In Case

By Frank Edwards

In Case is a murder story set in north Wales. The narrator is an English lawyer who is invited by the Professor, an old friend, to help launch the law department at a new university being established near Llandudno. He is to be a part-time lecturer for the opening term before returning to his practice in Reading. Whilst at Llandudno he becomes actively involved, not altogether reluctantly, in two murders, one on the train that takes him to Wales and the other of a student of his at the College. During his stay he is introduced to some aspects of Welsh life, and visits a number of famous historical sites and beauty spots from each of which he draws impressions which guide his actions as he informally co-operates with the officer leading the murder investigations. The Case in the title refers to a bag that he always carries with him, containing items vital to him in case of emergency. It plays a part in the events that unfold at the new university.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Release date: Sep 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781908916693

Frank Edwards

Frank Allyn Edwards (August 4, 1908 - June 23, 1967) was an American writer and broadcaster, and one of the pioneers in radio. He hosted a radio show broadcast across the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Late in his life, he became additionally well known for a series of popular books about UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. Born in Mattoon, Illinois, Edwards broadcast on pioneering radio station KDKA AM in the 1920s, making him one of the earliest professional radio broadcasters. After WWII, the Mutual Broadcasting System hired Edwards to host a nationwide news and opinion program sponsored by the American Federation of Labor. Edwards’ program was a success, and became nationally popular. During the 1930s, Edwards continued his career in radio, but also worked a variety of other jobs, including a stint as a professional golfer. He was hired by the US Treasury Department during World War II to promote war bond sales. In 1948, Edwards received an advance copy of “Flying Saucers Are Real,” a magazine article written by retired U.S. Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe. Though already interested in the UFO reports that had earned widespread publicity since 1947, Edwards was captivated by Keyhoe’s claims that the U.S. military knew the saucers were actually extraterrestrial spaceships. He wrote several books on the subject. After Mutual, Edwards continued working in radio, mostly at smaller local stations. He created and hosted a syndicated radio program, Stranger Than Science, which discussed UFOs and other Forteana. In 1959, he published a book with the same title, largely a collection of his radio broadcasts. From 1955-1959 and 1961-1962, Edwards served as a commentator for WTTV television in Indianapolis. He was on radio station WXLW, also in Indianapolis, in 1964 and returned to television on WLWI in 1965. He died in 1967 at the age of 58.

Book preview

Chapter One

s tanding on a railway plat form, when alone, is a fine position in which to contemplate life. And if that is too broad a theme, then certainly humanity. The hopes and fears of all those lives are gathered there. The thought struck me as I was waiting for the train. Not for the first time, but with an unexpected force. I could fathom no reason why. I wasn’t especially stressed. The opposite. I was looking forward to my day even though it was going to be a full one and necessitated this early start. I didn’t like early starts. They worried me in advance. The knowledge that one had to get up before the normal time I always found wearisome. Depressing. But, to look on the bright side, once I was up, once I had got going, it was as though the day was a normal one with the bonus of being that longer, with more time to do things. I was myself. My contained, controlled, organised self again. I was once more back in charge, and the vagrant clock had lost its hold. Now the station clock had me in its grip.

What is it with waiting for a train? So demanding. In part it is the concern that it will be full. Too full to get a seat, leave alone any choice of seat. This dread I could not get rid of despite my having a first-class ticket. I always liked travelling at other people’s expense, and then behaving as though it was my norm. Not that it was far from that. I rarely used the train except when I was being paid for to go some where, and to be met and chauffeured. Other wise I would rather drive myself. Except into London that is. Not that the congestion charge bothered me. I just hate driving in that mêlée of traffic. Thus, if I had to go there, I did take the train. Even if I had to pay myself. But I didn’t then have to get up extra early. I would rather drift up in the after noon and spend a night in a hotel. But that was rare, such as the occasional exhibition demanding a visit, so heavily had the Sunday supplements heralded and praised it. If one didn’t go, one was considered a bit of an oddity. Near Philistine ­ not that they had much in the way of paintings.

The train was going to be ‘only’ seven minutes late. This added to my strain. I felt that someone, some lazy person who had not got up early enough and thus didn’t deserve to catch this train, would now just make it, run onto the plat form as it drew in, and jump straight in and take the one really good seat left. It was no consolation to be told that ‘this is life’. It is not mine. If I can help it.

There were a fair number already on the plat form, but no one I either knew or recognised. That was a blessing. No danger of having to chat on the way up. Assuming, that is, that there were two seats adjacent. And, of course, that the other party had a first-class ticket. Like mine. Paid for, in my case by the Police. That was an extra comfort. It was just a pity that the ticket itself didn’t have the Met’s stamp on it. Then I could have shown it with some certainty of being helped to a suit able seat.

Seven minutes late the irritating voice repeated. Two or even three minutes had already passed. Was this a cunning way of telling us that the thing was going to be nine or ten minutes late? Or did the original time proposition hold? I was handicapped further as I was not travelling light. Usually a brief-case and, at worst, a pac-a-mac sufficed. Up and down to Hendon was a comfort able and enjoyable day. I looked forward to my regular visits. But today was different. I had further to go and was thus lumbered with luggage.

I looked along the plat form trying to guess where the carriage door would stop, and hoping to get myself onto the plat form’s edge without seeming to push. Pushing in any case could be dangerous, to you if pushed and to another if you were the pusher. No good saying that it was accidental. There would be trouble. Whoever the victim. Like that girl, that young woman as I should correctly say, standing far too near the edge and so engrossed in her mobile phone conversation that I doubt if she would either see or hear the arrival of the train. A simple push. A nudge would suffice. Then, a quick step or two back into the passenger congestion around her, and a simple matter to join the chorus of dismay. Or, again, take that chap in the green suit. I’m not sure that I like green or, rather, that it suits me, although I have been told by over-kind friends that it does. This green suit looked faintly foreign. Not that that is much to go on. There was a time when you could tell a continental by the cut of his cloth, but not now. They all look the same. Even those Eurocrats from the latest joined nations. All the same. Thank good ness he wasn’t wearing jeans. He was too old for that. Too old in my judgement, that is. I leave to others to decide for them selves. Person ­ally I can’t stand people over twenty-five or so, depending on their figures, wearing jeans. But the Prime Minister has, so who am I to comment. No doubt he had diplomatic and personal reasons.

As the thought once more forced itself into the fore front of my mind, I looked at the man in green again. I needed a mental diversion and he held some passing interest. He didn’t seem to fit. Not in catching a train from our station. An unlikely place to have stayed over night, unless with a relative or a friend, and was getting away as soon as he could. I thought I would apply my, admittedly second hand, detective skills. No luggage. Fair enough. I normally didn’t carry any, but it rather ruled out the over night theory. No brief case either, that I could see. More unusual. I was beginning to deduce that he was one of those chaps from over seas who these days dominate the factories and offices that bestrew what is still called the M4 corridor. So many of them that our offfice had set up a separate group to serve them. Most profitable. I was not tempted to transfer, however. I was happy with my crime. That always paid, usually well. I looked again. He carried nothing but a news paper. I couldn’t see which at the distance, and because of the way it was folded. Could have been a foreign one so far as I could tell, but he wouldn’t have bought that at our kiosk. I never bothered when I went up to Town. Wasn’t worth it. If I could get a respect able seat I always had my notes to review. Hand­written, that is, unless typed in draft by Muriel. No laptop, thank you. I classify those users with the middle-aged wearers of jeans. I see no point in the misplaced demon stration of virility. Paper is lighter to carry, in any event, and takes less space. Not that I’m out of touch. I’ve read of the new technological break through where, it is claimed, a thing the size of an average paper back can carry one hundred books, and display them a page at a time. Certainly a space saver, but who does all the down loading, assuming the books you want are capable of that? And where do your own notes fit in? The Japa nese haven’t sorted it all out to my satis faction as yet. Nothing is needed when going to an exhibition. Then I just contemplate the passing scene with a would-be artist’s eye.

But standing here one of my own hopes re­surfaced. Well, thinking about it did help pass the time. Quite pleasant for it did; I did have this desire to get actively involved, just once, in a crime case. To be a doer rather than a teller. Not by pushing anyone off the plat form. I’m not made of heroic stuff. My post would be at police head office, not out on the mean streets. But there I could do my Sherlock Holmes, my Hercule Poirot part and deduce, in a real case in a real time, what had been done, when, why and by whom. Hendon was fine. I was a regular success. My little book was a set text. I was proud of that, and it pleased my bank manager and the publisher. The latter especially liked the Government’s obses sion with passing ever more laws making ever more things illegal. Or suspect. Or examinable. Or even inspectable! It mattered not. All governments are increas ingly inter fering, to the growing profits of us lawyers. My little book was now in its seventh edition. Not bad, eh? And each one had to be bought in bulk to replace the standard text to police students at Hendon and, I am delighted to say, a pleasing number of university depart ments. Hence, in a way, my extended journey today. I was proud of my little book. It had done me well. Regular first-class rail travel for a start, although I would be more content still if such tickets went with a pre-booked seat. Now then? Why hasn’t that thought crossed my mind before? I shall take it up. The author of Prime on Crimeis well worth it.

I decided that, should the opportunity arise, I would take the chance to become truly, that is directly and person ally, involved in a crime case, a murder of course though nothing sordid. In such a case maybe it was more Poirot than Holmes that I would be best at. I couldn’t tell from the way the fellow fiddled as he stood, looking first up at the clock and then plaintively up the track as though to will the train to come, whether he had a family, a blue Jaguar car, or had once served in the foreign legion. Holmes had the better of me there. I feared that, given the journey time to London, I would be hard pressed to recall on arrival sufficient detail to give a good description of him. Nothing more than ‘average height’, ‘average build’, hat covering his hair a point I could make as not all that many wear hats now; this one was a sort of wide-brimmed model, brown, called a veldora, vendora?, something like that. I’m not into hats. My powers of observation were in need of much honing. Not a Holmes, I. In the case I would solve I would await the event and then, along side the police, pick up the strand of hair or see the smear of lipstick that had escaped their eyes. More, I would be able to place any such item slap bang in the middle of the truth.

At that moment the late arrival arrived and I slid to get my slap-bang in the middle position to be first into the carriage without any indication of pushing ahead. Proper decorum became my profession even in these liberal, tie-less days. The man in green, I noted, walked away from me, further up the plat form as the train slowed in. Good. He was not First Class. Not a bigwig in a corridor firm, then. That I could surmise as I climbed aboard, grum bling inwardly at having to manage two cases, my suit case and my small, emergencies one, along with a hold-all, pressing down the aisle to see what I could find. I had some times wondered if it was worth while going to live at the Western end of the London line. Swansea. Not a pleasing thought, but a practical one. A wide choice of seats was avail able every time from the off. It might put years on my life by getting rid of that cause of tension. But then again, living in Wales could as easily deduct them again with interest. Maybe the Welsh visit I now faced, when I travelled on from Hendon this after noon oh dear! the timings were rather tight, but take heart! would be an experience to help clarify my mind on the matter. Add to my knowledge of the Principality. But for now, settle down and know that things can only get better. There is no better way of crossing London than in a police car. I sank into a good enough place with a much-eased heart and mind.

The journey passed smoothly enough. No more delays, and as we passed Royal Oak the loud speaker, this time absolutely clearly, you’ve got to give it to these PR boys, announced that we had made up time. This was followed by a pause for spontaneous clapping of which there came none. A bit of a shame that. It must do the rail people good to get a bit of positive feed back, but there you are and that we were arriving no more than three minutes late. My watch made it more like five, but one must be grateful for small mercies, and by not saying so out loud I suppose that all of us who realised it were, in our own little ways, giving just that psychological boost that the train folk hanker after. The speaker went on to tell us to make sure that we took all our bombs with us, leaving nothing on the train for that would be rapidly gath eredup, and blown up one supposes. With a little jerk the train terminated. At a terminus, to be sure, but the verb does raise worrying mental pictures. Whose termi nation would provide for me the realisation of my daydream of an investigatory involvement? I was unlikely to know until I had suffered the second ment to the University of my afternoon destination and had got myself safely back into the mainstream of the practice.

There was a uniformed sergeant on the plat form. Right where the first class carriages parked them selves. Efficient.

Mr Prime? he asked.

I rather felt that he could have worked that out by sheer constabulary ability, but then he had to be polite.

The same, was my confident reply, and the blessed man took my heavy case. It was heavy as if heading for exile. Well, one has to think ahead. We walked a very few yards to where his car was parked on what I took to be treble yellow lines. In we got and off we went. For the next session I would be quite at home. I knew my lecture by heart and my surroundings by experience.

Hendon always interests me. Not that I get the thrill due to a good teacher and lecturer, which I fancy myself to be, so far as modesty permits. The intakes do not vary much and, by the time my lectures are fitted in to the course, they have largely been battered into shape and moulded into style. Little spark left. There is much argument in the press about the standard of police recruit. As much as there is about the ethnicity. I don’t bother myself about either. I can’t tell much between them, not from my podium certainly. If we had a tutorial system, then one could get to grips with some of the individuals. There must a be a budding chief constable or two among them, no doubt. Certainly among the women and the minority groups, but it’s hard to tell from a sea of determinedly interested faces. I always give them that. I’ve not seen anyone’s concentration openly waning, what ever else they have already had to do that day. In part this must be a credit to my content and my style. And, I’m not too bigheaded to allow, the subject matter. Criminal law is, it would seem, what they think they are joining the force to work with. Combat crime that is. Of a startling and serious nature, naturally. Who am I to deflate them? Most will spend their careers dancing attendance on speed cameras no doubt. The occasional one is going to be shot at by some law breaker. I choose not to mention the chance of that. I’ve no doubt that they are told of it quite enough. I would, in their shoes, volunteer for that speed cop role, except, again, when you think you might have to chase someone who is armed, or have to clear up some traffic carnage of blood. I’m not really cut out for the cut and thrust. My involvement, should it come, must be cerebral.

The lecture went its usual accepted course, and the questions were exactly the same as asked by the previous course I had spoken to. There was the usual inability to grasp the significant difference and relationship of actus reusand mens rea. I strove to make absolutely clear that to cause the former without the requisite latter is not a crime and can even be an ordinary, innocent act. I would point out that it had been held more than once that genuinely involuntary movements, such as made by a sleep walker, do not amount to a wrongful act because in this case, as an example, the walker simply would not know what he was doing. A ‘wrongful’ act, I would exclaim, is an essential element of any crime. I had over the years worked on the wording of this section of my presentation. I couldn’t make it simpler. But no! On the confusion seemed to go. Ie television blam cop shows with all that ‘got him banged to rights gov’ stuff. Still, a juicy tale, courtesy of the Appeal Court, always went down well and helped, I’m sure, to clarify things in my listeners’ eyes. Or ears. I always had one ready for the question session, a sort of encore you might say. My latest, fast becoming my favourite, was that delicious case where it was held that incitement was legally impossible. Some of the young ladies, as I recounted it, adopted a slightly put out look; I used my most ‘legal’ tones in telling of the verdict that an adult who invited a boy aged thirteen to bugger him could not be convicted of incitement to commit buggery because at that time there was a common-law presump tion of criminal law that a boy under the age of fourteen was incapable of sexual inter course, whether natural or unnatural. Regina v Claydon, Judgment November 9, 2005.

There usually followed a spate of opinions dressed up as queries. ‘What a carry­on! Fancy him getting away with a thing like that’ was a common theme, which led us back to the regiment of bent briefs, in the police eyes, who inhabit those television shows. Then again, there were cries of dismay at the stupidity of the law. Stupidity! The Appeal Court? Some, male, officers smirked at the stupidity of the common­law presumption, though whether out of bravado or jealousy I would not like to hazard. Some complained at the sheer waste of legal time and associated money – just lock’em up and throw away the key. There was also the occasional modernist who objected to the use of the word ‘unnatural’, but such observations were usually muted for fear of guilt by association I fancy.

The good lunch I have no idea what the rank and file ate had to be slightly rushed in order for me to get to Euston for the Virgin 15.49 service to Holyhead. I would go as far as Llandudno Junction where I would be met. By Gresham I expected. I had offered to take the connecting train from the Junc tion into Llandudno itself, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Typical of the man. In any event, he had said, the new campus lay some little distance out of the Town, roughly equidistant between the two stations. I had no cause to argue. I don’t like lugging luggage. I did rather worry that my luggage would still be with me at Hendon.

Leave it in the car, Mr Prime, my be-striped chauffeur had bid, and I had.

But, all through the morning a worry niggled away at the back of my mind. What if that car had been sent racing off on some urgent duty run with my cases still inside? Then what? But all was well. I had a different driver. A young man. Uniformed. Smart. One who, I felt, would enjoy turning on his blue light and siren if we were to be in danger of late arrival. I hoped he wouldn’t. I’m not over-keen on being driven fast, the more so in London. I do not drive fast myself. As it turned out, he judged it well. There is no need for a blue light to get a priority acceptance among the survivalists who habit u ally drive around the capital. Even bus drivers edged away. I can’t vouch for taxis. I like to keep a low profile when being driven in a marked police car.

We got to Euston with a clear five minutes to spare. Tight enough, but my young man drove more or less to the carriage door beyond where even the yellow line painters felt their work was not required. And, of course, he carried my suit case. I got in, and a choice of seats! Now there’s a miracle. Swansea, as a terminus, may start its trains off comfort ably empty; from London, the terminus, they usually leave uncom fortably full. It could be that there was no boat connecting with this service at Holyhead, but if so why would a market-savvy firm like Virgin run the thing – the only gap in the lines perhaps? I wouldn’t bother to try and find out. I didn’t see myself making this journey again.

It was something of a novelty, however, and a chance not only to see Graham Gresham but to help celebrate his first chair. That of law at the newly founded University of North Wales. Coleg Prifysgol Gogledd Cymru is what his headed invitation paper had said, but I shall not be using that title. I real ised that due deference to its language had to be paid in the now devolved Principality, but I took it that a level­headed Scot, such as Graham, would play it along for the position, and the money. Anything short of lecturing in the language I should imagine, whilst playing his own Celtic Scottish card to the hilt. Not that he knew a word of Gaelic. Luckily he knew a great deal more than Scottish Law.

As I leaned out of the carriage window having a few words with my friendly chauffeur, he reminded me that he had attended my talks in his recruit days. Young though he seemed, that bothered me slightly. Have I been going to Hendon that long? How long? I decided not to enquire. Chat ting, then about how useful my talks were, always a pleasant thing to be told, my companion had almost to jump out of the way and he was in uniform, remember as a last-second passenger made it through the barrier as it closed and a whistle blew. I’m glad that they still blow a whistle, even though I’ve never actually seen a human do it. There must be one, or is it built into the diesel engine system? I wouldn’t bother to find that out either. What I did find out was how agile my friend the man in green was, for it was he. The same. Still not carrying anything so far as I could tell, not even a news paper. He swung around the constable just in time to squeeze in through the closing doors and stood, panting and seemingly well pleased with himself, at my shoulder.

Pleased he may have been. I was not. Some thing, a broken button, zip, a finger nail perhaps, caught my left hand as he erupted in, digging a piece of skin out of my index finger. Blood! I dabbed it away on the spare handker-chief I always have in my coat pocket. A nuisance! I tried not to show my irritation to my young policeman. This man was an oaf, as well as threatening to haunt my day. What was that inelegant phrase I had heard recently? It came to my mind at that moment: ‘a waste of space’.

Damn close run thing, he said.

To whom? To me? As excuse to the constable? The train began to move. I made as dignified a fare well to the policeman as my now somewhat cramped condition would allow, and went to move into the compartment.

Damned close run, he repeated.

Was it an Irish accent? Not broad if it was but such a tongue might tie up with my feeling of continentalese about his dress. After all, Ireland has done well out of the common market and the train was destined for Holyhead. No luggage, but it could have been sent on. Can one send luggage on these days? That was something I might look up one day. As it was I felt constrained to reply.

Lucky the policeman didn’t arrest you, I said. They have considerable powers in that direction now under the latest legislation.

He looked rather coldly at me I thought and, as he was a little taller than myself, a sound six foot I would have said if asked, and certainly of a more robust build, I was relieved when he turned his back on my compartment and began, I assumed, to make his way forrard, as sailors such as Graham Gresham are fond of saying I left it at that. So, happily, did he. I took warning not to go beyond the intervening dining-car for the rest of the journey. I fancied that he would collapse into the first seat he saw. He may have been agile but, seeing him more closely, I didn’t take it that he was all that fit. Could do with a few regular visits to the gym I fancied. Maybe that was what he was going to Ireland for, I humorously told myself, as we got under way and I was able to settle down and open my briefing papers on my new assignment, taking care to keep them free of any bloodstains. A bother-some episode.

Chapter Two

t he journey went well enough. The weather outside was reason able and the windows adequately clean. Sufficient to see through and suffi cient to look at. In such circum stances, comfort ably seated and with no pres sure of people around, just similarly semi-somnam bulist on-goers, I am content. There is, unavoidably, a slight frisson of concern at each