12 An Interview Behind Bars

THE ACCUSED Part 12

From the moment Peter Blackmore took hold of the reins of command nobody else seemed to know what was going on in Brumpton Police station. True, he was technically only involved in the one case, but one thing seemed to bleed into another and not even the cleaning lady knew what was going on.

By the end of that first day he was known as Commander Blackmore, though nobody was quite sure whether Commander was his proper rank or even that it was a rank at all in the annals of the county constabulary. Confused reigned, which is what Peter Blackmore liked. Confused people, he had long decided, don’t tend to tell lies because confusion muddles things up and truth and lies can easily become interchangeable and then nobody can know what’s what.

The next day he decided to go and visit the central figure in this drama and see what she had to say. He had heard of D.I. Rosie Baur by reputation and liked what he’d heard. She seemed to be both successful as a detective as well as a people person.

Inside Brumpton Prison, Rosie Baur was led to a small office and allowed to sit in the least comfortable chair imaginable and wait. A female prison officer was standing behind her with a bored expression on her face, but she had to be there on the off chance that things might get lively if the remanded D.I decided to do a runner.

Commander Peter Blackmore accompanied by a fellow officer who remained staunchly anonymous entered. The prison officer left and the anonymous man took her place, standing behind Rosie whilst the Commander took the other chair, which misfortune had dictated had one leg uncomfortably shorter than the other three.

“Well, Mrs Baur,” he began after he had given her a thorough optical examination and decided that he liked what he saw, “this is an odd situation, to say the least.”

“I prefer to be called by my rank in the service rather than my married status,” she replied, which threw him.

“Meaning?” he asked.

“I am a Detective Inspector and there is no evidence anywhere on God’s Earth that might undermine that,” she said, a little sharply. She was clearly determined to give as good as she got, and probably get a few arrows home first.

“Suspended,” he reminded her.

“Are you here to add credence to Superintendent Knott’s latest volume of fairy stories, or to get at the truth?” she asked, her demeanour brittle. But then, he thought, so would his be if he’d been incarcerated in this Victorian dump for no good reason.

“The truth is the only thing that I’m concerned with,” he replied, a little tartly in order to convey to the woman that he was no easy touch. “After all,” he added, “a woman, a member of the public, died, with one of your sharp kitchen knives dissecting her ventricles.”

“Then she shouldn’t have forced open the door to my expensive touring caravan and raided its kitchen drawer,” snapped the D.I. (suspended). “And,” she continued with her eyes doing their best to bore directly through the Commander’s no doubt thick skull, “decided to go for me with one of my sharp knives when I noticed the damage.”

“That doesn’t explain how she ended up dead,” pointed out the Commander, “it isn’t a foregone conclusion that a person attacking another with a blade is actually going to end up stabbing themselves!”

Rosie Baur sighed. “Tell that to Prison Officer Parfitt who was attacked by a knife-waving madman on the roof of this very prison,” she said wearily.

“Is that what gave you the idea for your defence?”

“It can’t have done because I’d already signed it in writing days before anyone thought of having a tour of the roof up there,” replied Rosie coldly. “You must know that. Has Knott sent you here to do a whitewash job? Are you in cahoots with him? The well known misogynist and racist riding hid dragon to victory?”

She might have known it was unfair before she said that, but prison life hadn’t encouraged her to see the best in people, especially in those whose power is sufficient to mar an otherwise untarnished life.

Fortunately, the Commander understood that much.

“I’m not the enemy, Mrs Baur,” he said, somewhat heavily. “I’m the one person besides yourself in this sorry affair who is determined to see the actual truth. And, as a second motive, I really rate you as a detective and would dearly love to see you back on the streets. And as for the qualities you attribute to Superintendent Knott, I have read his reports and do detect elements of misogyny and racism, both of which are intolerable.”

“Then I’ll tell you, if you like, very briefly what happened. And what I say if you will let me will be the plain ungarnished truth, and as simple as the truth often is. I looked out of my lounge window at my caravan and noted that the door was open when it is always kept locked. I went to investigate and a woman appeared in the doorway, moving down the steps. I inadvertently took a step back and stumbled against an ornate lump of stone that my late husband had put where it is and that I’m going to leave there in his memory, grabbed for anything to save myself from falling and somehow, I’ve no idea how, ended up holding the blasted woman's free hand, thus throwing us both off balance. And that’s it. The whole story.”

“You both collapsed in a heap and somehow the knife ended up buried in her chest?”

“That’s it. And the really uncanny thing is I witnessed the self same sequence of events on the prison roof only recently, and it strikes me as really telling that the officer who was up there hasn’t been charged with anything by Superintendent Knott. Instead, he’s a hero in the papers.”

“But you must understand that the slope of the prison roof contributed to his accident…?”

“And, commander, you must understand that the rather beautiful chunk of rock that my late husband really liked contributed in much the same way to mine.”

“Maybe. Tell me about Superintendent Knott?”

“Nothing I can say about him will be free of prejudice and I’d prefer it if any judgement of him was free of preconceptions. But he is prejudiced, and that’s why I’m here.”

The Commander sighed heavily.

“I fear you may be right, Mrs Baur,” he murmured.

© Peter Rogerson 25.04.21

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