‘Hmm,’ said Fiona, unconvinced. ‘I think I want to be a police lady when I grow up. But real villains not just boring stuff. Or maybe I’ll be a mole catcher. We saw one once, with a real live dead mole!’
‘Well, whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll be great at it.’
I was distracted, hoping I’d kept everything neat enough for Sergeant Freeman. Two pairs of gloves, white for summer, brown for winter, as well as a shirt, a tie and shoes, which, in the cold light of day, were now looking a little tired from all the walking I’d been doing on my beats.
A loud knock at the door made the children run downstairs. On the front doorstep, underneath the familiar women’s police hat, was a lady I assumed must be Sergeant Freeman, gloved hands clasped together. When I got downstairs, Janet had let the Sergeant in and they were standing in the hall together, talking about the weather.
‘I know, it hasn’t stopped. Ah, here she is,’ smiled Janet.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Sergeant Freeman, nodding her head at me.
I was slightly nervous, and wasn’t sure what to say. A weak-sounding ‘Hello’ came out. For some reason I had lost my usual confidence.
‘Why don’t we all have a nice cup of tea in the kitchen?’ suggested Janet helpfully. ‘I wouldn’t normally say it, but I think poor Pam’s been a little nervous about your visit,’ she said as she put down some Jammie Dodgers next to the pot. I blushed, wishing she wouldn’t say any more, as I wanted to give a good impression.
Sergeant Freeman scooped up her skirt as she sat down at the head of the table. ‘Don’t you worry. I take good care of all my girls,’ she said to me.
‘Well. I’ll leave you two to it, then. I’ve some bits to buy. Come on, you two rascals!’ Janet called up the stairs to the children. ‘What are you wearing? You can’t go out in that! Oh, it’s too late now …’ I heard her voice trailing off and out of the door.
When Janet had left, I topped up the teapot and sat quietly as Sergeant Freeman dipped a biscuit in her cup and looked around.
‘So how are you finding it?’ she said after a while. ‘At the station?’
‘It’s been a big jump from training,’ I said. ‘A few surprises and some funny things, I suppose. But interesting too.’
‘And the lads are all right?’
‘Oh yes, they’re all smashing.’
‘Any tricky cases?’
‘Well, there was one … it was abortion. Suspected anyway. I never found out what happened. That was a bit sad actually. Sergeant found some Penny Royal in a bottle.’
I realized I found it very easy to talk to Sergeant Freeman. She had a kind way of really listening as you spoke.
‘Yes. He told me about that. Case dropped. Impossible to prove in the end, apparently.’
I was quietly relieved.
She looked around the small kitchen, which Janet had spent much of the evening before scrubbing in preparation for the visit.
‘And you’re getting on well here?’
‘Oh yes. It’s convenient and they are lovely. The children and everything.’
‘Let’s get down to real business then, shall we?’ she said, clapping her hands and standing up.
I was pleased that there had been no mention of my going to the dance, and Sergeant Hardcastle’s little ‘cross-examination’. I lead the way upstairs to my bedroom.
‘Neat and tidy. Very nice,’ she said, her eyes darting about the little box room noting every detail. ‘Hmm. Shoes are a bit shabby, though, aren’t they? Well, you’ll be able to buy a pair of police boots now. For the winter. Much more suitable than these old things.’
I had grown quite tired of walking around in the rain with wet feet, so that was some good news.
‘Oh, and soon you’ll be visiting me up at HQ, by the way. You can stay with us and I’ll show you where all the important stuff happens. By the way, have you been to a post mortem yet?’ she asked out of the blue, as we walked back towards the front door.
‘I haven’t. Fortunately all the ladies in our division have been very considerate,’ I said, risking a joke, ‘and decided not to die when I was on duty.’
She smiled. ‘Let’s hope it stays that way, eh?’
But in the police, you never know what’s round the corner.
There were only about three million cars in the UK in 1951, so the Richmond streets were nowhere near as busy as today’s roads. But traffic was sometimes a problem even then.
As a policewoman, part of my job was to do the School Crossing Patrol (I was like today’s lollipop ladies but without the lollipop) in the mornings and afternoons, as the local infants were crossing opposite the Lower School. I would stand and direct the traffic, allowing the children to cross at intervals; they all trooped across, some holding hands, some skipping and chattering away to each other. As they came past they would call me ‘police lady’, and on the way out of school they would trot by again, and show me pictures of all manner of strange animals and scenes they had drawn that day.
One morning, one of those winter mornings which seem to never really get light, I stood by the crossing in my greatcoat and new fur-lined police boots. The morning traffic filtered through the mist and, like clockwork, the schoolchildren started to wander over from the streets and houses. Two boys were engaged in a little fight on one side of the road, so I went over to see what was going on. One said that the other had tried to take his lunch, so I scolded them both and sent them on their way.
In the meantime, quite a crowd of children had built up waiting to cross, so I stopped the traffic and waved them over again. Just as they were all nearly across, there was a loud car horn and a scream from further up the road. I waved the stragglers across quickly and ran over to see what had happened.
One of the little boys who had been fighting was sitting in the road, staring ahead, with his lunchbox next to him. Cars were building up in a queue, and one had stopped right in front of him, just in time by the look of it. The driver got out, and at the same time a woman in an apron came over, waving her arms.
‘Billy!’ she shouted. ‘My baby! What’s happened?’
‘I fell over. I don’t know. Tom told me he’d get me and tried to take my lunch or something, so I crossed here instead. It doesn’t matter,’ the little boy told his mother.
‘You silly boy! Don’t you know what these roads are like now? It’s not safe.’
‘I just slipped. I’m all right, Mam.’
‘And you?’ said the woman, pointing at me. ‘How could you let this happen? You’re supposed to be helping them cross safely.’
‘With all due respect …’ I hesitated, summoning up some confidence. ‘He didn’t cross at the crossing. And I had all the other children to keep an eye on.’
‘Well, you’ll be hearing from me,’ she said, and scooped her little Billy into her arms, though he looked thoroughly embarrassed by the whole affair.
‘I didn’t see the child, officer. He came from nowhere,’ said the driver of the car, looking quite shaken.
‘Well, no harm done. He wasn’t hurt. You’d better be on your way, before this traffic blocks the whole town.’
In the distance I could see Billy’s mother, staring back at me. I wondered if she would carry out her threat and try to report me to the station. I kept my eye on her before allowing the last of the children to cross; when I looked back, she was gone.
After my dance at Catterick Garrison, with Jim, I had been being a bit careful; I didn’t want the Sergeant on my back again. But I was keen to see Jim again, so when he sent me a note, asking if I wanted to go to the pictures in Richmond on Friday evening, I was quietly delighted. They were showing Scrooge, based on the Charles Dickens story, with Alastair Sim as the old miser. I was nervous about seeing Jim again, and I found I had almost forgotten what he looked like as I walked down into town. Did he have blue eyes or green? I couldn’t even remember that.
When I arrived he was already standing there, leaning against the wall, wea
ring a nice blue shirt and tie, coat over his arm. He was smoking a cigarette, his eyes closed, face tilted upwards. The film was about to start so we didn’t have long for small talk, just walked to our seats and sat down. I could smell coal tar soap on his skin again.
At one point, when loads of bells started ringing and a huge growling noise made me jump, Jim put his hand on my arm. I tensed up slightly, unsure what this meant, but left it where it was. At the end of the picture the National Anthem was played, and Jim and I chatted about the film.
‘Oh, he was so wonderfully horrible. As Scrooge. Don’t you think?’ I said as we walked into the chilly night.
‘Why don’t men wear top hats like that any more?’ Jim wondered out loud.
‘I don’t know. Too tall? You should bring them back.’
‘When I get out, anyway. Not sure it would go down so well at my uncle’s showroom,’ he joked.
‘You’d better not walk me home tonight,’ I said suddenly, back in the real world again.
‘Why not? Will you be all right?’
‘It’s just … you know, the Sergeant. He looks out for me and … it could get difficult. It’s such a small town. People talk.’
But instead of parting, we continued to walk in silence for a while, past the school and the empty playground.
‘We’ve been told we’ll be out of here before Christmas now,’ he said after a while. ‘Possibly next week even. So this is kind of goodbye. Before we’ve really said hello.’
‘Better make the most of it then, hadn’t we?’ I said.
We turned and walked towards the castle, as though there was nothing else we could possibly have done at that moment.
‘Lovely night,’ I said after a while, as we walked round past the river and up towards the great Norman fortress. ‘Funny to think of all those kings and queens and knights and people who used to live here, in all their chainmail and dresses probably.’
I ran my fingers across the cold stone breathing it in.
‘My mum took us to a castle once. In Dorset.’ Jim lit up a cigarette and looked up at the sky. ‘Before she … went. She used to pack a little picnic in a basket, all wrapped up. Even during the war she was a master at rustling up something out of nothing. Scotch eggs somehow … apricot flan made with carrots!’
‘She sounds nice.’
‘She would have liked you.’
There was a calm silence; it seemed unlike any other I’d experienced. Not even the owl I sometimes heard up there, on my beat, was around. Perhaps he was off catching voles. Or maybe they hibernate? I wasn’t sure.
A cloud moved across the sky, and the sliver of a crescent moon came into view. Jim put his hand on mine and I breathed in the sharp, clean air. I had never kissed a man for real. How did it work? Who ‘started’ it? We both just stared up at the sky, breathtakingly clear and infinite.
‘What time’s your bus?’ I asked in the end.
‘I should get the ten-thirty, really. So I suppose we should get going.’
I had forgotten all about the Sergeant and the possibility of being seen out with a man. I didn’t care any more. Jim was here and all was right with the world. But the bus was already coming down the hill as we approached the stop, its headlights spreading out into the road ahead.
‘You’d better run. Or you’ll miss it.’
‘I’m sorry. To go.’
‘Don’t drink too much German beer.’
He got on the bus and I watched as it moved away: two specks getting smaller and smaller, blinking, then gone.
That night I had a dream that I lived in Richmond Castle. I was a cook in a big Norman kitchen, roasting huge hogs on spits. Jim was a prisoner there. I took him some food in the cells and he was all starved and thin, tied up with a big ball and chain. Suddenly, a lamb came running up to me and jumped into my arms. Its coat was thick and oily like a real lamb, but it had a human face. Then there was a loud knocking on the cell door … someone whispering my name …
But it was a real knocking on the door. I managed to wake up, and looked at my clock. It was just past two thirty a.m. PC Carter was downstairs in the cold. I was needed down at the station again.
‘Pearl, that woman they picked up on the Great North Road before, well, she’s back in the cells. She looks awful. They found her up there again. Her and one of the soldiers up at Catterick, apparently. Doing it. If you know what I mean.’
When we walked into the station, Sergeant Cleese was filling out some forms.
‘Good, Rhodes. Sorry to drag you out, but you know the drill. She’s down in the cell. We’ve told her she’s being reported for being drunk and incapable, but if you wouldn’t mind going to check on her.’
‘Yes, Sergeant.’
‘Not a pretty sight. Not a pretty sight at all,’ he sighed to himself.
Pearl lay on the bed and had thrown her blanket off, her legs hanging over the edge. She looked very thin; where her eyes had been bright and clear before they now looked dull, with dark rings under them. She was wearing a silk dress but it had a large tear on one sleeve, and there was a big bruise on her arm.
‘Pearl,’ I whispered. ‘It’s WPC Rhodes. Do you remember?’
‘I remember you. Little police girl. So innocent.’
She was drunk, but a deep drunk, not like before, when she had been quite lively. It was as though a spark in her had been dulled, almost extinguished. I turned on my torch rather than fill the room with the main light and looked over at her on the bed.
‘He left me,’ she said, sitting up and grabbing on to my arm.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m better off without him anyway,’ she said with sudden bitterness ‘He ruined me. Ruined everything.’
‘Get some sleep. If you can. It’ll be all right.’
‘It won’t be all right,’ she said, but she drifted off to sleep.
The next day, Reggie didn’t come and collect her and she was sent home. We said we would notify her later when she would have to appear in the magistrate’s court. As she walked out of the station alone, blinking in the sunlight, she was silent, as though she had given up on a previously all-pervading dream. I had the saddest feeling I would never see Pearl again.
Market day in Richmond was a sight to behold. Farmers and food producers from across North Riding came to sell their wares in the market. Crowds flocked in from the villages all around, and, with the proliferation of the motor car, the traffic did too. One of my duties was controlling the traffic for three hours, taking my turn with the lads on the corner of King Street, so that cars and lorries, and army trucks from the garrison, could pass through without hitting shoppers.
That day, I took over from PC Carter, who had been there for three hours already and whose fingers were turning blue. I watched as the market holders called out their wares: cabbage and carrots, fruits, cheese on another stall from a local farm, even fish fresh from the coast.
A long train of lorries from the garrison came down the road, so I waved them through. The trail of vehicles was seemingly endless, lorry after lorry in army khaki, like the ones I had seen the night of the dance. Lads were hanging out of the back, all piled in together, all alike with their cropped hair and kits bags. I wondered where they were off to. Then a voice shouted out.
‘Pam! Pam! We’re leaving.’
I looked round. There was Jim, by now quite a way off in the distance, hanging out the back of a lorry, waving wildly.
‘I’ll write to you!’ he shouted.
I lifted my arm slowly, half waving, but in an instant he was out of sight.
Towards the end of my shift, as I looked back at the last lorries, the dark clouds above me opened up, and rain poured out of them in torrents. Water beat against my legs. I didn’t even have my mac with me, only my coat. But I had to get back to the station to let Doris leave early. Sarge had said. I swallowed rain and rain went in my ears. My hair was stuck to my head, even with my hat on, and my coat was drenched through.
; When I finally got back to the station, I was relieved that someone had lit the fire. I could see the smoke twirling up out of the chimney. As I trudged in, and shook my feet, there was no sign of Sergeant Cleese. But the Inspector (the ‘Spec’, as we often called him) was standing in the hallway. He looked me up and down. Then he looked at the pool of water collecting at my feet.
‘You been swimming?’
‘No, sir. It’s just … you know, raining.’
I was always a little nervous of the Spec. He was hard to predict. He folded his arms and disappeared. I continued to remove my wet coat and was just working out where to put it without getting everything else wet when the Inspector reappeared.
‘Here. Put these on.’
He didn’t smile, just handed over a pair of brown girls’ shoes. His daughter’s, I supposed. He had two daughters. One was training to be a nurse.
‘Put yours in front of the fire. If you like.’ This time he did smile and I finally relaxed.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I tell you, you do look like a little drowned rat, and no getting away from it.’
I had to laugh. But there was no rest. No sooner had I put on the new footwear when Sergeant Cleese came in.
‘Ah, Rhodes, can you go and deliver some summonses? On Bargate.’
Bargate was a steep hill towards the green. And I wasn’t looking forward to walking back out in the rain again. I walked down and delivered the summonses. One was for a young man, who looked like a small ferret, and hardly opened the door wide enough to let me hand the paper over. His house smelled of rotting cabbage, I noted. The other was for an elderly lady, and I couldn’t imagine what she had done. She looked quite frail and confused, but took the summons all the same.
On my way back I saw a car with its engine running, but with not a soul in sight. I waited for quite a while, unsure what to do. Then a woman came out of a nearby house. She was flustered, putting something into her handbag, and seemed in a hurry.
Bobby on the Beat Page 14
