‘I’ve not had any mail for the Grange,’ he told me, as I tried to establish whether any names had been referred to. ‘It’s not often I get stuff for the temporary residents, although circulars sometimes arrive. More often than not, if the residents are expecting anything by post, they send a minion down to pick it up.’
‘So who’s living there now?’ I asked him.
‘Search me.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ve never been near the place. I did hear they arrived late one night or in the early hours of the morning and some daft bat has spread a tale that it’s some of the Great Train Robbers.’
‘You don’t believe that?’ I smiled.
‘No way!’ he said. ‘The folks they get into that place are the cream; politicians, royals, moneyed folks, not criminals and their like.’
‘Not even criminals with a few million quid to spend?’ I put to him.
‘I would think whoever comes to stay there gets vetted pretty closely by the owners before any agreement is made,’ he said. ‘It’s a very posh place, Nick, like a top-class hotel in many ways or a very posh holiday home; hardly the spot to find criminals on the run. You’d sooner find Princess Margaret or Cliff Richard in the house.’
‘So I can dismiss the rumours?’ I said.
‘Well, it’s up to you, Nick, I can’t tell you how to do your job, but it would surprise me if we got villains living there, even for a weekend and even if they are stinking rich, legally or otherwise.’
Thus I had two conflicting and very local views and, as I patrolled the village trying to sift truth from rumour, I had words with several Elsinby stalwarts, including Harold Poulter, the undertaker, Dr Archie McGee, Samuel Cook, the cobbler, and Father Brendan O’Malley, the parish priest at the Catholic Church of St Francis of Assisi. All had heard the rumours but all dismissed them as being typical of the rumours that sometimes circulated in rural areas. But when I went into the village shop, now owned and run by a couple who’d left Birmingham for a quiet rural life, I got a different story. These were John and Betty Belshaw. Elsinby shop was a tiny place which occupied the front room of a cottage which overlooked the stream. It would hardly support a single person but John and Betty had each retired from lucrative posts in industry and had useful pensions. They ran the shop more as a social service than a profit-making enterprise but did manage to cover costs. I do know their efforts were appreciated.
John, a small balding man in his late sixties, was behind the tiny counter when I entered.
‘Good afternoon, Nick,’ he smiled. ‘It’s not often we see you in here.’
‘It’s business, John,’ I told him. ‘I’m trying to establish who we’ve got in the Grange just now.’
‘You’ve heard the story then? About some of the Great Train Robbers being there? Isn’t it exciting . . . are you going to raid the place?’
‘I need to find out for certain before I decide what action to take, that’s why I’m asking around. At the moment, it just seems like a silly rumour.’
‘Well,’ he said, lowering his voice as if we were being overheard, ‘one of my delivery men said he’d been asked to drop stuff at the house and to keep his mouth shut . . . he came here and reckoned it was that Wilson chap, the one who escaped from Winsom Green Prison. That’s not far from where we come from, you know, it’s on Winsom Green Road in Birmingham.’
‘Charles Frederick Wilson!’ I spoke the name because I recalled it from the posters and circulars we had received.
‘He got thirty years for armed robbery and twenty-five years on another charge, then he escaped from prison. He’s not been seen since,’ whispered John. ‘My mate reckons it’s him. He’s got a few minders. They won’t let you anywhere near the house.’
‘Did your pal actually see Wilson?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, he couldn’t get anywhere near the house, the minders came out and dealt with the delivery, then he was asked to leave, but he heard one of them whisper something about Wilson. They saw him off the premises. That was yesterday.’
‘Well, thanks. So what I must do now is to establish whether there is reasonable grounds for suspecting that a prison escapee is hiding there . . .’
‘There’s no doubt in my mind, Nick, and you’ve been pretty quick establishing that . . . so the next thing will be a raid, you think? Armed police coming to Elsinby with Black Marias and police dogs . . .’
‘More like me and Sergeant Blaketon going to the front door to ask if Charles Frederick Wilson is in!’ I laughed.
‘You’d never get near the place. They’d see you coming and be out of the back door like a flash . . . you’ll need lots of police to surround the place and keep the helicopters from landing and so on . . .’
I could see that this little shopkeeper had a fairly vivid imagination, but in some aspects he was right. Blaketon, Ventress, myself and the constables of Ashfordly were hardly capable of surrounding Elsinby Grange to carry out a sophisticated raid on the well-protected hideout of a Great Train Robber, and so I had to seek the opinions of higher authority. I radioed Ashfordly Police Station to see if Sergeant Blaketon was on duty. He was, and answered my call.
Rather than risk being overheard on air, I told Blaketon I had received some important information and suggested a rendezvous.
He said he would come immediately and I proposed a meeting at Ploatby, a short distance from Elsinby. Our presence would not, therefore, fuel the rumours or alarm the occupants of the Grange. Sergeant Blaketon arrived in Ploatby some fifteen minutes later and I joined him in his official car.
‘So, Rhea, what’s all the mystery?’ he asked, his face showing some evident excitement.
‘There are rumours that the Great Train Robber, the one who escaped from prison . . .’
‘Wilson,’ he said, his eyes bright with anticipation. He’d read the circulars too.
‘Yes, Charles Frederick Wilson. Well, Sergeant, the rumours say he’s holed up at Elsinby Grange with a band of minders.’ I followed this with a description of the house and how it was widely used as a discreet holiday home. I explained about the rumours and how I had tried to determine whether or not there was any truth in them, giving him details of the stealthy arrival of the occupants and how their supplies had to be left at the gate near the church, a long distance from the house. And how the tradesman had heard a whispered reference to Wilson.
He listened carefully, pursing his lips from time to time and when I had finished, he said, ‘You realize, Rhea, that Wilson and his mates have been reported seen or living in every town, village and country pub in Great Britain . . .’
‘Yes, I know that, Sergeant. But in our case I felt this rumour had to be examined with great care.’
‘So what are you suggesting, Rhea?’ he put to me.
‘Well, I think we need to visit the house, Sergeant, and even search it.’
‘And scare them off? They’ll see us coming a mile off. This one’s too big for us, Rhea, if it’s true, that is. I think I must have words with higher authority, like Inspector Breckon at Eltering. I’ll call him now.’
‘Over the air?’ I asked. ‘If these are the robbers, they’ll be listening in to our broadcasts. They’ll be off like a shot if they know we’re on to them.’
‘Good thinking!’ he said. ‘Right, let’s go to your police house and ring from there.’
In a small procession, we drove our own vehicles to the Aidensfield police house where I showed him into my office and asked Mary to produce a pot of tea. As he sat at my desk, I stood beside the counter, awaiting the official reaction to this dramatic development.
‘It’s Blaketon, sir, speaking from Aidensfield police house,’ Blaketon introduced himself. ‘Rhea has been investigating a rumour that one or more of the Great Train Robbers are holed up in a house on his patch. Elsinby Grange, sir, it’s used as an expensive holiday home by pop stars and the like. All very remote and secret,’ and he followed this with an outline of what I had told him and why I believed the
rumour to have substance.
I could not hear the inspector’s responses, but after a moment, Blaketon said, ‘Names? Well, sir, his local intelligence suggests it could be Wilson, sir. Charles Frederick Wilson.’
After another pause, Blaketon said, ‘Well, sir, we’d need back-up with more officers and dogs, and a search warrant, and even firearms . . . it’s a very difficult place to approach unseen, sir . . .’
There was another pause and then Blaketon said, ‘Very good, sir,’ and replaced the telephone.
‘He’s ringing the superintendent,’ he told me. ‘He’ll call us back here, so we must wait.’
And so we enjoyed Mary’s cups of tea as we chatted about the Great Train Robbery which continued to captivate police officers and civilians alike. Blaketon grew quite excited about the possibility of his officers actually capturing such a notorious escapee, and then the phone rang. I answered it.
‘Superintendent here, Rhea,’ he said. ‘Is your sergeant there?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll put him on,’ and I passed the handset to Sergeant Blaketon.
I could not hear what the superintendent was saying but soon Sergeant Blaketon’s face grew very red and embarrassed and eventually he replaced the phone, tight-lipped and angry.
‘It is Wilson, Rhea,’ he said shortly. ‘The man in your secret hideaway is Wilson. Harold Wilson, the prime minster. He’s staying at Elsinby Grange and no one, other than a chosen few, is supposed to know. Even we are not supposed to know. You are not supposed to know. The superintendent wants a report from you and me, explaining how you knew he was there when it is such a closely guarded secret. Heads will roll, Rhea, heads will roll!’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ I replied, somewhat relieved that we hadn’t raided the place with dozens of policemen, guns and dogs. That was not the sort of action by the police that would have pleased a Labour Government.
* * *
A much smaller house provided another mystery for me in Aidensfield. It was one of those tiny village cottages that people tended to overlook because it was hidden behind others and access was by a narrow footpath between two larger properties on the main street. It was impossible to gain access with a motor vehicle, except perhaps a small motorbike, because the footpath itself was only one-person wide and quite overgrown with weeds. Some fifty yards along it, however, stood Jasmine Cottage with its yellow door, blue woodwork around the windows, red tiles and green wooden railings. On the few occasions I had to visit the house, I thought it looked like something out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or a house from some other part of Disney’s wonderful world.
The owner/occupier was Miss Gallant. Everyone knew her by that name and her house was sometimes referred to as Miss Gallant’s cottage because she had lived there for as long as anyone could remember. I never found any living person who could recall the house without Miss Gallant. She was a short but sturdy woman of indeterminate age with a head of iron-grey hair always held in place on top of her head with a red ribbon and a huge bow. The possessor of a very loud voice and cultured accent, she dressed in long, flowing, very colourful clothes which were almost theatrical. This distinctive appearance was enhanced by her highly polished, black, lace-up boots of the kind Victorian ladies used to wear and the purple parasol she always carried whatever the weather.
I reckoned she was well into her eighties when I was policing Aidensfield and during the course of my work, I learned she had no family. There were no brothers and sisters, nieces or nephews and although she did have a wide circle of friends in the district who popped in to visit her, no members of her family ever called. For that reason, everyone assumed, quite naturally, that she was a spinster without any relations.
Miss Gallant was one of the village characters. She was always called Miss Gallant because no one knew her Christian name and even her friends referred to her in that rather old-fashioned formal manner. Nonetheless, she was universally liked; she appeared to be financially sound and she could often be seen pottering up to the shop or the post office for her daily provisions where she placed her orders in her booming, commanding voice. I discovered that, in her younger days, she was often away from Aidensfield, sometimes travelling overseas and sometimes leaving her cottage for two or three weeks at a stretch, or even for just a weekend. For that reason, she never kept pets or livestock, and was content to live in such a tiny home. Because she had no car, she travelled by train, but always walked to her village destinations or took Arnold Merryweather’s bus if she had to visit her bank in Ashfordly. In recent years, probably due to her age, her travels had been much reduced and now Aidensfield was the focus of her life.
She would always make an appearance at village events and was a firm supporter of the village hall, being a long-serving member of its committee. She voiced a strong belief that the hall should be the focal point for activities in the community, not the pub. Another of her keen interests was the Anglican church choir where she was a prominent soloist if the occasion demanded. Her strong, fine contralto voice was beautiful. Even in her advancing age she could fill our village hall with the sound of her singing whenever she was called to take part in a pantomime or concert of any kind. She never needed a microphone either and I reckon she could have out-shouted any sergeant-major had a contest ever been arranged.
Then one Friday lunchtime, Maisie Shepherd, the Aidensfield post woman, called at my house. A widow in her late fifties, Maisie delivered the mail in the village and at isolated farms and houses around the outskirts. She used her official red pedal cycle which had a huge iron-framed letter and parcel tray on the front; at Christmas, this was piled so high with parcels that she had to push the cycle because she couldn’t see over the top. A large, no-nonsense lady, she was the ears and eyes of Aidensfield, her work taking her quite literally to every home in the village, and during her tours she made sure she checked the most vulnerable members of our community. She called them ‘my old folks’ although some were younger than she; she would light their fires, collect their shopping or pensions, sit and chat for a while and even do the washing-up — and she did all this even if it led to delays in the delivery of the mail.
Although she displayed a very brusque manner, she was a kindly lady whose unofficial help was always appreciated, and the discovery of those in need was one of her strengths — even if some thought she was a nosy-parker.
On this occasion, I was on duty and enjoying my meal break at the time but when I opened the door, I knew from the expression of Maisie’s face that she had encountered something unpleasant.
‘It’s Miss Gallant,’ she said softly. ‘I went to her cottage, Nick, to check she’s all right like I do most Fridays, but it’s all locked up. There’s a bottle of milk on the doorstep and her Daily Telegraph is still in the letter-box. I shouted and knocked, but got no reply. The front-room curtains are closed, by the way; she always closes them at night. She was all right yesterday, and said nothing about going away. She always lets me know, if she’s not going to be at home.’
‘I’ll go straight away,’ I assured her. ‘Can you come with me? I might need help.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Five minutes later, we arrived at Miss Gallant’s cottage and found it as Maisie had said. We toured the front and back to ensure there was no sign of a break-in, then I knocked on the front and rear doors, shouting her name at the same time. There was no response, the place was utterly quiet. As Maisie had told me, the downstairs curtains were closed but I noticed her bedroom curtains were open which suggested she had not gone to bed last night. After several bouts of shouting and knocking, I decided I had to gain entry to the cottage.
If at all possible, I did not want to smash a window or force open one of the doors — that was guaranteed to cause problems in the future if only to determine who should effect any repairs — so I toured the house and eventually found a rear bedroom window which was slightly open. I borrowed a ladder from a neighbouring garden shed, climbed up, opened the window to its fu
ll extent and clambered in. Maisie waited below. As I crawled into the house, I shouted to her that I would open the front door if the key was in the lock.
I found myself in a small back bedroom which smelt of mothballs and which looked like something from a Victorian film set with a tiny cast-iron fireplace and a brass bedstead, but I had no time to admire the antique furnishings as I hurried through. I raced down the well-carpeted stairs, unlocked the front door with the key which, fortunately, was in the lock, and admitted Maisie. I took the milk and Daily Telegraph into the house. Then, as Maisie stood in the hall, I entered the front room, the one with the drawn curtains. In the gloom, I could see a rocking chair before the dead coal-fire, a pair of feet protruding from it — small feet, a lady’s feet, clad in black leather boots.
‘Miss Gallant,’ I called, gently at first as I tapped on the door. But there was no response. I wondered if she had fallen asleep in her rocking chair, so I shouted again, much louder this time, and rapped harder on the door. But there was no response.
Maisie had followed me into the room and I asked her to open the heavy green velvet curtains.
As she did so, the room was bathed in daylight which was cast upon the still form in the chair. Miss Gallant did not stir among all this activity. I approached her gently, calling her name, all the time sensing she was long past caring. With no response from her, I reached out and touched her cheek — it was cold. She was dead. I knew from her appearance that she had been dead for some hours and my initial belief was that she had died sometime last night while sitting in front of her fire. There was a book on the floor beside her. I reasoned it had tumbled from her grasp as she had slipped into oblivion.
CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 20) Page 11