‘Aye, lad, come in,’ he said warmly. ‘The buggers have taken our holiday savings. Now if Ah’d been here when they got in, Ah’d have skelped ’em for sure.’
‘Skelped’ is an old Yorkshire dialect word for ‘hit’. I could well imagine this fellow tackling them and thrashing them for their cheek in invading his home.
‘Where did they get in?’ I asked. ‘Will you show me?’
‘Pantry window,’ he said, leading me through to the back of the bungalow. Mrs Turnbull followed us, wringing her hands.
‘There,’ he said, pointing to the window. It was only eighteen inches wide by two feet tall, but they had pushed up the bottom half from the outside and climbed through. I went outside to have a look and found they had pushed the dustbin from its position near the gate until it was beneath the window. They’d climbed upon it and had squeezed through this tiny space.
‘You left the window unlocked?’ I asked.
‘Open,’ said Mrs Turnbull. ‘I allus leaves it open an inch or two, for fresh air, you see. It is a larder, you know, young man, and food needs fresh air.’
‘It’s sensible to screw it in position, then,’ I said. ‘Put screws through the frame so no one can push it further open. So they got in here, and then where did they go?’
‘Into the parlour,’ said Mr Turnbull, leading the way.
The parlour is what others might call the lounge. I followed the couple in. On the mantelshelf was a white vase.
‘I had £85 in there,’ said Mrs Turnbull. ‘It’s all gone.’
‘In notes, was it?’ I asked.
‘Ten-bob notes and pound notes,’ she said, ‘saved up from my pension. We were going to go to Brighton, me and Lawrie.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I was genuinely sorry for them in their loss, and asked if anything else had been touched, or whether any other room appeared to have been searched.
None had, but I checked each one just in case.
‘Now,’ I said, with my notebook open, for I was recording all the necessary details, ‘what about the other places you’ve got money hidden? People always hide money all over the house, and the burglars know exactly where to look. There’s no hiding place in this house that they would not find — and find easily,’ I stressed. Pensioners in particular hide their spare cash instead of banking it, and it is such a simple matter for a thief to find it. I saw the looks in their eyes, and Mr Turnbull said, ‘You go and look, Norma, while I pour this lad a cup of tea.’
I was not to be privy to their secret hiding places, but as I sipped tea in the kitchen, Mrs Turnbull returned smiling. ‘He’s nivver found any of it!’ she beamed proudly. I wondered if this meant their return had disturbed the intruder, for it was odd if the intruder had not made a more thorough search of the house. I asked them to show me all around, just in case he was hiding in a wardrobe or in the loft — that was not unknown, even with a policeman in the house. But he’d gone — he’d let himself out of the front door by unlocking the Yale.
I asked if they had touched anything before ringing the police, and Mrs Turnbull said she’d ‘nobbut done a bit o’ dusting’ to tidy the place before my arrival!
‘You might have destroyed any fingerprints or other evidence,’ I tried to explain. ‘I’ll get our fingerprints people to come and check the house — leave the pantry window.’
‘He might get in again!’ she snapped.
‘They’ll be here later today,’ I said. ‘And then you can secure that window — and all the others. And they’ll want to examine the vase where you had the cash, and the front door — and anything else he might have touched.’
‘She allus cleans up afore we have visitors,’ said Mr Turnbull. ‘She’ll hoover again afore your fingerprint fellers get here . . .’
‘She’d better not!’ I shook my finger at the old lady. ‘Now, remember, Mrs Turnbull, don’t touch anything else, not until they’ve done their work. It is very important that we get every scrap of evidence they might have left behind.’
‘Then you’ll want this!’ she opened the door of the kitchen cabinet and showed me a small block of blue chalk. It was the type used by billiards and snooker-players to chalk the tips of their cues. ‘Now if I hadn’t hoovered before you came, I’d not have found that,’ she said in some sort of triumph.
‘Where was it?’ I asked.
‘Under t’sofa,’ she beamed. ‘Now it’s not mine and it’s not our Lawrie’s, and it wasn’t there when I hoovered up yesterday, and it wasn’t there when I hoovered up this morning before we went off to Ashfordly market. So he must have dropped it.’
Her logic was impeccable, so I pocketed the chalk. It could be relevant. The snag was it was one of millions of such cubes — it would prove very little even if we found the owner. But it was of value. Every clue left at the scene of a crime is of some value, however limited.
I took particulars of all the necessary details, said we would investigate the crime and reassured them that our fingerprint experts would arrive later in the day. And then, as I walked back to the police station, I realised that Mrs Turnbull had said something highly significant.
After completing my crime report, I went to the files I’d been using the day before. Market day! Market day in Ashfordly was a Friday — and its recent housebreakings had been committed on Fridays; market day in Brantsford was a Wednesday, and its breakings were on Wednesdays. That pattern did not fit Eltering or Malton — but Eltering’s market day was Monday, and a lot of its breakings had been on Mondays, while many of Malton’s had been Saturdays — its market day. And then I realised that Eltering’s and Malton’s other breakings had been committed during market days at Ashfordly and Brantsford.
So either the villains were stopping off at Eltering and Malton on their way home to commit further crimes or they had found a way of knowing when folks were out of their homes, attending those other markets . . .
I was excited about this and was making notes when Gerry Connolly came in.
‘Well, Nick, how did it go?’
I explained what had happened at the Turnbulls’ home and before I could tell him about the cue chalk, he asked a few pertinent questions, then he said, ‘Well, while you were out, there was a development. A minor one, but it could be important. I’ve been talking to D/S Miller at Scarborough; they’ve got a pair of suspects for us, names of two local lads who’ve been selling stuff to second-hand dealers and junk shops in Scarborough. They’ve a van which they rig up to look like a window-cleaner’s vehicle with a ladder on top, and they’ve been spending freely lately — but not cleaning many windows. Miller says they spend their days in the snooker hall. I thought we might give them an unannounced call.’
‘Then this will interest you,’ I said, picking up the chalk which I had now placed in an envelope, labelled with the crime report number.
‘Bloody hell!’ he beamed. ‘It’s amazing how things come together . . . right, tomorrow then? You and I will go to Scarborough.’
‘It’s a Saturday,’ I said. ‘They might come out to Malton to do a job.’
‘Then I’ll give Malton police their vehicle number and we can keep our eyes open for them. But we’ll do that snooker hall anyway, in the evening.’
And so we did. There was no reported housebreaking in Malton that Saturday, and we arrived at the snooker hall at six o’clock.
Gerry booked a table and we had a game of snooker; he thrashed me soundly and I said, ‘You’ve played this game before!’
‘Once or twice,’ he smiled. ‘Ah, these are our men,’ and two men in their early twenties came to one of the tables. Before they began to play, Connolly went across.
‘Got a bit of chalk I can borrow, lads?’ he asked, holding his cue.
‘Sure, mate,’ and one of them pulled a piece from his pocket. It bore the same blue paper covering as the one I’d recovered at the Turnbulls’.
‘You are Terry Leedham and Graham Scott,’ he smiled charmingly at them.
‘So what if we
are?’ responded Leedham.
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Connolly from Eltering, and this is D/PC Rhea. We’re investigating a series of housebreakings in the area and think you lads might help us with our enquiries. In fact, we’ve brought some of your chalk back — you left it in one of the houses you raided.’
And he produced my bit of chalk, still in its envelope marked officially with the crime reference. It was clear from the expressions on their faces that they were the guilty parties, but every police officer knows that knowledge of guilt is not proof of guilt. I could see that they wondered how much we really knew. In fact, we knew nothing that would prove a case against them — we had no fingerprints, nothing.
It was just supposition and so we needed a cough, as the CID term an admission.
‘We know you’re the culprits,’ said Connolly, ‘and we can prove it . . .’
They looked at each other in amazement at this sudden confrontation, then Scott said, ‘You’ll get nowt from us, mate. No coughs, no admissions, you’ll have to prove your case all the way, every inch . . .’
‘You are sporting lads,’ he smiled again. ‘You like a game of snooker?’
‘Yeh, course we do. We practically live ’ere.’
‘I’ll take the pair of you on,’ offered Connolly. ‘Me against the two of you. If I win, you admit those crimes, you give us a cough to save us proving the case, If you win, you don’t need to give us a cough — but we’ll go off and prove you’ve done those jobs — and mebbe lots more.’
‘Gerraway, that’s stupid!’ laughed Scott.
‘No,’ said Leedham. ‘We can beat a cop any day, Graham; that’ll get him off our backs.’
I could see that Leedham was anxious to take on this challenge, and then, as I glanced around the walls of the hall, I knew why. He was a club champion, a winner of several trophies. I tried to warn Connolly but was too late because he said, ‘Right. It’s on, is it?’
‘Best of three frames?’ chuckled Leedham. ‘Tell you what, this is the easiest interrogation I’ve ever had . . .’
Scott was not so willing, but he could not let his partner down and so the game was on, with Gerry Connolly playing each in turn, their scores counting as one man’s. I acted as marker. It is not necessary to go into the details of that game, except to say that Gerry Connolly trounced them. He won the first two games and insisted they play the third — which he also won.
‘Right, lads, time to cough those jobs, eh?’ he said.
And to my surprise, Leedham agreed. He sat down with Connolly and admitted a string of housebreakings, with Connolly showing him a list of outstanding ones in Malton, Eltering, Ashfordly and Brantsford. Scott joined in too — he had no alternative. It was a most surprising gesture by these two criminals.
‘What made you make that weird offer?’ I put to Connolly in the car after the pair had been bailed at Scarborough Police Station.
‘I was relying on a bit of gen I got from the local lads,’ he said. ‘They said Leedham was a superb snooker-player, a real talent, but he couldn’t afford to go professional. He wasn’t in work, so he couldn’t pay his way in most amateur games. He took to crime to help him continue playing — and they say he’s the most honest of sportsmen, he’ll never cheat in a game. A curious mixture — so I issued that challenge.’
‘You could have lost,’ I said.
‘I could,’ he smiled, ‘But I didn’t.’
I was to learn soon afterwards that Gerry Connolly had been the National Police Snooker Champion for five successive years and runner-up on no fewer than three other occasions. He’d also won many contests outside the police service.
(.Author’s note: Some seventeen years after this incident, I found myself breakfasting at a police training centre with the then Director of Public Prosecutions. I told him of this strange case and asked him whether, in his opinion, such a confession would be admissible in court had it been challenged by the defence. He expressed an opinion that it would be admissible because it had been freely given without any duress.)
If the actions of Terry Leedham were surprising, those of a lady, the victim of a housebreaking, were touching. She rang the police station to report the theft, for someone had sneaked into her home during the morning and had stolen several items. I was sent to investigate.
‘Well, Mrs Harland,’ I said as she showed me into her parlour, ‘what can you tell me?’
‘Ah nobbut popped out for a minute.’ She was a lady in her sixties, the widow of a retired farmer. ‘Round to t’corner shop for some flour and lard. Ah mean, Mr Rhea, up on t’moors, there’s neea need ti lock doors or owt, is there, and folks nivver come pinching.’
‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘But this is a town, you know, and you should lock your doors, even if you’re out only for a moment or two. Now, what’s been taken?’
‘My housekeeping. I keep it in yon box on t’mantelshelf. Nobbut £8 and a few coppers. A pair o’ brass candlesticks from t’piano top, a silver mug that my dad left me when he died, and three black cats, ebony they are. Now, they’re t’worst loss, Mr Rhea, a family heirloom, they are, very old. They were my grandmother’s; she worked for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, as a cook, and the Queen gave her those cats. They’ve come right down through t’family, daughter by daughter. Not worth a lot, mind, but, well, I’m right saddened about them being taken.’
She gave me a cup of tea and a scone as I took descriptions of all the missing objects, and I assured her that details would be circulated among the local second-hand and antique dealers. The value of the missing items was low, and I could not understand why anyone had stolen them — it seemed to be the work of an opportunist thief who had taken the cash and anything else that might make a few shillings.
The three cats seemed to be the most interesting — they were each carved from ebony and, according to Mrs Harland, they had green eyes ‘that shone a bit’ and ‘claws made oot o’ gold-coloured stuff, and each wore a leather collar studded ‘wi’ bits o’ red glass’.
Each was in a sitting position, one being six inches or so in height, one about four inches and a kitten about two and a half inches high. They were linked together with a gold-coloured chain which was threaded through their collars. Without seeing these objects, I had to rely on her description of them, but I did wonder if, in fact, those ‘green eyes that shone a bit’, the ‘bits o’ gold-coloured stuff on their claws and the ‘red glass’ on their collars were genuine gold and real jewels. Mrs Harland could not put a financial value on the cats and so, for the record, I recorded them as being worth £10 for the set. In our reports, we had to show the financial value of stolen goods.
Sergeant Connolly said I should tour the second-hand shops in town and other places that might sell the stolen goods, and so I did. But no one had been offered them. After those initial enquiries, there was little more that could be done, for new crimes were being recorded and investigated and the theft from Mrs Harland looked like being just another undetected crime.
It would be a month later when I received a second call from Mrs Harland.
‘Mr Rhea!’ she shouted into the telephone in the manner of one unaccustomed to using such new-fangled inventions. ‘Them cats o’ mine, Ah’ve come across ’em.’
For the briefest of moments, I could not recall the cats about which she spoke, and then, just in time, I remembered.
‘Have you?’ I said. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘In a house window ledge, up Curnow Street, No. 3. Ah’ve made a note o’ t’number.’
‘Can you be sure they’re yours?’ I would have to exercise enormous discretion if I was virtually to accuse a householder of stealing them; they could be identical, or very similar, copies.
‘Aye,’ she sounded hurt. ‘’Course Ah can; yan on ’em has a claw missing, middle cat, left back leg.’
‘I’ll go and ask about them,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll come back and let you know how I go on.’
‘So long as I get my cats back
, that’s all Ah want,’ and she slammed down the telephone.
I told Sergeant Connolly, and he felt she could be mistaken, but I remembered the incident of my own stolen coat. I knew my own coat, just as Mrs Harland most surely know her own cats, cats that were part of her family history. Connolly listened to my arguments on her behalf and said, ‘Fine, right. Go and sort it out, Nick. But for God’s sake be careful. We don’t want folks complaining that we’re accusing them of housebreaking and theft.’
I knew the dangers, and it was with some trepidation, therefore, that I walked to Curnow Street to sort out this dilemma.
Curnow Street comprised semi-detached and detached houses with large-paned windows overlooking tiny gardens which abutted the street. No.3 was a pleasant, brick-built semi with pretty curtains at its window. As I approached, I saw no cats sitting there. I wondered how I would tackle the delicate accusation I was duty bound to make. But my immediate worries were solved. As I was about to walk up the short path to the front door, someone opened it. A young woman in her early thirties, with a pretty face atop a rather heavily built body, was trying to manoeuvre from the house a wheelchair containing a large child. The child was a girl of about twelve with long, dark brown hair and sad eyes, and a rug covered her lower regions and legs. The plump young woman was battling to lower the chair down two steps and, at the same time, keep the heavy door from slamming shut. I went to help her.
‘Thanks.’ She clearly welcomed the extra pair of hands, and I coaxed the heavy chair down the steps and onto the path. And then I saw the three cats; they were laid on the lap of the girl, on top of the all-embracing blanket. I had to make use of this Heaven-sent opportunity, so I picked up the cats and tried to make contact with the girl. But she was a spastic, I felt, and communication was not easy.
‘They’re nice,’ I said, half to the girl and half to the woman, whom I assumed was her mother.
‘They’re Eve’s,’ I was told. ‘She loves cats and we had a big black one, but she got knocked down by a bus a couple of weeks ago. She had kittens once, a year or two ago, but they died. Eve was heart-broken.’
CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 6-10 five feel-good village cozy mysteries Page 63