Constable at the Gate (A Constable Nick Mystery Book 20)

by Rhea, Nicholas

  He did add, though, that he was unsure how much petrol the car contained. He had not filled the tank for several days, and had not checked the gauge this morning. If it was nearly empty, the old man might run out of fuel somewhere and be stranded. I said I would bear that in mind — if he was not located by teatime, I could revive interest by suggesting the car had been abandoned somewhere, having run out of fuel.

  Having done what I could at the farm, including my own careful search of the house, outbuildings and nearby lanes or fields, I left the premises and first checked all his usual haunts in Aidensfield — the shop, post office, pub, churchyard where his wife was buried, friends’ homes, but old Mr Chesterfield had not been seen this morning. Then I called at the garage and learned he had filled up the car — and he’d put the cost on his son’s account. So he had a car and a full tank of petrol!

  “Did he say where he was going?” I asked Edwin, the Aidensfield garage owner.

  “He said he was having a day out,” responded Edwin. “He didn’t say where.”

  “And did he look all right? Not ill? No glazed look about him?”

  “No, he looked perfectly all right to me,” he assured me. “He had some luggage in the car and the radio was going full blast. He looked very happy, Nick, I’d say. And he seemed really pleased he was having a day out.”

  “He did say a day out? Not a holiday or a weekend away?”

  “No, day out. That’s what he said when he signed the chit. He was having a day out, those were his exact words.”

  “What time did he call in?” I asked.

  “Can’t say for sure, Nick, but not long ago. Less than an hour, I’d say.”

  “Thanks, Edwin,” I said.

  I was now convinced that old Mr Chesterfield was on his way to Scarborough, just like he had done in the past. I could imagine he was re-enacting one of his happy outings when he had taken time off from his busy farming schedule to spend a day at Scarborough with his wife. I went to my house and rang Alan at the farm to update him and then rang Ashfordly police to ask for a close search of other villages in the Ashfordly area. If Mr Chesterfield was anywhere in the countryside which was policed by Ashfordly Section, we would trace him.

  But we didn’t.

  The only consolation so far as Alan was concerned, was that no traffic accidents had been reported, no old men had been admitted to local hospitals suffering from loss of memory or other ailments and injuries, and his own car had not been found empty and abandoned anywhere. This suggested that old Mr Chesterfield was still aboard and driving it.

  After my own search produced nothing I could sense the anguish being suffered by Alan Chesterfield. I knew he would be frustrated at not being able to involve himself actively in the hunt for his missing father, and yet, from past experience, I knew that the only hope lay in some police officer coming across the old character and his car. In that sense, a lot of luck was involved — missing car and searching police officer had to be in the right place at the right time, otherwise they would miss one another.

  I did know that, where old folks are concerned, the police do make a special effort to ensure their safety. I had every faith in my colleagues. But by teatime, there was still no sign of old Mr Chesterfield or the car. Both Ashfordly police and the force control room maintained contact with me, providing regular updates on their activities which I relayed to Alan by telephone. Sadly, they were all negative. I continued to patrol the Aidensfield area, extending my search to out-of-the-way places and old haunts of Vincent, even dating back to his courting days thanks to information from his son, but he was not at any of those locations. He seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  The next problem was the onset of darkness and with it, a chilling of the atmosphere as night set in. If the old man had got lost or if his car had broken down in some remote place, he’d have to spend the night in the cold and although a car does offer some protection against the weather, it is not a very satisfactory place in which to spend a chilly night.

  I went up to the farm to see Alan, chiefly to reassure him that the police were doing everything possible — they’d arranged several special visits to the seafront at Scarborough, checking the carparks and streets for the car. They even sent an officer around the hotels and some of the more popular boarding houses but Vincent Chesterfield was not among their guests and his car was not in their carparks. I did my best to reassure Alan that his father was safe — we’d have known if he’d been involved in an accident or had collapsed or had entered hospital, but by this time Alan was almost distraught. As I sat with him in his farmhouse kitchen, a car pulled up outside.

  “That’ll be Jenny back,” he said upon hearing the engine. “She’s about due. She said she’d get a lift from the village when she got back. God knows what I’ll tell her — she told me to keep an eye on Dad, and look what’s happened… a lost dad and a lost day’s work…”

  The kitchen door opened to admit someone, but it wasn’t Jenny. It was old Mr Chesterfield and he was clutching an armful of items he’d brought in from the car.

  “Dad!” there was a mixture of relief and anger in Alan’s voice as he rose to his feet. “Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried sick… there’s been a search, the police, the villagers, Mr Rhea… everybody.”

  “I had a day out,” he said quite calmly. “A lovely day out just like I used to do. I don’t have to get your permission to have a day out, do I, Alan? I am a grown man, you know, and I’m not senile.”

  “Have you any idea of the alarm you’ve caused?”

  “Can you help me unload the car?” smiled Mr Chesterfield, totally ignoring his son’s protests. “I did have a nice picnic lunch.”

  “What can I do?” Alan looked at me with exasperation all over his face. “What can I do with the silly old buffer?”

  “Where did you go?” I asked Mr Chesterfield.

  “It was just like the old days,” he said. “I went through all the lanes, all the byways and little villages, looking at fields and farms and cows and sheep, making notes, comparing them with my own farm, you know, like I used to do. Farmers do like to see how other farmers are going about things. You learn from them that’s better than you. And there’s some fine buildings out there, Alan, big modern barns and some nice dry stone walling but there’s a chap over by Eltering has no idea about harvesting and another chap has let his field get full of poppies; they’re a bit late, I reckon, getting harvested. There’s some ploughing now and I saw a fox over by Brantsford, near that water-splash…”

  “So you didn’t go to Scarborough?” interrupted Alan.

  “Well, I intended going, but there was so much to see on the way, and I had a cup of tea with such a nice lady at a farm over by Slemmington who keeps some Highland cattle I was looking at, and when I popped into Eltering I thought the sheep weren’t up to scratch.”

  “Mr Chesterfield,” I said, “if you want to have a day out, I’m sure Alan would never object, but you must tell him where you are going and what time you’ll come back. That’s only fair to him and Jenny — and to me and my colleagues. We’ve spent a lot of time and money looking for you today.”

  “If I’d asked him if I could go by myself, he’d have said ‘no’,” retorted the old man. “So I decided, on the spur of the moment, to have a day out. I can do that without asking anyone, can’t I? I am not a child, Mr Rhea. I am not senile. So if I want to go out, I shall go, without asking permission of anybody. And I’ll come back, like I have today.”

  “All right, but can I ask you to let Alan know when you decide to go?” I put to him. “That isn’t asking permission to go, it’s saying you are going, so we’re not looking all over Yorkshire for you.”

  He looked at me steadily and then at Alan, and said, “Sorry, Alan. I’m not used to asking permission to do things… but I will tell you in the future, if I decide to have a day out. I promise.”

  “Thanks Dad,” and Alan stepped forward to put an arm aro
und his father, the first show of emotion I had ever witnessed in him. “Come on, let’s get that car unpacked before Jenny gets home, otherwise we’ll both be in bother!”

  As the old man pottered upstairs with some of the things he had already brought in, Alan said to me, “Sorry about all this, Nick, but I was worried about him.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You did the right thing. I’ll tell our people that he has returned safe and sound but I think we’ve all learned something from this.”

  “Have we?”

  “Well, I wonder if your dad has ever been allowed out on his own in recent times? Maybe he should be given more freedom… not less. And he has shown two things to us today.”

  “What are they?” Alan asked.

  “That he knows his way home, and that he regards this place as his home. I think both are very important.”

  “Yes, they are. You’re right. Thanks Nick.”

  “I’ll go and leave you two to work something out,” I said, and as I left, I heard a car coming along the track towards the farm. Jenny was being brought home, and I wondered what they would tell her. But it was nothing to do with me, not any more.

  *

  The other old gentleman to whom I referred at the beginning of this chapter adopted an equally dramatic way of drawing attention to his plight and, like old Mr Chesterfield, he kept disappearing from home. But in addition to his disappearing act, he had another trick in his repertoire, a very expensive one.

  He was called Jacob Bolton and in his younger days, he had owned a highly successful transport business, specialising in furniture removal but undertaking the long-distance carriage of other heavy goods. Jacob, a very shrewd businessman, had built his business from scratch, starting with an old second-hand lorry. He had bought others as his business improved, quickly moving to new vehicles when he could afford it and eventually, he had a huge fleet of the most modern of heavy goods vehicles. There is no doubt he had made a lot of money but he had earned it. Before retiring, he had handed the running of the business to his two sons and only daughter, then after a period as chairman of the company, he had retired to leave them with that responsibility. The business, and the worries of running it, were now theirs. That had been his ambition as a young, hard-working entrepreneur — to establish his business so soundly and with such efficiency that it would support all his family when he decided to retire. And so it did.

  His children were equally as efficient and hard-working as their father had been, with the Harrowby based Bolton Transport being the recognised leader in its field. In his retirement, Jacob and his wife, Betty, had sold their home at Harrowby and had come to live at Aidensfield. They bought a large stone-built detached house on the outskirts of the village.

  It overlooked the dale and boasted a large garden which he and his wife tended; there were two greenhouses and a conservatory, with privet hedges, a goldfish pond and extensive lawns. The fine and spacious interior with some oak-panelled rooms was furnished with antiques and oil paintings and he had two cars in the garage, a beautiful Jaguar and a solid Rover. In many ways, the life of Mr and Mrs Bolton seemed to be perfect — after a hard and successful business career, they were enjoying retirement to the full. Then Betty Bolton died. Quite unexpectedly she suffered a massive heart attack and was dead before she reached hospital. Jacob was devastated and for a few months afterwards, seemed to live the life of a recluse, but in time the wounds healed and he reappeared, sometimes popping into the pub for a few whiskies which he enjoyed with his cigars, or else going off to one or other of the racecourses which graced North Riding of Yorkshire. For a man in his early eighties, he led an active and busy social life, even if he was alone.

  But, I was to learn, his private life was one of utter solitude and loneliness. When he went into his fine house, he had no one to visit him. No one called on him. Following Betty’s death, his interest in the house began to wane and soon the garden was overgrown. The house began to appear neglected. It needed a coat or two of paint and although Jacob was unable to perform those chores in person, he did have the money to pay others. But he did not do that. He let himself go, as the locals put it. Whenever he appeared in public, his clothing looked unkempt, his hair was untidy and his fine cars were always dirty. Money was not a problem, however.

  He always had a pocket full of £1 and £5 notes and he paid cash for most of his purchases in the shop, garage or pub. He never ran up debts and was regarded as an ideal customer by all the Aidensfield businesses.

  And then he disappeared. It was Gilbert Kingston, the postman from Elsinby, who raised the alarm. Due to changes in the postal delivery service, Gilbert now delivered mail in both Elsinby and Aidensfield and at half-past eight one morning, he hurried to my door.

  “Nick,” he said, “I’m worried about old Jacob. All his doors and windows are standing open, his Jag’s gone from the garage, and he’s nowhere in the place. I shouted and had a look around, but he’s gone. It’s deserted.”

  “I’ll come and have a look,” I assured him.

  Jacob’s home was only a five-minute walk from the police house and, with Gilbert accompanying me, I soon arrived. I found the front door standing wide open with the ground-floor windows of the lounge and dining room also open. The garage doors were also standing wide with an empty space where his sky-blue Jaguar was normally parked. The immediate impression was that Jacob had left with tremendous haste, but policemen tend to be very cautious about superficial appearances.

  “I’ll need to look around the house and outbuildings,” I said to Gilbert. “Garden too, anywhere he might be. He could have been attacked and had his car stolen, or he might have had a brainstorm of some kind. I’d like you to accompany me.”

  Together, we searched the entire house and grounds but there was no sign of Jacob. On the kitchen table, there was a plate bearing some crumbs of toast and a mug containing the remnants of coffee; when I felt the electric kettle, it was still warm.

  “He hasn’t been gone very long,” I told Gilbert.

  “He’s never left the house open like this before,” the postman told me. “He often used to tell me if he was going off for the day, and when he did go away, he always locked up.”

  “I’ll call his sons,” I said. “They might know where he’s gone.”

  To save time, I used Jacob’s own telephone and rang Bolton Transport at Harrowby. After identifying myself, I asked for either of the sons or Jacob’s daughter. My call was put through to Kenneth Bolton who was already in his office. I explained what had happened and asked if he had any idea where his father might have gone, or why he would rush out of the house and leave the doors and windows standing open.

  Kenneth responded but there seemed little concern in his voice, “Sorry, no, Mr Rhea. It’s most uncharacteristic of him to do that. He did ring yesterday and gave no hint of any problems; he sounded his usual self, a bit grumpy but quite sensible. He’ll have run out of tea or coffee or something. Have you tried the shops?”

  “Not yet, I’m speaking from his house; we’ve just discovered his absence. If he has gone out and if he isn’t at the shops or in the village, where might he be? Any ideas?” I asked him.

  “I haven’t a clue,” he responded.

  I tried again. “What I mean is — if he’s got a problem of some kind and has gone to think it over, where would he go?”

  “The only problem he’s had in recent years is the death of my mother,” Kenneth explained. “He was devastated by that. I don’t think he’s fully recovered in spite of the good show he puts on for us all. So if he has gone anywhere to cry or be miserable, then it would be somewhere that meant a lot to both of them.”

  “Any suggestions?” I got the impression I was having to drag this information out of Kenneth Bolton.

  “It’s difficult to say,” he sighed. “They did their courting on the moors; he had a bike then. He and mum would cycle from here up Sutton Bank and look at the view from the top, he often talked about that. She
did, too. They’d sit and look down on Lake Gormire. And Byland Abbey… Rievaulx Abbey, they’d cycle there. They were their favourite places… Look, Mr Rhea, what happens next? Will there be publicity?”

  “Well, first, I shall search Aidensfield and the locality. I’ll check at the shops and garage, and all the usual places, including the doctor and nurse. But if no one knows where he is, I’ll have to consider a full-scale search with calls to the local hospitals. That might attract publicity. In fact, publicity could help to trace him if he’s wandered off.”

  “Shall I come over to Aidensfield?” he suggested. “I could be there in, say, forty minutes.”

  “Give me time to check around the village first,” I advised him. “That’ll take me an hour or so. I’ll ring you back with the outcome of that, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “You don’t think he’s had burglars or been kidnapped, do you?” Kenneth was clearly starting to think the worst. “He does keep a lot of cash on him and in the house.”

  “It doesn’t look as though the house has been searched by villains,” I assured him. “It has all the hallmarks of a hurried departure.”

  “He’ll have run out of cigars or something!” said Kenneth.

  “Let’s hope that’s all it is,” I responded. “But I’ll ring in about an hour.”

  Gilbert and I left the house, closing the doors and windows without locking them. Gilbert said he would continue his rounds but at the same time ask if anyone had seen Jacob this morning, and I said I would begin my enquiries in Aidensfield. I did have a little success — Jacob Bolton had gone into the shop shortly after eight this morning to buy a box of cigars and some matches. The shopkeeper, Joe Steel, had noticed the Jaguar parked outside with the engine running, and had assumed Jacob was hurrying off to a meeting of some kind. But Jacob had not commented upon his intended destination; carrying his newly purchased cigars and matches, he’d returned to his car and driven off with a roar of its distinctive sounding exhaust. Joe said that, in his opinion, Jacob was in good health and fine spirits. Certainly, he was not depressed or showing signs of worry or illness. Although I continued my questions within the village, no one else had noticed Jacob’s departure.