Burley Cross Postbox Theft Read Free Page B

‘he had just started a nose bleed and only had one tissue’.)
    The crime was reported to us (with almost
indecent
alacrity, Rog) at 21.12, by Susan Trott – of Black Grouse Cottage – who had been, I quote: ‘out looking for hedgehogs when I was horrified to notice the postbox door had fallen off and was just lying there, on the ground’.
    The report PC Hill submitted was, to put it generously, a tad perfunctory (you will notice that some of his ‘extra thoughts’ were jotted down on to torn shreds of chip paper – that fool in Supplies has so much to answer for!).
    No serious attempt was made to dust the crime scene for fingerprints because – as you can read for yourself – it had been ‘bucketing down with rain all morning’.
    His search for any kind of tool or instrument which might’ve been used to engineer the break-in was limited to ‘a quick peek in a nearby hedge’, where he was surprised to discover ‘a rusty, old biscuit-tin containing two slightly mildewed pornographic magazines:
Trumpet for Boys
(Issue 13, June 1998), and
Golden Horns
(Issue 4, December 2002)’. As you can probably detect from the titles, Rog, they were directed towards the specialist brass band enthusiast’s market, and aren’t currently included in the body of evidence because PC Hill took them home for ‘further detailed scrutiny’ (he plays a wind instrument himself; possibly the clarinet), and has yet to bring them back.
    While it obviously pains me to level criticism at an officer from my own division, Rog, I don’t believe, in all candour, that PC Hill initially appreciated the true gravity of the Burley Cross Postbox Theft scenario – a serious schoolboy error for a young bobby of his obvious talent and considerable potential (and talking of errors, Rog, I think you’ll agree that he really
does
need to learn the correct spellings of ‘necessary’ and ‘instigated’).
    Even so, there’s a perfectly passable description of the condition of the box itself. (‘Overall, the thing’s in a pretty terrible state. I’m surprised it’s still functional. It’s falling to pieces… There’s a bit of botched-up paintwork covering several inches of rust around the base, and another bit around the door’s hinges… To break into it, all you’d’ve really needed to do was jab at it for a while with a flat screwdriver or a putty knife…’)
    You will doubtless already be aware of the backstory re the postbox, Rog. The Royal Mail – or Consignia (or whatever jumped-up moniker they’re giving themselves nowadays) – have been trying to replace it with a modern box for the past three years and have been repeatedly foiled in their attempts bya shadowy – but nevertheless deeply influential – pressure group in the village called The Burley Cross Preservation Corps.
    The Corps is controlled by Independent local borough councillor (and gibbering idiot) Baxter Thorndyke. Thorndyke is also a staunch mainstay of both The Burley Cross Public Toilet Watch (est. 2005), and The Burley Cross Road Safety Committee, a group whose chief aim is to encourage motorists to stick to the busy A road that bypasses the village, rather than taking the – admittedly, rather tempting – short-cut straight through the heart of it (they have their own luminous, faux-military uniform and functioning speed gun – which they bought on the internet – and spend many a pleasant hour each week pointing it at random drivers and intimidating them with it).
    You will know yourself, Rog, that the postbox at issue is actually situated in Ilkley Constabulary’s policing territory (I rue the day some pea-brain on Wharfedale Council found themselves with a spare half-hour to waste before lunch one morning, and saw fit to spend it cheerfully reallocating the police boundary for Burley Cross, dividing it, haphazardly, between our two adjacent forces. For the record, I still don’t know who’s responsible for the barn and outbuildings at Deep Fell