Chapter 3

Back in the office, that afternoon, they called the council and was told that the surname was Raddison. The address was in Walton-on-Trent, and that he has done a bit of work for the council and was classed as a good worker.

Looking up Josh Raddison on the computer brought up a short list of past entries, mainly for drunk and disorderly, as well as a couple of times his truck had been defected. The latest entry, however, made Ben hoot. On the day of the murder, Josh had been in the cells, in Burton, sleeping off a very bad hangover. The notes said that he had claimed that his drink had been spiked.

“You nailed it, Sally. There I was, thinking that we had our murderer in our sights, and you predicted that he wouldn’t be the one. How many crime novels do you read?’

“Ben, you don’t need to read crime novels when you have the real thing to work with. Remember, we can’t look at the last chapter to see who did the crime, we have to write it ourselves.”

Charlie rang the number on record and made an appointment to see Josh the next morning. He told them that he would be working in the gardens behind the Burton & South Derby College. Sally got on the phone to the lawyer.

“Sir, It’s Detective Brown from Aston, I spoke to you about Harrison Prentice the other day. Someone has told me that there was a substantial life policy on him. You didn’t mention that when we last spoke.”

“That’s because he cancelled it as soon as he found out about it. His wife had taken it out, using his credit card for the initial payment. And using the same card for regular payments. His accountant saw the outlay and asked him about it. He contacted the insurance company and cancelled it, getting most of his money back. That was about two years ago. Knowing him, he would have stayed quiet about it. For all I know, she probably thinks it’s still running.”

“Thank you, Sir, that’s interesting. I’ll call if there are any further questions. Oh! One last thing, when are you reading the will?”

“Tomorrow, officer. I have to say that I’m not looking forward to it, I’ll make sure that I have a couple of my paralegals on hand in case she goes mad.”

Sally sat back, with a smile on her face.

“What’s so pleasing, Sally?”

“They’re having the will reading, tomorrow, and our Hazel Prentice is going to discover that she’s going to have to work for a living.”

The next morning, in the office, Sally told Ben to get working on any similar cases, seeing that he had thought that this one wasn’t a one-off. She took Charlie with her to see Josh. They entered the Washlands Forest area and followed the road around until they saw a truck.

“Your turn, Charlie. I’ll watch his reactions.”

The found Josh up a tree, lopping what looked like a dead limb. They called to him, and he told them that he’d be down in a couple of minutes, and to stand back as he was about to finish with the limb. They stood back as he severed the limb, which swung away from the tree, hanging on a rope. Josh rappelled down to the ground, then unhitched a rope from the tree base, letting down the branch. They went over to note that the knot was a Buntline.

When Josh unhooked himself from his harness, Charlie shook his hand.

“Mister Raddison, I’m Detective Parker, and this is Detective Brown, from Birmingham CID. I spoke to you yesterday.”

“That’s right, why on earth do you want to speak to me? I have been a naughty boy, sometimes, but nothing to be interesting to you lot.”

“It depends on what you find interesting, Sir. Did you know Harrison Prentice?”

“Ah! I’ve never met the man, but I know of him.”

“Is that because you’re bedding his wife?”

“Yes, it is. She and I have had a thing going for a few months. It’s not serious, just a bit of fun, as far as I’m concerned. She likes what we do, together.”

“Was it her that you were drinking with when you ended up in the cells, recently?”

“Why, yes, she was there. I don’t know what happened, that night, I usually hold my drink a lot better. They tell me that I got angry and started lashing out. That’s not my way, you have to believe that. Had a hell of a headache the day after, and the police doctor wouldn’t let me out until late in the afternoon.”

“Is that when Hazel asked you to do her a favour?”

“No, that was the next morning. When she rang, she said that there would be a couple of things that she wanted me to take down to old Ridley, in Kidderminster. I knew where to go and left them in the shed. Why are you asking that?”

“In a moment, Sir. Where were the things that she wanted moved?”

“Odd that. They were in my yard. Someone must have dropped them there overnight.”

“This knot you used on the limb, here. That looks a bit special?”

“It’s just a Buntline, to make sure the limb didn’t drop on anyone. We use it all the time when we’re lopping.”

“They tell me that there’s a variation that’s used with the rope you took to Kidderminster?”

“I wouldn’t know, officer. I’ve never used that type of rope. It’s too slippery to trust and too expensive to buy. Hazel said that it was the stuff that Ridley used on his yacht.”

“He wouldn’t have used the stepladder on his yacht, would he?”

“I doubt it. I’ve seen a picture of the Foxy Lady. He’d throw a metal ladder into the sea. Very picky with that boat, so I’ve read.”

“So, Josh. Why do you think Hazel wanted you to take a cheap ladder and an expensive coil of rope down to Kidderminster?”

“That got me thinking, too, if you want to know. I haven’t had a chance to ask her, she hasn’t called or turned up at the Elms since that call. Perhaps she’s off me. I don’t know why; we’ve always had good sex and a few laughs. She could have found someone else to have fun with. Maybe she’s decided to stay with her husband.”

“I very much doubt that, Josh, considering that he was murdered on the day you were sitting in the cells.”

“Murdered, bloody hell! I hardly read the papers or listen to the radio. That’s why I do what I do. It allows me to work on my own, trust my own judgement and skills. The only time I get to socialise is in the pub, even if I do go over the top, sometimes. How was he killed?”

“He was hung, Josh. Whoever hung him used the stepladder to lift him up, and a length of that rope to suspend him. You were duped into delivering the evidence to an innocent man.”

“So, are you going to arrest me?”

Charlie looked at Sally, who was slowly shaking her head.

“No, Josh. All we ask is for you to stay clear of Hazel, Here’s my card. Please call me if she gets in touch and wants you to do something for her. Do not let on that we’ve told you anything. She is, we think, a very dangerous woman, and likely to do anything to get her way.”

“You have no idea what she’ll do to get her way. I could write a sequel to the Karma Sutra with all the positions that it left out.”

“That’s more than we need to know, Josh. Please stay around town, we may want to speak to you again. Do you mind if we pass by your premises, just to see the layout?”

As they walked back to the car, Sally told Charlie that he’d done well.

“What did we learn from that?”

“That she has another accomplice, probably the one who did the murder. In order to lift Harrison up, there’s probably two in the mix. We don’t know, yet, if her alibi at the salon stands up, but it’s one thing we have to verify, now she is so far in it. Something from yesterday bothers me. You told us that Ridley was called by a friend, who didn’t, actually, make the call. I doubt that the new Artificial Intelligence is widely available, yet. So, we have to be looking at someone who is a good imitator of voices, and who has already heard the friend. We should ask Ridley who the friend is and speak to him.”

“Good thinking, Charlie. I’ll give Ridley a call. Let’s go and look at the yard and then get back to the office and see how Ben is getting on. I also need to talk to Doggy about the cameras.”

At the yard, they could see how easy it would have been for someone to drop the items off.

“I’m wondering, boss, if the murderer dropped them off on his way out, that afternoon. Josh wouldn’t have been in any state to be in the yard after they let him out of the cells. He would have had to go and pick his truck up from the Elms, first, so it would have been later when he got home. Looking at him my guess is that he stopped somewhere, for takeaway, and just got out of the truck and into the house. You can see, by these oil stains, that he usually parks near the door.”

“Good observation, Charlie.”

Back at the station, Sally went to see Doggy. He had printed off a small sheaf of pictures for her.

“I’ve got you all those who were pictured coming and going. Have you figured out which direction came first?”

“We’ve just been told that things were taken to Walton, so the first would be west to east.”

“Right, that narrows it down. There are three that come in that way and leave in the opposite direction.”

He selected the photos and showed them to Sally. One pair, that immediately caught her eye, was of a transit van. It had come from the Burton side, at just after midday. It was again pictured going back at around four. The van looked like it had been painted by a madman with a box of spray cans, no name discernible.

“Did you get the owner?”

“It’s registered to a company, Mad Dog Enterprises. As far as I can check, they manage several bands, none of them big names, but busy enough and good enough to be working every weekend. They have several of these vans, none younger than ten years, that cart all the bands around. All the bands work the area between Sheffield and Manchester, pubs, clubs, and the odd dance hall.”

“Thanks, Doggy. That’s good work. Do you have the address where they’re garaged?”

“It’s in Stoke-on-Trent, here’s the print-out.”

Back at her desk, she rang Swansea to talk to the CID there, telling them to expect a call from Ridley, and to just check that his yacht didn’t use modern sails or ropes. She then rang Mad Dog Enterprises to make an appointment to speak to the owner of the van, on Monday, to verify why it was in Castle Gresley. She then turned to Ben.

“Did you come up with any similar cases, Ben?”

“I didn’t expect to, boss, but there were two coroners records of a similar hanging, one in Sheffield, about ten years ago, and one in Manchester about four years ago. There is also a case in Leeds, about seven years ago, where the suicide used a shotgun. All of the court records have a rider that the finding had been changed to murder, and, in all cases, our records show that three different men had been convicted for murder, based on found evidence and no alibi. According to the trial records, all three had claimed that they had been framed. I’ve asked for the hard copy files so that we can look at them.”

“Interesting. Get as much information as you can. We’ll want to speak to those prisoners if we can. This is when we need to be certain of our facts. If those men had been jailed for something they didn’t do, we have to have strong evidence to get them out.”

“Will do, how was Josh?”

“Believable. She got the evidence to him to deliver, while he was in the cells. The boy was love struck, but I think that it may have faded a little. I’ll be away, Monday heading for Stoke, to talk to a man about a van that came and went in the timeline we’re looking at. It may be something, or it may be nothing, but it needs to be checked out. It was the only photo of a vehicle who could take the ladder, out of sight. Unfortunately, there were no pictures of a car with a stepladder on the roof rack. You can’t have everything on a plate, can you?”

Back at her desk, she rang the doctor, in Burton, for a quick word.

“Doctor, this is Detective Brown from Aston. When we spoke to you the other day, you said that Hazel Prentice saw another GP. Do you have any idea who that may be?”

“I think he told me that she was seeing one near the cinemas at Swadlincote.”

“Thank you, Sir. I may call you again.”

She looked up the directory for Swadlincote and found a doctor with a clinic nearby. She rang but they wouldn’t give out any information about Hazel Prentice, which proved that she was actually a patient, or else they would have denied any knowledge of the woman.

She then got onto her computer and looked up Mad Dog Enterprises, finding that it listed about twenty bands that it managed, from hard rock to country music. All in all, there were more than a hundred musicians, as well as the roadies, who could have been in the van. She printed off all of the individual band line-ups. It may be all a waste, but it gave her things she could talk about on Monday. She spent the rest of the day writing up an interim report, which she left on Sue’s desk for when she came in.

Monday morning, she was in her car, heading for Stoke-on-Trent. She found the address in an industrial park off the A50. She parked and went into the office to see Barry ‘Bozzie’ Blake, the owner of the business. In the reception there were several pictures of the man, on stage with a band that she had heard of, from the late seventies. She was looking at a picture of him, weirdly, looking as if he was about to bite the head off a rubber chicken when a voice beside her spoke.

“We were a cover band, sometimes, and that was part of the act. Tasted bloody terrible, that rubber, but it looked good, from a distance.”

“I think that my parents saw you, one time.”

“Ouch, that hurt, detective. Come on into the office and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

In the office, she declined a strong drink but accepted a glass of the soda water, neat.

“Mister Blake, I am here in the course of an investigation into a murder, down in Castle Gresley. One of your vans was photographed passing the murder scene, going south, and again going north. Do you have records of who would have been using it, during the time in question?”

She told him the date and he looked in his ledger.

“We didn’t have a gig booked that way on that day, but there was one booked at the Harvester, in Nuneaton, the following Saturday. Perhaps one of the roadies was taking some kit down there, early. We don’t record the van usage; they all sit in the shed with the keys in them and a fuel card in the glove box. Mid-week, the guys are allowed to take them to use for moving mates around and stuff like that. Anyone with a key to the compound can take one, and they wouldn’t need a key if it was during working hours.”

“How many would have a key to the compound?”

“All of the office staff and all the band leaders. Who knows how many copies have been made, it’s a pretty standard lock, none of the vans are worth much and we get replacements on the cheap, seeing the rough life they lead.”

“I have the registration of the one pictured. Can you check whether it’s still in the shed, please?”

He looked in a folder, stuffed with registration papers, going, as she could guess, back some years.

“That one was wrecked, a couple of weeks ago. The motor seized so we chucked it to the wreckers and got another one. I haven’t got around to the cancelling of the rego. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Can you tell me where it was, and who was driving it, when the motor blew?”

He looked in his diary.

“That was one of our most popular cover bands. Cultz can sound like most top bands around, and the singer is great. They were on their way back from Manchester and I had to get another van up to Monks Heath to transfer the kit and the boys. They left the van by the side of the road, and I sent the keys to a mate of mine in Manchester to get it picked up by the wreckers. I reckon that it’s a smallish cube, by now.”

“Can you give me the name of the wreckers, just in case it hasn’t been crushed, yet? We would like to eliminate it from our enquiries.”

He reached into a drawer and handed her a card. She thanked him for his time and got back into her car, driving up to Manchester to visit the wreckers. Sadly, the trip only resulted in her having a cube of psychedelically painted steel pointed out, in a stack of other cubes, waiting to be picked up by a steel exporter.

When she got back to the office, she started working through the band members of Cultz. As expected, most had a record of drunken behaviour or drug busts. The singer was called Zak Jackson, oddly, she thought, a version of his real name. He had some D&D charges and had spent a little time inside in his earlier days. He was, she was surprised to see, well into his forties, and the address that he had, on file, was quite a good suburb of Macclesfield, on a road where the back yards looked out on South Park. She thought that he may have been careful with his money, over the years. Even lesser bands could earn enough to live well if you looked after it.

Looking back at her to-do list, she saw that there was loose end that needed to be tied off. She rang Johnson Ridley on his mobile.

“Mister Ridley, I have a couple of questions that have crossed my mind. When we spoke to you, you told us that it was a call from a friend that led you to Brecon that day.”

“Yes, it certainly sounded like him. He fooled me, I can tell you.”

“In what way did he sound like your friend, accent or speech patterns?”

“Both, young lady. My friend is Welsh but from an aristocratic family. Think Richard Burton and you’ve got it in one.”

“I can hear him in my head, as we speak. One more question, Sir, does your friend sail, as well?”

“No, the stupid beggar climbs rocks and cliffs. He has done some big climbs, overseas, and has spoken at several meetings at conventions for other silly beggars who hang from cliff faces. He lives near Brecon.”

“Could you give me his name and contact number? I would like to speak to him.”

She wrote down the details. Talking to the man would have to wait until she had some idea of a timeline. At the moment, that line was made of elastic, and she needed it to be firmer.

Sue came over to her and asked how they were getting on.

“So far, Cuz, this one’s a puzzle inside an enigma. We think the wife set it up, and certainly made sure the evidence would be found elsewhere, but there was one glaring mistake. They thought that because the patsy was rich, with a big yacht, he would sail it competitively, so needing high-tech sails and ropes. His yacht, so he tells us, is a hundred years old and he keeps it in period condition. We know that Prentice was murdered, we know the wife is in on it, and we know the intended patsy and the guy who took the evidence to plant. We still have no idea of who the murderers are, or why they did it.”

“Nothing else?”

“There was a van that went past the camera at midday, then heading north again at around four. That van is presently in a wreckers in Manchester looking like a very colourful steel cube. I checked with the owner and the wrecking was, as far as he is concerned, all above board. He has a fleet of identical vans to carry bands around.”

“What about similar crimes?”

“Ben has found three where the man in prison claims that he’s been framed. So far, they all sound similar, but we’re waiting on the files. The earliest is about ten years ago, so Ben says.”

“Well, keep at it. You’re moving forward, even if it doesn’t seem like it, sometimes. How are the musicians going?”

“They’re both doing very well, for their first big case. They’ve started calling me boss, even though I’ve told them not to.”

“That, Detective Brown, is because you’re acting like one, and I’m glad. You have the ability to fast-track to be a DS, all you needed was to get the confidence that you can, actually, lead others. Look how Andy went from a boy to a man, once he started using his skills.”

“I only ever saw him as the man, Cuz. I’d only been with him ten minutes when he knocked that chef into the next century and then saved Sky’s life. I never saw the boy that you speak of.”

“Believe me, the first time I saw him, he could hardly look you in the eyes, and his first day with the team saw him in the toilets, emptying his stomach when Maria told us about the parts that had been taken from those young men. He was, Sally, very fragile for a while. What changed him was success, and it’s the same thing that set you on your present path, you grew in stature when Andrea came out of that cave, and you’re continuing to grow. Just keep it happening.”

“Thank you, Ma-am. You have no idea how much better that makes me feel. I’ve been getting that imposter syndrome, wondering when someone’s going tell me to get back into uniform.”

“Very little chance of that, Sally. You have all the experience, on the beat, and the imagination to be a good detective. Now, keep on doing what you do best – think outside the box.”

While they were talking, a police courier had come in and put a box on Sue’s desk. When she took the lid off, she called to Ben.

“This one’s for you, Ben. It looks like a case that Sheffield has pulled from the old records. This will give you something to look at until you go home, tonight.”

Ben came over and picked up the box, taking it back to his desk. Sally went over as he pulled out the files.

“Let’s look at the precis, Ben, while you start with the heavy stuff.”

Marianne Gregory © 2023