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

  But while we had been watching Zachariah, two of the three scones had vanished.

  “That bloody Alfred!” cursed Claude Jeremiah. “That dog has no manners, eating guests’ food . . . Alfred!” and he went off to remonstrate with the thieving dog which had had the sense to hide itself.

  One scone remained on the oil drum, but even as Claude vanished, an amazing thing happened. A cheeky and very determined grey squirrel had sneaked from the surrounding trees. It had apparently seen the scone, for it leapt on to the drum and picked up the delicacy in its forelegs, using its tiny hands to grip the food. And then, with the utmost cheek, it began to eat it. Had it also taken the others? I wondered if Alfred was being falsely accused of a crime, then Zachariah acted like lightning. In a split second, he whirled around with his catapult, loosed a clayie at the squirrel and hit it somewhere in its midrib area. The animal screeched in agony, dropped the scone and scuttled away.

  Zachariah laughed. “Bloody thing,” he said. “It got my boiled egg yesterday, little varmints they are.”

  I knew that grey squirrels were considerably adept at stealing, being one of our more persistent pests, but I noted that Zachariah did not kill it. He had aimed to bruise, not to kill.

  “You didn’t kill him?” I said.

  “Nay, Constable, I like the little sods! Just taught him a lesson, bruised his ribs, but he’ll be back. He nicked a bit of my roast beef from my Sunday dinner last time I was here . . .”

  He launched into a hilarious account of coping with thieving squirrels at the Greengrass abode, but I had my duty to do.

  “Claude,” I said when he returned without finding Alfred. “I think Alfred’s innocent, just ask Zachariah.”

  “I’m not so sure, Mr Rhea, I know Alfred, you see . . .”

  “Well, anyway, thanks for the tea, very nice — and thanks to Zachariah for making it. But I’m here on duty . . .”

  “I didn’t think it was a social call, Mr Rhea, not that you’re not welcome here any time, of course, but . . .”

  “Ted Barnes called this morning,” I told the cousins. “Lord Ashfordly’s gamekeeper. He said somebody had given his pheasants a bashing last night.”

  “I’ve no idea who that could be, Mr Rhea,” said Claude.

  “A catapult was used to kill the birds as they roosted in the trees,” I said. “No shots were fired from guns, no other devices used. Just the silence of a catapult, Zachariah. The skill of a top-rate catapult expert, it was the epitome of marksmanship combined with the stealth of a natural poacher . . .” I watched their faces as I rambled on.

  Zachariah looked at Claude and Claude looked at Zachariah.

  “We’d never do anything like that, Mr Rhea,” they chorused in unison.

  “If I decide to examine each of your vans for feathers or blood, do you reckon I’ll find any?” I asked, looking across the yard towards the two battered vehicles.

  They said nothing, so I continued, “Or if I search the house, might I find a plucked pheasant or two, or some nice specimens hanging for later consumption?”

  “One pheasant is just like any other pheasant, Mr Rhea.” Claude Jeremiah spoke with confidence, knowing how difficult it was to identify such creatures to the satisfaction of a court.

  He was saying that if there was pheasant in the house, no one could prove it was precisely the one which had come from Lord Ashfordly’s estate.

  “In this case you’re wrong, Claude,” I told him. “Because if you have any pheasants which were killed last night, they’ll all have broken skulls, injuries caused by a catapulted clay marble and not a gun of any sort. So they will be identifiable, you see, no other pheasants will have those injuries, Claude . . .”

  “Aye, well, there’s none like that here, Mr Rhea, honest, you can look.”

  “Thanks, I will,” and I did, but found nothing. They had clearly sold their ill-gotten gains very quickly and thus there was no evidence of their activities. I could not proceed with a charge of poaching.

  “Now,” I said, turning to Zachariah. “Your van. It’s not taxed, I see . . .”

  “It’s not on the road, Constable,” beamed Zachariah Solomon. “It doesn’t need to be taxed when it’s not on the road . . .”

  “But it will have to go on to the road to leave here,” I said. “And I’ll be waiting, then I can check its insurance and your driving licence, and test it for faults in its brakes, lights, steering. In fact, in its present condition, with all that rust, it looks as if it might have dangerous parts and accessories too . . .”

  I turned to leave and as a parting shot, said, “Claude, I’m going to visit the hotels and cafes in the area, just to see if they’ve bought any pheasants from you lately, pheasants with broken skulls and free from gunshot. If they have, I’ll know where they came from, won’t I?”

  The veiled threat was enough. Early next morning, Zachariah Solomon Knapweed left his cousin’s house and I did not catch him driving his old van because I was on late duty. But there was no more catapult vandalism in and around Aidensfield, nor did Ashfordly estate lose any more pheasants to the doubtful skills of Claude Jeremiah’s catapult-wielding cousin.

  But the family’s legacy lived on — I think it was probably Alfred who baffled the vicar during a garden party. The reverend gentleman had obtained a plate of sandwiches and buns but had been interrupted before he could devour them. Being a good-mannered cove, he held the plate low and to one side while engaged in a riveting conversation with a lady parishioner about family bias in the cleaning rota. By the time she’d gone, so had his sandwiches and buns.

  They had simply vanished from the plate and had not been spilled on to the ground; there is every reason to suspect it was the action of Alfred who was seen, at the material time, licking his lips and wagging his tail at the unsuspecting vicar.

  But proof of his guilt would be difficult to obtain. Greengrass had trained the dog well.

  * * *

  One of the major events in Aidensfield was the annual show.

  It was held in a field behind the church and consisted of livestock displays, pony classes, competitions involving flowers, fruit, vegetables, home-made produce, knitting and assorted crafts, showjumping demonstrations, music from the Aidensfield and District String Orchestra, sports for the children with tests of strength for the menfolk such as tossing the sheaf or racing with a sack of potatoes upon their shoulders. In addition, there was a whole panoply of associated events and the gathering was held on the last Saturday of August.

  In general, the morning session, which began at 10 a.m. was utilized for the judging of all competition entries and while this was being done, there were livestock classes, jumping and pony events. Members of the public were permitted entry from noon and, as usual, a large crowd was expected.

  For several years, the opening ceremony had been a rather unusual one. It consisted of a remarkable demonstration of sheep-shearing by the renowned Hodgson brothers. Each was a sheep-shearing champion in his own right and they had the memorable names of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Their father had been Peter Hodgson, himself a noted sheep farmer from the moors, and he had trained and encouraged his sons to emulate and improve upon his own skills. It was the boast of each man that he could completely shear one sheep by hand in the time it took for Aidensfield parish church clock to strike twelve. It was a demonstration of speed and skill which was hard to beat and exciting to watch.

  To illustrate the speed of his achievement, a world record for hand-shearing sheep was set by a New Zealander in 1976, when, using a solo blade, he hand-sheared 353 lambs in nine hours which is just over thirty-nine animals every hour, or one sheep at roughly every minute and a half. That is a magnificent example of speed, skill and, above all, stamina. I never used a stop-watch to calculate how long it took Aidensfield church clock to strike twelve but I reckon it was around one minute.

  On the occasion of show day, therefore, I was on duty at the entrance to the showfield, making sure the gathering
traffic did not obstruct the village street, when I learned that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were about to perform the opening ceremony.

  Traffic was light and I decided to abandon my post to watch them. Everyone wanted to watch because, sooner or later, one of the brothers would fail this very public test; their ages ranged from forty-two (Matthew), forty (Mark), thirty-eight (Luke) to thirty-five (John), and it was felt that age would soon slow them down, especially Matthew. The entire village wondered when one or other would fail to shear his animal in the allotted time. In some ways, it was like watching a motor race in the hope one of the cars would crash . . .

  The brothers were arranged on an elevated platform, each with a sheep held ready for shearing as everyone awaited the first strike of the clock. Each man had his shearer plugged in and switched on, the blades purring like the shears in a gents’ hairdressers. As the tension mounted, I found myself standing next to Jonathan Newbould, a new member of the show committee. I would hear from him afterwards, but meanwhile people were looking at their watches and checking them against the large clock which overlooked the ground. The pointers inched their way towards noon and then we heard the first strike. Instantly the brothers set to work cheered on by the crowd and, once again, as the final stroke sounded there were four expertly and cleanly shaven ewes. Everyone applauded and the show was formally declared open by the President.

  But it was Jonathan Newbould who said to me, “I could make those men an automatic set of shears; with them, one man could then shear all four sheep at the same time.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “I’m an inventor you know, just moved to the village, Newbould’s the name, Jonathan.”

  “PC Rhea.” I introduced myself and shook his hand. “The village constable. So what do you invent?”

  “Anything,” he said. “Machinery, kitchen utensils, tools, labour-saving gadgets, gardening equipment

  “Is there a living in that?” I asked, turning to face my new contact.

  He was a mild-looking, rather slightly-built man in rather formal clothes, a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie, and would be in his mid-forties. Balding with dark hair above his ears and around his neck, he wore round spectacles and had a small, trim moustache.

  “Not at the moment,” he said. “I work for the district council, in the accounts department, but I invent things in my spare time. I’m hoping, of course, for the big one, something I can patent and which will then earn me a fortune and make me secure for life. I almost did it with a self-clean windscreen wiper . . .”

  “What happened to it?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “It was too heavy for the wiper arms of most cars and kept falling off. I’m working on a lighter version now and some of the car manufacturers have expressed an interest. The snag is that the self-cleaning mechanism is so heavy, you see . . .”

  “Doesn’t the action of rainwater clean them anyway?” I asked him.

  “Well, yes, to a point, but I’m sure that standards could be improved. I’d like one that would clean greasy screens, you see, and remove dead flies in summer . . . that’s my aim, Mr Rhea. What a boon to motorists!”

  “And the idea you’ve just come up with, the mechanized multi-sheep-shearer. That won’t be easy to construct, surely, because all sheep are different shapes, if only slightly so?”

  “Challenges are there to be overcome, Mr Rhea. I’m sure it will work, and if it does, it might sell in Australia and New Zealand, and other sheep rearing countries, Mr Rhea. You must look beyond the shores of our island, you know, when aiming for the top. Yes, I must work on that idea.” And off he went.

  I was to discover that Jonathan Newbould lived in a neat semi-detached house overlooking Aidensfield village green and he had a shed at the bottom of the garden. There, each night, he worked on his inventions and tested them on his friends or wife, sometimes even creating interest in mass manufacturers. I was also to learn, however, that none of them worked. Jonathan invented the kind of thing that one sees advertised in cheap magazines and some Sunday papers, as well as free catalogues. They are gadgets which promise to make life easier and which gullible folks buy, only to find that there is nowhere to store the thing when it is not being used, or that it is simpler to continue in older, well-tested routines.

  In spite of his long record of making utterly useless things, his wife thought he was a genius. Daisy Newbould firmly believed in his ideas and provided every possible support for Jonathan and his inventions. She knew that, one day, he would break into the big time and would become a renowned inventor, a household name like Hoover or Biro.

  But I had my doubts. One of his ideas was a mechanical scraper for new potatoes. You placed the potato inside, pressed a button and an electric motor set in motion some whirling wire brushes which, so Jonathan believed, would speedily and effectively remove the light skin from any size of new potato. It did — but it also removed most of the flesh too, so you ended with a potato the size of a pea. Also, it would only clean one at a time, so it would take ages to clean a panful.

  Fluorescent bedroom slippers were another idea, so you could find them in the dark, but people complained that the light perpetually emitted from the slippers kept them awake. He applied the same logic to a chamber pot, for lots of older country folk still kept a pot under the bed for night-time use. But his idea did not catch on — the potential users had no desire to pee into something that shone up at them from the darkness like a large green eye. Another Jonathan gem was a spirit level, which clipped to the shaft of a golf club to inform the player of the gradient of a slope. Several tests showed that it adversely affected one’s swing and besides, it was difficult to read while preparing a shot.

  Jonathan produced a toothbrush that would clean the top and lower sets of teeth back and front simultaneously, an idea he reckoned would speed up teeth cleaning, and he made a stomach muscle toner too. This was a round clock-shaped device aimed at people who had no time to exercise. It was fitted with an internal large spring which operated a rubber buffer. When wound up like a clock, it had to be strapped to the stomach and when the catch was released, the buffer pummelled the stomach muscles. The idea was that it toned up soft and flabby bellies, but it only served to produce lots of bruises and stomach-ache. Similar contraptions to pound one’s arms, legs, thighs and buttocks produced yet more bruises.

  He made toe-nail-cutting scissors for left-handed people, a portable deckchair for hikers, a perforated tablespoon which would lift peas from the pan and drain them at the same time, a chopper which would cut and dice carrots in one movement and a cutting device for clipping to a violin bow so that broken strands could be quickly removed by the player.

  He made a tray for carrying pot-plants in cars, a spring-handled wash-leather for cleaning high windows, a device to aid one-handed people to wring out dishcloths and face flannels, a circular polisher for cleaning the insides of teapots, a folding walking-stick with umbrella combined, a crumb catcher for people, who ate biscuits in bed and an outdoor doormat, which switched on a light whenever anyone trod on it.

  He produced fitments to fasten to vacuum cleaners so they would clean drains, remove dog hairs from carpets and blow-dry ladies’ hairstyles, and a cutting tool for men aged thirty-six and over to clear hairs from their noses and ears.

  He made the world’s biggest fountain-pen, which could write in red, blue, black, green and purple ink, the world’s smallest umbrella, a hammock for cats and an expanding ring for holding open paper bags. Spring-loaded clothes-lines, battery-operated salt and pepper shakers and a smoke-free ashtray were among his inventions. Overboots for keeping wellingtons clean, a pedometer for housewives and musical cricket stumps were projects currently in action as was a self-watering hanging basket. I liked his toilet-paper sheet counter, a device which had to be fixed to a toilet-roll with the counting mechanism being set to monitor the use of every sheet. It told you when the roll was about to run out, something most of us can do with our eyes, and he sugges
ted to me that my police whistle might include an automatic dog whistle so that each time I blew for assistance, I’d be surrounded by a lot of dogs which would warn off any villains who might attack me.

  For years after I left Aidensfield, I scrutinized the Sunday papers, magazines and catalogues of innovations, wondering which of the bizarre range of “useful” gadgets had been invented by Jonathan. So far as I know, he never did invent anything which was genuinely useful, nor, to my knowledge, did he ever complete his multi-sheep-shearer.

  In spite of his failure, I did contribute to one of his prototype inventions and my part in his career came when he asked if he could borrow my old police bicycle.

  “What do you want it for?” was my first question.

  “I’ve invented an automatic gear-changing mechanism for pedal cycles,” he said with pride. “It means there will be no more gear changing by hand — as you climb an incline, so the gears will change automatically to suit the gradient. And when you cruise or go down a hill, it will select the correct gear, automatically. Just like the automatic gear-box on expensive cars.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” I said. “But why do you want to use my old bike?”

  “Prestige,” he beamed. “If I fit my gear to your bike and give demonstrations to people like Raleigh or Hercules, they might be willing to build the system into special cycles for police officers. That will be a good advertisement for my idea — you know how people buy the same cars that the police use, well, that logic would apply to my automatic cycle gear.”

  “But the police have stopped using pedal cycles,” I told him. “We’re motorized now.”

  “Some officers still use them to travel to work.” He was undaunted. “And I thought, as you don’t often use your official cycle now, I might be allowed to fit it with my gear system. I’d test it on your bike. I haven’t got a bike of my own, you see, and Daisy is sure this will be a world-beater.”