“Get your laptop and find the video. Call me back when you have it on screen.”
* * *
I grabbed my phone as it rang, I was back in the farmhouse kitchen and had my laptop open. “Amanda. Right, have you got the CCTV there? Yes, great, set it to the time Adam was getting the pitchfork.” I waited for a moment as Amanda found the right timestamp and played the images back. “Do you notice anything?”
24
Innocent Until Proven Wrong
I slept badly. The noise of the prison quietened at night but there was never silence. The snores of my cellmates, the shouting and yelling from another part of the building, footsteps on the catwalks outside the locked door.
I lay in the dark staring at the upper bunk. This was my life. I’d been told I could do some courses, maybe even get a degree. But as I had said, what good would that be? Who the hell would want to employ a murderer, and that was presuming I could survive twenty years stuck in this hell. And could I survive without Kate? Her face as she left, the disappointment in her eyes.
I’d had another visit from my barrister, he wanted to tell me what to expect when my day finally came to go to court. I’d stopped him, did he think I had any chance at all of freedom. There had been an uncomfortable moment with him looking at his papers as if he didn’t know the answer, then he sighed. ‘Not at all’.
I suppose I appreciated his honesty, but I wanted at least some hope and it was rapidly ebbing away. An inmate somewhere distant started singing loudly, there was a chorus of swearing and yells for him to shut up. The prison never really slept.
* * *
“Amanda are you there?”
“I’m running through the images now, all I see is what I saw each time I’ve watched this. Adam in his Glebe Farm hoodie. He steps out of the toolshed, closes the door and then walks down the yard holding a pitchfork. I can’t see anything different? What am I looking for?”
“Watch him leave the tool shed again.”
“Look, Kate, I’ve watched it at least ten times now.
“Amanda, just do it. Please, humour me.”
“Okay. I’ve rewound the images. He’s inside and now he’s leaving. He just steps out of the shed…”
“But, did he duck his head down as he stepped through the door?”
“No, he didn’t… But why does that matter?”
“Do you remember what happened on his first day he was there? I told you about the accident he had, you know, ‘the stupid accident’? We both laughed about it…”
“Oh, crap! You’re right, he hit his head. The doorway was too low. He wasn’t looking and forgot to duck for the low doorway. He knocked himself out.”
“So, tell me. If that was Adam on the CCTV footage, how come, if he doesn’t duck as he steps through the door, he didn’t hit his head?”
* * *
“DCI Jarvis?” I looked up and the desk sergeant waved towards me. “Good morning Ma’am, we had a strange telephone call last night from a Mrs Kate Bishop.” My heart sunk.
“Shit!” I hissed under my breath before stopping and facing the sergeant. “Yes? And what did Mrs Bishop want?”
“She said something about the murder case and that she had found something on the CCTV footage. Nothing more than that, but she did leave a number for you to call her back.”
“Right, and when did she call?”
“Just after four-thirty this morning.”
I swore under my breath before taking the slip of proffered paper and walking upstairs to my office. John was already there and was deep in conversation on his phone, he waved a greeting as I sat down. I pulled my mobile out and dialled the number for Mrs Bishop, she picked up almost on the first ring.
“Mrs Bishop, I understand… Woah, slow down! What are you talking about? Right, so you looked at the CCTV images? May I ask how you got hold of those? No, it is important! Right, so you are telling me that you have illegally accessed CCTV from an ongoing murder investigation… No, you stop! I’ll say it again. Do you realise that you accessing CCTV images from an ongoing murder case is illegal?”
* * *
“Explain that again?” Dan was looking at me incredulously.
“Kate called last night.”
“Yeah, I get that bit. I was asleep next to you. What were you saying about the CCTV?”
“Right. The first day Adam was on Hilary’s yard he had an accident. As he walked out of the old toolshed, he didn’t realise the doorframe was really low. Yes…”
“Okay, I get that. And you say he hit his head?”
“He knocked himself out.”
“Right… And this is important because?”
“Look!” I turned the laptop around and replayed the images. “The person dressed in Adam’s hoodie doesn’t duck down to go through the door. They don’t need to, they’re shorter than him!”
Dan leaned into the screen, replaying the images a couple of times before freezing it at the point when the person stepped out of the doorway.
“Are you sure?”
“Totally, he said they keep their mucking out tools in an old stone shed, the door is really low.”
“Okay, so whoever is walking out of there is shorter than the doorway. Do you have any witnesses that saw him knock himself out on the door? I mean did he go to the hospital as that would be pretty conclusive?”
“No, but if he’s taller, surely it won’t matter?
“Look at the moment, it’s a long shot, the Yorkshire force might not even consider what you are saying. However, if you have a witness which can say he had an accident or someone who could corroborate Adam hit his head on the doorway
