Justice Delayed

by David Field

  ‘I should be the one thanking you. Haven’t been so active for years. And just remembering it will be a good antidote to the job I’m about to start on. A cot death, regrettably. Anyone who maintains that pathologists are hard nuts with no empathy and no emotion should count how many times I have to demist my glasses when I’m working on these. Poor little mite wasn’t even a month old.’

  By the time Mike had put the phone down, Dave had made it from the outer door to the inner one, his face a mask of resentment.

  ‘Thanks for a great weekend, but do I have to pay for it by losing half my team?’

  ‘You’ve still got Jenny Allen, Chris Mullaney and Bob Greaves, unless the roster sheet the DS’s in-house bimbo delivered this morning is a forgery.’

  ‘Even so, where’s the fire, and why this office?’

  ‘Sit down, Dave, and let me put a hypothetical to you. What are the odds of three people in the same family each committing suicide on different occasions separated by several years, each choosing the same method?’

  ‘Pretty remote, statistically, unless there was some sort of weird family tradition or congenital mental health issue.’

  ‘And how easily do you think a woman in her eighties could arrange to hang herself?’

  ‘Do I detect a developing theme in all this?’

  ‘You do. In a moment, I’ll invite you to share your bacon sandwiches with a tape recording.’

  ‘I ate before I left for work. Joy makes a mean omelette.’

  ‘OK, then sit down there and listen to this. I could do with hearing it again anyway.’

  Mike played back the tape, making the occasional note as he did so. He allowed Giles’s final reference to a folio number to play before he clicked it off and looked back across the desk at Dave.

  ‘Weird, I give you that’ Dave conceded, ‘but what’s it got to do with us?’

  ‘The father she was talking about was Harry Pockridge, the man who did the first bungee jump in Brampton’s history, but without the benefit of a rubber band. His was one of the unexplained deaths in Giles’s book on Seventeen Cavendish Square. 1938.’

  ‘I’m still obviously missing something,’ Dave muttered as he looked round resentfully at the boxes being dumped onto the desk tops in the outer office by former members of his immediate team who were now kitted out like Moon walkers. Geoff Keating lifted a manilla folder from the top of one of his boxes, said something to Cathy Norman, and walked into Mike’s office.

  ‘Folio P4, sir.’

  Mike opened it eagerly, and flipped through its contents until he found a clipping from the Brampton Courier dated July 2012. He clucked gleefully, and handed it across to Dave.

  ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ he added, ‘read that.’

  Dave whistled in surprise, and looked up.

  ‘We have to assume that this was the same Ethel Clay?’

  ‘There can’t have been many eighty-two year olds with that name. Giles had obviously made the connection anyway. And how convenient for someone who obviously had it in for the entire family in a very evil and twisted way that the explosion took out four other Council flats in the same block, obscured any obvious sign of a hanging, and left the late Ethel Clay identifiable only by her dental records.’

  ‘So now what?’

  ‘You can chase up that hard drive reconstruction we ordered last week, while I do the opening artwork on my virgin whiteboard. The Pockridge family may not have been the only ones to be singled out by this deranged nutter, so I’ll leave room for the others.’

  Chapter Seven

  Mike opted for his usual colour scheme, and on the extreme left-hand side of the whiteboard he began with ‘Harry Pockridge’ in orange at the top. Orange because it was not yet determined that the man was a murder victim, although it seemed highly likely. Likewise, in brackets at the side of his name, another orange entry, for his late wife, whose first name was not yet known.

  Then, below them, the third orange, after consulting the tape again, in order to remind himself that Ethel Clay’s brother had been called ‘Billy’. Finally, alongside Billy’s name, ‘Ethel Pockridge/Clay’ herself, the first entry in red, in the firm belief that the explosion that had resulted in her death had been no accident. Then it was a simple matter of joining them up with black lines, and he had gone as far as he could at present. Unless ... .

  He went back to the tape, and listened carefully to the portion of it when Ethel Clay referred to a lifelong friend who had also allegedly hung herself. Making a quick note on a piece of paper, he walked out to the communal area, which was now almost entirely obliterated by the dust-covered harvest from the boxes lifted out of Giles’s flat, and smiled as he watched Cathy Norman sneeze delicately into a tissue. Then he tapped Geoff Keating on the shoulder as he was in the process of tipping another cardboard carton upside down.

  ‘Geoff, concentrate on the folio folders you mentioned, and see if you can find a reference to either of these women. In fact, they’re the same woman, but I’m not sure what name they’d be filed under.’

  ‘Will do, sir,’ came the muffled reply from under the plastic hood, and Mike walked back into the inner office, where his phone was demanding his immediate attention.

  ‘Saxby.’

  ‘Dave here,’ came the self-satisfied reply. ‘The stuff from Giles’s hard drive is now on the CMS. Best to delete what you don’t need, since the icon at the bottom tells me that we’ve invested a lot of gigabytes on it.’

  ‘OK, thanks. And before you slink off to the golf course, try and find out how somebody discovered that Troy Lesley had that USB, and what it may have contained.’

  ‘I’m on it,’ Dave replied, before the click at the other end told Mike that his DI was at least pretending to do some work. Mind you, Mike mused, thus far he’d proved himself to be very handy.

  A few minutes later, he looked up as Geoff Keating breezed in from the outer office, carrying a somewhat dog-eared manila folder and wearing a broad grin.

  ‘Here it is, sir – Folio P8. Wonder what the “P” stands for, by the way, but it’s got a newspaper clipping in it which refers to the lady you were asking for.’

  ‘Well done, Geoff,’ Mike smiled back as he opened the file, then as Geoff turned to go he added ‘Might as well pull all the other “P” folios out, just in case.’

  ‘Will do, after we go down and collect stuff for morning tea. Fancy coming down yourself, or can we bring something back with us?’

  ‘Yeah, please. Large cappuccino, no sugar.’

  Mike’s glance dropped to the clipped out, somewhat yellowing, extract from the Brampton Courier, dated August 2008.

  ‘Police were yesterday called to an abandoned house in Merivale Street which has been earmarked for Council demolition, where the body of an elderly woman was found hanging from a former kitchen ceiling by two boys who were playing at the site. She has been identified as eighty-four year old Emma Price, a widow who had been reported missing from her sheltered accommodation in Hermiston several days previously by ‘Meals on Wheels’ volunteers. It is believed that the death is being treated as suspicious at this stage, and the Coroner has been informed.’

  He sat for a moment, contemplating why an elderly lady who was so housebound and dependent upon a local charity would have taken the trouble to travel across town from a new estate on its southern boundary to a demolition site north-east of the town centre proper, and then hung herself from the kitchen ceiling of an abandoned house. Much more convenient to do it at home, where the next meal delivery volunteer would get a nasty shock, but could arrange for her remains to be treated with dignity and modesty. He was just wondering what the Coroner made of it all when Cathy Norman placed a carry-out carton of coffee and a slice of toast and marmalade on his desk, and smiled like the eager schoolgirl she resembled in Mike’s mind.

  ‘I’m well aware of my nickname,’ Mike advised her gently, ‘but you didn’t have to take it literally.’

  Cathy all but giggled as
she turned a delicate shade of pink, and turned to leave.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ Mike requested. Cathy turned back in the doorway, looking slightly apprehensive. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘How old are you, and how long have you been on the force?’

  ‘Twenty-five, and four years, sir.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘I was a youth worker in Clarebrooke, teaching basic computer skills to immigrant kids with limited English.’

  ‘Good. Then can you tell me how to hook into the Coroner’s Office from this computer? I need to get information from an inquest in 2008.’

  ‘Go into the “Legal Links” file, then click on “Coroner” and “Inquest Transcripts” on the drop-down menus which will appear. Then search by year and surname.’

  ‘Thanks, Cathy. When you go for morning tea tomorrow, take me and my wallet with you.’

  ‘Will do, sir,’ she blushed again as she returned to the outer office, saying something to Geoff Keating that made him grin.

  ‘No, I don’t fancy you,’ Mike muttered to himself, ‘but you remind me of Melanie so much that I keep wanting to give you a big hug.’ Perhaps that’s the same thing, came the uncomfortable thought as he clicked onto “Legal Links”, and began a magical mystery tour through sites and folders he never knew existed.

  He snorted in disbelief when he read that Emma Price had not only been hanging, but also naked, when two horrified juveniles had discovered her body when their natural curiosity had attracted them to the window frame minus its glass. The pathologist confirmed cause of death as asphyxiation, but Mike wondered whether or not he’d been thorough enough to examine the pathetic, underweight, cadaver for signs of the fractured hyoid bone and ruptured cartilage that would also indicate manual strangulation beforehand.

  Then he jerked to attention as he read the report of the first two beat officers on the scene, who informed the Coroner that on one of the kitchen walls they had found a large letter ‘U’ in some sort of red paint. Counsel assisting the Coroner had then muddied the waters by asking the first officer, whose regular beat it was, if there were regular break-ins and acts of vandalism in that particular block of abandoned houses, and the Coroner had been nudged into concluding that the daubing was not connected with the death. A social worker who’d known the deceased well confirmed that she’d been undergoing counselling for severe clinical depression following the death of her only daughter, and it was all over bar the rubber stamp.

  Mike got up and turned back to his whiteboard, adding an orange ‘Emma Price nee Baynton’ to the right of Ethel Clay, and at the same level. Then he went back to his computer and began to sieve through the contents of the late Jeremy Giles’s computer hard drive. After an hour and a half of scrolling through various editions of the deceased’s intended magnum opus, he rubbed his eyes and got up to stretch his aching neck muscles. Then he glanced at the wall clock, and responded to the call of chicken salad.

  Down in the Dining Hall, Dave Petrie was halfway through a portion of steak pie and cheesy potato, and Mike asked himself jealously how the man managed to retain the side profile of a football post. He placed his salad on the table in front of him and ‘humphed’ loudly.

  ‘It tastes like dog food, if that’s any consolation,’ Dave advised him as he took another forkful nevertheless.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Mike replied glumly. ‘I’ve never been fed whilst in the doghouse. How’s it going with the late Troy Lesley?’

  ‘Early days yet,’ Dave replied, ‘although the little bastard had more form than a Grand National winner. He attended the Youth Court more often than most duty magistrates, I reckon. There was an outstanding one on file that he won’t be answering for anyway. Just a couple of days before he died – some sort of assault and breach.’

  ‘And naturally, it occurred to you, did it not, that it might just be the lead we’re looking for?’

  ‘Talking of leads, would Alison let you out for a round of golf on Sunday?’

  ‘You obviously haven’t seen me with a golf club. It’s more like an act of archaeology than a promising attempt at hitting the ball. I eventually settled for Judo as a way of keeping fit – far less airborne grass divots.’

  ‘Well, the offer’s there if you change your mind. Joy can’t make it this Sunday, for some reason or other. In fact, she’s been a bit evasive ever since your dinner party – did you warn her off me or something?’

  ‘Of course not. The more domestic normality you’re exposed to, the more regular your arrival times will become. But I can ask Alison to find out if you like – they’re meeting for lunch somewhere in town tomorrow, or so she tells me. Joy’s idea, apparently.’

  ‘Did you find anything on Giles’s hard drive download?’

  ‘Only various editions of the crap I’ve already read. But there’s an interesting file labelled “History” which I intend to open up after I’ve forced the recommended dose of lettuce down my reluctant gullet.’

  ‘They’ve got bread and butter pudding on the menu. I can bring you back a secret helping if you make it worth my while.’

  ‘I don’t go in for bribery, and it wouldn’t sit too well with all this green shit I’ve still got to plough through. I feel sorry for cows, believe me.’

  ‘Don’t say I wasn’t prepared to be sympathetic. Did you eat that toast and marmalade I got the team to bring you, by the way?’

  ‘Oh, that was you, was it? I thought it was either Geoff or Cathy, and that they’d decided to take the piss, given my nickname around here.’

  ‘They’re both in awe of you,’ Dave assured him. ‘Particularly Geoff, although Cathy wants to swap you for her Dad, or so I’m told. Mind you, he ran out when she was eight, so no wonder.’

  Mike pushed the plate away with a grimace, having eaten all the chicken.

  ‘Any more of this healthy salad, and I’ll begin to glow. I’m off back upstairs – give me a “hoy” if you learn anything about Troy Lesley, and how he became deceased.’

  Back upstairs, Mike clicked grumpily on the mouse, and the folder opened to reveal all sorts of cryptic entries. Twenty minutes later he was about to abandon all the scanned entries from local guide books, old maps of the West Shire Wood, local history volumes and the Masters thesis of some erstwhile scholar from Alison’s university, when his eye landed on a file labelled ‘Plaint’. A Law graduate himself, he was intrigued, and clicked on the file, expecting to find that Jeremy Giles was being sued for plagiarism. Instead, he found himself reading the oldest criminal complaint he had ever encountered, addressed to the Commissioner for Peace for Bramptonshire, and dated ‘This twelfth year of the reign of His Blessed Majesty Jacomus Rex Primus et Sextus’.

  He was transfixed as he read what followed, and almost jumping with anticipation as he got up and reached for his coloured whiteboard markers. Then he realised that this would require another whiteboard altogether, and he looked through the glass to confirm his memory of what lay in the outer office. He reached for a pen and notepad and began excitedly scribbling down what he could see on the screen, before grabbing the handset and dialling.

  ‘Dave, up here – now! I think I’ve cracked it!’

  He had already commandeered the whiteboard in the outer office, which no-one seemed to have any immediate use for anyway, and was busy scrawling names across the top in purple marker pen, as Dave came in from the corridor.

  ‘I’ve not heard you that excited since Alison said you could have a second helping of Baked Alaska,’ he commented, to the obvious amusement of Geoff and Cathy. ‘What’s got your trousers alight, all of a sudden?’

  ‘Back there, in my office,’ Mike instructed him. ‘Look at the names on the computer screen, and see if you recognise any.’

  Mike followed him back into the inner office, and watched with a knowing smirk while Dave looked down at the computer screen, then up at the whiteboard.

  ‘Pockridge, obviously,’ he conceded, ‘but so what? The document on the screen – whateve
r the Hell it is – looks older than my granny.’

  ‘It’s called a “plaint”, and it was the old style of what we now call a complaint. Look at the names of the people being accused. And what they were being accused of.’

  Dave sat down in Mike’s chair, and continued squinting at the image on the screen.

  ‘They seem to have been accused of the murder of some woman called “Ursula Winthrop”. Wasn’t that the name of the woman in Giles’s book – the witch?’

  ‘Indeed it was,’ Mike confirmed. ‘But I repeat – look at the names of the accused, and marvel at the lack of coincidence.’

  Dave began reading aloud.

  ‘Jeremiah Baynton, Matthew Culworthy, Jane Culworthy, goodwife of Matthew Culworthy, Isaac Goodfellow, James Pockridge, and Thomas Manton. So what, apart from Pockridge?’

  ‘Take a proper look at the whiteboard, this time with your brain connected to your eyes’ Mike instructed him, his irritation rising. Dave did as instructed, then glanced back at the screen as his jaw dropped slightly.

  ‘Oh, yeah, got you now. But it’s just another coincidence, surely?’

  ‘Really? What looks like four murder victims from the Pockridge family, and – so far as I can deduce from a coronial inquest in 2008 – a “Baynton” to add to the collection. It looks like somebody’s seeking closure on a matter that seems never to have gone any further than a complaint to what passed for the law and order authorities in 1615 or thereabouts.’

  What’s a “non-suit” anyway?’ Dave enquired as he continued reading the screen.

  ‘The sort of thing you wear to work every day,’ Mike shot back grumpily, then had a change of heart as he saw the deflated look on Dave’s face.

  ‘Seriously,’ he added, ‘it means that their complaint was thrown out, and I’ll hazard a guess that the investigation into the complaint was conducted with the same thoroughness than you devote to your in-tray.’

  ‘That’s the last toast and marmalade I send up to your office,’ Dave growled back. ‘So are you seriously suggesting that the Winthrops have been exacting their own revenge half a millennium after the event?’