Crowner and Justice

by Barrie Roberts

  ‘Let me see, now,’ he said at last, drawing thoughtfully on his coffee. ‘You said that the McBride boy’s death was either accident or murder, I think?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, then, this one’s different. It’s either suicide or murder.’

  ‘It’s an equation,’ said Sheila. ‘Sean’s death equals accident or murder; Charlie’s death equals murder or suicide. Aren’t you supposed to add them together?’

  We looked at her blankly.

  ‘Add them together,’ she repeated. ‘Sean dead plus Charlie dead equals two murders or an accident and a suicide or a murder and a suicide. If the simplest answer is most likely to be true, then both are murders.’

  She stared at us, daring us to argue.

  ‘That’s the most brilliant piece of illogicality I’ve ever heard,’ said John.

  ‘Oscar Wilde said all the harm in the world was done by people being logical; nobody did any harm by being reasonable. That’s reasonable,’ she announced.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said John, cautiously, ‘but where’s it come from? Two murders and not even one motive?’

  ‘I thought you blokes didn’t bother about motive,’ she said.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘we never have to prove a motive, but us old-fashioned coppers always like to have one. It gives us a cosy feeling that we might be right.’

  ‘So why don’t we know how Charlie died?’ I asked.

  ‘We do. He was shot through the right side of the head with a small bore pistol. A single shot, right through the brain. Question is, who did it? There’s no real sign of anyone else on the premises.’

  ‘I’ll bet there’s no sign of us on the premises,’ Sheila said, ‘but we were there.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed, ‘and I did say “no real sign”. You saw the body, Chris. Remember how he was placed?’

  ‘Yes. He was kneeling, bent over the side of the bath. His left arm was in the bath, also his head and shoulder. His right arm was trailing beside the bath and the pistol was lying near it.’

  He nodded. ‘What was on the floor?’

  ‘A hard bathroom carpet, I think.’

  He nodded again. ‘It’s up to Doc Macintyre to tell us all about it, but there’s a peculiar injury. The left knee of his jeans is slightly torn, the skin’s abraded under the tear and there’s a little bloodstain on the carpet.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It could mean he was flung down onto his knees and scraped his knee hard on the carpet. There’s also a couple of marks on his neck, either side. It just might be that someone seized him by the neck, forced him down by the bath and shot him.’

  ‘But there’s no sign of anyone else there?’ said Sheila.

  ‘No, indeed,’ he said. ‘But there’s no sign of you two either, and you were both there,’ and he smiled triumphantly.

  ‘The door was unlocked when we arrived,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. He often left his door unlocked. We’ve traced him to the local pub in the early afternoon, about two o’clock. Then he left on his own. Doc says that he died not long after judging from the state of rigor mortis. So — suppose he goes home and someone’s waiting for him.’

  ‘Where the blazes would they wait?’ demanded Sheila. ‘There’s nowhere to hide in that flat!’

  ‘Ah! But there is. There’s one place,’ said Parry. ‘In between the sitting room and the bedroom and bathroom there’s a little hall, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s blind on the right end, where it leads up to the dividing wall. That’s the end by that bathroom door. At the other end — by the bedroom door — there’s a built-in cupboard.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ I asked.

  ‘If you knew he was on his way back from the pub, you could walk in and wait in that end of the hall — in front of the cupboard. He comes back from the pub and walks through the sitting room, heading for the bathroom for a pee. He steps into the hallway, turning towards the right. He doesn’t see you because you’re stood back in the deepest shadow. As he turns, you step out, grab him at the back of the neck, stick a gun in his ribs and shove him into the bathroom, forcing him to kneel and lean over into the bath.’

  ‘Then you shoot him,’ finished Sheila.

  ‘Unless you want to know something. Then you might ask a question or two before you shoot him.’

  ‘That’s very good,’ I said. ‘So you do believe it was murder?’

  ‘No, boyo. I think it could have been, but he might have come home drunk, spun himself into a fit of misery and gone and kneeled by the bath and ended it all. There’s only his prints on the gun.’

  ‘What about the record?’ I asked.

  ‘It looks like Mrs McBride was right, that Charlie made the phone calls, but what does that mean? Was he guilty about Sean’s death? Did he feel responsible in some way? Was he actually responsible? Did he cause the accident? Did he murder him? All of those would give him a motive for suicide.’

  We were running round in circles again. ‘Come on, John,’ I pleaded. ‘Gut feelings. What do you feel?’

  He pursed his lips and looked into the distance. ‘Gut feelings?’ he said. ‘I don’t like the gun. Charlie Nesbit was a small-time dope pedlar. He wasn’t mixed up with the big boys. He bought and sold in small quantities on the street. Lads like that don’t carry or keep guns. I’ve looked at his record — no violence of any kind, just petty dishonesty and dope offences.’

  The big detective shook his head slowly. ‘The gun’s not right,’ he said. ‘I can see Charlie Nesbit topping himself. That’s not difficult. But not a gun. He’d have taken pills or hanged himself. And the gun itself. It’s a brand-new, chrome-plated automatic. Where’d he get it? It’s a French weapon. A handbag gun, made for shooting husbands and lovers and pretending it was an accident. Not the kind of thing Charlie Nesbit would have.’

  ‘Then what does your gut say about motive?’ I pressed.

  He stood up. ‘That’s the bugger, boyo. I haven’t got a gut feeling about motive, apart from the fact that it’s to do with Sean McBride. Anyway, I’ve delivered the official thanks of the Force for finding us yet another body we’d managed to overlook, and I am going home. I have had enough.’

  So had I, but I lay awake and smoked after Sheila had gone to sleep. At least, I thought she was asleep until she whispered to me.

  ‘It makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What?’ I said, startled.

  ‘Charlie Nesbit knew something secret about Sean’s death and he got killed for it.’

  ‘Could be,’ I said.

  ‘It makes sense of Mac’s warning, as well.’

  ‘Mac’s warning?’

  ‘About the song...’ she said. ‘That the song might mean that Sylvia’s in danger.’

  I had had enough of gut reactions, guesses and twisted logic. Unfortunately Sheila’s twisted logic often concealed real intuition.

  That kept me awake much longer.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There was some good news in the morning. Mac had sent his papers on Sean McBride over to my office, and I was about to go into them when Alasdair arrived, carrying a wide grin.

  ‘We’ve got him, Guv’nor,’ he said as he sat down.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Dennis Maiden. You wanted some law, I’ve got you some.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  Alasdair took out his battered tobacco tin and began rolling a cigarette. Why a man who dresses like a thirties film star chooses to smoke like a tramp I’ve never understood.

  ‘Maiden says,’ he began, ‘that he has the right to take our clients’ ponies because our clients trespassed on his land and allowed their ponies to eat his grass. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Following from which, he says that our clients owe him the cost of the grazing and the roundup and that entitles him to seize the ponies as security for an unpaid debt. Yes?’

  ‘Right,’ I said again. ‘Don�
��t tell me — you’ve found some law that says he can’t seize the ponies.’

  He shook his head and drew on his strange-smelling cigarette. ‘No,’ he said. ‘All the law I can find says he can do that, but there’s a law which restricts what he can do with them.’

  ‘You mean he can’t carry out his threat to have them turned into dog food?’

  He shook his head again. ‘No, no, not that. The Distress Act says that you can seize a debtor’s cattle or horses for debt, but you can’t take them more than three miles from where you seized them, nor across a county boundary.’

  I stared at him. ‘We don’t know where they are,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes we do,’ he said. ‘That address that Samson gave you in the first place — Maiden’s private address — is his country pad in Shropshire. It’s a big spread near my people’s place. That’s where Maiden actually lives. His daughter lives there, too — Shirley Maiden the showjumper. That’s where she keeps her horses. There’s a big stable layout there. Where else would he have taken them?’

  ‘Makes sense,’ I agreed, ‘but where does it take us? What’s the penalty? Do we get to gallop over his drawbridge with the County Sheriff and loot his castle? Can we dangle him from his own battlements, or massacre his varlets or something?’

  ‘Not quite that dramatic,’ he said, ‘but it’s a criminal offence and is fineable for every day that it persists.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five shillings. How much is that in debased coin of the realm?’

  ‘Twenty-five pence,’ I said. ‘Twenty-five pence a day will really worry a man of Maiden’s wealth.’

  ‘It was a lot of money back in fifteen something when the Act was passed. Anyway, it’s not the penalty, it’s the point. We can make him look stupid and mean.’

  I began to like it. I picked up my microphone and started to dictate:

  On the Samson file, a letter on headed bond with a copy for Mr Samson and a file copy. Letter is to Mr Dennis Maiden at the office address on his last letter to us. Dear Mr Maiden, comma, paragraph, re colon your illegal seizure of ponies, underline that heading, space. Further to our telephone discussion and your threat to have my clients’ ponies destroyed if your exaggerated bill is not met, comma, I write to give you notice that your actions in seizing the animals amount to a criminal offence under the Distress Act, stop. As your own lawyer will advise you, comma, such an offence continues from day to day. Paragraph. My clients have no desire to see you publicly humiliated in Belston Magistrates’ Court, comma, and have instructed me that they have always been willing to meet your grazing charges, stop, paragraph. Perhaps you will be good enough to let me know when and how the animals will be returned to my clients, stop, paragraph. Yours sincerely.’

  I put down the mike and grinned at him. ‘Does it really work? It hasn’t been repealed or superseded?’

  He grinned back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Someone tried to argue in 1910 that it was obsolete, but the High Court said that it had never been repealed and unless Parliament repealed a statute it was available for use. Abraham Thornton’s case from Sutton Coldfield, eighteen twenty-something, laid that down.’

  ‘I hope he argues,’ I said. ‘I’d love to put that smug swine into court.’

  Alasdair took himself off and I turned to Mac’s papers. His report confirmed what he had told me — that Sean McBride was a fit, healthy eighteen-year-old, with no signs of disease or injury. He showed the external symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and blood analysis confirmed this as the cause of death.

  A bunch of photographs in a cardboard Central Midlands Police cover was attached to Mac’s report. They also told me nothing new. There were external shots of the garage with the door closed and open, pictures of the car in the garage which showed the sexual detritus on the floor. There were pictures of the body slumped in the rear seat of the car and a photograph of the garage from above, which must have been taken from the flat block alongside the row of garages. It served to show where Charlie had pulled aside a loose sheet of the roofing so that he could look into the garage. None of it seemed to help.

  Behind the photo album was a photocopy of a statement. It was from PC 279, Thompson, and said:

  ‘On Tuesday 26th May I was on mobile patrol with PC 421, Port, when we were directed by the dispatcher to a telephone call box in Wednesfield Road as the result of an emergency message sent from that box.

  ‘On arrival we were met by a youth who I now know to be Charles NESBIT, aged eighteen, unemployed, of Flat 3, The Sandings, Shelley Place, Belston. He told us that he was concerned about a friend, Sean McBRIDE, who had been missing since the previous Friday evening. He had gone to a lock-up garage rented by McBRIDE and had looked in through an aperture in the roof. He said that he had seen McBRIDE lying dead or injured in a car that was in the garage.

  ‘We made arrangements by radio for an ambulance to join us at the garage and we went there with NESBIT. The garage is the right-hand end one in a row that lies adjacent to the car-park of the Grenville House flat block. Waiting by the garage was a female youth who I now know to be Sylvia Mary WELLINGTON, aged sixteen, school student, of Old Leys, Blackberry Lane, Trosall, Salop.

  She appeared very upset and I advised her to sit in the police car while we investigated.

  The youth NESBIT showed me how to gain access to the roof of the garages and pointed out where he had slid aside a loose area of roofing. I looked down into the garage through that aperture. I was able to see the front part of a red saloon car. From my viewpoint I was unable to determine the make or model and I could not see the registration number. The passenger’s door was wide open and the front passenger seat had been removed. In the area previously occupied by the seat I could see a leg clothed in denim jeans and a left foot in a black trainer. It was evident that someone was lying in the back of the vehicle. I called McBRIDE’s name several times loudly but I could not detect any movement nor hear any reply.

  ‘At this juncture the ambulance arrived and a paramedic joined me on the roof. After assessing the situation he said that it would be necessary to force the door of the garage. We climbed down and with very little effort succeeded in breaking the lock of the garage and opening the door.

  The paramedics entered the garage and later confirmed that they had found the dead body of a male youth in the rear seat of the car. It was their opinion that he had inhaled carbon monoxide and that his death might be suicide.

  The youth NESBIT identified the dead body as that of his friend, Sean McBRIDE. I informed Control by radio of our findings and waited until a Scenes of Crime Team arrived, when I took NESBIT and WELLINGTON to Belston Police Station. WELLINGTON was deeply upset, in fact nearly hysterical, and I judged it impossible to obtain a coherent statement from her. I arranged for her to be taken home by a female PC and I proceeded to take a witness statement from Charles NESBIT.’

  The statement trailed off into formalities. I sat and thought. So, Sylvia Wellington had been with Nesbit when he discovered Sean. What on earth did that mean?

  Charlie Nesbit’s statement was behind the police officer’s. He denied seeing Sean on the Friday night, saying that he last saw him on Thursday evening. He did not see Sean on Friday and did not call at his home because he knew that Sean was going away early on Saturday morning and thought he would be getting ready on Friday night. He was mystified when Mrs McBride had contacted him and said that Sean had never come home on Friday night. He had gone to Sean’s garage, but found it locked and no sign that Sean was there. Later he had met Sylvia and they had discussed Sean’s disappearance. She had said that the only place Sean could be was in the garage and that something must have happened to him. He agreed to go with her and check again, which was how he had come to climb on the roof and spot the body

  Nothing helpful there, but another puzzle. If he’d already checked the garage and found nothing, what had convinced him to go back with Sylvia? Why hadn’t he just told her it wasn’t worth looking inside? Did s
he tell him something that led him to believe that Sean might be inside?

  I glanced through the statement again. Charlie Nesbit was Sean’s best mate. He was in lots of the photographs. He was with him up to the Thursday night. Surely the police had asked him if he could think of any reason why his mate had killed himself. If they had, there was no answer recorded in the statement — not a single word about breathalysers or headaches. If Sean really was worried about them, he never mentioned his worries to Charlie — or, alternatively, Charlie never mentioned them to the police.

  I gave up and slid the folder into my briefcase, intending to let Sheila apply her tortuous intelligence to it. I needed to contact Sylvia Wellington’s dad.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was lucky. Wellington wasn’t in Tokyo or Rio de Janeiro when I called; he was actually at his desk.

  ‘Chris!’ he exclaimed as he took the call, as though we are old mates. We’re not — I’d met him three times at legal seminars about how to get more blood out of the same stone and how to charge for the same work three times and other useful legal skills. ‘What gives me the pleasure?’ he asked.

  ‘We need to meet,’ I said. ‘Soon.’

  ‘You sound deathly urgent,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a deal for me?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a warning for you. About your daughter. I need to see you.’

  ‘My daughter?’ he said, puzzled. ‘You sound as if she’s in some kind of trouble.’

  ‘I hope I’m wrong,’ I said, ‘but I think she may be in serious danger.’

  He was still puzzled, and I didn’t blame him. ‘Serious danger? What about?’

  ‘About Sean McBride,’ I said.

  ‘But Sean McBride’s dead. He committed suicide.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t. There were three pals — Sean McBride, Charlie Nesbit and your Sylvia, right?’

  ‘Right,’ he agreed.

  ‘Sean’s dead in what may not have been suicide. Now Charlie’s dead in what may not have been suicide. I need to tell you about it and you need to listen.’