1. Detective Behind Bars

THE ACCUSED Part 1

Detective Inspector Rosie Baum sat on the bunk in the cell at Ladies wing of Brumpton Prison and was in a state of almost complete confusion.

The previous morning she had looked out of her front room window at her caravan which spent most of the year parked on her driveway and her heart had flipped a beat when she noticed that its door was open. That should never be. There were only two sets of keys on planet Earth for that caravan and she had both of them.

She was still in her night attire, which normally consisted of nothing or almost nothing, so she pulled a rather flimsy dressing gown on and rushed out to the point where her nightmare proper was about to begin

The caravan door was most certainly open, and about to step onto the step down to the driveway was the figure of a woman holding a short but sharp-looking knife, and she was snarling.

“He died, you know, b***h,” she almost howled.

The D.I had no idea who she was talking about. Who had died? What had a stranger dying got to do with her, unless… there were several villains under lock and key at her behest, villains who were best kept securely off the streets and behind bars.

“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “and what on Earth are you doing in my caravan?”

“Living in it, b***h!” came the reply.

“Why?” A simple question, she thought, but apparently it had a far more complicated answer than she expected.

“Well,” grated the knife-wielding woman, “he went out for some cash, coins for the gas and so on, a pound or two for milk and bread so’s we could eat, and when he got there, to the place he was going to as you know full well, b***h, he was stopped by this ignorant little yobbo in a constable’s uniform, a twerp who thought he knew everything when I knows that he knew nothing. So my lovely old man batted him one and didn’t mean to hurt him, not really hurt him, but he killed him accidentally, and it was you, b***h, who blamed him! Now my kids haven’t got a dad, they’re in care because I haven’t got a man and you, you’re gonna pay for it!”

Then the woman, Rosie knew her as Mary Griffin from the description she’d given of the murder of a good looking young constable, lunged forwards, blade in hand, and Rosie took a hasty step backwards.

The step backwards was enough for her to catch her slippered heel on an old chunk of rock that her late husband had thought looked just the thing where he’d put it on the lawn’s border (though she’d never actually agreed, but he was dead and it was always going to stay where he put it), grabbed anything in sight to save herself from falling and that anything was Mary Griffin’s arm, and somehow the two women ended up in the most untidy pile.

Rosie was all right, But Mary wasn’t.

Mary was dead. In that irreversible instant she changed from living to dead, her heart pierced by the blade she was carrying.

And by the looks of it Detective Inspector Rosie Baum had killed her.

She did all the right things, called for an ambulance and notified Superintendent Knott at the station, waiting for the pathologist and not touching anything until he arrived. Dr Greaves was most particular that nothing should be touched, and had a leaf drifting down from the tree in next door’s garden landed on the body he would have been irked.

When the mess was cleared up and the ambulance hastened away she knew what was going to happen. Her own part in the death of Mary Griffin was going to be analysed in the minutest of details.

Her story was simplicity itself, but the more questions that were thrown at her by a superintendent who had never had a huge amount of time for her, the more complex it seemed to get. Especially when it turned out that the knife that had stolen the late lamented’s life from her was part of a set in Rosie’s own kitchen.

“If what you’re telling us is an accurate representation of what really happened, how come the knife belonged to you?” asked an officer seconded to the investigation from the county force.

“Look. I was at work from dawn to dusk yesterday. She must have broken in and taken it and my kids are away at Uni. Or it might have been in the caravan since the last time I went out in it.”

“So you can’t explain how she had your knife?”

“I’ve given you two possibilities.”

“And neither of them convincing.”

“Does your wife know where every single kitchen utensil is at all time?” she asked, her voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm that would annoy any officer. And it did annoy this one.

“I’m single,” he said, “and being a man I do know.”

Then he tried a different angle, one that was unexpected.

“You say you noticed the caravan door was open?”

She nodded. “Wide open,” she confirmed.

“And under your dressing gown I’ve been informed you were naked. That suggests you might have been in the van with Mrs Griffin. Maybe for the night. Your prints are all over it, after all.”

“Of course they are. It’s my caravan!”

“So you weren’t in a relationship with Mrs Griffin?”

“That’s not the way I’m orientated.”

“Then why were you in the van with her?”

“I wasn’t. I went to see why the door was open and to close it if some some unimaginable reason I’d accidentality left it open.”

Mrs Baur, the officer reports that you were naked under your flimsy dressing gown. That sounds like someone who had spent an erotic night with another person, and there was no sign of there being anyone else in your bedroom.”

“There wasn’t. I usually sleep in the nude. I usually do whatever is decent to do in the nude. I like being naked and as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing wrong being without clothes in the privacy of my own home.”

“What would you assume if you were in my shoes and presented with a cadaver with one of my own knives sticking out of it, and me in the altogether?”

“I’d assume you were telling the truth.”

“Well, Detective Inspector Baur, I’m not so simple minded. I’m going to charge you with the murder of Mrs Mary Griffin, and when we resume this interview later it would do well if you told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Anyway, you’ll be before the magistrates tomorrow, and let’s see what they make of it. Meanwhile I’d spend as much time as you’ve got working out how to tell me the truth!”

She’d tried, of course she had, but her truth wasn’t his truth, and he had all the power. Next morning she was taken to the magistrates court where she was remanded in custody, charged with wilful murder.

© Peter Rogerson, 13.04.21

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