Линда Ла Плант - Framed

The Commander nodded, folding his hands. “But you changed clothes,” he said, his voice level and reasonable. “You ate breakfast, you were with Myers for more than two hours. Are you telling me there was not one single opportunity to—”

“Sir, there wasn’t. I had to stay with him. In some ways I had to prove to Mac — to Detective Chief Inspector McKinnes — that I could handle the situation. I’d already tried to get released.”

“Wait a minute...” The Commander conferred in whispers with another senior officer; they both looked at McKinnes.

“We did have an off-the-record chat, sir,” McKinnes said.

The Commander thought about that remark. He sat back from the table.

“I think we should have a short break now. Please remember you are under oath. Thank you, gentlemen.”

A few minutes later, in the Superintendent’s office, McKinnes was blustering angrily.

“It was a chat over a pint,” he told the Superintendent, delivering flurries of smoke with his words. “It was after Myers had been taken to hospital.”

“Just cool off, Mac. You know they’ll ask you.”

“What’s with all this asking me? I’m not the one before the disciplinary board. All I wanted was Myers. I had him, and that kid let the bastard loose.”

There was a soft tap on the door. A WPC entered and passed a note to the Superintendent. As she left she said, “They’re waiting in the conference room for Chief Inspector McKinnes.”

The Superintendent read the note.

“They think Von Joel might have been at a health farm, not far from East Grinstead,” he told McKinnes. “A man fitting his description booked in for liposuction.”

“For what?”

“I’ll check it out,” the Superintendent said. “You’ve got to go back in.”

After the break the Commander continued to press Larry for convincing testimony that he had tried, in any way, to thwart or obstruct the robbery at Millways Bank. The presence of a gun in the picture was a complicating issue; the interrogation surrounding it finally had Larry thumping the table.

“I did take it off him!” he told the Commander, practically shouting. “I have admitted I had the gun — at the bank, and in the street.”

“Then why, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander asked calmly, “if by then you knew all the officers were in the wrong location, did you assist Myers in the robbery? He had the money, why at this stage did you not arrest him?”

“I was scared I’d lose him, because as you just said, I knew everyone was at the wrong location.” He turned, pointing to the wall map with one hand, loosening his tie with the other. “I followed Myers out here. He was already across the street, about to get into the car.”

“And you still had the gun?”

“Yes. I ran toward him. In fact I shouted.”

The Commander read from a document in a folder open in front of him. “ ‘Eddie! Wait! Wait!’ No warning that you would, as a police officer, use the gun. No warning, either, to passersby. Is that correct?”

Larry nodded, swallowing hard.

“So now, explain how you came to drive the vehicle with the gun held at your throat by Myers, if, as you have told us, you were in possession of the gun.”

“I shouted that I wanted to drive,” Larry said, his voice dry and hoarse. “He refused, then he moved across from the driving seat.”

“But you’ve still got the gun, Sergeant.”

“Yes...”

In his anxiety to delivery the exact literal truth of the situation, it appeared that Larry’s memory had locked up on him. He sweated, looked around the table anxiously.

“You see,” he improvised, “I thought that if I drove, I could... I could control the situation.”

The Commander sighed. He began flicking through the statements. The other members of the board started doing the same. The Superintendent came into the room and tiptoed along the table to where McKinnes was sitting. He delivered a whispered update on the health farm story. Von Joel, if indeed it had been him, had left the place in a helicopter.

“The pilot used a chopper from a hire company in the West End. We can’t trace him yet, they’re checking the prints. He used a qualified pilot’s license that the guy says was nicked a few years back.”

McKinnes nodded, taking it in, then he leaned close to the Superintendent. “What the hell is liposuction?”

The Commander had resumed his questioning of Larry.

“The getaway vehicle was driven at a speed of between seventy and one hundred miles per hour. You were the driver?”

“I drove toward the tunnel. The Blackwall Tunnel.” Larry looked exhausted. He rubbed his head. “He said it was a fake, the gun, so I let it go. He got it, released the safety catch, pressed it to my neck.” Larry pointed at the spot. “He said, ‘I lied about the gun, Larry.’ He forced me to drive fast. If I slowed, he said he’d kill me. I just kept hoping, praying, we’d be picked up.”

“You were, Sergeant,” the Commander said coldly.

At five-thirty a WPC told everyone in the waiting room that they were free to leave. “Everyone is cleared to go except Sergeant Jackson.”

For a further half hour Larry waited alone, feeling like a pariah, while the board deliberated. When he was finally called in to face them, he did so with the slightly vacant look of a man worn expressionless with strain.

“I have taken everything into consideration, Sergeant,” the Commander said. “I find you guilty of foolhardiness, perhaps more than gross error of judgement. You acted, I believe, without criminal intent, as has already been determined, but your behavior must be reprimanded.”

“Yes, sir,” Larry murmured.

“You will be fined three thousand pounds. You will lose your rank, and will return to uniform for two years. After two years you can apply to be considered for reappraisal.” Larry nodded once, accepting the board’s decision.

Later that evening, in a local pub used regularly by St. John’s Row personnel, the Superintendent joined DCI McKinnes and DI Shrapnel in a booth with a number of other officers. There was an atmosphere of overdone jollity. DC Summers was announcing, loudly, that Von Joel had nowhere to run.

“I mean, where could he go to? If he tries to get to France we’ve got him, he can’t go back to Spain or they’ll have him. Anywhere he goes in Europe, Interpol’s going to jump on him. I’d take bets we get him back in days...”

Colin Frisby was singing and trying to encourage the others to join in. Shrapnel looked glazed. So did McKinnes, but the Superintendent believed that was partly self-defense. He leaned close to McKinnes and passed him the news he was waiting for.

“Demoted, fined three grand, he’s back in uniform.”

McKinnes nodded solemnly. “All I ask,” he said, raising his glass, “is, live long enough for me to get you, Eddie, because I will, I’ll keep on looking until they ram the last nail in my coffin!” He swallowed all the whisky in the glass and turned to the Superintendent. “What about me? What did I get?”

“It’s as you expected, Jimmy.”

A rapid blink was the only sign that he had been affected. “So I’m out, huh? I suppose they’ll let me get the trial over, and then...” He blew a raspberry. “Ah, well...” He shrugged. “You got Minton, Bingham, and a few other heavies. No news on Myers?”

The Superintendent shook his head.

“Well,” McKinnes said, looking past the Superintendent. “I’ll say this for him, he’s got some guts.”

The table grew quiet as Larry approached and stood in front of the booth. Everyone stared at him.

“It’s all right,” Larry said, “I don’t want to have a drink with you, I just wanted to give you this, Guv.” He put his warrant card on the table in front of McKinnes. “I’ve left a formal letter of resignation on your desk. I’ll clear out my locker tonight.”