Keppelberg

by Stan Mason

  ‘Praying of course,’ he replied tiredly, recovering himself somewhat.

  ‘What are you praying for?’ I ventured trying to make some sense of the situation.

  ‘I can’t tell you... you’re a stranger,’ he retorted. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you. Please go away!’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ I was starting to become frustrated by the boy’s attitude. ‘Why can’t you talk to me?’

  ‘It would not be in the interests of the village to do so,’ he replied bluntly like an old man.

  Then he shrugged off my arm, rose quickly, and ran along the length of the pews away from me, tripping over a vagrant shoelace in his haste to escape. I watched him pick himself up and race out of the church leaving the double doors wide open. I reflected the brief conversation frowning at the boy’s responses. He had told me that he was forty-two years old when he clearly looked about eleven or twelve. He had repeated it understanding the question fully. Could it be that the villagers counted the years in the same way as they did in the Holy Bible. Methuselah was credited with reaching over nine hundred years. Maybe they calculated years in the village in the same way. The boy was still young and not a man advancing to middle-age. And why was he afraid to talk to me? At that moment, Wayne Austen entered my life. He had not been at the party at my sister Mary’s house because of his involvement in a divorce case so I hadn’t seen him earlier.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said loudly, holding his hands in the air as if in surrender. ‘I’ve been sent by Mary and Tim.’

  ‘Mary and Tim?’ I echoed in surprise.

  ‘I’m Tim’s partner. ‘Mary was worried that you’d come back here. There have been rumours about this village over the years... none of them pleasant. They wanted me to keep an eye on you.’ He held his position just inside the two great doors looking out occasionally in case the police or some of the villagers came by.

  ‘Then Mary and Tim did know of this place even though they told me they’d never heard of it,’ I uttered perplexedly. ‘Why would they say that when it’s untrue?’

  Austen shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment. ‘They knew you’d been here and were curious. They wanted to prevent you from coming back here and save you from any danger.’

  ‘What sort of danger,’ I asked smartly, concerned that he might know something about the place that I didn’t. After all, despite their dislike of strangers, the villagers appeared to be quite innocuous, albeit out-dated, old-fashioned and strange in their views and activities but very peaceful. Why should there be any danger?

  ‘As I said there have been rumours over the past twenty-five years,’ he went on. ‘There was a police enquiry some fifteen years ago when someone complained of the odd activities that went on here but, after a through investigation, the village was given a clean bill of health. However, in some small communities in and around Newcastle there’s still a lot of gossip about it. Something’s odd but no one can put their finger on it. Hence everyone gives the village a wide berth. The don’t want to know. It’s far safer that way. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, you come blundering into it. I’m sure you can imagine how your sister felt.’

  ‘I’ve seen nothing yet to alarm me,’ I told him bluntly. ‘Okay, the police were obstructive. They locked me up in a cell for one night but they let me go in the morning.’

  ‘After your car had been vandalised by the mechanic in the nearby garage,’ stated the detective.

  ‘Are you certain you can point the finger at him?’ I asked directly although I really didn’t need to ask the question.

  ‘You can be certain of it,’ rattled Austen smartly. ‘I saw him put the four wheels he’d stolen from your car back on to it. He’s a sly one all right. I don’t suppose there’s much business for him n these parts so he had to make some of his own.’

  ‘But why would the villagers allow him to do that when they want me to leave without delay?

  Wayne shifted slightly as he heard the sound of footsteps. ‘Get down!’ He shouted and I reacted quickly diving to the floor of the pew.

  The footsteps came closer and then stopped. I heard the voice of a young woman who halted in her tracks as soon as she saw the detective.

  ‘I’m looking for my son,’ she began. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘He was, ma’am,’ returned Wayne politely, but he left a few minutes ago.’

  There was a pause as she stared directly at Wayne’s face. ‘I don’t seem to recognise you, sir.’

  ‘I’ve been unwell,’ he lied. ‘I’ve been in my house for the last few months but I’m better now and up and about.’

  She paused to reflect the information and then accepted it. ‘Do you know where my son went?’

  ‘He went round the back, ma’am,’ returned the detective.

  There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. ‘Hm... he’s probably gone to the pharmacy. He always does that.’

  There was a longer silence and then she turned on her heel to walk back the way she came. I got to my feet and stared at Wayne.

  ‘Where the hell’s the pharmacy?’ I demanded frowning.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he riposted.

  ‘We’ve got to find out what’s going on in this place. There’s something really odd going on.’ I walked slowly towards the great double doors.

  ‘No you don’t!’ He insisted flatly. ‘We’ve got to get out of here as fast as we can and not come back. I suggest you go directly to the garage and collect your car. It’ll be ready by now. Then you start the engine and head south. Do you hear... head south!’

  ‘That boy,’ I went on reflecting the previous incident, at the same time ignoring his advice. ‘He told me that he was forty-two years old. An eleven year old telling me that with great conviction. Now why would he say that if it wasn’t true... which it can’t be.’

  Austen was beginning to show his frustration in his body language and he tried to get me to leave the church.

  ‘I’ve no idea. You know how kids exaggerate. They make up stories believing them to be true. Come on, let’s go!’

  ‘But this boy was sobbing his heart out,’ I countered. ‘There’s something materially wrong here. The people are not just Victorian in their attitude and activities. Something’s going on that the police didn’t discover when they did that investigation.’

  ‘But you don’t know what it is or what it might be,’ he retaliated with an element of amusement in his voice. ‘That’s the way it is for everyone. Now let’s get the hell out of here!’

  He left the church and I followed him a short way along the path.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked him inquisitively.

  ‘We’re splitting up,’ he told me point-blank. ‘I don’t want anyone to know that we’re together. If they found out it could be dangerous. You’ve got to leave the village and go west to the garage. I’m going east to my car.’

  He turned and left me to go my own way and I ambled slowly along the path until he was out of sight. However whether I took his advice or not at that precise moment was hardly important for, within a few seconds, I came face-to-face with PC7. He looked extremely grim as he saw me and stood directly in front of me preventing me from going further.

  ‘Well, well, well!’ He uttered firmly as the police did in old-time films. ‘It seems you intend to intrude into our lives here, Mr. Ross, even though you’ve been warned not to. I think you’d better come along with me. I don’t suppose you have accommodation while your vehicle’s being repaired, do you?’ I was in two minds whether or not to run for it but I decided to stay put. He took my arm firmly and led me away towards the police station. ‘Well I have the perfect place for you to spend the night.’

  I knew my fate immediately. He was going to charge me on the grounds of vagrancy. ‘Are you arresting me?’ I challenged weakly.

 
‘Let’s just say we’re looking after you, like the good citizens of Keppelberg would like to do,’ he replied with a slight smile touching his lips.

  He took me back to the police station and led me to the same cell where I had spent the previous night. There was little I could do because if I tried to escape he would charge me with resisting arrest which would only make matters worse for me. After I entered the cell, he locked the door behind me. His footsteps began to thud on the flagstones as he departed but he stopped when I shouted at the top of my voice.

  ‘Hey... what about the pharmacy?’

  He halted quickly and the echoes of his steps reverberated as he returned to the cell.

  ‘What did you say?’ He inquired with a serious expression on his face.

  ‘I said ‘what about the pharmacy’?’ I repeated solemnly although I had no idea what it meant.

  ‘I would ask you the same question,’ he went on. On this occasion, I knew that I had him rattled.

  ‘You tell me,’ I advanced quickly, like an angler playing a fish on his line. ‘I know all about the pharmacy.’

  ‘Then you know too much for your own liking!’ he snapped angrily. He paused to reflect for a moment before continuing. ‘You’ve now entered a new phase of detention.’

  He turned sharply and left the cell area to return to his duties leaving me wondering whether I had touched a nerve. A pharmacy was a place where they distributed drugs. Why should he become so secretive because I had discovered there was one in the village? Could it be that this was a huge drug-smuggling operation hidden in the wilds of the north-east of England? I sat on the small wooden chair with a dozen thoughts flowing through my mind. Thee was something really sinister in that the police investigation fifteen years ago had failed to find anything untoward. Where were all the elderly people who lived in the village? That was another mystery beyond my understanding. I hadn‘t seen one of them since my arrival. And why, according to PC7 had I entered another phase of my detention? What did that mean? I realised that in my present plight I might never know the answers. Worse still, there was a meeting at the village hall that evening of which I was the main item on the agenda. However, as I was incarcerated in a police cell there was no means by which I could attend. It made me quite angry. I mused on a question once put to a celebrity on television. ‘Would you rather remain out of the limelight or have people talk about you?’ He answered by choosing the latter. I wasn’t sure, at this moment in time, in my humble position in a police cell, that I felt the same way.

  * * *

  I sat on the straw mattress for a while ruing my situation before attuning my mind to a means of escape. It was quite possible that by revealing that I knew the pharmacy existed they might throw away the key and keep me there for ever. And only Wayne knew of my existence there. There had to be some way it could be done. Dammit... I had been a soldier and it was up to me to use my initiative! Hell... thirty-nine people had once found a way of escaping from Alcatraz. Admittedly seven were shot dead, three drowned and twenty-six were captured but three of them presumably made it to the mainland and were never heard of again. There was always a means of escape... if only one could fathom it out. I sat quite still with my eyes shut as I tried to work out a plan. Where was the most vulnerable part of the cell? It certainly wasn’t the walls. They were made of granite and impenetrable... even Edmund Dante discovered that situation in the Chateau d’If in the novel ‘The Count of Monte Cristo.’

  The floor was made of similar stone so digging a tunnel was out of the question. Almost certainly there was nothing underneath anyway except earth and rubble so the task of making a tunnel was likely to take some years... and would have been noticeable by the earth piling up inside the cell. In order to wrest away the strong iron bars I would need a horse with a long rope or someone with a tractor to pull them out. There was only one area left in the equation... the ceiling. Why should anyone want to reinforce the ceiling seven feet high in a small cell? I mused on the idea for a short while and then lifted the straw mattress to examine the bed underneath. It was made of long poles of wood, three inches by three inches thick, six feet long, bracketed together and fixed to the wall. The bed was held up by four short stout wooden legs, one at each corner, one foot high. I heaved the bed away from the wall, tearing it away from the brackets. Then I turned it upside down and stamped on the legs repeatedly until they gave way, pulling the end pole away from the main frame. Suddenly, I found myself holding a fairly thick piece of wood in my hands by which I could engineer my escape. I moved nearer to the window so that if I managed to make a hole in the ceiling I could use the wall and the iron bars to steady myself. My main concern was that of noise. If the thudding of the pole could be heard by the police, they would shortly arrive to prevent me from continuing my actions. However, to my knowledge of the prisons in Basra, they were pretty much sound-proofed so I was practically certain that my luck would hold out. I stood on the chair and started to thrust the pole upwards at the ceiling with all my might. It proved to be the most vulnerable part of the cell for the plaster soon began to rain down on my head as the pole plunged repeatedly upwards. It wasn’t long before I had made a sizable hole... one big enough for me to climb through. I placed the pole across the arms of the chair and climbed on it. This action increased the elevation by another fifteen inches. There was four feet above me left to manage and I prayed that my weight would not pull down the plaster as I tried to raise myself through the hole. Trusting to luck, I pulled myself upwards but the plaster was too weak to hold me and I fell headlong off the chair to the floor. However, despite the fact that a large part of the ceiling had collapsed, I could see a wooden beam above me on which some of the floorboards rested upstairs. I climbed back on the chair and hauled myself upwards, athletically pulling myself up into the great hole I had created to find myself standing in an empty office. It was my good fortune that no one was in situ at the time or I would have been handcuffed and taken to a different cell. I paused to catch my breath, dusted myself down, and went to the door, opening it cautiously, to find myself in a hallway. I walked along it to the end and opened another door even more cautiously before finding myself standing at the front of the police station behind the Desk Sergeant. I paused for a moment to build up my courage and then walked boldly forward, wishing the policeman a good day and hurried out of the front door as he stared at my departing figure with utter amazement. There was no doubt that he would chase after me but, by the time he reached the front steps of the police station, I would be well and truly gone. There would almost certainly be a hunt to find me... I was certainly number one on Keppelberg’s police list!

  The most important thing I needed to do was a change of clothes. I had worn a blue lounge suit at Mary’s party but I put on my old battledress on the following morning and was still wearing it. The camouflaged jacket and trousers made me stand out in the village like a sore thumb and I needed to do something about it urgently. Unfortunately, my suit was in a case in the boot of my car which was a mile away in the garage for repair. Ultimately I needed to find some clothing from elsewhere. I walked towards the residential area of the village which was comprised of some four hundred houses, looking over the four foot fences of the back gardens. Eventually I saw a shirt and a pair of trousers on one of the washing lines. They looked pretty dry to me but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Even if I contracted arthritis at the age of seventy through wearing damp clothes I could see no immediate alternative. I entered the garden by the rear gate, looking around surreptitiously. Nothing could be heard from inside the house and no one else seemed to be within the vicinity. I unpaged the clothes intending to take them away and change into them as quickly as possible. However, the watchful eye of the woman in the house stared out of the window recognising my intent and she raced smartly into the garden to prevent me from stealing her possessions.

  ‘That is not the way we do things in this village!’ she repr
oached angrily, causing me to feel extremely embarrassed at being caught in the act. It was pointless to explain that I had just escaped from jail and was desperate.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I apologised profusely. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I need something else to change into. My car’s in the garage being repaired...’

  ‘Enough!’ snapped the woman irately. She was about thirty years old and extremely attractive. I wondered why she wasn’t working in a shop or in the fields on this particularly bright day. ‘I don’t know who you are or why you’re stealing my clothes,’ she chided. ‘You’re not of this village and there’s no doubt that the police will be looking for you.’

  ‘Why should the police be looking for me?’ I asked wondering if there was some kind of telepathy so that everyone knew everything.

  She looked me up and down to determine whether or not I was a rogue and then she turned to enter the house. ‘Come inside,’ she invited. ‘I’m sure you know there’s a meeting at the village hall at eight o’clock tonight to discuss how they’re going to deal with you.’

  ‘I heard about it,’ I told her candidly.

  ‘It’s best you should be there to hear what they have to say.’

  I followed her into the house and stood lamely in the poorly-furnished lounge. Everything there was old... very old! She left me to go upstairs and shortly returned with an old suit similar to those worn by the men in the village, a waistcoat, a shirt and shoes.

  ‘Here,’ she said, passing them to me. ‘They’ll hold you in good stead. You needn’t bother to return them. They belonged to my husband.’

  I nodded as she left the room and I put on the clothes surprised to see that they fitted me well. The woman returned a short while later and looked me up and down.

  ‘Very good. You look smart,’ she commended. ‘You’re about the same size and weight as my husband was. It looks good on you’

  ‘I want to thank you for your trouble,’ I advanced hesitantly.