by Mike Ripley
‘Or toffs,’ said Rupert amiably, ‘but our beloved groundsman didn’t mention you as such. One of Andrew’s masters did.’
‘Could I ask in what context?’
Another of Mr Campion Senior’s maxims sprang into Campion Junior’s mind: that policemen are rarely, if ever, off-duty.
‘A pastoral context and done with the best will in the world. It seems your presence here in Denby Ash is not – shall we say – fully appreciated by the locals and their resentment may rub off on Andrew. I have no idea of the details, of course, and naturally I said I would keep an eye on him, though as far as I can make out he seems perfectly able of taking care of himself.’
‘Thank you for being so frank,’ said Ramsden, ‘and you are right, Andrew is a capable boy on and off the rugby field, but I would appreciate it if you would keep an eye on him.’
‘Of course I will,’ said Rupert, slowing his pace as they neared the pavilion building. ‘Your investigation here – it’s nothing dangerous, is it?’
‘Not at all, just routine checks really, but Andrew lost his mother two years ago.’ Ramsden’s voice collapsed into a whisper and he turned his head left and right to make sure he would not be overheard. ‘Cancer,’ he said, almost mouthing the word, making it an obscenity.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Rupert. ‘The boy must still be sensitive.’
‘Oh, yes, he’s sensitive all right, though like most teenage boys he won’t show it. That’s not what I’m worried about, though; it’s Andrew being close to Roderick Braithwaite. They’ve always been friends and they have a lot in common. Andrew lost his mum and Roderick lost his dad years ago, and he’s a credit is the lad.’
‘So where’s the problem?’ Rupert prompted gently.
‘It’s just things have gotten strange lately, what with all the talk about ghosts and spirits and exorcisms.’ The policeman’s voice tailed off in embarrassment.
‘Is that all to do with the Doctor Faustus production? If so, that’s my wife’s department. I’d be happy to have a word with her if it would put your mind at ease.’
Dennis Ramsden shook his head violently, sending a carousel of spray from the brim of his hat. ‘It’s nothing to do with the school play; it’s to do with the haunting of Ada Braithwaite’s house. Roderick’s obsessed with it and he’s got our Andrew fixed on it as well.’
‘A haunted house? Here in Denby Ash?’
‘Bertram Browne believed it, according to the boys, and Ada Braithwaite says he actually witnessed it the night he was killed.’
The word ‘killed’ instead of ‘died’ had an immediate sobering effect on Rupert.
‘I thought Bertram Browne was the victim of a road accident, a hit-and-run.’
‘He was, but it happened no more than half an hour after he experienced a poltergeist. Makes you think.’
‘It certainly does, I suppose, but I’m not quite sure why you are telling me this.’
‘Thought you’d be curious; thought curiosity ran in the family. Something like this should be right up your street if you’re a Campion. You are related to Albert Campion, aren’t you?’
‘I am, and you were right, Mr Ramsden,’ said Rupert thoughtfully, ‘there are no secrets in Denby Ash.’
EIGHT
Sit. Rep.
Dear Aged P’s, Rupert’s letter began, at which Mr Campion huffed ‘Cheek!’ before continuing to read.
Here, as promised (under duress) is our first Situation Report from the front line in the Frozen North. (Mother was right about the thermals, by the way.)
Ash Grange School, as opposed to Denby Ash the village or Grange Ash the colliery (yes, there is a lot of ash around here), is not the Dickensian nightmare you wanted it to be. The school is not nearly old enough for that, though many of the staff could be.
Perdita tells me not be cruel, so I will say that in the main they are not bad, just odd. Our hosts – bosses, I suppose – the Armitages are decent people, but I think I must be the only male member of staff of who doesn’t go by a commissioned rank. The physics master turns out to be an army chaplain and wears a dog collar, though he’s not the local vicar – that’s a sour old stick we met yesterday, and the music teacher’s wife is a staunch Methodist of one ilk or another, all of which means that nobody seems very keen on this ‘Faustus’ show that Perdita has been sweet-talked into taking on. They all seem to think that doing a play about conjuring up spirits and demons is the next best thing to actually conjuring them and they’re convinced Perdita will be messing about with books, bells, candles, pentacles and a sacrificial cockerel or two.
It does seem, however, that their fears are far from irrational as there is a well-authenticated case of supernatural possession – is that the right word? – not of a person, but of a house where a poltergeist has taken up residence. It’s a perfectly ordinary house, one of a row of twenty or more identical ones in a long terrace, built for miners’ families by the local mine owner before the Great War. Only the one house seems to have been invaded by the poltergeist and then only at certain times. Thursday evenings seem the most popular time for the spooky curtain to go up and, as far as we’ve heard, the Noisy Ghost (I think that’s the correct translation from the German, but you’d know) doesn’t go in for matinees.
This is all quite exciting because the haunted house is the home of a bright lad called Roderick Braithwaite who plays – you’ve guessed it – Dr Faustus in the production Perdita is struggling to put on. Roderick was also a particular favourite (I suppose I should say ‘star pupil’) of the late Bertram Browne, whom I have replaced on the rugby field, though not necessarily successfully. Not only that, but Bertram Browne apparently witnessed the poltergeist in action chez Braithwaite on the night he was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Spooky, to say the least.
Naturally, polite after-dinner conversation round here (and they really do call lunch ‘dinner’ and dinner ‘tea’ and I’m not being a snob, whatever Perdita thinks) turns to exorcism, or how to chuck out the pesky ghost. Despite being rather overstocked with churches, chapels and clerics of various hues, no one seems keen to volunteer. Our physics master, the Rev. Stanley Huxtable says it’s out of his jurisdiction whereas the local incumbent, whom we met at Holy Communion yesterday (all school staff are expected to attend and it’s fairly High so they call it ‘Mass’), is called Cuthbertson-Twigg and is said to run and hide at the very suggestion.
He is fairly ancient and a dry sort and has been here for ever, I think. I only mention him because one bit of staff-room gossip is that he was once cursed by the local witch!
Now I have your attention(!) I can reveal that Denby Ash has a witch in residence. She doesn’t live in a sugar candy house, which would make her popular with the boys here, but a beat-up caravan parked on a piece of common grazing ground known as Pinfold Lane. I have learned that ‘Pinfold’ is the old term for a village pound or animal enclosure, and the locals seem quite happy for her to be there. At any rate, no one has said anything about an angry mob carrying pitchforks and torches trying to drive her out.
Of course, we haven’t actually crossed broomsticks with this witch, who is called Ivy Neal, we’re told, as we have yet to venture out of school grounds and into the village proper. However, we will be mounting an expedition tonight so do think of us as we venture forth into enemy territory as Perdita takes me for a night out in the local working men’s club.
Actually, it’s business rather than pleasure as she has to meet the musicians who will perform in Faustus. They’re members of the Denby Ash Brass Band and all miners. The bandmaster is a cove called Arthur Exley, a big cheese in the miners’ union, whose nom de guerre is ‘Trotsky’, which might give you some idea of his political persuasions. Wish us luck!
One local character we have met has heard of you, though I can’t tell if he’s a paid-up member of the AC fan club or not as he’s a policeman, a DCI called Ramsden. He’s hanging around Denby Ash, where he’s clearly not appreciated, looking for a con-man re
cently released from Wakefield Gaol. I think he’s worried that this chap, who conned everyone in the village out of their hard-earned apparently, might be in line for some rough vigilante justice should he show his face round here. It seems a bit of a waste of police time if you ask me, as all the local papers and the local television news (a breezy little programme called Calendar) are going overboard on the crime wave sweeping the West Riding. It seems there’s a highly organized gang operating in the county, robbing mills and factories and department stores by stealing their safes, invariably when they contain the week’s wage packets. Not, you’ll note, stealing from their safes, but taking the entire metal box! Now you have to admit that takes cheek, as well as a fair amount of upper body strength. The press is calling it the biggest, most outrageous act of thievery since Robin Hood rode through these green woods – when there were green woods and not collieries round here.
Funnily enough, legend has it that Robin Hood is buried not that far away at a place called Kirklees. I’m not sure that’s true, so perhaps we should ask Lugg as he’s bound to be a descendant of one of Robin’s Merry Men.
Closing now to catch the post and to get ready for our meeting with militant brass bandsmen down ‘t’club’, as it’s known. If Perdita behaves herself and doesn’t spark the Revolution, then I’m treating her to a fish supper at Willy Elliff’s chip shop, which everyone says is absolutely top-notch and one of the main, if not the only, tourist attractions of Denby Ash.
More anon,
Yours, near Ilkley Moor without a titfer,
Rupert
‘Well, Rupert seems to be having a high old time,’ said Mr Campion, folding the letter back into its envelope and propping it against the marmalade dish. ‘Ghosts, ghoulies, vicars, thieves, policemen and militant trade unionists all on his doorstep.’
‘He doesn’t say how Perdita’s managing amidst all that chaos,’ said his wife from behind the pink pages of the Financial Times.
‘Perdita is perfectly capable of handling a battalion of spotty schoolboys and any amount of Bolshie brass bandsmen, and I’m sure her production of Faustus will bring the house down. It’s the current West Riding crime wave which interests me.’
‘Albert …’ Lady Amanda’s voice was gentle, but the warning it carried was strong enough and the pink screen of newspaper quivered in her grip.
‘I was only thinking …’
‘Please don’t think, darling. You know I worry so when you think.’
Mr Campion removed his tortoiseshell-framed spectacles and polished the lenses unnecessarily on his perfectly pressed, snow-white napkin.
‘It made all the papers, you know. Not the ones you read, my dear, but the comics I glance at down the public library where I often pop in for a bit of a warm or to get out of the rain while I’m waiting for the Darby and Joan Club to open.’
‘Don’t play the fool,’ said Amanda, lowering the paper so that her husband got the full benefit of her admonishing, though slightly twinkly, glare. ‘You may be a Darby but I’ll be no Joan, and that’s a promise.’
‘And that,’ said Mr Campion with a wide grin, ‘is almost a quote from She Stoops To Conquer, isn’t it? Goldsmith in all his glory.’
Amanda nodded her head graciously and Campion, not for the first time (not even the first time that morning) noted with genuine admiration that his wife was still a beguiling beauty even after almost thirty years of married breakfasts.
‘In any case,’ Amanda said dryly, ‘no Darby and Joan Club would have you as a member.’
‘Would I join a club who had people like me as a member?’
‘Now you are almost quoting Marx – Groucho that is, not the other one that Perdita has to deal with.’
‘Rupert said it was Trotsky, not Marx,’ said Campion airily. ‘I’ve read about him too: Arthur Exley, the firebrand union activist. He’ll be sitting in a smoke-filled room in Downing Street before long, negotiating for a pay rise and shorter hours with the Minister for Power, or whichever minister it is that handles coal. Does that make me sound like a reactionary old fuddy-duddy?’
‘It does indeed, darling. The socialists have been in power for five years now and nobody has actually tried to bundle you into a tumbril for the guillotine they have no doubt erected in Parliament Square.’
Mr Campion replaced his glasses and raised himself just enough so that he could peer over the top of his wife’s newspaper. ‘You always could soothe my nerves when it came to politics,’ he said sweetly.
‘Politics are not a suitable topic for conversation at the breakfast table,’ said Amanda without looking up.
‘Absolutely right, darling. Now let me tell you about these robberies …’
NINE
Scraps
To Dennis Ramsden it had always seemed unfair that a man should have to go to work in the dark, spend eight hours underground in the pitch-dark and then emerge when a shift ended only to find that the cruelty of winter had brought down its early dark curtain of night. Miners were a strange breed and their closed, tight-lipped communities, not to mention their capacity for large volumes of draught ale, had caused him many a professional problem, but even so he felt that their constant claims for higher wages might be justified. He had seen pit men hand over thin wage packets to their wives on pay days and each time had thought that it would take far more than that to get him underground. At least, though, they had pit-head baths now and the men no longer had to trudge or cycle through the village, their faces black and a fine mist of coal dust floating off their caps and coats, to the prospect of a tin bath in front of the fire and kettles of boiling water.
Ramsden had parked his car in the yard of the Shuttle Eye colliery facing the bath house building and lamp room where the miners collected and deposited their helmet lights and the heavy square batteries which hung from their thick leather belts. The old brass miners’ lamps once stored there were now being polished up and turned into bedside lights or ornaments for pubs, for which there seemed to be an insatiable market. Miners’ lamps were not, however, the only things going missing from local collieries.
Over the steering wheel of his Triumph Herald, Ramsden watched a steady stream of pink-faced, wet-headed men heading for the gates, some pushing bicycles, a few pulling on leather jackets and crash helmets, all of them carrying the empty ‘snap tins’ which had held their lunch and with empty thermos flasks tucked under their arms. The men strode past the few cars in the yard – cars were for management and they would leave later when the day’s paperwork was done and the night watchmen had clocked on – paying no attention to Ramsden, though his outline in the car was visible in the orange glow of the sodium yard lights.
The chief inspector was beginning to think he had somehow missed the man he had arranged to meet, or the man was deliberately snubbing him. It would not be the first time that Arthur Exley had played ducks and drakes with the police, and Ramsden knew that had he come to the rendezvous in uniform or in a marked police car, Exley would have been waiting with a picket line of union members to greet him, making the point that this pit yard, this colliery and these men were all part of his kingdom.
With a rueful smile, he allowed himself the thought that if he had arrived by police car it would have had to be one of the Force’s trusted Wolseleys rather than one of their blue-and-white Morris Minors. The Wolseley was too heavy to be picked up and rolled on to its roof by a gang of exuberant miners fuelled by Tetleys bitter after a Rugby League cup final – a fate which had befallen several of the more dainty Panda cars.
His reverie was snapped by the sharp rap of knuckles on his passenger-door window and then the door was pulled open and the car’s springs squeaked as a thick-set, meaty figure squeezed into the seat next to him, filling the car with the damp aroma of Lifebuoy soap.
‘Mr Ramsden.’
‘Mr Exley. Thank you for your time.’
‘Y’aven’t ’ad any of it yet,’ said Arthur Exley brusquely, pushing a damp strand of his thick black hai
r off his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘And I’ve not that much to spare tonight if truth were known. Got to get home, get me tea and then I’m out again for a meeting.’
‘Union business?’
‘Not tonight, it’s a band night. Sorting out what the lads’ll be playing for this damn silly play up at the posh school.’
Ramsden bridled at Exley’s pejorative description of the school where his son was a pupil, but he had a barb of his own in his ammunition locker.
‘Yes, I heard the band would be playing in support of the ruling classes. Ada Braithwaite’s boy has the main part, hasn’t he? I suppose that must have influenced your decision to help out the posh school.’
‘Ada’s a pit widow,’ said Exley with a politician’s smoothness, ‘and as such is entitled to, and deserves, the full support of the Denby Ash Brass Band, even if it does mean supporting an educational establishment which promotes and supports inequality and privilege.’
‘It has nothing to do with you setting your cap at Ada Braithwaite, then?’
Ramsden knew he would have thought twice before saying such a thing in public, especially if any of Exley’s union members were in earshot, as it would surely have provoked a physical reaction. Exley would never allow himself to appear in any way weak in front of his men and several years of hard, physical work had left him with muscles itching to be utilized.
‘That would be none of your business, Mr Ramsden,’ Exley said quietly, ‘unless you want to make it such.’
The policeman left the threat hanging in the narrow space between their two faces. He knew via his son’s friendship with Ada’s boy Roderick that Exley had at least suggested the idea of courting to the widow without, so far, any sign of acceptance.
‘You’re quite right, Arthur – that’s none of my business. I wanted a word about things much less pleasant.’
‘The whereabouts of Haydon Bagley, mebbe? That’s what you’re in Denby for, isn’t it?’