CONSTABLE NICK BOX SET 1–5 five feel-good village cozy mysteries

by Nicholas Rhea

  God, it was like something from a spy film! So those films were realistic after all!

  I accelerated, but the snow-bound track caused the rear wheel to skid; I fought to maintain my motion and my balance as I saw the man running towards the Land Rover. I was roaring towards them both. I had to get there first, this being my first major arrest. A spy!!

  I stood on the footrests and allowed the little bike to buck and roar beneath me as I closed in; now I could see the fellow’s eyes beneath his furry white hat and the Land Rover was a similar distance at the far side of him. It was neck and neck. I must win! I couldn’t let the nation down at a time of such need. I would have to abandon my bike, I would have to leap off as I neared him, and allow the machine to fall into the snow, but I must make this arrest. For the country’s sake, for the Chief Constable’s sake, for my own sake.

  I climbed the rising ground as the Land Rover hurtled towards me with clouds of snow rising behind. The fugitive moved closer towards it. I was only yards away; I could see his thick leather boots, his snow suit, his furry hat . . .

  He was mine. I had him!

  But he wasn’t, and I hadn’t.

  The Land Rover did not stop at him; instead it came directly for me, with its rear wheels skidding violently and the front ones bucking against the rough terrain. God, I was going to be killed!

  I swerved aside; I tore at the handlebars and yanked the front wheel to one side, but I was too late. The motor cycle toppled over as the heavy wing of the Land Rover clipped the handlebars. I was thrown right off. I rolled clear and felt myself falling down a hillside. I curled up into a protective ball, with my helmet, suit and gloves providing ideal protection as I gathered speed down a snow-filled, bracken-covered and heather-clad moorland slope. I could hear the victorious Land Rover roaring away, and my motorcycle engine had stopped somewhere out of sight.

  I came to rest at the bottom, shaken but not hurt. The heather, with its springy tough stalks, had bounced me down that hillside like a ball, and when I got to my feet, I saw that the Land Rover had stopped further along. Several faces peered at me and I waved my fist at them.

  They waved back, and as I started to climb the slope, tugging at heather roots for support, they vanished over the horizon.

  I had lost my Russian.

  * * *

  Six weeks later, we were in a classroom for a one-day course. The subject was “Liaison with the C.I.D.” A detective inspector from Headquarters was laying down the rules about communication between departments, and liaison between officers and men.

  “Exercise Moorjock was a perfect example of confusion,” he said.

  Was that an exercise? I thought it was the real thing! I’d given my all on that occasion, I’d risked my life and my limbs!

  “There was no communication, no liaison. We shot a film of the exercise to highlight some of the problems,” he said. “It speaks for itself.”

  And when the lights went out and the film hit the screen, I saw myself riding towards the camera; I saw the pseudo-Russian waiting for me, and I saw myself tumbling down a moorland hillside in a cloud of winter snow.

  I could not forget those Candlemas Day events, but did remember the old Yorkshire saying, “Look for nowt in February — and you’ll get it.”

  Chapter Two

  This only is the witchcraft I have us’d.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564—1616, Othello

  “Rhea? Are you there?” It was Sergeant Blaketon and I was retrieving a heap of files from the floor of my office. I had lifted the telephone to answer and had dislodged a heap of paperwork with the cable.

  “Sorry, Sergeant,” I responded. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Get yourself out to Ellersfield,” he instructed me. “Go and see a Miss Katherine Hardwick of Oak Crag Cottage. She’s got a complaint to make.”

  “What sort of complaint, sergeant?” I was still struggling to hold the telephone with one hand and pick up the files with the other. It would have been easier to leave them on the floor, but they annoyed me.

  “Mischief makers,” he said. “She’s being plagued by somebody from the village, one of the lads by the sound of it.”

  “Kids!” I snorted. “What’s he doing to her?”

  “Daft things really, knocking on her door when she’s in bed and running away before she opens it, tapping on the window when she’s sitting alone, pinching tomatoes from her greenhouse and cutting the tops off all her cabbages. That sort of thing. Nuisances, Rhea, nothing but bloody nuisances.”

  “Is she a regular complainer?” I asked him.

  “No, she’s not. She’s a decent hard-working woman who lives alone and she earns her keep by growing flowers and vegetables, or doing odd jobs for the folk of the area.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said.

  “Good. It’ll keep you quiet for the rest of the morning. Anything else to report?”

  “Nothing, sergeant, it’s all quiet.” It was extremely quiet. My beat had lacked any real trouble or serious incident for the past six weeks, but this lull may have been due to the weather. The winter snows and gales tended to keep people away from the moors and its range of villages, but now the spring had arrived, my workload would surely increase. Life was beginning anew, and I wondered if this lad’s activities with Miss Hardwick were a sign of rising sap.

  I departed from my hilltop house on my trusty Francis Barnett, clad up to the eyeballs in my winter suit, goggles, helmet and gloves. The crisp air contained a definite chill, but the brightness of the morning and the clarity of the views across the valleys and hills were truly magnificent. I was faced with a journey of some eighteen miles each way, and braced myself for the long, cold ride. There would be none of the gymnastics I’d enjoyed during Exercise Moorjock.

  I dropped into Ashfordly, rode through the sleepy market town and out towards Eltering before turning high into the moorlands which overlooked Ryedale. Here, the roads were reduced to tracks and I marvelled at the new growths blossoming from the depths of dead vegetation. The grass was showing a brighter green, new leaves were bursting from apparently lifeless stems and animals romped in the fields, glad to be rid of winter’s burden and looking forward to the joy of spring.

  My machine and I climbed across the ranging hills with their acres of smooth moorland, and I enjoyed the limitless vista of steep slopes, craggy outcrops and deep valleys. They combined to produce a beauty of landscape seldom found elsewhere. And there was not a person about. I had the moors to myself.

  True, I did pass one or two cars, and in the villages I noted ladies going about their daily shopping or cleaning their cottage windows, but beyond the inhabited areas, there was a sense of isolation that was intriguing. It was like entering a deserted world, an area devoid of people and houses but full of living things like birds and plants and animals. In some respects, it was like a fairyland, with wisps of mist hanging near the valley floors and shafts of strong sunlight piercing the density of the man-made forests and natural woodland. The smell of peace and tranquillity was everywhere.

  Ellersfield lay snug in one of these deep valleys, a cluster of stone-built houses nestling at the head of the dale. All had thatched roofs, and they were sturdy dwellings, somewhat squat in appearance but constructed to withstand the fierce winters of the moors. Oak Crag Cottage stood at the far end as I rode into the community, using a road which ended in a rough cart track as it climbed steeply on to the moors before vanishing among the heather.

  It was a neatly kept house. The thatch was carefully maintained and an evergreen hedge acted as a boundary between the cottage and the track by which it stood. The wooden gate was painted a fresh green and bore the name of the house in white letters. I parked the motorcycle on its stand and opened the gate, walking clumsily in my ungainly suit.

  The house had three windows along its front with two attic windows above, all with tiny panes of glass and all neatly picked out in fresh white paint. I knocked on the door and waited. There was no reply.
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  I tried again, with the same result, and guessed the lady of the house must be around because she’d called in the police to solve her problem. As policemen are wont to do, I moved away from the front door and walked along the sandstone flags to the rear. At the back was a long flat garden with sheds and poultry runs, and I saw a woman repairing a wire-netting fence at the far end.

  “Hello!” I shouted.

  She stood up, placing a hand on her back to indicate some form of backache. She smiled a welcome.

  “Oh, hello. Is it the police?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed, realising my gear made me look like a refugee from the Royal Flying Corps of World War I. “I’m P.C. Rhea from Aidensfield.”

  She came towards me looking pleased as she removed some rubber gloves. She wore a headscarf which almost concealed her face, and I wondered if she was pretty.

  “Katherine Hardwick,” she introduced herself. “Miss,” she added as an afterthought. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I thought I’d better put an official stop to my unwelcome visitor.”

  “You did exactly the right thing,” I endeavoured to comfort her a little. “You know who it is?”

  She shook her head and said, “Come inside, I’ll make a coffee. You’ll have a coffee?”

  “There’s nothing I’d like more.” The spring air had given me a healthy appetite and thirst, and she led me through a rear door into the dark interior of her cottage.

  It was very dark inside and I noticed the rear windows were very small, so typical of these moorland houses. They aided warmth and security in the harshest of weathers. Her kitchen was a long narrow room with modern electric equipment, but she led me through and into her lounge.

  As the kettle boiled, she settled on a Windsor chair and smiled pleasantly, removing the headscarf as she talked. She was a very tall woman, with an almost angular body and she appeared to be shapeless beneath her rough country clothes. She had a long overcoat which was all tattered and greasy, corduroy trousers and Wellington boots, but as the headscarf came away, I saw that her face was beautifully smooth and pink. Her eyes were bright and alert, her teeth excellent and her hair as black as night, cut short but not severely so. I estimated her age to be less than forty, but probably beyond thirty-five. She was very attractive in a rural way, and I wondered what she’d be like in an evening dress or a summer frock. Did she ever wear nice clothes? I wondered.

  The kettle began to whistle and she took off her old coat to reveal a well-proportioned figure clad in a rose-coloured sweater.

  She vanished into her kitchen and returned with two cups of steaming coffee, a jug of fresh cream and a basin of sugar. Some home-made fruit cake and ginger biscuits adorned the tray.

  “This is lovely,” I congratulated her. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”

  “It’s nice to get visitors, and besides, it’s ’lowance time anyway. Now, Mr Rhea, did your sergeant tell you what this is about?”

  “Somebody’s playing pranks, being a nuisance, frightening you?”

  “That’s about it, Mr Rhea. I’m not one for calling the police, I usually sort out my own troubles but I felt this one ought to receive the weight of the law. There’s other folks who live alone up here, you see, and some are elderly. I don’t want them terrified.”

  “There’s not many folk live out here is there?” I sipped my hot coffee. It was delicious.

  “Seventy or so, it’s not many,” she confirmed.

  “You have an idea who’s doing these stupid things?”

  “I have,” she said, “and I’ve warned him off. He says it’s not him, but things keep happening.”

  “Such as?” I wanted her to tell me more.

  “It’s nothing serious. Last back end, for example, he opened my greenhouse door after I’d closed it for the night and the cold air ruined some young plants and flowers. He’s let the hens out of their run and they ruined my garden when I was in Middlesbrough for the day; he knocks on windows and runs off when I’m alone in the house. One day, he cut all the heads off my cabbages and ruined them, and another time took the seat off my bike and threw it into a field.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  “No,” she said. “No, I’m not frightened. It’s just a bloody nuisance, Mr Rhea, and I wonder if he’s doing it to others in Ellersfield, others who are too shy or old to report it. People are shy out here, you know, they don’t like making a fuss.”

  “I know,” I knew enough about the stolid Yorkshire character to fully understand her remarks. “Right, who is it?”

  “It’s a youth called Ted Agar,” she said, with never a doubt in her voice.

  “You’ve seen him doing these things?” I put to her, enjoying the cake.

  “No,” she admitted. “But it’s him.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I had to ask.

  She hesitated and I wondered if I had touched a sensitive area. I allowed her to take her time before replying. She drank a deep draught from her cup.

  “Mr Rhea, I’m a woman and I live alone. I’m thirty-six, and I’m not bad looking. Ted’s been pestering me to go out with him — to the pictures, for walks, over to Scarborough for a Sunday trip, that sort of thing. He’s only a child, Mr Rhea, a lad in his early twenties I’d say. I’ve turned him down every time and these things started to go on.”

  “Over what period?”

  “Maybe a year, no longer.”

  “Is he a local lad?” I asked.

  “Not really. He came from Eltering, looking for farm work and Atkinsons took him on.”

  “Atkinsons?”

  “Dell Farm, at the bottom of the hill on your way in. That big spot with double iron gates.”

  “I know it,” I smiled. “OK Well, Miss Hardwick, I can have words with him for you. I can threaten him with court action — we could proceed against him for conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. That way, we could have him bound over to be of good behaviour, and if he did it again, he’d be fined or sent to a detention centre of some kind.”

  “I don’t want to take him to court, a warning from you would be fine,” she said. “I know he’ll think I’m using a sledgehammer to crack a little nut, but he won’t stop when I ask him. I thought a word from you might help.”

  “I’ll speak to him. Will he be in now, at Atkinsons?”

  “He’ll be about the premises somewhere,” she acknowledged.

  I drained my coffee and stood up. “I’ll let you know how I get on — I’ll come straight back.”

  Before I left, I briefly admired her home. The kitchen was a real gem. The fireplace, for example, had an old stone surround with a black-leaded Yorkist range, complete with sliding hooks for pans, and a side oven. It was set in an inglenook and to the right was a wooden partition beyond which was a passage into a further series of rooms.

  “It’s a fascinating house,” I observed.

  “It’s an old cruck house,” she explained. “It used to be a longhouse, that’s a farm house where the family lived at one end and the cattle at the other. The living quarters were warmed by the animals as they wintered next door. The crucks are like tree trunks, and they support the building. It’s very old — I couldn’t hazard a date.”

  “Did you move out here?”

  “No,” she smiled. “It’s been in our family for generations. There’s always been a Hardwick here, as long as anybody knows.”

  I walked around the spacious kitchen, and expressed delight at the ancient woodwork, so crude but effective, and then I noticed the carved wooden post at the outer end of the partition. I ran my hands down it, fingering the delicate workmanship.

  “This is nice — what’s the carving?”

  “That’s a witch post,” she informed me. “Lots of houses had them installed.”

  “What’s it for?” I had never come across this type of thing before.

  “They were built into many houses in this area to protect the occupants against witches,” she smiled. “They date from the se
venteenth century mostly, but I’ve never dated ours.”

  “Was witchcraft practised here?” I was intrigued by this decorative post.

  “A good number of old women were reputed to be witches,” she said. “They were supposed to make the milk go sour, or cause the fruit not to ripen — stuff like that. Nuisances more than anything. There wasn’t your dancing naked bits or rituals in lonely woods. They were just old ladies who terrified the superstitious locals and got blamed when things went wrong. Those posts protected the inhabitants against them.”

  After my obvious interest in her house, she showed me the rest of the layout of the fascinating building with its nooks and crannies, beamed bedroom ceilings, sandstone floors and rubble walls. It was a house of considerable age, albeit modernised to meet her modest needs.

  I left my motorcycle near her gate as I walked down the steep hill to Dell Farm. This was a neat homestead with freshly painted gates and a scrupulously tidy farmyard. I made for the house, although I could hear activity in one of the outbuildings, knocked on the door and waited. At my second knock, a woman’s voice shouted, “Come in, the door’s open.”

  I entered a spacious farm kitchen with hams hanging from the ceiling and the smell of new bread heavy in the air. An old lady sat in a chair beside a roaring log fire. I think I must have aroused her from her slumbers.

  “And who might you be?” she demanded, looking me up and down.

  “P.C. Rhea,” I said. “The policeman. From Aidensfield.”

  “You’re a bit off your area, aren’t you?” she quizzed me sharply, her keen grey eyes alert and bright. I reckoned she was well into her seventies, or even older.

  “Not any more. Now we’ve got motor cycles, we go further than we did on bikes. We share the area.”

  “You’ll have come for our Reg, have you? Summat to do with his guns, is it?”

  “Are you Mrs Atkinson?”

  “I am, but Reg is my son. He’s the boss here — I’m just an old lady who lives in. Our Reg’s wife, that’s young Mrs Atkinson, is down at Ashfordly, shopping. Susan, that is.”