Crowner and Justice

by Barrie Roberts

  He wasn’t drunk enough to fall right into that. He paused for a while, then said, ‘I was stressed and angry and I was in pain from the assaults inflicted by your clients.’

  ‘So much so,’ I said, ‘that you also failed to consider the Human Rights Act, am I right?’

  He stared at me, genuinely nonplussed. ‘I don’t know anything about the Human Rights Act,’ he said at last.

  Excellent answer. I left it there and changed tack.

  ‘You told us, yesterday, about a period when BDS was plagued by wildcat strikes. You implied that the Union was not involved. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They were illegal and unsupported strikes, brought about by people on the shop floor.’

  ‘So, since they were illegal, you could have sought legal remedies against the strikers, you could have sought injunctions against them.’

  ‘I could, yes, but they were too short, a day or two at most.’

  I nodded. There was another question — one which had exercised my mind since I first understood the case — but there was no way that I was going to ask it.

  ‘Was Mr Mulvaney employed by BDS at that time?’

  ‘No,’ he grudgingly agreed.

  ‘Or Mr Martin?’

  ‘No,’ even more grudgingly.

  ‘But there was a Union branch at the works?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve told you, the Union didn’t support any of those actions.’

  ‘And who was the Union’s representative at that time?’

  ‘A Mr Dunn.’

  ‘Is that the same Mr Dunn who was the firm’s Personnel Manager at the same time?’

  He stared at me with real dislike. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. There was no reason why he should not be, and no one else put up for the post.’

  ‘And do you think that the wildcat strikes may have arisen from a perception by the Union’s members that their employers had in place a tame Union representative who was high on the firm’s payroll?’

  He clenched his fists. ‘If you’re implying what I think...’ he began.

  I cut him off. ‘I’m implying nothing, and you need not bother to answer that question.’

  Time to ease off, ready for the final scene.

  ‘In your letters of dismissal, you accused all three of my clients of trespass, including the one who wasn’t even at the gate. Is that a genuine complaint, or was that, too, an invention of your word processor?’

  He scowled, in unison with the chairman who growled, ‘Mr Tyroll’ and lifted a threatening pencil.

  ‘When I approached the gate,’ Bailey said, ‘Mulvaney and Martin were standing inside the gate, in conversation with Barlow, the gate Security Guard.’

  ‘They were talking to him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know what they were talking about?’

  ‘Barlow later confirmed to me that he was telling them that he had been instructed to exclude them and urging them to go away.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘Of course I believed him! Why should I not?’

  I nodded. ‘So, Mr Barlow was carrying out your instructions and, for all you knew, the Applicants were about to leave peacefully. Yes?’

  He snorted. ‘For all I knew they might just as well have been about to walk further into the premises.’

  ‘But they didn’t?’

  ‘Well, no, but that was because I arrived.’

  ‘I see. And would you normally treat standing on the firm’s premises as serious misconduct, warranting immediate dismissal?’

  ‘Of course not. The letter is intended to refer to the trespass and the assaults together.’

  I nodded again. ‘And, while Mr Mulvaney and Mr Martin were standing innocently just inside your gate, you arrived,’ I said, evenly, ‘and abused and attacked Mr Mulvaney.’

  His black eyes widened and his flush deepened. ‘I abused and attacked Mulvaney!’ he exclaimed. ‘I spoke to Mulvaney and he and Martin attacked me. I’ve told you that.’

  ‘So you have, but like a lot of other things you have told the Tribunal, it is not true. The facts are, Mr Bailey, that you opened your office window and shouted something towards the gate when you first saw Mr Mulvaney and Mr Martin, and then you, Cheetham and Cantrell approached the gate. On your arrival, you abused Mr Mulvaney and struck him. He hit back in self-defence and you were restrained by Barlow and the others. Is that not what really happened?’

  ‘I struck Mulvaney! Why on earth would I do that?’

  ‘Because, Mr Bailey, you were stressed and angry, as you have said, and because you were also drunk.’

  ‘I was drunk?’ he almost shouted. ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Mr Tyroll!’ snapped the chairman, ‘I hope you are cross-examining on evidence and not merely attacking Mr Bailey.’

  ‘Far be it from me, sir, to make a personal attack upon Mr Bailey,’ I said. I turned back to the witness. ‘There are witnesses who will say that, when you attacked Mr Mulvaney you smelled strongly of alcohol.’

  He half rose from his seat — as fine a picture of an aggressive drunk as one might wish — and cut me short. ‘Witnesses!’ he exclaimed. ‘What witnesses?’

  ‘You have fallen,’ I said, ‘into a peculiar pattern of asking me questions, Mr Bailey, which is not the way it is supposed to work. You will hear the witnesses in due course.’

  ‘They’re liars!’ he said.

  ‘So far,’ I said, ‘the only untruths which this Tribunal has heard have come from you, Mr Bailey,’ and I sat down.

  The chairman called a surprise teabreak, presumably to give Bailey the chance to simmer down. Bailey used it to give Maddox an earbashing in the corridor about the way I had treated him. Now I knew why the Deputy Head of their legal section was presenting the case — Maddox’s boss had won the toss.

  Our audience were warmly enthusiastic about the cross-examination of Bailey, so I had to remind them again that this was the easy bit and hold up to Mulvaney the dangers of losing your temper while giving evidence.

  The rest of the afternoon was filled with Greene and Swan. There were few surprises, although Greene recalled that it had been Bailey’s idea to use computer personnel in Accounts and had even suggested Mohammed Afsar. I made a note to ask Mohammed if he had ever fallen out with Bailey previously. Had he been set up to be dismissed?

  If he had, the answer might lie in what Swan said. He agreed that it was a regular practice, when work was slow in his section, for Accounts to borrow personnel. Nobody had ever refused before Mohammed, but Mohammed had been extremely critical of the practice and had said he would not co-operate. I pursued the point briefly.

  ‘You say that you were aware that Mr Afsar objected to the practice, Mr Swan?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘Did you understand his objections?’

  ‘I understood that a highly-trained computer programmer would not like to be used as mere input clerk, yes.’

  ‘But you passed on Mr Greene’s request, nevertheless?’

  ‘I had no alternative. It was done with Mr Bailey’s authority. I had to pass it on to

  Mohammed.’

  He was only obeying orders, even though he knew the terms of Mohammed’s contract.

  ‘As his Head of Section, you were aware of the detailed provisions of Mr Afsar’s Contract of Employment? The job description?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said and I sat down again.

  ‘Bonzer!’ said Sheila as she drove me home. ‘You’re not bad at this legal stuff, Chris Tyroll.’

  She had seen me a couple of times in a Magistrates’ Court, but this was the first time she had sat through a long cross-examination.

  ‘Kind of you to say so,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure that we’ve got very far.’

  ‘You’ve made Bailey a liar.’

  ‘That would be good if we had a Jury or a bench of lay Magistrates, but those three on the Tribunal are professionals — barrister chairman, management representative and that doz
y old berk from a union, who’s only there for the fees and isn’t paying attention anyway.’

  ‘So you don’t think you’ve done much good?’

  ‘Well, I’ve cleared Mohammed of assault and trespass, I’ve minimised the trespass so that it can hardly be said to be worth instant dismissal and I’ve raised the shadow of serious breaches of the Joint Agreement.’

  ‘So, it’s not all bad, then. Who do we kick off with tomorrow?’

  ‘Cheetham,’ I said. ‘Because he was at the gate, and Maddox and Bailey will be rehearsing him all night if necessary.’

  I didn’t need to prepare for Cheetham’s evidence, so we relaxed and took an early night.

  At two in the morning the phone rang. I came out of sleep cursing. I had done a deal with my assistant Alisdair that he would field all late night emergencies while the Tribunal hearing went on.

  It was Alisdair calling. ‘Sorry to drag you out, gaffer,’ he said, ‘but John Parry’s been on the emergency number.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ I said, ‘he’s been arrested.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ignoring my sarcasm, ‘he’s got a suspicious death that he wants to talk to you about. I told him I’d try and contact you.’

  ‘Thanks a million,’ I muttered. ‘What’s it about? Who’s dead?’

  ‘I don’t know. Someone at Kerren Wood, I think. He’s at the Police Station there. Will you ring him?’

  I agreed and rang off. Sheila was sitting up. ‘What’s the go?’ she enquired.

  ‘John Parry’s got himself a dead body and thinks I can help,’ I said and dialled Kerren Wood Police Station.

  The switchboard put me through to John Parry. ‘DI Parry,’ he answered, brusquely.

  ‘Chris Tyrol,’ I said. ‘This had better be good, to wake me at two when I’ve got a hearing in the morning. Who’s dead?’

  ‘Hello, Chris. I’d forgotten you’ve still got your Tribunal hearing, sorry. But I’ve got a dodgy death and I think you knew him. His wife says you did some business for him.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A bloke called Samson, lived in Kerren Wood.’

  I had been coming more awake and that finally did it. ‘Samson!’ I exclaimed. ‘How did he get himself killed?’

  ‘A bit complicated and a bit peculiar,’ John said, ‘but it looks like murder. Can you think of anyone who’d kill him?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘What I did for him wasn’t that kind of business — not the kind people kill over.’

  ‘What time you going to the Tribunal tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘About nine.’

  ‘Put an extra breakfast on. I’ll see you in the morning when I’ve wrapped up here.’ I suppose he was being kind and expected me to sleep after that, which of course I didn’t. I lay and fretted about how a completely ordinary bloke like Samson had got himself murdered. Sheila, when I couldn’t give her all the details, rolled over and went straight back to sleep. I fell asleep eventually, and dreamed of Sheila and I herding ponies and kangaroos across a great plain, which meant I woke up remembering that she was due back in Australia after Christmas.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  John Parry and I sat either side of the breakfast table, his broad face pale from his long night on the case and me feeling like he looked. It seemed only decent to let him get some food and coffee in him before pressing him for details.

  When I had woken up a little and he had relaxed, I asked about Samson. ‘How did you know him?’ he responded.

  I told him about Maiden’s pony-rustling and the way it all ended. ‘I thought it was one of my better legal strokes,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Certainly doesn’t look like the reason he was killed,’ he commented.

  ‘You didn’t seem entirely certain that it was murder last night,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, I wasn’t, and I’m still not. It could have been an accident, but I don’t think so.’

  For some reason Sean McBride’s death flickered at the back of my memory. ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘You know where he lived? In Kerren Wood?’

  ‘Yes. He lived in one of those houses on the other side of the village, past the White Lion.’

  ‘Right,’ said John. ‘The White Lion was his local and that’s where he’d been last night. He used to walk along the lane past the houses to the pub. Last night, as he was walking home, about 11.30, he was hit by a car and left dead at the roadside.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a dodgy lane and 11.30 is premium time for drunken drivers. Surely it’s just a hit and run?’

  He poured himself another coffee. ‘I don’t think so. We’ve got a witness who has a strange story.’

  ‘A witness who saw the impact?’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘No, no. Not that good, but good nevertheless. You know the grass track that opens on the left, about halfway between the White Lion and the end of the houses?’

  ‘Yes. It used to be the access to an old Coal Board tipping site, but now it’s just a lovers’ lane.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘right opposite that opening lives Mr Arthur Freeman. Mr Freeman is old and lives alone and disapproves of almost everything, including television, which he does not watch very much.’

  ‘Is this going somewhere?’ I asked, impatiently.

  ‘Hold hard, boyo, and all will be revealed. Last evening, Arthur Davies was enjoying one of his favourite occupations, namely sitting in his front room keeping a disapproving eye on the narrow world of Kerren Wood, like Captain Cat himself only a good deal less kindly.’

  ‘He’s not blind like Captain Cat, is he?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no. Far from it. Anyway, he saw Samson pass by on his way to the White Lion at about eight. Then he saw a car come from the direction of the White Lion and back into the opening opposite his gaff.’

  ‘Fornicators?’ I hazarded.

  ‘Well, of course, that’s what he thought and that’s one of his favourite gripes. They park in there, he told me, and when they get down to business they bang bits of themselves on the horn button or their alarms go off by accident. Apart from the sinfulness, he objects to the noise. Says that sometimes he’s gone across and banged on the car windows and told them to go.’

  ‘Sounds a really nice old person,’ I said, remembering my own days of gymnastics in a Mini. If some old voyeur had come and banged on my window at the wrong moment I’d have died.

  ‘Yes, well, you have to take the witnesses you’ve got in my business. It’s not like being a lawyer, where you can bribe them and rehearse them and...’

  ‘Shut up, or tell me the rest,’ I said. ‘Did he go across for a closer view last night?’

  ‘No. He didn’t because it wasn’t a courting couple and there wasn’t any noise. It was a man in the car — on his own.’

  ‘And what did he do? The man in the car?’

  ‘That’s what intrigued old Arthur. He thought it must be an assignation with some local woman, so he sat and watched to see which of his neighbours’ wives or daughters was up to something and was going to turn up and join the bloke in the car.’

  ‘And who did?’

  ‘Nobody. The bloke just sat in his motor — Davies says he thinks the bloke was reading a book — and nobody else came along.’

  ‘That’s odd!’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it just? Why would you park in a lovers’ lane on your own on a September evening and sit there for nearly three hours, maybe reading a book?’

  Sheila had been sitting silent. Now she joined in. ‘Perhaps he’s an incurable romantic whose greatest moments were in that lane and he comes back on the anniversaries and gives himself a Sherman for old times’ sake.’

  ‘A Sherman?’ queried John.

  ‘A wank,’ she explained.

  ‘It’s J. Arthur in English,’ he said, severely. And that wasn’t what he was doing. He was waiting for Samson.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because, about 11.30, he switche
d on his lights and shot out of the entry in the direction of the White Lion.’

  ‘How does that prove he hit Samson?’ asked Sheila.

  ‘It doesn’t. What proves it is the man who found Samson. He was another drinker from the White Lion. He came down the road just after a car had gone the other way. He found Samson lying at the roadside and went to the phone. Old Arthur saw him go to the phone box just past the lovers’ lane entrance.’

  ‘Still doesn’t make it deliberate,’ I objected. ‘Whatever the bloke in the car was doing in the lane, he still might have hit Samson by accident.’

  John shook his head. ‘Where Samson was found there’s a footpath, separated from the roadway by a little strip of grass. It runs all the way from the village, past the White Lion and past the houses. He’d been walking on that and whoever hit him went right off the road, across the grass, onto the footpath, hit Samson and turned back onto the road, disappearing towards Belston. It’s clear from the tyre marks.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone at the White Lion see anything?’

  ‘No. You can’t see the point of impact from the car park. There were still a couple of blokes in the car park and they saw a car flash by, but they didn’t pay it much mind.’

  ‘But old Arthur can describe the car? And the driver?’

  John shook his head, glumly. ‘Old Arthur regards motor cars as instruments of the Devil, made for mobile fornication. He can’t tell a Rolls from a Volkswagen. As to the driver — all he knows is that it was a bloke.’

  ‘Is he sure of that?’

  ‘Oh yes. Apparently the guy had his interior light on for a minute or two after he pulled into the lane, so Arthur saw him.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Tall, with short hair, maybe brown. That’s all.’

  ‘Well, the short hair is probably true. With Arthur’s preoccupation, people who do wicked things probably have long hair, so I doubt he’s invented that. And that’s all?’

  ‘That’s all. We’re getting some clear tyre prints identified, and now it’s light my boys’ll be searching the scene for paint scrapes or whatever, but we haven’t got much. Haven’t you got any ideas?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘I can’t say that I knew much about Samson, but he struck me as a fairly ordinary sort of bloke. If you ask me, the most extraordinary thing that ever happened to him was having his daughter’s pony rustled by Dennis Maiden, and that didn’t get him killed.’ I turned out to be wrong about the last bit.