Constable Across the Moors

by Nicholas Rhea

  “Thanks – I’ll see if he’s there.”

  “He left about forty minutes ago,” he said.

  I knew I was getting warmer. The time-lapse was growing less and less as I pursued the elusive Alex around the village. Joe told me how to find Mrs Widdowson and I located her in a lovely bungalow just off the main street. She was washing her windows from a short step-ladder and would be a lady in her early fifties. She wore a flowered head-square and flat shoes.

  “Hello,” I shouted across to her. “Mrs Widdowson?”

  “Yes,” she returned my smile with that inevitable look of apprehension.

  “I’m looking for Mr MacDonald,” I announced. “I was told he was here.”

  “Yes, he was, Mr Rhea,” she knew my name. “He came to fix my lights – it was a bad connection, he said. He fixed it for me. He left, though, about half an hour ago. He doesn’t take long, fixing things.”

  “He doesn’t!” I said. “Thanks – sorry to have troubled you.”

  “He said he was going over to Partridge Hall,” she offered. “You know, that farm down the Elsinby Road.”

  “I know,” I called, deciding to complete this tour. I had to visit the Dinsdale family at Partridge Hall sometime in the near future, to interview Terry, their seventeen-year-old son. He’d been involved in a motor-cycle accident near Manchester last week, so I could conclude these two missions together. The walk to Partridge Hall took about twenty minutes. I walked towards the spacious entrance of this lovely old building which was really a large farmhouse set among sycamores. It stood on an elevated site with ranging views across the open countryside and was clearly the home of an industrious and wealthy family.

  I rang the doorbell and waited. Soon, a young woman with neat blonde hair tied with a ribbon appeared from a corridor and smiled at me.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m P.C. Rhea. Is Terry Dinsdale in please?”

  “Terry?” she frowned. “Is he in trouble?”

  “No,” I assured her. “It’s about his accident last week, the one near Manchester. I’ve got to take a statement from him – it’s for the local police. I think he was more of a witness than a casualty?”

  “Yes, he was overtaken by a motor cyclist who crashed into a van. Terry fell off his motor bike because of it, but wasn’t hurt. I think he’s out. Just a moment, I’ll fetch mum.”

  She disappeared the way she had come and soon a mature woman with identical blonde hair and lovely smile materialised from the house. She was dressed in painting clothes – an old apron, old dress and a clear plastic hat on her head. She carried a paint brush, the handle wrapped in a rag.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to interrupt important work!”

  “It’s all right, I’m decorating our lounge,” she said. “Susan said it’s Terry you want?”

  I explained the reason and she smiled. “Yes, he told us, but he’s out, Mr Rhea. He went off to York with some pals. I expect him back about half past six.”

  “I’ll call again.”

  “Shall I send him up to your house?” she offered.

  “If he rings first to tell me when he’s coming, that would be fine,” I consented.

  “He won’t be prosecuted, will he?” she asked, with all the worried expressions a mother can produce.

  “Not from what I saw of the report from Manchester,” I confirmed. “I’ve been asked to take a witness statement from him, nothing more, although I will have to record details of his driving licence and insurance. That’s routine.”

  “All right, Mr Rhea, I’ll get him to ring you when he comes in.”

  “Thanks – now, a small thing while I’m here. I’m looking for Mr MacDonald and understand he’s here.”

  “Yes,” she smiled, and I felt a great sense of relief. “Did you want to speak to him?”

  “Very briefly,” and I pulled my key from my pocket. “I want him to fix this, and have been chasing him all afternoon.”

  “Come through,” she invited, and I followed her along the elegant corridors of this beautiful old house and into a room which reeked of fresh paint. The floor and furniture were covered with white sheets and there, perched high on a step ladder, was a silver-haired gentleman with a deeply tanned face. He was the picture of health and he turned to look down as I entered the room. He was clad in a white smock and put something down on the tray at the top of his ladder. Above was a highly ornate ceiling, rich in plaster work and decorated across its entirety. He was doing something to the plaster work.

  “Mr MacDonald,” the lady announced. “This is P.C. Rhea, he wants a quick word with you.”

  “Guilty as charged!” he raised his hands in the air and laughed, then descended the tall step-ladder. “Hello, I’m Alex MacDonald.” His voice had a pleasing lowland lilt.

  I showed him the key and he smiled. “No problem,” he said. “Is it from a gramophone or a clock?”

  “A grandfather clock,” I said.

  “I’ll fix it next week. Will you be at home on Wednesday morning?”

  I made a rapid mental calculation, and said, “Yes, I’ll be in my office until ten o’clock, at the Hill Top. But I can call in at your place.” He took my key and popped it into his pocket.

  “I take a lot of catching,” he smiled. “Wednesday is my day at Ashfordly – I go to the bread shop, you know and bake their fruit cakes for them. I can drop your key in as I pass the house.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Really fine …”

  My business over, I left the room and Mrs Dinsdale escorted me to the front door. “He’s remarkable,” she was saying. “He’s putting gold leaf on to my ceiling, making a marvellous job too. We only decorate that ceiling once every fifteen years or so, and it’s a job finding someone who can do that gold leaf work. I was lucky getting Mr MacDonald.”

  “Yes, you were,” I agreed. I reached the door, and as I was about to leave, I heard footsteps behind me. Alex MacDonald was hurrying after me.

  “Oh, Mr Rhea,” he panted. “If that grandfather clock of yours grows awkward, you know where to find me. I’ll fix it for you – re-set the timing, weights, and so forth.”

  “Thanks,” I smiled, as I left the premises. I wondered if he was any good at working night duty for bored policemen!

  Ted Williamson from Keld House rang me at seven one morning and cried, “Mr Rhea, thoo’ll etti come quick. Ah’ve had some sheep pinched during t’night.”

  I didn’t ask any more questions, but donned my motor-cycling gear and set out across the hills to his remote farm. It lay at the end of a deep, narrow valley high on the moors, and was extremely isolated. His sheep ran across the moors with no hedges or walls to contain them and they formed a major contribution to his meagre living standards. He did, however, keep a few sheep closer to the house and these were in a small paddock adjacent to the building. These had been bred by hand by his patient wife, the lambs of mothers who had either rejected them or who had died during lambing time. Those orphans had grown into fine animals, thanks to her attention.

  The noise of my arrival brought him from the kitchen and he was waiting on the concrete path as I struggled to park my bike upon an irregular and stony farmyard. At last I had the machine balanced on its stand, and removed my crash helmet which I placed on the seat.

  “Morning, Ted,” I greeted him. “Sad affair, eh?”

  “Aye, lad, it is. Now, them sheep o’ mine roam across yon heights with nivver a theft from one year end to t’next; some get knocked down and killed by cars, but thoo can expect that. Sheep aren’t t’brightest o’ creatures, are they?”

  “No, they’re a bit dim,” I agreed, following him to the kitchen.

  “But them in that paddock, well, they’ve been hand-reared by our Maud and some is as tame as a cat. Some rotten sod has pinched ’em from that paddock.”

  “How many?” I put to him as I pulled a chair from the table. It scraped noisily upon the sandstone floor, and I sat down without being asked. It was ex
pected that visitors did this.

  “Eight,” he said. “Eight gimmers, nice animals, well fed. Nice for meat, Ah’d say, plump and fleshy. Not run to bone like them awd ewes up on t’top. Some butcher’ll have ’em by now, Ah reckon, cutting ’em up.”

  “Morning, Mr Rhea,” Maud, his plump, rosy-cheeked wife came in with a large metal teapot and said. “Tea?”

  “Thanks.” She began to pour a huge tin mug full, a pint pot with a metal handle.

  “What are they worth, Ted?” I had to ask for my crime report.

  “Fifteen quid apiece, Ah reckon.”

  I sipped the tea and they settled before me, sitting around the table as I produced a long sheet of paper from my inside pocket. This was a crime report, and I had to enter all the relevant details upon it. I began with the standard questions about their names, ages, addresses and occupations, and eventually got down to the basic facts of the crime. From what Ted told me, he’d checked the paddock last night about ten o’clock before turning in to bed, and at quarter to seven this morning, he’d come downstairs to find the gate open. He knew he’d locked it last night – he’d checked that very fact before going to bed.

  About a dozen sheep were still in the field, huddled in a corner, and he believed they’d been terrified into moving there in the dark, and had not strayed since.

  “Could it be hikers?” I asked. “Maybe somebody’s walked through and just left the gate open? Could your sheep have wandered off?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Nay, lad, nivver. If that had happened, they’d still be on my land somewhere. They’re not – they’ve been takken off in a truck of some kind.”

  “Truck?”

  “Van mebbe. Summat light, I reckon, like a pick-up or a small van.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “There’s tracks in that gateway. Drink your tea, and Ah’ll show you.”

  Meanwhile, I wrote into my report a description of the eight missing gimmers, the name used for young female sheep not yet ewes. All were nine months old, female of course, and marked on their left flank with a splotch of blue dye. After completing those short but essential formalities, I asked Ted to take me to the scene of the crime.

  “That gate,” he said.

  And in the soft earth were the unmistakable tracks of a vehicle of some kind. It had reversed into the gateway, a fact revealed by marks of its front wheels made during that manoeuvre, and there was a slight indentation a few feet into the field where a long tailboard or ramp had rested. I knew how the thief had operated – in the darkness, he would park his vehicle in the open gate and simply drive the sheep towards the truck. There may have been a dog, and he must have had lights of some kind, but it was a simple manoeuvre. Once he’d got a handful of animals aboard, he would drive off.

  I squatted on my haunches to examine the marks. They were the conventional tyre marks of a four-wheeled light vehicle, and I guessed it was a pick-up of some kind, possibly a Morris. Then I noticed the irregularity in one of the rear tyre marks.

  From the impressions in the soft earth, it was clear that the tyre had a defect on the inside wall, and it looked like a bubble of rubber. I knew the fault – it had once happened to my car. The tyre wall was weak and the pressure of air caused the tube and the tyre to bulge like a round bubble. If it caught a sharp stone or a nail, a puncture was inevitable. Sometimes, if the blob grew very large, it would make contact with the springs of the vehicle and create a nuisance, if only because of the repetitious noise as the wheel turned. But in time, that would rub a hole in the outer casing.

  I showed this to Ted.

  “Now that’s a capper,” he said. “Ah nivver noticed yon.”

  “Does it ring a bell?” I asked. “Has anybody been up here lately with a vehicle like this? I reckon it’s a small pick-up, four wheels, all single and with a tail-board that comes down, like a ramp.”

  “And with a blob on t’rear tyre, eh? On t’inside?”

  “You can see the mark in the soil, Ted.” I pointed to it again, and I could see he was thinking hard.

  “Noo, there was a feller up here with a truck like that, seeking work.”

  “When was this?” I began to grow excited.

  “Two days back, no more.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He came to my kitchen door one afternoon, three o’clock or thereabouts, and asked if Ah was looking for casual labour.”

  “Did you take him on, Ted?”

  He shook his head, “Nay, lad. Ah’ve a spot of ditching and hedging that mebbe needs a feller to do it, but Ah didn’t want to take onnybody on. To be honest, Ah can’t afford to pay for jobs like that.”

  “So he left?”

  “Aye, he did.”

  “And who was it? A local?”

  “Ah didn’t ask his name, Mr Rhea. But he gave some name or other. Daft of me when Ah think back, but Ah didn’t write it down. You don’t think at the time, do you? Ah’ve seen him around at market days and sheep sales, mind.”

  “What’s he look like?” I was taking notes now.

  “A little feller, with a sharp face, like a jockey or even an elf! A funny little chap, really. Scruffily dressed, mind.”

  Immediately, I knew my suspect. I said, “And was his van a light blue one, with rust all over? A Morris pick-up, like we thought?”

  He frowned and then nodded. “Aye, now you come to mention it, it was.”

  “Can you remember his name? Try hard.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It didn’t ring a bell, I can’t remember it.”

  “Claude Jeremiah Greengrass?” I suggested.

  “Aye!” his eyes lit up. “That was what he said. A daft sooart of a name if you ask me … thoo knows him?”

  “I know him,” I agreed. “He’s a petty thief who lives on my patch near Elsinby. This is just the sort of thing he’d do.”

  “If you catch him, will it mean court then?”

  “You bet it will!” I said. “I’ve been after this rogue for ages, Ted, and he always manages to get away somehow.”

  “Well, Ah’s nut one for takking folks to court, Mr Rhea, nut if I can help it. All Ah want is them sheep back, that’s all.”

  If I knew Claude Jeremiah, he’d have disposed of the animals very rapidly, thus getting rid of the evidence. He must have had an outlet, possibly a crooked market dealer or butcher. But I would go and see him anyway, and immediately.

  “Just get them sheep back, Mr Rhea, never mind about a court. Ah’d hate to get my name in t’papers for summat like that.”

  “All right,” I heard myself saying. “If I get the sheep back, we’ll punish him ourselves, eh? Alive that is – that’s if we get your sheep back alive.”

  “Aye, that’s a deal. And if he’s killed ’em and you can prove it, then take him to Eltering Magistrates. Now that’s what Ah calls a fair deal.”

  “Or if I can prove he’s stolen them and got rid of them?”

  “Aye, all right. But if you get ’em back alive and well, we forget yon court?”

  And so the peculiar deal was struck. I knew I’d stand little chance with Claude Jeremiah; he was cute enough not to keep the animals any longer than necessary, and I knew I would have a very slender chance of proving him to be the thief. But I knew it was him – in my bones, I knew.

  My priority now was to race back to Elsinby and unearth him. I had to catch him before he disposed of the animals, and because he’d stolen them during the night, they could be seventy or eighty miles away by now, or more. I told Ted I’d be in touch if there was any development, and rode off in a cloud of spray from the damp road.

  Thirty-five minutes later, I was cruising down the main street of Elsinby, and turned off the tarmac highway on to the rough track which led down to Claude Jeremiah’s untidy collection of buildings. As I bumped along his road, I heard his lurcher begin to bark. Alfred, the dog, had warned him of my approach, and that’s how Alfred earned his meat.

  I parked the mot
or cycle and leaned it against a tree about fifty yards from the house and walked the rest of the journey. I saw no sign of Claude Jeremiah or of his pick-up, and so I knocked on the door.

  Seconds later, the man himself answered.

  “Oh, Mr Rhea, this is an early visit. Something wrong?”

  “Where you out last night or early this morning, Claude?” I did not waste time with useless preliminaries. He knew the score as well as I.

  “Out? Me? Good heavens no, Mr Rhea. I had an early night and have just nicely got out of bed.”

  “You weren’t out anywhere near Ted Williamson’s place then? At Keld House?”

  “Keld House, Mr Rhea? Why should I go to Keld House?”

  “Looking for work, maybe?” I smiled.

  “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten. Yes, of course. I did go to see him. I was looking for casual work, Mr Rhea, harvesting, potato picking, hedging and ditching, anything, but that was a day or two ago.”

  “And he didn’t have a job for you?”

  “No, Mr Rhea, he didn’t. Why, has he one now? Is that it? You’ve been up there checking your livestock registers and he’s changed his mind? He liked me and wants me to work for him?” There was a wicked gleam in his bright eyes.

  “No, he has no job. But he has lost some sheep, Claude.”

  “Sheep? Lost? I’ve not seen sheep up there, Mr Rhea, not me. Oh no.”

  “Stolen, Claude. His sheep were stolen, and I know you were there.”

  “Stolen? Not when I was there, Mr Rhea, surely?”

  “No, last night, during the night or maybe early this morning. Eight gimmers, Claude Jeremiah, in a pick-up just like yours.”

  “There’s lots of those little Morrises about, Mr Rhea, lots of them.”

  “So you didn’t steal his sheep, then?”

  “Now you know me, Mr Rhea. I’d never steal sheep, not me. I know I’m light-fingered and a worry to you, but I’m not a sheep-stealer. Not me.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I take a look around your place?”