Chapter 4 The Kangaroo Court
The door bell gave its customary shrill peal.
Eric said, ‘Looks like our guests have arrived.’
He made his way to the front door. Barbara heard Eric’s warm welcome. ‘Come on in make yourselves at home.’
Winona said ‘You sound cheerful.’
Bill said ‘Do you mind if I help myself as usual?’
Winona said, ‘Not already Bill.’
Bill remarked, ‘Just a little one before dinner, got to be sociable.’
Peter said, ‘I think I’ll join Bill if you don’t mind.’
Eric said, ‘Go ahead!’
Both Bill and Peter headed for the cocktail cabinet, and Pat and Winona kiss Barbara on the cheek.
Winona said, ‘You always let Bill and Peter help themselves to your drinks’ cabinet.’
‘Why not!’ Eric said, ‘It saves me a job. Do you ladies want a drink?’
They all decided to have an alcoholic drink of some sort and gave Eric their preferred cocktail instructions and Eric mixed them and passed them round. He went back to the cocktail bar and picked up his drink and decided to sit near the cocktail cabinet so that he is facing everyone in the room. ”Cheers everybody!” They all raised their glasses and the word cheers echoed back.
Pat said, ’I want you to be honest with us, why did you cancel the dinner party last week?’
Eric said ‘Yes! I’m glad you have asked, although it’s a bit of a long story, but here goes.’
‘It all started as we were preparing ourselves for your visit, in truth Barbara was busy in the kitchen, I’d come home from the office like a bear with bad breath, because normally life in the office is usually good for me. Anyway I had a telephone call at the office to say that Barbara was having an affair with someone and he was pretty convincing at the time. I can’t think how he knew I would be there because I’m usually out on the road on a Wednesday, seeing people, making deals and finalising contracts.’
Pat interjected ‘Are we to know who Barbara was supposed to be having a secret assignation with?’
‘Well that could be very embarrassing to reveal at the moment.’ Winona jumped into the conversation by saying, ‘In that case it has got to be either Peter or Bill’s name that was mentioned hasn’t it?’
Eric nodded.
‘Come on tell us – don’t leave us in suspense. We’ve got to know and it’s only fair that my husband Bill and Peter are able to defend themselves!’
‘There is no need to reveal the name as it was proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the person named could not be involved in anything so underhanded and I will not spoil the evening by stating his name – I’m sorry. Besides I trust Barbara, she wouldn’t lie to me and can we leave it at that?’
Bill remarked ‘I would damn well like to know, not only for my sake but Peter’s as well – you must realise Eric that our reputations are at stake and if I can get my hands on this lower than a snake character I’d personally wring his neck – who is it for God sake!’
‘If your pushing for an answer,’ said Eric – I’m afraid it was you Bill.’
Winona glared at Bill and said ‘How could you?’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘No! he didn’t do anything to me’ Barbara said, ‘and also this doesn’t do my reputation any good if you believe I’m having an affair with Bill.’
‘I told you that demanding an answer would cause friction, so now can we forget it and just have a quiet and chatty evening with food – mixed nuts anyone?’
They all laughed.
Eric said, ‘What’s so funny?’
‘You and your mixed nuts – that’s a bit of an anticlimax statement.’ said Bill. Everyone relaxes and asked for a refill of their drinks. Eric said to everyone ‘Help yourselves.’
Eric then resumed his story.
Barbara was getting the dinner ready for our evening meal together and I was upstairs having a bath – I was not in a very good mood at the time after having that telephone call that afternoon from, shall we name, ‘Pest’ and mulling over that and coming to the conclusion whoever this ‘Pest’ was, he had been watching the house, Barbara and me very closely. He seemed to know every move we had made – it may be that there was more than one ‘Pest’ involved and we were dealing with a gang who had mistaken me or Barbara for someone else and was leading a vendetta against us for some reason that had occurred in the past by another couple of people who looked like us. Maybe that sounds far-fetched, but at the moment it is all I can come up with.’ Winona interrupted by saying, There could be some deep seated problem that you hadn’t thought of – something that happened in your past that you hadn’t considered as important.’
‘The only thing that comes to my mind that has any significance is the death of my first wife, Jenny. She was run over while walking across a Zebra Crossing by a ‘Hit and Run’ driver. At the time of the accident my car was at the garage for its MOT and I was at a meeting, otherwise they would have pinned the murder of my wife onto me ‘Yes! You heard me right, it was murder!’
Bill said, ‘Why would they suspect you as being the driver of that car if it was in the garage at the time of the accident?’ ‘Because the car had my number plate on it and a passer-by witnessed the accident, but the funny thing about that witness was, after giving information to the police, he disappeared, but, this is the funniest thing of all, they, the police still dragged me in on a murder charge even though they knew my car could not have been the murder weapon, as they decided to call it!’
Bill said, ‘Not only that to take into consideration – you were at a meeting! – I suppose you were at the meeting?’
‘Well that was not strictly true – I should have been had it not been for the fact that the taxi I ordered to take to me to Wolverhampton that day had been cancelled, supposedly by me, that morning, the reason given was that I would not get there in time owing to a message I received the night before that the meeting was to start at 8:00am instead of 11am and that I would be going by train instead. Which by all accounts is a reasonable excuse and they would send me an invoice for a cancellation fee for less than a 24 hour notice of intent. I tried to explain to them that I had not telephoned them that morning – they just put the phone down.’
‘Well I thought that was damn rude.’ said Bill ‘and that does put you in the vicinity of where the accident happened.’
‘Yes and no!’
‘It can’t be yes and no!’ Peter remarked for the first time.
‘Well, said Eric, ‘Everybody saw me at Wolverhampton that morning by Video Link from our offices – I explained to them why I was not attending the meeting in person, but I was there for five hours negotiating our Company’s policies and finalising a deal. No-one can deny the fact I was there because everyone at that meeting had a clear view of me all the time, except of course when I went to the toilet and then I was only away for five minutes. In fact when you think about it, had I travelled from home to Wolverhampton, they could have surmised all sorts of theories, like I could have told the taxi driver to drop me off before my destination and I could have taken my car out of the garage on some pretext and done the deed and then returned the car to the garage later, explaining to the garage chappie I had changed my mind. All sorts of things like that.’
‘Is that how you did it then?’ said Winona.
‘There you are,’ said Eric, ‘That proves my point, you believe I killed my first wife, exactly as I explained – that was just one of my theories that the police might come up with.’
Pat, who had been silent spoke for the first time by saying ‘Video Link is not a good alibi – not in any way a good alibi – were there times when you were not speaking and just listening.’
‘Yes!’ Eric announced.
‘What length of time are we talking about!’
‘I would say 55 minutes.’
‘Ah! I was afraid you were going to say that.’
‘Well, what of it!’
‘It is a known fact that you can pre-record a section of yourself sitting and then moving about before-hand, even the excuse of going to the toilet and being away for five minutes and no-one would know the difference.’
‘I would say that would be a bit risky.’ Bill remarked. ‘Someone might have asked Eric an impromptu question and if he didn’t answer that would give the game away.’
‘Someone did!’ said Eric ‘Right at the beginning. I was just about to move off and up to the next floor to make myself a cup of tea and the question took me about 15 minutes to answer.’
Pat said ‘that still gave you 40 minutes!’
Eric stated he could see the logic in Pat’s surmising and another scenario for the police to approach me on!’
‘How do know all about this surveillance stuff, Pat? You were training to be a Secretary like me!’ Barbara remarked.
‘I was fortunate in obtaining a position in a Company that dealt with supplying the police with surveillance equipment!’
Bill remarked ‘Interesting line of work you have!’
Pat said ‘You should know Bill, you work for the same company.’
Eric said ‘Is this true Bill? We all thought you worked for British Telecom’ Bill told them that he had been assigned to a special unit dealing with that kind of work and during some shifts he worked normal hours and he had told Winona not to let on as his work was sensitive and secret. ‘I’m sorry to deceive you all, but it was written in my contract.’
Eric said ‘I always wondered why you drove a different type of vehicle nearly every time I saw you!’
Bill said, ‘It was done so that nobody could say here comes that man with all the cameras again and they would have time to get rid of their ill-gotten gains! – and how did you know I worked for the same company, Pat?’
‘You’re forgetting I work in the office and I have to look after the filing system and how surprised I was to see your name crop up for either “Blue or Red Surveillance duties.” And now I have broken the rules because I had to sign more or less something like the official secrets act document not to divulge my work to anyone outside the office, including friends and the only reason I have mentioned it now is because of this current situation with Eric.’
‘You haven’t any secret job associated with Surveillance Peter?’
‘No! I’m just an ordinary Politician in the opposing government and my private job is Architect and Consultant and I work at home mainly, and occasionally I go to the office which I and a friend set up a long time ago. We employ about 20 or so men and women and they keep everything proficiently in order and we are left alone to get on with the sharp end of business deals on new building sites that seem to be springing up all over the place.’
‘It’s no good looking at me Eric, said Winona, ‘I’m only a housewife!’
Pat said ‘We seem to be getting away from the point – Eric had 40 minutes that he needs to eradicate.’
Bill says ‘I don’t think he does though, because at any given time within those forty minutes he could have been asked any amount of questions and the timing would have had to be a crucial part of his plan, if for argument sake he did murder his wife! No police force could ever prove either way, unless they know something we don’t know!’
Pat said ‘Well – supposing the Board Conference Members said to Eric, we don’t need your presence because we would like to discuss this proposal of yours “in camera”, we’ll come back to you in 40 minutes.’
Eric said, ‘That would be impossible, when would I have had time, remember I was going by taxi to the meeting which is 60…. 70 miles away, in ample time for me to get there and the taxi was cancelled on the day of departure. I had not known that fact until that very day so how could I have possibly have known in advance that that was going to happen for me to prepare a forty minute video tape!’ ‘But how do we know that was the case, we were not present in your office, you could have made up this excuse about the taxi having been cancelled!’
‘True!’ said Eric ‘Except for one valid point – the sun shone very brightly that day and I arrived out of breath that morning having cycled in from home about 2 miles away – the sun was rising very steadily and was reflected on the office wall and everyone would have been able to see through the video link the progress of the suns rays climbing ever higher across the wall. Should I have made a video, it would have had to be with the same conditions and you may have noticed that with our weather patterns lately, this has not been the case for at least five weeks – carrying premeditated murder a bit too far – don’t you think? Anyway why are you trying to prove me guilty – I thought you were my friends!’
‘We are.’ said Pat ‘But I have to ask whether you have a Sun-Ray Lamp or anything that can produce the same effect on your wall that could be used to give the same result as your sunshine morning – this could possibly be a solution that may sway anybody to think that you had committed the perfect murder.’
Eric announced that he had no equipment like that in the office, although he knew for a fact that some offices have gym facilities. ‘My Father-in-Law is of the old school tie brigade and would not have thought of anything so outlandish.’
Pat said ‘I’m afraid I haven’t finished with you yet and this is going to be a bit embarrassing for you, only knowing you since you married my friend Barbara, if you get my meaning. You were married to Jenny when you joined Barbara Dad’s Company and supposing you murdered Jenny to marry Barbara!’
‘Now look here! This is going too far!’ said Eric.
Pat said ‘It is so obviously glaring that we all missed it.’
Eric said he had been happily married to Jenny and nothing in this world was going to change his mind about her, and yes, he did notice Barbara, but not in the sense he would like to marry her. She was just another work colleague. Pat continued ‘Why was there no-one else in the office that day?’
‘It was a Saturday!’ said Eric. ‘It was on a Saturday morning when I took my car into the garage, borrowed a cycle from Mr. Jackson and bicycled in and while I was’ . . . . . . Eric hesitated and sighed, ‘While I was at work, my lovely Jenny was being run over – this is too much to bear!’ said Eric ‘You have no right to ask me these questions – the police at the time had asked me the same things over and over again – it made me feel sick. They were so bloody tactless and inconsiderate of how I felt at the time, and there will always be a corner in my mind remembering Jenny – and now you are bringing back all my heartaches and sense of loss, besides it’s not fair on Barbara! I loved Jenny and we were expecting our third child which makes it much more hurtful. We never told anyone, because it was unexpected for us both after 15 years – she was on her way to the Doctors for another scan. . . .when it happened!’ Eric sobbed loudly, his shoulders heaved up and down and he wept openly.
Pat and the rest of them moved towards Eric to support him.
Pat said in a hushed voice that she was sorry to have brought up many painful memories and that it was not her intention to make him feel unhappy. Eric wiped his eyes and blew his nose and when he looked at all of them, you could see that the hollow look he had a year and half ago had come to shadow his soul again – Barbara had noticed first and rushed to him and placed both arms around his neck and whispered “I love you.”