CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 6-10 five feel-good village cozy mysteries

by Nicholas Rhea

  ‘Yes, so it can,’ he paused, and at that precise moment the telephone rang. The office constable answered it and said, ‘Sergeant, it’s for you. The Superintendent.’

  As he moved to take the call, Sergeant Blaketon looked at me as if he was going to say something, but already I was moving towards the door. I bolted out of the office and was hurrying towards the exit of the police station as I heard Sergeant Blaketon in an animated conversation with the Superintendent. I’d been saved literally in the nick of time.

  But before I reached the door, a voice halted me. It was Stan, the PC on office duty.

  ‘Outside, quick,’ he said as he bustled me out of the station.

  ‘What’s the matter, Stan?’ I almost shouted.

  ‘Have you got a bloody clog off that boat?’ he asked me, eyeing the bulky shape beneath my cape.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Why? It was given to me.’

  He laughed. ‘Then get to hell out of here, and quick! He was after it, he wanted it, that bloody sergeant you’ve brought over from Ashfordly. He noticed it there last night but there was no one about to ask, so he was going to have a word with the skipper this morning. It seems his wife has always wanted a genuine Dutch clog to put on her mantelpiece, but I can’t think why . . . Anyway, it had gone by the time he got down to the harbourside this morning . . .’

  ‘I’m going!’ I said, and I almost ran to the hotel. Anne was delighted, and I got a double helping of sausages that morning.

  * * *

  The next time I boarded a fishing vessel occurred after a spate of shop-breakings in Strensford. In those days, the crime of breaking into shop premises to steal goods was popularly known as shop-breaking, but since 1968 all such ‘break and entry’ offences have been grouped together under the single heading of burglary.

  Whenever we paraded for a night shift during that short sojourn at the seaside, we were reminded that someone, probably a lone operator, was breaking into shops all over the town. The stolen property was not particularly valuable, like cameras or radio sets, nor was it particularly useful, like food or clothing. Most of the attacked premises were the tourist-souvenir type of shop, selling cheap oddments such as jewellery, watches, ornaments and knick-knacks of the kind no truly discerning visitor would take home. They were all close to the harbourside too.

  On one occasion, for example, three flying ducks in plaster were taken, and we did wonder if the thief ran a boarding house. Almost all the boarding houses in Strensford at that time had plaster ducks flying up their walls, and some had gnomes in their gardens.

  The CID reckoned the breaker was a youth, perhaps a visitor to one of the holiday camps or caravan sites, but whoever he was, he always escaped. Their reckoning was based partly on the fact that he must be slim and agile to be able to wriggle through some of the skylights which were his chief source of entry, and another part of their logic was that the mediocre stuff he stole would hardly appeal to an adult. It would certainly not appeal to a handler of stolen goods or an antique-dealer.

  Throughout those warm summer nights, therefore, the uniform branch maintained observations upon the streets, but we never caught our man.

  More shops were raided, more junk was stolen and eventually the Chamber of Trade, and the Strensford Times, began to ask what the police were doing about the sudden and unwarranted major crime wave. The local Superintendent had the sense to issue a statement to the paper: ‘We are maintaining observations and are utilizing all available manpower in an attempt to curb this seasonal outbreak of crime. We believe it is the work of visiting criminals.’

  This series of shop-breakings occurred long before the days of collators who assembled and disseminated crime-beating information, and long before the police had computers, which could assess crime intelligence. As I read the Occurrence Book each day, however, I did become aware that the shops were raided on the same nights that we received calls from some sleepy residents that a horse was loose and roaming the streets. It had been heard several times in the dead of night, but no one had actually seen the horse. There developed a theory that the shop-breaker was a horseman and that he carefully studied the movements of the police before committing his crimes.

  In an attempt to gain more information, I took several Occurrence Books, which were logs of all daily events, and checked them meticulously for (a) calls about horses loose at night in Strensford and (b) shop-breakings which occurred around the same time. And a pattern did emerge. The breaks were occurring around two o’clock in the morning, the very time the policemen went into the station for their mid-shift break — this made it seem they were being observed. Furthermore, all the occasions when the horse had been reported were around the same mid-shift time.

  Then, by one of those strokes of fortune by which great crimes are solved, I had to compile a list of the times of high tides for the information of Force Headquarters — someone over there was compiling a Spring Tide Early Warning System. As I listed the times known to Strensford, I suddenly wondered whether the raids could be linked with tidal times. I was really thinking of the swing bridge across the harbour which opened at times of high tide; high tides occurred twice a day, with about twelve hours between each high water. I did wonder if our horse-riding villain came across that bridge into town, so I carried out my survey over several months.

  To cut a long story short, I did not voice my opinions to anyone else but decided to carry out a spell of observations whenever my night duty coincided with a high tide which occurred around 2 a.m. The tide was almost full for some time both before and after the official high-tide time; this meant there was often full water while the policemen were having their mid-shift meals . . . and that meant the fishing boats were under preparation for sailing. My mind was working fast.

  ‘Sergeant,’ I spoke to Sergeant Blaketon at the beginning of one night shift. ‘Can I work a harbourside beat tonight but take my break later than normal, say 3 a.m.?’

  ‘Why, Rhea? What are you scheming now?’

  I was in two minds not to tell him, but I felt he would not grant this odd request without knowing the story, and so, in the peace of the sergeant’s office, I explained. To give him credit, he did listen.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do it. And I’ll be there too. We’ll see this out together, Rhea. We’ll show these townies that us country coppers can arrest their shop-breakers!’

  We arranged to meet at 1.45 a.m., and together we would seek a place of concealment from where we could overlook the swing bridge, the harbourside and quays, the herring boats and the main thoroughfares into town.

  That night, high tide was at 2.33 a.m., and as we watched from an alley overlooking the harbour, we could see the lights of the boats as their crews were preparing to sail to the herring grounds. And then we saw him.

  A tall, lithe young man left the shadows of the harbourside and made his noisy way into town. A Dutchman, in clogs. Clip-clopping into town.

  ‘There’s the horse, sergeant!’ I hissed at him.

  ‘Where, Rhea?’

  ‘The clogs!’ I snapped. ‘They sound like a horse walking at night, when the streets are empty. This is our breaker, a Dutch seaman!’

  ‘Right, we need to catch him with the evidence. Wait here until he comes back with his loot.’

  That was true. We had no evidence yet, certainly not enough to convict him, and so we simply waited and then, some forty minutes later, we heard the clip-clop of his return journey.

  ‘Nice work, Rhea,’ beamed Sergeant Blaketon. ‘You’ll get high praise for this one. Now, when he’s past us on the way to his ship, we go and get him. Get him before he gets back to his boat — I’m not sure what the law is about arresting foreign nationals on board their own ships. But the arrest is yours, so do it on British soil.’

  But as the tall, young Dutchman passed us with a carrier bag full of his ill-gotten gains, he heard our movements. He started to run. Even in those clumsy clogs, he covered the ground at a remarkable speed, and he sounded
like a horse at full gallop. I was sure we’d get more complaints about galloping horses, but right now Blaketon and I were hard on his heels.

  The Dutchman beat us to his ship. He slithered down a harbourside ladder and reached his boat as we reached the harbour’s edge. Then, before our very eyes, he threw the offending bag into the harbour, where it sank immediately.

  ‘Our bloody evidence!’ snapped Sergeant Blaketon.

  But the youth was doing something even worse. As Sergeant Blaketon stood and watched, he removed both his clogs and threw them one by one over the side of the boat. Each landed with a splash. One filled with water and sank, while the other sailed away into the darkness.

  ‘He’s thrown his clogs away!’ gasped Sergeant Blaketon.

  I felt very sorry for poor Oscar Blaketon at that point, for we could not prove our case. But I do know that someone from CID had a word with the captain, and all the shops, save the final one, had their goods returned. The sixteen-year-old boy was a kleptomaniac. There was no prosecution because of international complications but the shop-breakings did come to an end. And so did reports of horses galloping through Strensford at night.

  But Sergeant Blaketon still hasn’t obtained a real Dutch clog for his mantelpiece.

  Chapter Three

  He that is robbed not wanting what is stolen,

  Let him not know it, and he’s not robb’d at all.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564—1616

  When patrolling the quiet streets of Strensford during those warm summer nights, my mind turned frequently to the initial police training course I had undergone. I recalled the essence of lectures about all manner of fascinating things, and one of the subjects was crime. It was a subject which intrigued all the students, and some went on to become clever detectives.

  One aspect of crime which was discussed at length was that which is known in Latin as mens rea. It is a curious phrase which refers to the state of mind of a criminal, his criminal intent in other words. It is that guilty or blameworthy state of mind during which crimes are committed. During our lectures, we were given questions which endeavoured to show us the difference between an intent and an attempt to commit crime. We were told that a person’s criminal intent was rarely punishable — a man can intend to commit burglary, rape or murder, but the mere intention to do such a thing, however serious, is not in itself a crime. On the other hand, an attempt to commit a crime is illegal.

  We wondered if a person could be guilty of an attempted larceny when it was impossible to commit the full crime. One example of this is a pickpocket who dips his hand into a man’s pocket to steal a wallet, but the pocket is empty. Thus he cannot complete his intended crime. So is he guilty of attempted larceny? If the pocket had contained a wallet, then most certainly the attempt could be completed, if not the full crime . . .

  Many academic questions of this kind were discussed, and it is fair to say that few of us ever dreamed we would be confronted with real examples of this kind of legal puzzle. In the world of practical policing, crimes were committed, criminals were arrested and proceedings were taken. The academic side of things was left to the lawyers.

  At least that’s what I thought until I came across Hedda Flynn.

  Although my time in Strensford was short and somewhat fragmented, due to the shifts I worked, I did begin to recognize those whom I saw regularly. In the main, they were local people going about their business or pleasure in their small and charming town. Hedda Flynn was such a person. He caught my attention when I noticed he was beginning to loiter around the entrance to St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church and that he chose to do so at a time the local churches were experiencing a spate of offertory box thefts.

  Several boxes had been broken into during the early summer months, the technique being by the simple medium of using what police described as a ‘blunt instrument’ to force open the lids. This was probably a screwdriver. The cash contents, the amount of which was invariably unknown, were stolen. Although these crimes were comparatively minor, they did present problems.

  No community, whether in a town or a village, likes its church to be attacked in any way, and these crimes were considered very distasteful. It was felt they were the work of a travelling vagrant, because none of the boxes contained a large amount. The task of forcing the wooden lids and removing the contents would often result in the theft of only a few shillings, hardly a major crime.

  Some good Christians argued that if the thief was so poor that the funds within the offertory boxes were vital to his existence, why not let him take them? After all, wasn’t the Church there to provide for the poor? If the fellow had asked the priest or vicar for some money, it would probably have been given. This was an argument which did not impress the police. In their books a crime was a crime, whatever the reason for its commission.

  As a form of crime prevention, we toured all the churches and chapels within our Division and suggested to their priests, vicars and ministers that they make their offertory boxes more substantial and secure. We even suggested they enclose them within the walls of their churches or make them of metal, then cement them into the floor. Some did this.

  One who did not follow our advice was Monsignor Joseph O’Flaherty of St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, and it was his offertory box which I suspected was an object of great interest to Hedda Flynn.

  There was a time when I considered arresting Hedda under the Vagrancy Act of 1824, for that quaint old statute created an offence of being a suspected person or reputed thief loitering with intent to commit a crime. Certainly, Hedda had undertaken a good deal of loitering, usually around lunchtime, but his intentions were unknown. There was no evidence that he intended to commit a crime, nor could he be described as either a suspected person or a reputed thief. The law lays down quite specifically what is meant by ‘suspected person’, and Hedda’s behaviour had not quite lifted him into that category. In fact, he was a very decent fellow.

  Having noticed him once or twice, I carried out my own discreet enquiries and learned he was a married man with two small children. He worked behind the counter of a gentlemen’s clothes shop in Strensford for what was probably a pittance, and he would be about thirty-five years old. He was a small, dark man whose own clothes hung from him; they appeared to be several sizes too large, and I guessed that, as a child, his mother had always bought him clothes which were too large, so that he could grow into them. I reckoned he never had grown into them but that he still hoped he would.

  His thin, sallow face with its bushy eyebrows and dark troubled eyes gave him the appearance of a haunted man, and it was clear something was troubling him. Was he a lapsed Catholic who wanted to return to the faith?

  On the other hand, I wondered if his conscience was troubling him. I wondered if he was fiddling the till at work, or whether he had another woman in tow, or, of course, whether he was the offertory box thief who was plaguing the district.

  I decided to speak to Monsignor O’Flaherty about Hedda and about the risks to his offertory box. I had seen the box in question — it was a simple wooden container screwed to a table at the back of the church, and it would be a simple matter to force the lid with a screwdriver and remove its meagre contents.

  I knocked on the door of the presbytery and was admitted by the priest’s housekeeper, who showed me to a study littered with books and watercolours. Some stood on the floor and others filled every possible space on the wall. I waited, intrigued by the smell of the place and its wonderful array of books and paintings.

  The Monsignor came in, smiling and happy. He was dressed in a clerical grey suit with a carnation in his buttonhole. He was a very rounded man with a rosy red face and thinning grey hair above very bright and twinkling blue eyes. He looked like a man who enjoyed life.

  ‘Ah!’ he smiled. ‘’Tis the law. You’ll be having a drink then?’?’

  ‘Good morning, Monsignor,’ I said. ‘I’d like a coffee please.’

  ‘Coffee, is it? I was thinking of s
omething more congenial, like a dram of the morning dew? So is it coffee or whisky, or perhaps both?’

  ‘Just coffee, Monsignor. I’m on duty.’

  ‘So it’s official, then? You’re not coming to see me about your spiritual welfare or to get married or something? Haven’t I seen you at Mass?’

  ‘Yes, but this is police work.’

  ‘Then sit yourself down, son, and I’ll arrange the coffee. Sugar? Milk?’

  I requested both, and the tray soon appeared with coffee for us both and a glass of his ‘wee dram’. While we drank them, he learned my name and something of my own family background. The introductions and pleasantries over, we turned to the purpose of my visit.

  I began with the attacks on offertory boxes and put forward various suggestions for making them less vulnerable to thieves. He listened attentively and said he had seen reports in the Strensford Gazette about the other attacks.

  ‘But, you see, I always make sure there is a collection plate on the table at the back of the church, close to the door. And in that plate, there is always a few coins; either the faithful put them there or I do, so if a thief does come, he’ll grab that money and he’ll leave the box alone. Now, I don’t mind him taking those loose coins, and indeed, I’ll seldom know whether he has or not, will I? It’s only copper, but it could be food for a starving man. And our offertory box has never been forced open.’

  I admired the sheer logic of this and now recalled the large wooden collection plate which was always on the table near the main door. It often had a half-crown or a florin in it, with an assortment of smaller coins, such as a sixpence and one or two pennies.

  ‘There is something else, Monsignor.’ I emptied my coffee cup and he refilled it from the percolator.

  ‘Go on.’

  I told him about Hedda Flynn and my suspicions. He listened and then smiled in understanding.

  ‘Hedda is a good man,’ he said. ‘A very good man, a faithful member of my congregation and as honest as the day is long. He would never do anything wrong to anyone, let alone steal from the Church.’