CONSTABLE BENEATH THE TREES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 13)

by Nicholas Rhea

  Fortunately Mrs Eastwood had several colour photographs of this Geoffrey; I was able to borrow one which I would be able to reproduce and circulate via police channels to antique dealers and others to whom the statue might be offered for sale. She explained that the statue was some two feet six inches tall, carved from dark oak and clothed in Chaucer’s period, the fourteenth century. Carved on the foot of the statue, upon the base where the feet were resting, was the outline of a large church, probably Canterbury Cathedral. The statue depicted Chaucer as a sharp-featured man in late middle age, sporting a white goatee beard and white hair; it was based on the portrait used by Thomas Occleve in his De Regimine Principum. The artist was unknown.

  Mrs Eastwood was uncertain of the age of the statue, but informed me that experts had dared the wood and the style of carving as the middle seventeenth century. She reckoned it was worth about £250, but that was a very arbitrary figure. It might be worth far more to a serious collector. I then asked whether in recent weeks she’d had any suspicious visitors.

  The gardens were open yesterday,’ she acknowledged. ‘We had almost a thousand people looking around, for the Red Cross, and one man did ask if he could borrow that very statue.’

  ‘Borrow it? What on earth for?’

  ‘I have no idea, I didn’t ask and he didn’t explain. It was such an unusual request that I immediately turned it down.’

  ‘Did he persist in his request? Was he a nuisance?’

  ‘No, not at all; when I refused him, he apologized for troubling me and just wandered off to look at the others. I kept an eye on him, of course; I was worried he might be tempted to take one of my poets, but he didn’t. I lost sight of him eventually and he never returned.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’ This man seemed to be a suspect, at least someone who ought to be eliminated as soon as possible.

  Mrs Eastwood told me that the man was very distinctive in appearance. He had long and very scruffy dark brown hair which came down almost to his waist; he wore casual clothes — jeans and a multi-coloured shirt ‘rather like those one was accustomed to seeing upon Canadian lumberjacks,’ she added. He had sandals on his feet but wore no socks, and he sported a long, unkempt beard which was the same colour as his hair. She said it was difficult to estimate his age but she guessed he’d be in his late thirties or early forties, although she might be years out due to his hirsute appearance. When I quizzed her about his mode of speech, she said he was well-spoken without any discernible accent; he did not wear spectacles and she did notice that his teeth were in very good condition.

  She had no idea how he’d arrived at the open day, whether he rode a bicycle or had come by car; he did not appear to have any companion and other than his asking her if he could borrow Chaucer, she’d had no contact with him.

  At that time, it was fashionable among young people, especially those of artistic temperament, to live in so-called hippie communes. Regarded by many as gentle and caring people, hippies sought an alternative society which was free from the constraints of authority and tradition. They wanted to be free to live their lives as they wished. Some became known as flower people but, sadly, they did attract the more unsavoury elements from the baser levels of our society.

  Drugs, promiscuity and widespread irresponsibility became associated with some of these communes, which were being utilized by those who had, in their own words, ‘dropped out’ of society. These drop-outs were dirty, dishonest and even violent, the very opposite of the original notion of the gentle flower people. So hippie communes began to attract an unsavoury reputation. It was sad that these well-meaning groups drew the worst elements of society into their midst; the result was that no self-respecting village or town wanted a hippie commune within its boundaries or even within a reasonable distance. One or two hippies did venture into Aidensfield and district, but they seldom remained very long. After living for a while in derelict farms or old barns, they moved on, often leaving rubbish and damage in their wake. In spite of their gentle image, the hippies’ hangers-on earned them a bad reputation. Having listened to Mrs Eastwood’s description of the man at the open day, I did wonder if another hippie commune had developed in the vicinity.

  Her description of the visitor had all the hallmarks of the kind of person who would frequent such places and the odd request to borrow Geoffrey Chaucer was the kind of behaviour one might expect from them. I could imagine a commune of hippies sitting around a camp fire reading aloud from his Canterbury Tales and thinking that the life of the pilgrims somehow mirrored their own existence.

  Having extracted all the necessary details needed to compile my official crime report, I set about my enquiries, beginning in Crampton. It was a compact village on the southern slopes of the dale and, like so many communities in that area, boasted a peer of the realm, a shop, a post office but no pub. This was because Lord Crampton did not wish to attract unsavoury characters to his village — and he did own most of the property. Several breweries had offered to purchase or rent suitable premises as an inn, but he constantly refused.

  I started by asking Stuart Cannon, owner of the village shop, whether he had seen this character around the place and his response was immediate and positive.

  ‘Yes, Nick. Regularly. Once a week he comes in here to buy provisions — fruit and vegetables, groceries, a magazine or two — the usual stuff any householder might purchase.’

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea,’ he spread his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘He just comes on Thursday mornings, gets his stuff, pays in cash, and leaves. He doesn’t seem to want to get into conversation.’

  ‘Is he new to the village?’ was my next question.

  ‘Well, he’s not a native,’ Stuart told me. ‘I should think he’s around for the best part of a year or so. I never ask about his private life and he never volunteers anything.’

  ‘Where’s he live?’ I asked.

  ‘I wish I knew. So far as I know, he’s not using one of the houses in Crampton. He just appears, always on foot, buys his provisions and disappears. He carries them in a rucksack on his back. I did hear he’s been seen walking along the road towards Ploatby but when he leaves me he usually goes into the post office.’

  When I realized I could get no further information from Stuart, I pottered across the road to the post office, which was run by Dorothy and Laurence Porteus. I explained the purpose of my visit and Dorothy smiled,

  ‘It sounds like Mr Chatterton,’ she said. ‘He comes in here once a week to collect his mail. He uses us as an accommodation address. Garth Owen Chatterton is his name, we get quite a lot of letters for him, addressed care of this post office. He has a post office savings account with us too, he pays money in and draws it out from time to time.’

  ‘Where does he live?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know, he’s never told us. I just assumed he lived somewhere nearby. He’s been coming in to see us for about a year now, always on Thursday. Shall I tell him you wish to speak to him?’

  ‘No, that might frighten him off!’ I laughed. ‘I’ll try to arrange my duties so I’m in Crampton on Thursday. What’s his usual time of arrival?’

  ‘Mid-morning,’ she said. ‘He’s not in any trouble, is he?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ I told her. ‘But I do need to have a word with him.’

  And so I left the post office, knowing that news of my interest in this character would soon filter through the population. At least I had made some progress and it only remained to find out where the mysterious Garth Owen Chatterton was living. If the village post office had no idea, then Crampton estate office might be able to help. That was my next visit. But the secretary to the estate manager said that none of the estate’s cottages or properties was occupied by a Mr Chatterton. They did have one or two vacant premises which were available for rent, but he had never expressed any interest.

  Before returning home for lunch, I did encounter one or two other residents of Crampton as they went abo
ut their daily business. In each case, I approached them and asked if they had encountered the mysterious long-haired Mr Chatterton. The only one who could help was a young married woman called Rose Harvey. She explained that sometimes she drove from Crampton to visit her mother in Aidensfield. Usually she made the trip on Thursdays and had sometimes noticed the long-haired man walking along the road which led to Ploatby. Sometimes she’d seen him heading towards Crampton; at other times he’d been heading in the opposite direction. The description she provided made me positive it was the same man but, like the others, she had no idea where he lived.

  After lunch, I checked the electoral registers for each of the villages on my beat, but none contained the name of Chatterton. Likewise, I checked with CID at Force Headquarters to see if the name had cropped up in our criminal records, but it had not. I realized I had a mystery man living on my beat. But where was his home? And what was his interest in Mrs Eastwood’s statue of Geoffrey Chaucer?

  As I went about my duties that Monday afternoon, and throughout the following Tuesday, I made enquiries in Aidensfield, Elsinbv and several of the other tiny communities that formed my beat. But no one had seen Chatterton in those villages. Then on Wednesday, as luck would have it, I encountered Claude Jeremiah Greengrass as he was walking to the pub for his lunchtime pint. I decided to quiz him about the missing statue, not seriously thinking that he was the culprit but rather as a matter of routine. I quizzed him about every crime that happened on my patch — it was part of our on-going professional relationship.

  ‘Morning, Claude,’ I greeted him. ‘Nice day.’

  ‘It was till you showed up,’ he grunted.

  ‘So where were you on Sunday night?’

  ‘In bed, where I should be, that’s where. Why? Has somebody been nicking pheasants?’

  ‘No, statues.’

  ‘Statues? What sort of statues? And why would I pinch a statue?’

  ‘To sell it and make a bit of cash.’ I then decided to switch my line of questioning to confuse him. ‘So who’s this long-haired chap that’s wandering about?’

  ‘You’re baffling me now, first asking about statues and then a long-haired chap. Are you accusing me of something?’

  ‘You?’ I laughed. ‘Why should I accuse such a fine, upstanding member of the community of anything? No, Claude, I am endeavouring to solve a crime. Somebody has stolen a fine statue of Geoffrey Chaucer from a garden in Crampton and a long-haired, untidy specimen of a man is suspected.’

  ‘Well, I’m well-dressed, neat and tidy, as you know, so it can’t be me.’

  ‘So who is this long-haired untidy chap? Fortyish, waist-length hair, scruffy, walks everywhere . . .’

  ‘It’ll be that chap in Elsinby Forest,’ Claude said, trying to get himself absolved from whatever suspicions I had. ‘Lives in that old lumberjacks’ hut, deep in the forest. Mind, I’m not saying he took the statue! I’m no grass! And he does walk everywhere . . . I’ve seen him . . . when I’ve been walking . . .’

  ‘When you’ve been poaching, you mean!’

  ‘You blokes are never grateful for us citizens helping you with your enquiries. You’d think I’d learn a lesson and keep my mouth shut . . .’

  ‘The only reason you’re helping me is to get yourself off the hook so I’ll stop asking you awkward questions, but your help is appreciated. So come into the pub, I’ll buy you a pint,’ I heard myself offering. ‘That’ll help you realize I do appreciate your help. Then I must be off.’

  In the bar, I surprised the landlord, George Ward, by buying a pint of beer for Claude, but none for myself as I was in uniform and on duty. I remained a few minutes for a chat, asking Claude to describe the old huts. Eventually, I realized where they were. Deep in Elsinby Forest, which comprised rows and rows of conifers planted some forty years earlier, there was a complex of disused huts. They were far too deep within the trees for a casual visitor to discover and they had been used by forestry workers when the plantation had been first prepared; for a time, they’d used the huts as they nurtured the young conifers but over the last twenty or thirty years the complex had been deserted. I had never had any reason for visiting the buildings, and in fact they were so deep within the forest that they were almost impossible to locate. But now I had a reason for finding them.

  I went to see Harry Bolton, a retired forestry worker who lived near the church and, with the aid of my own map of the area, he told me how to locate the huts.

  ‘We built ’em when we were planting that forest, way back in the twenties,’ he said. ‘Good sturdy huts, there’s toilets even, with running water collected from a beck, a canteen, bedrooms. You could live there . . . we built ’em strong, we knew they’d be used when the trees were harvested, that’ll be any time now, I shouldn’t be surprised. They’ll be usable still, Mr Rhea, dry and warm.’

  He explained how to find a route through the endless rows of pines, so that afternoon I set off in my minivan. Once inside the forest, I followed the old tracks, taking note of my route when I turned left or right, and sometimes marking trees with large bows tied from a length of orange tape I carried. It was so easy to get lost in the featureless world of tall tree trunks and when I reached a stream to which Harry had referred, I parked the van and walked.

  In total, it took me nearly an hour and a quarter to find the huts, but eventually I did see them through the trees, a small complex of wooden chalets with log walls and felted roofs. All were in first class condition. But as I approached, I heard noises. I could not identify the sound at first, but it did sound like someone chipping at a piece of wood with a chisel. And as I entered the enclosed area before the huts, I saw a long-haired man sitting on an old tree trunk as he chiselled at a block of ash wood before him. I saw him long before he saw me; and there, on a table in front of him, stood Geoffrey Chaucer.

  I stood and watched him for a few minutes; he was totally unaware of my uniformed presence as he concentrated upon the work in hand. I could see he was carving a wooden statue; he was, in fact, copying Geoffrey Chaucer, making a smaller version of Mrs Eastwood’s famous poet. After observing him for some three or four minutes, I decided, with some reluctance, that I must break his concentration.

  I walked into the area and hailed him.

  ‘Mr Chatterton?’

  He looked up from his work with never a sign of anger or fear on his face; through all that hair he smiled and said, ‘You’ve come for Geoffrey?’

  ‘I have,’ I said. ‘I’m PC Rhea from Aidensfield, I’ve had a complaint that you stole the statue . . .’

  ‘Borrowed, Constable, borrowed. I’m not a thief. I borrow statues to copy them, that’s all. The lady at the house would not consent to my borrowing of this one, so I helped myself. I shall return Geoffrey to his plinth when I have finished with him.’

  ‘So what are you doing with him?’ I had to ask the question.

  ‘I am copying him. I am a sculptor, Constable, and I specialize in the British poets. I have never yet found a statue of Chaucer, not until this Sunday, and so I have never produced what I believe is a passable image of him. And then I found this Chaucer — at a house just down the dale.’

  ‘So you took him?’

  ‘I borrowed him. I asked the lady, who refused — not surprising, judging by my appearance, but appearance isn’t everything. I saw the advert for the open day when I was in the post office last week and, well, her having all those poets in her garden, and me specializing in carving poets . . .’

  I looked at some of his work which stood on ledges in what used to be the former canteen and felt sure Mrs Eastwood had bought some. They did look distinctly familiar.

  ‘Where do you sell them?’ I asked him.

  ‘Wherever I can, craft shops in York, market stalls in Ashfordly, shops in Malton and Scarborough, London even, or the Lake District. Wordsworth and Coleridge sell very well over there . . .’

  ‘But you must not help yourself to other people’s goods,’ I said. ‘That’s larce
ny.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d have given me permission if I’d been allowed to explain myself,’ he said. ‘She has a lot of my statues in her garden, that big one of Milton is one of mine, I had to copy that. There aren’t many Miltons about, you know . . . I always return them when I’ve finished.’

  Had I proceeded by the rule book, I should have arrested him, seized the statue of Chaucer as evidence, and taken him to Ashfordly police station to be charged with larceny. That was then the word for theft.

  But equally, I knew the law. For the crime of larceny to be committed there had to be an intention by the thief at the time of removing the property to permanently deprive the owner of the property. That criminal intention was lacking in this case. Unauthorized borrowing was not a criminal offence, except in the case of motor vehicles for which special laws had been made. Any court of law would throw out this case, I felt sure. But I could not let the matter rest — after all, I had received a complaint of a crime and I had found the person responsible for removing the statue.

  ‘Are you going to arrest me?’ he said, his smile flashing in the dim light of the forest.

  ‘No, but I am going to ask you to accompany me to Mrs Eastwood’s house,’ I said. ‘I want you to bring Geoffrey Chaucer with you, and some other smaller examples of your work, just to prove that you are what you say you are. You and Mrs Eastwood have a lot in common. And when she meets you, I think she will withdraw her complaint about the stolen statue.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman,’ he said. ‘Well, no time like the present. Come on, I’ll put a few smaller poets in my haversack . . .’

  I helped him to pack a selection of his work, and then we journeyed to see Mrs Eastwood with me helping him to carry the burden. As I’d expected, she was astonished, partly because she had indeed been buying his work without realizing he lived and worked nearby.