CONSTABLE AT THE GATE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 18)

by Nicholas Rhea

  “Shall I come over to Aidensfield?” he suggested. “I could be there in, say, forty minutes.”

  “Give me time to check around the village first,” I advised him. “That’ll take me an hour or so. I’ll ring you back with the outcome of that, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “You don’t think he’s had burglars or been kidnapped, do you?” Kenneth was clearly starting to think the worst. “He does keep a lot of cash on him and in the house.”

  “It doesn’t look as though the house has been searched by villains,” I assured him. “It has all the hallmarks of a hurried departure.”

  “He’ll have run out of cigars or something!” said Kenneth.

  “Let’s hope that’s all it is,” I responded. “But I’ll ring in about an hour.”

  Gilbert and I left the house, closing the doors and windows without locking them. Gilbert said he would continue his rounds but at the same time ask if anyone had seen Jacob this morning, and I said I would begin my enquiries in Aidensfield. I did have a little success — Jacob Bolton had gone into the shop shortly after eight this morning to buy a box of cigars and some matches. The shopkeeper, Joe Steel, had noticed the Jaguar parked outside with the engine running, and had assumed Jacob was hurrying off to a meeting of some kind. But Jacob had not commented upon his intended destination; carrying his newly purchased cigars and matches, he’d returned to his car and driven off with a roar of its distinctive sounding exhaust. Joe said that, in his opinion, Jacob was in good health and fine spirits. Certainly, he was not depressed or showing signs of worry or illness. Although I continued my questions within the village, no one else had noticed Jacob’s departure.

  I encountered Gilbert Kingston during my enquiries and told him what had transpired; he, on the other hand, had not gleaned any useful information from his customers and so I returned to my house to inform Sergeant Blaketon of my endeavours and to ring Kenneth Bolton with an update.

  When I spoke to Blaketon, he asked, “So what are your proposals, Rhea? A big search, a local search or no search at all?”

  “I think a local search is called for, Sergeant,” I suggested. “I have to ring his son now, at Harrowby, and I was going to suggest that he and I meet, and that he takes me to the places his father is likely to visit. If he’s not there, and if he hasn’t turned up by lunchtime, we could launch a wider hunt.”

  “There is no reason to believe he is in danger, is there?” he asked.

  “Not in my opinion, Sergeant,” I said, hoping the old man had not committed suicide.

  “Right, do that. And let me know how things progress.”

  When I rang Kenneth with my news, he readily agreed to meet me. Any further calls for the family could be relayed through the staff at the depot. I suggested the carpark at Sutton Bank Top as a rendezvous point. We could then both explore the area and deal with whatever we discovered. I said I would be at Sutton Bank Top at 10.15 a.m. and he promised he would be there. I was first to arrive and the first thing I found on the carpark was Jacob’s distinctive blue Jaguar. It was parked neatly and locked.

  I looked around but there was no sign of its owner, so I decided to await Kenneth’s arrival. He came in a large Volvo estate car and crossed immediately to me, introducing himself with a strong handshake. He was about a good six feet tall, fifty years of age I estimated, with grey hair, smartly dressed in a dark business suit. He was a younger version of his father.

  “That’s Dad’s car,” he said slowly, walking around it, trying the doors and looking inside. “He can’t be far away.”

  “So where do you think he’s gone?” I asked.

  “Once, he would have climbed down to Lake Gormire,” he smiled. “But he’s a bit old for that now, the climb through those trees is a bit steep for old folks. I reckon he’ll have gone the other way, towards the gliding club airfield and the Kilburn white horse. There used to be a seat along there, he and Mum would sit and gaze across the Vale of York, to the Pennines and Yorkshire Dales.”

  “Let’s go,” I suggested.

  Quarter of an hour later, we found Jacob. He was sitting on a wooden seat at the cliff top and gazing across the expansive view before him while smoking one of his huge cigars. He had no idea we were approaching from his right. I saw him take a long drag on the cigar, savour the scent and the smoke, then raise his head slightly to blow the smoke into the sky. It rose in a tiny cloud to be dissipated by the prevailing winds on that hilltop. We walked towards him on the grassy track. There was no one else on this path at that time of the morning, and then he became aware of our approach.

  “Hello, Dad,” said Kenneth.

  “Oh, you’ve come to see me, have you?” was the slightly sarcastic reply. It was then that I noticed the bits of charred paper lying on the ground around the seat. He’d been lighting his cigars with the papers instead of matches and his box of cigars lay open on the seat at his side.

  “Hello, Mr Bolton.” I felt I had to say something.

  “Been looking for me, have you?” He grinned wickedly at me.

  “Yes, your house was found with all the doors open and we were worried.”

  “There’s no need to worry on my account, Constable. I’ll not jump off this cliff or do anything daft — except light my cigars with five-pound notes.”

  And then I realised what the pieces of burnt paper were. They were the charred remains of £5 notes.

  “Dad, you bloody fool!” snapped Kenneth. “What’s all this about?” He rushed forward to pick up some of the pieces.

  “I’m going to burn all my money.” He grinned even more wickedly at Kenneth. “I slaved for you and the others,” he said. “You got my business and when I die, you’ll expect to get my money. But you never come to see me, any of you. Neither you nor William nor Ruth have been to see me in the last three months, not one of you. Now you know I like a cigar, and I like a glass of whisky, so I’m going to buy myself the very best whiskies and the very best cigars. I shall drink the whisky and use my money to light my cigars, here on this seat, or somewhere else. What else is there for me?”

  “Dad!” Kenneth’s voice softened. “Dad, we do come to see you, we love you but we’re very busy . . . you know how hectic it is, running a business like ours, weekends and weekdays alike. You did it . . .”

  “But I always went to see my mum and dad,” he said. “And I made time for you as kids, and I made time for them when they were old.” And as if to emphasise his point, he pulled a £5 note out of his pocket, lit it with a match and applied it to the end of his cigar which had gone out while he was talking. He drew on the cigar until it was glowing again, threw the remains of the fiver to the ground and stamped on it to put out the flames.

  “Another one gone,” he grinned, puffing a cloud of smoke into the cool air.

  “Look, Dad, let’s go home and talk about this.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “So long as I am left alone at weekends, I shall light my cigars with £5 notes. I don’t need that amount of money anymore. And I do enjoy a good cigar with a Yorkshire view spread before me.”

  I decided this was no longer anything to do with me and said, “Look, Kenneth, I’m leaving. Your father is safe and this is a family matter. I am not involved anymore.”

  “There will be no publicity about this, will there?” Kenneth looked worried. “I mean about dad lighting his cigars with fivers.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s between you and your father now.”

  “I might decide to light my next lot of cigars on top of York Minster,” chuckled Jacob.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” snapped Kenneth.

  “Try me,” grinned his father. “And if I do, I might just ring the papers. They’d like that, wouldn’t they? An eccentric old man in York Minster lighting his cigars with fivers . . .”

  And I left them, radioing to Sergeant Blaketon to say that Jacob had been found safe and well. I told him the story and he chuckled.

  “Let’s hope
they decide to visit him more often,” he said. “It’ll cost them a lot if they don’t!”

  But Jacob did resort to his cigar lighting ruse on more than one future occasion, each time vanishing from home after a lonely weekend, and each time he was found on that seat near Sutton Bank Top, the place he had courted his wife.

  But someone always collected the remains of the burnt fivers. It helped to keep that beauty spot free from rubbish, but I have no idea who it was.

  Chapter 4

  So many schemes thou breedest.

  MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1822–88

  When I arrived at Aidensfield as the village constable, I was fortunate to inherit a wealth of material left by my efficient predecessor. There were the expected notes which related to my duties, such as lists of farms and farmers, public houses and landlords, garages, shops, post offices and other business premises in the villages on my patch but in addition, he left me notes about some of the personalities on the beat. This rather comprehensive file included a list of convicted offenders and those who were known to commit crime, even if they had never been caught. There was a section on poachers too, in which the names of Claude Jeremiah Greengrass and his dog Alfred featured with some prominence. My predecessor’s work and his foresight in leaving me so well equipped for my duties has long been appreciated.

  But among the papers was a sketch plan of some crossroads in the hills above Elsinby. I knew the place. The crossroads created a black spot, one of several places in North Riding of Yorkshire where traffic accidents occurred with monotonous regularity. Depicted on a flat piece of paper, the location did not appear to be particularly dangerous, but in fact the layout of the roads at that point was far from perfect. A busy B-class road carrying traffic out of the hills towards York climbed from Elsinby for almost two miles. In doing so, it rose quite steeply across the moors and reached its highest point a few yards before it met the crossroads.

  They were rather appropriately known as Grimdale Crossroads. As drivers approached that summit from Elsinby, the road ahead of them dipped suddenly — we call such hills ‘switchbacks’ and in many cases, the surface of the road beyond is invisible, — if only for a few seconds. In this case, the downward slope beyond the summit was perhaps a hundred yards long and dipping quite steeply until the road levelled out. The nature of this stretch made it very tempting to accelerate up the gentle slope from Elsinby to cross the summit at speed, and then motor swiftly down the other side and then along the level, straight and fairly wide road towards York. York lay some eighteen miles away. Certainly, the local drivers did this; they knew the road and enjoyed the exhilaration of the speed they could produce as they crossed that summit. Younger ones and some rather stupid older ones were heedless of the potential and sometimes unseen dangers ahead.

  The real problem was that a country lane crossed that B-class road about seventy yards beyond the blind summit. It wasn’t a right-angled crossing either; the lane met the main road at an angle. From the right as one drove from Elsinby, the lane entered the main road at an acute angle of some 30 degrees, crossed it and emerged at the far side at an obtuse angle of some 150 degrees. But because the main road at that point was still descending towards York it meant that the camber on the lane, on both sides of the highway, sloped away to a similar degree. To add to the problems, the surrounding landscape was rich with conifers, gorse bushes and other wild shrubs and trees, consequently there was restricted visibility from all the constituent roads.

  From each of the four roads which met here, it was impossible to clearly see traffic approaching from one’s left or right. In every case, there were problems, most of which could be overcome with a little caution and common sense. But even when one had spotted the traffic, it could disappear from sight, if only for a few seconds — dangerous seconds in fact. Quite literally, as one emerged from the lane on the left, it was impossible to see the summit of the hill to which I refer. To motorists emerging from that lane end, traffic coming from Elsinby was quite invisible for a few vital seconds. It meant that every person who came out of that minor road was risking a collision with something hurtling across the summit towards York. A vehicle which crossed the summit at speed had little or no chance to stop or to avoid a collision with something emerging from those lanes, from whichever side they came.

  In short, the place was tailor-made for accidents. In Grimdale’s existing form, traffic accidents were inevitable and a fatality was a possibility. That was why my predecessor had left me the sketch plan. It depicted Grimdale Crossroads, or Grimdale as it was known locally, and was drawn to scale complete with road widths, gradients and destinations. Carriageway markings were shown, as were road signs, fences, trees, a bench and other roadside furniture. Accompanying the sketch was a brief note saying this plan could be copied for use whenever an accident occurred or if a prosecution for careless driving or something more serious was envisaged. Such a well-drawn and detailed sketch plan would save me hours of work when compiling reports of accidents at Grimdale Crossroads, or preparing a file for court.

  And, knowing the reputation of Grimdale Crossroads, I knew that sooner or later, I would have to cope with an accident at that point. I hoped none would be fatal.

  I did know, too, that the County Council highways department and the Force accident prevention department had examined the crossroads and had monitored its accident rate with a view to improving it, but to date nothing had been done. One problem, if that is the right word, was that only one fatality was known to have occurred at this point. A little girl pedestrian had been knocked down by a hit-and-run driver some thirty years earlier but I had none of the details in my own files. The problem was that a lack of fatal accidents could suggest to the office-bound pundits in County Hall that the road at this point was not dangerous! The potential for fatalities did not appear to be sufficient evidence of the need to improve the geography of a road. In Grimdale’s case, after the little girl had died, the layout of the road had been changed slightly, with some widening of the main carriageway and clearing of the verges, but that had been thirty years earlier and it had served only to encourage traffic to go faster. Even by the sixties, more traffic was using the road and all vehicles were travelling at higher speeds. Grimdale was as dangerous then as it had been thirty years earlier.

  Persuading motorists to drive carefully or to reduce their speed is never easy and one of the finest means is to position a uniformed police officer or even an empty police car in a position where they can be observed by passing drivers. For that reason, I paid frequent visits to Grimdale in uniform.

  I would stand there for a few minutes merely to let my presence be noted, especially by those who regularly passed this way. I think it had some effect, even if temporarily, although several minor accidents and bumps did occur within my first few months on Aidensfield beat. On those occasions, the inherited sketch plan of Grimdale proved a most useful time-saving device.

  One odd thing I did note during my frequent visits was a woman who often sat on the bench which was situated on a triangle of grass beside the crossroads. Whenever I saw her she appeared to be knitting, and sometimes sketching although she did watch every passing car, especially those heading towards her from Elsinby. The bench, sited at an angle from the main road, offered a view over the crossroads and up the slope leading to Elsinby via the dangerous summit I’ve already mentioned. From her seat, she commanded a first-rate view of Grimdale and its traffic.

  At first, I had no idea who she was. She did not appear at the same time every day, nor indeed did she turn up on a daily basis. Her appearances appeared to be spasmodic and without any purpose other than to observe the passing traffic. In time, I became accustomed to her presence on the seat as I passed that way.

  She was in her mid-to late-thirties and rather plump in build. Only some five feet three inches or so in height, she had a round, pleasant face bordered by light-brown curly hair which was worn very long. It fell around her face and shoulders, and sometimes she would
wear a bright coloured ribbon in it — red, yellow and green seemed her favourite colours.

  Her clothing was colourful too, comprising a variety of pastel shades and she always seemed to be wearing multi-coloured blouses or jumpers and several long skirts, one over the other or perhaps covering an under-slip or two. This made it seem she was wearing a crinoline. She was the sort of lady you’d expect to see on the dance floor of a Regency country house although it was clear she was not of the landed gentry class. She looked very much like an artist or someone accustomed to artistic surrounds. A musician even.

  It was when I was called out to deal with yet another accident at Grimdale that I made my first contact with the lady on the seat. A loaded lorry had been travelling along the side lane which led into Grimdale from the left when viewed from the Elsinby direction. A saloon car driven by a pensioner and his wife had been motoring from Elsinby — it had crossed the summit, swept down the far side and was heading for the crossroads as the lorry emerged from the left. Lorry and car had swerved to avoid each other but it was too late — there was a crash, the saloon car was written off, the elderly driver suffered a broken leg, cuts and bruises, and his wife had concussion. The lorry driver, shocked by the incident, was otherwise unhurt. And the lady on the bench had witnessed everything.

  I discovered her name was Emma Philpin, she was married to Patrick who was a business executive in York, and she lived in a lovely home — Lavender Cottage — about half a mile from Grimdale Crossroads, along the lane to the left. She had two children, both teenage girls, and they were at boarding school.

  Having taken her name at the scene of that accident, I decided to interview her later and so I arranged to visit her at 11 a.m. on the Tuesday following the incident, so that I could obtain a full witness statement. She was a good witness who was able to marshal her thoughts with remarkable clarity, thus I was able to record in writing her version of the accident which would help us decide whether or not one or both the drivers should be prosecuted. When I submitted my completed accident report, Sergeant Blaketon said, “I see Mrs Philpin is a witness again.”