Constable Through the Meadow (16 page)

I saw Ian in Elsinby one Sunday afternoon just before
Christmas
and told him what to expect.

‘Thanks, Mr Rhea. I’m grateful.’

‘Wish Linda a happy Christmas from me,’ I said.

‘Thanks, Mr Rhea. I will. And I’m sorry I’ve been a nuisance, I was daft really. But there was nowt else I could do, was there, if I wanted to see Linda?’

‘I can’t encourage you to break the law.’ I smiled at him. ‘Mind,’ I added, ‘I’m not sure how you’ll sneak down to Birch Bower in the summer without her dad knowing.’

‘Me neither, Mr Rhea. I’ll have to find a way in somehow, although she might be able to go for walks when it’s light at night.’

‘Let’s hope so, Ian. Oh, and by the way,’ I said. ‘We finish those check-points this coming Saturday night.’

‘Thanks, Mr Rhea,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

One of the funniest incidents involved a man whom I shall call Ronald Youngman, a salesman who lived in Ashfordly. I was never very sure what he sold, although I think it was something linked to the building-industry like scaffolding. A dark-haired, attractive man in his early thirties, he was a lively character who played a lot of tennis, cricket, football and
badminton
. When he was not selling scaffolding or playing one of his sports, he was exercising his considerable charm upon the local ladies.

In the latter case, he made ample use of his company car which was a Ford Cortina with reclining front seats; he used this to take his many conquests for outings, frequently making trips to rural pubs after which he would take his charmed girl to a remote rustic location, there for mutual enjoyment. For this reason, his distinctive gold-coloured car was often to be seen parked in lonely places, sometimes with steamed-up windows and generally in complete darkness.

Most of the local police officers knew the car and they knew of Ronald’s insatiable appetite for lovely ladies, consequently they never checked over the car or its occupants when they found it in a far-away place. Normally, our procedures were to check every car found in a remote place to see if the occupants were
safe and sound, to see if it was someone trying to commit suicide or whether the car had been stolen and abandoned. It might contain the proceeds of crime, or it might be used for crime – there were many other valid reasons for checking such vehicles.

If I was patrolling late, therefore, and came across Ronald’s car upon the moors or deep in a forest, I ignored it. After all, I didn’t want to embarrass either Ronald or his lover of the evening and if neither was breaking the law there was no need to make myself a nuisance.

But late one night – in fact it was after midnight – I was working a patrol and around lam, my route took me high into Waindale. Tucked away in the corner of a quarry behind Wether Cote Farm was an explosives store; it belonged to the quarry owner and because it contained explosives and detonators used for blasting, we had to check it regularly for security. It was little more than a very solidly built chamber, part of which was underground, and it seldom contained a large amount. But it had to be checked and our checks had to be recorded.

With this in mind, I parked my mini-van off the road near Wether Cote Farm and decided to walk the couple of hundred yards to the explosives store. The route was along an unmade lane, full of pot-holes and with the quarry gates closed, there was very little room for turning a vehicle around. It was much safer to walk. And so, in the gloom of that night, albeit armed with a torch which I did not use during the walk, I made my way along the track. Rather like young Ian Spellar, I found I could see without the light from a torch. And then, in a corner right next to the store, I came across Ronald’s car. It was in darkness but I could recognise the outline. Ronald was at it again.

Having no wish to become a peeping Tom or to disturb him in his moments of bliss, I tried to creep past the car to carry out my essential check. But as I was going past, I could hear cries for help … and they were being sounded in a man’s voice! I halted a while, listening; I thought it might be the car radio, a disc jockey fooling about or perhaps a character in a play or it could be Ronald playing games. After all, he had no idea that I, or indeed anyone else, was standing just outside his
passion-wagon
.

But the cry was genuine … and a woman’s voice was calling too. Who on earth they were hoping to attract in such a remote part of the moors was beyond me, but I listened carefully, just to ensure that these were genuine cries for help. I did wonder if it was some odd part of their love-making, but in spite of being muffled by the closed windows, they were, I felt, very genuine cries of distress. And, they sounded rather weak.

I had to investigate.

I switched on my powerful torch and pulled open the driver’s door. The interior light came on and there, in the most bizarre situation upon the passenger’s reclining seat was Ronald. He was face down and beneath him was a woman. Both were completely naked. And neither could move.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked, with a mixture of relief and
embarrassment
, unable to turn his head towards the door.

‘PC Rhea, Ronald.’

‘Oh, thank God …. get me out …’

In the weak glow of the interior light, I could distinguish a tangle of bare legs; I could not identify the woman, and she was saying nothing. In fact, she was hiding her face by turning her head towards the wall of the car. But Ronald was saying ‘My foot, Mr Rhea, my leg …’

‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, baffled by this discovery.

‘My legs … my feet … they’re trapped … can you loosen them …’

I could now see that his right foot had disappeared through the cubby-hole of his car; it seemed he had been exerting
pressure
with that foot as a result of which it had dislodged the plastic back panel of the cubby-hole. His foot and much of his lower leg had then slipped through the hole to become trapped among the wires and bodywork, and he could not pull it out. That sudden action had then caused his left leg to make an involuntary movement, and his foot had gone through a gap between the spokes of the steering-wheel. That leg was also trapped due to the weight upon it.

‘Interesting position, Ronald,’ I said as I examined his
predicament
.

‘I can’t move, Mr Rhea. I just can’t move …’

His entire body weight was resting upon the woman beneath;
she could not roll free because the driver’s seat was not in a reclining position, nor could she slide towards the rear due to the slope of the seat upon which she was trapped, and Ronald’s position prevented a forward escape.

Besides, one of her legs was somehow curled between his which well and truly anchored her. Unfortunately for Ronald his own trapped position and the weight of his body meant he could neither rise nor free his own legs.

‘I wish I had a camera, Ronald, this is one for the record books!’

‘Give over, Mr Rhea, just get me out … I’ve been here ages … I thought nobody was going to come …’

‘They wouldn’t, at least not until the quarry opens in the morning – it would give the lads summat to talk about. I just happened to be coming to the explosives store. Now, let’s see if I can shift one of these legs.’

I went around to the passenger side and opened that door, upon which the woman turned her face the other way. It was almost the only part of her that I had not seen, but I set about removing Ronald’s foot. By pushing my hand through the cubby-hole, I could dislodge the panel which had secured his foot, and then, by heaving on that leg and getting him to bend his knee, I could release that foot. But he could still not help himself. Gradually, I eased the other foot out of the spokes of the steering-wheel, got into the rear of the car and dragged him towards the back seat by his shoulders, and then he was free. Aching, stiff with cold and very, very embarrassed, he rolled into the driver’s seat.

And then the woman could move and I recognised her.

‘Good evening, Mrs Stamford,’ I greeted her.

She was the wife of an hotel owner in Ashfordly but she made no response, not even a thank-you. As I clambered out of their car, she began to get dressed in total silence as Ronald grabbed his clothes and began to pull them on in the lane as he talked to me.

‘Look, Mr Rhea, we’re men of the world. I mean, I’ve committed no crime, no offence … You don’t have to take action, do you? Report this, or anything? She is a respected lady from the town, you see, she’s never done this before, not with
me anyway. Her husband’s away, He’s at an hoteliers’
conference
in Harrogate …’

‘There’s no need to say anything, Ronald. Rescuing damsels and knights in distress is just part of our service. Well, it’s made my night interesting, but, Ronald …’

I paused.

‘Yes?’ He was fastening his shirt by this time.

‘I’d love to know how on earth you managed to get yourself into that position. I’ll bet a contortionist would have a job to achieve that!’

‘You’ll not tell a soul, will you, Mr Rhea?’

‘It’s our secret, Ronald, ours and Mrs Stamford’s.’

And I have never mentioned it to anyone. Ronald often greets me and insists on buying me a drink when I’m off duty, but the humiliated Mrs Stamford never speaks to me.

But when I returned home and booked off duty that night, I realised I had omitted to do one vital thing. I’d completely forgotten to examine the explosives store.

Possibly the most dramatic love story that came my way involved Mr and Mrs Colin Blenkiron and a notorious
crossroads
called Pennyflats Cross. So difficult and accident-prone was this stretch of road that my predecessor, and then I, kept a stock of blank scale-drawings of the roads for use in our accident reports. The number of traffic accidents which happened at that point kept us in regular work!

Wherever a road traffic accident occurred which resulted in a need to examine all the evidence with a view to prosecution, we had to submit detailed plan drawings of the scene. These were carefully drawn to scale and contained the positions of the vehicles involved both before, during and after impact. This was for the benefit both of our senior officers in deciding whether or not to send the case to court, and later the
magistrates
if it did get to court. This system helped enormously to simplify a difficult explanation of the events. A stock of neatly drawn plans depicting this road, with all the constant
measurements
, the position of warning signs, indications of gradients, type of road markings, etc., did save a lot of time.

At Pennyflats Cross, the main road, which had a ‘B’
classification
, ran from Ashfordly to York and crossed Pennyflats, an
area of elevated scrubland covered with small conifers, gorse bushes and heather. As it reached the crossroads, the road dipped suddenly and quite steeply, although this short gradient was well signed in advance.

Nevertheless, many drivers who were strangers to the area were, when approaching from Ashfordly, largely unaware of the undulating nature of the road. They sailed over the summit without knowing and apparently without caring what lay beyond. That in itself could be regarded as careless driving or even dangerous driving because, just over the summit, within a matter of very few yards, was a minor road. It crossed the Ashfordly–York road at an oblique angle, emerging almost unseen from a plantation of conifers at one side and a copse of young silver birch at the other.

Defence solicitors always maintained that these crossroads were badly placed and it was unfair to convict anyone of driving carelessly here. The police, however, assured the court that the crossroads was well signposted from all directions, and that, in any case, a driver should always drive at a speed and in such a manner that he or she could deal with any unexpected hazards.

But a similar problem afflicted drivers coming out of the side road on to the main road. Upon emerging on to the main road, their vision was grossly impaired by the angle of the road and the profusion of trees. The chief problem was that those on the main road often crested that hill at speed only to find a slow car emerging into their path. So short was the stopping-distance that very few could pull up in time, not even those who pottered along in a leisurely style. Fast or even moderately fast drivers had no chance at all.

Accidents were inevitable, and although we, the police, grumbled at the highway department and the district council for improvements to be made, nothing was ever done. Their argument was that the crossroads were not dangerous because no one had been killed there, and, oddly enough, that was true. There never had been a fatal accident there, although some nasty injuries had occurred. Everyone said that, one day,
somebody
would be killed, but happily in my time at Aidensfield that did not happen.

I was not surprised therefore, one Sunday afternoon in May,
when I received a frantic phone call from a passing driver to say he had come upon two cars which had clearly just been involved in a traffic accident. He was chattering nervously as people tend to do when they are reporting urgent matters to the police, but I tried to calm him down by slowly asking the obvious questions.

I learned that the location was the infamous Penny flats Cross, and that both drivers were injured. In his view, the injuries did not appear to be too serious although he said an ambulance was required. The road was not blocked and he had not witnessed the accident; he had come upon it moments after it had
happened
. I thanked him and said I would be there in less than ten minutes; I assured him I’d call the ambulance before I left home. He said he would wait and attend to the injured drivers.

The accident was one of the kind that regularly happened here. A young woman in an Austin mini-car had come out of the minor road on to the main road just as a young man in a sports car had crested the brow of the hill. He’d reacted quickly and had attempted to swerve to his right to avoid a collision, but she’d kept coming across his path from the left. He had collided with the front of her car. This had spun her off the road and she had collided with a telegraph pole while he had veered further to his offside, ending his short trip by crumpling his MGB around a sturdy ash tree.