Finally, after thirty minutes, he was taken back to the control centre. ‘Can I see the CCTV for that evening?’
‘The tapes were given to the police. We don’t keep copies.’
‘Not even for your files?’
The woman looked down. ‘Not that I am aware.’
A classic politician’s non-answer. He would have to dig more deeply.
‘If you’re now finished, Inspector, I have to get back to my day job. The work is piling up.’
She was rushing him and trying to make him feel guilty for dragging her away from her warm, comfortable office and her important work. For Ridpath, such tactics were like water off a swan’s back. ‘Just a few more questions, I’m sure your work will still be there when you get back. Where did the knife come from?’
‘What knife?’
‘The one found in the room.’
The woman shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t one of ours.’
‘So it would have been smuggled into the facility?’
‘I don’t speculate, Mr Ridpath. That’s the job of the police.’
Unfortunately, a job they had done particularly badly, he thought but did not say. ‘I would have thought the presence of a knife on one of their facilities was a matter of concern for New Hampshire Detention Services?’
‘Not my concern, Mr Ridpath. I deal solely with the public relations matters for the company. I presume other people are investigating how the knife came to be here.’
‘And who would they be?’
‘The Security Head, Mr Collins, working with the Facility Manager, Mr Carlton.’
‘Can I get their numbers and files too?’
‘I already gave them to the police.’
Ridpath wrote the names in his notebook. ‘If you could add them to the other things you are photocopying for me.’
Ms Bagnall sighed again. ‘Anything else, Mr Ridpath?’
He checked his notes. ‘Are Mr Collins and Mr Carlton here today?’
She nodded. ‘They are in training too.’
‘Could I interview them both after the guards?’
‘I’ll ask but I’m not sure they are available.’
‘It would be a great help if they were, otherwise they are going to have to come all the way to the Coroner’s Office to chat with me.’
She exhaled. ‘Anything else?’
‘Just one more question. Which detainees were in the room on either side of Room 7, and could I speak to them?’
‘I don’t know who they were, but I doubt whether you could speak to them.’
‘Why is that?’
‘As I have already explained, this is a Short-Term facility. The… incident… happened a month ago. Those detainees would have been deported or sent to another Centre if their deportation from the country had been postponed.’
Ridpath nodded. ‘I would like to see a list of detainees, where they were staying in the facility and where they were moved or deported to.’
The woman shook her head. ‘Do you know how much work would be involved in your request? It would mean checking the files of 32 different detainees…’
Ridpath nodded. ‘The information would be useful in my investigation, Ms Bagnall. You could provide it for me or I could ask the coroner to subpoena your Managing Director to appear at the inquest on Thursday to explain its absence.’
She held up her hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, OK, I’ll find the information for you even though it’s going to take me hours.’
‘And send me all the other things I have requested.’
She nodded. ‘I will try to email you as much as I can.’
‘This evening?’
‘As soon as I can.’
‘I’m sure you appreciate the urgency of the request, Ms Bagnall, as the inquest starts on Thursday.’
‘I will email you as much as I can… this evening.’
‘Now, if I could interview the guards who were on duty at the time of the incident?’
Another roll of the eyes. ‘Of course, but we prefer to call them Detainee Custody Officers.’
‘Of course you do. So can I see them? And afterwards, the Centre Manager and Security Officer.’
‘I’ll see if they are available.’ She pointed to a room on the left. ‘If you would like to go into the room over there, I’ll bring them to you.’
Ridpath strode towards the door marked Staff Room. He’d had enough of the PR. Now was the time for the real investigation to begin.
Chapter 8
The grey carpet had large coffee stains and the place stank of stale McDonald’s. In the corner, a kettle was surrounded by used coffee mugs and opened jars of coffee and Coffee-mate.
If anything, the staff room was even more depressing than the Removal Centre itself. Ridpath sat in one of the armchairs and it squealed loudly under his weight.
The door opened and two men dressed in white shirts, black ties and black trousers walked into the room accompanied by Lucy Bagnall.
‘These are the men who were on duty on the night of the demise of Ms Tang.’ She pointed to the man on her left. ‘This is Joe Cummings, who discovered the body, and this is Tony Osborne, who was in charge of the CCTV that night.’
Ridpath shook both men by the hand. ‘My name is Ridpath, Detective Inspector Ridpath, I’m the coroner’s officer for East Manchester and I’m conducting an inquiry on behalf of the coroner, Margaret Challoner.’
‘Is she the person we’ll be seeing on Thursday?’ asked Joe Cummings.
‘She’ll be heading the inquest.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m here to ask you some questions, Mr Osborne.’
‘We’ve already been asked thousands of questions by the police. I’m fed up of answering questions.’ He turned to Lucy Bagnall. ‘Do I have to answer more questions?’
‘I’m afraid so, Tony. We have to assist the coroner, but after Thursday, you’ll be done.’
Tony Osborne scowled. ‘Right. Get on with it.’ He sat in an armchair. ‘I’m giving up my break to answer more bloody questions.’
Ridpath sat opposite him, looking at Lucy and Joe Cummings. ‘Mr Osborne has decided he wants to be questioned first. If you could leave us, I’d like some privacy.’
‘But my boss told me to be present at all the interviews.’
‘I need to talk to these men privately now. Or I could do these interviews more formally at the police station.’ Ridpath crossed his fingers hoping she wouldn’t put up a fight. ‘I’ll only be fifteen minutes,’ he added gently.
‘Can we get started?’ interjected Tony Osborne.
‘Fifteen minutes?’ said Lucy Bagnall.
‘Twenty tops,’ replied Ridpath, buying time.
‘OK, I’ll be outside if you need me, Tony.’
She left the room with Joe Cummings in tow.
Ridpath took out his notebook and clicked his pen. ‘Now, your name is Tony Osborne?’
‘She just told you.’
Ridpath ignored the rudeness. ‘How long have you worked at the Immigration Removal Centre, Mr Osborne?’
‘Two years, three months.’
‘And before?’
‘I was at HMP Forest Green near Warrington.’
‘Why’d you move?’
‘Closer to home. I got sick of the travelling. And New Hampshire pays better.’
‘You always work in prisons? I can see from the tattoo you were in the Paras.’
‘Yeah, did my time.’
‘Where?’
‘Northern Ireland, Gulf War.’
‘Tough places.’
‘It weren’t no cake walk. You serve?’
Ridpath shook his head. ‘Never did. The old man, now he was a Para, jumped over Normandy and the Rhine during World War Two. Never forgot it.’
Tony Osborne sat forward, and for the first time his attitude softened. ‘Brave man, jumping out of the arse end of a plane with a bunch of Germans shooting all shades of shite out of
you.’
‘Aye, he was.’ Ridpath stared down at his feet. The closest his old man got to jumping out of a plane was in his dreams. He had been seconded to an Anti-Aircraft Battery during the war. The most fighting he ever did was in the pub on a Saturday night. But Tony Osborne didn’t know that.
‘In your own words, can you tell me what happened on the night of August 19th and morning of the 20th?’
‘I’ve said all this to the police, twice already.’
‘I know, just bear with me. You know what it’s like. I have to go through with this otherwise my boss gets the hump. Bloody bureaucrats, hey.’
‘Standard operating bloody procedures.’
‘Don’t I know about it. Anyway, what happened?’
‘It was a quiet night until four o’clock. Joe went out to do his round. About five minutes later, he called me on the radio, screaming blue murder.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Just shouting about blood, lots of it.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Honest?’
Ridpath nodded. ‘It helps.’
‘Never had a suicide before, not on my watch. So I checked the manual and rang my manager.’
‘You didn’t ring the police or ambulance?’
‘That was next. The manual says ring the Centre Manager first.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘Like I said, after calling him, I rang the emergency services, told them there had been a suicide at the Removal Centre and they said an emergency team and the police would arrive shortly.’
‘Did you go to the room?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have to stay in the control centre otherwise nobody can get in.’
‘The Emergency Team arrived when?’
‘At 4.25. I allowed them to enter and they went to the room, but she was already dead.’
‘Who showed them to the room?’
‘I did.’
‘Where was Mr Cummings?’
‘In the control centre.’
‘So he returned to the control centre after leaving the room?’
‘Yeah, he was pretty shook up. Didn’t want to stay anywhere near the place, I guess.’
‘So it was left unwatched?’
‘Yeah, well she wasn’t going anywhere, was she?’
‘OK, what about the CCTV? Ms Bagnall tells me it wasn’t working outside Room 7 that evening.’
‘A lot of the cameras aren’t working. They disconnect them.’
Ridpath frowned. ‘Who disconnects them?’
‘The detainees. Sometimes they don’t want us to watch.’
‘Why?’
‘Because like all cons, they’ve got their scams going on. Should lock ‘em up longer, I think. Like a bloody hotel this place is.’
Ridpath ignored him. ‘Why do you believe it was a suicide?’
‘What else could it be? A woman cuts her throat. Doesn’t want to go home, does she? They don’t like being deported, most of them have got nothing to go back to.’
‘A couple more things. Joe Cummings says the door was open when he was doing his rounds at 4 a.m. It was how he discovered her.’
‘Yeah, I know, that’s what he told me too.’
‘How could it have been open? I thought all the detainees are locked in their room at 9.15 p.m.’
‘They are. I did my rounds at 3 a.m. and I’m pretty sure it was closed then.’
‘Pretty sure?’
‘I don’t know. If I tell the truth, by that time in the morning I’m pretty bushed and it was supposed to be my day off.’
‘But you were working?’
‘Yeah, we’re always short-staffed. But in the early hours of the morning, I’m not paying much attention, just making sure I swipe my card and trying to get the round over as quickly as I could. I was starving.’
‘Last question before you go. Did you speak to the Chinese woman?’
‘Wendy Chen?’
Ridpath nodded.
‘Nah, why would I speak to any of them except to tell them what to do?’
Ridpath closed his file. ‘Thanks, you can go now.’
Tony Osborne got up to leave. ‘You’ll be there on Thursday at the inquest?’
‘Probably.’
‘See you then.’
As Osborne left the room, Ridpath reached for his notebook. If Osborne hadn’t talked to the dead woman, how did he know her real name?
Chapter 9
The interview with Joe Cummings was just as short. He confirmed all the timings given by Tony Osborne, only adding a little more detail about why he left the woman alone.
‘Well, there was blood everywhere, wasn’t there? And she was lying in her bed with a gash in her throat and I saw her eyes and I just couldn’t stay there any longer. I suppose I should have stayed with her, but she were dead, weren’t she?’
Ridpath had to clarify one point from the police report. ‘You told the police the door to Room 7 was open?’
‘Right. I noticed the difference in the colour…’
‘The difference in the colour?’
‘A thick, black line. The door should be tight to the jamb. It wasn’t.’
‘Pretty good at that time of night.’
‘I’m a bit of a night owl.’
‘So you went in…?’
‘Yeah, wish I hadn’t now. Should have let some other idiot discover it.’
‘Who was responsible for locking all the doors on the second floor?’
‘After we do the count at 9 p.m., they all go back to their rooms…’
‘The detainees?’
‘…And we lock them in. I did the lock up for the second floor and Tony did the third floor that night.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Definite. And I’m also sure I locked all the doors on my floor.’ He stared into mid-air for a long while. ‘But I can’t have done, can I?’
‘One last question. Did you ever speak to the woman?’
‘Well, I came on at six and I remember seeing her sitting all alone in the Recreation Room, just staring at the wall.’
‘So you didn’t talk to her?’
‘I did. I asked her if she was OK. But she didn’t answer me, didn’t even turn around to look at me. Sometimes, they get like that, especially when they are about to be deported. Best to leave them alone.’
Just then Lucy Bagnall burst into the room.
Chapter 10
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Inspector, but if you want to see Mr Carlton and Mr Collins it has to be now. They have to leave in ten minutes.’
Ridpath peered across at Joe Cummings. The man’s hands were trembling and a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. Was he telling the truth? He would have to follow up later. ‘Thank you, Ms Bagnall, I’ve finished with Mr Cummings.’
The custody officer stood, shook Ridpath’s hand and was out of the room in a few seconds. Lucy Bagnall returned a minute later with David Carlton and Stuart Collins.
Ridpath shook their hands and asked them to sit. It was Collins who spoke first, the bright lights of the staff room reflecting off his bald head. ‘So you’re a DI? I was the same, but in West Mercia.’
‘When did you leave the job?’
The bald-headed man nodded. ‘Must be three years ago now. Don’t miss the shifts or the bloody weekends on call. Which division are you in?’
‘I’m attached to the Coroner’s Office at the moment.’
Collins nodded his head. ‘You seem a bit young to be doing the job, plus it’s not usual for somebody of your rank.’
Ridpath wasn’t going to go into long explanations with this man. He checked his watch. ‘If you’ve only got ten minutes, we’d better get started.’ He turned to the man. ‘Your name is David Carlton?’
‘Correct.’
‘Take me through the events of August 19th and 20th.’
‘Not a lot to say.’ Carlton loosened his tie. ‘I was called at
home by Tony Osborne at 4.08 in the morning. He said there had been a suicide in the centre.’
‘He called it a suicide?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on.’
‘That’s all really. I arrived around 4.40 but following standard operating procedure, Osborne kept the medical team and the police in the control room area.’
‘What if somebody were dying?’
‘In the case of suicide, it is the procedure detailed in the manual. I took the emergency services to the room but the woman was already dead. The detective arrived at 6.20 or thereabouts I think.’
‘Did you go in the room?’
‘No. I let the emergency services handle everything.’
‘Mr Carlton, your custody officer, Joe Cummings, told me the door to Room 7 was open. How is that possible?’
‘I don’t know. Cummings was supposed to have locked it the previous evening. He has received demerit points for his dereliction of duty.’
‘Could anybody have entered the room when it was unlocked?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Why?’
‘All the other doors were locked at both ends of the corridor and for each individual room.’
‘Thank you. And now Mr Collins…’
The armchair creaked loudly as the sat back and relaxed.
‘But just one more question, Mr Carlton. Why was the CCTV outside Room 7 not working?’
‘I don’t know, but there were six cameras out of order that night. It’s the bloody detainees, they keep pulling the wires out. Costs us a fortune to get them fixed. You should see my maintenance bills…’
‘Could I see the tapes from then?’
‘I’m sure we have them somewhere, don’t we, Stuart?’
‘We sent them over to the police,’ replied the security manager.
‘But you kept copies?’
‘Of course, never send anything to the police without keeping a copy. Most nicks are like black holes: stuff vanishes inside and never comes out.’
‘Could you send me the tapes?’
‘Sure, I’ll dupe them off for you. But be warned, there are a lot.’
‘Thank you. Were you in the Centre that day?’
‘No, I was in London at a meeting, didn’t get back until two days later.’
Ridpath made a note in his book to check this later. ‘And the knife, how do you think it got into the Centre?’
Where the Innocent Die Page 4