Constable in the Dale (A Constable Nick Mystery Book 5) Read online

  Constable In The Dale

  Nicholas Rhea

  © Nicholas Rhea 1999

  Nicholas Rhea has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1983 by Robert Hale.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  “Here, there is plenty of gooseberries which makes my mouth watter.”

  Marjorie Fleming 1803-11

  *

  Very few agricultural shows are devoted entirely to gooseberries. Those which do specialise in this useful and wholesome fruit ( Ribes grossularia) live in a world of bulging berries and boosted bushes, and they are given to fierce competition spiced with awesome claims about the size of their specimens. Perfection is their goal, and the bigger the better. It was Mrs Beeton, in her famous cookery book, who said that “the high state of perfection to which the gooseberry has here been brought, is due to the skill of the English gardeners, for in no other country does it attain the same size and flavour.” She added that, when uncultivated, the gooseberry is small and inferior.

  Had she visited Aidensfield to view the fruit of a very select band of berry growers, she would have regarded their special fruit as colossal, and those of her proud gardeners as small and inferior. One sometimes wishes she had lived to view these supreme examples of Ribes grossularia.

  It is berries of this kind that prove beyond doubt that gooseberry-growing is an art; the monsters produced by the gooseberry societies around England are staggeringly handsome by their shape, size and quality. Each is a true work of art, and to view a modem Aidensfield berry in its natural habitat is indeed a sight to be treasured. Each berry is grown upon a specially nurtured bush, and, when ripe, is about the size of a domestic hen’s egg. Some are larger than golf balls, with pulsing veins prominent against their tender and taut skins. When such enormous berries dangle upon their slender stalks, they threaten to topple the tiny parent plant. These bushes are the strong men of the fruit garden, sturdily bearing their precious loads in defiance of weather, wasps and wind.

  It is not easy to define the area of greatest gooseberries. There are about eight other societies, most of which are in Cheshire but a strong claimant to be the leader in the field must be the North Yorkshire village of Egton Bridge, a beautiful place lying deep in the Esk Valley. There, the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society was established in AD 1800, and I am privileged to be a member, where I was known as a maiden grower until I produced a berry worthy of display among the champions. The annual meeting continues to be held on Easter Tuesday every year, and the annual show of berries is held on the first Tuesday in August, once the day after Bank Holiday. Since the Government messed around with the calendar, Show Day is now held on an ordinary Tuesday. It may be an ordinary Tuesday to many, but it is a very important Tuesday for berry growers.

  Before daring to show a berry, I had to familiarise myself with the rules. For example, it is stipulated that all berries handed to the weighman must be sound and dry. Twin berries are defined as those which are two on one stem, grown naturally, and they must be distinctly twins. Furthermore, a pair of twins cannot be split; either both are shown, or none.

  The heaviest berry takes the premier prize of the show, and if that happens to be the work of a maiden grower, then he also takes the maiden prize. There are first, second and third prizes for the heaviest twelve berries, and for the heaviest six; the four colours, yellow, red, green and white, attract their own prizes, and hairy ones have their place too.

  The rules which govern the taking of berries from other persons’ trees are stringent, but the prize-winning fruit are wonderful to behold. A recent winning berry weighed over 1½ ounces; there would be about ten of these berries to a pound. Indeed the World Champion gooseberry was claimed by Egton Bridge for over thirty years, the world champion grower being Mr Tom Ventress, president of the local society. The World Championships have been held at Egton Bridge for nearly 200 years, although the society records only date to 1843. This must surely be the doyen of all gooseberry shows, and it competes with those in distant places like Derbyshire and even Brighton. They are always in the background, while Egton Bridge hogs the stage — that was the situation until the Aidensfield Old Gooseberry Society was founded.

  No one quite knew how it started, but reliable sources suggest that someone crept into Egton Bridge one very dark evening and stole several show bushes from the garden of a noted grower. The story says that these were smuggled across the moors and planted in a quiet cottage garden at Aidensfield, where they were fiercely guarded and brought to maturity in secret behind tall fences and a crop of well-regulated nettles.

  The story is quite feasible because in Yorkshire it seems that only the Egton Bridge berry bushes are capable of producing the gargantuan fruit so necessary for show purposes. This meant that if the Aidensfield Growers wished to knock the Egton Bridge men off their prickly pedestals, they would require bushes with the same inherent qualities. Such plants rarely grace the market overt.

  Sometimes, I wonder if those rumours of berry-bush smuggling were circulated to discredit the Aidensfield trees, for it is fair to say that the Aidensfield Society did boast such grandly named trees as Lord Kitchener, Lord Derby, Blücher, Thatcher, Woodpecker, Surprise, Princess Royal and Admiral Beatty, all top names in the gooseberry world. This is quality — it would take a good thief to steal such gems. I suspect it is just a nasty legend.

  From those first trees, therefore, by whatever means they arrived, the Aidensfield Society flourished, each new member taking cuttings off the first of its type until a select number of village gardens boasted a veritable forest of thorny competitors.

  During the formative years of the Aidensfield Society, the presence of those bushes was a closely guarded secret and it was not until they were producing colossal fruit that they were revealed to an astonished world. It came with the shock announcement that one berry from Aidensfield would be competing in the forthcoming World Championships at Egton Bridge.

  The fact that no one, not even the experts, had heard of the Aidensfield gooseberry caused a furore among the other growers. Even those experts from distant parts of England had never wrested the World Championship from the noble Eskdale village, so the first showing of an Aidensfield berry was earth-shattering in its audacity. It was akin to a learner driver in a mini-car competing in the World Motor Racing Championships and I happened to be village policeman at Aidensfield during the run-up to this grim competition.

  It transpired that seven residents of Aidensfield owned trees. Every one of them had bush ancestors in the Egton Bridge locality, and each of those seven people had for years protected their berries against unauthorised attention. Their secret had been brilliantly maintained until it was time to execute the coup de grace.

  The President of the Aidensfield Society was Joe Marshall, a retired railwayman who lived in a beautiful cottage along the lane at the eastern edge of Aidensfield. His home stood close to the highway, with an extensive garden behind. It was in the seclusion of that garden that Joe nurtured his berries, and he hailed me from there one fine July morning.

  He was a stocky man who habitually wore brown corduroy trousers, a grey sports jacket and black hob-nailed boots. In his late sixties, he sported a fla
t cap which never left his head, indoors or out, so I never knew whether his iron-grey hair covered his entire head or merely sprouted below the rim of his headgear.

  “Mr Rhea,” he announced solemnly, removing a smoking briar pipe from his mouth. “Ah’m right glad to find you.”

  “’Morning Joe,” I greeted him. “Trouble, is it?”

  “Nay,” he said slowly in the manner of a Yorkshireman, “not trouble. Help, Ah think. Guidance, mebbe.”

  “Right,” I said. “How can I help or be of guidance?” “Thoo’d better come in,” and he led me into the smart, sunny kitchen of his home where his wife worked. Mrs Marshall was a shy woman who rarely went out, except to the post office for her pension and to the shop for groceries, but she smiled at me and Joe said, “Tea, Mr Rhea?”

  “Thanks.” It was a warm afternoon, and a drink was welcome, even if it was a hot one. The kettle sang on an open fire, and within minutes, the silent Mrs Marshall in her flowered pinny produced a brown, earthenware teapot and some china cups. She poured delicious helpings of hot tea, and found a plate full of scones with fresh butter and strawberry jam to smother them. It was marvellous.

  During her careful ministrations, Joe chattered about the weather, the animals in the fields and a host of other incidental things, and I allowed him to ‘waffle on’, as we say in Yorkshire, until he came to the point of his request.

  “Mr Rhea,” he said eventually, “Ah’ll come straight to the point,” and he drew on that smelly pipe. “It’s about them gooseberries of mine.”

  “Gooseberries?” At this stage, I was blissfully unaware of the forthcoming competition.

  “Aye, thoo knaws!”

  I didn’t know, and the expression of my face must have told him so. “What gooseberries?” I asked, looking at Joe and his wife for guidance.

  “By gum!” he almost shouted. “Thoo must be t’only feller in these parts that dissn’t knaw!”

  “Sorry!” I apologised. “Am I missing something?”

  “Thoo’ll knaw aboot yon gooseberry show across at Egton Bridge?” He put the question in the form of a statement.

  “Yes,” I said, but I didn’t inform him that I was a member who qualified as a maiden grower. Obviously, he didn’t know about my Yellow Woodpeckers.

  “Aye, well, we’ve set up our own society, and we’re gahin ti beat them Egton Bridgers. We’ve been growing berries for a few years, alius waiting until our bushes and berries were just right. And now, they are. This year, we’re gahin ower t’moors wiv oor berries, and we’ll come back here wi t’World Championship!”

  “Does anybody else know about this?” I asked.

  “Nay,” he said. “Nobody, except us seven. Ah was joking, when Ah said thoo should have known. There’s just us seven.”

  “You seven?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Ah, there’s seven on us, all members of this Society. We’ve kept things very secret because we want to catch them Egton Bridgers napping.”

  As he spoke, a feeling of impending horror crossed my mind. As a member of the opposing Society, I could be considered a spy! I was one of the dreaded Egton Bridgers and he didn’t know! And he’d laid open his soul to me in a moment of deepest trust. I wondered how the News of the World would treat the revelation of a gooseberry spy in Aidensfield.

  “What do you want me to do?” My voice quivered as I put my question.

  “Guard oor berries,” he said. “When you’re out on patrol, we all want you to look to our bushes.”

  “Nobody’s going to nobble them, surely?” I put to him, wondering if he’d received some intelligence reports from the Esk Valley.

  “Ah wouldn’t put it past’em,” he said, shaking the stem of his pipe at me. “Ah wouldn’t that! If they know we’ve a world beater on our hands, they might send troops out to stick pins into our fruit, or knock’em off t’bushes. Ah can’t take that sort of a risk, thoo sees, there’s a lot at stake.”

  My intimate knowledge of the Egton Bridge growers assured me that they would never stoop to such ploys to beat the opposition. Their inbred confidence and growing ability, plus the secret ways they had with gooseberry bushes, meant there had never been any serious threat to their unique position in the gooseberry world. No one from beyond that lovely village could beat an Egton Bridge grower by fair means. The Eskdale berries would always beat the world, and I knew that the Egton Bridgers would let the Ryedale berries grow in peace. They had no reason to do otherwise — the Egton Bridgers were invincible. Or were they? I dismissed any lingering doubts as pure fantasy!

  I tried to convince Joe Marshall of that fact, but knew I was facing a losing batde. He was convinced his berries would be nobbled, so I was compelled to do my duty in the protection of his property, and I re-assured him that I would patrol diligently past his gooseberry patch from time to time. I would keep an eagle eye cast for signs of illegal attention to his maturing fruit, and those of his colleagues.

  Throughout July, therefore, I maintained my vigil, and I also paid close attention to the six other growers in the village. No one nobbled the growing fruit, and towards the end of July, Joe called me into his home.

  “Mr Rhea,” he said, “Ah’s fair capped that thoo’s seen fit ti keep an eye on them berries o’ mine. They’re coming on grand, real whoppers they are. Ah reckon one of’em might just get that title away from Egton Bridge. Ah’ll settle for t’World Championship.”

  I didn’t like to disappoint him, but none of his berries was anything like the necessary size to achieve that distinction. Certainly they were gigantic by the standards of those seen in any fruit shop or market stall, but by Egton Bridge standards, they were by no means remarkable. “Nobbut middlin’” as they would be described.

  “What does thoo think of’em, then?” he put to me, his pipe issuing thick fumes of astonishing pungency.

  “Nice berries,” I said, for I could not say otherwise. Indeed, I had half a dozen on my own bushes which were bigger than any of Joe’s. I couldn’t deflate the poor old fellow; I let him ride on his wave of optimism.

  “This’ere pipe,” he said, removing it and brandishing it around, “This’ere pipe keeps t’ wasps off. Ah blows smoke across them berries every day, and it puts a lining on t’berries. It makes wasps keep clear; if they can get near, Mr Rhea, they’ll punch a hole in t’fruit to get at t’juice, just like a needle gahin in, and Ah dossn’t let that happen. This tobacco smoke keeps’em off.”

  I knew of that trick and I also knew that pigs’ blood and cow muck were ideal for manuring the bushes. Joe didn’t seem to use those — by his methods trees were surrounded with fireside ashes which he’d spread last autumn to prevent this year’s caterpillars climbing up the trees. Some growers put coal dust around the roots in the early spring as a substitute for spraying and there were other tricks too. Joe appeared to know most of them.

  He told me how he made little umbrellas of linen to place over the huge berries to prevent heavy rain knocking them off, or causing them to burst by swelling too rapidly. He also fed them with a mixture of sugar and water. Sometimes, when a truly colossal berry made its appearance, the grower would fashion a tiny hammock to sling beneath it. This was to give the straining stalk some relief from its continuing effort to support the bulbous fruit, a sort of berry brassiere.

  Joe spent a long time with me. He told me most of his secrets and explained how he’d learned these surreptitiously from a boastful Egton Bridger who had failed to realise that Joe was a future competitor. I wondered if Joe knew my secret…

  My own berries were coming along fine. My little colony of six Yellow Woodpecker bushes was in a sunny but sheltered place in my hilltop garden. Upon them, I had lavished great care and attention of the kind outlined by Joe, expertise I had gleaned from generations of prize growers. My own berries were astonishingly beautiful and round, certainly worthy of the show.

  The Egton Bridge show was the day after Bank Holiday Monday; my entry was authorised because of my membership
of the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society, but my competing berries must come from my own trees. That presented no problems. They had to be with the weighman before two o’clock on the afternoon of the show, and would remain on the table until seven-thirty that night.

  Having been privileged to see the size of Joe’s specimens, I began to contemplate entering my own. I did not believe I had a World Champion among my little charmers, but I might just get into the prize list with the heaviest six, or even a single heavyweight in yellow. I began to muse over the possibility. With the end of July, the day of the berry show was almost upon us.

  I had to work on that Bank Holiday, performing a motorcycle patrol throughout Ryedale from ten o’clock in the morning until six that evening. My duties entailed stopping the bike in villages to undertake foot patrols, as well as keeping an eye on holiday traffic, seeking thieves who stole from cars in beauty spots and youngsters who used the holiday as an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion in the local hostelries.

  All day, my mind was far away, over the moors in Eskdale, thinking about gooseberries. I could not miss the final opportunity of making a cheeky inspection of Joe’s berries, so I parked the faithful Francis Barnett in Aidensfield, close to the village hall, and donned my flat cap instead of my motor-cycle crash helmet. I began one of my routine foot patrols; it was mid-afternoon on a hot, sticky August Bank Holiday Monday.

  I was in shirt sleeves and hadn’t realised how clammy the day had become; the wind from my motor-cycle had kept me blissfully cool and unaware of the heat. As I walked along the lane to Joe’s house, I felt like sipping a long cool glass of orange squash. The heat was intense.

  But Joe didn’t believe in such drinks. When he saw me heading towards his garden wall, he called me in and his silent wife produced a mug of her instant tea. I drank it, and the sweat poured out as he walked me about his garden. He still wore his corduroys, jacket, boots and flat cap.