“It’ll be smashing, shopping indoors on a mucky day like this!” quipped one lady as she climbed aboard.
“Well, have a great day,” I wished them well and resumed my patrol. At quarter past ten, the coach chugged past me en route to the main road from where it would cruise steadily towards its destination. It was in good time for a noon arrival.
I could not identify any of the ladies on board because all the windows had steamed up due to the drizzle-laden atmosphere outside. Indeed, the drizzle had dampened their overcoats and umbrellas and so the interior of the bus was like a sauna, with steam rising from the wet clothing to coat the interior of the windows. One or two had wiped their windows but visibility from the coach was sadly impaired. For some, this would have been a rare trip across the moors with wonderful views and an opportunity to see places they rarely visited, but the rain had frustrated a lot of hopes. In spite of that, I felt sure the happiness and excitement of the occasion at IGSC — plus the opportunity for cut-price shopping — would more than compensate. Having watched the bus depart, I went home for my morning coffee.
The remainder of that morning was very quiet with little to occupy me, and when lunchtime came, it was something of a relief from the monotony. It was 12.30 and I was just finishing my meal, having chatted with Mary and the children, when the telephone rang. It was the secretary of the proprietor of IGSC at Middlesbrough.
“PC Rhea, Aidensfield Police,” I announced myself.
“Oh, good afternoon, Constable. I’m sorry to bother you over this — it might be nothing, but I felt I should check and didn’t know who to contact.” She was very apologetic. “But Mr Vaughan, that’s my boss, thinks I should make a few calls.”
“Well, tell me what the problem is, and I’ll see what I can do,” I offered.
She explained about the opening ceremony at Middlesbrough and how various organisations had been drawn as guests, including Aidensfield WI.
“The snag is, Constable, the Aidensfield ladies haven’t arrived. We are all waiting to start, you see, expecting them, but don’t like to begin without them. I don’t know the name of the WI secretary, or the coach proprietor, and so I rang you.”
“Well,” I said, “the WI secretary’s on the bus, I saw her get on, so you can’t contact her. However, I can definitely say they set off this morning. I saw them. A busload of ladies with full purses and big hats. They left here about quarter past ten and should have been at your centre by now. They should have got to Middlesbrough by eleven-thirty or so; certainly they’ve had enough time to park and reach you.”
“Yes, that’s what Mr Vaughan thought. He wondered if something has gone wrong. I mean, should we start without them? We are delayed now, actually, we should have begun at twelve but felt we could hang on a while, just in case.”
I groaned. With Claude Jeremiah Greengrass at the wheel, anything could have happened. I knew that if the coach had been involved in an accident, I should have known — buses which were full of passengers and involved in accidents were always headline news, but I said I would check with Arnold Merryweather, with my divisional headquarters, with my own Force control room and those of Middlesbrough Borough Police and County Durham, and with local hospitals, the AA and the RAC, just to be sure.
I asked her to wait just a little longer, and I would get back to her. I spent the next half-hour on the telephone, ringing all the likely places, but no one had come across Arnold Merryweather’s bus or its passengers. Arnold had not had word from Claude to say there was a problem, and the bus did not seem to have been involved in a traffic accident. No one from it had been taken into any of the hospitals for treatment, and none of the emergency services had any information about a broken-down bus full of WI members. I decided to ring IGSC and suggest they begin their celebrations without the Aidensfield contingent.
While I was on the phone, Arnold came around to my house looking very flustered and worried. I completed my call to IGSC, assuring the secretary that we had heard nothing to suggest the bus or any of its passengers had been involved in an accident, and we could only guess it had suffered a breakdown.
“I suggest you start without them,” I told her. “They could still arrive in time for lunch, and certainly there’s time to get a bus repaired before the shopping finishes. If I do hear anything, I’ll get in touch with you.”
“Thank you, Mr Rhea, but what a disappointment for them.”
“It might not be as bad as we think,” I tried to reassure her.
She thanked me and I rang off as Arnold grew more and more agitated with the delay.
“What can have happened, Nick? If they’d broken down, Claude would have rung by now, surely?” He was normally a calm individual, a bespectacled man in his early sixties with a mop of dark, well-groomed hair and dark, warm eyes. Now he was very worried. Arnold was always well dressed, even when driving one of his buses, and for a bachelor, took great care over his appearance.
“A puncture?” I suggested. “Claude’s maybe got a local garage to fix it. It all takes time.”
“Aye, things can take a long time to get sorted out, but this is most unusual. I mean, a bus can’t disappear from the face of the earth, can it? Not with a load of women going shopping!”
I felt like saying it could vanish if Claude was driving, but resisted adding to Arnold’s worries by explaining the checks I had made. I assured him that if any of the organisations I had spoken to received further information, they would contact me. I’d be the first to know if there had been a calamity of any kind. Arnold thought he should contact the families of the missing women, but I resisted that.
“No, that would spread undue alarm,” I said. “There’s no real concern yet; we know there’s not been an accident and that no one is hurt, so don’t get the families involved, Arnold. We don’t want to start a panic. Besides, if they were due to go shopping until half past five, you can reckon six o’clock before they get back on the bus, then an hour and a half to get back here, plus a stop of three quarters of an hour for a drink . . . you’d not expect them back in Aidensfield before quarter past eight. There’s loads of time for things to get sorted out and for us to be told of any problem, if indeed there is one.”
I suggested that Arnold return to his office to take any incoming phone calls — after all, if there was a problem, Claude would surely ring Arnold, so it was important that he was available to answer his telephone. He did as I suggested, and I then resumed my patrol after acquainting Mary with the details; if anyone called my office in my absence, she would contact me via my radio.
During the afternoon, I popped into Arnold’s office to see if he had received any further news, and he shook his head. He looked grey with worry and was clearly very concerned. “I’ve been on to all sorts of folks I know in my line of business between here and Middlesbrough — garages, bus depots, breakdown recoveries — they’ve heard nowt, Mr Rhea. I rang that shopping centre an’ all, and Claude’s not turned up yet. His passengers have missed the opening and the lunch, and all the other guests are in the shops now, spending up to their eyeballs — all except my busload. Where the hell can he have got to?”
I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock and the weather was still extremely dull. The drizzle had not let up during the day and the overall gloominess had persisted with the threat of fog now being forecast. It was more like a day in February than a day in summer.
“It is possible they have arrived and not been noticed,” I said. “I mean, Arnold, there’s five hundred women there at least — if Claude has bypassed the booking-in system, they might be there now, unnoticed among all the others and having a whale of a time.”
“And if they’re not? Then what?”
“I might have to arrange a search party,” I heard myself saying. “But a busload of people isn’t like a child getting lost or somebody stealing a car.” Then I had a thought. “Did Claude take a map?” I asked Arnold.
“No, he said he knew his way to Middlesbrough, and the new centre is we
ll signed once he gets there. I said he could take one of my road atlases, but he said he didn’t need it. Besides, IGSC has erected signs on all the approach roads, for the buses they were expecting from all over the north-east.”
“If I am to arrange a search,” I said, “we’d need something more important than a busload of women going shopping and who’ve simply failed to turn up. You know as well as me that when some women get into the shops, they lose all sense of time. They could have decided to go somewhere else. The lack of news about them convinces me they’re safe, Arnold, so there’s very little reason to get other police involved. If your bus has crashed or if someone is hurt or has had to be rushed into hospital, we should have known by now.”
“Old Miss Talbot needs regular attention, something to do with her waterworks,” smiled Arnold. “We could say she needs medical attention and we’re getting worried.”
“Right,” I decided against my better judgement. “I’ll see about putting an ‘All Stations’ out for the bus.”
An “All Stations” message was one which was circulated by radio to every police station in England and Wales. There were varying grades of message, the most important being an Express Message; this was issued when a murder or other serious crime had been committed, for example. All Ports Warnings were issued for escaped prisoners or criminals thought to be attempting a flight overseas, but a busload of potential shoppers who had not gone shopping was hardly the material for such an alert. Nonetheless, I rang Sergeant Blaketon to put forward my proposal. As expected, he resisted.
“Rhea,” he snapped, “you cannot waste police time and resources searching for a busload of women shoppers who are in the supposed care of Greengrass. There are no reports of accidents and injuries and no search requests from worried relatives. I can’t imagine that they have been kidnapped or spirited off to Mars. You know what women are, Rhea: they’ll be shopping; they’ll be having a knees-up somewhere.”
I played my trump card. I mentioned Mrs Talbot’s waterworks.
“All right,” Blaketon capitulated after I had elaborated upon her supposed embarrassing condition. “Arrange an ‘All Stations’ asking routine patrols to look out for the bus and, if seen, to provide you with its location and condition. A non-urgent enquiry, I suggest, Rhea, no criminal offences suspected. Stress that we have no reason to believe that the Greengrass Express and all those aboard have been kidnapped or that they have become victims of a highway robbery. This is a humanitarian gesture, aid to a damsel in distress.”
“Very good, Sergeant.” And so I provided details of Arnold’s bus, with the all-important registration number. Sergeant Blaketon would initiate the “All Stations” message with my name and telephone number as the contact. With a spot of luck and some good police observation, we might find now Arnold’s bus and its passengers.
Before releasing the message, I made a final check with IGSC in Middlesbrough, but the Aidensfield ladies had not arrived, nor had the centre received any messages from Claude. The secretary was sure of that because all the seats had been reserved with the name of the group concerned, and tickets were issued to each guest to allow them the discounted shopping. In Aidensfield’s case, none had been taken. I told Blaketon that none of the families had been alerted to the absence of their shopping ladies, and he thought that wise; after all, no one wanted an unnecessary panic with the inevitable publicity and there was plenty of time for the missing people to turn up safe and sound. And we did know — or at least we were fairly certain — there had been no reported accident to the bus or injuries to its passengers.
“I don’t suppose the bus could have rolled down an embankment into a gulley or gone off the road into a river or driven off a bridge into the Tees without anyone noticing?” was Blaketon’s later reaction.
“It’s hardly likely,” I responded, knowing that such things could indeed happen. I knew that a coach might run off one of our moorland roads and roll down a steep slope, probably to remain in a remote gulley for some time before discovery, but it was most unlikely. I put my trust in Greengrass — that trust was not so much a belief in his integrity, but a knowledge that he was likely, even in these circumstances, to do something stupid. If he had, his lapse would be discovered. I hoped our “All Stations” would soon provide the answer which in fact it did.
An August meeting was underway at Redcar Races and, like all racecourses, it was equipped with a small temporary police station. A contingent of officers was on duty at the races, consequently the office was staffed for the duration of the meeting.
When the “All Stations” was circulated, it included that temporary police office and details of the missing bus were distributed to all police officers on duty at the racecourse. Six of them had the task of patrolling the coach-parks, and so details of Arnold’s bus were given to those men. And they found the bus. It was parked among hundreds of other coaches and was quite empty.
My telephone rang shortly after 5 p.m.
“It’s Chalky White speaking from Redcar Races,” said the voice. “I’ve found your missing bus — it’s here, on the racecourse, empty.”
“Empty? Is the driver with it?” I asked. I’d known PC White for years.
“No, nobody,” he said. “So, what now, Nick? The bus is safe.”
“It’s the passengers I’m worried about,” and I explained what had happened. Chalky wondered if the driver had dropped his passengers off near the new IGSC complex before bringing his bus here, to give himself a day at the races while the women enjoyed their outing.
“That sounds like the sort of trick Greengrass would play,” I agreed, but added, “but the IGSC people say none of the women turned up either.”
“They’ll be here, Nick, having a whale of a time. I shouldn’t worry about it anymore if I were you. We’ve had no reports of accidents, injuries or sickness, so I reckon you can relax now.”
“Do one thing for me, Chalky,” I asked, because I wanted to know the full story. “Put a tannoy message out, will you? Ask Mr Greengrass, the driver of Merryweather’s Coach, to telephone me at home as soon as possible, certainly before he leaves the course,” I said, and provided the number in case Greengrass claimed he couldn’t remember it.
“Sure,” agreed Chalky White. “The last race is due in five minutes, I’ll tannoy your request when the winner has been declared and before the Tote pay-out is announced. That’ll be the best time to get people’s attention.”
I thanked him and then rang Arnold Merryweather with the news.
“Redcar Races?” he exploded. “What the hell’s he doing there?”
“I think his passengers are there too,” I said. “I’m awaiting a call from Claude.”
“It’s the last time that idiot drives for me!” snapped Arnold, slamming down the telephone.
I rang Blaketon too, to say that the coach had been located at Redcar with no sign of being involved in an accident.
“Whereabouts at Redcar?” was his obvious question.
“The races,” I said.
“I might have known!” he shouted down the handset. “Put that maniac Greengrass in charge of anything and it goes wrong. What in the name of Camarero is he doing at Redcar Races?”
“I don’t know. I’ve left a message for him to call me,” was all I could offer by way of explanation and after listening to Sergeant Blaketon’s language of anger and frustration, I replaced the telephone. Next, I rang IGSC to inform Mr Vaughan that the coach had been traced to Redcar Races, albeit with no explanation yet as to why it had gone to Redcar instead of Middlesbrough.
I did express the view that none of the ladies was injured or harmed in any way and added that Mr Merryweather would surely apologise to Mr Vaughan for the upset he had caused on their important day.
At six o’clock my telephone rang. It was Claude Jeremiah and he sounded as if he had had far too much to drink. I decided to attempt a sobering-up exercise by frightening him and said, “Claude, there’s been a nationwide police search fo
r you this afternoon. ‘All Stations’ messages have been flashing between Aidensfield and New Scotland Yard . . .”
“Search? For me? What have I done now?”
“You kidnapped a busload of passengers,” I snapped. “You were supposed to go to Middlesbrough.”
He was a little more sober now, and said, “Aye, but we got lost, you see. All them roadworks and traffic signs and lights on the A19 as you approach Middlesbrough, and what with my window being steamed up and no one on board knowing which was the right way, well, I finished up at Redcar.”
“You could have still got to Middlesbrough!” I snapped. “Redcar’s not far away!”
“Aye, well, it wasn’t quite so easy, Mr Rhea, you see. I didn’t know we were in Redcar, there was nowt to say we weren’t in Middlesbrough, all the streets and roads join up, not like us in the country with miles between villages. Then we got into this long queue of buses and there were signs with GSIC and arrows pointing along the road saying ‘GSIC — coach-park’. So, well, I thought I was on the right road and heading for the right place.”
“Well, if you’d followed those signs properly you’d have got to the right place!” I cried.
“That’s what I thought, Constable,” he chuckled now. “But GSIC means General Shires Insurance Company not that funny name for the new shopping complex. That’s IGSC, you see, I was following GSIC . . .”
I groaned. This could only happen to Greengrass.
“Anyroad,” he said, “this chap asked if my bus was full of official guests and I said it was, and so we were all taken into a posh suite at the racecourse, along with lots of other folks in smart suits and posh frocks. There was champagne and wine and drinks and food and more drinks and more champagne and more food and then it was time for the races and so we all had a bet or two . . . well, Constable, I can tell you that my ladies didn’t want to go shopping, not after all that. Most had never been racing before, some of ’em won a fortune, Mr Rhea, and they’ve all had a wonderful day out for nowt . . . it’s not cost us a penny, except for a bit of betting money.”
CONSTABLE VERSUS GREENGRASS a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 16) Page 10
