peter Grimshaw was then led by PC Alan Edgely out through a small gaggle of curious onlookers.
‘What’s he done, mister?’ shouted a small boy, but got no response.
Grimshaw was placed into the back seat of the black Wolseley and transported to the station on Wentland Street. He sat with his head in his hands the entire journey.
At the station, the custody sergeant, not Sgt Dave Armitage but Andy Hartley, a recent addition to the Garside force, transferred from Leeds back to his hometown, agreed that there was cause sufficient to prolong detention for more evidence to be obtained; either by questioning or ongoing investigations.
‘OK then, son, empty your pockets,’ and after that was done, he was led into a cell to wait for Yarrow to return from the West Garside Magistrates Court with the warrant to search Peter Grimshaw’s house.
Harry Rawlings was then ordered to take Keith Balderstone and Dennis Brighouse to 67 Effington Street to conduct the search.
Peter Grimshaw was then brought into the interview room and sat down behind the desk. He looked confused and anxious and asked for a cup of tea, which was brought to him whilst he waited. PC ‘Useless’ Eustace Pink stood guard by the door, his crotch was itching, and he wanted to scratch but could not do so with the prisoner watching him all the time.
The door opened and as DI Yarrow and DS Harding entered, Useless was free to go and scratch his balls to his heart’s content.
‘Hello, it’s Peter, isn’t it? Peter James Grimshaw?’
‘S’right,’ he answered dully, scratching at his own crotch.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Yarrow and this is Detective Sergeant Harding. We would like to ask you some questions. Is that all right with you?”
‘Makes no difference if it’s all right or not, does it?’
‘Not really, you are under arrest and have been cautioned.’
‘Yeah, dragged out me ‘ouse like a common fucking criminal. S’not right. I ain’t done nothing.’
‘Well, that’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it?
The interrogation by Yarrow and Marcus Harding was extensive and lengthy. Every two hours or so, he was allowed a toilet break and a short rest before the questioning continued.
Just before they began the interview, Harding asked Yarrow, ‘How do you want to play this, sir?’
‘We don’t mention the glass, the fingerprints on the glass; we need for him to think that the printing at the bakery was just routine. Let him deny that he was in the ward that night, get him to make a statement to that effect, then we nail him with it.’
‘Good, got you.’
As anticipated, Grimshaw repeatedly denied being in the ward that night, denied having ever been in the Children’s Ward, denied that he was anywhere near the hospital that night, claiming that he had been drinking at the ‘Prince of Wales’ on Southburn Road – which was true- and had then gone home- which was also true and had then gone to bed – which was a lie.
‘Tell me again, Peter, where were you on the night of the 14th of August?’ Yarrow asked quietly, giving no sense of the virulent hatred and disgust he felt for this man who had almost certainly raped and brutally murdered little Emily.
He looked across the table at Grimshaw and saw a small man, some 5’7” tall or thereabouts, thin-faced with a scrawny moustache which did little to disguise the overall weakness of his face. He had thin lips and was badly shaved, he had virtually no chin, his jawline sliding into his neck unchecked, greasy hair parted to the right. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and he picked compulsively at a hangnail on his left thumb.
‘I told you, time and time again. I had a pint or two at the ‘Prince of Wales’ on Southburn Street, you can ask anyone there, they’ll tell you.’
‘Give me some names?’
‘What?”
‘Some names, Peter, give me some names of anyone at the ‘Prince of Wales’ who can corroborate that you were there.’
‘I don’t know, Billy something, little fella with bad teeth.’
‘Second name, what’s his second name? We can’t go looking for somebody called Billy Something With Bad Teeth, can we?’
‘Look, I don’t know his second name, right? Or the second names of any of the other blokes who go drinking in the ‘Prince’ on a Saturday night. You know, it’s just Billy and Pete, that’s me, Alfie and Staith, yeah, that’s his second name, Statham, like the bowler, you know, Brian Statham. But everybody just calls him Staith, dunno his first name. Except it’s not Brian,’ Grimshaw tried a weak smile at his own joke, saw the stony faces of his interrogators and the smile slid off his face like a seal on wet rock.
‘What time did you leave the ‘Prince of Wales’?
‘Dunno, 10.30, I suppose, closing time.’
‘Then what?’
‘I told you; I went back home.’
‘67 Effington Street?’ Marcus asked, making a note.
‘Yeah, yeah, 67 Effington Street. You know that, that’s where you picked me up to bring me here. Why d’you bring me here, anyway? I ain’t done nowt.’
‘What time did you get home?’ said Marcus, ignoring Grimshaw’s question.
‘Look, it’s what, 10 minutes’ walk from the ‘Prince’ to Effington Street, work it out for yourself.’ Grimshaw felt some confidence, some bravado growing inside him. He had been questioned now for over an hour in this second session and they had nothing, obviously, else they would have said by now.
‘So, let’s say 10.40, 10.45?’
‘If you say so,’
‘So, you got home at 10.45. What time did you leave to go to the hospital?’
‘I never went to the hospital that night, I told you.’
‘How did you know your way into the children’s ward? Had you been there before, scouting out the route?’ Marcus asked evenly.
‘I’ve never been to the children’s ward. Never. Wouldn’t know how to get there. And I certainly never went there that night.’
‘Have you ever been into the children’s ward on other nights?’
‘No, never. Ever.’
‘What about during the day, ever visited the ward during the day?’
‘No, never. Honest, why don’t you listen,’
‘Do you know Bolehill Copse? You know where Bolehill Copse is, don’t you?’ Yarrow asked suddenly, switching the line of questioning to distract and confuse.
‘Wha…?’ Grimshaw answered, his heart pounding violently. He knew it had been a mistake to take her there, but it had seemed a good idea at the time as it was close by the hospital. He had found the little sheltered dell quite by accident one day when he had gone into the woods to try and spy on couples having sex, although he had not seen anybody apart from a couple, an older man and a young woman walking up the path away from the clearing. He thought it looked like a boss and his secretary. He should have taken her to the allotment shed; he could have kept her there for a day and gone back to… to…
‘Bolehill Copse, Peter, do you know Bolehill Copse?’ Yarrow repeated.
‘Bolehill Copse,’ he replied slowly, screwing up his face as though in concentrated thought. ‘Yeah, yeah, think maybe I’ve heard of it, can’t say I’ve ever been there though, wrong side of town.’
‘So, any footprints found near the murder scene wouldn’t be yours? Is that what you are saying?’ Marcus asked.
Footprints! Footprints! He’d never thought of that. But it was dry; it had not rained and unless the police had Apache trackers, you can’t take prints from hard ground, he tried to convince himself.
‘Nah, nah, couldn’t be mine,’ but Grimshaw was startled. There were no prints of course, apart from Harry Rawlings’s, but Grimshaw could not know that.
‘But you have been to the hospital, haven’t you?’ Marcus insisted, changing tack again.
‘I told you, how many more times? No. I …have…not … been …inside…that… hospital. Right, you got that?’
Yarrow looked at his notes, the background check that he had ordered to be made on Grimshaw before bringing him in.
‘What about when you were a delivery man for Unwin’s Medical Supplies? You made deliveries to the hospital then, correct?’ Grimshaw rocked back in his chair; he did not expect that they would have been digging into his life like this since they had nothing on him.
‘What…?’ he spluttered.
‘You were a delivery man for Unwin’s. You made deliveries to West Garside Hospital as part of that job. What did you do, just throw the stuff through the hospital door without entering?’ said Marcus sarcastically.
‘Nah, nah, course not, I mean…that was …business-like. Different.’
‘So, when you said a minute ago that you had never, ever been inside the hospital, you were lying? Right?’
‘No, yes, no, I thought you meant…had I been in the hospital …privately like.’
‘And have you?’
‘No, look, I dunno what this is all about but I’m getting pretty pissed off, I can tell you,’ but his outburst brought no reaction from either Yarrow or Harding. ‘It’s about that girl, Amy or Emily, whatever it is, like what you said when you picked me up? Well, I had nowt to do wi’ that.’
‘Just answer the question, please, Peter.’ Yarrow asked again with annoying calmness. ‘Have you ever had occasion, either privately or in the course of your job as a delivery man for Unwin’s Medical Company, to visit the hospital, more particularly, the Alfred Doakes Children’s Ward?’
‘Yeah, I delivered stuff. Course, into the delivery bay, but I ain’t ever been in privately, and never to the what’s-it’s children’s ward, neither. Not ever.’
Both Yarrow and Harding made notes, the scratching of Yarrow’s fountain pen nib grating on Grimshaw’s nerves.
Meanwhile.