‘One shilling, Sergeant!’ snapped Greengrass. ‘No concessions for the police, that could be construed as bribery of a law-enforcement officer!’
With some reluctance, Sergeant Blaketon handed over his money as Alfred appeared from beneath the van. Panting heavily, he began to whine because he was thirsty, and so Claude said, ‘Hang on a minute, old son, there’s a cricket-ball-flavoured milk shake in here for you.’ He placed a bowl of Blaketon-flavoured milky water before the dog. Alfred began to lap it up.
‘If that dog dies, Blaketon, I’ll sue you . . .’
‘I might just decide to check your dog licence next week, Greengrass!’ retorted Blaketon, grinning to me as we turned away. But the arrival of another customer prevented Claude’s response to that challenge.
Having enjoyed that exchange and an ice-cream at Blaketon’s expense, I bade him farewell and went home for my mid-shift break; this evening, I would patrol the area and pay visits to all the pubs on my patch and tomorrow would return to the reservoir site to warn them about the vanishing mobile cranes.
* * *
There were eight public houses on my patch, the most popular being the Brewers Arms at Aidensfield and the Hopbind Inn at Elsinby. Saturday nights were always busy, but there was seldom any mayhem. The only trouble might spring from a temptation by some landlords to sell alcohol after the end of permitted hours, and some young people who constantly tried to buy alcohol while under the legal age for so doing. If drivers consumed too much alcohol, they were a menace in their cars but the presence of a uniformed constable in the pub car park was usually a good deterrent and a reason for calling a taxi to get home. I must stress that I had very little trouble from drink-and-drive merchants, even if this was before the introduction of the breathalyser. Sometimes there’d be a problem with simple drunkenness but often the inebriated culprit was a resident of the village and the most expeditious solution was to take him home and let him suffer beneath a rolling pin wielded by his wife. Quite often, that was far better punishment than any court could impose.
On that particular Saturday evening, therefore, I listened to the sports news to learn that Western Cloud had won the three-fifteen at Thirsk, romping home by two clear lengths. Some good moneymaking bets had been made by the regulars of the Hopbind Inn, I was sure, and I made a mental note to collect my modest win next time I was in Ashfordly. I reckon I’d won about £8, a week’s wages for me at that time! Western Cloud’s success meant there would be a massive party in the pub that night which in turn meant that celebrators might forget the rigid closing-time of 11 p.m. Looking sensibly at the situation, it might be wise for me not to patrol the village at that time. I decided to stage a diplomatic absence from Elsinby later that night. I would make my routine Saturday-night call but I would do so well before closing-time. Furthermore, I would let the landlord, George Ward, know that I would not return. Hopefully, a happy time would be had by all, and I had to trust there would be no complaints of noise or nuisance from the village residents.
It was around ten o’clock that evening when I arrived at the door of the Hopbind. Being a mild summer evening in June, it was not yet completely dark and lots of happy people were sitting outside or merely standing around talking and sipping their drinks. There was a good deal of noise inside, all human voices, but somehow amplified so that it sounded more like a boxing match at Earls Court than a celebratory event at a country pub. I pushed my way through the throng all of whom were good natured, and managed to reach the bar counter. When I did so, George spotted me.
‘Evening, Nick,’ he called above the din.
‘Nice party, George,’ I shouted back. ‘And a good win for Western Cloud, eh?’
‘Brilliant! We always knew he had it in him; folks in these parts have won a few quid by betting early. And how about the Elsinby cricket team? They beat Aidensfield by two runs! They’re celebrating an’ all, so it’s a real party night for us!’
The nice thing about the winning cricket team celebrating in this way was that the losing team were also invited to the party, and so all the players, their spouses, family members and friends came along. The combination of cricketers and racegoers resulted in a very full pub, but it was an extremely congenial crowd. In spite of the bustle, I managed a quiet chat with George who assured me he could cope with any problems which might arise, and so I assured him I would not return to the Hopbind that evening. He smiled in quiet understanding, but promised there would be no trouble — there never was, he ran a very well-conducted house.
Having concluded our brief conversation, I walked through the bar to the rear door, this giving me an opportunity to see who was in the bar. I saw Deirdre Precious behind the counter and noticed she was talking to Ken Rigby. He was sitting on a bar stool and their conversation was intimate and jolly, even if it was constantly interrupted by customers wanting drinks. In addition, I noted the presence of the six lads who had arrived at the cricket match. They appeared to have made friends with some local youths and girls — Denise and Elaine were not in the pub, I noted with some relief — and when Andy Renshaw spotted me, he raised his hand in acknowledgement. I took it to mean he had managed to arrange a cricket match with one or more of the local village teams, a good outcome to his visit, I felt.
I went home and booked off duty, thinking it had been a happy but curious day, not quite typical of my work as the rural constable of Aidensfield. The following day, Sunday, I was scheduled to perform a 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. duty, a rare bonus because it meant I had the evening off. A full evening at home was to be treasured by a rural constable and I hoped the weather would remain fine and warm because I wanted to arrange a barbecue in the garden with Mary and the children.
Next morning, I was pleased to see the weather had held; it was as sunny and as warm as yesterday. One Sunday chore was yet another tour of the pubs, bearing in mind that young people were not at college or school on Sundays, and that lots of youngsters did tour the countryside on bikes or in cars or even on foot. It was only to be expected that they’d try to buy drinks in country pubs and it was equally to be expected that country constables would endeavour to deter them. Accordingly, I returned to the Hopbind Inn and arrived just before its noon opening time. The parish church clock was showing three minutes to twelve and I was surprised to see a crowd on the forecourt. Among them was a gathering of young men in singlets, shorts and running shoes, all with large numerals pinned to their backs. Several were local lads but some were strangers and among them I noticed the six youngsters I’d seen at yesterday’s cricket match. The number carriers were lined up as if they were about to begin a running race. Not knowing what was going on, I entered the pub to find rows of pint pots standing on the bar counter. They were all full to the brim and neatly arranged in a row at the front of the bar; the bar itself was deserted. As I strolled along the line of beer, George emerged from his private quarters.
‘Something going on, George?’ I asked.
‘Some daft race,’ he said. ‘If I was you. I’d stand well clear of that bar . . . you could get knocked over. They start when the church clock strikes twelve!’
As if on cue, I heard the booming sound of the clock on St Andrew’s parish church in Elsinby and with no more ado, the door of the pub burst open and in dashed all the competitors from outside. They were followed by the crowd and as I stood back to observe events, each of the numbered men grabbed a pint of beer and literally threw it down his throat. I noticed that someone was recording this on a clipboard then, having downed one pint of beer, each man galloped out of the rear door, into the car park and along the lane which led from the village.
‘Where are they going, George?’
‘Across the dale to Maddleskirk,’ he said. ‘There’s two pubs there. They have to down a pint at the White Lion first, then along to the Dun Cow, and then run over to Crampton and do the same at that new pub, the Crown, then down to Briggsby for another at the Greyhound and back here for a final pint — and all before closing-time a
t 2 p.m. A round trip of twelve miles, fuelled by six pints apiece. All on foot, with no cycling, lifts in cars or lorries, or any mechanical transport. There are referees in all the pubs to see the pints are drained to the last drop, and marshals along the roads to make sure no one cadges a lift or uses mechanical transport.’
‘Whose idea was this?’ I asked, wondering if this was just an excuse for the contestants to get paralytic.
‘Why?’ There was a flash of concern on George’s face. ‘Is it illegal?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he was relieved to hear me say. ‘So long as they don’t get drunk and incapable, and so long as they don’t drive vehicles or ride bikes when they’re tanked up. And if they keep off the public roads, so much the better.’
‘Most of the course is across the fields or through the dale,’ he said. ‘Well off the beaten track. It was all arranged very quickly last night, with all the landlords agreeing to take part. It’s a bit of fun and a bit of publicity for them.’
‘Well, so long as it doesn’t get out of hand.’ I did experience some degree of caution but could see no reason to halt the race. So far as I was aware, they were not breaking any of the laws relating to alcoholic drinks — unless they got drunk. But six pints each, in two hours? I wondered . . .
‘So,’ I repeated my earlier question, ‘whose bright idea was this?’
‘Some lads from the reservoir site were in, they dreamed it up.’
‘So what’s the outcome of all this, apart from bellies gurgling with beer and legs behaving like Pinocchio’s without the string?’
‘There’s two teams, a Hopbind team and a reservoir team, ten men each. First man home scores twenty points, second nineteen, third eighteen and so on. When everybody’s home, the points are added up and a winning team emerges. The one with the most points is the winner.’
‘And what does the winning team get?’ I asked.
‘Free pints bought by members of the losing team,’ he told me in all seriousness. ‘And the opportunity for a return match the following Sunday.’
By the time I had elicited this information from George, every competitor had vanished from sight, heading for the next pint stop along the route. I decided it might be wise to stage another diplomatic absence and contemplated a patrol around the lonely wastes of Rannockdale where there was no pub. Should Sergeant Blaketon question my motives for patrolling such a quiet and unpopulated place, I could always claim I was deterring litter louts or keeping observation for sheep rustlers.
As I patrolled the moorlands of Rannockdale that Sunday afternoon, I realized there was more to do than worry about pint-filled runners. It was a busy day due to the seasonal influx of tourists and during that outing, I made sure I showed my uniform in strategic places. Those places included locations where thieves loitered to steal from parked cars, where silly people on picnics lit fires among the tinder-dry heather, where others parked in farmers’ fields among the cattle and then left the gates open and where yet more were known to steal rocks and rare plants from the moors in a pathetic attempt to fashion their suburban rockeries. Sadly, many visitors are nothing more than vandals in the countryside.
Police patrols of the kind I was undertaking are of value in the prevention of all crime and acts of vandalism and it was around 5 p.m. when I decided to return to Aidensfield. I intended to perform an hour’s foot patrol in the village before concluding my shift at 6 p.m. But even as I entered the main street, I was flagged down by a pretty young woman clad in white shorts, a blue T-shirt, sandals and little else. I knew her — she was Iris Burgess who lived with her parents and brother at High Rigg Cottage between Aidensfield and Elsinby. She worked in a solicitor’s office in Ashfordly and would be around nineteen years old.
‘Hello, Iris.’ She was panting heavily as if she’d been running. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s our Keith,’ she gasped. ‘I was coming to see you.’
I waited a few moments for her to regain her breath. Keith was her elder brother, a young man about twenty-two.
‘What about him?’ I asked, sensing some drama was about to unfold.
‘He’s missing.’ She looked distraught.
‘Missing? Since when?’ was my next question.
‘Since dinner time.’ In the moors, dinner time was around midday. ‘He went on the run from the Hopbind and hasn’t come back.’
I groaned inwardly. He’d probably drunk himself into a stupor or he might have gone off with his mates, but I could not ignore her plea. I would begin a search for him — and the obvious place to start was his own home. Quite often, we received reports of people missing when in fact they were curled up in bed, snoozing in the potting shed or snoring on the toilet. A police search is invariably more thorough than one conducted by untrained people who tend to ignore wardrobes, lofts, greenhouses, outside buildings and hiding places under the bed or in the garden.
‘Hop on to the pillion,’ I told her. ‘We’ll start at your house.’
Tom and Hilda Burgess, both in their fifties, were in the garden when I arrived at their beautiful cottage. Dressed in a heavy frock with an apron over her knees, Hilda was sitting on a stool and shelling peas into a basin while her husband, Tom, with a handkerchief knotted over his head. was weeding a patch of his garden with a hoe. He wore dark tweed trousers, a thick, long-sleeved shirt and braces, his only concession to the hot day being that he wore no tie or collar, and his sleeves were rolled up.
‘Now then Mr Rhea,’ he said. ‘It’s a grand day.’
‘Lovely,’ I agreed. ‘A bit on the warm side for gardening!’
‘Nay, it’s about right; it makes t’soil easy to weed, better than being sodden. Now, you’ll have come about our Keith?’
‘Iris says he’s not come home.’
At this Hilda looked up. ‘He never misses his Sunday dinner,’ she said. ‘He allus goes down to the Hopbind for a couple of pints of a Sunday, then gets home at quarter to one for his Yorkshire pudding and roast beef. Never misses. Regular as clockwork, he is.’
‘But today, he has missed his dinner?’ I wondered if he had come home and then gone out again.
‘Nay, Mr Rhea, he’s not missed his dinner, not yet. I’ve kept it for him, you see. He said he’d be late today, summat to do with going for a run, so we had to have our dinners and he said he’d get his after two o’clock. He said he’d get back to the Hopbind by two. I said I’d keep his dinner in t’oven; it’s still there, Mr Rhea. Mind you, them Yorkshires’ll be a bit on t’dry side and his roast taties’ll have shrivelled up. It won’t have done his peas much good either. But he hasn’t missed it, not yet.’
‘So what’s he normally do after his Sunday dinner?’
‘Goes to sleep in his chair. It’s t’beer, I reckon. He comes in, has his dinner and sits in his chair then drops off. Stays there till teatime, he does, snoozing happily.’
‘Then what?’ I asked.
‘He has his tea, then goes down to the Hopbind for his evening drink, reckons it makes him sleep at night.’
‘Do you mind if I look around?’ I asked. ‘His bedroom, toilet, lounge, outside places, just in case he’s sneaked home without you knowing.’
‘Well, we did have a good look around the spot, but help yourself. Iris, take Mr Rhea wherever he wants to go.’
With Iris as my escort, I made a meticulous search of the entire house, including the loft and outbuildings, but there was no sign of Keith. I noticed a telephone in the hall and asked Mrs Burgess if I could ring the Hopbind, just to see if he had gone there, or if anyone had seen him. George told me that all the other runners had returned safely, with some in need of a drink even if they were a little weak-kneed. He added that the Hopbind team had won the contest in spite of a missing team member. They’d scored more points than the reservoir lads, which meant the reservoir lads had to buy them all a pint. That was due to be done tonight, so George told me. I didn’t ask where — I was going to be off duty anyway.
‘Any i
dea where Keith was seen last?’ I asked George.
‘The Greyhound at Briggsby,’ he said. ‘The umpire checked him in; he had his pint, knocking it back in a few seconds, and then set off for the last leg of the run, from Briggsby to Elsinby, across the fields. Two and a half miles or so. He was the last to leave, by the way, the others had all gone before he got there. He was puffing a bit, so the umpire said, a bit like a broken-winded gallower. He left in good time to get here before two, but he never made it. I didn’t worry, I thought he must have packed it in and gone home.’
‘He’s never been home,’ I told George. ‘I’m ringing from his parents’ home now. I’ve searched it high and low. He’s not here. Anyway, don’t worry at this stage, George. I’ll retrace his route from Briggsby to Elsinby, I can do most of it on the bike.’
‘Do you want volunteers?’ he asked. ‘I could rustle up a few regulars to help you look for him.’
‘Not at this stage, George, but thanks for the offer. If I don’t find him during my local search, we’ll have to consider something else and your lads could be very useful. Leave it with me for now, I’ll be in touch later.’
The advantage of a motorcycle is that it can travel in places that motor cars cannot reach, particularly narrow footpaths and unsurfaced tracks. I knew that the cross-country route from Briggsby to Elsinby made use of a lot of green lanes, bridleways and public footpaths, most of which were accessible to my motorbike. I could very quickly check every inch of the route. There were several farms and cottages along the way too.
I could ask if the owners had seen a wandering or wobbly runner with a beery breath. If Keith had stumbled and broken a leg, or was in any other kind of physical trouble, I was confident I’d find him.
After explaining my plan to the Burgesses, I embarked upon my hunt. I decided to start at the Greyhound Inn, Briggsby, and work my way across country towards Elsinby. The first leg of the trip was uneventful; I chugged and bounced along the grass covered route without finding any sign of Keith. Eventually, I reached a gate, opened it, made a hair-raising trek around the edge of a wheat field, and regained the bridleway via another gate. This rough route took me towards Robson Hall Farm deep in the valley. Normally, I approached this farm from the opposite direction but was pleased to see signs of activity in the yard. The lady of the farm, Georgina Forster, was grooming a horse. The noise of my approaching motorbike startled the animal but Mrs Forster, a handsome, slim woman with beautiful black hair, held it in check as I brought my bike to a halt and switched off the engine. I sat astride the machine as she walked the horse towards me.
CONSTABLE AT THE DAM a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 19) Page 7