The Frame - from the author of the Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) series (A Feyer and Drake Mystery Book 2)

by David W Robinson

  It was Hobson’s choice. Where else could she go? Her parents were dead, and her older brother lived in Montréal. She had a few hundred pounds left in the bank, true, but that had sat idle for the last four years, and she had no idea whether the account was still active. Even so, it would not be enough for a flight to Canada. There were no aunts and uncles she could think of – at least none who would be prepared to put her up – and any friends she’d had deserted her long ago. Even if she could turn to them, they were all in Landshaven. The one true friend who would have stood by her was dead. And it was her death which had seen Rachel sent down.

  Hayley had pulled out a few stops. She had managed to get Rachel into a rooming house, one that was well away from the seafront, as a consequence of which, the landlady (who Rachel knew as a dragon) specialised in accommodating women who were technically homeless. Most of her tenants were the girls who worked the harbour, and given the option, Rachel would have preferred somewhere else, but she did not have the option. She was the beggar who could not choose.

  Throughout the long journey from HM Prison Bronzefield, via Slough, London and York she had alternatively smiled and seethed at the half-success of her appeal and the injustice of the legal system. Conviction unsafe. Quashed, yes, but the new evidence which had been presented and which supported the decision was not enough to declare her innocent. She was simply presumed innocent, and released as soon as was practicable, carrying a travel warrant and £46 in cash, and even that grant was discretionary. Under strict interpretation of the rules, she was supposed to apply for it four weeks before her release, but how could she when the appeal court only reached their decision yesterday?

  There would be a claim for compensation, certainly, but there was no guarantee of success. If she’d been acquitted, yes, but conviction unsafe? She needed to prove her innocence, and that would not be easy.

  The train was through the suburbs now, and familiar landmarks began to appear through the early evening. The tall obelisk in the Memorial Park, the domed clock tower of the railway station, picked out in the glare of waning sunlight, and in the far distance, perched on the solid promontory of North Cliff, Landshaven Castle, that sentinel outpost of the Norman Conquest, which had guarded the town against seaborne invaders since the early twelfth century.

  Rachel felt a lump come to her throat. This was her home. She had been born, raised, lived, educated (aside from her university years) married and even divorced in this sheltered port-cum-holiday resort. She loved Landshaven. Landshaven was in her blood.

  Sadly, she had also been arrested, charged, and remanded for trial from Landshaven magistrates’ court.

  Throughout the final hour from York, she had plied the rivers and gullies of her memory. How many times had she made the same journey? A day in York, trawling the pubs, and the last train home with Barbara at her side, sometimes sober, mostly drunk, but always laughing. Best friends. That’s what they were. And she had murdered her best friend… so everyone insisted.

  The train slowed to walking pace and the number of tracks multiplied to let the rolling stock access the various platforms. The three carriages of the arrival from York snaked and writhed their way alongside Platform 2, the station PA system gave out some unintelligible announcement, and with a final jerk, everything stopped moving.

  Rachel got to her feet and picked up her supermarket carrier bag. It held all her worldly possessions including her purse containing what remained of her discharge grant, and her mobile phone, its battery just as dormant as that of her wristwatch. She had no idea where or how she would charge it, and even if she could overcome that obstacle, she had no clue whether the battery was any good, or if she still had an account.

  She stepped onto the platform, and an evening chill borne on the back of a brisk, onshore breeze, seeped through her. She hunched the quilted coat – the prison had found it for her – closer about herself, and walked briskly along the flat concrete, her heels clicking on its cold surface. Hayley had promised to be there to meet her and drive her to the boarding house.

  The ticket collector at the barrier gave her a curious look. Almost as if he recognised her. But that was impossible. She did not know him, so how could he know her? Even considering the publicity surrounding her trial, she did not believe he would remember her after all this time. Rachel ignored him and passed through the barrier. Only as she stepped out into the car park did she understand.

  Jenner Released, declared a newspaper stand’s display. The vendor had gone home presumably having sold all his copies, but left his free-standing placard behind, and Rachel guessed that the early and evening editions of the Landshaven Chronicle would have carried photographs of her.

  She could see Hayley across the car park, but as she cleared the station entrance, she was besieged by reporters.

  “What’s your reaction to the verdict, Mrs Jenner?”

  “How does it feel to be free, Rachel?”

  “Will you go after the police for wrongful arrest?”

  “Do you know who killed Mrs Shawforth?”

  A barrage of trivial questions, which she ignored as blatantly as she had the ticket collector. She kept her eyes fixed on Hayley. How did these idiots think she felt? What did they imagine her reaction to be? And if she knew who had murdered Barbara Shawforth, wouldn’t she have said so four years ago? Well, she had said so four years ago, but no one listened. They wanted a quick conviction and the lies of others were easier to accept than her version of the truth.

  She climbed into the passenger seat of Hayley’s BMW, and pulled the safety belt into place. There was only one question to which she had any answer, but she was not about to let the media know. Not until she was ready.

  Yes, she would go after the police. Someone in Landshaven CID had screwed the job up. Pinning him (or her) down would be hard work but she was determined to expose him/her.

  Hayley, a vivacious, bubbly brunette in her early 40s, was in a chatty mood.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be in Ashford to pick you up, Rachel. Pressure of work. You know how it is. And we’re coming to the end of the season. Everyone wants everything done before teatime. Good journey?”

  “Tedious and boring. I’m not sure I should have come back.”

  “I did try to tell you.” Hayley pulled out of the station car park and into the post-rush-hour traffic. “The Chronicle’s against you, but they’ve spent so many years sucking up to Marc Shawforth that you can’t expect them to be anything else. The senior bods at Landshaven House are fuming.”

  The mention of Landshaven House sent a flood of memories, some good, but mostly bad, through Rachel.

  Hayley was still talking. “Yesterday’s appeal verdict will mean a visit from the IOPC and an investigation from Professional Standards.”

  Rachel was happy to hear it. She had cursed Landshaven CID at least once every day of her four-year stretch.

  Hayley changed the subject. “You remember Ruth Russell?”

  The inner suburbs of the town were passing by, and Rachel was mentally comparing them to the comfortable townhouse she had owned before her ex-husband sold it to meet her legal bills.

  She barely registered Hayley’s question, and it took a few moments to answer. “I had dealings with her when I was on the force. Is she still an Amazon?”

  “She’s certainly rough and ready,” Hayley agreed, “and she has her rules, which she enforces when she has to. I’ve paid your first month’s rent.”

  “Another debt I owe you.”

  Hayley turned off the Thirsk Road and into a maze of residential streets. “Don’t worry about it. You can pay me back when you get on your feet. I’ve also made an appointment for you at the job centre, for ten o’clock Monday morning. For Christ’s sake don’t be late. I know you’re not used to the system, but it’s inflexible these days. You have to be seen to be looking for work and you have to be on time for your appointments with them. If not you will be penalised.”

  Rachel sighed. “I’
ve nothing better to do, have I?”

  Hayley pulled in across the shabby door of a double fronted townhouse, and killed the engine. Digging into her bag, she came out with a mobile phone and handed it over. “Pay as you go. I’ve put you a good credit on it. It’s one of Jim’s old phones, so you don’t owe me for it. You can square me up for the credit when we get your compensation through.”

  “If we get my compensation through,” Rachel said, graveyard whistling.

  “I’ll do my best.” Hayley half turned in her seat, and looked urgently at Rachel. “Whatever you do, don’t upset Ruth. She won’t hesitate to throw you out if you do.”

  Rachel let out another sigh. Four years inside, and where was she? Reduced to taking charity from her solicitor, begging favours from a virago landlady who, before the unjust conviction, would have referred to her as Detective Sergeant Jenner.

  Chapter Seven

  At about half past seven, darkness fell slowly. By the time Drake settled into his room at the Castle Hotel and enjoyed a solitary dinner, the night had taken over.

  Most visitors to the town would stay at the Majestic, a magnificent, monolithic Victorian construction, similar in many respects to Liverpool’s Liver Building, dominating the waterfront from its elevated location, but without the statuesque birds on its towers. Drake was not most people. He had stayed at the Majestic in the past, and while the exterior lived up to its vaunted name and reputation, the interior was in decline, in need of major refurbishment work.

  The Castle was a more modest establishment, but also more modern, its interior decor impeccable, the furnishings comfortable, the service in the dining room and bar as good as he could expect from a four-star hike, and from his first floor room, the view was preferable to that of the Majestic.

  Before leaving Howley, he rang ahead and registered a double room. It was an old habit. No matter where he travelled in the world, he always booked a double. His six feet-something frame needed as much space as he could give it.

  The ruins of Landshaven Castle were four hundred yards to the left, the keep (the only part still standing) spectacularly picked out by floodlights now that the sun had set. Straight ahead, he could see nothing of the seafront, which lay 150 feet below the plateau upon which the hotel stood, and beyond it, the unending slab of the North Sea, melding into the growing darkness. To the right, much of the town centre lay lower than the elevated castle plateau, and he could make out only the dim outline of the Majestic and to the left of it, the uppermost floor of Landshaven House.

  Because the necessary files were in Sam’s possession, he had spent much of the afternoon talking to the two junior officers, Sergeants Larne and Czarniak, both of whom had been involved in the original investigation. He learnt almost nothing from either man other than Larne had brought the argument between Rachel Jenner and Barbara Shawforth to the attention of the investigating team, and from there both men had been sent to bring Rachel in for questioning.

  Despite his reassurances that whatever they said was confidential, he gained the impression that neither man was keen to speak out. A natural distrust of strangers, particularly civilians attached to but not employed by the police service, and a natural concern of the effect that criticising superiors might have on their promotion prospects.

  He wanted to speak to DI Barker, but he was absent for most of the afternoon, out on routine enquiries, and just before six o’clock, when Sam handed over the files, he left the police station for the ten minute drive to the hotel.

  With dinner out of the way, he settled at the table under the window, and began to work his way through the morass of paperwork. Slowly, as the evening wore on, he put together the tale of what had happened on that fateful afternoon.

  His immediate impression was that the Major Incident Team under the command of Detective Superintendent Oxley had handled the case poorly. Their investigation was superficial and skimped, and Rachel Jenner had been charged on the thinnest of evidence: stains on the bed linen, which were identified as sweat, and subsequently matched to Rachel’s DNA, and traces of Barbara’s blood on the blouse found in her wardrobe, augmented by Rachel’s inability to corroborate her whereabouts during the critical hours between half past twelve, lunchtime, when she had the public argument with Barbara, and seven in the evening.

  An elderly neighbour, Grace Chivers, gave a statement to the police during which she insisted that Rachel came home at about half past one in the afternoon and never left the house again, but the woman’s evidence was discounted by both the investigating team and the prosecution counsel, on the grounds that she was elderly and prone to making mistakes or misinterpretation. By the time Rachel came to trial, Mrs Chivers had passed away, and her evidence was easy to dismiss.

  Oxley’s summary to the DPP had been biased in the extreme.

  Despite the minimal forensic evidence, the attitude of Detective Sergeant Jenner towards the deceased and her lover, is consistent with pathological hatred. I remain convinced that she is the perpetrator of this appalling crime. She is unable to corroborate her whereabouts at the time of the murder, and not only can she not explain the blood traces on her blouse, but at one point during the interview, she denied that the item of clothing was hers.

  Cross-referencing to the trial notes, Drake learned that the phrase, she is the perpetrator of this appalling crime, was one Oxley had repeated many times when giving evidence, and Rachel’s defence barrister challenged him on it, but he remained unrepentant.

  The paucity of evidence against her persuaded Drake that political pressure had been brought to bear. Although no one in Whitehall would ever admit it, he remained convinced that it happened in cases far less serious than this, cases which would cause severe embarrassment to the government. The Crown Prosecution Service would never admit to it, neither would anyone in government, and it was the kind of incident which could never be proved. But with the victim’s status as the wife of a well-known (if only in Landshaven and the pages of Hansard) political figure, the Home Secretary, the MoJ, possibly even the Prime Minister, would be eager for a rapid conviction, and avoid opposition challenges on spending cuts to the police.

  The evidence may have been thin but it was all the police and forensic officers found. There was nothing to indicate the involvement of anyone other than Rachel Jenner, but as he dug further into the files, Drake got the impression that she was, indeed, innocent.

  After initially denying the argument between her and Barbara, she eventually admitted it, but insisted that it was not the first such spat between them. They had been friends for many years, and there had been many disagreements between them, none of which had led to any form of violence.

  He was particularly irritated by the dismissal of Grace Chivers as a reliable witness. Age, as he well knew, did not necessarily discount visual and auditory acuity, but in this case her testimony had been brushed aside by both the police and the prosecution team.

  A background check on Barbara indicated that in the twenty or so years since she first moved to Landshaven, the police had spoken to her only once, and that was as a witness in the disappearance of a young prostitute named Kylie Griffiths, but Barbara denied any knowledge of the woman or her disappearance, other than reading of it in the Chronicle a few days after the woman disappeared. She was interviewed along with many other people because she had been in the Trafalgar Inn on the night Kylie disappeared, and according to the testimony of the landlord, Barbara had left within a few minutes of Kylie. But it was coincidence and nothing more. There was no suggestion that she had anything to do with the young woman’s disappearance.

  Sam warned him that the files, and particularly the photographs, did not make for pleasant reading, and when he got to them, he was forced to agree. In order to provide a contrast, photographs of Barbara taken on holiday, clad only in a bikini, had been provided by Marc Shawforth, and the difference was shocking.

  She was a shapely temptress. Wearing skimpy pants and a bra that barely enclosed her magn
ificent breasts she had a classic, hourglass figure, which had never been strained by childbearing. Her legs were the kind men drooled over; strong, athletic thighs, powerful haunches and delicate, well-manicured hands and feet. Her face was a pretty, inverted pear, framed in a shower of dark hair, and a pair of intense, come-to-bed eyes.

  Drake was aware that his internal ramblings were tainted by Barbara’s reputation for sleeping around, but there was no arguing that she was a spectacularly attractive woman, and he could imagine her as a demanding, vibrant bedmate.

  Little of that beauty remained after the killer had finished with her. She lay naked on the bed, half turned on her left side, one arm beneath her jaw, the other, upper arm, crooked slightly at the elbow, and rested on the mattress near her left knee, which was bent slightly upwards.

  Right away, Drake guessed that she must have been asleep when she was attacked. Had she been awake, at least one arm would have been raised to fend off the first blow, and it was unlikely to end up in such a position. The same applied to the theory that she recognised her killer. She would still have made an effort to defend herself, and her final pose indicated anything but.

  In his notes, the pathologist hinted that she may have been left in that position by her attacker, but he found no trace of even the tiniest pressure marks on her body to indicate that she had been turned on to her side after death.

  Far and away the major damage had been done to her head and face. She had suffered an untold number of blows to her skull, so much so that her lips had burst, and peeled away, allowing her teeth and part of the gums to protrude. Her right eye had been shattered and knocked out of its socket, most of which was torn away by the blows, and her jaw, forehead, and that magnificent head of hair, were matted with blood.

  The pathologist confirmed that beneath the wounds were signs that she had been punched at least once, probably to subdue her before the baseball bat was brought in. Given the extent of her injuries, however, it was impossible to ascertain the size of the fist which had struck her. Another possible line of evidence blocked.