Dead if You Don’t

69

Sunday 13 August

10.00–11.00

Shortly after 10 a.m., Sharon Sampson shouted goodbye to her husband, who was somewhere upstairs, and stepped out of the front door of their house on Shoreham Beach to take two of their dogs, working cocker spaniels Cider and Becks, for a walk — or, more accurately, for the dogs to take her. The boisterous Becks, still a puppy, yanked hard on the lead, ignoring his owner’s shrill commands — ‘Heel! Heel, Becks, heel!’ — while Cider was better behaved, and proud of it.

Struggling to keep upright in the blustery wind, and to hang on to Becks until she reached the place where it was safe to let them free without any risk of them running out onto a road, she hung on to the leads, yanking Becks’s and shouting, futilely. They traversed the grass verge above the pebble beach until they reached the end of the street at the parking area for the Shoreham Redoubt, more colloquially known to locals as Shoreham Fort.

Constructed in the 1850s to defend the harbour against an anticipated invasion by Napoleon III, it had been capable of housing a garrison of thirty-eight soldiers. The intention was to provide a rota manning the six massive cannon and the rifle stations sited behind a long, low brick wall behind a ditch. There was a network of tunnels beneath, along which soldiers could move, unseen and protected from enemy fire, giving a clear line of sight across the pebbles to the sea and to any vessel attempting to enter the port.

The invasion never happened, the fort was abandoned and for nearly a century and a half Mother Nature steadily reclaimed the remote, windswept and desolate site, until 2003, when it became the passion of local historian Gary Baines to restore it, with a grant from English Heritage, and the support of volunteers.

Sharon Sampson knelt to unclip the leads. To her left beyond a row of picnic benches was the River Adur, and the picturesque shore-front of Shoreham Village on the far side. To her right was a long, crumbling, buttressed flint and brick wall, with dunes and a shingle beach beyond running down to the English Channel. A green, corrugated-iron structure, erected during the Second World War, housed a small museum of the fort’s history, which was manned sporadically, when funds allowed. And equally, when time allowed, the volunteers attempted to shore up the fort walls against the constant battering from the salty winds fresh off the English Channel only yards away, and from regular vandalism by local youths well aware that the police rarely came along here on their patrols.

As she walked on, the dogs racing happily ahead now, Becks bouncing around, Sharon’s pulse suddenly began to race, also. Ahead of her was the café, an attractive white clapboard hut with the sign FOOD FOR FORT and a mural that always made her smile of two seated Victorian police constables. When it was open it sold ice creams, sandwiches and soft drinks.

But today something was different about it. Something wrong. She quickened her pace and as she grew closer she could see spray-paint graffiti above the mural. In large writing were the words Pigs = Filth and Mick Likes Big Tits.

Sharon considered it her civic duty to phone in every fresh incident of vandalism she encountered here. It angered her that such an important part of Sussex’s history was so poorly protected. Glancing around to see if there was any other graffiti that had appeared since yesterday, something quite different caught her eagle eye.

She frowned at the steel door at the entrance to one of the six brick chambers that housed the cannon. She had been taken down there once, by Gary Baines, but you could only go at low tide as much of the chamber was now below sea level. It was on the schedule of restoration projects, but this particular gun emplacement was a very long way down the list of priorities.

Something was odd about the door. Different. Definitely. She took a step towards it. Before retiring to spend more time showing her dogs, she had worked as a continuity expert on film and television sets. Her brain was programmed — she had no idea how or why — to register anomalies, and it was definitely registering one now. But what?

Then she realized. There was a padlock and chain, both of them shiny new. The old rusty one she was certain had been there yesterday had been replaced. But there was only one person who could possibly have replaced it; that was Gary Baines. And at this moment Gary was away on holiday in Cornwall where he had been for over a week, though he was due back later today.

She pulled her phone out of her anorak pocket and dialled 999. When it was answered she requested the police.

It was almost a minute later that a female voice said, ‘Police, emergency, how may I help you?’

‘Do you realize how long you’ve taken to answer?’ Sharon Sampson said, indignantly.

‘I’m sorry, madam, we are very busy. What is your emergency, please?’

‘I would like to report new vandalism at Shoreham Fort, please, and something suspicious.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘A new padlock, and I don’t know why it’s there. It might be pikeys, stealing metal from the cannon — they steal it from everywhere, don’t they?’

‘The location is Shoreham Fort? May I have your name and phone number?’ Although she made the request, Grace Holkham in the Force Control Room already knew who the caller was. Sharon Sampson was one of their regulars. All the same, she still dutifully noted it in the CAD log to go up on the system as a reported crime.

The woman went on to describe the graffiti, to mention again the suspicious new padlock and to explain that the man in charge of the restoration was away. When she had finished, the call handler said, ‘Madam, with respect, you have called the emergency number, 999, and this is not an emergency situation. Really you should be reporting this on the police force’s non-emergency number, 101.’

‘Look,’ Sharon said, indignantly. ‘You may not consider the destruction of our heritage an emergency, but I do, and I expect you to do something about it. Kindly get a police officer here right away.’

‘I’ll see what I can do about getting someone along to investigate, madam,’ Grace Holkham assured her.

‘I won’t hold my breath,’ Sharon Sampson replied.

‘We are very busy at the moment, I’m afraid, madam. A lot of it because of calls like yours,’ she added, unable to resist the dig.

The sound of barking distracted Sharon. She looked, in alarm, as Becks, barking furiously, raced towards a tiny Yorkshire terrier.

‘Becks! Becks!’ she yelled and broke into a run. ‘Becks!’

The spaniel grabbed the tiny dog by the scruff of its neck and began shaking it.

‘BECKS! BECKS! BECKS!’

In the Force Control Room, Grace Holkham terminated the call, fuming at the woman’s insensitivity. She stared at the screen, at the serial she had created for this call. VANDALISM AT SHOREHAM PORT. SUSPICIOUS NEW PADLOCK. S. SAMPSON. The truth was that twenty years ago when she had first started in this job, she would have sent a response or local officer to take a look, albeit on a non-urgent basis. But now with police resources stretched so thin, she was constantly having to make judgement calls that might seem, to the general public, callous. Tapping the keyboard again, she added the words NO FURTHER ACTION.