A Deadly Lesson

by Paul Gitsham

  She sighed.

  ‘I didn’t see the harm in a little white lie. We should have been honest, but we couldn’t see the point of bringing up something that would have only caused trouble. Noah, Jill, Father Beresford and I have worked tirelessly to promote the rigorous inclusion of Catholic doctrine in our education system for many years. Noah had a vision. A vision that we all shared, and that went far beyond Sacred Heart School. We wanted to halt the decline of faith-based education in this country and for the Catholic sector to become a beacon of good practice. Jill was fully behind that goal and it would have been a tragedy if her death resulted in that legacy being derailed, because of… you know…’

  ‘So you decided to lie, to conceal your husband’s homosexual affairs to help promote Christian values in schools? Rather hypocritical, don’t you think?’

  She snorted. ‘My husband’s human frailties were just that. He would be the first to admit that he wasn’t perfect.’

  ‘And what about Giles Sanders? He’s currently sitting in a custody suite under arrest for murder. Did you not think that by claiming your husband was with you, you would remove his alibi?’

  For the first time, Ball looked shaken.

  ‘I never even thought… obviously, I knew he couldn’t have done it, Noah always stays over at Giles’s flat after SLT meetings, it was just a normal Monday night. I didn’t think for one minute that he would be arrested…’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Mrs Ball? Your husband is openly sleeping with another man. Are you telling me that you aren’t just a little bit jealous?’

  Ball glared at him.

  ‘The ins and outs of my marriage are none of your business. Noah and I have been married for thirty-two years. Thirty-two very happy years. We worked out what was best for us a long time ago, and I do not appreciate outside parties judging us.’

  Warren had had enough. Long hours had worn his patience extra thin, and the face-saving lies of the Balls and Sanders were beginning to irritate him.

  He said as much.

  ‘You and your husband have lied to me from the outset. If it turns out that you have damaged my investigation, let me assure you that I will be pressing charges for wasting police time. Let’s see what effect that has on your glorious vision for the future.’

  * * *

  After signing the Balls out of the station, Warren watched them as they crossed the car park. They walked stiffly, in silence. Despite their protestations to the contrary, all was clearly not right in their marriage.

  Noah Ball’s confession appeared at first glance to be an attempt to protect his lover; it was doubtless a risky thing for Ball to admit to. That sort of affair would be regarded as serious misconduct in a mainstream school; in the Catholic sector, it was potential career suicide.

  But was there more to it? Could Ball have been covering for Sanders? Could Sanders have killed Gwinnett and then been spirited off site by Ball in his car? And if that was the case, what role, if any, did Patricia Ball play in the affair? Nevertheless, Sanders now had an alibi, and so unless they turned up new evidence soon, he would need to be released.

  And what about Matthew Waring? He was supposedly with Gwinnett immediately after the SLT meeting ended, and the damning letter about his alleged sexual harassment was open on her laptop when it switched to hibernate mode. Was that a coincidence, or was that confrontation reason enough for Waring to kill her? If it was, where would he have got the rope? Surely that was evidence of premeditation, not a spur of the moment attack? And if that was the case, it suggested that Gwinnett had been in possession of the allegations for some time. Had she already confronted Waring about them? And if so, why had she not yet acted upon it?

  Which led to Cruikshank. The caretaker certainly had plenty of motive – the historic allegations that had resurfaced meant it was likely that he would lose his job at the very least and they would forever appear in any DBS check. But again, Gwinnett had sat on the information, rather than acting upon it immediately. Why?

  Once more, Warren was left with the nagging feeling that Noah Ball’s future retirement plans were significant. Was Jillian Gwinnett aware of Ball’s change of heart? Father Beresford seemed to think that Ball was still going in six months’ time. If Gwinnett was Ball’s heir apparent, how had she felt about his staying on longer?

  * * *

  Rachel Pymm grabbed Warren as he re-entered CID after his unexpected interview with Noah Ball.

  ‘Sir, Andy Harrison called, and Pete Robertson emailed over a stack of attachments from Jillian Gwinnett’s home computer.’

  Warren crossed the office to her desk; she shuffled her chair around and moved her crutches out of the way, so he could sit down beside her.

  ‘They’ve found the rope that was used to strangle her.’

  ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In the site office, coiled in one of the drawers in Stanley Cruikshank’s desk.’

  ‘Are they certain that it’s the correct rope?’

  ‘It’s the same type of rope. They had a quick look at some fibres under the microscope and they match ones found at the crime scene—’ she looked at her notes ‘—and they are currently in the process of isolating what looks like epithelial cells embedded in the coils for DNA fingerprinting. He says that given how extensive the abrasion on her neck was, there should be plenty of her skin cells buried in there.’

  ‘That’s brilliant news, it’s just what we need to extend Cruikshank’s custody.’

  ‘Well, hold the celebrations, it looks like things might be a little more complicated than they seem,’ cautioned Pymm.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘According to Pete, Jillian Gwinnett wasn’t a complete technophobe. She recently set up a web-based email account. Fortunately, she also set up her email client to download messages automatically, so that he didn’t need a password to access it.’

  ‘Let me guess, she wasn’t using it for trading lesson plans?’

  ‘Nope. The account only received a single email from one address. She then forwarded its contents to a different address.’

  Pymm double-clicked on an attachment.

  ‘This was the message, sent eleven days ago.’

  Warren squinted at the series of thumbnail images. Without being prompted, Pymm opened them.

  ‘Bloody hell, where did she get those?’

  ‘Pete’s tracking down both the sender and the recipient. It doesn’t look as though the sender made much of an attempt to hide their identity, sending them straight from their smartphone, so he’s pretty confident he’ll have something for you soon. Figuring out who she sent them to may be a little trickier, but his team are on it.’ She clicked another file. ‘He also found this.’

  The file was a draft version of a letter, complete except for the name and the recipient’s address.

  Warren sat back, his excitement about the finding of the rope used to strangle Gwinnett giving way to confusion.

  ‘If she sent this – or threatened to – I think we may have yet another motive for someone to kill her.’

  Day Six

  ‘It looks as though Russell Leigh is in the clear,’ stated Rachel Pymm, as Warren entered the office first thing the next morning. Her different coloured jumper was the only outward sign that she had gone home the previous night. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her, he didn’t want her pushing herself too hard and making herself sick.

  ‘What have you found?’

  ‘An alibi, would you believe?’

  ‘I thought he said he didn’t have one?’ Warren didn’t try to keep the irritation out of his voice. They’d expended a lot of resources on trying to clear the former head – if Warren found out he’d lied about not having an alibi, he was tempted to see if the man could be charged with wasting police time.

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, he didn’t – at least for the time he thought Gwinnett was killed. The news simply said that Gwinnett was killed the night before she was found. Now that we know that she was al
most certainly killed at around about 7 p.m., he’s in the clear. ANPR cameras picked up his car on the A1 well south of Stevenage at 6.31 p.m.’

  ‘Are we sure he was driving?’ asked Warren, although he doubted that Pymm would make that sort of error.

  ‘Yes. He stopped for petrol.’ She pulled up a black and white video on her screen and hit play.

  The picture quality wasn’t the best, but unless Leigh had a twin or very similar-looking brother, the man paying for fuel was definitely their suspect.

  ‘I’m waiting for the till receipts to confirm that the credit card is his, but it looks as though he was nowhere near the school when Gwinnett was killed.’

  ‘And technically, the smug git wasn’t lying when he claimed to have no alibi for later that night,’ grumbled Warren.

  ‘Well, it isn’t all doom and gloom – Pete Robertson called from Forensic IT. They’ve tracked down the origin of those photos that were found on Jillian Gwinnett’s home computer.’ Pymm took a swig from what appeared to be a mug of boiled pond water.

  ‘Who sent them to her?’

  ‘Stanley Cruikshank.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘Apparently, he sent them straight from his mobile phone. No question about it.’

  ‘What about the person she forwarded them to?’

  ‘A warrant has been issued to the recipient’s email provider, hopefully that’ll tell us what we need to know.’

  ‘Well, whilst we’re waiting for them to reply, it looks as though Mr Cruikshank has some more explaining to do.’

  * * *

  The release of Giles Sanders on bail the previous day meant that the only suspect still in custody was Stanley Cruikshank. When presented with the news the previous night that the likely murder weapon had been found in his desk drawer, Cruikshank had been vehement in his denials.

  No, he didn’t recognise the rope, although he knew that the site team had several different coils of rope in an outside storage unit. No, he didn’t know what the rope was doing in his drawer, and no, he definitely hadn’t used it to kill Jillian Gwinnett. Nevertheless, the linking of the photos to him that morning had been more than enough for the local magistrate to sign off an extension to his detention, although she had cautioned Warren that she wasn’t impressed that his request to extend Giles Sanders’ custody looked as though it had come to nothing.

  Cruikshank had been meeting with his solicitor since the revelation about the photos had come to light. By the time the custody sergeant finally called Warren to tell him that the caretaker was ready to be interviewed again, he was pale, but calm.

  His solicitor opened by repeating Sanders’ denials that he had anything to do with Jillian Gwinnett’s murder. Warren and Sutton had decided to take a more relaxed approach to the questioning. Lengthy consultations with a solicitor often indicated that a suspect was willing to cooperate – at least to an extent. Going in too hard could undo that assistance, and even tip them into a ‘no commenting’ cycle.

  ‘Why don’t you start by telling us about those photographs?’ said Warren.

  Cruikshank cleared his throat a couple of times, before taking a drink of water. Warren recognised the signs of nervousness from his first interview.

  ‘Jill suspected that Mr Ball was having an affair. She asked me to follow him home and take some photos. You know, evidence, like.’

  ‘Why did she choose you to take the photos?’

  ‘She didn’t want to be seen. She thought I would be more, you know, inconspicuous.’

  ‘OK, I get that,’ said Warren, ‘but why you, specifically?’

  Cruikshank shrugged, and lowered his eyes.

  ‘How about we look at it the other way around?’ suggested Sutton. ‘Why did you agree? I mean, she’s just asked you to spy on your boss—’ he looked over at Warren ‘—which sounds a bit of a career-limiting move. No offence, but I can’t imagine DCI Jones here being very impressed if he caught me sneaking around taking photos of him. I could probably kiss goodbye to my next promotion. Besides, it’s the twenty-first century; Mr Ball wasn’t breaking any laws.’

  Again, Cruikshank said nothing.

  ‘Did she offer you money?’

  Cruikshank chewed his lip. He wasn’t a fool, he knew where they were heading.

  ‘Did she blackmail you?’ asked Warren.

  After a long pause, Cruikshank finally nodded. He was still looking at the table.

  ‘Tell me what she said, Stanley.’

  ‘She said that the allegations made about me were serious enough that I could lose my job.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I said that the claims were bullshit, and that I had passed a DBS check, so she couldn’t do anything.’

  ‘I see. What was her response?’

  ‘She told me that the school governors wouldn’t see it that way. She said that when it comes to child protection, they wouldn’t take any chances and they would sack me immediately and put it on my references why I was sacked. And they would have to inform the DBS. Besides which, it would give them an excuse to get rid of another member of staff to help balance the budget.’

  ‘So why didn’t you lose your job?’ asked Sutton.

  Cruikshank glared at him.

  ‘She said that she felt sympathy for me. She said that there has been a witch-hunt in recent years and that too many good people were losing their jobs and their reputations over ancient allegations that couldn’t be proven. She said that she believed me and that even if I had made mistakes, everyone deserved a second chance. She said that God believed in forgiveness.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ Sutton’s tone was incredulous, and Warren shot him a warning glance. He didn’t want to risk upsetting Cruikshank, now that he was being so cooperative.

  ‘Of course I fucking didn’t! Every year all staff have to attend child protection training, which she leads. If she had her way, they’d bring back hanging. There’s no Christian forgiveness in that woman.’ Cruikshank took a deep breath. When he started again, his voice was almost back to normal. ‘But what choice did I have? I knew I was going to be stitched up somehow, but what could I do? I can’t afford to lose this job. And if I’m sacked, there’s no redundancy pay and who the hell will employ me with that sort of job reference?’

  ‘So how did she stitch you up?’ asked Warren.

  ‘You know how she did.’

  ‘For the record, I need to hear it,’ said Warren quietly.

  ‘She asked me to follow Mr Ball and get photographic evidence of him and Giles Sanders together.’

  ‘How did she know about them?’ asked Sutton.

  Cruikshank sounded weary.

  ‘I don’t know, the bitch knew everything that goes on in that school.’

  ‘What was she going to do with the photos?’

  ‘I really don’t know, she never said.’

  ‘OK, thank you, Mr Cruikshank, you’ve been very helpful. You took the photos on your mobile phone, which I believe you said that you lost? We will need the device for forensic purposes.’

  Cruikshank had gone back to staring at the table. His ears were starting to turn red again.

  ‘We could always locate it for you,’ said Warren. ‘My search teams are experts. Perhaps we could even contact your mobile phone provider and use the handset’s GPS to track it down?’

  Cruikshank gave a sigh, before looking at his solicitor.

  ‘I believe that my client has remembered the location of his phone and would be happy to tell you where it is and the pin to unlock it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cruikshank.’

  ‘However, my client would also like to explain that he is a keen amateur photographer.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And that his handset contains a number of images that, whilst purely artistic in nature, might be… misinterpreted.’

  ‘I see,’ said Warren.

  ‘Am I free to go?’ mumbled Cruikshank.

  ‘Not just yet, Stanley.’

&nbs
p; * * *

  Warren and Sutton sat in John Grayson’s office, sipping his coffee. It was a measure of the case’s importance, that despite it being a lovely, sunny February day, Grayson had decided to forgo his Sunday afternoon round of golf.

  ‘It sounds as though, if anything, Cruikshank’s motive for murder is even stronger.’ Grayson had reviewed the tapes of the interview. ‘He is clearly furious at Gwinnett.’

  ‘If he is to be believed, Gwinnett had him by the balls, good and proper,’ said Sutton, savouring the fine roast. The coffee shop that had replaced the staff canteen was closed on a Sunday, and John Grayson’s brand-new coffee machine was far better than what came out of the instant coffee jar next to the communal urn.

  ‘Everyone knows that blackmailers rarely stop after one attempt,’ agreed Warren. ‘From his perspective, there was probably only one way for it to end. Even if he didn’t kill her, I imagine he probably breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the news.’

  ‘So what next? How long until you can charge?’

  ‘We’re not quite there yet. Forensics are DNA fingerprinting the skin cells found on the rope and matching them to the victim. They’re also looking for the attacker’s skin cells. You never know, if he wasn’t wearing gloves, we might find his embedded where he held the rope. Cruikshank has denied handling the rope, so if they find any matching hemp fibres he has some explaining to do. They’re also going through his wardrobe, looking for threads that match the ones found on Jillian Gwinnett’s shoulders.’

  ‘In the meantime, his phone’s gone down to IT to see if we can track his whereabouts that night.’ Sutton smiled grimly. ‘Even if he has a cast-iron alibi, the creepy bastard seemed very keen to explain away whatever photos we might find on his phone. I’ll be interested to see what the child exploitation unit have to say about them.’

  * * *

  ‘We’ve got something from Forensics,’ said Rachel Pymm, as Warren and Sutton exited Grayson’s office. ‘If you recall, Jillian Gwinnett’s desk was described as “uncharacteristically messy”. Apparently, she was one of those weirdos who tidy their desk every day before they go home.’

  As usual, it was impossible to tell if Pymm was teasing them or being sincere. A glance at her desk suggested that she wasn’t one of those weirdos.