Tuppenny Hat Detective

by Brian Sellars

  Billy eyed them in turn trying to gauge their opposition, 'OK, so how about this then - we go and tell the police everything, but we keep on the detectivin an' all?'

  Heads nodded. 'Brilliant,' Kick said. 'And if they do re-open the case, they'll need us as expert witnesses and stuff.'

  Yvonne could not go that far, but she was sure that her notes and the evidence they had gathered would be useful.

  'Right, that's it then. We meet here tomorrow after school and we'll all go to Hammerton Road Police Station together,' said Billy, keen to make sure they knew that he was not going to do this without their full support. 'I've got to go now. There's something I want to check at the library before it closes.'

  ………

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Doctor Hadfield's neglect of the two feet wide strip of ground surrounding his strange octagonal house had paid unexpected dividends. As Billy approached it, the house was aglow in the late afternoon sunshine amid a cloud of ox eye daisies, dandelions and early poppies. The old Austin Ruby sparkled cheerfully beside the house. Yvonne had told Billy that her sister Marlene had bought an old brass motor horn for it from a junk shop. The horn now graced the Ruby's door pillar. What a great gift, thought Billy, giving its big rubber bulb a squeeze.

  'Please don't do that old son, you'll drain the battery,' joked the doctor, opening his front door to admit him.

  Billy felt increasingly at ease with the young man. They had become firm friends over the past few weeks and might remain so, Billy thought, if he could only cure him of his compulsion to make fun of the Yorkshire accent.

  'Ayoop Billy lad, thanks for coming, mi owd,' said Hadfield, contorting his vowels.

  Billy turned on his heel and headed straight back towards the door. The doctor frowned and moved to stop him. 'Hang on old son, where are you going?'

  'If you're gonna talk daft like that I'm off. I don't make fun of people's accents, but I could. And thine sounds like a Nancy boy's, but I don't say owt about it, do I?'

  'Nancy boy?' hooted the doctor. 'Crikey! That's a bit harsh, Billy. Surely not.'

  'Well give over then. Tell me what tha wants, and no more Yorkshire accent or I'm off.'

  Doctor Hadfield vanished into his bedroom. He returned in an instant with a small envelope made of dusty blue, sugar paper. He perched on an arm of his battered armchair and waited in silence as Billy sat down to face him across the dining table.

  'What I tell you now, Billy, must remain confidential – a secret,' he said, gravely. 'You mustn't repeat it to anyone, not even to Marlene's sister. I don't know what this might lead to, but I have to tell you that I have discovered something extremely upsetting.'

  Billy moved to the edge of his chair and leaned towards him.

  'D'you remember alerting me to a discrepancy in something my boss told me about poor Mrs Loveday? He'd said that he'd been treating her since her pregnancy. When I innocently mentioned this, you said it was impossible – d'you remember? You said he had not arrived in Sheffield from the Royal Navy until five years after Tommy was born. Unless he was mistaken or confused, this of course can mean only one thing.' He paused, studying Billy's face closely before going on. 'There must have been a second pregnancy - later.' He paused, nervously fingering the blue sugar paper packet on the table before going on. 'I decided to take a look at the old medical records. You see, something you may not know about the old arch tormentor is that he's nuts on notes. He writes everything down. He keeps old notes, going back years, in the coach house. They're all carefully wrapped in brown paper parcels. Everything is labelled and dated.'

  He brushed his palms together like a baker shedding flour from his hands, pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and smoothed it flat. 'Well, it took me a while, but I found his first entry for Mrs Loveday. I copied it and put the original back.' He showed Billy the paper. Both read it silently.

  'He first saw her in January nineteen-twenty. You can see how he recorded it in his usual comprehensive manner; every little detail in that scruffy writing of his. There's another entry for a surgery visit three months later, the same sort of thing. Then – nothing!'

  'So? She wasn't sick anymore,' said Billy.

  'No, not that kind of nothing, and that's the problem.' His expression was grave. 'It began in autumn nineteen-twenty-one. Look, you can see here - he has entered the date of a home visit, but no notes. There's another date a week later, but again he made no notes. This happened four times in October and November.'

  Hadfield paused to consult his page of notes before going on. 'Then on the twenty-sixth of November, his boss back then, a certain Doctor Samuel Howard - visited her and immediately had her admitted to hospital. I couldn't tell which hospital, because Howard's notes had been scratched off the record card. Whoever did it made a thorough job of concealing all reference to the hospital and her treatment - except for one thing.'

  'What?' Billy asked eagerly.

  'I could still make out part of the name of the doctor who treated her at the hospital. It said "brams".'

  'Brams?'

  'I thought of David Abrams. The thing is, Billy, I know who he is – was – he's dead now. He was a leading authority on obstetrics. He wrote books. I read the damn things at Oxford, and I also knew that he worked here in Sheffield for a while.

  Billy was frowning. 'What's ozplastics? What does it prove?'

  'Obstetrics, parturition, childbirth, babies, Billy, babies.' Hadfield was gleeful. 'We can also deduce from this that the hospital she was taken to was Jessops, the maternity hospital here in Sheffield. You see, David Abrams worked there back then.' He sighed as if wearied by his revelations. 'I checked the hospital records - it was an emergency admission. She lost the child. Howard recorded everything in the normal way, but someone scratched out his notes to hide the facts.'

  Billy looked doubtful. 'How do you know it was Greenhow who did it? Anyway, why not just rip up the card and throw it away – burn it?'

  'That, Billy, is precisely what convinces me that it was him. As you say - why not just burn it? Maybe Samuel Howard or anyone else would have, if they had been trying to hide the truth, but not Greenhow. He's obsessive about case notes. He couldn't bear to lose one – so he just removed the bits he needed to hide. Then, guess what? He started visiting her again when she was out of hospital and the notes start up again – normally - with every minute, boring little detail recorded, but never a word about her pregnancy.'

  Billy listened, not sure what to think. It could mean that Greenhow had simply felt no reason to make notes on some occasions, or maybe it was kindness - he might have cooperated with her to conceal her pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage. In any case, it did not seem to have hurt anybody.

  He sighed, wishing he better understood such things, or could talk to his Mam about them. She often said he should ask her if he didn't understand things about babies and sex and stuff, but when he did once, she almost fainted, and then demanded he tell her why he needed to know.

  'At first, I was content to leave it at that,' said Hadfield. 'After all, it happened a long time ago and poor Annabel is dead now. Greenhow retires soon, so, what good would it do?'

  'But?' queried Billy, sensing one coming.

  Hadfield eyed him thoughtfully. 'Oh yes, there's a but, and it's a big one.' He sighed and slid down into his battered armchair forcing out a few more strands of horsehair stuffing from its split seams. 'This is the thing, Billy. And it's a very worrying thing, old son. Frankly, I don't know what to do about it. If I tell you, I must have your solemn word that ...'

  A knock at the door preceded the sudden eruption into the room of Marlene Sparkes. Their discussion was over. Hadfield leapt up and greeted her, embracing her warmly. Over her shoulder, he mouthed to Billy that he should go and return later.

  Billy agreed and mimed in response, I will see you tomorrow because I have to go to my auntie Emma's and uncle Reg's house on Bellhagg Roa, to take their dog Judy, it's a border collie, to the vet's
on Crookes Road, it has a dewclaw on its left leg and can't walk very well, especially on new carpets.

  The doctor gaped back, utterly bemused.

  *

  PC Handley gave Billy a friendly wave as he pedalled his police bicycle towards him. 'Hey Billy, it must be more than two weeks since we arrested you for anything,' he joked. 'How's the detective business?'

  'Fine,' he replied guardedly. 'How's the cop business? I see you found a bullet, like I said you would.'

  Handley shrugged. 'We might have, or maybe not.'

  'You did, and you stuck a label where you found it.'

  'Have you been in there? That's trespassing. I could nick you for that. You're not supposed to be in there.'

  ' … And I also know that you went to see Mr Simmons at his allotment. You wouldn't have done that if I hadn't said so.'

  'Well maybe – maybe not,' said Handley. 'But you know Mr Burke, as he's always telling me, "Check everyth …" '

  ' "…everything even the shadow of a shadow." ,' Billy interrupted.

  Handley smiled, nodding. 'By the way, did you know we arrested that tramp who's been hanging around?'

  'Why? I thought you said he was harmless.'

  'We found his hidey hole. He had those medals that were nicked from Mr Pearce's house. It was me who found 'em.' He preened. 'It was a good arrest. It should keep Mr Pearce off our backs for a while.'

  'Where was he sleeping?'

  'Oh you won't know the place. It's an old garden with a derelict greenhouse behind those big advertising placards in Heavygate Road. He had a hidey hole in there. It was full of his stuff. All we had to do was wait for him to came back.'

  'Do you know his name? Is he called Frenchie Cadell?'

  'Don't know. He won't speak to us.'

  'Pearce never deserved that medal. He lied about it,' Billy said grimly.

  'Hey steady on, Billy. He's only a tramp. He probably ...'

  'He's a war hero,' Billy blurted. 'That's Jacque Cadell. He's a Canadian volunteer pilot. Check it out. I bet that's his name.'

  'How do you know?'

  'I just do, that's all. He's a war hero,' cried Billy. 'A real one too, not a liar like Pearce.' He ran off almost in tears as the story he had read on the train flooded back into his memory. Frenchie Cadell was a true hero. He'd risked his life to save Pearce, but had been abandoned and cheated out of his medal in return. It must be him, Billy told himself. Somehow, he had survived and come back. Now he was in jail, unjustly. Billy knew he had to do something. He couldn't just leave him there.

  He set off to ask the Reverend Hinchcliffe, certain that he would know what to do. He felt that he would probably want to help Frenchie Cadell for the sake of his own son. He would know that Bob Hinchcliffe would never have wanted his old skipper locked up in a police cell without a friend in the world.

  *

  Virginia creeper covered the front of the vicarage, sparkling in the sunlight as if each leaf had been individually wax polished. Mrs Corbert answered Billy's persistent rings on the doorbell. 'I can't disturb him, Billy. I told you yesterday,' she apologised, even before he had managed to speak to her. 'He's been deep in his studies for days. I've never seen him so upset. I'm very worried about him.'

  'What I have to tell him will bring him back to his old self.'

  'Will it? Oh I do hope so. Come in then, come in.'

  'Don't worry,' Billy assured her. 'I'll go straight in. Is he in his study?'

  Mrs Corbert nodded uncertainly, and dabbed her nose with a tiny handkerchief. 'He's not eaten. Do you think I should make him a sandwich while you're here? He might eat it. He had nothing yesterday but a garibaldi and I think that was the cat.' She looked around releasing a hopeless sigh. 'Do they eat them – cats?'

  'I don't know. I don't like them.'

  'Cats! Why not?'

  'No, Garibaldi's.'

  'I don't know what to do for him next.'

  'Make the sandwich,' Billy said smiling. 'He'll eat it.'

  Reverend Hinchcliffe looked up from his desk as Billy entered. His face was drawn and pale. A few days growth of stubble shadowed his chubby cheeks. The desktop was completely clear except for an empty tea plate. On the floor around the desk lay a scatter of papers and books. Billy imagined him sweeping them off his desk in despair.

  'Ah, Billy,' he said, trying to act cheerful, but missing the mark. 'How was your trip? Exciting place, London.'

  'Fine, Sir. How about you?'

  'Have you come to return my papers?'

  'I gave them to Mrs Corbert yesterday. She said you weren't to be disturbed.'

  'Yes of course, she told me - you and that nice young girl – err – Yvonne. Yes I remember.' He rose and walked to the fireplace to rest both hands on the mantle and stare into the cold grate. 'I'm sorry, Billy. I have a great deal on my mind today. Would you mind awfully if we talked another time?'

  'Yes - no,' said Billy bluntly. 'We have to talk now.'

  'But you don't understand, Billy. I must go to the police today - as I promised you. But then, if there's a court hearing or something - well, you know what the newspapers are like. They love it when a clergyman gets into trouble. I rather think I might lose my job, Billy. In fact I think I should resign.'

  'Resign! What give your job up, d'you you mean? Why, you're ever so good at it. I mean - I'm norra proddy, but I've heard people say you're really good at it; them with troubles and dead relatives and things. And you go and see 'em in hospital, and all them mucky tramps at the six-hundred-hostel. You help people all the time. They need you. You can't give it up. My granny says, "It doesn't matter what you think of yourself. It's what other folks think of you that really counts." I think if you asked people, they'd all say they want you to stay. So no matter how easy it might be just to give up and leave, you can't resign.'

  The old man looked at Billy. His words had shocked and moved him. He stepped from the fireplace. 'It's cold in here. This fireplace doesn't work. We had to brick up the flu last year. It should be warmer, especially in May, shouldn't it?'

  There was a rattle of china as the study door swung open slowly. 'Yes it is cold, and you need to eat. Have a sandwich.'

  The housekeeper entered and placed a tray on the empty desk. It bore a plate of ham sandwiches, a cup of tea and a glass of cherryade. The reverend ignored the sandwiches, but picked up the teacup. Billy helped himself to the cherryade.

  'You're very kind, Mrs Corbert,' the vicar said softly.

  'Someone needs your help,' Billy went on sternly. 'a friend of Robert's.'

  The Reverend pricked up his ears at the mention of his son's name. Facing him, he listened closely as Billy explained why he thought the tramp was Frenchie Cadell. Halfway through the story the vicar selected a sandwich, took a couple of hearty bites, and had soon polished it off.

  'Don't worry, Billy, you did the right thing,' Hinchcliffe said. 'I'll get down there this evening and we'll soon have him out and tucked up in a nice warm bed before you can say – err- I don't know what. I'll invite him to stay here. He can sleep in Robert's – err – old room.'

  *

  Sergeant Burke finished his call and gently dropped the telephone on to its rest. His hand remained hovering over it, his expression fixed like a waxwork.

  Anxiously observing him from the office door were constable Handley and the desk sergeant. 'What's up sarj?'

  Without moving, Burke replied softly. 'The bullet we took from the mill wall is no good for a positive ID. Ballistics can't prove it was from the same gun as the one that shot Stan Sutcliffe.'

  'Bloody hell!' gasped Constable Handley, exchanging shocked expressions with the desk sergeant. 'Even so, the lad is still right. Somebody did wave a gun at Tommy Loveday and make him fall to his death down that hole.'

  The desk sergeant nodded. 'Now five years later the same killer has shot young Stan.'

  'Well we can't really say that can we, sarj?' Handley queried.

  'Wow, a bloody serial killer - in Wal
key!' The desk sergeant brightened. He seemed to like the idea until he caught Sergeant Burke's black glare. 'Oh, I mean, it couldn't be worse.'

  'So, what about the old Star Woman then, Sarj?' Handley asked. He was thinking that if Billy was right about Tommy, he might also be right about the old lady's death?

  'No! That's ridiculous,' Burke snapped. 'She fell and died. Don't go looking for murders everywhere, Handley. This is Walkley not the ruddy Wild West.' The Sergeant glared at the pair. 'What's up? Haven't you two any work to do?'

  'Sorry, sarj.'

  'Handley, you'd better find Billy Perks and his parents. We'll need every bit of evidence that lad has dug up, just in case anybody else is as daft as you are. We don't want them reopening the Annabel Loveday case. We've enough on our plates without that. We need to keep calm and do everything by the book. We do proper police work here. I don't want C.I.D. bouncing all over this. We've gone this far without 'em, we can finish it off ourselves.'

  As the desk sergeant scurried away to his front desk, Handley stood pondering. He had noticed it was now we who had gone this far. Until then it had been Sergeant Burke alone who had ignored procedure and kept C.I.D out of their enquiries.

  'Well don't just stand there gawping, Handley. Fetch the Perks. Use the boss's car,' snapped Sergeant Burke. 'I'll have a word with him.' He glanced around his office as if taking his final look at it. 'He's not going to be best pleased to hear we've got a five year old possible murder on our hands.'

  PC Handley shrugged, shaking his head doubtfully. 'I'll tell Mrs Taylor to bring you a cuppa.'

  Burke smiled weakly and rose from his desk. 'Good lad. I'd better go and see him now.' He was not looking forward to it. There would be a brief flare up with cries of anguish and disbelief, followed by a call to the Chief Superintendent. It was not going to be fun, he told himself, as he straightened his tunic and brushed his cuffs with his fingers.

  The outer office fell silent as Burke marched through, without making eye contact. 'Get on now, please,' he told them all firmly. 'We've plenty to do.'

  Fifteen minutes later Constable Handley ushered Billy and his parents into the station. All work stopped again as everyone watched the desk sergeant lead them to Sergeant Burke's still empty office. As the door closed behind them a buzz of excited whispering started up, causing Mrs Perks to look quizzically from husband to son. Constable Handley hovered by the door, unable to decide whether he should leave, or stay and explain the sergeant's absence.