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

  She was helping in the wing that specialized in old folks’ problems when a new auxiliary nurse arrived. She would be about seventeen and was anxious to make herself useful.

  Mary was busy with the old folks, perhaps too busy to give the nurse the guidance or help that she needed, but the youngster asked,

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Mary thought fast. “Yes, there is, Sandra,” she said. “You can clean the old folks’ teeth.”

  “Right,” said the girl, full of enthusiasm.

  But Mary was too occupied to supervise the girl as she went about her task. Unknown to Mary, Sandra had visited every one of the old folks in the various wards, about twenty-five in total, and had extracted their false teeth. These she had placed in a bucket which she had then taken to a washroom; she had then set about scrubbing all the teeth with a nail-brush.

  When Mary went into the room, she found Sandra with the bucket and the sets of cleaned teeth grinning from the draining-board. Those awaiting attention were still in the bucket, like a lot of grinning pink lobsters.

  “What’s happening, Sandra?” Mary asked.

  “I’m cleaning the old folks’ teeth, like you said,” was the innocent response.

  “And how do you know which teeth belong to which person?” smiled Mary.

  The expression on the girl’s face said everything. Sandra hadn’t a clue where to replace each of the sets of gnashers but Mary thought she should learn a lesson. She made Sandra take the cleaned teeth back to the wards to try to find the owners. Some of the patients might recognize their own, but many would not and so the task would be one of trial and error, of fitting and testing, of chewing and whistling.

  It took ages. But when Sandra had finished, and when the old folks were wondering why their teeth weren’t quite so comfortable as they had been, Sandra had a set left over.

  “I’ve got a set left, Mrs Rhea.” She looked bewildered. “I’m so sorry . . . I just didn’t think.”

  “Have they all got a set of teeth?” Mary asked.

  “Yes, I’ve been round them all again and again, they’ve all got teeth in.”

  At that moment, Dr Brownlee, the consultant, came into the ward. “Mary,” he called to my wife. “Do a check will you? Somebody’s removed a set of dentures from the corpse in the mortuary. We’re doing an inventory of his personal belongings. See if you can find them, will you?”

  “Sandra?” called Mary.

  10. Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

  Kindled a flame I still deplore

  Words from a riddle

  in Lady’s Magazine,

  June 1762

  Throughout history, there have been people whose activities upon this earth have left overwhelming disaster in their wake — we can mention modern ones such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin and Robert Maxwell as well as umpteen socialist heads of state and would-be financial wizards. Lower down the scale, there have been several incompetent do-it-yourself fanatics of personal acquaintance whose efforts to repair houses have succeeded only in damaging them, and others of lesser fame such as the holidaymaker on a canal boat who left open the lock-gates which caused the escaping waters to flood a village, and those who leave cars parked on hills without setting the hand-brake.

  The activities of some disaster-merchants rarely reach the headlines, however, and I’m sure that some do sincerely try to do well in their span on this earth — it’s just that they fail in their grandiose plans and leave others to pick up the proverbial pieces or clean up the resultant mess. Many try only to please themselves as they pursue a selfish life of leisure and financial trickery and leave behind a trail of suffering victims. In some cases, the police become aware of the problems thus created.

  John George Crossfield was such a disaster-merchant. I had never met him until I came across him late one afternoon on the moors above Aidensfield, and it is the background circumstances of that meeting that I shall now relate. I learned of his past activities after my first meeting with him — his life and crimes were well documented in the files of several police forces.

  John George was a womanizer of considerable talent. Smooth-tongued, well-dressed, with expensive tastes and a flair for showmanship, he could charm the pants off any lady with his stories of life in exotic places, his relationships with famous people and the massive wealth he had at this disposal. But it was all talk — he had no wealth, he did not even own a house or a car and lived expensively on borrowed money which was never repaid. He ‘bought’ cars without ever paying for them, he lived in expensive hotels and left without paying his bills, he charmed money out of gullible women with whom he went on holiday under the pretext of marrying them upon their return and he tried several times to start businesses, all of which failed miserably after incurring colossal debts. But he had what is known as a silver tongue and could talk his way out of most predicaments. There were times, it seemed, that he actually believed his own claims.

  From the viewpoint of his lady victims, there is no doubt he was handsome in appearance and a worthy companion at socially acceptable events.

  In his late thirties, John George kept himself very fit by lots of exercise and he maintained his good looks by persuading rich ladies to accompany him (and to pay for him) on regular trips to the Mediterranean where he acquired fine tans and expensive clothes at their expense.

  Not quite six feet tall, he was well-built with an athletic body and had a splendid head of beautifully groomed jet-black hair, splendid white teeth and velvety dark brown eyes which could charm a woman off her bar stool in a matter of seconds. When God had issued good looks, John George must have been first in the queue. He had the lithe form of a Spanish matador, but the morals of a tom cat and the expensive tastes of an Arabian sheikh.

  John George drove fast cars (which he never paid for) and even claimed to have a yacht moored near Southampton which he used for cruising around the Greek islands. We were to learn that he had ‘hired’ the yacht from a very wealthy friend who had fallen for his charms and believed his stories. He had followed this lifestyle for many years, usually avoiding prosecution for fraud because none of his lady companions wished to make a formal complaint. Some even paid off his debts but his method of thanking them was to leave them alone as he concentrated upon yet another female conquest or dubious business deal.

  Then he met Yvonne Patricia Carlton-Kinross, a lady of aristocratic background with financial interests in several Texan oil wells and property on Manhattan Island, New York. She was tall and lithe, a honey blonde in her early thirties with an exquisite figure and a penchant for fast cars and expensive jewels. She was, in fact, a qualified doctor who travelled the world lecturing on feminine medical problems. It was while staying at one of Harrogate’s finest hotels that she encountered John George who, after buying her an expensive cocktail at the bar, promptly launched into his lady-killing playboy routine.

  He displayed his gold-plated cigarette-case, his expensive cufflinks and said he had just come home after concluding a successful business deal in Sydney, Australia, hinting that he had bought a top Australian newspaper group.

  But Yvonne was oblivious to his charm. She studiously ignored all his attempts to woo her, albeit letting him buy her drinks and dinner, and the outcome was that, before the week was out, John George fell helplessly in love with Yvonne. He had never fallen truly in love before; it was a new experience for him which was aggravated by the fact that Yvonne was not in the least impressed by his bravura or extravagant claims.

  The effect was devastating. John George tried to woo her, he tried to get her into bed, he later tried to follow her around the country on her English tour, but she refused to succumb to his considerable charm. She agreed to be friends, but nothing more.

  John George worked very hard upon this new challenge; he bought her meals, he took her to the theatre, he even took her to Ascot, Wimbledon and Henley and, more unusually, he actually paid for all their outings. But as a reward for all his efforts
, he received nothing more than a polite ‘Thank you’, some light praise for giving her a lovely outing, followed by a tiny peck on the cheek.

  At long last, it seemed, John George had met his match. Here was a woman whose wealth, charm and overwhelming beauty was finer than anything he had ever encountered, and yet here was one who utterly refused to be swayed by his pretentious claims. In truth, her own background was far more glittering than anything he could conjure from his imagination. She had the style, whereas, he had to admit, he had nothing but the figments of his own imagination.

  Finally, on her last night in England, he did receive an invitation to her suite at a splendid hotel in Bristol. Full of joy and romantic vision, he rushed off to buy two dozen red roses and a bottle of champagne, and duly presented himself at Room 109. Here was a promise of bliss. In the happy but preliminary moments that followed, and with the promise of yet more happiness before she left for America, Yvonne had explored his body with her sensitive hands and had then reacted with shock.

  “John George!” she had shrieked. “You’ll have to see a specialist . . .”

  “Why?” he had spluttered.

  “Your heart . . . it sounds terrible, irregular, fighting to push your blood around . . . you must never strain yourself again . . . I’m a doctor, remember; look, I’ve got a good friend in Harley Street. I’ll make an appointment . . .”

  And so, the night from which he had expected so much had ended in disaster. John George Crossfield found himself taking a taxi across London to an address in Harley Street where a pompous specialist had pronounced that John George, at the early age of thirty-six, appeared to have prematurely hardening arteries with more than a hint of something amiss with his liver. A lifespan of no more than six months awaited those with such an advanced form of arteriosclerosis and in addition, cancer of the liver or cancer of some other internal organ was hinted at. A further appointment was made at great expense for John George, and so he found himself being prodded and poked by another doctor in Hull who said he ought to be admitted to hospital for a barium meal followed by a rigorous examination by a cancer specialist. The doctor would write to John George the moment a vacancy occurred.

  All these dramas occurred within days of the departure of Yvonne to the States; she had certainly made things happen for his welfare, and all these tests and worries were crowded into the life of John George Crossfield before he arrived on the North York Moors above Aidensfield.

  As he was undergoing his various tests and medical examinations, there is little doubt he felt very much alone and very vulnerable. Dr Yvonne had returned to America but before leaving, had promised she would keep in touch. And she was as good as her word. As he waited for a date for his barium meal, he received a telegram from the USA it was signed by Yvonne and it said she would not be returning to England. She had decided to settle in America because she had been offered a teaching post at a famous medical university and, besides, she had had an offer of marriage from a professor of obstetrics. John George was devastated. With death imminent and the threat of cancer hovering as an additional death-warrant, and with his only true lady-love deserting him, John George decided to end it all. He would commit suicide.

  He managed to buy an old Ford Consul from a scrap-yard and motored to the North York Moors, to a place where he had spent an idyllic childhood. It was a pretty place high on the moors above Aidensfield where an uncle had once lived, and now, in the heat of summer, it was perfect. In the boot he had a small green tent with which to hide his shame from the world, and so he arrived at the scene of his demise, pitched his tent on an elevated patch of moorland and prepared his last supper.

  As he’d done so many times as a child, he had cooked himself some sausages and bacon over an open fire made with pieces of wood and old stalks of heather and, having enjoyed his final meal, settled down to die.

  To speed him on his way to the happy hereafter, he had taken a large quantity of sleeping tablets; having taken what he thought was sufficient to send him into oblivion, he crept into his tent to shield his dying body from the sight of passers-by, then lay down in his sleeping-bag, zipped it up and waited for the end. He reckoned that if anyone did pass by this lonely place, they would not invade the privacy of the small green tent and so he would be allowed to die in peace and his body would remain upon the moors for a long, long time. As he crept inside, the evening sun was setting in the west.

  In fact, John George, had chosen well. The location was a place that few, if any, people would pass during the average course of a year of two. It was remote, it was hidden in the depths of a cleft in the moors and it was well away from all the more popular footpaths. His body might lie there, undiscovered, for years.

  But in preparing so well for his departure, John George had forgotten to put out his fire. It was some distance from his tent and as the sticks were reduced to glowing embers, a stiff north-easterly breeze arose while the sun was setting. As John George lay down to pass from this world to the next, so the breeze strengthened and it began to fan the dying embers into tiny flames. Some pieces of burning ash were blown from the fire and settled in the tinder-dry heather and bracken until the inevitable happened. A potentially devastating moor fire was ignited.

  The keen breeze fanned the tiny flames into larger ones which, in seconds, gained a hold on the dry grass, heather and bracken and within minutes, a patch of moorland close to John George’s tent was ablaze. But the breeze was blowing from behind the tent, carrying the fire away from it; within twenty minutes, the flames were racing through the heather and bracken as they were fanned by the stiffening breeze, and a huge pall of black, grey and white smoke began to gather in the sky.

  Had the wind been a westerly, John George would have been roasted alive, but because it was blowing off the sea, his inert body knew nothing of the inferno being created only yards away. But every puff of wind created the blaze further from the silent tent and within half an hour the tent was out of danger but the sky above was filled with thick dark smoke.

  A moorland gamekeeper, checking the season’s grouse chicks, noticed the pall of smoke over Whinbush Moor and instantly assessed the danger. He hurried to a telephone and raised the alarm, and very soon a host of practised beaters and volunteers, plus the fire brigade from Strensford, turned out to fight the flames. They knew that if the fire burned deep into the peat which carpeted the moors, it would burn for months. The peat is up to thirty feet deep in places, and a fire can smoulder in those depths for months before breaking out again to sweep across the dry moorland. In fighting a moorland fire, speed is vital, but the volunteers knew their job.

  Like the others, I received the alarm call and hurried to the location in my mini-van, parking it among the other emergency vehicles in a safe place. I found myself on the southern edge of the fire and, after arming myself with a beater, a long shaft with a flat blade at the end, I began to beat the advancing flames in an attempt to put them out. It was a hot, smelly, perspiring task and as one flame succumbed to my efforts, other tongues would break out as the fire was fanned by the ever-present wind. I did not count the numbers who were trying to beat out the flames, but there were hundreds and every one of us knew that we must conquer the blaze because it was relentlessly advancing towards Gelderslack.

  That remote moorland village stands literally upon the edge of the moor and if we did not extinguish the fire before it reached the village, it could destroy some of the cottages; indeed, some have thatched roofs and so, as we worked, we prayed that the breeze would drop and that the sultry summer conditions would produce a thunder-storm. A thorough soaking of thundery rain would be a true godsend.

  As we tried to beat out the flames, an advance party set off across the moor to dig out a wide barrier of heather by using an earth-moving machine, thus creating a wide band of bare peat between the fire and Gelderslack. Without the surface heather and bracken, the advancing flames would have more difficulty in gaining a hold.

  A drystone wall in the p
ath of the flames was another means of halting its advance but it was impossible to build such a wall in the time available. Likewise, there was no time to demolish any of the local walls with an earth-moving machine and to transport the stones into the path of the flames. As always, the fire brigade, well trained in dealing with moorland fires, was at the forefront of the battle and, fortunately, able to make use of a moorland stream for its water supply. Five small tenders had managed to gain access to the advancing front and so a fine battle was being fought.

  Then I saw one of the volunteers racing through the blackened moorland towards me, gesticulating and shouting. I could not hear his words due to the crackle of flames and the noise of our activity, but hurried towards him. It was Jack Lewis, a farmer from High Garth.

  “Mr Rhea, Mr Rhea,” he coughed with the action of the smoke. “There’s a chap in a tent ovver t’brow, out like light, seems ti me t’fire started hard by his tent.”

  “Is he dead?” I asked.

  “Nay,” he tried to get his breath. “He’s unconscious, I reckon. He’s in a badly way, mind, he needs attention.”

  “I’ll come,” I said.

  And that was when I found John George Crossfield. At that moment, of course, I had no idea who he was or why he had chosen to attempt suicide, but a quick inspection showed me the awful pallor of his skin and his deep, slow breathing.

  Closer examination revealed that his pulse was very slow and weak, and I found an empty bottle of sleeping tablets on the floor of his tent.

  “Hospital, Jack,” I said. “Immediately. Barbiturate overdose if I’m not mistaken. Can you help me to carry him to my van?”

  Picking up the empty bottle for the hospital’s reference, I gave the casualty the fireman’s lift across the moor with Jack doing likewise for part of the way and between us we reached my parked van. I hoped that our jerking movements would help keep him alive — one of the first aid treatments in cases of barbiturate overdose is to try to keep the patient awake or even to make them vomit. But this fellow was in a deep stupor although not yet at coma stage.