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

  She was clearly delighted that she now had Geoffrey Chaucer back home. I then explained the law on theft. When I finished, she said, ‘Mr Rhea, I could not possibly prosecute this man, not now. Besides, as you have explained, there was no crime, was there? But just think, if I hadn’t reported it, I would never have met Mr Chatterton . . .’

  Thus I would be able to write off the incident as ‘No Crime’. As she showed the scruffy sculptor around her amazing collection I realized that here were two kindred spirits. She made us a cup of tea and produced some home-made cakes, and as we talked it was clear that Mrs Eastwood was happy to permit Chatterton to make use of her own superb collection of poets. And so he would be able to widen the scope of his work as he borrowed some of her rarest examples.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said as they grew more absorbed in their conversation. ‘Are you by any chance related to Thomas Chatterton?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m from that family, although he died in 1770, aged only seventeen. Even in that short time, he had earned a fine reputation as a poet. That’s how my interest in sculpting poets arose.’

  ‘And one of my ancestors was Thomas Love Peacock,’ she smiled. ‘He died in 1866, and that’s how my interest in poets arose . . .’

  The time had come for me to leave and I rose to my feet. ‘I will run you back to the forest,’ I offered to Chatterton.

  ‘No, allow me, Mr Rhea,’ begged Mrs Eastwood. ‘I do so want to see Mr Chatterton’s other work and he can, of course, keep Geoffrey until he has completed his work.’

  And so the saga of Poets’ Corner was over. I rang Sergeant Blaketon to inform him of the outcome and he said, ‘I suppose it’s poetic justice, Rhea. Did you know that Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet to be buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey?’

  ‘No, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘But all poets steal from Homer, so they say.’

  ‘So long as they don’t steal from Mrs Eastwood, I couldn’t care less,’ he grunted.

  * * *

  Another problem of dishonesty arose when the Aidensfield coal merchant, a man with the very apt name of Tony Hopper, came to report that small amounts were being stolen from his depot. He ran his business from the goods yard of the railway station and at that time the stocks of coal and coke were not locked away. Anyone could help themselves and, as a new arrival in Aidensfield, I found this general open trust somewhat unusual. Upon my very first visit to meet Tony, I expressed my doubts about this quaint system, but he assured me that there was no need to lock away the coal or coke — no one ever stole from his stocks. The people of Aidensfield could be trusted, he said. And, as things turned out, that was true.

  In thinking about the availability of the coal and coke, it would have needed a wheelbarrow or a vehicle to carry away a sufficient amount to be useful, although the odd lump could be pocketed or carried off by hand. And if anyone did set about stealing from the depot, even at night-time, then surely the villagers would see them at work with their barrows or sacks and inform Tony. And so the coal and coke bays remained open to everyone, and yet none was stolen.

  That was until Tony Hopper began to realize his stocks were dwindling, albeit by small amounts. He began to suspect something was amiss when he found evidence which suggested that someone had swept up some loose pieces in one of the bays, so he began to mark the extent of the spread of each of the six bays of coal. Small pebbles, discreetly positioned, showed him the extent of the coal as he finished work each evening. And then, next morning, he saw that at regular intervals a small amount had vanished — enough to half fill the average coal bag on each occasion, in his estimation. The unthinkable was happening — someone was stealing his coal.

  He maintained his own system of checking stocks for a few days before involving the police. And when he called at my police house, I could see he was far from happy.

  ‘If it’s somebody who’s hard up, they could have it for nowt if they asked,’ he said. ‘Damn it, Mr Rhea, I’ll never see folks short, especially in winter. But to sneak down to my depot at night and steal, well, it’s a miserable thing to do.’

  There is no doubt that this betrayal of trust was hurtful to him, but after checking that no one had been given any authority to remove the coal I decided to ‘crime’ it, as we say. That meant that the disappearance of the coal was formally logged as a crime and not written off as mere wastage, which in turn meant I had to keep observations and make enquiries about the losses. It also meant that my colleagues from Ashfordly would keep observations during their patrols of the district. Upon learning of these crimes, Sergeant Blaketon laid scorn upon Hopper’s method of storage.

  ‘The man’s a fool, Rhea,’ he grumbled. ‘You don’t leave valuable materials lying about so that thieves can help themselves. He’s asking for trouble . . . serves him right. I’ll bet he’s been losing coal for years without realizing . . .’

  ‘No, he hasn’t, Sergeant. That’s the whole point, it’s never been locked away, never been placed behind locked gates or in locked yards; for years it has been stored at the railway station in all six bays of that open-fronted depot.’

  ‘CID will think we’re idiots, criming this one,’ he muttered. ‘How much has gone? Do we know?’

  ‘No, Sergeant, not exactly, there’s no way of telling.’

  ‘Well, what I’m asking, Rhea, is whether there is one crime or several. If this has been happening once a week for the past six, sixteen or twenty-six weeks, that’s a separate crime on each occasion, and that will play havoc with our statistics. All those unsolved crimes . . .’

  ‘It’ll be nice if we catch the villain, though,’ I beamed. ‘We’ll be able to write off a lot of crimes as “detected”.’

  ‘That’s if you catch the villain, Rhea! And that is something I feel is highly unlikely! These sneak thieves are the very worst.’

  His attitude made me determined to arrest this sneak thief but Blaketon was right in saying that the arrest of this kind of villain was never easy. The thief was not coming to the depot on the same evening each week, for example, and we had no idea of his hour of arrival. It was fairly certain, however, that he came during the night, probably in the early hours, say around two or three in the morning when no one was around. He must have had a vehicle of some kind to carry away his ill-gotten gains, however, so I decided to keep observations whenever I was engaged upon a night patrol. It was a hit-and-miss method, but as I had many other duties to occupy me, I could not afford to spend every night sitting in a coal yard just in case the thief turned up.

  Over the next three months I spent many lonely hours hiding in different sections of the railway complex of buildings, listening for sounds of illicit shovelling and watching for people lurking in the shadows armed with shovels and sacks, but, on those nights, no one came. He did arrive several times when I was not there! I began to wonder if the thief knew when I was concealed in his happy hunting ground, but felt not — no one knew. I hadn’t even told Tony Hopper or the railway station staff of my intentions. And then I struck lucky.

  It was a chilly night in November with a full moon and there was also a thin covering of snow on the ground. It had fallen since midnight and now lay like a virgin white sheet across the landscape. Its presence combined with the light of the moon added a glow to the area, highlighting the heaps of coal, the buildings and the roads in and out of the station. And, in the silence of that night I heard noises near the coal depot. I did not move; I was sitting in the waiting room with the door open (it was never locked at Aidensfield station in those days) and listened as the sounds continued. From this point, every tiny noise in the station could be heard and I guessed no one could steal coal without making some noise.

  I also knew that if I was to prove a case of larceny, I would have to catch the thief with the coal in his or her possession — catching him or her in the act of moving towards the supplies was not sufficient. So I waited, ears straining to catch every hint of noise and to identify the sounds. And then, clear
ly, in spite of the distance between my hiding place and the bays, I could hear the sounds of someone shovelling coal. It was a most distinctive noise and it echoed in the confines of the bay under attack.

  On silent sponge-rubber soles and armed with a torch I padded along the platform and down the short track which led towards the coal bays.

  The trip took about thirty seconds with my dark uniform effectively hiding my movements within the shadows of the surrounding buildings and trees in spite of the brightness of the night. I left a trail of footprints in the snow and as I approached the bays I could see the distinctive wheelmarks of a pedal cycle in the thin snow on the road surface. The marks headed straight for the depot and vanished somewhere within. Most important of course, was the fact that there was only one track — it meant chummy had arrived but that he had not yet departed; indeed, I could still hear the scraping sounds from within. He was at work. I knew from the noise that he was filling a bag with coal; I knew I had caught the thief.

  Guided by the wheel marks in the snow, I crept around the edge of a protruding wall, my boots making not a sound, and now the noise was louder. In the gloom of the bay in which he was working, I could see the occasional flash of the blade of the shovel as I caught glimpses of his white face and a half full sack standing a pool of dim light cast by the front lamp of his cycle. He was using its light by which to work.

  I waited for a moment, taking in the scene; the cycle stood against the wall of the bay, its lamp fixed low on one of the front forks, the front wheel angled so that the light shone upon his area of operation. I could see the shadowy figure hard at work, his breath forming clouds of vapour on the cool night air. I had no idea who it was, however, except that it looked like a smallish male person.

  Having seen all that I wanted, I suddenly switched on my torch to brightly illuminate the man and shouted, ‘Police, don’t move . . . stay right where you are . . . drop that shovel . . .’

  I had to make him drop the shovel, it could have been used as a weapon against me, but with a sharp intake of breath, a sign of shock and surprise, he obeyed. The shovel crashed to the concrete floor of the bay and I was surprised to see the man raise his hands in the air. I approached him with caution, kicked the shovel aside and told him to place his hands behind his back. He obeyed. Quickly, I snapped on my handcuffs; even so, there was always a risk that a person arrested in these circumstances would attempt to make a dash for freedom, but this man did not.

  Meekly and with apparent signs of resignation, he submitted to the arrest and said, ‘Sorry for doing this, Mr Rhea . . .’ Now I recognized him; he was a small, middle-aged man called Dennis Brooks who lived in the council houses with his widowed, invalid mother. I escorted him to my van, sat him in the passenger seat and then drove around to collect the bag of stolen coal and his bike. I squeezed both into the rear of the little van and drove to Ashfordly police station.

  Sergeant Bairstow was on night duty and we submitted the meek little man to his fate. He was charged with stealing the coal and we kept his cycle and the half-filled bag as evidence; he was bailed to appear at Ashfordly Magistrates’ Court on a date to be notified.

  I then drove him back to Aidensfield. During the journey he did nothing but apologize; his actions were certainly out of character for he was a man who never went out drinking, who rarely took part in village events and who seemed to spend most of his time caring for his invalid mother. He’d lost his job as a delivery man with the Co-op and told me he’d been desperate. His mother needed warmth during the winter months and the coal fire was her only means of heating the house; they’d literally spent all their meagre savings on keeping her warm. In desperation he’d resorted to stealing coal to keep her as healthy as possible. Her pension managed to keep them in food but little else. I advised him to tell that story to the court; I felt sure that, in the circumstances, the magistrates would be lenient when imposing sentence upon him. I dropped him at his home and said I would be in touch with him about the date of his court appearance.

  Having not got to bed until 4 a.m. I walked to the coal depot the following lunchtime to inform Tony Hopper of the night’s developments. He was delighted, but when I identified the culprit, his expression turned to one of sorrow.

  ‘Not poor old Dennis!’ he said.

  ‘Why, you’ve had dealings with him?’

  ‘Aye, he got behind with his payments, I let him have several loads on tick, Mr Rhea, saying he could pay when he got some money in. Well, he never paid, so I stopped delivering his weekly order.’

  ‘He needs the coal for his mother, she needs constant warmth but now he’s out of work,’ I told Tony. ‘He’s lost his job with the Co-op.’

  ‘Has he? Poor little devil, he never said! If he’d told me that, I’d have given him the bloody coal! Why didn’t he ask instead of just helping himself . . . folks are daft, Mr Rhea, putting themselves at risk for the sake of asking. Too proud to ask for charity, but daft enough to risk being arrested.’

  ‘I’ve told him to explain all this when he goes to court, Tony,’ I said. ‘I know they’ll treat him with compassion.’

  ‘If I’d known he was out of work, I’d have offered him a job,’ he said. ‘I need a spare man at the depot, to do a bit of bagging up and delivering. None of the young lads wants that sort of heavy work, so I’ll see what he says. If he’s willing, I’ll set him on.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Aye, ’course I am. And I’ll tell the court what I’ve done, that’ll mebbe get him off with a caution or summat similar, conditional discharge mebbe.’

  And that very same day, Tony Hopper went to visit Dennis Brooks to offer him a job. Dennis accepted with tears in his eyes and within a week I saw him bagging coal at the depot and occasionally driving the delivery wagon around the villages. When Dennis appeared at Ashfordly Magistrates’ Court, Tony came along to speak in his defence and proved an eloquent and persuasive witness.

  The outcome was that Dennis was given a conditional discharge for stealing coal, the condition being that he did not commit any further offences of a like nature within the next two years.

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised the court. ‘I’ll be able to keep mother cosy and warm in winter now because I get free coal. That’s one of the perks of my new job. I am allowed as much free coal as I need.’

  5. Give a Dog a Bad Name

  A good dog, like a good candidate, cannot be of a bad colour.

  PETER BECKFORD (1740-1811)

  One of the things that intrigues me is the manner in which a craze will suddenly arise, become popular, and then fade into obscurity. There are times when one wonders what prompted the craze to begin in the first place and why so many normally sane people so slavishly followed it.

  My favourite, as I have mentioned on previous occasions, is the Alexandra Limp. During the 1860s, Queen Alexandra, who was then the Princess of Wales, had a minor accident as a result of which she developed a very slight limp. For some weird reason, it then became fashionable for many of the ladies of her time to walk with similar slight limps. This peculiar whim became known as the Alexandra Limp. But why on earth would anyone want to copy someone else’s limp? I’m sure Her Royal Highness thought those people were all rather strange.

  Similar things happen in the fashion world, such as hair styles, types of shoes, female facial adornments, short skirts, flared trousers or variations in collars and ties, while in other spheres crazes like hula hoops, yo-yos and executive toys seem to come and go with remarkable speed. The world of fashion depends upon people who follow such changes.

  None the less, I continue to find it odd that people will surrender to these whims, only to abandon them within a short time. It seems such a waste of money and effort. A lot of men, of course, studiously ignore fashions, having learned that the suit they bought as a lad will be acceptable for many years to come. After all, it really doesn’t matter what one wears, so long as one is comfortable.

  As I am writing these notes (in
1993), the mobile telephone is the latest fashionable craze but whether it is a rich person’s plaything or genuinely useful has not yet been determined. It might merely be part of another fashion.

  I cannot understand why some people feel they must emulate others — I can think of all the Elvis Presleys who continue to haunt the world, all the Marilyn Monroes and all those who consider themselves a double of someone famous. Why not be themselves instead of copying another person? I think there is something faintly sad about those who feel compelled to copy other people or who doggedly follow trends which are set by others.

  Such a phenomenon burst upon the scene in Aidensfield when Mrs Mildred Prenty of Frankland House bought herself a pair of Afghan hounds. Hers were a beautiful pair of animals, both bitches. They had rich, fawn, silky coats which were worn long around the ears, limbs, feet and hindquarters. These beautiful dogs loped along the village street in a most glamorous and elegant manner.

  Their long, slender faces, curly tails and cheerful, gentle nature made them exceedingly popular with all who came into contact with them. There is no doubt they were very nice dogs; extremely well cared for, obedient, lovable and beautiful, they were a credit to Mrs Prenty.

  But because Mrs Prenty was one of the most highly respected of social leaders in the neighbourhood, other ladies from Aidensfield and the surrounding villages decided to acquire Afghan hounds. In a very short time, the moors and dales seemed to be full of Afghan hounds in a variety of shades and colours, ranging from cream to fawn to red, brown and even black. For the social climbers of Aidensfield it became very trendy to own a pair of Afghans, and the dogs, with their owners at the end of expensive leashes, would promenade around the village for all to admire.

  Some ladies, however, did not wish to be regarded as copiers of fashion; they saw themselves as leaders, and for this reason: they had to do something different. They felt they should not be owners of Afghan hounds. They could not think of anything drastically different which had the same social impact and connotations, so they all decided that ownership of some other kind of distinctive breed of dog was quite acceptable. As a consequence, some bought borzois, others settled for red setters while labradors, golden retrievers and collies were also strongly favoured.