Rope Enough (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 1) Read Free Page A

horror. How could it not deeply affect them?
    Romney beckoned him over. ‘Constable...?’
    ‘Marrin, sir.’
    ‘Right. Constable Marrin. You were one of the first in?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Tell me how it went.’ Romney was impressed when the officer consulted his notebook.
    ‘Constable Spencer and myself received a call to investigate the concerns of a member of the public who’d come to collect his girlfriend after work. When we arrived, we found the man banging on the doors. It all looked closed up and locked down, but he was adamant that something was wrong. In fact while the lights had been turned off inside and out and the doors locked the pumps were still operational. The alarm was also not activated. We contacted the station and they located the manager. He had spare keys and was with us within twenty minutes. He opened up and Constable Spencer and I investigated.’ The young officer paused to swallow and moisten his lips for what he had to say next.
    ‘In the back room of the garage we found a female bound by the wrists and ankles to the surface of the table.’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘Her top had been pulled up over her head and she was naked from the waist down apart from socks and footwear. The lady was conscious and hysterical. A male, the youth in the ambulance,’ he added, looking up at the DI, ‘was lying on the floor unconscious. His wrists had been similarly bound behind him. He was bleeding from the head suggesting that he’d been struck a forceful blow. Constable Spencer and I cut the woman free and made her as comfortable as we could. The ambulance service was called. The first ambulance took the female victim with Constable Spencer to the William Harvey hospital. The female victim’s boyfriend, a Mr Simon Avery, was arrested for assaulting a police officer and taken down to the station.’
    ‘Very good,’ said Romney. ‘Where’s the manager now?’
    The PC pointed through the window at a car parked in the shadows. ‘We asked him to wait in his car until we need him, sir.’
    ‘Thank you. That’s all for now.’
    The constable moved back to his position at the door. Romney checked his watch. The ambulance with Carl Park inside left the forecourt.
    Grimes checked with Romney that there was nothing else required of him and headed back to the station to circulate what scant details they had of the assailant to officers working the night shift.
    To Marsh, Romney said, ‘Well, Sergeant, I’ll let you finish things up here and I suggest that once you’ve told the manager he can have his petrol station back you go home and get a good night’s sleep, what’s left of it. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day.’
    ‘Ms Stamp, sir?’
    ‘I doubt very much that she’ll be any good to us tonight and vice-versa. If she was sedated, far better to let her get some rest. We’ll see her tomorrow.’
    ‘What about this Simon Avery bloke, sir?’
    ‘You’ve not had the pleasure of meeting our Mr Avery, I suppose, in the short time you’ve been with us?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘He’s a nasty piece of work. He has as many pretensions as he has convictions and as a villain he’s on the rise. Small time today, but he’s one for the future. A rising dark star, you might say. A night in the cells won’t do him, or Dover, any harm.’
    The DI nodded to the constable whose name he had already forgotten, walked out of the shop, got into his car and drove away. Home was not on his mind.
     
    *
     
    Romney had started seeing something of Julie Carpenter, a Primary school teacher and several years his junior, a little over a month before. They had met when he had visited her school as part of a regional campaign for something he now struggled to recall. Another pointless initiative dreamt up by someone at area with nothing else to do except find ways to justify their position and their nice fat salary. Still, that cloud had had a silver lining. After two failed marriages and staring down