Bobby on the Beat

by Pamela Rhodes

  ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen,’ she said, and began tucking in.

  ‘We may work hard in this house but we always eat well, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said her husband dutifully.

  ‘Did you notice Charles’s roses as you came in? He’s got the greenest fingers in North Riding. They’re quite the envy of the ladies at the WI. Aren’t they, Charles?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Well, I said to him the other day, you ought to exhibit them, shouldn’t you, Charles? It seems such a waste them just sitting there. Do you have any hobbies, Pamela? Interests outside work?’

  ‘I used to perform in plays, in Scarborough. At the open-air theatre. For a while I did think about acting as a career, before I realized I didn’t want to spend all my time with actors.’

  ‘Ooh, you made the right choice. I mean, really, I don’t see the point of plays and the pictures and such like. We never go, do we? It seems such a frivolous indulgence, when you think there are people out there with nothing. I’d much rather be doing something useful. Actually make a difference. That’s why I joined the police.’

  ‘How do you find it? Being a woman sergeant, I mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s still a man’s world, and there’s no doubt about that. I do find myself sometimes in a room, with the others, and they’ll be talking about their wives or girlfriends in this way or that, if you know what I mean, and they’ll quite forget I’m there.’

  ‘The lads at our station are always very polite when I’m around.’

  The Super was ultra strict when it came to matters of decency, and he wouldn’t suffer any bad language or innuendo at the station, at least not in front of the senior officers or girls.

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it! But you can rest assured it all comes out when you leave the room,’ said Sergeant Freeman. ‘Sometimes it feels like I’ve dropped right into the bar of a public house, the way they talk to one another. They’re not as careful as they used to be around me, now that I’ve reached this far, I suppose.’

  She scooped up the last of her food and wiped her mouth with a huge red napkin.

  ‘Well, I may be the first female among all those men, but I won’t be the last, I can assure you of that.’

  The rest of the week at Northallerton was a blur of activity, quite different from what I was used to in sleepy Richmond. It almost felt like I had skipped forward a few years in terms of technology and the pace of life. There was more of everything. More and bigger cars, more officers, more noise and more case files piling up in the offices.

  Sergeant Gaunt, the one who had taken my fingerprints for the official police record, showed me again how to take them.

  ‘Now you have a go,’ he said, sluggishly passing me the ink-pad.

  ‘Does it matter which one you do first?’

  When I tried it on him, the first attempt was just a big blur of ink across the page.

  ‘Oh no. I’d never identify you from that. It’s awful,’ I said.

  ‘No. I doubt it,’ he said, yawning. ‘Have another go.’

  I rolled each finger carefully in the ink, then placed them straight down on the paper.

  ‘Much better,’ he sighed.

  Then we went back into the photography room and I tried that too. After I had taken my test picture, there was a young lad, who had been caught shoplifting, due to have his pictures taken. I stood at the back and kept quiet. The young shoplifter sauntered in and stood in front of the board, with his head slightly on one side. He stared sulkily down at the Sergeant’s feet.

  ‘Head straight. Look up. We haven’t got all day.’

  He looked up reluctantly and the camera snapped quickly, for ever catching that moment.

  Whatever the crime, however small or large, every face that came into that room seemed to look equally menacing when photographed, as though everyone was a mass murderer at heart. I think it was something in the lighting.

  Despite all the buzz at the station, it was actually Traffic Patrol which turned out to be the most exciting part of the week. We whizzed around in the big black police cars, pulled people over and stopped off for cups of tea at some of the rural stations. I didn’t know much about vehicles and things like that, and would often switch off when the lads at the station enthused over the latest models of car, how their engines worked and which would go the fastest, but it was exciting to actually be driving around the country lanes. The cars seemed thrilling to me, even though they were nothing like the vehicles nowadays: the dashboard was a lot simpler, there was no air conditioning or heating or anything like that, not even seatbelts.

  ‘You’re from Richmond, are you then?’ asked the driver, leaning back as we rattled along the bumpy roads around Northallerton.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Strict, isn’t he? Your Super? We try to avoid stopping off there if we can. It’s not as relaxed as some stations. We like to have a chat, you know. Pass the time of day.’

  ‘I suppose. I don’t have anything to compare it to really. We don’t muck about much or anything like that, though. At least not when the Super’s around. The Inspector’s all right, though. And the Sergeants are up and down, but usually OK. Take their roles very seriously, if you know what I mean.’

  At intervals, HQ would call into the car radio and ask where we were. Whenever we called back our location on the days I was on the roads, we always seemed to be at a place called Busby Stoop. I never did work out where that was.

  The week flew by. On my last day in Northallerton I just had an hour for a quick look round the department store before my train. It took me back to my days at Marshall & Snelgrove. How glad I was I didn’t have to work there any more! As I walked to the train, I caught sight of Eric outside the post office. He had the afternoon off, and I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye properly so I was pleased to see him.

  ‘Pam. You’re off today, aren’t you? This is my wife, Carol. And little George. Our boy.’

  A young lad aged about three or four emerged from behind his mother’s legs. He bore a striking resemblance to the young Eric, with a wave of thick dark hair and piercing blue eyes. But, unlike the bold and brash young Eric I remembered, he hugged onto his mother’s coat shyly.

  ‘He might look like me, but he’s got his mother’s way. Haven’t you, Georgie?’

  Eric’s wife was very beautiful: a plain natural look, hardly any make-up. She reminded me a bit of a frightened hare, which stops dead still when a car comes along and very gracefully gets flattened to a pulp.

  ‘Eric’s told me about you. How funny you bumped into each other,’ she said softly. ‘I was very impressed when I heard you were a policewoman. I’d never be brave enough to step outside the normal … I mean … what’s expected. Sorry. I don’t mean any offence …’

  ‘Anyway, we’d better be off,’ Eric interrupted. ‘Got to get Georgie his tea. The joys of fatherhood, and all that.’

  We all shook hands and said we’d stay in touch, but I had a feeling we wouldn’t.

  As they walked away, little George in the middle being swung in the air, laughing, I had a sudden urge to be part of a family. My own family. Seeing Eric all grown up, and a dad, brought a new emotion flooding in, and it gave me quite a start.

  But I hadn’t met anyone yet who I wanted to start a family with. After our night outside the castle, it looked unlikely that Jim would be returning to Catterick after his National Service, so it was possible we’d never see each other again. His letters had all but stopped coming and I had the feeling he had met someone out in Germany or wherever he was. Something in his tone was more distant, and made me suspect that our little friendship was over.

  How am I ever going to meet anyone in Richmond, I wondered. All the lads were married or engaged and the men at church were either married or twice my age, or else they were bachelors for a reason. For now, I thought, I’ll remain Pamela Rhodes, Miss.

  Bestiality.

  A
t first I thought I was seeing things. I’d picked up a report about a court case the Spec had left on the desk. I looked again, and no, I had read it right, there in black and white. Well, pencil anyway. Bestiality.

  On the handwritten paper in front of me, in the Sergeant’s handwriting, was the name of a man, a young lad down at Pringle’s Farm, who, it said, had been caught, ‘with’ a sheep, as it were, one night in the fields off the Darlington Road.

  Now I’ve heard it all, I thought.

  ‘Rhodes, can you nip home and come back in your civvies?’ called a loud voice suddenly, and nearly made me jump out of my chair.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. Any reason?’ I asked, still distracted by the strangeness of the case I had just read about.

  ‘Sorry, can’t stop,’ he replied, rushing past. ‘Urgent meeting with the Spec.’

  Sergeant Hardcastle never seemed to stay in one place for long these days. He was having to deal with an unusually high number of people coming in and out of the cells. Sometimes they were soldiers from the barracks who had stolen cars to get home, having missed the bus, but a lot were just drunk and incapable cases who we held on to until they’d sobered up.

  When I got to my digs to get changed, Janet was baking some loaves of bread.

  ‘You’re just in time. Fresh out of the oven,’ she said, producing a delicious and perfectly formed tin loaf. ‘I managed to get a lovely chicken from McGregor’s too. Don did some work for him, casual, like.’

  ‘What a treat! I’m famished. I’ll need to eat quick, though. I tell you, there’s something in the air these days. We’ve had so many in this week, I think we’re going to need more cells.’

  ‘Yes. I know what you mean. We’ve always left the front door unlocked, but now I don’t know. It’s the young ones are the worst. Bored, I don’t doubt. Hanging around aimless. Not like in my day when we made our own fun. Now they expect entertainment all the time. Bored wasn’t even a word when I were growing up.’

  ‘It’s not just that, though. One case I read about today – I can barely say it. But it was a man and a … he was having hanky-panky with a …’ I leant forward and whispered across the table, ‘sheep.’

  Janet hardly raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Nothing surprises me these days,’ she said, pursing her lips and slicing the bread manically into thick pieces. ‘I knew a man who married a horse once. Well, I didn’t know him. But someone at the market knew someone who knew him. Not officially, of course, but he fell in love with it. Like it was his wife, if you know what I mean. He even gave it a wedding dress. Can you imagine? It’s like everything, though, these days. No stopping it.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Who could that be at this time?’

  I heard Janet answer the door. A panicky woman from across the road was talking in urgent tones. When Janet came back, she was white as a ghost.

  ‘It’s the King. He’s dead.’

  When I got back to the station in my civvies, everyone was in shock and Doris had been crying. The King had been very popular. But life at the station had to go on.

  A little boy, who didn’t look much older than about nine, sat eating a large red apple, kicking his legs up and down against the bench. Sergeant Hardcastle took me to one side and whispered, ‘Canteen breaking. Up at Catterick. Broke a window. Caught raiding the kitchen. The little devil.’

  ‘But he looks so young.’

  ‘He says it was some older lads were the ringleaders. Says they ran away and left him to take the fall, the poor blighter.’

  ‘He doesn’t look tall enough to reach the window. Let alone climb in.’

  ‘Well, it might be true, what he says. But all the same, the law’s the law. Can you take him up to Middlesbrough on the bus? Do you think you’ll be able to handle him on your own?’

  ‘I think I’ll manage,’ I said, and looked over the scruffy young lad, who looked like butter wouldn’t melt. He had on a blue cap and shorts, even though it was only February, and a scruffy shirt with holes in it. His hair was slicked back, as though he’d raided his father’s Brylcreem.

  ‘What about his parents?’ I whispered.

  ‘We had a phone call with the mother briefly but she didn’t say where she was. She said to take him to an aunt. But we’ve got to take him to the station in Middlesbrough first. The Spec got him to talk, bribed him with sweets in the end. The station’s expecting you.’

  I hadn’t had much to do with young children before, except my landlady’s children, who were very well behaved. I hoped I’d be able to entertain him. It was a long journey from Richmond to Middlesbrough.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the lad, as we walked down Newbiggin towards the bus stop.

  The boy looked at me for a while, squinting. I got the feeling he was wary of adults, as he kept his guard up all the way into town.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, has it? How about an ice cream, before we leave?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ he answered, almost immediately.

  Even the most stubborn of children are quick to succumb to the persuasive powers of vanilla and frozen cream.

  ‘Patrick,’ he said, after a while, as we walked up the street towards the ice-cream shop. ‘My name is.’

  ‘I had a great-great-great-grandfather called Patrick. In Ireland,’ I told him. ‘Came to England during the potato famine. With my great-great-great-grandmother.’

  ‘That’s a lot of greats. What’s a potato famine?’

  ‘When the potatoes got a nasty disease, they couldn’t grow them and lots of people starved to death. It was bad.’

  ‘My mam said we’ve got Irish blood. I’m a sixteenth or something.’

  ‘Where is she now? Your mother? We’d really like to find her. Tell her you’re all right. She must be worried about you.’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s gone. Are we nearly there?’

  ‘Yes. Where do you live, then? Is it with your aunt?’

  The boy started kicking a stone along the street and looked down, his face tightening up and his eyes narrowing. In the end, I settled for buying a comic to keep him occupied on the journey and gave up trying to find out any more about his mysterious family life.

  ‘The Beano’ll do,’ he said, as we looked over the shop counter. ‘There’s a new boy in it, Dennis the Menace. He’s got a dog.’

  So I bought him the latest instalment of Dennis and Gnasher’s escapades. I hadn’t seen the character before, although I used to read the Beano during the war years. After that he chose a large vanilla cone from the ice-cream counter; I had never seen a child eat something with such gusto. Anyone would have thought he hadn’t eaten in weeks.

  Once we were on the bus, he settled back with the comic, the remains of the ice-cream smeared across his face, and kept pretty quiet for the rest of the journey. Every now and then he let out a small chuckle as Dennis got himself into ever-deeper trouble.

  After I had dropped Patrick off at the station in Middlesbrough, and the officers had taken down his details, I wondered what would happen to him, and where his parents were. I’d gone before now on escort duty up to the children’s home in Seaham Harbour. But the truth was, I’d probably never know. Like so much of life in the police, people came and went. Sometimes I knew their most intimate secrets for a fleeting moment, other times I didn’t know anything about them at all, just an anonymous crime. But one thing was for sure: more often than not, I never saw them again.

  At home that night, the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was on the radio, lamenting the loss of the great King George.

  ‘Isn’t it just awful?’ said Janet, as we sat round and shared the big chicken Don had managed to get hold of. ‘So sudden. No one expected it. I mean he was only, what, fifty-five, fifty-six? You know that’s not much older than us. And now that little girl, Princess Elizabeth. Well, she’s not so little, but I remember when she was. She’ll have to be queen and rule the whole country alone, poor thing. Such a burden.’

  ‘Have to be
queen? Oh yes, poor thing. She’ll have to eat all that expensive food and get driven around in a posh carriage all day,’ said Don.

  ‘Oh, you! It’s more than that, and you know it. I know your views, anyway, but you can keep them quiet in this house. Your father may have been a communist, but we’ll have none of that here.’

  ‘Aye. Well, he was, anyway. And proud, too. He once walked all the way to London to protest about … something or other, jobs or something,’ Don said to me proudly.

  ‘They said on the wireless that a crowd stood in the rain all night outside Buckingham Palace. Some were crying. The police had to move them back, apparently,’ said Janet, ignoring her husband.

  ‘What’s a queen for?’ asked Fiona, as she warily examined a bit of chicken on her plate that still had a few feathers on it.

  ‘To represent the country. A kind of … figurehead.’

  ‘How do they choose, though? Could I be queen?’ She sat up, suddenly excited. ‘I could wear a crown and live in a castle with a hundred thousand horses and a unicorn.’

  ‘It’s inherited. Don’t you learn this stuff at school? Anyway unicorns aren’t real,’ said her brother.

  ‘We learnt about Henry VIII, about how he killed all his wives. Elizabeth, who never had a baby, and the other one. One who burnt some cakes, and William who killed that other king, with an arrow in his eye. Is that what our king did? The dead one?’

  ‘Fiona! Don’t say such things. Eat up your greens and enough of all this. I, for one, am very sorry. He was a good king all through the war. And now he’s gone.’

  There was a line of tears in Janet’s eyes as she cleared away the plates, and for that moment, as the whole country mourned, it felt like the end of an era; as if we were all on the threshold of something, though no one was quite sure exactly what.

  I had been the only WPC at the station for nearly six months now. Apart from Doris, the clerk, I was the only woman, and I hardly saw Doris, because she worked office hours and I was on duty lots of evenings. Occasionally, though, we did meet up in Philpot’s Tea Rooms if we got the chance, for ice cream or a cuppa.