CONSTABLE IN THE FARMYARD a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors Read online

  CONSTABLE

  IN THE

  FARMYARD

  A perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors

  NICHOLAS RHEA

  Constable Nick Mystery Book 22

  Revised edition 2021

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 1999

  by Robert Hale Limited

  © Nicholas Rhea 1999, 2021

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Nicholas Rhea to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78931-810-4

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

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  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH USAGE FOR US READERS

  Chapter 1

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  One of the most inaccessible houses on the North York Moors was called Rigg End Farm. It was situated on my beat, but the beautiful and spacious stone-built premises were hidden in a deep fold among the hills above Aidensfield. The miniature dale which contained the farm was fertile and green, but the lofty moors which surrounded it were covered with acres of open heather to create a somewhat bleak and forbidding landscape. There was not a single tree upon those moors, not even a solitary mountain ash or stunted pine. The only concession to beauty came from rippling moorland streams, dense bracken, clumps of gorse with brilliant yellow blossom, huge granite boulders and the ever-present sound of curlews and skylarks. It was a wild and lonely place, rarely seen by anyone other than the occasional passing hiker.

  The only road to the farm — the sole habitation in that small valley — was an unmade rock-strewn track which twisted its way between tall dry stone walls via several five-bar gates and remarkably steep inclines. In wet weather or wintry conditions, the road was impassable to vehicles with the possible exception of a tractor. Even in summer, few drivers risked their cars’ exhausts or underparts by driving along that stony, rough track. Deliverymen, who were duty-bound to make the perilous trip, ensured their vehicles had a high ground clearance — they included people like the coalman, vet, doctor and others who made periodic visits to Rigg End.

  Several visitors had had pieces wrenched from their vehicles by immovable rocks lurking among the grass which thrived in the centre of that primitive road, consequently few people ever went to Rigg End unless it was absolutely necessary — even then, many never ventured right down to the farm, preferring to leave their wares in a small shelter at the end of the lane. The grocer and postman were just two of the people who adopted that system. Even the daily milk lorry did not go all the way to the farm. The resident farmer had always carried his day’s output in churns, using a tractor and trailer to take the milk to a stand near the main road. That system still applied.

  My early visits were by police motorcycle. I would stand on the footrests of my Francis Barnett and guide it over the rough terrain as if I was competing in a rough-riders’ outing or scrambles event. Later, when I graduated to an official Minivan, I drove as close to the farm as I dared, bearing in mind the low-slung underparts of the vehicle, and then I would park in a suitable place to walk the rest of the way. Making an official visit to Rigg End wasn’t something one did in a hurry; it was more of a mountaineering expedition than a case of popping in for coffee.

  Rigg End Farm was a relic of former times, a living reminder of the days when horses and carts used such tracks, not motor vehicles. Probably as recently as World War II, those who lived here rarely ventured out and no one had seen fit to have the track surfaced. It was just as rough in the 1960s as it had been in the 1860s and its chief users seemed to be hikers who enjoyed the panoramic views from its elevated route.

  There was a public footpath around the edge of one of the fields and it joined the farm track on its journey to the top road. Any attempt to convert the track into a serviceable road would be extremely costly because it was over a mile long with a most difficult surface to contend with. Massive rocks would have to be moved, rivulets diverted, walls moved to widen the carriageway and steep hills made more manageable by zig-zagging them down the slopes. Few hill farmers could afford to surface their front doorsteps let alone build and maintain a private road of this kind.

  To reach Aidensfield village or Ashfordly market from Rigg End, these being the nearest centres of population, entailed a long, arduous trek, but in times past, the occupants of this farm rarely made those journeys because there were few reasons to leave the premises. Leaving Rigg End to go anywhere required such a long and difficult trek that few bothered to make the effort. People who lived and worked on remote farms like this were, of necessity, very self-sufficient — they had to be to survive — but Rigg End enjoyed one vital ingredient: it was a non-stop supply of pure, fresh moorland water which tumbled from the hills in a series of becks, waterfalls and rivulets. This water enabled the farmer to keep hens, pigs, cows and sheep and to grow his own food because it made the valley very fertile and enabled the land to be comparatively easily worked. Even though the farm had neither electricity nor piped water, nor indeed a telephone, it could provide a good living for those prepared to work, very hard, over a sustained and prolonged period. The snag was that there was nothing else one could do here but work. Days off, holidays and spare-time interests were non-existent — survival at Rigg End meant non-stop work.

  Even when I began to call in the 1960s, modern amenities were not to be found within its walls — the water still came from a moorland spring, there was no hot water on tap, but the farm now had electricity which was produced by a generator. Every time I visited Rigg End, however, I found myself admiring the magnificent setting and the unrivalled solitude while wondering how on earth Reuben Collier managed both to survive in such conditions and to make a living. But he did survive and he did have money to spend; as I was to learn, this was usually spent in the village pub although he possessed some very up-to-date farm machinery.

  Reuben was a cheerful pink-faced character with twinkling eyes and a ready smile. He was a tough and wiry man of average build but of indeterminate age, who wore black leather clogs and an old grey trilby hat along with an ancient Harris tweed jacket, a thick shirt and corduroy trousers. I think he was in his late forties or early fifties, but I was never quite sure. He was one of those people whose appearance changed little over the years; he could be anywhere between thirty-five and sixty. My first encounter with Reuben had happened a long time earlier, very soon after my arrival at Aidensfield as
the village constable. The encounter took place during one of my outings with Sergeant Blaketon. It was just after midnight and we were in the Ashfordly police car, crossing the moors on a dark autumn night as the sergeant showed me the extremities of my beat. At that stage, I had never met Reuben and most certainly had never visited his farm at Rigg End, but we came upon Reuben in our headlights. He was half walking, half trotting along the dark moorland verge with his head down and his legs twinkling along in his famous clogs.

  He had no torch and seemed to be finding his way across the wild heights of the moors in complete darkness.

  “That’s Reuben Collier,” Blaketon explained. “From Rigg End. On his way home from the pub. Never give him a lift, Rhea, especially not in an official police vehicle.”

  “Why, does he smell?” I laughed.

  “Worse than that,” the sergeant told me. “He gets car sick. If you offer him a lift, he’ll accept but within minutes, your car will receive the full treatment from him. He’ll be sick all over the place and after a night in the pub, the stench and volume of his output is considerable. Let him walk, Rhea. Everybody else does. Some have learned their lesson from bitter experience.”

  “Right, Sergeant.” I made a mental note to heed this advice.

  “And never take an official vehicle down to his farm, you’ll have the bottom ripped out of it. Walk to Rigg End, if you have to go, Rhea.”

  “A rough track, is it?”

  “I’d say it was easier motoring up Helvellyn, Rhea,” he chuckled. “But at least Reuben’s not a hermit like his ancestors, he does get out of the place, even if it’s only to the pub.”

  And so, on that occasion, we did not offer Reuben a lift even though I thought it was rather late for him to be out in such an exposed and deserted place. I wondered why he was walking along such an isolated part of the road because he was nowhere near the pub at Aidensfield, and nowhere near his farm at Rigg End.

  The place we’d seen him did not appear to be anywhere close to his route home. In the months which followed, I became more closely acquainted with Reuben’s unusual lifestyle, chiefly through occasional official visits to his farm in its spectacular setting but also because he came into Aidensfield every evening for his nightly pint or two — or more — in the pub. I rarely spoke to him there — he would pop into the bar, sit in his favourite corner seat and order a succession of pints interspaced with a pickled egg or bar snack of some kind. Other farmers and villagers would join him and he’d remain there talking and drinking until closing time, then he’d go home. That was his evening’s entertainment — every day. Reuben was by no means a Friday-night drinker or a Saturday-night regular — he went to the pub in Aidensfield every night of the week because there was nothing for him to do on the farm. It seemed he was bored at Rigg End.

  This had happened because developments in farm machinery and equipment had made the work easier. Probably, he was the first resident of Rigg End who had no need to spend twenty-hours a day working on the farm simply to survive. Now he could complete his work more easily and more speedily. But Reuben, it seemed, had no idea what to do with his spare time. Regular visits to the pub provided the answer.

  It was some time before I realised he walked all the way from Rigg End to the pub and walked all the way home afterwards. Furthermore, he did so by not using acknowledged roads. Instead, he cut across the moor by the network of footpaths he knew so well. A trek which would take seven or eight miles by road was shortened to about four miles by a direct cross-country route.

  But a four-mile walk, particularly one across some of England’s most dramatic and testing scenery, was no mean achievement — and to do it twice a day, every day, was even more astonishing. By making such a determined effort to sink a pint or two, I reckon Reuben must have loved his beer.

  As I learned more about him, I discovered he did not always take the most direct route home, even if he did use the shortest route to reach the pub. I calculated it would take roughly an hour to walk from Rigg End to Aidensfield by the shortest route across the moors. However, his circuitous trek home, I was to eventually learn, varied according to how much he had drunk, but like a determined homing pigeon, he always managed to find his way back to base. I must admit there were times I wondered how on earth he achieved this triumph of navigation.

  I discovered this foible after countless sightings of Reuben at different places on the moorland roads around Aidensfield and Ashfordly. Whatever route he took through the wilds, he had, at some stage, to cross one or other of the surfaced routes which criss-crossed the moors. That’s when people spotted him. That’s when people saw Reuben in the middle of the deserted moors and wondered how he’d got there. He’d be seen, sometimes singing, sometimes staggering and sometimes merely talking to himself, as he made his unerring way back to Rigg End and everyone living locally knew that the mysterious figure on the moors was Reuben because he was unmistakeable in his trilby hat and clogs. To my knowledge, he had been observed crossing roads in all manner of unusual places, often miles away from his most obvious route and sometimes apparently heading in the wrong direction.

  But those who knew him were wise enough never to offer him a lift even if it was raining heavily or blowing a blizzard. The local people knew that Reuben was best left to his own devices even if visitors to our district were frequently puzzled by the appearance of a cheerful drunk in the middle of nowhere with not a public house or indeed any other house within miles. Sometimes, as a means of teasing visitors, we’d explain it was the power of the moorland air, or the quality of the moorland spring water which had that effect upon the fellow, explaining that he was a moorland shepherd tending his far-flung flock. I think some gullible tourists believed us.

  From time to time, however, Reuben did not reach his isolated home until six or seven o’clock next morning, by which time he was quite sober if a little short of sleep. No one knew where he’d been and I don’t think he knew either — but sometimes early-morning visitors to Rigg End, like the postman, or even myself, would see him staggering down his lane from some unknown place on the moors. By then, of course, he was stone cold sober. There is no doubt his long, roundabout route across the hills was a fine way of clearing his head and restoring him to sobriety before he tackled his day’s work. On such occasions, he began work immediately, with never any thought of going to bed. And then, that same evening, he’d walk all the way back to Aidensfield for another long session in the pub. He must have had a formidable constitution.

  Once when we met at his farm, he told me he walked to the pub for two reasons: first, because he did not own a car, and second, because he did not believe in driving his tractor after his regular drinking session.

  He had no wish to damage the vehicle because he depended upon it for most of his other excursions — every Wednesday, for example, he drove into Aidensfield at twelve noon precisely to call at the shop for his provisions, to buy stamps at the post office, post his mail and collect his Farmer’s Weekly. We called it the Twelve O’clock Tractor — one could set one’s watch against Reuben’s regular appearance in the main street. On a Friday too, he took his tractor into Ashfordly where he did his banking, sold some produce and eggs, and bought whatever he needed by way of clothing, tools or other necessities.

  I was not entirely surprised to discover he was a bachelor. He’d inherited the farm from his parents and I think their canny husbandry had enabled them to save a lot of money. They would never have earned a large amount, but they seemed capable of existing on very little; certainly, they had not spent anything on the house. For all its eight bedrooms, four reception rooms, kitchen, larder and countless outbuildings, it had barely had any money spent on the building for decades, and yet it was in splendid condition, if in need of a lick or two of fresh paint and a spot of elbow grease. The cash saved by his careful parents had been left to Reuben which explained why his tractor was always fairly new and well maintained, why his machinery was modern and why he could afford to buy
a generator for his electricity supply. And, I suspect, it helped to fund his visits to the pub.

  With a useful sum of money to his name and the means of increasing his wealth if he was so inclined, he lived alone in that wonderful, isolated place, with no one to help in the house, on the land or around the buildings.

  Although he had a cousin living on another moorland farm some eight miles away, no member of his family or anyone else lived with him. It was difficult to believe that a woman would enjoy living in such a remote and primitive place. It was equally difficult to imagine Reuben ever having an opportunity to meet a potential wife. By the very nature of his lonely existence, he was one of life’s single people, destined never to know the love of a woman even though he was as masculine as a tom cat. His entire world comprised his farm and his visits to the pub in Aidensfield, albeit with occasional outings to Ashfordly. Romance would never come his way.

  Then one morning in late August, I was patrolling in my Minivan along the top road which ran across the moors when I was flagged down by a couple of sturdy young men in hiking gear. They’d be in their early twenties, I guessed, university students by the look of them. It was early — around 8.30 — and I could see they had been camping; they were carrying their tents and other gear such as a frying pan which dangled from the belt of one of them.

  “Yes, lads?” I climbed out to speak to them.

  “We’ve just come over that hill,” said their spokesman. “Over by Rigg End. The cows look distressed, they’re waiting at the gate and making an awful noise. I think they want to be milked.”

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  The second man looked at his watch and said, “Oh, three-quarters of an hour, I’d say. We wondered if the farmer was ill, there’s no sign of life. We knocked on the kitchen door but got no reply and he’s nowhere in the outbuildings.”