Constable by the Sea (18 page)

As I passed the railway station, I noticed that one of the seaside-special trains had just pulled in. It was disgorging its complement of passengers into the town, and they were spilling out across the roads and pavements. I stood and watched, not for any particular reason, although it was nice to see their happy faces and relaxed behaviour. I was not studying the crowd, nor indeed observing them in the police sense, but I did notice a tiny girl with her blonde hair neatly plaited in two long tails. At the time, I did not know why she caught my attention, but she did. Maybe it was her demeanour or her long plaits? There was no reason to observe her. Nonetheless, I watched her walking beside several other people, and she was clutching a red bucket and a tiny spade with a blue blade. Together with the others, she crossed the road outside the railway station and followed the crowd towards the beach, a good ten minutes walk away.

Having seen the dispersal of that train-load, I went about my daily task of keeping traffic on the move, acting as unofficial guide and instant information service and generally attending to the multiplicity of minor tasks that came my way. My beat took me down to the harbourside, where I enjoyed the sunshine, the scent of the sea air and the eternal cry of wheeling gulls. If all police duty was like this, I could be very content.

Then a pretty, tanned woman in a suntop and shorts hailed me.

‘Oh, thank goodness I’ve found you,’ she said. ‘I’ve found a little girl. I think she’s lost.’

‘Where is she?’ I asked, for the woman was alone.

‘I left her in the souvenir shop just around the corner.’

‘I’ll see to her,’ I promised and hurried along to the shop in question.

We operated a well-oiled routine for dealing with lost children – dozens became separated from their parents during the season, and we never failed to re-unite any of them. More often than not, the child would be placed in the beach
superintendent
’s hut, and in time an anxious parent would arrive to claim him or her. Those found wandering nearer the town centre were usually taken to the police station, where we kept a store of toys and games to amuse them until the worried parents turned up. So a lost child was not a real problem; some were a positive delight.

With the tanned woman at my side, I went into the shop and found the child seated on a high stool. She was sucking an iced lolly and I recognized her as the little girl I’d noticed leaving the railway station.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘And who are you?’

‘Janice,’ she said, sucking the lolly without any show of concern.

‘And where do you live?’

‘Number 42 Tayforth Street.’

‘Which town is that?’ I continued.

‘Don’t know,’ she told me disarmingly.

‘And where did you lose your mummy and daddy?’ I said.

‘I didn’t lose them,’ she sucked happily. ‘I didn’t have them.’

‘You didn’t have them?’ I puzzled. ‘What do you mean, Janice?’

‘They never came. I came by myself.’

I halted in my questioning and now realized why she had been so prominent during my initial sighting of her. She had been walking alone; she had not been with anyone, not holding hands or being bustled along by anxious parents. She’d simply attached herself to some adults and children and had followed them … I could see it all now. It had meant nothing to me at that first sighting; now it meant everything.

‘Janice, where do your mummy and daddy live?’

‘With me, at home,’ she said.

‘No, I mean which town. You must know which town you live in.’

She merely shrugged her shoulders. At this the woman at my side attempted to gain this information.

‘Janice, how old are you?’

‘6¾,’ she said.

‘And which school do you go to?’

‘Roseberry Road Infants,’ she said without hesitation.

‘That’s in Middlesbrough,’ the woman told me. ‘I’m from Middlesbrough, but I’ve never heard of Tayforth Street. I wonder if it’s on that new council estate?’

‘What’s your other name, Janice?’ I asked.

‘Massey,’ she said. ‘Janice Massey.’

‘And you came to Strensford all by yourself?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to see the sands and the sea and dig sand castles.’

‘Do your mummy and daddy know you’ve come?’

She shook her head. ‘They couldn’t bring me, so I came by myself. I’m all right.’

My heart sank.

‘What about your money?’ I put to her. ‘How did you pay the man for coming on the train?’

‘No, he never asked. I walked near other children.’

‘And you walked near other children when you got here?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘Then I got lost. I’m looking for the sands, so I can dig my castles.’

‘You nearly got there,’ I smiled. ‘But look, I’ll have to take you to the police station, and we’ll have to tell your mummy and daddy where you are. They’ll be very worried. Then I’m sure they will come and take you to see the sea and to dig castles on the sands.’

‘All right,’ and I helped her off the high stool. She was so light and fragile; she looked almost undernourished, but she was a pretty child with blue eyes and that long blonde hair. But at close quarters she needed a good bath; her hair was full of dirt and needed a thorough washing. Her pale skin was grimy too.
Her cheap, thin little dress was crumpled and poor, and on her feet were a pair of sandals which were almost worn out. I began to wonder about her background.

I thanked the shopkeeper for taking care of her and also the woman who’d found her, and told them both that I’d take her to the police station. There she would be fed, and there were those games we kept for such occasions, and while she was there, we would ask Middlesbrough Police to locate the parents and ensure they collected her.

Janice held my hand tightly as we walked through the town, and she kept asking me where the sea was and which way she would have to go to find it. I told her but said that first we had to tell her parents. As a small consolation, I took her along the harbourside and showed her the fishing boats and pleasure cruisers, and she loved the gulls which settled on the pavements and roads, seeking titbits from visitors.

She would not say a lot about herself, except that she had no brothers or sisters, and dad and mum were out all day. She did not know what her dad did for a living, or whether her mum earned any money, but it seemed they were both out of the house when she left home at morning. But Middlesbrough Police would find them – the neighbours would know their whereabouts. I felt very confident about that.

I took her into the dark depths of Strensford police station where Sergeant Blaketon was the duty sergeant.

‘Hello, what’s this, Rhea? A new girl-friend?’

‘Yes, sergeant,’ I smiled, still holding Janice’s hand. ‘This is Janice. She’s come all the way from Middlesbrough without her mummy and daddy.’

‘Has she, by jove? And why has she done that?’

‘I want to see the sea,’ piped Janice. ‘And dig sand castles.’

‘Hmm, well, what about your mummy and daddy then?’

I explained the circumstances and he rubbed his chin.

‘All right, well, Rhea, you’ve done your bit. Now it’s down to us. You go back to your beat and we’ll find something for Janice to do while we find her mum and dad.’

I bade farewell to the child, and she smiled at me as Sergeant Blaketon took her into the office. There he would leave her in
the capable charge of the office constable who would ring Middlesbrough Police to set in motion the search for her parents and her eventual collection.

If they’d arrived home and found her missing, they’d be frantic with worry, but from what she’d told me, they would have no idea she’d undertaken this journey.

I returned to my beat and patrolled the town until it was lunch-time.

I booked off at one o’clock and saw that Janice was having a meal supplied by a nearby café; she was on a tall stool in the main office with her plate on the counter, and she seemed quite content. At least there were no tears, and she seemed to be enjoying the food.

Three-quarters of an hour later, I returned to report that I was resuming my patrol – our lunch breaks were of forty-five minutes duration precisely. But Sergeant Blaketon called me to one side for a chat before I left for the town.

‘Nicholas,’ he said, and his use of my Christian name made me wonder what was coming next. ‘That little girl, Janice. We’ve traced her parents – as we thought, they had no idea she’d come on that train. Now, her dad is at work until six tonight and he hasn’t got a car. He’s a warehouseman in Middlesbrough. Mum’s a part-time voluntary worker in an old folks’ home – she gets nothing for it, and it seems the family is not well off. Anyway, they’d arranged for young Janice to go to her granny’s today – but she hadn’t. Granny wasn’t unduly worried when she didn’t turn up because Mrs Massey
sometimes
changes her mind about going to the old folks’ place, and the parents thought the child was at granny’s.’

I listened to his long story, and wondered what he was coming to.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘The outcome of all this is that her father will have to borrow a friend’s car tonight, after work, to come here for her. There are no trains or buses into Strensford from Middlesbrough after six.’

‘I’m pleased we’ve found them, anyway. So she’ll have to hang about here until, well, nearly eight o’clock tonight?’ I said. ‘That’s a hell of a long time for the child.’

‘Exactly,’ he confirmed. ‘Which is the point of this
conversation
. Now, she likes you, so she tells me, she thinks you are kind. And young Rhea, you are a family man.’

I waited for his next suggestion.

‘That little bairn has come all this way all by herself just to see the sea and build sand castles; she’s even got her bucket and spade ready, but she’s been sat in our office for hours already, waiting. Just waiting as good as gold. And with never a sniff of the sea or a sight of the beach.’

And I do believe I caught a tremor of emotion in his voice, and just a hint of moisture in his dark eyes. I had never seen him like this before.

‘Yes, sergeant,’ I agreed with him, for I did feel sorry for the little girl.

‘So, go back to your digs, get changed into something light, the sort of stuff you’d wear on the beach if you took your own kids, and then come back here and take young Janice for a holiday on the sands,’ the words tumbled from him; it was almost as if he didn’t believe he was uttering them.

‘As part of my duty, you mean?’ I was amazed that he, of all the supervisory officers would take me away from uniform duties for a joyful task of this kind.

‘Of course, Rhea. But be back no later than eight tonight – that’s when her parents are due, and it’ll be too late for them to take her onto the sands. We can’t let her go home without making a sand castle, can we?’

I had some holiday clothes with me, and I did as he suggested. With little Janice carrying her precious bucket and spade and clutching my hand, I took her down to the seaside.

As I would have done with my own children, I helped her build castles, dams and holes in the smooth, warm sand; I gave her rides on the donkeys and we hunted for jellyfish, starfish and crabs in the rockpools. We found seaweed, shells and rounded stones which she loved, and there was a Punch and Judy show which she thoroughly enjoyed. I took her into an ice-cream parlour for a treat and showed her the lighthouse, the lifeboat and even the machines in the amusement arcades. But the sea and the sands were her great love – we went back and she
paddled at the water’s edge and allowed me to dry her feet on a towel I’d brought. Not once did she complain or misbehave. She was a lovely child, and by six o’clock both she and I were shattered.

We sat and let the hot sand run through our toes, and then she filled her little bucket with her collection of shells and rounded stones.

Shortly afterwards, from a kiosk close to the beach, I
telephoned
my landlady to ask if I could bring a lady-friend in for high tea and she agreed. When she met Janice and heard the story, she treated the little girl just like an important guest.

By eight the child was almost asleep on her feet. I gave her a piggy-back to the police station, and when we arrived, her parents were already there. Sergeant Blaketon was there too, having returned to make sure they did come for their child. I was more than delighted that they welcomed her with kisses and open arms, rather than subject her to an angry telling-off. I suspect Sergeant Blaketon had something to do with that, and she went happily to her parents. It was clear that they loved her, and that she loved them.

From her father’s arms, she flung her thin hands around Sergeant Blaketon’s neck and kissed him, and then she did the same to me.

‘Thank you for taking me to the sands,’ she said. ‘I love you.’

And then she was gone.

She must be getting on for thirty now. She is very probably a very beautiful woman. I often wonder if she remembers that day with a constable by the sea. 

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