Constable Among the Heather (8 page)

‘Sergeant?’ I rushed into the office where he was waiting for me.

‘Ah Rhea, sorry to drag you from your lunch, but I’m the victim of an April Fool’s joke. Some idiot has let all my tyres down. I need help to change the wheels. The jack won’t go under the car … and I need assistance to get them all blown up.’

Had I been in the mini-van, I knew that its jack would have been useless for this task, but I did have my own hydraulic jack. It was in the boot of my car. It was not issued with the vehicle but was my own property, a most useful present from my father. And so, my using that piece of equipment, I helped him raise the official car off the ground, first removing the two rear wheels, which we had inflated by a local garage, then the front ones and finally the spare, which was softer than it should have been. It was a long job.

‘Thank you, Rhea,’ he said when it was all over. ‘I do hate being the subject of such pranks. Perhaps we can forget this ever happened, eh? As colleagues? As man to man?’

‘I’m sure we can, Sergeant,’ I agreed, wondering how long it would take me to recover my own official keys from Elizabeth’s hiding-place. If that took a long time, I would need his
co-operation
. One good April Fool’s joke deserved another, I felt.

But I needn’t have worried. Mary found the keys after lunch. Elizabeth had hidden them in the ironing-board. There was a small hole in the cover, just large enough to slide in the keys from a mini van. Elizabeth, having remembered that Mary had once lost a brooch in there, had considered it a perfect hiding-place for the mini-van keys. Mary had found them as she’d lifted the ironing-board from its parking place – the keys had jingled in their secret nest.

I put them in my pocket and made a resolution not to leave them on the hook on All Fool’s Day next year, and to cut myself a spare copy of them, just in case.

My short involvement with Sergeant Blaketon that day did have its merits. That night, he told me to finish an hour earlier
than usual on my second tour, a 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. He would cover the extra hour, he said, so my 1 a.m. finish was a thank-you from him.

It was highly appreciated as I curled up in bed against Mary’s warm body for an extra hour on a cool spring morning. I thought Elizabeth had done me a good turn after all.

Practical jokes, were not, however, restricted to April Fool’s Day. Although some were fun, others could be malicious. In reflecting upon Sergeant Blaketon’s four flat tyres, I did wonder whether they were the result of a real joke or whether they were an act of malice. I had a sneaking suspicion they were the latter.

From time to time, reports of acts of a malicious but supposedly jocular nature were received at our offices. Quite often, they were perpetrated by one neighbour upon another usually from spite or revenge. We dealt with damaged cars, paint sprayed on doors or gates, damaged garden plants or greenhouses, broken windows and a host of petty nuisances. The perpetrators regarded them as jokes, the victims regarded them as menacing, and the police regarded them as a crime of malicious damage. Some perpetrators were never prosecuted because there was insufficient evidence to support a court appearance, even though the villain was known.

One such troublesome series of pranks occurred at Elsinby; it caused me a lot of work before I eventually traced and dealt with the culprit. During my enquiries, I was to learn that a lot of incidents had happened at the Hopbind Inn before I was made aware of them. For example, one trick was to lash the bumpers of parked cars to benches outside the pub. When a driver set off home at closing time, he would find himself towing a bench along the High street – which did not do much good to the bench. Then the pranks grew more serious. One car bumper was lashed to that of a car parked behind it, and so a tug-of-war developed between the two vehicles, sometimes resulting in the separation of the said bumper from the car.

It was at this stage that the landlord, George Ward, told me of these occurrences. He stressed that this was not an official complaint. Indeed, he was not the victim; his customers were
the victims. He was merely making me aware of the on-going series of pranks because of their nuisance value.

Strictly speaking, it was no concern of mine unless and until I received a formal complaint from one of the ‘injured persons’, as we termed all victims of crime whether or not they suffered physically. After this unofficial notification, though, whenever I paid a visit to the Hopbind Inn, whether on duty or not, I would discreetly ask whether further pranks had been played. It seemed they came in short bursts and always under cover of darkness. Weeks would pass without anything happening, and then there would be a series of related incidents all within, say, a week. Then there would be another lull until a further outbreak occurred.

It seemed almost as if the joker was producing new ideas which he would use for a few days before turning to something else – when the lashed bumper-bar idea had run its course, he spent a week smearing windscreens with grease. After that, he switched on the cars’ headlights so that the batteries became exhausted. Flat tyres were deployed, as were eggs broken upon roofs, or dustbin lids roped to the rear wheels – the clatter they made as the wheels turned was unbelievable.

From my point of view, there was one interesting feature: none of the pranks was truly malicious. For example, the tyres were not slashed, the cars’ paintwork was not dented or scraped with coins, their petrol tanks were not filled with sugar, and their engines not interfered with. In other words, these were fairly harmless pranks which did not result in permanent damage. They were little more than a nuisance.

I patrolled the area whenever I was on duty, sometimes concealing myself in the churchyard or among shrubs and trees which allowed me to observe the pub and its car-park. Like the villain, I operated under cover of darkness, but I never saw any of these acts committed. Neither did anyone else – the prankster was never seen. This was odd. He seemed to know when he was able to operate. If only I could catch him in the act, I could threaten him with prosecution, and that would surely halt this silly behaviour.

Over the duration of these pranks, I never received any official complaint from the victims, and I regarded this as an
acceptance of their minor nature. But they did become more serious as time went by. On one occasion, the door handle of a small van was lashed to the wooden framework of the porch of the inn – and when the van set off, down came the porch. Another time, one end of a rope was tied around one of the fence posts of the railings outside the inn, the other end being tied to a pick-up truck. And when the pick-up moved off, the railings were demolished. But even so, I never received any formal complaint, even though the regulars were aware of my interest. I did encourage them to make a report, but none did and I began to wonder why there persisted this apparent group reticence.

As the pranks continued, I received details through local gossip, and it was noteworthy that every incident occurred outside the Hopbind Inn. Nothing of this kind happened inside the pub, nor did the pranks extend into other areas of the village. From time to time, I discussed them with George, the landlord, and he accepted they were a nuisance but that no one seemed unduly bothered.

Then there was a fairly serious event. Outside the pub, on its extensive forecourt, were two petrol pumps. In addition to filling his customers with ale, George would also fill their cars with petrol, and the prankster chose to lash a tractor to one of those pumps. He had used a strong rope which he’d found on the tractor, and when the machine set off, it almost dragged the petrol pump to the ground and nearly fractured the pipes inside. This time, George decided to report it to me and to make it official.

‘If you’d reported it earlier, George, I could have arranged long-term observations with my colleagues. We might have stopped these goings-on by now. There’s a limit to the time I can spend sitting in bushes.’

‘We don’t want official action taking, Mr Rhea,’ he said. ‘We want it dealt with without any court appearances or owt like that.’

‘But I can’t taken an official report from you on those terms, George. Once I’ve made it formal, I will have to take the culprit to court, if we track him down.’

‘Then I withdraw my official complaint, Mr Rhea. Look,
you are our local bobby, surely you can stop this carry-on before it gets out of hand, before real damage is done or somebody gets hurt?’

‘I can’t stop it, George, if I don’t know who’s involved. I must catch him in the act if I am to stop him. I’ve kept observations out there for weeks now, I’ve asked questions around the village, but no one tells me who’s doing these things. We all know it’s going on and has been going on for weeks, but no one will tell me who’s behind it. I suspect you all know …’

He regarded me steadily. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We all know but we don’t want the lad taken to court.’

‘Then if you know, you’ll have had words with him yourselves?’

‘Aye, lots of us have spoken to him, but it only makes him worse.’

‘I think you and I had better have a long talk, George,’ I said.

‘Then you’d better come in, Mr Rhea.’

Over a coffee in his private lounge, George told me the story. His first statement confirmed something I had suspected for a while – that all the victims were related.

‘They’re all cousins, half-cousins and even quarter-cousins,’ he said. ‘Except me. Those whose cars were tied up or messed up are all related.’

‘A local family?’ I asked.

‘Aye, all living hereabouts. They’re all Pattons, but some have different names through marrying.’

‘So is the culprit a Patton or from another family who’s got some grudge against them?’ I asked.

‘He’s one of the Pattons,’ he said, clearly expecting me to know which one. But there was a huge family whose members were spread right across the dale and the moors beyond. I knew several of them, albeit not very well, but could not guess which was the phantom prankster.

‘I’m sorry, George. I don’t know all the Pattons, and I have no idea which is the troublemaker.’

‘It’s young Noel,’ he said. ‘We all know it’s him; mind, nobody’s caught him at it, nor even seen him.’

‘So how do they know?’ I asked.

‘It’s common knowledge in the family.’ George poured me a second coffee. ‘The lad’s not all there, if you know what I mean. He’s not daft enough to be certified or sent into a mental institution, but he was at the back of the queue when God was dishing brains out. He’s about eleven pence to the shilling. He works on one of the family farms, Dykegate Farm, labouring, doing basic jobs, and he bikes there every day.’

‘That’s off my patch.’ I knew the farm, but it was on the beat of a neighbouring constable. ‘So where’s he live?’

‘Pattington, in Long Row, number eight. With his mum. She’s a Patton – not married, by the way.’

‘So he’s got no dad?’

‘It’s worse than that, Mr Rhea. They reckon Noel’s dad was her own brother.’

‘So he’s the product of incest!’

I could now understand why the family did not want this lad prosecuted. If he appeared before a court, his family history would have to be presented to the magistrates, and no one wanted to open up old secrets or have the family’s shame discussed in the pages of the local press. As Pattington was off my patch and in a different police division, I had never visited the village on duty, and this explained why I did not know the lad or his family.

‘Aye, it was a sad thing, but the father is now married and working not far away. He’s one of the Pattons, well respected, a chapel-goer an’ all,’ said George. ‘His wife doesn’t know Noel’s his son; outsiders all think he’s a nephew.’

‘Well, he is!’ I put to George. ‘He’s the fellow’s nephew as well as his son!’

‘You wouldn’t think he was any relation, the way some of the Pattons treat him. They treat him like a dog at times, they tolerate him around, no one really loves him. Even his mother tries to ignore him.’

This chat enabled me to understand the motive behind Noel’s actions. He seemed to be getting at his family for their attitude towards him, and I could also understand the desire for family unity and secrecy. In spite of all this, I knew, for the sake of all, that Noel’s silly behaviour must be halted. If
he was allowed to continue his pranks, they would grow more daring and more serious until one day there would be a serious accident or injury.

‘Does he come into your pub?’ I asked George, for I wanted to have a look at this youth, so that I’d know him in the future.

He shook his head. ‘His mother’s a strict chapel woman,’ he told me. ‘Alcohol and pubs are not regarded as proper, so she’s brought Noel up to believe drink is evil – mebbe she was drunk when he was conceived … or his dad might have been. His real dad won’t go into a pub but drinks whisky at home, gallons of it. He buys it from me, telephones his order in and the shop delivers it with the groceries. He thinks it’s all a secret. Anyroad, Noel never comes in either. I think that might be a motive for his tricks as well. Mebbe he’s getting at those of his clan who do indulge in evil spirits!’

I thanked George for his wealth of knowledge and told him I appreciated his confiding in me. Now that I was aware of the background, it explained a lot and was helpful – but how could I halt Noel’s silly behaviour?

In the weeks that followed, he played more tricks: balloons appeared on one car, another’s windows were painted with white emulsion, and a chunk of wallpaper was glued to the door of yet another. I attributed all this to Noel, even though I had never set eyes on the lad, for all the cars belonged to members of the Patton family.

I kept observation on the pub forecourt without ever catching sight of Noel, and I did have words with the village constable for Pattington and explained the situation to him. He knew Noel but said the lad never caused any trouble on his patch. I learned he was in his early twenties, fairly tall and slim, with long blond hair, and he rode a red bike with dropped handlebars.

Then, quite by chance, I was off duty in Ashfordly and doing some shopping in Thompson’s hardware shop when I became aware of the presence of a young man of that description. He was selecting various objects from the shelves and popping them into a basket – they were things like shelf-brackets, wall plugs, screws and other DIY items. I peeped outside the large window and saw a red racing bike propped against the wall. So
this was young Patton, I guessed. Then he went to the counter and asked for a box of 200 rounds of .22 ammunition.