The Silent Juror

By Alan Jannister

DI Jack Whitmell feels a little like a "dinosaur" because he firmly believes in good old police methods and struggles a little with the new political correctness invading the workplace. He returns to work after being injured while off duty because he 'got it wrong' with a suspect during an investigation into people trafficking called Operation Footfall. Having resolved to do his penance of checking cold cases because of his earlier mistake, he is unexpectedly given the job of investigating the murder of someone who might have been connected to his earlier case. Initially everything seems straightforward but he soon finds himself looking at possible connections with other events and questions arise as to why his chief inspector is getting pressure to close Operation Footfall down. Teamed with a new detective sergeant he interviews a woman who was well known in the "escort" business and who has a surprising connection to his senior officer. His investigation takes him in two directions and he can't be too sure that he is not going to implicate some people very high up in society. The problem is, who can he trust?

• Language: English
• Publisher: 2QT Limited (Publishing)
• Release date: May 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910077849

Book preview

The Silent Juror

Alan Jannister

2QT Limited (Publishing)

First eBook Edition published 2016

2QT Limited (Publishing)

Settle

North Yorkshire

BD24 9RH

Copyright © Alan Jannister 2015

The right of Alan Jannister to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder

Cover design: Hilary Pitt

Front cover image: © Fotosearch.com

Back cover image: iStock.com/Alphotographic

Also available as a paperback ISBN 978-1-910077-65-8

Epub ISBN 978-1-910077-84-9

This book, the first of three in the Juror series, is dedicated to all of the professionals who strive to identify those who have committed crime. All of the characters are fictitious with the exception of one to whom I have awarded a well deserved promotion.

It is followed by The Juror’s Apprentice and The Juror’s Revenge which will complete the trilogy.

Introduction

Whatever our status in society or which side of the fence we stand, it is probably fair to assume that some of us have occasionally criticised the legal system and its apparent impotence. Considering that some elderly pensioners can barely afford to heat their houses, whilst in contrast a prison inmate is not faced with such problems, the sentiment that crime doesn’t pay may not necessarily seem true. You may want to make your own mind up on that one.

This story, set in the 1990s, is inspired by someone’s exclamation that, ‘When we’re old we should all go out and commit a crime then they will lock us up and have to look after us!’

1

The two young boys stood toe to toe, each with their arms locked firmly around a football and neither willing to relinquish ownership. The taller of them, slim in build and quiet in nature, trembled inwardly at the prospect of turning the other boy into his enemy. The other boy, shorter than average and with a sturdier frame, stood firm and confident of victory. They struggled like this for a couple of minutes with the other children goading them and, as they moved around in a circle like partners in a well-rehearsed dance, the crowd followed as if to encourage the situation to escalate.

Suddenly the shorter boy tripped but did not release his grip. His extra weight contrived to lower their joint centre of gravity, pulling the taller boy over and down with him. The taller boy hit his head on the corner of a concrete step that led into the classroom at the exact moment a teacher came out to see what all the commotion was about.

The teacher had difficulty composing himself as he was confronted with the sight of a copious amount of blood oozing from the now unconscious tall boy’s head. ‘Everybody get inside,’ he ordered and, as the other children rushed to comply, the teacher grabbed one of the tail-enders and dispatched him to the headmaster’s office. Twenty minutes later, as the headmaster looked on in despair, an ambulance crew attended to the cut on the boy’s head and prepared him for the journey to hospital. Considering the severity of what the headmaster saw as a serious assault, he would have to speak to the injured boy’s parents and see if they wished to take matters further. The other boy’s parents would be advised that the school could no longer include their son as one of its pupils. He knew this would not be much of a surprise to them, since the boy’s reputation for trouble was legendary.

Frank and June Whitmell sat in silence by their son’s bed. On the way to the hospital June had already pleaded that her husband give her demands to move house more consideration, now that Jack had come to grief at the hands of a well-known thug. ‘But my family have lived here for generations,’ Frank protested. ‘A little bit of rough and tumble never did me any harm.’

June was boiling with anger. ‘This little bit of rough and tumble, as you so quaintly put it, might have been the end of your family’s association with this ghetto. The doctor made it quite clear on the phone that Jack was very lucky. If things had gone the other way he could have died – and all because of your precious roots.’

Their son looked a sorry state, with his head bandaged and an impressive bruise forming around his right eye. He had tried to tell his parents that it wasn’t all Billy Playce’s fault. He almost shouted at them to ask the head not to expel Billy, but they were deaf to his words. The decision had been made, and Billy Playce would be joining the other troublesome youths in a school better equipped to deal with his type. Meanwhile the Whitmells would start looking for a different area to live in and June was to get her wish for them to move out of the city to a more rural environment, where her son could grow up surrounded by fresh air and fields.

Frank resigned himself to a working day made longer by a commute into town. It would encourage him to accept more overtime which, in turn, would allow them to pay for some private tuition for Jack. June was determined to give her son all the opportunities that she could for a better life. She found it disappointing that their finances would never be sufficient to send him to a private school, but extra tuition was a good halfway measure.

It took longer than expected to find a buyer for their house, and one estate agent after another made promises they couldn’t keep, but eventually someone made a sensible enough offer for the Whitmells to accept without compromising too much on their choice of new location. Meanwhile Jack continued at his old school, but suffered a certain amount of unpleasantness from some of the boys who maintained their friendships with Billy.

One day Billy was outside the school gates waiting for Jack to leave for home. ‘Hello, you lanky streak of cat’s piss,’ he called. ‘I want a word with you.’

Jack froze, waiting for some sort of assault. ‘I hear you and your lot are fucking off to pastures new,’ Billy said.

Jack stood, silent and motionless. He knew from previous experience that this was the best ploy, since anything he said would be a good enough reason for Billy to set about him.

Billy pressed on. ‘Say something, or I’ll give you a whack just for the sake of it.’

Jack tried to assure Billy that he had tried his best to stop his father from making a complaint about him. Billy said, ‘I don’t really give a shit. You and yours never fitted in round here, anyway. My father has always run this manor and I’ll take over when he’s had enough – so the sooner you are out of the way the better, as far as I am concerned.’

This was pure bravado on Billy’s part, since his father was nobody special. It was true that he had once had a promising boxing career, but that came to an end when he finally met his match in the ring and suffered a beating which he didn’t want to experience again. ‘You’ll probably meet some nice little OK, yah type who will stick her nose in the air and only ever do it in the missionary position. Meanwhile I will have a real life, full of women and things your money can’t buy.’

With that – and to Jack’s surprise – Billy turned and left him standing at the school gate. His parting comment was, ‘Don’t forget the lubricant if you go to one of those posh schools. I know they’ll love a little virgin like you.’

Jack’s new school wasn’t at all posh: it was just an above-average learning establishment with higher-than-average results. This was entirely due to the dedication of some wonderful teachers who had the uncanny knack of identifying a pupil’s talents. The headmaster’s philosophy was that every person had a skill which, if exploited, would make the learning process full of joy. ‘Find the key to their minds and use it to unlock their potential,’ he was often heard to say.

Together with the extra tutoring June arranged for him, Jack’s potential was well and truly unlocked. He showed an enquiring mind, which would never rest until he solved whatever puzzle was troubling him. The puzzles in question tended to be connected with life’s decisions and people’s behaviour towards one another. He took great comfort in studying the interaction between the lawless and the law enforcers, and devoured every book he could find about the world’s most notorious criminals. It came as no surprise to his parents that he elected for a career with the police, but June made it clear she would never be able to relax if she knew that her son would be facing danger regularly as part of his normal working day. His father, on the other hand, was proud that his son and heir would be working in a man’s environment.

Jack applied to and was accepted into the police training programme without any problems, but he had some reservations about the physical fitness examination because he was unaccustomed to prolonged exercise. School sports days had always been anathema to him, especially when the weather conspired to turn the fields into a swampland. Cross-country running was his worst nightmare and he would find any excuse to avoid it, but this only made the gym teacher more determined to harden him up.

He never forgave his parents for moving away from his beloved concrete jungle and out to their rural idyll, where his senses were assaulted by the smell of cow dung and horse shit on a daily basis.

Fortunately Jack was forewarned by a friend whose father was a local copper about the physical attributes the police service looked for, so he surprised his parents by joining a gym three months before he posted his application. He immersed himself in an exercise regime suggested by the guy who ran the place, but he still found the physical fitness tests somewhat daunting. He realised that this kind of fitness was borne out of a prolonged period rather than a quick fix, and if he was to continue with a successful career he would need to embrace a new and less indulgent lifestyle.

* * *

Billy Playce followed the well-established pattern for boys with his temperament by enhancing his reputation for trouble at every opportunity. He was as determined to prove to his father that he was good enough to take over the ‘family business’ as Jack was to prove to the police recruitment board that he was a good candidate.

Billy’s family business was no more than a fish and chip shop, but he contrived to make his contemporaries believe that it was a front for something far less legal. Anyone who challenged his stories faced regular beatings as he built his reputation for involvement in anything illegal and lucrative. He was feared by the other villains in the area and many beyond his manor, but he always tried to keep to his own turf where possible. He knew there were people out there who came from overseas and who had even less regard for human life than he did, and he had no desire to tread on their toes. So long as they left him alone he would not trespass on their stamping ground, but he had always made it clear that his troops were good enough to take the fight to anyone who wanted to try their luck at deposing him. This state of equilibrium prevailed to everyone’s satisfaction, and there were even times when he joined forces with one of the other players on a big job. That was always tricky, but so far nothing had gone pear-shaped on one of those operations.

Billy enjoyed all the trappings he had promised himself when he said goodbye to that stupid jerk who went to live in the green belt. His house was his own, although he had never actually paid for it because the poor sod who had run up such a large debt in one of Billy’s whorehouses eventually saw that it was easier to give Billy the title deeds than face life without his kneecaps. He had a string of women who waited in line to service his every need, and his mother was raising a couple of young boys he had fathered but whose mothers had been advised they were not really maternal material.

Billy had money, power and influence because he had some high-ranking, toffee-nosed twats in his pocket due to their peculiar ideas when it came to personal pleasures. He would send his troops into any situation he thought had the potential to increase his wealth and status, while all the time maintaining sufficient distance from the action so that he was not vulnerable to prosecution. On the rare occasions when he had to be more involved he called in a favour from one of the local dignitaries and ensured they would confirm that he had attended a dinner party at their house on the night in question. He never had any trouble securing their compliance because they all knew how dramatically their lives would change if they didn’t agree.

Billy enjoyed life and revelled in the legitimacy his associations with the elite of society gave him. He was financially secure and protected from danger by an army of men who knew he would reward them for their loyalty. He was outside the system, but manipulated it to his advantage.

2

The rain dribbled down his windscreen as he collected his thoughts before going into the building. Jack had only been on sick leave for seven weeks, but he had already begun to imagine that his mind was going fuzzy. He had wanted to go straight back on duty as soon as the hospital had patched him up but the chief inspector insisted that he follow doctor’s orders. Jack sat and thought about the circumstances: he wasn’t looking forward to the sideways glances he knew he would get from the other members of the squad.

It had all looked so cut and dried when he was seconded to increase the manpower on a task force that had been put together to bring down a nationwide paedophile gang. The intelligence all pointed towards their area as being the location of the gang leaders. Everything he had on his desk prior to the arrests indicated that a local businessman, who ran a construction company, was the main player in supplying the poor kids who were being abused. He fitted the profile because he had been known to sniff around young girls at local nightclubs and, when he was an adolescent himself, he had been accused of making suggestive comments to an underage boy.

Jack took an instant dislike to the man when he first met him, which didn’t help much during the interview process. What made up Jack’s mind was that the man seemed to be on edge during the interview, and he had no alibi for several of the times when abused youngsters had been snatched. For Jack the clincher was when one of the abused boys later mentioned someone called Les, because the man in the interview room was known as Les Harris.

Jack was preparing the papers for the arrest warrant when word got out to the public that the police were interested in Les Harris because of an investigation into child pornography and abuse. A local vigilante group went into overdrive and, before Harris could be taken into protective police custody, someone caught up with him at his home and tried to redesign his physique with a cricket bat. Harris’s injuries were so severe that he was likely to be quadriplegic for the rest of his life.

The rumblings through the local community were that Harris got what he deserved, and at least the courts could not let the public down once again by allowing a pervert to run riot sometime in the future.

Jack had wondered if maybe they were right until he received a phone call from the senior social worker who had responsibility for the youngsters, one of whom was the boy who had mentioned the name Les. Evidently Les was a woman, but no one had picked up on this. Jack’s guts wrenched because he had seen that name on a female witness statement: the female in question was the wife of their main suspect, who was now a hospital patient. Everyone knew her as Kate because she hated the Christian name her parents gave her. At school the other girls had shouted at her, ‘Les by name, and lesbian by nature.’ It also avoided confusion when their friends referred to them because she had the same first name as her husband.

During a further interview the young boy’s statement became a damning indictment of Lesley Kate Harris’s guilt, because he was able to describe a peculiar tattoo on a very intimate part of her anatomy. Confronted with this evidence, she confessed to the crimes. However, her confession did not clarify why her husband had been so reticent about providing an alibi for his movements. It all became clear when a senior female barrister contacted the police and admitted having a long, intimate relationship with Harris. He had not wanted to compromise her because of her position, but she had come forward because her own husband was one of the other suspects. When she discovered the proof about her husband’s involvement in the paedophile ring she considered her career was over – but not before she set the wheels in motion to sue the police for all she could for her lover’s injuries.

Jack was ordered to take some time off while the force considered its position, and he sustained his injury during his absence from work. It was one of those rare, hot sunny days that bring people outside in England, and he had decided to go to the pub for a lunchtime drink. Because of the weather he was wearing a thin short-sleeved shirt, and he had just bought his second pint when Les Harris’s brother stormed in and started ranting about his brother being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life – and all thanks to the fuzz.

Jack foolishly tried to placate the man, but the situation deteriorated rapidly once the brother realised who was doing the placating. In one swift movement the brother picked up a beer bottle and smashed the base off against a table. He then thrust the jagged edge towards Jack’s abdomen. Despite moving to one side, Jack was on the receiving end of the sharp points at the bottom of the bottle and they tore through his shirt into the side of his belly. The doctor told Jack he had been lucky to escape with lacerations, but even so the cut was quite deep and his enforced absence from work had turned into sick leave.

* * *

Jack was stunned out of his reverie by someone banging on the roof of his car. ‘Come on, you lazy sod,’ a voice he recognised said. ‘You won’t catch any villains by sitting there rusting.’

Jack stepped out of his car and followed his heavy-fisted colleague into the police building to face the squad and all the piss-taking he felt he justly deserved.

He was no longer on the paedophile squad so he made his way to the main CID office on the first floor. As a DI he had his own space at the end of the main room, so he had to walk past all the other staff – civilian as well as uniformed – to get to his desk.

When he got there he was confronted by the biggest pile of files he had seen for a long time. As he looked at them he felt a hand slap him harshly on his back and the owner of it said, ‘Whitty, me old mate … we had a vote on it, and you lost cos you weren’t here. This lot have been vomited out by one of those computer thingies. There may be a link between them. Since you’re good at finding things that aren’t there, you seemed to be the best boy for the job.’

The voice, and the hand, belonged to the biggest wanker Jack had encountered during his time in the police service – and he had met a few. Stuart Baker never missed an opportunity to bathe in other people’s misery, and Jack felt sure he would milk the current situation to its full extent. Luckily the chief inspector had given him the heads-up on the task now weighing down his desk, so he shrugged off the offending hand and sat down.

On top of the pile was a list that had been produced through a joint initiative between his force and the Serious Crime Analysis Unit based in Hampshire. It gave a precis of the cases but, at first glance, there seemed to be no particular link between the files. They spanned four years and a whole range of offences from car theft to murder, and all of them were unsolved. This was going to be a tedious job but he saw it as his penance for the almighty cock-up he felt responsible for, which had left an innocent man unable to perform the most basic functions for the rest of his life.

Jack started by dividing the cases into three main categories: crimes against property, such as car theft and burglary; crimes against the person, which generally involved physical assault; and murder. He didn’t expect to find anything new in the murder cases since they would have been investigated exhaustively at the time. Something might have been overlooked in the lesser crimes because of time constraints or because another more serious offence was committed which demanded manpower. It was a sad fact of life that not every crime was pursued to the nth degree, despite the expectations of the victims.

The next thing Jack did was to sort the files into date order before he started the lengthy job of wading through the papers in each case. He opened a new notebook so he could make notes. He moved the three piles to the left-hand side of his desk and picked up the first one in the ‘basic’ pile, which was about a car theft from a cinema car park.

The owner had been to see the latest blockbuster that was doing the rounds at the time, and when the film had finished his car was no longer in the spot where he had left it. The car turned up a couple of weeks later down a country lane minus the stereo system and a smart leather jacket, which the owner claimed he had left in the vehicle. There were no usable fingerprints inside the car, and the stereo didn’t turn up in any of the property recovered from raids on the houses of local villains. The leather jacket was indistinguishable from thousands of others so, even if someone was seen wearing it, proof of ownership would be difficult to establish.

Jack made a few notes about an eyewitness who thought they saw the car being dumped and relegated the file to a new pile. Here he would put all the cases that had been investigated as fully as could be expected, but which might yield something with some more effort from him.

He moved on to the next file, which was a house burglary, and started the process again. It was going to take some time to wade through them all, but at least he had made a start.

3

As the afternoon sun started to set behind the city skyline and Steve Taylor was clearing his desk in his penthouse office before he went home the phone rang, and his secretary announced that his last appointment was waiting to see him. Taylor told his secretary to inform the visitor that he was over an hour late and would need to reschedule for another day. He was not accustomed to waiting for his visitors and he was not about to make an exception, especially when he had only agreed to this meeting because the caller had mentioned something particularly sensitive.

Soon after he replaced the receiver the phone rang again, and he heard his secretary’s voice once more. She could be an irritating cow sometimes, and she knew better than to keep interrupting him like this. ‘What?’ he barked.

‘Sir, the gentleman is most insistent.’

‘Tell him to piss off or I won’t see him anytime soon,’ Taylor almost screamed down the phone.

‘But, sir,’ – her voice was almost at a whisper – ‘I doubt if he has much time left to see you. He looks very ill, and I don’t know how he managed to get here in the first place.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Taylor.

‘He looks to be about ninety and he has an oxygen bottle on a trolley with him. I think if you send him away he’s likely to croak before he gets to the front door of the building.’

Taylor was about to tell her that he didn’t give toss when something the caller had said when making the appointment stopped him. There was something about the visitor knowing some intimate detail about his business affairs which he would prefer to remain secret, and the visitor might be able to jeopardise this secrecy. ‘Perhaps you had better let him in, then,’ he told his secretary.

After a few moments his office door opened and a frail old man appeared. Taylor could see what she meant about the visitor being at death’s door, and he wondered if he might be calling the paramedics before the appointment was over. Without asking or being told, the old man sat in the chair opposite Taylor and took a lungful of oxygen through a mask attached by a thin clear plastic tube to the bottle he had pulled in with him on the trolley. They sat without talking for a few moments while the old man composed himself between wheezes and coughs.

The secretary looked in and asked if there was anything she could get them before she left for home. Taylor was glad that her day was over so he could speak to this old boy without the risk of her listening at the door. He didn’t want anything that might be said by either of them to become public knowledge. He dismissed her with a wave of his hand and she bade them goodnight.

After she closed the office door behind her the old man took another blast of oxygen before, very slowly – and between more coughs and wheezes – he started to speak. ‘I know you have only agreed to see me because I mentioned the business about the warehouse on pier 12 down at the docks, so I won’t insult your intelligence by playing games.’

Taylor sat motionless and allowed the man to continue uninterrupted. He was curious about how this old man knew about his connection with pier 12, since he had kept that part of his operation at a distance. Somebody in his organisation had leaked information and Taylor needed to find out who, so they could be dealt with.

The old man continued, ‘The human cargo you are involved in has become an embarrassment to certain people, and your lack of restraint even more so. However, my visit today has nothing to do with this situation. It’s more related to your escape from the penalties you should be facing. The recent court case where you evaded conviction –because the young boy who was the key witness vanished – has brought your habits into the public arena once too often.’ He paused again to take another whiff of oxygen.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking