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

by Nicholas Rhea

  It is surprising how many Americans and other foreigners, and indeed what a high level of British folk, still think that Scotland Yard investigates every British murder or indeed every British crime. This is a myth, of course, but it has been fostered by many past crime writers who have dramatised Scotland Yard departments like the Flying Squad, the Murder Squad and the Fraud Squad. Their heroic members swooped around Britain keeping the streets free from villainy.

  Those detectives never walked anywhere, nor did they proceed, travel, gallop or simply move. They always swooped, or so it seemed from contemporary novels and newspaper reports. The outcome of this PR exercise was that many authors, and thus many of their readers, constantly failed to appreciate that the provincial police forces had, and still have, some very good detectives. The truth is that all provincial criminal investigation departments are very capable of solving their own crimes. Indeed, there seems no reason why the Yard should not call them in to solve a few of London’s trickier cases.

  Another oft-repeated myth perpetuated by some crime writers is that all murders are committed either on express trains or in the libraries of country houses during dinner. Followers of this mythology may also believe that dead bodies do not mess the carpets or smell after an hour or so of lying around the house. In fact, dead bodies are not very nice things. The truth is they are terribly cumbersome and something of a problem to deal with, a fact known to most police officers. Furthermore, dead bodies that have been subjected to the inhuman treatment dished out by some murderers and rapists are very nasty, messy and smelly indeed. Furthermore, criminals of all types are not very nice people, in spite of what some sociologists would have us believe. They are so often the dregs of society who are able to masquerade as decent folk until the police are able to prove otherwise.

  It follows that it takes a rather special person to become a successful detective. That person must have intelligence, which is not necessarily the same as intellectual ability; he or she must also have a deep working knowledge of criminal law and the legal procedures involved in the prosecution of criminals, as well as an immense understanding of people and their behavioural traits, plus, of course, a keen eye for detail, good powers of observation, a very alert and enquiring mind and infinite patience. The latter quality is needed to cope with those long moments of drudgery and the wealth of interminable, plodding and fruitless enquiries.

  It might be prudent to mention here that police officers are not necessarily promoted when they join the CID. They are often transferred to plain clothes duties without promotion to a higher rank; an officer may be a police constable (PC) one day and a detective police constable (D/PC) — abbreviated to detective constable (D/C) — the next. Such a move is not a promotion, because the detective remains in the rank of constable — it is a sideways transfer. But a detective constable can be promoted either to a uniform sergeant (Sgt), or to a detective sergeant (D/S). Within the ranks of the CID, there is detective sergeant, detective inspector (D/I), detective chief inspector (D/C/I), detective superintendent (D/Supt) and detective chief superintendent (D/Chief Supt).

  All police officers begin their careers in uniform, but there can be promotion right through the ranks of the CID or, alternatively, elevation to the senior heights of the service is sometimes gained by switching from uniform to CID and back again as the opportunities arise. Young constables often join the police service having read books about the great detectives or even about Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot et al; their desire is sometimes to become a famous sleuth, albeit within the ranks of the police service and not as a private investigator. So they opt for at least two years plodding the beat in uniform before being eligible to further their careers as members of the elite CID.

  But becoming a detective is not easy.

  It requires the initial ability to make known one’s skills to those who select recruits for the CID, and in my young constabulary days selection was followed (or occasionally preceded) by a thirteen-week intensive detective training course. This included criminal law, legal procedures and methods of detection, in the form of lectures, and practical work on fingerprints, forensic science, scientific aids, the administration of a murder investigation or serious crime inquiry, identification methods and that host of worldly necessities that makes a good CID officer.

  There was the TIC procedure to understand too.

  This can be somewhat complicated, but in simple terms it is where an arrested person confesses to the police that he or she has committed other crimes which have not, up to that stage, been prosecuted or even detected. When an arrested person is charged with a crime, therefore, he or she is questioned about other undetected crimes of a similar nature for which he or she may be responsible. If the arrested person admits any further crimes, they are added to the charge sheet and presented to the court as admissions of guilt. When determining the cases, the court will ‘take into consideration’ those other confessed crimes, although a case of careless driving would not be dealt with at the same time as fifteen burglary charges. The crimes which are TIC’d must be similar in nature to each other. The chances are that the villain will receive a sentence lighter than if his list of crimes had been detected and presented to a court individually. Thus the TIC system is beneficial to convicted criminals because it allows them to wipe clean their proverbial slate and, when they are released, to start committing a whole range of new crimes.

  This system is also useful to the police. It means that strings of crimes can often be written off as ‘detected,’ a pleasing state of affairs when submitting returns for publication in the Home Office’s annual Criminal Statistics for England and Wales. A good example would occur where a burglar is arrested, his house is searched and a veritable Aladdin’s Cave of stolen goods is discovered. Those objects are the loot from several earlier crimes. He then admits breaking into other premises from which he stole those items. If the arrested person agrees, those other crimes would, in police jargon, be TIC’d ‘taken into consideration’ by the court when passing sentence.

  Another important thing to learn was when, or when not, to ‘crime’ a complaint. If a complaint is ‘crimed’, it means that the investigating officer is satisfied that indeed a crime has been committed. For example, lots of women rush into police stations on Saturday afternoons to complain that their handbags have been stolen or that their purses have been stolen from the top of their shopping bags. In truth, how many of these are really lost or mislaid? The answer is: quite a lot! So if a detective is informed by a woman that her handbag has been stolen, he will first make sure that she has not mislaid it. This is not an easy assessment to make but it is one that must be done.

  It is a fact that people do feel they are the victims of crime when a loss is either their own fault or a misunderstanding of some kind. I knew a dear lady pensioner who was convinced someone was stealing her coal, whereas she was simply using it faster than she thought. I knew a man who complained that his garden spade had been stolen, whereas he had lent it to a friend and had forgotten about the loan until he wanted to dig his garden six months later. I knew a woman who left her handbag on a park bench. She realised she’d left it behind and returned within minutes, but it was missing upon her return, so she reported it stolen. In those few moments, it had in fact been found and handed in to the park authorities by an honest finder.

  There are thousands of such losses every day. If every lost item was ‘crimed’, the crime rate would soar and the detection rate would slump. So crimes are recorded as such only when the police are sure they are genuine crimes; hence they are crimed.

  Bearing in mind the hard work that is needed to become a fully fledged detective, I felt I would like to know more about this branch of police work. I had read my Sherlock Holmes books, I had puzzled over the loopholes in Agatha Christie’s efforts, I had seen films about the work of the master detectives and I warmed to the notion of dramatic battles in court when I could prove, by clever reasoning, that my arrested person was guilt
y of the crime I had alleged. But was it wise for a rural constable to join those whose work deals almost entirely with crime and criminals? Could this jaundice my view of the great British public whom I had sworn to serve? Would I still regard every human being as someone basically decent and honest?

  And besides, how does a uniformed village constable break into those hallowed ranks?

  In my time, the mid-1960s, the answer lay in a system known as ‘Aide to CID’ which was an officer’s short-term attachment to the Criminal Investigation Department. It involved a six-month period of work with the CID, during which time one’s efforts were assessed to see if one was capable of becoming a full-time CID officer. An aptitude for the work would be rewarded by that thirteen-week course at a convenient Detective Training School.

  The snag with a North Yorkshire moorland village like Aidensfield was that very little crime was committed and so it was not easy to show one’s potential for this specialised work. Another factor was that the crime figures that I had to submit quarterly to my superiors were open to wide interpretation. If I recorded a meagre annual total of twelve crimes upon my beat, the official attitude was that there was no need for a constable to live and work in Aidensfield, as the crime rate was far too low to justify his presence.

  Besides, the crimes themselves were at the lower end of the scale of seriousness. For example, some of those crimes might involve little more than the theft of a gallon of petrol from a car (or a crime wave of twelve thefts from twelve cars), or the theft of poultry or sheep, shoplifting from the village stores or the work of a sneak thief in the local council estate who prowls about stealing radios or cash from houses whose doors have been left open while the ladies gossip or drink tea. It was hardly serious crime or Holmesian stuff, and it was not likely to worry the senior officers of the force. However, it was highly upsetting to the victims and to the general morale and well-being of a small community.

  But my interpretation of such figures was that I was out and about on my beat, keeping down the volume of crime. I claimed that a low rate of crime indicated some very positive policing. In my view, it showed I was doing a good job and that my presence as a resident constable was necessary to keep it that way. I said, and I maintain, that the village constable was and still is an asset to the community. After all, crime prevention is a very sophisticated art, and much of it is achieved by the presence of a patrolling constable in uniform who has the time and the will to stop and chat to his public. Those chats could reveal villains and they could produce crime-prevention advice for those who are less aware of such risks. In addition, the sight of a local constable going about his daily routine does provide a feeling of security within the community.

  In several discussions with senior officers about the merits of a resident village constable, I suggested that a high crime rate on Aidensfield beat would be proof that I was not doing my job, irrespective of any detection percentage. It is worth mentioning here that most crimes on a rural beat were investigated by the resident officer, and not by the CID.

  I followed my arguments with the logic that my beat’s annual low crime rate was clear evidence of the value of my presence and also proof of my localised crime-beating efforts. The bosses countered this by saying that, if the village constable was taken away from Aidensfield and not replaced, the volume of crime would not show a significant increase. I agreed with this, but not for the same reason as the bosses. I knew that, if there was no constable at Aidensfield, many local crimes would never be reported; the villagers would not bother to contact an anonymous and distant police officer, especially by telephone, to report their losses unless it was a very serious matter. As a consequence, the outcome would be a continuing low number of reported crime, but another important aspect was that, in the absence of someone handy to whom to report the smaller crimes, the incidence of true crime could be a lot higher. The absence of a convenient constable would mean that more actual crime would be committed but much less would be reported.

  I could not make my superiors understand that, for the type of crimes suffered in the villages, the local people would not contact a distant police station. They’d wait until they met the constable to report matters like, ‘Oh, Mr Rhea, I thowt I’d better mention this — somebody got into my implement shed and nicked a coil o’ rope last week.’

  Or I would receive reports like, ‘There’s somebody about, Mr Rhea; five or six of us have had money taken, milk money we left on our doorsteps on a morning for t’milkman . . . only a few pounds . . .’

  Another example is that someone would tell me, ‘Mr Rhea, awd Mrs Barthram’s had somebody in her greenhouse, pinching her garden tools. Two trowels and a spade have gone; she doesn’t like bothering you, so I thought I’d mention it . . .’

  Crimes of this kind would never be reported other than to the local constable as he passed by, and although officers might patrol the villages in cars and vans, who would halt a passing police van to complain of the theft of a coil of rope a week earlier, or that someone had stolen a cactus from Dad’s greenhouse? Removal of village constables is a fine way of reducing the volume of reported crime, but their absence can never permit the real level of rural crime to be calculated — and the same argument pertains to acts of vandalism, damage and general anti-social behaviour.

  It was while entertaining such thoughts and concern about the future of the village constable that I was on patrol in Ashfordly one autumn morning in 1966. I was standing beside a telephone kiosk, making a point there in case the office wished to contact me (even though I had a radio in the van!), when I noticed the rangy figure of Detective Sergeant Gerry Connolly, who was heading towards me with strong, purposeful strides.

  He was the man in charge of the CID at Eltering. Ashfordly and Aidensfield were within his area of responsibility. He was a pleasant man in his early forties who sported a mop of thick fair hair over a face that was as pink and fresh as a child’s. Clad in brown brogue shoes, a Harris tweed jacket and cavalry twill trousers, he looked every inch a countryman, which indeed he was. He bred golden retrievers and seemed to be friendly with everyone.

  Of course, he wore a brown trilby hat. It was similar to those worn by men who resort to racecourses; I have often wondered why so many male racegoers wear brown trilby hats. There is a sea of them at any racecourse, where they are a group-identifying feature, in the form of mass adornment or professional lids. Gerry had one too, and I do know he liked attending the races, whether on duty or off.

  Gerry Connolly addressed everyone by their Christian names, even those of higher rank than himself, the only exceptions being the chief constable and the deputy chief constable. I knew that his small staff enjoyed working with him; it comprised Detective Constable Paul Wharton, who played bowls and kept tropical fish, and Detective Constable Ian Shackleton, who liked beer, haddock-and-chips and trout fishing. The trio made a good, effective and popular team.

  ‘Morning, Nick,’ he beamed as he came to a halt at my side. ‘It’s a pleasant day to be patrolling this pretty place.’

  ‘And what brings the might of the sub-divisional CID to Ashfordly?’ I asked with interest. ‘Have we a crime in town?’

  ‘Not unless you know something I don’t,’ he returned. ‘No, we’ve been having a few raids on the local Co-ops. A team is breaking in through the back windows of the storerooms and nicking thousands of fags each time. Six or seven Co-ops have been raided in the county since the summer. I’ve just been for words with your local manager; I’ve tried to persuade him to have bars fitted to all his back windows and better locks fitted on the doors.’

  ‘We’ve been telling him that for months,’ I said. ‘We read about the raids in our circulars, but he seemed to think it could never happen to his shop.’

  ‘I’m going round all those that haven’t been hit,’ he said. ‘I reckon he’s got the message now; he says it’s a decision which has to be made by higher authority, and they’re a bit tight with their budgets for improvements and alterat
ions to premises. They’re not too concerned about the thefts because the insurance will cover the losses.’

  ‘The poor old insurance companies, they do fork out for a lot of carelessness, don’t they?’

  ‘Some are tightening up their conditions now, Nick; they insist on proper safeguards.’

  We chattered awhile about professional matters and personal affairs, and then, quite unexpectedly, he said, ‘Look, Nick, you’re about due for a spell as an Aide, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’d enjoy that,’ I said, for it was true.

  ‘Right, leave it with me,’ he beamed. ‘I’ll submit your name. It’ll take a few weeks to be processed and considered, but I reckon, if I ask for you, they’ll approve.’

  I returned home feeling very pleased at this promise and explained to my wife that CID duties would entail long hours albeit with no night shifts. One difference would be that I should be expected to spend my evenings at work, visiting the pubs and clubs in the area to quaff pints with the best and the worst elements of society. I would receive a small detective allowance to help defray such expenses, but it would not cover the actual cost. Mary was happy for me and we both knew that I would enjoy this kind of work.

  And so it was that in the early summer of the following year I received a formal note from the superintendent to say that I was to be seconded to the CID at Eltering as an Aide for a period of six months.

  On the appointed date, therefore, I dressed in a sports jacket, flannels and comfortable shoes, kissed Mary and our four infants farewell and set out for Eltering. I was due to start work at 9 a.m. that Monday but had no idea when that first day’s duties would finish. I would be working some very long days during the next six months.

  Mary would have to suffer some extended periods alone with our little family, and for me it would be an expensive time.