And then, at 2.30 a.m., the telephone rang. It was the ambulance station, who announced they had received a telephone call from a moorland farmer to say that a car had overturned in his gateway and two people had been injured. They were now in the farmhouse but not too seriously hurt. He added that the moorland roads were treacherous and filling in rapidly with heavy drifting and a steady fall of snow, but the ambulance had to make an attempt to cover those five hilly moorland miles and bring the casualties to hospital.
‘Take one of our lads with you,’ Joe suggested to the ambulance station’s duty officer. ‘If it’s not urgent, he can be with you in five minutes.’
This step agreed, partly to assist us in our duty of dealing with the accident and partly because in those days we did not have the regular use of official cars, Joe rang PC Timms at a kiosk in town and told him to accompany the ambulance. He suggested he take a shovel too, and some wellies, as it could develop into a hazardous trip.
With that drama now being dealt with, I resumed my town patrol and returned to the office at 4.30 a.m. for a warm-up before the lovely fire. The sergeant said we could all come in for a break as we were covered in snow and our extremities were freezing. The steady pace of patrolling a beat does not warm the circulation, and it is not dignified to break into a trot, even on the coldest of Yorkshire nights. My toes and fingers were frozen, and I was ready for bed, but there was another hour and a half before I could book off duty at 6 a.m.
As I entered the station, I saw the ambulance struggling up the slippery slope to the hospital; it had to pass the police station to get there, so I grabbed a shovel and scattered gravel along its path. But it halted outside. ‘There’s snow up yonder that’ll block us in before sun-up,’ said the driver. ‘We nearly got snowed up in t’farmhouse. Anyroad, we made it; one of ’em’ll need hospital treatment, t’other’s in t’back with your mate. T’car’s a write-off.’
I opened the rear doors of the ambulance and out climbed PC Graham Timms and another man. In the darkness, the ambulance struggled to finish its journey to the hospital with spinning wheels and a few sideways slithers as I accompanied Timms and his companion into the station. He had brought the man in so that he could obtain the details for his accident report.
Even in the gloom, I recognised the motorist and he recognised me; we had been brought up in neighbouring moorland villages, and in those small communities we all knew each other.
‘Now then, Ben,’ I said. ‘You’re not hurt then?’
‘Hello, Nick. No, I was lucky. Harry’s got a broken arm, I think. It could have been worse.’
‘Who was driving?’ I asked, merely out of interest.
‘Me,’ said Ben Baldwin as I followed him down the dark passage into the enquiry office.
As he walked into the light of the office, I saw that he was wearing a smart pale blue raincoat that was a shade too long for his short figure and more than a shade too wide at the shoulders. As he and PC Timms settled into the office, with Timms arranging a cup of tea for Baldwin, I was sure I recognised that coat. It was exactly like one that had been stolen from a village dance hall about two years earlier. Baldwin took it off and hung it on a hook on the office wall, so I poured myself a cup of tea and studied it carefully. Baldwin was taken into another office by Timms, and I was alone with PC Westonby.
‘Joe,’ I said, ‘that coat hanging there, I’m sure it’s one that was stolen two years ago from a dance hall at Fieldholme.’
‘Don’t be daft, Nick,’ he grinned. ‘A coat’s a coat. You can’t tell one from another, especially not after two years!’
‘I can,’ I confirmed. ‘Because it’s mine.’
‘Yours?’ he puzzled. ‘You mean somebody nicked your coat and this is it?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
He stared at me, unbelieving, then said, ‘Try it on while Baldwin’s out.’
I did, and it fitted perfectly; I knew it was mine. I returned it to the coat hook.
‘Tell me more,’ invited Joe.
I explained that, before I joined the police service, I did my two years National Service with the RAF and upon leaving bought myself a smart new raincoat. It was expensive, and it was RAF blue in colour. With my new coat on, I took my fiancée to a dance at Fieldholme Village Hall one Saturday night. It was during the three weeks holiday I had allowed myself between leaving the RAF and joining the police force. When the dance was over, I went to the cloakroom for my coat. It had gone. In its place there was a filthy brown raincoat that was covered in grease and oil stains and which was far too small for me. I reported the theft to the village constable.
‘And you maintain this is yours?’
‘Yes,’ I said, without a shadow of doubt in my mind.
‘But how can you tell?’ he asked me.
‘I dunno,’ I had to admit. ‘I just know it’s mine — the colour’s unusual for one thing, and it’s too big for Baldwin anyway. That is my coat, Joe, and he’s pinched it.’
‘That’s no good for our purposes, Nick,’ he said. ‘You know very well that we need to prove it’s yours. Believing is no good; if we try to prosecute him on your say-so, no court will convict him.’
‘So he gets away with theft of my coat?’
‘Look, Nick, you know the ropes as well as I do. I know this seems different because you claim it’s yours, but look at it on a broader plane — after all, anyone could claim property in this way, by merely saying it’s theirs. People do make mistakes, you know. They think they recognise something they’ve lost . . .’
I was aware of the problems and the need for positive identification, and in this case it highlighted the value of having some means of personalizing one’s goods, especially when there are hundreds or thousands of identical copies.
‘I’ve still got the brown one at home,’ I said. ‘I’ve been keeping it in case this sort of thing happened — I guessed the thief was local.’
‘I’ll have a go at Baldwin when Graham’s finished with him,’ promised Joe. ‘You’d better not be the one to interview him — you’re biased! In the meantime, I’ll dig out your crime complaint — when was it, exactly?’
I told him the date of the dance two years earlier. When Baldwin had given his account of the accident, Timms brought him back into the enquiry office to collect his raincoat. I stood to one side as Joe said, ‘Put that coat on, Mr Baldwin.’
He did; it looked huge.
‘Nice coat,’ said Joe. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Middlesbrough,’ said Baldwin.
‘New, was it?’
‘Yes, brand new, but I can’t remember the shop.’
‘What did it cost?’
‘Twenty-five quid,’ he said; it had cost me £30, in fact.
Joe looked at me. How could we disprove this story? It lacked any detail that could be challenged — like the familiar thief’s tale that ‘I got it off a chap in a pub’ or ‘It fell off the back of a lorry.’ I said nothing, knowing that I could jeopardise the enquiry if I wasn’t careful.
Joe must have believed my claims because he tried shock tactics. ‘Well, Mr Baldwin, I don’t believe you. And I’ll tell you what, you’ve just dropped the biggest bollock of your life. That coat isn’t yours; it’s this lad’s. It belongs to PC Nicholas Rhea, and you nicked it from a dance hall at Fieldholme two years ago.’
Baldwin’s eyes showed his guilt and his horror, but he recovered quickly and said, ‘Bollocks! It’s mine and I bought it new.’
Then I remembered a detail which no one else knew. It came to me as Baldwin was affirming his ownership, and I said, ‘Joe, there is a way of proving it’s mine.’
‘You need something good, Nick,’ was all he said.
‘It is.’ I was confident now. ‘When I was in the RAF, we had tags bearing our service numbers; we sewed them into our clothes. My number was 2736883, and it was on a white tag; I had some of those tags spare when I left the RAF, and I sewed one under the flap on the wrist of the right sleeve of
that coat.’
I saw by the expression in Baldwin’s eyes that he knew I was the true owner of that coat, but I also reckoned he would never admit stealing it. I had known him long enough to know his character, but had he found that tag?
Joe beamed. ‘Come here, Mr Baldwin,’ he said, and as Baldwin stood before him, Joe loosened the button on the flap on the cuff of the right sleeve and turned it back. But there was no service number tag inside — although there were some tiny remnants of white cotton where it had been removed.
‘Evidence of guilt, Nick,’ said Joe, pointing to the shreds of cotton. ‘He’s removed the number — that’s good enough for a court.’
We looked at Ben Baldwin, guilt all over his face as he said, ‘Sorry, Nick, I had no idea it was yours . . .’
And he confessed to the theft two years earlier.
Due to my personal interest in the case, it was unwise for me to undertake the formalities that ensued. I was merely a witness, a victim of that crime, so Joe arrested Ben and he was formally charged. But it did not end there.
The first problem was that there was no record of my original report of the theft. The crime records did not show that I had reported it, and this threatened to cause administrative problems until the CID realised the entry might be in the lost-property book! And so it was. My coat was recorded as ‘lost’, not stolen, but at least there was a note of it in official records. But how on earth anyone could assume it was ‘lost’, when another of completely different size, colour, appearance and quality had replaced it, was baffling.
I reckoned it was one way of keeping down the crime figures!
But there were more developments. When the local crime records were searched, it was learned that several other coats had been stolen from dance halls in the locality. They had disappeared over four or five years, and with the arrest of Ben Baldwin, we now had a prime suspect. He was a part-time barman and general dealer, who lived alone in a small cottage at a village called Kindledale. As common law permitted, the CID decided that his home should be searched for material evidence of those other crimes. Ben was told of these plans and did not object, so the search went ahead while he was in custody at Strensford.
If he had objected, a search warrant would have been obtained, although it was not necessary in these circumstances. The Royal Commission on Police Powers and Procedures expressed an opinion that the authority for such searches of the premises occupied by arrested persons was now enshrined in common law.
And in this case no further coats were found. But Ben’s home did reveal a huge cache of other stolen goods. It was filled to overflowing with tins of food, bottles of whisky, brandy and gin, bottles of beer and stout, packets of sugar, flour and cereals and a host of other odds and ends. When confronted with this, Ben admitted stealing the lot from the various inns and hotels where he had worked.
In many instances, the owners had not missed the goods, although, with the volume involved, it was felt that any stocktaking would reveal these deficiencies. And so Ben was charged with several more thefts; as we say, these were ‘TIC’d’ when he appeared in the magistrates’ court to answer the charge of stealing my coat. A hefty fine was imposed upon him.
The newspapers were full of the story due to the odd circumstances which had led to his arrest, and I had my coat returned to me, a little more battered and worn than it had been when I ‘lost’ it but still wearable after a thorough cleansing. And for my powers of observation in recognising the stolen coat, I received a commendation from the chief constable.
But the story continues. A week after the court case, my wife’s cousin rang me from Fieldholme. A large cardboard box had mysteriously appeared in his garden overnight, and when he opened it, it contained several overcoats. One belonged to him but he had no idea to whom the others belonged. Our records showed they had all been stolen in that vicinity.
And we never did find out who had stolen those other coats, nor who had dumped the box in that garden.
Some twenty years later, there was a further sequel to this yarn. I appeared before a Promotion Board at Police Headquarters where my career was discussed; that commendation was mentioned and I had to give an account of it. It was only as I discussed it with the chief constable and his senior officers that it dawned on me that nowhere in the Headquarters files was it mentioned that it was my own coat.
Maybe, if that early report had included that point, I would never have been commended?
However, it is clear that, if I had not swapped shifts that New Year’s Eve, a lot of crimes would have remained unsolved.
The second investigation which came my way as a youthful constable at Strensford was one which involved ‘discreet enquiries’. In this case, our neighbouring police force at Middlesbrough had received an application from a gentleman who wished to be granted a liquor licence. His request was for the grant of a restaurant licence which was issued by the justices.
He had bought some small parts of an old factory premises and wanted to turn them into a licensed restaurant. At that time, restaurant licences were a new idea, having recently been given statutory approval, for it meant that intoxicants could be sold with table meals away from the established hotels and inns, provided the premises were suitable and, of course, that the applicant was also suitable.
It was known that the applicant’s expansive plans included future development of the site until it became a noted club, restaurant and even gaming centre. But all that was in the future — his immediate concern was to be granted that first liquor licence so that his restaurant could become a reality and so that he could establish himself on his chosen site.
He had submitted his plans and his application through the proper channels, and the role of the police, in forwarding these to the magistrates, was to establish whether or not he was a ‘fit and proper’ person to hold such a licence. He had no criminal record, and so it seemed his fitness to be granted such a licence was not in doubt. But, because he had given an address in Strensford, which was in a police area different from the one through which he was applying, we had to make discreet enquiries in the town. These were merely to strengthen his fitness claim; it was a routine enquiry for us, one of many we had to make.
At the start of my late shift one morning, Sergeant Andy Moorhouse called me into his office.
‘Nick,’ he said, holding a sheaf of papers, ‘I’ve a grand job here for you. It involves some discreet enquiries and you can take a day or two over it; there’s no rush, so long as you do a thorough job.’
He explained about the application for the restaurant licence and said, ‘The applicant is a Mr Ralph Charles Swinden; he’s forty-one years old and a native of Wakefield. But it seems he lived in Strensford for a year or two and has given an address in town — No. 7 Belford Place. He doesn’t live there now, by the way, but it seems he came to live there just over two years ago. We’ve been asked to make discreet enquiries in the area to see if there’s any reason why he should not be granted his licence.’
I said I understood, but he continued:
‘Now, have you done one of these enquiries?’
‘No,’ I admitted.
‘There’s no problem with them at all. They’re an interesting way of occupying your time. Swinden has no criminal record, so it’s just a case of asking local tradesmen whether he’s honest and trustworthy. Get around the shops and businesses near where he lived and see if they know anything against him. Be discreet, Nick, and then submit your report through me. OK?’
‘We’ve nothing in our files, have we?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never come across the chap, and I’ve been here six years. I’ve had a word with CID and he’s never crossed their paths. He’s obviously led a decent and quiet life, but we need to convince Middlesbrough Police and their magistrates of that.’
I looked forward to my task and was allocated a beat which included Belford Place. I started immediately I had read the papers and decided my enquiries would begin w
ith people in the area whom I knew and trusted. The papers did not say whether Swinden had worked in Strensford or whether he had merely lived there and worked elsewhere, but if he had been a part of the town’s social or business scene, I would soon find out.
I tried to determine where a man in his late thirties, as he would then have been, would spend his money or his time and decided to start with those pubs he might have used.
I entered the Golden Lion when it was quiet and after some, small talk with the landlord asked him, ‘Jim, do you know Ralph Swinden? He used to live in Belford Place; he came to live in the town just over a couple of years ago.’
‘What’s he look like, Mr Rhea? What did he do?’
‘No idea,’ I confessed. ‘I’ve just got a name.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Ralph; I can’t recall having a Ralph in here as a regular.’
There were seven pubs, two hotels and one registered club very close to Belford Place but no one associated with them knew Swinden.
He was not a member of the registered club either, but the steward did know most of the locals on the town’s social round, those who frequented the golf club, the British Legion and the Strensford Working Men’s Club, as well as those who had joined the Rotary Club, the Round Table, the Lions and other similar organisations. The name of Ralph Charles Swinden did not feature in his memory, but I visited the secretaries of those clubs and organisations he had suggested, just to be certain. They did not know him either.
My first tour of duty was concluded without anyone’s knowing my subject, and I found that odd.
‘How’s it going, Nick?’ asked Sergeant Moorhouse as I booked off duty.
‘No one knows him, Sarge,’ I said.
‘Good, then no one knows anything against him,’ he beamed.
‘I’ve more people to see.’ I wanted him to know I had not finished.
CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 6-10 five feel-good village cozy mysteries Page 59
