Chapter 1
Detective Chief Inspector Susan Cousins sat at her desk in the open office and thought about the last couple of months. It had been a whirlwind of interesting events, the least of them being the winding up of the Shields case.
It had, finally, been wrapped up and filed away in the records. His house had been searched, finding boxes of completed models of the Coal Mining Museum winding gear, along with a letter from them, telling him that they had too much unsold stock, so would not be ordering any more. That, she thought, was enough to leave a dead girl at their door.
His doctor had verified that the man had a heart problem but had refused to do anything about his health. A keen-eyed FSI man had noticed a chair, made into a wheelbarrow, that sat in front of the pub. They found Shields’ fingerprints on the handles, so surmised that this was how he transported his last victim to the Tar Tunnel.
The last loose ends were sorted out when a search into the records at the closest police station at Wenlock found entries of two, unidentified, bodies of girls found in the lake, some ten or more years ago. They were severely damaged, and it was now thought that they had, indeed, been dumped into the underground river below Andrea’s Den, as the far cave was now called. Another one of Andy’s hunches.
She looked around, seeing the desks where Andy and Maria sat to solve that case, and seeing two, new, detectives there. They weren’t a patch on their predecessors, yet, but they were doing all right. She had been sad when her brightest ‘resigned’. She, alone in the office, knew that they hadn’t actually left the service, merely transitioned to a more secretive version of it. She did see them, on occasions. One of those being the opening of the Boat House, not to the public, but only to qualified archaeologists, with caving and cave diving credentials.
Of course, the official opening had to take place in the open air, with Andy declaring the Barton Cavern well and truly open. Alex was next, opening Anderson’s Ledge, with Andrea declaring the opening of Andrea’s Den, the cave that she had said was behind the Ledge. Sue had seen some pictures, taken by the first to properly look into that cave, and she had seen a veritable carpet of animal bones, with some mammoth tusks showing clearly.
Janet had been put in charge of the dig, which was expected to last many years. Both she, and Andrea, had undergone dive training with Joe, in Sheffield, so that they could explore the far cave at their convenience. Andrea, after her short, but profitable, brush with fame, had moved to Cresswell Village to be close to the site, with the Visitor Centre making full use of her image in their advertising. Andrea had drawn the line at being photographed in skimpy furs, looking like a cavewoman. She had threatened the person who had suggested that with the club that he had given her.
The entry fissure had been widened, with a new door fitted, and the whole complex was now lit by low-voltage lamps, powered by the mains through a transformer. They had run a pipe through the tunnel, to the Ledge, and a power cable, along with a communications cable, was put though it. Andrea had told her that the place held no fears for her, as it was the focus of her new career. Sue’s team, and both dive teams, had each been presented with a framed photo which Janet had organised, of the wall painting. It was called ‘Janet’s Jumbo’ with a plaque that was dedicated to the fine police officers who had led to the discovery of the ‘find of the last two centuries’.
Andy and Maria had married, with the men of her team forming a guard of honour as they came out of the church together. The Assistant Commissioner had stepped up to walk Maria down the aisle, a rare honour. He had told Sue that the honour was his, escorting a woman who had solved nearly thirty murders, along with the team. Alex had been Best Man, with his sister-in-law, and Maria’s friend, Jenny, as the Maid of Honour, with Andrea, and Sally making up the group of very well-dressed women at the altar. Sue smiled; there were a lot of well-dressed women there, that day, thanks to a generous discount offered by Jolene’s Dress Shop.
They all utilised the dresses at various functions and were becoming regular visitors to Jolene’s. Maria and Collette would take extra care with the selections for them. They now had a regular booking at ‘Off The Bone’, with Jim calling it an anniversary dinner. It was pencilled into her diary, now, every three months, in honour of the young men who had died in that building. Sue smiled; it was odd how things work out. Andy and Maria had come into the office, had flourished, and then were gone, like a pair of tornados passing by.
She pulled her mind back to the current situation. She had been given a new case to look at. It looked on first sight, like a straight-forward suicide, but emails, sent by the dead man, only hours before his death, had been setting up a series of appointments with his doctor, his bank manager, and his lawyer. It had been those three men who had raised their concerns with the police who had first taken the case.
She looked around to see who she could give it to. Lean Skinner, and Super Henderson were working on a series of robberies. Jack Brownlee and Lee were looking into a series of arson cases. Sky Walker was back in hospital, for further repairs to his lung. His wife had told her that she was organising a move to the sunny south, where the air is fresh. She would be sorry to lose another good detective.
Sally Brown was winding up a forgery case. That had been an odd one, and she was glad that Sally had learned to think outside the box. It had been fake pottery, mainly Egyptian and Grecian, and had come to light when one had been accidentally broken at a gallery in the city. They had thought that the clay was the wrong colour, and Sally had sent it to a laboratory to be analysed. The report had shown that it was from a local clay mine. From the mine, she had traced all the customers of the potters suppliers, right through to a regular customer who never seemed to show, or sell, his output. He had separated himself from the end users by using cut-outs, not expecting an investigation coming from the clay he used.
Sue decided on a course of action. If there was anything odd about this suicide, Sally would be the one to spot it. She took the file and went to Sally’s desk.
“Sally, I have a new case for you. It’s a bit odd, and you can see if there’s anything suspicious. I’m going to put you in charge of a small team, to give our new recruits some experience with using their imagination.”
She turned to the two new boys, who had lifted their heads from the files they were looking at.
“Jerry and Harry. You’re to help with this case. It may be nothing, but it may be something. Sally will be your leader and she’ll report to me. You can work with her after you finish those files that you’re getting ready for the storage.”
They both said “Yes, Boss.” in unison.
Sue was smiling as she went back to her desk. These two had come into the team from different places, yet they had immediately bonded, almost like twins. They couldn’t be further from looking like twins if they tried. Jerry Britten was lean and tall, with dark hair and pianists hands. He had been dubbed Ben, by the team, after Benjamin Britten, the composer. The other, Harry Parker, was short and muscular, with a buzz-cut, but had been given the nickname of Charlie, by Lean Skinner, a devotee of the jazz player Charlie Parker. Oddly enough, Harry did play the saxophone in a dance band, when he wasn’t working. Both had come to her from the uniformed branch, where they had shown enough promise to be added to the CID. They were, she had to admit, both hard workers and very good with details.
Sally finished what she was doing, then picked up the file to look at what Sue had thought odd. At first glance, it was a straight-forward suicide. The man, Harrison Prentice, had written a suicide note on his laptop, then gone out to his back garden, tied a rope to a tree limb, added a noose around his neck while standing on a kitchen chair. The last thing was evident by the kitchen chair, a little way away, on its side. She looked at the photos, then took a magnifying glass out of her drawer and looked closely. The picture that showed the full scene had been taken from the body camera that the first squad car on the scene had captured. Following ones were taken by FSI when they had taken over, after the body had been cut down. There was one picture that caught her eye, so she found it, in the electronic version of the file, enlarged it and sent the picture to the printer.
She then looked at the toxicology report, which had nothing unusual except for a high level of alcohol in the blood. That was backed up by a half-empty bottle of scotch on his office desk, next to the laptop. There was one thing that stood out to Sally, at first glance. The laptop was connected to a printer, but the note had not been printed. To her, it meant that you couldn’t totally trust the fact that the dead man had actually composed the note. A copy of the note, printed later, was in the file.
There were notes about the three complainants. All three were well respected in their field, the doctor, she knew, had his office in Burton-on-Trent. The bank manager was at a branch on Burton Road, Castle Gresley, very close to where the man had lived, on Mount Road. The lawyer was the last appointment that he had made, in an office in Birmingham City.
Then she stopped and wracked her brain, thinking back to the time she had been working as a WPC in uniform, in Burton. There was something that she should remember. She didn’t recognise the man’s name, but as she read the report, written by an officer she knew, she realised that she had met the wife. That brought it back to her. It had been a Saturday night and she had been checking the pubs. The woman had staggered out as she was approaching a pub. She had been, Sally now remembered, very beautiful, very well dressed, and extremely drunk.
She had staggered to the kerbside and tried to open the door of a Jaguar when Sally had stopped her, while calling the station to rustle up a cab to meet her outside the pub. When the taxi had arrived, she had needed to look in the woman’s bag for her address – on Mount Street, Castle Gresley.
She made a note of the address of the lawyer, rang him, and made an appointment to have a word, then stood.
“I’m going out for a while, lads. When you get a chance, have a look at this file. When I get back, we’ll talk about it. See you in a couple of hours.”
They nodded and she went to the printer to collect her picture and then out to her car. Her first stop, on the way, was going to be a camping store that she knew. In the store, she aimed at the section which catered to hikers and climbers. She showed her picture to the ‘expert’, asking him if he knew what the particular knot was. He scratched his head a bit.
“Look, I’m not a big climber, but I think that this is a Buntline Hitch, which you use when you want to be certain that it won’t come undone. Come on over to my mate who sails, he may have a better idea.”
He led her to another section, one that looked after snorkelers and fishermen.
“Bill, take a look at this picture for us. The lady wants to know what sort of knot it is.”
Bill looked at the picture, then closed his eyes as if he was trying to work through tying the knot in his mind.
“On first glance, it looks like a Buntline, but there’s an extra bit. It’s not one that I’ve seen with climbers, but it sometimes has a place in sailing. It’s called the Estar variation. The normal Buntline is used by climbers when you don’t want it to ever come loose, like making a permanent camp, but usually as the terminal knot for carabiners. This variation is used when you have a very slippery thing to secure. We have a couple of rich guys in the sailing club with very new sails, made from something called Dyneema. It’s a material that floats but is fifteen times stronger than steel. The knot is also used when you have slippery rope, and you don’t want it to come undone.”
“Is this Dyneema rare.”
“Oh, no. You’ll see it everywhere, these days. We have lots of it here, in the store. There’s a rack of ultra-light backpacks that are made from it, and you’ll find it in some of the hiking jackets.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful.”
As Sally sat in the car, there were some questions that she now wanted answers to.
At the lawyer’s office, he sat her in an easy chair and asked her if she would like a tea. When she said she would, he used his intercom to get two teas in his office. He sat opposite to her and asked her if she was taking the death of his friend seriously.
“I’ll tell you if you answer one simple question. Did your friend sail, hike or climb mountains?”
He laughed.
“Never, he was one of the most scared guys I’ve known. He ran and cycled to keep fit, but those three? He wouldn’t be seen within miles of a yacht unless it was sailing by as he was sunbathing on the beach.”
“Thank you, Sir. I can tell you, right now, that I believe that your friend was murdered. Now, do you know why he was coming to see you?”
“He was going to sign divorce papers. He had, finally, enough of her drunken ways. If you’d met her, you would know what I am talking about. The woman is a lush, and I expect the local bike for the studs around Burton. But don’t quote me on that bit, I’m supposed to be impartial as the lawyer for both of them, although I think that she’ll be finding another, after we’ve read the will.”
“Why is that Sir?”
“Keep this to yourself. He had already changed the will, only leaving her the house. It’s probably worth a million, or so, and will be a good pick-up, but his money has already gone to a charitable trust. There’s no way she can fight it, as he did leave her some cash, but not a lot. The meeting that we were going to have was also meant to finalise the paperwork on a small place that he was buying, further north. I’m wondering if she had listened in on his calls and thought she was about to be written out.”
“We can’t imagine scenarios, Sir, but we will look at where she was in the hours before he was found. Was he ill, he had made an appointment with his doctor.”
“Last time I spoke to him, he told me that his wife was having morning sickness, even on mornings when she hadn’t gone to bed drunk. He was going to get the doctor to take blood, and whatever they do for a paternity test. Harrison was fit, didn’t do booze, and took care of his body.”
“The toxicology report shows that he had half a bottle of scotch in him when he died.”
“No way! I was with him, a few years ago, when someone gave him an orange drink with vodka in it. The poor sod collapsed before he’d got it all down him. He could not, and would not, be able to drink scotch.”
“Thank you for your help, Sir. We may need you to make a statement around what we’ve spoken about. I’m sure that you understand the procedure. If I have any other questions, would you mind if I give you a call?”
“Not a problem, officer. I’m just glad that you’re taking this seriously.”
She went back to the camping store and sought out the guy with the sailing experience. When she found him, tidying up a display, she took out her notebook.
“When I was here, earlier, you told me that you had some people you know who had those special sails. Can you tell me where they sail?”
“Nowhere near here, there aren’t big enough lakes for yachts that size. I expect that you’ll find a few up in the Lake District. The ones I’ve seen have been sailing from a marina down on the south coast, which is where I go to crew other people’s boats. Maybe there are some who sail from the Welsh coast, they’d be a bit nearer.”
“All right, then. Where is the closest place where I would find the sort of cliffs where I would need a carabiner?”
“That’s an easy one. You only have to go into Wales, there’s plenty of climbs there, you would need that sort of kit on a five- or six-hundred-foot cliff if you want to be safe. You don’t even have to be going up mountains.”
“Thank you, again, you’ve been very helpful.”
Back in the office, Sue asked her what she thought of the file.
“Murder, Cuz, most definitely. The guy couldn’t hold his drink. I’ve been told that half a finger of that scotch would have seen him on the floor, rather than climbing a tree to top himself. He was about to divorce the wife. I met her, once, had to pour her into a taxi to take her home. There’s an oddity about the rope that was tied to the tree limb; it’s a very special knot. I’m going to have a good look at the FSI report, again, to find out what sort of rope was used.”
“Good work, Sally. Go and see what the musicians have come up with.”
Sally had to chuckle at that one as she went to her desk.
“OK, my bright young lads. What have you gleaned from that file?”
Ben spoke first, as usual.
“It doesn’t feel right. With that amount of booze in the blood, he would have had a hard time standing on the chair, let alone reaching up to tie a knot. The body had been cut down by the uniformed before FSI and CID turned up. The report says that they had taken a wooden stepladder from the garden shed to use when they cut him down, but there’s a note in the FSI report that says that there were marks in the lawn that had been made by a metal stepladder with tubular legs.”
“That’s odd. Anything else?”
“Yes, Sally,” added Charlie. “FSI noted that the rope was a very new one, very slippery, and the noose was a standard hangman’s one, something not every businessman would be able to create. The thing that they pointed out was that there was no other rope like it in the garden shed, but plenty of clothesline.”
“Time of death?”
“Sometime between two and four in the afternoon. The wife says that they had a light lunch and then she went out. She came back about four and didn’t go looking for him until six. She had been to her salon to be ready for a dinner that they were going to, that evening. They have a cook, but she had been given the day off, seeing that they would be eating out.”
“So, we have unusual rope, an unusual noose, signs of another stepladder, too much alcohol, and a wife with an unshakeable alibi. What does that say to you two?”
“A murder, done by clowns.”
“A murder, made to look like it was done by clowns.”
“I like the thinking. Now, there’s another thing. This is an enlargement of the knot that was used on the tree limb. It’s a very special knot, called an Estar, a variation of a Buntline, used on slippery rope – so the clowns knew what they were doing. I spoke to the lawyer and our victim had already changed his will to leave the wife nothing but the house and a small amount of cash. He was in the process of buying a small place further north, and the divorce papers had been drawn up. He thought she was pregnant, and it wasn’t his.”
“Then why make the murder so blatant?”
“Lads, you may not have attended many suicides when you were in uniform, but not every suicide gets looked at, like we are doing now. There’s usually a quick look at the body, some notes taken, and that’s it. FSI don’t get called unless the dead person is a celebrity, a sports star or rich. They had a look and made a report because he was rich. It’s only having three well-respected professionals asking questions that caused this to come our way. This file, in ninety percent of the time, would have been shelved and waiting for the coroner declaring the balance of mind was disturbed.”
“What now?”
“Now, lads, we wonder whether this is a one-off or part of a series. There’s no way that there are going to be similar murder cases, but we should check records, here and around the area. My thought is that we should look at coroner’s records of suicides by hanging, then pull any records on those first. That could take a week or more. But, first, we need to talk to the doctor and the bank manager, and then talk to the wife. How about you two getting us the first two appointments and I’ll join you. I used to work out of Burton so will get a meeting with the first uniforms on the scene, I know the guy who signed off on the report.”
“And then?”
“Then, my fine fellows, together we go and find who killed him. We have a lot of oddities to work with. We will leave talking to the wife until we have something to ask her that she doesn’t want us to be asking. I’m going to ask Doggy if he can pull the pictures in the area.”
She went and knocked on the office door where Doggy had his head behind a screen. He looked up and beckoned her in.
“Doggy, old pal, I wonder if you can pull up pictures from the A444, between northern Castle Gresley, the roundabout by the Appleby Glade and the big roundabout at Highcross. I’ve written the date here, for you. The time scale will be between midday and six, with someone coming and then going, with an hour or more between them. It’s speed limited and I think there’s a camera. No rush, we’re only on the first day of the case.”
“All right, Sally. How are you going, now?”
“Good. I think that this one may be a turning point, for me. Sue has put me in charge of the two lads, she calls them the musicians.”
“As long you conduct them with your usual aplomb, I predict that you’ll be making beautiful music, together. Many would pay to watch you perform.”
“You’re an old smoothie, Doggy. I’ll have you know that I did learn the recorder, in school.”
“Just leave it at home, I think that the recorder is a bagpipe without the bag.”
Marianne Gregory © 2023
Chapter 2
She laughed and went back to her desk. Tomorrow, she hoped, a few more answers would be forthcoming. This one had the feel of her last big case, in her mind, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.
The next day, the three detectives went north to see the doctor and the bank manager. The first would see them, in his clinic, at ten, the other, at the bank after eleven. Sally had spoken to her friend, and they had agreed to meet on his lunch break, at a café in Burton.
The doctor was not a long visit. He told them that his patient was healthy, had no signs of any depression. In fact, he said, the man had been looking forward to his future. He wouldn’t be drawn on the subject of the wife, declaring that she saw another doctor. The bank manager was equally certain that his friend had no suicidal tendencies. He told them that his friend had been a stable man, a member of his Lodge, and a pillar of society. When asked about the finances, he realised that he should be frank.
“Detectives, Harrison Prentice had sold the private hospital he owned and transferred the bulk of his money to a charitable trust. He was intending to move to Chester, where he had purchased a Childrens Home in the name of the trust. He had always wanted children, but his wife would not allow that. The trust will fund the Childrens Home, and he was intending to buy a small house, close by. All of this was carried out more than a month ago, along with a rather large mortgage on his local residence, the proceeds of which followed his other funds into the trust. I can give you the names of the trustees, they will be sad at his passing, but the money will keep them open for years to come, allowing them to find more donors. His account only has a small amount, plus the deposit money for his new purchase.”
Sally allowed Ben to lead with the question that they all had.
“So, Sir. If the wife inherits the house, there will be a substantial payment to be made, each month. How long before she runs through what’s left?”
“About six months, I expect. Much less if she keeps drinking. Look, I have to lay this on the line. He was my friend, and I was sad to see him being eaten up by her lifestyle, her total disregard for appearances and her willingness to bed any good-looking man. There are a few, in the Lodge, that have taken her to the local hotels.”
“Are there any who have been, shall we say, regulars?”
“No, she may return to one, or two, after a while, but no-one special. It’s my job, like yours, to keep tabs on my best customers. I’m certain that he was murdered, and that she had something to do with it!”
“So are we, Sir. So are we.”
They went into Burton to meet the uniformed officer, parking next to the squad car outside the café. Over a light lunch, her friend told them that the stepladder that they used was an old wooden one, with large, rectangular feet, and that they had to cut the rope with a hacksaw.
“Strange one, that,” said his partner. “We’ve had to take his missus home, blind drunk, more than once. If anything, I would have expected her to be the one hanging, with him owning up to it. She was a real mantrap, that one.”
“Yes,” murmured Sally. “I had to pour her into a taxi, one night when I was still a WPC. If she could have stayed sober, she could have been a model, or an actress.”
“We haven’t seen so much of her, lately. I wonder if she had a regular boyfriend. A couple of times she had called us to give Johnson Ridley a talking to. She was complaining that he was being far too hands on, so to speak, not something she usually minded.”
“Where would we find this Mister Ridley?”
“He isn’t a local, has a big place in Kidderminster, or nearby. They tell me that he’s a multi-millionaire, but you wouldn’t know it, to speak to him. Nice as pie, he is. I think he has a business in Burton, a side-line, if you like. It sells tourist things and artworks. I think that it’s an outlet for a few of his arty pals.”
The trio went to spring a surprise visit on the wife. When Sally rang the bell, the door was opened by an older woman wearing an apron.
“Yes, we’re not buying anything.”
“We’re police officers,” said Sally as they all showed their warrant cards. “We would like to have a word with the lady of the house, if she’s in.”
“Her Ladyship is in, all right, not long out of bed. She’s in the conservatory. You’re lucky you caught me, I finish my notice, tomorrow.”
“Did she sack you?”
“No, I gave her my notice. It was all right while the master was alive, he liked his food; but she eats like a bird, preferring liquids. Don’t know what I’ll do, but being home would be better than putting up with her. I could, I suppose, go back to cooking in a restaurant, but it would have to be one that didn’t serve up that arty-farty stuff that’s all the rage.”
Sally reached into her bag and pulled out a card from ‘Off the Bone’.
“Give Jim a call and tell him that Sally sent you along. They used to do the arty-farty stuff but it’s all hearty feed, these days. It’s only over in Walton.”
“Thank you, Miss, I might just do that. Now, let me take you to Her Snootiness.”
In the conservatory, the cook introduced them, “The police want a word with you, Ma-am. I’ll be off now, see you tomorrow.”
The woman, stretched out on a sunbed, just waved a glass in their direction and the cook made her get-away. Sally took the lead.
“Mrs. Prentice, we have been asked to look into your husband’s death. There are a few oddities about it that do not usually turn up at a suicide. Can we ask you some questions?”
“Ask away, officers. Take a seat. I won’t offer you a drink, there’s only enough for one, here.”
She waved the glass at a bottle, clearly still three-quarters full.
“Now, Madam, can you tell me how your relationship with your husband was. Were there any tensions?”
“Of course not! We had a happy home life. He had his past-times, I had mine. He wasn’t very good, in bed, but I forgave him his little deficiencies, and I do mean little.”
“Did he ever talk about taking his own life?”
“No, but he has been saying things like he was coming to a decision. I really don’t know what he was thinking.”
“What did he do, for a living?”
“He ran a private hospital. He had made his money in old folks homes but sold that a few years ago. I never had anything to do with that side of things, just played the dutiful wife.”
“And were you, dutiful, that is?”
“Have you been listening to the gossips around here. They’re all just jealous because I’m beautiful, and they’re not.”
“Did your husband ever go sailing?”
Sally saw her eyes light up.
“Him! Sailing! That’s a good one. The man was a wimp, officer. He’d never take a chance on falling in the water. If you want to find a sailor, go to talk to Johnson Ridley. He sails, or so I’m told. He asked me to go for a trip, with him, once. I’ve had to call in the locals to talk to him, more than once. He failed to notice that I’m a happily married woman and thought that his money would buy me. Now you come to mention it, I wonder if he would have murdered my husband to get me alone and helpless.”
“Do you know where we can find this Ridley?”
“He has a place down in Kidderminster way. Quite a pile, so I’m told. Not that it worries me, I have this place now and enough money to last me for the rest of my life. Harrison was rich, and there’s a substantial life policy.”
“I believe, madam, that most life policies do not pay out in cases of suicide.”
“But they will, if you arrest Ridley for his murder!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Prentice. We’ll see our own way out. We may want to speak to you again. We’re sorry for your loss.”
Outside, Ben was able to let out a little snort that he had been bottling up.
“I think that we’re sorrier for Prentice than that witch. Did you see her eyes light up when we got to asking about who might have killed him? She was itching to hand us the name. I bet that when we go and talk to Ridley, he won’t have an alibi, has special sails and a coil of new rope that has a bit cut off the end.”
“I won’t even lay a bet on that one, Ben,” sighed Sally. “This is getting more to look like the clowns had someone to take the rap. It’s all too clear that it’s a stitch-up. Unless, of course, that Ridley actually did it and it’s been made to look like he’s being set up.”
They went back to the station and wrote up their notes. Tomorrow, they intended to make an appointment with Johnson Ridley, as well as following up any other similar cases, should there be any. Sue asked Sally how they were getting on and was told that it was very murky, but they had a few leads.
The next day, Charlie organised a visit with Ridley, at his home. They drove down to Kidderminster, actually, to the other side of Kidderminster. It was a large country house off the A456. They were greeted, at the door, by a butler, who led them through to the library. Ridley was sitting in an armchair, a glass on the table beside him, and a book, inverted, on his lap. He closed the book, put it on the table and rose to meet them, putting his hand out to shake.
“Good morning, officers. Take a seat. What can I do to help you?”
“We would like to talk to you about Harrison Prentice. Can you tell me how you knew him?”
“Harrison, good man. Such a shame about his passing. Never thought that he would do what he did. Last time I saw him he told me that his life was about to change but didn’t go into what that change would be.”
“Where, and when, was that conversation, Sir?”
“It was at a meeting of the Burton and Area Businessman’s Association. He has paediatric clinic that he manages, and I have an art gallery in Burton. He was as bright as a button, that evening.”
“Was that the last time you saw him?”
“Yes, it was. Next thing I heard was that he had hung himself. Terrible waste.”
“How well do you know his wife?”
“The Witch Hazel! Not as well as some I know of. She picked me out at a night club, once. Got all friendly, then screamed blue murder that I had molested her. Kept sending the local coppers over to the shop to give me a talking to. I really don’t know what is going on in her head, but I suppose she will be able to get by, inheriting his money. One can only hope that her liver is in better shape than her morals.”
“Tell me, Sir. Do you sail?”
“Yes, I do. What has that got to do with the price of fish, I ask?”
“I’ll get to that, in a minute. I suppose that you do the whole sailor bit, hauling the sails, leaning out over the water.”
“Good Lord, no! My yacht is a good forty feet long, and I have a crew to do all that stuff. We never put out in a high wind or heavy sea; it spills the whiskey. I’m purely a flat sea sailor. The Foxy Lady is almost a hundred years old, and everything about it reflects its heritage.”
“Do you keep anything from your yacht, on the property?”
“No, it’s all down at the marina at Swansea. No good having anything here.”
“Would you mind if I organise someone to look at your yacht?”
“Not a problem. Look, this is not a usual line of questioning, What has my yacht got to do with Harrison hanging himself?”
“I’ll reveal that after we have had a look around your outbuildings, Sir. If you don’t mind?”
“Not a problem, officer, I have nothing to hide and can wait for you to tell me what this is all leading to.”
They all stood, and he led them out of the house and to the outbuildings.
“The closest to the house is the garage, big enough for six cars, it’s usually locked when I’m away. The next is a storehouse; that is kept locked as it has the freezers for the kitchen. The next is the old laundry, which we don’t use. The last is the general store shed, with everything else and the gardening equipment in. I don’t bother with any but the first one, let the staff call the others home.”
“That last shed, there’s no door.”
“No, it blew off in a windstorm a couple of years ago and we’ve not bothered to put it back. The only thing worth stealing in there is the ride-on mower, and that’s so slow you could race ahead of it and shut the gate, should anyone actually manage to start it. My gardener has been on to me for some time to get something new.”
“Do you mind waiting here, with me, while my partners have a look inside that one?”
“No problem, as long as we get towards you telling me what this is all about.”
Ben and Charlie snapped on gloves as they went into the shed.
“Tell me, Sir. Where were you on the day that Harrison Prentice died?”
“Damn strange, that day. I got a call from a friend of mine. He told me that he had discovered a wonderful new artist who would sell well in the Gallery. We were to meet at the Wellington, in Brecon. I got there and he never turned up. I had lunch and rang him. He said that he was in Scotland and hadn’t rung me.”
“Can you prove that you were there?”
“I think I can. I went to have a look at the Royal Welsh Military Museum and took some pictures of the exhibits. I took a couple of selfies in front of a few of the dioramas. Hold on, let me see if I can show them to you.”
He pulled out his phone, fiddled with it, swiped it a few times and then showed Sally the pictures he was talking about. There, she saw his smiling face with a diorama of a bloody battle behind him, and a time and date on the bottom for two fifteen on the day of the murder. He thumbed the screen to find her others, with the last one that him in it at two forty.
There was a call from the door of the shed, and they walked over to where Ben waited for them.
“As we expected, boss. Hardly even tried to hide it.”
He led them to a corner, behind the mower, where a coil of new, slippery rope was coiled, with the end looking like it had some sawn off. Behind it, stood a metal stepladder, with mud on the legs.
“Right, officers. This is when you tell me what this is about. I can see that I have two options, here. One is to shut up and go and call my lawyer, and two is that you tell me what this stuff is, and why it’s in my shed.”
“Sir, I’ll tell you now, if you would go back inside. One of my officers will be calling for a local forensic team to come out and dust this area for prints. After seeing your pictures, and also from things that have been said, I can tell you that you have no troubles from us, although somebody has gone to great lengths to make it otherwise.”
“This had better be good, young lady. I have friends in high places, and I don’t like being messed about with.”
Back in the library, he sat down in his armchair and took a good swig of his drink as Sally and Ben sat opposite.
“Sir, I have to tell you that Harrison Prentice was murdered, he did not commit suicide. He died at around the time that you have shown me that you were in Brecon. The murderer used a piece of that rope to hang him with and the knot that attached the rope to the tree, was a special one used to tie slippery ropes and Dyneema materials, used in high performance sails. The murderer also used a metal stepladder to lift him to his end. I expect that the rope used to hang him will match the rope in your shed. I also expect that the marks in his lawn, from the stepladder, will match the dimensions of the one in your shed, as will the soil still, conveniently attached to the bottom.”
“That’s a worry, for sure. Why aren’t you putting the cuffs on, now, seeing that it’s so cut and dried?”
“You’ve got it in one, Sir. The clues were laid out as if they were steps on a ladder, each one leading up to you. His wife told us that you were likely to have killed him to get her alone for you to swoop. There are police reports that say that you’ve been spoken to about harassing her. The rope and the knot are peculiar to performance yachting, and you have a large yacht. Now, we find actual evidence in your shed. You are either an innocent patsy, or else a very clever murderer who is playing with fire. Which is it to be, I ask.”
“Thank you for that, officer. I’ll help you in any way I can. I had no idea that he had been murdered. Why do you think they went to all this trouble?”
“I expect that it’s because he had a substantial life policy. They do not usually pay out on suicide, but might do with murder, unless the beneficiary is involved in the murder. They needed someone, removed from the family, to take the rap. The link to the sailing was their mistake, because it has shown that, whoever hung him, knew about boats.”
“Our first thought,” said Ben. “Was that it was supposed to look like it was carried out by clowns. I’m starting to think that this wasn’t the first time, although finding others will be a problem.”
There was a knock on the door and Charlie came in.
“FSI from Stourport are here, boss. They’ll dust around and take the two things with them. I’ve told them to send the report to DCI Cousins, at Aston. I had another look around but couldn’t find the hacksaw. You would have expected them to leave that, as well.”
“Right, what do you want of me, now.”
“If we ring Swansea, can you go down there and show them your yacht. It would go a long way towards eliminating you from the scene. Now we’ll have to go back to find who Hazel Prentice is seeing.”
“I might be able to help you, there. I saw her in the Elms, at Burton, a couple of months ago. She was in the beer garden with a chap I’ve seen before. He does odd-jobs and gardening around the area. The council suggested I use him to look at a couple of trees here. They looked very loved up, more than I’ve seen her in the past. Josh something, I think he’s called. He did some work on the Centenary Woodland if I remember rightly. I think he was there to work on some of the tree lopping. Strapping fellow, very much her speed.”
“That’s interesting, Sir. We’ll follow that up. We’ll need to do some research into his history before we make any moves.”
They all shook hands and left, with Sally telling him that he should call the Swansea station when he’s on his yacht, as she will tell them to expect the call and instruct them on what she wants them to look at. She assured him that, if what he had told them, the yacht was as he said it was, the visit may only be a few minutes.
On the way back to the station, Sally glanced at Ben, in the passenger seat.
“What’s all this ‘boss’ stuff. We’re all the same rank?”
“We were there when Sue put you in charge of us, boss” Ben smiled. “It’s all about being correct, in front of the public.”
“It’s also about experience, boss,” piped up Charlie from the back seat. “We are both amazed that we’ve been accepted into a team that’s solved two mass murders in a single year. You were in the raid on that restaurant, and a central part of the team that saved that girl’s life, in the cave. We’re just babes when it comes to serious detecting. This is the first murder case for both of us.”
“All right, but don’t make a habit of it, and try to make sure that you don’t use it in the office. Now, what do we have to do when we get back?”
“Contact the council to find out what surname they have on an arborist called Josh, and if they have an address for him.”
“Look to see if he has any history, and if he also goes climbing, there’s only one of him but it’s what tree fellers do.”
“Very droll, Charlie, you should be on the stage.”
“Thank you, boss, I do my best.”
“What do we already know about him?”
“He will know how to tie a Buntline and may know the variation.”
“He may be the father of the unborn child.”
“He has been to Kidderminster before and knew where to put the evidence.”
“If he’s bedded the wife in her home, he also knows the layout of the garden. Being a tree man, he would have noted the very stately tree that was used for the hanging.”
“You two are now showing the thinking that put you into our office. Never let a feeling of ‘newness’ cloud your thoughts. You can say what you think, and it will, I can assure you, be listened to. Our team hasn’t solved all of the crimes by paperwork and forensic, it is often the random bit of imagination that cracks the case. It was Andy and his idea that the Boat House cave was too far off the radar to be true, that saved Andrea and solved that case. Nothing, and I repeat, nothing is too weird, odd, or crazy to not speak about. This one is a similar situation. What’s the betting that Josh has an ironclad alibi for the day of the murder, and only delivered the evidence to Kidderminster as a favour for our Mrs. Prentice. I may be wrong, but this one has more twists and turns than the Tour de France.”
Marianne Gregory © 2023
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
Chapter 4
Sally opened up the thin file which outlined the basic facets of the case. It was close to what they were dealing with now. The dead man was well-off, and there was a substantial life policy. He had been found hanging from a balustrade in his big house. There was a typed suicide note, with the signature also typed. The rope was over-the-counter plastic woven, in a jazzy colour pattern. The body had a large amount of alcohol in the system that matched the bottle on his desk, next to the note.
The wife had named a likely suspect, who had been a problem with her. The accused man had, she said, been harassing her. There was even an order against him. There was a fingerprint on the banister. The rope, with the cut end matching the one at the crime scene, was found in his outhouse. The knot that held the rope to the staircase, was a Buntline, with the accused man being a keen water-skier. He had pull-ropes with a Buntline attached to the triangle that he held on to. He had declared that he was no-where near the house at the time of the death but couldn’t prove it.
“This is uncanny, Ben. It’s almost a carbon copy of our case. It doesn’t say, here, if there were any other avenues that they followed.”
“I don’t think they cared, boss. I just looked up the arresting officer and he retired three months later. Perhaps he just wanted to wind it up in a neat ball and have it behind him as a good mark on his record.”
“Now that, young man, is just cynical. Lee is in the office, let’s ask him if that happens. Lee, can you help us, here, please?”
“OK Sally, what do you want to know?”
“If a detective is getting close to retirement, would he put an innocent man in jail because he was too lazy to properly chase clues?”
“Don’t make me laugh, Sally. I worked at Harborne with old DCI Nicholas. I can give you at least four cases, that I know of, where the nearest person was sent to prison, without any alternative discussed. It probably happens more than you’d think.”
Sally and Ben sat there, opened mouthed.
“You’re not having us on, are you, Lee?”
“Look, this team won’t do it, but there are many who would. Some areas have so much workload, the chance to finalise something quickly is too good to pass up. Has that been a help?”
“Thanks, Lee. That is not something we would have thought was common.”
“Thankfully, it’s not common, but it does happen. We’re only human, after all.”
“But what about juries, wouldn’t they suspect that it’s a stitch-up?”
“Juries only hear what is presented in court. If you present something that looks good, and the defence doesn’t, then – hey presto – the guy gets sentenced.”
He went back to what he had been doing and both Sally and Ben sat there saying nothing, until Sally came back to the moment.
“Ben, wait until you get the other two boxes. If they’re carbon copies of this one, we’ll take it to Sue. We may need to work with other divisions to talk to the prisoners and detectives. This one shouldn’t be a problem, though. See if you can set up a visit with the prisoner. I want to ask him a few questions that he wasn’t asked, ten years ago.”
She got up and went to see Doggy.
“Doggy, old chum. Can you see if that colourful van shows up on any other cameras. I’m told that it might have been heading for Nuneaton, with some stage stuff. That means it would have stayed on the A444 all the way. Just pick the best site and look at that.”
She then sat at her desk and called her old station, at Burton.
“Herbie, it’s Sally Brown calling from Aston. I’m asking if you can have a look at the daybook for me. I would like to know if any patrol logged a very colourful Transit van.”
She gave the date she was interested in, and the registration number of the van. Herbie, the desk sergeant, promised to ring back.
Sally then looked at the suicide note that had come with the file. It was similar, but not the same as the one that Harrison had supposedly typed. To finish up the day, she looked at the electronic record of one of the other cases that Ben had found. With this one, the dead man hadn’t been anything more than a fairly successful business owner. He had blown his head off with a shotgun that belonged to the man in jail. The problem was that the only prints on the gun belonged to the gun owner.
There had been a large insurance policy, but the insurance company held up payment, citing that they thought there were suspicions surrounding the whole case. Three months later, the wife was found, dead in her bed, a whole bottle of sleeping pills inside her. The insurance was then paid out to her only daughter.
She then looked at the other case, the one before their own. In this one, it looked open and shut. The dead man had literally fallen off a cliff. Unfortunately for the man in jail, he had been seen nearby, had a long list of harassment claims made by the wife, and owed the dead man a lot of money. The odd thing, she saw, was that there was a note to the wife, on the computer in his office, declaring his undying love for her. The jailed man swore that the dead man had rung him, asking him to meet at the top of the cliff.
Sally shut down the computer, told Ben to let her know when the other two boxes turned up, as she was interested in reading the notes that were left. She was suspicious about a man writing a love letter before falling to his death. She then told the two guys not to work too late, they needed to keep bright and observant in days to come. Ben had managed to get them into the Doncaster Prison to see Harvey Maxwell, the man in the earliest case. She went home to get some rest of her own, realising that she was getting wound up with this case. Then she thought that it was good that she was getting so involved, it showed that she cared.
She met with Ben and Charlie, Tuesday morning and they headed off to Doncaster.
“What’s this prison like, boss?”
“Think about the worst place on earth and double it. They call it Doncatraz. The place is holding twice the number it was designed for and is run by Serco. Do I have to say any more.”
When they finally sat down in a room, with Hervey on the other side of the table, they all knew that the rumours were true. The man was gaunt and too thin for a man of his age. Actually, it was impossible to gauge the man’s age. Still, they were here for a reason and Sally led with the discussion.
“Hervey, we are investigating a recent murder that is very similar to the one which has you in this place. We may be able to solve it, with your help, and that could, I repeat could, see you out of here. Now, we have a few questions. When you said that a friend called you on the day of the murder, did you truly think it was him?”
“Oh, yes. He has, or should I say, had, a distinctive voice, a bit like Sean Connery, a brogue but classy.”
“Had?”
“He passed away about two years ago. He fell off a mountain in Nepal. He had been an outdoorsman all his life. Water and snow skiing, hiking, climbing. A great loss to humanity, although one doesn’t see much humanity in this place.”
Ben looked at his notes.
“The notes say that you couldn’t prove where you had been?”
“I was told to go to a lake where there was a skiing competition. When I got there, there was no competition, so I went and had a cheap meal, some twenty miles away from there, and went home again. I didn’t keep a receipt and paid cash, so there was no record of me being there. It was a busy place, and no-one remembered me.”
“What about the fingerprint on the staircase?”
“I had been in the house before, about six months, I think. The woman was very insistent that she wanted me in her bed. She then started telling the police that I was harassing her. If the print was still there, it shows what a lousy cleaner she was.”
“And the rope?”
“Terrible stuff, I wouldn’t be seen dead using cheap garbage like that!”
“You’ve had a lot of time to think about it, Hervey. What do you think happened?”
“I reckon that it was planned, well before. She set me up to take the fall, long before. She had an unbreakable alibi for that day, out with friends, who happened to go back to her place to find the body. Whoever she had organised to kill her husband had never come near her until he did the act, it stands out a mile.”
“Thank you, Hervey. We hope we can spring you, soon.”
Back in the car, Sally asked.
“Did we learn anything that we didn’t know, before?”
“That we need to widen the timeline prior to the murder.”
“That the killers play a long game. The one thing we haven’t discovered is why they did it. If it’s for money, they would have to have been paid after the act, maybe an agreed amount of the insurance.”
“Good thinking, Charlie. You had better get looking at the wife in this case and see if you can find any big transactions. It might be hard this far from the crime. One thing that it highlights, to me, is that it’s all done for the money. The second case that we’re waiting on the box has, according to the electronic record, the wife taking an overdose of sleeping pills before the insurance was paid. I wonder how much of a coincidence that was. You two go through the three cases with a fine-tooth comb, using the knowledge we have that the previous detectives didn’t.”
“Where will you be, boss, in case we need to speak to you.”
“If he’ll see me, I’m going to talk to the friend of Ridley, to find out where he could have been recorded.”
Back in the office, she rang the friend, smiling when he answered the phone. If he wasn’t dead, she could have sworn that she was listening to Richard Burton. He was happy to see her, the next day. He would be home and gave her an address, a farmhouse in the middle of the Brecon Golf Club.
She spoke to Doggy, who told her that there were no other pictures of the van, between Castle Gresley and Nuneaton. On her desk was a note to call the desk sergeant in Burton. She picked up her phone and called.
“Herbie, it’s Sally. You have news for me, I hope?”
“Yes, Sally. There wasn’t anything in the book, but I spoke to a few of the lads. That van was seen, parked in Church Street, when the patrol went down there heading for the shopping centre to get lunch. The officers said that they had a laugh about the mad paint job, but it wasn’t doing anything wrong. It had gone when they went through again. Another patrol said that they had seen it, waiting to turn out of Mount Road, onto the triple four, around half past three, while they were on their way back to the station. Again, it was the mad colour scheme that stuck in their minds.”
“Thanks, Herbie. Tell the guys that Sally will give them a kiss on the cheek when I’m next your way.”
“Will do, Sally. They’ll look forward to it, I’m sure.”
She sat back and picked up the file for the Prentice case. Hazel had stated that she had been in the salon for two hours, that day. The salon was on Church Street. It was still a long bow to draw the conclusion that whoever was in the van was waiting to see if she was following orders before going to the house to murder her husband. To Sally, though, it was all starting to gel. She spent the rest of the day finalising other paperwork, then went home.
Wednesday, she drove down to Brecon. She knew that you could ask the questions over the phone, but it was always better to be face-to-face, so that you can gauge reactions. She found the farmhouse, at the end of a private road, with golfers on every side. She did wonder at the glazing costs, but, as she got closer to the house, she saw wire over the windows facing the course. Ringing the bell brought the man, himself, to the door.
“Detective, come on in. This must be important to you to drive this far.”
“It is, Sir Broderick. I’m investigating the murder which your friend Johnson Ridley was set up to take the rap.”
“Poor old Ridley, he’s spoken to me about it. If it wasn’t that someone didn’t know what his yacht looked like, he could be sitting in a cell, as we speak. Now, no more Sir business. I may be one but prefer to be spoken to as Broderick.”
He led her to a comfortable sitting room and offered her a drink. She said that she’d have the soda water, neat, and he poured himself a scotch, with a finger of soda water.
“Broderick, we’re now certain that whoever called Johnson was a skilled mimic. Your voice would be an easy one for him, being distinctive. I’m here to talk about where you’ve been where you could be recorded.”
“Lots of places, detective. I doubt that your murderer would have been in the House when I’ve made a speech, although, who knows? There’s a lot of strange people that that fool, Blair, elevated to the peerage. Then there’s the talks I’ve done on climbing, at various clubs and pubs. I was quite successful with some of my climbs and I’m always getting requests to give a talk. I look out at those audiences and half of them are more interested with recording me on their phones.”
“Another ‘friend’ has been mentioned, lately. I was told that he sounded like Sean Connery and died in a climbing accident, a couple of years back.”
“That would have been old Fergie. Fergus McConnaughey, to be exact. I first met him on a climb, it would have been close to twenty years ago, when I was still fit enough. He was a bit younger than me, but we hit it off. You get to know a man when you’re trapped in an ice cave for several days. He, and I, would do some talks, together, starting about fifteen years ago. When everyone was well-oiled, we’d start doing snippets from an imaginary film, me as Richard and him as Sean. That was a lot of fun. Sad day when he died, such a waste of a fine man. Bit of a danger freak though, lived on the edge, and found that one edge too many.”
“So, it would be highly likely that there are recordings of the two of you?”
“Oh, yes. Although early ones would have been on those recorders that secretaries used to use, and medical specialists still do when they make notes for the typist.”
“When was the last time you were at a talk, together?”
“That’s easy. I remember it well. The talk was for the Chester Club, and it was well booked. We were in a venue which had to be cleared by six, because they had a band there, that evening, and the roadies wanted to set up. That put a damper on any post-talk fun, but most of our audience went along to the Boardroom Climbing Centre for a bit of fun and a meal. That was about a year before he died.”
“Thank you for your help, Broderick. I’m sure that when we find the ones who tried to frame Johnson Ridley, you’ll read about it in the papers. That soda water is magnificent, by the way.”
“I import it, by the case, from Italy. Much better than the mass-produced stuff.”
“Before I go, I had expected a peer to be living in a mansion? No offence intended.”
“None taken, young lady. I did have a mansion but gave it to the National Trust when my father died. Terribly expensive things to keep going. This belonged to the family, and we gave the grounds to the golf club, with them looking after what little garden we have. I do play the odd round, and there is always a slot for me if I have visitors.”
“Thank you. I may need to talk again, but today has given me a lot to think about.”
“Always happy to help the police, with the added thing of helping a friend.”
Sally drove back to Birmingham with a lot on her mind. She arrived in time to spend most of the afternoon in the office. Ben told her that they had an appointment with the prisoner in Leeds Prison, for ten-thirty on Thursday, with another appointment with the prisoner in Manchester, the same afternoon, at two-thirty. The last two boxes had arrived, so they finished the day scanning the files. She considered that this week so far, had been fruitful, even if they didn’t know the names of any suspects. It was, though, starting to crystalise into something with an outer shell, even if the centre wasn’t firming up.
On Thursday morning, the three of them went to Leeds, to what was still called Armley Gaol. When Charlie asked if she knew what it was like, she grinned.
“Think medieval castle, without a moat, and your typical Victorian horror, inside.”
When they were sat, with a table between them and Norman Helmsley, they could see, that like Hervey in Doncaster, life wasn’t being kind to him.
“Norman, we are here to ask you about the case that saw you sent here. I can tell you that, if we are successful in solving a current case, it may, and I repeat may, have some bearing on your own situation.”
“Anything to get me out of here, lady.”
“Now, it was your gun that was used on the victim. Have you any idea how it came to be in his house?”
“I think it was stolen. I had entertained his wife, at my home, some two months or more before he died. We had made love, and then I went to sleep. When I woke up, she had gone. It wasn’t long after that when a copper came around and told me not to harass her. I was only calling to see if we could repeat the coupling. She was very good, that once.”
“Do you think that she could have made an impression of your keys?”
“It’s the only time that they were not in my total control.”
“Had you ever met her husband?”
“Just the once, I think. They were at a party that I had been invited to. I hardly knew anyone there, so was totally surprised when she handed me a folded note with a time and a place to meet her.”
“What about the day he was killed, it seems that you didn’t have an alibi?”
“She had called me and told me that we could have another fling. It was to be in a hotel in Blackpool, an overnight stay. I was given a key, on the way in, without needing to sign, stayed until the morning and when I went to check out, was told that the bill had been taken care of. By the time the police went there to check my story, the staff didn’t remember me and there was no paper record of my stay. With my fingerprints on the gun, they considered that I was obviously lying. She, of course, denied everything.”
“I suppose you heard that she was found, a couple of months later, dead from an overdose of sleeping pills?”
“Yes, a friend told me on a visit. Can’t say I felt sorry for her, but she was the best, and last, woman I had slept with. Likely there won’t be another, now.”
They went to Manchester and had lunch before going to Strangeways, a prison built to look like the gatehouse of a Tudor Estate. Once again, they found themselves sitting opposite a prisoner, this time not looking quite as cowed, but he had only been there less than four years.
“Oliver, we are here to talk about your case, with the hope that it will shine a light on one we are working on, now. It may, and I repeat may, lead to your release, but I can’t promise anything.”
“You have already promised me some hope, officer. Ask away.”
“Your case is different from the other that we are looking at, but it does have one similarity, and that’s that the wife had taken out an order against you, for harassment. Can you tell us why?”
“We had a fling. I knew them both, did a lot of trade with him. It was all business, until I met her at a dance, without him by her side. We danced and hit it off. She came home with me and left around midnight. We repeated that a couple of times until she went crazy and started putting the police onto me.”
“What about the money you owed him?”
“That was a business deal. He was good with me going a week or two over, as it was my customer that was holding me up. Never do business with big car companies, they squeeze the life out of you.”
“Tell me about the day he died. You, so far, have been the only one who had actually been seen near the death.”
“He had called me, the day before. He wanted to meet me somewhere remote, so we could talk. I wondered if it was that he had found out about me and his wife, or else he was in some other trouble. I’m a hiker, so wanting to meet me at the top of one of his climbs, wasn’t too farfetched.”
“Was it a long way up to the top of the cliff?”
“About three miles walk, easy when you’re fit. I doubt that I would make a hundred yards, now.”
“So, what happened?”
“I got to the place that he had told me to be at. There was a 4X4 there, with a pile of coiled ropes beside it. I couldn’t see anyone around, so I sat on the rope to rest. The top of the climb was on a lower ledge, out of sight. I was there a while, and then a guy came up from the ledge and told me to get off his rope. I asked him about my friend, and he told me that he had already got to the top and was rappelling down again. So, I walked back to where I left my car and went home. Obviously, what he had wanted to speak to me about could wait for another day.”
“This other man, can you describe him?”
“Big guy, with a beard. His name should be on the court records. He claimed that I must have messed around with the rope. It was a poorly tied knot that slipped loose and killed my friend. Look, officers, I was set up, but the case sounded so right, I’ve ended up in here. If you can help me, I’ll pray for you, every night.”
“Tell me. Why didn’t you go to the ledge and see if your friend was there?”
“I’m scared of heights, always have been. He had tried to get me to go along to the socials at his climbing club. He told me that there was an indoor place in Chester that they went to, but I never could pluck up enough courage.”
“Thank you, Oliver. You have been very helpful. We will try to unravel the real facts behind your case, as we move further forward with ours.”
On the way back to Birmingham, Sally started the discussion.
“What have we learned today that we didn’t know, before.”
“The wives have been integral in the deaths.”
“The guy at the top of the hill is shaping up as a prime suspect, with what else we know. If he is a climber, he’d know about the knots, and you have to admit it, this is a knotty problem.”
“That’s enough with the droll for now, Charlie. I was told, yesterday, that two of the imaginary friends had spoken to the Chester climbers at their socials. Head for home when we get back to the station. Tomorrow, we need to talk to the daughter who ended up inheriting the lot.”
Marianne Gregory © 2023
Chapter 5
They didn’t get to talk to the daughter on Friday. When Sally rang her in her shop, she refused to discuss anything over the phone. She would only talk to Sally, and only on Sunday, in Saint Georges Park, near the centre of Manchester, by the slide. She said that she would be there at one and have her toddler in a black stroller.
Sally asked who had Sunday free, and Ben put his hand up.
“My partner, Anne, has a toddler, about five years old. We could take some recreation time there, after a fast-food lunch. Is it on overtime?”
“Yes, Ben. I’m sure overtime is on the cards; I’ll double check with Cuz. Have you had training in monitoring a clandestine meeting?”
“Did that in training. I’ll go down to the stores and see what they have. Any preference on the microphone?”
“Something that’s small, with a range of about a hundred yards, in open air. She may want to check me over for a bug, so a hairgrip would be good.”
“Right, I’ll go and see what they can offer. We’ll need to record this, it looks like the woman is scared, and we have to find out why.”
Charlie was looking through the file on the latest case.
“Boss, the big guy on the top of the hill is listed as Horace Warmington. He’s been in the climbing club more than fifteen years. I looked him up on the system and he has a minor rap sheet, nothing too bad. He was last listed as a removalist and handyman. Lives in a good area of Macclesfield, a pricey road for a handyman.”
Sally looked at the screen and then at her notes.
“Good one, Charlie. He lives two doors down from the singer from Cultz, the last band that used the garish van. The centre is starting to harden on this one. We just have to get the links set and we are still a long way to taking them in. So, far, it’s all conjecture.”
She went to her desk and rang Barry Blake.
“Mister Blake, can you tell me when Cultz are playing next, I would like to go and see them.”
“Let me see. They are near you on Wednesday evening, at the Brookside Community Centre to the south of Telford. It’s a dance, not a sit-down affair, although they’ll probably be seats around the edge.”
“Thank you, I don’t have to book, do I?”
“No, lass, it’ll be packed with teenagers, though, so you might need to take a gas mask.”
She was smiling when she put the phone down.
“Charlie, do you have a significant other who would like to go to a dance?”
“Sure do, boss. She just loves to dance.”
“Right, make a date for Wednesday evening, at the Brookside Community Centre, near Telford. Make sure you take your phone and get as many pictures of Cultz and anyone else involved with them, as you can. You can pretend to be taking pictures of your girl. I’ll be there, with my husband, but don’t talk to me unless you have to. This will be information gathering only, and I’m curious to see if a big guy with a beard is one of the roadies. He would be a good fit to be the one hoisting a body up to have the rope put around its neck.”
Ben came back, a little while later with a white hairgrip and a portable radio.
“The hairgrip has a transmitter with a hundred-yard range, and the radio will play actual radio programs but also has a receiver tuned to the microphone. It will record to cassette and to a USB drive. I’ll find the park and get there early and set up a way away from the slide.”
Sally went to Sue and got permission for both overtime sessions. Then Sally and Ben went out to the carpark to test the equipment, Sally walking away, reciting nursery rhymes until Ben shouted that he was losing her. They made sure that everything was turned off to save the batteries and took the two items to their cars.
“On Sunday, Ben, don’t do anything to bring attention to yourself. If she tells me something momentous, no whooping or shaking a fist. We’re cool, man, real cool. Charlie will be going to a Cultz show on Wednesday evening, with taking pictures of the Cultz entourage as his task. Hopefully, by the end of the week, we’ll have something solid to take to Cuz. If we manage to clear this up, and cast doubt on three other cases, we’ll be doing well.”
Back in the office, they gave a precis of the case to the Friday meeting and then Sally sat, quietly, and read every note that had been left. On the face of it, they all looked good, but with what she now knew, they all seemed a bit odd. They were, she realised, a bit flowery, not something a guy about to top himself would write.
Sunday morning, Sally and her husband took their pre-teen to Manchester. They had to promise him a tour of United’s stadium, as long as he followed orders to play on the equipment until they were ready to go. They stopped for lunch at the KFC on Chester Road and then arrived at the playground at around twelve-thirty. Sally saw Ben, sitting on a blanket on the grass, while his partner was escorting her toddler around the various playground items, with much squealing and laughter.
Sally’s son took to the slide with delight, and she allowed her husband to look after him, as she walked towards the woman who had come down the path, towards the slide, with a toddler, about four years old, in a stroller. Sally stood her ground as the woman came close, then nodded to her. They moved to a vacant bench and sat down.
“Laura, I’m Sally Brown. I spoke to you on Friday. You seem scared?”
“I’ve been scared for two years, Sally. It’s all my mother’s fault!”
“Because she had organised someone to kill your father and frame another man for it?”
“How on earth did you know that! It’s been more than I could bear for two years. I had no idea that she had been involved until a month after her death. I was in the supermarket and had left my baby in her pram as I went to pick some vegetables. A guy came and stood beside me and told me that I needed to tidy up an account that my mother owed. When I asked what account, he told me that it was payment for having my father killed.”
“That would have been scary.”
“It was scarier when I told him that I knew nothing of the account. He pointed at my baby in the pram and told me that the account would be paid, or else I would lose my baby first.”
“Was he a big guy with a black beard?”
“No, that was the one standing by my baby’s pram. How do you know all this?”
“We are closing in on the guys you saw, the big guy is already on our radar. How much did you pay?”
“It was fifty thousand Euro. He wanted a cheque made out for cash, on the spot. I had the business chequebook so wrote it for him. He even gave me an invoice. Horse and Cart Removals, fifty grand for services rendered.”
“Did you ask him for any proof?”
“Yes, and he told me that the last words that my mother had said, before she started taking the pills, was ‘Tell Laura I love her’. She would often sing that to me when I was a child.”
“Did you save the invoice?”
“No, I put it in the fire when I got home, then transferred the money from my own bank into the business account. Considering the size of the insurance payout, it wasn’t a huge amount, and the business is doing a lot better with me in charge. I had always known that my parents weren’t seeing eye to eye. Mother had become almost frantic when the insurance wasn’t paid out. It got worse, one day, when there was a card in the post. She fainted. I put smelling salts under her nose but sneaked a look at it. It just had ‘Remember that promise that you made’ in typed letters. It all made sense, that day in the supermarket. I’ve worried that they’re still watching me.”
“That’s highly unlikely, Laura. They have other fish to fry at the moment. Can you describe the man who spoke to you?”
“He was a short version of the big guy, a mini-me without the beard. Stocky, like a wrestler. The big guy was just big. Have they done this afterwards?”
“They have, and twice before your father, as far as we can tell. I promise that you’ll read about them in the paper inside a few weeks. Tell me, did your mother ever go out, on her own, say, to pubs and dances?”
“She had a group of friends who were all single, so she acted as if she was single, as well. She could hold her drink, but I remember smelling it on her breath.”
“Thank you for being frank. Here’s my card. If you think of anything that adds to what you’ve told me, please ring. I should have, hopefully, pictures to show you later in the week. Now I have to take my lad to the stadium tour. It was promised so that he would behave himself, but it looks like I’ll have to drag him off that slide by brute force.”
“I’ve got that to look forward to. Are you likely to be charging me with anything?”
“No, Laura, you’re a victim of a demand for money, with menaces, so you’re clear. What your mother did, on the other hand, was to pay someone to murder her husband, or, should I say, promised to pay someone. If I can prove that it was murder, but committed by someone else, the insurance still stands.”
Sally collected her husband and son, nodding towards Ben as they left. The smile on his face told her that he had heard, and recorded everything that was said. In the car, she took the hairgrip off and let her hair down. She would never tell her son, but she was really looking forward to the tour experience at Old Trafford.
On Monday morning, she asked Sue to join them, and Ben played the recording from Sunday. Then they told her what they had found out, during the previous week, in more detail.
“It looks like you’re on the right track, but there are no positive links. Keep on with what you’re doing. What do you expect to get on Wednesday?”
“Pictures of the band, and any roadie that we see, to show Laura to see if she can pick someone out. Also, there’s Oliver, who saw the big guy at the top of the hill. We know who he is, but a positive identification will help. In the meantime, we’ll stay away from Hazel Prentice, she will be stewing now, not having enough money to pay them. I’m sure that she’ll get a reminder, sometime, and, who knows, she may call on us for help. She’s self-centred enough.”
They worked on tidying up the evidence record, laying out the timelines, and noting what they knew for certain in all four cases. It was all good work towards what would be needed when they reviewed the case for the prosecution, as well as presenting to other divisions to reopen the earlier cases. Sally could feel it, in her bones, that they were closing in on the end game.
Wednesday evening, Sally, her husband, and son, went into the Brookfield Community Centre. Sally was immediately aware of the odd smelling smoke outside and was happy that smoking wasn’t allowed inside. She saw Charlie, with his girlfriend, snapping pictures as the band was setting up. She took a couple of pictures of the stage. She couldn’t help but see the big guy, with the black beard, easily carrying in the amps and speaker boxes. The little version of him wasn’t bad at the heaving and lifting, either.
When the band came onto the stage, Sally was suddenly aware that she was female, and the lead singer was definitely a man. She had to admit that they were good. She listened as they ran through a set of recent hits, by a variety of bands, with them sounding just like the band they were covering. That’s when it hit her. Zak was able to sing with the voices of the other singers, or so close to it you would think that it was the original band on stage.
She and her husband gyrated on the dance floor and her son, as far as she could tell, was dancing up a storm with a bunch of girls, about his own age. In her day, she thought, the boys would all be off to one side, talking about football.
The second set was all classic rock, more her speed, and she could sing along with the words. During the second break, she could see her son was tired, so suggested that they leave. She had seen enough. Charlie was still out on the dance floor. Between them, she knew, they had the pictures they had come for. That night, her husband received the pent-up emotion that watching the lead singer had generated in her.
Thursday morning, they were huddled over the pictures, as they came off the printer. Charlie was raving on about the second set, with the classic rock. Sally, stopped what she was doing and went to the evidence boxes, pulling out the notes. She read each one, quickly.
“Bloody hell, that’s it!”
They all stopped and looked at her.
“It’s in the notes that were left. There was something odd about them that’s been bugging me. Here’s the first one. He was supposed to have written, ‘I’m ending it now. Take a long holiday’. The second one has, ‘with your recent actions, I’ve been like an actor all alone, on a stage, waiting for you to take your place with me, but you never show.’ The third one, the love letter, has ‘I’ve found an island in your arms.’ The one that Harrison left has ‘With your drinking, all your love has gone’ and the note that Laura’s mother got was ‘Remember that promise that you made.’”
She looked at them, staring at her.
“They’re all lines from Doors numbers. Cultz played them all, last night. They’re the codewords that showed the wives that the deed that they had promised to pay for had been carried out.”
Ben and Charlie whooped and that brought Sue over.
“All right, you three, what’s all this noise about? You should know that we don’t do whooping in the office.”
Sally picked up the pictures.
“Here’s a picture of a big guy, with a black beard, humping amps onto the stage. We think we already know who he is, as he was named in the case files that was sent to us from Manchester as the man who saw Oliver sitting on the ropes. That little guy, wheeling in a speaker, is the smaller version described by Laura on Sunday. He was the one who spoke to her and I’m certain that she will confirm that when I show her this photo.”
“That’s great work, but not good enough for whooping.”
“The notes that had been left for the widows bothered me. In places they were flowery. Here’s the first one, from Sheffield, I’ve highlighted the line. The words that count are ‘Take a long holiday’. That’s a line from Riders on the Storm, Cultz plays a lot of Doors numbers. The second one has ‘an actor all alone’, That’s also from Riders, and is, actually a mondegreen.”
She could see Ben and Charlie looking blank.
“A mondegreen is a line which everyone knows but is wrong. The most popular is the Hendrix line ‘Excuse me, while I kiss this guy’. The actual lyrics are ‘kiss the sky’. In this case, the lyrics are ‘like a dog without a bone, an actor on a loan’. Got it, now?”
They smiled and nodded.
“The third note has, ‘I’ve found an island in your arms’ which is almost exactly the line in Break on Through to the Other Side. Our case had, ‘With your drinking, all your love has gone’. ‘All your love is gone; I sing a lonely song’ are from Love Her Madly. The card that Laura said upset her mother said, ‘Remember that promise that you made.’ That’s from Touch Me and the actual line is ‘What was that promise that you made’. It all makes sense.”
“In what way, considering the cases, Sally?”
“All right. Let’s surmise a bit. Our widow-to-be goes along to a Cultz show, falls madly in love with the lead singer, Zak Jackson. Believe me, that wouldn’t be difficult.”
She pulled a photo from the pile and showed it to Sue, whose eyes lit up.
“He looks good in the picture, but he smoulders in real life. Now, she and he get together, and he finds out that she is unhappy in her marriage to a rich man, or even an ordinary man who could have a good insurance policy taken out on his life. He offers her a way to rid herself of her husband, and to inherit his money. This happens up to two years before the death, as we found out with the policy that was taken out on Prentice. She gives him the keys to the house. Then the two of them stop seeing each other. Later the husband is found dead or has an accident. The notes left have the code words that makes sure that the grieving widow now has an account to pay.”
“What went wrong in our case?”
“It’s a comedy of errors. If his friends hadn’t spoken up, it wouldn’t have gone to CID. If Ridley did have a racing yacht and used those sails and rope, we could have taken him for the murderer. The previous three cases were taken as open and shut, for whatever reason, and the files successfully closed with someone in jail. I’m guessing that Hazel must have given them wrong information. We’ll know when we have her in a cell.”
“What now?”
“Now, Cuz, we take these pictures to Leeds and get Laura to sign a statement that these two are the ones that spoke to her in the supermarket. Ben, can you find a book of statement forms for us to take. Then we go to Stoke to see Barry Blake to get the details of the little guy. We’ll have to make sure that he doesn’t let on about that visit. Cuz, could you organise a camera on Mount Road, looking towards the Prentice house? It should only be temporary just in case they pay Hazel a visit before we have our ducks in a row.”
“That’s not a problem, I’ll put it to Traffic that someone has complained about speeding down that road, and get the feed sent to Doggy.”
Sally went to her phone to call Laura, and she agreed to see them, that afternoon, in her shop. Barry Blake told her that he wouldn’t be in the office, but his secretary would be there. Armed with the pictures and statement book, they all got into Sally’s car to go to Leeds.
They stopped for lunch, just north of Sheffield, and then went into Leeds to the shop. Sally went in with Ben, while Charlie waited by the car to fend off any parking inspectors. Laura went pale when shown the pictures and was happy to sign the statement that the two men shown in the photo were the two men who had spoken to her. The back of the photo was marked and signed by both Laura and Ben as the one that she had seen. They were in and out in twenty minutes, and left Leeds to go south again.
In Stoke, Sally asked Ben to go and take pictures of any vans that were in the yard. It was close to five when they arrived, so she expected that any that would be going to a gig would have left, by now. In the office they were met by a young girl.
“Hello, I saw you the other day talking to Dad. He told me that you were coming by. How can I help you?”
“This is just a follow up with the case were on. Can you confirm that the big guy in that picture is Horace Warmington?”
“You mean Horse? Yes, that’s him. The little guy is his friend, Jack Cartwright. Everyone knows them as Horse and Cart. They must live close to each other, as they always arrive in the same car. It’s the Fiesta in the yard, they’re heading for a gig in Manchester, tonight.”
“Thank you, miss. That clears something up. I went to see Cultz the other night. They were really good.”
“They are one of our better cover bands. They could be household names if they ever find a songwriter to give them original material. All my friends are in love with Zak, but I don’t swing that way.”
Outside, Sally told Charlie to get a picture of the Fiesta, showing the number plate, and Ben trotted back to the car with a grin on his face.
‘Got the pictures, boss. How did you go?”
“We got more than we needed, Ben. I’ll drop you at the station and you two head home. I’ll put you down for a couple of hours overtime, today. Tomorrow, we do some research on mini-me and start planning next week. Hopefully, it will be the final chapter of our little crime novel.”
On Friday, they got down to work. Jack Cartwright had a record that went back many years. His address just happened to be next door to Horace. There were a few minor arrests for drunk and disorderly, but much of his prison time had been spent for breaking and entering, with one of them including a safe being opened. They called Sue over and told her about him.
“That’s the lock and key man. The women only had to lend him the house keys and he could have had copies made. He could have supplied a small case with gel in it, so that all that was needed was for a key to be put in, with the case pressed together.”
“I think you’re right there, Ben. The only thing that we don’t see, now, is how Zak fits in, or even if he’s at the murders.”
“He may just be the mastermind and leaves all the wet work to the others.”
“Sorry, Charlie, he’s an alpha male. He wouldn’t stay home for the main event. I have the idea that he may be the one to ring the bell and tell the victim that he’s had an affair with the wife. The victim could be pushed back into the house and then killed. Either that, or they just open the door and surprise the victim inside. With the Leeds case, he may well have been on the ledge at the top of the hill, but Oliver didn’t see him.”
“So, how do you flush them out?”
“We only have one way of doing that, Cuz. That’s through our grieving widow, Hazel. What say we go and see her on Monday, to see how she’s getting on.”
“If you want to bring her in, afterwards, we can set up a trap, in her house, for when they come knocking. That should give us enough to charge them with suspicion for the Prentice murder. That will also get us the right to search their homes. Who knows what they may have kept. If Laura was correct, there may even be a wad of those Horse and Cart Removals invoices. We can only hope that they kept carbon copies.”
Sally laughed.
“I doubt that. boss, nobody would be that stupid.”
Marianne Gregory (C) 2023
Chapter 6
For the rest of the day, they continued sorting out the evidence and transcribing the recordings they had made. Sally rang Laura.
“Laura, it’s Sally. I do have one question for you. How long was it after your mother got her reminder note before she was killed?”
“That was a week, I think. The note was in the post on the Monday, and she was found the following Tuesday. How are you going with it?”
“We have the name of the smaller man. Would you believe that their nicknames are really Horse and Cart?”
“If it wasn’t so serious, that would be funny. Best of luck with it, I’m starting to enjoy life, now, without looking over my shoulder all the time.”
On Monday, the three of them rang the bell at the Prentice residence. It took a few minutes before a very haggard-looking Hazel opened it.
“Come in, officers. I was just about to call you. I’ve decided to leave the country and put the house on the market. I thought I’d better let you know.”
“I’m sorry, Hazel, but we can’t let you do that. We’re still investigating the death of your husband. Until we have concluded the investigation, you are still a suspect in his murder.”
“I’ve already told you who killed him. Put him away and everything will be all right.”
“Who told you that, Hazel? Was it Zak?”
Hazel froze, then her eyes went to an envelope on the hall table. Ben picked it up and pulled out the card it contained. It was plain, with just the typed words – Remember that promise that you made - in red letters.
Hazel Prentice slumped to the floor, and they picked her up and took her to the conservatory, where she was laid on her sunbed. Ben put the envelope and note into an evidence bag, with a note that he had touched the one corner. Sally put a bottle of smelling salts under the woman’s nose, and they all sat, while she came round.
When her eyes opened, she reached for her glass, which Ben had already taken, along with the bottle. Both men took out their recorders as they were now sure what will come next.
“Hazel, you need to concentrate on what I’m going to say, because it is going to change your life. Hazel Prentice, I am arresting you on the suspicion that you conspired, with others, to kill your husband, Harrison Prentice. Anything you say, from now on, will be recorded by both these officers, and could be used against you in court. Am I clear enough for you?”
Hazel just nodded. Her eyes now dull.
“I believe that you met Zak Jackson at a dance, or a club, where he was singing with the band. I believe that he took you to bed, more than once, around two years ago, and that’s when he gave you an answer to your problems. How am I going so far?”
Hazel just nodded.
“Let the record show that Hazel Prentice agreed by nodding. Now, Hazel, your knew he had enough money for you, but you were greedy and took out a life policy on your husband.”
“If the bloody company would admit to that, I’d be all right, now.”
“The company is right, Hazel. There is no policy, because your husband cancelled it as soon as it was pointed out to him.”
Hazel moaned and closed her eyes.
“That sneaky bastard, I’d kill him for that, if he wasn’t dead, already!”
“Now we get to the juicy bit. Zak asked you to find someone to blame, so that your husband’s death could be classed as murder, didn’t he?”
“I admit it, detective. You seem to have all the answers.”
“When you told Zak about Ridley, was he happy?”
“Odd, that. He said that he already know about Ridley, even had knowledge of a friend of his.”
“What about the yacht?”
“I told him that Ridley had a big yacht. He then asked me if he raced. I told him that he did.”
“What did you mean by that. Ridley’s yacht is a century old and a classic?”
“I didn’t mean the yacht, silly. No, Ridley has horses at a stable, over in Norfolk. He races them.”
Sally just looked at Hazel in disbelief.
“Hazel, we are going to have to take you into the station, now. If you give me the keys to this house, Ben will accompany you should you want to secure anything or put together a small bag. You will be supplied with clothing when you are checked in.”
Hazel nodded and stood, looking longingly at the bottle as Ben followed her out of the room. Charlie let his breath out in a quiet snort.
“Even I’m not a match for that one, boss. That woman is so ditzy, she sank the whole set-up herself. What do we do, now?”
“Now, young Charlie, we lock this place up, after we’ve turned off the gas and electricity, and we take Madam Prentice into Aston, to get her to sign a statement, after Sue and Terry have done the official interview. I think she’ll be ready to spill her guts.”
They took a very quiet Hazel Prentice into Birmingham. With her looking out the window at her freedom passing by.
“What will happen to me, now?”
Sally, sitting beside her in the back seat, spoke quietly.
“Now, Hazel, you begin a process which only you, the judge, and your lawyer will be able to sway. You can still plead not guilty; in which case we will have to prove otherwise. When we do, you’re facing a long time in prison. You can plead guilty, and join with the prosecution to put Zak, Horace, and Jack inside, for the murder of your husband. In that case, you may be able to take the rap for being an accessory, which will be a much shorter sentence. Did you know that your husband took out a large mortgage on the house?”
“That means I’m now totally screwed! He left me with nothing!”
“Hazel, I believe that it was no more than you deserved. Did Zak tell you what happened to the last woman who didn’t pay?”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Oh, yes, just a few that we know about, so far. The woman who didn’t pay was found, a week after she got that same note, dead in bed from an overdose of sleeping pills. She did have a life policy, but the company was holding it up.”
When Hazel, now very quiet, was handed over to the duty sergeant, the three of them went up to the office, to play Sue the recordings, making sure that they were identical recordings of the arrest and admission.
“Good job, you three. What you need to do now is to set up talks with the other divisions, to let them know what’s coming down the line. You had better go and see DCI Withers, in Macclesfield, first. I’ll give him a call and make an appointment for you, tomorrow. You can get the other appointments with the DCIs in Sheffield, Leeds, and Manchester. You have most of the answers for them, already. The rest depends on what happens when we nab the murderers.”
“Yes, Sue. A lot will depend on what they find at the three houses, after we put them behind bars.”
Over the next few days, they set up a watch on the three suspects, after explaining to DCI Withers all the facts that they now knew. He would tell them when they were on the move. They also had a list of gigs, from Barry, so that they wouldn’t react to those times. From this, they saw, Cultz were not playing on the following Monday or Tuesday.
They also went to see the CID DCIs in Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. Showing them the evidence that they had uncovered on the old cases. All three agreed to look at that evidence seriously, but only after any arrest and search, should it result in anything that took those cases further.
Sue and Terry had officially interviewed Hazel, with her lawyer present, and she had told them the whole story, from the beginning, over two years before. Sue was amazed with that one simple fact about the yacht being the chink in the armour that had been built around the murder.
On Sunday, when they knew that the band was playing a long way away, the team went into the house, with Sue taking them. They took enough frozen meals to last them three days, as well as nightwear and changes of clothes. The house was big enough for the three of them to have separate rooms. From Monday morning, the feed from the temporary camera would be monitored around the clock, and a rapid response team that also had keys to the house would be stationed in Castle Gresley, to arrive as soon as asked for.
Monday morning, Sally was in the conservatory, reading a book, a radio beside her and a bud in one ear, listening to the chatter. Ben was upstairs, at the front, and Charlie was watching the back. They would check in with each other, from time to time, with Doggy and Sue in the office passing on news from the camera feed and anything coming from Macclesfield.
Just before ten, Sue passed on the news that the three men had left Macclesfield in the Fiesta. Everyone relaxed as it would be a couple of hours, now. The three, in the house, took the opportunity for a toilet break and a cup of tea. Doggy called in as the car was seen passing camera sites, and, when it was near Burton, they all took their places again.
When the Fiesta parked next to the barn wall on the opposite corner, Sue ordered the response team to attend, but not to use any siren. Ben called that they had got out of the car and then started for the stairs. Sally was ready when the three men walked into the conservatory.
“Who the bloody hell are you?”
“My name is Sally Brown, and I’m here to tell you that Hazel can’t be here, today.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because she is in the cells in Birmingham. Somewhere that you three will see for yourselves, very soon!”
Sally pulled out the taser that she had hidden from them, and fired it at Zak, at the same time that Ben and Charlie fired theirs at the two other men. As the three of them collapsed, they were quickly cuffed and each one was arrested, with recordings, as the response team came in to haul them away.
“That went well, boys. We’ll tidy up here and remove our things. Uniformed have an extra car for us when we lock up. Now we can get the houses in Macclesfield searched.”
She spoke to Sue, over the radio, to tell her that the three suspects were on their way to Aston, and to let DCI Withers loose on the three houses. They packed their things, and the squad car took them back to Birmingham. As they had been on duty for nearly twenty-four hours, Sue told them to go home.
“It will take a while for Macclesfield to go through the houses, you three get some rest. Terry and I will interview the men. I’m sure that they’ll all claim that they were just calling on a friend and we assaulted them. It now comes down to the search, to see if we’re still able to hold them.”
On Tuesday morning, Sue called the whole team together.
“Boys and girls. I have to announce that we do, indeed, have cause to formally charge our three suspects with murder, firstly of Harrison Prentice. Sally and you two bright lads; you’re coming with me to Macclesfield. DCI Withers has something he wants to show us. He hasn’t even told me what it is but has told me that it beggars belief.”
Sue drove them up to Macclesfield, telling them about the interviews, which were as she said. They would be able to make the formal charges once they returned with the evidence. They were all wondering just what that evidence could be. At the road where the three houses were, there was a small fleet of police vehicles, including three FSI vans. DCI Withers met them, clad in the protective gear.
“Welcome to the house of fun. Put on the gear and we can show you what has made me very excited.”
They all suited up and he led them into the house.
“This one belongs to Zacharia Jackson. The others are built the same. It all looked normal until my guys opened a locked room, upstairs.”
At the door of the room, he stepped aside.
“Enter and be amazed, I was.”
The four of them went into the room. Charlie was the first to speak.
“We were right about clowns.”
The room was set up as a music room, with a wall of sound equipment, piles of records and CD discs. It was obviously where Zak learned the lyrics. It was the opposite wall that took their breath away. There was a bench in front of it, with a small pile of gold-coloured plates, a computer, and a printer. Hanging from a rail, was what looked like, at first glance, gold records. There was a sign over them. It read, simply – ‘If you give this man a ride’ – in flowing scrip.
There were twelve gold records on the wall, and, when they went closer, they could read the labels. Ben groaned.
“Bloody hell! Here’s the one from Sheffield, the dead man as the artist and the wife and Hervey as supporting artists.”
“Here’s the Leeds one, with Norman as back-up vocals, and I can see the Manchester one with Oliver in a similar role. What are you looking at, Sally?”
“This one still on the bench, Charlie. The label has Harrison as the artist with Hazel and Johnson as backing singers, but the label hasn’t been glued on, yet. What do you think, Cuz?”
“I’m looking at these others. They all have a release date, a victim as the artist with the wife as backing. I hate to say it, but it looks like these are straight-forward suicides that they organised. Taking off the three we know about; this implicates them in nine other murders where the wife just took the money. No wonder they could live well if they were getting fifty grand every time.”
Withers spoke, from the doorway.
“My office has looked up the nine, yesterday afternoon. There are three there, from Macclesfield, and the rest are spread over Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. It looks like your case is the first time they went that far south. I tips me hat to you, that is one solid result.”
Sally looked at Ben and Charlie.
“In the end it was handed to us.”
The three laughed, then finished the saying, in unison.
“On a plate!”
Withers told them that the earliest of the suicides went back nearly fifteen years.
“The other houses aren’t so blatant, but there is a book of printed invoices in Cartwright’s house, with the carbons still intact. You’re right about clowns, but, if they hadn’t made a mistake, they’d still be operating. My daughter will be upset, she goes to all the Cultz shows that she can. They’ll probably find another singer, but it won’t be the same. Look, take all the pictures you want. I’ll send you the full FSI reports as soon as they’ve worked through them. My guys tell me it will take a week or more. I’ve already notified the CID in the other three cities. I’m sure that they’ll be in touch with you, in the weeks to come.”
They spent an hour, taking pictures and looking in the other two houses, taking pictures of the three copies in the invoice book that related to the three that they knew about.
Before they left, they removed the suits and shook hands with DCI Withers. Sally looked at him.
“In among those CDs, Sir, you should find a number that have people speaking on them. These are the ones that Zak used to mimic the voices. We know that there are four, at least. The other thing is our case was started over two years ago. By the look of those mementos, I would think there must be others, still in the planning stage. You may find notes that don’t relate to the others in those houses.”
“You’re right, detective. One of the suicides was only seven months ago, so they were busy boys. I’ll probably see you again, my Chief Super will be calling a press conference once we have the other wives in custody. It might be hard to prove the cases, but I’m going to give it a damn good try!”
Sue treated them to a lunch on the way back south. She toasted them on a job well done.
“You three have cemented your places in the team. You are really a small team on your own. I’m going to talk to the Chief Super to see if Sally can be elevated to Acting Sergeant, so you can keep calling her boss.”
“Yes, boss.” Was the collective answer.
The following weeks were hectic. They had discussions with the top brass from Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. They attended a press conference in Macclesfield, and they stood outside the gates of Doncaster Prison, Armley and Strangeways, with the extended families, to welcome Hervey, Norman, and Oliver back into the world. Those occasions extended into the evenings as they were feted by all and sundry.
The trials of Zak, Horse, and Cart were long and drawn out. Each city wanted their own, but the Commissioner stepped in and decided that it should take place in Sheffield, with the idea that the Doncaster prison was the best place to put them. Sally spent a lot of time with the prosecution teams, and it was Acting DS Sally Brown who sat in the court, next to her team, as the life sentences were read out for each of the prisoners.
The cases against the wives took a lot longer to resolve, as several needed to be brought back from sunnier climes to face the music, and a couple had died. The only one of these that interested them was in Birmingham, where they sent Hazel away for five years, for conspiracy to murder her husband. Of the others, several wives pleaded guilty to being an accessory and testified for the prosecution in the main trial.
A month after that, the three of them were invited to a lunch at the Wellington, in Brecon. Sally drove the three of them there on the Saturday morning. At the car park, Ben looked at one of the other cars.
“That one’s a Government car, with a driver, there must be someone special here, I doubt that it’s for us.”
“Don’t be so certain, Ben. The invite came from Sir Broderick, and he’s got a seat in the House of Lords. You never know who he may know.”
As they walked into the hotel, Johnson Ridley came from the dining room with his hand out to shake.
“I saw you arrive through the window. Thank you for coming, today. Broderick set this up as both he and I wanted to thank you. It worked out that there are others who also want to thank you. Now, come on in and enjoy a good meal, the talk will happen afterwards.”
When they followed him in, he led them to a table, by the window, with a lot of space between it and the other tables. Ridley introduced them.
“First, you already know DCI Withers, from Macclesfield, the gent next to him is DS Armstrong from the Macclesfield Tactical Response Team. Sally, you have met the Assistant Commissioner before. You have also met Sir Broderick. The last, but not least, is someone you may have seen on the television. Jonathon, these are the three detectives that solved the case. Sally, Jerry and Harry, this gentleman is the local member in Manchester, and also likely to be the Home Secretary when his lot get into power, again.”
“It won’t be long now, Johnson. Thank you for coming, I saw you at the trial, but I stayed in the background. Now, a meal first, and then we talk!”
Somewhat subdued, the three of them sat. After the meal, with coffees for some and port for others, the AC commented that he was sorry that he hadn’t had a chance to have a meeting at Aston but told them that there were still commendations being added to their records. The politician asked what it was that made them certain it was not Johnson that had committed the murder.
“That one was easy, Sir. They thought that he had a racing yacht, so they got the rope to suit. The knot was even one used by racing yachts to secure special sails.”
“Why would they think that?”
“You lead with the droll, Charlie.”
Charlie grinned.
“They asked me about the yacht and then asked me if he raced. I said that he did.”
Ben joined in.
“But his yacht is a century old.”
The three of them finished.
“I didn’t mean the yacht, silly. No, Ridley has horses at a stable, over in Norfolk. He races them.”
The men around the table looked stunned, Withers and Armstrong couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Ridley snorted.
“I knew she was a lush, but that takes the cake. She torpedoed the whole plan before it even happened?”
“It was the one thing that made the initial mistake. The second is to keep all those records.”
Withers suddenly looked serious.
“Ah! The records. When you left me to it, that day, you said that there could be notes in regard to the murders and intended murders. I asked my FSI guys to give me any notebooks, unopened, and that I would give them back those that related to the cases we knew about. As you know, from the trial, these were found in the big guy’s house. Who would have taken him as the brains behind the operation? There were a few of those notes that bring us here today. I’m sure that the AC will tell you that this is all between us, but we all felt that you have a right to know.”
“We’re all ears, Sir, and no mouth. Whatever it is it’s safe with us.”
“One of those notebooks concerned DS Armstrong. He can tell you why.”
“I hate to admit it, but my wife had been shacked up with that Zak. He and she were planning to get me to put my gun to my head and blow my brains out. The notebook even had some jottings about the note I’d leave. It had the line – ‘I woke up this morning and got myself a beer’. From Roadhouse Blues, I believe. I confronted her with it, and we divorced, quietly. I have to thank you three for saving my life.”
The Shadow Minister then spoke up.
“Another of the notebooks concerned my own death, supposedly at the hand of my political rival. It didn’t get as far as to what I would leave, but I was to have been hung, like the other cases. The notes wondered if they could use Sir Broderick as the friend who would call him away. We both do the odd climbing and we’re all quite friendly. My wife is now living with her mother until we can divorce.”
The AC took over.
“As you can see, this has to be kept between us, but you three have friends in high places, should you ever need us, into the future. Those planning notebooks have been destroyed, after all the intended victims were notified. All of us thank you for you detective work and for saving more lives than you realised. I’m sure that three released men thanked you, as well.”
“Yes, they did, Sir. We needed to take an Uber to a hotel and pick the car up the next day.”
“A well-deserved celebration, I’m sure. Tell me, what happened to the band, I’m told that they were very popular?”
“They found another singer, and Barry Blake got them a songwriter. It seems that it was only Zak that was holding them back. They still do some covers, but I’m told that they have an album coming out soon, with all original material. Two of their new songs are being played on the radio. One of them is called ‘We Played with the Devil.’ I believe that it’s close to being a hit.”
“So, it’s all upward and onward for the three of you, is it.”
“I believe it is. With DCI Cousins as our boss, and the rest of the team that we work with, I’m sure that we’ll have plenty to do.”
They all stood, and hands were shaken. On the way home, Sally, as usual, opened the conversation.
“Well, what did we learn from that?”
“From what, boss, we just had a nice dinner with a group of friends.”
“With friends like that, Sally, whoever we confront, we can come out swinging!”
“Enough with the droll, Charlie. You’re right, though. Just don’t tell the others who we know, they’ll only get jealous.”
Marianne Gregory © 2023
This is the last of this series, for the year. Hopefully, I can write a couple more for next year.