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

by Nicholas Rhea

  Having thoroughly discussed our plans, we sallied forth across the splendid moors. There is no need to repeat all the details of that long and somewhat arduous trip, save to say that we covered every mile of main road within the moors and a good many leagues upon minor roads. We examined every picnic site and halting-place that I knew; we stopped, we reversed, we retraced our steps, we motored down lanes and byways and we examined mounds and bumps from every conceivable angle. We explored every possible site from every possible position. We lunched at a lovely pub and enjoyed coffees, ice-creams and soft drinks as, from time to time, we needed a break and refreshment.

  As darkness fell we had not positively identified the location. We had found several ‘possibles’ which we marked on the Ordnance Survey map, but none proved, without doubt, to be the place where Peggy believed she had set eyes on Myra Hindley. Because darkness prevented any further exploration, I now had the task of driving my charges back to Peterlee, and it was with some sadness at our lack of success that I left the moors for that journey half-way through County Durham.

  Upon arrival at the Copelands’ neat little house, I was invited in; we organized some fish and chips for ourselves. I met their 15-year-old son, Paul, as we shared the table over our succulent meal. Never have fish and chips tasted so good. We discussed our trip, always trying just one more avenue in the hope we would produce an answer, but we did not. I assured them that, in my own future journeys over the moors, I would forever be alert to any possible location.

  After I’d eaten, Peggy and Matt insisted I visit their son’s pride and joy. I went through the back door of the house and found myself in a long, narrow extension which reeked of mice. There were hundreds of them — white mice galore, large ones, little ones, old ones and young ones, grey ones and pure white ones, mottled ones and spotty ones . . . I had never seen so many mice in one place. They were all in cages with wire fronts, all gnawing at titbits and all seeming content. Having dutifully admired them, I prepared to say my farewells and thank-yous. But as I hovered in the doorway, Peggy bade me a fond goodbye and handed me a memento of my day’s duty — a small wooden cage containing two white mice! It had a glass front and two compartments, one filled with hay for sleeping upon and the other equipped with a treadmill for exercise. A tiny hole separated the two. My new friends were sniffing at me from their bedroom.

  ‘No, really, I can’t . . .’ I said, thinking of Mary’s reaction when I returned home.

  ‘We’d like you to have them,’ she said with the utmost sincerity. ‘It’s a small way of thanking you for your patience and time today. We really did enjoy the outing, even if we didn’t find the place.’

  I did not have the heart to refuse this gift, and so I placed my two mice on the floor of the police car, bade the Copelands farewell and set about the sixty-mile drive home. The mice squeaked from time to time but I returned to Ashfordly police station with car and mice intact. Sergeant Blaketon was waiting for me. His first task was to stalk around the car to examine it for dents, damage and dirt.

  ‘Rhea, this car is like a midden! Look at it! Mud from fore to aft, mud as high as the roof, and mud thick enough to plant potatoes in. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘The moors, Sergeant, searching for evidence of a serious crime. The moorland tracks can be dirty, you know . . .’

  He grumbled at length about the mud but found no damage. I followed him into the office to make my report. He listened with deep interest as I outlined every mile of my journey, with a glowing account of what we had discovered and a factual account of what we had not traced. From time to time, he quizzed me on portions of the trek which I might have omitted or forgotten, but I gained the impression he was satisfied with the outcome. He concluded the interview by saying I would have to clean the car in the morning. I assured him I would come to Ashfordly first thing — and conveniently forget to remind him that tomorrow was my day off. If he insisted I wash the car tomorrow, he’d have to authorize my overtime.

  On this strange day, our duty had been done — we had examined the claim put forward by the Copelands, but it had proved of no value to the detectives engaged on the Moors Murder inquiry.

  Before I left the office, Blaketon, in an uncharacteristic show of gratitude, said, ‘Well done, Rhea. Submit a detailed written report as soon as you can. Include everything. I’ll authorize overtime payment for today’s duty. You’ve put in some long hours and I trust they were worthwhile.’

  ‘I think so, Sergeant.’

  ‘So, having spent an entire day with the Copelands, what do you make of them?’

  ‘They were genuine in their belief,’ I said. ‘I like them, they were good people.’

  ‘Are you saying we’ve some murder victims buried on our patch?’ he put to me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m saying I believe Mr and Mrs Copeland were honest in their actions. I truly believe Mrs Copeland thought she had seen Myra Hindley. Whether she did is another matter; that’s something I can’t answer.’

  ‘We’ll send your report to Durham CID, and they’ll get in touch with the murder team. You realize you might have to do the whole thing again?’

  ‘I’ll do it, if it’s necessary,’ I assured him, adding that it might have to wait until next year in the same season, due to the appearance of the landscape and the light.

  ‘Good man. Well, young Rhea, let’s get you home to Aidensfield. It’s late.’

  As he settled in the driving-seat to ferry me home, I climbed into the passenger side of his official car and lifted the mouse cage onto my lap.

  ‘What the hell have you got there, Rhea? It pongs a good deal, I might say.’

  ‘A pair of white mice, Sergeant,’ I said inanely.

  ‘You mean this is the result of your day’s duty on a major murder investigation? You mean that you’ve nothing more to show for it than a pair of white mice?’

  He was staring straight ahead in the darkness as he started the engine, so I could not see the expression on his face. Was he angry or was he winding me up?

  ‘It is one outcome,’ I had to stand my corner. ‘A bit of light relief after a hard day. Mr and Mrs Copeland thought the children would like them.’

  ‘I should imagine they would.’ Then he chuckled. ‘But what’s your wife going to think? Who’s going to clean them out? Who’s going to feed them, Rhea? And are they male and female? If they are, my lad, you’ll have millions of mice before you have time to find a cat . . .’

  He went on and on about the drawbacks of keeping pet mice as he drove me back to Aidensfield.

  When I arrived, the house was in darkness. Mary and the children were in bed, and all were fast asleep. I crept in, clutching the cage and its two cheerful inhabitants, and placed them on a shelf in the kitchen. I fed them supper from the mixture of grains and nuts given to me by Paul Copeland, covered the cage with a duster to keep out the draughts and crawled upstairs to bed. I was exhausted and fell into a deep sleep within seconds.

  Next morning Mary awoke before me and trotted downstairs. Her loud shrieks soon aroused me.

  Half asleep, I rushed down, forgetting the mice and thinking something awful had happened. I found Mary in the kitchen with the duster in her hands as she stared in astonishment at the two bright-eyed mice.

  ‘What on earth are these?’ she demanded.

  ‘Presents,’ I said. ‘For the children.’

  ‘Oh no, they’re not,’ she retorted. ‘Just you get rid of those this very morning!’

  She went on at some length, but the children had heard the commotion and came downstairs to see what was happening. All of them fell heavily and immediately in love with the mice. Amid much persuasion, Mary allowed us to keep them and soon grew fond of their presence, even if they did become a wee bit pungent at times. Happily, they were of the same sex, although I’m not sure which, so they did not reproduce. They lived on that shelf for many years, growing gracefully old, as pet mice do, while enjoying the occasional romp around the house.
I did not think that naming them Ian and Myra was at all correct, neither was Matt and Peggy, and so, for reasons which escape me, we called them Ebb and Flo.

  But we never undertook a further search of the North York Moors, nor did I ever learn whether the murder team had examined any of the possible sites we had identified. The mystery of Peggy Copeland’s unusual sighting remains unresolved.

  * * *

  Another murder mystery was even more curious.

  The date was 8 June when a postman hurried into Ashfordly police station; it was around 10 a.m., and by chance I was in the office.

  He told me that that morning, while on his rounds, he’d been driving past a clump of pine trees on the moors behind Ashfordly when he’d noticed a small wooden cross planted in the earth. It had not been there before that day. It was adorned with ribbons, and the turf and soil beside it had been newly dug over. I asked him for a precise location and he showed me on an Ordnance Survey map. The clump of trees was beside a lonely moorland road which led through Lairsbeck to serve a few isolated farms before petering out upon the heights of the moors.

  I thanked him and decided to have a look at the scene before taking any further action. I found it just as he had described. The cross stood about two feet high and had been fashioned from two hazel twigs. White ribbons dangled from the arms, and it stood within a circle of some two dozen pine trees, with not a cottage or farm in sight. The cross was firmly upright in a thick grassy patch, and immediately in front of it was a small area of recently dug earth. My own guess was that the earth was very fresh — it might even have been dug over that morning; certainly it was not more than a day or two old. It was the size of a human grave, not one small enough for a cat or a dog. Remaining at the site, I radioed the control room at Eltering and outlined the situation. Sergeant Bairstow said he would liaise with me at the scene, his estimated time of arrival being half an hour. I was instructed to wait and not touch anything.

  When Charlie Bairstow arrived, he stood and looked for a long time at that odd sight, occasionally scratching his head while walking in a circle around the trees.

  ‘What do you make of it, Nick?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Could it be a horse, a pony perhaps? A pet cow or calf? Goat? It looks as though something’s been buried and commemorated, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But would anybody commemorate an animal with a cross?’ he asked.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ I said, recalling that some Americans arranged weddings for dogs and birthday parties for cats. ‘But who’d bury a person here and then mark the grave like that?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out. We’ll have to call in the cavalry.’

  By that, he meant he’d call in the CID and their experts, for they would surely examine the grave by digging it up.

  From his car radio, he summoned divisional headquarters, whereupon Detective Sergeant Gerry Connolly said he would come immediately; we had to wait yet again and not touch anything. He arrived within three-quarters of an hour and examined the lonely site.

  ‘We’ll have to dig it up,’ he pronounced. ‘I’ll get my lads to do it — I’ll need a photographer standing by. I’ll radio them now while we tape off the area.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, Nick, get the yellow tape from my car boot. Circle those trees with it and watch where you put your feet. If you find anything there — anything at all, leave it where it is, then tell me.’

  Thus the formalities began. One or two cars passed as we worked, but at this stage we did not ask any questions, nor did we interview the few householders whose cottages occupied these remote moors. The nearest was almost half a mile away. Detective Constables Ian Shackleton and Paul Wharton arrived with spades, picks and wheelbarrow, and Detective Sergeant Marks, the photographer, arrived to record progress. The scene was now one of activity and interest, with no fewer than five police cars, lots of police officers and yellow tape, all laced with a high degree of anticipated drama.

  Ian Shackleton lost no time in commencing his dig. As the earth was soft, he found it a comparatively easy task, and very soon he had a broad and deep hole. But apart from the soil and a few surprised worms, there was nothing buried there. Joined by Paul Wharton and his pick-axe, they expanded the area of digging until they covered an area of about twelve feet by six in rough terms. Having stretched beyond the boundaries of the original grave without finding anything, they dug several shallow trenches without encountering anything remotely suspicious, and then concentrated upon digging deeper into the original grave and also below the cross. Soon they came to the sub-soil, which was undisturbed. It wasn’t long before we had a hole large enough to contain a small swimming-pool, and nothing to show for it but a huge pile of earth. The forlorn little wooden cross lay on one side.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Connolly eventually. ‘Sod all, in fact. Nowt. Nil.’

  ‘Does it suggest the ground’s been prepared for a grave?’ suggested Ian Shackleton.

  ‘Well, we’re not going to fill it in! If somebody else cares to bury summat here, let ’em!’ laughed Connolly. ‘Leave the earth as it is, but replace the cross. Charlie,’ he addressed Sergeant Bairstow, ‘get your lads to visit this place regularly, will you? Summat’s being going on, but I’ve no idea what. See what you can turn up.’

  ‘It’s a good task for young Rhea,’ beamed Sergeant Bairstow. ‘How about it, Nick? See if you can find out just what’s been happening here.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I promised.

  And so we dispersed, leaving the earth around the edge of the massive hole, and the cross in its original position, albeit now in bare, upturned earth. I decided to do my best to find answers to the puzzles. Who had place the cross there and why? And who had turned over this earth, and why?

  When the others had gone, I drove to the nearest cottage. It was occupied by a farm labourer and his wife who were having their afternoon tea break when I arrived. I was invited in, offered a seat at their kitchen table and given a mug of tea with a piece of fruitcake. I learned that the couple, in their fifties, were Mr and Mrs Byworth, George and Ada. I explained our actions, and George smiled. ‘Aye, Mr Rhea, Ah spotted yon police cars and reckoned they’d be digging.’

  ‘You know what’s been happening there?’

  ‘A murder, Mr Rhea. Yon trees are called Grave Wood, there’s a circle of ’em. They were planted around a grave.’

  ‘When was this?’ I interrupted him.

  ‘1895,’ he said. ‘My dad told me all about it. He lived here before me. It was a farmhand called John Appleton. He killed his wife and little lass and buried ’em right where you were digging. Nasty case, it was. He had no other woman, nowt like that, but he was a bit daft, only in his twenties, and he led his wife and bairn out to look at that grave. He’d dug it ready, and as they stood looking into it, wondering what it was, he killed ’em both, shot ’em. They fell into that grave and he buried ’em. He was found out, mind, and they hanged him.’

  ‘What happened to the bodies? Do you know?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘The woman and her bairn were reburied in Ashfordly churchyard. It was a funny do. They had a funny vicar then: ’e wouldn’t allow the bodies to come in through t’lychgate for some reason. They had to pass t’coffins over t’church wall. T’graves are still there.’

  ‘And somebody planted those pines in memory of them?’

  ‘They ’ad no relations hereabouts; they came from away when Appleton got work here as a farmhand. I know because he worked on t’same farm as my dad. But they found no relations for the lass and her bairn. Nobody. So the local folks planted them trees, Mr Rhea. In memory.’

  Then another aspect occurred to me.

  ‘When was the murder in 1895?’ I asked.

  ‘8 June,’ he said. ‘8 June 1895.’

  ‘That’s seventy years ago today,’ I whispered. ‘Today is 8 June.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said.

  ‘So the
digging out there? The digging before we came, and that cross? What do you know about that, Mr Byworth?’

  ‘Nowt,’ he said. ‘But awd Horace Baines might know.’

  ‘Horace Baines?’ I didn’t know the man.

  ‘Used to be our roadman, retired a few years back. He lives in Ashfordly, not far from t’front gate of t’castle.’

  ‘So why should he know?’

  ‘He was up here at six this morning,’ smiled George.

  ‘Out for a long walk, was he?’

  ‘No, he was digging, in Grave Wood,’ he smiled almost wickedly.

  I realized that if we’d asked a few questions before commencing our own digging operation, we might have saved ourselves a lot of work. But I decided the exercise had been good for those CID lads!

  ‘So why would he be digging there?’ I asked.

  ‘You’d better ask him, Mr Rhea, cos I don’t know.’

  ‘And you don’t know who put that little cross there?’

  ‘No idea,’ he said, and his wife concurred.

  I thanked them for their wonderful co-operation and drove back into Ashfordly, where I had no trouble locating Horace Baines. He was in his pretty stone cottage, a truly picturesque place with honeysuckle over the front door and roses climbing over an outhouse. He led me into his garden, where I admired his flowers and vegetables.

  ‘I’m not in trouble, am I?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I assured him. ‘It’s curiosity, that’s all,’ and I explained my purpose.

  ‘You’ll know about the murder then?’ he put to me.

  ‘I do now,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know until today.’

  ‘Well, after that lass and her bairn were killed, somebody erected a memorial stone. It stood for years, until the Second World War. Then these moors were used as tank training grounds.’