Part 2

I sat at my desk and pondered on what Cherry had found. Five deaths, spread over nearly forty years, was difficult to understand. The motive may be lost in time, maybe they weren’t linked at all. Maybe, the AI had just come up with gobbledegook. Maybe, no, certainly, this was going over my head this time.

I made an appointment to see Dawlish, to give him a heads-up on the case, as well as advanced notice of technology that could well change the way we worked in the future. He, like me, shook his head and wondered where this would take us. We spoke about the future, worried that we would just get AI to predict things, like marches, riots, protests, and the like. Or it could be programmed to follow cases to find links, with the idea that it could predict an upcoming robbery or murder. It was worse than the current trend of changing DNA to eliminate genetic defects. It was all leading to a grey society, led by a computer.

For the next few days, we all kept our heads down and got on with our work. I was deep into planning the floorplan of the new facility when Julia asked if we could all get together to talk about the ‘Redcoat Conundrum’. We had received the hard copy file from Rossiter, at Pontefract, as well as the two from the cold case archives in Lincoln. We already had the two local ones in our own storage.

We gathered in the lunchroom and Julia gave us a precis of what she had found.

“With the latest case, I’m not much further forward than before. The door-to-door investigations found that Robert Everard was a quiet man, who only went out to shop or visit the local pub. One person, who knew him a bit better, said that he would wear the Redcoat uniform once a year to attend a reunion in Filey. That, I’ve found out, was the last time he had been seen, some three weeks before he was found. The forensic report suggests that his bloating overcame the weight effect of the stones found in the pockets of his jacket. We can then assume that he was killed on the way home. He didn’t have a car and had arrived at Filey by bus. He may have been offered a lift and was killed by his benefactor.”

I nodded. “We need to get a list of all those that attended that reunion.”

“I’m on to that, Polly. They will get back to me with whatever they can. Now, the two found at power stations. They are a real puzzle because the way those places ran, the only way the bodies could have been placed is by someone lugging them in on the ground, or by dropping one from a plane, and the other through a heavy inspection plate. Both power stations were leaders in coal delivery, using what they called a ‘merry-go-round’ system. They both got deliveries from the Welbeck and then the Meden Vale collieries, and then from overseas when both of those were shut down. The coal arrived in railway trucks, specially made with bottom opening doors. The trains usually carried a thousand tons, in thirty-two-ton trucks. The unloading was automatic as the train passed over grids at a very slow pace, so there was no way the bodies could have arrived like that. The coal was then sent, by conveyor, to the boiler house bunkers or to the stocking area. The process was overseen by a control room, and there were cameras to detect unusual items on the conveyors. It was very slick, with the empty train leaving in an hour from arriving.”

“What about the victims?”

“That’s where it gets interesting. The first one, Edwin Duncan, was from Grimsby, and the last time he had been to a reunion was in 2022, here, in Skegness. The next one back, Jeremy Batchelor, had been to a reunion, also here, in Skegness, back in 2019. Both reports show that they were happily living out their retirement in pensioner units in Ingoldmells and were frequent visitors to the current Butlins.”

“OK, that’s a good start. What did you get from the earlier cases?”

“Walter Watson was last seen at a reunion, at Clacton, in 2003. It was a twenty-year get-together of the closing of the place. Because there was, by that time, no camp buildings left, they had got together in a new pub, built on the northern edge of what used to be the amusement park. Our latest victim, and both of the others, didn’t attend that one. Walter had stayed in Clacton, after the closing, to work as a barman in one of the hotels. He did have family in this area.”

“Right, the oldest one, then.”

“We have the facts here and it’s pretty straight-forward. Allan Stevens had started in Skegness, then went to Filey. He was there when Robert went there, and they both went to Clacton in 1980. Stevens left Butlins at the end of ’83 and came back to Skegness to get other work. He was, like his brother Harry, a good electrician. Locals who were interviewed said that he was a sad man, with a chip on his shoulder the size of a house. He was reputed to be a drinker and a worry for his older brother. A few nights before he was found in the outlet grate, he had been at his usual pub. The publican told the officers that it looked as if he had been drinking before he got there. He got into an argument with a regular, then stormed out and got on his motorcycle and roared off. The brother went to report him missing because he hadn’t turned up to work on an important job that they needed to do. After the body had been found, the brother was called to the police station to identify it, because the motorcycle, with his clothes and wallet, had been found up-river, in a secluded spot, after the body had been recovered. It had been a wet year and the Drain was flowing strongly with run-off from the fields further inland. The body was released to the brother, who had a cremation service, then proceeded to get on with his life, I suppose. I can’t see where it fits with the others, as we know all the facts and it all leads to what the coroner decided. ‘Suicide due to the mind becoming unbalanced.’

“All right, then. Put that one aside, for the moment, and see if you can find out more about the others. The reunions have to be a strong link with how they were chosen, and the fact that they were all together at Clacton means that we’re going to have to check their records, if they still exist. Cherry and Julia, when you have the time, go to Butlins, here, and see if they have any old photos of any of these guys, there are always heaps of pictures taken, especially if they were performers. See if you can find any links, they may have had overlapping acts, they may have shared a chalet. Anything that you can come back with will be good. I’ll get on to Rossiter to tell him where we stand.”

After that, I left them to it and worried about my own life changes. Over the next couple of weeks, we signed the paperwork for North Mymms, paid the deposit and was given all the keys. Bill organised a company to come in and rebuild the kitchen, bathroom and add an ensuite to the main bedroom, losing some of the spare room in the process. They would be there for about two months. Steve had arranged a refinancing of our mortgage, with the payments remaining the same, and Angela had organised her deposit for her old house.

To be as helpful as we could, we started taking things to the new house, to keep in the rooms that the workers weren’t going to touch and allowed Angela to start moving her things into the space that we had cleared. The longer I spent in North Mymms, the more I loved it.

The Redcoat case was going nowhere, Skegness had looked into their records and had confirmed that all five had worked there, at one time or another. They had come up with some photos that helped, for a while. One showed Robert Everard on stage, in a magician outfit, with a blonde girl in the Redcoat outfit; red jacket, white pleated skirt and white sneakers. Another was Duncan and Batchelor at microphones with a piano player behind them. They were dressed as Flanagan and Allen.

Filey had come up with similar pictures, along with the information that the people we were looking into were solid performers and good employees. As far as Clacton went, it was a total zero. All paperwork had gone to head office in 1983, and subsequently destroyed in 1995 when it was decided that it was no longer needed. No-one could tell us if there were any photos, or posters, and it was suggested that we tried the internet sales sites.

At the Annex, we became busy with a lot of work, tracking illegal immigrants and the ones who organised their arrivals in the country. Around October, we had a bit of a lull in the workload, and I decided that we had to be proactive regarding the Redcoats. I booked rooms at a hotel in Clacton and took Cherry for a field trip in detecting, leaving Cathy in charge.

When we got to Clacton, we checked in and drove down to where Butlins used to be. It was now a large housing estate. We stopped for lunch in the pub where the reunions once took place. On their walls were lots of photos of what used to be when the holiday camp was the place to go to. The waitress pointed out the site where the present pub is, at the end of a row of seaside shops. She told me that her mother had worked in one, selling fairy floss and toffee apples. Between the row of shops and the camp, in an aerial picture, was a large amusement park. I was able to get an idea of scale with a Martello Tower that was a little way along the coast, on the outer edge of the camp. Clacton had been one of the biggest camps, with around twelve thousand visitors a week.

Cherry and I were taking it all in, with her taking pictures on her phone to take back to the office. I asked the waitress if they still had reunions and she told me that there wasn’t many from the town that had worked at the camp as Redcoats, most of those brought in from around the country. The locals were mainly older and only did the cleaning and laundry work, so, to them it was just a job. This meant that anybody who had worked there were mostly dead, seeing that it had now been forty years since it closed, or had left the area.

“You could try Norman if he’s still around. He was the camp manager in the last few years, and he organised the few reunions that we did host. The last was about eight years ago, but I’ll get Jean, our manager, to look on the computer to see if there’s still a contact number for him.”

We sipped on our lemonades until she came back with a slip of paper. On it was the name – Norman Hurst – and a phone number.

“That’s the number for the retirement home he was living in. He might have died, last time he was here he told me that he was turning seventy.”

Outside, I rang the number and found that Norman was still in the land of the living, in good health, and would welcome visitors. They gave me directions, not that far away, on the other side of the pier in what used to be a hotel. We parked outside and went in to make ourselves known.

We were shown into a lounge area, where we were greeted with hoots and offers to marry us. I had seen something similar when I had visited my father, not long before he died, but it was a new experience for Cherry, who flushed, so adding to the ribald welcome. They all quietened down, and we sat next to Norman, in easy chairs around a small table.

He was still spritely, but in that shrinking era. He had a walking stick next to his chair. We introduced ourselves and that piqued his interest, immediately.

“What can I do for a couple of detectives. Last time I did anything wrong I was still at school. I can’t give the apples back, now, can I?’

“Not here for that, Norman. We are looking into a case where we have some old Redcoats who have turned up dead, over the last forty years. They had all been at the Clacton camp in the few years before it was closed. A lady down at the pub where you had your reunions gave us your contact number. We don’t do questions, these days. If I can record the conversation, can you tell me about yourself and how you came to be the camp manager?”

I put my recorder on the table, switched it on and sat back.

“What, no ‘tell me everything or you’ll be down the nick, sonny boy’, the way they do it on TV?”

“No, Norman, we try to be much more civilised. Were you a Clacton boy?”

“Born and bred. Local primary school, local high school. I got a summer job at the amusement park in the summer of ’64. A callow sixteen-year-old. They paid two bob an hour and all the coins you could find in the ride cars. We used to have sand in them that stopped the coins rolling around. Some of those rides could get three or four G if they were worked right. Those days, you would ride on the platforms and give the cars a bit of an extra push. There was one ride that had ups and downs, designed to spin the car once on each incline. Do it properly and you could get it spinning twice. I made about twelve quid a week in wages and about twenty quid a week with my share of the lost coins. I did a gardening job over the winter and was back on the rides as soon as they opened. That first year was so exciting, it just had to be my future. They made a film, in the camp, that year, with John Leyton and Mike Sarne. My favourite, though, was Grazina Frame. I was running the Big Wheel when they filmed a dance scene on the promenade. The director wanted the wheel to be kept going but I did have to stop it a few times, to let holidaymakers off who had been going around for a half an hour.”

“Were you interested in the film making?”

“Hell, no. I was interested in that Grazina. Not much of a voice but the biggest knockers that had graced this town. The film didn’t do much when it was released, a bit like a B version of a ‘Carry On’ picture. They called it ‘Every Day’s a Holiday’ and it was released in the US as ‘Seaside Swingers’. Nobody has even heard of it now, even though it had Freddy and the Dreamers in it.”

“Did you get to meet them?”

“No way, I couldn’t go into the camp. The amusements were run by Southern Amusements, not Butlins. I only got into the camp in winter when the Winter Club was on.”

“A Winter Club, I’ve never heard of that.”

“I don’t know if any of the other camps did it, but they opened the main building for the locals. You paid a fee for an entry badge, and it was open every day. Virtually no staff, but there was plenty to do with the heated pool, snooker, and table tennis. There were two bars that were open, as well as the dance hall right at the front. The best bit was that it was warm. I met my wife there, a few years after I had got a job in the camp as an office boy. She was a bit younger than me, and had just left school, so was looking for a job. I put in a good word for her, and she was taken on as a general cleaner in the winter, and a chalet cleaner in the summer. She was well overqualified but was happy to be working without having to go to Colchester or London.”

“She isn’t still here?”

“No, she was taken, far too early, with the big C. We had a good forty odd years, so I can’t complain. After the camp closed, I got a job as Office Manager at an electrical company in Little Clacton, until I retired. The council wanted my big house and put me in here with this lot of losers.”

“The period we’re interested in is the last few years before the close. Especially Robert Everard and his friends.”

“Robby, now there’s a card. Called himself the Great Mesisto, Illusionist Extraordinaire. He was good, especially with the kiddy shows. He was one of a group I called my Solid Six. Most of them were performers, not your Front Of House Redcoats. They didn’t live at the camp in the summer, had digs in the town. When you’ve worked until after midnight, you don’t need ‘Greensleeves’ coming over the in-chalet PA system at six in the morning.”

“Do you still have photos?”

“Do I! They take me back to fun times. Help me up and I’ll show them to you.”

We helped him stand and he turned to the others in the room.

“Just taking these nice ladies to see my etchings, if I’m not back in an hour, I’ll be in my room with a smile on my face.”

“Don’t bullshit, Norm, you haven’t cracked a fat in fifteen years!”

He, and I, were chuckling as we went to his room. Cherry was stoney faced. I don’t think that she had been around really old people before. In his room there were photos everywhere. He picked up one and showed it to us.

“That’s the group you’re talking about, in Redcoat outfits. There’s Robby, Edwin, Jeremy, Walter, and Snowflake. Robby was, as I said, an Illusionist, and Snowflake was his assistant. Edwin and Jeremy were great singers, they would do a whole range of shows. If you wanted singing cowboys, tramps, Everly Brothers, whatever, they could do it. Walter was a lovely tenor, and was lead in a lot of shows, where they did short versions of popular movies.”

“What about Allan Stevens?”

“Ah! Allan wasn’t a proper Redcoat, only on the books that way to allow him the perks of the job. He was an electrician, an expert in stage lighting. He didn’t have the temperament to be a host Redcoat, and it took a lot of work from the others to keep him out of trouble. He drank a bit too much.”

“What about Snowflake, that has to be a stage name?”

“The name, in the books, was Jeffrey Hake. He told me that his nickname, from school, had been Hake the Flake. As you can see by this picture, he made a lovely girl. He had acquired a proper Redcoat outfit to wear and even had an official badge with Snowflake on it. She was wonderful with the children, and a few of the male guests thought she was pretty good, as well.”

“So, where is she now?”

“I don’t know. It was an odd time, there in ’83, knowing that everyone would be out of a job at the end of the season. She came to see me, a few weeks before the shut-down. She wanted to resign but told me not to say anything to the others. I paid her out at the end of the week, and, on the Monday, she told the others that she wasn’t feeling too well. While they were at work, she packed her things and left, not even leaving a note. She had let on, to me, that she had a thing going with a comedian that had been playing at the camp that summer. He had finished the week before. He may have picked her up, or she may have just got on a train. Either way, the boys were mystified when they got back to their digs.”

“How did they take it?”

“From what I heard, later, Bobby made a joke about having made her disappear, once and for all, and the others said that she must have got tired of Allan. Allan went off like a rocket, I believe that for all his macho posturing, he had a soft spot for her, even while he knew that she wasn’t really she, at all.”

“So, you wouldn’t be surprised if I told you that he committed suicide a year later?”

“I sure would be surprised! That guy may have been a bit crazy and a drunkard, but he would have hit someone first, rather than end it.”

“Did you hear from her?”

“Yes, she sent me a card from Lands’ End. She said that she was enjoying her honeymoon and had arranged for some surgery. That would have been late in the year. The card was sent to the camp, she knew that I would be there for a year or more, managing the shut-down of all the facilities, and the shipping of all the furnishings to other camps.”

“How would you feel if I told you that all five guys are dead?”

“A couple were older than me, so it wouldn’t be a surprise. It has to be more than that if you came here to talk to me.”

“It is. Four of the five have been murdered and dumped in strange places. The first death was Stevens, in 1984, and the latest was this year, Robby being found in a lake in Pontefract, where he was living. The only link we have is that they were all together, with you, between ’81 and ’83, although they had all worked together, in smaller groups, at a lot of camps.”

Cherry, finally, spoke up.

“Norman, I see that all the Redcoats in these photos have badges on their jackets. What are they?”

He went to a drawer and pulled out a roll of cloth. He unrolled it on the bed.

“Every camp, every year, had a new badge. In the early days, all incoming campers were given one. It was their entry badge if they had left the camp. What you see here are all ones I picked up as I worked. There are a few odd ones, there are eight from Saltdean, that was a Butlins Hotel, which was open over winter. My wife and I had a few Christmas holidays there, getting staff discount. You didn’t have to leave the hotel and was a real rest for us.”

“So, at the reunions, anybody wearing the uniform would be wearing their badges?”

“Oh, yes. It was a matter of pride. Of course, some old Redcoats couldn’t wear them all, you’d hardly be able to stand. Someone like Robby would have had twenty or thirty.”

Cherry looked at me and I mentally agreed that we had everything we could use, so said that we would be going. He took us back up to the lounge, and we said goodbye to them all and thanked them for their happiness. On the way back to the car, I asked Cherry, “What did we take from that?”

“Pretty much what we knew before, with a little more depth to the victims, but not enough to take us towards the killer. I’ll look up Hake or Flake to see what I can find. There may be a wedding certificate, or a name change on file, somewhere.”

Marianne Gregory © 2023