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

by Nicholas Rhea

  “It’s not going to be easy, with her coming from outside the village. I’ll have to explain things to her. To be honest, some of our manual workers, especially those from here, are quite happy to accept a cottage which is, to be truthful, at the bottom of our heap. In the past, they did so because they desperately needed accommodation, and the rents we charged were affordable to the poorest. But low rents meant we hadn’t the funds to modernize the homes. For a peppercorn rent, those folks were happy to live in less-than-perfect accommodation. Their “carrot” was to wait for the kind of movement you’ve seen today. It enabled them to move up the scale and, let’s face it, the Estate benefits because it needs to modernize only one house every few years. It saves us money and keeps rent down. Eventually, everyone should get a chance to occupy such a place. But I fear our new lady worker will not tolerate a house which is the last of today’s line — it’s grotty, to say the least. We may sell it. She has hinted she might buy a house locally. If we appoint more people from outside, then our system of moving tenants is likely to die out, I feel.”

  “A strange system,” I commented.

  “Now, if you go back into the village, you’ll see that there is a flurry of activity, with well over a dozen families moving house. They’re all moving today and all before ten o’clock!”

  “You impose a deadline?”

  “We must. Officially, they’re not supposed to do it, but we close our eyes and go along with the idea, up to a point. That’s why Charlie handles all the keys — it keeps some sort of order, and it makes the tenants think it’s got our formal blessing. So we give them time off between eight and ten to make their moves.”

  When I walked back through Crampton, an amazing sight met my eyes. The village seemed full of carts, cars, lorries and anything that would transport furniture. Already, many items were on board — three-piece suites, wardrobes, beds and tea-chests full of crockery. The gardens and grassy areas outside the cottages were covered with household belongings and people were rushing in and out with arms full of objects. Helpers were flinging things on to the vehicles and it seemed there was a race to be first into another home. It was an amazing sight, a community house removal of the like I’ve never seen before nor since.

  As I strolled about to observe this peculiar occurrence, I came across an argument, a rare event in Crampton. From a distance, I knew some kind of dispute was raging and that it involved a pile of furniture on a horse-drawn cart. The air was full of ripe language while angry arms were waving between the protagonists. Then one of them spotted me.

  “Here’s t’ bobby,” I heard. “Ask him!”

  One of the men hailed me and I strode across.

  “Yes?” I asked of anyone who might answer. There were eight or nine people standing around the loaded cart. It was one of the old so-called market carts, a tipper with two wheels and a tailboard which lowered to facilitate loading and unloading. Already, it looked precariously overloaded with a tall wardrobe standing upright and a chest of drawers hanging over the tailboard. Every spare piece of space was filled with domestic odds and ends.

  “Mr Rhea,” the man holding the horse’s head addressed me. I knew him by sight but did not know his name. “Settle this for us, wilt thoo?”

  They all began to shout at once, and I appealed for calm, then addressed the man with the horse.

  “Ah ‘m t’ owner of this cart,” he said, “and Ah live out near t’ bridge, on t’ road to Brantsford. Hawkins is the name.”

  “Go on,” I invited.

  “This chap ’ere,” and he pointed to a young man close to the tail of the cart, “well, ’e asked me to help him shift this stuff today. Hired me ’orse and cart to ’im, Ah did. Half a crown an hour.”

  “Is this right?” I asked the man lurking at the tail.

  He nodded, with a sly grin on his face, as the cart-owner continued.

  “Two jobs to do,” he said, “his mum and dad out of this house here, and into that ’un there,” and he pointed to a pair of houses almost opposite one another. “Then, after that, Ah was asked to shift him and his missus and kids out of his spot and into that ’n what was occupied by his mum and dad.”

  “Yes,” I followed it so far. Mum and dad into a smaller house, and son and growing family into their old house, which was slightly larger. Very sensible.

  “Well,” said the cart man, “him and his mates, all his brothers and what-have-you loaded me up with his dad and mum’s furniture for t’ first job and got me unloaded, all in seven minutes. Seven minutes to move house! When Ah got loaded up for t’ second trip, from his house to his mum’s spot, he said they’d do t’ same all over again, load and unload in another seven minutes.”

  “So?” I had not yet discovered the cause of the dispute.

  “Well, they’re saying that because Ah charges half a crown an hour, and it hasn’t taken an hour, then they don’t have to pay!”

  “Did you tell them that the half-crown was the minimum charge for an hour or part of an hour?” I asked him.

  “Nay, Ah didn’t! There’s no need for that sort of carry-on, Mr Rhea. Damn it, Ah thought two house jobs would take all morning, not fourteen minutes . . .”

  This was not a police matter. It was what we called a business dispute, and so I told him that. I said it was nothing to do with the police; it was purely a business disagreement which must be sorted out between themselves.

  “Then Ah shall keep this stuff on t’ cart until t’ hour’s up,” he said, “then Ah’ll be in my rights to ask for t’ money.”

  “We’ll unload it,” said the young man to his brothers and family. “Howway, lads, get cracking. We can beat our last record for unloading, I reckon . . .”

  But Hawkins had a different idea.

  “Nay!” he shouted. “Thoo can’t touch this stuff! Not yet,” and he rapped the horse’s flanks with a rein. It moved off quickly, but everyone followed, trying to grab items and carry them indoors. Some of the smaller stuff was lifted off, but the larger items were impossible to move. As the horse broke into a trot, its intrepid owner ran alongside and then jumped on to the front edge of his cart where the shafts met the body, and he sat there, reins in hand, as he whipped the horse into a gallop.

  The furniture bounced and jolted along the street as the horse and cart left the family behind and then Hawkins halted. In a flash, he jumped off his cart and loosened the primitive tipping mechanism. With a jangling of metal, the bolts fell free and he slapped the horse.

  It moved a short distance and the cart, now unbalanced, tipped backwards as all the furniture slid off the back and spread across the road. In a long, untidy line, furniture, clothes, pots and pans, clip rugs and a motley collection of things rolled into the street.

  “If you’re not paying, then Ah ‘m not moving it,” said Hawkins, folding his arms to observe the mayhem. At the moment the family ran towards their scattered belongings, a service bus, followed by an oil tanker, turned into the street. And at that same moment, I knew I had before me a clear case of ‘Obstruction of the Highway’. The bus driver started to shout at Hawkins, but he only laughed as he managed to secure his cart to its chassis during the fuss. All this was happening as I approached the scene in the ponderous strides of the constabulary in action. Hawkins, however, was quickly mobile and trotted away his horse, chortling at his own astuteness.

  “You’ll have to move this stuff!” I ordered the owners. “It’s obstructing the road.”

  “Not us!” snapped the brothers. “Hawkins dumped it, Hawkins can shift it!”

  “You’ll all get fined for obstructing this road,” I shouted above the din. “And it’ll be far more than the cost of hiring that cart!”

  “Nope,” said the family. “It stays.”

  Hawkins was already some distance away, and I would have to report him too; I knew where he lived.

  The tanker driver leaned out of his cab. “Are they going to shift that rubbish or shall I drive over it?” he shouted above the noise.<
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  A stout, middle-aged woman wielding a broom came running to the scene, crying and saying, “Our Harry, you stupid oaf! Get it shifted, now,” and she started to belabour him with the broom handle. Confronted by such positive persuasion, Harry and the other men of the family soon cleared a road through for the bus and the tanker, and then, as the heat of the moment evaporated, they began to manhandle their stuff to the side of the road. It took much longer than seven minutes.

  So far as I know Hawkins never received any payment for that task, but he did eventually receive a summons after I had reported both him and the key members of that large family for ‘Obstruction of the Highway’. When the Superintendent read my report, he laughed and formally cautioned each party, so there was no court case.

  Never again was I involved in the house-moving customs of Crampton, and sometimes I wonder if they still continue. And I’m also curious as to whether anyone has broken the Crampton record of seven minutes for moving the contents of one house into another.

  Chapter 6

  The love of money is the root of all evil.

  ST PAUL, d. circa AD 67

  One of the less publicised aspects of constabulary work is the quiet assistance that police officers give to members of the public; it would be possible to fill a book with glowing examples. This help comes in many forms, such as assisting in the repair of a broken-down car; catching stray budgies; helping with the formalities of bureaucracy or coaxing worried souls through the maze of complex problems that life throws at them.

  I recall one example which involved a colleague of mine. He was performing night duty on a main trunk road and came upon a family car which had broken down. It was a major defect and there was no overnight garage in the area. He learned that the occupants were heading for London; driving through the night to catch a morning flight for a long-overdue visit to an aged relative in Australia. Marooned as they were in the middle of the North Riding of Yorkshire, the constable promptly ended his shift by taking some time off duty. He was able to do this because of some overtime previously worked, and with no thought of being paid or even thanked, he drove the stranded family to London in his own car. It was a distance of 250 miles each way and they caught their flight.

  Countless minor tasks are completed during a police officer’s daily round, each in itself a small thing, albeit of great value to the person who is helped. One feature of this work is that it provides a vivid insight into the private lives of others.

  One example which occurred on my patch at Aidensfield involved Awd Eustace, whose real name was Eustace Wakefield.

  His problem was that he could not light his fire, a fact which came to my notice early one winter morning. The house next door to his was empty for three months while the owners were overseas, and I was keeping an eye on it. This meant regular visits to ensure it hadn’t been broken into or vandalised, and it was while examining the rear of this house that I noticed Eustace. He was chopping sticks just over the separating fence, so I said, “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” He was a slight man with long, unkempt grey hair and stooped with age. Ragged old clothes, over which he wore a tattered cardigan, attempted to protect him against the icy winds of winter and he wore woollen gloves without any fingers. He was hacking away at some small logs and chopping them into kindling sticks.

  “That’ll warm you up,” I said, mindful of the Yorkshire notion that the act of chopping sticks warms you twice — once when chopping them and again when blazing on a fire.

  “It would if Ah could get that bloody fire o’ mine going,” said the little fellow. “Damned thing, it won’t draw. Them sticks is wet, mebbe.”

  “They look OK to me,” I peered across the fence to examine them.

  “Ah’ve tried and tried this morning,” he said. “Damn thing won’t blaze so Ah can’t even boil me kettle.”

  “I’ll come round,” I heard myself make an offer of help.

  There was no wonder his fire wouldn’t ignite. It stood no chance. His grate was part of an old range of the Yorkist type. It had an oven at one side and a centrally positioned black leaded grate some two feet above floor level. At the opposite side of the oven was a hot water tank; this was built into the fireplace and fitted with a brass tap to draw off the heated water. A small can with a wire handle hung from that tap, and a kettle of cold water waited on a swivel hob.

  But the grate was overflowing with ash. It was inches deep within the grate itself, but the tall space below was also full. The ash spilled and spread for a distance of about a yard into the dusty room. Directly on top of all this, he had tried to light his pathetic fire; the evidence was there in the form of charred newspapers and sticks, with odd lumps of coal uselessly placed.

  “It’ll never go with all that muck underneath,” I kicked the accumulated ash with my boot. “It needs cleaning out, you need a draught for a fire to blaze. You’ve choked it to death!”

  “Oh,” he said as if not fully understanding this elementary fact.

  “Where’s your shovel?” I asked and he produced a battered one from its place near the sink. I began to scoop shovelfuls from the huge pile of ash and soon had enough to fill his dustbin. After a few minutes of this dusty, hectic work, during which I removed my tunic and cap, I had his fireplace cleaned out and had added a layer of thick dust to that which coated all his belongings.

  “Right,” I said. “Paper and sticks next.”

  He had a store of old newspapers in a wall cupboard and brought in some of the sticks he had been chopping.

  “You ought to get some more chopped,” I suggested, “and put them in this side oven to dry. But these aren’t bad, they’re dry enough.”

  I laid his fire then went out to his coal-house. But it was almost bare. In one dark corner were a few lumps of coal, scarcely enough to last out the day. I managed to scrape sufficient for my task and laid it on the fire, applied a match and very soon it was blazing merrily.

  “I’ll tell the coalman to call,” I said to Eustace, taking his kettle and weighing it in my hands to see if it was full. It was, so I turned the swivel hob over the blaze so that the kettle would boil for his pot of tea. “You’re nearly out, you’ll need some today.”

  “Ah’ve no money,” he said. “Ah’ve no money for coal . . .”

  “Your pension’s due on Thursday, isn’t it?”

  “Aye, well, t’ coalman might wait a day or two then.” As I stood before the welcoming blaze, I was well aware that this old man was poverty-stricken. The tiny back room, which served as lounge, living-room and kitchen, was dismal and virtually bare. The only furnishings were an old armchair with the stuffing protruding, a battered table and one old kitchen chair. There was a small, well-worn clip rug before the fire, but the stone floor was otherwise bare and in one corner there was a large brown earthenware sink with a cold-water tap. The wooden draining-board contained all his crockery; it had been washed and stacked there until required. The bare walls had been distempered years ago and never cleaned or papered since.

  The toilet, which was a WC, was outside next to the coal shed and there was another room downstairs, but I did not go in, nor did I venture upstairs. It was plain to see that Awd Eustace lived in desperately poor accommodation with no money to spend on luxuries or even the basic necessities of life. I felt sorry for him and promised to look in from time to time.

  When I left, he seemed happier and the kettle was beginning to sing. Later in the day, I came across the coalman as he was making some deliveries in Elsinby and asked him to drop a few sacks into Awd Eustace’s shed. This he promised to do. I explained about Eustace’s pension and the coalman was quite happy to wait for his payment.

  From that time onwards, I made a practice of popping in to see old Eustace, but he never improved his ways. He never cleaned out his grate and always had trouble getting a fire going, so I became his regular grate-cleaner. Sometimes, I would stay and sample a cup of weak tea but he seldom chatted about himself. I did learn, however
, that he had no family, except for a brother who lived somewhere in the Birmingham area. They’d not communicated for years. To earn a living, Eustace had worked on local farms all his life, labouring and doing odd jobs. He’d retired about twelve years ago and had come to spend his final years in this tiny house.

  Then one day I called and there was no sign of him. A bottle of milk stood on the doorstep and immediately I feared the worst. I knocked several times, then forced my way in and found him dead in bed. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the formalities that followed, except to say that he died of natural causes. A few days later, a solicitor contacted me. He asked me to be present as he searched Eustace’s home for personal effects and documents. And the result was astounding.

  We found twelve Building Society passbooks, each containing the maximum deposit of £5000; there were bags of bank notes under the bed and stuffed in his cupboards; a sack half full of gold sovereigns, and share certificates galore filed neatly in a battered suitcase. For a police constable, whose salary was then about £650 per annum, this was a fortune. The wealth in this hovel was staggering.

  Awd Eustace had left a fortune and I expected it would go to his brother. Eustace had always existed on the smallest amount of money; putting all his savings away in stocks and shares, and in the building societies. The house was his own too, and so he could have lived a very comfortable and happy life. Why he chose to live in such lowly conditions, I do not know but there were many like him.

  One old character always sat and read by the light of a candle, and once when I called to see if he was all right, he welcomed me into his room, settled me in a chair, and then blew out the candle.

  “Thoo dissn’t need flight of a candle just ti chat,” he said, as if in explanation. “There’s neea point in wasting good money.” And I learned later that the same old man, who’d been left a lot of valuables by his well-to-do father, was quite content to barter a silk tie in return for a cabbage, or an exquisite piece of china for a few eggs. It was rumoured he could be seen in the light of his candle as he counted his piles of money, but I never witnessed this.