15. SERGEANT GILES

Back home safely, Chantelle tells what she knows.

“Just a moment, Mrs,” put in the policeman, a Sergeant with more years of service behind him than he cared to think about. Sergeant Giles had seen it all, arrested every kind of known criminal and had dealings with just about every member of what he looked on as a very undesirable underclass. And his first instinct told him that the girl in front of him, with her pretty pastel tee-shirt and smart white shorts that emphasised the innocence of her legs, was nothing like any of them.

Then he turned to Chantelle, who looked just about as shocked as a teenage girl can look. He was a fine judge of character, everyone agreed on that point, and his judgement went against the facts that had been radioed to him when he was asked to check on this girl on the subject of a very dead rich man and an apparent robbery.

“It’s been reported he said,” and he glanced at the girl’s mother for a moment, “by a very undesirable woman, and I’m sure she won’t mind me calling her that because I’ve had numerous dealings with her so I know that it’s true, that an elderly gentleman of your acquaintance has been … there’s only one word for it, murdered.”

“But … the old man down Durnley Bottoms, in the bungalow?” stammered Chantelle, “he’s not dead! He even asked me to marry him!”

“If that place is a bungalow then my semi is a castle,” frowned Sergeant Giles, “but that’s not the point! You say he asked you to marry him?”

“I don’t think he really meant it...” replied Chantelle, “I mean, he’s about a hundred!”

“What did he do, darling?” asked her mother, her face a mask of anxiety as all sorts of unthinkable things swept through her mind.

“He showed me a wooden chest, a small one like you might keep your important papers in,” replied Chantelle, “and when he opened it I was supposed to gasp in wonderment or something like that, buy it was empty. Then that woman came along, the middle-aged one, and she said he was her father! She had a knife…”

“What was supposed to be in that chest?” asked Sergeant Giles, frowning.

Chantelle shook her head. “I think it must have been something special, something that would make me agree to anything he asked, maybe money, you know, fifty pound notes wrapped together in bundles big enough to make your eyes water … but the chest was empty but for a note that said THANKS DAD, and nothing.”

“And he hadn’t expected it to be empty?”

She shook her head. “I could tell he was shocked because he didn’t have a son. He’d told me that. But then a woman who said she was his daughter came along and said she’d taken whatever it was in the chest and hidden it somewhere he would never find it.”

“But he never said what it was?”

She shook her head. “If he did it didn’t register with me,” she said. “He had a gun, you know. He pointed it at the Judy woman, the one who said she was a daughter, but he was shaking like a fig leaf and I was so frightened of him pulling the trigger because I thought if he did the bullet could go anywhere. It might even have killed me!”

“Oh darling...” fussed her mother, “don’t talk about being killed! Nothing like that happened, did it?”

Chantelle shook her head.

“It was like a murder mystery on the telly,” she said, “people with knives and gun all over the place. I was only too happy to get away with my life. I was half way home when it started to rain and I sheltered in a place I know, where I used to go with David sometimes.”

“Who’s David?” interrupted the sergeant.

“A friend, He was a friend of mine, but they moved away and I suppose I’ll never see him again,” said Chantelle sadly.

“He was a good boy,” put in her mother.

“Anyway, we had this place where we carved our initials in a tree and made a secret vow...” muttered the girl.

“What secret vow, darling?” asked her mother.

“That doesn’t matter,” interrupted the sergeant, “what does matter is what you did next.

She looked at him and shook her head. “I came home,” she said, “and, oh yes, I found these in the hollow of a dead tree.”

She plunged her hands into her pockets and withdrew the keys she’d rescued from their hidey hole in the tree.

“What on Earth...” exclaimed her mum.

“I brought them because it seemed strange,” said Chantelle, “all these keys, and there are quite a few more.”

“They look important to me,” murmured Sergeant Giles, picking one or two of the keys up and examining them. “I’d say they were keys to one of those secure boxes that banks let their customer use. Where secret documents like the deeds to property or insurance policies can be kept.”

“Or gold and jewels,” whispered Chantelle, “I’ve read stories about that! Rich men hide precious things in bank vaults so that their wives can’t get their hands on them!”

“Darling, that’s a bit fanciful!” smiled her mother, “your father would never do that!”.

Chantelle had a whole mind full of suggestions as to what might be stores away from public scrutiny in a bank vault when there was a voice crackling out of the sergeant’s police radio.

“Where are you, Giles?” it barked.

“Oops. The Inspector,” said Sergeant Giles, backing away and moving into the hallway off the front room.

“What’s that about the old man being killed?” whispered Michelle’s mother anxiously when they were alone, “and why do they think you had something to do with it?”

“He was all right when I was allowed to leave,” her daughter told her. “But he was old. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so old. It gives me the creeps thinking that he said he wanted to marry me!”

“You mustn’t do anything of the sort!” admonished her mother.

“As if I would even dream about it!” shuddered Chantelle. “In fact, it wouldn’t even be a dream, it would be a nightmare!”

Sergeant Giles cut their conversation short by returning to the room.

“That was my Inspector,” he said ruefully, “and I’m afraid I might have spoken out of turn. It seems the old man wasn’t murdered at all. Apparently, according to the pathologist, he passed away out of natural causes. He was ninety-three. Hardly surprising at that age, but I shouldn’t have suggested...

“But there’s something else. A whole lot of keys went missing and it made me think of the treasure you found in an old hollow tree. I mentioned it to Grim, that’s the Inspector’s name, and it can be most appropriate, and he says to take you and the keys to the station.

“He says it might be to your advantage!”

“Then I’ll come too!” declared the girl’s mother, “Dearie me, this is turning out to be quite a day!”

© Peter Rogerson 14.12.19