A Carriage of Misjustice Read online

  Tom blew out his cheeks. “There’s a question. Too many, probably, by the time you account for both the rugby team and the athletics section. Coaches, volunteer bar staff, Uncle Tom Cobbley, and all. I could get you a list, if you gave me a few days, but I can’t promise it would be a complete one. Plus, it wouldn’t take account of anybody who’d made themselves a key or two on the q.t.”

  “Indeed. We’d appreciate that list, though. Thank you.” Robin felt a twinge of surprise that the police hadn’t already asked the groundsman for a list of keyholders, but he’d give the team the benefit of the doubt on that one for the moment, because they might have made the request of somebody else. He pointed at the away dressing room. “Can we examine this changing room, please?”

  “You can examine where you like.” Tom unlocked the door. “I’ll admit I’ve had a good poke in all the nooks and crannies since we were allowed back on the premises. I expect your crime-scene people do a good job, but they don’t know this club like I do. Didn’t find anything unexpected, though,” he added, with a grin. “My pals at the pub say I’ve been watching too many detective shows on the telly and fancy myself as Hercule Poirot, which is probably true, because I’ve been thinking this out all ways up.”

  None of Robin, Pru or the wannabee detective groundsman found any surprises whilst on their tour, even though they visited all the parts of the clubhouse and kept their eyes peeled.

  “If I wanted to get in and out of here without being seen from the pitch, I’d have to come through from the bar, wouldn’t I?” Pru said, as they reached the toilet area where the body had been found. “And I’d need a key to open the door.”

  Tom rubbed his chin. “Not necessarily. I’ve been having a think about this. Assuming that the rugby lads have got it right when they say nobody slipped into the tunnel while they were practicing, the obvious thing is to think somebody used the connecting door. Two people, if you count the victim and the murderer. You could have hidden in the away dressing room if you had a key to that, then slipped up the tunnel once all the players had gone out to practice. Unlikely you’d be seen from the pitch. Although why either of them would have wanted to go into the changing rooms in the first place beats me.”

  “Maybe one of them was caught short.” Pru didn’t sound like she was making a serious suggestion. Robin could think of other reasons blokes hung around in loos, but there’d been no hint of recent sexual activity in the postmortem report and anyway, if you were cottaging, wouldn’t you pick somewhere you wouldn’t be interrupted by a couple of dozen burly rugby players?

  “Maybe. But if they needed the toilet, why not use the ones that are accessed off the bar area?” Tom shrugged.

  “What about robbery?” Robin proposed. “There was a spate of it in sports clubs around Abbotston, where we’re based. Some toerag waited until everyone was occupied out on the pitch learning the line-out calls for the next weekend or whatever, then nipped in and helped himself to cash and mobile phones. They only caught him because one of the devices had the Find My Friends app turned on. The police never seem to think of that on the telly, do they, when they’re trying to track someone down?”

  Tom chuckled. “I bet you shout at all the TV cop shows.”

  “I threaten to kick the television. Anyway, this player’s girlfriend thought he was cheating on her when his phone showed he was three roads away rather than at the ground. Sergeant, would you like to finish the story?”

  Pru, who’d been grinning, said, “She stormed round to give him what for and ended up helping to make an arrest, having taken her pal with her for moral support. Me.”

  Tom shook his head. “You must have a few tales to tell. Take your time in here, then we’ll visit the bar area when you’re done. We’ll have to go the long way, out of the tunnel and round the building, as the only door to the bar that’s not kept bolted is the one leading from the outside.”

  Tom took himself off, leaving them to it, although apart from getting their bearings, visiting the scene hadn’t helped much.

  Pru idly turned the handle of the connecting door to the bar. “Locked doors don’t always signify much, in my mind. Easy enough to get your hand on keys and make a copy of them if you’re determined on getting access. Or nick a set. If this is like the sports clubs I grew up knowing, some of the keyholders never have any cause to use the things but refuse to give them up after twenty years of possession. Point of principle. One of those people might easily have misplaced theirs and been reluctant to own up to the fact.”

  Robin had been thinking much the same. “Nothing much else to see here. Let’s see if Tom knows when the locks were last changed.”

  It turned out that the locks had all been replaced three years previously, when the buildings had undergone the major refurbishment Andy had told them about. That narrowed the timescale for accessing keys and put the long-term forgetful keyholder out of the frame.

  They made their way round the front of the grandstand, down the side, and around the corner to the access door, Robin noting that it wouldn’t have been in view from the car park. The bar resembled every sports ground bar that Robin had been in. “You must know this place like the back of your hand. Have you noticed anything unusual since the night of the murder?”

  Tom shook his head. “Not heard reports of stuff having been nicked, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “What about this?” Pru pointed to a team photo, one of many on the wall nearest the tunnel. Alone among them, the glass was cracked.

  Tom peered at it, then said angrily, “Nobody’s owned up to doing that.”

  Probably because they didn’t want a kick up the backside.

  “I suppose someone was arsing about and it went too far. I need to take it down and get it mended.” He was reaching out when Pru’s hand on his arm forestalled him.

  “Please don’t,” she said firmly. “We’ll need to do some tests on that. Any idea when it happened?”

  Tom shrugged. “Might have been months ago. You can’t see the cracks unless they catch the light.”

  “We’ll get something to wrap it in and take it away.” Although what it might tell them, Robin couldn’t say. Unless, he realised, it related to the abrasions that had been found on the victim’s fingers, according to the post-mortem report.

  They finished in the bar, then circled the building, noting what must be the groundsmen’s shed and an equipment store. They passed a bench that bore an engraved plate. “Who’s that for?” Pru asked.

  “Young rugby player, killed in an accident. Sorry, I find it all really difficult to talk about.” Tom took a deep breath, clearly unsettled, and who could blame him at the thought of a life cut short? “It used to be at the front of the stand, so that players or coaching staff could use it during matches. But some mindless twat—or twats—got in here a few weeks back and knocked it about. I’m going to spruce it up again.”

  “Good man.” Robin hated that kind of idle vandalism. Although what if the relocated bench had been an unexpected aid to gaining access? “Is there any way into the changing rooms from out here? Windows or whatever?”

  “Not unless you can jump like a kangaroo and you’re shaped like a beanpole, as you can see.” Tom was right. The only windows were ten feet off the ground and their shape defied access through them.

  “This has obviously upset you,” Pru said, pointing at the bench. “Were you friends with the young man who died?”

  “More than that. He was my son.” Tom ran the back of his hand across his brow. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

  He set off, Robin and Pru exchanging glances in his wake. No wonder the bloke had been dismayed at the vandalism.

  By the time they’d seen every one of the nooks and crannies the groundsman had mentioned, Robin was convinced that you could only have got in and out unseen if you had keys, albeit then it would have been relatively easy.

  “What are the chances the rugby lads would have missed seeing somebody en
tering the tunnel, given they’d have been busy working out line-out calls or whatever?” he asked.

  “Slim but realistic, especially if they were working on a move on the other side of the pitch.” Tom nibbled at his bottom lip. “But you see, as Poirot might say, the getting in and out is the easy part of the puzzle. People aren’t as careful with their keys as they should be.”

  On the way back to the car, Pru said, “Poirot might say that, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s all about why both victim and killer came here, and why they went in those toilets. That’s the key question.”

  Robin had to agree with her.

  Hartwood police station was located in a spanking new, purpose-built building, making the Abbotston equivalent—1960s build and thought of as cutting edge at the time—look like it came out of the Victorian era. Cowdrey had told Robin and Pru not to get too comfortable working in these flash new offices as there was no prospect of their station being upgraded anytime soon. The old Hartwood building had outlived its purpose and the money needed to upgrade it had been better spent on starting all over again. Especially as the old site was prime building land, so they’d made a profit on selling it. Some of the original structure would apparently be retained and made into executive flats at eye-watering prices; welcome to the twenty-first century.

  Betteridge was there to meet them, beaming with delight—most likely at seeing Robin again—and apologising for not having kept in touch beyond a card at Christmas.

  “Loved the one with the dog on. Does he really have five legs and a tail?”

  “Artistic licence.” Robin grinned. Last Christmas, their card had been designed by one of Adam’s pupils and had been an enormous hit.

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay long. Got this big county lines drugs bust about to go down and so I need to be elsewhere.” Betteridge’s expression registered her distaste. “Please keep me in touch with developments as a matter of urgency.”

  That seemed reasonable, given that this case had already gone nearly two weeks without any appreciable progress being made.

  Betteridge was letting Robin have a free hand, but she was the one who had to deal with the media, so the more information she had before facing them, the better.

  “That’s part of the job I never envy,” Robin said, remembering how the press had clustered around Lindenshaw school during the first murder investigation he led. The one that had been life changing on all counts, not just for his career. He quickly changed the mental subject, not wanting to dwell on Adam and the prospect of being away from him.

  “Necessary evil.” Betteridge jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s go and meet your team. They’re less intimidating.”

  As Betteridge took them through the building, Robin found the interior was as impressive as the exterior, although the incident room resembled others he’d known, as he found while viewing it through the internal window. The usual information board with pictures and notes and arrows linking things all on display. Around the room, an array of desks and computers and shiny-faced officers, all of them heads down and industrious, clearly trying to impress. Those heads—two male, one female—shot up as Betteridge, Robin, and Pru came through the door.

  Betteridge’s bright “Morning, all!” produced three responses of “Morning, ma’am.”

  “I’m not stopping, but I wanted to do this personally.” She gestured towards Robin and Pru. “Chief Inspector Robin Bright and Sergeant Pru Davis. I’ll let them introduce themselves. This is Robertson’s team—Callum Keyworth, Laurence Beaumont, and Sally Cotton. I’ll give you two things to mull over before I go. One is that I’ve seen coincidences in real life that you could never put in a book because they’re too outrageous. The other is that you’ve maybe only got one coincidence here—the training accident. All the other strands might be linked, so not coincidental at all. I’ll see you when I see you. Wish me luck.”

  Robin did exactly that, then gave the constables a very brief account of his background, although the young officers clearly had already heard of him, perhaps from Betteridge herself. He asked them to talk him through the case, not simply what had been found out so far, but their own impressions and ideas, the sort of things he’d pick up from his own team of constables that would be subsequently sifted through and any gems identified.

  Callum—a shaggy-haired lad, facially similar to the rugby player Maro Itoje but half the size—went first, giving a logical, lucid account of how and when the body had been found and what the postmortem had shown up.

  “Victim was a thirty-year-old male in good physical condition. He’d had a couple of head wounds, one relatively superficial and the other decisive, inflicted on him by an instrument of exact type unknown.”

  “Anything else on the body?”

  Callum consulted his notes. “There were also some abrasions on the victim’s fingers, fresh enough to have been done within the hours before death. Not defensive wounds, the medical guru thinks, but as though he’d been scrabbling about with something liable to scratch. Brambles, maybe, or something metal with sharp edges. It’s the coincidences I don’t like, sir,” he concluded. “I know weird things happen in real life, but this bloke being killed at the same place as where his wife’s best mate’s partner is attending rugby training, at the same time as those two women are having a girl’s night in. Oh, and the partner’s getting a horrible injury while this is all going on?”

  “You’re suspicious of everything,” the other male constable, Laurence, said. This officer had immediately reminded Robin somewhat of Ben, one of his Abbotston team, with the same smiling willingness to help, although there the resemblance ended. Ben had a stocky scrum half–style build, while Laurence was what Robin’s mum would call a long streak of water out of the tap. He towered over Robin by a good five inches, and when sitting at his desk, the furniture appeared to be doll’s house sized. Still, Betteridge had reckoned he showed promise, and Robin hoped she was—as usual—right.

  “I’m suspicious about the same thing.” Robin gave them all a smile. Betteridge hadn’t warned him about any tensions within the team, so hopefully this was nothing other than banter being exchanged. “Sally, where are your thoughts on this?”

  The constable shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable at being put in the spotlight. “If I’m honest, I can just about buy that Melanie could be creating an alibi for herself while somebody else did in her old man—you always start with family and friends, don’t you?—but I don’t see how this rugby injury comes into it. That’s a conspiracy theory too far. And we don’t really know how close the timings of the two are.”

  “Do you think Melanie has motive?” Laurence asked.

  Sally flashed him a scowl. “I never said that.”

  Pru—thank God she was here to pour oil on what might be turbulent waters—said, “You didn’t. But you were right about starting with those closest to the victim. Is there any reason why she, or anybody else in his circle of family or friends, should have wanted him got rid of?”

  “Nothing obvious. Nobody’s hinted at marital problems. He wasn’t the easiest bloke to get on with, though, according to his boss. Type who’s always itching for a fight, especially when he’s had a few.” Sally glanced at her colleagues, who nodded their agreement.

  Time to get some input from Laurence. “What about the forensics? Are they telling us anything about the killer?”

  Laurence thrust out his lip. “Not much. The scenario appears to be that the first injury to the victim’s head might possibly have been accidental, then he was finished off, dragged to that cubicle, and pushed onto the seat. The weapon—of which there’s no sign—could have been anything large and heavy enough. There are no indications in the wound of what exactly we’re looking for, although the signs are it’s something made of steel, with powder-coated paint. Not much sign of a struggle either, in terms of the victim, apart from those odd marks on his hands. There was some bruising on his backside, as though he’d been hit there too, but
that was a few days old. All in all, it points to him being attacked by an assailant who easily overpowered him and could manhandle him into the loos. Although Osment wasn’t that big a bloke, so it doesn’t narrow the field much.”

  “He could have been attacked by somebody he wasn’t wary of,” Sally pointed out, “who got in close, then walloped him when he was down. Either knew where to hit to avoid making much of a mess or got lucky first time. If the victim cried out, there was nobody around to hear.”

  “Which suggests the killer knew the training-night routine.” Robin turned to study the incident board, with its picture of the victim’s battered head. “What if they got unlucky? Didn’t mean to kill, only stun him, but when they realised what they’d done, they dumped the body and scarpered. Laurence, you said the first injury might have been accidental. Want to expand on that?”

  “The CSI found blood and hair that matched the victim on the corner on one of the benches in the changing room, and spots of blood underneath it. He could have initially been pushed, but he might have simply fallen and he was finished off there.”

  “Which could have rendered him incapable of fighting back.” Robin, done with the picture, turned around. “The killer must have got some blood spatter on them and the weapon they used, you’d have thought. No sign of a trail? Or discarded clothes?”

  Laurence consulted his notes. “Crime scene officer reckons there were spots of blood from where the body had been dragged and then deposited. She felt that it might have been a rushed job, maybe to get him out of the changing room and buy a bit of time, but that was a gut feeling. There’s also evidence that somebody, possibly the killer, had one of those heavy-duty plastic bags with them. There was a fragment of black plastic snagged on the door of the loo. Trouble is that the two blokes who found the body clouded the issue where they’d gone in to see what had happened. There was the odd spot of blood in the main part of the changing room, but that’s possibly from where Dave passed through to go and get help.”