A Carriage of Misjustice

by Charlie Cochrane

  “And is everyone on the team as understanding? On the pitch and in the stands?”

  “If you know rugby, you’ll know it’s an inclusive sport. There’s the odd dinosaur, but you get them anywhere, and most of us at Hartwood would say it takes all sorts to make a world and so long as a bloke’s a fair player on the field and a good mate off it, we don’t give a toss what he gets up to in private.” Dave’s eyes narrowed. “Anyway, what’s this got to do with that dead bloke?”

  “This is going to sound a cliché, but at the moment we don’t know what’s relevant to finding his killer and what isn’t.” Robin sought for an analogy to build rapport. “In your job, you have to plough through a pile of numbers and budget readouts to see the bigger picture. You’ll be working out which of the smaller numbers you can safely ignore and which of them you have to drill down into.” Robin had met a secondary school finance manager a few months previously—not through Adam and his education connections for once, but at a community liaison event at Abbotston station. The similarities in some aspects of both their roles had been striking. “I do the same thing, but with facts.”

  Dave nodded, apparently impressed. “I stand corrected. What facts can I help you with?”

  They asked for an account of the Wednesday evening, up to the point the police arrived, which Dave provided logically and in a lot fewer words than his mate Andy. His statement matched what they’d already been told, without being so identical in wording it raised suspicions. Yes, he’d been last to arrive and last out of the changing rooms but no, he’d not seen anyone lurking about then. Or subsequently.

  “Mr. Preese insisted you had a shower before going to the hospital?” Robin asked, insouciantly.

  Dave rolled his eyes. “He’s a touch obsessive about cleanliness. His house looks he cleans it every hour on the hour, you know? He’s not realised that other folk don’t feel the same.”

  “You didn’t believe the casualty staff would be offended by a spot of mud and sweat?”

  “Too right.”

  “So, to clarify,” Callum said, “Andy tried to get you to go into the changing rooms right after the accident, but you didn’t want to. Nor did you want to go in to take a shower. Was there another reason for that, one you’re not sharing with us?”

  Dave leaned forward, halfway out of his chair, hands on the desk. “Now you hold on! I didn’t have anything to do with the murder. I got the shock of my life finding the dead man.”

  Robin raised his hand. “Calm down. Nobody’s saying you had anything to do with it. Like I said, we need the full picture to see how it all hangs together. For example, to discover whether anybody else was trying to stop you going in there,” he added, soothingly.

  “Okay.” Dave sat down again. “No, nobody tried to stop me. Andy was all for getting me off the pitch because of the state I was getting into. I never meant Greg to get hurt. If I could go back and live that evening again, I’d take another line when I ran, and Greg would be okay.”

  “You can’t know that,” Robin said. “If he went into the tackle a different way, he might have ended up worse than he is.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Dave was clearly not convinced, though. “I was damn close to giving up the game. The following Saturday’s match got postponed as a mark of respect—none of us would have had the heart to play in it, anyway—but Coach said he expected us all to turn up for the next training session. If Greg couldn’t play, we had to take the pitch for him.”

  “He’s right. Wouldn’t help anyone to let the team down.” Robin sympathised with the sentiment. “Back to the night in question and events off the pitch. You and Andy both saw the dead man.”

  “God, yes. I’ll never get that sight out of my mind. I’m just grateful the cubicle door didn’t cover up the body entirely or I’d never be able to use a public loo again. Too paranoid about opening closed bog doors.” Typically British laughing off a bad situation.

  “Sorry to make you relive it, but had either of you seen him before?”

  “If I had, I don’t remember him.” That was different to the categorical no Dave had given in his initial statement on the night the body was found, but he’d have been in shock then. Still, Robin made a note of the fact.

  “And did you see anyone lurking around the clubhouse that night who shouldn’t have been there?”

  An emphatic no this time. “Andy and I have mulled it over all ways up and we’re sure nobody went up the tunnel, either. Not even any of the squad.”

  “How’s Greg coping financially?” The question from Callum took both Dave and Robin by surprise. Robin wasn’t sure where the constable was going with it but decided to let him have his head. He could be reined in later.

  “He’s doing okay,” Dave replied, after a pause. “He works in software for a big insurance company, where he’s always been office based, so there’s no implications on that front. And anyway, his company is desperate not to lose him. It’s in a modern building with good access, although it’s slightly different with the flat he and Dawn were planning to buy together, which was top floor in a building with no lift. Luckily, it’s a new build, so Dawn was in there like a shot to see if they could transfer to a ground floor property that had wheelchair access. She’s definitely missed her calling as a referee, because nobody would argue with her, would they?”

  “I wouldn’t know, not having met her yet,” Robin said, with a grin. Funny how Dave was coming across a lot more concerned about Greg and his accident than he’d been when describing finding the dead body, but maybe that was understandable, given it was his mate and he was the person responsible for hurting him.

  “But there’s a fundraising campaign going on,” Callum persisted. “Why does Greg need help if everything’s all right?”

  Dave shot him a sharp look. “Don’t go thinking that because everything’s all right on the surface it’ll be easy for him. His life has totally changed. Rugby was a big part of his life, and now that’s denied him. We can’t make that better, but we can damn well make other things a bit easier for him. We’re not sure what the prognosis is for him walking again, but in a worst case he might need a properly adapted bathroom, with a wheel-in shower or a hoist or whatever the occupational therapist reckons would be best for him. We’ll raise the money, and we’ll trust him and Dawn to know what best to spend it on. To be honest, it isn’t only for his benefit.”

  “Whose, then?” Robin asked.

  “The team’s. If things have changed for Greg, then they’ve changed for us too. Me in particular. Anything we can do to make some sort of recompense, then we’ll do it. It’s helped us to cope.” Dave pushed his hair back, wildly. “We’ve got some irons in the fire already, but frankly, I’d have put my hand up to do anything, even sponsored toilet cleaning or drain unblocking.”

  The nastier the activity, the better for helping him overcome any lingering sense of guilt?

  “There have been fundraising campaigns at the club before?” Callum continued his line of questioning, and by the glint in his eye, he was getting closer to his goal.

  “Yes. Not long after I joined the club, I got involved with running a campaign. There’d been a young player who got knocked off his bike and killed on the way home from a match with Tuckton Chiefs. They’re our big local rivals, only based about ten miles from here, but they were great in terms of pitching in.”

  “Tuckton Chiefs?” Callum was clearly trying to sound insouciant but failing. “The dead man, Nick Osment, used to play for them, as well.”

  “Did he?” Dave shook his head. “I had no idea.”

  Neither had Robin.

  “He seems to have given up playing several years ago,” Callum clarified.

  “If you say so. I don’t remember playing against him at any point, but you don’t remember everyone on the opposition, not across a season. It doesn’t help that I have an awful memory for faces. Gail, that’s my wife, is always telling me off about it because I blank people in the street, bu
t I can’t help it.”

  “It’s possible you might have met him and not remembered?” Robin asked.

  “Quite possibly. Rugby can get ale heavy postmatch if you’re not the designated driver, so after four pints, I might have slow danced with the bloke and not been any the wiser later.”

  Robin frowned. That was a neat way of covering up the fact that you’d met somebody—if anybody later reported you’d been seen together, you’d say you were too tanked up to remember. Rugby connection noted, though, alongside the fact that the Tuckton Chiefs hadn’t featured in any of the summaries of the case they’d read or heard.

  Callum cast Robin an inquiring glance, got a nod, then continued. “Back to the lad who was killed. You raised money for a memorial bench?”

  “Yes, but we also donated to an organisation that does education work with young players in rugby and other sporting clubs about the importance of keeping safe and not getting caught up in the postmatch drinking culture.”

  “Had this lad been drinking that night?”

  “A couple of pints of shandy, if that, according to Coach, but that’s not the point. He felt it important to spend some of the money on preventing similar tragedies at other clubs. Likelier to get yourself into trouble by having a few pints and driving home than being the victim of a hit-and-run. They never pinned down who was responsible.”

  “Was the lad who was killed—Jamie Weatherell—gay?”

  Again, Dave seemed surprised at the question. “I think so. He’d been involved from the days it was purely for gay and bi blokes. He’d have been no bigger than a kid when he started out. Probably the water boy. Anyway, the club hadn’t long opened its doors wider when I joined. Is this relevant?”

  Robin was wondering the same thing.

  Callum continued. “Thing is, I’ve—we’ve—heard that there was a spot of trouble between the two clubs dating back to when Hartwood set up as a rainbow team. Was there a homophobic element?”

  “Ah.” Dave raised his finger, as though about to tell off a pupil who’d been nicking from the canteen. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, there. The originally Hartwood RFC folded about ten years ago because it wasn’t financially viable. I don’t think anybody had their fingers in the till, so the demise was probably due to years of amateur management. People with good intentions but not the right skills. Anyway, loads of the players went to Tuckton, and they were swanking it all over the county about how they’d managed to thrive when others hadn’t. When Hartwood resurrected itself as a rainbow club, they were fine about it; what they didn’t like was when it expanded to take a wider range of players.”

  “People left Tuckton to go back to Hartwood?” Robin asked.

  “Yep. Although not this Osment bloke. Coach would have said if he’d ever played for us. Thing is, we’ve overtaken Tuckton in the league, and that’s made the rivalry worse.”

  “Bad enough turning out for the rivals but making them a success . . .” Robin left the sentence hanging. Both he and Dave understood sporting enmity. Could that have been relevant in this case, though? An ex-Tuckton player for whatever reason taking revenge on the opposition or maybe something simpler? “Haven’t you got a match against Tuckton coming up?”

  “Yeah, next Saturday. It’ll be even more significant, given that Greg’s supposed to be allowed to come and watch, medical condition permitting. The boys will want to put on a good performance for him.”

  Robin nodded. Bloody brave of Greg to be sitting in the stands, watching a game he’d never again be part of. “This may seem a daft question, but does spying happen at this level of rugby? You know, watching the opposition practice so you can note their line-out calls or whatever.”

  Dave put his fingers to his mouth in thought. “I’ve never heard of it going on, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t. Are you thinking that this Osment bloke came along to watch us with the intention of Tuckton getting one up?”

  “Just exploring the possibilities,” Robin said, aware that Callum was fidgeting in his chair: clearly this wasn’t the line of questioning he’d been going to take.

  “If you’re exploring the possibility that someone on our team caught him in the act and duffed him up, you’ve got another think coming.” Dave shook his head agitatedly. “We can all account for each other, all during training. And that’s not closing ranks or covering up.”

  Robin hadn’t suggested it was.

  Callum, evidently unable to hold his tongue any longer, said, “Is it true that there were anonymous complaints about the money being raised for the bench?”

  “Eh? Oh, now . . .” Dave wagged his finger, “Coach did say something about troublemakers, but it’s all so long ago. I don’t remember.”

  “Perhaps you’d remind Dave,” Robin asked the constable. And enlighten him at the same time.

  “There were letters to the local paper and a spate of nasty remarks on social media. The letters were anonymous and the comments from a sock puppet account. Saying that people should donate their money to proper causes. That it was immoral paying for a memorial bench when there were children in Africa starving to death.” Callum was visibly moved at what he was saying. Perhaps he shared that opinion. “People at the time linked it to bad feeling between the two clubs. An implication that Hartwood blamed Tuckton for what happened to the lad who was killed. The fact he was not any old player but the groundsman’s son making it closer to home.”

  Dave stared at the constable, clearly trying to take in all he’d been told. Eventually he shrugged. “Pass. The bloke to ask about this would be Coach. He knows everything about everything. Not only Hartwood but all gossip from all the local teams.”

  “Would he know if the person making those accusations was Osment?”

  “How the hell would I know that? This is my job.” Dave swept his hand over the paper on his desk. “Not reading minds.”

  Once back in the school visitor car park, with the usual concluding part of the interview—“contact us if you think of anything else relevant” and the like—conducted in a frigid atmosphere, Robin could contain himself no longer.

  “All that rugby club stuff. Sergeant Davis and I haven’t been made aware of any of it. Can I ask why?”

  “I only turned it up last night, sir.” Callum kept his eyes fixed on the car boot, seeming to take forever to put his briefcase in it. “I was scrolling back through some of the local papers for any mention of Osment, and it turned up a match report from one of Tuckton’s games. He’d been sent off for a combination of foul play, swearing at the ref, and making homophobic comments. Got a ban for that.”

  “Okay.” Robin bit back on tearing a strip off the constable as he’d clearly shown initiative and maybe this had been an ill-judged attempt to impress. “Next time make sure you’ve shared the info with me before the interview. What about the anonymous letters and comments stuff?”

  “I discovered that last night too.” Callum, perhaps aware he’d got off lightly, at last summoned the nerve to look Robin in the eye. “You know what it’s like when you start following something on the internet. Half an hour later you’re down the rabbit hole with Alice. There was another match report about a game against Hartwood and it harped on about the two teams’ rivalry. When I put that into the search engine, I turned up some blog posts and one of them detailed all the stuff going on about the fundraising. I never necessarily believe what I read online, so I wanted to confront Dave with it, to see if he’d confirm it.” Callum paused, no doubt realising he’d been a wazzock to have played this hand solo. “I should have told you about that too. I was wrong.”

  “You were. Don’t do it again.” Robin couldn’t help but be amused at the hangdog expression the constable had adopted. “I’m going to ring Sergeant Davis in case she’s still with Derek Preese—Coach—and update her.”

  Fortunately, Pru and Sally were still with Preese, and the sergeant promised to ask him about the alleged complaints about the charitable campaign.

  “Anythi
ng else he can tell us about the history between the clubs would be useful too.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Robin ended the call, then sat thinking as Callum drove them back to the station. A germ of an idea was forming in his mind. If you were the killer and wanted to murder Nick Osment, surely the most sensible thing would have been to meet him somewhere quiet, do the deed, and hide the body where it wouldn’t be found for a while. Even a few days could obscure the accuracy of estimating time of death and so help support an alibi for yourself. Murdering the victim at the club itself and hardly bothering to hide the body must be significant.

  What if the lingering resentments between the clubs, on whatever count, provided that important factor? What if it had been somebody from the Tuckton club who’d caused Jamie Weatherell’s death? No, that wouldn’t make sense, because in that case why object to the fundraising, unless it was a muddled attempt to cover up that involvement? In any case, that scenario would be more likely to result in someone from Hartwood going to the Tuckton ground to cause trouble. Which raised an important question: If Osment had been visiting the Hartwood training ground off his own back, how had he got inside the building?

  What had been in the victim’s mind that evening? Meeting someone, trashing the changing rooms, nicking valuables—the list could go on. And had one of those directly led to his death or had Osment simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

  Back at the station, waiting for Pru and Sally to return, Robin gave Melanie a ring about her husband’s involvement in the Tuckton club. She made no secret of the fact he’d played for them.