Family Ties (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 1)

by Nicholas Rhea

  ‘A jealous rival?’

  ‘You could be right!’ said Pemberton.

  ‘So, while we’re out of the office and hot on the trail of a mystery, let’s try the local newspaper. If he was killed locally, or even away from the district, the paper covering his home area would surely have carried the story.’

  Again using his car telephone, he called the editor of the Rainesbury Gazette and asked if it was convenient to call within the next hour. The editor, Len Storr, knew Pemberton from previous investigations and readily agreed. By eleven forty-five, Mark and Lorraine were sitting in his office.

  Mark explained his mission without any reference to links with the Vice-President and asked if copies of September 1916 editions were still available. They were; they were in the company’s own library and comprised the actual papers, not microfiche copies. Mark and Lorraine were taken down to the musty basement where rows and rows of old newspapers were suspended in the gloom like drying sheets.

  ‘Help yourselves,’ offered Storr, a youthful man with a casual air. ‘And might there be a story for me in all this?’

  ‘I think there will be, Len, but not just yet,’ Mark told him. ‘I’ll let you know, or you could ring me in, say, a month’s time? Just to remind me.’

  ‘Okay, the files are all yours,’ and he left them to their work.

  ‘Can you start at the end of the year and work backwards, and I’ll start before the date of the murder and work forwards,’ Mark told Lorraine. ‘If we don’t find anything, we’ll meet in the middle!’

  ‘Sure, but what am I looking for?’ she asked.

  ‘Any reference to Hartley’s murder no matter how small. It should be headline stuff, at least in the early days of the enquiry. At that time, murder stories contained far more detail than the press are allowed to publish these days. So there should be quite a spread with a lot of useful background for us. They used to publish all the evidence before the committal hearing and trial — no wonder juries made up their minds even before listening to the case in court!’

  Lorraine was first to find a reference. It was a paragraph in the 22nd December issue which said the police were no further forward in their investigation of the death of Private James Hartley of Pike Hill Farm, Wolversdale. There had been no arrest. There was a brief summary of the crime and a photograph of James Hartley, albeit not in army uniform. Well-groomed and dark-haired with a parting down the middle, he sported a fashionable bushy moustache, a short tweed jacket, knee breeches and leather leggings, and had a sheep-dog at his side. He looked like a gentleman farmer.

  ‘OK, so we know it’s true; we know it was our James Hartley who was murdered. You push forward, Lorraine, keep looking to see if the story is elaborated; see if anyone was interviewed or whether any suspect was named. They used to do that, you know, in those days — the coroner could even name a suspect. Think of being publicly branded as a murder suspect by a coroner! Even if the case was never proved in court, the suspect had to live with that accusation.’

  ‘I’m pleased the law has changed!’

  ‘Right, well, keep looking, get as much detail as possible — I’ll keep looking for the original story. It’s got to be here somewhere.’

  Mark found his story without any real difficulty because it tilled the front page of the issue dated Friday 15th September 1916. It was a weekly paper, published every Friday, and he read this edition carefully. The report told how, on the previous Monday, 11th September 1916, the body of Private James Reuben Hartley had been found on common land in the village of Rosenthorpe. He had been shot through the head. The report went on to say that James Hartley had not volunteered for military service but had been conscripted in 1916 to serve in the North Riding of Yorkshire’s own regiment, the Green Howards. He was one of two men from Wolversdale who had been conscripted at that time, the other being Eric Hall; Hall was an apprentice farrier aged nineteen. Both had undergone six weeks’ basic training with the 5th Battalion near Richmond in Yorkshire and upon completion of that training, both had been drafted to France. Their ship was not due to sail from Folkestone to Boulogne until 13th September and so James had been sent home for one night, ie the night of the 11th, pending that departure. Eric Hall had gone direct to the port. James had been due to rejoin his colleagues on the night of Tuesday, 12th September at Folkestone.

  To avail himself of the short leave, he had travelled home from Richmond in uniform and his journey had been by train. His brother, Luke, a veteran of the Boer War, had arranged to meet him at Rosenthorpe station with a pony and trap but had been delayed because his horse had shed a shoe. When Luke had arrived at the station, the train had come and gone, but there was no sign of James. The report went on to say that the station master, Maurice Proctor, had confirmed that James Hartley had left the train in uniform; being a local man, the station master knew most of the travellers. James had been carrying a kitbag, a back-pack and a rifle, and he had spoken to Mr Proctor, asking if Luke had arrived. Proctor had said he’d not seen Luke or the pony and trap, and so James had intimated that he would start to walk home. He expressed the hope that he would meet Luke somewhere en route.

  When Luke arrived at the station sometime after James’s departure, Proctor had told him all this, but Luke was adamant he had not seen James anywhere along the road. Luke had some shopping to do in the village and he had spent about an hour in Rosenthorpe, waiting near the station in case James turned up. Luke said his brother might have visited someone in the village, but after an hour or so, when James had not appeared, Luke had driven home to Wolversdale, a distance of about five miles.

  Upon his return to Pike Hill Farm, Luke had been alone with the pony and trap, and had vowed there was no sign of James along the way. James had not arrived home ahead of him either. In short, James Hartley had not been seen or heard of since alighting from the train.

  That same evening, James’s body had been found by a gamekeeper who was setting his snares. His kitbag and his regulation issue rifle were at his side and there was a very prominent bullet wound to the head. The newspaper report did not say whether his own rifle had been the murder weapon.

  Detective Inspector Dawson and Detective Sergeant Ripley from Rainesbury police had been put in charge of the investigation. The report added that the coroner, Colonel Sidney Feltham, had conducted an immediate inquest which had delivered a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown, the cause of death being a bullet wound to the head. Pemberton was astonished at this — the inquest had been concluded without any evidence or statements from the police, other than the circumstances relating to the body at the scene. Certainly, no scientific evidence had been produced at the inquest. But that’s how things were done at that time — coroners were virtually a law unto themselves. The subsequent post-mortem examination did, however, confirm that death was due to a single bullet wound in the head.

  In reading the newspaper account, Mark realised that he must not rely entirely upon its coverage, although it did provide a good overall account of the crime. What he really needed was to find the original police file, if it still existed.

  There followed a brief account of James’s funeral at St Monica’s in Wolversdale, with a photograph of the cortege leaving Pike Hill Farm. A horse-drawn hearse had been used; it was led by two strikingly handsome black stallions. The church had been packed for the Requiem Mass.

  The Green Howards had been represented by a Major Brownlee and, from the report, it seemed as if the entire population of the dale had turned out to say farewell to James Hartley. Apparently, he had been a very popular man during his short life, although there was no reference to a regular girlfriend or a fiancée.

  The Rainesbury Gazette carried the story of the murder hunt for several Fridays and when Mark asked Lorraine how she was progressing, she said she had found references well into November and December. Not one of them mentioned an arrest, however. It seemed that the murder of James Reuben Hartley had never been solved; and it suddenly dawned on
Pemberton that he now had an unsolved murder on his hands.

  ‘I reckon we might be using HOLMES and our Incident Room after all,’ he smiled. ‘So instead of trying to find out who killed Muriel Brown, we can find out who killed James Hartley.’

  ‘Do you think we should?’ Lorraine sounded cautious.

  ‘I think it would be very fitting if we could discover the background to this murder, especially if an American relation is trying to find his roots among the same family!’

  ‘There’s no point in resurrecting such an old crime, surely?’ Lorraine’s pretty brow furrowed in thought. ‘I mean, sir, er, Mark, what’s the point? Whoever did it will be dead now.’

  ‘Will they? Suppose it was a lad of sixteen who shot him. He’d be ninety-four now. He could be alive… Justice could still be done.’

  ‘You’re not going to reopen enquiries into this, surely?’ she cried.

  ‘Of course I am, it’s my duty. Unsolved murder files are never closed.’

  ‘But not after all this time. You’d really upset the Vice-President by raking up all this dirt.’

  ‘There’s no proof that this Hartley is related to the Vice-President,’ he reminded her. ‘But if they are related, think of the prestige if we, the British police, discover who killed our VIP’s distant cousin all those years ago. So, young Lorraine, I am going to delve into this one! It’ll give me something to think about in what is otherwise going to be a very boring period of work. And, in the preliminary stages at least, the Vice-President needn’t know what we’re doing, need he? At this early stage it’s nowt to do with him or his minders.’

  ‘But suppose the two men are linked, the Vice-President and the victim. The press would have a field day with that story.’

  ‘There’s no need to tell anyone at this stage,’ Pemberton stressed. ‘But I’ll rethink the position if and when the Vice-President proves his links with the Yorkshire Hartleys.’

  They took photocopies of all the newspaper reports and thanked Len Storr for his swift response to their request, Mark reiterating that there might be a story for the paper once he’d gathered all the facts. Then it was lunchtime. Mark found a charming harbourside pub where he treated Lorraine to a substantial if late bar snack.

  ‘I intended going to the Big Bad Wolf in Wolversdale,’ he said, ‘but the food’s good here. Then it’ll be a case of back to work…’

  ‘Sir, er…Mark, this isn’t a current enquiry, you know. There’s nothing urgent about it, you shouldn’t be working flat out like this. Do as the Chief said. Relax a little.’

  ‘I don’t believe in missing opportunities or wasting precious time, Lorraine, and I want to get this one cleared up before the Vice-President arrives on Monday. We haven’t much time, which means my next step is to find the old police records. If they’re anywhere, they’ll be here in Rainesbury.’

  ‘What? From 1916?’

  ‘The old generation of policemen never threw anything out, Lorraine. Everything was kept, just in case! It didn’t matter whether it was a broken poker from the charge office hearth, an obsolete telephone handset or a file of lost purses dating from the Boer War, it was always kept — just in case. Police station lofts were always full of brown paper parcels containing old files and crime circulars; you could climb into the loft and scramble over old chairs, piles of ancient ledgers containing visits to public houses, examination of dog licences and visits to unoccupied premises from the last century. There were court files too, and the results of criminal enquiries together with the names of suspects and details of families’ villainous behaviour. They were all neatly tied with string and labelled with their contents. An archivist would have a field day in the loft of any police station. Just think what secrets they must contain!’

  ‘Surely, the police would want rid of old records — why don’t they give them to somebody like the county archivist?’

  ‘They’d never let anything leave the station, Lorraine, they wouldn’t trust the archivist. Besides, the honest descendants of our best customers are still alive and kicking, and some are holding down very respectable jobs or positions in local society! We can’t let the public into all our secrets or let them be privy to our knowledge of criminals who are never caught.’

  ‘I’ll bet we could cause a few worries among the population if we did reveal those secrets,’ she laughed.

  ‘We could! The old policemen knew that — they liked to keep certain information on file, you never knew when it might be required, or be useful! I mean, dammit, it’s important to know that the Red Lion Inn was visited by Sergeant Bloggs at 10.30pm. on Saturday, 7th May 1921 and that all was in order!’

  ‘You’re being facetious, Mark!’

  ‘I’m being truthful, Lorraine!’

  ‘So you reckon Rainesbury police will still have the file on Hartley’s murder?’

  ‘If the crime was never solved, the file would have been kept — just in case! And, as it happens, whoever made that decision was right. That file is now required, even if almost eighty years have gone by.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’d keep it all this time!’

  ‘Want to bet on it? I say it’s there, somewhere. If it’s not, I’ll buy you dinner tonight. And if it is there, you buy dinner!’

  ‘You’re on,’ she smiled.

  They drove to the police station at Rainesbury. It was a large modern building with lots of glass and external woodwork. Perched on a hilltop site close to the hospital, it overlooked the harbour and commanded fine views of the town beneath.

  Access was via a steeply rising one-way street; half-way up that hill was a car parking area.

  ‘That’s where the old police station used to be,’ he pointed to the car-park. ‘It was a veritable Victorian pile built of red bricks and it was like a rabbit warren inside. It had been used since the creation of the force in 1856, but the new one was built just over twenty years ago. So they knocked the old one down and made it into a car-park!’

  ‘And you say that old police station would be full of brown paper parcels all containing ancient files and papers?’

  ‘Exactly, and when everyone moved into their posh new premises, they took all the old stuff with them, dust and all.’

  ‘I would have thought they’d have taken the opportunity to throw most of it out.’

  ‘You don’t know how the minds of old-fashioned policemen worked! The Superintendent at the time said that everything must be taken to the new station, with the idea that, one day, someone would be instructed to go through the old papers and cast aside all the unwanted items. But who had the guts to make such far-reaching decisions? Who dared make the decision that a book of 1908 sheep dip records was no longer needed? Even when headquarters said that all routine files more than ten years old could be destroyed, few of these old characters would do that. They just could not bring themselves to part with old books and files; hanging on to old records was bred into them. So they stuffed everything in the loft.’

  ‘And you believe all that rubbish is still there?’

  ‘I’m gambling that no clear-out was ever done. And once the rubbish got into the loft, there it would stay until somebody remembered it was there. Like me.’

  ‘How do you know it all went to the new station?’

  ‘I was there,’ he grinned. ‘I was a police cadet at the time. I lugged tons of brown paper parcels down from the old loft. Some of the younger lads tried to get rid of a lot of the stuff, but the old-stagers wouldn’t allow it. It’s all in the loft of the new building, Lorraine. And I’m gambling that the Hartley file is among it. Somewhere.’

  ‘Why here? Why not another station? Rosenthorpe is quite a long way from here.’

  ‘Rosenthorpe, the scene of the murder, was in the old Rainesbury division. Boundaries have changed now, of course, and new police forces have replaced the old, but Rainesbury’s own divisional boundaries haven’t altered a great deal. The files would have been stored in that old police station, the one that’s now a car-p
ark, and then brought here.’

  By this time, Mark was turning into the car-park at the police station. He got out and Lorraine followed him to the reception desk.

  ‘Hello, sir.’ PC Mason, the constable on the desk, recognised them. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘Is the Chief Super in?’

  ‘Yes, he’s just back from lunch, sir. Shall I buzz him?’

  ‘Please.’

  PC Mason pressed the intercom and said, ‘Detective Superintendent Pemberton and DC Cashmore to see you, sir.’

  ‘Send them in,’ was the reply.

  Chief Superintendent George Ramsden was the tough but efficient commander of the Rainesbury Division and would want to know what Mark was doing here. Mark, however, was simply obeying a force courtesy — when you went into another man’s patch to conduct an enquiry, you let him know of your presence — but not necessarily the whole purpose of the visit. Mark decided not to reveal anything, not at this stage. He would state just enough to gain Ramsden’s co-operation.

  ‘Well, what brings you here, Mark? And Miss Cashmore.’ Ramsden pointed to two chairs.

  Mark explained about Vice-President Hartley’s forthcoming private visit and how he was responsible for aspects of security; he then led to the murder of James Hartley and said he wanted to examine the file, if it was available. He said he was sure it was in the loft.

  ‘I can’t see why a 1916 murder relates to the security of a modern VIP, but you CID fellows work in mysterious ways. Sure, have a look around, Mark. You know where to look?’

  And so Mark and Lorraine found themselves in the roomy attic of Rainesbury police station. Dry and airy, it was fitted with electric lighting and there was easy access via a collapsible ladder.

  Arranged in tidily positioned heaps upon the floor were scores of brown paper parcels all tied with string and adorned with tie-on labels which identified their contents. There were others in racks around the edge of the floor space. The place seemed to be full of them.