Day 16

Chapter Five: The Stranger in the hat
I was eighteen, and in the first year of my English Literature degree. I’d always been interested in journalism, and had wanted to become an investigative journalist. It had been a long day – spent in the library researching a murder that had occurred in the area years before. MY class had been discussing it and were writing a paper on it. I was slight phased from all the reading, and was walking home. My flat wasn’t far from the library, thankfully, only a twenty-minute walk across town.
It was a Friday evening at the beginning of spring. Winter was well and truly behind us, and despite it still not being that warm, people were beginning to leave the coats at home. As I walked home through the rush hour crowds, I was deep in thought over my paper. I had been reading a newspaper report that seemed to cast some doubt as to the convicted killer’s guilt. My mobile rang. I pulled it out of my pocket. Only a text message from Kate, my girlfriend, wondering where I was. I hadn’t realised how long I had been reading – it was just getting dark and I had said I’d be home an hour before. I was writing a reply back as I stepped into the road.
Suddenly, I was jerked back by an unseen hand grabbing the collar of my coat. At the same time, a bus rushed past right in front of me, horn blaring. Whoever had grabbed me had stopped me from stepping out into its path saving my life.
Shaken I turned to offer my thanks. A man, in a long leather jacket, wearing a battered leather hat, smiled at me. “You should be more careful, my friend. Take care now.” He doffed his hat, then turned and was lost in the crowd.
I stayed where I was for a couple of minutes, still shaken by the near miss. Before continuing on my way home, I finished the message to Kate.
I didn’t think much more about the stranger in the hat. Not then, anyway.

Time passed. I finished my degree, graduating with full honours. Unable to get a job with any of the local papers, I was working as a researcher in the University library where I had spent so much of my degree.
I had been up to Essex to visit my parents. Since it was a fair distance, I wasn’t able to get to see them as often as I, or them, would have liked. Four hours in the car wasn’t much fun, but at least it was motorway most of the way.
It was about half way home when it happened. The traffic was not heavy, for a change, and I had just pulled out to over take a lorry. There was another car passing us in the right lane. As he passed us, his front tyre blew out. His car swerved into my Volkswagen Polo, pushing the small car left, into the side of the lorry.
I don’t remember the crash itself. I must have blacked out. The next thing I knew I was hanging from my seatbelt, upside down. Lots of noise. Someone pulling my door open. Unseen hands undid my seatbelt. “Come on, my friend. We have to get you out of here.” The figure pulled me from the wreckage of our car, and dragged me over to the hard shoulder. I passed out in pain, and my last memory was of the man who had pulled me free, looking down from under his leather hat.
It was two weeks before I regained consciousness. There was nothing anyone could have done. I asked about the stranger who had pulled me out of the wreckage. No-one had seen him, or anyone else for that matter, pull me out. They had thought I had not been wearing my seat belt, and had somehow been miraculously thrown clear before the rolling car had hit landed in the hard shoulder and burst into flames. I assured them I had been wearing my belt, and that someone had pulled me out.
It was two months before I could walk again. When I finally returned home, my life was in pieces, I was in a kind of limbo moving from one day to the next without meaning, without aim. I returned to the library, and became withdrawn. I found solace in the comforting smell of old books. I thought about the stranger in the hat. The more I considered it, the more convinced I was that it was the same person as had saved me from the bus. I mentioned him to the few friends I had. My Guardian Angel, they called him.

Time passed, as it is wont to do. I started work on an assignment to organise the libraries collection of newspaper cuttings so that they could be searched more easily. It was a huge task, as there was a collection going back nearly 150 years of the local paper, the Evening Gazette. It was pretty monotonous work, scanning in each page and checking that it was readable. As I progressed through the boxes starting from the 1850s, I found myself reading more of the stories as I went and looking at the photos getting a feel for life back then.
And that was when I saw the stranger in that hat again.
Flicking through the 10th June 1937 edition my attention was caught by a photograph. It showed a burning house, with the usual crowd of onlookers. A crew of firemen were tackling the blaze, and a bucket chain had been set up. To one side, facing the camera was a man holding two children in his arms. The man was wearing a long coat, stained with smoke. It looked slightly out of place given the fashion worn by other people; perhaps that was why it had drawn my attention. Either that, or the wide brimmed hat he was wearing. Both reminded me of the figure that had smiled at me after the bus had almost hit me, and the last thing I saw after the car crash. But it made no sense. It couldn’t be the same person. And yet, something about the figure told me that it was.
The accompanying story was of how three children had been saved from a burning house. The story went on to say how eyewitnesses saw a man run out with the two girls, then go back into the flaming building. They thought he was going to be killed, but miraculously came out unscathed with the third child. No one had known who the stranger was, and he had disappeared before the photographer could take a photo of the hero, however he had managed to capture a shot of the man without his realising it.
The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. There wasn’t much more information given in the story, other than the name of the photographer, Adrian Slocombe.
Not expecting to get anywhere, I went over to the Internet computer and searched for the surname in the local phone book. There were five Slocombes in the area, one of which ran a photographic shop on the High Street. Not believing my luck, I took a copy of the story and photo, and took an early lunch break.
I found the shop easily, it was one I had been in to get photo’s developed before. I asked the young man on the counter if he were Mr. Slocombe.
“No, he’s the boss. He’s out the back, on his break. Can I help?”
I asked if there was any chance of talking to him, and explained that it was to do with an old photo, but the young lad didn’t want to interrupt his boss’ break. I showed took the photo out of the envelope I had carried it in.
“This is the photo. I’m interested in this man, the one wearing the hat. I think I’ve met him and wondered who he was.” I added conversationally.
At that moment, an elderly man came rushing out from the back office, still holding a half-eaten sandwich. “You’ve seen him? The man in the hat?” He took a breath “I overheard you talking to Mike,” he said. “Please, come through into the office.” As Mike rolled his eyes at me, the elderly man ushered me through to the back room. It was larger than expected, almost the same size again as the shop itself. Along one wall was a row of filing cabinets. There was a desk, untidy with sheets of paper strewn over it and haphazardly piled. Almost every available piece of wall space had a picture on it. Photographs, newspaper cuttings, all sorts.
“My name is Brian. Adrian was my father, who got me into photography. Please, tell me what brings you here.”
I explained about the photo, and showed it to him. His enthusiasm seemed to diminish when he realised that it was a photo his father had taken. I continued on with my story, mentioning how I had seen the figure twice before.
“You’ve met him?” Brian asked excitedly. “Amazing. It’s very rare that people remember him.”
I looked at him and surprise. “You know him?” I asked.
“No, alas. Take a look at the photos on the walls.”
I took a second, closer look at the newspaper cuttings and photos. In everyone, there was a figure in a long coat and wearing the now-familiar hat. In most cases, the figure was blurred or indistinct. However there were two shots clearly showing the man’s face. The same strong jaw line and slight smile that I remembered seeing twice. I looked at the headlines in the newspaper cuttings. Not all had photos, but they all had one thing in common. They were of a similar subject to the story I had found – a stranger saving someone, or helping to return something. ‘Stranger saves children from cable car’, ‘Woman saved from muggers’. Some were more obscure: ‘Stolen treasure located’. Others were in foreign languages, with scribbled translations next to them, along with locations. Mexico, Australia, German, all over the world.
Something occurred to me, and I looked over the cuttings again. The dates were widely spread out. Many were from the last twenty years or so, but there were some from before this, and one from the 1850s.
“How? Who?” I asked in astonishment.
“Please, take a seat and let me explain.” Brain said. “My father, as I told you, got me interested in photography. He had been a great photographer, and had many photos published over the years. He also gave me the puzzle you see before you. It started with the photo you brought me. My father had his shop opposite the house that was on fire, and he saw the whole rescue. As the reporter states, the unknown stranger arrived before the fire brigade had, and without hesitation ran into the building. He came out with two of the children, handed them to a bystander and then went back in for the third child.”
“So what was so strange?” I asked.
“It was a time when few people travelled. Most people knew their neighbours, their neighbourhood. Strangers were noticed. Not like today, with suspicion. Mostly just because they were something of a novelty. But that wasn’t the thing that caught my father’s attention.”
“Which was?” I prompted.
“He never told the reporter this, but he did follow the stranger, wanting to get his name. The figure walked off after handing the last child, going down the street. My father hurried after him. The man turned into an alley, a little way ahead of my father. He said he saw a flash of light, and when he got to the mouth of the alley, there was no one there.”
“Could the stranger have just gone through to the next street?”
“That was the thing – it was a dead end, just leading to the back doors of a shop. But that door was boarded up as the shop was closed down. My father is adamant there was no other way out – the stranger disappeared. Well, not quite completely. The only sign of the stranger that my father found was the long coat, with a pile of clothes. Shirt, trousers and so forth. Here, let me show you.”
Brian went over to one of the filing cabinets, and opened the large bottom drawer. He pulled out a bundle of something. “Here it is,” he said, handing it to me.
I unfolded it carefully. It turned out to be a long leather coat. Although it was the modern style that I had noticed, it looked as though it was indeed seventy years old. It was battered and dusty, and had clearly seen a lot of use.
Brian continued the story. “After my father found this, he started looking for the stranger. He found that in the next town a stranger had helped recover some stolen property and apprehended a gang of thieves. Again, no one knew who the man was, or how he had managed to subdue six thugs. And no one knew where he had gone afterwards. My father continued to investigate. He uncovered numerous stories over the years of the stranger in the hat. He would arrive mysteriously, perform some deed, then leave.” He waved at the walls. “These are all the stories that he found from around the world. I’ve continued the search, as you can see. With the internet, it has been easier to find news stories, from all over the world. We have sightings from the last hundred years, from over twenty different countries.”
“We? Your father and yourself?”
“Not since he died. I keep in touch with a professor at the British Museum. He has even stranger tales than I. He discovered a document from the British Government that was leaked by mistake. No one apart from the two of use recognised the significance of the report, so it wasn’t in the media. It was notes from a top-level meeting between the Prime Minister and the US President discussing the situation in the Falklands. Mention was made of an ‘advisor’ who was there, but we’ve checked and as far as we can tell, doesn’t exist. His name was Archie Furrows.”
Archie Furrows. Somehow, the name sounded heroic. Honourable. Finally, the man who had saved my life twice had a name.
“And you can’t find out any more?”
“We are always researching when we can.”
“I’m a researcher at the library. Can I help? I would like to find and thank this Archie.”
Brian smiled at me.
“Of course. Let me have your number, and I’ll be in touch.”