3. Prison Officer Amy Bilton

THE ACCUSED part 3

Detective Inspector Rosie Baur was deep in thought, sitting on the edge of her bunk bed, frowning. Recent events leading up to that moment were whirling around in her head.

She knew the Superintendent Knott didn’t like her and would possibly move Heaven and Earth to get rid of her, choosing to forget that her clear-up rate was second to none. No, his prejudice ran a lot deeper than mere clear-up rates because she was a woman, and if that wasn’t bad enough in his mind, her skin was darker than he’d like it. A great deal darker because she was of mixed race. The fact that she was particularly attractive made no difference to him, he being past his own youth and no longer interested in the flesh. And in that youth the flesh that most fascinated him had been a lad of nineteen who had threatened to report him if he persisted in his sleazy comments. But then, he had been a mere constable and didn’t want a slur from an attractive young lad window cleaner to put an end to his career before it was properly started, so he married a well known harridan who had no interest in anything but appearances and her own gender, and that had to be that.

Rosie was working out exactly what the best way might be to minimise the Superintendent’s prejudices together with Mr Grundyson’s conviction that because he had been accused of a heinous crime she must be guilty of it when her thoughts were disturbed by a rattle of keys that were too close her ears to be anything but unlocking her own cell door.

Rosie looked up as a woman in drab uniform of a prison warder entered her cell.

“Just checking you’ve settled in all right,” said the woman who, despite her prison warder’s uniform, looked absurdly friendly. She was tall, dark haired and her smile exuded a warmth that the D.I. hadn’t expected to see inside the walls of Brumpton Prison ladies wing.

“I’m as well as can be expected,” she told her, “seeing that I’m being fitted up for something I would never dream of doing.”

“Most inmates make that kind of complaint,” smiled the officer, “but I must say you sound more convincing than most. Let me introduce myself seeing as it’s possible you might be seeing quite a lot of me until you go for trial. My name’s Officer Bilton, known to my friends the other side of these walls as Amy.”

“Well, whatever others may say about their innocence or guilt, I’m innocent,” replied Detective Inspector Baur, “I was merely foolish enough to trip over a rock at the precise moment that a woman was coming at me with a sharp blade that got twisted in her hands and somehow found her heart when it pricked her.”

“And she died instead of you?” asked Amy Bilton.

“Precisely. The wretched rock shouldn’t have been there but it was a favourite of my late husband,” explained Rosie. “He picked it up on one of our holidays and rather took a fancy to it. Then he got himself killed and I can’t bear the idea of moving it even though it’s just an old piece of stone that’s no use to anyone.”

“I can understand sentimental attachment,” nodded Amy, “I tell you what, why don’t you have a word with the chaplain, Zoe Carter. She likes looking into lost causes.”

“I hope it’s not lost!” exclaimed Rosie.

“I understand. Well, if you’re quite happy…”

“In here!”

“As happy as can be expected, then. Would you like me to have a word with Zoe? She’s a friend of mine, our husbands like to play darts together leaving us with nothing more to do than gossip.”

“If you think it would help me,” replied Rosie dubiously.

“Listen, love, in here vou need as many on your side as you can get!”

“Okay then.”

Amy nodded. “Will do, then. I reckon I can sort the wheat from the chaff in my head, and in that head you’re wheat.”

With no more ado the officer left Rosie in peace and made her way to the staff quarters. She knew where the chaplain would be: in the officer, a tiny space, off the room that doubled as a gymnasium and a church It was time for her to tak```e a break and she preferred the company of the chaplain to that of her fellow warders, some of whom she saw as a little too unforgiving and one of whom clearly fancied the pants off her even though she herself was happily married.

The Reverend Zoe Carter was sitting at a small desk frowning at a newspaper cutting.

“Something up?” asked Amy, smiling.

“I’ve been given this newspaper cutting by a friend of a friend,” replied Zoe, “and it just doesn’t ring true to me! I know the woman concerned and she hasn’t got a vicious bone in her body.”

“Who’s that?” asked Amy.

“A police woman. A detective. It says in the paper that she murdered the widow of a prisoner. He was in gaol at the time, and even though he was quite a young chap he suffered from a fatal heart attack before anyone could help him, and this police woman was the detective who had locked him up.”

“That’s a coincidence,” exclaimed Amy, “if I’ve got it right you’re talking about the same police woman that I’ve just been chin-wagging with, and I said to her I’d mention her case to you seeing as she’s convinced of her own innocence. Rosie Baur, I think, her name is.”

“That’s her,” nodded the chaplain with a quick smile, “I conducted her husband’s funeral a few years back. I get to know her quite well, for a time. And she didn’t strike me as the sort of person to go about stabbing people. I also know Doctor Greaves, the pathologist. I’ll have a word with him and check out his opinion.”

“That would help,” smiled Amy. When Zoe looked at her young face she thought how it was hard to believe that were the same age, forty-something. But they were.

Meanwhile Detective Inspector Rosie Baur sat on the bunk of her uncomfortable bed and found herself, uncharacteristically, trying to control a tear or two that seemed determined to find their way out of her eyes.

© Peter Rogerson 16.04.21

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