Chapter One

As the darkness fell, my tired eyes followed the white lines in the centre of the road with pain searing through my head. I could easily have drifted off into never-never land and crashed the vehicle anywhere along the highway for I was morbidly weary of driving... it more than just welcoming the warmth and pleasantness of a deep sleep. It had become extremely dark that evening through the preponderance of heavy rain clouds. Indeed, my driving was seriously affected by the steady stream of rain which torrented down continually battering the windscreen of the car for the last hour.

It had been my intention to head directly north to the village where my sister lived However, by the time I started to approach the County of Northumberland I was almost exhausted with fatigue. It had been a long journey lasting over eight hours and, to my misfortune, I had misjudged the issue on two counts. Firstly, I failed to assess correctly the length of time it would take me to get to my destination. I believed it would take far less but what was I to know. Secondly, as a result of my arrival in Britain only two days earlier. I forgot all about the light which faded at five-thirty in the early evening. Subsequently, before I had the chance of finishing the journey in the light, the odds were well and truly stacked against me To make it worse, despite the plethora of signposts signifying the names of village, town and cities I had passed on the way, I soon realised that I was totally lost. Some time had passed since I left the motorway and I had followed the signs along many smaller roads only to end up at the start of a very wide sandy lane which led to a village bearing the unwelcoming shingle proclaiming “Numbwinton”. I stopped the car and removed a torch from the glove compartment and studied to find our my location. I was in Northumberland, a few miles north-west of Newcastle. However, although the map was highly detailed, there was no reference to the village by the name of Numbwinton.

I started the car again and drove up the sandy lane until reaching a proper road following it until reaching the man street of the village. To my surprise there was a multitude of shops, around fifty of them in all, located on each side of the road. I pulled over to a large are which I believed to be a car park and stopped to rest. Although it was fairly early in the evening, the village was in total darkness. There were no street lights shining from lamp-posts... none were visible... nor was there any illumination from any of the shop windows. It was then that the clouds began to drift and the moon shone through to offer some respite but it was still far too dark for me to start looking for a hotel or a bed-and-breakfast place. Ultimately, I leaned back in the front of the car and lay there as comfortably as I could resting my weary head on the headrest. It had been a tortuous day with regard to the immense amount of traffic on the roads and I was extremely tired. Yet despite my fatigue and a strong desire to go to sleep, I could not find a way into the arms of Morpheus. The pundits say that one’s life flashes in front of their eyes the moment before they die. Well, in my case, I lay back as comfortably as I could in the car reflecting the past which ran through my mind as thought I was watching a film in the cinema.

I had spent the last six years in the army, contracting to be demobilised only two days earlier. When my sister Mary, who lived in Bishopstown, Northumberland, learned of my release, she telephoned to invite me to her house to celebrate the event. More importantly, she hadn’t seen my for at least six years and desperately wanted to hug her little brother. Although the family lived in Cornwall, she had met a Yorkshireman who had been left a house in the Will of his late aunt. He had gone to Cornwall on holiday and they had met on the beach at Falmouth. It was love at first sight and it wasn’t long before they were married and he whisked her away to his new home in the north. Northumberland was a long way from Cornwall and, as I had joined the army signing on for six years, there was little contact between us during that period. I had been attached to the 4th Fusiliers Regiment in Plymouth which ultimately was sent to keep the peace in Iraq. I was posted on the outskirts of Basra for a period exceeding two years. The situation in and around the city had been extremely volatile with most of the Arabs hating the British. It was necessary for one to have eyes at the back of his head in order to stay alive. There were numerous terrorists in abeyance rumoured to have been sent by the Syrian authorities, while land mines had been buried absolutely everywhere. Insurrectionists hid around every corner and religious sects of the Islam religion, such as the Sunnis and the Shi-ites, who disliked each other intensely, had to be kept apart. It was a time-bomb waiting to explode in everyone’s face and British soldiers had to bear the brunt of it. As it happened, I was awarded a medal for saving the lives of four soldiers who would have been killed by a landmine but for my intervention. A British armoured vehicle struck a landmine at the side of the road. The explosion was of such force that it turned the vehicle on to its side. There were five soldiers aboard... the first one being killed instantly. The others lay within the vehicle, badly stunned or unconscious. I was walking about ten yards away when it happened and I threw myself into action, starting to pull the injured away to safety in a ditch. I was unaware at the time tht I was under a rain of fire from terrorists shooting at me from the near distance. I managed to pull all four soldiers to safety having been hit by six bullets in the back. Fortunately, I was wearing a back-pack which contained my tin plate, mug and cutlery. When I examined them later, there were five badly dented bullets in the plate and one in the tin mug. They had not only saved my life but that of four soldiers. To my mind, I considered that I was only doing my duty... helping to save the lives of my colleagues... As far as I was concerned, the award granted was way over the top. They kept calling me a hero but I didn’t feel like one. Fame was not on my agenda... nor did I feel that there was any future for me if I stayed in the army, especially as the unit would have had to return to Basra at a later date to monitor and separate the Arabs in their own country. I was determined not to be a target again or another victim. So I resigned at the end of my six-year contract with the Ministry of Defence to end up in civvy street. Consequently, I was now a non-commissioned civilian with no prospects or employment in sight.

Sleep was extremely difficult to come by in the cramped position in the front of the car and morning seemed to take its time in arriving. But the hours eventually passed and the early light broke through the darkness so that everything in the village became much clearer. When I opened my eyes, I found myself parked in the main shopping area opposite a large board which boasted. ‘Numbwinton... population 1100’. With nothing else to do while I was waking, I sat thinking about the numbers analysing the situation concisely. Fifty shops for such a small population seemed to be far too many especially as they did not stock or sell electronic equipment. If there were only eleven hundred people in the village, it meant that each shop catered for just twenty-two people. That didn’t sound right. Surely some of them would have gone out of business through lack of trade!

Some very old bicycles were being ridden into the area and people began to mill about. I climbed out of the car to approach a woman passing by holding the hand of a young boy.

‘Excuse me,’ I asked politely. ‘Can you tell me the way to Bishopstown? I seem to have got lost.’

She stared at me bleakly and pulled the child away as though I was going to snatch him from her. ‘I’ve no idea!’ she snapped rudely, causing me to be surprised at her totally negative attitude.

I then saw a young man who had just arrived on his bicycle to ask the same question. He stared at me blankly for a few moments before giving me the same answer. I was starting to become angry.

‘Where’s the police station?’ I demanded, determined to find the way to my sister’s house.

He shrugged his shoulders aimlessly as if unwilling to tell me anything that might help me. ‘Down the road,’ he muttered almost under his breath. ‘Don’t worry. The police will find you!’

I wondered what he meant by that comment and made my way back to the car to study the road atlas once again. There had to be some mentioned of Numbwinton on the map somewhere. I turned to the appendix which held the names of all the villages, town and cities at the back without success and then turned my attention to the grids on the map searching carefully but I could not find it. Jus as I felt like throwing it out of the window, there was a knock on the side-window. The man from whom I had asked the way was perfectly correct... the police had found me!

‘May I ask what you’re doing in this village?’ asked the constable bluntly. I was surprised to note that his uniform was one long discarded by the police force.

‘I’m lost,’ I told him before thinking about his opening question. ‘Is there any reason I shouldn’t be here?’

He smiled at me amiably although I could see by his eyes that he found the comment less than amusing. ‘Where are you headed for, sir?’ he went on politely.

‘I’m looking for Bishopstown,’ I responded hopeful that he could provide the answer for which I was searching. ‘I got lost in the dark and ended up here.’

The policeman nodded before moving slightly back from the car and pulling himself up to his full height. ‘I’ve never heard of the place you mention,’ he continued flatly. ‘I suggest you go back the way you came and seek advice from someone in the next town.’

‘No one here seems to know anything,’ I complained bitterly, taking out my frustration on the man.

‘That’s because we’re very singular, sir,’ he retorted sharply. ‘We’re a small village that likes to keep itself to itself.’

‘What puzzles me is that all these shops caters for just over a thousand people,’ I advanced audaciously. ‘It seems a lot of them for such a small community.’

‘The people in this village like to be served well,’ stated the policeman curtly. ‘Now, sir, if you’d like to get on your way, There are other people who wish to use this area.’

I looked around to see a dozen bicycles parked on one side of an area almost the size of a football field which made his comment completely irrelevant. I was about to continue questioning him, although his unfriendly attitude caused me to become highly suspicious, but I quickly realised it would be pointless. He seemed very eager to get rid of me... far too eager! It was a free country... why should he be so insistent that I leave? I had the feeling that this was no ordinary village. There was something about it although I could not put my finger on it. In addition, I was most surprised that no one could tell me the direction of Bishopstown although it could hardly be any distance away yet no one seemed to have heard of it.

I started the engine, noticing the expression of relief on the policeman’s face, and drove slowly out of the village, staring a the rows of shops as I left. There was something very strange about the place as well as the attitude of the people. Perhaps the villagers were over-cautious about strangers as they lived in relative isolation from the rest of the world. It aroused my curiosity although it was really none of my concern. It was none of my business and I had other fish to fry. I had come to the north on a mission and that’s what I intended to accomplish. Without delay, I drove to the next village where the postmaster told me the exact road to take to Bishopstown.

When I arrived there, May, my sister, welcomed me with open arms. To her I was a hero, having been awarded a distinguished medal by saving the live of four soldiers. I tried hard to play down the incident but she was so proud of me she wouldn’t listen. I parked my suitcase in the guest room and chatted with her in the lounge, both of us rendering stories of what had happened to us during the past six years. In the evening, there was a party to which she had invited over twenty people, mainly to show me off, and I became nominated as the war veteran from Basra. Tim, her husband, had been charged with preparing a feast fit for a king. Consequently, the food was plentiful, the wine ran freely, while the other guests appeared to be very amiable. However my mind drifted to the events of the days and they beleaguered me. Later that evening, I took my brother-in-law to one side with a problem that was beginning to obsess me.

‘Tim,’ I began seriously, ‘what do you know about a village called Numbwinton?’

‘Numbwinton!’ he repeated, trying to recall the name from the archives of his mind. Then he shook his head slowly. ‘No... never heard of it.’

‘But it’s only about twenty miles from here,’ I bleated in despair. ‘You must know of it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he returned. ‘Can’t help you. Never heard of it.’

I was seriously concerned at his response. The village was barely twenty miles away yet he’d never heard of it. That was incredible to say the least! I proceeded to ask the same question of my sister only to receive a similar reply. The village didn’t seem to exist yet I had found it on my way there to my sister’s house... a village with eleven hundred people and over fifty shops. How did they get any of their supplies delivered there if it didn’t exist? It wasn’t on the road map nor had anyone ever heard of it! It caused me to become far more curious. I had come across it in the darkness of the night and I was the only one to know of its location. Could it be another Brigadoon that only surfaced for one day in every hundred years? That was a fairy tale. It was not only improbable but impossible. It was incredible to conceive such a thing in this day and age. Then I thought about the population count of eleven hundred people... not one thousand-one hundred and-eight-four or eleven hundred-and-twenty-eight but exactly eleven hundred people. How strange was that? I found it difficult to remain impartial when dwelling on the facts. I considered that there was a lot more to learn about the people of Numbwinton ... of that much I was certain.

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.