CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 1–5 five feel-good village cozy mysteries

by Nicholas Rhea

  “Noo then, lad,” he beamed. “Thoo’ll ’ave cum for thy Christmas duck, eh?”

  “No, I haven’t,” I had to say. I knew nothing of such an arrangement. “It’s about something else, Mr Boston.”

  “Get ’im ’is duck oot o’ t’larder, Mary. Let’s git this bit owered afoore he spoils things.”

  “No,” I insisted. “Please, you mustn’t. I’m here on business — you’ll not want to give me a duck when you hear what I’ve got to say.”

  He studied me for a few moments and said, “Oh, it’s like that is it? Sit down then,” and he indicated a chair at the table. I put my cap on the scrubbed wooden top and Mrs Boston produced a mug of tea from somewhere. This was their break time, ’lowance time as they called it.

  “Give ’im summat stronger than that, Mary,” insisted George.

  I held up my hand. “No, wait, please. I must tell you why I’m here.”

  “This lad’s nut gahin ti be bribed, is he?” smiled the genial farmer. “Well, lad, oot wiv it. What’s up? It must be summat important to drag you oot looking serious on Christmas Day.”

  I told him about last night’s incident, or this morning’s to be precise, and he listened without a word. Mrs Boston stood close to me, listening carefully and sipping from her mug which she clutched with both hands. I told them the story in what I hoped was a clear manner and left the identification of the alleged offender until the end.

  “That Morris car,” I said. “It bore the same registration number as your son’s car,” and I quoted the number.

  “Aye,” he said. “That’s oor lad’s car and no mistake. Is onnybody hurt?”

  “No,” I said to his relief. “Just minor damage to both vehicles.”

  “If he’d stopped, it might ’ave been sorted out there and then.”

  “Possibly,” I agreed, wondering if Samuel had been drunk at the time.

  “What happens next then?”

  “I’d like to see the car.”

  “Me an’ all,” and he slipped his feet into a pair of waiting Wellington boots and led me through the back of the house, the cur following without any bidding. We traversed a cattle shed or two with cows ruminating noisily in their winter quarters, the heat of their bodies warming the entire complex. Finally, we entered an outbuilding which served as a garage.

  “There she is,” he pointed to a car.

  Out came my official notebook as I circled the little car, looking for signs of recent damage. I found them; the front offside wing had been dented and the surface paint was fractured. The bumper was twisted and the headlamp glass was broken, most of it being missing. There were clean, rust-free scratches along the doors too, and also along the rear wing, all on the driver’s side. It had clearly been in a recent collision. I noted this damage and then, taking out my pocket knife, lifted a sample of paint from the damaged part of the car. I carefully placed this in a plastic envelope and then, upon the damaged portion of the car, I located an alien colour, a dull red paint. I guessed this had been transferred from the other vehicle during their contact, so I lifted this and placed it in another envelope.

  “What’s all this business for?” George asked with genuine interest.

  “I might have to prove it was him,” I said. “I have taken a control sample of the paintwork from Samuel’s car, and another piece bearing a different coloured paint. That shows he touched something else, something bearing that colour of paint. We’ll do the same with the other chap’s car, then we will get our forensic wizards to examine all the pieces. They’ll tell us whether the two cars were ever in contact with one another. I reckon they’ll say ‘yes’.”

  “You fellers leave nowt to chance, do you?”

  “No,” I said. “We don’t.”

  After I had noted the excise licence details, I said, “I’d like to see Sam now. Where is he?”

  “He’ll be in these buildings. I’ll shout him.”

  He bellowed Sam’s name and soon the lad appeared looking pale and dishevelled, the legacy of his night out. He was very tall and thin, a serious-faced lad but pleasant to deal with.

  “Now, Sam.” I did not smile.

  “Hello, Mr Rhea,” and his eyes did not meet mine.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “Aye.”

  “It’s your car?” I had to ask the formal question for evidential purposes.

  “Aye.”

  “And you were driving it from Maddleskirk towards Aidensfield in the early hours of this morning, past the abbey about quarter-past-one?”

  “Aye.”

  George interrupted us to address his son. “Leeakster, lad, when thoo’s involved in summat like a traffic accident, thoo’s got ti stop and tell t’folks who’s there who thoo is . . .”

  “Aye, Ah know,” said Samuel, “but Ah was scared.”

  “Drunk, mair like,” snapped his father.

  “Ah’d had a few, not too many, not enough to stop me driving.”

  “Thoo’ll nut be having t’lad for drinking and driving, Mr Rhea?”

  “No,” I said to his relief. This was before the days of the breathalyser and besides, this youth was stone cold sober now. “He’s not drunk now, and I can’t prove what he was like when this happened, can I?”

  George smiled.

  “Come inti t’house then, both on you.”

  We followed him inside and he produced a bottle of whisky. “It’s Christmas Day, Mr Rhea, so thoo’ll have a noggin wiv us?”

  “Aye,” I said, “I will, but I must see this lad’s papers first — insurance, driving licence, test certificate.” I hoped they were all in order, for I didn’t want to get Samuel into deeper trouble.

  “Get ’em, Sam.”

  I was relieved to find they were all correct, and I sat at the table to note their particulars in my notebook. As I worked, Samuel plonked a huge glass of whisky before me. It was neat and there must have been a third of a pint.

  “Sup it up, lad, it’ll warm thoo nicely.”

  “Samuel,” I addressed him before I lifted my glass. “I’ve got to report you for various offences — it will probably mean an appearance at Eltering Magistrates’ Court.”

  “Can’t thoo settle it oot o’ court?” asked George.

  “This is a criminal court, it’s not a civil case,” I tried to explain the difference. “We’ve had a formal complaint about Sam’s driving, so I’ve no choice. I’ve got to submit my report and Sam will get a summons in due course.”

  “It won’t mean prison, will it?” The lad’s eyes were wide and fearful.

  “No, a fine perhaps, a smallish one. It’s your first offence,” and I tried to put the situation in its right perspective.

  “Ah’ll say it was my fault, ’cos it was,” offered Samuel, white-faced and obviously worried. “Ah should ’ave stopped, Mr Rhea; Ah was bloody daft not to.”

  “Fair enough. Now listen to what I’m reporting you for,” I advised. “First, there’s bound to be careless driving. Then you failed to stop after an accident, and you failed to report it to the police as soon as practicable.”

  “Three, eh?” counted his father. “Three offences.”

  “Three,” I confirmed.

  “Not drunk driving?”

  “No,” I said once more. “I’ve no evidence to suggest he was drunk.”

  “Nobody said I was?” Samuel’s statement was phrased like a question.

  “Nobody suggested anything of the sort, Sam. It won’t enter my report. You panicked, that’s all.”

  “Aye,” he smiled. “Fair enough.”

  “Thoo’s a lucky lad, Sam,” commented his father.

  “You’ll get a summons in about three weeks,” I told him.

  “Serves the young bugger right,” said George when I’d finished. “Ah’ve had a go at him for gahin oot late and driving home. Yon pub needs checking, lad, for boozing late.”

  “It’s not on my beat, Mr Boston, but I’ll have words with the sergeant.”

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nbsp; “Aye, well, sup that whisky. This is Christmas, thoo knaws.”

  Samuel and Mrs Boston joined us and we chatted as we always had before this incident. We talked of nothing in particular for this was just another friendly chat between the village bobby and one of his farming community. What we had discussed ten minutes earlier was now over and done with. I stayed longer than I intended and had two more massive whiskies. I found the room beginning to move about me, so I made a pathetic attempt to leave.

  “It’s a good job thoo’s walking back, lad,” George laughed. “Ah hope thy missus has a nice heavy dinner ready. Thoo’ll need summat to sober thyself up, ’specially if t’sergeant turns up.”

  “She’s busy with the dinner now,” I muttered incoherently, aiming for the door. “Thankshh for being sho co-operative.”

  “Hod on, lad, thoo’s forgotten summat,” George called me back.

  “Forgotten?” I wondered if I had left my cap, but it was perched on my head in approximately the right position. I looked at George. He was holding a massive, dressed duck, ready for the oven.

  “It’s thy Christmas duck, tak it.”

  “No, I couldn’t, not after reporting Sshamuel.”

  “Oor Sam was a bloody fool; he’s lucky he’s not been takken off t’road forever, drunk driving or summat warse. Tak this duck — it’s thine.”

  “I can’t,” I managed to say, “I musshn’t — I cannot accept gifts, it’s againssht the rules.”

  “Who said it was for thoo?” he questioned me. “It’s not.”

  “Then who issh it for?” I asked stupidly.

  “Thy wife and kids,” he smiled. “There’s no law to say Ah can’t give thy missus and bairns a duck, is there?”

  I left, bearing the huge bare duck beneath my arm as I wound my erratic way back up the hill and into my cosy house. I was just in time for dinner and spent the afternoon getting over that spell of duty. I sat around, at first in a haze of noise and fun, and then in a clearer atmosphere as I played with the children and their new toys. Nothing else turned up, except a sprinkling of snow. As George Boston would have said, “It snew on Christmas Day, just a strinkling.”

  But that ‘strinkling’ became a steady snowfall and I could see the features of his farm gradually vanishing in a desert of white. Walls disappeared against a background of pure white and I was reminded of the lines of Robert Bridges’ poem, ‘London Snow’,

  Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

  Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

  Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

  Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

  Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

  Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

  With that snow, Christmas had truly arrived and the land about grew whiter as evening fell. It was a very pleasant Christmas Day.

  We had the duck for New Year’s Day dinner and it was truly delicious, and that Christmas and New Year, Mary received eleven pheasants, two brace of grouse, one hare, two Christmas cakes, several bottles, one umbrella and a bag of anonymous Brussels sprouts.

  A month later, Samuel was fined a total of £32 and had his licence endorsed.

  THE END

  BOOK 2:

  CONSTABLE

  ON THE

  PROWL

  A perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

  NICHOLAS RHEA

  Chapter One

  Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,

  While night’s black agents to their prey do rouse.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE — Macbeth

  For the police officer, night-duty is a time to reflect upon his duties, to ponder upon the meaning of life and to assess the value of the police service as a career. Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him, the police officer goes about his multifarious tasks unseen and unpraised. In his solitude, he deals with all manner of incidents and problems, and there is no one to thank him or console him, although if he errs in the smallest way, it can be guaranteed that someone will see him and report his misdemeanour to a higher authority.

  Alternatively, the witness will write to his local newspaper about the reduction in police standards or the lack of internal discipline within the Force. This area of injustice is stoically accepted by members of the Force. Perhaps they know the writings of ‘Junius’ (circa 1770) who said, ‘The injustice done to an individual is sometimes of service to the public’.

  With such dangers at the back of his mind, it is fair to say that every police officer is nurtured upon a diet of nights. In police jargon, “Nights” is that period of eight agonising hours which stretch interminably from 10 pm until 6 am, or in some areas from 11 pm until 7 am. Sometimes the duty is worked a week at a stretch; on other occasions it is worked by performing two Nights, followed by two Late Turns (2 pm until 10 pm) and then three Early Turns (6 am until 2 pm). This involves “quick changeovers” when one seldom seems to sleep between those spells of bleary-eyed periods of work.

  Some police forces try to ease the eternal lack of sleep by starting with Early Turn, then going on to Nights and finishing with Late Turns. Then there is the sequence Nights, Early, Late or even Late, Early, Nights or in fact any other combination, all of which are designed to ensure the maximum of work is crammed into the shortest period of time with a minimum of hours wasted in sleep.

  Another attempt to baffle the policeman’s sleeping routine is Half Nights. This is the period of eight hours from 6 pm until 2 am, or from 5 pm until 1 am. This duty is often welcomed during a period of full nights because it enables at least some of the night to be spent in bed and is therefore considered a perk or even a devious way of saying “thank you” for some obscure task well performed.

  Many youngsters start their police career by working three weeks of full nights, broken only by a rest day or two somewhere during that tortuous spell. This first session is a long and extremely exhausting affair because sleep patterns of many normal years are interrupted, and the constable’s endurance is tested by the requirement to remain awake, or at least to have the appearance of remaining awake, in spite of crushing weariness and sore feet. By the onset of Night No. 3 the policeman’s sleep pattern has adjusted reasonably well to the demands placed upon it. One of these demands is the ability to eat breakfast at 2 am, followed by another at 6 am which ought, in the strictest of sequences, to be called lunch but which never is. There is little wonder that police stations reverberate with strange gastronomic sounds at such mealtimes — stomachs do need to protest from time to time.

  A period of sleep follows a night-duty and this lasts until around two or three in the afternoon, which is a time free to bathe one’s feet and have a nap. By nine o’clock in the evening, it is back into uniform for a rapid supper. Sandwiches are collected, and a flask is filled with hot liquid like coffee, tea or soup, then it’s off to the station to parade at 9.45 pm in readiness for another period of lucernal duty.

  By the time the officer has totally adjusted to his changed bodily rhythms it is time to have a day off. It is then necessary to readjust to a sort of normality, a task which is not difficult after only two or three nights, but which is nigh impossible after a long, breaking-in spell of three weeks full nights. Jetlag has nothing on this period of readjustment for it requires a total rethink on teeth-cleaning routines and toilet necessities, all aggravated by weakening torch batteries and the absence of all-night torch battery emporiums.

  If this long-enforced spell of somnambulism appears to be futile, it does have a purpose. The idea is to allow the budding constable to become properly acquainted with his beat before he is turned loose upon an unsuspecting public in the full glare of British daylight. It is reasoned that in the wee small hours of the morning he can potter about the town, often accompanied by a seasoned local officer, to learn all about vulnerable pro
perties, to discover places where cups of tea can be obtained at any hour of the night, to know which bakers use police officers to test the quality of their buns and to locate shops which offer discounts. There is the added bonus of discovering windows at which attractive ladies undress without curtains. It is also advantageous to be shown hiding places where the sergeant never looks, along with a host of other useful information. A lot of experience is gained on night-duty. It is the foundation of future “bobbying”.

  After the introductory term, the young officer is turned out to face his public with his training-school confidence either pleasantly consolidated or totally shattered by the experiences of those three weeks.

  It is of such experiences that I now write for this book relates some incidents which have occurred during prowling periods of night-duty.

  I feel that it is prudent from the outset to state that the term “night” is of considerable academic interest to the prowling police officer. It has so many different meanings within the law of England, many of which affect the performance of the bobby’s duty. Although the law has dramatically changed since my early days in the Force, the definition of “night” continues to be interesting.

  I first learned of the legal intricacies of ‘night’ at my Initial Training Centre where, by flicking through my official issue of Moriarty’s Police Law I learned that there were several definitions of “night”; they were as follows:

  Night — arrest; Night — Billiards; Night — burglary; Night — disguised with intent; Night — dogs; Night — larceny; Night-lights on vehicles; Night — loitering; Night — malicious damage; Night — offences; Night — Old Metal Dealers; Night — poaching; Night — spring guns, etc.; Night — walkers; and Night — Refreshment Houses. The problem was that the word “night” bore little resemblance to our night-duty times and indicated something different in most of the indexed cases. In addition, there were other “nights” like Night — arrest for indictable offences; Night — cafes, offences in; Night — employment; Night — work (women) and finally, as if to clarify it all, an entry entitled Night — Meaning Of.