CONSTABLE
AROUND
THE
GREEN
A perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors
Constable Nick Mystery Book 12
NICHOLAS RHEA
Revised edition 2020
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
© Nicholas Rhea
First published in Great Britain 1993
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Nicholas Rhea to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover credit: Colin Williamson
www.colinwilliamsonprints.com
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ISBN 978-1-78931-519-6
Contents
1. Games Upon the Green
2. Fiends in High Places
3. Do You Really Have to Go?
4. She Who Wears the Trousers
5. Taking Care of the Pennies
6. Men of Dubious Ability
7. Ain’t Misbehaving
8. Of Creatures Beloved
9. Say That Again?
10. Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire
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GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG FOR US READERS
1. Games Upon the Green
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As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
On a simple village green
LORD ALFRED TENNYSON, 1809–92
Our poets have, on surprisingly few occasions, referred to the village green and, oddly enough, many of their references to this blissful area associate it with the playing of children. Robert Southey (1774–1843) does so in these lines:
It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door,
Was sitting in the sun.
And by him sported on the green,
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
William Blake (1757–1827) also featured youngsters when he wrote about the voices of children heard on the green. As a place of safety for children to play, the village green seemed perfect and it is not surprising that games like rounders, leapfrog, cricket and tig were played there and that the open space was used for the village fair, maypole dancing and other communal activities. Because the parents’ homes were often clustered around the green, the children would be supervised.
There is of course, the archetypal village green. This is a flat, well-tended patch of lush grass of indeterminate size in the centre of the village. Around it are the most important buildings of the community — the church, the rectory, the inn, the manor-house, the shop and an array of delightfully rural cottages, probably with thatched roofs. On the green itself, there may be some old stocks and an equally old pillory, a market cross or war memorial, a well, a maypole and even a pitch for playing cricket, football, bowls, rounders or quoits, plus a rippling stream nearby or a pond with ducks.
One vital element of a village green is that it is common land and therefore freely available to all, but in fact the nation’s greens do vary enormously in shape, size and usage. A tour of the splendid English countryside will reveal the variety of our greens, and those on the North York Moors are no exception. Here, in villages like Goathland, Lealholm or Hutton-le-Hole you will find enormous stretches of undulating grass shorn smooth by the steady munching of free-range black-faced sheep, but sadly some of the existing greens are now utilized as weekend car parks. Children of the visiting hordes now play between rows of parked vehicles while their parents snooze in the summer sun and leave behind their plastic litter and empty beer cans for the villagers to remove before the following weekend’s onslaught. Sadly, the children of the local residents are compelled to go elsewhere for their own recreation and amusement.
In the dales, the greens are perhaps smaller than those of the more elevated moorland villages. Although some are not much larger than football fields, they do serve a similar communal purpose. But not every village boasts a green — indeed, in today’s motorized society, many villages quietly congratulate themselves for not being blessed with a village green.
In these days of mass rural visiting, those villages without greens consider themselves fortunate because there is nowhere for the hordes to stop; those with village greens now suffer an awful loss of privacy from Easter until the end of October, the only compensation being that the influx of people does generate wealth for some of the more enterprising villagers and so keeps the rural economy viable. The greens of many pretty villages are therefore still being used by the public, albeit not by the residents, and this is done in a far less cheerful manner than in the past. Some visitors are very rude and intolerant of the residents’ need to go about their daily lives and work, somehow oblivious to the fact that people actually live and work in such beautiful surroundings.
Happily, however, there are still a few quiet communities well off the proverbial beaten track, in which the village green exists as it did in former times, and in which it continues its former role. One of those places is Slemmington which lies just off the southern edge of the North York Moors between Ashfordly and Eltering. Its green has all the features of a typical picture postcard setting.
The church with its tower and superb lychgate overlooks the green and all around are pretty stone cottages with red pantile roofs; a quiet stream flows through the village and it boasts mallard, teal and even swans in addition to its grayling and minnows. There is an ancient stone cross in the centre of the green and not far away, a set of stocks, which were last used less than a century ago. There is a wishing-well with a dated cupola and, at the side of the green furthest from the stream, there is a pond which also attracts a variety of ducks, swans and wild water-fowl such as moorhens and coot.
There is an ancient ford across the stream too, but one curious factor concerns the stream. Here it is called Slemmington Beck, while two miles upstream, it is Gelderslack Beck and even higher, it is Shelvingby Beck. It changes its name to take on the identity of every village through which it passes before entering the River Rye near Malton and thus this single stream has a dozen different names.
But by far the most famous of Slemmington’s attributes can also be seen on the green — it is the gigantic maypole which stands in its concrete base like a massive, slim and multi-coloured tower. It is one of the tallest maypoles in the region, rising to some 72 feet in height and tapering towards the top. The tip bears a beautiful weather-vane in the form of a running fox; this splendid piece of metalwork is a present from a for
mer blacksmith. The figure of the fox is re-gilded from time to time to keep it in pristine condition.
Painted in a range of bright colours, the maypole has been renewed several times due to the effects of weather, use and age, and the present one dates to 1987, being a gift to the village from Lord Ashfordly’s estate.
Each May Day, the village children dance around the pole having been trained since before Easter by their enthusiastic schoolteacher; the boys wear white shirts and red shorts, while the girls wear white dresses with red sleeves and collars. All wear white socks and black shoes. Their well-rehearsed repertoire of maypole dances is a charming sight and their display attracts an audience from near and far. Early in March every year, the maypole is lowered and repainted in readiness for the new season and once the pole has been re-positioned in April, the children begin their practising.
I used to enjoy my visits to Slemmington for it was always such a peaceful and friendly place with little or no crime. But the village became the scene of some curious criminal activity. Every time my patrolling took me through the village, I was reminded of that dramatic interlude; it happened shortly after I became the village constable at Aidensfield.
One bright sunny morning in early March, my telephone rang. I was seated at my desk in the office adjoining my police house and was typing a report about a minor traffic accident. I wondered who was calling at this time of morning, for it was only 8:30 a.m. I was slightly annoyed because I had wanted an early start in order to conclude some paperwork.
“Jack Lawson.” I recognized the voice at the other end of the phone. He was clerk to Slemmington Parish Council.
“Morning, Jack,” I greeted him. “What can I do for you this bright and sunny day?”
“It’s our maypole, Mr Rhea, it’s gone.”
“Gone?” I responded. “Where’s it gone?”
“Search me, but I think somebody’s nicked it.”
“Nicked it? Who would want to steal a maypole?” I asked.
“There was a lot of good wood in it, it would make a useful pile of logs, Mr Rhea.”
“But if anybody tried to cut it up and sell it for firewood, it would be recognized immediately, it was all red, white, blue, yellow and green paint,” I retorted.
“Exactly, Mr Rhea. Fresh paint an’ all. We’d just painted it for the bairns, to encourage them to practise their dancing. They’ll be right upset and it’ll take ages to find another, maypoles don’t grow on trees, you know. Anyroad, I must report it, it belongs to the whole village. I just hope you fellers can help us get it back.”
“I’ll come straight away,” I promised.
Jack also ran the village store and post office and when I arrived, his first action was to show me the empty socket on the village green. I could see wheelmarks in the soft turf; a large vehicle of some kind had obviously been used. It would be impossible to hoist the huge and weighty pole from its deep socket by manpower alone; lifting gear would have been used.
“It’s been lifted clean out of there,” he pointed to the empty hole. “Now, to shift a thing that size needs muscle, and not human muscle. Mechanical muscle, Mr Rhea, like a bloody crane or summat with a grab or lifting gear.”
“What’s it worth?” I put to him.
“Worth? Well, I mean, I can’t put value on it, can you? You can’t value a maypole.”
“But as firewood, Jack? As logs?”
“Well, you’d only get seventy or more logs out of it, that’s not a lot, not a wagon-load by any means. So chopped into logs, I reckon I’d do well to get a couple of quid.”
“Thanks,” I said, pointing out that no one in their right mind would hire or use a huge vehicle of the kind that had been so obviously necessary to move it, merely to chop up the pole to earn themselves a couple of pounds. It did not make economic sense and thieves usually stole because they wanted to make an easy profit. This theft did not seem to fit into that category and I wondered if Claude Jeremiah Greengrass was behind this crime — stealing a maypole was the sort of daft thing he would do, although I did doubt whether even he had access to the necessary lifting gear.
I examined the surrounding green for further evidence. I drew a rough diagram of the large tyre tread marks in the hope I might be able to make some plaster casts of the tracks before they deteriorated, but there was nothing else of use to me.
I interviewed Jack in his kitchen over a cup of tea and a scone and obtained the necessary statement for my crime report. It included facts such as the last time it had been seen and the time it had been missed, together with a nominal value and a note saying that no one had any authority to remove it. Next, I made a search of the village and began my enquiries. I asked if anyone had heard or seen anything odd during the night, but no one had. So far as my search was concerned, there were not many places to conceal a 72-foot-long multi-coloured maypole, but if I did not search, Sergeant Blaketon would ask why I hadn’t done so. Thus I searched behind all the local hedgerows, in the timber yards, along the banks of the stream and every other likely place. I even plodded through a copse of pine trees on the outskirts, thinking that the maypole might have been hidden upright among them.
Then in all honesty, I could report a careful search of the vicinity. I knew what Sergeant Blaketon would think — he would think it was not a theft but a prank of some kind. To be honest, I was still unsure myself; I needed either to find the pole or to find a motive for the theft. But whether it was a theft or a prank, or even a publicity stunt of some kind, it was unfair to the children. I found myself dearly wishing I could find it so that the children’s rehearsals were not unduly disrupted. I returned to Jack’s shop and told him what I had done, saying I would circulate details to all surrounding police officers and would keep him informed of any progress.
“Should I try to find a new one?” he asked, worried about the consequences if there was no maypole dancing this year.
“Let’s give it a day or two,” I said, more in hope than in realism. “If it is a joke, it’ll turn up somewhere. Those who moved it won’t want to disappoint the children.”
“I’ve called an emergency meeting of the parish council tonight,” he said. “I’ve invited the May Day committee too. What can I tell them?”
“Tell them the matter is in the hands of the police,” I suggested. “You could ask everyone to keep their eyes open for it and to help us find it. You might tell the local papers, there’s a good tale for them in this, and the publicity might just help.”
“It might persuade the thieves to cut it up an’ all,” he worried. “But, Mr Rhea, where can you hide a maypole?”
“I don’t know.” I sympathized with him in his moments of agony and promised my very best efforts to recover it. My first enquiry would be to Claude Jeremiah Greengrass.
When I walked into his untidy yard, Claude Jeremiah was busy sawing wood and, at my approach, his scruffy dog, Alfred, loped away into hiding; at first, I regarded that as a dual ominous sign but quickly saw that the timber was a pile of old railway sleepers and not the maypole. Alfred the lurcher, I felt, had an instinctive desire to hide from police officers, perhaps due to his breeding or else because of his dubious partnership in various illicit poaching expeditions.
As Alfred scrutinized me from an outbuilding with his hairy grey face poking through a gap in the rotting woodwork, Claude Jeremiah was reducing the sleepers to bundles of kindling which he’d sell around the district. He did not see or hear my approach due to his noisy actions and this gave me a brief opportunity to look around his buildings for signs of the maypole. But there was none.
“Morning, Claude,” I shouted above the noise of his saw.
He stopped work. His face dropped when he saw me standing behind him and said, “It wasn’t me, Mr Rhea, definitely not me.”
“What wasn’t you?” I asked.
“Whatever you’re here for, whatever’s happened, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.”
“What have you done with the Slemmington mayp
ole?” I decided to pull his leg a little, a way of getting my own back for the hassle he caused me from time to time.
“Me? I’ve done nowt with any maypole, Mr Rhea.”
“Not even chopped it up for firewood?” I eyed his pile of cut timber.
“Railway sleepers, Mr Rhea, all creosoted, a job lot, they’re closing lines and selling ’em off cheap. They make real good kindling.”
“I believe you, many wouldn’t,” I laughed and then began to walk around his rubbish-cluttered premises, lifting lids off bins, moving old tyres and peering into sheds.
Alfred emerged and slunk into a position of safety behind his master and the pair of them followed me around with Claude Jeremiah explaining where he had obtained the objects of my pretended interest. Finally, I stopped.
“Someone’s stolen the Slemmington maypole,” I told him. “Sometime during the night. We want it back for the kids, Claude, so if you come across it during your travels, let us know, eh?”
“Right you are, Mr Rhea, yes, I’ll keep my ears open. A maypole, eh? Now there’s a thing. Fancy pinching a maypole.”
“My sentiments exactly, Claude. Who on earth would do that?”
Claude Jeremiah scratched his head and pretended to think deeply. “Somebody with a use for one, I reckon, Mr Rhea,” he grinned. “And not many folks have any use for a maypole these days, either new or second-hand.”
“So in your opinion, there’ s not a big market for second-hand maypoles, Claude?”
“Definitely not, Mr Rhea.”
“But if there was, you might be tempted?” I watched him with interest.
“Now then, Mr Rhea, that’s putting ideas where there was none. No, I’d never pinch a maypole; well, I mean, I’d never get it out of the ground, would I? I’d need heavy lifting gear which I haven’t got.”
“You could always steal a crane, Claude. Or borrow one. Now, somebody’s got it out of the ground and spirited the thing away. Even I reckon that’s beyond you, so I won’t keep you away from your honest labours any longer.”
CONSTABLE AROUND THE GREEN a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 12) Page 1
