Mr Campion's Fault

by Mike Ripley

  ‘I am curious,’ he said, ‘about one of your female prison visitors.’

  ‘Not Hilda Browne, I hope. Not again.’

  ‘Not directly,’ said Campion suppressing his surprise, ‘although it was something she said which brought me to your door.’

  ‘You know the woman, then? You have my sympathy. Miss Browne tries hard to do good works … very hard. She sees her visits as comforting and uplifting for lonely prisoners, those who have no relatives to visit them. Yet very few, if any, of our loneliest, most abandoned, most depressed inmates have ever requested a second visit from her.’

  ‘That must put you in a difficult position,’ Campion sympathized.

  ‘It does, it does. I can’t very well turn down offers of Christian charity and I have no wish to deny our inmates the comfort of occasional contact with the outside world. But when prison visits appear to be adding to the punishment handed down by the courts rather than aiding or encouraging reform and a return to society, then …’

  ‘Quite,’ said Mr Campion, ‘but it was another of your prison visitors I was interested in, one whom Hilda Browne ran into here whilst she was doing her … social work … a Mrs Neal, Ivy Neal.’

  Governor Dennison looked into his teacup as if seeking inspiration.

  ‘The name doesn’t ring any bells, I’m afraid. Did she come with Hilda?’

  ‘I got the impression that she was quite surprised to see her here. She knew her from the village of Denby Ash. Would you have a record of Hilda’s visits so I could check a few dates?’

  ‘Of course we have,’ said Dennison. ‘I’ll have them sent up from the front gate. Just a minute, though – you did say Denby Ash?’

  ‘That’s right. Ivy Neal lived there and Hilda is connected to Ash Grange School where her late brother taught.’

  ‘Then you mean Doreen Bagley.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Denby Ash, that’s the connection. Perhaps you don’t understand, Mr Campion, but the most notorious prisoner at Love Lane was not a mass murderer or a gangster or a train robber, but an embezzler. A nasty petty crook called Haydon Bagley who stole from charities, schools and churches by cooking the books. He was famous, or rather infamous, locally, and he was from Denby Ash.’

  ‘And he received visits from … Doreen Bagley … a relative?’

  ‘His mother. She was the only visitor he ever had and she was from Denby Ash, I remember that. In fact, I remember her very well. Quite a card she was, offered to do the horoscopes of the guards and the other prisoners, tell their fortunes, that sort of thing. She would put on an act like she was at a fairground.’

  ‘Or a Feast,’ Campion said quietly. ‘And this was definitely Doreen Bagley?’

  ‘So she said, and to be honest, no one would own up to being Haydon Bagley’s mother if they weren’t. They’d get lynched, such was the bad feeling about Haydon locally.’

  ‘Was she a prisoner’s friend in the sense that Hilda Browne is?’

  Mr Dennison leaned back in his chair. ‘You won’t find many within these walls who would call Hilda Browne a friend, but I know what you mean. And the answer to your question is “no”. Doreen Bagley only came to see Haydon Bagley, a personal, one-on-one visit.’

  ‘Often?’

  ‘No, two or three times during his sentence perhaps. I can check if it’s important.’

  ‘I understand that this local criminal mastermind, Bagley, was released not long ago,’ said Campion thoughtfully.

  ‘That is correct and there are concerns – we are all concerned – that he hasn’t been seen since he walked out of these gates.’

  ‘That concerns you?’

  ‘Of course. Any prisoner released from here who reoffends is a black mark against us all. It means we have failed that individual and failed society Of course, there are habitual criminals. In fact, Commander Luke said on the telephone that you were actually acquainted with several—’

  ‘I simply cannot imagine what he must be thinking of,’ Campion said innocently.

  ‘He mentioned,’ the governor said slyly, ‘something about a butler you had in your employ, an ex-cat burglar called Lugg …’

  ‘Good grief! Lugg would throw a fit if anyone called him a butler. He was, as he put it so succinctly, a “gent’s gent”, and as for cat-burgling, he hasn’t done any of that since he was a kitten and he certainly doesn’t have the girth or the flexibility for it any more. I’m surprised the newly promoted Commander Luke has not got more and better things on his mind than to think of old cons we have known and loved.’

  ‘Actually, when he was Detective Chief Inspector Luke, he used to check up quite regularly on certain inmates, ones he had been personally responsible for ensuring they enjoyed our hospitality here in Wakefield. In fact, he mentioned one of them on the telephone when he rang and even asked if your visit was connected in some way, as the name would be familiar to you.’

  ‘Whose name?’ Campion could not help but be intrigued.

  ‘A chap called Malcolm Maud. Does it mean anything? He was from down south.’

  ‘Quite a few of us are, I’m afraid,’ said Campion smoothly, ‘and yes, the name rings a distant bell. “Banger Maud” he was known as on the lawless streets of Canning Town. A safe-cracker, or to be accurate, a safe-blower who didn’t care how much damage he caused. He was one of Charlie Luke’s collars; got quite a hefty sentence, as I recall.’

  ‘Ten years and did them all, the last three of them here, but he was released six months ago.’

  ‘Charlie would have known that, surely?’

  ‘I would think so.’

  ‘So why mention him?’

  ‘I get the impression that Mr Luke, being a very professional policeman, doesn’t like loose ends.’

  ‘And you think he has unfinished business with Banger Maud?’

  Dennison nodded. ‘I suspect he thinks Maud is unlikely to have been reformed by his incarceration and is quite likely to re-offend, although to be perfectly honest, he behaved himself well enough when he was one of our … er … guests. I remember he took to our carpentry classes like a duck to water. He spent hours in our woodwork room under very close supervision, given the sharp tools there and the obvious temptation to build a glider in the roof.’

  Mr Campion grinned politely to show he had understood the Colditz reference. ‘Wouldn’t Luke be in a better position to know that rather than you whether Maud had relapsed into his old ways,’ he said, ‘if he was released six months ago?’

  ‘That’s the really curious thing, you see.’ Mr Dennison leaned forward, his elbows anchoring to the desk. ‘Malcolm Maud was supposed to be heading back to London on his release but he never did and nobody seems to know where he is. Just like Haydon Bagley.’

  ‘I’m sorry …?’

  ‘Haydon Bagley, Doreen Bagley’s son. He did the very same thing – just disappeared. I presume Mrs Bagley knows where he is.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Campion doubtfully. ‘As far as I know he hasn’t shown up in Denby Ash.’

  ‘How odd. It’s not unusual to lose track of ex-prisoners and, of course, they have done their time, paid their debt to society and all that. Still, two cell mates both dropping out of sight on release like …’

  ‘Cell mates?’ Campion interrupted.

  ‘Oh, yes, didn’t I say? Maude and Bagley shared a cell for nearly two years up until Maud got his release. Thick as thieves they were, if you’ll pardon the expression.’

  ‘So they got on well together?’

  ‘Splendidly as far as I could see, even after Maud got into religion in a big way. That happens in prison, you know: a prisoner sees the light and starts preaching to the other inmates. It can sometimes lead to ugly scenes when men are confined in a small cell, but Bagley seemed happy to go along with Maud’s Bible bashing. My officers nicknamed him the Disciple – and they called Maud the Preacher.’

  As Mr Campion drove into Denby Ash that afternoon, the dark outline of the Grange
Ash muck stack was fading into the glowering, darker sky, even though the illuminated dashboard clock told Campion that he would be at Ash Grange before school was out for the day.

  Celia Armitage met him in the entrance hall and offered to show him to the room Perdita was using for her rehearsals. Rupert had, she reported, come in from his afternoon training session with the First XV and retreated to his rooms in the Lodge in search of a hot bath and dry clothing. Mr Campion tut-tutted sympathetically and said he would be fascinated to see Perdita putting her cast through its paces.

  As she escorted Campion along corridors and up a flight of stairs, Celia urged him to hurry as the bell was about to go and, this being Friday, they could well be engulfed in a tidal wave of boys hurrying home for the weekend. Campion, who had no wish to become a piece of flotsam battered by satchels and prodded by adolescent elbows, kept pace with the headmaster’s wife and reached the appropriate door with seconds to spare.

  ‘And so Faustus gets dragged down to Hell by all you lot,’ Perdita was saying. ‘And you’ll all be wearing teachers’ gowns, so I want them flapping. It should look as if you’re a swarm of bats – or whatever the collective noun for bats is – descending on Faustus and carrying him off, but for goodness’ sake remember that Faustus has a poorly foot, so please be gentle with him, but make it look as vicious as possible. It’s called acting. Please remember that.’

  She clapped her hands just as the school bell sounded.

  ‘That’s all for today, lads. Well done. Now put the chairs and desks back before you go.’

  Amidst the crash of furniture and bustle of scrabbling boys eager to depart, Perdita sidled over to Mr Campion’s side and put a hand on his arm. ‘What do you think of my little company?’

  ‘You seem to have them well drilled,’ said her father-in-law, ‘though I didn’t see much. You seem to have the knack for teaching and the boys certainly approve of you. I suspect’ – Campion lowered his voice – ‘half of them are madly in love with you.’

  ‘How can you tell that? You’ve only been in the room thirty seconds,’ protested Perdita quietly.

  ‘I know teenage boys. I’m pretty sure I was one myself once. Oh, and by the way, it’s a colony.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The collective noun for a group of bats.’

  ‘Show off! What have you been up to today?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Campion said lightly. ‘Had me dabs taken by the rozzers, so I did, cor blimey and luv a duck. Then I called on yer actual ’Elen of Troy, so I did and – stone the crows – ended up in chokey. God’s honest, I ended up in the nick.’

  Perdita made a fist and punched Mr Campion lightly on the shoulder. ‘Now you’re setting a bad example for the boys, cheeking the teacher like that. I don’t know how Amanda puts up with you.’

  Campion peered over the tops of his spectacles. ‘Now that is a genuine mystery, but one for another time. At the moment I’m hoping young Roderick can help clear up a different one.’

  Roderick Braithwaite’s ears pricked up at the mention of his name. He had been quietly straightening the desks and chairs to their proper classroom order and collecting dropped books, pencils and sweet wrappers – the sort of jetsam which follows in the wake of teenage boys.

  ‘You don’t have to do that, Roderick,’ said Perdita, ‘though it is kind of you.’

  The boy blushed, his cheeks pink. ‘It’s no bother, Miss. I’ve got to wait for me Mum anyway.’ He turned his face to the floor in shame. ‘She’s insisted on walking me home,’ he added quietly.

  ‘Let me pick your brains, young feller, and I’ll run you and your dear mother home in my car,’ said Mr Campion.

  ‘The Jaguar?’ The boy’s head snapped upright and on his face, enthusiasm having banished embarrassment.

  ‘Can’t have you limping down the road on that bad ankle of yours, can we?’ beamed Campion. ‘In fact, let us both take the weight off our legs and sit for a minute, if Miss Browning does not mind, that is. I want to ask your opinion on something.’ He removed a sheaf of papers from the ‘poacher’s pocket’ of his overcoat and laid them on a desk top. ‘But first, can I ask you about your visit to Ivy Neal on the night you and Andrew Ramsden were attacked?’

  ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ the boy said gravely. ‘Everybody was talking about it at break. It wasn’t anything we did, was it?’

  ‘Good gracious me! The very idea! You should put that idea right out of your mind this minute, my lad,’ said Campion.

  ‘And if anyone suggests that, they’ll have me to deal with,’ Perdita offered in stout support.

  ‘There’s some that blame me for Mr Browne’s accident as well,’ Roderick added in sepulchral tones.

  ‘That sounds just as ridiculous,’ said Mr Campion. ‘What sort of a petty, small-minded busybody would—?’

  ‘Hilda Browne,’ said Perdita.

  ‘Well that explains it perfectly,’ said Campion, delighted to see a smile flicker across the boy’s face. ‘“Come Faustus, why so glum?” Is that a quote, Miss Browning? If it isn’t it should be.’

  ‘If it is, we’ve probably cut it,’ sighed his daughter-in-law.

  ‘Not to worry. What I wanted to hear more of was this disappearing trick that Ivy pulled on you. Andrew’s father told me about it but I wanted to hear first-hand.’

  Roderick shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, clearly, it was a trick of some sort, though it fair made us jump at the time. I’ve not said much about it in case people thought we were making it up and they’d say we were scared of the witch. She just disappeared in front of our very eyes, better than anything on David Nixon, it was. One minute she was sitting there, stroking her cat and the next she was gone and so was the cat.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Campion, ‘the cat. Every witch has a familiar, or so they say. But it was a trick, you think, not magic?’

  ‘Well, there were no magic spells or puffs of smoke. It was just like someone had turned the lights off and back on really quickly. Blink and she’d gone; just disappeared. It was impossible, really, in a caravan that size. There was nowhere she could have gone … Not that we hung around to find out.’

  ‘Very wise; I’m sure I would have scooted out of there toot-sweet, but I am delighted you realized it was a trick and not witchcraft or jiggery-pokery.’ The boy returned Campion’s broad grin. ‘Now turn your agile and youthful brain – adjectives I use with a fair amount of jealousy – to this map, if you wouldn’t mind. But first, I believe this is yours.’

  Campion handed Roderick the handwritten essay which, after a quick glance of recognition, the boy slid off the desktop and on to his knees. As he did so, he exhaled a sigh of relief and shuffled his chair closer under the desk. His ‘essay’ was now out of sight, literally off the table, and would not be mentioned again. Campion knew he had forged an instant bond with Roderick and calmly unfolded the map so that it spilled over the edges of the desk like a tablecloth.

  ‘It’s one of Mr Browne’s, isn’t it?’ said Roderick, leaning forward. ‘That looks like his scribble there in the margin and those blue pencil lines … he was always doing those on maps. He called it doing “overlays” when he used red pencil. And “underlays” when he used blue.’

  ‘So these lines he drew,’ Campion smoothed the map flat with the palm of his hand, ‘they’re all underlays, indicating something underground, because they’re in blue?’

  Roderick nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘They all come from the two collieries,’ observed Perdita, leaning over the two male heads to get a good look at the map. It was a standard Ordnance Survey map of Denby Ash but solid blue lines had been added stretching from the Caphouse and Shuttle Eye pits at the eastern end of the village. From Caphouse, two blue lines ran in a ‘V’ roughly westwards into, or rather under, Denby Wood whilst the Shuttle Eye sprouted three lines like a trident to points south and west, the central prong running in a line over the OS symbols for a public house and a church.

  ‘N
ot all of them,’ said Campion. ‘Look at these faint ones … dotted lines. What would that mean, Roderick?’

  ‘Those would be his best guesses. He would make the lines solid when he was sure they were accurate.’

  ‘But the dotted lines come out of the Grange Ash colliery,’ Perdita pointed at the map, ‘and that pit’s been shut down. So what’s the point of knowing where the mineshaft was?’

  ‘I don’t think they are mineshafts, my dear. Those go from the pit head straight down. At first I thought they might be fault lines in the local geology but they look more as if they are the galleries or tunnels – I’m sure there’s a very earthy technical term for them in this part of the world – which run along the seams of coal as it is extracted. And look at this one …’

  Roderick’s eyes widened as they followed the line of Campion’s jabbing finger.

  ‘It comes right into the village and cuts across Oaker Hill.’

  ‘Right under the village to be precise, and if Mr Browne’s line is accurate, I’ll bet it crosses Oaker Hill somewhere between Numbers Nine and Thirteen.’

  ‘Number Eleven!’ said Roderick excitedly. ‘Our house!’

  ‘You’re suggesting this map has something to do with Roderick’s poltergeist?’ asked Perdita sharply. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I found it in Bertram Browne’s study, at his home. It had …’ He caught Roderick’s eye and winked conspiratorially, ‘… other papers with it which suggested they were linked. You told him about the poltergeist some time before his accident, didn’t you?’

  Roderick nodded. ‘Two months ago. He said he would look into it and then he would come and see the effects for himself.’

  ‘We’ll never know what Mr Browne actually concluded, but I think he was a thorough man and used his training with the Royal Engineers. He did his research – his reconnaissance, if you like – and then went to observe the front line, so to speak, before he made his mind up. I have a feeling, though, that he had formed a theory.’

  ‘So what was it? Man-made subsidence along a fault line or because of mining rather than a poltergeist?’ Perdita’s voice was tinged with hope and relief.