The Midden

by Tom Sharpe

  For a brief moment Sergeant Bruton looked as though he were going to give a truthful answer. But discretion prevailed. ‘Sure, sir. I just wanted to know,’ he said. ‘Very clear, I’m sure.’

  Inspector Rascombe checked the corridor outside, then shut the door with a furtive caution before turning back to the team. ‘When I tell you the area of our investigation I think you will all appreciate the need for absolute discretion,’ he said in a hushed tone, and unfolded a large-scale map of the fell district to the north. There was a sudden look of interest on the detectives’ faces. They all knew who had a place up there.

  Inspector Rascombe’s pointer moved over to the Middenhall. ‘As you can see from this map the particular target is not one that can be easily approached. That’s almost certainly the reason it was chosen for these horrible activities. And it makes surveillance bloody difficult. Over here we have open fell country stretching away for several miles until you get to the Parson’s Road and Six Lanes End here. No cover on that side except for one or two drystone walls and a number of sheep which as you can see is not a lot of help. Up here is the Midden Farm which is to be under surveillance at all times. Right, then over here down the road is the place called Middenhall. That is a major target, the major target in fact. And again as you can see there is a lake to the south and round the back here through these here woods is the quarry garden. Beyond them there’s the river Idd with good cover along the banks and the water meadows in the valley here. That is as far as I can tell the only feasible route for the surveillance teams to take and that being the case we aren’t going to take it. Anyone here tell me why?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it could have anything to do with the fact that Miss Midden might expect us to use it?’ said Sergeant Bruton in the front row.

  The Inspector looked at him with fresh interest. ‘That’s very smart of you, Bruton,’ he said, ‘working that out for yourself. And may we know how come you know who I’ve been talking about all this time?’

  Sergeant Bruton looked down at his knees and then up again. ‘Well, sir, you said the Middenhall was to be kept under surveillance at all times and Miss Midden owns the Middenhall and the Midden Farm so I just reckoned she might be involved or something.’

  ‘Very good. Glad to see you’re taking an interest. Anyone else got any comments?’

  ‘If we’re not going to use the cover along the river to go in, where are we going to go?’ asked a detective in the third row.

  Inspector Rascombe smiled. ‘Here,’ he said and pointed to the open fell to the west. ‘By coming up this way we will avoid doing the obvious which is what they’ll be looking for. The last place they’ll expect us to come is over the fell. So that’s the way we’ll take.’

  ‘But I thought . . . nothing, sir,’ said Sergeant Brut on and refrained from pointing out that, if what Inspector Rascombe had said just now was correct and the suspects at the Middenhall would go to ground the moment they got a whiff of copper, they would already be well away and wouldn’t be seen for dust because everyone in Stagstead knew Miss Midden was being investigated. It seemed safer not to say anything. In any case he had been involved with Miss Midden on several charity money-raising committees and he couldn’t see her being involved in a paedophile ring. Still, if the idiot Inspector wanted to go ahead there was no way he could be stopped. Best to keep his own nose clean.

  The Inspector was drawing up the various units and giving them their duties. ‘Unit A is assigned to traffic identification,’ he said. ‘Symes, Rathers, Blighten and Saxton. Round-the-clock observation of all vehicles moving along this road here.’ The pointer moved along the line of the road to the Middenhall and the farm. ‘I want every vehicle number and, if there is anything unusual, you will call in to base here where Unit B will do the tracing and in the event of an outgoing vehicle needing trailing or intercepting they will do it.’

  As the orders went out it became clear just how comprehensive the operation was. ‘There will be no radio communication unless there is an absolute emergency,’ Rascombe went on. ‘Communication between Units A and B will be by direct telephone line. I have made arrangements with the telephone authorities for a line to be available as soon as possible. In the meantime Unit A will use the phone box at Iddbridge to report to Unit B. On the other side of the same surveillance coin this road at the back across the Idd valley will be watched by Unit C with men here on one side of the river and here on the other and a mean time of travel between the two watches will be established. Any vehicle which fails to emerge within the mean time and which may therefore have dropped off or alternatively picked up someone from the surveillance object will be noted with particular interest and if need be intercepted here.’ He pointed to the crossroads three miles to the north.

  ‘What if they’re coming the other way, sir?’ a detective asked, and was rewarded with a scowl which the Inspector turned into a smile.

  ‘Very good point, very good point, glad you raised it,’ he said in an almost staccato parade-ground voice. ‘Vehicles proceeding in a north-south direction will be intercepted . . .’ the pointer waved vaguely around in search of a suitable crossroads and finally settled on Iddbridge five miles away, ‘Here. Or alternatively, here.’ This was a cattle track some two and a half miles down the Iddbridge road. But before there could be any discussion of the various problems this might entail Inspector Rascombe had turned to another issue. ‘I myself intend to direct Units D and S, which will be surveillance units covering the farm, the house and the estate. I intend to establish a mobile base in the approximate area here at Six Lanes End. We will move at night and hopefully be able to interpolate the estate grounds under cover of darkness and work in twenty-four-hour shifts depending on the circumstances obtaining at the time . . .’

  For another three-quarters of an hour the Inspector droned on and it was only when Sergeant Bruton had scribbled ‘Must look up “interpolate” in dictionary’ for the fifteenth time to keep himself awake that Rascombe got back to the nature of the crimes they were supposed to be investigating.

  ‘We have,’ he said, ‘to be on the particular look-out for any child or children plural being taken into the Middenhall area and hopefully taken out again . . . Yes, Sergeant?’

  ‘You can’t be suggesting that Miss Midden can have anything to do with child abuse, can you, sir?’ asked Sergeant Bruton almost in spite of himself. ‘I mean she’s, well . . . I mean . . .’ He gave up.

  ‘When you’ve been in the Force as long as I have, Sergeant,’ said the Inspector, who had in fact been in a shorter time than Bruton, ‘you will learn that the outward appearance of some of the nastiest villains is in direct contradistinction to their horribleness. Remember that, Sergeant, and you won’t be taken in. And of course vice versa.’

  By the following night, the various units were in position around the Middenhall. Operation Kiddlywink, the codename Rascombe had chosen, had begun.

  23

  By the time Miss Midden got home that night it was well past midnight and she was exhausted. And elated.

  ‘I think a nightcap is called for,’ she said, and took a bottle of sloe gin she had made before Christmas and poured herself a glass. Then she looked doubtfully at the Major. The poor man was looking so wistfully at the bottle, and he had behaved himself with Timothy Bright.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You too. Get yourself a glass. We’ve cause for celebration. I don’t know how much money is in that hold-all but at a rough guess I’d say getting on for half a million pounds. There’s a parcel in there which must contain money as well. He was to take it to Spain and deliver it to someone there. So, cheers. And don’t look so stunned. It’s only money.’

  The Major was stunned, so stunned that he hadn’t touched his sloe gin. ‘Half a million? Half a million?’ he stammered. And she said it was only money. Major MacPhee had never been in the presence of so much money in his entire life. And he had never been in the presence of a woman who could treat such an enormous sum with s
uch disdain. He couldn’t find words to express his shock.

  ‘It may be less and it may be more,’ Miss Midden went on. ‘What does it matter? It’s a great deal of money. That’s all.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ he managed to ask.

  Miss Midden sat down at the kitchen table and grinned. It was an exultant grin with a hint of malice. The Major was a weak man and he needed to know that he wasn’t going to lay his hands on any of the cash. ‘I am going to sleep with the shotgun beside the bed. That’s the first thing I’m going to do,’ she said. ‘And after that we shall see.’

  She finished her sloe gin, picked up the hold-all, and went through to her office to fetch the gun and a mole-trap. Mole-traps were useful for catching things other than moles. Like hands.

  Once in her bedroom she emptied the hold-all and put the money in a cardboard box on top of her old mahogany wardrobe. After that she stuffed the bag with empty shoe boxes and some old clothes. Finally she put the mole-trap, now set and open, in the middle with a piece of paper over it. She also locked the door and wedged a chair under the doorknob. Then she went to bed.

  Outside, the weather had begun to change. A night wind blew across the open fell and with it there came rain, gusts of rain which blew against the window. Miss Midden slept soundly. She had begun to accomplish what she had set herself to do. It had very little to do with money.

  *

  It was still raining in the morning when a motorcycle turned up and a man with a brown paper parcel came to the back door. Miss Midden opened the door reluctantly. ‘Package for Major MacPhee,’ he said and handed it over with a receipt for Miss Midden to sign. She put the parcel on the kitchen table and watched him ride off. Then she went up to the old nursery with Timothy Bright’s breakfast.

  ‘I’ll get you some clothes,’ she said. ‘The Major isn’t your size. He’s too small, but I think there are some things of my grandfather’s that will fit you.’

  Timothy Bright thanked her and started on his porridge and bacon and eggs. At least the food, wherever he might be, was good. He hadn’t eaten so well for ages. And even his terror had left him. He was beginning to feel safe.

  Miss Midden returned with a pair of blue dungarees, an old shirt without a collar, and a sweater that had holes in the elbows. There was also a pair of boots that looked as though they had been used in the garden and had rusty studs on the soles. The boots were several sizes too big for him and had no laces.

  ‘But don’t think about leaving the house,’ she told him, ‘or showing yourself at the windows. I want only one other person to know you are here.’

  ‘What other person?’ Timothy Bright asked in alarm.

  ‘The one who brought you here,’ said Miss Midden, and went downstairs to find the Major standing at the kitchen table looking at the brown paper parcel.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there. Open it and look at the goodies inside,’ she said.

  ‘But I don’t know what it is. I haven’t sent away for anything. I can’t think who sent it to me.’

  Miss Midden started doing the washing-up. ‘One of your admirers down at the hell-hole,’ she suggested. ‘Some old flame. Mrs Consuelo McKoy, probably. She thinks you’re a real Major. That comes from living in California too long. Fantasyland.’

  Behind her the Major got some scissors and cut through the parcel tape. For a moment he was silent and then she heard him gasp. She turned and looked at the things lying on the table. They were not goodies. They were anything but goodies. They were revolting. Miss Midden had never seen anything like them in her life. And she certainly never wanted to see anything like them again as long as she lived. She looked up at the Major with utter disgust.

  ‘You filthy animal!’ she snarled. ‘You utterly revolting . . . you bloody pervert. Into children. Little children. You are the lowest form of animal life . . . not animal. Animals don’t go in for torturing little children. Bah!’

  But Major MacPhee was shaking his head and had gone a horrid patchy colour. ‘I never sent off for these,’ he stammered, ‘I swear I didn’t. I really didn’t. I don’t know where they come from. I don’t like this sort of thing. I never . . .’

  Miss Midden said nothing. She was thinking hard. For once she was inclined to believe the Major. If he had sent off for them, he wouldn’t have been fool enough to open the parcel in her presence. She was sure of that. He’d have taken it off to his room and gloated over these revolting photographs and magazines in private. On the other hand . . . Hand!

  ‘Don’t touch them,’ she said. ‘I’ll get a box and a piece of cloth. Just don’t handle them.’

  In fact she used a pair of gloves and put the filthy stuff, the product of sick and profit-conscious minds and a product for sick and evil minds, into a cardboard box very carefully.

  The bewildered Major watched her and kept shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘Not me, not me,’ he repeated, almost on the point of tears.

  ‘More to the point, why you?’ said Miss Midden. ‘Ask yourself that question. First him under your bed, naked and knocked about. And now this obscenity.’ She stopped. This was getting really dangerous. Someone was setting the Major up. And she’d be with him. She was damned if she would. And with all that money in the house it was even more dangerous. She would have to move quickly.

  ‘We’ve come back early,’ she announced. ‘Weather changed or something. Anyway we are back. Put that filth in the back of the car and cover it with a . . . No, put the box in a dustbin bag.’ And leaving the Major wondering what was going on in her mind, she dashed upstairs and hurled the contents of the hold-all out onto the bed where the mole-trap went off. Then she packed the money back into the bag and went downstairs. She put her old hat on, and a raincoat, and went across to the barn.

  Five minutes later she was down at the Middenhall. There was no one about. They were late risers and she was able to sneak past the front door and round to the back of the house without being seen. In the walled garden, during the war, there had been a deep air-raid shelter with concrete steps going down into the darkness. The entrance was covered with brambles and a self-sown buddleia, and grass grew over the mound. As far as she knew nobody had ever found the entrance but she had known it was there since she was small. It had terrified her then when she once went down it with her cousin Lennox. There had been water lying six inches deep in the passages and the cold and dark and Lennox’s claim that it had been used for torturing prisoners had given her the horrors.

  But now she needed that deep and hidden shelter. She clambered through the undergrowth, cleared away the earth over the iron door, and finally opened it. Then she fetched a torch from the car and the hold-all and went down into the darkness. The water was still there – perhaps the same water she had waded through thirty-two years before. This time Miss Midden was unafraid. She was determined. Someone had thrown down a challenge to her. There was nothing better for her. She loved the fight.

  At the very end of the passage, past rooms with rusted iron bunks on either side, the torch picked out what she had been looking for. It was a long narrow slot halfway up the concrete wall. Lennox had said it was for putting the dead bodies of men who had been shot down there. What use it had really had she had no idea. But it was out of sight of the door and anyone peering in would never spot it unless they came right into the room. She slid her hand along it and found it was dry. It would do. Then she pushed the hold-all in and went back for the box of obscene magazines and photographs and brought them down too, first removing the box from the plastic dustbin bag and putting in the hold-all containing the money to keep it dry in the sodden atmosphere of the old shelter. When that was done she splashed back and climbed the steps to the entrance and very carefully stared through the shrubs to make sure no one was about. After that the earth and grass went back over the iron door and by the time she returned to the old car there was hardly a sign that anything had been disturbed. Miss Midden went back to the house. It hadn’t even been necessary
to tell anyone at the Middenhall that she was home from her holiday. She had seen no one.

  For the rest of the day she worked in the house and planned her next move. Outside the sheets of rain came down and the wind blew so that even the sheep seemed to huddle under the bank and the thorn trees along the old drove road. By nightfall the rain had grown even heavier and the wind continued to howl through the copse behind the Midden and across the chimney tops.

  *

  For the officers engaged in Operation Kiddlywink it was not a night to be out in. But Inspector Rascombe was adamant. A dark, wet and windy night was just the sort the paedophiles at the Middenhall would choose to stay indoors and watch pornographic videos. They certainly would not be on the look-out for teams of policemen dressed in arctic camouflage suits borrowed from the Royal Marines and intended to make them look like sheep safely grazing across Scabside Fell. He had assembled his men on the Parson’s Road. From there they had to cross two miles of rough country to the Middenh all, and the night was very dark, wet and windy indeed.

  ‘Now, when the advance party has established itself in the park opposite the house and the auxiliaries are ready to move forward to the farm, I want you to move with the utmost care. Rutherford, you and Mark will go forward round the lake here . . .’

  At this point a constable opened the door of the British Telecom van the Inspector had borrowed as his Headquarters and the wind blew the Ordance Survey map up the wall. The Inspector and Sergeant Bruton managed to get it straight again and Rascombe continued his briefing.

  ‘As I was saying, you will rendezvous with Markin and Spender here at the bottom of the drive and attempt to make a visual survey of the house both back and front. Are there any questions?’

  Sergeant Bruton had a great many, but he knew better than to ask them. Instead, a detective constable wanted to know what he ought to do in the event that he was stopped and asked by one of the suspects what he was doing.