DEADLY DECEPTIONS Read online

  DEADLY DECECPTIONS

  by

  BILL WENHAM

  DEADLY DECEPTIONS

  Prologue

  In Cambridgeshire, as in all over the British Isles, there are numerous small and quaint little villages dating back to Roman times and beyond. Many of them started off as merely one or two cottages in a tiny hamlet. As the years progressed people tended to group their homes close to each other, even attach them together, as much for company and protection’s sake if nothing else.

  The land the homes occupied was owned by the noblemen to whom the villagers paid a rent or ‘tithe’. It would be centuries before these homes would be privately owned by the residents.

  These ‘groupings’ of homes became the foundation for the first of the villages where skills such as weaving, carpentry, masonary, blacksmith work and so on were offered to the community in exchange for either money or barter.

  There are many origins for the names of English towns, in particular, where the land owner’s name would form the prefix to the name of the community. For instance, the old English word ‘tun’, meaning ‘enclosure’ or ‘farmstead’ would be tacked on to the end of the landowner’s name, a man perhaps called Edmund.

  Later the word ‘tun’ would evolve into ‘ton’ and the area would be known as ‘Edmundston’, or the farmstead of Edmund.

  Later, as many hundreds of years passed and the community grew, this would evolve still further into its present name of Edmonton, now a large and thriving town just a few miles north of the center of London.

  In England, there are still a number of these small villages, some also dating back hundreds of years, which time has apparently forgotten. They are off the ‘beaten track’ as the village folk of those medieval days would say and they remain pretty much that way today. Little has outwardly changed, except that cars have replaced horses and the carriages of the wealthy. Trucks and busses have taken the place of carts and wagons over the years.

  The cottages remain pretty much the same as they have done since they were first built and many of them are joined together as terraced or ‘row’ houses, with red tile or thatched roofs. They were built to last and last they have. The cottages and the villages themselves are picture postcard pretty and there is not a single steel, glass and chrome monstrosity of a building anywhere within viewing distance in any direction.

  Of course, as the community expanded, the usual variety of small but essential businesses grew with it, such as a butcher, bakery, greengrocer, newsagent/tobacconist, chemist and so on. These had been built, mostly in the 1800’s as shops rather than cottage conversions as many other small businesses had been. Naturally, because of this, not all of the buildings in the parish were quaint, thatched roofed cottages either. Many were stark, featureless Victorian edifices built of stone or red brick, but they, thankfully, were mainly on the outskirts rather than in the core of the village.

  Also, thankfully, from an esthetic point of view, none of the modern day supermarket chains or fast food outlets had yet gained a foothold in these small villages. But that evolution was as inevitable and relentless as a glacier’s movement towards the sea.

  Major or specialty purchases such as vehicles, furniture, appliances, shoes and clothing usually meant a trip to Cambridge, Biggleswade or even as far afield as London or Northampton.

  In the county of Cambridgeshire, many of these small villages are ‘twinned’. That is to say that there are two villages, reasonably close to each other, each with the same landowner origin, but with an additional and different prefix.

  This was a common practice in naming villages. One of the ‘twins’ would be named ‘Great’ and the other ‘Little’, as in Great Bromley and Little Bromley and Great and Little Bentley in Essex. Some of Cambridgeshire’s ‘twins’ are Great and Little Wilbraham, Great and Little Eversden and these twin villages in Carrington parish.

  Great Carrington and Little Carrington are situated on either side of a tributary of the Cam River, also known as the Rhee. It joins the Cam just to the west of Shingay. The river serves as the boundary between the two communities. Little Carrington lies to the north of the river and Great Carrington to the south. A minor road links the two communities to the small towns of Abington Pigotts and Litlington and continues on west to Steeple Morden.

  As is usual with these linked villages, in the days of their origin, there was no more than a short horse ride or a brisk walk of a couple of miles between the two of them.

  There are several reasonable definitions of why one would be called Great and the other Little. The most logical reason and certainly the one that originally described the Carrington villages best, is that one village was simply bigger than the other.

  To a certain degree each village has its own amenities, such as a Saxon built church, a Tudor built inn, a village hall of indeterminate age and each has two pubs, all of them originating from the Elizabethan era.

  Each village has its fair share of quaint thatched cottages with leaded and bottle glass paned windows, many of which have now been turned into commercial tourist attractions. Some of them are now various kinds of country shops, selling local crafts and produce such as honey, jams and pickles. Others specialize in baked goods like Cornish Pasties and Melton Mowbray pork pies, although they are situated far from the location of the originals.

  Yet another villager, David Bowen, specializes in brass rubbings from the various churches in the area and one very dubious item pertaining to be a true copy of an actual page from the Doomsday Book showing the inclusion of the Carrington villages in it.

  Many village names are in the Doomsday Book so why not ours, was the answer given by David when questioned about the item’s authenticity.

  A good proportion of the cottages also offer bed and breakfast at reasonable but competitive rates for tourists looking for the English country village experience. Some of the more enterprising villagers with slightly larger cottages have turned their front parlors into tearooms and serve light lunches and dinners for the bed and breakfast tourist clientele. Only out on the motorways would you find Little Chef and other fast food locations.

  What had originally been the smithy and farrier in the horse and carriage days has now been turned into a small garden center and gift shop. Neville Grant, the owner and the shop’s proprietor, has put in a pottery studio and has converted the blacksmith’s furnace into a kiln for firing his hand crafted pottery.

  Little Carrington, surprisingly, since it was originally the smaller of the two villages was, at one time, the market place for the whole of the immediate area. Because of the market, Little Carrington eventually outgrew its neighbour in terms of homes and also in population. In the two villages combined, the present day total of permanent residents is just a few less than five hundred people, with two thirds of them living in Little Carrington.

  A large stone cross, enclosed in a circle and on a pedestal, dating back to the Saxon era, marks the center of the village, with the village green and a large pond directly opposite on one side of the road. In the early days, the pond was used to water cattle that were brought in to the market. The ivy covered Black Bull Inn and pub is on the other. The Inn is flanked on the right by the only bank in the two villages.

  It has also made sense for the two communities to also maintain a small police force of five between them, with a sergeant, three young constables and an office girl, in Little Carrington. They have a tiny police station right beside the bank. For direction they come under the jurisdiction of the Cambridge Constabulary who provide local crime and case investigation units when or where needed.

  The location of the police station right next door is a very agreeable arrangement as far as the bank manager is concerned. The area post office is lo
cated on the other side of the Inn.

  On market days, a practice still carried out but for a now much larger area, stalls are set up around the central monument in Little Carrington. Some of the towns and villages were even named for their market activity, such as Market Drayton. From Little Carrington’s monument three roads fan out from it like the Mercedes star. The village green is located between two of the arms of the star.

  Situated to the north and with easy access, is the A603, which was a former Roman road. It has the closest petrol and service station, plus a taxi service, in the area. The A603 joins the A1198 over to the east, which runs south through Royston and on down towards London.

  During the war, British and American bombers passed low over the villages, depending upon the weather and the wind direction, either taking off or landing at nearby Bassingbourn R.A.F station..

  Only those that are referred to as ‘other’ roads on a road map actually come into Little Carrington to form the ‘star’. One of them then runs south, over the stone boundary bridge over the Cam’s tributary and through the center of Great Carrington. It continues on to join up with the A505 south east of Royston.

  There has been a friendly rivalry between the two villages for as long as anyone can remember and even beyond that. Photos of some of the cricket and football matches, dating back to the early days of photography, are on display in both village halls. Cricket matches are held on the larger Green in Little Carrington and soccer matches are played on a field just outside Great Carrington.

  Darts teams compete in the four pubs for an annual trophy, as do the Garden Club members at the annual Rose and Garden Show. Great Carrington is always the site of the Annual Garden Party and Fete held on their village green and partially under a large canvas marquee. Little Carrington responds each year by having the huge Guy Fawkes Night bonfire and fireworks display in the field behind Albert Harriman’s stables.

  On Christmas Eve, as he and his wife have done for years, they set up a live Nativity scene using local school children as the actors. After the children’s performance, Little Carrington hosts a Christmas party for the residents of both villages at their own village hall and includes any tourists or relatives who might be visiting. Although hosted by the village, it is always financed by the local Lord of the Manor who plays a very jolly Santa Claus. He gives each child a small gift, also at his own expense.

  To save on costs they operate one large school for the children of both villages. It is located near the Great Carrington’s St. Stephen’s church, with its tall steeple and bell tower.

  The old stone building that now houses the only school had been the parish workhouse during the early Victorian era. Thankfully, although records are still kept, there is no longer any sign of its former use.

  There is no logical rhyme or reason for the layout of either village. Tile and thatched roofed cottages jostle each other for space in a veritable hodge-podge in both villages. They are randomly connected by narrow, winding lanes and paths, edged with hawthorn bushes and wild holly. Yellow primroses bloom in the ditches at their bases in the springtime.

  Some of the cottages, with their tiny rooms, low oak beamed ceilings and steep winding staircases, are crowded close together, particularly the older ones. Some, as the villages grew are several hundred yards and more apart. As the need arose over the centuries, more cottages and additions were built wherever there was easily cleared land. Consequently both villages now covered a couple of square miles or more with the cottages meandering aimlessly off in every direction. Many of them are reachable only by the narrow lanes and pathways.

  To travel from one end of the parish to the other, taking in both villages and perhaps passing less than fifty per cent of the homes, would take an average person upwards of three hours, even at a brisk walk.

  Some of the winding roads, especially those entering and exiting Little Carrington, once dirt, gravel or cobbled, are now paved.

  It was not a common practice to replace wooden fences either, unless one had completely rotted away and had fallen down, so many of them, unpainted, are always green with mossy mildew.

  Because of the original feudal system, these villages, like their counterparts in other area of the country have their own manor house. Although the current occupant no longer owns their cottages or the land they sit on, he is still referred to by the villagers as the ‘Lord of the Manor’. The title is actually in keeping with his position in the community.

  His name is Sir Alfred Allenby, a magistrate who presides at the County court over in Cambridge. Adjacent to the northern boundary fences of Sir Alfred’s land stands the ancient convent of St. Mary, Martyr, whose nuns run a small emergency hospital for the area. They have local doctors from other nearby towns and villages on call for serious cases that need immediate attention until the patient can be transferred to the hospital in Cambridge.

  Many of the buildings that are now tourist shops, and are festooned with ivy, clematis, wisteria or climbing roses, have been converted from the existing ones that have stood there for hundreds of years in their oak beamed and thatched roofed glory.

  A family consisting of a grandfather, a father and mother and three strapping sons carry on a trade as old as the villages are themselves. They are the roof thatching craftsmen covering an area of a hundred miles and more if required. They, unless the boys marry and pass on their knowledge to their own sons, may be some of the last of their dying breed.

  Some of the larger houses, dating from Elizabethan times, have blackened oak Tudor exterior beaming. Others, from the Georgian period, have multi-gabled roofs. Thankfully, for the appearance of the villages at least, no modern buildings exist at all in either village. The only visible concessions to modern living occur on the inside.

  There you will find most of the accoutrements of modern twenty-first century living, where the old stone fireplaces, still in place as decorations, have given way to hot water central radiator heating, plus electric stoves, refrigerators and large flat screen televisions, proving that the villages’ picture postcard image is merely an illusion. One of many illusions, as it happens in this pretty place.

  Other small villages in the area are still identified by the old fashioned wooden ‘finger’ signposts located at the junctions of the local roads, lanes and cart tracks.

  Sometimes, in the spirit of an unknown adventure for some poor unsuspecting tourist, the local kids, being just as mischievous as their city counterparts, turn the signposts around. The posts turn quite easily since generations of kids have done the same thing to them over the years. Sometimes even just a high wind will turn them.

  The frustrated tourists, usually in rented cars, will be directed by the signs, via dirt lanes and cattle tracks, only to find themselves right back where they had started out a half an hour earlier.

  And those are the lucky ones. Others can find themselves, with barely enough room to turn around, at the dead end of a cattle track or a lane. Any further forward progress is prevented either by a stile or a five barred gate leading into a meadow with peacefully grazing cows.

  Knowing that this kind of thing is likely to happen, David Bowen, the enterprising local Doomsday Book print maker also makes, sells and recommends a copy of his own hand drawn local map, with all the points of interest in the area identified. Purchasers of the map are advised to ignore the signposts totally and just turn right or left at intersections as directed on the map.

  He points out that, apart from saving them a great deal of aggravation, it will, when framed, make a great memento of their trip when they get back home. The map is also beautifully illustrated with line drawings of many of the points of interest.

  Of course, he hints darkly, without one of his maps, they may never, ever get back home!

  David Bowen’s comment was only intended to promote the sales of his maps and he didn’t realize for a moment how close to the actual truth his words could turn out to be. Pretty things, whether they are people or places, can often just
be a façade, like the cottages of Carrington, ancient on the outside but ultra-modern on the inside.

  Much the same as is said of the beautiful swan, in fact, as it glides upon the waters of a river or pond and hardly causes a ripple. Who would think that the poor bird is paddling away like crazy underneath sometimes just to maintain that serene and unruffled appearance?

  So it is with the villages of Great and Little Carrington. On the surface, they are very quaint, pretty and full of friendly people, but, like the swan, there is much more going on beneath that surface that is never seen by the casual observer above it.

  David Bowen’s comment about not being able to go home was much closer to the truth than he could ever have imagined because things were about to change drastically in these little villages apparently forgotten by time and progress. One of those who would never make it back home was a temporary visitor from the south.

  Soon David’s words will have good cause to be remembered and a part of that change has already been caused by the arrival of just one more new person to Little Carrington. That addition is a woman who intends to stay too, since she has just bought the cottage of Emily Parsons who passed away four months ago from a brain hemorrhage. Poor Emily, a widow, was only forty six.

  Ella Thomas, the new owner, is a beautiful, serene, confident looking and apparently single young woman of about twenty five, blonde, with cornflower blue eyes and a stunning figure. She appears to also be very friendly and eager to become an active member of the community. Ella wants to turn her cottage into a women’s hairdressing salon and beauty parlor, something that doesn’t currently exist in either of the villages.

  Little Carrington already has a barber shop run by a small Italian who had been a prisoner of war in 1944. When the war was over, he decided to stay and get married to an English girl from the village. Gino Silvestri, now a widower, is in his late eighties and is assisted by his bachelor son, Marco, who is in his early sixties. They only cut men’s and boy’s hair.