When the Night Ends, page 10
‘When was it installed?’
‘Last year, I think. Before my time.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Hello, Bob.’
The uniformed inspector looked up from his desk. It was as tidy as Ridpath expected.
‘Hi there, Ridpath, long time, no see.’
Ridpath held out his hand and Bob French stood up, shaking it warmly. They had both been on a sergeants’ course together at the training centre in Edgeley Park. Ridpath had liked Bob’s sardonic humour. He didn’t seem to take the job too seriously. Probably his way of coping with the pressures.
‘I heard you were busy. Operational issues.’ Ridpath stared pointedly at Ms Dexter.
‘Nah, same shit, different day. Always happy to see you.’
Ms Dexter had the decency to blush vividly.
Bob French pointed at the seat in front of him. ‘How can I help?’
Ms Dexter hovered nervously behind them. The head of the station stared at her. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a coffee from the machine?’
‘I’m supposed to be here with Inspector Ridpath all the time.’
Ridpath noticed she was suddenly using his proper title. The ACC must have read her the riot act.
‘Don’t worry, myself and Ridpath are old mates. Go and get yourself a coffee.’
It was said casually, but Ridpath could hear the command behind the words. Ms Dexter heard it too. She held up her phone. ‘Call me if you need me.’
‘I won’t… need you. Close the door on your way out.’
French watched as the woman left.
‘You know, I remember the days when we didn’t have corporate shills hovering over us constantly, making sure we toed the party line.’
‘I don’t think you were ever very good at it anyway, Bob.’
‘Probably why they sent me out here to the arsehole of the world.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Six years, last Monday. The lads gave me a cake and a get out of jail free card. They’ve got a sense of humour… allegedly. How have you been? Still inspector too? What happened? Who did you rub up the wrong way?’
‘Nobody. I got ill.’
French looked at him. ‘I heard it was cancer.’
‘Myeloma, to be exact. Cancer of the bone marrow. I’m in remission now, though, don’t even have to go to hospital for check-ups any more.’
‘Probably safer, what with Covid and all that malarkey.’
‘How’s Helen?’
Ridpath liked French’s wife. A no-nonsense Yorkshire woman who called a spade a shovel and had an infectious laugh.
‘We divorced four years ago. She’s moved back to Leeds with the kids.’
A silence descended on them. Ridpath didn’t want to ask why; he knew the answer already. The job wasn’t the best advert for marriage. Few couples could withstand the strain of the long and unpredictable hours, shift work, and the constant uncertainty.
‘I heard about Polly.’
Ridpath nodded. He didn’t want to go there. Not here, not now.
‘A lovely woman. A shame. How’s Eve handling it?’
‘Pretty well, too well – she’s a good kid.’
Another silence slipped between the two of them. It was like the past was both present in the room and gone forever at the same time.
French suddenly sat forward. ‘But you’re not here to chat about old times, Ridpath, are you?’
‘Not really.’
‘I’ve been told to cooperate with you fully. Ask away.’
‘You know I’m working for the coroner now?’
‘I had heard.’
‘There’s an inquest into the death of Ben Holdsworth.’
‘February 21, 2018. Not a date I’ll forget.’
‘You weren’t on duty?’
The man shook his head. ‘I was on call in case something happened, but I wasn’t at the station.’
‘When did you learn about Holdsworth’s death?’
‘Tony Saunders called me at roughly 6.50. The log will give you the exact time.’
‘And you came in?’
‘As quickly as I could, but Holdsworth had already been sent to the hospital. The duty doctor arranged the ambulance.’
‘Who went with him?’
‘Lucas Harvey, one of the custody officers.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I followed procedure. We cordoned off the cell to preserve the scene, checked the other prisoners were OK and reported the incident up the chain of command.’
‘Other prisoners?’
‘There were two other men in the cells that night.’
Ridpath frowned. Why had nobody mentioned this before?
‘Who were they?’
Bob French sat back, opening his arms wide. ‘Give me a break, Ridpath, it was over three years ago. I can’t remember every lowlife we bang up in the cells.’
Ridpath chuckled. ‘Yeah, sorry, stupid question. It will be in the arrest logs, won’t it?’
‘Probably, we keep good records here. Remember what we were taught. Cover your arse…’
‘Or somebody will kick it for you.’
‘Charlie was the best, wasn’t he? Another one gone to the great beat in the sky.’ Bob French stared out of the window for a long time.
Ridpath changed the subject. ‘And after you cordoned off the cell?’
French seemed to come back to life. ‘You know what it’s like. Everything was taken out of my hands. I gave a statement to Professional Standards and the IOPC later but neither followed up on it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I was asked once about the timeline of events, but that was all. You know the IOPC investigators, none of them have worked in the police, the questions were fairly basic. Professional Standards weren’t much better.’
‘For example?’
‘Same as you asked. What time was I called? When did I arrive? They seemed more concerned the events were properly documented than anything else. And when the post-mortem revealed he had died from a bang on the head, they went through the footage and found the moment when he fell against the wall in the cell.’
‘I saw the still pictures in the post-mortem report.’ Then something occurred to Ridpath. ‘You said the CCTV was checked after the post-mortem report?’
‘I think so.’
‘So why were the stills with the report?’
French shrugged his shoulders. ‘I guess they must have sent them to the pathologist.’
‘Who is “they”?’
The inspector shrugged his shoulders. ‘I dunno, I was kept well away from the custody suites.’
‘I don’t know either, Bob.’ Ridpath chewed the end of his pen. ‘One last thing. The procedure for checking the cells was once every thirty minutes if the CCTV wasn’t working. Why wasn’t this followed?’
‘You’ll have to ask Tony Saunders or the custody officers. All I know is the CCTV was working when I got to the station at 7.30.’
‘What?’
‘The CCTV in Cell 3 was working; I checked the monitor myself.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ridpath decided to grab a very late lunch, more of an afternoon tea, before his meeting at 4.30 in the morgue with Dr Schofield.
He headed into town and one of his favourite cafes on Deansgate. He’d discovered it years ago when he was a young PC in the centre of Manchester. Now, whenever he wanted some comfort food, Katsouris was where he went.
It was located in one of those old Victorian buildings which used to be so common in Manchester but were now becoming a rarity. Inside, the building was nothing particularly notable, but as soon as he wrapped his mouth around the Italian Special, he knew it was worth making the trip.
Not the half-heartedness of the half sandwich for him. Rather, he went for the full Monty – spicy pepperoni salami with roasted red peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, topped with melted cheese – knowing it would take him a while to fight his way through the whole thing but he would love every second of the assault on his tastebuds. Finish it off with a Greek latte and sit back afterwards, hands clasped across extended stomach safe in the knowledge all was well with the world.
Even if it wasn’t.
He allowed himself half an hour of bliss and another latte before his mind turned back to the case. He’d hated interviewing Bob French this morning. Somehow, it felt like he was betraying an old friendship, calling into question those bonds of camaraderie built up over years of struggling in the fight to hold back the darker side of the human psyche.
True, he hadn’t seen him for years, didn’t even know he was divorced, but the ties that bind were still there.
It seemed that after the post-mortem result came in, everybody just went through the motions. Professional Standards. IOPC, even the CPS accepted the findings of Harold Lardner without question.
Maybe because it absolved them of all blame. But why hadn’t they checked up on the toxicology results? Why had none of the custody officers spotted Ben Holdsworth was as high as a cloud?
And what about Tony Saunders, why was he so defensive? Did he know Ben Holdsworth? He’d arrested him twice already. But the duty log and the custody record showed he acted according to the rules and procedures designed by the College of Policing.
Was he hiding something, or was he just tired of the constant investigation of the events of one night three years ago, and of living under a cloud ever since?
The CCTV was another problem. According to Saunders and the custody officers, it had malfunctioned. But Bob French said it was operational when he arrived at the station. Surely it wouldn’t stop working and start again for no reason?
He wrote his next steps in his notebook.
Talk to Dr Schofield re. post-mortem.
Follow up with Angela Dexter.
Interview Tony Saunders. Detailed timeline of the events?
Interview CCTV supplier. Why had it stopped working?
Interview the custody officer, Terry Rodgers. Why hadn’t he noticed Holdsworth was on drugs?
Interview duty doctor, Bourke. What did he see?
A lot of interviews to conduct. Then it struck him.
He flicked back through his notes. Were there other people in the cells? Had anybody spoken to them? And if not, why not? He wrote one more note.
Find the other detainees and question them.
For a moment, a strange feeling washed over Ridpath. There, in a crowded cafe in the middle of a bursting city, he felt totally and hellishly alone.
He was certain nobody would lift a finger to help him in this investigation.
He was on his own, and it wasn’t a good place to be.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The morgue was as unwelcoming as ever.
Not that Ridpath ever wanted a warm welcome from such a cold place; it was almost a contradiction in terms. But he would have liked something, anything, to soften the glacial sterility of the place.
Instead everything worked to emphasise it. The strong smell of disinfectant with a top note of decay suffused the place, seeping into every wall. The walls themselves were white-tiled and shiny as death, reflecting back light tinged with ineffable sadness. The furniture, in Scandinavian blonde woods devoid of personality and exuberance, was the very essence of joylessness.
But it was the people who worked in the place Ridpath found the hardest to handle. It was as if they floated rather than walked, their long white coats hiding any sense of shape or form, their pasty skins absent of colour, as if being born albino was a prerequisite for employment.
Only Dr Schofield with his high voice – the result of a boyhood encounter with hypogonadism – possessed any real life.
He was approaching Ridpath now, his plastic apron covered in blood and gore. ‘Detective Inspector, how nice to see you.’
‘I wish I could say the same.’
He laughed. ‘I forget you don’t enjoy my office.’ He twirled his hands, removing his plastic gloves. ‘Not everybody appreciates the need for cleanliness. I must admit I find it rather soothing.’
‘It takes all sorts.’
‘It does indeed. Now, if you’ll follow me, we can discuss the post-mortem Sophia sent me yesterday evening.’
He pushed his way through the double doors leading to the mortuary itself. Two gurneys covered in green sheets with vaguely human shapes lying on them were parked in the corridor.
‘It would seem the mortuary is full at the moment. We’re still getting deaths from Covid, you know, even though the government insists the danger from the disease is over.’
‘Never trust what politicians tell you, my mother used to say. If their lips move they are lying. And if their lips aren’t moving, they are thinking about lying.’
‘A dark view of our politicians from your mother, but not without an element of truth.’
They approached a small office. Schofield sat down behind his cluttered desk and switched on his computer. The top of the desk was covered in files, notes, a model of a human hand, more files, a plaster skull with the word FRED written across the forehead, articles printed from specialist pathology magazines and the remains of yesterday’s sandwich.
‘Right, where is it? Here we are. A post-mortem carried out by my famous, or shall I say infamous, predecessor, Dr Lardner.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual about the post-mortem, Doctor?’
Ridpath asked a neutral question – or at least neutral in terms of conclusions; merely asking about something unusual suggested it may have existed. It was the only hint Ridpath would give.
‘Other than the speed with which it was performed – just over five hours after the demise of the deceased – the post-mortem seems pretty straightforward. A man suffers a subdural haematoma, apparently from a fall, lapses into unconsciousness three hours later and dies in hospital, but…’
‘But what?’ Ridpath leant forward.
‘There are a couple of things that seem… unusual.’ A long pause. Dr Schofield always enjoyed the dramatic side of revealing his findings. He would have made a fine Richard III. ‘We have still images of the fall.’ He pressed a few keys on the computer and the stills from the post-mortem appeared. ‘See, here he appears to stumble, falls across the bed and strikes his head on the wall, sitting upright moments later and shaking it.’
‘But…?’
‘But I’d like to see the CCTV footage, rather than a series of still images. I have no sense of how hard his head struck the wall, nor of his behaviour immediately afterwards.’
‘I have requested the footage from GMP. I’ll send it to you as soon as I receive it myself.’
‘Perhaps I should wait to see it before voicing my concerns.’
‘Please tell me now, Doctor; it could save time in my investigation.’
‘The position of the blow to the head as a result of the fall seems wrong. If one looks at this still image, he seems to strike his head on the pterion just above the ear.’ He picked up the skull marked FRED and pointed to an area on the cranium. ‘But he also indicates another mark on the skin over the occipital bone, around the small protrusion called the external occipital protuberance, just about… here.’ He prodded FRED’s skull at the back of the head. ‘Now, it is here Lardner indicates he found the subdural haematoma, in the occipital lobe. There seems to be no haematoma in the frontal or limbic lobes. These haematomas do not necessarily have to occur in the same place as the blow, but it is rare for them to travel so far to a completely different part of the brain.’
‘What are you suggesting, Doctor?’
‘I wonder if there was another cause for the subdural haematoma, rather than striking his head.’
‘What do you mean?’
Dr Schofield paused for a long time and then held out his arms. ‘You must understand this is a hypothesis only, Detective Inspector. Without the body to examine, we will never know. There just seem to be inconsistencies in Dr Lardner’s notes, almost as if…’
‘Go on, Doctor…’
‘As if he had reached his conclusion before performing the post-mortem examination.’
Ridpath thought about what the doctor had just said. Had Lardner decided it was an accident before the post-mortem? Why?
‘There is one other thing leading me to this conclusion. The toxicology report produced six weeks later showed the presence of diamorphine, heroin probably, in the victim’s system. From the concentration of the drug, it may have been the cause of death.’
‘But Lardner stated quite clearly he thought the heroin may have affected his behaviour, but was not the cause of death.’
‘I believe he got it the wrong way round. I believe the drug overdose was the cause of death and the subdural haematoma a symptom of toxic brain syndrome rather than a reaction to striking his head.’
‘Toxic brain syndrome?’
‘When a person overdoses, there is a possibility of a cardiac arrest, or the brain reacting to the level of drug in the system.’ Dr Schofield checked his notes. ‘In this case, 1200 milligrams. Enough in my experience to kill a man.’
‘But I thought addicts can get used to high doses, their bodies adapt to the drug.’
‘But Lardner’s post-mortem states he found no evidence of long-term drug use. No needle marks in the arms, thighs or between the toes and no trace elements in the hair samples. The only possible injection site was in the crook of the elbow.’
‘Let me get this right. You think the heroin was the cause of death?’
‘At these levels, I do.’
Ridpath made a note in his book. He then paused for a long time before asking the next question. ‘If the levels were so high, wouldn’t they have had an effect on the man’s speech and his demeanour?’
‘Most definitely at this concentration.’
‘But nobody noticed he was under the influence of drugs.’
‘Strange, I would have thought the effects would have been obvious: dilated pupils, slurred speech, delayed reaction times, attention deficiencies. They should have been obvious to anybody, but particularly to a policeman trained to look for them.’
‘According to the arrest report, nobody noticed anything when he was booked in.’
