Chapter 3

I walked back to the car and got in, pulling down the shade to check my teeth in the mirror. Frank looked at me and raised his eyebrow.

“I’m just checking that I’ve still got white teeth. That womans’ idea of a nice cup of tea would strip paint.”

He laughed as he pulled away from the kerb.

“Don’t tell me what you found out. I could tell, by the look on your face as you came back, that you’ve found out another piece of the Jock Jigsaw. Write it up as an addendum to the report, this afternoon. We have a team meeting on Fridays and can talk about it then. I’ll look at the report and see if I can add any more, working with my contacts.”

That afternoon we met a lady in the park. She was the victim of domestic violence and the police had warned her partner but hadn’t put him away. She had picked the outside location so that she could speak freely. With me sitting beside her, she not only spoke freely, she got me to hold her while she sobbed her heart out, along with a lot of detail that wasn’t on the official record.

This time, I asked the questions and Frank borrowed my notepad to jot down the record of the meeting. She looked a lot better from having told us of the more hurtful things her partner had done, and even smiled a bit as she thanked us for being so understanding. On the way back to the office, Frank was humming a tune that I’d heard on a TV advert. It was for a liquid cleaner that made everything sparkle.

In the office I rearranged the electronic notes and then added my own extra information. I needed to type the report of our last interview from Franks’ notes but, luckily, he wrote so that I could read them. I sent the reports to the printer for him to read later. He also showed me how to send the electronic version to his office computer. Then, I was ordered to wipe the reports from the tablet and start with it clean the next day.

It was the end of the working day and Frank told me to go off and tidy myself up and then wait for my mother to take me home. He smiled as he told me that today had been different, but interesting.

That evening I had a shower before dinner and changed into jeans and a top. I was bushed! I checked that the suit was all right for another day and gave it a spray of fabric freshener. The tablet was on charge, to be ready for another day of strangeness.

At dinner, I asked my father about Armstrongs’ Garage and he snorted. “Those buggers, they call themselves mechanics? They haven’t had a good tradesman there since a young lad that they got rid of. With the money they pay and the conditions they enforce, it’s a wonder anyone works there at all. I’m told that nobody is allowed to whistle or sing in the workshop. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, it came up today during an interview. I can’t talk about it but I think I may have been talking to the lad they got rid of when he got into a little trouble, years ago.”

“All right, then. I know that you’re now involved with serious things. Your mum won’t tell me a thing about her day. I’ve got to regale everyone with my own worries, just to have a conversation”

Next day we were back at the police station, talking to three ‘naughty boys’ one after the other. This time I was given my own badge that opened the doors or, at least, those that didn’t matter. We had a light lunch and went back to the office, where I wrote up the reports of our visits. These took some time as the three lads we were acting for had all been involved in a gay bashing and the victim was still in hospital. I said nothing during our visits and the looks that they gave me said more than I was happy with. I was starting to see just what the nasty part of the job could involve.

Before I packed to go home, I asked Frank something that had been on my mind since yesterday. “Frank, that lad we spoke to who had gone through the ceiling into the chemist. Had he gone through the roof, first, because I can’t think of any chemist shops in the area that are single storey?”

He pulled the folder and looked. “No, he had broken in to the empty flat above the shop and pulled up the floor.”

“If that’s the case, wouldn’t the owner of the flat bear some responsibility by not having it properly secure?”

“Good thought. I’ll check with the police who the owner is. If it’s the same as the owner of the chemist shop, then they certainly should have not made it so easy to gain access. If there’s a landlord who owns both the flat and the shop, there may be a way the chemist can claim negligence.”

“Another thing from yesterday. The lady we saw in the park. Are we defending her husband? She, surely, hasn’t done anything bad.”

“You’re right, again. We are defending her. Her husband has claimed that he only hit her in self-defence and has accused her of constant harassment. What you got her to talk about has given us enough to blow him out of the water.”

I was picking up my bag when he said. “Tomorrow, you’re going to prison with Walter, our boss. He wants to see how you fare in a very harsh environment.”

That evening, I asked Mum what I should wear to prison and she suggested slacks and a loose sweater. She told me that, if I ended up walking the gangways, every convict in the place will be telling me just what they would like to do, should I end up in their cell.

Next day, with Walter, the partner, we went to the local prison. It took forever to be processed and I think that if I didn’t have my new police access badge, I wouldn’t have made it into the bare room that we ended up in. Sitting in the room, chained to a chair, itself welded to the floor, was the most dapper man I’ve seen, wearing prison clothes.

Walter sat across from him and I sat off to one side, with my notebook, the tablet waiting for me to pick up on the way out. Whenever I looked his way, our client, Jeremy Short, was looking at me in that way that made me shiver – you know, the ‘Silence of the Lambs’ look, before the victim gets cooked.

This was a big case. Even I had read about this man in the paper. He was pure evil and, by all reports, killed at least six women, after raping them for weeks on end. He seemed so meek and mild, and then asked me my name. I stayed quiet and Walter told me that he didn’t need to know anything, other than I was there to take notes.

Our client was not a happy chap, and started to get a bit het up. He refused to talk to Walter, insisting that he wanted to talk to me. Walter looked at me and winked, so the client couldn’t see it.

“Why would I want to talk to you, sir? From what I’ve seen, you won’t be going anywhere for quite a few years.”

“You’re quite right, young lady. It’s just that I can’t help myself when I see a beautiful girl. I know I’m not a good man, but it’s like being black haired or blonde, you can’t stop what you are. Walter, here, would like me to swing for what I’ve done, but he’ll do the right thing and claim that I’m either just mad, or that they haven’t got anything to positively pin on me.”

“Are you, just mad, sir?”

“Ha, ha, you’re precious. You remind me of Holly, she was blonde as well. She loved playing on the swings. I do prefer tall blondes, just like a perfect gentleman. She’s able to look at swings all day, now.”

Walter got the interview back on track and we left the room as the warder waited to unshackle the prisoner.

Back in the hallway, Walter said, “Sorry about that but I had a hunch and Inspector Mason needed our help. Oh! Here he is now.”

I looked along the corridor to see a large man with a huge grin on his face. When we reached him he introduced himself to me and then guffawed. “Walter, old friend, you didn’t do your client any favours, this morning. I owe you more than one for that bit of trickery. You, young lady, have just helped us bury that murdering bastard. The Holly, you reminded him of, was one of the missing girls that we hadn’t nailed him on. She was a tall blonde, a netball player and from a good family. We have never found her body but have never looked properly in the playground, near his home. We’ll be sending in the ground piercing radar this afternoon. I suppose you’re going to talk to that wife-bashing husband now?”

Walter agreed that this was our next stop. I thought we may be looking in on the husband of the woman we’d spoken to on Monday, but this was a totally different case that we worked with today.

When we arrived in the interview room, the prisoner was handcuffed to an eyebolt on the table, this being welded to the floor. We took two seats across the table as he looked at us with tears in his eyes.

Walter opened the conversation. “Mr. Bentine, my name is Walter and this is Olivia, my assistant for today. I’m here to go through the case with you, before passing your file to one of our legal team. I see from the docket that you were arrested, at your home, when your wife called for the police after you hit her, am I right?”

“You’re right, up to a point. My wife waited a half an hour to call the police.”

Walter glanced at me, so I asked, “Why did she wait so long, surely, if you had hit her once, you could have hit her again, or even stop her from calling for help. I haven’t seen your wife, but you really don’t look like an evil man. Unless you turn into the Hulk, I think I could ward you off, myself.”

“That’s the whole point,” he sobbed, “It took the time for me to go and change. If the police had turned up while I was still wearing my maids’ outfit, they would have laughed at her.”

“Maids’ outfit? What, the whole petticoats, heels and make-up?”

“That’s the look. I’ve been her maid for a couple of years now. She caught me in a dress when she came home one day, and threatened to tell my employer unless I looked after her, hand and foot. I’m a relationship consultant and having knowledge of both sides of the argument makes me good at my job. That day, she just went too far. She had ordered me to go and change into an evening dress and to make myself glamorous. She told me that she had organised a double date and that I was to go home with the guy I would be with. She was going to bring her guy home for ‘proper sex’, as she called it. I just broke. I hit her with the broom and she went mad. I think she’d set it up so that I would get arrested and she could bring men home whenever she wanted.”

“Would you rather go to prison as a wife beater and lose your job, anyway, or just admit that you’re a sissy maid.”

“I’m not a sissy, miss. I’m a transvestite. I love the feel of female clothing. I loved the feel of my wifes’ underwear when we first got together. It didn’t take me long to get something for myself. The day I wore such a lovely piece of clothing was the day I was lost.”

Walter took over. “Mr. Bentine. Can we claim that you hit your wife once, in self-defense, as she has been controlling your life with menace? She claims that you hit her several times. The police, I have to say, are not convinced with her explanation. The arresting officer has noted that, when they arrived at the house, your wife was dabbing her eyes “To stop the swelling” while you were sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea in front of you. Where did the broom strike her?”

“On the left hip, sir. If you get someone to examine her, I’m sure there’ll be a bruise on her hip. I would never hit a person on their face. I’m just not that kind of man, that’s if I’m any kind of man.”

I asked, “Did she say who these two other gentlemen were?”

“Oh! Yes. Her guy is Bernard, who she works with, and the other guy is called Henry, a queer if you ever saw one. She was setting me up to be broken in.”

Walter thanked him and we left the room. Outside, waiting for us in the corridor, stood a beaming Inspector Mason.

“I owe you another one, there. You two are crime solving super-sleuths, today.”

Walter laughed. “Wait until this young lady has actually studied law, you won’t be able to win against her. This is just her third day in the office before she heads to Manchester at the end of summer. If this week is anything to go by, I’ll be offering her a retainer to come back to us, every chance she can get.”

Once we had retrieved our things and were back in the car, he turned to me.

“Just what is it about you that makes people open their hearts to you. Poor old Bentine would have just accepted his fate without saying anything if I’d been there with Frank.”

“I don’t know sir. I suppose that looking like the girl next door makes them think that
I’m someone who will listen. That’s happened more than once, this week.”

“Yes, Frank ran the cases you were introduced to past me last night. I don’t care how you do it, but I’m going to take every opportunity to make it work for us, this summer. You’ll be seeing more sides of the legal profession, in a few weeks, than most juniors see in a year. Now, I think, you’ve earned lunch.”

We had lunch at a nice café where Walter was known. The owner came out and I was introduced. The owners’ daughter was at Saint Monica's’ and he had been at the awards assembly so the introduction was brief. I was given his card and told to visit often. What was odd was that I was starting to enjoy meeting some of the people I was seeing. It was starting to make the town a bit more of a family. Maybe I would come back after Uni.

We went back to the office and it took me much of the afternoon to write up the two reports, seeing that I just had a few notes and my memory to work with. After I had printed the first one, Frank picked it up and sat at his desk to read it, while I tried to make sense of the second one.

He waited until I had sent the second one to the printer, and both to his computer.

“Olivia, Walter told me that he had a hunch about old ‘Shortcut’ Short. He put you right into the line of fire this morning and you fired back with just the right amount of scorn. Short thinks he is above the laws of normal man. All mass murderers think the same. If they find Holly in the playground, the police are going to have to work hard to keep you out of it. It will be just the sort of thing the press love – the pretty girl who tricked a monster into making a mistake. Films have been made with less meat.”

“I just did, and said, what seemed right. It’s not my fault he slipped up. I think, though, that if they do find a body in the playground, he will be looking for another defense team.”

“And good riddance! I know there’s the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ bit, but some of the cases we defend are enough to make you puke! I took this profession because I wanted to stop the innocent going to prison, not to keep the guilty out of it. Sorry, it gets to me, sometimes.”

Before I went home, he told me that tomorrow I would have a day with our friendly police. A police car will pick me up at home at 7.30 and I would see how the boys in blue spent their day.

“You’ll be with Detective Sergeant Samootin, Sammy to his friends. He works for Inspector Mason, who you met today. Between them, I think you’ve made some influential friends for life. Tomorrow will see just how happy they are with you.”

When I told Mum I was getting picked up in the morning, she told me that Sammy was a good guy and his parents had a curry place in town. If he was friendly, we could find a time to eat there.

That evening, we had dinner and the TV was on, showing the news. There was a banner proclaiming ‘Breaking News’ and the picture that came next was of the crime reporter, standing next to a set of swings.

“I’m here, in a childrens’ playground while, all around me the police are searching. They have four teams of ground penetrating radars, two from the police and two from the University History Department. I can tell you that they are going over every inch of the park. Why? I can’t say, but, if you look over my shoulder you will see the house where Jeremy Short lived, before his arrest for six murders of young girls.”

The house, in question, was helpfully highlighted.

“We are not allowed to show you, but a tent has been erected over one of the flower beds and we’ve been told that the police will be working here until they have done what they came to do. We’ve been told that, once I’ve filed this story, we have to leave the area. I hope to have more for you, tomorrow. This is Ashley Cooper, for West TV News.”

My mother saw the look on my face and took my hand.

“I think I know why Walter was so upbeat when he got back to the office. The roster showed that he was taking you to the prison for two interviews. One of those was that monster Short, wasn’t it?”

I nodded.

‘I won’t ask any more. Don’t you even open your mouth!” she ordered, looking at Dad. He just sat there looking like a fish that’s just been landed.

“To put your mind at rest, Dad,” I said, “I just sat there, taking notes, most of the time. Short had a flashback about a girl who looked a bit like me and said something he shouldn’t. That’s all.”

Mum looked knowingly at me and that was all we said about things. I went up to my room to see what would be suitable for a day with the police. I thought that if I wasn’t going into the office, jeans, a tee and an over-shirt would be good, along with boots in case I have to chase a bad guy down. I added a bum-bag to take my personal things, and a small bag on a long strap that would have my phone, notebook and pens in.

The next morning I put my hair into a pony-tail and was light on the make-up. I was ready at 7.30 when a police car pulled up outside the house. Mum came out with me and gave the guy that stood beside the car a hug.

“Hello, Sammy, you look after my girl today. She’s precious to me”

“No less precious to us, I can tell you. Today she is going to see just how closely we work with all the legal eagles, just to keep the wheels of justice turning.”

I was ushered into the back seat and the driver gave me a smile as I got in. Sammy came around to the other side and got in beside me. I waved to Mum as we pulled away.

“Olivia, I’m Sammy, unless we’re with my superiors and then I’m Sergeant Samootin. Frank and I went to Uni together, studying law. He went into the legal profession and I used mine to fast-track my police career. The handsome lad in the front is Constable Arthur Atkinson, or Arty in private. Can we call you Livie?”

“Of course you can, that’s what all my friends call me.”

“Right, Livie. Just to test your powers of observation, I’m going to show you six pictures. They have a mix of people you’ve seen, some you haven’t, and one who I’m sure you’ve never met. The six-pack, if you please, Arty.”

The photos were handed to him and he showed me one at a time.

“Remember, this isn’t a line-up. Just tell me if you’ve see the person in the photo and what you know of them.”

The first was a stern-looking woman in a police uniform, somewhat high rank, if all the braid was to be believed. I looked at it carefully and then it clicked.

“This one is one of the Old Girls I spoke to on Friday. She was much nicer dressed then, in a skirt suit. I think she said her name was Carol something and her daughter was finishing second year at Saint Monicas’.”

They both smiled and he gave me the second.

“This one’s easy, he’s on the Board of Governors and I’m afraid I didn’t pick up his name.”

The third was a mug-shot. The guy looked like a brute, tattooed on his face and neck. I looked at it for a while, trying to visualise him without the art.

“This one is someone I’ve never met, but he looks like an older, and uglier, version of a photo I saw Monday. I won’t bet my life on it but I would say that this is Jamie Murphy.”

The fourth was taken from CCTV, showing two guys, obviously doing a deal by the plastic bag one of them was holding. I looked at the buyer, something about him was familiar.

“The buyer is, I think, Edward Hamilton. If that’s correct, the seller is a guy called Bert who lives on the coast.”

The look on Sammy's’ face told me that this was one of the ones I shouldn’t have known.

“How do you know them?”

“Ed was my friend Angela's’ boyfriend up until Saturday afternoon when he two-timed her. Bert is a friend of his who has a reputation as a dealer, or so the gossip around school says.”

“What, that good girls’ school?”

“There are girls there that have sisters that have gone to the Council School, you know. We aren’t all sweet and light.”

The next was another CCTV shot of a guy and girl standing next to a Beemer. The guy was bending down, as if he was having trouble unlocking the car.

“You’re winding me up, aren’t you?”

“No we’re not, Livie,” said Arty from the front seat. “Those two CCTV pictures have been in our files for a couple of months. I just grabbed them as the subjects would be around your age group and you may have seen them at a dance, or something.”

“You’re right about the dance. This guy is a friend of Ed and the two of them picked us up at a dance, about six months ago. His name is Rodney Dougal and the girl is a high school boot-out called Jacinta Bellows.”

Sammy gave me the last picture. This was of a nicely dressed lady, obviously a selfie. It bothered me that something was odd so I concentrated on the eyes. I have a thing about memorising peoples’ eyes. Then it hit me.

“That’s a picture of Mr. Bentine in a dress. He does look the part.”

“Six for six, Livie. That was a surprise. Yes, it is poor old Bentine in drag. We took the information he gave you and followed it up last night. The guy his wife works with is the doctor who signed off on her injuries. The queer he was to be set up with is a cleaner in their office. She is going to be picked up at work tomorrow and checked over by our doctor. I’m pretty sure the facial injuries will be shown to be make-up. We were invited into her house last night to pick up some clothes for her husband. While she was distracted, we looked in the spare bedroom and found where he really slept. This was in his bedside drawer, along with others.”

“So, you’ll let him go, then?”

“Yes, after due process. Now, let’s get back to these other characters and Saturday. I’m intrigued. But first I have to make a call.”

Marianne Gregory © 2022