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.

I left the cafeteria after devouring the meal and drifted towards the far end of the village. Shortly I came across a building with the shingle ‘Numbwinton School’. hanging above the door lintel and entered. I stood in a narrow hallway staring through the window of one of the classrooms. There were over twenty pupils in the room looking at a teacher who was chalking sums on a blackboard.

‘Five is a very important figure,’ he addressed the class, ‘for it can only be divided by itself.

The pupils paid full attention to the master. Contrary to reports I had read in the national Press, there seemed to be no rotten apples ready to disrupt the class. I turned away to look at a notice board affixed to a side wall the hallway. There were classes in history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry religious instruction, English and Latin. There was nothing listed about sports or sporting activities. An idea came into my mind as an opportunity presented itself. I walked along the hallway to arrive at the Headmaster’s office. Knocking, I entered to find the man busily marking examination papers. He looked up astonished to see a stranger walking into his office and he laid down his pen to give me his full attention.

‘Good day!’ he greeted pleasantly. ‘Who are you and what can I do for you?’

‘My name’s Sam Ross,’ I told him point-blank, ‘and I’m after a job on your staff.’

‘I think we have enough teachers for the moment,’ he responded quickly placing the palms of his hands together as if in prayer. . ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘You need a sports master,’ I blurted, hoping that he would invite me to take a seat and think about my offer seriously but he failed to do so.

‘I can tell you without reservation that we don’t play sports in Numbwinton,’ he advised me sadly. ‘It’s not on our agenda.’

‘That’s a great pity,’ I countered. ‘Sports are an integral part of the life of young people. It’s very important for them to learn about team work and become part of a team. You have to realise the power of football, rugby, darts, snooker and tennis. Practically everyone supports one of those sports or the other.’

‘Well they don’t in this village,’ claimed the headmaster flatly. ‘We do not believe that sport is important or necessary in life. Those schools which have it on their schedule significantly denigrate their pupils to a lower level of education. The children need to understand the meaning of knowledge not athletics. Remember the writings of Alexander Pope who said ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring’. All that time away from the class playing pointless sporting games is not an option here.’

‘Do you have any other openings?’ I asked pointedly.

‘For which subjects?’ he returned.

‘How about martial arts?’ I persisted thinking that it was just a short distance away from sporting activities. ‘’I’m very good at that. Not only can I teach people to defend themselves and attack when necessary but it also removes a great deal of stress from individuals in the lead up.’

‘It’s not in our remit,’ he answered bluntly. ‘I’m afraid I have to turn you down.’

‘I beg you to reconsider,’ I pressed lamely knowing full well what his answer would be. There was a distinct stubbornness to any stranger by everyone in the village. I could only hope that he would change his mind even though I realised it was in vain.

‘You’ve heard my decision,’ he snapped. ‘There’s nothing more to say. ‘Good day, sir!’

I left the office feeling rather deflated at being dismissed on such feeble grounds. The school denied its pupils the right to enjoy sport of any kind. I found that fact extremely incredible. I waited outside the Headmaster’s door for a while to reflect the essence of the conversation before hearing his voice as he spoke on the telephone.

‘Constable Powers,’ he began with an element of concern. ‘You may be interested to learn that I’ve just had a visit from a stranger asking whether the school would appoint him as a sports master. Do you have any idea who he might be?’ There was a short silence before the Headmaster continued. ‘He’s only just left the school. You might just catch him.‘’

I froze at the comment with the words echoing around in my brain... ‘you might just catch him... you might just catch him... you might just catch him!’ Then the adrenalin flowed through my body and I surged forward into action. Constable Powers would no catch me... not if I had anything to do with it! I wasn’t prepared to spend another awful night in that filthy cell!