by P. F. Ford
"I didn't-" she began.
"I should tell you something, before you carry on lying," interrupted Slater. "One of our team is a mother of three. She spends a lot of time in the supermarket. She's also one smart cookie who notices all sorts of things. It's because of her that we know there are CCTV cameras on the self-serve tills."
Angela Rossiter knew there was no longer any point in denying she had bought the condoms.
"And it's against the law to buy condoms, is it?" she snapped.
"Not as far as I know," said Norman. "But I'm curious to know why you paid for them with your husband's credit card."
"Because they're for his use, of course," she sighed. "Why the hell should I pay for them? I stopped having sex with him years ago."
"So why would he need them?" asked Slater.
"Why do you think?" she said, looking at him as though he were stupid. "I might not want him grunting and snorting all over me, but it seems there are some women who aren't quite so fussy. I don't want to find he's fathered a child on our bloody doorstep again, do I?"
"Do you think he could, then?" asked Slater. "Father a child?"
"Didn't they teach any sex education at your school?" she mocked. "My God, what world do you live in?"
"Oh we did sex education, Angela," smiled Slater. "In fact it was one of my favourite subjects. But I always thought if a man had a vasectomy it meant he couldn't father children. Isn't that the whole point of it?"
Angela looked confused. Why was he talking about vasectomies? Where does that come into it?
"Oh, my, my," smiled Norman, seeing her disbelief. "You didn't know, did you? I knew you and old Brucie probably weren't the best communicators, but boy, things must be really bad between you if he had an operation like that and you didn't even know."
"And they say romance is dead," said Slater. "Why on earth do you keep your marriage going if it's got that bad? Can it ever be worth it?"
"You wouldn't understand," she sniffed. "I have my position to consider."
"Some people will do anything for money, I guess," said Norman.
"Even frame their husband for murder," added Slater.
She looked at him, enquiringly.
"We had Celia Rowntree in here earlier today," he said. "As a matter of fact she's still here, finding out what it's like inside one of our cells."
This was obviously news to Angela Rossiter. She'd had no idea Celia had been brought in for questioning.
"You see, Celia's not as tough as you," explained Norman. "So it didn't take long for us to expose the lies in her story. After that she became a lot more co-operative. So you might want to stop and consider whether you should continue with the lies, or do us all a favour and start telling the truth."
"What did she tell you?" she hissed. "It's all a pack of lies."
"Is it?" said Slater. "Well, it all seems to make sense to us, and it fits in very nicely with what we already know. But we want to make sure we get it right, so perhaps you'd better tell us your side of the story."
"There is no story," she said, sitting back and folding her arms.
"You said you didn't want him to father a child on your doorstep again," said Slater. "What did you mean by that?"
"What did you think I meant," she spat. "I'm sure Celia told you. He's always been cock happy, but she was the first one he actually got pregnant. He had to pay for her to have an abortion so her husband wouldn't find out. They might have got away with it, but she nearly died under the anaesthetic. There was no way they could keep that from her husband. He was gone within the week, and Celia's never been the same since. That was nearly ten years ago now."
"So how come you didn't kick your husband out?" asked Slater.
"What? Give up my lifestyle? No way," she said with a wicked grin. "I can make him suffer much more by staying and spending all his money. I made a deal with him. He couldn't ever touch me again, and he couldn't ever do it on our doorstep again."
"But he has been doing it on your doorstep, hasn't he," said Norman.
"With that cheap tart of a PA," she hissed.
"And you thought he might get her pregnant, too," said Slater.
"I thought he was taking precautions. I didn't know he'd had a vasectomy," she snapped.
"But that's why the condoms were such a big mistake, Angela. If you hadn't bought them we might have been convinced your husband was guilty, but we knew that didn't add up, and it made us ask questions."
"So you knew all about him and Diana," said Norman. "That's a very good motive for wanting her dead. And both you and Celia have good reason for wanting to frame your husband. But did you have to murder Diana Woods as part of your plan. Couldn't you have found another way that didn't involve murder?"
"Oh, but me and Celia didn't murder anyone," she said with a smile. "What do you take us for? All we did was try to frame my husband. That was all we set out to do, and we very nearly succeeded."
"But didn't you drive the Rochester’s runabout to Diana's that day?" asked Slater. "Didn't you stab her in the back with a knife from the knife block you took with you?"
"Don't be silly," she smiled. "I was at home cooking my husband's dinner. We were having dinner at the time she was killed. My husband told you that several times, but you wouldn't believe him."
Slater and Norman hadn't been expecting this. If Angela Rossiter hadn't killed Diana Woods, who had? They'd been convinced Celia wasn't capable, but maybe they'd got that wrong. They were so sure it was Angela they hadn't even asked Celia if she had an alibi.
"We'll still charge you with conspiracy to murder," said Norman, trying to regain the high ground.
"But what did I do, that would prove to a jury that I was guilty?" she asked, sweetly.
"I think we'll adjourn this interview, now," said Slater. "You can go and try one of our deluxe rooms for a while, Angela."
She smiled her acceptance of his offer, but didn't say a word as she was led off to a cell.
"What the hell happened there?" Slater asked Norman. "She's as good as admitted she's involved, but she denies murder."
"Whether she actually did the stabbing, or not," said Norman. "She knows exactly what happened. She's laughing at us."
"She knows we have a huge gap in our story," said Slater. "And we should have known it, too. We thought we had it all worked out, but we didn't think this through properly. Rossiter gave her an alibi right from the start. How could she be stabbing Diana if she was at home cooking his diner?
"Now I'm not even sure we can make the conspiracy charge stick. All we can prove is Celia went shopping in the company van, bought a cheap knife block and left it in the van. And she admits that much. It's not exactly cut and dried, is it?"
"We know Angela took the van out on the afternoon Diana died," said Norman. "But we can't prove it, because the CCTV evidence is missing, and the only witness we have insists she saw a man driving the van and not a woman."
"And it's the same with the mobile phones," sighed Slater, unhappily. "We know how they got where we found them, but we can't prove it."
"A good lawyer would argue there's more than enough doubt," agreed Norman. "Unless the search team find something, we're in trouble."
"What are we missing, Norm?" asked Slater. "There has to be something."
"I guess we're gonna have to go over it all again," sighed Norman. "And we need to be quick. Right now we're holding three suspects and the clock's ticking. In fact, one of those isn't even a suspect anymore."
"We'd better order a takeaway," said Slater, grimly. "This is going to be a long night."
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was just after nine o'clock next morning when Slater made his way into the incident room. He looked jaded, as though he'd been up all night, but he managed to look pretty pleased with himself, too.
"I've just had a call from Wales," said Jolly. "They said to tell you your prisoner has been taken into custody and would you like to go and collect him."
"That must have been a shock
for him," smiled Slater. "I bet he thought he'd got away with it."
"But I thought he was innocent and Angela Rossiter and Celia Rowntree were the guilty ones," she said.
"That's what we were supposed to think," said Slater. "But they knew we couldn't prove it because they both had alibis. Being stupid coppers, unable to find our own arses with both hands, we were supposed to give up at that point."
"They got that wrong, then," said Jolly.
"Instead of giving up we pulled an all-nighter," said Slater. "And so did Ian Becks. We might still be scratching our heads if it wasn't for him."
"Where's Norm?" she asked. "Having a lie in?"
"He's just called me," said Slater. "He's on his way back from Newbury as we speak."
"Come on then," said Jolly. "Tell me the story."
"It was Becksy who broke it," admitted Slater. "They found a pair of gloves in a bag of rubbish in the Rossiter's garage. When he got the gloves back here he found traces of blood which proved to be Diana's. We figured there would be DNA evidence on the inside of the gloves proving they were Angela Rossiter's, but we were wrong. The DNA was from Ian Woods.
"At around the same time, Norm found Angela Rossiter had Ian Woods' phone number. She also had his email address. She has a smart phone so it was quite easy to access her email account where we found some very interesting messages."
"Didn't he tell us he hardly knew her?" asked Jolly.
"Going by the messages, I'd say he knew her rather well," said Slater. "Very well, in fact."
"Was he getting his own back on Rossiter, or did he genuinely like her?" asked Jolly.
"That's a question we shall be asking him when he gets here," said Slater.
"But what does he gain from killing her?" said Jolly. "He doesn't seem to need the money, and if it was revenge, why wait until now? Why not do it sooner?"
"Perhaps it was Angela's idea and not his," said Slater. "Either way, they came up with quite an ingenious plan to get rid of Diana and frame Rossiter."
"So what's Norm doing in Newbury?" asked Jolly.
"It was bad work on our part, but we never checked out Susie Brennan's story about Woods being at her house. She told us her neighbour could vouch for her story, but we didn't follow that up. Norm's just done that. The neighbour confirms Woods was at Susie's house around three o'clock, but then she left to do the school run. She got back at four, and Woods had already left.
"We think he drove all the way back to Tinton where he met up with Angela Rossiter who had the Rochesters van. Woods drove the van to Diana's, killed her, and then returned the van to Rochesters. There was no-one to see him, only the CCTV."
"And Celia Rowntree subsequently removed the disk with that footage on it," said Jolly.
"That's right," said Slater. "She bought the knife block at Angela's behest and left it in the van. And she also helped frame Rossiter by planting a mobile phone in his desk. Woods took Diana's phone when he stabbed her and gave it to Angela. That's how it came to be in Rossiter's sock drawer."
"Did Celia know about Woods?" asked Jolly.
"No. That's the clever part. She still thinks it was Angela Rossiter who stabbed Diana. She has no idea about Woody's involvement, so there's no way she could have told us about him. And it looks as though Angela Rossiter was so besotted she wasn't going to give him up come what may. He very nearly got away with it."
"So let me get this straight," said Jolly. "We have two people conspiring to murder Diana Woods, and three people conspiring to frame Bruce Rossiter."
"That's about the size of it," said Slater. "Norm said it was three way conspiracy, and I thought he was having a laugh!"
"It's quite disappointing," said Jolly. "I had Ian Woods marked down as a nice man who wouldn't hurt a fly. Now it turns out he was little better than Bruce Rossiter where the ladies are concerned, and, on top of that, he's a murderer. Could I have been more wrong about him?"
"It could be he was even worse than Rossiter," said Slater. "Charmless as Rossiter might be, he doesn't try to hide what he is. It's there for all to see. Woods, on the other hand, is very much the dark horse.
“When Norm called earlier he told me Susie Brennan had seen him this morning and asked him what he was doing. So he told her, and he also told her Ian Woods had been arrested.
“Now, if you recall, he's said all along that he thought there was something going on between her and Woods. He reckons her reaction confirms his suspicions."
"Maybe you should tell Angela Rossiter," said Jolly. "She might not be quite so keen to protect him if she knew he was two-timing her."
“Now there’s a good idea,” smiled Slater.
Epilogue
“So you finally did as I suggested, and charged Woods,” said Murray. “I told you he was guilty, right from the start. Why the hell did it take you so long to follow a simple order?”
“We didn’t have any conclusive evidence at the time, as you well know,” argued Slater. “I thought we were supposed to ensure we have a case before we charge someone.”
“There was a case,” said Murray. “You’ve just wasted a lot of time poking around unnecessarily.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Norman. “I think it was time well spent. We would never have got Angela Rossiter to turn against Ian Woods otherwise. I have no doubt a half-decent lawyer would have good Woods off without us putting that time in.”
“So what was the big rush?” Slater asked Murray.
“It’s quite simple. It was an open and shut case,” said Murray.
“But two people would probably have slipped the net if you had your way,” persisted Slater. And a good brief would have torn our case against Woods to shreds.”
“Yeah. We wondered if maybe you had some other reason for being in such a hurry,” added Norman.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Murray, uncertainly.
“Oh, is that right?” said Norman. “So it didn’t have anything to do with your name and number being in Diana Woods’ contact list?”
“Really?” said Murray. “I can’t imagine how she got my number.”
Slater couldn’t recall ever having seen Murray embarrassed before, but he was now. Slater and Norman waited while Murray struggled with his conscience.
“I only saw her a couple of times,” he mumbled, eventually. “There’s no need for anyone else to know about this,” he said. “My wife would be deeply hurt if she found out.”
“That didn’t worry you when you were shagging Diana Woods, did it?” asked Slater. “Or when you went back for afters.”
“Just remember who you’re talking to, Sergeant,” said Murray, bristling with anger.
“Oh I know who I’m talking to,” said Slater. “I’m talking to the DCI who would have been happy to see the first face that came along charged with murder just to make sure we didn’t stir the muck enough to bring his own indiscretion floating to the surface.”
“But I was right,” roared Murray. “He did murder her!”
“But we didn’t know that for sure, back then, did we?” said Slater.
He stood up and made his way across to the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” shouted Murray. “You come back here. I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“But I have finished with you,” said Slater as he swung the door open. “I used to respect you, but I’m afraid I’m going to find that a bit difficult in future. Sir.”
He marched out and pulled the door closed behind him, totally ignoring Murray’s shouted order.
“Come back here!” roared Murray, but the door swung closed and Slater was gone.
“He’ll pay for this,” muttered Murray. “I’ll show him.”
“I don’t think so, do you?” asked Norman, who had been silently observing the exchange. “We know your dirty little secret, and you wouldn’t want it to leak out, now would you?”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to turn against me, too,” said Murray. “We go back
a long way. I helped you out when I brought you here.”
“That’s true,” agreed Norman. “You did help me out, but I don’t remember ever saying I’d be prepared to repay you by perverting the course of justice.”
“Yes, but-,” began Murray.
“Don’t you dare try to defend yourself,” interrupted Norman, raising his voice. “There is no defence for what you wanted us to do. And, it was all because you couldn’t keep your pecker under control.”
“You don’t know what it was like for me back then,” pleaded Murray.
“You’re right,” said Norman. “I don’t know what it was like for you back then, and you know what? I don’t give a shit, because whatever it was like back then doesn’t excuse what you wanted us to do now. ”
He climbed to his feet and headed for the door.
“I suggest the next time you feel like taking your crappy temper out on any of the staff who work here you remember this conversation,” he told Murray, as he walked.
“Where are you going?” demanded Murray.
“There’s a rotten smell in here, Bob,” replied Norman, as he stepped through the door. “I need some fresh air.”
*****
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When DS Dave Slater is the victim of a botched investigation, he quickly gets bored of sitting at home twiddling his thumbs, but when his boss hands him a case to be investigated ‘discreetly’, Slater sees a chance to redeem himself. As he delves into the missing person case, Slater discovers there could be some link between a girl leading a double life and the police officers who made him a scapegoat for their own failings. When he is nearly pushed under a London bus, he realises the stakes are even higher than he had imagined.
