It was in September 1957, shortly before my retirement as Chief Constable of Downshire, that the man who was soon to become notorious as the “Downshire Terror” first showed his hand. A chap named John Iles, a driving instructor employed by the Excelsior School of motoring in Donchester, had been to the pictures after work and had left his car parked in a quiet run-in beside the School’s premises, as he usually did. When he went to collect it just before ten o’clock he found that someone had torn off a headlamp, forced a door and slashed the upholstery.
On the driver’s seat there was a cutting from the Donchester Herald, reporting a court case in which Iles had recently been involved— one of his pupils had panicked during a lesson and mounted the pavement before the dual control could be used, slightly injuring a woman. Pinned to the cutting was a sheet of paper on which the wrecker had penciled in block capitals: FIFTEEN KILLED AND 112 INJURED IN ROAD ACCIDENTS IN DOWNSHIRE LAST MONTHI NO WONDER, WITH MEN LIKE YOU IN CHARGE OF NEW DRIVERS! WHY DON’T YOU PAY ATTENTION WHEN YOU’RE ON THE JOB? IF IT HAPPENS AGAIN, YOU’LL BE FOR IT!
It was an ugly little incident, and we did all we could to discover who was responsible. But there wasn’t much to go on. The job must have been done after dark, for no one had seen anyone near the car. The wrecker had evidently worn gloves, for there were no useful fingerprints. The paper on which the message had been written was common typing paper, un-watermarked, and could have been bought at any stationer’s. The message itself afforded no clue, except that it pointed to a reasonably literate person. We interviewed a number of people who might conceivably have had a private grudge against Iles, including the woman who had been knocked down by the School car, the pupil who had mounted the pavement, and several others who had failed to pass their driving test after tuition—but we got nowhere. Iles himself was very upset by the incident, and the School had to give him some sick leave.
We were still working on the case when, a few days later, the first murder was committed. A young man named Jocelyn Wade, a member of a well-to-do county family, had been up to London for the day in his fast sports car, and on his way back had dropped into a quiet country pub, the Dog and Feathers, about five miles beyond Donchester. He had left the pub just before ten—and at ten-thirty his body had been found lying beside his car in the car park. His skull had been crushed by two blows from a heavy instrument, possibly a spanner, delivered by someone who must have crept up behind him. On the car seat, the murderer had left a sheet of typing paper, with the penciled words: THIS MAN DROVE THROUGH DONCHESTER HIGH STREET AT 42 M.P.H. THIS EVENING. WATCH OUT, YOU DOWNSHIRE SPEED FIENDS! IT MAY BE YOUR TURN NEXT! Once again, there were no fingerprints, no material clues. Once again, the assault had taken place in darkness, and the assailant had got clear away.
We knew now that there was a maniac in our midst—a man with his own crazy notion of a road safety campaign. Next morning the activities of the “Downshire Terror” were the chief topic of conversation all over the country. The popular newspapers were full of him. Hordes of reporters arrived in Donchester, virtually taking over the County Hotel. They wanted to know not merely what we were doing about the Wade murder, but how we proposed to prevent any more deaths. On that point, it wasn’t very easy to be reassuring. The peculiar grimness of all these multiple-murder cases, where sudden attacks are made out-of-doors after dark and no personal motive links the murderer and victim, is that the police usually have to wait for further attacks before they can close their net. What I did say was that one of the best safeguards might well be for everyone to drive with exceptional care in Downshire until the Terror was apprehended.
It seemed certain that we should need outside help in our task, and I had already asked for a conference at the Home Office to concert plans. But before it could be held, there was a second murder. This time the victim was a woman, a Mrs. Fray. She had been visiting friends in Donchester and had set off home in her car soon after nine o’clock. At ten she had been found lying beside the car on a grass verge, not far from her house, with her head battered in. The usual piece of paper on the driving seat said: THIS WOMAN FAILED TO STOP AT THE HALT SIGN IN DONCHESTER THIS AFTERNOON. The front near-side tire of her car was flat, but there was no puncture—the valve cap had been removed and the valve loosened. It seemed probable that the Terror had marked her down during the day, followed her to her friend’s house, loosened the valve in the street after dark, and assaulted her on the road home when the flat tire had forced her to stop.
The new murder gave even greater urgency to the conference at the Home Office. It was attended by several experienced officers from the Yard and by the Chief Constables of the counties adjoining Downshire. They were all short-handed, for like Downshire their territories lay between London and the sea and at this time of year the crowded state of the roads and the frequent accidents were a heavy strain on police manpower. However, they agreed that reinforcements for Downshire were essential. The best hope seemed to lie in greatly strengthened night patrols, so that even if the next murder couldn’t be prevented, we should at least have early information on which to act. The Terror, after his butchering excursions, must have a lot of blood on him, and his first need would be to rush off to some quiet retreat where he could remove all traces. Our aim must be to intercept him. Our counter-measures included dividing the county up into sections with a system of road checks that could be brought instantly into operation. We also fixed up a decoy plan, by which plain clothes men in private cars would drive around the built-up areas of the county at more than the legal limit in the hope that the Terror would eventually follow one of them.
For a week after the conference, nothing happened. Then the Terror suddenly struck again—and this time it was in broad daylight! A lorry driver named Albert Stokes had stopped his vehicle in a lay-by some ten miles outside the county boundary, and after lunch had stretched out in his cab for a nap. He was found there in the middle of the afternoon, dead from multiple head injuries. The message on the seat said: THIS MAN PASSED ME IN DONCHESTER AT 32 M.P.H. HIS LEGAL LIMIT IS 20 M.P.H.
It was now clear that the Terror, though still concentrating on what happened in Downshire, was prepared to pursue his victim outside the county if necessary. That meant that every driver who passed through was taking a risk, unless he drove impeccably. The odds against any one person being picked on were, of course, considerable, but by now the word “Downshire” had become synonymous in the public mind with sudden, violent death, and most people preferred not to take chances. There was no great falling off in the amount of traffic, but there was a marked improvement in road behavior and an impressive observance of all speed limits. At this rate, the Terror would soon be short of victims.
Another week went by—a week of unremitting inquiry into the earlier incidents and of ceaseless vigilance by the road patrols. By now, a huge force of police had been drafted into the area. As one quiet day followed another, I began to think that the Terror had abandoned his campaign. Any sane person would certainly have been deterred by our preparations. But, late one night, he killed again. His victim, a man named Lever, was found with the usual head injuries only a short time after the assault.
His car was in a ditch in an unfrequented lane, and it looked as though he had driven it there himself. The message on the seat said: THIS MAN WAS DRUNK IN CHARGE! Within seconds of the discovery, our machinery went smoothly into action, and we must have missed the escaping murderer by the narrowest of margins.
We brought in yet more police and increased the patrols. For nearly a fortnight, Downshire waited in a state of mounting tension. Then, suddenly—and in a way I hadn’t foreseen—the end came.
I was driving home one night, very tired after a late conference at the station. I had just turned into the High Street when a small black car passed me. For a moment I could hardly believe my eyes, for it was doing over 40 m.p.h. in a restricted area—and drivers in Downshire simply didn’t do that sort of thing any longer! Then I decided that it must be one of my decoys. I put on speed until I could read the number. I knew all the decoy numbers, and it wasn’t one of them. I stepped hard on the accelerator, and so did the chap in front. Two other police cars swung in from side turnings and joined in the chase. We raced through the town at sixty miles an hour, and I passed the black car at sixty-five. Its brakes squealed as I slowed down in front of it, there was a crash as it hit me, and then it swerved off the road through a garden fence. As it stopped the driver jumped out and began to run. I gave chase, and so did half a dozen other officers, and we caught him in less than fifty yards.
It was the driving instructor, John Iles! He was wearing a long, plastic raincoat, and there was blood all over it. He’d just done his last job!
We found out afterwards that he’d been spending his “sick leave” in a caravan, parked beside a stream in a lonely spot in the next county. After each murder, he’d gone straight back there to clean up. He told us he felt that his mission in Downshire was now pretty well accomplished and that he’d intended to return to work on the following day. So if he hadn’t been the one man in Downshire who wasn’t scared of the Terror, he might have got away with it.
He was hopelessly mad, of course. If his deeds hadn’t made that dear, his attitude in court would have done. According to him, he was a public benefactor and should have had a medal. He admitted he’d killed five people, but he pointed out that in the month in which he’d been operating, road casualties in Downshire had fallen from 15 dead and 112 injured to 7 dead and 43 injured, solely on account of him—a net saving of 8 lives and much useless suffering. The judge said grimly that this was the arithmetic of bedlam, and had him bundled off to Broadmoor without any more fuss.
There was exuberant relief throughout Downshire when it was realized that sanity had returned to the county and that the danger was over. The next month’s road casualty figures were an all-time record at 20 killed and 133 injured.
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: It’s always seemed to me quite crazy that we should kill five thousand people a year on our roads and think practically nothing of it. The wry idea of “The Man Who Wasn’t Scared” came to me one day when I was driving on our weekend battlefield.