‘Ah, Constable Rhea,’ beamed Haldan Chance as he came towards me, wiping his hand on a rag. ‘So, what do you think of it so far?’
‘Quite remarkable,’ I had to admit. ‘Very impressive; much more impressive that I would have thought.’
‘Then that pleases me. And there have been no thefts or damage,’ he said. ‘Thanks for your attention.’
‘I had a few minutes on hand today,’ I told him, without revealing that this was my first visit. ‘So I thought I would come along to see how you were progressing.’
‘It’s a slow process,’ he said. ‘Very laborious too, tough and hard manual labour, not like painting a picture, for example. I can’t manage to manhandle the trunks, they’re far too heavy and cumbersome, so I need Mr Stone’s machinery to lift them into the holes, like they do with telegraph poles, and that costs money and time . . . but I’m getting there. This trunk is number seven. Any comments from the village?’
‘My sergeant says it looks like a bunch of bananas,’ I smiled.
‘One man I spoke to said it was like a group of stooped old folks having a chat among themselves,’ he grinned. ‘And another thought it was like a flame of some kind rising from the ground. Amazing, eh? I never cease to be amazed at the interpretations people place on my work. But that is precisely its purpose, to make people think about things.’
We talked for a few minutes, but I could see that he wanted to complete some of the base concrete work before his current supply hardened in the mixer which chugged nearby; at this closer range, the growing sculpture was truly like a building site and yet it had this remarkable effect to look so different in the eyes of individuals. I left Haldan to his curious work and returned home.
Eventually, all twelve tree trunks were in position and the site machinery was removed by Haldan. His sculpture was complete and he left without saying farewell to me. But his creation remained — from the valleys below and from all the surrounding hilltops and moorland summits, everyone could see the spectacle.
And, as Haldan had predicted, people began to trek to the summit during the summer months. They wanted to see what his sculpture was like at close quarters. Some of the visitors merely walked past while others explored the tall ring of tree trunks; some had picnics within the circle, while others used it as a place for a romantic rendezvous. Photographs were taken for private and commercial purposes while artists came to paint pictures. Within the space of a few months, the place had become a focus for all kinds of activities which were undertaken by a wide range of people, young and old, local and visitor alike. One travel writer even called the site Tree Howes Rigg instead of Three Howes Rigg, but those of us who read it wondered if it was an understandable mistake.
There is no doubt the sculpture was a success, but during the summer I had a visit from our local timber merchant, Paddy Stone.
‘You met that sculptor chap, didn’t you, Nick?’ he began, as I seated him before my desk. ‘The chap who built that thing on Three Howes. Haldan Chance.’
‘Yes, briefly,’ I agreed. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘Well, he’s not paid me for the hire of my lifting equipment. Or those tree trunks I found for him. They took me a long time, finding a dozen matching trunks . . .’
‘I’m afraid that’s a civil debt, Paddy,’ I had to tell him. ‘It’s not a police matter.’
‘Well I think the police should take an interest. I reckon he was a con merchant,’ Paddy continued. ‘I’ve had words with the National Park people because I’d heard he never paid for the holiday cottage he rented at Milthorpe while he was applying for his grants and planning permission while he was working on that tree thing. And he hasn’t paid the garage for the petrol he used in that Jag of his . . .’
And Paddy then related to me a string of unpaid debts left by Haldan Chance — petrol at the garage, food at the shop, a telephone bill at the holiday cottage, a drinks bill in the pub, the hire of a Land-rover and a tractor and trailer, hardware such as tools and cement from a builders’ merchants . . . according to Paddy, Haldan Chance had not paid for anything and yet he had received a series of grants to enable him to complete his artistic creation. That money was supposed to be sufficient to pay for his materials and other expenses and also to provide him with some payment for the work. It began to look as if this was a police matter; instead of being what we described as an unsatisfactory business transaction, Haldan’s behaviour now seemed to have the flavour of a confidence trick. If he was a confidence trickster, however, he was a very clever one.
In an attempt to discover more about this mysterious sculptor, I drove into Ashfordly for a meeting with Alan Cook, the finance director of the National Park Authority. Although the park itself had not suffered financially, Mr Cook did say he’d had several complaints about Haldan, chiefly from people and businesses who were trying to trace him following non-payment of their accounts.
The snag was no one could trace Haldan Chance — he’d vanished as suddenly as he had arrived. Mr Cook told me he’d spoken to an official of the North Riding of Yorkshire Arts Council who admitted Haldan Chance was unknown to them, but his grant from the council had resulted from his portfolio of works, pictures of which suggested he was a sculptor of worldwide renown. But, it seems, a careful check by experts on the source of those pictures had shown them to be the work of other sculptors — and no one had spotted the deception until the manifestation of recent worries about Haldan. It seems he had used the holiday cottage, on a long let, as his address while negotiating his grants and planning permission. And now, the bird had flown from his nest.
I next drove to Milthorpe for a chat with the owner of Millstone Cottage, a Mr Jim Brownlow. His description of Haldan Chance was perfect and it matched the memories of him which I retained, but Haldan had not paid one penny of rent for his occupancy. Brownlow had regarded him as a perfect country gentleman — he left the place neat and tidy but owing eight months’ rent.
Although I was gradually uncovering a catalogue of false pretences by Haldan Chance, none of his victims would make a formal crime complaint. Even Paddy Stone refused to make an official complaint to the police — all he wanted was Haldan’s address so he could chase him for the monies due. But no one knew his address or his current whereabouts — indeed, no one knew where he had come from in the first place.
I spoke to Sergeant Blaketon about this and his attitude was that unless someone came forward to register an official complaint about a crime, e.g. false pretences or obtaining credit by fraud, then we could not take any formal action to trace and prosecute Haldan Chance. He suggested I revisit his victims with a view to securing at least one formal complaint, but no one would consent to that — they did not want Haldan brought before a criminal court; all they wanted was their money.
Haldan Chance was never traced and I never saw another reference to him. Some said he had built his tree sculpture on the moors as a joke, or to draw attention to the silly things which were regarded as art, but whatever their feelings, he did obtain cash for it and he did build it.
The odd thing is that Haldan’s sculpture continues to occupy its hilltop site on Three Howes Rigg above Aidensfield. It is much weathered now, but it has endured storms, snowdrifts and vandalism along with the constant carving of lovers’ initials, children using it as a climbing frame and adults adapting it as an overnight camping site or temporary shelter with tarpaulins stretched across the top. It has even survived a moorland fire because its wide concrete base and the patch of bare moorland which surrounds it, combined to keep the wind-driven flames at bay. There is no doubt it is a well-built structure, the combined work of man and nature.
Whatever Haldan’s intention, his work of art has survived and it is now a permanent feature of our dramatic landscape. Sometimes I wonder what he would think of that — and sometimes I wonder if he (or his spirit) has ever returned to admire the views from the inside and outside of those twelve curved tree trunks.
* * *
; While the Haldan Chance stockade on Three Howes Rigg did not cause a great deal of inconvenience from a police point of view, the same could not be said about a set of illuminated metal pillars which appeared on the main street in Ashfordly, our local market town. For some weeks after their installation at the High Street/Brantsford Street crossroads, they caused absolute mayhem among pedestrians and traffic alike whereas they were designed to do precisely the opposite. They were supposed to aid the flow of through-traffic, prevent congestion and allow pedestrians to cross the street in relative safety. These magic pillars were, in fact, the town’s first set of traffic lights and they replaced a succession of policemen who had to perform long sessions of arm-aching traffic duty at those crossroads. The problem was that most drivers ignored them at first or failed to understand their message, although in time, having grown accustomed to policemen standing in the middle of the road while behaving like windmills, they became accustomed to this new and highly advanced form of traffic control.
Few motorists living on the moors and in the surrounding market towns had had any experience with traffic lights; indeed, few had ever had to negotiate a roundabout or a pedestrian crossing, consequently, strange additions of this kind, which were to be found only in town and city streets, created bewilderment in the minds of rural drivers. Drivers from country areas are accustomed to making up their own minds on matters such as when to stop and start, when to turn left or right, where to park or when to hurtle over a crossroads.
Having been nurtured into making their own decisions about most things, they did not take kindly to a set of coloured lights which took away some of their decision-making functions. To their credit, of course, the drivers on the moors were amazingly skilled at negotiating the steepest of gradients, the sharpest of corners, the most difficult of reversing requirements, the longest of flocks of sheep, the deepest of snowdrifts, the iciest of road surfaces, the muddiest of lanes or the most watery of flooded fords, but artificial highway controls like traffic lights, roundabouts and pedestrian crossings did tend to baffle them.
I think a lot of rural drivers did not regard these controls as something to be permanently obeyed — some thought they existed only for use in difficult times and so, if a traffic light showed red when there was nothing else on the road, it was usually ignored. In the mind of a rural motorist, it did not make sense to stop when there was no other traffic on the road. And why trouble to go completely around a roundabout by driving to the left when a short, sharp acceleration to the right would put you on the road you desired?
Among this army of perplexed rural drivers was one Amos Burnley, a crusty, short-tempered 85-year-old bachelor who lived at Lingmoor House, Aidensfield. A retired accountant who enjoyed a few glasses of sherry and a whisky or two, he was a tall, rather stooped gentleman who dressed in a somewhat shabby manner in one of a plentiful supply of old tweed sports jackets with ragged sleeves and leather-patched elbows worn with unpressed cavalry twill trousers in varying shades of brown.
He ran a beautiful bottle-green Riley car with a long bonnet and a black roof, but unfortunately his driving skills had been learned many years earlier on near-deserted roads. Consequently, whenever he wanted to go anywhere, he simply aimed his car and launched it, rather like a guided missile. He was always completely unaware of other traffic either in front or behind him. The people of Aidensfield were keenly aware of his rather idiosyncratic driving and coped quite simply by keeping out of his way. One thing which helped in this was his regular behaviour — he always went to the bank at the same time of the day, he posted his letters, did his shopping and performed every other necessary function at set times each day or week. Thus the people of Aidensfield knew his routine and ensured they were off the streets as he was taking off in the Riley.
One of his more renowned and alarming habits was to drive over crossroads and out of junctions without taking heed of any other approaching vehicle. Amos seemed to think he had a permanent right of way in all cases. When such intersections were deserted, there was no problem, but when other vehicles were approaching whose drivers knew they had the right of way, the outcome was often a noisy and alarming few moments of severe braking by them, some urgent steering-wheel manipulation followed by a car or two in the hedge or ditch accompanied by much rending of metal, breaking of glass, muttering and swearing. The final act in these oft-repeated rural dramas was the sight of Amos’s Riley disappearing into the distance. That always happened — he was never in a collision and the bodywork of his old car was as perfect as the day it was built.
Without fail, he and his car escaped unscathed whereas his driving had put other cars out of action in the ditch, or sometimes in the garage for repairs to bodywork and paintwork. Occasionally, his driving put other drivers in the care of a nurse or doctor, but happily, there were never any serious casualties and, oddly enough, he had never been charged with any serious driving offence. The locals rarely reported their minor mishaps with Amos; I think they regarded them as an acceptable part of their daily lives, as much their fault as his, and from time to time, he offered to pay for minor repairs. I think such acts kept him out of court.
In police terms, however, each time such an incident happened, Amos had caused an accident — the Road Traffic Act of 1960 legislated for traffic accidents by saying ‘If, owing to the presence of a motor vehicle on a road, an accident occurs.’ . . . It is not necessary that the offending vehicle actually suffers a collision — merely by being on the road where its presence causes an accident is sufficient for it to be regarded as involved’ — and that scenario fitted Amos precisely. There is no doubt that, over the years, Amos’s green Riley had caused dozens of accidents even if it had never suffered a scratch or a dent.
In addition to an offence of failing to stop after a road accident or failing to report an accident, Amos might be guilty of careless or even dangerous driving, or driving without reasonable consideration for other road users. Somehow, though, he had evaded all such prosecutions. It was with this knowledge in mind that I wondered how he would cope with Ashfordly’s new traffic lights — he was of the age where he would halt at a policeman’s signal, but traffic lights were not human.
Amos did not often drive into Ashfordly, however, which was perhaps a good thing, although it was unfortunate that the lights became operative only three weeks before Christmas. For the police officers of Ashfordly this was indeed a welcome Christmas present because it removed the need for a cold, wet constable to be on regular traffic duty. Prior to the arrival of the lights, we had all taken our turn in performing traffic control duties at those crossroads. We had to stand in the middle of the crossroads at busy times — 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. each weekday morning, 4.45 p.m. to 5.45 p.m. each weekday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday during the peak holiday periods when tourists and coaches passed this way en route to the coast. It was an arm-aching chore, and it removed us from other necessary or more urgent duties. Even if there was murder and mayhem in town, we had to stand there and keep the traffic moving. But now it was all over. The marvels of modern mechanization had taken over this unwelcome duty.
The traffic lights arrived at a time when the nights and even the days were dark and when the weather had a tendency to produce rain, sleet and even some soggy snowflakes. During those first few days of life for the new lights, as they performed their non-stop colour-changing routine, the wet snow did not lie, but it meant the roads and atmosphere were in a state of permanent dampness. Driving on wet roads is never easy, particularly in small towns where the lights of the shops and streets reflect from the damp surface.
I was to learn that Amos’s first post-traffic-light venture in Ashfordly occurred one Thursday evening, only two days after they’d been switched on.
They were showing red as he approached them around 5 p.m. that evening, but, true to form, he did not stop. He sailed into the crossroads as if there was no other car on the road. But there was. In fact, there were lots because this was one of the small town
’s busiest times. To avoid Amos and his car, an oncoming but empty delivery van, slammed into the wall of a nearby shop, a pick-up rammed into the rear of a saloon car which stopped suddenly, a car driven by a company representative swerved and mounted the footpath, causing a man to leap for his life into the doorway of the nearby bank where he pushed his elbow through the glass panelling of the closed door, while a motorcyclist skidded on the wet road surface before falling into the path of a bus. The bus crushed his bike but he escaped with bruises. A pedestrian raced for safety dropping her shopping all over the road and someone said a cat had fled for its life too. And old Amos, in his green Riley, motored sedately away without stopping and without a scratch. But someone took his registration number and reported it to Ashfordly Police where Sergeant Blaketon learned of the incident.
He rang me.
‘Go and see this maniac!’ he instructed me in no uncertain terms. ‘Interview him and tell him he’s being reported for failing to stop after an accident and you might care to add a careless driving charge, Rhea.’
I explained that Aidensfield drivers knew about Amos and his foibles, but that did not appease Blaketon who growled, ‘Well, if he can’t cope with modern traffic, it’s time he was put off the road, Rhea. He sounds to be something of a menace, a danger to himself and others. Let’s hope the court orders him to take a driving test or eyesight test, or perhaps his insurance company will refuse to cover him . . .’
When I went to interview Amos at his beautiful home, he invited me in and then offered me a dry sherry. As it was approaching Christmas, I accepted, while stressing I was here to report him for several possible driving offences; the sherry could not prevent me from doing my duty and he said he fully understood that. His offer of a drink was due to his excellent manners, not any attempt to offer a bribe. I explained the reason for my presence and after a while I saw him frown.
CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 20) Page 14
