The Last Unsolved Case Of Maurice Stoneley

By John Thompson

A world-weary police officer nine years past the date of retirement finally is able to hand over the reins to a young DCI from the Met. The year is 1947 and the world is recovering from the war. There is not too much crime and the all-girl team working under Maurice Stoneley and his successor Lester Wilson solve everything set before them. Learn how a spy ring was cracked. Meet the Secret Service agent with a superpower. Learn how we lived in 1947 and how we coped. Action and excitement abound with an enormous twist at the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716483196

Book preview

1. IT’S TOO DARNED HOT

Whew! It is so hot. These were the thoughts of almost everyone in Britain in the summer of 1947 which was the hottest absolutely since time began. This immense heat, hotter than the hinges of the gates of Hades, followed the winter of 1946/7 which was the coldest since the Ice Age and was colder than a witch’s proboscis.

  The year was only two since the end of the Second World War, which had been horrendous on so many levels. Not a single statistician knew how many had lost their lives, in combat, from disease or from starvation. The winter of 1946/7 was severe not only because of the cold but because coal had to be rationed as well as all the existing rationing of food, clothing and petrol. Many old people who had survived Hitler succumbed to the cold, freezing to death in their own homes. Those who survived that were now suffering from dehydration and heat stroke. Hadn’t England suffered enough? Apparently not.

  Food rationing was more stringent than even the dark days when U-Boats were trying to starve us out. Nobody was allowed to own a private car, other than the idle rich and politicians, as all cars were for export to earn the money to pay back the masses of cash America lent us to fight Hitler. That lend-lease idea had finished except for the lease bit as the Americans leased airbases all over England. London had lost a third of its housing stock to the Blitz with no money available to fix it. Things looked bleak but this is not what the story is about.

                                                    *    *    *

  Dewsbury Road police station, the headquarters of the police force looking after South Leeds was a fairly small innocuous building just outside the center of Leeds. The station was run by DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Maurice Stoneley assisted by a force of ladies. There is DS (Detective Sergeant)

Dorothy Thompson and DS Ann Simmons. Also two WPC (Women Police Constable) Georgina Duke and Carol Maxwell who manned the desk and did most of the paper work and on patrol six WPCs named Kim Vance, Paula Ferris-Eamer, Janet Briggs, Pearl Bagshaw, Susan Mant and Jackie Powell. Dorothy and Ann had worked at the station since 1938 and the others had been recruited when the male officers went off to fight in the war.

  Since 1945, none of the previous male officers had returned to the force but DCI Stoneley was not worried as his female staff were really up to the task with the result that this station had the finest clean up record in the entire country, but more of that later.

  DCI Maurice Stoneley looked at himself in the full length mirror in his office. He was six feet tall, overweight, sweaty due to the heat and was sixty years old. He still passed his annual medical but really was kept on because of the man trap of a mind he had that could see through lies and criminality with aplomb. His shirt collar was two sizes too small as he had had his shirts since 1939 when he was much slimmer.

  However, he thought, I’ll do.

  It was his last week on the police force. He joined the force in 1902 as a wet behind the ears raw recruit and here he was in 1947 still at it. He should have retired in 1939 and gone to work for Dixon Securities Ltd as a senior executive but the war intervened and he had been ordered to stay on by ACC (Assistant Chief Constable) Ackroyd obviously due to the fact that he was too old for combat and the youngsters he had were needed to fight. This he had agreed to do and in the dark days of wartime he had built up a fine force to combat the crime wave which occurred during the war.

He looked at his reflection for several minutes and said aloud, "Maurice owd lad tha’s done a fine job

here and you have left the finest station in the country. Let’s hope my follower can do as good a job as me and the lasses and I hope he treats them with respect as they are all brilliant at their jobs."

  As he looked at the vision of loveliness before him in the mirror he realized he could do nothing about it. He never had enough clothing coupons to buy shirts as well as an annual suit and pair of shoes, forty-eight coupons did not go very far. Also, this was the era before deodorants and also the regulation depth of water in one’s bath could be no more than six inches. It was a difficult regulation to police but Maurice, being a police officer, kept to regulations. He never bought anything from spivs and indeed used to arrest them if he caught them in the act. The police station had a police car and Maurice made sure to never allow himself or any member of the force to use it for private purposes. He had to stick to the rules regarding food rationing coupons also but as fish and chips were not rationed he had them most days for his tea. This was inevitable as he lived in a small flat above Malham’s Fish and Chip Shop directly over Dewsbury Road from the police station and so temptation was always in his path. He had no view about dieting despite working with a plethora of health and figure conscious female police officers. He did know that under his large frame was solid muscle and he did not mind chasing felons despite his girth and age. When he was at school in the last century he was 440 yard school champion of Yorkshire and he had hardly lost much pace plus being an ardent Leeds Rhinos fan he had watched and learned how to tackle running criminals with panache….

2. LESTER WILSON ARRIVES

There was a light tap on Maurice’s door and Georgina walked in. She was a petite blond in her late twenties with the sweetest smile. This was always useful in disarming angry customers who were sometimes so upset at being the victims of crime that they tended to forget their manners, but Georgina handled them with aplomb.

  Yes, Georgina, how can I help? said Maurice also smiling as he had a soft spot for Georgina, innocent of course. Maurice had never had a serious relationship with anyone as he was married to the job, as he put it.

  DCI Lester Wilson has arrived, Maurice.

  Show him in please and could we have two cups of tea, mine with two sugars and ask him what he takes. Thank you, Georgina.

  Georgina showed DCI Wilson in. He was as tall as Maurice but much slimmer and had a shock of floppy black hair without a parting. He looked dapper in a quite new suit, gleaming white shirt and a Hendon Police College tie.

  Maurice said, Before we talk would you mind if I tidy my desk.

  Fine.

  Maurice moved his paper clips into an order of size with the largest on the left and the smallest on the right. He also straightened and aligned his desk furniture including his letter opener which he put down last with the point facing the window.

    "Sorry about that, but I have to do it every so often or it gets on my nerves. I am the same about