“If I was to hazard a guess I would say Yates dozed off.”
“I see, well what injuries did he appear to have?" Asked the Chief.
“On the face of it none”, said Jackson “he was strapped in, seat belt fastened, he may have internal injuries or a broken neck of course but it won’t be until the PM is done later that we will know the answer”.
“I take it you will be going to the PM Ron?"
“Of course Sir and I will call you as soon as I know. Oh by the way, I have despatched two policewomen to break the news to the next of kin. I assume you will visit later sir.”
“Naturally I will, just let us get the result known”, replied the Chief, adding “so if you will summarise once again Ralph, I will note the details and pass it to the force press officer to save him calling you”.
“OK sir, here it is”
“Not more than an hour ago a lady driving her car into Carding Mill valley was surprised to see a white van travelling down the steep mountain side, then crash into a bank on the other side of the road in front of her”.
“It was a marked police vehicle, a dog van. It was witnessed by a lady driver; she and several customers at the café over the road ran to the scene, the officer seemed unconscious at first so a nearby ambulance about to deliver a day patient to hospital agreed to take the officer to hospital”.
“Unfortunately on the journey he stopped breathing and on arrival at the hospital at Shrewsbury was certified dead by the casualty doctor”.
“What about the dog?” asked the Chief, aware of the possible consequences in the press if anything untoward happened involving the police dog?
“Oh the dog is OK; another dog handler has visited and taken it to the kennels at HQ”.
It was two hours later the post mortem completed when the pathologist Mr Russell Johnson handed Ralph Jackson the Chief Super a slip of paper with the cause of death and saying. “I could find no injuries at all, a perfectly healthy man yet for some reason his heart threw a wobbler and he simply died, the cause is on the note, I will report direct to the Coroner, there should be no need for an inquest.
Jackson read the causes, which were
1a.Heart failure
1b Due to heart arrhythmia
“Thank you Doctor” said the Chief Super and was very relieved as he took out his mobile phone to update the Chief.
Jackson was also known as “No Marks Jackson”. For when he was a young officer in the scenes of crime department, in those days police officers did the job.
No matter what anyone else suspected or could see when Jackson visited scenes of crime he rarely if ever found any finger prints or in police slang, “marks”.
From those days forward through the ranks until now, nearly at the top of the tree, he retained the name, “No marks Jackson”. Out of hearing range of the speaker of course.
PART FOUR
PEACE AND TRANQUILLITY
“I think it’s a real shame Jack you having to lose your small glass house. You were looking forward so much to growing those plants, still never mind here is a drink and a piece of fruit cake I made just before we left Farnham. It has matured very nicely", said Anne making all efforts to console him.
He remained silent, thinking, but eventually rose from his chair, reached for the mug of tea then in quick time it and the cake was gone.
“I think I might just start doing something else, what if I was to write a book?" said Jack in a rather apprehensive tone.
“Well I never Jack that is a wonderful idea”,
She did all she could to sound enthusiastic but had her doubts he could settle to such a project as writing a book.
“There is the problem of getting it published of course, being a nobody, finding a publisher will be difficult” he now sounded a little pessimistic, but qualified it by saying “there is always the internet I suppose.”
“Why of course, surely with all your experience you could think of something, all those cases you have dealt with I would have thought it would be easy to find a subject of interest to readers”.
“I will certainly give it some thought” he replied.
“I am told the problem with publishing books is that everyone wants to read them but no one wants to pay even a pittance to do so”, he replied.
“I think that might well be the case, you will just have to do it for your own interest”. She said soothingly.
He came back, “I recall speaking with an ex copper. He wrote a book uploaded it, but it did not get a single download. He then heard of this system the internet has of promoting books free, so he tried.”
“What he didn’t realise was, the free bit was not charging him for the promotion it was giving his book away free”.
“In a week well over 1000 people down loaded it, all for free, since then he didn’t get a single download”
“Such is life Jack with such free loaders”.
“One thing for sure”, he mumbled, “they won’t get mine for free even if no one reads the bloody things, on principal”.
“I am told a book can take six to twelve months to write all for some bugger to read for nothing, no way”.
She smiled but said nothing.
He then added, “Not only that having got the bloody book free some leave cryptic comments so as to prevent the author ever selling. Worse, if you look these bad reviewers up you will see some make a hobby of it. They go from book to book leaving cryptic comments, destroying the dreams of some person who at least tired to achieve something”.
She left the room and began to do the ironing, after some time she could hear him in his study it appeared he was up to something.
Two hours later Anne arrived in the study. Jack was now asleep, head back, mouth open, slight dripping from the side of his mouth. At first, she wondered if he had succumbed to a stroke attack.
She spoke, “Jack”,
He awoke with a jolt almost knocking the cup over.
“Are you ok my love?” She asked
“Yes, yes, just nodded off”.
She put down the drink, turned and left but as she did so, she saw, he had moved around the items in his room, desk, chair, drawers and cupboards all rearranged. As long as it suited him, that pleased her.
“Ah” he thought “when I go to Chester I will get some kit, a note pad, dictating machine for notes, two reams of paper, oh additional cartridges for the PC”.
The following morning the weather remained chilly but the sun was shining, breakfast had been cleared away. Golf today he thought. His clubs were cleaned after he last used them so were his golfing shoes, a dual colour black and white.
He had seen some bright red ones, he thought and giggled to himself, what a load of old rubbish really, did it really make any difference what colour one’s shoes were to the relevance of getting that ball in that hole using up more or less shots than someone else.
“Jack are you there?”
“Yes in the garage” he called, “I was thinking of having a round of golf”.
“Oh I see, I was thinking of a journey into Chester but it will do again”.
He thought and called, “I tell you what we could combine the two”.
“Oh I don’t think so”, she said, “I really don’t fancy driving into Chester alone”.
“No, no” he said, “what I meant was, we could drive to Chester but first I could call at that golf club outside the village, make an enquiry to become a member then afterwards we could continue into Chester”.
“What about the golf?” she asked.
“Oh I could play another day once the membership is sorted”.
It was agreed, she was already dressed and ready in anticipation, and he put away his golf clubs and shoes, and then went inside had a quick brush and polish then put on a white polo neck jumper. His blazer sporting the Farnham Golf club badge, just in case he thought, better to have been a member already, after all, Farnham was a world championship course and had several celebrity members.