A Carriage of Misjustice

by Charlie Cochrane

  Hopefully.

  As he let Campbell take his perambulation round the garden and got his own tea into the microwave, Adam reflected on not having to carry around the worry of a workplace romance going on in some hotel room in Hartwood. For a start, Robin didn’t like women in a romantic way, and never had done. One of the lesser reasons he’d had such a miserable time at primary school was that he’d known at an early age that he was different, and by the time Robin had gone up to secondary school, he’d not only worked out why but had decided that he’d no interest in trying to conform. By then he’d apparently become best friends with Dan, the biggest lad in his year, who had kept an eye out for him. Anybody who picked on Robin would have had to answer to Dan, and the chance hadn’t been worth taking.

  Secondly, and crucially, even if he had been with a male colleague—and a gay one to boot—fidelity meant fidelity in Robin’s language, as it did in Adam’s. All of that added up to no concerns about what was happening in his husband’s bed, despite his own bed being as empty as a pauper’s purse.

  Campbell came in and nuzzled Adam’s hand with his nose once again, then gave him a sad-eyed, plaintive look.

  “Right, I know you miss him, but can’t take time off work to cosset you, you daft beggar. You’ve got Sandra wrapped around your paw, anyway.” Sandra was the third worshipper at Campbell’s altar. To the extent that she kept certain clothes just for wearing at their house so as not to take pet hairs home with her. Devotion indeed. “You can come to the choir practice tomorrow, okay? You like being my chaperone, so you can keep an eye on Sam Woakes.”

  Adam halted, then broke into an inane grin. You silly sod. Campbell was an intelligent dog, but surely not to the point that he could understand this meaningful a level of conversation. Irrespective of that, the Newfoundland certainly appeared reassured at the offer, giving him a final nuzzle before retreating to his basket, where he made himself comfortable, with his dog chew in his slobbery jaws.

  Adam enjoyed his dinner, but no sooner had he sat down with a pile of books to work through than the phone went.

  “How’s my favourite deputy headteacher?” Robin sounded as though he was working hard to be cheery.

  “Underpaid, overworked, and undersexed. You?”

  “The same. Have you got a few minutes to listen while I put some thoughts past you? I miss our chats over dinner.”

  “Fire away.” Schoolwork could wait for a while.

  Robin, who’d kept Adam updated, gave an outline of what they’d discovered that day both from the interviews and the sheer slog of trawling through historical information. He finished with a word about forensics. “It was Osment’s hoodie that got snagged on the wire and one of his thumbprints is on the cracked glass of the photo. A photo that shows the Hartwood team with a young Jamie Weatherell in it, as well as most of the guys I’ve spoken to here. The faces are too fuzzy to make out clearly, but the names were on the back. You can imagine how pleasant it was having to ring up the lad’s father—he’s the groundsman, remember—and tell him that.”

  “You have my every sympathy. Why was the dead bloke so obsessed? He must have known that stirring up trouble would put the spotlight on him. Which is ludicrous if there’s a suspicion he did the hit-and-run.”

  “Park that thought for a moment, because it’s not straightforward. He could have been doing what he did simply in order to get his own back on Dave. The bloke who he thought was having an affair with his missus.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten that. Worse than a soap opera for trying to work out what’s going on.”

  “Tell me about it.” Robin groaned. “Let me deliver my warning about Joe Woakes. Best to keep your distance from his brother, Sam, until we can eliminate the pair of them. If we can eliminate them. Sam has no alibi for the time of death. The constable who spoke to him was told he went on a run, then had a shower and watched the telly while he played on his phone. Typical night for a guy who’s still single.”

  “I remember those nights well. Glad that’s not me anymore.” Even though it wasn’t dissimilar to life chez Matthews at present. “Do you really think he’s involved, though?”

  “Who knows? Sam’s a dead ringer for Joe—I’ve been comparing photos—and he plays rugby. He’s usually at centre, but Pru reckons he could be a utility back and so cover for his brother at a pinch. If anyone had questioned him about his play, he’d say he was having an off game. I bet he could have worked in how the vandalism to the bench had thrown him off-kilter again. Anyway, until we’re clearer, you’d better warn Martin to keep his distance, as well.”

  “Will do. What motive would either of them have, though? Do they believe Osment was the hit-and-run driver?”

  “No. Or at least Joe says he doesn’t. That might be a clever deflection. Osment was certainly still playing at Tuckton Chiefs when the accident happened, and he gave the game up soon afterwards. We’re trying to pin down if he played that afternoon and who gave him a lift home.”

  “Surely there were some forensic evidence at the scene?” There always seemed to be on the telly, but best not to mention that. Robin always got twitchy about the way fictional crime investigation rarely resembled real life.

  “Barely anything. It wasn’t the impact that killed Weatherell but his knocking his head against the wall. The car—or whatever it was—must have hit the victim in the back and given that he was wearing a thick coat, it cushioned the impact. Nothing useful like glass breakage or chipped paintwork, although the callous bastard—or bastards—could have stopped and cleared away what was obvious. The vehicle itself probably had a dent or two but that would have been easily dealt with. Or hidden by knocking the car about deliberately.”

  “Dumb question. How did they know it was a hit-and-run rather than him simply falling off his bike because he’d hit something in the road?”

  “Not a dumb question at all. Pru and I have been going back to basics on all of this, including asking ourselves that very thing, because the evidence is mostly circumstantial. Injury to the back and position of the body consistent with being hit by a car, certainly, and the lad appeared to have been fixing a loose chain on his bike, given the state of his hands. Otherwise we’ve got no more than a seventy-year-old woman and her hearing.”

  “Oi! Don’t diss old women.” Adam could think of a few in Lindenshaw who could run the combined armed forces given half a chance.

  “I wouldn’t dare. But a defence council would. Mrs. Sanderson lived along the road and thought she heard an impact and then a car speeding off. She went out to see what had happened, but it’s an unlit road and Weatherell’s body had been knocked into the entrance to the drive where he’d stopped to repair his bike. She couldn’t see him. It was only later when the emergency services arrived that she went out and told them what she’d heard.” Robin paused for breath. “Seems the owners of the house came home to this gruesome find and called for help straight away. Which is better than the culprit managed. Anyway, we’ve been through all the statements and there’s nothing to get our teeth into.”

  “I wish you were here to get your teeth into me.”

  “Don’t think I’m not wanting the same.” Robin groaned. “Did that make any sense? This case is making me incoherent. I’m starting to think it’ll turn out to be totally random. A junkie chancing their arm that there’s something worth nicking in the dressing rooms. Doesn’t get spotted because everyone’s in a state about the injured player. Happens upon Osment, who’s there to cause trouble. Thumps him and legs it. Never to be tracked down unless he happens to confess.”

  Adam had rarely heard his partner sound so depressed. “You remind me of Kayla.”

  “Kayla?”

  “Girl in my class. She was in a proper state today because she’d lost her favourite pen, one her nan gave her. When Susie, who works in the class, got her to take everything from her bag and turn the lining out, the thing appeared where it had got caught up in a seam. Same bag where Kayla said she’d alread
y looked for the pen three times.”

  That made Robin chuckle. “Not sure how I turn the lining out on an investigation.”

  “Consider it another way?” Adam suddenly felt inspired. “Kayla kept accusing this boy called Dale of taking it and he was getting increasingly irate. He can be a total horror but in this instance he was innocent for once and he was narked about getting the blame. What if the only connection between Osment and the hit-and-run is that he genuinely had his car nicked that same night and all the rest is the no smoke without fire mob getting into swing?”

  “Hm. That could be worth thinking about. We’ve been wondering why he would have targeted the fundraising because it brought attention to himself and he’d have to be completely stupid to think he’d go unidentified.” Robin sounded perkier already. “If Osment heard that he was being put in the kangaroo court dock—and he might hear that through his wife’s best mate—then I suppose he might decide to get his own back by causing trouble?”

  “Especially if he suspected someone else nicked his car to put the blame on him.” Adam was on a roll now. “Could that have happened?”

  “I guess it’s possible. Seems far-fetched but who knows?” A yawn came down the line. “Pardon me. Feeling bleeding knackered. I’m not sleeping well.”

  “Sorry to hear that. I’m finding the bed’s too big without you, and I’m not letting Campbell fill the gap. It would be impossible to break the habit when you get home.” Damn, now Adam’s eyes were turning scratchy. “I miss you. Not only your cold feet on my legs.”

  “Same here. I only realised today how much I miss being able to talk about cases with you. You always have good ideas.”

  “Do I?” Adam felt quite chuffed about that. “I enjoy being able to give my input. It’s a bit like watching a really good crime show and trying to be one step ahead of the detective on the telly.”

  “I wish real life was like that.” Robin yawned again. “We don’t have the luxury of the killer being the small and seemingly insignificant character who appeared at exactly five minutes in and hasn’t been seen since.”

  Adam chuckled, recalling the fun they had playing spot the murderer and how often that simple formula led them in the right direction. Mrs. Matthews had banned them from doing it if they were all watching a programme together, the last straw having been when they’d both said, “She did it!” ten minutes into a show and had turned out to be correct. “You get off to bed. You’ll have a busy day tomorrow.”

  “I always have busy days at the moment.” A third yawn. “Right, I better jot some notes down before I crash. If the theory about Osment being framed for a crime he didn’t commit turns out to be crap, I’ll blame you. And if it’s the key to everything, I’ll take the credit.”

  “Ha bloody ha,” Adam said, confident that Robin would do no such thing. “Let me know who gave Osment a lift home from that match, will you? This is better than the crime show reruns on ITV3.”

  “Fancy yourself as Miss Marple?”

  “No, thanks. Being at one step removed from a murder is enough for me. I’ll remember to warn Martin when I see him tomorrow, though. Too late to ring him tonight—he’ll get into a panic and I don’t want Sam accusing me of slander.”

  He’d have to hope the warning wouldn’t come too late.

  By the time the team met in the incident room late on Friday morning, they had a further wealth of information, although still no clear direction of where the case was heading. Like having a pile of jigsaw pieces and no picture on the box to guide them, as Robin described it.

  Laurence had finally worked through his list of keyholders: all could give an account of themselves for the Wednesday night and none appeared to have any connection to Osment other than ones the team already knew about.

  “That ex-barman was rather sheepish, though. The reason he was late returning his set of keys to the club was that he’d lost them and didn’t want to admit the fact until he’d had a chance of finding them again.”

  “Which he did?” Pru asked.

  “Yep. He’d been out drinking with his mates, so he had the bright idea of going to the places they’d visited on the off-chance the keys had been handed in and not already returned to the club. He struck gold at a pub—The Red Dragon. I rang them and they confirmed the keys had turned up in line with what the barman said and they’d been put away safely, waiting to be reclaimed. The manager at the pub had the sense to make a note of when they were handed in, and there’s a couple of days gap between the Friday night of the pub crawl and the Monday they appeared. Therefore, anybody who’d been in the pub during that time could have ‘borrowed’ them.”

  “Great.” Pru snorted. “Why did this bloke have them with him if he was out on the lash?”

  Laurence shrugged. “He says it was habitual to pick them up and put them in his pocket. I believe him, actually. My maths teacher at sixth form college told us that she’d once gone off with the keys to a National Trust property she’d visited because she’d automatically picked them up.”

  “That’s that, I guess,” Callum said. “Hundreds of people go to The Red Dragon. We’ll never pin them down.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. They told me it had been particularly busy that weekend, including a darts match on the Saturday night. Osment’s team, given the notes in the bookings diary, and I think he was playing because the pub manager says he has a good memory for faces and recognised Osment’s when his death was reported in the local paper. Although I clearly need to double-check that.”

  Robin, whose eyes had been drawn to the incident board again, suddenly turned around at the mention of the darts team. “Might be coincidental, but it gives him an opportunity to take them, although how would he know they were from the Hartwood ground?”

  “Ah, now that’s where it gets interesting, sir. The barman swore they had a label on when they were in his possession, which is why he was worried they’d be returned to the club before he could run them to ground. He’d have been for the high jump in that event. But the label wasn’t there when he picked the bunch of keys up. It wasn’t a full set for all the club, just the ones he would have needed for his job. Main gate. External door to the bar area, which is incidentally a Chubb lock that’s identical to the one to the changing room, so he could open that door too. Then a couple of keys for unlocking the grill to the bar itself and to operate the till.”

  Not the huge bunch that Robin had built up a mental image of. Easier to slip in a pocket unnoticed, for one thing.

  “And that’s not all . . .” Laurence paused theatrically. “Some of the guys from the rugby club were at The Red Dragon on the Sunday lunchtime. They were having a meal in honour of Dave’s birthday—it was all in the bookings diary.”

  Sally whistled. “That broadens the field.”

  “It does.” Laurence, tapping his notes, evidently had more to add. “Because it wasn’t only the players who were there. Wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, whatever. What if Dawn laid her hands on those keys? Superintendent Betteridge always says that you start closest to home. If Melanie was sick of Nick’s jealousy, she might have wanted shot of him, and killing him off home soil deflected attention. Especially when she’d given herself such a good alibi.”

  Another theory to add to the mix, and one as unprovable as all the others were, unless somebody broke ranks and spilled the beans.

  “You’ve done well, Laurence,” Robin said. “I’d like you to keep with that angle. Get hold of that set of keys and dab them for prints. It might not help now because I bet the things are either smothered or clean as a whistle, but it could be a much-needed piece of concrete evidence if we ever get a case to give the Crown Prosecution Service. Also ring round and see if a stray set of keys has turned up—and ask people to ring us if they do.”

  Laurence made a note. “Do you want me to talk to Dawn, as well?”

  “Not yet. Don’t want her twigging that something’s in the wind. Okay. Pru, you’ve been working the Osment angle. Was he pla
ying in the match at Tuckton the day Jamie was killed?”

  “Yes, according to Melanie. Next day he told her all about some dirty work that Hartwood players were using in the breakdown.” Pru grinned. “Probably another dig at Dave because he was one of them.”

  “That would eliminate the possibility of Melanie spending her afternoon with him,” Callum observed. “I mean, we know she was out.”

  “Afternoon yes, evening no,” Robin said, not unkindly. Best to encourage thinking. “After the match Howarth took Osment home?”

  Pru shook her head. “Howarth’s daughter was taken ill and he pulled out of the game. He got another player, Colin Cooper, to do the honours, because he’d stood in a couple of times before. Cooper no longer plays for Tuckton—got relocated with his job, according to Howarth—and I haven’t yet found a contact number for him. I’m working on it.”

  “Good. I want to get the events of that night as clear in my mind as the events of the night Osment was killed. Howarth have anything to say about it?”

  “No, sir. Apart from being understandably upset at a young life snuffed out. Everyone at Tuckton was upset about it. I think the team got together to send a wreath to the funeral.” Pru consulted her notes. “Chrysanthemums, in as near the Hartwood colours as they could get.”

  Which was a nice touch, but what about the important stuff? Testily, Robin asked, “Did Howarth offer an opinion on who had done the hit-and-run?”

  “He only said that he didn’t think it was Osment. Even when the rumours started flying about.”

  Robin, taking a deep breath, glanced over at his desk, where he’d spent the morning working through case files for the hit-and-run and the carjacking. It had been a dispiriting exercise. “I’ve been through a hell of a lot of stuff, but I didn’t see any of your names mentioned as investigating officers. Mind you, I got to the stage where I couldn’t see for looking. Were any of you involved with either of those inquiries?” Robin scanned the three junior officers but was greeted by blank expressions all round.