‘As the number of coronavirus cases in prisons increases, the Ministry of Justice has taken further steps to reduce overcrowding. Last night they confirmed that this included the release on bail of Shane Butler, the man accused of murdering PC Kenneth Hughes in Oxfordshire shortly before Christmas.’
Gavin froze in the act of buttering his second slice of toast. He stared at the teddy bear in police uniform that sat on top of the radio, listening as the news headlines continued, but there were no details. What bail conditions had been imposed? What about Butler’s brother and his other accomplices? The bulletin ended and Zoe Ball’s familiar voice introduced the next record. The music washed over him as he turned this unexpected news over in his mind.
‘Gav!’ His contemplation was interrupted by his wife, Chrissie, calling down the stairs. ‘Can you get that?’
With a jolt, Gavin realised that the landline telephone was ringing. He stumbled out into the hall to answer it. It was only as he fumbled to pick of the handset that he realised he was still holding the toast in one hand and the knife in the other. He put them both down on the small shelf beneath the telephone and picked up the receiver, smearing it with butter in the process.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Hughes? This is Arabella McInnis from Binns Barnard Solicitors?’
‘Yes?’ Gavin repeated, struggling to get his sluggish brain into gear. The name was familiar, as was the tendency to make almost every sentence sound like a question, but … ‘Oh yes! Of course! I’m sorry, I was miles away.’
‘I’m sorry to ring you so early,’ his solicitor went on, ‘but I was hoping to speak to you before the news broke? I’m sorry to have to tell you that your son’s killers are being released on bail.’
‘I just heard,’ Gavin told her. ‘It was on the radio just now.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’ Ms McInnis sounded apologetic. ‘They only notified me last night. I thought I could leave it until this morning and then, when I got up, there it was on the Breakfast show! So I was trying to ring you before you heard it too.’
‘So they’re all out?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ She paused briefly, then, ‘but the court didn’t have much choice really. It’s all to do with the rules about how long defendants can be kept in custody before being brought to trial. It’s looking as if it could be months before jury trials will be back to normal, and then there’ll be a big backlog to get through. This is just a sort of insurance, in case …’
‘So not just trying to get people out of jail because of coronavirus?’
‘No. That may have been another factor, but basically it’s that it’s better this way. As a police officer yourself, I imagine you know that if the custody time limit expires while a defendant is remanded in custody then they’re entitled to be released without any bail conditions. This way, the court is able to impose conditions on their release.’
‘And what are the conditions?’ Gavin asked anxiously.
‘I don’t know yet, I’m afraid. I’m going to try to find out about that today. That’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to ask for – restrictions on their movements, for example?’
‘I’d just like to be sure Chrissie won’t bump into any of them in the street. Where will they be living?’
‘I don’t know. Of course, for the time being nobody’s supposed to be bumping into anyone in the street, but I get what you mean. I’ll see if I can get a court order keeping them away from your neighbourhood. Anything else?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘OK. I’m sorry about how it’s turned out. If it hadn’t been for this coronavirus business, the trial would have been over by now and they’d all have been convicted, but we are where we are. I just thought you ought to know. I’ll send you over a letter with all the details and if anything changes I’ll be in touch again.’
‘Yes. OK. Thanks.’ Gavin replaced the telephone receiver and stood silently staring at the wall, trying to work out how he felt about the news. Then he turned and headed upstairs to tell Chrissie.
He found her on the landing with Craig, their lodger, walking admiringly round him and brushing invisible flecks of dandruff from his collar.
‘Craig looks very smart in Kenny’s suit, doesn’t he?’ she greeted her husband without looking round. ‘And I like his hair better the way it’s grown since Lockdown. I’ve been telling him: he’ll knock them all dead at the interview.’ Then, turning round, she saw Gavin’s anxious expression. ‘What is it? Was that phone call bad news?’
‘I’m not sure. It was the solicitor. She says they’ve let the Butler brothers out on bail while the crown courts are closed because of COVID.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Craig exploded. ‘The bastard confessed for fu-.’ He stopped abruptly and looked guiltily towards Chrissie, ‘for goodness sake! I thought murderers were supposed to get life!’
'He’s admitted to being responsible for Kenny’s death, but he’s claiming it was an accident,’ Gavin reminded him. ‘There has to be a trial – unless the prosecution decides to accept his plea and not even try for murder. He’ll be hoping to get away with manslaughter or even death by dangerous driving. And there are the other two as well. They helped to cover it up and …,’ his voice trailed off as another thought struck him.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Craig remained unconvinced. ‘He killed a policeman. He admitted it. So he ought to be in jail. It’s a simple as that!’
He pulled away from Chrissie’s ministrations and clumped noisily downstairs. Chrissie looked enquiringly up at Gavin.
‘I was just thinking,’ he muttered. ‘What about the Whittles? Someone ought to tell them too.’
‘I could ring Yvonne,’ Chrissies offered. ‘I’d be glad of an excuse. We haven’t had a chance to talk since lockdown started.’
‘Maybe later,’ Gavin shook his head. ‘I’ll call in later this morning and tell them face to face.’
‘Yes. I suppose you’re right. It isn’t the sort of thing you want to hear over the phone.’ Chrissie started downstairs. ‘Come on! We’d better get on with breakfast or Stella’ll be here before you’ve finished.’
The music coming from the radio was a cheerful song aimed at helping listeners to beat the Lockdown blues. Craig clicked it off irritably before sitting down and pouring himself a cup of tea from the stainless steel teapot in the middle of the table. He sat staring into it, contemplating the day ahead. He wished that he had never mentioned to Gavin and Chrissie that the warehouse in which he had been working for the last six weeks was looking for a new supervisor. He wished that he hadn’t listened to Chrissie when she had urged him to apply. He wished that he had not been selected for interview. And he wished above all that Chrissie had not insisted on lending him this suit belonging to her dead son.
He was grateful to them for taking him in off the streets – really grateful – but sometimes he wished … Gavin always said they owed him, because he’d helped to find the guys who’s killed Kenny, but … He hadn’t done anything really, and now he had this big burden of gratitude. He had to make something of himself to show them they’d made a difference. And Chrissie was convinced that he’d get the job. She’d be so disappointed when …
‘Toast, Chrissie? – Craig?’
He looked up to see Gavin holding out two slices of fresh toast. He shook his head. ‘I’m not hungry. I’ll just finish this tea and then I’d better get off.’
‘Nonsense!’ Chrissie took both pieces of toast and put them on separate plates. Then she set one of the plates down in front of Craig and pushed the butter dish towards him. ‘You can’t go into an important interview on an empty stomach. It’s been scientifically proven that the brain functions better all day if you start off with a good breakfast. That’s why we run a breakfast club at school. The kids can’t settle to learn if they’re not well-fed.’
Craig bit back his reflex retort: that he was not a child at her school; that he was used to marching for days on army rations or even on occasion what he could forage for himself; that if she’d seen the children he’d come across in Basra she wouldn’t be worrying about kids coming to school without having had a bowl of cereal and a round of toast! Chrissie could be incredibly patronising at times, but she meant well, and the last thing he wanted was to upset her after the news she’d just had.
How could it have happened? How could a man like Shane Butler have been allowed out on bail? A man who admitted to having run down a police officer, smashed his body against a brick wall, and then driven off with no thought for the devastation he had wrought? How was it justice that he was going to be sent home to the bosom of his family, with no sign that he was going to be tried for his crimes any time soon?
He jabbed his knife into the butter, imagining that it was a bayonet and he was stabbing it into Butler’s stomach, as he had learned to do during his army training. In his mind, he could hear the frenzied shouts of his fellow-recruits as they ran at a line of targets with their weapons gripped in trembling hands, fearful of being found wanting in the ability or the desire to kill. Butler had better keep away from Gavin and Chrissie or he’d have Craig to answer to! And unlike Butler, he’d been trained to slaughter his enemies – and not from the comfort of the driving seat of a powerful car but hand-to-hand. Compared to the Iraqi soldiers that he’d encountered during the Gulf War or the Taliban fighters that he’d faced during his tour of duty in Afghanistan, Butler would be easy prey.
He watched Gavin pouring a second cup of tea for himself and then topping up the teapot with water from the kettle. The big policeman seemed calm enough, but something about the way in which he kept glancing towards his wife suggested that the news from the solicitor had been unsettling even for his placid nature. His hands shook slightly as he brought a pan of porridge over from the hob and poured it into his bowl.
Chrissie waited while he wandered over to the sink, filled the pan with cold water and left it there to soak. Then, when he returned to the table, she handed him the milk jug and he poured some into the bowl so that the porridge became an island in a small white lake. Refusing her offer of the sugar bowl, he went over to one of the wall cupboards and took out a tin of syrup. Now, Craig knew that he was rattled: as Chrissie had explained on a previous occasion, syrup was what Gavin’s mother had put on his porridge when we was a child, and it was what he reverted to in times of stress.