CONSTABLE ALONG THE LANE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 7)

by Nicholas Rhea

  And as I sat there, I wondered what Jack Forster would make of it all when he arrived at half past six. But I was off duty at six. I decided not to wash the cups either.

  Chapter 2

  When I was at home, I was in a better place

  But travellers must be content.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564—1616

  Having been compelled to spend more time patrolling the lanes around Aidensfield and Ashfordly, it was inevitable that I should become more deeply acquainted with Arnold Merryweather’s rattling old buses. In their faded purple and cream livery, the pair of them were a familiar sight in Ryedale. They provided a vital means of transport and an equally valuable method of communication for many of the villagers. Those without cars relied upon Arnold’s buses to carry them to work or to the shops or merely on visits to relatives and friends; it was impossible to envisage a contented rural life without the service that Arnold provided.

  His buses were never off the road, a fact which meant that on several occasions, I had to speak to Arnold about the condition of his vehicles. In his rustic and carefree way, he managed to ignore the laws which governed the operation of passenger vehicles. He seemed to think that the laws which applied to large companies and city transport did not apply to his little business.

  He would use the aged buses as delivery vehicles and would carry parcels, goods and even livestock to market; I’ve even known him use a bus as a breakdown vehicle. Because they were always in use, their maintenance became somewhat suspect. In addition, his willingness to help others often led to him flouting or even breaking the law. Never did I prosecute him, although I found it necessary to constantly remind him of his statutory responsibilities. And, in his own way, he did try.

  “Aye, Mr Rhea, Ah’ll see to it,” he would say. “One o’ these days, Ah’ll get it fixed” or “Ah’ll get Hannah to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  But he seldom did get it fixed, whatever it was, and he relied on Hannah, his huge conductress, to exercise her own judgement over the events which occurred on board the service bus.

  Miss Hannah Pybus, with her loud voice, masculine appearance and authoritative manner, kept order and, in her own way, helped Arnold’s business to thrive. Unattractive though she was, there was always a hint of romance between Hannah and her boss. Thick-set Arnold, with his mop of ginger hair now greying slightly as he progressed towards his sixties, seemed an ideal partner for the tall and equally thick-set Hannah. Her heavily freckled face and mop of sandy hair complemented his features and even if she did walk along his aisles with the swaying gait of a sailor, we all knew there was some attraction between them.

  But their romance never blossomed. I think this was because Arnold spent all his working days either behind the wheel or in the depot in Ashfordly effecting repairs. In addition, his limited leisure time was spent in the Brewers Arms telling Irish bus jokes and drinking Guinness.

  His only contact with Hannah was on board his bus. After work, she would mount her trusty cycle to ride home to Thackerston. Occasionally if the weather was bad, Arnold would place her cycle in the bus and take her home, but he never went in. He never took her to a restaurant, the theatre or cinema, or even to the local pubs. One reason was that his only mode of transport was his bus! Hannah would say, “If you think you’re taking me to the pictures in that, you’ve another think coming!” The result was that not once, to my knowledge, did Arnold enjoy a social outing with the formidable Hannah.

  For those who have not been introduced to Arnold’s bus service through my Constable Around the Village, he operated along the picturesque lanes and through the pretty villages between Ashfordly and York. Each day, one of his groaning coaches, furnished with wooden seats bolted on iron frames would leave at 7.30 a.m. and weave its slow way through Briggsby, Aidensfield, Elsinby and beyond until it arrived in York.

  It made a return journey, and then a second trip from Ashfordly to York, making a final return trip at 5.15 p.m. On Fridays, Arnold’s other bus made a special run to Galtreford because it was market day and lots of rural folk regarded that as a day out.

  During these runs, Arnold carried the village workers into the city where he did bits of shopping and ran errands for those who could not make the journey. He collected eggs en route, delivered laundry, and performed a whole series of useful deeds, many of which probably infringed the various laws which governed the use of public service vehicles.

  Arnold’s helpfulness is illustrated in an incident in which he came to the aid of the constabulary. The same incident also highlights the importance of a village policeman’s knowledge of his patch and the things that occur on it. In this case, that knowledge involved the route, timing, halting places and general modus operandi of Arnold’s bus service.

  Just after eight o’clock one Wednesday morning, I received a frantic telephone call from Abraham Godwin, an animal feeds salesman who lived in Aidensfield.

  “Mr Rhea,” he panted into the mouthpiece, “my car’s been stolen, just now. Less than a minute ago . . .”

  The urgency of his voice propelled me into action, although I had just got out of bed, having worked until two o’clock that same morning. I was not feeling on top of the world. In less urgent circumstances, I would have adopted the well-proven procedures of having details of the car immediately circulated to all our patrols. I’d have then recorded the details in a statement before filing the event in the criminal records and stats files. It would rest upon some other distant police officer to locate the vehicle when eventually it was abandoned.

  But as the thief had just struck, it didn’t make sense to follow the normal procedures. With only a minute’s start, it might be possible to catch the villain.

  I’m sure that thought was also in Godwin’s mind.

  “Which way did it go?” I asked.

  “Towards Elsinby. The thief’s dumped another in my drive, Mr Rhea, an old Ford,” he panted.

  “Right, what’s your car number?” I asked.

  “DVN 656C,” he said. “A red Hillman . . . you know it.”

  “I do, but my colleagues don’t. So,” I said, “I’ll come to see you soon, but I’ve work to do right now if we’re to catch him.”

  And I slammed down the telephone. I knew it was utterly futile dressing in my motorcycle gear to give chase. That would take several minutes. In the meantime, the stolen car, especially if driven by a thief, would be racing away and I would never catch it. It was time for immediate, albeit unorthodox, action.

  I looked at my watch. It was five minutes past eight and I knew that Arnold’s bus would be trundling towards York. If I was right about the habits of an opportunist car thief, he would also be heading for the city, either to vanish there or to steal another car to continue his journey. The fact he’d dumped one in Godwin’s drive suggested he was hitching lifts through the countryside by stealing a succession of available cars.

  I looked at my map. I tried to recall the day I’d once used Arnold’s bus on its circuitous journey into York and reckoned his bus would, at any moment, be calling at Hollin Heights Farm.

  He called regularly to collect a load of eggs and actually took the bus into the farmyard to do so. I rang Jim Harker, the farmer, and he answered.

  “It’s PC Rhea,” I said. “Has Arnold’s bus got to your spot yet?”

  “Just coming doon oor lane, Mr Rhea.”

  “It’s urgent that I speak to him,” I tried to stress the urgency of this call, but I knew old Jim Harker could not rush. That was something he found impossible.

  “Ah’ll tell him,” said Jim, and I heard the handset being placed on a hard surface. I could only wait. But surprisingly, only a minute or so passed before someone picked it up.

  “Merryweather,” said the voice.

  “Arnold,” the relief must have been evident in my voice. “It’s PC Rhea. I need help.”

  “Fire away, Mr Rhea, Ah’ve time to listen while they’re loading t’ eggs.”

  Once
before, I’d advised Arnold not to carry loads of eggs on his bus because it was illegal but there was no time to worry about that. I explained that Godwin had just had his car stolen and that it seemed to be heading towards York. I began to describe it, but Arnold said, “I know it, Mr Rhea, that red Hillman.”

  “I wondered if you could halt it, Arnold,” I said. “I know there might be a risk, but if . . .”

  “If that car comes up behind me, Mr Rhea, Ah’ll stop him. Then Ah’ll call you,” and the phone was replaced.

  It was a long shot, but it might work. I now made the necessary formal circulation of the stolen car’s particulars by ringing our Control Room and Divisional Headquarters. I arranged for the CID to visit Godwin’s home to examine and fingerprint the dumped vehicle and executed all the formalities that were associated with a reported crime.

  Having done this, I hurried down to Godwin’s house, explaining to Mary that if Arnold rang, she should contact me there. To save time, I drove down in my own private car. Godwin, extremely upset at the audacity of the thief, was still in a state of anxiety, but I suggested he take me into the kitchen where I asked his wife to brew some coffee. The performance of a mundane domestic chore often removes a good deal of tension; besides, I hadn’t had my breakfast.

  Godwin explained that after starting his car, he had driven it on to his forecourt where he had left the engine running to warm thoroughly. After locking the garage, he’d gone into the house to collect his briefcase and papers. While doing that, a strange car had entered his drive and driven onto the lawn. A slim youth in his early twenties and dressed in a pale green sweater and jeans, had then jumped out and had got straight into the waiting Hillman. Then he’d driven off at speed towards Elsinby and York. For sheer cheek and opportunism, this theft was almost unique.

  It took me a while to complete the necessary crime report forms. I required the engine and chassis numbers in addition to the more obvious details, and explained it was necessary if the car was altered or broken up; parts of it might still be identifiable and for that reason, our C.10 branch, the stolen car experts, would need those kind of details.

  I made a rapid examination of the dumped and ancient Ford, noted its number on Godwin’s phone, rang the details to Control Room. Efforts would be made to trace its owner and the source of the theft, if indeed it had been stolen. All this took about three-quarters of an hour, and then the telephone rang. It was Mary, slightly breathless.

  “Arnold’s stopped that car,” she said. “He rang from Woodland Hall, that’s about a mile the other side of Craydale. He’s got your thief; he’s at the entrance to the Hall. He says can you go straight away, so he isn’t too late into York?”

  Godwin beamed with pleasure at the news, but I was worried about the state of his car. Thieves have no respect for the vehicles they use so carelessly and so it was with some apprehension that I asked Godwin if he would come with me and drive his own car home. He agreed.

  Twenty minutes later we arrived to be confronted by the results of Arnold’s remarkable bus-driving skill. The thief had been trapped too, so my arrest was easy.

  Afterwards, I learned how Arnold had contrived this. While driving his bus and its assortment of passengers out of Craydale, he’d noticed the red Hillman approaching from behind. When the speeding car was level with the rear of his bus and overtaking it, Arnold had eased over to his offside, keeping pace with the car. The car, now with a very anxious driver at the wheel, had been forced to move over and as the vehicles sped along, Arnold’s mighty bus had moved still further to its wrong side. In that way, it had literally forced the stolen Hillman off the road and into a shallow ditch.

  It had been trapped on one side by the high drystone walls of Woodland Hall and on the other by the bus. The driver had become a prisoner, and the Hillman had suffered some minor damage to the offside front mudguard.

  Afterwards, I discovered that Arnold had given his passengers a running commentary to explain his odd behaviour, but as his bus had drawn to a halt beside the trapped car, a young passenger had leapt out. Quickly, he had placed two large stones from the Hall’s wall behind the wheels of the car, very effectively preventing it from reversing to freedom.

  The bus’s position across the road meant that traffic could pass by, although some did stop to enquire if they could be of assistance at the ‘accident’ but Arnold had declined. And so, thanks to Arnold, we caught a car thief.

  I submitted a report to the Chief Constable about Arnold’s actions. In gratitude Arnold was presented with a ‘thank you’ letter and a helmet badge mounted on an oak plaque. The press publicised the tale too, which gave him and his coach service some useful publicity, but this was minor praise in comparison with the hero status he was awarded by the local people and regular customers.

  On another occasion, Arnold used his bus as an ambulance. I happened to be using the bus at the time. It was a Tuesday.

  Arnold had eased his groaning old coach to a halt outside the gate of Ridding Farm on the moors above Elsinby, where Aud Mrs Owens boarded it for her weekly trip to York market. Inevitably, Arnold and his passengers had to wait as the diminutive figure of Mrs Owens pottered up the long track laden with baskets.

  That Tuesday, however, we noticed two figures making their slow and painful progress towards the bus. One was Mrs Owens and the other was her husband, Kenneth, who seldom appeared in public. His life was spent almost entirely on the farm; he had no car and no wish to see what lay beyond the boundaries of his spread. He led a life of self-sufficiency and seclusion.

  As the couple approached Arnold’s bus, it was evident that Kenneth was hobbling painfully.

  I saw he was using a home-made crutch. It was simply a broom upturned, the head tucked under his right armpit and the shaft supporting his limping progress. His right leg, which wore a Wellington boot, was held awkwardly aloft in a kind of sling which had been created by tying a length of rope about the sole and ankle of the Wellington, then up and around his neck and shoulder. It kept his foot off the ground.

  Kenneth’s age was a matter of debate. He would be well over fifty, probably nicely into his sixties. Today, he wore some soiled corduroy trousers which bore evidence of many years of work and milking cows, and a rough, grey denim jacket, hereabouts called a kytle. A battered, flat cap decorated with a patch of cow hairs sat low upon his head and concealed most of his thin, weary face. The cow hairs were from his habit of resting his head on the flanks of the cows as he milked them.

  His wife gave little support as poor old Kenneth made his slow, difficult way towards the bus. I was about to offer my help, but Mrs Owens anticipated this by calling, “Leave him be! He’ll manage best on his own.” Kenneth had a very difficult job manoeuvring himself up the steps into the coach, but with some help from Arnold and Hannah, and some cursing from his little wife, he made it and hopped into a seat. There he sank onto the wooden framework with an audible sigh of relief.

  “And what’s up wi’ thoo, Kenneth?” asked Arnold as he slammed the bus into gear and began to guide it away.

  “’E fell off an haystack,” said Mrs Owens. “’E reckons ’e’s brokken ’is leg. ’E should ’ave been watching what ’e was doing, that’s what Ah say.”

  “Where are you taking him then?” It was Hannah’s turn now as she hovered with her ticket-machine.

  “’Ospital,” was the reply.

  “He can’t walk from the bus station . . .” said Hannah.

  “Nay, so you can tak ’im, it’s only down a few side streets,” she said. “Tak him on t’ way in,” she shouted at Arnold. “Leave him there. Ah’ll see to t’ milking and t’ hens tonight.”

  Hannah looked at Arnold who was now in the driving-seat with his back to this little drama, but he simply said, “Aye, right-ho.”

  “So that’ll be one return to York and back, and one to York only, for ’im,” Mrs Owens ordered her tickets.

  “Are you leaving him?” Hannah asked.

  “Might as w
ell,” said Mrs Owens. “’E’s nobbut a nuisance about the spot like this, huffing and sighing from morning ‘til night, and Ah shall ’ave his hens ti feed and eggs to collect, then there’s t’ cows to muck out and milk . . .’e’s as well off in ’ospital oot o’ my road.”

  The subject of this discussion sat and said nothing as he gazed out of the window of Arnold’s coach, his injured leg sticking into the aisle and his broom standing like a sentinel as he clung to it.

  “Do you think he’s broken his leg?” Hannah asked as she spun the handle of her ticket-machine.

  “Aye, Ah reckon so,” said Mrs Owens. “There was a mighty crack when ’e landed and his foot wobbled a bit. So Ah made ’im keeps ’is welly on, and then ’e couldn’t walk on it cos his foot end went all floppy. After a day or two like that, we reckoned it was brokken. So Ah thowt we’d better get him seen to.”

  “When did it happen?” asked Hannah aghast.

  “Thursday or Friday last week it would be. Ah’ve not ’ad a day’s work out of him since, so Ah thowt Ah’d better tak ’im to ’ospital.”

  We overheard this curious exchange, but the placid Arnold simply drove on and collected more people along the route. In York, he diverted his bus from its journey and drove through some side streets until his bus full of people arrived at the Casualty Department of York City Hospital.

  There, a repeat performance occurred as Mrs Owens, with help from several passengers, including Arnold, Hannah and myself, manipulated Kenneth and his brush off the bus. Once he was established on his feet outside, Mrs Owens pointed to a sign which announced, ‘Casualty Department’.

  “In there,” she ordered Kenneth and got back on to the bus.

  “Aren’t you staying?” asked Hannah.

  “Ah am not!” said the redoubtable lady. “’E’s old enough to fend for ’imself and Ah’ve no time to fuss over a thing like that. Ah’ve got work to do in town. So come on, Arnold, let’s be off,” and she made her way to a seat.