“Like market gardens where he nicks plant pots and garden rollers?” I said.
“I know nowt about his private life,” said Claude. “All I know is that he’s pretty good at selling second-hand barrow wheels. He’ll get rid of this lot before next weekend and his customers will be begging for more.”
“So what do you think, PC Rhea?” asked Sergeant Craddock. “Do we arrest this man on suspicion of larceny or even for receiving stolen goods, or do we believe his story?”
“Arrest? It’ll be false arrest and I’ll sue the lot of you!” snapped Claude.
“I believe Claude.” I had to be honest. “I’ve been to his premises and have seen the growing pile of barrow wheels . . . they’re not stolen goods, Sergeant. I’d stake my career on that.”
“Well, I am pleased your local knowledge is so thorough, PC Rhea, and that you are so well informed about the people on your beat, especially those of interest to the police,” smiled Craddock. “Well, Mr Greengrass, this looks like your lucky day. You may go.”
“Lucky? I don’t call it lucky being held up for half an hour and having to justify my trading techniques to snoopers like you!”
“You are lucky that PC Rhea was able to respond to my call so quickly, and to speak on your behalf.”
“I’ll buy him a pint next time he’s in the pub!” said Claude, but as he turned to climb back into his driving seat, Craddock called to him.
“Mr Greengrass?”
“Now what? My tax disc is up to date, my brakes are in full working order and I got a new exhaust pipe last week . . .”
“I’m sure everything is just as it should be,” beamed Craddock. “But I am interested in that red barrow wheel, the one near the tailgate of your truck.”
“What about it? It’s not been nicked!”
“No, but I need a wheel for my old barrow, you see. Fifteen-inch diameter with a six-inch spindle and a solid rubber tyre . . . now that looks perfect . . .”
“Does it now?”
“I’ve tried all the gardening shops and hardware people in this area, and no one can supply me with the right size or type of wheel. Mine is rather an old barrow, you see, inherited from my father.”
“That’s just what I’ve been trying to explain! I’m a specialist in old barrow wheels, Sergeant Craddock. So how much are you prepared to pay, seeing it’s not stolen property?” beamed Claude.
“I was thinking of something about £1,” said Craddock.
“I am thinking more like £5 for that wheel, and you can measure it to make sure it fits. And I’ll take it back if it’s not suitable — and I’ll even find you one that does fit.”
In a trice, Craddock had pulled a retractable tape measure from his pocket, the sort we all carried for measuring the scenes of road traffic accidents, and he was leaning over the side of the lorry to measure the wheel. It was exactly what he wanted.
“Two pounds,” he said to Claude.
“Four,” said Claude.
“Three,” responded Craddock, and so the deal was done. Claude passed him the wheel, pocketed the three pounds with a wide smile on his face, climbed aboard his wagon and started the engine.
As Claude drove past me, Craddock was placing the barrow wheel in the boot of his police car a short distance away, so Claude slowed down, leaned out of the window and whispered, “That’s two pints I owe you! Oh, and next time you’re in my part of the world come and look at my gooseberries! You should see the size of ’em already! Filling out nicely they are. There’s weeks to go, I know, but they’re on course to be winners, mark my words. Just you go and tell Holy Joe, tell him to watch out for Greengrass world beater, a Thatcher it is, the best ever, even without a stalk — and I’m not going to divulge my secret recipe for feeding ’em.”
And with that, he drove away, chuckling at the outcome of this confrontation and happy that he was going to score one over Joseph Marshall. I then realised that Claude probably had no idea of Joseph’s sickness, but decided it was not the right moment to inform him.
“It’s odd how things work out,” said Sergeant Craddock, when he returned to my side. “Here am I halting a man I believe to be a thief, and I finish up buying something I’ve been seeking for ages . . . I’m pleased you could confirm I was not dealing in stolen property, PC Rhea.”
“Claude sails close to the wind, Sergeant,” I said. “But he’s not evil, just a bit of a rustic rogue.”
“So he doesn’t deal in stolen cycles?” grinned Craddock.
“No, I tackled him about that. Those racing bikes are way out of his league.”
“Well, it was an interesting way of meeting your Mr Greengrass, and I’m sure our paths will cross in the future. Now, PC Rhea, what are the outstanding issues on your beat just now?”
And so, standing on the side of the lane near Stovensby’s ancient airfield, I provided the new sergeant with a brief résumé of Aidensfield beat and some of the matters currently affecting my work. I did not refer to Joseph Marshall, of course, because his illness was not a matter for the police, although I did provide an outline of the forthcoming gooseberry show and our role in ensuring there was a smooth flow of traffic on the day. Craddock chuckled at the notion of whopping berries being shown for prizes, and I suggested he make an effort to attend, if only to have his education broadened. I told him of the man whose gooseberry was so huge that it rested on the ground, and when he harvested it, he needed a wheelbarrow to carry it. When he placed it in the barrow it collapsed beneath the massive weight, then the berry rolled away and burst as it fell to the ground.
The massive berry never reached the show table, I told him, and so the world never witnessed that giant of giants. Other than its grower, no one saw it, even in its damaged state, because the birds came and pecked up the remains before anyone could reach it, and so there was not even a tiny seed left as proof. Every piece of evidence of the world’s largest gooseberry had been lost — except for the broken wheelbarrow which was placed in the hall during every annual show.
Sergeant Craddock laughed at this old piece of berry lore and I felt he had a sense of humour, even if I was rather unsure how to regard him at this juncture. He departed with a cheery wave, saying he’d meet me again in the near future, but as I watched him leave, I did not know whether he was a keen disciplinarian or a fresh-air freak as had been suggested. What was not in doubt was that he was a very practical policeman. The fact he had stopped and interrogated Claude was an example of that. Lots of supervisory officers would shrink from that kind of operational police work. I began to look forward with some interest to his forthcoming role in the work of Ashfordly Section and Aidensfield rural beat.
* * *
During the latter weeks of that springtime, which was rich in blossom, colour and sunshine while being devoid of troublesome frosts, I toured my beat as I undertook a variety of routine duties. As I motored around or sometimes patrolled on foot, it became very evident that there had been a massive increase in local enthusiasm for growing big gooseberries and I was not sure what had generated this passion in Aidensfield.
During my patrols in and around Aidensfield, I did get the impression that everyone, apart from Claude Jeremiah Greengrass, thought Joseph should — and would — win this year’s Supreme Championship. How they thought that might be achieved was never revealed because there was no way the result could be fixed in Joseph’s favour — not that he would allow that to happen anyway. It might be possible for everyone to withhold all berries heavier than Joseph’s finest and send them to the Egton Bridge show. But no one would know that weight in advance. Their mere absence might ensure he won, in which case he would never suspect a plot, but he would be aghast if any hint of corruption tainted the society over which he presided.
Everyone knew it was impossible to forecast a winner — berries were weighed on the day of the show, and in any case, most of the competitors concealed theirs from the opposition, except for Claude Jeremiah Greengrass. And he would take immense pleasu
re in defeating Holy Joe. Furthermore, I don’t think any of those lapsed members were regarded as a genuine threat but that did not dampen their enthusiasm. My regular visits to farms, cottages, households and allotments did show an inordinate number of berry trees under severe cultivation even if I did not catch a view of their best berries, but I did get the impression that the whole district was keen to partake in this year’s annual show. There would be a fine turn-out for Joseph’s last event.
By midsummer, the Aidensfield berry trees were showing their paces. It was probably at this stage that the greatest skill and care had to be displayed.
By now, the early pruning had been done and the bushes were producing their crops. By dint of carefully removing a selection of surplus berries, the growers sought to encourage only the finest to remain on the tree. The secret was knowing which berries to remove and which to retain, how many to leave on the tree and how many to remove. If the grower achieved the right balance, the remaining fruit would flourish by utilising the food generated by the tree, and they would become very large, handsome and heavy specimens. Also, big berries could be encouraged by feeding the trees with secret potions such as sheep droppings mashed in moorland spring water, pigs’ dried blood, fish meal from offshore catches at Whitby, potash or top-quality cow manure that had matured for months. It was also necessary to protect the berries from heavy rainfall as well as troublesome insects and birds. There were many close secrets in the berry-growing world, ranging from blowing pipe tobacco smoke on to them later in the year to ward off wasps, and covering them with little umbrellas to stop the raindrops from knocking them off the trees. It was unwise, however, to grow one’s berries under glass because they would be ready long before the date of the show. They had to be nurtured in the open air, and the trees had to be tended with loving care, even with their owners sitting up all night with them as the date of the show approached. And, as that date grew closer and closer with astonishing speed, the berry growers of Aidensfield realised they had only the remaining days of June and the whole of July to achieve their targets. The excitement began to mount.
And then Joseph Marshall took a turn for the worse.
Chapter 5
It was a Wednesday morning when Father Simon told me about Joseph’s relapse. I was visiting the Aidensfield Garage because I wanted to ascertain from the new owner, a lanky, somewhat cadaverous fellow called Bernie Scripps, whether a car stolen overnight from nearby Maddleskirk had called there for petrol. In all probability, the garage was closed at the time of the theft, but sometimes passing thieves broke the locks on Bernie’s pumps at night to fill their vehicles. Another trick was to syphon a gallon or two from vehicles on the forecourt, but on this occasion he knew of no such attempt. If there had been, I would have arranged for a Scenes of Crime officer to search for fingerprints on the vehicles or pumps, a good set being such a useful asset in the detection of any crime.
I told Bernie the stolen car was a dark-blue and rather battered Ford Anglia which had been stolen from outside a council house in Maddleskirk and provided him with the registration number. He said he knew the car — he’d serviced it from time to time — and added he was sure it hadn’t called during his opening hours. He did promise to look out for it although we both felt it would be miles away by this time. I suggested it had been taken by opportunist joyriders rather than professional car thieves because it was not the sort a professional thief would want to try and sell.
My own view was that the thief could be someone from the locality who’d used it to take himself and his pals home from the pub and I felt it would have been abandoned fairly soon after being stolen. I’d make a thorough search of my beat — it was something to occupy me for the rest of the day.
At this early stage of Bernie’s arrival in Aidensfield, I did not know him very well, chiefly because one of his staff usually filled my petrol tanks (police and private) when I called. In spite of that, I was interested to see how he would cope with running a village garage because prior to buying this thriving little business, he’d been an undertaker in Strensford. It was an unlikely switch of career, although there was just a hint he might establish a chapel of rest and coffin-making emporium in the unused space at the rear of the garage. I was not sure about that idea — I did not feel that people would want to say farewell to their dear departed against a background of cast tyres, rusting exhaust pipes, scrap cars and vehicles awaiting repair. But there was no accounting for taste — indeed, Bernie had brought his old hearse with him, and that now stood, temporarily unused, at the back of his garage. Even if he did not start his own undertaking business, he could hire his hearse to others. I could imagine Bernie wanting to capitalise upon his assets and make full use of his ample space.
When I emerged from my chat with him, I found Father Simon busy at the petrol pumps. Dressed in tattered old jeans and a well-worn sweater, and looking most unholy, he was filling a can with petrol. It was intended for the parish lawnmower and, as was customary here, he was serving himself.
When he paid Bernie, he would buy a can of oil to mix with it, hopefully to incorporate precise proportions of oil and petrol to produce the correct two-stroke mixture. The cheerful little priest used a new invention for his steeply sloping lawn — it was a Flymo, a lawnmower whose whirring blade operated like a horizontal propeller to produce a cushion of air upon which the lawnmower floated as it cut the grass. This made it extremely manoeuvrable as it flew over footpaths and other irregularities to produce a lawn as smooth as a bowling green, even on steeply sloping areas of grass. The finely chopped pieces of cut grass were deposited back on to the lawn to form a useful mulch, especially in dry weather. The Flymo, a futurist device of great interest to conventional gardeners, was ideal for St Aidan’s lawn because it sloped steeply from the walls of the building down to the ecclesiastical car park below. But if the ingredients of the two-stroke mixture were incorrectly calculated to the slightest degree, the temperamental (or finely tuned) mower invariably refused to start. And that was enough to test the saintliness of any parish priest, even one who was a casually dressed monk from nearby Maddleskirk Abbey. The trick was to produce exactly the right mixture of oil and petrol — I knew the perils in attempting to do that because, on occasions, I took a turn in cutting the church grass. When Father Simon spotted me, therefore, he came over to me with the petrol can in his hand and I thought he was going to ask if I could cut the lawn. But his face showed concern and I did not miss its message.
“Ah, Nick,” he spoke softly in his gentle Irish brogue. “You’ve heard the latest about Joseph?”
“Latest?” I knew from the tone of his voice that the news was not good. “No, Father, what’s happened?”
“He’s back in hospital,” the priest told me. “He was admitted yesterday. To Scarborough again, for more observations.”
“Poor chap, what’s brought this on?” Knowing Joseph as I did, I was anxious to find out as much as I could and Father Simon was perhaps the best source outside Joseph’s immediate family.
“Well, it seems he was having stomach cramps or pains of some kind and for a while he ignored them. You know what men are like for not making a fuss about such things. So far as his other problems are concerned, he thought he was not getting any worse. That was a good thing, he felt. Being no worse is almost as good as getting better. Anyway, when he started with tummy problems, he said nothing to his wife because he thought it might have been caused by forcing himself to take in bigger helpings, or different food.”
“Sudden and drastic changes in one’s daily routine or diet can cause stomach trouble,” I added. “Usually we blame it on the water!”
“I think Joseph was thinking along those lines. He had tried more fruit, you see, and vegetables and a range of food without fat in it, even rice instead of potatoes . . . Anyway, Nick, it seems he was getting stomach pains, more severe than just wind or indigestion, but the truth is he’d been suffering for some time before Mabel realised.”
&n
bsp; “So how long has he been having the pains?” I asked.
“Sure, no one knows for certain, Nick. You’d think a man like that, suffering from some dreadful debilitating illness, would have the sense to call in his doctor the minute other things started to go wrong. But he didn’t, so we’ve no idea how long his stomach has been causing problems. It was Mabel who called in Dr McGee; she caught him doubled up with pain, his face tortured and his hands holding his stomach . . . he was in his garden, at the time, would you believe, doing something to his precious gooseberry trees.”
“He’d not collapsed, then?” I asked.
“Oh, no, but he was in severe pain so Mabel called the doctor and he was there in minutes. He didn’t waste time examining Joseph, he said it was an immediate hospital job and rang for the ambulance straight away. Joseph was on his way to Scarborough within the hour.”
“You’ve been to see him, Father?” I asked.
“I have, yesterday afternoon. He’s having a comprehensive range of tests and he’ll have had several by now. They’re examining his stomach, so I was told, but while they’ve got him, they’ll check the rest of him, all over again, especially his internal organs and waterworks. So far, though, they’ve not found anything. I did manage to elicit that snippet from one of the doctors.”
“And Dr McGee? Has he any idea what might be wrong?”
“He has no firm opinion, even though he’s examined Joseph as well as he can. At least, that’s what he told Mabel. He’s been attending Joseph at home but he’s only a GP. We mustn’t forget that. He’s not a specialist.”
“I hope Mabel appreciates that.”
“I’m sure she does. None of us must expect too much from him and I doubt if he could confirm or even identify Joseph’s problem. But he’s a good doctor with lots of experience and I respect his opinions. I know he suspects cancer but we must respect his patient confidentiality and not quiz him too much. But I can talk to Mabel. As indeed I have.”
CONSTABLE UNDER THE GOOSEBERRY BUSH a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 21) Page 8
