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Burley Cross Postbox Theft
Nicola Barker
Reading other people’s letters is always a guilty pleasure. But for two West Yorkshire policemen - contemplating a cache of 27 undelivered missives, retrieved from a back alley behind the hairdresser's in Skipton - it's also a job of work. The quaint moorside village of Burley Cross has been plunged into turmoil by the theft of the contents of its postbox, and when PC Roger Topping takes over the case, which his higher-ranking schoolmate Sergeant Laurence Everill has so far failed to crack, his expectations of success are not high.Yet Topping's investigation into the curtain-twitching lives of Jeremy Baverstock, Baxter Thorndyke, the Jonty Weiss-Quinns, Mrs Tirza Parry (widow), and a splendid array of other weird and wonderful characters, will not only uncover the dark underbelly of his scenic beat, but also the fundamental strengths of his own character.The denizens of Burley Cross inhabit a world where everyone’s secrets are worn on their sleeves, pettiness becomes epic, little is writ large. From complaints about dog shit to passive-aggressive fanmail, from biblical amateur dramatics to an Auction of Promises that goes staggeringly, horribly wrong, Nicola Barker’s epistolary novel is a work of immense comic range. It is also unlike anything she has written before. Brazenly mischievous and irresistibly readable, Burley Cross Postbox Theft is a Cranford for today, albeit with a decent dose of Tamiflu, some dodgy sex-therapy and a whiff of cheap-smelling vodka.
BURLEY CROSS POSTBOX THEFT
NICOLA BARKER
FOURTH ESTATE · London
Dedication (#u011eca4b-4d98-5de1-a252-719dfa17015e)
For Michael Crosby-Jones, Margot Prew, Alfred the Pungent, and all in their exalted circle
Contents
Cover (#u6f634842-69ec-56ec-9d74-3f008972ed6e)
Title Page (#ufd8d4028-14c0-552b-aedf-a2a30c7b159a)
Dedication (#u99aae93c-917a-5a5b-8e81-98fb112edd09)
Internal Mail (#u7753cc16-3031-571d-bc3f-263ea284ee4b)
[letter 1] (#u9e6be49b-6996-58ee-bd6c-90775d45d069)
[letter 2] (#u19d3193d-a60d-5bca-8654-7a52814b6b8a)
[letter 3] (#ue67e1db0-d791-5850-a487-587fbe3b0208)
[letter 4] (#u46df43ac-48bd-5b01-aca4-a322e7a19baa)
[letter 5] (#u10fac861-d7bc-5c90-8bc3-2610a4126568)
[letter 6] (#u959af84e-3c6c-55d2-bdfb-e10d064f0eba)
[letter 7] (#uee0b3593-40e3-5425-8bd2-352e72439efb)
[letter 7a] (#u115ed8e2-f56a-57bf-9d59-d13f58425008)
[letter 8] (#u280d3248-ee80-514a-af79-bbf81f9c18a8)
[letter 9] (#u6944f3fd-321b-5a7c-ba98-6026d1ca5daa)
[letter 10] (#u405cabd1-fa52-573f-9ec0-d5bdc33ec14f)
[letter 11] (#u980aeb8d-4634-527d-af64-a7f7054abf9e)
[letter 12] (#ufd87e9cd-04e9-568c-90af-0eeeb83992b7)
[letter 13] (#ubbeead5a-3c3e-567f-ac02-0aa7c18ec44e)
[letter 14] (#ub81319a0-e5ec-5254-a5b6-b7694a9f6df2)
[letter 15] (#u2b199e1e-1cc3-532b-afcb-34bca0eb97e8)
[letter 16] (#u454651bc-c1ed-5b86-8219-d54ff2b61831)
[letter 17] (#ua08c1114-a996-57cb-a95d-06a6894b8f01)
[letter 18] (#u4ded9d91-4ea5-5ad2-844b-1a8c24b5561d)
[letter 19] (#u2506d30a-5eba-53ba-a3aa-883e4515e87a)
[letter 20] (#ua99f9fab-791b-58ab-87be-0488094ea881)
[letter 21] (#u6f7561fe-19f4-516f-88d0-0c010a86db74)
[letter 22] (#ud8a50c2b-122b-5241-b8bf-6bbd03e13abc)
[letter 23] (#ue0cc5a1e-5e9d-5274-a050-75c3c0baa346)
[letter 24] (#u43b9a2a6-1462-5d17-b3ca-3a890da8c5a0)
[letter 25] (#u62eddc9f-7cdc-5ac4-afed-7ffe0870f662)
[letter 26] (#ua4bcac6a-7dee-5322-ac41-9ba65e68eb73)
Internal Mail (#u9b3a327b-a388-51f9-bc2e-9c4303a208ff)
Internal Mail (#ua51fa294-b4d3-5542-af90-65e47556720d)
By Nicola Barker (#u0ee627ee-8909-52b4-9869-0a370d3c0d6e)
Copyright (#u10fa71f3-51ac-5dcb-9669-8a315a11f0ca)
About the Publisher (#uc9400780-280f-55aa-8920-db29784af3ca)
Internal Mail (#u011eca4b-4d98-5de1-a252-719dfa17015e)
Skipton,
09/03/07
14.00 hrs
(Package and covering letter sent by internal mail)
For attn PC Roger Topping, Ilkley
CONFIDENTIAL
Great news, Rog, great news –
At last all those long, incalculably boring, soul-destroying hours of trudging and waiting and moping and cussing have finally paid off, and the career-making case you’ve been yearning for (stuck out there on your lonesome, all stiff and cross and swollen – with that haunting, blue tinge around your gills – like a huge, neglected gouty toe; a beached whale; a dour, oversized funeral director with no funeral to direct; a bad joke; a lazy error; a missed train; a dropped stitch; an unsightly stain on the perfect, white napkin of West Yorkshire’s tea-cake and charity-shop capital) is about to land – not the cake, you dope – with a lovely, resounding plop! right in the middle of your capacious lap.
Oh, and it’s a good one, Rog, it’s a choice one! It’s something that’s going to frustrate and perplex that razor-sharp intellect of yours for many, many years to come. It’s going to haunt your dreams, Rog, and dominate your every waking moment. It’s going to confound and enrage you, Rog. It’s going to challenge you in ways you never imagined, ways you never even thought possible.
Put plainly, Rog: it’s going to take over your miserable, pointless little existence and turn it upside down in exactly the same way it took over (and turned over) mine (which is slightly less miserable and pointless than yours, admittedly. No, considerably less, Rog – considerably less – if you don’t mind my saying so).
It’s a Red Letter Day, Rog, so thump the tub! Whoop it up! Blow off the lid! Because your time has finally come! And it’s an important time, Rog, a vital time, a time to cast aside ‘compromise’ and ‘waffle’ and ‘pragmatism’, and re-embrace all those old-fashioned principles of your gilded youth – ideas like … like ‘truth’ and ‘honour’, like ‘pride’ and ‘justice’. (Don’t think ‘mortgage’, Rog. Never think ‘mortgage’. Great men never think ‘mortgage’. And while we’re on the subject, don’t think ‘bun’. And try not to think ‘steak pie’ or ‘battered sausage’. I know how partial you are to those.)
In short, this is no time for beating around the bush, Rog. It’s a time for plain speaking, a time for speaking your mind, a time for speaking as you find; a time for barking out orders, for slamming doors, for shoving your way, brutishly, into tiny, tightly packed rooms, squeezing your big, meaty hand into a powerful fist and banging it down, forcefully – again and again and again and again – on to desks and tables and other hard surfaces.
It’s not a time for idle prattle and mooching about and eye-rolling and clock-watching (although, God only knows, there has been time for that in the past, Rog – and, God willing, still plenty more of it yet to come).
It’s time to step up to the plate, Rog (and I don’t mean your dinner plate, lad), a time to gird your loins – if loins you still have (Sandy, my gorgeous wife – your ex – once told me how you liked to shed them, every autumn, the way a stag sheds its antlers. But darling Sandy – as we have both discovered, to our mutual cost – can sometimes be a little bit ‘creative’ with the truth, eh, Rog?).
It’s A Time to Dance, Rog – as I believe the bestselling author, Melvyn Bragg, once so poetically exhorted us. Although if you do decide to break into a spontaneous quickstep – or a foxtrot, or a samba – please be sure to wear your head-brace, your shoe-supports and your corset (or else – dollars to doughnuts, Rog – those moronic jobsworths from Health and Safety will be sniffing around us, yet again, like a feral pack of constipated hyenas).
Let’s throw caution to the wind, Rog! This is no time to shilly-shally, no time to test the water and teeter, nervously, on the brink. (Ah yes, I still fondly remember those compulsory school swimming lessons at Thornhill Baths: me, clowning around on the high diving board – to wildly cacophonous cheers from the boys, hysterical screams of terror from the girls – and then suddenly, with no warning, clicking into ‘The Zone’, striding calmly to its furthest tip, bouncing once, bouncing twice, and then performing – to assembled gasps – a near-as-dammit-perfect back-flip, barely disturbing the surface of the pool with so much as a ripple as I entered it. Incredible!
And you, Rog? You? Far down below, Rog, crammed into an under-size pair of brown nylon/viscose-mix regulation trunks, your soft belly bulging over the waistband like a generous slick of extra-thick UHT cream, the voluminous skin of your upper torso pulsing translucently – ghastly and white as a portion of uncooked tripe – your chest heaving, uncontrollably, as you shivered and whimpered and clutched on to your towel, blinking, uneasily, into the blurry half-light.
You had good reason to feel apprehensive, Rog, having just – a few moments earlier – taken the very sensible precaution of removing your glasses: you were vulnerable, Rog. You were hamstrung. You were tragically incapacitated.
Yet how could you have possibly known, Rog – except with the aid of very basic common sense – that your every move was being carefully scrutinized, from above, by a mischievous young prankster, svelte and bendy as a cat, in a pair of tight, bright red Speedos, who thought it would be a hoot, Rog – a veritable hoot, Rog – when the opportunity arose, to steal those precious glasses of yours and then conceal them – in an act of rare daring and audacity – behind the lifeguard’s chair?
How could you have possibly known, Rog? How, Rog? Eh?
And the moral of this insignificant little tale, Rog – if moral there be, at all …?
GROW A PAIR, ROG!!
GROW A BLOODY PAIR!!
WHO CARES WHAT THE TEMPERATURE OF THE WATER IS, ROG?! JUMP IN, YOU FOOL, JUMP IN!!
It’s time to grab the damn world by the scruff of its neck and shake it, Rog. SHAKE IT!!
YOU HEAR?!)
Because I’ll make no bones about it, Rog: this case is a hard taskmaster. Remember Mr Philton, Rog? Dr Philton? With his heavy, dark green serge jackets, his Advanced Motorist badge and his chronic halitosis? Who made you wet yourself, Rog, piss yourself, Rog, in front of the entire class during Double Latin, after you forgot how to conjugate the Latin verb ‘to touch’?
Pardon, Rog? Was that a ‘yes’, I just heard you mutter there? Was that a ‘yes’, Rog, accompanied by a nervous cough and a sheepish little nod of the head? It was? So you do remember, Rog? You do actually remember?
Oh.
Good.
Well, for your information, Rog, this case – this remarkable case, this extraordinary case – is every inch as exacting and fastidious as crusty old Philton was; every inch as unsparing and punctilious (with an impressive line in put-downs, Rog, just like that old bastard had).
This case is a cruel mistress, Rog – the cruellest mistress. It’s a savage, top-dollar dominatrix; a natural red-head in thigh-high, black leather boots and matching corset. Wonderfully well-equipped, Rog (astonishingly well-equipped), with her regulation whip, her paddle, her rack, her cleats, her strap-on, and – naturellement! – that inevitable – almost prosaic – pair of stainless-steel nipple-clamps.
She won’t take any prisoners, Rog (well, perhaps the odd one – but only with the general assurance of firmly established protocols, full legal consent, and an accepted release word).
Much as you might expect, Rog, she pays precious little heed to society’s mores (that mundane index of ‘accepted niceties’ we all so love to depend upon). She’ll just sweep into your life, Rog, barge into your life, Rog, demand to know exactly how much you’re earning (to the last pound, per annum, up front), deliver a couple of devastatingly acute and haughty pronouncements (like: ‘You think you’re very funny, very witty, don’t you? You think you’re quite the card, but I can assure you that you’re not,’ or ‘I noticed a little earlier, when we were leaving the restaurant, that you’re going ever so slightly bald on top …’), then shoot you a disdainful smile, shove you into a chair, push up her skirt, calmly straddle your lap and promptly take over.
KA-BAM!
Quick as a flash!
Just like that!
Can you see her, yet, Rog? Can you smell her?
Hmmn!
She smells of dirty musk and aniseed balls and cheap vodka, and that oddly persistent aroma from inside a moist, well-used Marigold washing-up glove. A wonderful smell, Rog, a heady, heaving, steamy aroma. Just close your eyes for a moment, Rog, and inhale it. Go on … just … yes …Inhale!
Lovely, deep breath, Rog, lovely deep …
Ahhhhhhh!
Let it waft over you, Rog. Let it wash, gently, over you. Let it tip-toe around you and then creep – softly, so insidiously – inside your head. Let it calm your fevered mind, Rog, tickle your aching sinuses, and tingle on your tongue… Don’t stiffen, Rog! No need to stiffen! It means you no harm, Rog. Just allow yourself to trust it, Rog. Just give it your permission, Rog. Just hold out your hand, Rog, and welcome it in… That’s right! Much better! You’re doing well, Rog! You’re doing brilliantly! Feels really good, doesn’t it?
Another breath now, Rog, deep, deep breath, now, Rog…
Ahhhhhhh!
Perfect, Rog. See how easy that was? Relax those shoulders, now, Rog, lower those shoulders… Great work! Now the face. Let’s relax the face, Rog, starting with the mouth. No more tension around the mouth. Feel the lips falling slightly apart… Excellent, Rog!
Now the eyes, Rog. Relax the eyes. Feel them rolling back in your head… Good boy! Well done!
And finally, the forehead. Release that frown, Rog. Feel all your pent-up stress and anxiety just slipping away, Rog, just lifting off you, Rog, just floating away from you… Wave bye-bye to all that nasty tension, Rog – Bye-bye tension! – and then make welcome, in its stead, this beautiful, almost overwhelming sense of peace and contentment…
How calm you feel, Rog! How quiet! How serene! Embrace that sensation, Rog, embrace that warm feeling of safety and tranquillity… Just let everything go, Rog, just let…
OI!!
WAKE UP!!
WAKE UP, ROG!!!
LOOK SHARP, YOU BIG PUDDING-HEAD!!
You’ve taken your mind off the ball, Rog (what were you thinking, Rog?!) and she is striding towards you, at speed, her heels sounding like gunshots on the ceramic tiles – QUICK, ROG! QUICK! TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT!
She is shouting something at you, Rog, as she cracks her whip – instructions of some kind, demands of some kind, but because of the blood pumping in your ears (tinnitus still a problem, Rog?) you can’t actually make them out…
