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

by Nicholas Rhea

  “Mr Sannier,” I anglicised his title. “Where were you tonight, about eight-thirty?”

  “Tonight? Why here, of course. With my wife.”

  “You didn’t go out?”

  “No, he did not,” she said grimly. I paused deliberately as I looked around the small room. A piano stood against one wall and on top. was a flat cap with the press-stud undone, a pair of gloves with string backs and a long white scarf. Hanging on a hook behind the door was a dark donkey jacket with black leather shoulder-patches and he had a thick mop of grey hair. Diane’s description was perfect. It fitted him absolutely, although I’d have placed his age nearer sixty than fifty.

  But was it too perfect? Everything matched and she had said he called regularly at the farm for his milk.

  “Mrs Sannier, could you swear your husband did not leave the room this evening?”

  She regarded me seriously. “We both went out, in our car, down to Ashfordly and returned in time for tea, just before five o’clock. Edouard went out to fill the coal-scuttle at six o’clock, and we’ve not been out since, neither of us. I will swear to that.” She spoke in a fiercely protective manner.

  “I believe you,” I said, for it was true. I did believe them. This man was no putter of sacks over the heads of young nubile girls.

  “What is it?” he asked, with a genuine interest. “Have I done wrong?”

  I was in two minds whether to tell him. I didn’t want to give the impression that I believed he’d do such a thing and yet I did owe the couple some explanation. As I dithered for a moment, Mrs Sannier poured a coffee and said, “I think this would help.” She passed it to me and I relaxed in the chair.

  I told them the full story as Diane had related it, and included the description she’d given. When I had finished, he laughed, “She described me, eh? You had to come.”

  “I had to come,” I said. “But it seems a strange tale for a girl like Diane to concoct, Mr Sannier. I’m sure she was attacked.”

  “Maybe she is telling the truth,” said his wife. “When I was washing the tea things, I saw a young man walking down the road towards the dairy-farm. He wore a dark donkey jacket, just like Edouard’s, and a flat cap, and a long light-coloured scarf with string-back gloves. I remembered thinking how like Edouard he looked.”

  “What time was that?” I felt excited.

  “Six o’clock,” she said. “Perhaps a minute or two either way, but near enough to six.”

  That was two and a half hours before the attack. “Tell me more,” I said.

  “Well, he comes down the road every Wednesday night. He walks into Ashfordly to the pub. I think he works on the Forestry Commission land near Sutton Bank Top.”

  “Do you know his name?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ll have to make some more enquiries,” I said. “Look, I’m very sorry to have troubled you like this — I feel very guilty about ruining your evening.”

  “Think nothing of it, young man,” said Monsieur Sannier. “In some countries, I would have been dragged off and clapped in jail for less. I hope you find the man.”

  There are times one has to trust a man almost on sight and I trusted this one. I was convinced he had nothing to do with the attack on Diane.

  To cut a long story short, I went straight to the private address of the Forestry Commission boss for the district and explained my problem. He told me he knew the lad, a twenty-two-year-old who lived with his parents in a woodland cottage a mile from the top of Sutton Bank. The parents kept a smallholding with hens and pigs but the lad was very shy with girls. He was totally unable to communicate with them, so he was a likely candidate. The description supplied by Mrs Sannier fitted him.

  Knowing I would have difficulty locating him tonight, I went to the cottage in the woods first thing next morning. I found Jeremy Morley at home. His dad was labouring on a farm nearby and mother was out. He allowed me in; it was a hovel and filthy with it, but for this unfortunate lad it was home. And there, on a hook behind the door was a dark donkey jacket, a flat cap with the peak button undone, a dull white scarf and, on the table, a pair of driving-gloves with string backs.

  Almost before I began my questioning, the lad readily admitted trying to capture the girl. He knew it was best to put sacks over the heads of captured birds to calm them; he’d seen his dad do it many times with hens. And he’d seen the television, where men carried off the girl of their choice. He thought he’d do the same. He’d waited two hours behind that haystack, knowing Diane got off the Harrowby bus each Wednesday, and said he liked the look of her. He’d never spoken to her — he didn’t dare, and he’d dressed up like Monsieur Sannier because he liked the Frenchman’s style and confidence. That man knew how to treat girls, he felt, so he copied his idol for style and his father for action. I don’t think he realised it was wrong.

  After speaking to Sergeant Bairstow about it, we took the lad to court and he was bound over to be of good behaviour. The court persuaded him to seek treatment for his loneliness and appalling shyness in the face of girls. Diane forgave him too, which helped, and she went up to the Sanniers’ cottage to apologise for implicating the unfortunate man.

  Although I was pleased we found the culprit, I was even more pleased that I hadn’t prosecuted the wrong man. It would have been so easy to ruin the Sanniers’ life but I did wonder about the calming influence of hessian sacks upon one’s head!

  Chapter Three

  “Is there anything to which you wish to draw my attention?”

  “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

  “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

  “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

  ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, 1859—1930

  When I walked in the garden of my hilltop police house, I could look upon the expanse of the valley between and watch the passing show. One outcome of my elevated rural studies was an appreciation of the variety of farm animals that lived and worked on my patch.

  There were horses of every kind. They ranged from the massive Shires and Clydesdales being bred for show purposes, to the diminutive Shetland ponies loved by little girls having riding-lessons. The cows included everything from Red Polls to Friesians with bulls to keep them content, and there were pigs and sheep, dogs and cats, hens and guinea-fowl. Some farmers even bred rabbits, hamsters, goats and donkeys. One striking fact was that all these beasts lived happily side by side and seemed in joyful communion with the wild creatures that occupied the same parcel of countryside.

  It would be nice if all races of men could live in such harmony, but we must recognise that animals are not emotional creatures. They eat and sleep, they make love and they make war, but they do not worry about their image, neither do they stalk their portion of England believing that brown cows are superior to whites, that stallions should wash up, or that moles should fight for equal rights with squirrels. In spite of their minor quarrels, they are a happy bunch, and it is fair to say that no animal, of its own volition, caused me professional anxiety. Interest, yes; curiosity, certainly, but apprehension — no!

  Some of their owners did and some of the animals did when affected by the behaviour of their humans. One professional problem surrounded a beautiful black Labrador called Nero. Really, it wasn’t his fault at all, but it was alleged that he became savagely involved with a flock of sheep owned by a fiery farmer called Fairclough. This was Donald Fairclough of The Grange, Thackerston.

  During the early months of my constableship at Aidensfield, I had experienced very little contact with Donald Fairclough because Mr Fairclough had taken it upon himself to be a gentleman farmer. He wore hacking-jackets, plus-fours and brogues. Locally, the term “gentleman farmer” suggests a rich man who owns a farm but who pays someone else to do the work and talk to policemen. Mr Fairclough’s wealth allowed him to spend a lot of time overseas or riding about the countryside in his Daimler with two golden retrie
vers and a shotgun at his side. Had anyone witnessed his demeanour, dress and dogs, he would immediately classify him as a gentleman farmer. He was that sort of person, although I believe he grew up in Middlesbrough.

  Being Mr Fairclough of Thackerston Grange made him feel rather important and he perpetuated his personal image by talking loudly, telephoning incessantly and writing incomprehensible letters to newspapers and parish councils. His turnover of domestic and farm staff was rapid, and it was rumoured that sometimes he had to return to his lovely farm personally to feed the pigs or muck out the cows when a walk-out occurred. But such events were rare — he had enough money to find someone to do the job in return for a quick pound or two in cash. Donald Fairclough always got by.

  It was during my first spring at Aidensfield that I experienced the wrath of his tongue. My telephone rang in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon when, I happened to be at home between shifts. Mary answered it and informed me it was a Mr Fairclough who sounded important and upset.

  “Hello!” boomed the voice. “Is that the policeman?”

  “P.C. Rhea,” I identified myself.

  “Sheep-worrying,” shouted Fairclough. “Some bloody dog’s attacked my flock of black-faces.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Recently, very recently,” returned the voice. “My man’s just come down from my ten-acre. There’s five sheep mauled and one dead. Savaged by a bloody dog. Get yourself down here straight away.”

  I was tempted to reply “Yes, sir” but resisted. Fairclough wasn’t going to have me running around in circles.

  Even so, sheep-worrying is one of the most terrible of rural happenings and I felt sorry for him. Anyone who fails to appreciate the horror of this all-too-common tragedy should take a look at a savaged sheep. They should think about a living animal with its intestines torn from its throbbing body by bloodthirsty domestic dogs whose normal senses have evaporated in a mist of raw meat smells. They should witness the terrified huddle of mangled animals who survive the onslaught, they should see the aborted lambs, dead even before they see separate life, and they should witness the tears in the eyes of tough, unemotive farmers who weep at the appalling sight. The agony is everyone’s.

  Sheep-worrying is much more than dogs running after stupid woollybacks. It is unbridled savagery at its worst; it is flocks of sheep which can be literally terrified into death; it is individual animals being eaten alive and it is humans claiming, “My dog could never do that.” But it can, and so often does.

  Fortunately, most rural folk understand the horrible nature of sheep-worrying and seek effectively to control their dogs. Some do not care, however, and, in addition, many newcomers to the countryside do not comprehend the dangers caused by roaming Fidos and wandering Fluffs. In recent years, it has been observed that sheep who live near towns and city suburbs are being savaged by urban dogs whose owners turn them loose for walkies. Nationwide, it is a massive problem; for anyone living near sheep, it is a harrowing and ghastly crime.

  I knew the problems only too well, having been nurtured in a moorland sheep-farming district, and I knew just how difficult it can be to locate the guilty dogs. If they are not found, they kill again and again. It is sometimes possible to analyse the stomach contents of suspect dogs or examine the hair about their muzzles in an effort to prove they had eaten living tissue from sheep. Positive proof is required but so often the guilty dogs escape and are never found, even though they return to savage the flocks time and time again.

  It is a harrowing period for the farmer when a killer dog is at large and for the rural policeman it can prove a severe test of his skills in tracing suspects, even those of the four-legged variety. It is a battle which must be won. It was with some trepidation, therefore, that I motored along the lane to Thackerston Grange.

  Fairclough must have heard the distinctive note of my motorcycle because he was waiting in his farmyard. I parked the machine against a saddle, removed my crash-helmet and left it on the pillion.

  “Fairclough.” He held out his hand and we shook on this, our first official encounter. I had seen him striding about Ashfordly from time to time and we’d nodded a kind of greeting on occasions. But this was business.

  He indicated a tractor and said, “Jump on.”

  Soon he was guiding the noisy machine down the lanes between his expansive fields with me perched on the back, hanging on for grim death to a mudguard.

  “Glad I caught you in,” he shouted above the noise.

  “You caught me between shifts,” I shouted back. “Normally, I’d have been out and you’d have missed me.”

  “You fellows are fully modernised these days, what with radios and motorcycles. I’d have found you. But I miss the copper who walked. Sad days when those chaps disappeared. Ah, here we are.”

  I hadn’t time to point out it would have taken half an hour for me to walk to his farm, because we had arrived at a gently sloping field on the western limits of his farm. He shouted at me, “Open the gate, will you?”

  I dropped from the tractor, opened the wooden gate and admitted the noisy machine. He brought it to a halt just inside and stopped the engine before climbing down.

  “Over there.” He pointed to a corner of the field where the hawthorn hedge was sufficiently robust to frustrate penetration by the most determined fleeing ewe. As we walked towards the corner, I could see the mass of bloodstained wool, some of it writhing painfully in a weird silence.

  “There,” and his voice softened. The most hard-headed farmer would show genuine sorrow at such a sight, and we both knew there was no way to save the lives of these mutilated animals.

  “The vet’s coming to put ’em to sleep,” he said, “but I know you need to record what happened, for court.”

  “Of course. When did this happen?”

  “Today, sometime between eleven this morning and two this afternoon.”

  Out came my notebook and I noted that there was one dead ewe, with its belly eaten away and its flesh torn into shreds. It had died an agonising death and it was possible to see the teeth-marks on the remaining skin. Protruding from its body was the half-eaten carcase of an unborn lamb.

  The other five victims were lying in a huddle where they had fled, all severely mutilated about the belly region, with their innards protruding and their unborn lambs killed. All were in a state of severe shock and terror. It was impossible at this stage to say how many more of the remainder, now huddled beneath a clump of trees in a far corner, would suffer abortions as a result of being stampeded by the killer dog or dogs.

  I made note of the injuries to these ewes and, with Fairclough’s permission, cut a small strand of wool from each savaged sheep. I placed these into six plastic packets, all labelled.

  “What’s that for?” he asked with genuine interest, his voice subdued.

  “If we find the dog and the owner denies it was loose at the material time, we might find traces of wool about its mouth or teeth. This can be matched with the wool I’ve taken from these animals.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Well,” I said. “These poor creatures will have to be put out of their misery.”

  “They’ll not be feeling much pain now — the shock’s numbed them. You’ll see how they didn’t try to flee from you. Poor devils — they’re finished.”

  “But the vet will see to them?”

  “He will, and soon.”

  We turned and walked away from the carnage. The brisk spring breeze wafted a nauseating smell towards me, the stench of death mingled with the unmistakable aura of sheep. It was gone in a second, but ever since that day I have linked the scent of raw mutton with sheep-worrying of the most horrifying kind.

  “Well,” I said as I regained the platform of the tractor. “All I need is a dog.”

  “It’s a black Labrador,” he said firmly. “Come into the house and we’ll talk.”

  His house was a picture. It was beautifully furnished with exquisite antiques and expensive carpet
s, all combining to produce an impression of opulence and style. For all his reputed faults, the fellow had taste. He led me into the kitchen and we sat at the long scrubbed wooden table. A girl appeared without being called.

  “Coffee, or something stronger?” he asked as she hovered.

  “I wouldn’t say no to a good stiff whisky,” I admitted, for the sight and smell of those suffering ewes had made me queasy.

  “And me.” He nodded at the girl and she obeyed his wish. Soon we were enjoying large whiskies in tumblers of cut glass.

  “You mentioned a Labrador,” I ventured.

  “Yes,” he sipped appreciatively, “a black one. It’s the first time I’ve had sheep killed or mauled, but not the first time they’ve been chased. Around Christmas, a neighbour reported that a black Labrador had been chasing my sheep around the field, but it got away. Since then, several farmers have seen the dog wandering about their land, sometimes alone and sometimes with a young lad.”

  “You know the lad?”

  “I do,” he said. “Mind you, Mr Rhea, I’m not saying it has killed my sheep. All I’m saying is that I suspect it has. I now pass those suspicions to you.”

  “Who is the boy?”

  “You know Sidney Chapman?”

  “Chapman?” I puzzled over the name. “Sorry, no.”

  “He doesn’t get about, he’s confined to a wheelchair. He lives in Valley View, the cottage with honeysuckle over the front door, just down the road from here.”

  “Right on the roadside?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “I know it.” I knew the house, but not the man. “And that’s the home of the dog?”

  “Yes, his son, Jeremy, often takes it out. He’s at school, a lad in his teens. Fifteen, I’d say.”

  “And the dog often goes out alone, eh?” I put to him.

  “Aye, it does. Mrs Chapman works part-time in Malton, mornings, that is, and I do know the dog gets away from poor Sidney. I appreciate his difficulty but I must consider my stock.”

  “You don’t commit yourself, yet you seem positive it is that dog.” I sipped from the glass.