A Carriage of Misjustice

by Charlie Cochrane

  “I remember reading about that. Point taken,” Preese said, grudgingly. “Why this interest in Joe?”

  “I’d be interested in anyone who was proven to be in that dressing room alone.” Robin leaned forwards, ready to make the big appeal he’d been working on. “Word is you’re the heart and soul of Hartwood Wasps. Everyone says so. And while you must feel loyalty to all the guys on the pitch, closing ranks isn’t helping anyone. If Osment was killed by someone outside the club but we fail to identify the murderer, then people are always going to say it was an inside job. It’ll become the murder that’s officially unsolved yet everyone thinks they know who did it. You don’t want the squad to suffer that.”

  The barb hit home, Preese wincing. “If I had any idea who did it, I’d say. You talk about unsolved, though, so what about the hit-and-run on Jamie Weatherell? Everybody reckoned it was those lads did it, the ones who were convicted of joyriding. Took two cars the day he was killed, but they always denied they ran him over even when they confessed to nicking the motors. I guess their lawyers told them to put their hands up to the lesser charge. Couldn’t convict them of the hit-and-run because there wasn’t enough in the way of forensics, but they’d burned the cars, hadn’t they?”

  “You seem to know a lot about it,” Pru observed.

  Preese bridled. “Of course I do. They covered the case in the local press, and I followed all of it. One of our own, was Jamie.”

  “The men weren’t charged with his death, just stealing cars.”

  “That’s right, Sergeant, but we were all interested in it. As they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Only this duck didn’t quack.”

  Pru’s expression, as she glanced at Robin, screamed, Is it me? What the hell does he mean?

  Robin said, “We’re being thick as a seventies cop on the telly. You’ll need to explain.”

  “What I mean is it struck me that there was nothing to link the car thefts to Jamie’s death. One car had been abandoned before the accident, according to the defence briefs, while the other one—Osment’s car—was supposedly stolen around that time, although there was no clear evidence of exactly when it was taken, or even if they’d taken it. Which leaves us with the question of which car knocked Jamie down and who was driving it.”

  Light dawned. “You think it was Osment.”

  “I think it’s quite possible. He stopped playing for Tuckton not long afterwards. Probably couldn’t bear passing the scene of the crime to and from matches. What better way of covering up an accident than getting rid of your own car, hiding it among the spate of vehicle thefts?”

  What better way indeed. Why hadn’t anyone made the connection before now?

  Before they’d left the car park, Robin was on the phone to his team, getting one of them to drop everything else and put together a timeline of when Jamie Weatherell was knocked down, whether Osment was playing for Tuckton that day and how he’d got home after the match. Somebody else could scrutinise the statements from both Osment about his car being nicked—and whether Melanie corroborated that story—and from the two joyriders about what had happened that evening. Who did what they could sort out amongst themselves, so long as the jobs were done.

  “Shame we weren’t here at the time,” Pru said, “or we might have already made that connection..”

  “Stop reading my mind. It’s spooky.” Robin forced a grin. “Still no excuse. It’s bleeding obvious to explore Preese’s idea.”

  “Is it? If Osment ran the lad over, why raise objections to the memorial fund—or vandalise the bench—and so draw attention to himself? And while Preese might have a point about the accident not being caused by those two lads, the hit-and-run driver could have been someone else. Maybe even Dave, which is why he was so keen to fundraise.”

  “Maybe.” Although what chance did they have of solving that case at so far a remove when the officers at the time had failed? Unless they’d been so convinced it was the two joyriders that they’d ceased to look for anyone else. “Sally pointed something out, though. She’d been having a double-check, and Joe wasn’t at the ground when the police started to take statements. He’d gone in the ambulance to keep Greg company.”

  “Okay. Andy said somebody had gone along. Did we get a statement from Joe?”

  “Yes. And it says he left the ground then, although he doesn’t mention the earlier loo break. Nobody seems to have asked him about whether he got his kit, though.” Robin concentrated on the road ahead, increasingly disillusioned at the way the investigation had been handled. Was his old boss losing her touch or had she been so distracted by the drugs case that things had slipped her notice? He’d give her the benefit of the doubt for the moment. “Let’s concentrate on getting to Joe’s. His flat’s a new build and Google maps says it doesn’t even exist.”

  Eventually, they managed to find the right part of the new estate. Joe had clearly recently moved in, given the unpacked boxes strewn over the carpet and freshly painted walls that greeted them when they entered the property.

  “Excuse the mess,” he said. “Hardly been here since I got the keys to move in. On shift.”

  “What’s your job?” Pru asked.

  “Operator at United Agrochemicals. That’s the big plant near the motorway. I’m on the last day of my four off before I start four days on again, so I’d appreciate if we made this snappy. Got a lot to do.”

  Robin, resisting the urge to point out that murder cases didn’t keep to shift-rotation systems, said, “Then you’d better tell us the truth. That always makes for quicker interviews. Any hint that you’re mucking us around, then we’ll take you down to the station and interview you there.”

  Joe, who’d been carrying on filling kitchen cupboards, stopped. “That serious?”

  “That serious. I’ve got a dead man and people not being entirely honest about what happened the night he was killed. Like the fact you left the pitch ten minutes after training started.”

  Joe had the grace to blush. “Didn’t I mention that? I just hared off, had a pee, then hared back again. There was no dead man in the loos, I promise.”

  Pru clearly wasn’t convinced it had simply been an oversight. “Why the secrecy about that if it was so innocent?”

  Joe glanced at Robin, blushed deeper, then—with eyes firmly on his shoes—said, “I had an infection. Urinary tract. The lads had been teasing me that I had the clap, but Coach put a stop to it and told them to get a life. That’s why I didn’t mention my sudden dash for a pee, and I’m guessing that’s why the other players didn’t mention it.”

  That was plausible. “Did you get antibiotics for it?” Robin asked.

  “Yeah. Finished the course now but you can check with my GP. I’ll give you her name.” Joe backed towards a small dining table, where he slid wearily into a chair, picked up a notepad, and began writing. “Plonk yourselves on the sofa, while I do this.” When the officers were seated, he continued. “I’m sure none of us have been deliberately obstructive. Greg getting hurt and then the dead body being found—it’s knocked us for six. I didn’t know about the murder until later, and I thought it was a joke until I saw the story on the news.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Andy. He can be a wind-up merchant when he wants to be. As I say, I saw the news story on my phone, so by the time Coach came to bring the rest of my stuff and give me a lift home, I was as stunned as everyone else.”

  So that accounted for Joe’s kit from the changing room. “The other thing people hadn’t mentioned was being told about the vandalism at the club on the Saturday. Did that slip your minds too?”

  “It didn’t seem that relevant. I knew about it already, anyway.”

  Robin’s ears pricked at that. “Who from?”

  “Tom Weatherell, the groundsman. He knew how pally I’d been with Jamie, so he wanted me to know. He messaged me on the Sunday.”

  “Do you know who the vandal was?”

  “Not at the time. To
m’s told me since that you lot think it could have been Osment.” Joe ran his fingers across the table, sweeping away dust and crumbs that were probably not there. “That doesn’t surprise me. Greg’s girlfriend, Dawn, always used to be complaining about him. Unreasonable git all round.”

  “He couldn’t have been totally unreasonable or else why would his wife stay with him?” Robin pointed out.

  Joe’s sneer spoke volumes. “She says love’s blind. We’ve all seen it, haven’t we? People staying together when by any amount of logic they should have split up. I guess it’s sometimes easier to stay than to go.”

  Pru went into soothing mode. “You said you were pally with Jamie. Was it other than friendship?”

  “No, he was too young for me. But give it a few years and I’d have been in there, given the chance.” Joe swept the tabletop again. “I’ll never know, now, whether we could have got on together.”

  “But it couldn’t merely have been a matter of age,” Pru said. “You had a boyfriend at the time.”

  “I did, but it was always an open relationship. And yes, I got myself into bother.” Joe turned his hands, palms out in front of his chest. “I’m assuming you know about the caution I got and if you don’t, I’ll tell you about it. Kieran didn’t want to press charges. He understood where my head was.”

  “Why not explain to us where your head was?”

  “In a bloody mess, Sergeant. Jamie was only eighteen when he was murdered. What sort of age is that? Worse still, they reckon he wasn’t killed outright.”

  “How do you know that?” Robin asked.

  “Coach told me.” That figured. The source of all knowledge. “He followed everything about that accident from the very start. There was an inquest—he attended that and he said it broke his heart. They think Jamie might have got a slipped chain and stopped to fix his bike at the side of the road. His lights were dynamo operated so if he’d stopped, he’d have only been able to use the light from his phone torch setting and was unlikely to be that visible, especially if the driver wasn’t paying attention. Unlit road.”

  There were plenty of those at home, and Robin had experienced a few nasty occasions where cyclists or animals had appeared almost out of nowhere. His previous sergeant, Anderson, had mocked him, saying he drove like an old woman down country lanes, but Robin had always argued his case. Rather be five minutes longer getting to the destination than ending up in a ditch. Or court. He nodded for Joe to continue.

  “The doctor said that if the driver had at least stopped and rung for an ambulance before they buggered off it might have saved Jamie’s life. Instead it was another motorist going along the road who saw the body and rang 999. Coach said he couldn’t follow all the medical stuff but it was about the bleeding on his brain. He’d knocked his head on the corner of a wall, and it caused bleeding on the brain, which is what eventually killed him. They must have known they’d hit something, and even if it was only an animal surely they’d have wanted to stop and find out. That’s why I said it was murder, because that’s what it amounted to.”

  Not an unreasonable point of view. Robin could imagine how heartbreaking it would be to hear that from a medical expert, and how it would further fuel resentment towards the unknown driver. “Coach—Mr. Preese—reckons it was Osment driving that night.”

  Joe broke into a grin at Robin’s use of the word Coach. “I know he does. Been saying it for years to anyone who’ll listen. Osment’s car just happened to be nicked the same night, didn’t it? Coach reckons that was all a setup. He faked the vehicle being taken and torched it himself or he deliberately left his valuables on show to see if it would fall prey to the car thieves. His wife wasn’t there that evening—out with the girls and stopping over at Dawn’s, so Osment had the night to clear up any evidence. Osment knocked someone over before, and the people at his club wouldn’t let him drive. Oh, Coach has got it all pat.”

  So pat that he’d taken dispensing justice into his own hands?

  “Is that what you believe?” Pru asked.

  “I don’t, actually. For once I think he’s got it wrong.” Joe paused, possibly for dramatic effect. “See, I work with one of the lads from Tuckton Chiefs—he’s on the same shift—and middle of the night, you chat about these things. I discussed it with him when Coach first got a bee in his bonnet, and he thinks it couldn’t have been Osment driving because he’s pretty sure he got a lift home that night. Not with the usual bloke who takes him to and from matches, but that’s not the point. If he went home, then I can’t imagine Osment getting his car out again to go back to where he’d been.”

  “Unless he left something at the club and needed to return for it?” Pru suggested.

  “I suppose so, but I have confidence in the police, believe it or not. You probably treated me better than I deserved when I hit Kieran, and if you’d have been able to pin the blame on someone for the accident, then I’m sure you would have done. Fact is”—Joe swept the table over yet again, making Robin wonder whether he had a touch of OCD—“it could have been anyone, couldn’t it? And they could have been heading home to Cornwall or wherever, taking their secret with them.” He glanced up again from his table-cleaning. “I’ll tell you the truth. If you proved who killed Jamie and if I ever met the scum, then they’d get the sort of thumping Osment must have got. You can write that into my statement alongside the part about my visit to the loo and I’ll sign it, gladly.”

  Robin didn’t fancy getting straight back into the car. He wanted to walk and walk until he could catch a glimmer of what the hell was going on in this case. Pru fell in with the suggestion, especially when the map on her phone suggested there was a park not too far away that would make for easier walking than a half-finished estate.

  “Does he genuinely believe it wasn’t Osment,” Robin said, as they drove the short distance towards the park, “or is it a really clever way of showing us he has no motive to kill the bloke?”

  “He seemed genuine enough,” Pru replied, “although we’ve both heard right villains who sounded genuine enough. Probably practiced it from the time they first started to talk and began pleading they weren’t the ones who’d been dipping their fingers in the jam tarts. They got away with it then and moved on to bigger things. Only I don’t put Joe in that category.”

  “No, I don’t either. But I’ve come away thinking he knows more than he’s said.” The offer to make a new statement felt like sleight of hand, misdirecting them from some vital point.

  “I reckon they all know more than they’ve told us, old smooth-talking Derek Preese included. Closing ranks. Damn, here comes the rain.” It had begun to drizzle, making Hartwood appear entirely lacking in charm. “I can’t make out if it’s about the training session or something else.”

  Robin, sighing in frustration, concentrated on the road. This was beginning to feel like a case that would slip through his fingers. Betteridge would sign off her drugs case, take the murder investigation over again, review the evidence, and gradually let it fade away. The inquest—already opened and adjourned—would return a verdict of unlawful killing by person or persons unknown, hampered as the police had been by a lack of forensic evidence and all the obvious suspects having alibis. He’d return to Abbotston and Adam with a stain on an otherwise spotless career.

  Adam.

  Robin had known he’d miss his partner emotionally, but hadn’t realised how much he’d feel the need to discuss the case with him. Adam didn’t bring much specialist knowledge—except when issues of child safeguarding were concerned—to the table, yet that didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes his very distance from the minutiae allowed him to see things from an angle that the team had missed and his ability to ask pertinent questions often led to Robin making a leap of deduction that had moved the investigation forward.

  He’d draw on that ability tonight. Maybe an independent eye was exactly what was needed to give the case a kick up the backside.

  Thursday had dragged.

  Each lesson had
felt like it lasted hours, and the break times had been both interminable and filled with idle gossip, although Adam guessed the day was no different to normal. He was missing Robin, simple fact, and however hard he tried to not let it affect his work, it was a burden when he wasn’t occupied. Still, he’d got a pile of stuff to do tonight, which he could plough through while Campbell snuggled at his feet.

  Campbell was used to police hours, so didn’t as a rule do anything daft like stare longingly at the front door when Robin was home late, no doubt knowing he’d see him—however fleetingly—the next morning. But this was different. He’d taken to sniffing around the place where Robin habitually sat on the sofa, or putting his front paws on the windowsill to gaze up and down the road. That morning he’d simply been sitting with a puzzled expression on his face, clearly wondering why the stool in the kitchen didn’t have the usual bottom placed on it. All those pep talks Adam had delivered evidently hadn’t penetrated his canine skull, possibly because they hadn’t included food of any kind or possibly because he was feeling equally bereft.

  When he got home late that afternoon, Adam made for the kitchen, where Campbell pounced on him rather than making a beeline for the back door and the chance to relieve himself. Adam tickled the dog behind his ear. “I know what you’re thinking. I miss him too, you know. He’ll be home as soon as he can be. Like I keep telling you, he’s got a murderer to catch.”

  Campbell nuzzled his wet nose into Adam’s palm; whether this was intended to dispense comfort or obtain it, Adam didn’t know and couldn’t be bothered to analyse. It felt good. He should be grateful that he had Campbell to snuggle up against, to hug and to share comfort with. Robin was on his own emotionally, even if he had a trusted colleague with him. Pru wouldn’t be rubbing up against him or giving the benefit of a wet nose.