As I helped Sally into the ambulance, she whispered to me, ‘Did you find Oliver?’
‘Oliver?’ I was horrified. ‘No, was he in the car?’
‘No,’ she said weakly. ‘In the caravan.’
My heart sank. ‘How old is he?’
‘Four,’ she said. ‘It was his birthday last week. He always travels in the caravan …’ and she drifted into unconsciousness.
As the ambulance surged away to York Hospital with its casualties, I rushed back to the debris and started my search. Oliver must have been in one of the bunks. He could be trapped anywhere.
Aided by the fire brigade who had come to cut free the Plumptons, we sifted through the wreckage but found no sign of the child. I knew that in some freak accidents children can be flung far from the wreckage, and so we arranged a full-scale search of all the shrubbery, with a more stringent examination of the wrecked car. But there was no sign of Oliver. It took us hours to examine every likely place, but the result was nil.
I radioed my office at Eltering. I explained our problem to PC John Rogers and asked if he would ring the hospital. I wanted a doctor to speak to Mrs Plumpton as soon as she regained consciousness, in an attempt to establish just where Oliver would have been lying or sitting or, indeed, whether she was mistaken. Maybe she had not brought him on this holiday? Maybe the stress of the accident had caused her to believe he was there when in fact he was with relatives? Maybe the husband could throw some light on the matter? I told John that I would remain at the scene, continuing the search, until I heard from them. I would carry out a further search of the wreckage and surrounding vegetation, even to the extent of checking every inch of the route down the bank. Maybe Oliver had been been thrown out during that nightmare descent?
With that thought dominating my mind and aided by the dedicated firemen, I climbed the hill and meticulously checked the verges and hedges, hoping against hope that I would find the boy. I did not.
Dejected, we returned to the wreckage. As I wandered among it, I noticed a movement in a man’s shoe which was lying among the miasma. I stooped and found a goldfish; it was still alive. It was flicking its tail and gasping as I lifted the shoe to show the nearest fireman.
‘I’ve some water on board!’ he laughed. ‘Here, there’s a plastic bucket over there!’
And so we filled the bucket with water from the fire tender and plonked in the fish. With a flick of its tail, it began to swim around as if nothing had happened.
‘I knew a goldfish that had been buried as dead,’ said the fireman. ‘Then hours later it poked its head out of the soil. It lived another three years …’
As we hunted yet again among the larger items, the radio called me. It was John Rogers.
‘We’ve had words with the hospital, Nick. A doctor has spoken to Mrs Plumpton.’
‘Yes?’ I wanted to get this matter settled.
‘Oliver was definitely in the caravan,’ he said. ‘We’ve checked and double-checked with her. She’d adamant about it. He is four, as she said, but …’ – and he burst into laughter.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘He’s not a child, Nick.’
‘Not the dog!’ I groaned.
‘No, he’s a goldfish. Apparently he leads an adventurous life. He always goes caravanning with them; he loves travelling. Last year he jumped out of his bowl and spent the night on the floor but survived. On another occasion he got tipped down the sink by mistake but was found alive. He’s a kind of James Bond among goldfish!’
I laughed quietly to myself, then said, ‘Then he’s done it again. This time I’ve found him alive and well and living in a shoe. Perhaps you’d inform Mrs Plumpton?’
‘You’re not serious, Nick?’
‘I am. He’s swimming in a plastic bucket of fire brigade water right now,’ I laughed. ‘He was found in a shoe, still alive. He’s a lucky soul,’ I added. John groaned at my awful pun. ‘How are the Plumptons?’ I asked.
‘They’ll survive,’ he said. ‘They’ve each got a few broken bones – arms and legs mainly – and lots of bruises, but they’ll recover. It’ll cheer them up to know that Oliver has survived, but John Plumpton says he’ll never drive again.’
‘Then some good’s come out of this,’ I thought, and added, ‘I’ll visit them soon. I’ll need a statement from each of them in due course. And I’ll take Oliver with me. He can visit them in hospital.’
‘He makes a nice twist to the story,’ he said, and at that awful pun I groaned as I turned away to begin the task of clearing up the mess.
I had further trouble with another animal which survived a traffic accident. In this case, a small and very decrepit van was travelling down the main street of Crampton when its steering failed. Fortunately it was not moving very rapidly at the time, a feat it was truly incapable of performing in safety, and so the resultant damage should have been negligible. It wove along the highway as its driver did his best to stop, but the brakes weren’t very good either. In those few moments, it wobbled onto the footpath, glanced off a telegraph pole, mounted a low wall and overturned.
By that stage, it had arrived in the gravel driveway of a rather nice house and thus lay on its side while the driver scrambled from the passenger seat. To escape from his small van, he had to climb upwards and then leap from the chassis onto the drive. Other than its almost totally blocking the drive, there was no harm to the house or the garden – yet.
Unfortunately the rear of the van contained a very bad-tempered billy goat, and as the vehicle had overturned, so the rear doors had burst open. The goat had therefore taken the opportunity of leaving its transport, and as the driver walked shakily to the rear of the van to check things, so the goat had strolled towards the front, out of sight of the driver, the bulk of the stricken van separating them. And so, as the driver, whose name was Tony Harris, found himself standing on the footpath outside the gate of the house and staring into his empty van, his goat found itself standing in the garden.
As the goat reached the front of the overturned van, the householder, a Mr Douglas Lynton-Cross, opened his front door to see what had arrived in his garden. The goat, we were to learn in due course, was like Awd Billy Barr’s ram – it had a propensity for charging through open doors. As there was no one else around against whom to direct its anger, the upset billy noticed Mr Lynton-Cross in the doorway and was thus presented with two objects of interest – and promptly lowered it head, aimed its horns and charged.
Mr Lynton-Cross, an aged man who found sudden agility, bolted into the house but, in his anxiety to reach safety, left the door partly open. The heavy and hairy goat hurtled indoors in hot pursuit and found itself in the front hall of this splendid house. At this early stage, Tony Harris had no idea where his animal had gone. As he hurried off down the High street to (a) summon help and (b) find his goat, the animal in question was exploring the ground floor of Mr Lynton-Cross’s home, while its worried occupant watched from the comparative safety of the landing above. The goat wandered into the front lounge, which was where Mr Lynton-Cross kept his collection of lead soldiers. They were arrayed in their colourful uniforms in regimental order and occupied several glass display cases around the walls and indeed in the centre of the spacious room.
It seems that the goat saw another goat there; this was because some of Mr Lynton-Cross’s cabinets had mirrors at the back. The purpose of the mirrors was to provide more light for the displays and to create an aura of spaciousness. But billy goats are not au fait with such sophisticated display techniques. The visiting beast saw its adversary and charged it. The first charge smashed that display cabinet into small pieces, bringing down the shelves and scattering soldiers across the floor as the goat sought its foe. Here and there in that room, it spotted its likeness, sometimes here, sometimes there, but always peering at it from behind show cases. It charged again and again in its attempts to defeat the threatening enemy. The devastation, accompanied by the sound of much breaking glass, must have be
en heart-breaking for Mr Lynton-Cross.
When the angry animal had chased the intruder from that room, it decided to seek elsewhere. It knew there was a goat in the house and hadn’t yet dealt with it.
It was at that moment that Mrs Lynton-Cross, upon hearing the awful din at the front of the house, emerged from the kitchen to see what was happening. The goat was thus presented with another open door. It charged at Mrs Lynton-Cross, who bolted out into the garden, slamming the kitchen door behind her to avoid the goat’s horns. The goat enjoyed a spell of charging at the washing machine, the cupboard doors and the waste bin before re-emerging to seek its fellow trespasser, then it went into the dining-room. It had an enjoyable time charging the sideboard and the drinks cabinet, which revealed yet another goat, and in its eagerness to deal with it shattered precious glasses and bottles of malt whisky before seeing another open door.
This open door was actually the one by which it had entered the house, and so it bolted out and found itself standing in the garden. It rushed onto the lawn just as Tony Harris was returning through the gate. It saw Tony and promptly charged at him. I was later to receive reports of him galloping along the street with the goat in hot pursuit. I think he led the animal back into his own smallholding, but I was then called in. I examined the van, which was still on its side in the driveway of Mr Lynton-Cross’s home, and said,
‘I’m sorry, Mr Lynton-Cross, but this is not a matter for the police.’
‘Why not, for heaven’s sake?’ he boomed. ‘That animal has caused untold damage!’
‘The van has overturned on private premises,’ I said. ‘No other vehicle is involved; it’s not on the public road, and so it’s not my responsibility.’
‘But this damage? To my house, to my collection …’
‘You’ll have to sort that out with Mr Harris’ insurance company,’ I said. ‘If he’s comprehensively insured, they will settle matters with you.’
I did establish that Tony had contacted a garage to recover his van, but the case of the bolting goat was not for me, curious and interesting though it was.
I saw Mr Douglas Lynton-Cross several weeks later and asked if he’d obtained compensation for the damage.
‘Yes, I did. My collection was not harmed, fortunately, and the insurance company did replace all my damaged furnishings and show cases. It’s odd, when Harris came to see me and apologize, he noticed my collection and brought me some of his grandfather’s lead soldiers, a sort of apology gift. They were rare ones. I’m pleased to have them, so some good has come of this incident. You know, Mr Rhea, just before that goat incident I was thinking of getting a goat. Someone I spoke to said they brought good luck.’
‘It wasn’t Tony Harris, was it?’ I laughed.
10 ‘Hello, Young Lovers (Whoever You Are)’
So for the mother’s sake, the child was dear.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
Surely every family wishes to see its children succeed in life. That success might be in the arts, the sciences, a trade or profession of some kind, a business career or some other vocation or calling. Added to these hopes is romance, for most caring parents also desire their offspring to be happy for ever in love and marriage.
This earnest aim can cause over-keen parents to impose their own ideals upon their children, and the police officer is often in a position to see the ill-effects of this. Fights between a daughter and parents over the former’s choice of a boy-friend are common-place, but so are disputes over the son’s attempts to woo the girl of his dreams when that girl does not win the approval of his parents.
Wise police officers avoid such conflicts. They regard these traumas as purely domestic and personal and, unless there is some suggestion of law-breaking, they do their utmost to keep a great distance between themselves and the affairs of other people’s hearts.
But this is not always possible. Lovesick teenage girls do run away to places like Blackpool or London in search of romance or to get away from unsympathetic parents. In the mid 1960s, moral standards were higher than today, and if these girls were under seventeen, the police would attempt to trace them. The care and protection of juveniles were within our range of duty, and there were two classes of juvenile – anyone under seventeen was called a ‘young person’, while anyone under fourteen was a ‘child’ in legal terms. A whole range of offences and crimes could be committed against unprotected juveniles, and the younger they were, the greater the official concern if they ran away from home.
High on the list of our worries were offences against girls. If only because it is an offence for a man to have sexual intercourse with a girl under sixteen, we always sought girls below that age who ran off with ‘males’, as we termed them (men, youths or boys in ordinary language). If the girl was under thirteen, the penalty for unlawful sex with her was life imprisonment, an indication of society’s great concern.
There were several other possible crimes, such as rape, incest, indecent assault, procuring girls for prostitution, abducting them for sex or for their ‘estates’, as well as cruelty, abandonment, vagrancy and even kidnapping. There were hundreds of evils which might befall a young girl who was tempted away from her home, and so we treated these cases with urgency and compassion.
With this in mind, my head became full of thoughts of horror when I received a telephone call from a Mrs Lavinia Underwood of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
It was late August, when the moors were quilted with their annual covering of deep purple heather. It was a glorious sight, the rich, aristocratic colouring being enhanced by the greens of the mosses, the blues of the sky and, from time to time, some memorable sunsets.
‘Is that the policeman at Aidensfield?’ Her voice sounded faint and distant on the line, and I detected a strong Tyneside accent.
‘Yes,’ I shouted back. ‘I’m PC Rhea. How can I help?’
‘It’s my son,’ she said. ‘He’s been lured away by a young woman.’
‘We don’t normally get involved in domestic matters.’ I interrupted her, wanting to stop her before the story became too involved.
‘I know, but I’m so worried. She is not the right sort for him, you see. She’s a wrong ’un, Constable. I just wondered if you might trace him and warn him, from me. Find him and tell him to come home, immediately, without her. I don’t want him tainted with that hussy.’
‘How old is he?’ I shouted, for the line was awful. It kept fading and crackling.
‘Seventeen,’ she said, and upon hearing that troublesome age, I knew I had a problem.
‘And the girl?’ I called.
‘That hussy! She’s a good two years younger.’
Now it was a serious matter.
If a girl of fifteen, hussy or not, was missing from home, she had to be found before her experiences gave her adult sensations ahead of her time. I had to know more, and this would mean liaison between our force and Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Police. They might know of the girl’s background. I obtained the caller’s name and address, but she could not tell me who the girl was. Frank had never said who she was; he’d been very secretive about his romance.
Mrs Underwood described her son as fairly tall, of slim build, with light fair hair and glasses. He had a part-time job in a warehouse, checking the stock. He was wearing a green sports jacket, cavalry twill trousers and brown shoes when he left home, and he’d taken a suitcase of other clothes. He’d left home two days earlier, on the Saturday morning, about 10.30.
‘Why do you think he’s in this area with her?’ I asked.
‘He said he was going on a farmhouse holiday near Ashfordly,’ she shouted at me. ‘He’s taken my car, you see. We once stayed there, when he was younger, me and my husband and Frank. He liked the area, he loves the moors, he often goes back, especially when the heather’s blooming. And now it’s blooming, eh?’
‘It is indeed, Mrs Underwood, and it looks wonderful. Now, the car? Can I have a description? Its registration number would be a help.’
The truth was, of course, that my determination to find Frank was not for the reasons desired by Mrs Underwood. Her motives might be to save him from an awful marriage – mine were to rescue a very young damsel who might be in official distress. I knew that we had to find the couple to prevent crimes being committed against the girl, even though she might be happy to permit such law-breaking.
After replacing the phone and rubbing my ears to counteract the awful noises the defective line had produced, I rang Newcastle police and asked for the Juvenile Liaison Bureau. A W/PC Collier answered. She listened intently as I explained the situation.
I asked if she had (a) any knowledge of Frank Underwood and (b) any report of a 15-year-old girl’s being reported missing from home. She asked me to hang on while she checked her card index. After a few minutes, she said that there was no record of a Frank Underwood in their files – and their files contained the names of all juveniles from that area who might be causing concern, or who might be on the fringes of requiring care or protection, or who had been through the courts. But she would enter his name just in case it cropped up elsewhere.
She did say, however, that six girls were missing from their homes within the city police area, only one of whom was fifteen. She was Margaret Ellison, and W/PC Collier gave me an address in Jesmond, followed by a description of the child. I noted all this down and thanked her, but she did emphasize that Margaret Ellison had been missing for three months. Her parents had received postcards from London and Brighton, saying the girl was all right, but no address had been given. The most recent card had been received only three days earlier, but that still allowed time for Margaret to have met Frank in Ashfordly since Saturday last. It was now Monday.
Constable among the Heather Page 17