The Cloister

Tim Battersby

Cloister: to seclude from the world as if in a cloister

ISBN: 9798872137191

Index

Chapter 1 Cartoons at Waterloo Station

Chapter 2 The Right Place Right Time

Chapter 3 The Met.

Chapter 4 Back to the Drawing Board

Chapter 5 Probable Cause

Chapter 6 Jesse Owens

Acknowledgment

Decades ago, I met a beautiful young woman who I began dating.

I looked forward to seeing her again even before I said goodbye.

Eventually, I summoned the nerve, to ask her to be my wife.

When she agreed, you could have knocked me down with a feather.

To my darling wife Laura.

I’ve loved you for 40 years.

All I want now is 40 more.

CHAPTER 1

Cartoons at Waterloo Station

I peered out of the window and watched Mum wave to me as the train pulled out of Waterloo Station, on the first leg of my journey to my new prep school. By my rough guess I was sharing the train with approximately 30 boys and two masters who oversaw all the boys. I was 10 years old, and it was the first time I’d been away from Mum and Dad, and I was scared.

Two hours earlier, Mum and I had gone to the cinema at Waterloo to watch cartoons. This cinema was an obvious ploy in my mind, to lull small children, on their way to boarding school, into a false sense of security. It worked, as for the next 75 minutes as I watched Tom and Jerry and Laurel and Hardy, I forgot about being torn away from the only security I’d ever known and thrust into the abyss of the unknown. But as I sat there on a train amongst a group of strangers looking through a window at my Mum waving bye to me, all my fears came roaring back. And so, I retreated.

Several months earlier, my family had flown home from 3 years living in the island paradise of Jamaica. Fond memories came flooding back to me, of Daniel “Fatty” Webster, my buddy who lived next door, and Henry our gardener, who was married to 2 different women, 1 in the north and 1 in the south, who when confronted by one of them, went after her with a machete. We never saw dear Henry again after that incident.

We settled back into Brit life, and I was enrolled, along with my brother at the local day school, just up the road. It was springtime in England, and the daffodils were in full bloom. I’d made some new friends at school and started hanging out with a few of them. In June a field trip to the beach was arranged and along with chaperones, a group of us left one early morning on a rented coach. Everyone was excited and when we arrived at the beach, we all went dashing to the water to swim, and jump the waves. As I think back on that day, I don’t have any clear recollection of much if any supervision, but at the time all of us kids were just having fun and so when it came time to clean up and prepare to get back on the bus there was, I remember, a roll call. It turned out that my new friend, Pete, was missing. At first everyone assumed he’d strayed off, and gone for a walk, but 30 minutes later, after he didn’t turn up the grown-ups began to get worried.

An hour went by, and still no sign of Pete. Finally, one grown up suggested we all link arms and walk into the ocean to see if we could find Pete’s body. (can you imagine these days, the trauma that would cause a child if by chance he stepped on a lifeless body?)

There was a pier at the beach, and I was in the water walking beneath it, looking for any sign of my friend, when my worst nightmare came true. I stepped on something that felt alarmingly like a body. I looked down and there just beneath the waterline with his foot caught in a steel tether was Pete’s body, eyes wide open with a terrified look on his face. I immediately tried to untangle him from the tether and shouted to the boys next to me to get help. It was too late. The police were called, and much later, after it had been determined that Pete had drowned by accident, we all drove home in sombre silence.

Pete’s drowning affected me deeply. Months went by and I began to act out. I would skip school; my grades were awful. Prior, I had been a good if not exceptional student. In Jamaica, I’d had a cancer scare, and my baby sister had been diagnosed with hydrocephalus, two things that gave rise to the belief that I could benefit from therapy. My mum and dad clearly living in an alternate reality would not even consider that my finding my friends body might be traumatic for me and would not let me talk about it but decided to have me evaluated anyway by a child psychologist. No mention however must be made about Pete’s unfortunate death. To mention it might be considered below par. Stiff upper lip, and all that. I knew however exactly what was wrong with me. I was suffering from a form of PTSD. Severe trauma brought on by the discovery of my friend’s lifeless body beneath the pier on that fateful day.

I was seen by a clinical paediatric psychologist at Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital in London. I attended 6, 1-hour sessions with the doctor who was never informed of my recent trauma. Mum drove me to the sessions and sat with me in the consulting room. Never at any point had I been allowed to mention the death of my friend Pete. My Dad who’d never attended a single session but had suggested that I could benefit from “some therapy,” showed up for the final one to receive the recommendation of the doctor.

The psychologist wrote. “Greville is a sensitive child who has a flair for “the extreme.” It is my recommendation he be educated at home where his imagination can flourish and grow. To place him in a boarding school would in my opinion cause him great harm.”

And so, my parents behaved like they always did, and ignored every warning the psychologist recommended and sent me away anyway to boarding school.

And so it was that I found myself on a train to Hastings in rural Sussex with 30 total strangers who had been dumped by their parents too and who would become strange bedfellows for the next 3 years until it was time for me to head to Public School.

The next few years were hell on wheels for me. I hated my school and the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that mum, and dad would be coming down to see me in a few weeks. The day would arrive and at 11:00 am right after church, they would arrive and Dad would shake me warmly by the hand while mum, slightly more effusive would hug me until it hurt. We then would drive a few miles to Hastings on Sea, the town that William ravaged at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when he conquered Ethel the Red, or some other nonsensical character from the history books becoming William the First and making Hastings a massively significant town. Mum and Dad visited me twice a term. (a term lasting generally 12 weeks) The day was always spent identically. Drinks, lunch, at the best hotel in town, (the Queens Hotel) and then a walk along the sea front, by which time it was time to deposit me back at school just in time to celebrate Evensong in the chapel. We would go through the same ritual we had gone through a few hours earlier with Dad occasionally slapping me on the back and instructing me to try harder. What he meant by that I was never quite certain. With a wave through the window of their Rover, and a big smile from mum, they would roar down the driveway of the school, eager to get away so they could stop at the first pub they could . I would wave at the car and then I would enter school life again for another 6 or 7 weeks until the day was repeated in excruciating similarity. I was 10 years old, and in pain.

My formative years passed and slowly I forgot what Pete looked like. I made friends, and discovered quickly that I had a knack for making people laugh. Even the headmaster found me funny. At 13 I was accepted to a decent school that was willing to put up with all my foibles, and on the day, I took the train to Brighton to begin the next 5 years of my academic adventure.

My new school wasn’t nearly as bad as my last one and I soon realised that I was going to enjoy myself. I joined the drama club and discovered that I had surrounded myself with likeminded people. I discovered a love of Shakespeare and began reading voraciously about this amazing playwright. Before I knew it, I had several lines in our new production of Julius Caesar, playing a centurion. I invited my parents to come and see the end of term play, but they declined for reasons unknown. No problem. My life suddenly had meaning and the following day I left to go home for the Christmas holidays. I couldn’t wait to get back and spent most of my time at home writing humorous scripts that I intended to present to the drama club when I returned in the new year.

I won’t bore you with the details of my high school years but suffice it to say that I found a niche for myself writing and producing comedy sketches for the drama club. These sketches or skits as we would call them became very popular with my fellow students. In my 3rd year I became a founding member of the “footlights society,” a group of wannabe actors/comedians. Our main job was to write a series of topical sketches lampooning students and teachers alike, that we would perform at intermission of the play the drama society had produced for that term. Those reviews became a roaring success, becoming ever more popular with each term we performed them in.

Five years later, I won a place to Magdalen College, Cambridge. I would be reading English. 2 of my friends from the “footlights society,” were also accepted to Cambridge and we made a pact to share rooms at Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin) for the first year. The following autumn the 3 of us took up residence at Cambridge University.

To say the three of us caused a creative explosion at Cambridge would be a vast overstatement. It was more like, “a been there, done that” ripple, on a past tide of remarkable creative genius. We arrived in the wake of the comic brilliance of Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, (the goodies) and John Cleese, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, and Graham Chapman. (that were to become Monty Pythons Flying Circus)

It seemed the harder we tried the more we failed, and the words of my dad came flooding back to me, “try harder my boy, try harder.”

2 years into my time at Cambridge I had all but given up on a career in comedy. My writing was non-existent, and I had lost interest in performance. One Saturday evening I was sitting alone in my rooms at Maudlin reading a good book, when I heard a knock on my door. I stood up and answered it and much to my surprise two policemen were standing there. “Good evening, sir. Are you one of Christopher Abbots roommates?” I nodded my head, and the policeman continued. “Mr. Abbot was involved in a car accident this evening. Currently he is in stable condition and has been transported to Cambridge General infirmary. Do you by any chance have his parents' address?” “I thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, I have their address and phone number. You better both come in while I look for it.” The two walked in and began shuffling their feet uncomfortably while I searched for the Abbot’s information. I found it eventually and quickly wrote it on a piece of paper and handed it to the policeman. As I did so, I asked them about the accident, where it had happened, and how badly Chris had been hurt. “All I can tell you sir, is that Mr. Abbot is in stable condition. Anything more than that, you’ll have to discuss with the attending physician.” I could tell that the policemen weren’t going to give me anything more, and so I thanked them for letting me know, and told them I would wait until the morning before I spoke with his parents. They thanked me and took their leave shortly afterwards.

My other cohort who came with us from school had dropped out of Cambridge at the end of his first year. Not his thing, he explained, referring to university life, I guessed. He had never really fit in anyway, and the last I heard was that he had got married a few months after he left and was now working as a stockbroker “in the city,” at his new father in laws firm. Good luck to him I thought.

Chris Abbot on the other hand had done well at uni. He’d made lots of friends and as always, was the life and soul of the party, and he and I were just as close as we had always been.

There was nothing much I could do that night, and so I decided to just go to bed and head over to the hospital in the morning. I didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning all night, and having a series of bad dreams, one of which was about Pete, my friend who drowned back when I was a kid. For the first time in years, I saw his face again, looking up at me, eyes wide open with a terrified look on his face. I awoke with a start, covered in sweat, and looked at the clock. It was two thirty. I lay there wondering if there was anything I could have done to save my friends life. Why did he wander off alone. For years I had beaten myself up for not staying with him, but I was mainly angry with my parents for not allowing me to tell the psychologist the root of my trauma. To me that was unforgivable.

Finally at seven I gave up, and got out of bed, took a shower, and headed over to the Cambridge General Infirmary four miles away. When I got there, I asked to see Chris Abbot my college roommate who had been involved last night in a car accident. The receptionist checked admissions and directed me to the critical care unit of the hospital. “Critical Care Unit,” I repeated incredulously. “The policemen who came to my rooms last night told me that he was in stable condition which I assumed to mean that he had a broken bone or two, and a bump on his head.” “Sir, Mr. Abbot took a turn for the worse later last night and was moved into the critical care unit for observation. You’re welcome to go there now and speak to the nurse in the waiting room. That’s all I know to tell you sir.” And with those slightly terse words I ran all the way to the CCU fearing another tragedy was about to unfold. I made it in seconds flat and immediately saw Chris’s parents and his younger sister, Claire. All three of them looked exhausted having huge bags under their eyes. But the moment they saw me their faces brightened, and they hugged me as if there was no tomorrow.

I had first met the family in my 2nd year of high school after Chris and I had become fast friends. All 3 of them attended a school play where Chris and I performed silly skits during intermission. For instance, one of 7 sketches we performed that evening was where Chris walked onstage holding a large banana. He walked to centre stage and began to peel his banana, and says “1 skin, 2 skin,3 skin.” the audience begins to understand where this is headed and start to chuckle apprehensively. Chris looks over at the headmaster who is looking very nervous, and peels the fourth but cheekily says, “5 skin.” The audience roared with laughter and Chris receives a standing ovation. The headmaster laughs approvingly. After that evening I became part of the Abbot family and was invited to stay with them for Christmas and several other holiday celebrations. The crowning glory for me was when they invited me to spend the summer with them at their villa in Corfu. That holiday was magical, and we spent 6 wonderful weeks in the island paradise swimming, snorkelling eating and laughing. As far as I was concerned this was as close to my having a real family.

Charles Abbot, Chris’s father, would come and go, depending on his work schedule but his mum stayed on Corfu for the entire time. Mr. Abbot was “something” in “imports and exports,” and was always a wonderful host. And so, it was devastating to see them now in such a state. “Chris is in a medically induced coma, and the doctors are hopeful they can bring him out of it in 10 days or so.” I knew the Abbots well enough to ask, “what is Chris being treated for? The police told me last night that he was fine and in stable condition, but clearly, it’s a lot more serious than they first told me.” Mrs. Abbot looked across at her husband and they exchanged an imperceptible glance. “Chris has a broken back, and the doctors are saying that he may never walk again.” And she started to cry. Her husband put his arms around her and held her tight, while we looked on, praying for a miracle. At that moment Dr Warnock, Chris’s primary physician walked into the waiting room and gave us all an update on Chris’s condition. Because Chris had lost a lot of blood in the accident and because he had a rare blood type, they were looking for a donor. His mother mentioned that Charles had the same blood type and could donate some for his son. Charles nodded his head in agreement and was whisked away to another room. An hour later he returned, looking somewhat paler than when he had left, but with a hopeful smile on his face.

CHAPTER 2

The Right Place the Right Time.

Carol had been a nurse at the Cambridge general infirmary since she had graduated summa cum laude from uni back in 1975. At the time, she was nursing her mum who was suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease. They lived alone, in a ground floor 2-bedroom flat just a mile from the university. One night Carol who had tucked her mother in for the night, was up late swatting for her exams, when she heard a noise in the living room. She called out, “who’s there?” but of course the intruder didn’t reply, and so she assumed she’d been mistaken and so went back to her studies. A few minutes passed and then without warning all hell broke loose. Someone came up behind her and with one swift movement attacked her, tearing at her clothes and at the same time forcing her onto her bed face down. The more she struggled the more violent he became, hitting her on her face and knocking her unconscious. One of the most notable things she remembered that evening was his revolting smell. A mix of halitosis and body odour, it was a smell she would never forget. The attacker kept one hand on her head as he raped her that evening and Carol remembered that as he was raping her, he was whispering “sweet nothings,” in her ear, at the same time he was telling her how much she was enjoying the ride! And then suddenly as fast as it had begun, it was over, and the man was making a hasty retreat with a final warning that she should never tell a soul what had happened because he knew where she lived and if she ever mentioned it there would be hell to pay.

Carol had done as she had been told because she was terrified. She never told a soul about her attack and lived with the shame long after her mother had passed away. She graduated from nursing school with honours and was offered her first job at the Cambridge general infirmary where she stayed for nearly 30 years. One night she was on duty in the ER when a phone call came through requesting an emergency blood transfusion be performed and then administered to a car accident victim. This was not a particularly unusual occurrence at the hospital and because Carol was the duty nurse that evening it was her responsibility to take the blood from the donor.

Mr. Abbot walked through the double doors from the waiting room and went down a hallway until he arrived at room 1023 where he was to donate the blood for his son. He walked in and was met by a stout middle-aged woman who he assumed to be the phlebotomist. “Good evening, sir. If you could sit here and roll up your sleeve, I’ll be with you in a moment,” the nurse instructed him. A few moments later she approached him and tied a rubber cuff around his left arm. As she leaned into him, she smelled a familiar odour she hadn’t smelled in over 30 years that nauseated her. It took her a second to identify but the moment she did she was transported back to her ground floor flat and the night she had been attacked all those decades earlier. She felt herself beginning to panic, but then, as is often the case in emergencies her mind became completely focused. She allowed her professionalism to take over and carried out the job at hand. Helen Keller once said, “smell is a potent wizard that transports you across a thousand miles and all the years you have lived.” Carol Drinkwater knew without a doubt she was in the presence of the vile human being who had viciously attacked and raped her. She took the blood, but on the spur of the moment decided to take a small vial she could potentially give to the police if she ever decided to report the crime he had committed. Under the current law in England and Wales, there is no statute of limitations for rape and other serious sexual offenses, meaning that charges can be brought at any time, regardless of how long ago the alleged offense took place.

3 months later after hours of daily physical therapy Chris Abbot was released from hospital. The good news was that it turned out that he had a spinal fracture, but the cord was not completely severed and so with intense therapy Chris managed to recover completely from his car accident. That same good fortune cannot be ascribed to his father. Carol left the hospital that night after pulling a double shift, and arrived home to the same ground floor flat she had lived in.

Inspector Trevor Holloway picked up the phone at his desk on the second ring. “Inspector Holloway. How can I help you?” “Good morning this is Carol Drinkwater. I’m a nurse at the Cambridge Infirmary and I wanted to talk to you about something that happened a while ago.” “Yes Ms. Drinkwater. Why don’t you tell me about it?” The Inspector replied. And so, Carol found herself explaining in detail about every aspect of her attack and subsequent rape all those years earlier. Inspector Holloway listened carefully, absorbing everything this obviously conservative woman had told him. When she finished, he expressed how sorry he was for her trauma and reminded her that there was no statute of limitations on rape in the UK. “Sadly, we don’t have a lot to be going on with,” he continued. “We need hard evidence, before we can charge the rapist. Had you ever seen the man before?” “Not until a month ago.” Carol said. The Inspector looked at her quizzically and asked. “Tell me his name and all about the circumstances of meeting him.” Carol Drinkwater took a deep breath and launched into Chris Abbot’s car accident, and how the boy had survived but had suffered a broken back. She explained how he had required a transfusion but had a rare blood type, and that the following morning after the accident his parents had visited him in hospital and that his father, Charles Abbot, who had the same blood type had agreed to donate some of his blood there and then and that she, Carol Drinkwater was the duty nurse that day and administered the father’s donation. Carol explained that initially she didn’t recognize the man, but when she stood close to him, she recognized the stench of her rapist. So much so in fact that she took an extra vial of blood from him for analysis by the police to see if it turned out that he was indeed the rapist. “Ms. Drinkwater,” began Inspector Holloway. “Where are you right now? It’s imperative that we take a statement from you as soon as possible.” The Inspector’s tone had changed. There was something in his voice that concerned Carol. “I’ve just finished my shift at the hospital, and I was just getting ready to go home,” she explained. “I’m sending a car for you right now. Would you mind waiting for it at the hospital. I’d like you to come into the station and give a statement about everything that happened to you. Would that be alright with you Ms. Drinkwater?” “Yes of course I’ll give you a statement. I’ll wait right here for the car.” “Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll meet you at the station when you arrive.” And with that Chief Inspector Holloway hung up and made a phone call in preparation for Carol Drinkwater’s statement. 20 minutes later Carol Drinkwater was at the station giving her statement. The phone call Inspector Holloway had made earlier was to the head of the Cambridge cold case unit, Chief superintendent Bogle. When Trevor Holloway had first joined the police force his boss was Ian Bogle, and they had been friends ever since. Back then Bogle, as a young detective, had been investigating a series of rapes that occurred in the space of 3 years ending as abruptly as they had begun. Detective Bogle asked a young detective sergeant to help him with this perplexing case. The young sergeant was Trevor Holloway. The two of them followed up on 9 particularly savage attacks on young women, all of them university students. The modus operandi was the same in each case. 1) single woman living alone. 2) ground floor flat. 3) poor outdoor lighting, making it easy for the rapist to gain access without being seen. 4) fairly remote location. Detectives Bogle and Holloway searched their database for recently released sex offenders to no avail. They interviewed the victims and their families with no success. They investigated if the victims shared anything in common such as a part time job or a favorite pub or church they would go to. Everywhere they checked they hit a brick wall.

“You say that you never reported the attack. Ms. Drinkwater, back when you were attacked, I was investigating nine rapes that had taken place during that time. Your statement increases that number to 10 unsolved rapes, all carried out by possibly the same individual. Your statement has been extremely helpful to us, and now that we have the name of a suspect, I’ve been in contact with the head of the cold case unit, a friend of mine, who will investigate if Mr. Abbot was living in or around Cambridge during that time. I worked on the original case with Chief superintendent Bogle, and what you have just given us will go a long way in apprehending the guilty party. Thank you so much. We are most grateful to you and will be in touch as soon as we learn anything more.

CHAPTER 3

THE MET

Ian Bogle was an unusual policeman. First of all, he was an academic, who graduated from Edinburgh University with a double first in criminology. That is not to say there are many highly intelligent police officers on the force today, but Ian Bogle had one ingredient that set him apart from all others. He was the son of a woman who had been murdered in front of him at the hands of a serial killer. He was 4 years old when it happened. It took Ian ten years to talk about what happened, but after he talked to a pediatric psychologist it was as if a floodgate was opened and truth came spilling out. It turned out you see that the serial killer was his grandfather on his father's side, and it seemed that young Ian had been so traumatized by witnessing his mother being murdered by his own grandfather that he never spoke another word for 10 years. During his silent years he learned to read. First of all, simple storybooks but as he grew older, he raided his family's voluminous library. He and his father lived in Edinburgh on Mossop Street near the university, and he dreamed of studying someday at his father’s college. After “the incident,” and when Ian’s grandfather had been punished for his crimes, his father had been shunned by society, and the two of them moved to a tidy little house on Mossop Street far away from all the gossip. His father hired a tutor, explaining that his son was a “special needs” child. The tutor did little more than leave Ian to his own devices, and soon this prodigy was tackling complex problems far above his actual years. At 14 his tutor suggested that he apply to university and six months later was accepted to Edinburgh university. He chose criminology as his major, and on the first day of classes began to speak again. Ian never talked about the trauma he’d experienced but just moved forward taking one day at a time. He had no friends to speak of and was a solitary child whose ambition in life was to rid the world of crime. Ian Bogle became a foot patrol officer after he left university, which was the custom in the United Kingdom since the metropolitan police force had been founded by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had been the Queen or a vagrant, the rules applied to everyone. PC Bogle had graduated with high honors from university and spent a couple of years pounding the beat. It taught him a valuable lesson in humility. He learned a lot about policing and how to interact with the public. In his 3rd year he was allowed to apply some of the skills he had learned at uni and took and passed the detectives examination with flying colors. Ian Bogle was a highly intelligent young man who had excelled at university. He rose through the ranks fast and before he was 27 years old, had become a Detective Inspector. That was when Detective sergeant Holloway and Inspector Bogle first met when they were asked to investigate a series of rapes that had happened around Cambridge.

The phone rang on Inspector Bogles desk. “Good morning, Inspector, this is Terry Jones of the Cambridge Sun. I understand a woman was raped last night in Longwood Gardens. Could I get a statement from you?” “Yes, you can. No comment, Bogle replied grumpily and slammed the phone down. “Now, what was I saying?” he continued as he chatted to his new sergeant. “This is now the 3rd attack in as many weeks. The woman who was raped last night was Angela Jenkins. She is 19 years old and an undergraduate here at Cambridge. She is currently being checked out at the Infirmary. (Cambridge General Infirmary) Ms. Jenkins has been admitted to hospital, due to a particularly vicious attack and subsequent rape. She’s currently in stable condition and the doctors expect to release her in the next day or so. She’s renting a bedsit at Longwood Gardens, an old Victorian home, that was purchased by investors and transformed into small flats and student bedsits. The bedsit Ms. Jenkins lives in is located on the ground floor at the back of the house.” Bogle paused and his new sergeant asked, “how many ground floor bedsits are in that house, and how many of them are rented by women?” “Good question sergeant, I’m not sure yet, but maybe you could find out the answer for me.” “Happy to do so Inspector,” sergeant Cowan replied breezily. “Would you mind telling me about the first and second rapes that you believe were committed by the same attacker?” And so, Inspector Bogle told his new sergeant the details of the two previous rapes. This was sergeant Cowan’s first day since he had been promoted, and while he’d had some experience as a detective constable his main jobs up until that point had been making the detectives' pots of tea ad infinitum. He hadn’t minded doing that, because he kept his ears and eyes open and listened and watched everything being said.

Inspector Holloways’ background was a bit more mundane than Chief Superintendent Bogle’s. He came from a large family, having 3 sisters and a brother 4 years younger than Trev. He lived on a council estate with his mum who was a cleaner for rich people on the other side of town, and his dad who was a haulage driver for a construction company delivering heavy equipment to the booming building business all around Cambridge. Sometimes young Trevor would ride along with his dad to deliver a loader to a building site in the area. He treasured those days and remembered his dad to be a kind and jolly man, who loved to help everyone. Sadly, when Trevor was just 14 his dad suffered a heart attack and died. The extended family was wonderful and helped them through a couple of really tough years, but it taught Trevor a valuable lesson, making him realize the importance of family. He left school at 16 and took a job washing dishes at night and stocking shelves during the day at Marks and Spencer, the giant UK retailer. The money he earned helped pay the bills his mum was now solely responsible for. It was the least he could do. Over the next 2 years Trevor grew to be a man, and on his 18th birthday he applied to become a “Bobby.” He came up the hard way never receiving a single favor or handout, and so when he teamed up with Inspector Bogle, it truly was a perfect match. Respect was the umbilical cord that was the life blood of their professional relationship. Just like a married couple who had been married for over forty years, they finished each other’s sentences and as they did, laughed about what they’d just done. In many ways they became a dream team as their success rate was unprecedented. The one case, however, they failed to solve was the very first case they worked on together.

Looking back on those years, Chief Inspector Holloway wondered if he and Ian Bogle had solved those 9 rape cases things might have been different. One thing was for sure. He would never know, but the fact that he now knew the name of a suspect, Charles Abbot, was a huge bonus. And now he intended to follow it up and see if Abbot was living in the area at that time. Too much time had been wasted, and he didn’t want another rape on his patch.

The first thing Inspector Holloway did was run a thorough background check on Charles Abbot. It turned out the man wasn’t as squeaky clean as he let on. Back in the day he was known as Charley Abbot and was the son of a bricklayer and an aggressive drunk who liked to take it out on his wife and kids. Charles had a younger brother Tommy, 15 years younger than him, who the family joked had been a mistake, but if truth be known the father had come home one night so drunk, he could hardly stand and raped and beat up his wife. She became pregnant and gave birth to Tommy 9 months later. The 2 boys ran afoul of the law on a couple of occasions, but only enough to get them a slap on the wrist by the local cops. They grew up in Brixton a working-class neighborhood in London but as Charley’s wealth grew, he spent a lot of money obscuring those roots. He owned an import/ export business selling medical supplies to UK hospitals and clinics. His business attracted attention from the fraud squad on a few occasions for dodgy dealings, but the police never had enough evidence to press charges.

5 days after Carol Drinkwater gave her statement and the blood sample from Charles Abbot to Inspector Holloway, the lab determined conclusively that it was a familial match to Charley Abbot’s DNA on the 9 rape victims that were attacked two decades earlier. A warrant was applied for and granted, and Mr. Charles Abbot was subsequently arrested two days later at his house in Hampstead without fuss. He was jailed overnight and arraigned the following morning. Abbot pleaded not guilty but was remanded without bail because of the severity of the charges and then Abbot was relocated to Cambridge where the 9 rapes had occurred. This number did not include the rape of Carol Drinkwater, the nurse who’d identified Abbot after he gave blood in order to save his sons life but at the time never reported her attack.

In the meantime, there had been 3 rapes that had occurred within the past few weeks. These attacks were similar, yet something bothered Chief Superintendent Bogle as he sat at his desk and read the files. He’d always trusted his old partner, Trevor Holloway, and he picked up the phone a gave him a ring. On the third ring a familiar voice answered. “Inspector Holloway speaking.” “Trevor, Ian speaking. Well done on arresting Abbot. That’s marvelous news. I have some concerns though about the three rapes that have just happened.” Ian Bogle had a habit of cutting out the bs and getting straight to the point. “There’s something about these 3 cases that set them apart from the ones Abbot allegedly committed. First of all, it doesn’t ring true that given his age, Charles Abbot would still be carrying out these vicious attacks. Yes, it’s possible but unlikely. No, I think we may have a copycat on our hands. What do you think, my friend.” Funny you should say that because I was thinking exactly the same. It’s fantastic we’ve possibly solved the earlier rapes, but has the DNA come back from the lab yet?” Trevor Holloway began. Ian Bogle remained silent for a moment and then replied. “I was just reading the reports before I rang, and the answer is that no it hasn’t come back yet. Of course, if the DNA is a match on all 3 victims we’d have a slam dunk on our hands, but the more I’ve been thinking about it the more convinced I am that the rapist was another man. I’m afraid we’ll just have to be patient.” The 2 old friends chatted for a minute or two more and then made noises about both of them getting on with their day. Trevor Holloway sat there for a moment thinking how much he’d liked working with Chief Superintendent Bogle back when they were younger men, smiled to himself and walked pensively to a meeting he had with his team of detectives in order to strategize how to deal with the barrage of legal arguments that he knew that Charley Abbot’s legal team were about to fire at the Cambridge police force. Little did he realize just how dangerous a salvo it would become.

3 days later Abbot’s legal team filed a brief requesting all charges be dropped because consent was not given by Charles Abbot to draw a blood sample for police analysis in the rape case, he was accused of being the rapist. Upon filing the brief his defense team then applied for bail which the court agreed to with the proviso that Mr. Abbot post a £100,000 bond. Later that day Charles Abbot returned to his expensive home in Hampstead. The prosecution appealed but were denied after a judicial hearing and so the Cambridge police force found themselves back at square one.

Meanwhile the investigation into the 3 rapes that occurred within the past few weeks continued. A footprint had been found at the flat of the second victim but so far hadn’t helped identify the rapist. Inspector Holloway was becoming impatient. 4 days later the lab contacted his team with the news they’d been waiting for. The DNA was a familial match to Charles Abbot, meaning that the DNA collected at all 3 crime scenes had a large percentage of similarities to the blood that had been collected by the nurse Carol Drinkwater but wasn’t enough of a match to convict Abbot. The DNA, however, could belong to Abbot or a close relative.

Familial DNA is the practice of creating new investigative leads in cases where DNA evidence found at the scene of a crime strongly resembles that of an existing DNA profile (offender profile) in a DNA database but there is not an exact match. After all other leads have been exhausted, investigators may use specially developed software to compare the forensic profile to all profiles taken from a state's DNA database to generate a list of those offenders already in the database who are most likely to be a very close relative of the individual whose DNA is in the forensic profile.

CHAPTER 4

Back to the Drawing Board

Running a two-tiered investigation is good police practice. It’s been a tried-and-true practice within police departments worldwide for decades. The 2 teams, the Cambridge Cold case unit being run by Chief Superintendent Bogle, and the team led by Inspector Holloway had 10 detectives on their teams collectively. Bogle and Holloway, after they discussed the idea of joining forces, received the sanction of the Cambridgeshire Police Commissioner, a longtime friend and colleague of theirs named Russell Handy, who had come up through the ranks with them both. The two teams divided the files between them and revisited every aspect of the case, leaving no stone unturned. Trevor Holloway was handling the investigation into the 3 current rapes and Ian Bogle was responsible for the 10 rapes that happened decades earlier. This division was intentional in order not to confuse the cases.

Between the 2 teams they were now investigating 13 rapes, 10 cold cases and 3 current attacks, allegedly carried out by their main suspect Charles Abbot. Initially the CCU, the Cold Case Unit re-read every file Bogle and Holloway had assembled back in the day, and then tried to create a timeline to see if it was possible that Abbot could have carried out all of the attacks. Some might say that this should have been done before Abbot was charged, but Chief Bogle, in error, was so delighted that after 25 years they had the name of a suspect, due diligence may not have been at the top of the agenda and so Abbot was charged in spite of that. In his bones Bogle felt absolutely 100% certain they had the right man.

In an office down the hall from Bogles’ team was Inspector Holloway and his team of 6 detectives, who were investigating the 3 current rapes, including the 25-year-old attack on the nurse Carol Drinkwater, who had never reported her rape. Bogle had decided that Holloways’ team should investigate that particular case as he feared that if his team investigated the case, they could become biased against Ms. Drinkwater. Holloway’s team became known as the Cambridge Sex Crimes Unit, or CSCU for short. His team initially read and re-read the case files of the 4 victims. It was also decided that if there were any more attacks then the CSCU would be the investigative unit.

One month after Inspector Holloway filed charges against their client, Charles Abbot’s legal team responded by contacting Cambridge Police and stating that on 3 of the 9 dates the rapes were committed on, their client was abroad which would have made it impossible for him to have committed the crimes. The team included copies of round-trip airline tickets where Abbot was visiting and hotel receipts for the time away. After Holloway received this bombshell news, he met up with Chief Superintendent Bogle and Commissioner Handy and then issued a statement to the press. Two days later the charges against Charles Abbot were dropped amidst threats by his legal team of an impending lawsuit against the Cambridge Police Force. Holloway was severely reprimanded by the Commissioner for jumping the gun.

Trevor Holloway had married his high school sweetheart just a year after he graduated from school. Patricia Holloway, née Samuels, was gorgeous and Trevor was the envy of every bloke who knew them. On March 13th Trevor and Trish were married at their local Cambridge Presbyterian church by Father Thomas and 13 months later became the proud parents of, what would be their only child, Lara. Lara was bright as a button and began walking at 11 months and began to talk a few months after that. She developed a fascination for science and won a scholarship to St. Mary Magdalen girl’s school a few miles from Cambridge where her mum and dad worked. Her mum, a stenographer, worked at the Cambridge courthouse for Judge Engoron and her dad at the Cambridge Police Department. Years went by and young Lara excelled academically and was beautiful to boot. When it came time to take her A levels, she took 4. Biology, chemistry, physics, and further mathematics, and passed all of them with flying colors. Lara applied to Cambridge, Oxford, and several red brick universities, one of which was Bristol. She was accepted into all of her main choices, contingent upon passing her A levels. She eventually decided to attend Bristol University partially because she’d recently met a nice fellow who she was now dating. The romance didn’t last long but it turned out to be an important ingredient in the ‘making of Lara.’ Lara Holloway subsequently graduated with a degree in chemistry, and then took a master's in forensic science and got her MSc 2 years later, after which she received her PhD 2 years later. Lara was the first member of the Holloway clan ever to go to university. At 25 years old she was offered a job at Oxford University.

It was during a Sunday phone chat from Oxford with her dad that he asked her a question about DNA that had been worrying him. “I’m confused about what exactly genetic DNA is. Can you explain it to me in words of one syllable.” Lara chuckled and replied patiently, “sure dad. Genetic DNA is an interesting subject. But you realize that it’s a tiny percentage of our DNA that makes all of us different. Humans are genetically very similar. We share about 99.9% of our genetic code with one another.” “How could that be, he asked, We’re all so different.” Lara smiled and replied, “I’m afraid that’s a chat for another day, dad.” “Okay,” he replied, “but just tell me very quickly about the DNA of a blood relative, like say a brother or a sister?” Could his DNA match his brothers? “It’d be very very similar dad. My advice is to get a DNA sample from the brother if possible.” And with that the two said their goodbyes and hung up the phone.

Trevor Holloway had been fomenting the idea for weeks now but sometimes it helps to talk about the idea with an impartial party. What if?? Could it be possible?? Could he have charged the wrong man?? Of course, he had known all the ins and outs of familial DNA since long before Lara had been born, but his chat with his daughter had clarified things in his mind persuasively. In some ways his chat had been his own way of talking out loud, and the more he thought about it that Sunday evening, the more convinced he became that the course he was now sailing was the correct path.

Tommy Abbot had been known to law enforcement for decades. In and out of detention centers most of his young life, his infractions had been youthful violations such as shoplifting, joy riding and the occasional car theft. His crimes were enough to incarcerate him for short terms at Borstal, the young offenders prison system, but not really serious enough to paint him as a hardened criminal. Tommy was 15 years younger than his older brother who he worshipped. Charley considered his younger brother to be a bit of a nuisance, but deep down there was love there, and a mutual love and respect they shared for what they’d had to suffer from their alcoholic father.

CHAPTER 5

Probable Cause

The first thing Inspector Holloway did on Monday morning was apply for a search warrant for Thomas Abbot. He knew now that the blood test he had received from Carol Drinkwater would be challenged in any court in the land and so he wanted to approach this new direction with absolutely clean hands. There must be no hint of bias being leveled against Tommy Abbot because of his having DNA that was familial to his brother. Holloway considered looking at Tommy’s juvenile record but quickly dismissed that idea as he knew that only Tommy’s fingerprints would have been taken. In the UK however there is a statute that allows search warrants for what is known as “probable cause.” This would then allow the police to collect his DNA from a toothbrush or a comb or hairbrush. Inspector Holloway knew Tommy, given the debacle of his brothers' blood sample, would never give his DNA voluntarily and so he simply let the judicial process play out. A week later the warrant was approved, and the search carried out and several items were found at the suspects home and sent on to the lab for analysis.

Turnaround time is a high priority in the UK. Nationally established targets for crime scene sample analysis are 24 days. Holloway tore Tommy Abbots life apart during that time, concentrating mainly on the most recent attacks. One thing still bothered him though, and that was the firsthand testimony of Carol Drinkwater who said that her rapist had a most distinctive and vile body odor. A member of his team suggested that this might have simply been coincidental because the attacker had been trudging through the undergrowth and consequently had become hot and sweaty and might not have been the most manicured of human beings. Certainly, that was something worth considering.

Holloway was limited in his approach regarding the possible incrimination of Tommy Abbot. So far, the team had been looking into him in as low key a way as possible. He must have known that he was under investigation because of the warrant that had been executed but as much as possible CSCU was being low profile. Because they were waiting for the DNA to come back from the lab, they hadn’t interviewed Tommy yet and so it came as a surprise when Detective Chris Rogers discovered that young Abbot had received a traffic violation just 3 miles from the crime scene of Angie Jenkins on the day that she was brutally raped at her ground floor flat at Longwood Gardens on the outskirts of Cambridge.

CSCU spent the following week checking and double-checking Tommy’s movements during the time the current rapes had been reported. Surveillance was being conducted by the CCU, as it had more detectives than CSCU, and 2 teams of 2 detectives kept a 24-hour watch on Tommy Abbot’s whereabouts at all times. The surveillance team was required to contact both Inspector Abbot and Chief Superintendent Bogle in the event that Tommy Abbot behaved unusually. This meant that if he drove anyplace farther than a few miles from his patch the 2 team leaders would be notified. Abbot was currently living in Clapham just a few miles from Brixton where he had grown up. Tommy had never married and lived in a converted 2-bedroom condo that he had bought a few years ago. Detective constable Lynne Reid, and Detective Sergeant Terry Johns were parked in a gray Ford Fiesta about a hundred yards down Melbourne Lane the street Tommy lived on eating Pizza and talking about nothing in particular when all of a sudden Abbot appeared walking at a fast clip towards his own vehicle. Lynne nudged Terry Johns who was busy taking a bite of his delicious pizza and whispered to him to be ready to follow him. Terry nodded his head, swallowed, and turned the key in the ignition. Tommy Abbot arrived at his car and climbed in. Seconds later the vehicle lights came on and he drove towards the main road. The detectives followed at a safe distance. It soon became clear that Abbot was headed to the ring road which led to the M11 that would take them towards Cambridge and the east. As soon as the two realized Abbots’ intentions Lynne Reid telephoned her superior officers with the update. Surmising he was heading for Cambridge 55 miles away; Terry kept a safe distance from the Ford Fiesta while Lynne alerted Bogle and Holloway of Tommy Abbots current status. The 2 superior officers told the surveillance team to keep following and stay in touch with them as soon as it was certain that Tommy Abbot was driving to Cambridge. The detectives on both the Cambridge Cold case unit and the Cambridge Sex Crimes Unit were alerted and told to report to work immediately. 40 minutes later the van Tommy Abbot was driving took the Cambridge exit off the M11. Detectives Reid and Johns following closely in their nondescript Ford Fiesta took the same exit.

Inspector Holloway was sitting at his desk coordinating 5 unmarked police cars that were waiting at various locations near the exit. As Abbot entered the area surrounding Cambridge the unmarked cars were ready to follow him anonymously in order that he wouldn’t grow suspicious. The cars would switch every mile or so until Holloway could get a fix as to where he was heading. All cars were in direct contact with Inspector Holloway who was also in direct contact with Chief Superintendent Bogle. After a few moments of driving, it became clear that Tommy Abbot was headed towards the northeast of town. A couple of days earlier Holloway had asked sergeant Cowan to find out how many ground floor flats at Longwood Gardens were being occupied by young women. It appeared that Tommy Abbot was headed directly back to the same building where Angela Jenkins lived. Sergeant Cowan had found out there was one other woman, Jesse Owens aged 18 who was a resident there also. Holloway suddenly remembered his sergeant telling him about Jesse Owens and realized that Tommy Abbot must have staked her out on the same day he had raped Angela Jenkins and had planned to attack her at a later date. Now, it seems, was the time he’d decided to break in and attack her, the Inspector thought to himself. Everything now made perfect sense to him. He sprang into action and ordered his team to go immediately to Longwood Gardens and watch and wait for Abbot to arrive. He called Chief Superintendent Bogle and alerted him with the same directive, and then gave Sergeant Cowan orders to wake Jesse Owens up by banging on her front door and explaining the imminent danger that was about to occur. Holloway recommended his sergeant take a female officer with him in order that Ms. Owens not be scared or intimidated by a solo male pounding on her door at three fifteen in the morning.

It took the two teams just minutes to be ready for Tommy Abbot’s arrival. They parked their cars unobtrusively in the parking lot and crouched low so they wouldn’t be seen by him, and patiently waited until they all simultaneously received a signal that he was arriving at the parking lot.

CHAPTER 6

Jesse Owens

Jesse Owens was woken up by a loud banging on her front door. Bleary eyed she roused herself and walked to the front door. “Who is it?” She shouted through the door. “It’s the police, Ms. Owens. It’s sergeant Cowan and constable Ann Smothers. We’d like to have a word with you. Would you mind letting us in.” A moment later the two police officers were standing in the darkened sitting room of the tiny bedsit explaining to her why they were there. They intentionally kept the lights off and when they’d finished explaining suggested she go back to bed while the two of them sat in the sitting room waiting for the next move by Tommy Abbot.

Jesse Owens flat was located to the back of the building but adjacent to Angela Jenkins flat. Jesse was a first-year undergraduate at university coming from Cardiff in Wales. This was her first experience away from home and Jesse was excited to be studying at one of the best universities in the world. She had of course heard about the Angela Jenkins attack a couple of weeks earlier but never considered the attacker would target her. As she lay in her bed after the officers had explained what was about to happen, she felt safe in the knowledge that the police had everything in hand and attempted to drift off to sleep.

Tommy Abbot pulled into Longwood Gardens and drove through the parking lot looking for any unusual or suspicious activity. Satisfied that nothing looked unusual he pulled out of the parking lot and parked a couple of blocks away on a quiet side street. He exited the small Ford van and walked slowly toward the building he planned to break into, making sure that nothing raised his warning antenna. It was three thirty as he donned a black ski mask and slipped into the underbrush that surrounded the large Victorian house known as Longwood Gardens. He knew precisely where the window was that would give him direct access to Jesse Owens flat, and like a well-trained cat he slunk toward his prey. A twig snapped below his foot sounding like a pistol shot and he stopped momentarily to make certain no one woke up. Freezing for a moment gave him a chance to get his bearings and then, when he was absolutely sure it was safe to continue, moved stealthily toward the window. Tommy was an expert in unlatching windows, so it only took him a second. He pushed the window upwards, and it slid open with ease not making a sound. He then pulled himself onto the windowsill and rolled silently into the darkened room landing in silence on the carpeted floor.

Unbeknownst to Tommy Abbot the two police officers who were now in Ms. Owens flat had been watching his break in. The detectives who were parked in the parking lot were in contact with Inspector Holloway who ordered two of them to discreetly follow Abbot and watch as he broke in and then remain in place to prevent him from fleeing and arrest him if he tried to run for it.

Abbot rolled onto the carpeted floor of Jesse Owens flat and stood up, his eyes getting used to the darkness. As Tommy stood up, sergeant Cowan flicked on the light switch illuminating the room. The look of surprise and horror on Abbot’s face, even though it was covered by a black ski mask was almost funny had it not been so serious. Initially he did a half turn and attempt to climb out of the window he’d just come in by but was stopped in his tracks as he saw two burly policemen standing there looking up at him. So, he turned back to sergeant Cowan and constable Smothers and looking around quickly assessed there was no means of escape and so with a defeated sigh removed his mask and held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender, and Sergeant Cowan read him his rights and took him into custody. Within seconds Jesse Owens’ flat was teeming with police officers and a forensic team showed up soon afterwards who cordoned off the flat and collected samples to compare them to any previous attack sites. Jesse Owens was relocated temporarily to a small hotel near the police department, until the time when forensics had cleared her flat.

Tommy Abbot was sitting in interview room 1 the day after his arrest looking depressed and glum. He was a slight man of around 50. No one would accuse him of looking like Brad Pitt. If you bumped into him at a football match 5 minutes after you met him, you’d be hard pressed to describe him as anything but nondescript. His life just hadn’t really worked out well for him. Bullied as a child he only had one person who’d ever stood up for him, and that was his brother, Charley. But by the time he was 17, Charley, who was 15 years older than him, was 32. Tommy worshipped his older brother and would do anything for him.

Trevor Holloway and Ian Bogle were watching Abbot through a 2-way mirror. Technically they were sweating him, a term that is used after a criminal has been caught, but before he is formally charged. The tactic is clever and often produces results in the form of a confession or a partial admission of guilt. In any case Holloway and Bogle wanted him to wonder just how much evidence they had against him. The two seasoned policemen had been chasing this man for over 25 years and until now they’d never found a drop of evidence that might convict him. They needed to catch him in the act and hopefully match his DNA to the 3 previous rapes in order not to have the cases thrown out of court on the familial DNA charge that his brother had been accused of. It was vital that any charges leveled against Thomas Abbot must have “clean hands,” and not have any whiff of bias.

“Good morning Mr. Abbot.” The Inspector began. “You’ve been charged with breaking and entering 56 Longwood Gardens, the home of Ms. Jesse Owens, a university student. Would you like to say anything?”

I felt an ominous quiet click somewhere in my neural substrate, as I remembered my friend Pete staring up at me eyes wide open, from beneath the water. It seemed like such a frightfully long time ago since I’d been a schoolboy at Milbourne Lodge prep school. It was a whole lifetime ago and now Tommy Abbot was eventually arraigned and charged with multiple rapes over a 27 year period. After a long and emotional trial Tommy Abbot was sentenced to a life sentence for each of the 13 rapes he was convicted for.

THE END

THE AUTHOR:

Tim Battersby is the son of a British Intelligence Officer. For 3 years he was a contributor to The HuffPost and wrote articles on Musical Talent in the Arts and Culture section of The HuffPost. He and his wife Laura were awarded a Grammy Nomination for their Children’s album Sunny Days in 2011. Tim lives with his wife on the west coast of Florida. They have a daughter, a son in law, 4 Grandchildren, and two great Grandchildren.