The Village (4 page)

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 cam face-to-face with PC7. His face took on a grim expression as he saw me and he stood directly in front of me preventing me from going further.

‘Well, well, well!' 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 Numbwinton would like to do,' he replied with a slight smile touching his lips.

He took me back to the police station and led me back 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 could only make matters worse for me. After I entered the cell, he locked the door behind me. His footsteps could be heard thudding on the stone flagstones as he departed until 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 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. ‘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 in the Chateau d'If in the novel The Count of Monte Christo. The floor was made of similar stone so that was out of the question. Almost certainly there was nothing underneath anyway except earth and rubble which deleted it from consideration unless I wanted the task of making a tunnel which 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 I away from its brackets. 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 place the pole across the arms of the chair and climbed on it. The action increased the elevation by another fifteen inches. There was four feet 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 the floorboards rested upstairs. I climbed back on the chair and hauled myself upwards, athletically pulled 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. I found 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 on Numbwinton'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 suitcase in the boot of my car which was miles 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 comprised of some four hundred houses, looking over the four feet 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 though 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.

‘This is not the way we do things in this village!' she reproached 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 here.

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 it to me. ‘This will 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. It looks good on you'

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

‘I'm indebted to you. Is there any work I can do for you in exchange?'

‘I don't think so,' she replied frankly. ‘I shouldn't really be talking to you let alone giving you the clothes.'

‘Why not?' I was facing the same problem once again. ‘Everyone in the village refuses to talk to me. Why can't you?'

‘I think you should leave now,' she told me dismissively refusing to answer my question.

‘Can you enlighten me about the pharmacy at least. What happens there?' I knew that I was treading on dangerous ground and that she wouldn't answer but the woman had been so helpfulI thought it might be worth a shot.

She clammed up so fast in her body language that I felt the icy freeze of her reply. ‘I've done enough for you today, sir,' she uttered harshly. ‘It's time for you to go!'

Took her advice for fear of repercussion and left the house without delay. Had I stayed and insisted on an answer, I might have created a situation which would have returned me directly to the police station. All she needed to do was to scream and I'd be incarcerated in a cell for the rest of my life. Anyhow I had achieved what I wanted to do and, with my battledress folded neatly and tucked away under my arm, I made my way out of the village and walked on to the garage.

The mechanic was absent when I arrived there and I looked at my repaired car. I sat in the driver's seat and turned on the ignition. It started immediately. It was in my mind to drive away and forget I had ever been here but something triggered at the back of my mind preventing me from doing so. I knew that if I returned to Numbwinton I was putting myself in danger. Any punishment I received there would be self-inflicted because I should head south and never come back again. But there was something intriguing about the place and I could not shake the desire to follow through my investigation even though there was no benefit for me in the end. One might say that it had become an obsession. Wayne Austen would have torn his hair out if he knew of my decision especially as my car had been repairs and was ready for me to use. I could visualise him trying to pacify my sister when he told her that I had stayed voluntarily in the village despite having had to escape from jail. But then, hadn't I been partly crazy in a crisis! I wouldn't have saved four men on the outskirts of Basra from being killed if I hadn't been slightly crazy!

Chapter Four

I had enough food and victuals for the day because Mary had given me a stack of sandwiches and lots of cans of drink for the journey home which I had placed in the boot of the car. I removed them and sat there munching away as I waited for the mechanic to return. I had already decided to return to the village but this time I reckoned that the further I stayed away from the police station the less chance there would be for me to be caught. If I was recaptured, it would be a headache for them as to where to incarcerate me. Having once escaped from one of the cells, I was likely to do so again. The hours passed by and I decided to walk back to the village. If I had driven my car there, I would have been an open target. I had to use common sense. At seven fifteen that evening, I made my way to the village hall and entered. It was too early for anyone of the villagers to be there. I stared at a number of large flags, bearing strange emblems, hanging from all four corners of the hall and hid behind one of them out of sight of anyone who came for the meeting. It wasn't long before the villagers began to arrive. They dribbled in after seven-forty-five to take their seats and, exactly at eight o'clock, the Chairman and his committee stepped on to the stage and sat in their chairs. By this time, every seat in the hall had been filled.

‘Good evening, friends,' began the Secretary officiously. She stood on the low platform holding a sheaf of notes. ‘This extraordinary meeting has been called to consider the situation regarding a stranger who refuses to leave the village. We have no idea of his intent at the present time or whom he might represent. The man was arrested and placed in a cell from which he escaped and his current whereabouts are unknown. For further discussion I pass you on to our Chairman, Mr. Townsend.'

Townsend got to his feet as the Secretary sat down. ‘Friends,' he began. 'We are a separate community and proud of it preserving our heritage since the days of Josiah Numbwinton. However this stranger within our midst who has his own agenda which is unknown to us and we need to stop him before he does something to upset the balance within this community. I recommend that we post a guard of at least two people at the main entrance of the village in case more strangers arrive and that we hunt down the man in our midst who escaped from our prison.'

‘What do you intend to do with him if he's caught and refuses to leave?' asked a member stopping the Chairman in his flow.

'Let us capture him first and decided what to do with him later,' continued the Chairman. 'What we eventually do with him is entirely up to you... the members of this village. Let us hope that he sees sense and leaves us of his own accord. '

'If he refuses to leave, can't we just send him packing with a flea in his ear?' demanded a woman near to the front.

The Chairman paused before replying. ‘The problem is that he mentioned the word ‘pharmacy' when in jail which puts a completely different complexion on it. I have no idea how he found out about it.'

‘Are you suggesting that we may have to dispose of him in one way or another... execute him?' ventured a man in the middle of the hall.

‘Desperate deeds require desperate measures,' came the reply from the Secretary who was becoming annoyed at the questions posed to the Chairman.

‘Surely he can't know anything about the pharmacy!' declared a woman in the centre. ‘No one would dare to have revealed any information to him about that.'

‘Than how did he know about it?' accused another woman near to the front.

I stood behind the flag in one of the corners of the room wondering what they were wittering about. I had heard the word important that they would be angry enough to execute me to hide their secret.

‘It might be possible to integrate him into the community if he simply wants to stay in the village,' uttered another woman at the rear of the hall which caused me to feel a slight sense of relief.

‘We can't do that without a woman!' stated another man adamantly.

‘But there is one,' stated the same woman firmly. ‘Bridget McBain. She's on her own now.'

The room seemed to erupt noisily at the news and the Chairman was forced to use his gavel to maintain order.

‘Why wasn't this brought to my attention?' he asked irately.

‘Because her husband only died this morning,' came the reply. ‘He refused to take his tablets over a period of time and died.'

‘That means our population's fallen to one thousand and ninety-nine,' calculated another man in the hall. ‘We need this stranger to balance the books.'

‘Then we need to find him to check his motives,' called out another woman. ‘But what if he doesn't like Bridget McBain?'

‘We'll have to wait and see,' related the Chairman solemnly. ‘The police will undertake a thorough search of the village tomorrow morning to apprehend the man. If he's still here, he'll soon come to light.

The meeting went on in the same vein for a while and I wasn't certain whether they were out for my blood or willing to let me meet Bridget McBain... whoever she was. It was sad that her husband had died but why didn't he take his tablets over a period of time? What had that to do with anything? And why was the Chairman so concerned that the population in the village had been reduced by one person.? It didn't make sense! Clearly, everyone in the village was young but that didn't obviate the fact that accidents happened... some of them with fatal results. And what did the Chairman mean when he said ‘there is a stranger within our midst who has his own agenda which is unknown to us and we need to stop him before he does something to upset the balance within this community'. It all sounded so sinister. What possible danger could I be to this village?

The meeting broke up just after nine o'clock and everyone left the hall with the Secretary being the last one to leave after turning out the lights. I stepped out from behind the large flag and wandered to one of the bench seats to rest my weary bones. Then I climbed on to the stage finding a couple of cushions on the seats which I used as a pillow and back-rest for the night. It was more uncomfortable that the filthy slim flea-bitten mattress in the cell but at least I had somewhere to sleep. I lay behind the table on the stage, placing two chairs on their backs to hide me from sight which was just as well because the door to the hall opened, the light went on, and the Secretary returned looking round as though searching for something that she had dropped. However, she soon switched off the light and closed the door so that I was left in peace. Oddly enough, I slept very well that night. There was an eerie silence all around but no one was there to disturb me.

When daylight came, I rose, shook myself down, and went outside. As I inhaled the fresh morning air, Basra seemed to be more hospitable than Numbwinton. At least in Iraq I was free to roam anywhere I wanted to... within reason. Here I was to be arrested on sight in my own country for a deed of which I was innocent. I suddenly realised how angry innocent people became when arrested and tried for something they hadn't done. Such feelings of emotion were entirely negative and I gave myself some very good advice to stop the self-pity. It would do me far more harm than good in the long run. I wondered where Wayne Austen was at this particular moment, smiling as I envisaged him in the oldy-worldy clothes that he wore in the village. He was probably miles away hoping not to have to face my sister with the news that I was still in the village.

For the moment, I needed to do something desperate to secure my position and an idea quickly formed in my mind. Moving into action, I went to the nearest house and knocked on the door. A woman answered staring at me in surprise.

‘Excuse me,' I began politely. ‘Can you tell me the address of Mr. Townsend... the Chairman of the village committee?'

She paused to think for a moment and then conceded. ‘I'll take you there,' she offered, closing the door behind her and leading me out on to the path. She walked on for about two minutes with me in tow and then pointed to one of the houses. ‘He lives in that one!'

Before I had the chance to thank her for her kindness she had turned on her heel and was making her way back leaving me to face the man alone. I knocked on Townsend's door and he answered swiftly, eyeing me up and down with a strange expression on his face.

‘The stranger,' he uttered slowly, wondering how I had the audacity to enter into the lion's den without fear.

‘Yes,' I returned casually. ‘I'm the stranger... and I've come to you to tell you that I know about the pharmacy but I'm willing to stay in the village to make up the number. I would like to meet Bridget McBain. Now you can have me arrested but I'm giving myself up to save you the trouble.'

He was stunned by my declaration... most so by the fct that I knew so much about the pharmacy and Bridget McBain. It was the last thing he expected to hear from a stranger and my plan of action struck him right between the eyes. It was sufficient for him to invite me into his home and I sat in the small lounge facing him.

‘What do you know about the pharmacy?' he asked nervously.

‘I'm not prepared to answer that because it's a secret known only to the villagers,' I bluffed. ‘Like them, I promise never to divulge it to any other person. That's how much I'm committed. Let me say that your secret is my secret.'

He paused for a moment to reflect my answer which actually told him nothing. 'How do you know about the number concerning our population?' he pressed.

'I was there at the meeting last night,' I admitted freely not wishing for him to catch me out on a lie. ‘I stood behind one of the flags in a corner of the hall.'

‘And that's where you learned about Bridget McBain,' he went on sombrely.

‘I was there and heard everything that went on.'

‘I didn't realise that anyone could hide behind the flags.'

‘I was well hidden.'

‘Hm,' he muttered sharply. ‘I'll have to take that one up with security. If a stranger can remain hidden in the village hall without anyone knowing about it there must be something wrong.'

‘So where do I stand, Mr. Townsend?' I asked meekly, placing myself entirely in his hands. ‘I did escape from prison but I tell you I was incarcerated there wrongfully. There was no charge, no arrest, yet I was put into a cell for no other reason than that I was lost and couldn't find my way to my sister's house in Bishopstown.

He stared hard at my apparel. ‘And I suppose you didn't steal the clothes you're wearing,' he accused bluntly.

‘Not so, sir,' I explained. ‘They were given to me by one of the villagers. I did not steal them.'

Thee was silence for a while and I could imagine his mind working overtime like a computer to find a solution.

‘I've no alternative but to hand you over to the police, you realise that,' he said eventually.

I shrugged my shoulders aimlessly. ‘I understand, 'I uttered miserably, 'but you could recommend leniency and allow me to meet Mrs. McBain.' Suddenly, a woman whom I had never seen or head of before became my only hope of redemption as far as the villagers were concerned. She had been married and probably had a child or children but, for the time being, none of that mattered. The fact was that her husband had died and there was some fetiche amongst the inhabitants there that the population figure had to be retained at eleven hundred. Why? I hadn‘t a clue but it appeared that instead of them having a hold on me it was the other way around. The point was that I was the only person available to fill the gap.

We drank some coffee together and he put on his jacket to take me to the police station, explaining that I had handed myself in voluntarily and that I was willing to meet the widow, Bridget McBain. Despite the dispensation offered to me by the Chairman the desk sergeant was livid with the damage I had cause to the floor of the office upstairs and the ceiling of the cell below. I offered my services to help repair the plasterwork but he had already arranged for someone else to undertake the repairs.

Townsend left shortly afterwards and I sat on a wooden seat in the police station facing the desk sergeant.

He stared at me with a sullen expression on his face. ‘You're a trouble-maker,' he spat angrily. ‘I knew that the moment I laid eyes on you!'

‘Is that what you think of me,' I asked cheekily. ‘Do you know, last week I was walking around the outskirts of Basra in Iraq holding a machine-gun in my hands, watching out for anyone who might want to take a pot-shot at me or any mines that might have been dug in at the roadside. My role there was a peacekeeper.'

He stared at me with an element of disbelief and it soon became evident that his view of me started to change substantially.

‘You were in the army in Persia,' he uttered in amazement.

‘Well it's called Iraq now,' I corrected deciding to press home my advantage. ‘I was in the Fourth Regiment putting my life on the line for quite some time. I won an award of merit for saving the lives of four soldiers on the front line under severe fire.'

The information stunned him into silence but that didn't quench his inquisitiveness. ‘How come you ended up in Numbwinton?'

‘The story I told you was true. I got demobbed from the arm and was going to my sister's house in Bishopstown but got lost... What surprises me is that this village is so much behind the times... so far from the bustle and bustle of modern life... so remote from television, computers and the like. How do you keep it that way. I mean surely some of the people want to leave here to set up elsewhere. Some of them must have that kind of ambition.'

‘We're happy here,' he responded. ‘We don't like strangers to interfered in our way of life.'

‘Hopefully I'm not longer a strange. I'd like to live this kind of peaceful life. When do I meet Bridget McBain?'

‘Very shortly,' he told me.