Constable Through the Meadow (11 page)

One theory is that the salesman managed to steal it from his head office and that he mistakenly gave it away while delivering the advertisement copies. Or, of course, he might have become terrified at the thought of being captured with it in his
possession
, and decided to get rid of it in this way, hoping that no one in remote North Yorkshire would realise it was something special. But David Grayson did tell me that, when he decided to leave the pub, he would return the picture to the company for display in their boardroom above a little notice saying “Donated by Mr David Grayson.”

I thought it was a nice gesture, a moral compromise and a means of ensuring the picture never again went astray.

While that episode caused more than a flicker of professional interest, there were countless mundane crimes and one of them, or to be more accurate, a series of them, involved the village store at Crampton. It was a typical village store, the kind of emporium found in every self-respecting small community. It dispensed almost everything from lawnmowers to tins of beans by way of socks, bread loaves, paperback novels, eggs and some of the finest cooked ham in the area. The high walls were filled with shelves of wines, exotic foods and sweets, tins of fruit, boxes of screws, nails and washers, dishcloths and kitchen utensils.

The owner was a small sprightly bachelor of indeterminate age. He was called Mr Wilson and had run his well stocked shop for as long as anyone could remember. No one seemed to know his Christian name because everyone called him Mr Wilson and no one knew much about his private life. A secretive but marvellously tidy little fellow, he seemed to be involved in no social or community activities, for his entire life was spent running his shop. It was his pride and joy, and if he could not supply any requested item from stock, he would always obtain it from somewhere. On one occasion, I asked if he knew where I could find a belt for our twin-tub spin-dryer, for the existing one had become worn and stretched until it would not properly turn the pulleys. Mr Wilson had one in stock.

His range of cheeses was remarkable, as were his liqueurs, chocolates, fresh fruit and beautiful vegetables, and I know one man who even bought a wheelbarrow wheel from Mr Wilson’s stock – and it was the right size.

During the course of my duties, I learned that people
respected
Mr Wilson highly and relied upon him to cater for all their daily requirements. ‘You’ll get it at Mr Wilson’s,’ was the slogan, and so I was a frequent visitor, both on duty and off. He never complained, never seemed flustered or worried and was always in complete control of his stock and in touch with his customers’ changing needs.

And then, one breezy day in May, he rang me and asked if I would pay him a visit, preferably between 1pm and 1.45pm when he would be closed for lunch. I was asked to go around the back, to his cottage door, because he wished to discuss a matter without interruption by his customers.

Intrigued by this, I drove across to Crampton and knocked on his cottage door. When he met me, he had a deep frown on his small, pink face and for the first time, to my knowledge, his immaculate head of pure white hair looked untidy. I detected worry in his eyes and there was no doubt he was more than a little agitated.

‘Come in, Mr Rhea,’ he invited. ‘You’ll have a coffee with me? Have you eaten?’

‘Yes, thanks, I had lunch before I came out, but a coffee would be very welcome.’

He led me into his neat living-room; it was very plain and lacked the touch of a woman. There were no flowers, for example, and everything was in its place, untouched by children, visitors and family. There was not a speck of dust anywhere and his collection of brasses sparkled in the light of the bright spring weather. He indicated a plain leather easy chair and I settled in it as he busied himself with the coffee.

‘You’ll be wondering why I’ve called you in,’ he said, sitting opposite me and crossing his legs. I was surprised at the tiny size of his shoes, so highly polished and well kept. I’d never seen his feet before, because he was always behind his counters. Now, without those protective barriers, he was like a little elf as his bright blue eyes scrutinised me.

‘It must be important,’ was my response to that remark.

‘Yes, and confidential,’ he said. ‘Er, am I permitted to discuss something with you unofficially, off the record in a manner of speaking?’

‘Of course, we are allowed discretion, you know. We do not enforce every rule by the letter – that would make it a police state!’ I wondered what was coming next.

‘I have a shop-lifter among my customers’. He drew in a deep breath and then spat out those words. ‘A clever and persistent shop-lifter, Mr Rhea. I do not know what to do about her.’

This problem was the scourge of many city shops, and it was also affecting some rural ones which encouraged self-service by their customers. Mr Wilson’s was such a shop, for the three counters which formed an open square as the customers entered each bore a selection of goods upon their tops. Sweets, cakes, delicacies, preserves, novels in paperback, spoons, fruit and so forth occupied space upon them.

‘You know who it is?’ I put to him.

He nodded. ‘Yes, it’s been going on for some time now, months perhaps, but I’ve been keeping a careful eye on things recently. I have made myself certain of the identity of the culprit, Mr Rhea.’

‘You’ve confronted her about it?’ I asked.

He shook his head this time. ‘No, that is the problem, that is why I need your advice.’

‘So what’s she been doing?’

‘General thieving, I think you’d call it,’ he smiled a little ruefully. ‘She is a good customer, Mr Rhea, a very good one. But I noticed that she began to linger in the shop when other customers were present, allowing me to serve them while she examined my stock. Then she would make her purchases, but I began to realise things had disappeared from my counter
surfaces
after each of her visits. She was picking things up while I was busy, you see, and hiding them in her shopping-bag.’

‘Valuable things?’ I asked.

‘Not really, more like silly things. Apples, plastic teaspoons, tins of sticking-plasters, tubes of toothpaste, indigestion tablets, bars of chocolate or tubes of sweets, a bottle of wine on one occasion, biscuits, cakes …’

‘If I am to prosecute her, I’ll need to catch her in possession of the stolen goods,’ I said. ‘I cannot take a person to court without real evidence.’

‘No, I don’t want that,’ he was quick to say. ‘I dont’t want to prosecute her, that’s the problem. I just want to stop her.’

‘Confrontation would be advisable in the first instance,’ I advised him. ‘You’d have to catch her in possession of
something
that you could positively identify has having been stolen from your shop. Then threaten her with court action. That might stop her.’

He hesitated and then said, ‘I did halt her on one occasion,’ he said quietly. ‘I had placed a bottle of French perfume on the front counter, where I knew she had been taking things from, and it disappeared when she was in my shop. As she was leaving, I said. “Miss Carr, the perfume, that will be £3 17s 6d please”.’

Unwittingly, he had revealed the name of the shop-lifter but I did not comment on this just yet.

‘And what did she do?’ I asked.

‘She looked at me full in the face and said, “Mr Wilson, I have no perfume, I never use that horrid French stuff”.’

‘And did you search her bags?’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘That would drive her away.’

‘You want her driven away, surely?’ I put to him.

‘On the contrary, Mr Rhea, I do not. That is my dilemma.
You see, she is a very good customer. She spends heavily in here, buying all sorts and she always pays cash, except for the silly things she steals. She is not like some customers, Mr Rhea, who run up bills and need pressing to pay them. She pays cash for every honest purchase, so she’s a very valuable customer in that sense.’

‘You couldn’t afford to lose her then?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but there’s more, you see. She is aunt to lots of people around here. She’s one of a very large family, the Carrs, most of whom live around Crampton. Farmers, villagers, professional people – you’ll know them as well as me. They’re related to the Bennisons, the Tindales, the Haddons, the Newalls, the Lofthouses and others too. Many have accounts with me, Mr Rhea, they’re all good spenders. She buys for them, as well; she’s very generous you see, always buying things for her army of nephews and nieces, always giving them presents from here. Bottles of wine, expensive cheeses, perfume, tins of exotic fruit and so on. They’re things she pays for, by the way.’

‘Are you saying that if you banned her, they’d all stop coming as well?’

‘It’s a fear at the back of my mind,’ he admitted. ‘They are a very close family, Mr Rhea, and I know they’d never believe that their generous Aunt Mabel was a cunning thief.’

In some ways, it was the classic case of a nasty thief taking advantage of a kindly village storekeeper, and in real terms this was a case which well justified prosecution. I explained to Mr Wilson that we could secrete a camera inside the premises to catch her actually stealing an item, and then take her to court by using that film as evidence. Or we could mark certain objects with a fluorescent powder which would adhere to her hands and clothes, and which would glow under certain lights. By using technology, we could catch her in the act – all this presented no problems.

‘No, I couldn’t bear that,’ he said. ‘Not for such a good customer, Mr Rhea, and I must think of her reputation and that of all her relations. The publicity would be terrible in a
community
of this size.’

‘So how can I help if you do not want official action?’ I asked.

‘I thought you might have knowledge of other methods of prevention, Mr. Rhea. I know shop-lifting is a problem, and I thought you might know of some way I could prevent her, for her own sake really, without resorting to court action.’

‘I could have a word with her,’ I offered. ‘I could try to warn her off. Maybe a lecture from a policeman would help. I could frighten her off, maybe.’

‘She might take umbrage, Mr Rhea, and boycott my store if she thought I’d been making accusations behind her back.’

‘So we’ve reached an impasse,’ I said. ‘You will not confront her with your suspicions, and you will not allow me to confront her either. Really, Mr Wilson, if you do not want official police action, the remedy must come from you. You’ve got to decide either to let her continue, or to ban her from the shop, with all the possible consequences.’

‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘I know that if I do ban her, the others will boycott me, and I could not afford that. There are some very good customers among her relations, Mr Rhea. It seems I must grin and bear it, then.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I only wish I could be more helpful.’

‘Well, I had to talk it over with someone impartial,’ he said. ‘I shall keep a closer eye on her, that’s all.’

And so I left him to his worries. But later that afternoon, as I drove around my picturesque beat, I felt I’d let him down. Even though he did not wish me to take official action, I felt there could have been some advice or help I might have produced. But what?

How could I involve myself in this problem in an unofficial capacity? In some ways, Mr Wilson had placed me in a dilemma too and as I drove around, I passed Miss Carr’s fine house. A magnificent detached stone-built house, it occupied a prime site about a mile out of Crampton and as I drove past, she drove out of her gate in her new Volvo.

Money for Miss Carr was no problem; a confident,
fine-looking
woman in her early fifties, she paid her way and was openly generous to her nephews and nieces and indeed to others who needed help. The village could tell of many acts of kindness by Mabel Carr. For these reasons, it seemed very odd that she was systematically stealing from this hard-working little
shopkeeper
.
My own instinct was to prosecute her for this
unkindness
towards him, for I felt it was the only answer. I drove on, and it would be about a week later at lunchtime when I was next in Crampton. Mr Wilson’s shop was closed so I decided to walk around the village, then pop in to see him. And as I walked among the pretty cottages and flowering meadows, I had an idea.

‘Ah, Mr Rhea,’ he beamed. ‘Good of you to call.’

‘Good afternoon, Mr Wilson,’ I smiled. ‘How’s things?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ he said. The shop was empty, so we chatted about the weather for a while, and engaged in our usual small talk, and then I asked about Miss Carr.

‘Is she still stealing?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he said. ‘As bold as brass, really. She got away with a small liqueur on Monday, slipped it into her
shopping-bag
as quick as lightning. I think she’s getting bolder, Mr Rhea. I do wish I could find a way of halting her.’

‘I think I have an answer,’ I said. ‘Highly irregular, I’m afraid, and very unofficial, but it might work.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll listen to anything.’

‘First, I must ask this, you’re not making it easy for her to take things, are you? Putting temptation in her way? Placing things where she can’t resist them?’

He shook his head. ‘No, the stuff she takes is my normal stock which is regularly on the counters for sale. I’ve always displayed it there, Mr Rhea; in fact, I’ve been trying to make things a little more difficult for her by putting out larger items, like the bottles of liqueur. But after she’d been in, one was missing. She was too quick for me, Mr Rhea; it had gone in a twinkling and she was out of the shop before I realised what she’d done. That’s how she operates; I have kept an eye on her and she knows it, but she’s too quick and clever, a real expert. I can’t clear my counters because of her; besides, that kind of open sales technique is a valuable source of income.’

I knew that his neat and tidy mind would instinctively realise when something had been taken; he’d know if a solitary tomato or roll of mints was stolen from his stock, so organised was his mind and his business.