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

by Nicholas Rhea

I explained how the road sweeper had found the cash and provided his name and address. Sergeant Youngman said he would inform the loser of those details. Mr Kenton would come tonight, I was told, so after thanking Sergeant Youngman for his call, I made a note in the Occurrence Book so that the next shift would be aware of the situation.

  I went off duty before the money was handed over to its rightful owner, and it seems he arrived late that evening to claim his cash. It was handed over against his signature and the matter was closed.

  But he did not leave even a shilling reward for the road sweeper. There was not a penny and not even a letter of thanks for his honesty. We all knew that he would not wish any thanks or a reward but would gain satisfaction from knowing that his honesty had been ratified by the money going to its rightful owner.

  We waited a few days, but nothing came, and so Sergeant Moreton, who was friendly with the local reporter on the Strensford Gazette, decided to tell the tale to the papers. If Kenton was not going to give some reward, the story of the roadman’s honest was strong enough for the local and even the national papers. And so it won headlines in some papers and more than a few column inches in others, and we made sure a copy was sent to Kenton at his home address. But not even that prompted a response.

  Happily, although the publicity did not prompt a response from Kenton, there was a small but touching flood of postal orders, cash and cheques for the roadman from readers all over England. If the loser did not appreciate his remarkable honesty, the public did. All the police officers at Strensford had a whip-round for him too, and he was able to buy himself a new settee with those generous donations.

  * * *

  Another odd use of the Found Property Register occurred late one night when I was working a night shift during that three-month spell of duty. I was sitting in the office around 2.15 a.m. having my break when a rather rough-looking, brusquely spoken character presented himself at the enquiry desk.

  His name was Brian Stockfield, a taxi-driver in his early forties who was renowned in the town for his bad temper, his loud voice and awful, critical treatment of his fellow men. No one had a good word for Stockfield; he complained incessantly about everything, criticizing the council because of the rates, the police for letting holiday-makers park all over the town, the holiday-makers for crowding the streets, the children for their noise, dogs for barking . . . Every facet of Strensford’s society was criticized by this chap, and the outcome was that those who knew him kept out of his way. He had not been in Strensford during my initial spell, so I had never come across him until now.

  Stockfield earned his living by running a one-vehicle taxi business, and his premises were a small wooden garage close to the harbourside. He criticized other taxi-drivers for taking business from him, he wrote to the newspaper about their activities and claimed that some had not taken out the correct insurance for their vehicles, or that their hackney carriage licences were not in order. He was a regular caller at the police station, where his growing list of complaints was logged. In short, he was nothing but a confounded nuisance to everyone.

  It was through chats with the local police that I discovered one of his unpleasant traits — perhaps, though, he had just cause for this particular behaviour.

  When the police in Strensford came across a drunk who was not troublesome or a danger either to himself or to anyone else, they hailed a local taxi and persuaded the driver to take the drunk home. This system was very sensible, because it kept the cells empty, it saved the drunk from the trauma of a prosecution, it saved the police a lot of work and the courts a lot of time dealing with simple drunks. Furthermore, it helped to retain the friendly relationship between the residents and the police, for the people would resent any heavy-handed treatment of local merrymakers. It made a lot of sense to deal with them in this gentle way. Another aspect was that it kept all the taxi-drivers in business too, because they made useful, honest sums from their merry fares.

  The system had a lot to commend it, but Brian Stockfield would not partake in it. He complained about the drunks, about their noise, their singing and their general conduct. He would not have anything at all to do with them. But this did not unduly worry the other taxi-drivers, who were happy to accommodate our discarded drunks. His financial loss was their gain.

  On this night, as he arrived at the police station counter, I learned, he had answered such a call, and that was the reason for his presence. He had another complaint to make.

  PC Joe Tapley, a local constable of considerable experience, was the office duty man that night, and he went to the counter to deal with Stockfield. I and three colleagues sat near the fireside, enjoying our meal, and we were just beyond the vision of the visitor. But we could hear every word.

  ‘Ah, Mr Stockfield,’ greeted PC Tapley. ‘What brings you to us at this late hour?’

  ‘I have a complaint to make,’ he said. ‘About a clever sod who’s been to a dance at the Imperial Hotel.’

  ‘Not paid his fare?’ suggested Joe Tapley.

  ‘Paid? Yes, he’s paid. It’s bloody awful, Mr Tapley, terrible really, what folks do to your taxis.’

  ‘Oh, like that, is it? So what’s he done?’

  Joe had a pad of notepaper handy and was preparing to record the problem.

  ‘Look, Mr Tapley, you know what I’m like with drunks, don’t you? You and the lads. I go for class clients, not drunks. My vehicle is the cleanest taxi in town, even though I say so myself. None of my fares can complain about me running a mucky vehicle.’

  ‘Go on, Mr Stockfield.’ I noticed the formal exchange of names between these two, indicative of some past conflict.

  ‘I got this call, right? From a chap attending the Imperial Hunt Ball, it is. He had a nice accent, and it is a class dance, as you know. Even though he sounded a bit fuzzy, a bit slurred when he spoke, I went for him. I picked him up at 1.30 a.m., on the dot, and took him to the Grand Hotel, where he’s staying.’

  ‘And he paid?’

  ‘Yes, he paid. Charming he was, all done up in an evening-dress suit, a right toff.’

  ‘Your ideal client, eh?’

  ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘So what is your complaint, Mr Stockfield?’ asked PC Tapley.

  ‘Well, I find this very embarrassing. I’m a clean-living, clean-speaking man, Mr Tapley, but, well, he’s used the back seat of my taxi as a toilet.’

  ‘You mean he’s peed on it?’ I could discern the merest flicker of a smile on Joe Tapley’s face, and he was doing his best to suppress it.

  ‘No, the other. Two massive great brown turds, like a dog’s, on the back seat. You come and see for yourself, and don’t stick your nose in either. The smell is bloody awful.’

  Joe followed him outside, and so we all trooped out as well, for this would be a sight to treasure. Sure enough, as Stockfield switched on the interior light, the centre of the back seat was graced by two shining examples of man’s slavery to the urgent needs of nature. They were a pair of thick, brown turds.

  We were all creasing ourselves with laughter, and happily the darkness of the night concealed most of our efforts to keep straight faces, but Joe achieved it with aplomb. He led us all back inside, and we seated ourselves at the fireside again, leaving Joe to finalize the matter.

  ‘Well,’ demanded Stockfield. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Do you know the man’s name? The chap who left it?’

  ‘No, he’s a visitor. I doubt if I would recognize him again. He was just a bloke who wanted a lift home from a dance.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Joe writing on the scrap pad. ‘Name and description unknown.’ When he had finished writing, he said, ‘Well, thank you, Mr Stockfield. I have made a note of all the relevant details. Thank you for calling.’

  ‘But what are you going to do about it?’ demanded the taxi-driver, whose voice was beginning to grow louder.

  ‘Do?’ smiled Joe calmly. ‘Nothing else. I’ve done all that I can. I have mad
e a record of the event in our Found Property Register. If the owner cannot be traced, and if the property is not claimed within three months, you may keep it. As things are, you may now take it home and await any likely claim of ownership. We will keep the matter of file for three months too.’

  ‘Found property?’ cried Stockfield. ‘You can’t call this found property?’

  ‘Then what else is it?’ smiled Joe, as calm as ever. ‘No crime has been committed, no byelaw broken, no traffic regulation breached, no street nuisance committed, no indecent public exhibition. It’s simply a case of someone unknown leaving something rather personal in your taxi. And thank you for reporting it. Goodnight, Mr Stockfield.’

  He left without a word, and we waited until the sound of his revving engine faded before collapsing into bouts of laughter. There is a lot to be learned from an experienced police officer.

  Chapter Five

  Animals are such agreeable friends,

  They ask no questions, they pass no criticism.

  GEORGE ELIOT, 1819–80

  Night duty can be very lonely. After the pubs have closed, the restaurants have cleared their tables and the clubs have bolted their doors, the streets rapidly empty and there is little companionship for the patrolling constable. His solitary work, which in my case began at 10 p.m. and finished at 6 a.m., comprised the checking of lock-up premises and empty houses and a general watching brief on the sleeping town. I kept my ears open for those who prowled at night, for burglars and shop-breakers, for vagrants and other ne’er-do-wells whose illegal activities were conducted under the cover of darkness.

  More often than not, nothing of this kind ever happened. There were few burglars and nocturnal villains to arrest or deter, and the resultant boredom was often relieved only by the appearance of the night-duty sergeant or sometimes an inspector, with, very occasionally, the eminence of the Superintendent himself. In the momentary absence of those supervisory officers, the constables would gather at some suitable place for a chat, flashing coded messages to one another by torch and making use of reflections from shop windows to pass our Morse-like messages along streets and around corners.

  There were times, however, when the exigencies of the service and the wanderings of supervisory officers meant that such meetings could not be arranged. This inevitably meant that the long hours after midnight became very, very lonely and excruciatingly boring, so that a companion of some kind, any kind, was most welcome.

  At 1 a.m. on such a morning, I stood forlornly outside the GPO in the town centre of Strensford. I was making a point at the telephone kiosk and was feeling very melancholy as I longed for my meal break which was scheduled for 2.15 a.m. Then I’d be able to have a few minutes chat and banter with my colleagues, all of which would be washed down with hot coffee from my flask and fortified with some of my landlady’s sandwiches.

  As I waited in the chill of that summer night, I became aware of a dog trotting along the street towards me. He was a stocky animal, a mature yellow Labrador, and he was completely alone. I said nothing as I watched, and then he noticed me in the dim glow of the kiosk and headed in my direction. Without any hint of indecision, he came and sat at my side, his tail thumping the pavement in greeting.

  ‘Hello, boy,’ I acknowledged him. ‘Who are you then?’

  I fingered his collar, but it bore no name or address of his owner, nor his own name. But he was a solid-looking, well-fed dog in excellent condition and, I guessed, about five or six years old. He made a small fuss when I patted him but sat at my side almost as if he had been trained to do so. I spoke to him and used words like ‘go home’, but he did not shift his position until it was time for me to leave.

  I now had twenty-five minutes of further patrolling before my next point at the New Quay telephone kiosk, and this would be occupied by checking the shops, back and front, and inspecting all the dark corners of the myriad of quaint passages which were such a feature of Strensford’s ancient town centre. They were called yards, and the police nightly examined them for sleeping tramps, drunks, people who might be ill or lost, or villains who might be lurking there hoping to break into a shop or hotel through the back windows or doors.

  When my five minutes’ wait at the GPO was over, I said, ‘Well, boy, I must go. I’ve a lot to do. Goodbye.’

  But as I walked away, he followed. He walked at my heels on the right-hand side, his tail gently wagging with the swaying movement of his thick-set body. He was just like a trained police dog, and yet I had no idea where he had come from.

  I decided to see just how carefully trained he really was. To carry out my little test, I stopped at the entrance to one of these dark and almost sinister yards and listened. He stopped at my side and sat down, ears alert. I had not given him any command.

  Now I had to enter that dark and narrow tunnel-like passage to check dozens of shop premises, pubs and warehouses whose rear doors or windows were accessible from there, and consequently very accessible for an attack. It was a nightly task; armed only with a torch I had to check every pane of glass, and every cranny for lurking crooks. Without a personal radio set, I was alone and vulnerable. If I was attacked by burglars or layabouts, there was no way I could call my colleagues for help, other than by blowing my whistle, if I had time, or just shouting loudly in the hope that someone somewhere would respond. But now it seemed that I had some welcome assistance.

  ‘Seek, boy,’ I said to the dog, and off he went. Tail wagging and ears alert, he went ahead of me into the long, dark passage, and I waited at the entrance. The seconds ticked away and there was no sound, not even a reassuring bark or a cat scuttling for safety, so I allowed a full two minutes. Still with no sound or sign of him, I shone my torch into the dark void and, seeing nothing, decided that my companion of but a few moments ago had left me and that he’d gone home. Once more I was alone, so I entered the passage aided by the light of my torch, and there he was, trotting towards me in fine spirits. He wagged his tail in welcome, turned around and led me through the dank darkness.

  As I checked all the premises along my route, he remained with me. He spent his time sniffing at doors, dustbins and windows and entering dark corners, outhouses, external toilets and similar dark structures well ahead of me. If there had been anyone hiding in those secret places, the Labrador would have flushed them out or certainly located them.

  For the next hour, he remained with me, always walking at heel without being commanded when I was patrolling the streets and open spaces but going ahead to search the alleys, yards and dark recesses of the town whenever I said, ‘Seek boy.’

  He was a remarkable dog, and I wondered what he would do when I went into the police station for my break. As the long-awaited hour of 2.15 a.m. approached, I made my way across Station Square to the welcoming lights of the old police station, and the dog followed, always at heel and never straying. But when I approached the side-street door which always stood half-open at night, he rushed ahead of me, pushed open the door and hurried inside. I followed down the steps into the depths of this Victorian pile and was in time to see him curling up beneath the counter, settling down for a snooze close to the fireside of the cosy office.

  When I joined my colleagues for my break, Joe Tapley asked, ‘Has Rusty been with you tonight, Nick?’

  ‘Rusty?’ for the briefest of moments, I thought he was referring to one of the local officers.

  ‘The dog, that Labrador. We call him Rusty.’

  ‘Oh,’ I smiled. ‘Yes, he picked me up at one o’clock and has been with me ever since. Is he yours?’

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘No, although sometimes I wish he was. He’s a wonderful chap, aren’t you, Rusty?’

  The dog lifted his head and acknowledged the compliment by flapping his tail several times on the floor.

  ‘Where does he come from?’ I asked, opening my sandwiches and flask.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Joe, shrugging his shoulders. ‘None of us knows. He just turns up from time to time, selects one of
us for his patrol and then walks the beat until six o’clock. Then he goes home. The trouble is, we don’t know who he belongs to or where he goes. We call him Rusty, and he responds. He’ll search all your awkward spots for you, you know. Just say “Seek Rusty” and off he’ll go. He could be the official Strensford Police Dog.’

  ‘Don’t his owners ever miss him?’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they know he comes out at night. I imagine they shut him in some outbuilding for the night, and by the time they open up next morning he’ll be back in residence. It’s almost as if he had this secret life helping us, being a Special Constable really. He’s great, a marvellous companion on nights.’

  ‘Doesn’t he show up in the daytime then?’ I asked.

  ‘No, never. He’ll come to town several nights during a month, not every night, mind. He’ll select one of the lads to be his companion during his night patrol and will stick with him all night. Then he’ll wander off home. He’s obviously from a good home because he’s so well fed, and he won’t eat with us either. He wouldn’t touch our sandwiches, although sometimes he’ll take a drink of water.’

  ‘Has anyone tried to follow him home?’

  ‘Not really. By six o’clock we’re all shattered and ready for bed, besides we’re all on foot anyway. He trots off and there’s no way we could keep pace with him. He lives out of town, we know that, so we think he’s from one of the nearby villages or farms. But beyond that we don’t know where he hails from.’

  At 3 a.m. I was due to commence the second half of my shift, and as I moved from my chair to pack away my things and rinse out my flask, Rusty opened his eyes, thumped his tail and joined me. I gave him a saucer of water, which he lapped happily, and then we resumed our joint patrol.

  He remained with me until a few minutes before 6 a.m.; as before, he checked all the yards and passages ahead of me and helped me enormously during that shift. Then, as I made my final slow, tired walk across the town to book off duty, he suddenly veered away from me and began to trot away.