Joint Judgement (An Emma Harrison Mystery Book 3)

by Wendy Cartmell

  ‘Thanks, I’ll talk to Aiden and get him to point out Hall to me.’

  ‘How’s Aiden holding up?’ Emma asked.

  Billy looked up at her voice, some of the worry fading from his face as he relaxed a little and grinned at her. ‘He’s okay. He’s being a big help, thanks for suggesting him.’

  Emma smiled in reply, not trusting her voice.

  ‘If that knife turns out not to be the murder weapon, then it’s still in there somewhere. I’ll make a sweep of the cookery room after the info about Ethan Hall. You never know your luck.’

  ‘Here, you’ll need these.’ Chief Robinson dug in his tunic pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. ‘From the cookery room. The key to the knife cabinet is on here.’

  ‘Thanks, Chief. Well, I better get back to it.’

  And with that he was gone. The door swung slowly closed and a group of boys dragged the tables back in place and gathered around the glass panels blocking Emma’s view of him.

  Chapter 23

  As Billy stood by the cookery room door, the only good thing he could think of about the situation was that in this classroom there weren’t banks of glass in the walls, meaning he would be able to go through the knife cabinet in relative secrecy. At least that was the plan.

  Positioned by the door, which did have a glass panel in it, was Aiden and his three other trusty friends. Their role was to lounge about by the door, blocking the glass, and under no circumstances to let anyone in. Nodding to Aiden, Billy slipped through the door and closed it silently behind him. The lights of the classroom were still burning, thank God, as he hadn’t fancied working in the dark. Knowing his luck, he’d cut himself on a knife he was supposed to be testing for Jack Walker’s blood, not his own.

  He walked across the room to the teacher’s table. Set facing two rows of work benches, it contained the teacher’s notes, cookery book and a pair of black rimmed glasses. Aiden had already looked around the classroom, so Billy didn’t bother to do it again. Instead he headed for the cabinet behind the teacher’s desk. At least this time this one was metal and as a result rather more sturdy than the wooden thing in the art room. Billy opened the cabinet without the need for the key and for a moment could only look, stunned, at the array of knives glinting in the ceiling lights. Knives? Really? In a prison? In an unlocked cabinet?

  Not being anything of a chef, all Billy knew about the kitchen knives was that there were large ones on the bottom row, medium sized ones in the middle and smaller ones at the top. They all appeared to be from the same manufacturer and were clearly a set. The black moulded plastic handles had numbers etched in what looked like white paint on them and were numbered 1 to 18. Billy quickly put on a pair of latex gloves and plucked knife number one from its secure bracket, from the beginning of the top row. Underneath the knife was its outline drawn in black with the number one stencilled in the space where the handle would sit. Glancing down at a large book lying open on the teacher’s desk, he realised that each knife was logged in and out to each pupil. At least there was some identification procedure. That day’s page was blank and all the knives were in place.

  But what worried Billy most was that the knife cabinet was unlocked, and had been the whole time. He took a few shaky breaths and wiped at the sweat on his face that had formed, despite the coolness of the room. That had been a close call in anyone’s book. Glancing over his shoulder he saw Aiden and his friends were still in place and quickly lifted his case, putting it on the desk, crushing the teacher’s papers underneath it. He took from the case a small ruler. Turning his attention once again to the knives he quickly compared the wound size to the blades on the knives. The large ones were out of the question, being much too big, as were the mid-sized ones. That left the top row. Each knife was the same, with a long thin blade, so Billy needed to check each one.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he could see Aiden and his friends were still in position and so he lifted out knife number one. An inspection of the handle and blade showed no blood, so Billy placed it back in its holder and picked up knife number two. By knife number four his hands were shaking with tension and he could feel sweat running down his back. One false move by Aiden and his friends could mean a rush of inmates into the cookery classroom and Billy wouldn’t be able to stop the mob from grabbing all the knives from the cabinet. The situation out there was tense enough, without inadvertently arming some of the less stable inmates. Billy was beginning to feel like a bomb disposal expert, but without the benefit of a padded and armoured suit. To say he felt vulnerable was an understatement.

  It was sod’s law that the last knife was the one with blood on it, situated at the top of the handle, between the plastic and the blade. Fervently thanking God, he pulled an evidence bag from his case and popped the knife in it. He then put the bag in his case and snapped it shut. He would test the knife later, collecting a sample of the blood and dusting it for fingerprints. For now, he just wanted to get that bloody cabinet locked and to get out of there. In with the keys from Chief Robinson he hoped there was one that would lock the door to the classroom. Only then would he feel slightly safer.

  Chapter 24

  Chief Robinson’s radio crackled into life, making Emma jump out of her introspection. Her feelings for Billy were taking front and centre stage, blocking out thoughts of anything else.

  ‘Chief,’ the voice said. ‘We’ve got loads of visitors here. What do we do with them?’

  ‘Nothing at the moment.’

  ‘But, Chief, we’ve got to do something, they’re getting restless and demanding to see a governor who can tell them what’s going on.’

  In the background could be heard yells and shouts from the very disgruntled family members of some of the boys incarcerated at Reading HMYOI.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ sighed Chief Robinson. ‘I’ll send someone down.’ Turning to Emma, he said, ‘That’ll be you, then. Off you go.’

  ‘Why me? Can’t someone else go?’

  ‘Assistant Governor for Inmate Welfare seems to me to be the best person to go and talk to the families, wouldn’t you say?’ Without waiting for an answer, he continued, ‘Tell them there has been an incident. No one is hurt and everything will be fine, but for now visiting is cancelled and all the boys are locked in their cells.’

  ‘But they’re not!’

  ‘You know that. I know that. But the visitors don’t.’

  Emma looked at DI Briggs but got no help from that quarter. He was too busy on the phone liaising with the forensics lab about the fingerprints that Billy had scanned in and sent over.

  ‘Oh, very well. I’ll be as quick as I can.’ Emma took one last lingering look at the closed doors of the education block.

  Chief Robinson appeared to melt a little as he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if anything happens. You’ve got your radio?’

  Emma nodded. ‘Thanks, Chief,’ she said, before striding off down the corridor, hoping to be back before Billy came out again.

  Frustrated beyond belief, she showed her anger as she stomped between gates. Unlocking, opening, closing and locking again had never seemed to take as long. As her feet drummed along the corridors she mumbled in time to their beat, ‘Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay.’

  So intent on her mantra was she, that arriving at the front gate took her by surprise.

  ‘Oh, hello, Bill,’ she said to the officer on duty at the desk. ‘How are they?’ nodding to the closed door of the visiting room.

  ‘Just as you’d expect,’ he replied. ‘Pissed off. Some of them have come a very long way for a 30-minute visit and now it’s not going to happen. How would you feel?’

  ‘Fair comment.’

  Pushing open the door, Emma was confronted with a sea of people. Mostly women and children, they were sat at tables and standing around by the vending machines and the entrance, all under the watchful eye of a couple of prison officers who could do little to get the women to moderate their voices. The volume seemed to rise a
s Emma entered and people realised who she must be.

  ‘About bloody time,’ a woman pushed her face into Emma’s. ‘What’s going on, when can I see my boy?’

  ‘Me too!’ shouted another. ‘I want to see my Blake. It took me hours to get here – where is he?’

  ‘I bet you know what’s going on. It’s about time you told us.’

  Emma held her hands up, partly to push away anyone who got too close and partly to try and get them to shut up. Realising she’d never be heard from her position by the door, she pushed through the crowd to the prison officers.

  ‘I’m going to try and talk to them,’ she had to shout to be heard. ‘I’ll stand on a table.’

  Clambering up with the help of an officer, she was able to see across the heads filling the room. There must have been over 50 people there and none of them seemed glad to see her. As faces looked up, eyeing her as though she were an exhibit in a zoo, Emma once more held her hands up in an attempt to silence their shouts and insults.

  ‘Please,’ she shouted. ‘I’m here to give you an update.’

  ‘About bloody time!’

  ‘No one cares about us. Just because our kids are here, they think we’re scum.’

  ‘Just like the way they treat the lads. Like scum.’

  ‘Please,’ Emma kept her hands up. ‘Give me a chance to explain.’

  As the grumbles faded Emma took the opportunity to speak.

  ‘My name is Emma Harrison and I’m an Assistant Governor here. I’m sorry to have to tell you that visiting is cancelled today.’

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Why? Where’s my boy?’

  The voices rose in volume once more.

  ‘Please. I can’t speak over you.’ The crowd quietened just enough for Emma to be heard. ‘There’s been an incident in the establishment today, which has unfortunately meant that there are insufficient officers to escort the lads back and forth to visiting.’

  ‘What sort of incident?’

  ‘Is my son alright?’

  ‘Jesus! What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s nothing serious,’ Emma lied. ‘None of the lads have been hurt or injured in any way.’ At least that was the truth. ‘We simply don’t have enough officers to facilitate visiting today.’ Again, the truth. She knew that the best way to lie convincingly was to stick as close to the truth as possible.

  ‘But when can we see our boys?’

  ‘I only get one visit a week and now you’ve bloody cancelled it! Do I have to wait until next week?’

  ‘At the moment I can’t say. But I can assure you that someone from the establishment will be in touch with you tomorrow to let you know if you can visit on another day instead.’

  ‘Bloody typical.’

  ‘Treated like shit, we are. Fucking prisons.’

  But Emma’s message seemed to have filtered through and from her elevated position, she could see people gathering up their possession and kids and making for the door. She waited until most of them had left before getting down.

  ‘Lock up behind them, would you?’ she said to the officers. ‘I’ve got to get back to the education block.’

  Chapter 25

  Back in the relative safety of the art classroom, as none of the boys seemed willing to be in the same room as Jack Walker’s body (not even Memphis Colby, who kept his silent watch from the door), Billy took the knife out of his case. His first task was to dust for fingerprints, both the handle and the blade, and he managed to find four complete prints and two partials. Not having any idea who they were from, he scanned them in and sent them to Reading Police. He hoped they’d get a move on with the results, as he’d still not had anything back on the previous prints he’d sent. He’d have to chase up DI Briggs soon. Without fingerprint information he was still pretty much working in the dark.

  The next task was to get a blood sample from the knife. Under closer inspection there appeared to be blood on the blade and on the handle. Quickly swabbing it and finding that both stains were blood, he placed the swabs in evidence tubes and returned the knife to its bag. It was fairly obvious that the blood would be from Jack Walker and Billy was just thinking about his findings, at which point he was interrupted by Memphis Colby.

  ‘Find anything?’ Colby shouted from the door, apparently still unwilling to move nearer to the body. Strange, thought Billy, for him to be squeamish of a dead body, as Colby had killed someone before, hence his incarceration in Reading Prison.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ Billy replied, which was the truth as it stood. ‘I’ve got evidence to hand to DI Briggs.’

  ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘He has resources, laboratories that can analyse blood evidence.’

  ‘So?’

  Billy wondered if Colby was being deliberately provocative. ‘So I can’t find out who killed Mr Walker here, without some evidence, now can I?’

  ‘Right. Suppose not. What evidence exactly?’

  ‘Blood samples mostly.’ Billy didn’t want to mention the knife.

  ‘Oh. How long before they get your results then?’

  ‘Don’t know. That’s another thing I need to ask him. So, shall we go?’

  Billy stood and grabbed his case.

  ‘What you need that for?’ Colby seemed to have decided to stop playing the nice, slightly bumbling guy, as his voice rumbled and his eyes regarded Billy keenly.

  ‘It contains the evidence.’

  ‘Why is it in your bag, then?’

  ‘Because I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk through the lads outside with evidence in my hand. They could try and take it, knock it out of my hands, open the bags… need I go on? And that, of course, would break the chain of evidence and render any findings useless. Which would have the knock on effect of me not finding the killer and which would make you all collectively responsible.’

  Billy wasn’t sure how many more times he would have to keep explaining himself to these man/boys, who seemed larger than life but who didn’t necessarily have the mental age that their bodies suggested. It was already beginning to irk him, but he put on his best soldier’s face and hid his anger behind his mask. He was only a few years older than Memphis Colby, but those few years seemed to make all the difference, as did Billy’s life experiences and training in the military. Billy wondered if he would have turned out like Colby if he hadn’t joined up. He hadn’t come from the best of backgrounds. His parents still lived in the middle of the same housing estate that they had done for the past 30 years, just before Billy was born. The way it had changed over the years meant that Billy wished they would move and live somewhere safer. Somewhere where gangs of youths didn’t roam the streets looking for vulnerable elderly people to terrorise for sport. Billy had tried to help in the past, but for every one of the kids he had steered towards a more positive life path, there seemed to be two to take their place. He understood all the reasons: drugs, lack of jobs, nothing to do, bad educational provision. But he wondered how many of them just hid behind those problems, blaming society instead of using their brains to get them out of the mess of their lives.

  It was the same as the lads in this prison, he supposed. How many of them were here by accidence of birth, how many were here because they were really evil, and how many were here just by accident, through being in the wrong place at the wrong time? As he and Colby walked across the education block, he contemplated the difference between Memphis and Aiden. Memphis had swagger, muscles and ruled by fear. Aiden was polite, educated and just wanted to better himself. Chalk and cheese. Go figure. It wasn’t Billy’s problem, apart from the fact that he spent his life cleaning up the mess squaddies left behind. And now the mess prisoners left behind. But, to be honest, he wouldn’t have it any other way. The military way of life and the job satisfaction he got from being in the Special Investigations Branch were everything to him.

  As they approached the doors to the block, he couldn’t help but wonder if Emma would still be there. She probably
wasn’t aware of the fact that those snatched glances of her made him feel better, less alone, and determined to do a good job for her. He knew her reputation was on the line, as well as his, and as the doors opened he craned his neck to see if she was standing behind Chief Robinson and DI Briggs.

  Chapter 26

  It was time to interview Ethan Hall. Billy had summoned him into the art room. Aside from being the quietest room, Billy also wanted to see how Hall reacted to being in the same room as Mr Walker’s body.

  The boy walked in. His eyes seemingly jumped out of his head, bulging like old fashioned gob stoppers as he looked around the room and spied the body. He was already in a bad way physically, clearly having trouble with the shakes and sweats. Both signified possible withdrawal symptoms from a hard drug such as crack cocaine or even heroin. But Billy wasn’t about to rely on assumptions. He needed hard evidence to prove who had killed Jack Walker, and he needed it as soon as possible.

  Billy was also still trying to get over his disappointment at not seeing Emma when he went to hand in his forensic evidence. Chief Robinson had answered his unspoken question and told him that Emma had gone to speak to the mothers, wives, girlfriends and children of the inmates, to tell them that the opportunity of visiting their loved one was cancelled. Billy nodded his thanks for the information, not being able to trust himself to speak. As he swallowed down his disappointment, he berated himself for having a relationship with Emma. With being romantically involved with any woman for that matter. Billy had always had a way with the ladies, but it had always been him who had to fend them off. He had had his pick of the girls in the pub and would send them away disappointed when they realised that a relationship was the last thing on his mind. He was married to the job and happy with that all-consuming bond. And then he’d met Emma. She was headstrong, stubborn, committed and full of life; just the kind of woman Billy had been subconsciously waiting for. But a relationship made him vulnerable. Made him prone to making mistakes. Or over reacting. And that was definitely something he couldn’t succumb to whilst being surrounded by volatile young men, many of whom had no sense of right and wrong and carried a huge chip on their shoulder against any type of authority figure.