Midlands Canal Mystery: Scene 9: The True History of Sandon

That afternoon, three of us sat at the Dog & Doublet, not touching our fish-and-chip lunch, waiting for Gregory and Roger’s stepbrother, who lived in London, to find a lawyer for Roger. He, poor man, was having his lunch in gaol (as the Brits say) in nearby Weston.

“I can’t believe that Mr. Hedges called the police!” Gregory said for about the tenth time. “I can’t believe he knew it was pot.”

“I can,” I said. “You think he made it to the 21st century without ever being exposed to marijuana? Maybe his son – the one who fought in the Falklands – smoked dope. What I can’t believe is that the police could possibly buy their own theory of the case.”

According to the police, Roger saw Mr. Hedges walk by the pub and followed him to the canal – possibly to apologize – where he learned from the elderly man that he had reported Roger’s dope smoking to the authorities. In the heat of an argument, Roger broke the man’s femur and cracked his skull, then tried to hide the crime.

“Even putting aside the absurd idea that Roger could do something so heinous and stupid – –” I caught myself. Well, Roger was capable of stupidity... but not brutality. I went on: “There are too many unanswered questions. For example: What was that old man doing walking over a half-mile from his house in the middle of a rainstorm? I know the Brits like to walk, but that’s not reasonable!”

Caroline stood. “I can’t just sit here,” she said. “Maybe if we go back to the church we’ll meet somebody who can shed light on the warden’s actions yesterday.”

I highly doubted we’d meet anybody helpful, but I couldn’t refuse her, if for no other reason than the walk would do us all good.

After hurrying across the main intersection, Caroline and I waited for Gregory, who had lingered on the island to examine the WWI monument. “Guess what?” Gregory asked excitedly as he joined us, just one step ahead of a looming lorry. “A W.C. Hedges was one of the men killed in action.”

Caroline and I looked at him blankly. “Don’t you see?” he asked eagerly. “Maybe that was Hedges’ father and his death unhinged the son. He grew into a law-and-order freak: ‘My father fought in the Great War for our liberties…’” Gregory did a pretty good job of imitating the church warden’s Staffordshire accent. “I’ll bet there’s any number of townspeople he’s antagonized with his moralizations who might have given him a knock on the head.”

It was a possibility. Not a good one, but I didn’t say so – Gregory is very fond of his hypotheses. We trudged back up School Lane toward the church when we came upon the young man we had seen the day before, washing his car yet again. He must really love that thing, I chuckled to myself.

Caroline and I inspected various pamplets in the church foyer, hoping we could learn the names of people who might have had dealings with the warden. I picked up a red-covered, self-published booklet called “A History of Sandon,” written by a Mr. Robert Selby.

I thumbed through the pages of local history, learning that crime was not new to Sandon: infanticide, horse stealing, hedge-tearing and turnip-stealing littered the village’s history. On the penultimate page of the narrative, which described present-day Sandon, I was stopped by this sentence: “If one asked local people what they dislike about living in Sandon, almost certainly a large number would mention the ceaseless traffic….”

I thought a long moment, then turned to Caroline. “Let’s get to the police station. I think I know how Mr. Hedges died, and I think I even know who did it.”