The Blooding (32 page)

If the detectives were looking for frenzy, they'd not find it. The murder squad would forever describe the confession of Colin Pitchfork as "cold," as in "a cold confession of evil." But an outside observer might conclude that the taped confession of Colin Pitchfork revealed nothing more and nothing less than the typically dispassionate narrative style of a self-absorbed, remorseless sociopath. One who, by clinical definition, cannot infuse a confession with emotions that he has never felt. Colin Pitchfork and Mick Mason were speaking to each other in different tongues.

When Mick Thomas again took charge, he said, "Yes, and after she struggled, what happened?"

"I got onto the carotid arteries and she was unconscious in a matter of seconds. I would say she was unconscious in twenty or thirty seconds because I put so much force into the carotid arteries. So the oxygen to her brain ceased almost instantly. She had only seconds but she still struggled a bit. I held her for a minute or so, then her body took a natural kind of reaction. A breath, because, I mean, you probably ain't seen a body die, as such."

"And then?"

"I grabbed her coat and pulled her toward a bush eight feet away. B
y t
he lapels, pulling backward. There were no point trying to hide the body. Then I noticed she had a scarf on. All I did was tighten that."

"To make sure?"

"Yeah, I seen the scarf and I just wrapped it round her neck and gave it a pull. What you'd call an insurance policy."

"Then?"

"I went back to the car where the baby were still asleep. I had to hurry home and get the taping done because Carole would say, 'What you been doing?' I had to work fast and furious to get the records moving on and off the record player and onto the cassettes. By the time I went to pick Carole up I'd had a wash and a shave."

"After Lynda Mann, did you continue flashing?"

"After Lynda, I stopped flashing for six or eight months," he said.

When a uniformed constable entered the interview room with some tea and a message for Mick Thomas, Colin Pitchfork turned to the bobby and began relating the events of his life to him. He seemed disappointed when the constable left. He wanted the attention of everyone.

Chapter
27.

The Cake

No sense of conscience, guilt, or remorse is present. Harmful acts are committed without discomfort or shame. Though the psychopath, after being caught or confronted with a brutal act, may verbalize regret, he typically does not display true remorse.

--RIMM and SOMERVILL

Colin Pitchfork's next interview was about Dawn Ashworth. He began by saying, "I was riding the Honda Seventy when I seen the girl enter the footpath. I was out to get food coloring for a cake. I parked the bike and put me hat on the handleclip and just walked after her into Ten Pound Lane."

"Was there anybody around?"

"Nobody. Nobody ever saw me. They saw lots of other people, I guess, but not me. There I was in broad daylight, wearing jeans and a jumper and a bottle-green nylon parka jacket."

"Go on."

"When I were following behind Dawn I had this gut feeling. It was saying, No no no no nol But the other side of me was saying, Just flash her. You've got a footpath. You've got all the time in the world. Even if sh
e r
uns off screaming no one will ever see you. No one will ever know! Who's going to know?"

"You were following behind?"

"Yeah, but I had a hard time catching her. She walked fast. I finally jogged past and turned and half smiled, as if to say hello. I tried to get ahead. I tried to get set, but she was on top of me. I didn't even have time to open me bloody trousers. There's rules to how I play that game. I prefer to do it in a way that satisfies me. I still had me motorbike coat done up and I was a bit out of breath. She had plenty of room to walk by me. I had got to this point on the path, by this little opening. This gate. You got to make a decision whether you're going to do it or not. So I turned and walked back toward her and exposed myself. She didn't say nothing."

It was Mick Mason who then asked, "Was your penis hard?"

"Don't know," he said. "Can't remember."

Mick Mason said, "How clear is this in your mind? The whole thing? The murder?"

"Crystal," Colin Pitchfork said.

Mick Mason said, "Then what?"

"They always have room," Colin Pitchfork explained. "No matter where I were exposing meself. No matter where. They always have room to walk by me. It's the easiest way. You shock them. They walk by you and then you got your exit route clear, and go where they come from. If she'd have ran back down the path she'd have blocked my exit route. If she'd have ran back screaming on Narborough Road I'd have had trouble getting back to the bike. So I had to stand to one side of the path or I'd have blocked her way and my escape route."

"So what did you do next?"

"Now I know it sounds very familiar," he said, "but she jumped into the gateway."

"Like Lynda?"

"Yeah! I just moved forward and pushed her toward the gateway. It was the same as Lynda! You're there again! It was the same, but like, worse. And I thought, No no, don't touch her. Leave her alone. But then once I grabbed her you're in a situation that if a girl in Narborough gets grabbed, they'll immediately go to the Lynda Mann enquiry, won't they?"

"Continue."

"Well, I still got me wedding ring on. I thought, Shit! I knew I were heading into the same thing. It was a reoccurrence. I had her just round the shoulders and round the mouth when she squealed. I had her from behind cause she turned her back when she jumped toward the gate. I ver
y n
early let go of her but the one side got the better of me. See, I still had the motorbike jacket on. She'd report me and I can't take it off and just start riding the motorbike without a motorbike jacket on. I moved toward her and she screamed. A loud scream."

"What did you do?"

"As I put my hand on her mouth and half leaned on her, the gate opened on its own. I pushed her into the field and she never said much at all. She submitted more then. I would say even more than Lynda."

"The gate opened on its own?"

"We both went into the field through the gate. . . . It weren't on a catch."

"What did she say?"

"She kept saying, 'Please don't do it. Please don't!' But she never actually fought or anything. Before I got her down, before I actually raped her, I knew there was no way I could go back. I could only go forward. The same feelings were coming back. That I was in a trap again."

"What was said?"

" 'Shut up the bloody shouting!' I said. I pushed her away from the gate and she fell over. That was really the first time I'd thought of doing anything to her."

"Just at that moment, not before?"

"You find yourself in an open field. Nobody had actually come to her rescue or anything. There weren't even a chap walking a dog. When she fell she just got quiet, looking at me. And more than anything I were watching the gate. Just to make sure no one was coming. I think that's when I began to get the . .. I guess the only way you can describe it is screaming voices in your head. And it seemed like ages but I'm sure it was only seconds. Like, I don't want to leave her. Don't want to go away. Do it again here! But saying, No no no no! And the other side was saying, She's here. She's a young girl. She's laying down in a bloody field in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing easier! It were a confliction."

"And what happened?"

"She said, 'You're not going to hurt me, are you?' She babbled something and said, 'You're not going to rape me, are you? I'm a good girl. I go to church.' "

Mick Mason asked, "And what was your reaction to that?"

"I said, 'Oh, bloody well shut up!' I reached under her back and just pulled her knickers straight off. Once I got them off she half picked them up, then I just rolled on top of her."

"And you raped her?"

"I did it, and got off. She were very calm. She sat up and she said, `Have you finished? Can I go now? I won't tell anybody! Please, I won't tell anybody! Honest! Just go and leave me alone! Please!"

Mick Mason again had to ask it. "And was she petrified?"

"Yes," Colin Pitchfork said. "But it was calm petrified. 'I won't tell anybody! Just leave me alone! Just go and leave me alone!"

Mick Mason said, "Right. So what was going on in your mind at this stage?"

"Screaming to meself, Shit! You done it now! Not only was the problem that you raped her. But you've already got one murder on your hands. After you murder once and murder again you got a better chance of being caught, but . . ." Then Colin Pitchfork showed Mick Thomas a grin of familiarity and said, "But like you said, Mick, the sentences are not like in America. Two murders are okay. It's not twice the sentence for two."

Mick Mason may have been getting close to his limit. He said, "These voices shouting to you are not going on about prison sentences, are they? They're not really voices, are they? It's your innermost thoughts, your conscience telling you what you can do and can't do, isn't it? I mean, surely, your conscience is telling you, Don't! "

Colin Pitchfork, who'd spent years telling probation officers and psychiatrists what they wanted to hear, said, "Yeah, my conscience is telling me, Don't. But at the same time it's saying, She'll identify you!"

Mick Mason said, "Okay, so in view of your conscience telling you things, what did you do next?"

But actually, Colin Pitchfork had never mentioned the word "conscience," nor even described one, not in any of the interviews he was to give, except when Mick Mason forced the issue.

The prisoner said, "I left her for a second and let her sit up." "What did she do and what did you do?"

Narratively leaping from first to second person, and past to present tense, Colin Pitchfork said, "She sat up. And I had got to kill her. You can cover your tracks. You can get away with it if you kill her. She had her back to me after she sat up. Which presented me with the ideal opportunity to do a strangle hold. To get her from behind."

"With your hands?"

"No, with a judo strangle. Different than the simple thumbs on eithe
r c
arotid."

Colin Pitchfork then exerted his power and control. After all, this was his life story. Instead of choosing to demonstrate on the "good" detective, he chose the "bad" one, the one who disapproved of him. The prisoner go
t u
p and moved around behind Mick Mason and put his arm around Mason's shoulders and his forearm across his throat. And clasping his right hand across his left elbow, he flexed his left arm, putting pressure on either side of Mason's throat with the biceps and forearm.

"Yes, you can see it, can't you?" Colin Pitchfork said. "It's instant."

Then he sat back down and found it very hard to repress a certain amount of pride. "In fact," he said, "I learned judo at the Caterpillar Judo Club at Desford."

Mick Thomas said, "After raping her did you do anything else sexually to her?"

"No," he answered quickly.

"Did you insert yourself into her bottom?"

"No," he said.

Mick Mason said, "At all?"

"Nol" he said.

"Carry on, then."

"Her jacket had come off when I applied the strangle hold round her shoulder. I started to take a ten-pound note out of her purse to make it look like robbery. Then I thought no, I couldn't see no point in it. I thought, what with money being tight at home, Carole might find it and say where did I get ten quid from? The only cash we had was used for groceries and petrol."

"So you didn't take it."

"Then I realized lots of people walked their dogs on the path, so I moved her body in toward the stinging nettles. I saw a six-foot log. I half dragged her body into the stingers and hedge. I covered her with the log and threw her jacket down the hedgerow. Then I had a bit of panic."

"whyr
,
"I lost me watch. Which I don't know if you ever found, did you?"

They had not, but Mick Mason wanted to get back to the dying girl. He said, "What happened when you put the strangle hold on her? Specifically."

Colin Pitchfork looked at the older detective and said, "You'll appreciate how quick it killed her if I just show you the effectiveness. Can I just do it again? On you?"

Mick Mason said, "No. What was the effect on the girl? How long did it take?"

"Seconds," Colin Pitchfork said, again annoyed with Mason. Mick Thomas asked, "Did she say anything?"

"No. She just died."

And then, like any reasonably adept sociopath who is confronted with the conscience of others--something he considers a weakness--Colin Pitchfork said, "I know I'm talking about it coldheartedly. I don't feel that way. She died a damn sight quicker than Lynda Mann. Because with Lynda Mann I didn't go straight for the carotid artery, cutting off blood to the brain. I can tell you, this is a recognized Japanese way of getting somebody. I been instructed in judo, working on a mat."

By then, Sgt. Mick Mason wasn't interested in Colin Pitchfork's prowess in judo, or scouting, or cake baking. Mason was getting very near to the end. He said, "The rape was very traumatic. The girl was ripped to bits around the vagina and bottom. Can you explain that at all? She was absolutely ripped to bits."