Bobby on the Beat

Introduction

1st October 1951. We’ve founded a Welfare State and fought a war. Britain stands on the brink of a new age, full of optimism and the wonders of labour-saving devices, convenience foods and television. But in Yorkshire, just as it’s been for billions of years, the heavens don’t give two hoots for optimism. They open up, just as they always have, and pour their watery offering across every hillock, cobbled street and country lane. What’s more, I’m nearly late for my first day at work and running full pelt in the biggest rainstorm I’ve ever witnessed in my short life.

Water finds its way onto and into everything, including up my nose and down the back of my shirt. It seems to slither up drainpipes and over things that could have no conceivable use for it: dustbins, tin roofs, a pair of old boots. The rain pours relentlessly across everything in its path as I leg it towards Newbiggin on my way to Richmond police station.

I hold firmly on to my regulation handbag, leather with a broad strap, which contains my whistle and a notebook, all now thoroughly soaked through. But it’s my precious shoes, which I have stayed up half the night shining, that are the wettest of all. And they certainly aren’t shiny any more as I slosh through the tidal wave now making its way down the road.

What will Sarge say? He’s such a stickler for punctuality and smartness. I’ve been warned that every morning there’s an inspection and all the officers on duty line up in a row while he walks up and down to check the length of the lads’ hair, the crispness of their shirts and the shine on their shoes. Dripping with mud, I shake off my feet one by one and carry on up the hill towards the station as fast as I can.

Towards me, running the other way, a figure in a huge brown coat, floppy hat and corduroy trousers tied at the ankles with brown string is running down the hill with his arms waving.

‘Miss! Miss! Look out! He’s on his way. My Bertie. I couldn’t restrain him, by Lord, I couldn’t. He’s got a will of steel, that lad.’

This was the last thing I needed, some batty old farmer to deal with, making me even wetter and even later for inspection. But the man grabs me by the shoulders.

‘Miss, run for it! He’s on his way and there’ll be no stopping him now. He’s got a firecracker up his …’

‘Sir, heavens, please. Stop shaking me!’ He is now spraying a fountain of spittle across my face.

‘Oh, sorry, Miss. I … only you must hurry. It’s the new bairn. He’s escaped and he’s wild.’

‘The new baby?’

‘The bullock. My Bessie’s bullock! He’s got the devil in him, I swear it.’

As I look up I can see the massive animal rounding the corner, nostrils snorting, water streaming down his coat in sheets. He runs this way and that, slithering and slipping on the cobbles but managing to build up a fearsome speed. He’s heading right for us, past the post office and on towards Market Place.

‘Quick. Run!’ I grab hold of the old man’s coat, which is ominously sticky, and pull him along behind me. As we run, his breath, a heady mix of whisky and swede, washes over me in dizzying waves.

‘I don’t know why he’s being like this. His sister’s an angel, by Lord. I only turned my back for a minute, and then he turned on me!’

‘Come on. Hurry.’

I can practically feel the bullock’s snorting nostrils at my back. But before he reaches us, I catch sight of a red telephone box in Market Place. It’s one of the boxes which will become as familiar to me as my own home over the next few months. But for now it’s nothing less than heaven-sent.

I pull the farmer in behind me, heaving the door firmly shut. I lean back, trying to stop the old man from falling onto me in the cramped booth, when the animal slides to a stop in the muddy water and crashes up against the door in front of us, his huge flaring nostrils puffing steam onto the glass, brown eyes looking up, terrified. He lets out a long whine as though someone has slowly and deliberately stepped on his tail, then slumps down head first in the mud and gives up the chase.

And that’s why I was late for my first day at work, and why I failed my first inspection.

A loud bang at the front door woke me from the deepest of sleeps. Rubbing my eyes, I stretched, noticing that the rain had finally stopped after weeks of constant downpour. The first frost of the year was sparkling round the edge of the window and it was a clear starry night. Between the trees a yellow half-moon lit up the clock – ten past three in the morning. I looked out of the window and down at the front garden, where a figure in a black helmet and greatcoat was shifting from foot to foot.

Shivering, I got dressed quickly and ran downstairs, trying not to wake my landlady, then peeped round the door. A twitchy young policeman stood on the front step, breathless from running.

‘Grab your things. We need you down at the station. We’ve got a situation.’

‘Hello, Bill! What is it?’ I whispered. My words puffed out in white clouds.

‘We’ve picked someone up on the Great North Road. She’s in a bit of trouble. Sarge says you’re to come right away. And bring your coat.’

I grabbed my hat and bag, and we walked at a brisk pace into town. There wasn’t another person in sight, not even the milkman, or a hint of morning sun. The only sounds were the shop shutters swinging and the clatter of our boots.

As we walked, PC Bill Bryant explained to me that the woman they had brought in was, as he put it, a ‘lady of the night’. He said they were often picked up on the Great North Road near the army barracks, ‘selling their wares’ along the roadside. I had never seen one of these women in real life and was a bit apprehensive. But as the only female police officer at the station, it was my job to be there when a woman was brought in, so I had to put on a brave face. I soon got used to getting dragged out like this at all hours.

Bill chattered on excitedly.

‘She was found by Traffic Patrol wandering onto the road, drunk as a lark. She could have been killed.’

He revelled for a moment in the drama.

As he spoke, I tried to remember all the offences it might be possible she had committed. I’d just spent the last thirteen weeks at the training centre, learning the ins and outs of every angle of policing, and I scanned my mind, thinking back to the big textbooks we’d had to memorize. Drunk and incapable? It would be at least that, surely, but at that time in the morning, groggy with sleep, everything seemed a blurry haze.

Richmond police station consisted of two small stone cottages knocked through into one. The main room was more like a cosy sitting room, with, amongst other things, two chairs at a table and a blazing open fire.

As we walked in Sergeant Cleese, the duty sergeant in charge of the night shift, was holding up a woman at the front desk. In the flickering firelight, she looked a bit worse for wear, though she was very tall and elegant, a bit like a young Bette Davis, with lavender silk gloves right up to the elbows, a silver fox fur with a real fox’s head draped over one shoulder and with her hair piled up in high curls. I noticed that the make-up round her eyes had smudged and there was a large, bloody cut on her lip.

As we came in she made a dash for the door, shouted something incoherent, burst out laughing, then into tears, and collapsed onto the floor at my feet.

‘What a lovely hat!’ she slurred, then slumped over.

‘Oh good, Rhodes, you’re here.’ Sergeant Cleese never lost his cool; he always responded with military precision. ‘If you lift her arm there, you can help me get her down to the cells, like so.’

We half carried the woman, who was surprisingly heavy, down a narrow stone passageway and into the cells.

An overpowering smell of damp and vinegar hit me as we entered the cell. To this day, I still don’t know why it smelled of vinegar. I walked over to the little iron bed, where we sat her down and I used the handkerchief in my pocket to clean off some of the blood from the woman’s face as she slurred and nodded. It was rather tricky, as she kept grabbing out at imaginary adversaries and trying to say something.

‘Don’t hit me, I didn’t mean to!’ she said, followed by a plaintive, ‘Why me?’

When she fell asleep, I realized that she couldn’t be much older than twenty, about the same age as me. What different lives we must have led, I thought. After all, I’d never even kissed a man. I wondered what it meant, in real life, to be a lady of the night. But I couldn’t imagine it.

‘Righto, we’ll check her in an hour or so, see if she’s sobered up,’ said Cleese, and he shooed me out. Then he shut the door and turned the key.

The next day, Pearl, as she called herself (though her real name, we later found out, was Mary Brown), sat in the office cradling a strong mug of tea. The cut on her lip was still bleeding a little, but she was more concerned with getting hold of some hair curlers.

‘Be a dear, will you, and get me something for this mess?’ she said. ‘I can’t let him see me like this.’

She was genuinely quite distressed at the thought of being witnessed in such a state of disarray. In the heat of the moment, I remembered an old trick I’d learnt from one of the girls at training school, a cunning method using pipe-cleaners in place of curlers, so I went into the office and found some, and she fixed them in place before Sarge came back in with his notebook and pen.

When she was settled, Cleese asked her a series of questions – why was she out that late? Had she been drinking? and so on – and I took down the statement later as carefully as I could in my neatest handwriting on the statement sheet.

It turned out that Pearl was a dancer from Leeds who had auditioned for a big training school in London and got a place too, but she needed more money to pay the fees.

‘I met this lad, Reg, who said he owned a few nightclubs. He could have charmed the rattle from a snake. Anyway, he said he’d get me a job dancing at an exclusive revue bar.’

So he swept her off her feet, and then up the aisle. But it wasn’t long before he wanted her to earn money in other ways. And if she refused, he hit her.

‘That night, I said I was having none of it any more,’ she said, pausing to consider how much she should tell us. ‘Anyway, he got a bit angry, if you know what I mean. And one thing led to another and here I am with a bloody lip and Reg is nowhere to be seen. So I drank the rest of the gin and then the next thing I know I’m in here with you lot gawping at me.’

Sergeant Cleese and I listened patiently.

‘He’s all right really,’ she laughed. ‘He can’t help it. He’ll change. I’m sure.’

She looked down and twirled the ring round her finger sadly.

‘I probably deserve it, in any case.’

Eventually the Sergeant went out and conferred with the Inspector for a while in his office. Cleese gave her a good talking to, about the dangers of being a young woman on the streets, and told her to be sure to take care.

Suddenly a man burst in through the front door, demanding to see his wife. I have to admit he was quite handsome, with slicked-back black hair, piercing eyes and a neat pencil moustache. But he had a strange way about him that I didn’t trust a jot.

‘A lady policeman, eh?’ he said, eyeing me up and down. ‘That’s a bit weird, in’t it? Nice hat, by the way.’

Before I could reply, Pearl ran over and flung her arms round him.

‘Reggie! Darrrrling! Where have you been all my life?’

‘Right here, Pusskins. Right here, always.’

As the pair embraced, Reg looked back over his shoulder and gave me a deliberate wink.

When they had left, Sergeant Cleese shuffled some papers together and took a slug of his tea.

‘Nice girl that,’ he said. ‘I doubt that’s the last time we’ll see her in here. But then what can you do, eh? What can you do?’

As they walked off up the street, Pearl with her fox fur swinging, Reg in his pinstriped suit and upturned collar, they could have been film stars, the happiest couple on earth as the credits rolled. But as the newest bobby in Richmond, I was about to learn that things are very rarely what they seem.

Pamela Rhodes with Jo Wheeler

BOBBY ON THE BEAT

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

BOBBY ON THE BEAT

Introduction