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

  “Bastards,” said George.

  As I looked around, I realized that, to reach this out-of-the-way dumping place, the vehicle must have driven along a lane which ran below Beecham Hall; the Hall was perched on the hilltop and the lane skirted the hill directly beneath it to emerge in Thackerston. I decided to ask the householders along the route if they had heard or seen any activity during the night. And the most obvious house at which to begin was Beecham Hall.

  When I rang the bell, Greville answered. He was dressed in casual slacks, a T-shirt and sandals and smiled a welcome.

  “Hello, PC Rhea, come in,” and he held the huge door open as I stepped into the rather dark entrance hall. As I followed him into the depths of the building in very dim light, I was vaguely aware of a cluttered route, but he said, “In there,” and pointed to a door on my right.

  “Excuse the mess,” he said as he pushed open the door. “Find a chair if you can. I’ll make some coffee. You’ve time for one?”

  “Yes,” I said, realizing he’d not given me time to explain the purpose of my visit, then as he went off to the kitchen, I entered the room, conscious only of its overwhelming darkness. The thick curtains were drawn across the bay window to omit most of the day’s sunshine, but as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I saw the room was piled high with rubbish which had all the appearances of being dumped and not arranged in any way.

  It was like a tatty second-hand dealer’s junk-shop — cheap old furniture, tables, picture-frames, mangles, curtains, rugs and clothing, chairs, beds and old mattresses . . . there was a total lack of order in the room, everything was piled high, one thing being thrown on top of another without any attempt to stack it neatly. There were old cardboard boxes full of cracked crockery, mirrors, books galore, old newspapers and magazines. But this was not good stuff, it was rubbish, junk, cheap cast-offs.

  As I stood in the midst of this offal, I looked around for a chair, but the only ones were battered old dining-chairs which had seen better days in some small kitchen. I dragged one from beneath a table, removed a pile of old newspapers from it, dusted the seat with an old sweater I found on the floor, and sat upon it to examine the room with more care. As I waited, Greville came in with two mugs of coffee, handed me one and pulled himself a chair from the mess.

  “Sorry about the mess,” he said. “I keep meaning to tidy up but, well, you know how it is.”

  I murmured something, which I hoped was a show of understanding but he made no attempt to explain the reason for this room full of junk.

  “So what brings the constabulary here?” he smiled. Unlike his house, he was clean and well groomed, even when relaxing.

  I told him about the raid on the pub and how I thought the thieves had driven along the lane below his house sometime during the night, then asked if he’d heard anything.

  “Come through to the dining-room,” he said. “It overlooks that lane. Bring your coffee. Yes, I did hear a car last night, or in the early hours.”

  The dining-room, at the other side of the dusty, cramped hall, was just as bad as the lounge, littered almost to the ceiling with further loads of utter junk.

  The heavy curtains were drawn too but I could distinguish the piles of clutter, a repetition of what was stored in the lounge. He drew back a curtain and pointed.

  “Down there, Mr Rhea, you see the old barn? The track comes past it, well, I can see that view from my bedroom, directly above this room. And in the early hours, three o’clock I’d say, I did see car lights down there. I was awake, I’d got indigestion, I dined with friends last night, so I got up to take something to ease it and noticed the lights.”

  “Can you give me any idea what sort of car it was? Who was with it? Anything?”

  “Sorry, no. I heard doors banging but that’s all, then it drove off, towards Thackerston. Sorry I can’t be more precise.”

  “Thanks, Mr Beecham,” I said. “It’s a start. I’m visiting all the houses along here, to see if anyone can describe the car.”

  “I hope you find the crooks,” he said, leading me from the room. I left my coffee mug on a dusty old table in the hall, thanked him and left. Outside, the mansion looked splendid, a fine house some 250 years old with mullioned windows, a fine portico and superb views. But inside, it was no better furnished than an itinerant scrap-dealer’s caravan.

  We never traced those who had broken into the pub and I never did find out why such a wealthy, personable and generous character like Greville Beecham lived in such utter squalor.

  Many of us have heard the old joke about Queen Elizabeth I who said she made sure she had a bath at least once a month, whether or not she needed one. There were people like that in and around Aidensfield. One was an old fellow who always wore his flat cap, even when sitting in the bath and even when washing his face at other times. In fact, his wife swore he never actually washed his face — he just rubbed it with dry hands and made appropriate washing noises with his mouth.

  Another was a fish seller who operated a weekly stall in Ashfordly on market day but who, for the rest of the week, was a chimney-sweep. He spent his week getting blacker and blacker and looked an oddity when serving fresh fish from behind his stall, for he never seemed to be clean and the combination of smells which surrounded him were extremely pungent, especially in high summer.

  It was his boast that he was so busy that he had only one night out — that was the last Saturday of every month when he attended a working men’s club in Eltering. And, in preparation, he got a bath on the Wednesday previous to that.

  But it was a bathing problem that brought hilarity, with some later sadness, to Elsinby early one summer. A lady called Sybil Cornforth lived in a bungalow behind the high street. In her late sixties, she was the widow of a former fireman and had returned to live in the village upon the death of her husband, having been born and reared here in childhood; she’d been educated in Elsinby Primary School.

  She was a jolly woman, the life and soul of any party and she had a wonderful and infectious sense of humour. She took a very active part in Elsinby WI, the Parochial Church Council and a wide range of village hall fund-raising events. She was also a leading member of the parish church choir, for she had a beautiful contralto voice and could move an audience to tears by the quality of her singing.

  Everyone loved Sybil, and she had lots of visitors and friends, including an army of nieces and nephews who lived nearby. Sybil was a very distinctive lady, however, for she must have weighed some twenty-two stone. She was truly enormous, with a multitude of chins, a back as wide as that of a carthorse, a waist the size of a fully grown cow and legs like the trunk of a centuries-old oak tree.

  She fairly waddled down the street but was always laughing and joking, making fun of her own size and chuckling at her lack of mobility. She had tried to slim but all her efforts had failed, and she made light of the fact that she could not sit in a conventional single cinema seat and that her own chairs were specially built to accommodate her broad backside and huge weight.

  Sybil’s daily routine in Elsinby was fairly well known. She would rise around 7:30 a.m., take in her milk and prepare her own breakfast. Then, around 9:30 a.m., she would potter down to the shop for her morning paper, her daily groceries and other requirements.

  While in the village, she would sometimes call on friends for coffee or visit others to discuss parish church matters or something connected with fund-raising at the village hall. She was always active, always doing something or calling somewhere, therefore she was a very regular sight around Elsinby.

  When she failed to take in her milk one morning, therefore, and then failed to appear in the shop at the expected time, there was immediate concern.

  Neighbours knocked and shouted at her door, but without response, and by ten o’clock, someone rang me. I rushed down to Elsinby to find a knot of villagers hanging about outside Sybil’s door. They burst into an anxious chatter at my approach — I noticed the full milk bottle on the doorstep as I sough
t a spokesman. John Oakley, who lived next door, came forward.

  “You’ve tried all the doors?” I asked. “Bedroom window?”

  “Aye,” he said with sadness in his voice. “Shouted through t’letter-box, hammered on t’doors, back and front, knocked on her bedroom window. Her curtains are still drawn, bedroom and front room, I fear she’s not got out o’ bed, Mr Rhea . . .”

  I knew what they were thinking. They thought Sybil had died during the night and I was now faced with a decision as to whether or not to break in. If she was still in bed, having a sleep in, it would be a gross intrusion if I smashed my way in, but surely the loud knocking and persistent shouting by her neighbours would have aroused her?

  “She never sleeps in, Mr Rhea,” said John as if reading my mind.

  “Okay, I’ll go in,” I said.

  The easiest way to break into a house, as any burglar will testify, is to smash a ground floor window close to the catch, reach in and open the window. It is then possible to climb through and so I found a stone in her garden, crashed it against the glass of her bedroom window, released the catch and hauled it open. It was a matter of a moment to climb in.

  The others waited outside, not wishing to be confronted with death and so I did not open her curtains. I left them closed as I fought my way behind them, but when I saw her bed, it was empty. It had been slept in, however, for the sheets and blankets were turned back as if someone had climbed out.

  “Sybil?” I shouted, looking on the floor beyond the bed. “Sybil? Are you there?”

  Beyond the bedroom, I heard a faint noise and went into the passage to investigate; the bathroom adjoined through one door, and there was a small toilet through another. The toilet door was open, and it was unoccupied.

  “Sybil?” I hesitated at the bathroom door, not wishing to intrude upon a lady if she was bathing, and called her name. “Sybil?”

  There was a faint response from inside, a hoarse groan almost and I identified it as a call of distress. I had to go in.

  Fortunately, she had not locked the door but when I pushed it open, I was confronted by a grotesque sight. Sybil was lying on her back in the bath, stark naked with both arms sticking up like flagpoles and both legs hanging over a tiny stool, which lay on its side under her knees. Her mountain of flesh filled the whole bath, with colossal breasts and huge wedges of stomach and thigh seeming to dominate the scene. But she was alive and her eyes were filled with a mixture of relief and embarrassment at my arrival.

  “Sybil!” I hurried to her. Her mouth was trying to tell me something but she was hoarse and no words would come. I could see what had happened. She was stuck in the bath. I was later to learn, that because of her size, she could not sit in the bath but always used a small footstool to sit upon. She filled the bath with water and sat on the stool to wash herself all over, but on this occasion, she had reached for the soap behind her and the stool had overbalanced. It had slid forward to throw her off, and she had fallen backwards into the bath, causing a huge overflow onto the bathroom floor. Her huge size and enormous weight had wedged her in, and her arms had been similarly wedged skywards so that she could not lower them. The stool had remained in the bath, under her knees, and thus she was firmly wedged in place. She couldn’t lower her arms or hands to lever herself out but had managed to dislodge the plug with one of her toes. The bathwater had drained out, fortunately, but she was very cold nonetheless.

  She had lain there since seven o’clock that morning, shouting and even singing loudly until she had lost her voice — and although she had heard the knocking and shouting, she’d been unable to attract attention to her plight.

  But all that information came later. The immediate problem for me was to get her out of the bath and to somehow preserve her modesty. I managed to remove the stool from beneath her tree-like legs, which provided some relief, then went into the bedroom and took a couple of blankets off the bed to cover her as I decided how to tackle this weighty problem.

  I unlocked the back door to tell the assembled small crowd of well-wishers that she was safe and well while explaining the problem. I then asked Jean, the wife of her neighbour John Oakley, if she would mind staying with Sybil as a form of feminine safeguard against any accusations that others might level against John and I. People did do that sort of thing — they could create wild rumours about a man or men being alone with a naked woman, even if she was gigantic and stuck in the bath and even if we were on a rescue mission.

  As Jean went into the bathroom to comfort Sybil, John and I settled down to discuss the logistics of our problem. Whatever way we examined the situation, it seemed the only way that Sybil could be extricated was by human muscle power. Mobile cranes and motor-car lifting equipment could not be utilized without knocking down the bathroom walls.

  We did consider ringing the vet who had some equipment for hoisting cattle and horses out of quagmires. Then John suggested filling the bath. He reckoned the water would add some buoyancy, however small, to the bulk of female flesh which was trapped therein and so we suggested that to Sybil, exhorting her not to try to lower her arms. We didn’t want to have to grapple with slippery bits and needed both arms to be kept dry — not that she could have lowered them anyway. They were still sticking upright like flagpoles.

  Sybil agreed to the water treatment so long as the water was warm. Jean opened the tap and ran it until warm water emerged, fitted the plug and began to fill the bath. Sybil retained her shroud which was soaked as the water rose almost to the brim, covering her legs and bubbling around the bulk which was the cause of the problem.

  “Right,” said John. “Nick, if you stand on t’edge of t’bath, on t’rim, at one side and me at t’other, against t’wall, and then we take hold of her arms, one apiece, and lift, we might shift her. If she can push against t’tap end wiv her feet at t’same time, we might git her moving . . .”

  We tried that arrangement. She was so heavy I was frightened I would pull her arm out of its socket, but she could not reach the tap end with her feet to give us extra help. We heaved, puffed and panted, shouted and hauled at those long fat arms, but she wouldn’t move.

  “If we replaced the stool to the tap end,” I suggested, “she could push against that . . .”

  The stool was placed in the bath, on its side, and Sybil said, by bending her knees, she could obtain a lot of leverage against it.

  “If we heave on your arms as you push against that stool with your feet,” I said, “We might win.”

  It worked. With an enormous heave, Sybil thrust her weight against the stool as we heaved on her arms, and with a slushing of water, the mass of flesh shifted towards the head of the bath. She was free. Gently, she edged backwards — and then knocked John.

  He tried to retain his balance in the cramped space on the edge of the bath, lost his footing and slithered into the bath, landing on top of Sybil. With a screeching of bare flesh on the enamel, Sybil shot forward again with John on board but, with legs outstretched, she halted their joint slither by planting her feet against the submerged stool. John managed to clamber off the white-shrouded, wet mass of wobbly flesh and, without any further help from us, Sybil struggled to her feet, hugging the wet sheet around her.

  But she was free. The drama was over and we left the scene of our triumph, leaving Sybil to get dressed.

  “Wait before you go, I’ll make some coffee,” she called to us, and so we went into the kitchen.

  As we waited, I thought about Jonathan Newbould (see chapter 6), the village inventor and wondered if he could make a non-slip stool which would make a secure perch for Sybil when coping with her bath. Perhaps he could fit rubber suckers to its feet? Or perhaps manufacturers of baths could produce a device for aiding large or even handicapped people to sit in comfort and safety while washing? Or would a shower-bath be more feasible for Sybil?

  Afterwards, Sybil laughed and joked with everyone about her experience, telling her friends in the village how she’d been stuck in the bath with
John Oakley. It was John who blushed when being reminded of the incident, not Sybil.

  She enjoyed a total lack of embarrassment about her predicament, making fun of her experience wherever she went, and everyone loved her a little more just for that.

  * * *

  Another example of a curious way of living involved a pair of maidenly twin sisters, the Misses Mandeville, Audrey and Rosemary. They had reached that stage of life where they did not wish anyone to know their ages but those of us with reasonable powers of observation would realize that, between them they had scored a century and perhaps a little extra.

  They were not identical in appearance, Miss Audrey being taller and slightly more slender than her sister. Each had neat greyish-brown hair, spectacles and a rather pale complexion with brown eyes and a rounded, pleasant face.

  They dressed smartly in good quality clothes, although their outfits were perhaps a little old-fashioned, and they favoured the more subdued colours such as browns, greens and greys.

  They lived in identical bungalows which had been built by their father especially for them; their neat homes stood next to each other and overlooked the village green at Slemmington. Both bungalows were built of local stone with red pantile roofs and they enjoyed delightful gardens behind beech hedges and white gates. Both bungalows were neatly painted with white woodwork and were beautifully maintained; each sister had a small Morris mini car and each enjoyed a private, if modest income as directors of the family’s ceramics business.

  Each had, in her younger days, worked for a living, Audrey being a solicitor’s clerk while Rosemary worked for the civil service. Each had retired early shortly before the death of their father because he had wanted them to become involved with the business he had founded; they were now involved in his business, although a brother was managing director, but they did live quite well, thanks to the legacy provided by their father. He had died some four or five years before my arrival at Aidensfield.