Constable Among the Heather (11 page)

‘We’ll be off, Nick,’ said Connolly. ‘Lock the house and then call us when she gets back – we’ll find out what’s gone then.’

When I got home, Mary said there’d already been a call from Mrs Gregory, and she would be home that evening around seven o’clock; in view of the awful news, her nephew was driving her home and would stay a day or two. I made sure I was at the house to meet them.

Mrs Gregory arrived in her nephew’s Hillman Husky and headed straight for the front door. She was a sturdy woman of moorland stock, with iron-grey hair peeping from beneath a tight-fitting purple hat. She walked like a farm labourer, her stout legs carrying her quickly across the ground. She almost waddled into the house after nodding briefly to me. I followed her in, leaving her nephew to see to her luggage and the car.

‘I’m sorry this has happened, Mrs Gregory.’ I tried to reassure her but she seemed not to care. ‘The CID have been. They’ve done their work but will have to visit you when you can tell them what’s been taken.’

She buzzed from room to room, saying, ‘Nowt from here, nowt from this ’un …’ until she arrived at the room with all the waste paper on the floor.

‘This is how we found it, Mrs Gregory. We’ve not touched anything.’

‘They’ve had a right do in ’ere, eh?’ she said. ‘They’ve opened stuff I’ve had parcelled up since I was wed.’

She picked up one piece of ancient silver-coloured wrapping paper. ‘Egg cups, I think,’ she said. ‘From his lot.’

I stood back as she examined the mess, and when her nephew came in, I suggested he make a cup of tea for us all. I learned his name was Robert Atkinson. Gradually she moved every piece of paper, and when she had finished, she led me into the kitchen, where Robert had prepared a cup of tea and some biscuits. It was an old-fashioned kitchen with a black-leaded fireside and beams overhead.

‘It’s all my wedding presents,’ she said eventually. ‘That’s what he’s got. Crockery, silverware, pots and pans, linen, glassware …’

‘You mean you never used any of it, Mrs Gregory?’

‘Never had the need,’ she said. ‘Allus had enough stuff without opening presents. Besides, my Alexander died two days after our wedding, so I never had the heart to open anything.’

‘Oh, dear, I am sorry.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘Long before you saw t’light of day, young man. He went off t’war, First World War that was, and got himself killed. Married for two days, I was. And so I never opened any of them presents. He left me well provided for.’

‘What did he do? For a living?’ I asked her as Robert poured the tea.

‘He was in business, ironmongery. His family have a chain of shops in t’West Riding; they’re still there. I get a pension from ’em, and I’ve shares. I’m all right for cash, Mr Rhea, and that stuff is all insured.’

‘If I might say so, Mrs Gregory, you are taking this remarkable well.’

‘It’s no good doing any other,’ she said. ‘You can’t make things better by worrying. I’ve never used any of that stuff, so
I shan’t miss it. In fact, Mr Rhea, it’s mebbe solved a problem. All them nephews and nieces o’ mine might have fought over those things. Well, they can’t now.’

‘I’ll need a list,’ I said. ‘To circulate through our channels, to other police forces and antique-dealers.’

‘I’ll have my wedding “thank-you” list somewhere,’ she said. ‘I can get a full list in a while.’

‘We’ll need a description of the objects,’ I said. ‘You know, any distinguishing marks, unusual designs, that sort of thing.’

I rang Gerry Connolly from her house and explained it would take a while for her to compile the list, but he was happy that she was able to do so at all; many in this situation might not know exactly what had been taken. I kept her company for about an hour and was delighted that she had been such a tower of strength in her loss.

As I got up to leave, she stooped and picked up a black-lead brush from the hearth.

‘See this brush, Mr Rhea?’

‘My granny had one like that,’ I said.

‘That was a wedding present,’ she smiled. ‘I use it every day. I’m right glad he never took that. You can’t get good black-lead brushes like that nowadays.’

I left, marvelling that she had never had any use or joy from her wedding presents, save the black-lead brush.

As a postscript, we did recover several of her silver items, because they had been monogrammed by her late husband’s family. They began to turn up in second-hand salerooms and antique shops in various parts of the country, but the thief was never arrested.

I think that, if he had stolen her black-lead brush, she would have been very upset. But we might not have recovered that – it didn’t bear the family monogram.

There is no doubt that some people are truly afraid of police officers, and there are also some who dislike or even hate them. The reasons are many and varied.

From my own experiences, I found that political propaganda of the more sinister type is responsible for a large amount of fear and distrust, this often being based on one solitary act by a less-than-perfect officer or through well-chosen photographs of highly publicized confrontations. There is certainly a wealth of anti-police myth in some political circles through which gullible idealists grow to believe those who preach poison rather than those who are better equipped to reveal the truth. The trouble is that it is easy to accept the ravings of those who profess to know more than oneself. Enlightenment can come later, sometimes much later and sometimes too late, and it is often achieved when the disaffected one has been subjected to some experience which starkly reveals the falsehoods upon which past beliefs have been based.

But there are some who are afraid of the police for other reasons, such as those which have deep-rooted origins in one’s childhood or upbringing. Sometimes a belief imposed upon a child’s mind will never be eradicated. A lot of children grow up in fear of the police because their parents have regularly threatened to ‘tell the policeman’ if they are naughty. And, for a child, it is naughty to spill one’s dinner or wet one’s pants. I believe children should be brought up with a healthy respect for the police, because the service exists for the benefit of all society and not just a portion of it, but I do not believe youngsters should be taught to fear the office of constable.

Having said that, there are those who nurse an irrational fear of the police, and over the years while patrolling from Aidensfield, I came to know such a woman in Ashfordly. The strange thing was that she was not frightened of
policemen
– she was frightened of police
stations.
Maybe she was a member of that group of people who fear or hate official places such as banks, dentists’ surgeries, council chambers, income tax offices or DHSS departments. Whatever the root cause of her fear, she knew it was irrational and even silly, and yet she could do nothing to overcome it. She had no fear of police officers, however, and was quite happy to chat with them in the street or mingle with them socially. I grew to know her from my irregular but frequent patrols in Ashfordly, our local market town.

Being the village constable of Aidensfield, I had to patrol Ashfordly’s streets from time to time, usually twice a week during a selected morning or afternoon, each time being a four-hour stint. We rural constables undertook such duties when the town was short of officers due to other commitments, such as court appearances, courses, annual leave and so on, and in time I came to know several Ashfordly residents.

One of them was a busy little woman who seemed to trot everywhere. She was in her middle forties, I estimated, with rimless spectacles and a hair-do that kept her dark brown locks firmly in place. She was always smartly dressed but she scarcely reached five feet in height. She had the tiniest of features – little feet, little hands, a little body, and she drove a little car, a Morris Mini, in fact. She was like a petite and pretty china doll and at times looked almost as fragile.

I first became aware of her as I patrolled the market-place. Periodically during the day she would rush in, park her tiny car and then trot into a succession of shops, offices and cottages, her tiny feet twinkling across the cobbles. Occasionally the face of a Yorkshire terrier would peer from the rear seat of her car, and sometimes there would be a poodle or a tiny terrier of some sort. More often that not, she was accompanied by a small dog, and if I was hovering anywhere nearby, she would smile and bid me good morning or good afternoon before rushing about her business.

There was no official reason for me to wonder who she was or what she was doing, but it is a feature of police work that one acquires local knowledge, often without realizing. And in time I learned that this was Mrs Delia Ballentine. She lived near the castle, and her husband, Geoff, worked for an agricultural implements dealer in Ashfordly. She did not have a job, but she was heavily engaged in work for local charities and organizations – she was secretary of the Ashfordly WI, for example, and she did voluntary work for the Red Cross, the parish church, the RSPCA and a host of other groups, which explained why she was always rushing.

The first time we spoke was when she was collecting for the Spastics Society. I was in the market-place in uniform when she asked if I’d care to make a donation, I did and was rewarded with a badge which I pinned to my tunic. I commented on the state of the weather, as English folk tend to do, and she said she had to hurry home to prepare Geoff’s dinner, as Yorkshire people call their lunch. On several occasions thereafter she persuaded me to part with small sums of money for an amazing variety of charities and worthwhile causes, and in every case she had to rush off to attend to some other task.

Then one Friday morning, when the market was a riot of colour with its fascinating range of stalls, vehicles and crowds, I saw her collecting for a local school for handicapped children.

I slipped some money into her collecting box and said, ‘You should get around to the police station. There’s a conference there; it starts in twenty minutes. There’s eight traffic officers just dying to support worthy causes. You might get a few bob, with a bit of luck.’

She shuddered. It was a visible shudder, and it surprised me. ‘Oh, no.’ She tried to shrug off the moment. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘They wouldn’t mind …’ I began.

‘No, it’s not that.’ She hesitated and I waited for her to continue. She added, ‘I’m terrified of police stations.’

‘Police stations?’ I must have sounded sceptical, because she laughed at me.

‘Silly, isn’t it?’ she chuckled at her own absurdity. ‘I just don’t like going inside police stations. I don’t know why.’

‘I can understand folks not wanting to go into a prison or even a lift, but I’ve never come across this before,’ I said. ‘But you’re not frightened of policemen?’

‘No, not at all,’ she told me. ‘That makes it all the dafter, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, if you ever go around to our station and I’m there, just shout and I’ll come outside to see what you want!’

‘Thanks, I will! Well, I must be off. I’ve other calls to make …’ and she twinkled away towards her little car. A dachshund barked from the front passenger seat, and I wondered how many dogs she kept.

As she disappeared, I pondered upon her odd phobia and tried to work out whether there was a word for it. I knew that the fear of a particular place was known as topophobia, the fear of night was nyctophobia, and a fear of streets or crossing places was dromophobia. There were others, such as ergasiophobia, which is a fear of surgeries, brontophobia, which is a fear of thunder, and thalassophobia, which is a fear of the sea. A fear of confined spaces is claustrophobia, a fear of deep places is bathophobia, and a fear of dry places is xerophobia, with dipsophobia being a fear of drinking or drunkenness, and hydrophobia a fear of water or wet places. Thinking along these lines, I wondered if fear of police stations was nickophobia, cellophobia, custophobia or mere constabularophobia. Whatever its name, it was a curious and somewhat unsettling fear, but one with which she could live without too many problems. After all, many people live and die without ever entering a police station. I felt sure Delia could survive without having to face that challenge.

But I was wrong.

I was performing another tour of duty in Ashfordly one July afternoon and was in the police station when a youth came in. About seventeen years old, he was carrying a hessian sack which was dripping wet and squirming with some form of life.

‘Now, what have got?’ I asked him.

‘Kittens,’ he said. ‘Somebody threw ’em into t’beck but they landed in some rushes, tied up in this sack. They didn’t go right into t’water. I found ’em when I was fishing. They’re all alive.’

He opened the top of the sack to reveal three beautiful black-and-white kittens, several weeks old. Their eyes were open and they were quite capable of walking. Within seconds, they were crawling all over the counter, and I asked him if he was prepared to keep them.

‘No chance,’ he said. ‘I live with my granny, we’ve no space, that’s why I fetched ’em here. I thought you’d know what to do.’

‘Right, we’ll see to them,’ I assured him. ‘Thanks for saving their lives. It was a rotten trick, eh? Throwing them in the beck like that.’

‘If I’d seen who’d chucked ’em in, I’d have chucked him in an’ all,’ said the youth, whose name was Ian Trueman. I took details for our records, and off he went.

I was now left with the problem of three active and interesting kittens which had to be fed and housed, but we did have procedures for dealing with stray dogs and lost and found pets of every kind. Because these three active chaps were literally crawling into everything, threatening to overturn filing trays, clog the typewriter and send the telephone crashing to the floor, I decided to pop them into No. 2 cell until I could deal with them. A dish of milk would keep them happy as they explored its delights.

I began to prepare the cell for their stay. I went into the garage to find a cat tray and some litter or earth, found a saucer in the sergeant’s office and used some of my own milk from a bottle I carried for my break periods. As I fussed over the kittens in their prison-like home, I heard someone enter the enquiry office, and so I called ‘I won’t be a moment’. I then tried to close the cell door without the kittens rushing out at my heels, for one of them seemed determined to escape from custody. I had to sit him on the cell bed as I rushed out. But in time I got them all safely behind the proverbial bars and returned to the enquiry office to dispose of the wet and ruined sack.

And there, to my astonishment, was Delia Ballentine. She was standing at the counter, holding on to the front edge of the top surface as she shook with fear and anxiety. I could see the perspiration standing out on her brow and could appreciate
the sheer willpower that had driven her to enter this feared place.

‘Hello,’ I said, with the sack dangling from my hand. She could not speak for a moment. ‘Let’s go outside,’ I suggested.

She shook her head. ‘No, I must try to beat this silly fear.’

‘There’s no need.’ I threw the sack into the rubbish bin and said, ‘Look, Mrs Ballentine, I’ll see you out there. It’s no problem …’

She did not reply but stood with her hands gripping the edge of the counter until her knuckles turned white. Then I could hear the kittens mewing pitifully … she heard them too.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, the fear vanishing from her face in an instant as she concentrated upon the distinctive distress cries.

‘There’s three kittens in our cell,’ and I explained how they came to be here.

‘Oh, the poor things! Can I take them? I mean, if no one wants them …’

‘That would solve a lot of our problems,’ I said. ‘If no one claims them, we’d have to find a good home or have them put to sleep,’ I told her.

During this conversation, it was fascinating to notice the apparent evaporation of her fear, and she even followed me into the cell as I went to retrieve the kittens. When I gave them to her, she seemed to be totally in control, her entire concentration being upon the tiny animals. As she petted them, I searched under the counter and found a cardboard box big enough to accommodate all three. I sat the box on the counter as I talked to her. But as I tried to elicit the reason for her visit, those tremblings and overt nervous tics returned, all heralded by the perspiration on her face. I found myself admiring her courage in making such a determined effort to enter this dreaded building.

Once I had the kittens safely inside the box, I took her outside and placed them on the back seat of her car as I tried to interview her. Now free from her trauma, she told me she had just discovered she had lost a precious brooch. It was in the shape of a swan and was made of 22 carat gold; it was antique, a present from her husband’s grandmother, and she felt she had
to come to report it. Losing it had been of sufficient worry to compel her to overcome her resistance to police stations.

So I recorded particulars, saying that if it came to our notice, it would be restored to her. In fact, it was later returned to her, albeit not through our assistance – someone had found it in the back room of the town hall and had recognized it. Apparently, Delia had been to a WI meeting there a couple of days earlier and the brooch had become detached from her dress. She hailed me in the street shortly after its return; I said I was delighted and would delete it from our records.

‘You didn’t come to the station to report its recovery?’ I asked, wondering if she had made such an attempt.

‘No, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t. I thought because I’d done it once, I could do it again but I just couldn’t, Mr Rhea. I really did try. That first time, I think I was so worried about what Geoff would say about my losing the brooch that I managed to force myself to go into the station.’

‘But those cats, Mrs Ballentine, when you saw those kittens, you lost all your fears, if only for a few moments.’

‘I know, and I thought I could do it again without the cats, but I couldn’t. I know it’s so silly, but it must be something deep inside that makes me frightened, mustn’t it?’

‘I’m no medical expert, but it does seem to be a psychological problem!’ I smiled. ‘Anyway, you’ve got your precious brooch back and I’m delighted. Now, those kittens? Did you get them a good home?’

‘We’re still looking after them, until they’re a wee bit older, but I’ve got some people interested in them. Look, Mr Rhea, if ever you get any more kittens or other animals in, I’ll take them off your hands. I’d rather do that than let you have them put down.’

‘We’d welcome that sort of arrangement.’ I was delighted to hear this. ‘Found animals can be a problem to us. But you’d not be able to call and collect them?’