Repeated requests via Form 29 met with nil response and this frustrated me. Being country born and bred, I was used to coping with my own domestic maintenance — we would never call in anyone to do jobs we could do ourselves such as painting, decorating, running repairs to machinery, tiling, pointing — in fact, anything and everything. But as occupants of a police house, we were instructed not to attempt any repairs or work, not even the replacement of a tap washer. I found these restrictions very frustrating.
The clattering grew worse. We reached the stage where we were frightened to light the fire because of the clamour coming from those pipes and this meant we had no hot water. Then came salvation. It came in the shape of a memo from the Superintendent which announced he was coming to conduct a house inspection.
I recognised the opportunity presented by his visit.
He was due at 11.30 a.m. one Friday, a busy day for nappies and infant washing, and so I arranged for the boiler to be well stoked-up and the flues opened wide to coincide with his visit. I was confident that the resultant noise from those pipes would terrify him. It didn’t matter which part of the house he was visiting at the time, because I was sure the din could be heard throughout a building of castle proportions.
He came, inspected, had a coffee and asked about the pipes. After all, a succession of Forms 29 had made him aware of the problem. I said they were worse, upon which he ventured into the kitchen. It was now uncomfortably hot as the coke performed its heating role and he looked at the offending pipes. There was nothing to see — they were just two pipes running up the wall.
And then, almost as if they knew he was standing there, they performed on cue. It was just as if a giant with a big hammer was inside, banging and hammering to be let out and the whole house vibrated as the pipes visibly shuddered in their moment of triumph.
“My God!” he panted, rushing from the kitchen, white-faced and anxious . . .
Early next day, a plumber arrived. After an examination, he said the pipes were almost blocked; the hot water was trying to rise through the cold pipe and had we not called him, there could have been a shocking explosion . . .
My final Form 29 confirmed that the pipes were working normally.
In such minor ways, my work and domestic life overlapped, although there were other instances. For example, at 4 a.m. one morning, a lorry driver knocked me out of bed and roused the entire family, simply to ask directions to Home Farm. On another occasion, at 6.30 a.m. one day when I was on holiday, a farmer came to the door to seek a pig licence. When I said I was on holiday and that he should go to Ashfordly Police Station, he said, “Well, you’re t’ bobby, aren’t you?”
I issued his licence.
In many ways, it was my young family which further involved me in this curious mixture of duty and home. One day, when I was enjoying time off during the week, I decided to do some gardening. I claim no green-fingered skills but felt that if I dug enough holes and cut enough grass, I could believe I had achieved something positive. During this enterprise, Mary asked if I would look after the children while she went to Ashfordly to do some shopping. I agreed, so she jumped into our car and cheerfully vanished towards the market town.
The day was fine and warm, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The children were playing in the garden behind the house and I had fixed up a plastic bath half full of water which they were using as a paddling pool. After about an hour, I broke from my chores to make myself and the children a cool drink.
“Where’s Charles?” I asked.
“Gone to the toilet,” said Elizabeth.
He was only three and I accepted her answer. I put his drink on the step and settled down to await his return. He did not come. I went indoors and looked at both toilets; he wasn’t there. I went into his room and looked in the bed, the wardrobe and under the bed. He wasn’t there either.
Knowing that children love to play hide and seek, I searched the whole house as only a policeman can but found no sign of him. Now more than a little worried, I checked my office, the garage, the passage and the washing-room with its darkness. There was no Charles. I re-checked all the beds by pulling back the covers and looking underneath, then I searched the pram and finally tackled the garden. There were shrubs, trees and plants, a cold frame and plenty of long grass to conceal a little boy, but my frantic hunt failed to locate him.
By now, my concern was becoming genuine alarm and I made several more sorties into the house, the garage and the garden. And then I wondered if he’d jumped into the car to accompany Mary?
That seemed the only logical explanation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised he hadn’t. She’d have mentioned it, surely? She’d wanted a moment or two to herself . . . I’d seen her leave alone . . .
I stood in the middle of my garden, by this time a very worried man. Where on earth could he have gone? Even though the garden gates were shut, I went onto the main road and looked up and down. I was able to gaze along almost half a mile of highway, but there was no sign of the toddler. He’d vanished into thin air and I was in a dreadful dilemma. I could not leave the rest of them alone while I went to seek Charles, and I began to understand the problems of some parents. What could I do? Anyone else would have telephoned the police!
With this possibility rapidly gaining strength in my mind, I realised I couldn’t remember what he was wearing. Of course, a three-year-old lad wandering about unaccompanied wouldn’t be too difficult to locate . . .
I decided upon yet another thorough search of the premises. It drew a blank. Outside, the other children played happily, quite oblivious to my growing alarm, and at last I went into my office and dialled the Ashfordly Police Station number. It rang and rang; there was no reply. They’re never there when they’re wanted, I grumbled! I decided to ring the Divisional Police Station at Malton to ask if a car was patrolling in the Aidensfield area. That was quite possible because I was not on duty, and the area would not be left totally without a patrol. If there was a car nearby, it would be radio-equipped and the driver would keep his eyes open for any missing child.
I began to formulate my request; I would ask the driver to keep observations for a child aged three, with light brown hair, clothing unknown, who might be wandering . . .
As the phone began to ring, someone knocked on my office door. What a time to call! I was off duty anyway! Slamming down the phone, I opened the door. A lorry driver was standing there and he was holding Charles in his arms. His vehicle was parked outside.
“Found this kid,” he thrust the infant towards me. “Wandering down t’ hill . . . biggest wonder he didn’t get killed . . . some parents . . . thought you’d know who belonged him . . .”
“Er, yes,” I didn’t know how to respond. “Er, come in . . . have a cup of tea . . .”
“No, got a schedule to keep. You know him then?”
“Yes,” I said, humbly.
“Good, thought you would. Give his mum a rocket, eh? For letting him get out like that . . . stupid bloody parents . . .”
And off he went.
I hugged Charles with relief, being unable to explain to the little fellow the problems he had created. I decided that my immediate priority was to fix child-proof locks on the garden gate, but also decided not to tell a soul about this. Not even Mary.
My latter plans went haywire too. A lady in the village had been present when the lorry driver collected the wandering child and had directed him to the police house. She told Mary . . .
The whole village knew too. I was suitably humbled, embarrassed and chastened. And little Charles never batted an eyelid, although I did fix child-proof locks to the gates. Ever since, I’ve had sympathy for parents whose children go wandering.
Another personal domestic crisis concerned Margaret, our two-year-old daughter. From the moment she could crawl, she could climb. She climbed the stairs and chairs, steps and trees, bookshelves and pantry shelves. She could climb onto the car bonnet, onto the motorcycle and onto the backs of
settees and indeed upon almost any piece of domestic equipment or furniture. At times, I felt she had a wonderful future as a rock-climber or steeplejack and this was confirmed when she managed to climb out of her bedroom window on to the outer ledge.
She remained there as I pleaded with her not to move; with her safely indoors, I then secured the window, but soon she was climbing up the shelves of the wardrobe and sitting on top. On one occasion, she was marooned up an apple tree and on another managed to climb into a fireside chair and from there gain access to the mantelpiece. From these escapades, she was unscathed.
But, inevitably, an accident was bound to happen; one day she would fall and hurt herself.
One lunchtime, I returned from a motorcycle patrol to find Mary holding little Margaret over the kitchen sink as blood poured from her tiny mouth. The accident had happened only seconds earlier. Without even removing my crash helmet, I took one look at the injury and found a gaping wound inside her mouth.
Without asking for an explanation, I rang the village doctor who, fortunately, was at home having his lunch. “Bring her down,” he said. I packed some cotton wool over the wound to stem the flow and rushed Margaret to the doctor. Mary couldn’t come — she had the other children to look after.
“No good,” the doctor said instantly. “She needs hospital treatment, stitches. You take her there now, I’ll ring to say you’re on the way.”
With the tiny child sitting in the front seat of my car and holding her cheek against the wad of cotton wool, I furiously drove the seventeen miles into Malton to the hospital where a doctor met me. In moments, my little daughter was lying on an operating table, without anaesthetic, as the doctor examined the wound and prepared to stitch it.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I had to admit. “I didn’t ask . . .”
“It’ll mend,” he said, producing a huge curved needle. I winced; I began to feel emotional at the thought of that tiny child suffering as I submitted her to this instant surgery. Margaret, God bless her, never cried and never complained. It was awful, watching her tiny frame being subjected to this treatment.
During this work, a nurse hovered around the theatre and as the doctor began to skilfully sew the wound, she came over to me.
“Some parents!” she said. “Look at that poor child . . . and you’d think they’d bring her themselves . . . the police get all the rotten jobs to do . . . Fancy you having to do this . . .”
As she ranted, it became clear that she had no idea that this was my child; the fact that I was sitting there in full police motorcycling uniform had obviously led her into thinking I was doing my duty by protecting some neglected youngster . . .
She continued her verbal onslaught against callous and thoughtless parents as the doctor continued his work on the mouth wound. Then she produced a sheet of paper.
“Child’s name?” she asked.
“Margaret Rhea, aged two,” I said.
“Father’s name?”
“Nicholas Rhea,” I watched her write down these details.
“Address?”
“The Police House Aidensfield,” I said.
“No,” she threw me one of those withering glances that one expects from matrons, not nurses, “the child’s address, not yours!”
“That is the child’s address,” I said. “She’s my child.”
“Oh,” she said. “I had no idea . . . I thought . . .”
“She’ll be fine now,” the doctor had finished. “I’ve put three stitches in, they’ll wither away in time and there’ll be no mark. It’s young, clean flesh, so it will quickly mend. There’s no other injury.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” and I carried little Margaret out to my waiting car and drove home. Other than a puffy cheek, she seemed no worse and never once complained. When she arrived home, she sat in her high-chair and ate her dinner. She behaved as if nothing had happened and the wound did not appear to give her pain.
I ate my lunch too, still upset by the trauma of seeing the doctor working so expertly and coolly upon her. “Mary,” I asked, “what happened to her?”
“She was climbing up the shelves of the bookcase,” Mary told me. “I went into the lounge just as she got to the top — she fell off and her face hit the edge of the coal scuttle . . .”
Mary began to weep so I comforted her as, quite unabashed, Margaret continued with her meal.
In spite of our efforts to prevent her, she continued to climb for some years afterwards, but never with such dramatic effect.
Perhaps the funniest incident which involved both my work and my private life occurred one February morning. This is the sequence of events — my involvement came sometime after the beginning of the saga, but it is best to relate it from the start.
Around one o’clock on the morning in question, my mother and father were dragged from their bed by a telephone call from the CID at York. It came at a time when there was concern about letter bombs and the detective was calling from the GPO Sorting Office.
“Is that Mrs Rhea?” the detective asked my mother. He then provided the correct address to make sure he was speaking to the right person.
“Yes,” answered my mother, bleary-eyed and sleepy.
“This is York CID,” said the voice. “I’m ringing from the GPO Sorting Office at York. This is a difficult enquiry, Mrs Rhea, and I don’t want to alarm you, but are you expecting a parcel from anyone?”
“Well,” said my mother, not yet appreciating the problem, “I might be, it’s my birthday tomorrow . . . er today . . .”
“Ah!” There was some relief at this response. “And you have no enemies? You, or your husband are not in sensitive work, are you? It’s not the sort of work that would attract, well, a letter bomb?”
“No . . . well, I don’t think so . . .”
“Well, the point is, there’s a suspicious package here and it’s addressed to you.”
The detective took immense pains to describe his problem without being too alarmist, but it seemed that as the GPO sorters were dealing with the night’s influx of mail, one of them discovered a parcel which began to emit ticking sounds. As everyone dived for cover, the parcel was placed in a sand-filled bin designed to cope with exploding parcels. As it sat there, the entire staff of the sorting office took cover and waited for the bang. As they settled down behind whatever protection they could find, the police were called. And so the official procedures were set in motion.
The busy task of sorting the mail came to a halt and the district’s mail was thus delayed until the CID arrived and the offending parcel was dealt with, probably by Bomb Disposal experts. One of the detectives, whom I shall call Gordon, arrived and looked at the offending object in the bin. It had now stopped ticking. Heads peeped above the counters and around walls as Gordon bravely scrutinised the parcel. Then he picked it up.
It promptly started ticking. Everyone dived for cover.
He threw it back into the bin and vanished below a sturdy counter. Everyone waited for it to explode, but it did not. And so it lay at peace in its protective bin as the entire staff and the police hid behind their benches. They waited for a long, long time, but nothing happened. There was no bang and it had stopped ticking.
Gordon approached it again. The address on the parcel was legible; it bore my mother’s name, hence the morning call to her.
“I’ve no idea what it might be,” she said. “If it is a birthday present, it might have been sent by my daughter and son-in-law in London.”
“What do they do?” asked the detective.
“He’s in the Metropolitan Police in London . . .”
“Then there could be risks . . . someone might be hitting back at him . . .”
Having elicited this information, Gordon rang Scotland Yard to check against the possibility of attacks against the police, and then rang my brother-in-law at his London home to explain the problem. But neither he nor my sister had sent the parcel. They were then asked if they kn
ew anyone else who might have sent it; they suggested it could have come from my brother who lives in the Shetlands. He works for BP, and so there could have been some sinister links with a letter bomb.
As a consequence, he and his family were roused about 1.30 a.m. and the questions were repeated; they had not sent a parcel. Further checks were made with the security services, but there was no known campaign against our institutions.
My brother, however, was asked if he knew who might have sent a parcel, if indeed it was a genuine parcel, then he said, “My brother at Aidensfield might have sent it. He’s a policeman too.”
With the intrigue growing stronger, the mystery growing deeper and the mail growing further delayed, Gordon now rang me. By this time, it was around two o’clock on a chill February morning. I staggered into my cold office to take his call. At that stage, I knew nothing of the drama.
“Nick,” he said. “It’s Gordon at York.”
We had been at training-school together and knew one another fairly well.
“York?” I muttered through a haze of sleepiness. “What’s happened? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”
“We have a parcel addressed to your mother,” and he patiently related the story so far. “Now, I had no idea the lady was your mother — I’ve been ringing Scotland Yard, the Shetlands, the Special Branch, GPO Security, MI5 . . .”
“Oh?” this sounded important.
“So, Nick,” he asked, with a hint of exhaustion, “yesterday, did you post a parcel to your mother?”
CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 6-10 five feel-good village cozy mysteries Page 30
