Inspector Yarrow

Chapter 8

Adelaide Milburn looked up nervously as DC Rawlings and PC Pink entered the interview room. Rawlings had interviewed Adelaide the day before and had now arrested her on suspicion of theft from the house of her employer.

She was very fearful and apprehensive. When Rawlings had questioned her at home, he had shouted and bullied her, accusing her of stealing from Mrs. Wallace whilst she was cleaning there. He had refused to accept her protestations of innocence, shouting ‘You people, all thieves, all of you, you only come over here to take our jobs and steal when you can.’

For Adelaide Milburn was from Antigua in the West Indies and had migrated to England with her husband and children, arriving on the MV Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks on 22 June 1948.

MV Empire WindrushHer husband Maynard had fought with the Eighth Army in North Africa during the war. He had been briefly stationed at Catterick Barracks in North Yorkshire where he had been welcomed and made to feel accepted. After de-mobilisation he returned to the West Indies to fetch his wife and family and bring them to England.

They had lived for a while in Leeds before moving to West Garside where he worked as a mechanic in Jack Purgreaves garage whilst Adelaide worked as a cleaner for various families around the town. She had built up a good solid reputation for hard work and honesty and word of mouth from satisfied customers meant that there were always more job offers than she could manage and so she could afford to be selective.

Which was why the accusation of theft from a house where she worked was so distressing; the years of building up a solid reputation could be destroyed in an instant and the offers of cleaning jobs could vanish overnight.

Rawlings sat down opposite her and leaned over, his face close to hers, she tried to back away, but PC Eustace Pink, (known as Useless Eustace around the station, even to his face) standing behind her, pushed her forwards again. She could smell cigarette smoke on Rawlings’s breath and an underlying reek of old stale beer. He said nothing for a long drawn out minute or two.

’What are you doing here,’ he suddenly barked in a loud overbearing manner.

‘You, you brought me here.’

‘Nah, I mean, what’re you doing in this country?

‘I…we came here to work. To live,’

‘Why, they run out of bananas where you come from?’ Behind her, Adelaide could hear the other policeman snigger.

‘Bananas?’

‘That’s what monkeys eat, isn’t it?’

Useless Eustace sniggered again, he was not especially racist, he had nothing against coons or wogs as he called them, but he was secretly afraid of the rabid intensity of Rawlings’s rage, not just against the unfortunate West Indian woman, but against the world at large. Useless, within 2 years of retirement asked only for a peaceful life without too many headaches and going with the flow was easier than butting his head against it. Anyway, he was sure the woman had stolen the earrings, no other possibility seemed to exist, and so if a bit of bullying got the result, so be it.

‘Why you calling me a monkey? I’m no monkey,’ Adelaide responded indignantly.

‘You look like a monkey to me, she look like a monkey to you, Useless?’

Pink loomed over Adelaide, ‘Yeah, looks like a monkey to me, Harry.’ He sniffed loudly, ‘Smells like one an’ all.’

‘See, even Useless Eustace thinks you’re a monkey, a little wizened chim–pan–zeeee. Monkey see as monkey do. Monkeys steal stuff all the time, well known fact is that, isn’t it, Eus?”

‘Says so right there in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.’

‘See, says so in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, monkeys steal it says and you can’t go against what it says in the Britannica, against the law is that. Unpatriotic! But then you aren’t English, don’t know the meaning of patriotism.’

‘My husband, Maynard, he fought in the war.’

‘Who for? Hitler?’

‘No for the British. In the Army.’

‘What in, the Royal Chim-pan-zeees? Been all right fighting the j**s in the jungle then.’

Rawlings was enjoying himself; he had no doubt he would soon force a confession from the woman, get a quick result, that would show Detective Inspector bleeding Yarrow how much of a mistake he had made promoting that f*****g Nazi Mucus Harding over him.

He leaned back in his chair to light another cigarette, pointedly blowing the smoke in Adelaide’s face, who turned away, just as Rawlings anticipated. ‘Where’d you hide the earrings, Adelaide,’ he shouted suddenly, causing Adelaide to start back in abrupt panic.

‘Where’d you hide them? They’re not in your house, not in your monkey cage, so where’d you put them? You can’t have sold them already, so you must have hidden them. Where? Where’ve you hid them? Answer me, you black bitch.’

Rawlings was clenching his fists as the latent rage built up and Eustace Pink began to feel apprehensive, he could go along with a bit of bullying and shouting, a bit of a***e, all part of the game, but physical violence to a woman, that was out of order, but he had no idea how to restrain Rawlings if he got really out of hand.

‘Come on, love, tell us where you hid them earrings, save a lot of bother,’ he said placatingly.

‘I tell you, I told you before, I didn’t take anything from Mrs Wallace’s house. Nothing. No earrings. Nothing.’

‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, that’s what you monkeys do,’ Rawlings shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

‘Come on, love, be better if you tell us, make it easier, make it easier for the Judge to go lightly,’ Pink tried again.

‘I’ll see to it you get deported if you don’t cooperate.’ Rawlings said softly, but with far more menace in his voice than when shouting. ‘You got kids?’

‘What,’ Adelaide responded, confused and very disturbed, how could this happen, she was an honest, church going, God fearing woman.

‘You got kids, little baby chimps?’

‘Yes, yes, I have three children. Why?’ she asked fearfully, the nightmare getting worse by the minute.

‘They’ll have to go into care. You get convicted without an admission of guilt; you’ll get deported for sure. You’ll never see them again. Ever! Think on that.’ Rawlings said, thrusting his face once again into hers.

Even Eustace Pink was disturbed now, this was definitely a route he did not want to go down, but he saw the manic gleam in Rawlings’s eye, and knew that nothing now could divert Rawlings from this path but threatening the woman with losing her children was a step too far. Eustace wished he had never agreed to sit in on the interview but knowing in his heart that the reason he had been asked was because he was too readily compliant with bullying and strong-arm tactics. He felt ashamed and weak but knew he would do nothing to ease the poor woman’s anguish.

Adelaide began to cry, softly at first, the tears trickling slowly down her face and then the dam of her emotions burst, and she began to weep intensely, sobbing loudly into a scrap of lace handkerchief she took from her handbag.

Harry Rawlings leaned back in his chair, a look of smug satisfaction on his face, he had broken the woman and it would only be a matter of time before she confessed, and the case could be wrapped up,

It took another fifteen minutes before Adelaide Milburn finally signed her confession, the only negative point for DC Harry Rawlings was that she still would not tell them where she had hidden the jewellery but eventually she agreed to say that she had panicked and thrown the earrings into the River Gar by Redemption Bridge, where the river was at its deepest and dirtiest, never ever to be recovered.

Not fully satisfactory, the recovery of the jewellery would have been the icing in the cake, but nonetheless a signed confession was a signed confession. Job well done, stick that up your Nazi arse Mucus Harding!