13 The Magistrate's Court

THE ACCUSED The End

When D. I. Rosie Baur was taken in a minibus to the magistrate’s court it was a day before she expected to have to make the short journey and consequently it came as a surprise to her.

“Are you sure this is right?” she asked the officer who escorted her onto the bus.

“Don’t ask me, duck,” came the surly reply, “they never tell me nothing.”

“That means they do tell you something,” she muttered. The officer shrugged meaninglessly and put his brain into neutral so that he didn’t have to think.

The journey from Brumpton Prison (actually several miles outside the town and with only a run-down ex-council housing estate within meaningful distance of the place) and the town itself didn’t take long and was insufficient for the two officers accompanying her to say anything of any interest except that the grapevine suggested there was a shake-up occurring at the local police station which might be interesting. How it might be interesting wasn’t included in their desultory conversation, but Rosie was intrigued.

Upon arriving at the magistrate’s court she was ushered into a room in which sat the solicitor who was representing her, a bright young man rejoicing in the name of Cadaver, Rudolf Cadaver. As he had a dark sense of humour his name was all right by him. There was also the man she’d already met on an earlier day, her representative employed by her union, Desmond Grundyson

“Well, this a turn up for the books,” grunted Mr Grundyson, almost glowering, “it seems that some of the paperwork wasn’t up to scratch.”

“That there was corruption in high places, you mean,” interjected Cadaver, “I’ve examined the papers and the only thing wrong with them is the emphasis put on nothing by the senior investigating officer who appeared to believe that because Mrs Baur had ancestry differing from his own there was somehow something innately criminal about her. Oh, and she being a woman meant that she was incapable of seeing anything through the lens of truth. How it got past the legal boys at the CPS I’ll never understand.”

“What does all this mean?” demanded Rosie Baur, frowning.

“It means, Mrs Baur, that the game is most definitely up,” grinned Mr Cadaver, “it means that everyone’s going to bend over backwards to make sure that you don’t sue them for too much. It also means that as of a few minutes hence you’ll be a free woman and the world, if there’s any justice anywhere, will be your oyster. There’s just the formality of an appearance before the magistrate, and then you can go home.”

And that was a pretty accurate summary of what happened.

Rosie was escorted (with a huge amount of quiet politeness) into the court room, the magistrate entered with traditional solemnity, people were told they could sit, an army of newspaper men and women were kept at bay by three stolid police officers, any one of whom looked as if he might double as a professional wrestler, and the magistrate asked the prosecuting counsel what might be going on.

“All charges against Mrs Baur have been examined and found to be fallacious and have therefore been dropped,” he replied.

It all came to a speedy end, probably because the journalists morphed from being a seething but quiet group into a crazed army with enough questions to fill the pages of half a dozen bibles. Rosie was escorted out and allowed to descend the dozen or so steps from the courthouse and into the back of a waiting car together with a grinning Rudolf Cadaver.

“Home, James,” she grunted.

But she wasn’t taken home.

It wasn’t far to her work place, Brumpton Police Station, and she was driven there. The hullabaloo of the court was left behind her and she had a few moments in which to slip her brain into gear and try to come to terms with a vastly different situation.

“Well, so far so good,” said Mr Cadaver into her ear.

“Is it?” she asked.

“I’d have thought so,” was his reply.

“I suppose so, if you consider that highlighting the devastating effect one corrupt minion can have is far enough for today. But it isn’t,” she told him. “There are systems meant to trap the likes of Superintendent Knott, meant to weed them out, and they didn’t despite all the time they had to do it,. Yet to my certain knowledge he’s been exercising his malign bigotry for years.”

“I think you’ll find one particularly lovely system will be put in place,” came his obtuse reply.

Everything looked the same when she finally left the car and was escorted, politely and with a huge amount of deference, up to the first floor of the police station.

The sound of cheering was deafening. It started suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, and every man and woman in the building was suddenly cheering and banging on anything that might stand a chance of making a noise

“Goodness me,” whispered Rosie, but she couldn’t hear herself even when she raised her voice.

Then a young police man, a constable in uniform, emerged from the general hubbub carrying a huge bouquet of flowers and almost pushed them into her face, a smile of welcome on his face that meant more than all the words he might struggle to say.

As if by arrangement, the noise subsided.

“Welcome back, ma’am,” he said, “we’re kind of ever so glad to see you back.” A simple speech and not what he’d rehearsed in the solitude of the gents’ toilets, but he meany every syllable and Rosie understood that.

“I’m more than happy to be back,” she said when he had bowed himself back into line with his colleagues, “and as far as I’m concerned none of you had anything to do with the nightmare I’ve just gone through, so there’s nobody to blame. Now where’s my office. I feel the need for a cup of tea and a few minutes to examine my options.”

What she meant was, should she go, seek employment at another police station, mqybe in another force, or maybe even in another industry, or should she stay… Staying might be awkward. She’d seen too much of the justice system from the other side of its bars.

“You’ve got a new office, ma’am,” said the bouquet-bearing constable, stepping back towards her, “look: over there.”

And he pointed to a door that had a brand new sign.

“SUPERINTENDENT ROSIE BAUR” it read, in shining gold leaf.

“Goodness me,” she whispered. “And without even seeking for promotion!”

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 27.04.21

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