part0021

Harry Hodges had been missing now for four days. His mother who spent most her time shouting was only now registering his absence. If she wasn’t shouting at Harry’s two older brothers, who tended to either shout back or simply ignore their mother altogether, she’d be shouting at someone or something else, whether it was a neighbour, the people at the DHSS, or the television set. “Where’s that bleedin’ monkey of a brother of yours?” she bellowed at her elder sons, both of whom merely shrugged their shoulders. “He’d better show his face soon, otherwise his father’s going to get to hear about it. And then he’d wish he’d never been born.”

It wasn’t one of the most logical statements Mrs Hodges could have made. Harry’s father was, after all, behind bars and wasn’t expected to come out for some considerable time. So even had news of Harry’s disappearance reached the ears of his father, there would have been very little Eric Hodges could have done about it.

As it happens, Harry was in the process of writing to his mother. It was going to be much easier to say what he had to say on paper than finding the right words to deliver down the phone. Besides, it would deprive her of the opportunity to shout back at him.

He pulled up the chair to the simple wooden desk, scraping the stone floor in the process, and began to scribble away. Outside, the rain came down in sheets and dribbled in channels down the small, latticed window above him. It was a cold, damp place to have found refuge. But deep in his heart, Harry felt at peace with the world. If he was to talk seriously to God, this had to be the place from which to do so. There could be little question of that.

High above the old rafters was the old belfry, and above this sat the crumbling roof tiles originally made by the monks themselves, which were now covered in moss and lichen. And sitting on the very top of this pile of history sat one exceptionally tired blackbird.

It had been the most arduous of flights. The poor bird had had to follow a bus and a train. Thankfully, the bus hadn’t been too difficult to keep pace with on account of the fairly regular stops. The train, though, had been another matter altogether. In fact, the blackbird had very nearly given up hope of ever catching Harry up. But blackbirds aren’t birds to give up easily, and this particular specimen had realized that by simply following the railway lines he’d be flying in the right direction. As luck would have it, a signal problem further along the line had caused a severe delay a mile before Harry’s embarkation point, so the blackbird had been able to catch up with the long string of fast moving metal boxes, and follow Harry to his destination.

Amplewick Abbey sat perched on a hill overlooking a little orchard and a patchwork of fields. It was a far cry from the council estate with its drug dealers and vandalized cars, and the perfect place from which Harry could commune with God, not to mention his less than happy mother.

Before Harry had got to the bottom of the first page of his letter, there was a shuffling from the corridor outside. The old oak door opened and in stepped the kindly man with the white hair and half moon glasses. Father Peter had already had a very long conversation with Harry. He had shown very great interest in Harry’s account of the plan to kidnap Roy and the subsequent episode of the geese and the tie, and he had assured Harry that men and women from all walks of life had, since the beginning of time itself, felt the call from the Almighty. This, however, was the first time an eleven-year-old boy had ever walked into the abbey and claimed that he, too, had received this call. The boy had seemed genuinely concerned and had been desperately eager to share his burden.

At first Father Peter had felt a spasm of delight and wonder that the Lord had sent Harry, a street urchin, to the confines of Amplewick. The boy’s story had genuinely intrigued and moved him. But any thought of mentoring Harry and entertaining him in this house of God for any length of time was clearly out of the question. The boy was only eleven years old. It was for this reason that Father Peter had urged Harry to write to his mother. And it was also for this reason that another man standing behind Father Peter now emerged from the shadows.

Harry looked up, deep in thought. “Ah, Harry, I’d like to introduce you to somebody.” Father Peter coughed slightly out of embarrassment. He felt he had betrayed the boy’s trust, but in reality he had little choice in the matter. “This is Chief Inspector Milner. He’d like to have a little word with you.”

At that moment Harry’s heart sank. It seemed that every member of the Hodges family had at some point received a visit from the police. And now he’d have to add his own name to that long list.

Harry put down his pen, and as he did, a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. For a split second he could feel his heart pounding like a steam engine in overdrive. What he did next took everyone by surprise, including himself. He opened the latticed window and jumped with the agility of a cat out into the cold, moist air. It was only a short drop to the soft, squidgy, waterlogged grass below. And as his loose clothes absorbed the rain and clung to his skin, he ran like the wind as fast as his tired feet would carry him. He was as free as a bird! No one but no one was going to deny him his freedom - certainly not a member of Her Majesty’s constabulary.

Fifty five miles north east of Amplewick Abbey as the crow flies, or for that matter, any bird with stamina, Mr and Mrs Nuttersley were themselves becoming more familiar with the law of the land. In their case, however, it was the law relating to divorce. Apparently, the procedure could in theory be fairly straightforward. But problems and complications could arise if one of the partners were to object to a separation. “In this event,” explained Mr Fiddler, “the whole process could become very lengthy, very costly and very messy indeed.”

These words came as music to Angela Nuttersley’s ears. She would steadfastly object to a divorce no matter how much she really wanted one, in order to simply stop her oaf of a husband getting his own way.

As for Mr Nuttersley, his wife’s behaviour seemed to defy any kind of logic. Why on earth would she object to a divorce when she almost certainly had most to gain? As far as he could see, she would get to keep the house and he would have to move out. Indeed, in situations like this most men would have felt a sense of relief that their wives did not want to press ahead with a divorce. But for Stanley Nuttersley, his pride was at stake. He was the boss, or so he liked to believe. And he simply didn’t like to be told by anyone what he could or could not do. Besides, there was the other matter of his wife’s disgraceful behaviour with another man in this very house. The very thought of it sent a shudder down his spine. How on earth could she deny it when the evidence was as clear as daylight? And how could she hurl such ludicrous accusations back at him that he - of all people - had been unfaithful? How indeed could his pea- brained wife have the bald-faced audacity to create such a ridiculously infantile story about an engagement ring? A ring that did not even exist, except perhaps, in his wife’s vivid imagination.

As the letters from the two solicitors landed on the doormat at number 44 Orchard Drive, the atmosphere became more and more difficult for poor Roy to cope with. Mrs Nuttersley had now gone to the trouble of buying several cheap sets of crockery made in the People’s Republic of China with which to continue hurling at her husband every morning. The pillow fights too had become a regular feature of daily life in the Nuttersley household, and the dust and feathers that now seemed to permanently waft about the house were beginning to make Roy sneeze. With his cherished bird boxes removed from the trees, Roy could no longer even seek solace from the birdsong in his garden.

As the incessant screaming, bellowing and breaking of crockery began to intensify to unprecedented levels, this terrible state of affairs also began to take its toll on Roy’s nerves. Being bullied at school would have seemed like light relief from this nightmare that he now had to live through every day. Amid this terrible chaos he felt he was being subjected to a slow and extremely painful form of torture. In short, the atmosphere was doing rather more than irritate his sensitive nose: it was actually beginning to suffocate him. Though he didn’t really fully realize it himself, what hurt most of all was the fact that his parents were so intensely focused on hating each other that they had completely forgotten about him.

Furthermore, his utterly ridiculous parents were now battling through the nights. So he was being deprived of his precious sleep, unable to even escape into the comforting world of his dreams.

And so it was that while that other less than happy child by the name of Harry Hodges had suddenly felt the need to take flight into the fresh and bracing air, Roy too felt this impulsive and instinctive urge to escape for good from the stifling atmosphere of number 44 Orchard Drive.

He didn’t really know what it was that attracted him to the huge oak tree that stood so solidly at the bottom of his garden, other than the fact that the birds obviously enjoyed its many sturdy arms and considerable canopy of leaves. But whatever the magnetic force of this magnificent 150-year-old specimen, Roy now found himself clambering slowly but surely up its knotted and weather-beaten trunk.

The task in hand was by all accounts an onerous and perilous one. Some might have gone further and used the word ‘insane’, seeing that he had begun this impulsive ascent totally unprepared. Nevertheless, Roy was determined to find sanctuary high up in the overhanging branches, well away from the noise and commotion at ground level. And anyway, the tree that had stood for as long as Roy could remember within the frame of his bedroom window was like a dear old friend. Through rain and shine it had stood firm, entrenched and reliable. As far as Roy was concerned there were plenty of unpleasant things in life that could harm him, but the old oak tree that had stood guard outside his bedroom window for all these years certainly wasn’t one of them.

Fortunately for Roy the tree was blessed with countless ridges, bumps and crevices for the rubber soles on the undersides of his trainers to get a grip. This said, his ascent was painfully slow. The trunk itself provided him with the most challenging part of his climb. Indeed, most children wouldn’t have entertained the idea of attempting to climb it at all, for there were no low branches to seize hold of. Instead, Roy had to make do with knobbly lumps and protrusions on which to secure his footings, and cling to with all ten fingers. It was a most exhausting and at times painful business. But at least the weather conditions here were dry. Had they been anything like the conditions Harry Hodges was now experiencing, Roy’s intrepid adventure would have been doomed from the outset, since a wet tree, as everyone knows, becomes incredibly slippery and virtually impossible to climb.

By the time Angela Nuttersley had managed to break no fewer than forty three pieces of china, and the local police station had received six telephone calls from angry neighbours complaining about the noise, Roy had miraculously managed to reach the first branch of the tree.

From where he now sat he could see the silhouettes of his parents’ heads behind the net curtains of the sitting room. The dreadful noise had now ceased due to the presence of the police, and the two parked police cars with their flashing blue lights had caused the net curtains of other houses in the street to twitch incessantly. Roy felt completely embarrassed by his hideous parents. Thank goodness he wasn’t down there now. All he wanted to do at this very moment was distance himself as far apart from his parents as was humanly possible. So despite the fact that he was incredibly tired from his efforts, he continued to inch his way up the tree.

Down below the two police constables in the living room at number 44 Orchard Drive had never seen anything quite like it. But then they were new to the job. As the two men paced slowly up and down taking notes in their note-pads the sound of broken china underfoot caused Mr and Mrs Nuttersley to blush.

“So you say this was just a one-off argument. Nothing serious,” said the first constable, followed by more crunching of china underfoot.

“Well, I’d say it was a minor disagreement, wouldn’t you dear?” said Stanley Nuttersley hesitantly and clearly very embarrassed. Angela Nuttersley made a strange kind of squeaking sound in acknowledgement and looked down at her feet and the crumbs of white china on the carpet. As more notes were copiously taken by the two policemen, Mrs Nuttersley suddenly found her voice.

“Could I get either of you two gentlemen a nice cup of tea?” The younger of the two constables who had distinctive ginger hair and the beginnings of a beard, looked up from his notepad enthusiastically.

“Ooh, that would be very nice. Thank you.” His colleague who had precious little in the way of hair and was a little on the chubby side, continued scribbling.

“If you can spare a china cup, that is,” he mumbled to himself.

From where Roy now perched he could see gardens that he’d never been able to see before. Most were fairly nondescript, much like his own. Some had brightly coloured children’s swings and slides; one or two had greenhouses. Number 48 had a vegetable patch that took up virtually the entire garden. It was a bit like looking down on a model village, he thought to himself.

As Roy observed his surroundings, a number of blackbirds perched on the uppermost branches of the oak tree and watched this latest development with astonishment. Human beings really were the most irritatingly unpredictable of creatures. While the magpies had performed their task with astonishing precision and skill, none of the birds could have foreseen Roy’s intrepid response as he now risked life and limb to climb the mighty oak. Then again, neither could they have predicted Mrs Nuttersley’s peculiar behaviour when she had so callously removed her son’s precious bird boxes and their even more precious contents from the branches of the trees - without rhyme or reason. The blackbirds had intended the battle of the Nuttersleys to provide Roy with the ideal opportunity to restore his bird boxes to their rightful place. But in return, Roy had now planted himself in the tree instead. It was all getting a little out of hand.