by Chris Harris
Part two of a short story, the local church roof is callously stripped, incompetence, character assassinations, indignation, in a fast-moving tragi-comic yarn in two parts. A conclusion ir reached in this speedy and funny whodunnit. Set in the fictitious village of Denham and Lewes, East Sussex.
Original artwork by Louise Turner.
Podcast about the story etc.
Naturally, when news of the break-in at the pub became public, Deakin asked the question, ‘Why is everybody so thick? It is those bloody toads up to their old tricks.’ He had previously described the brothers as too thick to pull off a lead heist.
Local bespoke joiner Stanley Root was set the task of replacing the Toads table. Martin was a crummy catalogue kind of guy, everything as cheap as possible, unless it was the insurance company’s money. Root was the sort of tradesman he would never normally be in contact with. A chippy by trade, Root ironically also had a huge chip on his shoulder. He was a very good joiner and took on upmarket commissions. He loved mingling with the well-off, using his extensive knowledge of wood and his trade to subtly belittle his customers and make himself feel superior. Customers couldn’t care less, of course, they were obviously paying for expertise, but that never occurred to the narcissistic Root.
Dealing with a pub landlord was well beneath him, Martin picked up on the contempt and decided to play dumb and wind Root up, by being as bloody-minded and demanding as he could. Root had taken on the job as it would be great for his local social media profile to be seen building a toads board for a local pub.
Burly Paul Stoat was a churchwarden from Brynde, a neighbouring village, and a member of The Star pub’s toad team. It was not with absolute forensic certainty at first glance that he noted the anomaly, but certainly enough to become suspicious. He recognised the lead on the new toad table. The dark oxidised patina, nail holes, the folds from flashings. This was not normal lead, this was weathered outside lead from a building. As the Chivers brothers pummelled his team into the ground, it has to be said in a very ungracious and unsporting manner, as the beers intoxicated his system, he became both indignant and confident enough to mention to Martin, ‘You might want to get plod to look at that lead, it is very much from a church roof.’
Martin soberly told him he would, though inwardly he was doing cartwheels. He smelled a rat immediately, one involving the creator, the obnoxious Root, and, just as good, the possibility of police work Briggs might finally be unable to blag his way out of.
The very next morning, Martin went straight round to see the vicar, who, to his surprise, appeared at the pub less than an hour later carrying a battered metal toolbox. To Martin, there was something deeply perverse about the sight of a village vicar cheerfully undertaking manual labour, easing the lead from the top, before muttering language that sounded distinctly unbiblical.
‘Got the bastards.’
He peeled back the lead, and underneath was a tiny stamp DCC Belfry 1902.
Sergeant Briggs felt the clear evidence was inconclusive. He didn’t doubt that somehow the lead of the church’s roof had worked its way onto the local boozer’s pub board, but really, investigate? The roof had been replaced!
He made his excuses and left at 10 am, muttering to himself, and at 10.30 received an email from Roger Munnery and scuttled back at 11 am, suitably chastened.
Dear Sergeant Briggs, The Diocese and the Church insurers have requested an update on police progress. I have, thus far, attempted to avoid unnecessarily escalating matters, particularly given the longstanding relationship between the parish and the local police. However, unless some visible progress is made shortly, I will have little option but to raise the matter formally with both diocesan representatives and the local press.
Potentially, it was merely a case of handling stolen goods, something that required little more than speaking to the man who had made the toad table. Briggs, however, to avoid any inconvenience on his part, had convinced the Detective Inspector in Lewes that the matter was clearly part of a wider network of criminal activity and that Stanley Root’s warehouse on the Cliffe Industrial Estate needed to be raided.
With considerable and begrudging effort, Briggs had already contacted the company responsible for managing the industrial estate and was relieved to discover that CCTV footage was retained for only thirty days. The table had already been in the pub for well over a month so was redundant. At least this spared him the ignominy of having to sit through hours of grainy footage, although, in the past, he had discovered this was a task his wife seemed strangely to enjoy. Out of kindness, he usually afforded her the luxury of uninterrupted concentration by vacating the house entirely and relocating himself to the Brewer’s Arms on the High Street.
The following day, armed with a search warrant and accompanied by two officers in Day-Glo jackets, Chief Inspector Andy Ridings raided the Lewes Joinery Company.
Such was Stanley Root’s arrogance, behaving as though he were above the law had become second nature to him. The substantial quantity of lead stored at the rear of the warehouse was barely even concealed, hidden only beneath a few blue tarpaulins. This was no isolated case of handling stolen goods; it was immediately obvious to Ridings that Root was not only using stolen lead but actively trading in it.
‘I bought this for cash, fair and square,’ Root insisted, despite being unable to produce a single piece of supporting documentation.
‘In my experience, Mr Root,’ said Ridings calmly, ‘there is nothing remotely fair and square about several tons of lead hidden at the back of a warehouse with no paperwork attached to it. Unless you can prove otherwise, this has all the appearance of organised criminal activity.’
Root remained outwardly confident. He knew there was no obvious paper trail. He had carefully collected the lead himself rather than have it delivered to avoid detection, transporting it in his own van before distributing it to his clientele at various addresses. As far as he was concerned, the arrangement and visuals had been watertight.
In fact, the absence of paperwork seemed only to increase his confidence.
‘I’ll tell you what, CI Ridings,’ he said smugly. ‘Why don’t you run along now, and I won’t bother putting on social media about your outrageous little raid?’
But Ridings was a canny officer and had dealt with men like Stanley Root many times before.
‘On the contrary, Mr Root,’ he replied, cool as a cucumber, ‘We’ll be setting up tables and cataloguing every piece of lead in this building for identifying marks and traces of origin. I know exactly what you’ve been involved in, financing criminals to strip churches and civic buildings of historic lead. Make no mistake, this has the look of a custodial sentence.’
The penny dropped with Root. He had already factored in that his nice lucrative sideline was finished. He always knew it would not last forever, but prison? Sure, a few months, but his reputation and business would be destroyed.
CI Ridings, on the other hand, knew his reputation would be greatly enhanced because, in order to save his skin, Root looked like a prime target to spill the beans on a potentially large criminal network.
It transpired this was not the case. It was solely the brothers who ultimately went to prison, not the Toads, but Sam and Neil Deakin, the sons of George Deakin.
Their father, thereafter, became notable for his conspicuous absence from Facebook. His abrupt defenestration from the Lewes Facebook groups was celebrated with quiet satisfaction by much of the town, and shortly afterwards, he deleted his account entirely.
Root, meanwhile, secured himself a reduced sentence by cooperating with police, although the brothers made it abundantly clear that, upon their release from prison, they intended to repay his assistance with several broken bones. Sensibly deciding not to test the sincerity of those promises, Root sold the business, left the area, and was never seen in Lewes again.
In the end, there proved to be no vast criminal network after all. CI Ridings moved on to pursuing more substantial criminals elsewhere, while Briggs returned to his natural role of distributing crime reference numbers to disappointed members of the public.
The Chivers brothers carried on exactly as they always had — drinking Harvey’s, playing toads, ultimately planning for their potential moment of glory at the next Toads World Championship.
Next week….Custard, Crumble And The Roobarb Punch. Part 1
#Sussex #Lewes #Short Story #Short Stories #Satire
The Rights of Fans. 