Mother Be The Judge (16 page)

"Adrian," she said. He turned around on the floor and sat down with his legs crossed, looking up into her eyes. Jocasta looked at his face and saw in it the sweet boy who had grown up her only friend.

"Adrian, what you did was wrong; you should never have hurt that poor baby. But you are right, maybe you are sick. I am not going to call the police because I believe you are sorry." Adrian leant forward and cuddled Jocasta's leg, once again placing his head on her lap. She took his face in both hands and moved it back then leant down so they were face to face.

"But Adrian, you must never do this again. You must never talk to or hurt another girl. You must never do that Adrian, it is bad." Jocasta didn't feel her words were sufficient but she just didn't have the vocabulary to voice the disgust she felt inside her.

"Adrian you must get rid of your computer and the magazine and you must get rid of these." She picked up the underwear from the table, started to hand it to Adrian but then thought better of it. She didn't want to tempt Adrian with the very things she wanted rid of. "Don't worry, I will do that." She said, putting them into her own pocket.

Adrian stood and embraced his mother. "Thanks mum, I knew you would understand. I will get rid of the computer, I promise. With your help I can get better, I know I can. I love you mum."

"Ok, go to your room now Adrian, I need to clean up the dinner things."

Adrian walked towards his room. "I love you mum." He said again.

"I know," said Jocasta. She could not bring herself to reciprocate Adrian's gesture at that time. She knew that she did love him; loved him like any mother loves a son, but she was still fighting the sickening images in her mind and hate was grappling with the love she had for him. She watched him go to his bedroom and then cleaned up the dinner stuff and sat to watch television. Jocasta looked at the TV but did not see the images; instead she planned just how she was going to get her son off the streets and away from doing any further harm. She hoped and prayed that she had the strength to fulfil the new destiny motherhood had bestowed upon her.

'When there are too many policemen there is no liberty. When there are too many soldiers there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers there is no justice.'

Lyn Yutang

20
th
May 2012

"Strike," Detective Inspector Todd 'Todger' Turnbull threw his arms into the air in triumph. It was his third strike in the Metropolitan Police Ten Pin Bowling Tournament.

"Well done Guv." Said Detective Sergeant Mary Webb; she patted him on the back as he returned to the circle of chairs around the score keeping console.

"Right, Mary, you try and get more than three pins down now and we might actually win this match."

"Oh it's
my
fault we always lose is it?" Mary rolled her eyes. "That's the first lot of strikes you've had in six matches."

Todd laughed, "Well at least I knock some down."

Mary gave Todd the finger before she turned to roll her ball. She lined up the ball with the arrow on the floor, took a big step forward swinging her right arm back and promptly dropped the ball behind her. It rolled, its glittering surface sparkling before coming to a rest at Todd's feet. He lifted an eyebrow at Mary, then retrieved the bowling ball and passed it back to her.

"Don't say anything." She warned him. Todd laughed again then clapped loudly.

"Come on Mary, let's go," he cheered her on. She eventually managed eight pins followed by a spare, causing Olinsbury's team to win a sweet victory against the rest of the Met.

Todd gave Mary a huge bear hug, congratulating her on her achievement. "Come on Mary," he said, "I'll get you a McDonalds, my treat."

"Big spender," she pushed into him fondly, enjoying his attention. Todd knew she had a not so secret crush on him, but kept their relationship strictly platonic. He did, however, enjoy her company and made sure he never missed their team commitments in the ten pin bowling tournaments.

Todd and Mary left the bowling alley which was near to Heathrow Airport and began to make their way back to Olinsbury police station. They were on night shifts which started at 10pm and the time was drawing near. Todd drove them both in his own car; a silver Vauxhall Cavalier. He knew it was nothing spectacular but it was a reliable and economical car which served the purpose he needed it for. He would buy his bachelor sport's car when he retired. They stopped at McDonalds and Todd ordered his standard meal of quarter pounder with cheese. He didn't particularly like this meal, but time had taught him this was the burger which was always ready to go and he would rather have the lukewarm taste of a half decent burger than wait the extra five minutes for something else to be cooked. Time meant everything when crime was your business and Todd made sure he didn't waste any of his.

The station appeared in front of them at the end of Montague Road in Olinsbury.

"Another night in paradise," joked Todd.

"Olinsbury is the new Hollywood," was Mary's standard reply.

"I wonder what the lovely residents have got for us tonight." Todd pressed the button on the security gate and waited to be let into the yard. He made a point of parking in the space reserved for the Borough Commander; as it was the night shift Todd knew there would be no sign of senior management and always took pleasure in taking over their parking spot. It was the little things in life which gave him pleasure. They left the car and buzzed the rear door, wading through the discarded cigarette butts which had been thrown at the outside ashtray by the army of smokers that frequented the back step through the day.

Todd took the lead and went up the stairs to the first floor CID department. He walked through the office offering hellos and exchanging comments with the officers who had either just arrived or who were just leaving, then went into his own office, Mary still following. He sat at his desk and asked Mary to shut the door behind them.

"Right Mary, I want to first go through today's work and then I want to go over our cold cases." He picked up a sheet of crime reference numbers which the previous shift's Inspector had left for him. Sitting at the Crime Reporting Information System or CRIS for short, Todd brought up each individual crime which had been reported that day.

"Deception, Demanding Money with Menaces, Grievous Bodily Harm," Todd reeled off the crimes to Mary who nodded her head. These crimes were standard to them, reported on a daily basis, no longer shocking to the people who dealt in the business of investigation. Todd continued, "Three burglaries, two rapes."

"And a partridge in a pear tree," sang Mary. Todd grinned and spent a few minutes tapping buttons on the keyboard in front of him, then turned away from the computer screen.

"Yeah, they're all being dealt with," he said, "Nothing we need to do with them." He stood up and went to the shelves at the rear of his office to retrieve two boxes which sat gathering dust. Picking up the first box, he passed it over to Mary who put the box on the desk. Todd then brought the other one over. "These two cases are from 2008, 2009; so nearly four years old."

"Well they're three years old Guv." said Mary, "Let's not make it too bad." Mary hated it when people did that; being conscious of her ever increasing age, she would prefer it if people focused on her being thirty nine rather than increasing it to forty, just because it was near.

"Yes ok, three years." Todd knew Mary's view on this and had actually made the mistake on purpose just to wind her up. He was very aware it had actually been three years, five months and twenty one days since the first crime in the box on the table had occurred. He knew the box contained the file on Savannah West. Todd had a large amount of guilt on his shoulders because he had not been able to catch the person who had lured Savannah to her death. He had not been able to give closure to Savannah's family or to obtain justice in a court of law which would offer a small recompense to them. He still saw visions of Savannah's limp, grey body on the bank of the stream, still recalled the contents of the Coroner's report and the vivid images of depravity it projected. He still suspected that the young man who had found the girl was in some way responsible for Savannah's death; his was the only DNA on her body and although the mother had given him an alibi, Todd was convinced that Adrian Brown was the perpetrator who took Savannah's life in such a brutal way.

The Crown Prosecution Service required evidence beyond reasonable doubt before they would consider prosecuting anybody and whilst Todd knew this was important in the hunt for justice, he was annoyed that it also provided a loophole for defence barristers to play with. The fact that Adrian had held Savannah when he had found her in the stream, gave him the reasonable explanation for why the DNA was there and stopped any chance of a prosecution against him. It wasn't enough to suspect or even to
know
that Adrian Brown was the killer, if Todd couldn't prove it then the suspicion meant nothing.

Todd took all the paperwork out of the box and started to separate the different documents onto the table. Statements, taped interviews, autopsy reports, search records, pocket book enquiries, missing person reports and then his own notes of people he had spoken to at the time. Both Todd and Mary spent the next hour and a half reading through every piece of paperwork. They knew that often things were missed or misread during investigations; not because of malpractice but it was human nature not to be perfect. A new eye on an investigation or revisiting an old file could often bring a new take on an investigation or offer a previously unnoticed piece of evidence. Today was not going to be that day however, no matter how often Todd read through this file, nothing new came to light; once again the only conclusion he could come to was that the perpetrator was Adrian Brown.

"He will do it again you know." Todd commented to Mary. "A person who does this always strikes again eventually, might have done it already."

"True," agreed Mary, "It's been a while though; it could have been an accident.

Todd guffawed, "You don't accidentally shag an eleven year old Mary, come on."

Mary shrugged, "Alright but it has been three years; he could be dead or may have moved away."

"No he's still here." Said Todd, "I know its Adrian Brown, I know he did it. I don't care what his mother says; I just hope he doesn't do it again because no girl deserves to go through what that poor child went through. Has he been picked up for anything else since?"

Mary flicked through the paperwork in front of her. "No Guv. There's just that sexual touching when he was a kid."

Todd sighed and sat back in his chair, it was so frustrating for him to believe he knew someone had committed an offence but to have his hands so tied by rules of evidence that he couldn't bring him to justice.

"Let's keep an eye on missing girls again," he said, "I know we've been lucky lately and not had any go missing for more than twenty four hours, but we still need to make sure we class all of them as High Risk. If a girl goes missing, I want to know about it straight away, especially if she goes missing from the Elisworth area. If a girl goes missing from there I want a full area search immediately."

"Yes Guv." Mary agreed and made a note to include the instruction on the following briefing of officers, both plain clothed and uniformed.

"Right come on hairy Mary; let's look at the next one."

"Oh goody, what have we got?"

Todd lifted the lid on the second box, "Graveyard robberies." He announced.

"Oh I was
dying
to do that one," Mary said.

"Mary that's terrible, stop it or I might die laughing." Todd countered.

They both chuckled and then lost themselves in another hour of reading paperwork.

'Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same and most mothers kiss and scold together.'

Pearl S. Buck

Monday 21
st
May 2012

08:30 hours

Jocasta arrived at the doctor's surgery in her new work clothes. She felt a bit uncomfortable as the waistband was digging into her stomach. The events of last week had caused her eating to go into overdrive where she constantly tried to keep food in her mind instead of Adrian's evil.

Adrian had been true to his word and had removed the computer from the house. He smashed it up in front of her and put it in a black bag along with the magazine which he ripped up. Jocasta had disposed of Savannah's underwear, wrapping them in kitchen roll and stuffing them at the bottom of the bin bag which she put down the rubbish chute of their flat.

Although Adrian had honoured his promise, Jocasta knew it could not be that simple. When somebody was evil and had lusts, they could not just be switched off. Jocasta had made up her mind that she was going to find a way to keep Adrian at home. Whilst in the doctor's surgery Jocasta would have access to medical books, doctor's notes and prescription paperwork. She intended on researching everything she could on a drug which would replicate the symptoms of M.E. as she knew this was an illness which caused the patient to feel tired all the time and unable to move. Jocasta felt if she could keep Adrian in this frame of mind then he would become housebound and she would be able to protect any further girls from getting hurt.

"Jocasta; hi," Mable, the head receptionist greeted her at the door of the surgery.

"Hi," said Jocasta and held out her hand in greeting. Mable shook her hand but her smile didn't reach her eyes as she took in Jocasta's appearance. Jocasta knew she wasn't the prettiest woman in the world but she was clean and presentable, she objected to the way Mable was looking at her. She hadn't expected a middle-aged woman like Mable to be bothered with a person's appearance.

"Is there a problem?" Jocasta asked, breaking Mable's gaze.

"No, no, sorry Jocasta, I was just admiring your top. It's very pretty." Mable said, the smile now showing in her eyes. This took Jocasta by surprise and she silently scolded herself for jumping to the worst conclusion so readily. She
had
been right, Mable wasn't interested in looks; she had just liked the top Jocasta was wearing. Jocasta realised it was the first compliment that had been paid to her in a very long time. She felt her self-confidence grow and pulled back her shoulders so she could show off her top in full effect, it
was
very pretty; navy blue with little white stars dotted about the flowing material.

"Thank you very much," Jocasta said, "I got it in Primani."

"Well its lovely, come on then let's get you started. If you wouldn't mind filing the medical notes for now, that would be great." Mable led Jocasta to the rear of the surgery and took her into a dingy room lined with shelves which seemed to contain thousands of paper files, stuffed into every available space. Mable pointed to a small wire trolley containing more of the files, piled haphazardly on top of each other.

"It's an easy system." Mable advised Jocasta, "This number is our starting point," she pointed to a number in the top right hand corner of the file; "We then look for the alphabetical surname in the corresponding numbered shelf. Come with me, I'll do the first few for you and then you can get on with it."

Mable picked up the first file, hurried over to a shelf, flicked deftly through the files there and stuffed the new file in amongst the papers. Jocasta didn't see exactly how or where the file had disappeared to and was about to ask for another demonstration when Mable stated, "So that's it, it's easy. I have to go on reception now, let me know when you're finished or if you need any help."

She smiled once again and practically skipped out of the room, obviously happy to leave the mundane task to somebody else; leaving Jocasta in the middle of shelves, papers and files with no real idea of what she was doing. Jocasta gave a sigh and picked up the nearest file to her on the trolley. At least keeping busy would take her mind off her problems, there didn't seem to be any time limit to the task so Jocasta resolved to take her time and do the job well. The first file was number fifty so Jocasta found the corresponding shelf and began the working day.

-x-

12:30 hours

After nearly four hours of working hard, Jocasta felt ready for lunch. Her thighs were hurting where she had squatted many times to reach the bottom shelves. She had to walk slowly to try and stop the burn and wondered how she would ever be able to finish her day if she was forced to return to filing once her lunch was over.

"Jocasta, would you like to join us for lunch?" Mable called to her as she left the filing room. The offer made Jocasta nervous; she was unaccustomed to company and was concerned she may say or do the wrong thing and spoil her chances of friendship. She retrieved the packed lunch she had made for herself and went to sit at the staff table where Mable already sat with the two other staff. They introduced themselves to her as Karen and Leanne.

Karen was another middle aged lady; Jocasta guessed about fifty years old. She told Jocasta all about her new granddaughter, showing her pictures of a chubby little baby with a shock of blonde hair. Jocasta made all the right noises and actually had a physical pang of desire for a grandchild of her own. Karen seemed pleased with Jocasta's responses and sat back to look at her own photos again; obviously wishing she was at home with her granddaughter instead of at work.

Leanne took over the conversation; she was a much younger woman, only twenty years old. She was only using the doctor's surgery as a stop-gap whilst she waited to bag herself a footballer. Leanne looked like a typical W.A.G; big blonde hair, five layers of makeup, stinking of perfume and eyelashes three times longer than they should be. She regaled them with tales of her night clubbing exploits and how she had almost managed to speak to a footballer who was on the Brentford reserve team, but how she had been prevented by going into the V.I.P. area by the bouncer whose advances she had spurned the week before. Although this type of conversation was completely alien to Jocasta, she enjoyed how Leanne spoke with so much enthusiasm and lust for life. Jocasta envied Leanne her age, beauty and ambition.

Mable didn't have much to say about herself, preferring instead to ask Jocasta about her own life. Jocasta gave a very brief account of how she was a single mother with a son and how no, she didn't know where her name came from because she had been in care as a child and had never known her parents. She told them Adrian worked in Big Value and threw in a bit about him having a girlfriend as she was desperate to portray him as normal. The three ladies appeared genuinely interested in Jocasta and she thoroughly enjoyed her first real conversation in many years. Jocasta almost forgot the problems she had waiting for her at home, but she could just feel them hovering in the back of her mind, waiting for her to stop and think about them.

"Right, we better get some work done," said Mable. Jocasta's heart sank at the prospect of returning to the dreary filing room. "But no more filing today," smiled Mable almost as if she had read Jocasta's mind. "Now we need to do the photocopying."

Whoop de do
Jocasta thought to herself; hardly delighted she was moving from one dull chore to another.

"Don't worry, it won't take long and then I will show you the phone system so you can do the afternoon reception," said Mable, "We all take turns doing the shitty work; you won't have to do any filing or photocopying tomorrow." Jocasta gave a mental cheer of joy then followed Mable to the photocopier. She wondered when she would get the opportunity to start the research she so desperately needed to do.

-x-

16:00 hours

Jocasta now sat in place at reception waiting for the afternoon's patients to come and go. She read each patient's file as she pulled it out, looking for any illness akin to M.E. or for anything which would help her discover a medication that would help Adrian. The afternoon was now just full of coughs and colds, however, people looking for medical certification which would get them a week off work and other mundane illnesses, none of which served Jocasta any purpose. She sat and smiled her way through the afternoon but felt scared inside that whilst she sat there Adrian was in the world unchecked, possibly preying on another girl or at the very least, considering it. Jocasta knew she could not afford to waste any time and needed to find something soon which would solve her problem.

Just as the day was coming to an end, a dishevelled male stumbled through the surgery door. He was either sun tanned or incredibly dirty, his hair was grey, shoulder length and greasy and his blue eyes shone out of red bloodshot sockets.

"Is doctor 'ere?" he slurred at Jocasta, his movements were very slow and deliberate and it seemed to take a lot of concentration just to put one foot in front of the other. Eventually he lowered himself into a chair in the waiting room and immediately began to snore, now apparently fast asleep.

Jocasta looked to Mable who was sitting beside her and waited for instructions on what to do next.

"Temazi Terry." Mable said.

"Eh?" Jocasta didn't understand the reference Mable used.

"Temazi Terry." Mable repeated and then chuckled, "He takes Temazepam for his depression." She made air quotation marks around the word 'depression', "He hasn't really got it, he just pretends so he can get the meds. He loves walking around like a zombie."

"Is that what it does to you then?" asked Jocasta.

"Yeah," Mable said, "I think they make you so dopey you forget to be depressed. I shouldn't be mean; I'm sure he
has
got depression, I'm just getting cynical in my old age." She got up and went over to shake Temazi Terry on the shoulder. "Ter-ry," she sang at him, "Ter-ry." He shook his head slowly then opened his eyes.

"Wha?"

"Your appointment is tomorrow Terry." Mable informed him, "You can't see the doctor now."

"Where's my script?" he asked, dragging himself out of his chair.

"You'll get it to-mor-row." Mable spoke slowly so he would take it all in. "Ok Terry? Come back to-mor-row."

"Eh? Ok." He said and stumbled back out of the front door. Jocasta thought she had just discovered the perfect medicine for what she had to do.

-x-

Tuesday 22
nd
May 2012

Jocasta returned to work the following day and asked Mable to take her through all the different forms used in the office and where they were all kept. Mable was happy to oblige and went through every drawer and filing cabinet with Jocasta, showing her x-ray requests, blood test sheets, etc. Jocasta wanted to shout at Mable to hurry up and show her where the blank prescriptions were but instead nodded with each form and kept her face interested. Finally after what seemed an eternity, Mable showed Jocasta where the blank prescription forms were kept along with the doctor's signature stamp.

"We don't really use these anymore," explained Mable, "These are just kept here in case the computer breaks down. We have the doctor's signature on a stamp so we can get them done for him. But it's very rare so you don't have to worry about remembering where they are. I think we've only used them once since we put them there." Mable replaced the forms in their relevant drawer and moved onto other forms and documents.

Jocasta spent the rest of her day going through the motions of work. At the first opportunity she got, she grabbed a prescription pad and the signature stamp, secreting them in her bag before she was seen. She was certain that her theft would not be discovered if the forms were so rarely used. Jocasta then spent a short while looking up Temazepam in the pharmaceutical brochure, which discussed dosages, side effects etc. She ripped out the page she needed so she could be sure of what she was doing; Jocasta didn't want to make any mistakes and hurt Adrian.

When the end of her working day came, Jocasta bid her new found friends a fond farewell. She was saddened that she would not be returning to the doctor's surgery, but her most important work now lay at home. She had to be sure Adrian was safely ensconced in their flat as her conscience would not allow her to expose any more children to the evil he had inside him.

Before getting home, Jocasta stopped at Big Value; she went into the customer toilets and wrote out a prescription for the Temazepam, enough for a month. She couldn't chance asking for any more than that as Jocasta didn't want to draw any suspicion on herself. She intended to visit chemists through the next day to collect as many tablets as she could hope to get with the prescriptions that she had. Jocasta didn't know what she would do once the tablets ran out; she would cross that bridge when she came to it. She took the prescription to the twenty four hour pharmacy inside Big Value and stood with her heart in mouth, to await the delivery of the tablets. She got bored of waiting and decided to go and pick a strongly flavoured dinner for Adrian that evening, one which would mask the taste of the Temazepam, although she didn't know whether it had any taste to it or not. Wondering around the aisles, she decided on a fish pie; there was so much cream and fish in the dinner she felt sure it would hide any taste one small pill would provide. Eventually she went back to the pharmacy and continued to wait for what seemed a very long time, expecting an accusing hand on her shoulder with every second that ticked by. Finally the cashier began to hand her a large paper bag with a smile.