Trial by Fire

by David W Robinson

  Instead, he had to commit it all to memory, and trust that he would not forget come the morning.

  So the summer’s night, never completely dark, settled on HMP Sanford, and in the remand wing, Eric Neave waffled aimlessly and endlessly on the problems of his wife’s death and the fate of his azalea bush, while in the bunk above, Joe Murray drifted into a troubled and fitful sleep.

  ***

  No one noticed Denise when she first walked into the top room of the Miner’s Arms. The meeting was in full flow and it soon became obvious that Les Tanner had been appointed Chairman in Joe’s absence. But the air was thick with debate, some of it angry as George Robson, recently elected shop steward for the workforce of Sanford Borough Council’s Leisure Services, threatened to bring the department out on strike in support of Joe.

  His announcement was greeted with catcalls, moans and groans and some irritated responses before Brenda Jump quietened the crowd down so she could be heard.

  “You know how Joe feels about industrial action, George. He doesn’t approve.”

  “Cos he’s a raving, money-grabbing capitalist.”

  “You’re a raving idiot, but nobody holds it against you,” Mort Norris called out.

  “Say that again, Norris, and you’ll be a hospitalised market trader.”

  Les Tanner rapped his glass on the table. “Order, gentlemen, please.” He concentrated on George. “Industrial action from a department Joe has nothing to do with, won’t help. Come to that, industrial action from any department or company will not make the slightest bit of difference. I’m sure Joe would appreciate your show of solidarity, George, but let’s stick to common sense, constructive ideas.” A hand shot up in the audience, and Tanner narrowed his attention on it. “Alec?”

  Alec Staines, a self-employed painter and decorator, got to his feet and half turned to address the room. “That last time this happened, Joe was slated on TV and in the press. Now I play golf with Ian Lofthouse, the editor of the Gazette. I can try to persuade him to come down in Joe’s favour this time.”

  “That is the kind of thing we need,” Sheila Riley declared. “Brenda and I will be visiting Joe tomorrow. We’ll ensure he has everything he needs while he’s on remand, and we’ll make sure he has the best representation in legal terms, but it would be really helpful if any of you could vouch for Joe’s movements on Monday night. Did anyone in this room see him after he left this place?”

  He query was greeted with silence, and her face fell momentarily. Then her eyes focussed on Denise, and slow anger crept across her delicate features. “Ms Latham, this is a private meeting, and even if it were open to the public, you are the last person who would be welcome here.”

  Silence fell. To a man and woman, the whole room turned and followed the accusation in Sheila’s glare.

  Many of them knew Denise, but not all. Notwithstanding that, she felt a wall of hostility rushing towards her, and nervousness took hold; a nagging doubt that she had felt many times as a police officer. She drew in a breath to calm herself.

  “For those who don’t know,” Brenda declared, “this is Denise Latham, private investigator for North Shires Insurance, and she’s spent the last six months accusing Joe of burning down the old Lazy Luncheonette.”

  A mutter of discontent rumbled through the gathering.

  “That’s not strictly true, Mrs Jump,” Denise said. “I’ve been trying to find out who started that fire, and Joe Murray is only one suspect.”

  “Why don’t you leave now?” Brenda demanded. “While you can still walk.”

  Tanner tapped Brenda on the arm, and there was a whispered exchange, before he addressed Denise. “I’m sorry, Ms Latham, but whether or not you have any bias against Joe, this is a private, members-only meeting, and I must ask you to leave.”

  “Why don’t you all calm down a minute?” Denise suggested. “I’m here to praise Caesar, not to bury him.”

  Sheila tutted. “Aside from an ability to misquote Shakespeare, are you saying you’re no longer interested in the arsonists who burned down our old place?”

  “No. I’m still looking for the culprit and it may very well be Joe. But whatever he’s done, I don’t believe he’s a killer. I think the police have it wrong. And as an ex-police officer myself, I can probably do more good than any strikes in the parks and gardens department or a round of golf with the editor of the local rag.”

  Chapter Eight

  Thursday morning dawned with the now-familiar cloudless skies and soaring temperatures. Facing his two senior detectives, Dockerty’s face did not mirror the glorious weather.

  His accusing stare fell on Barrett. “You’re telling me that the search of both The Lazy Luncheonette and Murray’s flat produced absolutely nothing?”

  The sergeant shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Aside from the netbook, sir, no. We went door to door with the neighbours, and no one remembers seeing Murray’s car leave the area.” He checked his pocketbook. “Team A did get a drum count at The Lazy Luncheonette, although I don’t know what that will prove one way or the other. Twenty-one empty and three full. And forensic did take random samples from some of the empties, but the detailed analysis, and particularly the batch test Murray talked about, will take time.”

  Dockerty’s stare swung onto Gemma, who refused to wither as Barrett had done.

  “We had a report from forensic on Uncle Joe’s car, sir. Under ultraviolet, they found a couple of latent footprints. Both partials, both from trainers. They’re guessing the size at eleven or twelve, and they’ll confirm later when they’ve identified the make.”

  “What size does Murray take?”

  Gemma had no need to check her notes. “Seven, sir.”

  Dockerty dismissed it with an angry downward wave of one hand. “It means nothing. Murray could have had someone else driving. Hell, he could even have put on a pair of size twelves to cover his tracks. Ike, are forensic finished at the café?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll telephone Mrs Riley. The place can open up again.” He ran a hand through his thick head of hair. “I cannot believe we can’t find more evidence.”

  “We have enough, sir,” Barrett insisted.

  Dockerty snorted. “We have enough for a charge, but we do not have one single piece of credible evidence to put Joe Murray at the scene of the crime, and without it, the defence would tear us to pieces. That video, for example. It’s so grainy that we can’t say whether or not it was Murray driving the car. His defence can and will offer alternative explanations for everything we say. The CPS wouldn’t bother taking it to court. We need something to tie this man down at the scene. Something concrete. Something he can’t get out of it.”

  “Sir—”

  Dockerty held up a hand to silence Gemma before she could speak. “I’ve heard it before, Gemma, and I’m not interested. Joe is guilty until I see evidence to the contrary.”

  She sucked in a deep breath. “With respect, sir, you haven’t heard it before, and I strongly object to being treated like probationer.”

  He pointed a quivering finger at her. “I warned Gillespie yesterday about his tone of voice when speaking to me. It applies to you too. Any more and I’ll suspend you.”

  “Then may I suggest you show some respect for my rank and hear what I have to say. That way I don’t need to come on strong.”

  Now Dockerty sighed. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

  Gemma paused a moment to collect herself. “There are only two possible outcomes to our present course of action. Joe is guilty or Joe is innocent. I accept the reasons behind you barring me from the investigation, but we’re only looking at one side of the coin. Suppose Joe really is innocent?”

  “Gemma—”

  “Hear me out, sir. Please. I’m stuck in this station with my thumb up my bum, pottering with evidence, and even then I have to have a constable with me. I could be out there, learning about Vaughan. Is there anyone who hates him enough to murder him… aside from Joe tha
t is? That way, if Joe is proven innocent, at least we might have a start on other suspects.”

  Dockerty drummed his fingers on the desk, his brow furrowed.

  More familiar with the superintendent and his moods, Barrett chipped in. “It makes sense, sir. Murray or not, we will need to look into Vaughan and his past at some point, and if Inspector Craddock is happy to do it…” He trailed off and waited for Dockerty’s decision.

  “All right, we’ll go for it. But I’m warning you, Gemma, if you come across anything that points to your uncle, you come away from it and report back to me. Understood?”

  Gemma nodded. “Perfectly.”

  Dockerty swung his attention back to Barrett. “Murray told us something about the drum count. It’s probably meaningless, but after what we saw on the CCTV, it could give us a line of inquiry. Does the number of drums match up with his accounts?”

  “I, er, I don’t know, sir. We didn’t go through the accounts. We have the books, obviously. Team B found them in his apartment. But it could take days to go through them.”

  The superintendent shook his head. “I know a woman who’ll crack it in a matter of hours. Get a courier. I want those books sent to Tara Ipson in Leeds. Get on the horn to her, tell her what we want and that it’s top priority. I want an answer before the weekend. Gemma, you’re the local yokel, so I’ll leave it to you how you pursue inquiries on Vaughan’s history. Come up with any credible alternatives and something to back up your ideas, and I promise you we will follow it up. Ike, when you’ve sent those accounts to Leeds, gather both teams and get back out to Eastward. Repeat the door-knocking. Someone must have seen more than a dark-coloured Ford Ka arriving there. But don’t go with them. I have another job for you. You’re not gonna like it, but it needs to be done.”

  “Sir?”

  “Get out a map of Sanford. Track the possible routes from Murray’s flat to the murder scene, then get onto the local authority and pinpoint every speed, traffic control and CCTV camera on those routes. It’s a hell of a long shot, but if Joe’s car went out there, he will have been caught on one of those cameras. I want to know where and when.” Dockerty stood. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “Where will you be, sir?”

  “Talking to the press. After I’ve spoken with the chief super.”

  ***

  Irwin Queenan, Chief Planning Officer for Sanford Borough Council, believed in tidiness and organisation, and it was spelled out in the orderliness of his desk, and the cut of his pinstriped suits, and even the precise way his plain tie cut through the centre of his shining white shirts. He was a man for whom the minutiae mattered.

  When, therefore, Les Tanner, Chief Payroll Officer, entered his office, it took Queenan by surprise.

  “I don’t recall our having an appointment, Les.”

  “We don’t,” Tanner replied. “This is off the record and more to do with a matter of mutual concern.”

  Queenan waved his visitor into a chair, one of a pair set at two o’clock and ten o’clock from Queenan’s point of view. “I don’t have long. Chief Executive’s meeting in about half an hour.”

  “I have to be there, too,” Tanner said, taking the offered seat.

  Behind the desk, Queenan glanced through the window while he waited. A bland view of the Town Hall’s rear car park did little to enervate him. At the age of fifty-six, having worked for the Council since leaving school forty years previously, he felt his loyalty and methodical plod to the upper echelons of management, warranted a superior office; one with a view over Market Square perhaps.

  He bought his attention back to Tanner. He did not particularly like the man. Ex-army, ex-Territorial reserve, and an officer, Tanner had come into the Town Hall somewhere in the middle ranks, and made his way up the ladder to the position of Chief Payroll Officer. He had done so through the force of his commanding personality, and his habit of assuming control, even when the matter under discussion was no concern to him.

  He was doing it now. Refusing to speak; applying the pressure of silence, and Queenan knew that the first one to speak would yield the high ground.

  Tanner, however, was an expert; Queenan was not.

  “So? A matter of mutual concern?”

  “Joe Murray,” Tanner said. “Currently on remand, suspected of murdering Gerard Vaughan.”

  “I fail to see what that has to with either of us.”

  “He’s innocent, as you well know.”

  “In that case, he has no need to worry, does he? Forgive me, Les, but I shouldn’t have thought you’d care much about that. It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between you and Murray.”

  “Wrong. Thanks to my time in the army, and my years here at the Town Hall, I’m a better administrator than Joe will ever be, and I thoroughly disapprove of the haphazard way in which he runs the 3rd Age Club. That aside, he is a friend, and I don’t like to see my friends accused of crimes they have not committed.” Tanner leaned forward and jabbed his index finger into the desktop. “Particularly when there are other people in this town, other people in this very building, who have a greater motive for wishing Vaughan dead.”

  Queenan was taken aback. He clasped his hands together, rested them on his swelling abdomen, and glanced at Tanner’s lean figure. How was it that an army officer who had never seen any real action could keep so slim at his age? Queenan’s gnarled fingers and knuckles spoke of advancing arthritis, and his growing belly pointed to a lack of exercise, and yet, he was at least four or five years younger than Tanner.

  He was aware that almost a minute had passed since Tanner’s last remark.

  “Let me get this straight, Les. Are you accusing me of murdering Vaughan?”

  “Of course not. However, after the disgraceful manner in which you manipulated your disciplinary hearing, your name would certainly be on the list of suspects.”

  Queenan almost leapt out of his seat, but his previous thoughts on the comparative fitness of Tanner when compared to himself, prevented him. Instead, he sat forward and reached the telephone. “I think we need to bring this to the attention of the Chief Executive. Don’t you?”

  “Do that. Go ahead, call him. I told you this is off the record, but I’m not saying anything to you that I wouldn’t say to him, and eventually, when the police decide that Joe is innocent, I’ll say it to them, too.” Tanner waved at the telephone. “Go ahead. Make your call.”

  Queenan hesitated, his mind running through many scenarios, all of them worrying. He retracted his hand and sat back.

  “It may interest you to know, Queenan, that as of last night, we have a professional investigator working on Joe’s behalf. A former police officer. Denise Latham. I believe you’ve met her a time or two. She’s primarily interested in the fire which burned down Joe’s old place, and she doesn’t believe he’s guilty of murder. No doubt she’ll be paying you a call.” Tanner smiled sadistically “One thing I love about Joe, you know, is his need for vengeance. It’s enough to scare off the local mafia.” He narrowed needle-like eyes on Queenan. “And when he gets out, I’ve a feeling he may pay you a call too.” Tanner stood up. “Think about it.”

  Queenan stared at Tanner’s back as he left. The malevolence in his glower faded quickly as the door closed behind the Chief Payroll Officer, and turned to one of anxiety. He snatched up the telephone and hurriedly punched in the number. He needed no directory, internal or external to remind him of it.

  “It’s me, Irwin,” he said when the connection was made. “I’ve just had Les Tanner in here, and we have problems.”

  “What sort of problems?”

  Queenan spent another few minutes detailing the things Tanner had said to him. When he had finished he was greeted by near silence. Only the sounds of activity in the office he had called let him know that he was still connected.

  “You know your trouble, Queenan?” said the other man. “You worry too much. Instead of crossing bridges when you come to them, you’re fretting that the bridge will ac
tually be there. Man up, and stop fretting. Joe Murray is where the law has sent him, and he’s unlikely to be coming back soon. As for this bloody woman, well so what? Let her ask her questions. If she knew anything, she’d have picked up her bonus months ago.”

  The line went dead. Queenan slowly replaced the receiver. He felt a shade calmer. It was true that Denise Latham knew nothing, and she would need to widen the net considerably before she could learn anything.

  All the same…

  ***

  Most of the tables in the prison canteen were occupied when Joe joined Sheila and Brenda.

  If the depression of the previous day was bad, his first night and morning in HM Prison Sanford had served only to exacerbate it. Accustomed to living alone, now sharing a cramped cell with the garrulous Eric Neave, he had slept only fitfully, and efforts to bring his fine mind to bear on the matter of Vaughan’s murder, proved useless. Even in the small hours, Neave would wake and disturb his concentration, until he reached the point where he felt he would lose his temper, and then he could not concentrate at all for his inner rage.

  “You don’t have to work if you don’t want, Joe,” Thornton told him when he complained, “but if you like, I can arrange for you to help out in the kitchens.”

  “Pass,” Joe replied. “I’m innocent, Harv, and I need to work on ways of proving it. I won’t be able to do that in the kitchen any more than I can in the cell with Neave prattling fifty to the dozen about his bloody azalea bush.”

  Accommodation options, he was told, were restricted by lack of space, and in the end, he had asked and been granted permission to use the library, and he had stayed there for much of the morning.

  After lunch, he was poring over a map of the old Sanford Main Colliery, which showed both surface and underground roadways, when Thornton found him again, and told him his visitors had arrived.