The Godson's Legacy

by Gait, Paul;

  ‘Sorry,’ Ben said, realising he was not helping his case by antagonising the Policeman.’

  ‘Being so worldly,’ the Policeman, continued sarcastically, ‘you obviously know that some adults befriend young people to make them do things, horrible things.’

  ‘You mean paedophiles, right?’

  ‘As well. Yes.’

  ‘Well I have two adult friends. It used to be three. One is a Scout Leader and one is Gay. Neither of them are Paedos, right?’

  ‘I’m not saying they are. I’m just advising you to be careful.’

  ‘Mate, I live on a council estate. You’ve got to be tough to survive. I do know about things.’

  ‘It’s OK to be streetwise, so long as you keep out of trouble. Talking of which, with-holding evidence is a serious offence. What have you got to say about that?’

  ‘Like I said, I was going to hand the phone in…but forgot. Then I agreed with Andy, I’d give it in after the interview this morning.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No, cause I wanted to show him the picture on it, and the battery had gone flat.

  ‘Why was it important to show him the photo and not us?’

  ‘Because I trust him, that’s why. And you lot are always on my case.’

  ‘Well judging by your record, we need to be. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘No. Anyway we found the cross that I made for him, which was what I wanted to do, so I could put it back on Geoffery’s grave.’

  ‘Well obviously you won’t be doing that now, because that’s evidence.’

  ‘When can I have it back? So I can.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t been forensically tested yet. Then, there hopefully will be a court case, when we find the culprit… we tend to hang on to evidence for some time, in case there’s an appeal.’

  ‘So in other words, never!’

  ‘Not for a long time, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I shall make him another then.’

  ‘It’s probably the best solution.’

  ‘So what happens next?’

  ‘We’ll let you know if you will be charged with anything. But the events will go on your records.’

  ‘Gee thanks. Can I go?’

  ‘Yes. And remember what I said. Be careful and for Christ sake keep out of trouble.’

  Ben left the interview room, relieved that he wasn’t going to be sent to a young offenders institute.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  4th January

  ‘I’m sorry to have kept you.’ the Sergeant said to Andy, as he entered the other interview room. ‘But the new evidence of the photo on the phone and the cross needed to be photographed etc.’

  ‘I should think so too, I’m late for my afternoon shift.’ Andy said, angrily.

  ‘Well you’ve brought this on yourself to some extent by aiding and abetting young Ben. I’ve just interviewed your feisty little friend, Master Bird. I’ve told him to keep out of trouble. I’d appreciate your help with that.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Are you going to charge him with anything?’

  ‘No I don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘So, what’s your relationship with the boy?’

  ‘I’m his Scout Leader.’

  ‘Can you tell me why you were with him today? It’s a bit unusual isn’t? Driving one of your Scouts around?’

  ‘I brought him to the Police Station for an interview. What are you implying?’

  ‘Nothing, unless you have something to hide.’

  Andy felt himself getting angry and took a deep breath before he replied. ‘Oh dear, I’m not sure how to answer. You have an overactive imagination.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘My involvement with Ben is purely as a friend.’

  The Policeman sat upright and looked Andy straight in the eyes. ‘What sort of friend would that be Sir?’

  ‘Somebody who is helping another human being, who has a shit life.’

  ‘You’ll pardon my scepticism…but why would you do that? What’s in it for you?’

  Andy felt his blood pressure rising but tried to stay calm. ‘His mother is an alcoholic. He has no father, and he’s been excluded from School several times. What should I do, ignore him? Let him get into bother, so he becomes one of your regulars?’

  ‘I think he’s already doing that quite well himself, in spite of your help. He’s not the sweet and innocent boy that you claim.’

  ‘No, he’s got a record I know. But I hope we’ve given him a better chance than he would have had otherwise.’

  ‘So you’re his Scout Leader?’

  ‘Yes, so?’

  ‘I presume you’ve been screened through the Criminal Record Bureau process?’

  ‘Of course! Are you accusing me of being a paedophile? because if you are, I want a solicitor.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re doing a wonderful job and we don’t need to pursue that avenue of inquiry. However if you were exposed to the dregs of humanity that I have to deal with, then I think you’d be suspicious of everybody’s motives. They all claim to be innocent, until we find evidence about some appalling crime they’ve committed and then they claim they had a bad childhood and it wasn’t their fault.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m trying to prevent Ben going that way. I am winning, but he …he just seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and…’

  ‘OK, talking about the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s get on with your involvement with the stolen phone.’

  ‘It wasn’t stolen…he’d picked it up…he didn’t know who it belonged to.’

  ‘You sure he didn’t rob the poor bloke who had been killed?’

  ‘He wouldn’t steal it. No, of course not.’

  ‘OK, but I gather you knew he didn’t have a phone of his own. If you’re his guardian Angel, why didn’t you tell him to hand the phone in?’

  ‘I…did. Things got a bit hectic and…well he forgot.’

  ‘Until he was tracked down…and suddenly he remembered. Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  ‘He told me about the picture of the person who attacked the Gravedigger.’

  ‘Alleged!’

  ‘Yeah, alright alleged. He was going to hand it in when he was interviewed about the vandalism. But he wanted to show me the picture first. The battery was flat so we bought a charger in Cheltenham and he showed me the picture.’

  ‘So why didn’t you go back to the Police Station straight away instead of going to a hill alone with him?’

  ‘He wanted to find the cross he’d carved for Geoffery.’

  ‘How did having the phone help?’

  ‘So we could try and see from where the photo was taken and look for the cross around that area.’

  ‘Ok. Quite the super sleuths aren’t we? But, pardon my sensitivities, finding evidence is what we do.’

  ‘Well you didn’t find it did you? It took two inexperienced people to do your job for you. We found the cross, and possibly gave you the lead to the person you’re hunting.’

  The Policeman felt ‘wounded’ by the suggestion of ineptitude, but quickly recovered his poise.

  ‘Well Mr Holmes, while you’re hot on the trail of villains, perhaps you can help us with the vandalised grave. Do you know anybody who would have held a grudge for Mr…’

  ‘Foster, Geoffery Foster.’

  ‘Yes Mr Foster?’

  ‘There is one person I can think of who would have enjoyed dancing on his grave.’

  ‘And who is that?’

  ‘His nephew’s wife, Sue Williams-Screen. She was falsely accused of trying to murder Geoffery…to be more specific Geoffery set her up.’

  ‘Set her up?’

  ‘Yes I’m sure you’ll find all you need about the case on her records. However, she’s a nasty piece of work.’

  ‘Right. Thanks. We’ll pursue that line of enquiry. Thank you. In the meantime there
are two things you need to think about.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You were complicit in withholding evidence…’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. But it turned out to be helpful to your investigations.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll give you that. The other thing. Being alone with a child who is not your own is bound to raise suspicions. Be very careful. The newspapers have whipped the country up into hysteria about inappropriate behaviour…there is a witch hunt on…mind you don’t become the bait.’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  5th January

  John Sparrow went back to Sue’s house the following day, with the intention of collecting the muddy shoes he had seen at his previous visit.

  ‘Mrs Williams – Screen, I wonder if I could trouble you for the shoes you were wearing on the night of the accident?’

  ‘Why do you want them?’ Sue asked, suspiciously. Were they on to her, she wondered?

  ‘Evidence from the crash site, that’s all,’ he said, not wishing to alert her to the real purpose.

  ‘I’m sorry, but after your last visit, I threw them away and the refuse disposal people have done their round.’

  ‘I see,’ he said, suspiciously, thinking he needed to check her explanation with the council’s Refuse Disposal timetable. He cursed himself for letting potential evidence, literally slip through his fingers.

  On his way back to the office, he had a hunch about the missing heel and went back to the scene of the M5 accident with the Highways Agency. The Agency closed off the inside lane and helped him search the accident site for it.

  ‘You’re hoping for a miracle aren’t you? It could have gone up in the car or been cleared away by our guys, when they cleaned up after the accident and resurfaced the tarmac.’ The Traffic Officer said, looking intensely at the charred ground. ‘This is like looking for a bleeding needle in a haystack.’

  After an hour of painstaking searching, they decided to give up. The Policeman was just getting into his car, when he spotted what he thought was the errant heel. It was not on the hard shoulder where they’d been looking, but near the central barrier in the third lane.

  The Traffic Officer arranged for another crew to put on a ‘rolling roadblock’, which effectively stopped any traffic from coming along that section of the motorway. Eventually, the traffic stopped coming through. The Policeman ventured out onto the empty motorway and, to his delight saw that the small object he had spotted was indeed a broken heel from a ladies shoe.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, jubilantly. ‘There you go, Mr Traffic Officer. ‘There’s the needle we were looking for. One muddy piece of heel.’ That’ll do nicely,’ he beamed, putting it into an evidence bag.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  5th January

  The collision investigation team were congratulating themselves on finding another piece of evidence in the jigsaw.

  ‘Graham, I reckon the small heel prints on the grave will definitely match those of the broken heel I recovered off the M5.’

  ‘Yeah, well done, a nice bit of detective work there John. However, we can’t categorically say that it’s hers though, because she’s thrown away the boots.’

  ‘But we know that she had a pair of boots with a broken heel, which she was wearing on the night of the accident.’

  ‘OK. So she could have stolen the Polo after she’d clobbered the Pole?’

  ‘Unlikely. She is a short arse, about 5 foot 2 and he was 6 foot 6 and built like a brick shithouse.’

  ‘And another thing. She reckons she was a back seat passenger in her husband’s car, which means…’

  ‘Which means, that she couldn’t have been driving the Polo, although I don’t buy it myself.’

  ‘Yeah, and the other curious thing is, why didn’t she stay with her old man at the scene? He was badly hurt, for Chrissake.’

  ‘Says she was confused, concussed. Didn’t know what was happening.’

  ‘What progress on forensics?’

  ‘No joy. Still a backlog, thanks to the budget cuts.’

  ‘So we still haven’t got any results from the bloody fingerprints on the cross.

  ‘No, or DNA matches against blood types to see if it they match the Gravediggers.’

  ‘Damn! We have no factual evidence, only suspicions that she was not in her husband’s car.’

  ‘I’m waiting for the hospital people to get back to me and I’ll go and see him.’

  ‘I should chase them up if I were you. You know what these people are like.’

  ‘What else have we got?’

  ‘Let’s just imagine, for a second, that she did assault the Gravedigger, though. OK, I appreciate it’s highly unlikely, but…’

  ‘If she did, the charge is likely to be manslaughter, as he died of hypothermia. Even if we got a successful prosecution, it’s unlikely she’d get a significant sentence.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she could say she was defending herself and only hit him in self-defence.’

  ‘Yeah, unfortunately.’

  ‘She could have stolen his car – but we’ve got no proof of that either.’

  ‘However, if she caused the M5 crash, we could charge her with causing death by dangerous driving.’

  ‘Yeah, she might get a couple of years inside at least. But we can’t put anything to bed until we get those damn forensics done.’

  ‘I’ll have words with the chief and see if he can put any pressure on.’

  ‘In the meantime, see if you can get to see her husband and check her alibi.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  5th January

  Rupert was sitting by the side of his bed in his private side ward thinking about the joy of becoming a Dad, when he heard footsteps. Assuming that it was his nurse coming to check on him, he didn’t look up.

  ‘Hello Rupert. I said I’d see you again, and as ever, I’m true to my word. Aren’t you going to offer your wife a seat?’ Sue asked.

  Rupert felt a wave of fear and depression washing over him crushing his joyful thoughts.

  As threatened, Sue had turned up again at the hospital, and had somehow gained access by talking her way past the hospital security people who were supposed to have stopped her.

  He ignored her. He’d decided that was the best policy. That way he wouldn’t end up saying the wrong thing and antagonising her.

  ‘That’s terribly rude Rupert, to ignore me. You’ll regret that,’ she whispered menacingly in his ear.

  Sue looked around the room at the collection of ‘Get Well’ cards filling all the available shelf space.

  ‘Very nice room. Hope this isn’t costing US money. I’m terribly sorry, but I didn’t bring you a card or a bunch of grapes,’ she said, examining the cards. ‘Nothing here from your girlfriend then? Oh, of course not. Silly me, she’s still in a coma isn’t she?’

  Rupert sat impassively continuing to ignore her.

  ‘If anybody asks you who was travelling in your car on the night of the accident, you’re going to tell them I was with you and your lady friend.’ She commanded, whilst she slowly paced around the room like a predatory animal, mesmerising its prey.

  ‘What! You’d be the last person I’d have in my car,’ he said, angrily, immediately chastising himself for rising to the bait and forgetting his intention to blank her.

  ‘No Rupert. You misunderstand what I’m saying. I WAS in your car travelling down to Bristol on December 23rd.’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘I see that tart of a girlfriend of yours is on a life support machine. Do you know she makes funny noises when you stand on her oxygen pipe?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? I popped into see her a few moments ago.’

  ‘The nurses were supposed to stop you.’

  ‘Why would they stop her ‘distraught sister’ from seeing her?’

  ‘You’re not her…’

  ‘No, but they don’t know that.’


  ‘Bitch!’

  ‘Now, now. Wouldn’t it be ironic, if she survived the crash only to die in hospital?’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Come now Rupert. You know me better than that. Don’t goad me. You know I don’t make idle threats.’

  Rupert’s new won courage, and his intention to stand up against Sue, withered instantly, now she was threatening to kill Joanne and their unborn child.

  Sue would have found Joanne’s pregnancy particularly repugnant, as she’d never wanted children, or anything that would impose any demands on her personal space.

  ‘You see, the Police are asking questions. It would be so much easier for you to tell them I was a back seat passenger and must have been thrown out of the car. That’s not too difficult even for you is it?’ She glowered to emphasise her point.

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘That’s none of your business. Just do as you’re told,’ she screeched.

  ‘When are the Police going to…’

  ‘I’ve told them you’re far too ill to be questioned, but they tell me the Coroner is pressurising them to complete their enquiries before the crash inquest is opened. It could be soon. They were going to talk to the hospital people about coming to see you.’

  ‘What if I don’t tell them you were with…’

  The look was enough to persuade Rupert. Dissention wasn’t an option. The action of her running her finger across her throat further convinced him. He had to lie to protect his new family.

  Shortly after her ultimatum, Sister King came into the room. She was followed by a man.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Mrs Screen!’

  ‘Williams Screen.’ Sue insisted.

  ‘I thought I’d made it clear the last time. You were not welcome here.’

  ‘You can’t stop me seeing my husband. He needs me.’

  The Sister looked at Rupert for confirmation. He looked at his hands to avoid her gaze.

  ‘Mr Screen, I have a Policeman who’d like to speak with you, if you’re feeling up to it?’

  Sue looked relieved. She had timed her edict precisely right.

  ‘No. I’m not feeling very well at the moment. I was just thinking of going back to bed,’ Rupert said, trying to delay the moment when he would have to lie for his wife.