“No,” I said. “I sent her a card with a gift token inside. I didn’t send a parcel . . . it’s her birthday today, so I suppose someone . . .”
“Oh, bloody hell . . .” There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone, then he said, “Hang on, I’ll have another look at it. We can’t decipher the postmark you see, and we’re worried about touching it . . . I’m sure it’s your mother’s name on it . . .”
But he did touch it. It was sitting in its secure bin, and he lifted it to check the postmark. It started to tick again. He dropped it back inside the bin and dived for cover as I waited on the line.
Everyone was still under cover, but eventually he returned to the telephone, breathless.
“God, this is awful,” he said. “The bloody thing could go off at any minute . . . I’m safe behind a screen here . . .”
“You’re a brave bloke to tackle it like you have,” I said.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m stupid. I’ve been to a night club for a few pints and don’t know what I’m doing really.”
As this conversation continued, Mary appeared at my side. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you talking about your mother. Has something happened? Is she ill?”
“No,” I said, “it’s the CID. They think someone’s sent her a bomb . . .”
Mary began to chuckle. “A parcel? Brown paper, with white string? A sticky label on the front? The address written in black ballpoint ink?”
As she described her parcel, I relayed the words to Gordon.
“This is the one,” he growled. “Bloody hell! What a night! The description fits. Did your wife send it, Nick? Has she sent a bomb to her mother-in-law or something?”
“Did you send it?” I asked Mary, my feet like ice-blocks on the cold office floor.
“Yes, why, what’s wrong?”
I explained about the chaos in York and the terror she had inflicted upon the Post Office, the police and probably GPO Security. The whole of the region’s mail would be delayed and several sorters were close to having heart attacks.
“It’s a pair of scissors,” she said. “A pair of electric scissors, for cutting material to make dresses.”
My heart sank.
“Is there a battery in?”
“Yes, I fitted it before we posted it . . .”
And so, when pressure was applied to that parcel in certain places, the scissors began to snip within their box . . .
I apologised profusely to everyone and rang my mother to wish her a happy birthday.
Chapter 8
The death of a dear friend would go near to make a man look sad.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564—1616
Every Autumn the children of Aidensfield waited for the donkeys to return to Lingfield Farm. These were seaside donkeys. During the summer, they spent their time on the beach at Strensford where, day after day, they patiently carried laughing children backwards and forwards along the sands. Adorned in brightly-coloured bridles bearing their names, with ribboned top-knots on their heads and neat little saddles on their backs, they had been a part of the Strensford beach scene since Victorian times.
They worked very hard but were always models of tolerance and patience. Perhaps their gentleness was due to the fact that they were not overworked; during their working week, for example, they were subjected to conditions about their rest periods. They enjoyed one day off in every three, with three meals a day and an hour for lunch. Their working day did not exceed eight hours and they were inspected regularly by a veterinary surgeon. In some respects, their working conditions were better than those of police officers!
During the winter, they came inland for their holidays where they were boarded out at selected farms. Jack Sedgewick at Lingfield Farm, Aidensfield, had for years taken five of the donkeys from Strensford. As a rule, they arrived by cattle truck at the end of the summer season and remained until the Whitsuntide bank holiday. They occupied a rough, hummocky paddock where they seemed to thrive on the wealth of thistles and other vegetation which had little appeal to other beasts.
They had a range of small outbuildings, some without doors, which served as stables. These contained plenty of hay as bedding and for food, and there was an outdoor water-trough adequately fed with spring water. Some shrub-like hawthorn trees added variety to the paddock’s undulating landscape and provided slender shelter against the winter storms.
Jack Sedgewick, a large and kindly man, knew that his guests required regular exercise otherwise they would grow fat and lazy. This presented no problem because he encouraged local children to come along and play with his little group of donkeys. He taught the youngsters how to care for them; to make sure their feet were trimmed regularly; to coax them to their halters and to feed them with the right kind of things. Some children rode them, and a little girl even persuaded one donkey, called Lucy, to jump over a small artificial fence.
It was very clear that the donkeys loved the children and the children loved the donkeys; indeed, there is some kind of mysterious affinity between small children and donkeys. These gentle and calm animals, with their big, soft eyes and cuddly long ears — called ‘errant wings’ by G. K. Chesterton — are so lovable. It wasn’t all smooth and jolly, however. The occasional bout of stubbornness from a donkey who, for reasons best known to itself did not want to play, sometimes upset the youngsters, while a sudden session of braying made them jump with fright before dissolving into laughter. For the children, these minor upsets were lessons in themselves. For one thing, they taught the children they could not have everything all their own way, even with donkeys.
One winter, Lingfield Farm accepted its usual complement of five donkeys. They were Lucy, Linda, Betty, Bonny and Fred, and it was Fred who thought he was a human being. He loved to enter the house whenever possible; he loved to nose his way into small crowds and it was not unknown for him to poke his head through the open dining-room window of the farm whenever the family was having a meal. Calm, lovable and cuddly with his thick, grey coat and distinctive black cross on his back, he was a pet and a favourite.
Always popular with the children, he allowed them to ride him through the fields and lanes and when he got some distance from the farm, he would occasionally issue a blood-curdling braying noise, his way of checking whether any other donkey, male or female, was living nearby. The children used him in a Nativity Play at school where he stood as still as a rock and solemnly overlooked the model crib they had made. His acting was superb. From time to time, I saw Fred plodding along the lanes with his tiny charges making a fuss of him and I was pleased he provided the bairns with such pleasurable activity. These children would grow up to appreciate animals and their needs, and it was all due to their pal, Fred.
Then Fred disappeared.
It wasn’t difficult to imagine the anguish and concern among the children and their parents. Indeed, poor old Jack Sedgewick was most upset too. He rang me just before ten o’clock one morning in April.
“Mr Rhea,” he said, with his voice showing traces of emotion. “Ah’ve lost yan o’ them donkeys. Fred, it is. Sometime since last night. Do you reckon ’e could ’ave been stolen?”
“I’ll come down to the farm,” I assured him. To my knowledge, there had not been an outbreak of donkey thefts or moke-nappings and I couldn’t imagine who would do such a thing. My own immediate view was that Fred had probably got through an insecure gate and wandered off. I felt he would turn up in due course.
When I arrived at Lingfield Farm, I found Jack Sedgewick and a small knot of children standing at the gate of the paddock which contained the other donkeys. The animals were standing together in a corner, watching us; if only they could talk, I thought. I halted my motorbike and parked it against a wall.
“Good of you to come down so quick, Mr Rhea,” he said. “Fred’s gone . . . He was there last night . . . I fed him, Mr Rhea . . . I took his bridle off . . .”
The children were all talking at once so I held up my hands to
indicate silence.
“Just a minute!” I laughed. “I can’t hear anybody if you all talk at once. So, Jack. You first.”
“I found him gone,” one little girl couldn’t contain her worry.
“Aye,” Jack confirmed. “Young Denise here came down to t’ field about half-eightish. She came to feed ’em all, and noticed Fred wasn’t there.”
“Was the gate open or shut, Denise?” I asked her. She would be about eleven years old.
“Shut, Mr Rhea. It swings shut by itself.”
I tried it. It was fastened with a hunting sneck, a type of fastening which comprised a length of wood suspended from two chains. It had a carved notch and it slotted into a bracket on the gatepost. It was easy to open when on horseback; this was done by easing it back with a riding crop, hence its name. I eased back the sneck and let the gate stand wide open, but it swung slowly shut by its own weight and the sneck slid home. The gate was then secure. For this reason, it seemed unlikely that the gate could be accidentally left open. But I knew it was not impossible. If it had been opened only sufficiently wide for a child to emerge, it might not have had the impetus or weight to latch itself properly after only a small movement.
“Who saw him last?” was my next question.
“We did,” came a chorus of voices.
“Where?”
“In the village, last night,” they told me. I asked one girl, the tallest of the group, to explain. She said half a dozen of them had taken Fred into the village for a walk and a ride.
“Did anything happen, or did anyone say anything about him? Or to him? Can you remember?” I put to her.
“We all took turns riding,” she said seriously. “He wasn’t upset or anything.”
“Did anybody say anything to him? To you, maybe? About Fred? Was anyone angry or annoyed with him for anything?”
I was trying to establish whether anyone had threatened to take the animal away either as a joke or as a serious threat. The antics of the children and Fred could have upset someone.
“There was that man in the pub,” said one small girl.
“What man was that?” I asked.
“We got crisps and lemonade at the pub.”
“The Brewers Arms?”
“Yes. We went to the door like we always do.”
“And what about the man? What did he do?”
“He smacked Fred on the nose,” said one of them. “Just fun, though, he was just playing.”
“Maybe that’s upset Fred!” I smiled. “Maybe he’s taken the huff and gone off to sulk! So what happened exactly, Denise?”
“We had Fred with us. We wanted some crisps and things, so we went to the pub. Fred followed us in. Or he tried to. He poked his nose over the counter and this man clonked him on the nose, just in fun it was. Fred backed away . . . that was all.”
“And after your walk with him, you put him back in the paddock with the others?”
“Yes, we gave him some hay, patted him for a minute or two and then we went home.”
“And did you shut that gate?”
They all swore that it was properly closed. Jack Sedgewick said he did his rounds after ten o’clock that night and noticed nothing amiss. I looked at the lanes which led away from the donkey paddock; if it had got out, it could have wandered into the village, or into the surrounding woods and hills, or even along the river bank. It could be anywhere.
“What about your buildings, Jack? Have they been searched?”
The children provided the answer; they had searched everywhere on the farm before calling me.
“I’ll report him as missing,” I said. “Now, how about organising a hunt for him?”
And so I organised a small hunt around the likely places in and around Aidensfield; there were empty farm buildings, woods, copses, fields and so on. I allocated a safe place for groups of these children to search; each group comprised three for safety reasons.
Jack said he would walk his own land this morning to check ditches and other likely places, and I decided to ask questions around the village. After all, someone might have spotted a lone donkey trotting along the road. I told them I’d keep Mr Sedgewick informed of developments.
A couple of hours later, I was in the Post Office asking about Fred. Several people were there. They were asking for postal orders and stamps, and some were at the grocery counter. As I chatted and spread the news about Fred, a man in hiking gear walked in to buy some fruit and drinks. He noticed me, but he was not a local man. I didn’t know him.
“Ah, Officer,” he said, his keen grey eyes showing bright in his weathered face. “Just the fellow. I’ve just come through Plantation Wood,” and he showed me his route on a map clipped to his belt. “And there’s a dead donkey just off the footpath . . .”
“Dead donkey?” I almost shouted. “Are you sure?” “Well,” he seemed surprised at my reaction. “Well, it was lying down . . . maybe it wasn’t dead . . .”
I asked him to pinpoint the exact place and noticed that everyone in the shop was listening. We identified the place as being about half-way along the bridleway between High Nab and Cross Plain, where it ran alongside Plantation Wood.
As I confirmed the details, the shop emptied rapidly and the customers scurried to their homes. They seemed to have been galvanized into action at the news. I decided to walk back to Jack Sedgewick’s farm and break the news to him, then I would have to break the news to the children and decide whether or not to take them to the scene. I was sure Jack would help me to deal with the corpse.
“A dead donkey?” he gasped when I located him down his fields.
“So the man said,” I replied.
“Right, come wi’ me, Mr Rhea, and be sharp,” and he led me to his implement shed. He started the engine of one of his tractors and bade me climb aboard. And off we rushed towards Plantation Wood, the tractor bouncing and bumping along the rough farm tracks. There was a definite note of urgency in his actions.
“What’s the panic, Jack?” I shouted above the noise of the engine.
“A dead donkey!” he shouted back. “I ’ope it’s not poor awd Fred, but nobody’s ever seen a dead donkey, Mr Rhea. Did tha know that? It’s reckoned ti be good luck to see yan. An’ we all need a spot o’ good luck.”
He accelerated across the fields and from my uncomfortable perch beside his seat, I could now see a straggly line of local people. They were all rushing in the same direction, using a short cut from the village.
“Are they all going to see it?” I shouted at him.
“Aye, likely. Word soon gets about when summat like this ’appens. A dead donkey’s a rare thing.”
As we drew nearer I could see the distinctive figure of the hiker leading the way. Several children had also joined the march. The news had spread with amazing speed. Jack’s tractor pushed its way through the throng of people and we arrived, breathless almost, at the same time as the head of the procession. The hiker, baffled by this turn of events, was standing and pointing.
“It’s gone,” he said, opening his arms wide in an expression of puzzlement. “It was here, I saw it. And it’s gone. It was lying right there!” and he stamped the ground with his boot.
And so the villagers never saw their dead donkey.
This is one of those peculiar legends which is supposed to have been started by Charles Dickens; it is said that no one has ever seen a dead donkey and if the news reached a village that a donkey was dying, everyone went to have a look. The legend has probably arisen from a belief that donkeys will wander off to seek a secret place to die.
We turned the tractor around and chugged back to Lingfield Farm.
“Could yon ’ave been Fred?” asked Jack.
“Who else?” I said. “Mebbe he was just resting.”
“Aye,” said Jack. “Mebbe. Mebbe he’ll come back. Donkeys can live wild, tha knaws. Ah’ve ’eard of one living twelve years in a wood . . . Fred’ll come back.”
The children were pleased it wasn’t Fred
who had died, but the mystery caused all sorts of rumours. People went back several times to see if the donkey reappeared but it never did. And Fred never returned to the farm. His companions showed no sign of distress at his continuing absence and the children did get over their sorrow. Later that spring, Lucy, Linda, Betty and Bonny went back to their beach without Fred, and no one ever saw him again.
To this day, I do not know what happened to him. In my official report, I recorded him as ‘Missing’ because there was no evidence of theft.
But could that donkey have been Fred lying dead in the wood? Is there a mystery about dead donkeys that has never been revealed? Or did Fred find a new home somewhere?
I do not know. But I have never seen a dead donkey.
Among the lesser known duties of the village policeman are those connected with contagious diseases of animals. During our training-courses, we were told about anthrax, foot and mouth disease, sheep scab and sheep pox, swine fever, tuberculosis, cattle plague, fowl pest, rabies, atrophic rhinitis, epizootic lymphangitis, pleuro-pneumonia, bovine tuberculosis, sarcoptic parasitic mange, glanders and farcy and other exotic sounding plagues which produced devastating results and misery among farmers.
In the event of an outbreak, or even a suspected outbreak of any of these diseases, it was vital that immediate action was taken by the police, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the owner of the livestock. Police action involved the enforcement of a multitude of rules and regulations and the serving of a document called ‘Form A’.
As many of our training-school instructors were city types, I’m sure they did not know the effect of, or the reason for, Form A. The result was that we emerged from training-school with the knowledge that if a cow frothed at the mouth or a pig was sick we served Form A. It all seemed very puzzling, and it was not until I worked in a rural area, where domestic livestock is so important to farmers and to the nation’s economy, that the real purpose and importance of Form A registered in my mind.
Form A was a printed document which had to be completed by a police officer who suspected an outbreak of one of the diseases I have listed. He completed the form with the name and address of the farm, or even a portion of the farm in question such as a cattle shed or pigsty, and formally delivered a copy to the farmer. For most diseases, copies were also sent to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at local and national level, the local council, and to various police stations. The effect of this document was to bring to a standstill all movements of animals in and out of the suspect premises until a Ministry vet had carried out his inspection. If he declared the animal(s) to be free from disease, the restrictions were lifted and life returned to normal. If he confirmed the disease, another set of procedures swung into action which could lead to the killing of a solitary pig on a small unit or the slaughter of a complete herd of pedigree cattle on a dairy farm. The precise action depended upon the disease in question; I have outlined the general procedures.
CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 6-10 five feel-good village cozy mysteries Page 31
