Days 262/263 – Writing Exercise

…

The sun shone down brightly, although the air was cool.  A gentle breeze rustled through the trees, reminding me that autumn was disappearing and winter was about to set in. 

I’d promised myself I was not going to last another winter in England and had all but made up my mind to move to a small cottage I had bought in the Provence area of France about 10 years before.

IT was where Evelyn and I were going to retire until she got cancer, and despite every effort, the remissions and the hopes, she finally succumbed a few months before.

I was reassessing my life and decided it was time to retire.  Policing was no longer the way it used to be, and criminals were getting away with more, and our powers were getting less.

I was not the only one disenchanted.

My cell phone rang, and I half decided not to answer it, but it was a call I could not put off any longer.

My superior, Chief Superintendent Jamieson.  He was calling to get my decision.  Staying or going.  Not only had Evelyn’s death affected me, but my last case had also been harrowing, and almost the cause of my death.  I was still recovering from that, not physically, but mentally.

“Sir.”

“Rogers, how are you?”

“Well enough.  I know I’ve been tardy…”

“That’s not why I’m calling.  I have a job for you.  One you’re not going to like, but it will not have any life-threatening element.  Call it a swansong.”

Interesting lead-in.  Had he guessed I was about to pack it in?  I had intimated it to a few of the others at the station a few weeks back.

“Do I have a choice?”  He wouldn’t be calling me if I did.  He was that sort of person.

“Call in tomorrow at nine, and we’ll talk about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

I knew him well enough to know that he would give me the details straight, without embellishment, and without a sales pitch.  He was the first of my bosses who was.  And he had been very accommodating with my personal issues.

I owed him an audience.

…

I’d been summoned to his office three times since I joined the station.  My first day, the day he told me I was seconded to a task force, the one that nearly got me killed, and the last, the day my wife had died, to break the news.

His office wasn’t the biggest, not the smallest.  He didn’t like the accoutrements of his rank, except for the personal assistant, Marianne, who guarded his door like a Grenadier Guard/

She smiled when I turned up at her desk, asked me the usual questions, then told me to go straight in.

He was looking out the window, not that there was anything particular to look at; it was basically the carpark and a small garden with a fountain which didn’t work.  Marianne had complained to the council a dozen times, and still nothing had been done about it.

He heard me come in but didn’t turn straight away.  He would have seen me come up the side street and enter by the side entrance.  Time to think about what he was going to say.

Three minutes later he turned but didn’t sit.  He motioned for me to take the chair opposite his desk, and I did.

“Have you decided?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“It’s time.  With one thing or another, I don’t feel I could put everything that’s needed into the job.  IT’s not a matter of losing interest; it’s just the job is not the same anymore.”

“For some, yes.  But I understand.  With Evelyn, and the last assignment.  Hell of a mess, I’m afraid, still trying to find out exactly what happened.”

I could tell him if he wanted to listen, but he would not.  One of his personally selected officers wasn’t quite up to the mark and crumbled under pressure.  Trouble was, he died in the crossfire, and I wasn’t going to throw him under the bus now that he was dead.

The review would find that out soon enough, if they did a thorough job.  If….

“It was a difficult situation that no training could prepare anyone for, sir.”

He shrugged.  “Perhaps.  We’ll find out in due course, I expect.”

He sat.

I waited.

“There’s one last job I would like you to do.  We’ve had a request for an officer of your rank to go to the Met and run an investigation.  It’s one of the own Inspectors.  Bad situation, one where his fellow officers are judged to be too close to the case, and it needs an outsider’s perspective.”

“Not an internal review, sir.  I don’t think it’s a job any officer would want to conduct on a fellow officer, our office or theirs.”

“It’s a delicate situation, and needs care and understanding, the sort you have brought to this division.  And you have experience.”

I sighed inwardly.  There’s only one case that fit that category.  It didn’t end well for anyone.

I didn’t say anything, so he continued, “The Met have a case involving a Detective Inspector who has been shot by his wife.  You might have heard about it in the media; unfortunately, they like to make mountains out of molehills, and it’s blown up.”

“Three days ago?  DI Chalmers?” 

The Detective credited with bringing down a crime family responsible for killing half a dozen rivals over the last few years.  Undercover for the last three years, celebrated after the convictions, award ceremonies, media interviews- a hero.

Now a dead hero.

Day one, she was arrested.

Day two, ugly rumours started surfacing.

Day three, I was about to be sent into the fires of hell.

He slid a file across the desk towards me.  “If anyone can work out what the hell is going on, it’s you.  The Chief Super there wants this sorted as soon as possible.  Someone over there leaked confidential details, so finding out what happened and who the leak is are your first two priorities.”

“If I take the job.”

“You do, and I’ll personally shake your hand on the way out the door.”

“If I don’t?”

“That’s not a question, Rogers.  You have to give notice, and you’ve been cleared by the doctors to come back to work.  I’m sure you would want to be doing something proactive rather than shuffling paper clips down in the basement.”

He was probably right.

…

Chief Superintendent Graham was completely different to my Chief Super.  Big office, big personality, and what I would call a persuader, oozing all the charm of a snake oil salesman.  He shook my hand, gave me the glowing report he had received on me and said it was an open-and-shut case.

As far as he was concerned, the wife was guilty, and all I had to get was her confession.  Anything I had read in the media about the case was a load of bollocks, and that was the end of it.

This had all the hallmarks of a set-up.  If I succeeded, everything would be fine; if I dragged my feet, or found a different outcome, then I would become a scapegoat.

That feeling was confirmed after my first question, “I understand that Mrs Chalmers refuses to speak to anyone from this division.  Why?”

“Her lawyer.  Says we are biased.  We’re the goddamn police, for Christ’s sake.  We are supposed to be impartial.  We could have handled the case, but upstairs got involved after someone leaked case details to the media.  I want to know who.”

“And if she won’t speak to me?”

“She will.  She has to speak to someone, eventually; otherwise, it will seal her guilt.  She did it, there’s no doubt.  The forensics have her dead to rights.  The case files are on your desk, and your first interview is set for 11 am.”

He picked up the phone, then snapped, “Send Cartright in.”

A minute later, a female detective came in.  I had expected a male assistant.

“Ah, Cartright.  This is Detective Chief Inspector Rogers for the Thames Valley police.  It was agreed we get an outside officer to investigate, so we’re not accused of bias.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You belong to him for the duration of the investigation.  Anything he needs, make it happen.”

“Yes, sir.”

A wave of the hand and we were dismissed.

…

She took me downstairs to a separate office with two desks, filing cabinets, computers, printers, a large white board already covered in photos, papers and writing, and a door that closed out the rest of the office.

A half dozen detectives whom I had no doubt were best friends with the deceased, and looking for answers and someone to blame.

“You drew the short straw,” I said.

“No.  I volunteered.  They had me doing administrative work, nothing like what I signed up for.  None of the others wanted to work with you, so I stepped forward.”

“Why none of the others?”

“They think they should run the investigation, not someone from outside.”

“And what do you think?”

“It has to be someone from outside.  They aren’t prepared to believe that he was at fault, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

At least she hadn’t tried to condemn me; I was sure by the end of the day there would be an approach by one, or a group.

I had read the case notes in the file that my Chief Super had given me, but they were written up with exactly the sort of bias that wasn’t going to help anyone.  It would be interesting to get her view.  And I wondered if it was not a mistake on the part of this station’s Chief Super to allow her to work with me.  I’d know in a few minutes.

“And what are the facts, as you understand them?”

“Not what this board has on it.  First, Mrs Chalmers was home after accompanying her husband to a gathering where her husband, Detective Inspector Chalmers, was the guest of honour.  It started at six.  By ten, according to several witnesses, there was a heated argument, apparently about his excessive drinking, and she left. 

“Chalmers remained and continued drinking.  She went home and arrived there about Eleven.  The gathering ended about twelve-forty-five, and those remaining got cabs home.  One of the Detective Sergeants put Chalmers in a cab.  He said he was quite intoxicated, but still coherent.  Apparently, he is a functioning alcoholic, whatever that means. 

“Next report: a call from a neighbour next door about loud shouting, and then a scream.  Seconds later, there was a shot fired.  The first responders found Mrs Chalmers with a gun in her hand, and her husband dead on the floor near the door. 

“Her only statement so far: she was defending herself from a raving, drunken lunatic who was trying to kill her.  There was no one else in the apartment; the gun had just been fired, one round, the bullet that killed him came from the gun in her hand.”

“Has there been any previous arguments, similar behaviour?”

“No.”

“They questioned the same neighbours?”

“They said that night was the first time anything had happened.  She had not presented herself as a killer, but several people in the building said she was ‘strange’.”

“Strange?”

“Odd behaviour.”

“These interviews were conducted by detectives and officers from this station?”

“Yes.”

“They are here?”

She picked up a folder and handed it to me.  “A dozen or so, right after the first responders and forensics got there.  Questioned everyone in the vicinity.  Some heard shouting, some didn’t. Most heard the shot, thought it was a backfiring car.”

“How long was he undercover?”

“Two years.”

“Report?”

She handed me another file.  It was quite thin.  Three pages.  I guess there was little need be said about an operation that ended with such success.

“We have an interview at 11.”

“She won’t talk.  Doesn’t trust any of us.”

“You too?”

“I work here.  I guess I’m one of ‘them’.”

“We’ll soon see.  You can sit in.  How much do you know about the case?”

“As much as I just told you, sir.  I probably know slightly more than you.”

“Mrs Chalmers?  You have half an hour to tell me as much as you can.”

…

My first question at the end of that briefing was why?  Why would she shoot her husband?  My knowledge of people who shoot other people wasn’t extensive, but those reasons I understood to be: if they were threatened to the point where there was no other choice, the trigger was exceptionally light, and it was an accident; that they had always intended to shoot the person in front of them because that person had driven them to it; they were a soldier shooting at the enemy in a war zone.  That was it.  The next question was how she came to have a gun.  Perhaps that was because it was not hers.  A quick look at the forensic report showed it to be her husband’s spare gun, usually locked away in the gun cabinet, at the bottom of the closet in the main bedroom.

It didn’t help her case, because she must have got it out between the time she got home and the time he got home, which meant she knew she might have to use it, or she intended to use it.

Why?

There was a debriefing report for Chalmers, and a psychological report after two years undercover.  I’d been there myself, though not in such an evil environment, so it had to have played havoc with his view of normal life.  The report said he had readjusted well, and that he had conducted himself in such a manner that the courts were impressed with his ability to factually and clearly report the facts for the prosecution.  A man on the edge after a two-year trip to hell and back might not have been as coherent and clear-minded.

It was a pity I could not talk to him and get a clear idea of his state of mind, irrespective of the words on the paper.

There was no psychiatric report on Mrs Chalmers yet.  It would be in her best interests if there was.  Perhaps I could persuade her.

We’d soon find out.

Cartright took me downstairs to the interview room where Mrs Chalmers was waiting.  She had been brought, under guard, from the holding cell.  She was, as I understood it, being held until after the initial investigation was finished, determining when she would come before a magistrate.  Someone had determined her to be a flight risk if she was bailed.

Outside the room, a man was waiting; I suspect one of Chalmer’s fellow officers, and one of two who had conducted the first interviews with his wife and witnesses.  The result of his initial interview was that she would not talk to any of the station staff, or anyone connected to her husband.  The transcript of what little had been exchanged told me everything I needed to know.

“Are you in charge of the Chalmers investigation?”

His tone was belligerent, and if strict protocol was being followed, he should not be here, or anywhere near the investigation.

“Who wants to know?”

“Detective Sergeant Blake, Detective Inspector Chalmers partner.  I would like to sit in on the interview.”

“You have the explicit permission of the Chief Superintendent?  I can call him if you like?”

“As a matter of courtesy.”

I looked at him and gauged the level of hatred he was feeling towards my presence.  I was sure there were three others just like him who would like to be here also.

He was here for a reason.

“What is it you don’t want me to find out?”

He looked at me with all the venom he could muster.

“You don’t know anything about the man or the case.”

“Which is exactly why I’m here.  I’m not too close to the subject, and I certainly have no biases one way or the other.  Fresh eyes, neutral attitude.  Your first interview with the subject will be a separate report from me.  You cannot be here, or anywhere near Mrs Chalmers, or for that matter, any of the witnesses already interviewed.  That includes all the Detective staff in this station, and former colleagues of Detective Inspector Chalmers.”

“A good man died, and we want to know why.”

“That’s why I’m here.  Let me do my job, and I’ll get the answers.”

I could see that was the last thing he wanted me to do, which told me one very important fact: there was more to this death than just a wife killing her husband after a violent argument.

He had more to say but decided not to.  “This isn’t right.”  He glared at Cartwright, which was much the same as intimidation, then left.

I saw her shiver.  Fear.  He had that ability, which to me was a sign.

“You may wish you didn’t volunteer.”

“No.  They’re all like that, looking down on the junior staff, and women in particular.  I was hoping it was better here than my last station.

I shook my head.  Despite all the programs, there were still pockets of bad behaviour.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

I nodded to the officer in charge of the section, and he came over and showed us into the interview room.

I never got over that first look from the suspect, the one that either held fear or contempt, though of late it had been more of the latter.  The new criminal class were bolder, meaner, and more contemptuous of the police, and tended to hide behind very expensive lawyers.

Mrs Chalmers lawyer looked positively sedate.  That meant perhaps I should be careful.

Mrs Chalmers did not speak.  I was guessing she had been advised to speak only when spoken to.

Cartright and I sat, and Cartright switched on the recording device and made the introduction.

Then she spoke.  “I don’t remember seeing you before at this station.  Are you new?”

“No.  I usually work at Thames Valley and have been seconded to this investigation to keep it impartial.  It has been decided that no one from this station, or anyone who worked with your husband, can investigate his death.  It would be a conflict of interest, as well as make it impossible to secure a conviction, if, and not when, you were found guilty.  My attitude is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.  I understand you have refused to talk to any of the detectives in this location.”

“They are all Rodney’s mates.  None of them ever liked me, not one of the girls.”

I had some appreciation of what she was talking about.  Evelyn had a hard time getting along with some of the other wives, women who had a more, as she called it, ‘devil-may-care’ attitude.  These officers were crude and unruly for want of a better description, and sometimes a little too free with women other than their wives or girlfriends.  They called it ‘letting off steam’

“Evely had that problem too.” She gave me a strange look.  “My wife.  She didn’t fit in, but then, neither did I.  I was reminded by colleagues that it was part of the job, the dangers, the hours, what we had to put up with, but I didn’t quite see how overindulgence in alcohol and drugs, and having affairs, compensated.  Did your husband have problems?  I understand he was undercover for two years, often in bad situations, maintaining his position.”

“He never spoke about it.  Just seemed to be angry all the time.  I realised, after the first year, that he was drinking more, and I suspect part of that cover included being ‘one of the boys’.  I wasn’t that naïve as to know he was less than faithful, although when I asked him, he wouldn’t talk about it.  I know he was seeing someone else.”

“You know who it was?”

“Just a first name. She would call him at odd hours, and he would go off, saying it was a call he had to answer for work.”

“That makes you angry?”

“Disappointed.  I don’t think he realised how much he would have to change to do the job, or that he would like it so much.  He said that a few months ago, I was boring.  I offered to leave, let him have the file he wanted.  I don’t think he liked the idea of me leaving him.”

“So, was life for you worse after he went undercover, or had it started earlier, with the feeling you didn’t quite measure up to his and other officers’ expectations of a policeman’s wife or girlfriend?”

“Only after he joined the task force.  The officers were a different breed, as he called them.  They seemed to take more risks.  Worked hard, played hard, he said.  I didn’t like it.”

“Did you argue over it??

“Not at first.  He was on the fringe, trying to prove himself.  He was different, but the sort of different I liked, what attracted me to him.  Over time, he changed.  He couldn’t see it.  I and others outside the force could see it and tried to tell him.  That’s when things changed.  About a year ago.  I only recently found out there had been several people killed, and he blamed himself for not preventing it.”

A flare-up in the turf war.  A death on either side.  It could have escalated, but it didn’t.  I knew a little about taking the blame for something I could have prevented.  Not that I could have, but it doesn’t stop you.  It changed me until I got help.  Evelyn had insisted.

…

She took a drink of water, then exchanged a meaningful look with her lawyer.  Perhaps she suspected I was going to start asking the difficult questions.

I was.

“Let’s move forward to three days ago.  Tell me what happened before and during the party.”

I expected silence, because any questions prior to this regarding that night went unanswered.

“Perhaps you would be better asking me about the month or the week before.”

“After he came back from the undercover assignment, and working with the prosecution lawyers over the evidence he had gathered, and the arrests?”

“That was work.  He was a different person at work than at home.  He found it very difficult to settle back into a normal life.  He was, what I would call, a different set of withdrawal symptoms.  At first he wouldn’t tell me that he was going, what’s the expression someone used, cold turkey, after years of boozing and drugs.  He should have taken the offer of spending time in a facility to wind down, but he didn’t.  He spent more time with his fellow officers than he did with me; we never talked, and when I wanted to, he would get angry and walk out, coming back later drunk or high on drugs, and abusive.  Then he started spending days away, not telling me where he was or what he was doing.  I endured this for several months until that party, the one celebrating the end of the evidence-gathering and laying of charges phase.  I told him before we left that it was all but over now; we could go back to our life.  He basically said whatever we had was over, and he had moved on.  It was not unexpected.  I asked him if he didn’t want me to go, and he said we could discuss it more after the party, that he hadn’t told any of the others yet, and we had to show unity.”

“You could have stayed home.”

“No.  There was an edge to his tone that told me that if I didn’t do as he asked, there might be trouble.  Appearances were important, even if our marriage had gone to hell in a handbasket.  For the sake of appearances, I went.  Then he treated me like I wasn’t there.  As the evening wore on, I was speaking with the other wives, and one in particular asked if everything was alright.  She and the others were completely unaware of our situation.  I said it was not, and she mentioned that Gerry, her husband, had said he was seeing another woman.  I felt stupid being there, everyone knowing, but it always is a case of the wife being the last to know.  I told him I wanted to leave, and he basically told me to go, with a few extra expletives.  I’m sure you have a pieced-together version of the words spoken.”

“We have a phone video, perhaps to paint you in a particular light. You were, if I may say, remarkably calm.”

“I wasn’t.  It was probably the worst few minutes of my life.  I had no real friends there.  As you are aware, I left alone and went home.”

“And when he came home?”

“When he decided to come home and proceed to abuse me because I had to go digging into stuff that didn’t concern me.  Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about.  All I did was mind my own business; it was the other ladies that picked and probed and told me what was going on, trying, I believe, to make me look like a fool.”

Mad enough to shoot him?  “You had a few hours to stew over the news.”

“No.  I packed a bag and left it by the front door.  I was going to say I’d had enough and leave.”

“There was an argument?”

“He was screaming at me, calling me names I dare not repeat, and then threatened me.”

“Where did the gun come from?”

“The gun safe.  It was his spare weapon.  I went to get it, and it wasn’t in there.  It was in the drawer of his bedside table next to the bed.”

“Was he expecting trouble from those he was testifying against?”

“He never said, but he knew I hated the sight of it, and insisted he never get it out where I could see it.”

“Have you used it before?”

“No.  I knew it was there; I believed that when he came home he would be belligerent, and I would have it near me just in case.  I had no intention of using it.”

“Have you used any sort of gun before?”

“No.”

“So, you had the gun and didn’t know how to use it.  Was the safety off?”

“I didn’t know anything about a safety.  I assumed he had it stored in a safe mode.”

“And you were going to use it, how?”

“Aim it, tell him I was going and to keep his distance.”

“He would know the safety was engaged and simply take it off you.  So, it got to the point where you aimed it at him.  How far away was he when you did?”

“About 6 feet at most.  Just out of his reach.  When he saw it, he grinned.  He put his hands up and said, ‘Just pull the trigger and get it over with’.  He would have known the safety was set.  I didn’t.  By that time my hands were shaking, and I was losing resolve.  He knew that.  He took a step, and I pulled the trigger, and the gun went off.  The next thing, he was on the ground, and there was blood everywhere.  I fainted and was roused when the first police arrived on the scene.  I had no intention of using the gun.  Pulling the trigger was purely reflexive when he advanced on me, and I did not expect it would fire.”

I could see she was exhausted.  It hadn’t been a long interview, but it was difficult.  Perhaps she trusted me, but it was more than I could have hoped for.  At the very least, there was a basis for manslaughter, but there was something else that was off.  Not in her testimony but in the documentation, and I had to go back to the files.

“Thank you for your time, and for giving me as full an account of the events from your perspective.”

“You should discuss that with your legal representative.”

That was as much as I could tell her.

…

When we got back to the office, I closed the door.  I could feel the heat of the stares from the other detectives there.  They knew where I had been and who I had interviewed.  I expected a call from the Chief Superintendent.

“What are your first thoughts?”  I had cautioned her not to speak of anything we had just heard until back in the office.  I had no doubt the walls had ears.  There would be a queue a mile long to hear what was on that tape.

Cartright went to her desk and picked up the rushed forensics.  It had arrived just before I did that morning, and I hadn’t got to read it.  She had.

“The bullet had been fired from a distance between ten and twelve feet.  She could not have shot him, not on her evidence.”

“Would she lie about that distance, make a mistake? She was in fear of him.”

“Possibly.”

She turned the page and read.  “There’s a question mark, not a serious problem, but while the striation marks were a match, there was an anomaly, but not enough to discount the fact the gun was fired from the gun she was holding.”

I shrugged.  We should go to the scene and have a look.”

“For what?”

“Whatever it is we are missing.”

…

It took another three days and a lot of pressure from above not to have her arrested for the murder of Detective Inspector Chalmers.  When the Chief Superintendent received a copy of the interview, he summoned me to his office.

He held up the document.  “A confession.  Well done.  Have her charged.”

“She fired the gun.  It was just not the one that killed her husband.”

“The forensic evidence says otherwise.  This is as open and shut a case as you will get.”

“In that I will disagree.  It’s far more complicated than that.”

“Then if it was not her, who was it?”

“One of his colleagues’ wives, the one he was having an affair with.  I thought it was the husband, but he has an alibi.”

“What are you talking about?”  I could see the frustration and rage building.  I had to be clear in my facts before I could definitively say who it was.

“As I said, it was complicated.  There was a second bullet; it took a while to find it, but where it landed made sense given that Mrs Chalmers had never used a gun before, and as you are aware, ever gun kicks, and if you aren’t prepared, the bullet could go anywhere.  Certainly not where you aim it, and definitely if you have the shakes.”

“I read the interview.  She could be lying.  There’s been a distinct lack of emotion after his killing.”

“I believe she was a victim of domestic violence, particularly after the undercover role.  Indications are that he immersed himself too deeply in the role, taking on aspects of the character that changed his personality and attitude.  It’s a shame he did not accept counselling when it was offered.”

There was a knock on the door.  His personal assistant put her head in nd said, “Sergeant Cartwright, sir.”

“Send her in.”

She came in, closed the door, and gave me a sheet of paper.

“What is it?”

“Second bullet, sir.  Perfectly matches the gun Mrs Rogerson used.”

“So did the other bullet.”

“It seemed to, but it didn’t.  It came from a similar gun.  It was one of two that Chalmers and a fellow detective inspector, Rogerson, bought from a gun dealer as backup weapons, and as it happens, were consecutive serial numbers.”

“That’s impossible.”

“I thought so too, but the forensics team are writing it up.  It’s one of those very strange anomalies.”

“That means Mrs Rogerson was having an affair with Chalmers.  She used to work in forensics and knew about the striation factors for consecutive guns because it was one of her cases; she got his gun and sneaked into the Chalmers residence and waited.  She had fuelled the rumours of an affair and probably hoped more than she knew she would confront him and had left his gun where she could see it, with the safety off.  It was risky, ill-thought-out, but in the end nearly worked.  That will be the basis of the report.”

“Both the Rogersons are in custody and awaiting interview.  Both are waiting for legal representation.”

“Good work.” He shook his head and sat down.  The interview was over.

Now the real work began.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026