The Frame - from the author of the Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) series (A Feyer and Drake Mystery Book 2)

by David W Robinson

  “If you know it, how come it isn’t generally known? Burying bad news, are you?”

  “Because we are the ones who will face the inevitable backlash. We have to be prepared for the media onslaught later today. That’s none of your concern. What is your concern, what I need you to attend to is Rachel herself. I need you to clean yourself up, get over there, consult with the local police, and then speak to her.”

  The fatigue, the grief, the self-indulgence of the last five months flooded his mind again. “To what avail?”

  “I need to know whether she’s guilty or not.”

  It was an absurd proposition. It almost made him laugh. Something else he hadn’t done for many months. “Well, if the courts have decided—”

  Iris interrupted again. “Your brother and sister are both solicitors. So was your father before he was elected to Parliament. You know – or you should know – that guilt and innocence are verdicts in a court of law. That is not what I want to know. I want to know if she really did murder Barbara Shawforth.”

  “Shawforth? As in Marc Shawforth?”

  “Barbara was his wife.”

  Once more, Drake found it difficult to come up with an objection. “She’s been in prison… How long? Four years. Surely she’s been assessed by psychologists, psychiatrists, and she must have been counselled.”

  Iris sneered. “Professionals run on rails. Isn’t that what you always say? The official opinion is she is guilty, and in denial. A convenient means of dismissing her claims of innocence. I need you to speak to her, Wesley. You have an insight into people which is denied many, including psychologists and psychiatrists, medics, and a whole host of well-meaning people.”

  Drake drummed idle fingers on the workstation and stopped, realising that the noise would carry across the microphone. “And if I tell you she is guilty?”

  “I trust your judgement more than anyone else… or at least, I did.”

  “You sound as if you don’t believe in her guilt.”

  Iris shrugged. “I don’t know one way or the other. But once the judgement is announced, the IOPC will be moving in to investigate what went wrong. I have, at best, a couple of weeks to prepare for them, and I need something to argue with. As far as I’m concerned, you are the best weapon at my disposal… Or you were, when you were at your best.”

  He sighed again. He did not want to do it, but so much of what she had said struck at the core of his being. If nothing else, it would be a distraction.

  Iris underlined her determination. “It shouldn’t take longer than three or four days. I’ll pick up your hotel bills, I will pay your usual fees, but I need you to get your butt in gear and do this.”

  He capitulated. “All right. You say she’ll be home by teatime tomorrow. Where is home?”

  “Landshaven.”

  “Forget it. I’ll go back to bed.”

  “Wes—”

  “I said, no.”

  The DCC’s anger rose quickly. “Is this about Sam Feyer?”

  “Partly.”

  “And there was I, thinking you were a professional. Listen to me, Wesley. Sam was a wreck. You rebuilt her. On the back of your counselling, she took the job in Landshaven. She is doing an excellent job. That’s your doing. She is a professional police officer, you are a professional counsellor, a specialist in motivation, and I’m not interested in any personal beef between you. I’m asking you to behave as a professional, get over there, speak to her, speak to the other officers who were involved in the original investigation, study the files, and then talk to Rachel Jenner.”

  He gave in. There was never any winning with Iris Mullins. She always got her way.

  “I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll leave here at eight, I’ll be in the Castle Hotel by ten o’clock. Let the Landshaven police in general, Sam Feyer in particular, know that I’m coming.”

  He snatched at the mousepad and shut down the call.

  Chapter Three

  Detective Chief Inspector Samantha Feyer stepped out of the CID room on the second floor of Landshaven House, and rather than turning left towards the lift, she paused to gaze through the windows, taking in the exhilarating view of Landshaven South Bay.

  If anyone had told her a year ago that she would be working in Yorkshire’s premier seaside resort, she would have laughed it off as a cheap joke, made at the expense of her well-known love of the town. One court case, the result of which was a life sentence for her ex-husband, followed by a complete physical and mental breakdown for her, which sent her to a police convalescent home for six months of recuperation, at the end of which, the intervention of one man, had seen this remarkable transformation. Not only was she working in Landshaven, but she was the senior officer in CID. It was a dream come true… almost.

  Life in Landshaven was a complete contrast to working in the big cities of Leeds and Bradford. Not that there was any less crime, but it was of a lower order. Drug dealing, mugging, burglary, domestic abuse were just as prevalent here as in any of the large, industrial areas of the county, but the more serious crimes were fewer and far between. Murder was a comparative rarity, and most of the time it was the result of domestic arguments gone too far. Organised crime had a relatively small hold on places like Landshaven, as a consequence of which it was easier to break up.

  Even so, her life was far from relaxed. She had a team of thirty detectives to supervise, some of them covering the inland, rural and agricultural areas, and the satellite towns of Fraisby and Whiteley, she was responsible for bringing younger detectives on, ensuring their training, and naturally, she had a large caseload to deal with. But above all, she had to contend with the station commander, Chief Superintendent Neville Trentham.

  He was an easy man to work for. By and large, he left the running of CID to her, but he demanded verbal reports on a daily basis, backed up by more detailed, written accounts. The onerous task of ensuring that resources were properly allocated fell upon him, and by default, were passed along to Sam and her opposite number in uniform.

  Sam tolerated the ennui of the meetings, marking it down as one of the necessities of her enjoyable life. Even so, it was unusual for Trentham to call her to his office at eight o’clock on a Friday morning.

  And she knew what it was about. There was only one topic of discussion in Landshaven right now.

  “Rachel Jenner.”

  The moment she stepped into his office, Trentham greeted her with the words she was expecting.

  The chief superintendent’s enclave took up an entire corner on the top floor of the five-storey building. Unlike Sam’s smaller domain, three floors down, it offered a fine view over the bay to one side, and the town centre to the other.

  Landshaven was split into two bays, of which the major centre of attraction was South Bay, a one-mile arc bordered by prominent headlands at either end, unimaginatively named North Cliff and South Cliff.

  Between the two cliffs lay a fine, sandy beach, stretching all the way from the base of South Cliff until it met the stone-built wall of the harbour. And on the other side of that harbour – a thriving, if small, commercial port – stood a permanent funfair. Towering above the fairground, the three sides of North Cliff were sheer, and topped by the ruins of Landshaven Castle, a Norman fortress originally constructed to repel marauding Vikings. On the landward side of the promenade were the familiar souvenir shops, amusement arcades, and eateries, which could be found in any British seaside resort. The bells, beeps and whistles of slot and games machines in amusement arcades, mingled with the echoing call of gulls, and the thrum of traffic making its ponderous way along the narrow dual carriageway. The tempting aroma of candy floss and fish and chips permeated the air, adding to the ozone, the fresh tang of the sea carried by onshore winds.

  It was coming towards the end of the season, but still the town was busy. Within the next couple of hours, the pubs would be open, the patrons sitting outside, basking in the warm, September sunshine, quenching their early thirst with a b
eer. On the beach, no couples and families played or reclined in deckchairs yet, but the water’s edge was quite a distance from the promenade as the tide ebbed. Further along the sands, close to South Cliff (the only area where animals were allowed) a few people walked their dogs, and some of the pets could be seen gambolling in the shallow waters or chasing a ball along the beach.

  The town centre was behind them, its skyline, a higgledy-piggledy assortment of pitched roofs, dominated by the Majestic Hotel. Up there was the main shopping area, indistinguishable from a thousand and one other High Streets across the country. They could not see most of it, but the bits they could see told them that Landshaven was in the process of winding down after a pleasant and profitable summer.

  Sam had entertained a long love affair with the town. Ever since she was a little girl, growing up in the suburbs of Leeds, she had loved Landshaven. As a teenager, she and her friends had spent many a weekend trawling the pubs, sleeping it off on the beach before getting the train or bus home, and even when she moved to Bradford, met and married Don Vaughan, they would often make the ninety-minute journey to Landshaven for an evening meal and a stroll along the promenade.

  Like her, Trentham was an incomer, a native of Hull, promoted and drafted in fifteen years previously to take command of the Landshaven force. A tall, lean, gangling man, sporting a pair of thin-framed spectacles perched on the end of his nose, but for his pristine uniform, he looked every inch the academic; his immaculate shirt perfectly pressed, tie tucked neatly under his adam’s apple, shoes gleaming with a mirror finish polish.

  Trentham wasted no time on preliminaries. “As we anticipated, the Court of Appeal declared Jenner’s conviction unsafe. She’ll be released from Bronzefield at ten this morning and we expect her back in Landshaven at about six this evening.”

  The timings puzzled Sam. “Her lawyer isn’t picking her up?”

  “Too far. It’s almost three hundred miles. According to our information, Hayley Killeen will meet Rachel at Landshaven station this evening.”

  The chief superintendent held a copy of the previous evening’s Landshaven Gazette and turned it to face Sam. Rabid Rachel Released, screamed the banner headline, and beneath it was a four-year-old, stock picture of Rachel Jenner.

  Trentham dropped the newspaper again. “There’s a general air of animosity towards her which runs throughout the town, Samantha, and it’s not helped by nonsense like this.” He tapped the newspaper as the ‘nonsense’ in question. “It’s our job to ensure she comes to no harm. Quite how we’re going to do that, I don’t know. That’s a problem for uniformed, not you. However, I’ve had clear instructions from Iris Mullins. You are to reopen the Shawforth case and investigate from scratch. The IOPC are due in a week or two, and they will be looking at the failures of the original investigation which led to this situation. And we both know what those are. In the meantime, Iris is sending in a civilian consultant to look at the case from a different angle. You and I are under orders to cooperate.”

  The words ‘civilian consultant’ and ‘under orders’ rang alarm bells in Sam’s head. “Who is this consultant?”

  Trentham hesitated just long enough for Sam to second guess the answer, and her anger was ignited before her chief finally replied. “Wesley Drake.”

  She shook her head. “No way.”

  “Samantha—”

  “Anyone but him, Neville. I mean it. I’ll hand in my notice first.”

  Trentham leaned back in his chair and sighed. “At your level, Samantha, I don’t give orders. You’re paid to control CID, and to that end, you’ve done an excellent job. I pay little attention to gossip, but I’m aware that you met with some resistance when you first arrived. You dealt with it. CID is now your domain, and that’s down to your professionalism and your, er… I hesitate to use the word obduracy.”

  “Try determination instead?”

  “That’s not exactly the word I had in mind either, but it’s appropriate. Your professional approach is the aspect I’m thinking of. I don’t know much about Drake. I’m aware that his father is an MP, and of course I know what happened to Rebecca Teale earlier this year. I’m also aware of how he helped you overcome your difficulties. His calling demands professional detachment, and that is what Iris is asking of you. I don’t know what went on between you, and frankly, I don’t want to know. You need to put it to one side and work with him.”

  It was an argument that Sam found impossible to refute, short of carrying out her threat to resign. “Very well. But I want it noted that I object to the arrangement. I won’t be held responsible for anything that goes wrong.”

  “Duly noted. Drake is due here at about—”

  The trill of his desk phone cut Trentham off. He excused himself, lifted the receiver and listened. When he replaced it, he held Sam’s gaze with his. “He’s here now. Sergeant Enright is bringing him up.”

  Chapter Four

  When he entered Trentham’s fifth-floor office, Drake scanned the room quickly, as if logging the geography in his mind on the off chance that he would need to escape quickly. His eyes did not rest on Sam, but skipped over her as quickly as they did the rest of the room.

  “Mr Drake. A pleasure to meet you.” Trentham rose to greet him with a warm handshake and waved him into a seat adjacent to Sam. “Neville Trentham. Chief Superintendent, commanding the station. I believe you already know Detective Chief Inspector Feyer.”

  “I do.”

  There was much more that he wanted to say, but Drake confined himself to a brief nod of acknowledgement to Sam, and made himself comfortable, preferring to leave the opening gambit to Trentham.

  It had been a tiring two-hour drive from Howley to Landshaven and it came on the back of a poor night’s sleep during which he considered the many and varied things he might say to Sam. All he really wanted to do was get to his hotel, check in and grab an hour’s rest, but he had never been one to shirk potentially unpleasant interviews, and ultimately decided to come straight to the police station the moment he arrived in Landshaven.

  Throughout the journey, fighting traffic around North Leeds, battling with it again around York and running into the Landshaven rush hour, he had given a little thought to Iris Mullins’ request, and still he remained uncertain as to what he could possibly add to her knowledge of the crime and the (alleged) perpetrator.

  He had deliberately avoided reading up on the murder of Barbara Shawforth, other than the online press reports surrounding Rachel Jenner’s successful appeal. They were purposely skimpy, lacking in detail, and that suited him. He needed to come in at ground level, and that meant learning all he could from the Landshaven police.

  Trentham offered him a cup of tea, which Drake refused, and then went into his position. “I had a long chat with Iris Mullins this morning, Mr Drake, and—”

  “Please call me Wes, Wesley if you prefer.”

  “As you wish, and I’m Neville. I tend to remain quite informal with my senior officers, and I don’t mind extending the same courtesy to you. As I was saying, I had a long conversation with Iris this morning, and she’s made your position quite clear. You are to be given access to all files concerning the Shawforth murder, the arrest and interrogation of Rachel Jenner, and the evidence which was submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. There are not many of the original investigating officers still with us, but those who are here will be instructed to cooperate with you. Iris also said you’ll want to speak to Rachel Jenner. That, I’m afraid, is beyond our control. It will be at the behest of her solicitor, Hayley Killeen.” Trentham put on a convincing frown. “However, Iris didn’t tell me what she expects of you. When I asked, she was deliberately vague.”

  Drake nodded. “She would be.” He sucked in his breath preparing for the inevitable argument. “She wants to know if Rachel Jenner is guilty.”

  Sam tutted and Trentham’s eyebrows rose.

  “Well, the court has decided—”

  “My thoughts, too.” Drake cut the s
uperintendent off. “She’s not talking about the original verdict or the appeal court’s decision. She wants my opinion as to whether Rachel Jenner did it.”

  Alongside him, Sam remained obviously frustrated that she could add nothing to the discussion. Trentham had no such problems.

  “She did. You have my assurance on that.”

  “You were there when she carried out the crime?”

  “Of course not.”

  Drake’s legendary refusal to be intimidated by authority figures shone through. “Then you’re in no better position to say than the judge and jury, the prosecution and defence counsel.”

  He guessed that Trentham was as close to losing his temper that he would ever come. There was an air of strained patience coming through his words.

  “We are a police service, Mr Drake. We work on evidence. In the murder of Barbara Shawforth, that evidence was thin, but it pointed consistently at Rachel Jenner.”

  “It couldn’t have been fabricated?”

  “Rachel insisted it was, and we did investigate, but we found no indication of tampering.” The eyes behind the thin spectacles, brimming with accusation, narrowed upon Drake. “Forgive me, but you appear to have arrived with a preconceived notion that she was innocent all along.”

  Drake had expected the allegation, but he felt it would have come from Sam, not her chief. He denied it immediately. “Nothing of the kind. I maintain an open mind. Remember, Chief Superintendent, I know nothing of this case. I vaguely remember it, but only because of the sensational headlines in the press at the time. The murder of an MP’s wife isn’t something that happens very often. Beyond that I didn’t follow the case, so I know next to nothing about it and Iris Mullins purposely gave me little information. You just confirmed the general consensus of opinion, and yet despite that, her conviction has been set aside; unsafe. Iris believes that fresh eyes – mine – may provide an insight which other people missed. I can assure you I won’t be party to a whitewash. If I conclude that Rachel Jenner really is guilty, I will say so, and if I conclude that she is innocent, then I will say so. My report is confidential, for Iris Mullins’ eyes only, but I will give you and Sam a verbal précis before I leave Landshaven.”