The Village (2 page)

The following day I purchased a satellite navigation system which I locked on to the windscreen of my car. Now, at last, I could identify the names and directions of all the towns and villages in the region. I would be able to plot exactly where I was going. It was my main intention to return to Numbwinton to see whether the device recorded its name so, after saying farewell to my sister and her husband, who were clearly dismayed at my sudden swift departure, I climbed into my car and drove the way back the way I had come. It took me well over half-an-hour to find the village again. Not surprisingly, the satellite navigation system failed to record the name of the place or the road leading up to it. Numbwinton was a closely-guarded secret excluding all and sundry... except for its eleven hundred inhabitants.

I drove into the wide area which I counted as a car park although I was the only car there. It wasn't long before there was a tap on the side window and the same policeman appeared.

‘I thought I told you to leave here yesterday,' he said solemnly.

‘I did,' I returned dryly, ‘but I can't fight the forces of destiny which somehow forced me to return.' I pointed to the large area around me. ‘I'm not impeding anyone or causing any traffic problem. ' I advanced boldly. ‘So what's troubling you?'

‘This is a private village, sir,' he preached. ‘We don't accept strangers visiting them of their own accord.'

‘It sounds like the place where I live... Cornwall.' I commented with an element of amusement in my voice. ‘People are very much the same there.'

He stared at me as though I had made a remark of insolence. ‘Would you mind stepping out of the car, sir,' he managed to ay politely with a serious expression on his face. I paused for a moment and then complied with his request staring at him wondering what his reaction was going to be. ‘I'd like to see your documents proving that you own this car, if you don't mind, sir.'

I opened my wallet and produced my driving licence which I showed to him.

‘This only tells me that you can drive a car, sir. I want to see documents relating to the ownership of this car?'

‘Hold on!' I protested. ‘They're at my home... in the South West. Surely you don't expect me to carry everything with me!'

‘I'm afraid you'll have to come with me, sir,' he told me ‘

‘Am I under arrest or what?' I demanded angrily as he took a firm hold of my arm. ‘What's your number, policeman?'

I looked at his collar to see a silver badge with the number seven. I felt extremely degraded at being treated in this ridiculous manner. After all, I had done nothing wrong!

‘This way, sir,' ordered the officer politely. He led the way behind the shops and we walked down a street until arriving at the police station. We entered and he took me directly to the desk sergeant who was reading a report.

‘This man, Sam Ross,' began the arresting officer, ‘cannot produce a document proving that he's the owner of the car he's driven here. What do we do about it?'

‘A couple of days in the cells should teach him a lesson,' declared the desk sergeant roughly.

‘Hey!' I shouted irately. ‘You can't do that! It's not lawful! I've done nothing wrong!'

‘I don't see that you can do anything about it,' uttered PC7 bluntly. 'We don't allow lawyers to come to the village to defend miscreants '

'Miscreants!' I echoed loudly. 'You're supposed to follow the rules of the law. You Can't imprison me simply because I can't produce the documents you want. No one keeps them in their cars.'

'We can do as we like here, sire,' claimed the desk sergeant confidently. 'But I'll tell you one thing we'll do. If you leave this village immediately, we'll forget all about it. In other words... we don't want you here!'

'Why not? That's simple enough to answer!'

'Because you can't... and that's an end to it!' stated PC7 sharply.

'Okay!' I warned him foolishly with an adamant tone in my voice. 'Lock me up at your peril but, at the end of the day, you‘ll have to face the consequences.'

‘Very well,' muttered the desk sergeant without emotion. ‘Come with me!' He picked up a set of large keys and led the way forward beckoning me to follow.

I suddenly realised that I had put my head in a noose. It was the result of a rush of blood to my head but it was too late to do anything about it. I would have to go through with their game and endplay them when the final whistle blew. They would find themselves in a heap of trouble when the information that a hero soldier, decorated with a medal for bravery, had been incarcerated for no reason whatsoever. The national Press would make a mean of it.

The desk sergeant led me to a darkened passage in the police station and unlocked a cell door holding it open for me to enter. . I did not resist and watched him locked the door behind me before his footsteps faded away into the distance. I was absolutely furious at the treatment and would insist on an enquiry and make them pay for their deed. How was it possible to get into such a mess in a law-abiding country? I looked around the cell... it was hardly worth the effort. It was dank and dismal, six feet by four. It had an open window in which had been set three stout steel bars and I noticed that the dampness was rapidly eroding the outside wall. There was a bed of a straw mattress which had seen far better day, an ordinary wooden chair and a bucket which smelled of urine. It was very reminiscent of the prison on which Arab suspects were held in the vicinity of Basra before being interrogated. In effect, it was a taste of his own medicine. How long I would remain in this hell-hole was anyone's guess. The village seemed to be remote from the rest of the world. I didn't recall even seeing a telephone on the desk sergeant's desk. The local police here seemed to be able to decide on the punishment to be meted out to any individual without recourse to the law. Nor even the army would go to such desperate measures and they would not be tolerated in Iraq for fear of exposure to the rest of the world and for fear of subsequent resentment and reaction.

I became annoyed at intervals during the day when food was brought. It was sparse and barely edible. Then, after a very uncomfortable night on the flea-ridden mattress, the desk sergeant came to see me.

‘Are you prepared to leave the village and never return?' he asked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

‘I'm going to bring the law down on your head!' I shouted angrily. ‘You're going to pay for this in no uncertain terms!'

‘I asked you a simple question,' he went on solemnly as though I hadn't replied.

‘I'll leave here when I feel like it!' I reacted irately. ‘But first I'm going to the national Press and the television networks to tell them of your illegal actions. That should open up this village to a few strangers. You'll feel the weight of the nation's might on your shoulders... you wait and see!'

‘Then I have no option but to hold you in this cell for another twenty-four hours to see whether you change your mind,' he told me calmly.

‘You're in deep trouble. I hope you know that,' I continued fiercely with every fibre shaking in my body at the injustice.

‘If you insisted on causing trouble,' went on the desk sergeant, ‘we could make you disappear. No one would ever know you'd been here.'

His comment sent a chill running down my spine. It was a threat I should have foreseen but I didn't. They could kill me and bury me in a place where no one would find my body. I was puzzled as to the reason why they should ever want to go that far. What was so special... so secret... about this remote village in the northern part of Britain that they were so willing to go to such lengths? However, I knew that if I didn't conform, my life could be in serious danger. It was time to pull in my horns.

‘I'll do a deal with you,' I told him thoughtfully. ‘Give me twenty-four hours to look around this place and then I'll leave. We'll forget the false arrest.'

‘Why would you want to stay here for a whole day?' asked the desk sergeant puzzled at the request.;

‘I've just been demobbed from the army,' I explained quietly. ‘I want to find a place to live. My sister lives at Bishopstown, I'd like to live near her.'

‘Well you can't live here,' he expounded curtly. ‘We already have one thousand one hundred people. That's enough as far as we're concerned.'

‘How is it there's only that number exactly?' I asked him.

‘I'm not here to answer your questions,' he riposted harshly.

There was silence for a few moments until I continued with my offer. ‘Well that's the deal. Let me stay for twenty-four hours and I'll go quietly... no fuss... no trouble.' I held my breath waiting for his answer. The alternative was for me to spend the rest of my days in this awful smelly cell or to be disposed of entirely.

He surprised me by conceding immediately. ‘Twenty-four hours,' he uttered softly. ‘And then you go although I think you might have some difficulty doing so.'

‘How do you come by that?' I asked with my heart in my mouth.

‘You'll find out soon enough,' he muttered with a slight smile touching his face. ‘It'll be touch and go.'

He wasted no time in removing a chain of keys from his thick belt and opened the cell door to release me. At first I thought of striking him down and escaping from the police station. But then my senses got the better of me. What use would it be if I was on the run? If they caught me, they would lock me up and throw away the key... no one would ever know of my incarceration. So I left the police station and went over to my car to receive an awful shock. Now I knew what the desk sergeant meant with his comment. It was a shell; someone had dismantled it totally. The wheels had all been removed, the bonnet was open and the distributor had been destroyed, and the radiator had been caved in. It appeared that I would be staying a lot longer in the village than twenty-four hours. I wondered what the police were going to do about that. It was a sheer case of vandalism that ought not go unpunished. But, as it had been committed by one or more of the villagers, I doubted that the police would mount an investigation into the matter. I looked around for a telephone box. There were so many people I wanted to contact but there was none to be found. I went into a cafeteria and ordered a cup of coffee, sitting ruefully at a table wondering what my next move would be .The woman behind the counter glared at me with suspicion as she served the beverage.

‘Is there a telephone box in the village?' I asked pleasantly.

She stared at me gloomily. ‘What for? Who would we want to contact?' she returned testily.

‘The people in this village aren't very friendly, are they? I advanced as she passed me a cup of coffee.

‘We keep ourselves to ourselves,' came the curt response.

‘Where does everyone hang out? I've only seen a few people.'

She weighed up whether or not to reply and then eventually decided to do so. ‘There's a community centre down the street,' she uttered almost reluctantly.

I stared out of the window watching a few of the village folk passing by. There was something odd that buzzed about in my brain but I couldn't hold it down. And then it came! There were no old people around. Only relatively young men and women, mostly in their twenties or early thirties, and their young children. No old or elderly people to be seen anywhere!

‘Where's the Help the Aged place here?' I asked bluntly.

The woman behind the counter paused again for a while. ‘We don't have one here. We're just a small village.'

‘I haven't seen anyone over the age of forty,' I persisted.

She looked very uncomfortable before replying. ‘We don't like strangers here,' she told him directly. ‘Don't ask me any more questions!'

I drank my coffee and went to the door. ‘Just one more thing,' ‘I requested gently. ‘Are there any garages around here?'

‘If you go to the right at the end of the lane and walk on for a mile you'll come to one,' she replied disappearing through the door at the back of the cafeteria.

I walked to the garage to face a mechanic working there on a motor-bike. ‘Any chance of repairing my car?' I asked point-blank.

He stared at me for a few moments. ‘The one that got wrecked yesterday,' he responded.

‘You know about it.' I was delighted that he knew about the damage. ‘You keep your ear close to the ground. Any idea who might have done it?'

He shrugged his shoulders aimlessly carrying on with his work. ‘I can start on it later today if you like. Mind you, it's going to be expensive. New wheels, new distributor, a new radiator...'

He knew far too much about the damage for my liking but I was totally reliant on his co-operation if I was ever going to be able to return to Cornwall.

‘That's okay,' I told him looking around the garage. There were four wheels leaning against one of the walls that looked suspiciously like those that belonged to my vehicle. However, a wise head keeps a still tongue and I didn't want to accuse anyone of being involved without sufficient proof... or for fear I would land back in jail. The mechanic would certainly deny the allegation and, after that, he would probably refuse to repair my car. It was a loss-loss situation. Ultimately, I left it with him to collect my vehicle and tow it to his garage for repair and I handed him the ignition keys to enable him to undertake the work. At first, I wanted to stay in the village out of curiosity. Now I found myself too eager to leave the place and put it out of my mind for ever.

Chapter Two

It was much later when I discovered Wayne Austen's part in the mystery. He was the partner of Tim, Mary's husband, I had such little contact with my sister after she met and married Time that I never actually asked what he did for a living. Had I concerned myself with the information, I would have learned that he operated a detective agency on the outskirts of Newcastle with a partner by the name of Wayne Austen. Not that any of it concerned me at the time except for the fact that Mary was extremely worried about my future and her intuition told her that I was going to return to Numbwinton to satisfy my curiosity. Subsequently, she asked her husband to do something about it and, for reasons of his own, he delegated the task to his partner.

Wayne drove to Sprockton, a village a few miles from Numbwinton, and he walked the remaining distance, hovering out of sight behind the trees which hid the area where my car had been parked. I wondered how he found out where to go after everyone denied knowing the place. Wayne stared at the wreck of my car with a frown appearing on his face, watching the car mechanic fit four wheels on the vehicle and adjust a tow-line to the front and take it away. He suddenly became acutely aware of my plight realising that I was trapped in the village with no means of leaving. He had heard many rumours locally about the strange attitudes of the people of Numbwinton who kept themselves remote from the rest of the world and there had been gossip that all the old folks who had lived there had perished. However, after a police investigation, the authorities seemed perfectly satisfied that the affairs of the village were running properly according to the law. After that, the village continued to operate without the interference of any external controls. The final report held that it was a model of the past and should be left well alone to conduct its own business affairs. The villagers seemed to be self-sufficient, growing their own vegetables, rearing the own cattle, providing their own milk, and never leaving the village to buy goods from any nearby towns. There had been no complaints from anyone within Numbwinton or from any of the nearby villages or towns and everything appeared to be normal with the exception of a morbid dislike of strangers coming to the village. There were eleven hundred inhabitants and that was the way they intended it to stay.

I discovered later that it was Wayne's plan to keep well away from me, so as not to link the two of us together, and he succeeded in that task very well for I had neither knowledge of him or his whereabouts at this particular time. His main aim, and indeed Mary's, was to keep tabs on me to make certain that I came to no harm. However Wayne decided to take a more integral role in the operation and he first went to the garage nearby to check whether the mechanic was working on my car. He needed to know because the quicker it was repaired the faster I would be able to leave the village. His pretence was to tell the mechanic that his car had broken down three miles away as he searched for the village of Wenford. The man pursed his lips in thought.

‘Three miles away,' he repeated slowly, ‘on the northern bracket. ‘You're only just half a mile from Sprockton. It'll be far quicker and easier if you let the local garage there deal with it.'

Wayne nodded sombrely. ‘You're right,' he said,' I took the wrong road. If I'd turned left into Sprockton instead of right I'd have found it. I'll take the car in there.' He paused to look at the wreck of my car. ‘Wow! Someone's really had a go at this.'

‘There's vandals everywhere,' stated the mechanic dryly, using a large wrench to loosen the nuts which held the damaged radiator. He was clearly disinterested in the detective's presence and carried on working on the vehicle. Wayne took a flask from his coat pocket and poured himself a cup of tea. He sat down on a seat at the side of the garage watching the mechanic closely.

‘Nice coffee this,' he uttered smoothly. ‘Fancy a cup?'

The mechanic shook his head. ‘Nope,' he returned. ‘Jus ahd a cup before I collected this car. He stared at his visitor with a dull expression on his face reluctantly allowing him to remain inside the garage as he drank his coffee slowly.

‘I knew a mechanic once,' continued Wayne smartly. ‘He used to go round smashing up cars, stealing their wheels, and then when he was asked to repair them he would charge the full price to replace the wheels which he stored in his garage.'

He obviously hit a nerve because the mechanic stopped working on the car to stare at him directly. ‘Who are you?' he demanded angrily.

‘I'm just a tourist whose car broke down four miles down the road,' lied the detective.

‘I thought you said it was three miles,' countered the garage owner sharply.

‘Three,... four... what's the difference. But I wasn't talking about you,' continued Wayne realising that he was on dangerous ground. It was patently obvious to him that the mechanic had been the one who vandalised the vehicle and had stolen the wheels.

The mechanic shrugged off the innuendo and carried on with his work on the car ignoring the comments of the annoying visitor. As far as he was concerned, sticks and stones would break his bones but n any case, the stranger would leave shortly never to be seen again. Still irate, he wrenched the radiator from its position to remove it tossing it to one side of the garage. He then picked up another one, which he had obviously removed from another vehicle, and slotted it in front of the engine, connecting the nuts, bolts and the tubes within the car so that the water could be passed around safely.

‘It doesn't take long to repair a car that's been vandalised accurately, does it?' ventured Wayne chancing his arm. The detective was beginning to put his head in a noose but, fortunately for him, the mechanic ignored him completely. After removing the distributor from another car, he swiftly replaced the damaged one in my vehicle. As Wayne had remarked, repairing a wrecked car which had been vandalised in a certain way was relatively easy and quick to repair. Twenty minutes later, it was ready to be driven away.

‘Are you still here?' asked the garage owner staring at Wayne with the same dull expression on his face.

‘I'm on my way,' declared the detective, standing upright. ‘On my way. Thanks for the information.' He replaced the flask into his coat pocket and, satisfied that the work had been completed on my car, left the garage. He knew, at least, that shortly I would be able to leave the village in my vehicle and he could report back to my sister that I was safe. But, as Robbie Burns wrote: ‘The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.' And that was indeed the situation!

***

To complete his mission, Wayne returned to his car and changed to come on to the scene dressed as one of the villagers in Victorian clothing, merging in with them as though he had the right. I had noticed that the style of dress worn by the inhabitants of the village was that of the late nineteenth century. The men tended to wear black suits, white shirts and black shoes while the women wore dark brown blouses, black skirts, neat bonnets and brown shoes. Tim's partner dressed ideally for his clothes were very similar.

In the meantime, I returned to the police station to complain about the destruction of my car at which the desk sergeant shrugged his shoulders aimlessly.

'We don't have any crime in this village,' commented the man curtly.

'Well you do now,' I spat angrily. 'Someone vandalised my car. I want them punished for it. They stole my wheels, smashed my radiator and destroyed the distributor.'

The policeman shrugged his shoulders again as if he didn't really care. 'Unless it's repaired quickly you'll have to find another way of leaving.' he explained indifferently with a grim expression on his face.

'Aren't you going to do anything to find out who did it?' My patience was at breaking point.

'The damage has been done. You can't go back on it,' he stated adamantly. 'I'm not wasting police time on a wild-goose chase with a pointless task of looking for a vandal. For all I know, you did it yourself to stay here in the village.'

I almost exploded with rage and turned, stalking out of the police station with frustration. What kind of a police force allowed criminal to destroy property belonging to other people and not do anything about it. The situation was utterly shameful! I returned to the cafeteria and ordered something to eat. The menu wasn't particularly enticing but I order steak and chips which seemed to be the best meal available. On this occasion, there were two women sitting at a nearby table and they were close enough for me to overhear their conversation.

‘There's a stranger behind you,' stated one woman in a loud whisper. ‘Just be careful what you say.'

‘I know, I know,' concurred the second woman. ‘There's a meeting in the village hall about him later on.'

‘Yes... at eight o'clock. Everyone will be there.' returned the first woman.

‘Did you see what someone did to his motor car?'

The first woman shrugged her shoulders. ‘Downright stupid if you ask me. How's he going to leave here if he hasn't got transport? I'd like to get my hands on the person who did it!'

‘I know who did it,' declared the second woman. ‘He always spoils it for the rest of us just to make a little money.'

They continued their conversation in low tones, our of earshot, but what they had to say to each other was of interest to me. I had the information I needed... a meeting at the village hall at eight o'clock. I leaned across to interrupt them as I realised that I had nowhere to sleep that night.

‘Excuse me,' I interrupted. ‘Do you know of a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast place in the village?'

At first, it seemed that neither of them was going to reply to my question then the second woman lowered her teacup and responded.

‘There are no hotels here,' she told him flatly. ‘And I don't know of any of the other place you mentioned.'

‘I don't have anywhere to sleep tonight,' I bleated lamely.

‘The next village is only a few miles away. Perhaps you should try there,' she went on. ‘You can walk it in an hour.'

‘So much for local hospitality!' I thought bleakly.

I left the cafeteria to look for an inn. There had to be a tavern somewhere in the village where I could while away the day over a few pints of beer and have a roof over my head for the night. I had been warned by my army colleagues that civvy street could be a damned hard place when leaving the service and it was proving to be correct. I didn't expect to find it so difficult. However, despite searching high and low, walking through all the streets, I could not find a tavern. How odd, I thought. A village without a public house. What a loss to the community! It seemed that the only place where the people met was the village hall. This had to be the strangest place in the country! I returned to the shops, looking through the windows at the goods. It seemed that the villagers thrived on cottage industries. There were no electrical shops... not one with television sets or computers... nor were there cookers or microwaves or refrigerators for sale. Secondly, the provisions stores stocked no branded goods at all. They simply sole fruit and vegetables which apparently had been grown locally. Thirdly, all the other goods sold in the shops were manufactured or produced by the villagers themselves. There was wool to make clothes and blankets, linen to manufacture sheets, bedding, kindling wood for the fire, seeds by which to grow crops, a hardware store which mainly sold minor goods for repairs such as glues and fillers, while others stocked goods relating to weaving, carpentry, pottery and the like. . There was absolutely nothing to indicate that the village had moved into the twenty-first century... and there were no motor cars with the exception of my own.

Lost in the vacuum of eternity, I returned to the cafeteria. The woman behind the counter was tired of seeing me but there was nothing I could do about it.

Shortly PC7 entered the room and he sat down opposite me

‘They've towed your motor car away to a garage to be repaired,' he told me,' staring directly into my eyes.

‘I know,' I responded tiredly, dampening down my temper for I felt like striking him between the eyes for the useless information. ‘I'll be glad to get rid of this village the sooner it's done!'

‘That's the attitude,' he said amiably. ‘I'm sure you can understand our wish to remain singular...

‘Not really,' I retorted curtly. ‘I don't understand why you haven't got a tavern... or why there's no electrical goods on sale. Everything here seems to go back a century or even longer.'

‘No, no, no!' he protested. ‘It's just your imagination. Everyone here loves life. No... we don't have an inn... nor do we have any of those new-fangled electrical things that muddle up the mind... or anything that takes away people's attention. We live the pure life... the happy life... the contented life.'

‘You could have fooled me,' I riposted. ‘I thought television, the computer and the internet were part of one's way of life.'

‘What's the internet?' he asked blankly.

‘How does anyone get a job if they can't use a computer?'

‘I don't know what a computer is,' he admitted candidly but everyone's fully employed here.'

I stared at him in surprise. There's eleven hundred people living here which means that about three hundred-and-fifty men and they same number of women have to be employed. I see no industry here. How's it done?'

‘You'd be surprised,' he countered. ‘There's farming, milking, cheese-making, plant and vegetable growing, gardening, weaving, carpentry, pottery, and many other things.'

He stood up and went to the counter to order a cup of tea. He had clearly given away too much already although I was still pretty much in the dark. When he had collected his tea, he went to another table at the far end of the room leaving me in peace to eat.