When the Night Ends, page 7
‘It’s John, is it?’
‘Ridpath, you’re being annoying. Dr Schofield will get back to you. I’m just going through the newspaper reports of the death of Ben Holdsworth. There’s nothing really new in them except somebody leaked the conclusions of the post-mortem and images from the CCTV of his fall. They appeared only a couple of days after he died.’
‘Somebody wanting to earn a little money on the side?’
Sophia sucked in air through her teeth. ‘It doesn’t feel like it. I’ll email them over to you so you can decide.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘Looks like an official leak to me.’
‘To take pressure off the police?’
‘You could think that; I couldn’t possibly say.’
Ridpath laughed. ‘You’ve been watching too much old television, Sophia. I thought House of Cards wasn’t really your style.’
‘It isn’t, but anything is better than listening to my mother prattling on about eligible bachelors.’
Ridpath checked the clock on his dashboard. ‘I’m not coming back. If I hurry I can pick up Eve after her music class. She’s in the school orchestra.’
‘What does she play?’
‘The ukulele.’
Sophia laughed. ‘Better than me. I was given the triangle. Can’t go wrong with the triangle, but I somehow did. The teacher kept saying I was always coming in late. Story of my life.’
‘I’ll go through the files and the witness statements again later this evening and work out an investigative strategy. Something’s bothering me, but I can’t put my finger on it. See you tomorrow.’
‘Call me if you need anything.’
‘Will do.’
Ridpath turned off his mobile phone and drove to Eve’s school in Altrincham, listening to one of his favourite groups from the seventies, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. A great blues singer, shame he died so young.
Stopping at a traffic light, a young woman in the car next to him gave a strange look as he screamed out ‘Next…’, singing along to one of the songs. She accelerated quickly away from the lights.
Eve was surprised to see him as she came out, carrying her ukulele in its bag on her shoulder. ‘Dad, what are you doing here?’
‘Just thought I’d pick you up today.’
Eve turned away from him to say goodbye to Maisie before turning back. ‘You don’t normally come on a Monday. I was just going to get the tram.’
Ridpath shrugged his shoulders. ‘Can’t a dad pick his daughter up from school? How was your day?’
‘Same old, same old. Maths followed by double English and then PE.’
‘Was it good to be back?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘How was the school orchestra?’
‘OK.’
‘What else did you do?’
‘Why the inquisition, Dad?’ she suddenly snapped. ‘I’m not one of your suspects, am I?’
He frowned. ‘Sorry for asking.’ He put the car in gear and they drove home in silence.
As soon as they entered the house, he asked her what she wanted for dinner.
She responded by sighing loudly. ‘Enough with the questions, Dad. I’m not hungry.’ Then she ran upstairs to her bedroom, slamming the door loudly.
Ridpath wondered what he had done wrong. Should he have gone to pick her up at the school? Perhaps she was looking forward to getting the tram with Maisie. Or perhaps she had just reached the age when it was no longer cool to be picked up by, or even seen with, her dad.
He remembered her days at primary school, when she used to run out of the school gates and wrap her tiny arms around his legs she was so pleased to see him.
He climbed the stairs and gently tapped on the closed door to her bedroom. ‘What do you want for dinner?’
‘Go away, Dad.’ The voice from inside was tired and exasperated. ‘Leave me alone. I’m not hungry.’
‘You’ve got to eat something.’
‘I. AM. NOT. HUNGRY.’
Had he done something wrong? They’d had such a great time together on holiday, but now they were back in Manchester she seemed really annoyed with him.
‘Look, if I’ve done something wrong, just let me know. Let’s talk about it.’
‘Not everything is about you, Dad. JUST. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.’
He stood for a second outside the door, wondering whether to continue or walk away. Eventually, he decided it would be better to leave her for a while.
He went downstairs and warmed up a pizza in the oven, eating a couple of slices sitting alone at the kitchen table.
He left most of it for Eve in case she was feeling hungry and decided he could either watch TV or go through the documents in the case one more time.
The case won out.
He read through the reports and witness statements, seeing no discrepancies in any of the papers. It all seemed clear and above board. Everything Tony Saunders did as a custody sergeant was to the rule book, his notes were well kept and his interaction with the detainee was a textbook example of how to deal with somebody fairly and firmly. Emily Parkinson was right: Saunders was a good copper.
All the other witness statements from the coppers, the custody officers and the duty doctor backed up Saunders’ account. No wonder Professional Standards and the IOPC could find nothing wrong. Perhaps Ridpath was overthinking it.
He would report to Mrs Challinor tomorrow, telling her it seemed an open-and-shut case to him: an accidental fall in a cell.
He’d have to check on the witnesses for her before the inquest, but that was just a formality.
He was about to close the file when he decided to take one more look at the post-mortem. With Eve upstairs, he could look at the pictures without the risk of her seeing them. Such images would give her nightmares; they had the same effect on him.
He picked up the post-mortem report, turning to the first page.
STATEMENT of WITNESS
Statement of Dr Harold Lardner, BSc, MB, BS, MRC Path.
Age of Witness 54
Occupation Greater Manchester Police Pathologist
Address Forensic Pathology Services
This statement, consisting of 9 pages signed by me, is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing, if tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated in it anything I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
POST-MORTEM REPORT. YZ 4643/19
February 22, 2018.
Mr Ben Holdsworth – date of birth: 12/01/1982.
Time of Death: 07.36 on 21/02/2018.
At 13.10 on February 21, 2018, at the request of Greater Manchester Police, I performed a forensic post-mortem on the body of Mr Ben Holdsworth, who had died at Salford General Hospital at 07.36 after being found unconscious in a custody cell at Redbury Police Station.
POST-MORTEM EXAMINATION
The people present were
Kate Brady: Mortuary Technician
Alfred Timms: Forensic Photographer
The identity of Mr Holdsworth had been confirmed by his mother at the hospital prior to the transportation of the body to the mortuary.
Mr Holdsworth’s body was received in a white, signature-sealed bodybag and wrapped in a black plastic sheet. Head and hand bags were in place.
External examination
He was of medium build, weighed 82.2 kg and was 181 cm tall. His hair was dark and cut short to the head. There were no visible tattoos or any other body markings.
An outer examination of the body revealed signs of a sharp force injury to the side of the head, causing a Traumatic Brain Injury. A TBI is defined as ‘an insult to the brain caused by an external force that may produce diminished or altered states of consciousness, which results in impaired cognitive abilities or physical functioning’ (National Head Injury Foundation, 1988).
There is no skull fracture present but there is reddening of a wound in the temple area indicating it happened ante-mortem. Bruising to the left side of temple and parietal scalp approximately 4 cm above and 2 cm behind the right ear. No subdural haemorrhage in this location.
There is also a deeper wound at the rear of the skull with superficial bruising on the scalp. On examination of the brain, a subdural haematoma was found corresponding with this location indicating a closed head injury (CHI) occurred.
CCTV (stills attached) provided by GMP shows the subject falling accidentally in his cell and striking his head against the wall.
Abrasion marks to both wrists consistent with the application of handcuffs by officers on arrest.
Injection mark on inside of right elbow with bruising. On examination of the rest of the body i.e. inside of thighs, right inside elbow, between toes, no other injection sites were seen, indicating use of drugs a one-off event rather than long-term usage.
Toxicology samples of blood and stomach contents taken and sent to lab. Hair samples also dispatched.
The hands and arms showed no signs of defensive injuries.
Internal examination
The brain was removed and weighed. No abnormalities (other than the subdural haematoma previously cited) were observed.
All other bodily organs – liver, lungs kidneys and heart – were within the normal ranges of a healthy adult male aged 36 years old. No evidence of scarring on the lung tissue.
Stomach contents indicate the subject ate pizza at least six hours before death.
Toxicology
Still awaiting results.
Heart
Normal for a 36-year-old man. Inspection of the myocardium showed no pallor in the fossa ovalis. Ventricular dimensions were in normal parameters as were the pericardium, aorta, major blood vessels and the valves.
Attached is a list of the organ weights. Appendix 2.
Ridpath was a little lost given all the technical language. He turned the page and re-read the conclusion.
CONCLUSIONS
This man died from a subdural haematoma to the brain, caused by striking his skull on the wall of the cell. CCTV evidence shows him falling and hitting his head. (Attached stills from CCTV in Appendix 3.) This injury would not have been obvious to an untrained observer, but should have led to increasingly erratic behaviour such as an inability to stand, shaking of the head, lack of coordination of the motor functions and dizziness.
The discovery of the man on the floor of the cell is not surprising. The subdural haematoma would eventually lead to his inability to maintain his normal motor and perceptual functions and cause a final collapse.
I would conclude the deceased struck his head from a fall in the cell. Death followed three hours later.
Category 3. Accidental death.
Signed Harold Lardner, Pathologist. 4.30 p.m. February 22, 2018.
He opened the first envelope and took out four photos. The first was the one he had seen before: a picture of Ben Holdsworth’s face as he lay naked on a mortuary table. The second showed a close-up of the side of the head, bruising evident on the shaved skin. The third picture showed the brain, still resident in the skull, with blood clots nestling in between the fissures at the rear. The fourth showed the brain, now out of the skull cavity, sitting in the middle of a stainless-steel tray.
He put the pictures down on his desk. God, he hated looking at these, but knew he had to do it.
Gingerly, he opened another envelope. It was a printout on photographic paper of a series of stills from the CCTV. The camera was positioned above the victim, looking down on him. Ridpath saw Holdsworth enter, gesture to the detention officers as the cell door closed, bang on the door for a minute. As he turned away, he lost his balance and fell towards the concrete wall behind the bunk, striking the side of his head on the wall. Then he told up, shook his head and gestured up towards the camera, his middle finger raised, anger clouding his face.
‘Nice man,’ said Ridpath out loud.
For the next hour he went through the rest of the envelopes, opening each in turn. The post-mortem had been extensively documented. There were five envelopes of printouts from the CCTV of the sequence of events leading to the fall and afterwards, showing the prisoner walking around the cell.
Somebody, probably a scene of crime officer, had added more shots of the interior of the cell, even indicating a small dent on the wall where Holdsworth may have struck his head.
Only one envelope remained. Ridpath opened it and found the final toxicology report from the lab.
Trace elements of Ambien were found.
No alcohol present.
High amounts of diamorphine (1200 mg) sufficient to cause an overdose were found in the man’s blood.
No trace elements of any drug found in the hair samples.
Ridpath frowned. As far as he knew, that amount of diamorphine was a massive dose of street heroin, probably in a pretty pure form, enough to kill a small horse.
Had Holdsworth died of a drug overdose, or from a fall?
His question was answered by a note from Lardner appended to the toxicology report.
Despite the relatively large amount of diamorphine present in Mr Holdsworth’s body, I am still confident my initial conclusions were correct. This man’s cause of death was a subdural haematoma caused by striking his head as he fell. The presence of diamorphine may have contributed to the fall but it did not cause his death.
Signed Harold Lardner, forensic pathologist
11.04.2018.
Ridpath noticed the date of the note was six weeks after the death. Why had the toxicology report taken so long? Holdsworth had already been cremated by the time it was released.
The floor creaked loudly above his head.
Was Eve still awake? She still hadn’t eaten anything. Perhaps she’d try some pizza now. He placed the toxicology report on the table and climbed the stairs as quietly as he could, tapping on her door.
There was no answer.
He pushed the door open and popped his head around. She was fast asleep, a book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, open on the floor beside her bed and the light still on.
He walked in and closed the book, placing it on the nightstand. She slept on her back, her mouth slightly open revealing strong white teeth, but no sound coming out.
A silent sleeper, exactly the same as Polly.
He pulled up the bedclothes around her shoulders. She was still wearing the Peppa Pig pyjamas he had bought her last Christmas as a joke. One year, when she was three, they had driven all the way from Manchester to spend a day in Peppa Pig World, staying overnight near Winchester and returning to the park again the next morning. She had loved every second of it, queueing for one ride again and again and again.
He still had a picture somewhere of Polly being hugged, rather too energetically in his opinion, by an incredibly frisky Daddy Pig.
He took one last look at Eve’s sleeping face and switched out the light.
God, how he missed that three-year-old child. Why can’t we frame these moments in time, preserved forever so we can visit them again and again?
A time when Eve was young and Polly was still alive and laughing and happy and joyful.
He stayed for a minute longer before creeping out of the room and closing the door as quietly as he could. It was time to return to the real world, where young men died on the floor of police cells. A world in which he spent far too much time. Should he just recuse himself now from the investigation? Was it worth all the hassle with Turnbull and the rest of the detectives at MIT?
Mrs Challinor had suggested she could get Jennings back from Derbyshire to finish doing the work. It would be easy to go to her tomorrow morning and tell her he couldn’t do this job. He was sure she would understand.
But then the image of Ben Holdsworth’s mother crept like a burglar into his head. ‘I think I was the only person who cared about him in the whole world.’
He stood there for a moment, outside Eve’s room, resting his head on the door. Somebody had to care, somebody had to do the work. Wasn’t his job to represent the likes of Ben Holdsworth and his mother? People who could no longer defend themselves in a world where nobody cared.
He gritted his teeth. Sod them all. He was going to finish this job, whatever happened.
He owed it to Ben Holdsworth and his mother.
But above all, he owed it to all those out there who couldn’t defend themselves.
He could still remember the words of the oath he had spoken on the day he graduated from training. ‘I do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the queen in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.’
For him, they were more than words.
They were his creed.
Chapter Sixteen
Garry Abbott found a cheap hotel to stay at in New Islington. The area had a trendy London name but was actually an old mill district next to the Ashton Canal. It was close enough to the city centre if he needed to go there, but far enough away to be safe. A tram stop was nearby and a convenience store downstairs.
Perfect. He could hide here for at least a few days.
The room itself was as dreary as any interior designer could possibly make it: a bed, small TV, basic bathroom, a six-inch desk permanently attached to the wall in case anybody tried to nick it and a wardrobe that was just a horizontal steel pole with hangers.
It was safe, and it would do.
He hung out the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. He didn’t need some stupid maid to go blabbing about the strange man in room 324.
He lay down on the bed, hearing the springs pop beneath his weight.
Should he call Phil?
