CONSTABLE AROUND THE GREEN a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 12)

by Nicholas Rhea

  I could examine the Perjury Act of 1911 to research those crimes where perjury could be committed when making false declarations, not on oath, and not in a court of law. That looked like using a sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut.

  Brooding over Victor’s plight, I drove home and was in a somewhat angry and subdued mood as I finished my shift. Mary had tea ready so I went upstairs to change, then came down for a few minutes with the children before eating.

  “You’re very quiet,” said Mary over the meal. “Is something wrong?”

  I told her about Victor’s plight and she sympathized with him, but did remind me that it was not my duty to interfere in cases of that kind. If the estate had seen fit to issue legal process, then that was their business, not mine. That evening, I relaxed with the children and helped Mary get them ready for bed, then said, “I think I’ll pop to the pub for a drink. I feel like a pick-me-up.”

  “You need cheering up!” she said. “But don’t take Victor’s case to heart, it’s nothing to do with you.”

  “He needs help. Anyway, how about you?” I asked. “Would you like to come? Mrs Quarry would come and baby-sit at short notice, I’m sure.”

  “No, you go, I’m finishing a dress for Elizabeth.” Mary made a lot of clothes for our children and she was an expert with a needle and sewing-machine.

  And so, shortly after nine o’clock, I walked down to the Brewer’s Arms to enjoy a couple of pints of best bitter. I enjoyed these relaxed times with the local people for the pub was the centre of information for Aidensfield and district. And as I sipped my beer, I noticed Edmund Fowler enter the pub.

  He was a freelance journalist whom I often came across in the magistrate’s court and when he saw me, he asked if I wanted a drink. I accepted a pint, making a vow to buy him one in return.

  As we chatted, with him probing for stories and me trying to avoid revealing professional secrets, I realized that Victor’s plight would make a cracking tale for the press.

  “Pint, Eddie?” I asked when he’d drained his glass.

  “Thanks.”

  I took him to a quiet corner and asked if he was interested in a good story. Naturally, he said he was. I told him about an old man who was being evicted from his family home so that it could be turned into a holiday cottage, and that the owners had wrongly claimed the house was required for another worker. Eddie Fowler recognized the potential of this tale, saying it was a story for the national papers, and so I gave him details. I did add that Lord Ashfordly had no idea of recent developments. He said he’d love to do the story and promised not to divulge my name as the source.

  On the Wednesday morning, the sorry tale of Victor Pyman was front page news in the Northern Echo, the Yorkshire Post and several national dailies. There were pictures of Victor with his animals, with photographs of his mother and father, and a quote from Mr Furnace saying that a mistake appeared to have been made.

  When I reported to Ashfordly police station on Thursday morning to rendezvous with the bailiffs, I was told that the warrant had been withdrawn. Victor would be allowed to remain in the cottage for the rest of his days.

  I was to learn that, in order to make him qualify for the tenancy in accordance with the estate’s rules, he had been offered a part-time post. Victor thus became an estate worker yet again — men like him never retire anyway.

  When Lord Ashfordly heard about the rumpus upon his return, he speedily arranged a meeting, which was designed to improve relations between his office workers and the rest of his staff. I think it worked, because the next time I went into the estate office in the course of my duty, I was offered a cup of coffee by the new estate manager.

  * * *

  Another case of reluctant departure was very different because it featured a hearse.

  A man called Angus Warriner, who lived in a small house tucked behind the main street of Aidensfield, had discovered the rotting hearse years ago.

  From time to time when I was passing on a Saturday afternoon, I would pop in to have a look at it because Angus was “Doing it up.” In fact, he’d been doing it up for years. Week by week, however, there would be a small degree of progress, perhaps a corner of metal had been meticulously shaped to replace a missing corner, a decorative piece of ironwork on the exterior had been crafted or he had completed a unit for the interior, a brass rail perhaps or a discreetly fitted light. The hearse was in a multitude of pieces spread about his garage and I wondered if it would ever be put together in one piece; Angus seemed to have no plan, apparently doing odd jobs when he felt like it and not working to an identifiable system. But he was highly confident that he would achieve his objective, which was to put the hearse back on the road in its original black and shining glory complete with brass rails, wood-lined rear interior, subdued lighting and luxurious leather upholstery.

  The story was as follows. About ten years before my arrival at Aidensfield, Angus had discovered the 1932 Austin hearse in an orchard at Lairsbeck. Complete but neglected, it was being used as a hen-house. Although it had been smothered in hen dirt and straw, the fabric had been fairly sound, if somewhat rusty in places, and Angus had persuaded the owner, a smallholder, to part with it for a modest but welcome sum.

  Over the following years, Angus had spent hours restoring the old vehicle. Not being a mechanic, he had bought books, discovered photographs of similar models, talked to hearse users of the past and had steeped himself in the history of this model. He had scoured scrapyards and old village garages in his quest for genuine spares, he had escorted coffins to the graveyard to see how the vehicle operated and in truth he had become a veritable expert on this type of hearse.

  Then, quite suddenly, the vehicle began to look like a hearse once again. From the heap of spare parts, which had gathered around the shell over the years, a Phoenix-like hearse had reappeared.

  “What do you think o’ that then, Mr Rhea?” he said to me one Saturday morning.

  “Wonderful,” I said looking around. “You’ve really worked a miracle, Angus.”

  “She’s not quite finished yet, mind. There’s bits o’ wiring to connect up, lighting to fettle, engine to get in tune and then she’ll need a complete respray and polish, but we’re getting there. She’ll be out on the road soon, that’s when I get her tracking right . . .”

  There was always something else for Angus to do on the vehicle. Each time I called, Angus had not quite finished, but there could be no doubt that, instead of a pile of scrap pieces and an old shell where hens once clucked and mucked, there was now a gleaming hearse in all its former glory.

  Now, when I called, it was standing there in his garage and then, one day in June when I popped in, I noticed that the entire garage floor was clean and empty. Everything had been swept up, the garage was tidy and in the centre, shining in the light which filtered through the windows, was the most beautiful vehicle I had ever seen. Shining black with highly polished chromium on its wheels, bumpers, windows and door handles, the interior of the rear portion was of some highly polished wood with glistening brass fittings.

  “Listen to this engine, Mr Rhea.” He opened the door and the scent of polish emerged. He pressed the starter and the engine struck up; it purred like a sewing-machine.

  “Wonderful,” I breathed. “That’s wonderful Angus, you must be a very proud man.”

  “I am, Mr Rhea, I am,” he sighed. I wondered how he was going to fill in his spare time now that the hearse was finished, but said to him, “Well, Angus, you’ll be wanting to get it taxed and insured, eh? To take it out for a drive?”

  “Nay, Mr Rhea, I’ll not do that. She’s far too good to take on t’road, I’d be frightened of rust and getting it damaged . . . she’ll stay here, safe and sound. I can polish her from time to time, you see . . .”

  And so the hearse never saw the light of day. As the months went by, I still popped in, but the hearse was now gathering dust and when Angus took up breeding cats, some of them nested in the back of the lovely vehicle.
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  Many years afterwards, long after I had left Aidensfield, I saw a report that Angus had died. I never went back into that garage, but I wondered if the old hearse was still there, full of cats and waiting for someone to come and do it up.

  4. She Who Wears the Trousers

  Lord of yourself, uncumber’d with a wife

  JOHN DRYDEN, 1613–1700

  Society, especially the male section of it, has always had to tolerate bossy, nagging and bad-tempered women. This trend continues in spite of a curious range of punishments designed to stay the whiplash of their cruel and muscular tongues.

  One such implement was the ducking-stool; this was a type of seesaw or similar device, one end of which extended over a pond or river. The scold was seated upon the end which protruded over the water while the operators controlled the other end. At the appropriate time, the unfortunate woman was lowered into the water, perhaps several times, in an attempt to stop her tongue, but there are reports of women emerging with their tongues still going at full throttle.

  A similar device was known as the cucking-stool but this was not used over water; an example of its role occurred at Leicester in 1467. It was known as “a seat of infamy where strumpets and common scolds with bare feet and head were condemned to abide the derision of those who passed by”. In Leicester’s case, it was operated by the mayor and the offending women were placed on the cucking-stool before their own doors, and then carried to the four gates of the town.

  There are reports of large spheres of bare female flesh other than heads and feet being on display, because some cucking-stools sported a large hole in the seat.

  One vicious punishment for scolds was the brank, sometimes known as the scold’s bridle or gossip’s bridle. The people of Macclesfield referred to their scold’s bridle as “a brydle for a curste queane”. The brank was a metal frame, rather like a heavy cage, which was placed over the woman’s head and locked in position. At the point where her mouth faced the framework, there was a protruding piece of metal which went into the mouth, thus effectively halting her tongue. In some cases, these tongue-like protrusions were covered with sharp spikes so that if the woman moved her tongue, she suffered severe injuries. It seems that not even this cruelty was sufficient to halt some nagging tongues.

  There were many varieties of brank, some of which are now held in museums or even in churches. One on display in Walton-on-Thames parish church bears the date 1632 and the verse:

  Chester presents Walton with a bridle

  To curb women’s tongues that talk too idle.

  In some cases, men at the receiving end of such tongues organized their own punishment for vicious wives. One example comes from the severely nagged men of Congleton in Cheshire. They installed large hooks beside their fireplaces. If their wives scolded them, they would call in the jailer, at the same time asking him to bring the town brank or scold’s bridle.

  The offending woman was then fastened to that hook for a few hours, being released only when she promised to curb her tongue. The last known public use of a brank occurred as recently as 1824 at Congleton when a woman called Ann Runcorn was prosecuted for scolding and using harsh language. She launched a tirade against the churchwardens and constables one Sunday morning, as they toured the town emptying public houses then closing them during the church service. Ann Runcorn was found guilty and the penalty said that there and then she must, “Have the town’s bridle for scolding women put upon her, and that she be led by the magistrates’ clerk through every street in the town as an example to all scolding women.”

  In some towns, scolding women were placed in the stocks or the pillory, there for bored youths to pelt them with rotten eggs or mouldy fruit, and it may be of interest to learn that the common law offence of being a common scold remained active in England until 1967 — the Criminal Law Act of 1967 abolished it. To my knowledge, it was never used during the 1960s!

  In spite of scolding being a criminal offence even while I was serving at Aidensfield, I never had occasion to place guilty ladies in the stocks or to bridle them. Even so, there were several who richly deserved some kind of preventative treatment! There were some ladies whose tongues were never still and who could deliver the most humiliating of lectures, sometimes in private and sometimes before an audience of astonished bystanders.

  Before I refer to those charming examples of the female sex, I am reminded that there are some lovely words to describe such women, including shrew, spitfire, termagant, xantippe and harridan and, in spite of the punishment meted out in the past, such ladies do continue to plague us — even after death! Happily, most gentlemen can make fun of them; this occurs especially after the tongues have been stilled by death, perhaps in deep gratitude for the sudden and blessed relief that follows. For example, there is the story of a Yorkshireman whose nagging wife died. Immediately after the funeral, he was leaving the churchyard when a crack of thunder rent the air.

  “Well,” he said to a bystander, “She’s got there.”

  In another case, this epitaph adorns a woman’s tombstone at Torryburn in Scotland:

  In this churchyard lies Eppie Coutts,

  Either here, or somewhere hereabouts,

  But where she is, none can tell

  Till Eppie rise and tell hersel’.

  The respite experienced by men upon the death of their nagging wives can perhaps be shown in the following epitaphs:

  Here lies my wife, a sad slattern and shrew,

  If I said I regretted her, I should lie too.

  Underneath this sod lies Arabella Young,

  Who on the 5th May began to hold her tongue.

  Here snug in her grave my wife doth lie,

  Now she’s at rest — and so am I.

  This spot is the sweetest I’ve seen in my life,

  It raises my flowers and covers my wife.

  And perhaps the shortest and most apt is upon a Cumberland tombstone: Tread softly — if she wakes, she’ll talk.

  Those of us blessed with reasonable wives and female relations may find it difficult to comprehend the power over meek husbands, which is so vociferously exercised by the harridans to which I have referred. Men who would journey to the frozen wastes of Siberia, who would fight for their country or rescue drowning cats from raging floodwaters, will wilt and quiver when confronted by a tongue-lashing from such a wife. If the pen is mightier than the sword, then a woman’s tongue is mightier still.

  I came across one of those husbands shortly after my arrival at Aidensfield. In reflecting upon the poor fellow, I wondered about his domestic dilemma long before I met him because he would be seen around the village wearing a permanent hangdog expression on his face as he did the shopping, ran errands and confronted people on his wife’s behalf whenever she complained about anything — which was very frequently.

  She was the sort of woman who would write to the television companies or the radio if she disagreed with the content of a program; she seemed to think that her opinion was the only one that mattered. She wrote to the newspapers, to women’s magazines, to the parish council, to Members of Parliament and even to the Prime Minister, and her letters were always of the complaining type. She never wrote to say “thank you.” But when it came to confronting those who, in her misguided opinion, had wronged her, she rarely met them face to face. She made her husband fire all her bullets. If she found a bad potato in a sack, it was her husband who had to complain to the grocer; if she bought new clothes and found a fault, it was her husband who had to ring up and grumble; if the postman was late, she made him ring the post office and even, if she objected to a television program, it was her husband who was made to ring the BBC. She wrote to them but she made him telephone them. In short, she ordered him about until he had almost abandoned any chance of having a mind of his own.

  His name was Richard Cornforth; he would be in his late forties and walked with a slight stoop, doubtless through bearing such a heavy burden all his life. His clothes always seemed to be ill-fitting,
with his jackets being too long or baggy, his trousers often being worn at half-mast and shirt collars crumpled. I’m sure his wife nagged him about his appearance, but in this, he never seemed to improve. He was never dirty or scruffy; he just looked eternally crumpled.

  Richard worked for a local brewery called Heather Ales, whose premises were at Eltering. I was never quite sure what he did, but it was something to do with supervision of the wort as the hops were added to the brew-kettle prior to boiling, the full recipe for their beers being something of a local secret. He drove to work in a smart Ford Anglia which he polished lovingly whenever he could escape from his wife’s nagging, although I had patrolled past while hearing her exhorting him to clean the ashtray, sweep the interior and make sure the windows were clean, back, front and sides. Richard was a quiet, law-abiding fellow, the sort who would excite mothering instincts in a woman rather than any sexual interest, but my links with him were few because I never had any cause to visit his home. Indeed, I kept well away.

  It was a small semi-detached house on the edge of Aidensfield with a neat garden and ceramic ornaments on the interior window-ledges. Mrs Cornforth was often to be seen outside the house, polishing the windows, sweeping the paths, washing the woodwork of the doors and keeping the exterior in pristine condition. Even though I had never been into the house, it was strongly rumoured around the village that it was unbelievably immaculate inside with never a speck of dust to be seen. It was one of those houses, whose contents glistened in the sunshine, but where, when the sun shone, the curtains were closed to prevent it fading the carpets and furniture and where stair-runners covered the carpets to prevent wear and tear.