CONSTABLE AROUND THE HOUSES a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

by Nicholas Rhea

  My own house was only a few minutes away, so I hurried to my telephone and rang George Boston. Of my local farmers he was the one living closest to the village and I knew he had well-trained dogs which were accustomed to driving cattle. He would come immediately, and I explained that the Charolais was padding down the main street with Rudolph in careful pursuit. Cuthbert was at home too, and after some indication of initial panic, said he would come to see what could be done. I told him to look out for a large whitish-cream bull taking a walk down the main street, adding that Rudolph was stalking it from behind, and that George Boston would try to steer it to a safe haven with his dogs.

  I’m not sure that Cuthbert heard any of my latter remarks, but he seemed in such a state of worry that he slammed down the phone and rushed out. I was aware of the likelihood that police marksmen might have to be called in if the bull showed signs of being dangerous, but that would have to be as a last resort. Meanwhile, I told Mary what had happened, got out my police van and used it to return to the scene of the drama. I needed a place from where I could establish contact with any other helpers, and the radio in my police van was ideal. I drove carefully into the village anxious not to scare the bull, wherever it was, but in time I could see it padding sedately towards the pub and decided to leave the van. I then trotted along the street to catch up to Rudolph who seemed very happy at the way things were progressing.

  ‘What we need is for him to be driven into some kind of enclosure like the pub car park or the school playground, then we can fasten him in,’ said Rudolph. ‘But so long as nobody frightens him, he’ll be no trouble. I hope those concert-goers stay put in the hall and the band doesn’t strike up again.’

  ‘I’ve got George Boston coming with his dogs,’ I told Rudolph. ‘Maybe we can persuade the bull to head into some kind of barn or field.

  ‘There are some stables behind the pub,’ I remembered. ‘They’re not used these days.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Hello, who’s this?’

  And there, heading towards us from the opposite direction was the bearded figure of Cuthbert Crombie.

  He was walking down the centre of the road directly towards the bull which was also heading down the centre of the road. Several cars had stopped behind it, recognizing the mini-drama now being enacted in Aidensfield village centre, but Cuthbert seemed to think he was heading towards a stray kitten, not a huge and unpredictable tonnage of mobile bull flesh.

  ‘Cuthbert,’ called Rudolph. ‘Keep away, we’re trying to divert him into an enclosure or the stables behind the pub; George is coming with his dogs . . .’

  But Cuthbert either did not hear us or refused to listen because he continued towards his bull, and then he called, ‘He’s my bull, Rudolph, and I must learn to deal with him.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s on the run; he’s been frightened into doing this. He’s unpredictable; he’s not sure where he is or what’s happening to him; he’s not the lovable chap you won in that raffle . . .’

  ‘Yes, he is!’ And Cuthbert continued down the centre of the road towards a direct head-to-head confrontation with his bull.

  ‘This is suicide . . .’ muttered Rudolph.

  But it wasn’t. As the bull halted to observe the approach of his master, Cuthbert reached out and took a gentle hold of the ring in his nose and said, ‘Come along, Clarence, it’s time for bed.’

  And the bull followed him like a little dog.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ said Rudolph. ‘Either Cuthbert is as daft as they say he is, or he is very, very brave, or he’s got a way with animals, but look at that, the bull’s following him like a dog on a lead!’

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Rudolph called.

  ‘Home,’ responded Cuthbert. ‘He can stay in our paddock tonight, then tomorrow I shall have to find somewhere more permanent. But he’s a lovely chap, isn’t he? So docile and calm . . .’ And the happy pair disappeared into the darkness as George Boston and his dogs arrived. The drama was over. We could all go home.

  Next morning, I saw Cuthbert walking up the street towards the surgery with his hand bandaged.

  ‘You did very well last night, Cuthbert,’ I said. ‘You were calm and in full control, you prevented what might have become a tricky situation.’

  ‘I think I have an affinity with animals,’ he said. ‘You know, Nick, I think I might enjoy life in the countryside; I might give up my city job and go in for breeding livestock, with my bull. A herd of Charolais . . . what a lovely sight it would be!’

  ‘Did your bull do that then?’ I pointed to his injured hand.

  ‘No, the rabbit bit me. Clarence is far too gentle to hurt me. Well, I must be off, I have to see about getting those village hall doors fixed and I understand Henry Watkinson at Moor End Farm has some grazing to rent, and a spare stable where Clarence can live. I am seriously thinking of buying a female Charolais next, you know . . .’

  * * *

  Regular complaints received by the police, particularly those operating in rural areas, invariably included grumbles about low-flying aircraft. Most of us appreciate that in order to be trained to protect our realm, Royal Air Force pilots must practise their skills in all kinds of conditions amongst which is flying low over agricultural land and remote moorland regions. Accepting this, most country folk do not complain, but incomers do; city dwellers who have opted for the quiet life in the countryside do not take kindly to being roused by jet aircraft whooshing overhead at little more than chimneypot height or disturbing their Sunday afternoon nap in the garden in repeated pseudo-bombing raids on the White Horse of Kilburn or Whitby Abbey.

  In too many cases a sense of priority does not prevail, although we received complaints from a range of rural dwellers, ex-townies and country folk alike, about the noise causing favourite cats to run away, startled hens to lay eggs without shells, worried cattle to stampede from their fields, terrified horses to leap over fences and disappear into the great unknown, or to throw their riders, while greenhouse windows shattered and ear-drums buzzed with the force of the jet-propelled noise.

  There was little the police could do about low-flying RAF jet aircraft and we simply passed the complaints to the nearest RAF base or sometimes to the Air Ministry. So far as civilian aircraft were concerned, a similar code of conduct applied, except that we contacted the Ministry of Aviation in the event of a complaint, but it was very rare to find a jet airliner flying low over Aidensfield. If that happened the pilot was either lost or in dire trouble.

  What we did get was the occasional light aircraft pottering above the countryside, often with a local man acting as pilot who was flying low over his family home. But even a slow-moving propeller-driven aircraft can be alarming when it buzzes across the countryside to skim the hedges, scatter the livestock and put the wind up old ladies.

  It is a criminal offence to fly an aircraft so low that it causes unnecessary danger to people or property and there are well-defined rules about the flying heights permitted for aircraft, including helicopters, crop-spraying planes, gliders, airships, balloons, kites and other undefined flying machines. Civil aircraft registered within the UK all carry a registration mark comprising the letter G and a further four capital letters and this makes it possible to trace any offending plane, provided the witness notes that series of letters. The snag is that few can prove the aircraft has flown below the specified height and even if the complainant says he or she can easily read the registration mark, the authorities rarely accept that as undisputed proof of the plane’s height above the ground. Most of us are pretty useless at estimating the height of a passing plane. There are times, however, when I wonder that if a plane’s wingtips chop the tops off my poplar trees, such a thing is proof that the aircraft was flying lower than it should have been.

  Then, one afternoon, I was stopped in Aidensfield main street by a man called Toby Matthews. About fifty, he was stoutly built and balding, with a round face and chubby cheeks. He habitually wore navy-blue suits, red ties,
white shirts and black shoes and looked rather like a clerk in a solicitor’s office.

  In fact, Toby was a very successful architect who worked as a partner within a practice in Ashfordly which was responsible for designing some ghastly modern buildings. Happily, most of these were far away from the moors, deep in distant city areas such as York, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Bradford — they built things like awful concrete tower blocks or multi-storey car-parks which looked as if they would collapse the moment a strong wind blew, or huge shops several storeys high with immense glass windows which baked customers and staff in the summer and always looked dirty because they were so difficult to clean.

  In spite of this Toby lived in a very traditional and splendidly secluded farmhouse in a hollow on the moors about a mile out of Aidensfield. Once a working farm it was called Rowan Tree Farm but most of the land had been sold separately for grazing and Toby had bought the house, along with some twenty acres of the meadowland. His wife, Angela, bred Cleveland Bay horses and so she worked from home, sometimes going away to agricultural shows or horsey events to display her animals. She’d converted the outbuildings into a fine set of stables and undoubtedly ran a thriving business. Between them, therefore, the Matthews were a very successful couple, with each of them running a beautiful Mark II Jaguar saloon. Toby’s was sky blue and Angela’s was bright red.

  Although Toby could hardly be described as glamorous his wife, in her mid-forties, was a beautiful blonde with a stunning figure, lovely legs and a smile that would cause most men to go weak at the knees. I’ve no doubt her highly attractive appearance contributed to the success of her business. Inevitably, with such an attractive woman spending much of the day alone in her moorland retreat, there was gossip about male visitors. People who respected Angela regarded them merely as customers, people with the same horsey interests as herself, but once or twice I caught snippets of conversation which suggested the visitors were not always interested in the horses. A delivery man had called once and although there’d been a red Jaguar on the forecourt and a smart green MG sports car tucked away between two buildings he’d not been able to get any response to his calling and hammering on the doors. He had noticed that some bedroom curtains were closed and asked me if I knew whether or not the Matthews were away. I had to say that, so far as I was aware, they were not on holiday although Toby would be working away from home. Then a chance conversation with Gilbert Kingston, the postman from Eltering who delivered to Rowan Tree Farm, alerted me to the fact that the red Jaguar had been at the house while a white Rover had been seen parked between the buildings, curiously enough in the same place as the smart green MG. Gilbert had noticed it because he’d searched the outbuildings for Angela as he had a registered letter and required her signature. He did add that, knowing the farm very well due to his deliveries, a vehicle parked between the buildings in question could quietly leave the complex upon the approach of the unsuspecting husband, and never be seen by that husband. It was the ideal place to conceal a vehicle because by the time the unsuspecting husband arrived on his forecourt the departing vehicle would be screened by the extensive range of farm buildings and it could leave the farm without the husband ever knowing it had been there.

  Gilbert had made those calculations claiming to know the character of Angela Matthews and the rumours which surrounded her and, of course, his own detailed knowledge of the layout of the premises. Although these incidents had occurred very recently with no similar reports of past misdeeds it was this sort of thing which sparked off speculation, if not rumours, and I am sure Gilbert was, in his own way, quite a gossip. I’m not sure his gossip had any factual basis. Nonetheless, in my personal view, the growing rumours about the love life of Angela Matthews were reinforced on two quite separate occasions when I was called to Rowan Tree Farm to settle what we term a domestic dispute. On both occasions Angela had called me by telephone, and in something of a panic, because Toby had gone berserk, according to her, and was attacking her. On both occasions, however, by the time I arrived she had changed her mind about involving the police and did not want any further action on my part. That sort of outcome was quite normal for such domestic disputes.

  ‘Toby is fine.’ She met me at the door both times and did not want to admit me. ‘Sorry to have troubled you, Constable. He’s been under a lot of pressure lately and he’s had too much to drink. I can deal with him.’

  However, on the occasion Toby met me in Aidensfield he did not wish to discuss architecture or horses, nor did he wish to comment about his wife’s conduct (he did not mention my previous involvement with his married life) but he did want to complain about a low-flying aircraft.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I invited.

  ‘It flew over Rock Howe two or three times,’ he grumbled. ‘It was flying so low I’m surprised its wheels didn’t clip the telegraph wires in Nettledale just below. Then it went along the floor of the dale, still very low, skimming over the farms . . .’

  I took details of the date, time, direction of flight and precise location, and a brief description of the aircraft, a single wing, single propeller aircraft, probably a two-seater, silver-grey colour with red tail markings. Then I asked, ‘Toby, did you get its registration mark? Four letters preceded by G and a hyphen.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his flabby cheeks. ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘I’ve not had any other complaints,’ I assured him. ‘But I’ll enter it in our records and we’ll send a report off to the Ministry of Aviation.’

  ‘I don’t really want to make a fuss,’ he said, ‘but I thought it was dangerous, I’ve never seen a plane fly so low. Skimming the moors, it was. It’s a wonder it missed some of the trees in the valleys. I even thought it was buzzing me and my client.’

  ‘Your client?’

  For a fleeting moment I wondered if Toby had been enjoying a romantic sojourn on the moors with a lady who was not his wife, and I felt I had better establish that small matter.

  ‘I had a client with me,’ he said. ‘He wants me to build a new house for him on a site in Nettledale. We were looking at the site from hills above trying to anticipate the sort of complaints we might get and the reaction from the planning authority and, of course, I need to examine the surrounding landscape so that I can make sure the design blends well with it.’

  ‘And your client? Did he get a better look at the aircraft?’

  ‘No,’ but Toby gave me the name of his client — a businessman from Scarborough — if I wanted to pursue the matter. I assured him I would report the incident and inform him of any developments. As I patrolled the village that same afternoon I received two further comments about the low-flying plane. From the descriptions I obtained there was no doubt it was the same light aircraft and both people — one a smallholder with premises along the Elsinby road and the other a farmer from the moors who had come into Aidensfield for some petrol — told me about the low-flying aircraft. Neither wished to lodge a formal complaint but both expressed an opinion that it was flying much lower than seemed normal and that its crew of two seemed to be paying undue attention to the village, especially the houses and farms spread around the outskirts. Neither witness recalled the registration mark, however, although the descriptions they provided convinced me it had been the same aircraft.

  Those were the only complaints I received about that incident of low-flying and so, having entered details in our records and completed the necessary formalities, I thought no more of the matter. If any further action had to be taken it would be done by the Ministry of Aviation rather than the North Riding Constabulary.

  Then one Saturday morning I received a phone call from Sergeant Blaketon.

  ‘Ah, Rhea,’ he grunted into the telephone, ‘that report of low flying near Aidensfield.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  ‘We’ve had a response from the Minister of Aviation. Well, from his office to be precise. It seems the aircraft was taking aerial photographs of the district and it has been given an exemption
to fly low for that purpose.’

  ‘So, it wasn’t breaking any rules?’

  ‘Not on this occasion. Exemptions from the general rules about low flying can be granted when aircraft are used for land surveys too. So, it was all in order. We can forget the matter.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me, Sergeant. I’ll inform Mr Matthews.’

  But before I could ring Rowan Tree Farm to see whether Toby Matthews was at home there was a loud hammering on my office door and when I opened it I found a stranger on the doorstep. It was a man in a dark suit with rather long hair; he’d be about thirty-five and looked terrified. His car was parked on the road outside my office.

  ‘Thank God!’ he said. ‘Look, you’ve got to get up to Rowan Tree Farm, Constable, or that chap’ll kill his wife . . . he’s got her locked in one of the stables. I managed to get out . . .’

  ‘Slow down a moment,’ I said. ‘Who are you for starters? And just what is happening at Rowan Tree?’

  He gave me a business card with the price of pictures written on the back, as he continued, ‘Look, so far as I am concerned it was just a routine visit; all I did was call at the house, like I’m calling at other houses in the district, asking if householders want to buy aerial photographs of their homes.’

  ‘Aerial photographs?’ I queried.

  ‘Yes, I work for a business that takes aerial photos. When I showed that chap and that blonde bit of skirt the picture of his house he blew his top . . . he shouted something about being caught in the act and the next thing I knew he was hustling her off to one of the stables and he’d locked her in. He told me to send him a bill and to get off his premises right now . . . so I did. Got off his premises, I mean. And I haven’t been paid for the photograph.’

  ‘Where is the photograph?’ I asked.