Inspector Yarrow

Chapter 4

Taking a cup of tea from the station canteen to his office, Yarrow began to read through the files on his desk. He had sorted them into two piles, New Inquiries and Inquiries Proceeding. Investigations Completed files were sent down to Archives in the basement, a realm guarded by a troglodyte called Sergeant Maurice Capstone, of whom it was rumoured had rarely, if ever, left the archives since his appointment as Archives Officer seventeen years ago and had certainly never ever been seen outside Endeavour House in daylight.

However, Maurice Capstone had an encyclopaedic knowledge of just about every single case file amongst the hundreds that had been deposited there over the years, case files that filled the endless yards of dusty shelving that lined the walls and down the narrow aisles of the archives section. Ask for a file for a crime committed fifteen years ago and after a moment’s contemplation, Capstone would raise his ponderous bulk and counting off the rows on pudgy fingers would make straight for the file in question.

Not that there was ever much serious crime, Garside was generally a quiet town, relatively crime free compared to its big sister Sheffield, 16 miles away on the A629.

Yarrow read a file picked out from amongst the New Inquiries pile.

The file concerned an allegation of assault, a Marjorie Forrester had accused an ex-boyfriend of assaulting her during an argument outside a pub.

‘Marcus’ he called to DS Marcus Harding, recently promoted following the retirement of one of the senior detectives, DS Arthur Millward. He passed the flimsy file to him.

‘Go and interview these two, Marjorie Forrester and Norman Craig and sort out the truth of the matter. My feeling is that she’s aggrieved over the break-up of their relationship and is looking for some cheap revenge. If so, read her the riot act, let her know she is lucky not to be charged. OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Yarrow then read the file on an alleged theft of jewellery by a cleaner from the house of her employer. The cleaner, Adelaide Milburn, had been accused of stealing a pair of diamond stud earrings from the home of Mrs Christina Wallace, an accusation she strenuously denied

Not without some misgivings, he assigned the case to DC Harry Rawlings. He did not think that Rawlings would handle the issue with sensitivity, but he had little option, being short-handed after Arthur Millward’s retirement. Rawlings he knew, was bitter and angry, resentful that he had been passed over for promotion, but Yarrow hoped that the passage of time would mollify Harry Rawlings somewhat and make him work that much harder to achieve promotion when the next vacancy arose.

But no, DC Harry Rawlings still seethed with anger, permanently in a fuming rage of resentment and umbrage. Furious. Knotted up so tight with bitterness, anger, frustration and resentment that he could barely bring himself to even speak to Marcus Harding.

Even though it was almost 3 months since he had been passed over, Rawlings still held deep rooted resentment against Harding. That resentment had grown and gathered strength like an oncoming storm rather than abating. He, Harry Rawlings, should have been made up to DS rather than Harding. He had more years in the job than Harding, had made more arrests than Harding and knew more about local villains than Harding ever would. Harding. Still wet behind the ears and he wasn’t even English.

OK, he might have British nationality because his Nazi mother managed to hook up and snare an English guy, but that doesn’t make him British and never will. No f*****g way. He’s German for God’s sake. A Nazi. He even looked like a Nazi, tall and blond, he was the double of Reinhart Heydrich, author of the Final Solution.

In fact, Marcus had lived in England for almost 18 years. His natural father, Heinrich Müller, had been the editor of an anti-Nazi newspaper in Munich. One day in 1936 he had been beaten almost to death by a g**g of Nazi brown shirts and later imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp where he had died from typhus.

His wife Magda and her 2 children, Marcus and Magdalena had fled to England in 1937, Magda eventually marrying Paul Harding, a roofing tiler, who adopted and raised both children as his own

Marcus loved his stepfather unreservedly, could barely remember his own natural father and considered himself as English as anyone. Not a Yorkshireman of course, nobody born outside the County borders could ever be accepted as a Yorkshireman, but he was English and spoke English without a hint of a German accent. He was not German, and most certainly not a Nazi, the Nazis had murdered his father, so how could he ever be considered a Nazi?

Ironically, during his National Service he had been posted to Germany and as his mother had insisted on him speaking German as well as English, he had been seconded to Military Intelligence, helping process suspected Nazi war criminals.

After completing his service he joined the police force, having never wanted to do anything else.

His promotion to DS at age 25 had come as a surprise to him, he had always assumed that Harry Rawlings, 34, who had more years in, would get promotion first. But when DS Arthur Millward had retired to grow prize leeks, DI Yarrow had put Marcus up for the job and station chief, Superintendent Trevor Bullock had agreed.

Yarrow had seen too much of the Harry Rawlings style of policing, learned from his mentor, a DCI called Terry Mason who was in Yarrow’s view, the very worst type of policeman. Mason was arrogant, sarcastic, bullying and condescending to his subordinates but creepily obsequious and fawning to his superiors, lazy and slipshod at his job; preferring to cut corners rather than do the leg work.

Yarrow was sure, but could not prove, that innocent men had gone down because Mason planted evidence or perjured himself in order to obtain a conviction and he could see that Harry Rawlings was headed down the same path.

Marcus Harding had tried to placate Rawlings after the promotion but he had seethed in anger from the day he had been overlooked and nothing that Marcus Harding could say to him could overcome that furious boiling sense of outrage and resentment.

‘Look, Harry,’ Marcus had said, ‘I didn’t ask for this promotion, OK I’ve sat the Sergeants exam the same as you and you should likely have got it before me, I know, but there it is, we’ve just got to get on with it and move on.’

‘f**k off, Sergeant,’ and with that Rawlings gave a Nazi salute, shouted ‘Seig Heil’ and stomped off, refusing to speak to Marcus (whom he called Mucus behind his back) unless it was strictly necessary.

Yarrow could see all of this and Rawlings’s sullen stubborn anger and childish petulance only proved to Yarrow that he had made the right decision in strongly recommending Marcus for the vacant DS slot over Rawlings. Harry Rawlings would just have to live with it or put in a request to be transferred to Sheffield where promotion opportunities might be greater.

Yarrow worked through the rest of the paperwork, the bane of every coppers life, sending most of the routine cases downstairs for uniform to handle.