Series 26, Episode 12: Respect: Part 3

Date: Sunday 15th May 2016

Investigating Officers: Superintendent Jack Meadows, DI Neil Manson, Inspector Dale Smith, Sergeant Jo Masters, DS Max Carter, DS Hannah McKay, DC Mickey Webb, DC Terry Perkins, DC Grace Desari


"We told you!" Hannah almost shouted at Max the next morning.

She'd arrived at work to the news that Jasmine Harris had been the victim of a gang rape on the Parkway Estate the evening before. Jo, who'd been at work most of the night and only headed home for a couple of hours sleep – leaving before Hannah had woken up – hadn't told her fiancée anything, knowing that she would have gone straight to the station if she had.

"Told me what?"

"That something would happen to Jasmine if we let her go last night." She snapped. "This is on you, Max."

"No, Hannah, this isn't on me. This is on the scum on that estate that did this to her."

She snorted. "You're so fucking supercilious aren't you? Nothing is every your fault because you're too arrogant to see that maybe you made a mistake. If you weren't so dead set on Jasmine being so unworthy of your time and attention… so dead set on acting as though me and Mickey were ridiculous and overly attached and emotional… then maybe, just maybe, this wouldn't have happened. You disgust me."

Turning, she stormed away from him, not even looking back as she knocked a pile of report folders off his desk all over the floor. Throwing herself through the double doors, Hannah leant heavily against the wall in the corridor, guilt crashing over her in waves.

She couldn't help feeling responsible for what had happened to Jasmine, despite the fact that she knew Jo had been right the night before. The decision had been taken out of her hands and no amount of arguing with Smithy would have changed that. There simply wasn't any room in custody and Jasmine had been given bail. Letting her go was the only logical thing to do.

"Hannah?"

"Mickey."

At the heavy tone of her voice and the way she didn't meet his eyes, he knew that she'd heard. "I take it you know about…?"

"Jasmine? Yeah."

"Smithy's gone to see her in St Hugh's."

"Yeah?" Hannah didn't bother to ask if he knew how she was, knowing that there was no straightforward answer to that question. "Come on… better get into the briefing. I think the DI has the CCTV from Nayfield House."

Mickey nodded wordlessly and followed her back into CID. Hannah crossed to sit beside Jo, while Mickey perched just inside the door. They exchanged a look as Max uttered several sarcastic comments about the case, neither of them rising to the bait.

She sat and watched the CCTV numbly. Hannah stood and started pacing as Jasmine was led into the alleyway and disappeared from sight.

"How many of them?" Grace breathed in disbelief. "For god's sake…"

"We're not sure… there might be some already in there waiting."

Jo shook her head. "Seven? More?"

"By the look of it." Grace murmured.

"Parkway Crew." Max announced.

"Yeah, it's looking like that." Neil agreed.

"This is fucking ridiculous." Hannah snapped, still pacing.

Everyone ignored her, their attention focused on the CCTV. They watched as it continued, until figures started emerging from the alleyway and sprinting away across the estate.

"OK… we think it's around this time that the gun was fired and called in by a member of the public." Neil told them, moving towards the screen. "Now… that is Colin Simmons… that is Gary Wilson…"

"That's Derek Bailey." Grace identified a third figure.

"Yeah, also Parkway Crew, also a dealer and we're out looking for him."

"She was being punished." Grace theorised. "They knew she'd spoken to us about Liam Martin's murder."

"Or maybe it was a warning; do not hand us Wilson."

"Probably a bit of both." Mickey suggested. "It seems to me that these boys don't waste too much time mulling things over. This was all done in broad daylight." He glanced at Hannah. "She should never have been released from custody last night." As everyone shifted uncomfortably but no one spoke, he shrugged. "Come on, we all know that's the truth. We didn't arrange any protection for Jasmine."

"If you want to self-flagellate, do it in the corridor." Max said snidely.

"You're a fucking–" Hannah started, but Jo laid a hand on her arm and shook her head sharply. The redhead exhaled sharply and turned away, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

"OK, listen up, Inspector Smith's still at the hospital talking with Jasmine Harris." Jack announced, entering CID in time to catch the tail end of the conversation. "Hopefully she'll give us a statement but apparently she's not being very cooperative."

"Do you blame her?" Hannah snapped before she could stop herself.

"However," Jack continued as though she hadn't spoken, "if she identifies the individuals we've arrested as those that raped her, we could get a result so a lot is going to depend on the interview and a lot will depend on the interviewer."

"Well Grace made good progress with her yesterday." Neil jumped in immediately.

"I think Hannah got more from her." Mickey argued.

Jack looked between the two women. "I'm happy to go with Hannah, if you can keep your temper in check. No more outbursts, understand?"

"Guv." She muttered, almost bitterly.

"Good, so… we've got two rape suspects in custody?"

"Yeah." Neil agreed. "I'm happy to lead one of the interviews."

The Superintendent nodded. "Right, you take Simmons, Wilson's mine. In the meantime, I think we should get down to the estate and talk to as many people as possible that you think might be able to help and also forensics, because a gun was fired during the rape and I wanna know who did it."

"Sir."

As everyone dispersed, Hannah put her hands on her head and started pacing again. She kicked out at the closest paper bin, ignoring several noises of irritation from behind her as it skittered across the floor before tipping over.

"Come on." Jo grasped her fiancée by the hand and pulled her from the office. As she had done the day before, she checked that the toilets were empty before leaning against the sinks and motioning towards the redhead. "Come on then, let's hear it."

"What?"

"That I was wrong. That it's our fault this has happened to Jasmine. That we should all blame ourselves."

Hannah laughed mirthlessly, crossing the room and leaning against the wall beside the hand dryer. She folded her arms and looked at her fiancée, head tilted slightly to one side. For a moment she said nothing, just watched Jo who stared back wordlessly.

"I don't blame you. I don't blame anyone here. I don't even blame Max." She admitted finally with a shrug. "I blame myself."

"Hannah–"

"Up in that room, watching that CCTV everyone sat there looking on in shock, disgust, pity… except me. I'm the only one who knows what that girl's going through and I'm the only one that's let her down."

"You haven't let her down."

"I practically promised she'd be OK, Jo… I promised that talking to me was the right thing to do."

"You couldn't have known." Jo said, shaking her head and taking a couple of steps towards her.

"I could, Jo. I did. I said something like this would happen. I knew it would happen." Hannah put her head in her hands, before exhaling sharply and leaning her head back against the wall. "History just doesn't stop fucking repeating itself, does it?"

Moving into Hannah's personal space, Jo placed her hands on either side of the younger woman's face and stroked her cheeks gently. She said nothing for a moment, just looked at her seriously, before leaning in and kissing her. Immediately Hannah's hands grasped at the back of her fiancée's shirt and pulled her closer, clinging on tightly.

"Remember what you told me when we were working the case when we first met Jen?" Jo asked softly when they broke apart, still stroking the redhead's cheeks. "You told me that sometimes we can't save people from themselves. You told me that I'd done everything I could to help Jen and you were right. At the time I didn't believe you… I couldn't see it because I felt so guilty that things got worse before they got better. Now it's your turn to listen to me." She said firmly. "This isn't your fault and you are doing everything you can. It's fucking horrendous what happened to Jasmine, but it is not your fault."

"So why do I feel so shit?"

"Because you can see where she'll end up if she doesn't change things and you know that it could have been you." Jo reminded her bluntly. "But it wasn't you and it never will be you. You can't make that choice for Jasmine; she needs to take control of her own life. You can't force her to do that."

"I can't face the idea of those scumbags getting away with what they did."

"So let's get them."

Nodding, Hannah leant in and kissed Jo again quickly, before sending her a weak smile and leaving the toilets. She inhaled sharply, pulling herself together, before heading back into CID. Neil called across that Smithy was bringing Jasmine in to collect her mobile and they were hoping that she'd be able to persuade her to make a statement while she was there. Hannah nodded wordlessly, making her way down to collect the phone and the forms they would need to sign it out.

She didn't have long to wait before she saw Smithy leading the uncomfortable looking teenager towards the side room. Sighing deeply, Hannah followed with the phone and the forms, smiling weakly at the girl who was resolutely refusing to meet her eyes.

Hannah, with uncharacteristic nervousness, fiddled with the bag as Jasmine signed the release forms quickly.

"Right… is that it, then?" The teenager demanded, resolutely not looking at the older redhead who was standing beside the table.

"We've already got a camera and a voice recorder set up next door." Smithy told her gently. "All you've got to do is give us your account of what happened."

"Yeah, nice one…"

Hannah looked at her sadly. "I am so sorry that this happened. You have no idea how much I…" She smiled weakly. "I've been kicking off left, right and centre upstairs since I heard."

"It's true… and she's got a right temper on her." Smithy agreed, trying to lighten the mood. "It's the hair… same as you."

"Don't let them get away with this, Jasmine." Hannah implored her.

Her phone beeped and she read the message quickly. "Look, someone's coming to pick me up. I've gotta go."

"Jasmine… for once in your life, help yourself out. Give us their names." Smithy implored her.

"I could explain this to you in a million different ways, but you'd never understand." The teenager said softly, looking at them with an expression that clearly said she felt like she was on her own. "What happened to me… it's nothing unusual. It's not as big as you make it out to be. It happens all the time."

"You think it's OK for a woman to be raped by five or six men?" Hannah asked, crouching down in front of the teenager and shaking her head.

"Not if it happened to someone like you."

The DS let out a snort of disbelief. "You're no different from me… and when it happened to me, it was no less OK than when it happened to you."

Smithy turned his head sharply and looked at the woman beside him, trying to work out whether she was embellishing to get the teenager to open up or whether she was admitting something he'd never known before. He knew that Hannah had been raped, more than once, and he was under no illusions that what he knew about his friend's past was just the tip of the iceberg.

"I can't…"

Hannah held Jasmine's gaze for a long time. Smithy was sure she was going to press her for a statement again, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded sharply and stood up, moving to the door and holding it open for the teenager to walk out.

Jasmine blinked a couple of times as though she thought it was a trick, but Hannah just smiled weakly, shrugged and told her that she wasn't going to force her to do anything she didn't want to.

"That's the problem, isn't it?" She continued softly. "People are always making you do things and taking away your choices. You're in control now, Jasmine. It's your choice to decide that you want justice for what they did to you."

There was another long pause, before the girl nodded at her and walked out of the station. Hannah and Smithy moved to watch her leave, each of them tensing as they spotted their suspects grinning at them smugly as Jasmine joined them. Unable to believe that they'd had to release them, the DS clenched her hands into fists at her side, gritting her teeth as she watched the scene. She just hoped that, with a bit of time and space, the teenager would think better of letting them get away with what they'd done.

"Don't." She pointed a finger warningly at Smithy. "Don't say a single word. I am not in the mood."

"Hannah…"

"Smithy, leave it."

"Jasmine laughed when she told me that the nurse looked shocked when she couldn't remember how many of them had used protection and how many hadn't." Smithy said, shaking his head. "She was more concerned about the state of her face than what had happened to her."

She looked at him in disbelief. "No she wasn't. Of course she fucking wasn't. She was just saying that because it's better than thinking about the things that are actually bothering her. I bet she said it was her fault, didn't she? Made out that there were worst things that could have happened to her?"

"Han…"

"This is half the problem, Smithy. Like I said to her, she had no control of the situation… they took that from her and us trying to make her do things now is just doing the same." She sighed. "Jo reminded me that we can't force her to do what we think is the right thing. She needs to take control and decide for herself."

"You really think she can? You think Jasmine is strong enough?"

Hannah looked at him for a moment and then shrugged. "If I can do it, she can… but only if she wants to."