CONSTABLE ABOUT THE PARISH a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 17)
Page 20
‘Now then, Mr Rhea. I thought I’d do a bit of spring cleaning. You’d never believe how mucky a church can get.’
‘I saw the door was open so I thought I’d have a look at the famous hassocks,’ I began.
‘Help yourself.’ She waved towards the door and continued with her sweeping. Inside, I looked once more upon the hassocks — and the rear pew had four, not five. All the others bore five hassocks — eleven with five, and one with four, a total of fifty-nine. One of them was still missing.
‘Nice, aren’t they?’ She had come into the church with her broom in her hands. ‘You know the history?’
‘Yes, I’ve heard a lot about them and thought it would be nice to have a look at them. There’s one missing, though,’ and I pointed to the empty space. ‘Shouldn’t there be sixty?’
‘It’s been missing for ages,’ she said. ‘For as long as I’ve been doing cleaning. Three years and a bit, that’ll be.’
‘It’s a shame,’ I said. ‘It makes the collection incomplete.’
‘Well, it’s always been like that so far as I know. I read somewhere there should be sixty, but I can’t remember when they were all here and I’ve lived here all my life. There’s always been one missing since I started the cleaning job, and probably long before that.’
‘So nobody’s shown any concern?’
‘No, nobody ever counts ’em, Mr Rhea.’
After passing the time of day with her and looking at some of the other objects of interest, I left the church, happy that I had not treated the missing hassock with the seriousness of the crime of sacrilege. Quite literally, it could be anywhere whether or not anyone had stolen it.
Five or six weeks passed before I noticed Jeremy Newton’s car outside the church and so I halted for an update. I had gleaned nothing useful, but there were limits as to my investigative brief. I went in and found him counting hymn books. It seemed there was to be a wedding the coming Saturday.
‘Ah, Mr Rhea,’ he smiled. ‘Hassock-hunting, I hear?’
I told him about my conversation with Mrs Bingley, but she had clearly had words with him about it, and he added, ‘We’re getting organized now, Mr Rhea. I have done an inventory of the church — everything from pews to pewter, in a manner of speaking, and I have included the hassocks, all fifty-nine of them.’
At that point, he delved into a brief case which lay on a table at the back of the church and produced a colourful chart which listed all the hassocks; someone had reproduced the designs in colour and so he now had an excellent source of reference.
‘See,’ he said, walking across to one of the pews. ‘I can check them off one by one against this list, so if another goes, we’ll know what it looks like.’
‘I like that one,’ I said, pointing to the drawing upon a pictured hassock. It portrayed the Virgin Mary cradling Christ in her arms after He had been taken down from the cross.
‘It was over there,’ he said, indicating the Matthew seat. ‘But they do get moved around; they don’t occupy a particular place, you understand. The cleaner moves them as do the congregation . . .’
I went into the pew to look at the artistry on the hassock I had admired, but failed to find it. I looked in all the other pews, but it was not there.
‘It’s not here, Mr Newton.’ I felt a sense of dread.
‘It must be!’ he said. ‘It was here when I finalized this inventory a couple of nights ago . . . let me check for you . . .’
But there was no sign of it. I counted the hassocks. There were fifty-nine of them.
For a few seconds, I was baffled and then I said, ‘Which of these here present was not here when you compiled your inventory, can you tell?’
‘It’ll take a while,’ he said, but he began by calling out a description from his list. As he called out the descriptions, I turned each of the hassocks upside down to show they had been accounted for. Finally, we were left with one which was not on his list. It showed a Christmas scene, with the Child Jesus in the manger and the animals all around. I picked it up and looked at it.
‘It’s been repaired,’ I said. ‘You can see the new embroidery work . . . see, here?’
He screwed up his eyes and said, ‘By Jove, yes! So this one has been taken away by somebody, repaired and replaced!’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And when returning this one, they have taken another for repair, the one I was looking for. I’ve no idea how long such a task would take, but I would imagine quite a long time.’
I lifted several of the others and, upon close examination, it was possible to see that recent repairs had been made to some of them. It was evident that someone was secretly repairing all the hassocks, one by one, and thus for a long time, there’d be fifty-nine in church and one elsewhere. So long as the phantom repairer was at work, there would be fifty-nine hassocks in church.
‘You’d better add the nativity scene to your list,’ I said to Mr Newton.
‘It would be sacrilege to omit it!’ he smiled.
I never did find out who was making those skilled repairs but, on reflection, it wasn’t my duty to do so. But if you pop into that church today, all sixty hassocks are in position, each neatly repaired.
THE END
ALSO BY NICHOLAS RHEA
CONSTABLE NICK MYSTERIES
Book 1: CONSTABLE ON THE HILL
Book 2: CONSTABLE ON THE PROWL
Book 3: CONSTABLE AROUND THE VILLAGE
Book 4: CONSTABLE ACROSS THE MOORS
Book 5: CONSTABLE IN THE DALE
Book 6: CONSTABLE BY THE SEA
Book 7: CONSTABLE ALONG THE LANE
Book 8: CONSTABLE THROUGH THE MEADOW
Book 9: CONSTABLE IN DISGUISE
Book 10: CONSTABLE AMONG THE HEATHER
Book 11: CONSTABLE BY THE STREAM
Book 12: CONSTABLE AROUND THE GREEN
Book 13: CONSTABLE BENEATH THE TREES
Book 14: CONSTABLE IN CONTROL
Book 15: CONSTABLE IN THE SHRUBBERY
Book 16: CONSTABLE VERSUS GREENGRASS
Book 17: CONSTABLE ABOUT THE PARISH
Book 18: CONSTABLE AT THE GATE
Book 19: CONSTABLE AT THE DAM
Book 20: CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE
Book 21: CONSTABLE UNDER THE GOOSEBERRY BUSH
Book 22: CONSTABLE IN THE FARMYARD
Book 23: CONSTABLE AROUND THE HOUSES
Book 24: CONSTABLE ALONG THE HIGHWAY
Book 25: CONSTABLE OVER THE BRIDGE
Book 26: CONSTABLE GOES TO MARKET
Book 27: CONSTABLE ALONG THE RIVERBANK
Book 28: CONSTABLE IN THE WILDERNESS
Book 29: CONSTABLE AROUND THE PARK
Book 30: CONSTABLE ALONG THE TRAIL
Book 31: CONSTABLE IN THE COUNTRY
Book 32: CONSTABLE ON THE COAST
Book 33: CONSTABLE ON VIEW
Book 34: CONSTABLE BEATS THE BOUNDS
Book 35: CONSTABLE AT THE FAIR
Book 36: CONSTABLE OVER THE HILL
Book 37: CONSTABLE ON TRIAL
MORE COMING SOON
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GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH USAGE FOR US READERS
A & E: accident and emergency department in a hospital
Aggro: violent behaviour, aggression
Air raid: an attack in which bombs are dropped from aircraft on ground targets
Allotment: a plot of land rented by an individual for growing fruit, vegetable or flowers
Anorak: nerd (it also means a waterproof jacket)
Artex: textured plaster finish for walls and ceilings
A level: exams taken between 16 and 18
Auld Reekie: Edinburgh
Au pair: live-in childcare helper. Often a young woman.
Barm: bread roll
Barney: argument
Beaker: glass or cup for holding liquids
Beemer: BMW car or motorcycle
Benefits: social security
Bent: corrupt
Bin: wastebasket (noun), or throw in rubbish (verb)
Biscuit: cookie
Blackpool Lights: gaudy illuminations in seaside town
Bloke: guy
Blow: cocaine
Blower: telephone
Blues and twos: emergency vehicles
Bob: money
Bobby: policeman
Broadsheet: quality newspaper (New York Times would be a US example)
Brown bread: rhyming slang for dead
Bun: small cake
Bunk: escape, i.e. ‘do a bunk’
Burger bar: hamburger fast-food restaurant
Buy-to-let: buying a house/apartment to rent it out for profit
Charity shop: thrift store
Carrier bag: plastic bag from supermarket
Care home: an institution where old people are cared for
Car park: parking lot
CBeebies: kids TV
Chat-up: flirt, trying to pick up someone with witty banter or compliments
Chemist: pharmacy
Chinwag: conversation
Chippie: fast-food place selling chips and other fried food
Chips: French fries but thicker
CID: Criminal Investigation Department
Civvy Street: civilian life (as opposed to army)
Clock: punch
Cock-up: mess up, make a mistake
Cockney: a native of East London
Common: an area of park land or lower class
Comprehensive school (Comp.): high school
Cop hold of: grab
Copper: police officer
Coverall: coveralls, or boiler suit
CPS: Crown Prosecution Service, decide whether police cases go forward
Childminder: someone who looks after children for money
Council: local government
Dan Dare: hero from Eagle comic
DC: detective constable
Deck: one of the landings on a floor of a tower block
Deck: hit (verb)
Desperate Dan: very strong comic book character
DI: detective inspector
Digestive biscuit: plain cookie
Digs: student lodgings
Do a runner: disappear
Do one: go away
Doc Martens: heavy boots with an air-cushioned sole
Donkey’s years: long time
Drum: house
DS: detective sergeant
ED: emergency department of a hospital
Eagle: boys’ comic
Early dart: to leave work early
Eggy soldiers: strips of toast with a boiled egg
Enforcer: police battering ram
Estate: public/social housing estate (similar to housing projects)
Estate agent: realtor (US)
Falklands War: war between Britain and Argentina in 1982
Fag: cigarette
Father Christmas: Santa Claus
Filth: police (insulting)
Forces: army, navy and air force
FMO: force medical officer
Fried slice: fried bread
Fuzz: police
Garda: Irish police
Gendarmerie: French national police force
Geordie: from Newcastle
Garden centre: a business where plants and gardening equipment are sold
Gob: mouth, can also mean phlegm or spit
GP: general practitioner, a doctor based in the community
>
Graft: hard work
Gran: grandmother
Hancock: Tony Hancock, English comedian popular in 1950s
Hard nut: tough person
HGV: heavy goods vehicle, truck
HOLMES: UK police computer system used during investigation of major incidents
Home: care home for elderly or sick people
Hoover: vacuum cleaner
I’ll be blowed: expression of surprise
Inne: isn’t he
Interpol: international police organisation
Into care: a child taken away from their family by the social services
Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher, applied to any strong woman
ITU: intensive therapy unit in hospital
Jane Doe: a person whose identity is unknown/anonymous
JCB: a mechanical excavator
Jerry-built: badly made
Jungle: nickname given to migrant camp near Calais
Lad: young man
Lass: young woman
Lift: elevator
Lord Lucan: famous aristocrat who allegedly killed his children’s nanny and disappeared in 1974. Has never been found.
Lorry: truck
Lovely jubbly: said when someone is pleased
Luftwaffe: German air force
M&S: Marks and Spencer, a food and clothes shop
Miss Marple: detective in a series of books by Agatha Christie
MOD: Ministry of Defence
Mobile phone: cell phone
MP: Member of Parliament, politician representing an area
MRSA: A strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
Myra Hindley: famous British serial killer
Naff: lame, not good
Naff all: none
National Service: compulsory UK military service, ended in 60s