CONSTABLE IN DISGUISE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 9)

by NICHOLAS RHEA

  ‘Was the house locked up when you arrived?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, but we have a spare key.’

  ‘And where will the other key be, assuming it is not lying in this poor fellow’s pockets?’

  ‘I expect the removal men will have used it. They’ll bring it to the office in due course . . . They sometimes get it from the outgoing owner and lock up after themselves . . . We ask them to take charge of the keys, you see. We don’t like outgoing owners keeping them . . . for security, you know. Some have been known to let themselves back in to collect things they thought the removal men had left behind . . . very thoughtless . . . illegal anyway . . .’

  ‘Who are the removal men?’ I asked in an effort to stop his waffling.

  ‘Lapsley and Power,’ he said. ‘From York.’

  ‘And where was the furniture going?’

  ‘To York, to a bungalow Mr Clough had bought — through us, I might add.’

  ‘Well, Mr Walters, this chap is as dead as a dodo, and the smell’s going to get worse before too long, so we’d better get him shifted, hadn’t we?’

  ‘Er, well, yes, I suppose so. Do you want me to give you a lift with him?’

  ‘Thanks, but no. There are things to do first. I’ll have to get a doctor in to certify death, and if possible to state the cause of death. And then we’ll see about getting this chap moved somewhere. Where can we put him, Mr Walters? We can hardly stand him in a corner to look lively, can we? Or pretend he’s the gasman who’s come to check the fittings. He’s about as lively as some officials I’ve come across. And we can’t have him littering the floor when folks want to put the carpets down, can we?’

  ‘Er, no, well, I suppose not.’ By now, poor Mr Walters was very worried and kept referring to his watch.

  Leaving him with the corpse, I went to the cottage next door and spoke to a lady. Yes, she knew Mr Clough very well, and her description fitted the man upstairs. I did not ask her to come and look at him; I felt we could identify him quite easily by other means, perhaps via his doctor. The neighbour said his medical practitioner was Dr Craven of Eltering, and she added that the old man had been under treatment for some weeks. I returned to Clough’s cottage and used the telephone, which had not been cut off, to call Dr Craven. Fortunately he was available and would come immediately. We waited, with me puzzling about Mr Clough’s furniture, and the unhappy Mr Walters worrying if his new owners would arrive to find the corpse still in their bedroom.

  I wondered what the legal situation was if the owner of a property remained on the premises after completion of the purchase, albeit in the form of a corpse. Could a corpse be a trespasser? Certainly he could not be prosecuted, but could his relatives be held responsible for his refusal to move out at the correct time? Was there any negligence here? It was an area of civil law that did not come within the scope of police work, fortunately.

  During my musings, Dr Craven arrived. He examined the corpse, said it was Mr Clough and announced he was prepared to certify the death as being of natural causes, a heart failure, he affirmed. He’d been treating Mr Clough for heart problems, and he could make the formal identification that we required. The old man was a widower with no family, but he had relations in York.

  This matter settled, I rang Eltering Police Office and asked for the shell to be driven around in the van — the shell was a plastic coffin which we used for moving bodies. The van arrived, driven by PC Gregory, and I helped him to lift the remains of Mr Clough into the shell. We replaced the lid and as our van, with Mr Clough on board, turned away from the premises, I saw the approach of a small green Ford Anglia containing a man and woman.

  ‘Oh, dear, here they are . . .’ said Mr Walters. ‘I do hope nothing will be said. We don’t want a back word to be given at this stage, good heavens no . . .’

  ‘Mum’s the word,’ I said. ‘But I’d open the windows if I were you, Mr Walters, to let some fresh air in. He was starting to get a bit ripe. You could always blame someone’s dirty socks, I suppose. Well, I’ll be off now.’

  I left the house and walked back to the police station, knowing we would have to trace Mr Clough’s relations in order to arrange a funeral. They would probably be waiting at his new house with the kettle on, and I would ask a York police officer to call there with the sad news, but fortunately, as his death was due to natural causes, there would be no post-mortem and no inquest.

  But where was the furniture from the house, and how did poor old Clough come to be lying on the bare floor? I rang the removal firm, Lapsley & Power, and asked if the men who had removed his furniture had returned. I was told, ‘No, they’re still unloading at York.’

  It was estimated they would return to base around 7 p.m., and so I decided I must interview them. At 7 p.m. I drove to their office and waited. They were fairly prompt, because they pulled their pantechnicon into the yard at ten past seven. They garaged the huge lorry and went into the office to book off, and so I walked in behind them. They were a pair of men in their forties, each about five feet six inches tall and rather solidly built. They were like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I thought, one sporting a bushy black moustache and the other having his untidy hair long, straggly and probably unwashed.

  ‘Now then,’ I said, ‘I’m D/PC Rhea from Eltering. Can I have a brief word?’

  ‘We’re supposed to finish at seven,’ said Tweedledum.

  ‘We’re working over now,’ said Tweedledee. ‘The boss doesn’t like paying overtime, ‘specially on Saturdays . . .’

  ‘It won’t take a minute.’ I stood before them as they both stared at me. ‘Now, did you shift the furniture from High Forest Terrace today? A Mr Clough’s house?’

  ‘We did. 14 High Forest Terrace to 27 Henson Green Lane, York. Full house contents. Here, this is the key to the Clough job. We leave it here,’ and Tweedledum plonked it in a tray on the desk, clearly proud of his firm’s system for such things.

  ‘Did you come across anything odd at Clough’s house?’

  They looked at each other, frowning, and then Tweedledee said, ‘No, nowt really. No winding staircase. No narrow passages. No trouble at all, no wardrobe that wouldn’t come downstairs, no iron-framed pianos, no fish-tanks full of guppies. No carpets nailed down. No, no problems. It was an ordinary job, really. Cheap stuff, most of it. Nowt very good, I’d say, no mirrors or marble washstands worth smashing . . .’

  I found this an odd interview, to say the least, for I was sure the body must have been there as they worked. I knew I must ask the direct question.

  ‘And Mr Clough? Was he there?’

  ‘There was a chap there, yes.’

  ‘Where was he? What was he doing?’ I asked.

  Tweedledum responded. ‘He was upstairs on t’bed. Dead, I reckon. We tried to rouse him, but he wouldn’t have any of it, so we thought he must have passed away.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ I asked.

  ‘Laid him on t’floor while we shifted his bed. Rolled him over to shift the mat we’d put him on, and left him there. He’d got the stuff ready, mind, pots and pans packed in boxes, ornaments in tea-chests and such like. He’d done a fair job of packing; that’s what I said at the time, didn’t I? Many younger folks would have done a lot worse . . . some can’t pack for toffee . . . anyroad, it wasn’t a long job, not as it would have been if we’d had to pack right from the start.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell anybody — about Mr Clough, I mean?’

  They looked at one another as if this was a stupid question. ‘Nay, lad, that was nowt to do with us.’ Tweedledee acted as spokesman now. ‘We were there to shift furniture, not to do t’undertaker’s job. T’only problem was finding somewhere to put him while we demolished his bed, but he was no trouble really. We got finished on time.’

  ‘But don’t you think you should have called the doctor or someone?’

  ‘He was dead. There was nowt a doctor could do,’ said Tweedledee. ‘Besides, our boss says we’ve not to get involved in things that don’t
concern us. Our job is to shift furniture and to make sure it’s shifted on time, with no overtime. Very particular is our boss about suchlike.’

  Tweedledum then added his wisdom: ‘If we did all t’things folks ask us while we’re moving stuff, we’d never be finished. One woman wanted us to help paper t’ceiling, and a feller once asked if I’d help him fix his leaking toilet basin . . . so our boss says never do other folk’s jobs. See to your own, he says . . . so shifting bodies is not our job, Mr Rhea. That’s for t’undertaker, so we didn’t get involved. We had a timetable to keep, you see, and there’s no time to go chasing folks and ordering coffins and things when you’ve got to get loaded up and unpacked in t’same day.’

  I took a statement from them and was satisfied in my own mind that poor old Mr Clough had packed his belongings the previous night and afterwards had simply passed away on his bed. He had not locked up that night, and these characters had simply let themselves in that morning to go about their work. And so they had, without letting a dead body interrupt their tight timetable.

  I left them. I was amazed that they could ignore such a thing, and I wondered if they’d claim overtime from their boss for the time they spent with me.

  I also wondered what they would have done if Mr Clough had been lying there in his coffin with the lid shut. I reckon they’d have moved him to his new house in York.

  If the behaviour of those removal men seems bizarre, I can support it with a similar tale from a village on the moors.

  I was working one Thursday morning at Eltering Police Station when a call came from a hiker. He was ringing from a telephone kiosk at Briggsby and sounded panic-stricken. I happened to be near the phone in the police station when it rang, and as PC Rogers was dealing with a motorist at the counter, I answered.

  ‘Eltering Police,’ I said.

  ‘Hello?’ the voice sounded full of anxiety. ‘Hello? Oh, is that the police?’

  ‘Detective PC Rhea speaking,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Oh, thank God for that! Look, I’m ringing from a kiosk at Briggsby. You know it?’

  ‘I do,’ I said, for it was on my own rural beat.

  ‘There’s a body in the church,’ he gasped. ‘Dead . . .’

  ‘Maybe there’s going to be a funeral,’ I tried to soothe him. ‘Bodies are taken into church before the funeral . . .’

  ‘In coffins, yes, but this one is lying on one of the pews. Near the front. He’s got a notice on him saying, “Pray for the soul of Mr Aiden Bradley”.’

  ‘Is it a joke of some kind?’ I asked. ‘Is someone playing a joke on you?’

  ‘Look, Officer, I know a dead body when I see one. I’m a tutor in first aid, and I am a responsible person. If you want to check, my name is Welham, George Welham, and I live at Moorways, Albion Road, Middlesbrough.’

  ‘Point taken, Mr Welham. I’ll come straight away. Will you wait? I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  I told John Rogers where I was going and what the call had alleged, and he chuckled. He thought it was some kind of village prank, a joke against the verger or the vicar, but logged it in our occurrence book.

  I drove out to Briggsby, a pretty community high on the moors. It comprises a handful of cottages, one or two farms and a tiny parish church which perches on a small patch of rising ground. I eased to a halt outside and saw a man, in full hiking gear, waiting for me. His rucksack stood on the wall of the graveyard. I could see the relief in his face as I stepped from the car. I introduced myself.

  ‘This is a most unlikely story,’ I said. ‘Sorry if I sounded full of disbelief . . .’

  ‘I think I’d have done the same!’ he smiled. ‘I’ve been back inside once or twice, just to convince myself, but he’s still there. He is dead, Officer; he is not pretending; he is not asleep, and I don’t think the notice is a joke of any sort.’

  George Welham was a tall, slim man in his thirties; he wore heavy hiking boots, thick tweed trousers and a warm red sweater.

  ‘Show me,’ I invited.

  He led me into the dim interior and we walked in silence towards the altar. At the front of the pews, he halted and pointed to the first pew on the left.

  And there, as he had stated, was the body of an elderly man. He was fully clothed in a dark suit and was lying on the pew with his feet towards the aisle. His hands were crossed upon his chest. The solid backrest of the pew shielded him from view, and even when one was sitting in the second pew, he was almost out of sight; I wondered how long he had been here. A congregation could assemble without realising he was lying here, unless anyone wanted to sit beside him. He could have been here for ages . . . but I felt not. Decomposition had not yet set in, although he was exuding a bit of a pong. As Welham had mentioned on the telephone, there was a handwritten notice on his chest, held secure beneath his hands, and it read, ‘Pray for the soul of Mr Aiden Bradley.’

  I felt his hands and face; he was cold, and rigor mortis had set in. He was as dead as the proverbial dodo. I asked Mr Welham a few pertinent questions, such as the time he had found him, whether he had moved him or called a doctor. He had done neither, and I then allowed him to leave. The problem of Mr Aiden Bradley was now mine. I searched his pockets for something by which to confirm his likely identity but, apart from a few coins, a comb and a handkerchief, there was nothing.

  There were the usual formalities to arrange, such as certification of death, but how had the man come to be here and who had placed the notice on his chest? I did not know Mr Bradley and felt he was not a local man.

  I decided to visit the adjoining farm to begin my enquiries, and to use their telephone to call a doctor and to arrange for the shell to be brought from Eltering.

  ‘Bradley?’ responded Joe Crawford, the farmer who lived next door to the church. ‘Nivver ’eard of ’im. He’s not a local, I’ll tell thoo that for nowt.’

  ‘You’ve no vicar here, have you?’ I asked.

  ‘Nay, lad, he comes in fre’ Crampton. Covers Crampton, Briggsby and Gelderslack parishes. ’E lives in Crampton.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll have a word with him. Does anybody in the village have a key for the church?’

  ‘Aye, awd Mrs Dodson at Forge Cottage. She’s t’cleaner.’

  I explained the problem, but it didn’t seem to worry Joe Crawford; as he said, ‘Yon choch ’as a few bodies in it iwery year, Mr Rhea, so another ’un isn’t owt to shout about.’

  I called Dr McGee, who had to travel from Elsinby, and in the meantime I went to see awd Mrs Dodson. She was a lady in her eighties who had been church cleaner for more than sixty years.

  ‘I’d like to borrow your key for the church.’ I spoke loudly, noticing the hearing-aid unit strapped to her belt. ‘I might have to lock it until we’ve investigated a matter.’

  ‘Summat wrang, is there?’ she shouted at me.

  ‘There’s a dead man in church.’ I knew I would have trouble explaining the matter in detail. ‘We might have to seal the church until we’ve investigated his death.’

  ‘I hope he hasn’t made a mess,’ she bellowed. ‘I swept out last week. I should ’ave been in this morning, but my brush head fell off.’

  ‘It’s a Mr Bradley, I think,’ I told her.

  ‘He rents that cottage at the end of Green Lane.’ The words rang in my ears. ‘He comes for weekends and holidays.’

  That explained why I did not know him.

  ‘Where from?’ I asked. ‘Do you know? Has he any family?’

  ‘Bradford,’ she said. ‘He’s a retired wool merchant. I clean for him, an’ all. After I do the church, I do his cottage, but my brush head’s fallen off . . .’

  ‘I’ll fix it,’ I said.

  She brought it to me, together with a hammer and a box of nails, and I set about securing the brush head to the shaft. As I hammered in the nail, she said, ‘Ah’ve had yon brush for thirty-five years, and all Ah’ve had for it is three new heads and two new shafts.’

  ‘Really?’ I wondered if this was a kind of jo
ke, but she sounded serious and proud of her brush.

  ‘Brushes were made to last in them days,’ she beamed.

  ‘Did you go to the church this morning?’ I asked her as I finished hammering the nail through the hole in the head.

  ‘No,’ she hollered. ‘Thursdays is my day, but because that head fell off . . .’

  ‘So who would go in this morning?’

  ‘The vicar,’ she boomed. ‘He has his own key. He has a service on Thursday mornings, ten o’clock. Not many folks go, mind, not like they used to. Mr Bradley allus went if he was staying here . . .’

  ‘I’ll wait at the church for the doctor,’ I told her. ‘And then I’ll take Mr Bradley away to the mortuary. If anybody comes asking about him, relations mebbe, tell them to get in touch with me at Eltering Police Station. Rhea is the name. Then I’ll lock the church and bring you the key; don’t unlock it until I tell you. I’ll probably ring later today, when we know whether this is a suspicious death.’

  ‘222,’ she barked. ‘My number.’

  ‘Thanks,’ and I left with the key in my hand.

  ‘Bye, Mr Rhea,’ she thundered as I made my way back to the church.

  Dr Archie McGee, smelling of whisky in spite of the hour, arrived and I showed him the corpse.

  ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Very dead, Nick, old son. I’ll certify that but I cannot certify the cause. He was not my patient; never seen the follow before.’

  So that meant a post-mortem. However, I thanked him and off he went. The van containing the shell arrived shortly afterwards, and we loaded Mr Bradley, complete with his request to God, and sent him on his way to the mortuary. Later I would ask Bradford police to trace his relatives and hoped his cottage would reveal an address at which we could begin; that had to be searched next. I did find an address in his bedroom at the cottage and would relay that to Bradford for enquiries to be made.

  My immediate job now was to find the vicar. I drove to his small, modern vicarage at Crampton and found him in the garden tending a border. He was hoeing out some weeds and smiled as I approached.