Storyteller - Colin & Anne Brookfield (ebook and pdf reader .txt) 📗

and the poor man had to hear the whole story.

“I need this sketch identified – that’s if such a place exists! I should also add that I am a reporter for the Winton Gazette.”

“If this all goes wrong,” replied the inspector, “I shall see to it that you are in a great deal of trouble with your editor. Sergeant, go and dig your fishing fraternity friends out of the canteen and get this sketch identified.” He turned to Rachel and Tom. “Please take a seat.”

It took less than five minutes before a constable, brushing biscuits from his jacket, came marching business-like into the room with the sketch and addressed his superior. “I know this place well,” he commenced. “It’s a back stream of the Wilton River and even though it’s obviously a child’s sketch, it fits in with one location; there are three Scots Pine trees on one bank and a swampy area on the other.”

“Right,” replied the inspector, “take these people with another constable to that place. Afterwards, bring the couple back and report to me.”

Scarcely an hour later the inspector was informed that a body had been discovered at the site, and the forensics team were required. It transpired that the body and the killing knife were found where the sketch indicated them to be.

“Well well!” greeted the inspector when Tom and Rachel were returned to the police station. “You really have put yourselves in the frame. Let’s hope forensics come up with something off that knife. In the meantime, I would request that you do not leave the area.”

When Tom told his editor later, he said, “Sounds like a great story there, get it written and we’ll publish it when it’s all cleared up. I know you’re no fool, and honest into the bargain, so don’t worry, it’ll all come right in the end.”

Rachel and Tom had now joined Timothy’s parents under the same oppressive cloud of suspicion. After several days of this, Rachel had a phone call from Timothy’s grandmother Marie, asking if she could come and see them, so when Tom returned home from work that evening, she informed him that they would be receiving a visitor around seven thirty.

Timothy’s grandmother arrived exactly on time, and later after a cup of tea and slice of homemade cake, Marie moved the niceties on to the reason she was there.

“As you can imagine,” she began, “at this moment I’m left with memories of Timothy and nothing else. We are hoping desperately for him to come out of his coma and we spend every moment that we can at his bedside.

“We know how you must feel,” replied Rachel.

“I remember telling him when he was only four – and you should know that he was a very bright boy even at that age – I told him that people are like books. The cover looks good; they may read you a chapter or two but the rest is private. Then to my surprise, he immediately replied, ‘I’m going to be a colouring book’. He used to say it so often to everyone, that colouring books became regular presents from family and friends. Eventually, his father put a stop to those presents in preference for things a little more grown-up. So ‘Lego’, and other kinds of building kits began filling Timothy’s life.”

“What a shame,” replied Tom, who was getting a little weary with the way the story was going.

“Also,” she continued, “I remember his father saying to him that there would be no more colouring books, and I reminded him not to be so sure, as ‘old habits die hard’ and referred him to what the Jesuits said, ‘Give me a boy until the age of seven and I’ll show you the man’, and although Timothy might only be four years old, he has the intelligence of a child of seven.”

Tom and Rachel listened attentively and wondered if all of this was going to lead anywhere beyond giving an elderly lady a friendly ear. She continued, but in a direction that took Tom and Rachel completely by surprise.

“I found this on my dresser this morning,” and she placed a sheet of paper on the table.

“Another one!” gulped Rachel staring down at the childish sketch. “How can this be?”

Tom reached for the phone and dialled the police inspector’s number. The officer was informed of the latest sketch and that it would be delivered to him within the hour. Timothy’s grandmother thanked Tom and Rachel for their help, and a taxi was arranged for her.

“I’m going to visit Timothy at the hospital this evening with his parents, why don’t you both come with us?” she said. Rachel nodded in agreement.

Leaving Marie with Rachel, Tom left with some urgency for the police station. The inspector had very mixed feelings over the unnatural nature of the sketch evidence, and made it quite clear that there would be serious repercussions if such oddities connected with the police, should find their way into the Winton Gazette.

Tom’s parting shot was, “If anything of interest crops up, you won’t get me between seven and eight this evening, my wife and I will be visiting Timothy at the General Hospital.”

Later, at the hospital car park, Rachel got the anticipated grumbles as Tom dug deep into his small change for the ticket machine.

“I only want to borrow a parking space; I don’t want to buy the damned thing.”

It wasn’t until they were all together with the boy’s parents and grandmother in the hospital room, that the full emotional force of Timothy’s tragedy struck home. The small, inert figure of the child was festooned with tubes and surrounded by equipment. A nurse brought in extra chairs and they quietly conversed about him until their visiting time came finally to a close.

When the door opened, they’d expected a nurse to inform them that it was time to leave, instead, it was the police inspector.

“I am sorry to interrupt. I was just passing and thought you’d want the news as quickly as possible. After many false starts with the latest sketch, we managed to tie those feline images in with the words ‘Catman Street’, on the local map. Subsequently, we interviewed and finger-printed the male at that address, and they matched those found on the knife at the river crime scene. The man is now in custody charged with murder, and attempted murder.”

All eyes had been fixed on the man whilst he spoke to them, but then something very strange happened. The inspector had gone stony silent and his mouth was ajar, as though trying to say something. More to the point, his eyes went straight past them. They all swung around to see Timothy sitting up with arms reaching out towards his mother.

The inspector later remarked how very strange it was. “It was as though the child had an unconscious mission to complete before he could awaken. Moreover, that this unconscious desire had strangely manifested in what appeared to be the impossible arrival of those sketches.”

 

Noblesse Oblige

It was November 1917, and for several days German artillery had been pounding the British front line trenches into a rain-soaked quagmire, to the extent that Philip’s infantry regiment, had been forced back to another line of defensive trenches, which then disrupted the planned Somme offensive in that part of France. On the third night, the artillery stopped and a profound silence fell across the ravaged no-mans-land dividing the combatants.

Philip and several others were ordered to move forward, to discover if there was anything left of their former front line trenches. This was necessary before any possible push forwards by the whole regiment could be considered. A search for the wounded was also a priority, but it was a very dangerous task in the pitch dark; deep mud-filled shell holes could swallow the unwary.

For this job, several young soldiers were issued with a small carbide gas lamp that had a movable shutter over the lens. This allowed its light to be used selectively and not alert the enemy to their presence. Speed was of the essence, because the artillery bombardment could resume at any second, and these fears were hanging over them like the ‘Sword of Damocles’.

As Philip’s feet struggled along through the cloying mud, his attention was suddenly drawn to the sound of a frightened horse nearby. It turned out that there were two of them; they were heavy dray horses, with their harnesses still attached to an overturned gun carriage.

Philip soon freed the distressed creatures. He found a long piece of rope nearby and looped it around the neck of each horse, then started leading them back towards his regimental lines.

On several occasions, the horses almost slithered into mud holes that would have swallowed them, but fortunately, with his back now towards the enemy, Philip could use his lamp more freely

His light suddenly fell upon the head and shoulders of a body which was barely exposed from the shell-hole mud it had sunk into. This was an all too familiar sight, except that in this case, he heard a young German voice: “Helfen Sie mir”. For a few seconds, Philip was not quite sure what to do.

The German soldier felt a looped rope drop across his shoulders, and he struggled to push it beneath his submerged armpits. Within a few minutes one of the horses had pulled the soldier out of his immediate danger. When Philip shone his torch, he was shocked to see a face that seemed much too young to be in uniform. The German had a bad leg wound, and Philip promptly put aside his fears and bent down to cut away the clothing from the area. He washed the wound from his water-bottle and applied his field dressing.

There was a click of a rifle bolt from behind him.

“Bloody Bosch! Stand aside and let me finish him,” said a voice that he recognised from his group.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Philip as he snatched the rifle from the other man’s hand and unloaded its magazine into the shell-hole. “Now get on your way before you get the butt-end of my rifle.”

Once alone, Philip felt a hand touch his. The smiling boy had tears of gratitude in his eyes. Then the moment was gone, as Philip responded to the sound of German voices nearby and moved quickly away with the horses into the enveloping blackness. The wounded German called out to his nearby compatriots and as he did so, his hand fell upon something flat and un-muddied.

Captain Philip Rogers knew he was in serious trouble. It was 1943 and he had been parachuted into France as Radio Liaison Officer between the French Resistance and his executive officer in England. It was an accepted possibility in clandestine operations of this nature, that resistance groups are sometimes infiltrated by quislings. This was the very situation that Philip had now found himself caught up in. Everything had seemed safe enough as he floated down towards the solitary torch-light, and landed more comfortably than usual in the centre of a tree encircled field.

He knew the game was up when a magnesium flare exploded high above, turning night into day.

“Hande hoch. Schnell,” shouted an unfriendly voice from a megaphone. The voice came again, only this