(aka Bike) Part 1685 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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It was a week or so after the demise of J Kite esquire, the kids were back in school and I was looking over my teaching material when the doorbell rang. The gates had malfunctioned again, probably because Tom had bumped them once more, so we had to leave them open.
Being closest I answered the door, and was surprised to see Andy Bond there. He was out of uniform and it took me a moment to recognise him. “May I come in?”
“But of course, I’ve just boiled the kettle–tea or coffee?”
“Either,” he followed me into the kitchen where I made two cups of tea and invited him to sit at the table. I collected up the notes I’d been reading and placed them in their file with the textbook of ecology we use as the standard text.
“Work?” he commented nodding at the pile of papers.
“Yep, corrupting young minds: I’m actually teaching two classes this term because the applications were so numerous.”
“Because of your film?”
“Possibly, I’m doing a programme on mammals on Radio 4 with Professor Harris from Bristol, he’s an expert on foxes and badgers.”
“We each recorded a bit for them to play, Harris did a fox watch in Bristol and I took them round one of my dormouse sites checking the nest boxes.”
“Did you see any?”
“Yeah, one, but several are building nests in them.”
“This early?”
“Yeah, it was so warm in March, it woke them up.”
“I see they released that one they found in a restaurant in Lyme Regis.”
“Did they? I hadn’t seen that yet.” See? I don’t know everything. I sipped my tea, ”So are you off duty?”
“Yeah, was on my way home.”
“So why have you come?”
“I was just passing and thought I’d cadge a cuppa.”
“Andy, that is total codswallop, now why are you here–Kite and co?”
“Okay, this is off the record, okay?”
I shrugged, I wasn’t going to tell them anything I hadn’t already said.
“I was looking at the engineers report on the RTA that killed Kite.”
“Oh, and?”
“Well, all the wheels came off his car.”
“The significance of which is?”
“It’s so unusual it’s hardly ever heard of.”
“Perhaps German engineering isn’t as good as we like to believe?” I tried to distract.
“It’s like they’d all been loosened.”
“One of his underlings didn’t like him?”
“C’mon, Cathy, that’s nonsense–they were all terrified of him.”
“Perhaps one got brave or desperate?”
“Did you loosen them?”
I shook my head, “I can say hand on heart that I didn’t loosen anything, although I did chuck a rock at Ditchley and hit him on the side of the face.”
“You told us that.”
“We saw the three of them talking and heard that they were going to kill Jim, so we waited until Kite went, and as far as I know he drove off okay; then we tried to rescue Jim, which nearly worked, and I’m extremely grateful to your colleague who shot Ditchley, because I think he was going to kill me.”
“So did my colleague.”
“You know if one of those wheels hadn’t come off, we could have seen they’d been tampered with, but because they all did, we can’t–so you’re safe.”
“I didn’t do it, Andy. I promise you I didn’t. I’ve only seen Kite’s car once, the day he came here to harass me with spurious law suits.”
“I said it was off the record. Otherwise I could have been investigating a manslaughter.”
“Don’t cars all have locking wheel nuts, these days? I think my Jag does, but I’ve never tried changing a wheel.”
“Meaning?”
“The wheels wouldn’t come off, would they, they’d be locked on.”
“His only had one locking nut per wheel.”
“Well shows how much I know, doesn’t it?”
“I’m surprised that someone who is so into bikes doesn’t know anything about cars.”
“Why? I enjoy riding and tinkering with bikes, but cars leave me cold. I have an old Jaguar in the garage. Simon drools over it, Danny has asked me to give it to him when he can drive. I’d rather drive my own car and I’d prefer to cycle if was more feasible–but it isn’t. I’m just not interested in cars except as a means of carrying things or people. I wouldn’t know a locking wheel nut if you paid me. I mean if they’re locked on, how am I supposed to change the wheel?”
“Get Simon to show you.” He was accusing Simon, was he?”
“You’re joking, he couldn’t work out how to open the bonnet on one car he had. He was pretending to check the oil but he had no idea what was what. On another, he didn’t realise how to open the fuel cap cover–there was a pull switch by the driver’s seat. He couldn’t see it.”
“So you worked it out for him, did you, being a bit more mechanically minded?”
“No, I had no more clue than he, we called the garage and they told us what to do. Locked filler caps are not an issue on most bicycles.”
“Yeah okay, look if you think of anything, however small, we could be dealing with a case of manslaughter or even murder.”
“But there are thousands of his victims who could have done it?” I lied.
“But they weren’t at the warehouse, were they? You were.”
“Andy, I told you, we found the warehouse by getting the network to triangulate it for us. I don’t necessarily remember seeing Kite’s car there. If I did it wasn’t important.”
“But it would have told you he was still there.”
“The van that Ditchley used apparently was parked round the back, we saw that so we knew someone was there. Kite was leaving when we arrived, hence the photo of the three conspirators.”
“Okay, Cathy, I’ll believe you had nothing to do with it. I suppose it could just be a coincidence.”
“I once saw a wheel come off a caravan on the flyover on the M5 over the river, near Gordano services.”
“One wheel?”
“Yeah, your guys told me that only one of his came off, the others presumably came off in the impacts with the lorries.”
“Did it do much damage–the loose wheel?”
“No, but the guy pulling the caravan wanted to walk across three lanes of fast moving traffic to get it.”
“Idiot.”
“Absolutely, they had to call you guys to close a couple of lanes to pick it up. He’d have been dead long before he got to his wheel.”
“Probably. Thanks for the tea, see you around.”
“Any time, Andy.”
“Oh, wasn’t there some guy who tried to cross the New York freeway and got hit by about seventy cars before the traffic could stop?”
“Ugh, minced jaywalker.”
“Oh that was something they never pinned on Kite.”
“What was?”
“It was alleged he dropped some kid on the central reservation late one night. The kid was pissed and of course walked out in front of an artic. I’m not sure if they found enough to fill a shoe box for the funeral.”
“So Kite’s demise was poetic justice then?”
“In a philosophical manner of speaking, in legal terms it’s homicide.”
“Oh, yeah, I suppose it was if someone loosened the nuts deliberately.”
“I’d better go, my wife will kill me.”
“Not by loosening your nuts, I hope?” I joked, though I felt little in the mood for jocularity. I wanted to call Simon, but if Andy’s visit was undercover stuff, then they’d be waiting for me to do that. I cleared up my kitchen table, rinsed out the cups and went to check on Catherine who was having a nap.
Jeremy Kite was killed, but we didn’t kill him, just contributed somewhat. Because he was threatening my family and me, I feel no remorse–it was a pest control exercise, like poisoning a pesky rat–only I’d have more sympathy for the rat than I would for a shit like Kite.
There’ll be an inquest at some point for both of those who died. With a bit of luck, some of those he hurt or killed directly or otherwise, will have a chance to have their say.
Comments
Interesting
Interesting chat with Andy Bond (Left off the PC 'cause he was off duty). Nice of him to stop by and let Cathy know she's probably under suspicion over loosening the nuts... I'd not have wanted to loosen them with the tire arm that comes with my cars (assuming it fit the BMW's lug nuts, of course)... I'd have bashed my fingers into the pavement or something... Something obvious.
Look forward to seeing if the plod push further into this, or let it lay due to who the victim is (& who the suspects are).
Thanks,
Annette
It isn't the car that kills
It isn't the car that kills, it's usually the loose nut behind the steering wheel.
S.
Hehe!
I once heard it said that all the safety features on cars can lead some idiots to drive irresponsibly because they know that whatever happens, they'll be safe. Even more so if the car's a company car, whereby they're not even responsible for purchase, tax, insurance or even fuel costs.
I once heard it said that if steering wheels were fitted with a sharp spike, there'd be far fewer accidents because people would drive a lot more carefully...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I think that was ...
... T E Lawrence (of Arabia) who was a very keen motorcyclist (He rode a Brough Superior SS100 and was killed riding it). He said that if people were required to drive with the point of a spear resting against their chest with it's shaft attached to the front bumper they'd drive very carefully.
It seems that Cathy was somewhat parsimonious with la verite and who can blame her?
Thanks Angharad. Now your fertile imagination has to come up with a new adventure. I can hardly wait
Robi
coppers
Interesting isnt it how a supposed friend drops by to pry about the death of a scum sucking pig who was a waste of oxygen anyway and almost literatly accuses a nice decent lady like Cathy of having anything to do with it.... some friend huh? Never did get along with those people who carry badges they arent to be trusted
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1685
Bond was giving them a warning that the plods will investigate. If there is a video of them near the car, things will look bad.
May Your Light Forever Shine
I'm Pretty Certain That One Thing...
Kite and Ditchley would have made sure of, is that there were no cameras around that warehouse that could have been used as evidence against them for their dirty deeds, so I imagine that there would be nothing to show that Simon was the one who loosened them. I would think that the Plod would say good riddance to bad rubbish and not really try that hard to really investigate what was left of Kite's car and who was responsible for aiding in his demise.
Rough justice
It works.
Good-un Cathy!
Too many nutters about these days.
Bev
OXOXOX
I wouldn't lose any sleep either
Sorry, no let the law sort it out here. The man would have continued to go after Cathy while the legal system does its lazy thing of going through the various courts. Probably no protection either as she is not some kind of state's witness or something.
Sad that we have to come down to getting our own justice.
Kim
Reasonable doubt
What are the standards for prosecution in the UK? In the US, the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Without fingerprints or witnesses, getting a conviction would be really difficult based on such scanty circumstantial evidence. In fact, they wouldn't be able to even get it to trial.
With all the people who have reason to hate Kite, there is even more doubt.
Did the plod find the tire tool? That would be a small piece of additional circumstantial evidence, but still not enough.
Of course, the Texas 'he needed killin' defense would work. ;-)
While i have no problems
with Kite's demise ( after all he who lives by the sword dies by the sword ) i did remember thinking at the time the wheel nuts were loosened that it could cause problems for our dynamic duo, So far we have seen the friendly face of Andy Bond giving Cathy fair warning that there might be trouble ahead, Given the nature of Andys job that is about as much as he can do, But as we all know there are some members of the police who would quite happily dance in delight if they could implicate Cathy in the Kite case... So far they have no real evidence to do that, But you do have the feeling that this is one case that will be kept on file for a long time.... Elephants have long memories , But so it seems do the police !
Kirri
All's well
that wheels well.