The Truth About Murder

by Chris Collett

  ‘Lost them?’

  ‘To a wicked spell of cold weather we had, a couple of winters ago. It was tragic. The homeless hostel was out of commission because the council had finally stumped up enough funds for them to do a well-overdue refurbishment. Some of the regulars had the sense to move on to somewhere they could get shelter, but two were found in the park, one dead and the other barely alive. He didn’t make it . . . Liam blamed everyone for it, including the police. He can be a regular conspiracy theorist sometimes.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Poor Denny. I suppose the funeral . . . ?’

  ‘It was last week. I’m sorry. No one at the station seemed to know where you were. It took me until now to get hold of you. You’re a hard man to track down.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that was the general idea. I probably couldn’t have come anyway. I don’t own a suit anymore, and I don’t socialise much these days. I’ll write a note to Sheila, though. Maybe you could take it for me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  It was much too early in the day for me, and I was conscious of my car parked down the field, but I had a few questions for Booth and knew that joining him might oil the wheels a little, so I took the bottle out of my pocket.

  ‘I brought this for you — thought we could drink a toast to our ex-partner.’

  Booth looked momentarily embarrassed.

  ‘That’s nice of you,’ he said. ‘But I don’t do that anymore. Can I make you a cup of tea instead?’

  ‘That’d be great,’ I said with some relief. ‘Milk, no sugar, thanks. You and Denny worked together for quite a while,’ I said, minutes later, taking the mug from him.

  ‘Twelve years,’ he said.

  ‘Wow. You must have built up a good partnership.’

  ‘I guess so. We had a few laughs along the way, too.’

  ‘So why the sudden departure?’

  There was the beat of a pause, during which Booth glanced across at the bottle.

  ‘I decided that the job, and the habits I’d developed to cope with it, weren’t doing either of us any good anymore.’

  ‘It’s true, then.’

  ‘Regrettably, yes. Denny had to cover for me more than once. In fact, it was getting to be a regular occurrence. I had become a liability. It was time to go, for Denny’s sake and for mine.’

  ‘And you don’t drink at all now?’

  ‘Haven’t done since I moved here.’

  ‘That’s impressive.’

  The shrug was self-effacing. ‘I’ve met a nice woman up in the village and, well, the relationship looks like it might have a future. I count myself lucky that the booze didn’t entirely wreck my life. So,’ he held my gaze for a moment. ‘Why are you really here? It isn’t just to tell me about Denny, is it? You could have written to tell me that.’

  ‘I’m interested in a couple of particular cases you and Denny worked on.’

  Booth snorted. ‘Well, you can ask, but I find the memory sometimes lets me down these days, for obvious reasons.’ I didn’t believe that for a moment, but sensed that he might be preparing the way for selective recall.

  ‘They were aggravated assault cases. The victims were Lloyd Jones and Ian Whiteacre.’ I gave him the dates. Jodie Marshall’s attack I knew had happened shortly after Booth’s departure.

  There was a flicker of recognition, I thought, but after a moment’s studied thought Booth shook his head.

  ‘Nah, don’t ring any bells. What’s special about those two?’

  I took care choosing my words. ‘Something about them is puzzling,’ I said. ‘They were logged as robberies, but when I cleared Denny’s locker, I found their stolen possessions stowed there.’

  Booth looked away and out of the window, suddenly fascinated by a thicket of trees in the far distance that were billowing and swaying in the wind.

  ‘You know something about it, don’t you?’ I pressed.

  Without a word, Booth stood and walked up the van, disappearing into one of the rooms at the other end. He was gone a while, and I began to wonder if I had outstayed my welcome and was required to leave. When he reappeared, I was relieved that all he carried in his hands was a shoebox. I’d half expected a shotgun. He passed it to me and I lifted the lid. Inside were two wallets and a mobile phone.

  ‘You might like to add these to your collection.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why have you got them?’ I held his gaze. ‘Why did you really leave? Tony Sutton hinted that you lost your nerve.’

  He let out a derisive laugh. ‘Is that right? It wasn’t anything to do with losing my nerve. It was more about a loss of faith.’

  ‘Come on, you have to tell me more than that.’

  Booth considered for a long moment before finally yielding.

  ‘Like I said, my drinking was increasingly getting the better of me, if you know what I mean, and I’d got into trouble a couple of times. To be honest, the next step was likely to be dismissal. There had been a couple of complaints from members of the public that they could smell alcohol on my breath, that kind of thing. Then one night, I was off duty, round at a mate’s and I’d had a skinful but decided to drive home anyway, thought I could handle it. I couldn’t. I rolled the car over into a ditch and was lucky not to kill myself or anyone else. If I’d been breathalysed, that would have been the end of me, but I called Denny. He came and fetched me and sorted out a mate of his with a tow truck to pull me out. We seemed to have got away with it at the time, but then somehow, months later, Bowers got wind of it. Instead of hauling me in front of a disciplinary, he called Denny into his office and told him there was a way out for us. One of our local councillors was making a lot of noise about what seemed to be a fast-growing crime rate in Charnford. You’re familiar with the Flatwood, of course?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, grim as it is now, it used to be far worse. Practically all of the town’s social problems were centred there. Drugs had long been an issue, and circulation of a contaminated batch had put a few people in hospital. Violence amongst the rival factions vying for control of the supply chain had escalated, culminating in a couple of homicides, but we couldn’t get any witnesses to come forward. Bowers was a relative new boy, so eager to make his mark. His strategy, or at least someone else’s idea that he latched onto, was what he euphemistically called a “light touch” approach based on an unspoken theory that eventually the estate would implode, problem solved. Certain crimes — particularly those centred on the Flatwood that involved physical violence but were not domestics — were to be classified as “Code B”, whatever that meant. We would respond and go through the formalities, but there would be very little in the way of follow-up afterwards. Most of the victims were pretty sad losers themselves anyway, and perceived as troublemakers. So generally, no one made a fuss.’

  ‘Do you think the same people were responsible for all the Code B attacks?’

  ‘That’s what makes most sense to me. Rumour was that there was some kind of gang going around targeting selected undesirables.’

  ‘The White Angels?’

  ‘So you’ve heard of them. I don’t really know where the name came from. Talk was that Bowers had harnessed a little squad of self-appointed vigilantes, but no one could ever pin down exactly who they were, and we were told to stay out of it. I’m pretty sure it was them who torched an Indian-run supermarket, but the only witness statements we could get were either totally useless or were mysteriously withdrawn. We could barely accumulate enough evidence to bring anyone in for questioning, let alone conviction. Meanwhile we focused our attention on any crimes we could press charges on and our conviction rate started to look pretty impressive.’

  ‘But you had no idea who the White Angels might be?’

  ‘We were discouraged from finding out. But gradually, the victim profile seemed to change. That was when it started to get uncomfortable.’

  ‘So how did it work?’

  ‘Where the incident looked like outright assault or homicide, the procedur
e was always to be the same. First thing was to remove any valuables, so that the crimes could be recorded as straightforward robbery or aggravated robbery. Cash was signed over to Bowers, who kept count of it. He told us to get rid of the other stuff.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘We did, to start off with, but then the last few . . . I guess it just didn’t seem right.’

  ‘And for going along with this approach, you were let off the hook?’

  The view outside became suddenly compelling again.

  ‘We got an additional “incentive payment” in our pay packets too, for processing these crimes as instructed and assuming this “additional responsibility” as part of a new initiative. It was sold to us as something upfront and legitimate, a pilot scheme. It even had an operational name, some kind of animal, as I remember it. But the name was irrelevant. It was implicitly agreed that these cases were low priority, so we were less than rigorous with our enquiries.’

  ‘But how could you go along with it?’

  ‘Bowers had me. If I didn’t play ball, I’d be off the force altogether and lose my pay and pension. I’d have survived, but Denny had incriminated himself by now, too. He only had a short while to go, and neither of us wanted to jeopardise his future either. I felt terrible about it. I’d got us into this mess, after all. At the time we tried to rationalise it, behaved as if it was no big deal — it was just a question of reclassifying some crimes and massaging the figures a bit. Bowers’ reasoning was that it allowed us to use our resources more effectively elsewhere, and I suppose on one level, he was right.’

  ‘Sharon Petrowlski implied that the White Angels don’t exist anymore.’

  ‘If they ever did,’ said Booth. ‘Certainly, things on the Flatwood calmed down. Key players were rubbed out, or moved on, and we stopped hearing anything about them.’

  ‘So what made you quit?’

  He indicated the wallets and phone he’d just given me. ‘Because the Code Bs didn’t stop. Milo Ferguson and Jeffrey Kingston-Blake, another couple of names to add to your list.’

  ‘But the victims I’ve looked up just seem like ordinary people—’ I began, interrupted by a sharp ‘crack’ like a gunshot from outside the van.

  ‘Bugger!’ Booth, who was facing the window, jumped up and I looked out to see what he had, a large fence panel snapped by the wind, cartwheeling across the field towards us. Booth flung back the door and we both rushed out. The panel dropped to the ground and we pounced on it before it could take off again, wrestling against the gale which seemed to have gathered still more force in the short time we’d been inside. Somehow between us, we managed to wedge it in a safe place between the rest of the fence and the stone wall, but it would need to be secured.

  ‘I need to fix this before the sheep get in here,’ said Booth.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ I asked, knowing that my skills would only extend as far as holding the nails. But he shook his head.

  ‘Won’t take me long.’

  But it signalled the end of our conversation.

  ‘Thanks for all your help,’ I said, raising my voice above the howling winds. ‘It’s been good to meet you.’ I meant it. It put into perspective the man I thought I’d been competing against these past months.

  ‘You’re not going to try and solve these cases, are you, Fraser?’ he said. ‘Think about Denny’s reputation and your own future.’

  ‘What’s happened isn’t right,’ I pointed out. In truth, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Booth turned to head back to his van. But something must have jogged his memory and he spun round again.

  ‘Ian Whiteacre was knifed, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Poor bugger had been pissed on too.’

  ‘Pissed on?’ I remembered what Greaves had said about the smell, and what Tracy Carrick said about Jodie Marshall. ‘The report doesn’t say anything about that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember writing it up so it must have been one that Denny did. But it’s not something that you forget.’

  * * *

  When we got home on Sunday night, I was doing a reasonable impression of watching TV, but the reality was that those cases were going round and round in my head. Sonia was sorting out the washing.

  ‘These are a write-off,’ she said, coming into the living room with a pair of trousers. ‘I don’t know what you’ve got all over them, but I’ve washed them three times now, and these stains won’t come out.’ She indicated a dark patch on the knee.

  I tried to remember the last time I’d worn those trousers. Then it came back to me.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ I said. ‘It’s blood, Denny’s blood. Ditch them.’ After that, my concentration was completely shot and I was back there on that night, kneeling on that scabby piece of wasteland in the dark. I had a feeling that Sonia had said something of the utmost importance, but I couldn’t pin down what it was.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Rita Todd was getting her day in court, it just wasn’t the one any of us would have imagined. The inquest into her death was held in a large room in the basement of the law courts in the centre of town, an old wood-panelled building with leaded windows, which felt overheated and oppressive on this sunny spring morning. The courtroom was about half-full with a few faces I recognised — including, towards the back, one I couldn’t quite place, but which triggered a distant but elusive memory.

  The coroner opened the proceedings by describing the circumstances in which the inquest was being held and briefly explaining how things would play out. The medical evidence and testimony from the pathologist I’d met briefly at the identification reflected what Fraser and I had been told at the time.

  ‘Death was by drowning sometime between four p.m. and four a.m. on the night of Friday the fourth of March,’ he said. ‘There were no indications on the victim of foul play, though there were signs of some historic injuries, a broken arm and cheek bone some time ago, but nothing recent. Traces of a prescription medication, taken for depression, were found in her bloodstream, along with evidence of sleeping pills. I understand from the police that these were consistent with medication that was found at the deceased’s house.’ I glanced over at Andrea Todd. She wasn’t surprised to hear any of this. Someone had enlightened her beforehand.

  ‘And what effect, in your opinion, would the quantity found have had on the deceased?’ the coroner asked.

  ‘It would have been sufficient to take the edge off her concentration.’

  ‘So a walk down by the river wouldn’t have been the best idea.’

  ‘It probably wasn’t wise, no. Another explanation might be that Rita Todd had resolved to take her own life and took the sedatives in order to make that process easier.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Shea.’

  A police officer I didn’t recognise then gave evidence.

  ‘It has not been possible to ascertain precisely where Mrs Todd entered the river, but according to the current and flow, we made an estimate and found Ms Todd’s backpack close to this area.’ He pointed on a map to the stretch just below the bridge. ‘The riverbank deteriorated rapidly in the adverse weather, but there’s no evidence in that vicinity that any kind of struggle took place. Statements from those who knew Mrs Todd have concurred that she was, at the time of her death, under some stress as she had been suspended from her job pending an investigation into allegations of professional misconduct.’

  So that was it, a formal rationale for Rita’s suspension. Why on earth had she chosen to keep that from me? Guy Leonard came next, looking rather more in command of his faculties than the last time I had seen him.

  ‘Mr Leonard, you were Mrs Todd’s employer,’ verified the coroner.

  ‘I was her line manager, Your Honour. Rita was employed by the health service.’

  ‘Of course. I understand that she had been suspended pending disciplinary action. In your opinion, how much of a threat to her livelihood was this likely to be?’

/>   ‘I have no doubt that Rita could have fully accounted for her actions,’ Leonard said with confidence.

  ‘So it is likely that she would have been exonerated and reinstated?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  Hm, easy to say now.

  ‘And do you think Mrs Todd was aware of this?’ the coroner asked.

  ‘I’d had no contact with her since her suspension, so I had no way of knowing that. But Rita was an excellent nurse and I had no reason to doubt her general competence.’

  ‘Then why the allegations?’ I murmured to myself.

  Andrea Todd at last had an opportunity to speak.

  ‘Miss Todd, you are the victim’s daughter, and I understand that you would also like to make a statement?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’ She gave her evidence, her voice clear and steady. ‘My mother was Catholic by faith. Although she had not practised actively for a number of years, I am certain that the idea of taking her own life would have been abhorrent to her.’

  ‘You spoke to her about this?’ the coroner asked.

  ‘Not explicitly, no.’

  Were I a police officer, this is where I could have interjected to request an adjournment while lines of enquiry were pursued. But the coroner was quick to reach his conclusions.

  ‘I record a verdict of death by misadventure,’ he said. ‘I think we have enough evidence to indicate that Rita Todd was in a depressed state due to her job situation. Combined with the post-mortem report that tells us that she had quantities of sedative drugs in her bloodstream and a lack of evidence of any kind of foul play, it is likely that she fell into the river and drowned.’

  As the coroner spoke, I saw Guy Leonard turn and exchange a glance with a woman standing towards the back of the room. Wearing a troubled expression, she acknowledged him with the slightest incline of the head, then slipped through the crowd and walked out. As I watched her go, another stricken face briefly passed my line of vision, Father Adrian also hurrying out without speaking to anyone.

  Outside, I caught up with Andrea Todd.

  ‘How are you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Hardly the outcome I wanted, though I suppose it could have been worse. You were right about her suspension from work.’ Delving into her bag, she brought out an envelope, torn open along one side. ‘This came through to Mum from the Royal College of Nursing. It details the allegations against her.’