Burley Cross Postbox Theft Page 2

  Draw a deep breath and pinch yourself, Rog (more than an inch, Rog? Yeah. I thought as much), because what you’re holding between your eight fat fingers (and two still fatter thumbs) is the Wacky Races of all cases. This is the Top Banana, Rog. This is THE BIG ONE! And it’s all yours, now, Rog. It’s completely and utterly yours, now, Rog.

  Blink back the tears, Rog, because this case – this extraordinary case – this astonishing case – this case, which has foiled, baffled and dumbfounded some of the country’s greatest living detective minds… Although… actually… no. On second thoughts, it was only my great, living, detective mind (as you are probably already aware, my faithful colleague, PC Hill, has been off sick for the past month after misaligning his spine – and nobody else ever really gave a tinker’s cuss… A quick word to the wise, Rog, while we’re on the subject: never attempt to learn t’ai chi from a stuttering Bulgarian bricklayer with one ear).

  So here it is, Rog, here it is. My stomach loops and contracts as I hand it over (dodgy prawn sandwich at lunch, perhaps?). I am full of relief and awe and gratitude – a little humble, a little proud.

  Here it is, Rog. It is yours. It was meant for you, Rog (and I say that with all sincerity). It was preordained, Rog. It was written in the stars, Rog. It was fated.

  It’s your destiny, Rog. It was always your destiny.

  Because there have been other cases, Rog, and other officers, but there has never been this case, Rog, and this officer. There has never been PC Roger Topping and (my teeth tingle as I prepare to write these words) the case of THE BURLEY CROSS POSTBOX THEFT. Or does it sound better the other way around? THE BURLEY CROSS POSTBOX THEFT case? I’m not entirely sure, Rog. Perhaps the second way is best. Or perhaps the first. Yes. The first. Perhaps the first has more punch, Rog, more attack, more gravitas.

  Right. Good. I’m glad we’ve sorted that out. So let’s get down to business now, shall we?

  The package, you will observe (if you double-check the contents back against the enclosed inventory – which, of course, you will; I would expect nothing less of you, Rog), is thirty-seven documents short of the initial haul. These consisted of twenty-two Christmas cards (from four original sources, all of which contained only the most perfunctory of messages), nine responses to a private advert in the local press about a foolproof, non-invasive remedy for unreliable erectile function (it’s an ageing population, Rog), three applications to take part in a government-funded solar water-heating scheme (environmentalist poppycock), a £212 cheque bound for an Egyptian donkey sanctuary near Cairo (raised by Wincey Hawkes at The Old Oak during the village’s monthly bridge night), another of £425 (bound for a clock repair specialist from Harrogate), and a third of £2,838 (heading for the Burley Cross Auction of Promises account at the Cooperative Bank, Ilkley), all of which I have duly returned to Wincey, by hand, on Tuesday (on the understanding that she may well have cancelled them during the intervening period).

  I took the difficult decision to dispose of the remaining thirty-four documents as I saw fit (i.e. got Mary on the Front Desk to reseal them with Sellotape last Friday and bang them back into the post), because they couldn’t be crammed inside the Jiffy bag (this was the only bag in the building, Rog, and it’s my bag. There’s been a bust-up with Supplies. The wife of the tiny dick in charge recently delivered twins – one in breech – and word on the street is that a whole twelve weeks later, she’s still staunchly refusing to put out. So now we’re all paying the price, Rog; it’s well over a fortnight since I’ve so much as laid eyes on a paperclip).

  Don’t be overly concerned by the green staining on the bag – it formerly contained my monthly delivery of organic kelp powder (amazing stuff – absolutely amazing. It’s worked wonders for my lazy bowel. I’m now regular as a station-clock, chiming twice daily: once at ten, and once at eight, on the dot).

  Ever the consummate professional, I have seen fit to contact Messrs Thorndyke, Endive Jr, and Augustine personally (by email, at www.hystericaltosspots.com) to inform them of the fact that this case is now being passed on to the Ilkley Constabulary. I don’t doubt that you will be hearing from them very shortly. In fact you have probably heard from them already. In fact you are probably hearing from them right now, if the phone in your office is ringing…

  Is it ringing, Rog? Thought so. Did you answer it, Rog? You did. And was it Mr Thorndyke’s solicitor, Rog, ‘keeping up to speed’ on things, while jabbering away, inanely, about heaven only knows what? Of course it was.

  Since I have a few minutes to spare before tea-time (who tiptoes ever closer on her sweet, icing-sugared feet) and because I consider you ‘an old mucker’, Rog, I’ll give you a quick précis of my activities in relation to this case over the past six weeks (although, if you prefer, there’s always the enclosed file: a whole 474 pages-worth of completely pointless paperwork, duplicated thricely, as regulations stipulate).

  Credit where credit’s due, Rog: PC Hill actually did much of the early legwork. His initial visit to the crime scene was on the morning after the theft (on the evening of the 21st – the night of the crime – we were all somewhat preoccupied in Skipton, as I’m sure you will recall, by my televised appearance on the National Bravery Awards – live, from the Café de Paris in London – following those tragic incidents surrounding the blaze at Tilton Mill; the fascinating denouement of which has been closely followed – and faithfully recorded, with accompanying photos and lengthy panegyrics from a grateful public – in the local and national press. Although, as I said at the time, Rog, ‘The label of “hero” sits uncomfortably on me. I’m just a typical, northern copper doing an extremely difficult – and often dangerous – job to the very best of my blah, blah, blah…’).

  We have reason to believe that the break-in took place at approximately 21.00 hrs. The local vicar assured PC Hill that he posted a letter (case letter 15) at about 20.55 that evening, when everything appeared ‘just as normal – in fact, if anything, more normal than normal’. (PC Hill comments in his accompanying notes that he found this ‘more normal than normal’ statement, ‘slightly odd’, but that he didn’t press the reverend any further on the point because ‘he had just started a nose bleed and only had one tissue’.)

  The crime was reported to us (with almost indecent alacrity, Rog) at 21.12, by Susan Trott – of Black Grouse Cottage – who had been, I quote: ‘out looking for hedgehogs when I was horrified to notice the postbox door had fallen off and was just lying there, on the ground’.

  The report PC Hill submitted was, to put it generously, a tad perfunctory (you will notice that some of his ‘extra thoughts’ were jotted down on to torn shreds of chip paper – that fool in Supplies has so much to answer for!).

  No serious attempt was made to dust the crime scene for fingerprints because – as you can read for yourself – it had been ‘bucketing down with rain all morning’.

  His search for any kind of tool or instrument which might’ve been used to engineer the break-in was limited to ‘a quick peek in a nearby hedge’, where he was surprised to discover ‘a rusty, old biscuit-tin containing two slightly mildewed pornographic magazines: Trumpet for Boys (Issue 13, June 1998), and Golden Horns (Issue 4, December 2002)’. As you can probably detect from the titles, Rog, they were directed towards the specialist brass band enthusiast’s market, and aren’t currently included in the body of evidence because PC Hill took them home for ‘further detailed scrutiny’ (he plays a wind instrument himself; possibly the clarinet), and has yet to bring them back.

  While it obviously pains me to level criticism at an officer from my own division, Rog, I don’t believe, in all candour, that PC Hill initially appreciated the true gravity of the Burley Cross Postbox Theft scenario – a serious schoolboy error for a young bobby of his obvious talent and considerable potential (and talking of errors, Rog, I think you’ll agree that he really does need to learn the correct spellings of ‘necessary’ and ‘instigated’).

  Even so, there’s a perfectly passable descr
iption of the condition of the box itself. (‘Overall, the thing’s in a pretty terrible state. I’m surprised it’s still functional. It’s falling to pieces… There’s a bit of botched-up paintwork covering several inches of rust around the base, and another bit around the door’s hinges… To break into it, all you’d’ve really needed to do was jab at it for a while with a flat screwdriver or a putty knife…’)

  You will doubtless already be aware of the backstory re the postbox, Rog. The Royal Mail – or Consignia (or whatever jumped-up moniker they’re giving themselves nowadays) – have been trying to replace it with a modern box for the past three years and have been repeatedly foiled in their attempts by a shadowy – but nevertheless deeply influential – pressure group in the village called The Burley Cross Preservation Corps.

  The Corps is controlled by Independent local borough councillor (and gibbering idiot) Baxter Thorndyke. Thorndyke is also a staunch mainstay of both The Burley Cross Public Toilet Watch (est. 2005), and The Burley Cross Road Safety Committee, a group whose chief aim is to encourage motorists to stick to the busy A road that bypasses the village, rather than taking the – admittedly, rather tempting – short-cut straight through the heart of it (they have their own luminous, faux-military uniform and functioning speed gun – which they bought on the internet – and spend many a pleasant hour each week pointing it at random drivers and intimidating them with it).

  You will know yourself, Rog, that the postbox at issue is actually situated in Ilkley Constabulary’s policing territory (I rue the day some pea-brain on Wharfedale Council found themselves with a spare half-hour to waste before lunch one morning, and saw fit to spend it cheerfully reallocating the police boundary for Burley Cross, dividing it, haphazardly, between our two adjacent forces. For the record, I still don’t know who’s responsible for the barn and outbuildings at Deep Fell or the small housing estate on Hollow Nook Farm… So far as I am aware, they currently police themselves).

  The girl at the call pool who registered (and then allocated) Susan Trott’s emergency call (Cindy Withers. Are you familiar with Cindy, Rog? Incorrigible shrew. Terrible chip on her shoulder – probably acquired from lugging that phenomenal pair of Double-D cups around everywhere with her) still stridently maintains, in her own defence, that while she appreciated the fact that the box was on your watch, the caller – Susan Trott – phoned from a land-line inside her home, which is directly adjacent to the box, and therefore on ours.

  A bag of evidence being unearthed in the back alleys of Skipton – a mere ten hours thereafter – was also considered pertinent to where the case ultimately ended up.

  Of course the people in charge of these life-and-death decisions (hard to believe they actually have a whole department dedicated to this kind of guff, Rog, manned entirely by the idiot sons and daughters of Police Commissioners, I don’t doubt), always reserve the right to change what we laughably call ‘their minds’ (thereby effortlessly generating yet another skip-load of paperwork), and have apparently resolved to do so in this instance (I honestly don’t know why this might be, or what they can possibly hope to gain by it, Rog, I just try my damnedest to keep my head down, and take all their stupid, petty, pointless – not to mention hugely disruptive – subterranean political manoeuvrings with a very, very generous pinch of salt).

  Returning, if I may, to the issue of the theft itself; it might interest you to discover (and this is not something PC Hill made an official note of, but he happened to mention it to me, afterwards) that during his cursory, five-minute perusal of the postbox, he was approached and engaged in conversation/ loudly interrogated/helpfully advised/subtly lampooned/openly insulted (take your pick, Rog) by at least twelve different individuals, including the aforementioned Thorndyke (don’t these crackpots have jobs to go to, Rog? Or lives to lead? Or hedges to trim? Or Raku classes to attend?), who was wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend ‘Your Vehicle is a Loaded Weapon!’ on one side and ‘Watch out World – I’m a Highwayman!’ on the other.

  PC Hill said Mr Thorndyke became ‘quite hysterical’ during their brief exchange, and at one point virtually screamed, ‘This is exactly what they wanted! Are you blind?! Can’t you see?! This is exactly what they wanted! If you actually have any serious intention of investigating this crime – and catching the cowardly vandal who committed this atrocity – then stop dawdling around here like a wet weekend, stuffing your face with battered cod, and go and speak to the man behind it! Talk to Trevor Woods! Talk to their henchman, if you’ve got the balls! He’s up to his scrawny neck in all of this!’ (I feel I must just briefly note, in passing, that there have been no actual road fatalities in Burley Cross since 1917, when, according to town records, ‘an inebriated flower-seller – of poor repute – slipped on some filthy cobbles, fell under the wheels of a cart and was instantly killed.’

  It should also be noted that Cllr Thorndyke was wearing a T-shirt – and only a T-shirt, in temperatures of 20 degrees and under – during his exchange with PC Hill. PC Hill said, ‘His teeth were chattering as he spoke. It was actually quite difficult to decipher what he was saying at some points. I don’t know why he didn’t just go home and put his coat on.’)

  A short while later, as he was climbing into his patrol car, PC Hill apprehended the aforementioned Mr Woods (the source of all this unbridled hysteria), driving up to the box in his postal van. PC Hill said he was ‘to all intents and purposes a broken man, skulking around the place like a beaten dog…’

  On being questioned about the theft, Woods was quoted as saying, ‘They can’t pay me enough to do the collection here, mate. They’re nutters. They should have me on danger money. They’re all sodding lunatics.’

  Suffice to say, following PC Hill’s initial investigation of the crime scene (and following the discovery of the refuse sack of letters found dumped in a back alley in Skipton – a mere two doors down from the bijou residence of notorious local petty criminal, Timmy Dickson), I contacted all those individuals whose letters now form a part of the official evidence, informing them that their post couldn’t be returned – or forwarded on – until it had been formally declassified as such.

  Next, I initiated an official mail-out to the entire village (also enclosed, Rog, translated into the obligatory three languages – I chose Portuguese, Mandarin and Xhosa) to try and discover if anyone had posted a letter on the evening of Dec. 21st, which had not – for some reason – been retrieved in the Skipton cache.

  Nobody had, although Rita Bramwell couldn’t be entirely certain. She said she thought she might have sent something, but that she wasn’t sure what it was, or to whom it was addressed (she’s several wires short of the full radio, Rog). As it transpired, she had actually sent something (case letter 13).

  When I then asked her if she had received my earlier communication (informing her that exactly such a letter was being held by us, as evidence), she hotly denied that I had sent her one – although her husband, Peter Bramwell, later found it stuffed down the back of a chaise longue, and was kind enough to apologize to me for his wife’s behaviour.

  I subsequently sent Mrs Bramwell a photocopy of her own letter (in an attempt to dispel her confusion). Her response was not at all as I had expected it to be. She hotly denied having sent it – in a long and erratic email – making a series of wild, unsubstantiated claims and accusations – one of which was that it had been ‘forged’, and that I myself was ‘in the frame’ as one of the suspects for the crime (we all had a good chuckle at that in the staff canteen)!

  Several people were, you will be stunned to discover, Rog, a little peeved by the news that their post would not be immediately returned to them (you may have seen the bilious squall of angry letters in the local rag, Rog), but this is Burley Cross, after all: a tiny, ridiculously affluent, ludicrously puffed-up moor-side village, stuffed to capacity with spoilt second-home owners, southerners, the strange, the ‘artistic’, the eccentric and the retired (most of them tick all of the above boxes, Rog, and several more be
sides – although I’m sure I don’t have the natural intelligence, fine vocabulary or social acuity to do them all justice here… Matt Endive (Sr) – case letter 4 – who perfectly exemplifies those latent, Burley Cross characteristics of tragic retard and unalloyed fat-head combined, called me a ‘bumped-up little northern grammar-school oik’, only yesterday on the phone, and then, when I laughed him off, said I was ‘tragically out of my depth’ and ‘riddled with contumely’. I responded – quick as a flash, Rog. I said, ‘Are you sure you don’t mean “contumacy,” Mr Endive – from the Latin com = intense + tumere = to swell?’

  A long silence followed, Rog, and I don’t mind admitting that I enjoyed every damn second of it – although, in retrospect, I think he probably did mean contumely).

  Of course you know better than anybody, Rog, what kind of problems we’re up against here: to say Burley Cross is ‘Little England writ large’, would be like saying Stilton is ‘a dairy product with blue bits running through it’ (i.e. an understatement, Rog, and a considerable understatement at that).

  This is, after all, the same place where the local council’s decision not to install a speed-bump last year caused a mini-riot on Pancake Day which was later ‘Recorded for Posterity, that Future Generations Might Read and Weep’, in a seven-hundred-line epic poem, (still pinned up on the notice board outside the local shop, with copies available for sale inside):

  The butcher got the worst of it, when spade and axe did fall,

  The baker put up quite a fight, when caught up in the brawl…

  (Ironically, there is no baker in Burley Cross, Rog, and never has been, either, so far as I am aware.)

  Before I finally wind up, Rog, here’s a little something extra that might just pique your interest: while nobody was willing to admit to having had a letter stolen during the theft, two people were determined to make it publicly known that the letters written in their names were not penned by their own hands (the first, Rita Bramwell, as mentioned previously; the second, Tom Augustine, whose letter about a little incident at the public toilets I found especially informative, Rog – if deeply unedifying).