Constable Along the Lane (A Constable Nick Mystery Book 7)

by Nicholas Rhea

  With the tiny child sitting in the front seat of my car and holding her cheek against the wad of cotton wool, I furiously drove the seventeen miles into Malton to the hospital where a doctor met me. In moments, my little daughter was lying on an operating table, without anaesthetic, as the doctor examined the wound and prepared to stitch it.

  “What happened to her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I had to admit. “I didn’t ask … ”

  “It’ll mend,” he said, producing a huge curved needle. I winced; I began to feel emotional at the thought of that tiny child suffering as I submitted her to this instant surgery. Margaret, God bless her, never cried and never complained. It was awful, watching her tiny frame being subjected to this treatment.

  During this work, a nurse hovered around the theatre and as the doctor began to skilfully sew the wound, she came over to me.

  “Some parents!” she said. “Look at that poor child … and you’d think they’d bring her themselves … the police get all the rotten jobs to do … Fancy you having to do this … ”

  As she ranted, it became clear that she had no idea that this was my child; the fact that I was sitting there in full police motor-cycling uniform had obviously led her into thinking I was doing my duty by protecting some neglected youngster …

  She continued her verbal onslaught against callous and thoughtless parents as the doctor continued his work on the mouth wound. Then she produced a sheet of paper.

  “Child’s name?” she asked.

  “Margaret Rhea, aged two,” I said.

  “Father’s name?”

  “Nicholas Rhea,” I watched her write down these details.

  “Address?”

  “The Police House Aidensfield,” I said.

  “No,” she threw me one of those withering glances that one expects from matrons, not nurses, “the child’s address, not yours!”

  “That is the child’s address,” I said. “She’s my child.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I had no idea … I thought … ”

  “She’ll be fine now,” the doctor had finished. “I’ve put three stitches in, they’ll wither away in time and there’ll be no mark. It’s young, clean flesh, so it will quickly mend. There’s no other injury.”

  “Thanks, Doctor,” and I carried little Margaret out to my waiting car and drove home. Other than a puffy cheek, she seemed no worse and never once complained. When she arrived home, she sat in her high chair and ate her dinner. She behaved as if nothing had happened and the wound did not appear to give her pain.

  I ate my lunch too, still upset by the trauma of seeing the doctor working so expertly and coolly upon her. “Mary,” I asked, “what happened to her?”

  “She was climbing up the shelves of the bookcase,” Mary told me. “I went into the lounge just as she got to the top — she fell off and her face hit the edge of the coal scuttle … ”

  Mary began to weep so I comforted her as, quite unabashed, Margaret continued with her meal.

  In spite of our efforts to prevent her, she continued to climb for some years afterwards, but never with such dramatic effect.

  Perhaps the funniest incident which involved both my work and my private life occurred one February morning. This is the sequence of events — my involvement came some time after the beginning of the saga, but is best to relate it from the start.

  Around one o’clock on the morning in question, my mother and father were dragged from their bed by a telephone call from the CID at York. It came at a time when there was concern about letter bombs and the detective was calling from the GPO Sorting Office.

  “Is that Mrs Rhea?” the detective asked my mother. He then provided the correct address to make sure he was speaking to the right person.

  “Yes,” answered my mother, bleary-eyed and sleepy.

  “This is York CID,” said the voice. “I’m ringing from the GPO Sorting Office at York. This is a difficult enquiry, Mrs Rhea, and I don’t want to alarm you, but are you expecting a parcel from anyone?”

  “Well,” said my mother, not yet appreciating the problem, “I might be, it’s my birthday tomorrow … er today … ”

  “Ah!” There was some relief at this response. “And you have no enemies? You, or your husband are not in sensitive work, are you? It’s not the sort of work that would attract, well, a letter bomb?”

  “No … well, I don’t think so … ”

  “Well, the point is, there’s a suspicious package here and it’s addressed to you.”

  The detective took immense pains to describe his problem without being too alarmist, but it seemed that as the GPO sorters were dealing with the night’s influx of mail, one of them discovered a parcel which began to emit ticking sounds. As everyone dived for cover, the parcel was placed in a sand-filled bin designed to cope with exploding parcels. As it sat there, the entire staff of the sorting office took cover and waited for the bang. As they settled down behind whatever protection they could find, the police were called. And so the official procedures were set in motion.

  The busy task of sorting the mail came to a halt and the district’s mail was thus delayed until the CID arrived and the offending parcel was dealt with, probably by Bomb Disposal experts. One of the detectives, whom I shall call Gordon, arrived and looked at the offending object in the bin. It had now stopped ticking. Heads peeped above the counters and around walls as Gordon bravely scrutinised the parcel. Then he picked it up.

  It promptly started ticking. Everyone dived for cover.

  He threw it back into the bin and vanished below a sturdy counter. Everyone waited for it to explode, but it did not. And so it lay at peace in its protective bin as the entire staff and the police hid behind their benches. They waited for a long, long time, but nothing happened. There was no bang and it had stopped ticking.

  Gordon approached it again. The address on the parcel was legible; it bore my mother’s name, hence the morning call to her.

  “I’ve no idea what it might be,” she said. “If it is a birthday present, it might have been sent by my daughter and son-in-law in London.”

  “What do they do?” asked the detective.

  “He’s in the Metropolitan Police in London … ”

  “Then there could be risks … someone might be hitting back at him … ”

  Having elicited this information, Gordon rang Scotland Yard to check against the possibility of attacks against the police, and then rang my brother-in-law at his London home to explain the problem. But neither he nor my sister had sent the parcel. They were then asked if they knew anyone else who might have sent it; they suggested it could have come from my brother who lives in the Shetlands. He works for BP, and so there could have been some sinister links with a letter bomb.

  As a consequence, he and his family were roused about 1.30 a.m. and the questions were repeated; they had not sent a parcel. Further checks were made with the security services, but there was no known campaign against our institutions.

  My brother however, was asked if he knew who might have sent a parcel, if indeed it was a genuine parcel, then he said, “My brother at Aidensfield might have sent it. He’s a policeman too.”

  With the intrigue growing stronger, the mystery growing deeper and the mail growing further delayed, Gordon now rang me. By this time, it was around two o’clock on a chill February morning. I staggered into my cold office to take his call. At that stage, I knew nothing of the drama.

  “Nick,” he said. “It’s Gordon at York.”

  We had been at training-school together and knew one another fairly well.

  “York?” I muttered through a haze of sleepiness. “What’s happened? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

  “We have a parcel addressed to your mother,” and he patiently related the story so far. “Now, I had no idea the lady was your mother — I’ve been ringing Scotland Yard, the Shetlands, the Special Branch, GPO Security, MI5 … ”

  “Oh?” this sounded important.

&
nbsp; “So, Nick,” he asked, with a hint of exhaustion, “yesterday, did you post a parcel to your mother?”

  “No,” I said. “I sent her a card with a gift token inside. I didn’t send a parcel … it’s her birthday today, so I suppose someone … ”

  “Oh, bloody hell … ” There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone, then he said, “Hang on, I’ll have another look at it. We can’t decipher the postmark you see, and we’re worried about touching it … I’m sure it’s your mother’s name on it … ”

  But he did touch it. It was sitting in its secure bin, and he lifted it to check the postmark. It started to tick again. He dropped it back inside the bin and dived for cover as I waited on the line.

  Everyone was still under cover, but eventually he returned to the telephone, breathless.

  “God, this is awful,” he said. “The bloody thing could go off at any minute … I’m safe behind a screen here … ”

  “You’re a brave bloke to tackle it like you have,” I said.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m stupid. I’ve been to a night club for a few pints and don’t know what I’m doing really.”

  As this conversation continued, Mary appeared at my side. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you talking about your mother. Has something happened? Is she ill?”

  “No,” I said, “it’s the CID. They think someone’s sent her a bomb … ”

  Mary began to chuckle. “A parcel? Brown paper, with white string? A sticky label on the front? The address written in black ballpoint ink?”

  As she described her parcel, I relayed the words to Gordon.

  “This is the one,” he growled. “Bloody hell! What a night! The description fits. Did your wife send it, Nick? Has she sent a bomb to her mother-in-law or something?”

  “Did you send it?” I asked Mary, my feet like ice-blocks on the cold office floor.

  “Yes, why, what’s wrong?”

  I explained about the chaos in York and the terror she had inflicted upon the Post Office, the police and probably GPO Security. The whole of the region’s mail would be delayed and several sorters were close to having heart attacks.

  “It’s a pair of scissors,” she said. “A pair of electric scissors, for cutting material to make dresses.”

  My heart sank.

  “Is there a battery in?”

  “Yes, I fitted it before we posted it … ”

  And so, when pressure was applied to that parcel in certain places, the scissors began to snip within their box …

  I apologised profusely to everyone and rang my mother to wish her a happy birthday.

  Chapter 8

  The death of a dear friend would go near to make a man look sad.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

  *

  Every Autumn the children of Aidensfield waited for the donkeys to return to Lingfield Farm. These were seaside donkeys. During the summer, they spent their time on the beach at Strensford where, day after day, they patiently carried laughing children backwards and forwards along the sands. Adorned in brightly-coloured bridles bearing their names, with ribboned top-knots on their heads and neat little saddles on their backs, they had been a part of the Strensford beach scene since Victorian times.

  They worked very hard but were always models of tolerance and patience. Perhaps their gentleness was due to the fact that they were not overworked; during their working week, for example, they were subjected to conditions about their rest periods. They enjoyed one day off in every three, with three meals a day and an hour for lunch. Their working day did not exceed eight hours and they were inspected regularly by a veterinary surgeon. In some respects, their working conditions were better than those of police-officers!

  During the winter, they came inland for their holidays where they were boarded out at selected farms. Jack Sedgewick at Lingfield Farm, Aidensfield, had for years taken five of the donkeys from Strensford. As a rule, they arrived by cattle truck at the end of the summer season and remained until the Whitsuntide bank holiday. They occupied a rough, hummocky paddock where they seemed to thrive on the wealth of thistles and other vegetation which had little appeal to other beasts.

  They had a range of small outbuildings, some without doors, which served as stables. They contained plenty of hay as bedding and for food, and there was an outdoor water-trough adequately fed with spring water. Some shrub-like hawthorn trees added variety to the paddock’s undulating landscape and provided slender shelter against the winter storms.

  Jack Sedgewick, a large and kindly man, knew that his guests required regular exercise otherwise they would grow fat and lazy. This presented no problem because he encouraged local children to come along and play with his little group of donkeys. He taught the youngsters how to care for them; to make sure their feet were trimmed regularly; to coax them to their halters and to feed them with the right kind of things. Some children rode them, and a little girl even persuaded one donkey, called Lucy, to jump over a small artificial fence.

  It was very clear that the donkeys loved the children and the children loved the donkeys; indeed, there is some kind of mysterious affinity between small children and donkeys. These gentle and calm animals, with their big, soft eyes and cuddly long ears — called ‘errant wings’ by G. K. Chesterton — are so lovable. It wasn’t all smooth and jolly however. The occasional bout of stubbornness from a donkey who, for reasons best known to itself did not want to play, sometimes upset the youngsters, while a sudden session of braying made them jump with fright before dissolving into laughter. For the children, these minor upsets were lessons in themselves. For one thing, they taught the children they could not have all their own way, even with donkeys.

  One winter, Lingfield Farm accepted its usual complement of five donkeys. They were Lucy, Linda, Betty, Bonny and Fred, and it was Fred who thought he was a human being. He loved to enter the house whenever possible; he loved to nose his way into small crowds and it was not unknown for him to poke his head through the open dining-room window of the farm whenever the family was having a meal. Calm, lovable and cuddly with his thick, grey coat and distinctive black cross on his back, he was a pet and a favourite.

  Always popular with the children, he allowed them to ride him through the fields and lanes and when he got some distance from the farm, he would occasionally issue a blood-curdling braying noise, his way of checking whether any other donkey, male or female, was living nearby. The children used him in a Nativity Play at school where he stood as still as a rock and solemnly overlooked the model crib they had made. His acting was superb. From time to time, I saw Fred plodding along the lanes with his tiny charges making a fuss of him and I was pleased he provided the bairns with such pleasurable activity. These children would grow up to appreciate animals and their needs, and it was all due to their pal, Fred.

  Then Fred disappeared.

  It wasn’t difficult to imagine the anguish and concern among the children and their parents. Indeed, poor old Jack Sedgewick was most upset too. He rang me just before ten o’clock one morning in April.

  “Mr Rhea,” he said, with his voice showing traces of emotion. “Ah’ve lost yan o’ them donkeys. Fred, it is. Sometime since last night. Do you reckon ‘e could ‘ave been stolen?”

  “I’ll come down to the farm,” I assured him. To my knowledge, there had not been an outbreak of donkey thefts or moke-nappings and I couldn’t imagine who would do such a thing. My own immediate view was that Fred had probably got through an insecure gate and wandered off. I felt he would turn up in due course.

  When I arrived at Lingfield Farm, I found Jack Sedgewick and a small knot of children standing at the gate of the paddock which contained the other donkeys. The animals were standing together in a comer, watching us; if only they could talk, I thought. I halted my motorbike and parked it against a wall.

  “Good of you to come down so quick, Mr Rhea,” he said. “Fred’s gone … He was there last night … I fed him, Mr Rhea … I took his br
idle off … ”

  The children were all talking at once so I held up my hands to indicate silence.

  “Just a minute!” I laughed. “I can’t hear anybody if you all talk at once. So, Jack. You first.”

  “I found him gone,” one little girl couldn’t contain her worry.

  “Aye,” Jack confirmed. “Young Denise here came down to t’ field about half-eightish. She came to feed ‘em all, and noticed Fred wasn’t there.”

  “Was the gate open or shut, Denise?” I asked her. She would be about eleven years old.

  “Shut, Mr Rhea. It swings shut by itself.”

  I tried it. It was fastened with a hunting sneck, a type of fastening which comprised a length of wood suspended from two chains. It had a carved notch and it slotted into a bracket on the gatepost. It was easy to open when on horseback; this was done by easing it back with a riding crop, hence its name. I eased back the sneck and let the gate stand wide open, but it swung slowly shut by its own weight and the sneck slid home. The gate was then secure. For this reason, it seemed unlikely that the gate could be accidentally left open. But I knew it was not impossible. If it had been opened only sufficiently wide for a child to emerge, it might not have had the impetus or weight to latch itself properly after only a small movement.

  “Who saw him last?” was my next question.

  “We did,” came a chorus of voices.

  “Where?”

  “In the village, last night,” they told me. I asked one girl, the tallest of the group, to explain. She said half a dozen of them had taken Fred into the village for a walk and a ride.

  “Did anything happen, or did anyone say anything about him? Or to him? Can you remember?” I put to her.

  “We all took turns riding,” she said seriously. “He wasn’t upset or anything.”

  “Did anybody say anything to him? To you, maybe? About Fred? Was anyone angry or annoyed with him for anything?”

  I was trying to establish whether anyone had threatened to take the animal away either as a joke or as a serious threat. The antics of the children and Fred could have upset someone.