Constable by the Stream (A Constable Nick Mystery Book 12) Read online

  After living in a domestic situation, the miserable, confused animals, some little more than pups, are unable to fend for themselves in the wild. Some are shot in the belief they are sheep worriers, but many simply starve to death or get killed in accidents. Some are trapped in snares set for rabbits; others die painfully through eating poisoned carrion. A few of these castaways are fortunate because they are found and cared for, either by country folk and farmers or by those who take them into formal care.

  If a person genuinely cannot cope with a dog, then it is refreshing when they do make the effort to find it a good home, but it ought to be said that police stations are not repositories for unwanted dogs, nor indeed any kind of animal.

  On a temporary basis, the staff of a police station will care for a lost or stray dog, but eventually the unwilling visitor will be removed to the nearest dogs’ home or, failing that, destroyed. A police station, therefore, is not the place to which one takes an unwanted dog for convenience.

  I was faced with such a problem while performing a series of half-day duties in Ashfordly. I was in the market town during the absence of one of the local constables, and at 9 a.m. one morning in early June was in the office typing a report about a traffic accident when the door opened and a scruffy child appeared at the counter. She was a girl of about ten with beautiful dark brown eyes and lank, unwashed hair which might have been a stunning shade of auburn had it been clean and cared for. She wore a faded old dress with a floral pattern upon it and her thin legs and arms were bare. She had a pair of old sandals on her sockless feet and a silver-coloured bangle on her right wrist.

  ‘Yes?’ I peered over the counter at her.

  ‘Oi’ve found this dog,’ she said with more than a hint of an Irish accent. She was hauling on a length of rope at the end of which was a large and beautiful dog; it followed her into the office. I recognized the breed — it was a borzoi, otherwise known as a Russian wolfhound, and was something like a large, silky haired greyhound, standing almost three feet high.

  The borzoi was once a favourite of the Russian royal family and was introduced to this country just over a hundred years ago when it became a fashionable dog to possess. Although it was bred in Russia specifically for wolf-hunting, it was welcomed in this country for its beautiful, elegant appearance. Ownership of a borzoi soon became a status symbol.

  The dog’s predominant colour is white, and the one standing before me had patchy fawn-coloured markings about its body. Its tail was silky and it had a long snout with the most gentle of eyes peering up at me. It looked nervous as it stood in the police station and was somewhat grubby in appearance. I reached over to pat it, but it shrank away from me. A sign of ill-treatment perhaps?

  ‘Where did you find it?’ I asked the child.

  ‘On the road, near our camp.’ She did not smile.

  ‘Which camp’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Oi don’t know what it’s called,’ she said.

  ‘By camp do you mean those caravans just up the road from here?’

  ‘Yes, we’re travellers. Moi ma said Oi had to bring the dog in here.’

  ‘Ah!’ Now I remembered something. I recalled an entourage of filthy lorries, vans and caravans which had turned up one day about a fortnight ago. These were not true gipsies, but didicois, tinkers, scrap merchants, travellers or whatever. The council had been trying to move them on and we kept an eye on them because of their petty thieving and unsocial behaviour. Some of the smelly menfolk were prone to causing trouble in the pubs.

  It was while I looked at that girl, that I realized I had seen the dog before. It was a striking animal, not one to be easily overlooked, and in my various patrols past that collection of awful vehicles, I had seen the dog tied to a tree. It had been there the whole time, for several days in fact, so this was no stray dog! This child was trying to get rid of it, I was sure!

  I decided to put her to the test.

  ‘What’s his name?’ I asked.

  ‘Carl,’ she said instinctively.

  The dog did respond to the name, but not in the way that a loved dog would do: there was no wagging of its tail or signs of happiness, just a slight reaction, a twitching of its ears and a slight movement of its head.

  ‘So your mum doesn’t want Carl any more and told you to bring him here, eh?’ I said.

  ‘She said to say Oi’d found him …’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, young lady, but we do not take dogs in just because people don’t want them. You need the dogs’ home. Now, what’s your name?’

  ‘Leela,’ she said.

  ‘Leela what?’

  ‘Smith.’ She had a captivating smile. It was amazing how many travellers were called Smith. Try serving a summons on one Jake Smith and dozens will step forward, smiling a challenge; they are impossibly cunning.

  ‘OK, Leela, you take Carl back to your mother and say I would not take him. If she wants to part with him, she must take him to a dogs’ home — tell her there’s one in York. They’ll look after him, we can’t do that. Do you understand?’

  ‘But mum said you look after lost dogs …’

  ‘We do. We look after lost dogs, Leela. Lost ones, not unwanted ones. So take him back to your mother, OK? He’s a lovely dog, Leela. You can’t want to give him away, surely?’

  She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘He’s all roight but he wants a lot of food and exercoise …’

  I did not ask how the family had obtained Carl, but I did persuade the child to leave the station and to take the lovely dog with her. I just hoped Carl would not be abandoned and that these travelling people would take him to a home where he would be cared for.

  Two hours later, a squat, heavily built and very untidy woman stomped into the police station, and I saw that she was towing Carl behind her. She had the striking black eyebrows and hair of the Irish and dark brown eyes; once she would have been pretty. Now she was gross, unwashed and perspiring.

  ‘Oi want yous to take this animal.’ She plonked her end of the rope on the counter. ‘It’s a stray dog, mister. It’s been following us for days.’

  ‘It’s not a stray, Mrs Smith,’ I used what I guessed was her name. ‘It’s your dog and we are not a dogs’ home. You’ll have to take it to York or give it to a good home. We take in strays, he’s not a stray.’

  ‘He would be if Oi bloody well turned him loose …’

  ‘I think you care too much for him to do that,’ I suggested. ‘At least you tried bringing him here instead of just abandoning him. It shows you feel for him.’

  ‘Look, constable, he needs a good home, a better home than we can give him …’

  ‘Where did you get him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oi told you, he’s a stray, he just turned up,’ and she waved her hands in an expression of helplessness. ‘Oi don’t know where he come from but we can’t keep him. We’re travelling all the time and there’s nowhere for him …’

  I must admit I had mixed feelings about this. I would have liked to have taken the dog off her hands because her motive was sound. I was sure we could publicize Carl’s plight so that someone would come forward to offer him a home. But I also knew that Sergeant Blaketon and the others had been keeping an eye on those grotty vehicles and had seen the dog. They would know he was not a stray and I would get myself into trouble if I accepted him. Besides, police stations were never intended to be alternative dogs’ homes. I had to be firm; to accept him might start an avalanche of unwanted dogs. These travellers might want to dispose of other animals!

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Smith,’ I said. ‘But I just cannot accept him, it’s not allowed. If you take him to the RSPCA or some other sanctuary, I know they’ll be delighted to receive him, he’s such a lovely animal …’

  She glared at me for a long time, her subdued fury being contained in that massive body, and I expected a torrent of powerful Irish oaths to flow, but they did not.

  ‘You’ll be sorry for this!’ and she snatched the rope and stalked out of the building and past
the railings with the magnificent dog trotting at her heels. I watched her go along the street with just a feeling of regret. If I’d wanted a dog of my own, I wouldn’t have refused that one … he was a real beauty and he looked so docile, albeit in need of a good home.

  When she’d gone, I locked up the office to undertake a foot patrol around the town before knocking off at 1 p.m. It was now approaching 11.45 and I had a few calls to make; there would be no problem filling that hour or so.

  But when I returned to the station just before one o’clock I saw Carl sitting on the footpath. One end of his rope was tied to the police station railings. He looked at me as I approached and I detected just a flicker of a wag from his tail. I stopped at his side and patted his silky head.

  ‘So who brought you this time, Carl?’ I asked, looking up and down the street. There was no sign of the Irish woman or any other travellers, so I loosened his rope and led him into the police office.

  We kept some tins of dog food and biscuits to feed our canine guests and I gave him something to eat while I completed my written work. He ate with some sophistication, not wolfing down the food as I might have expected, and wagged his tail when I offered him a bowl of water.

  Before I left the office, I placed him in the kennel behind the building and left a note to inform the incoming constable that we had a guest. I put an entry in the Stray Dog Register, saying the dog had been left tied to the police station railings and that I was trying to locate the owner.

  On my way home for lunch, I drove past the site of the travellers’ camp, but they had gone. All that was left was a pile of ghastly rubbish and some scorched earth where they had lit their fires. It was no good chasing them for I had no idea of the direction they’d taken and they probably had a long start anyway.

  From home, I rang Ashfordly Police Station to tell PC Alwyn Foxton that I’d looked for the dog’s owners without success.

  ‘What a gorgeous dog!’ he enthused over the telephone. ‘Isn’t he a gem?’

  ‘He is,’ I said. ‘But what can we do with him, Alwyn? I’d hate to have him put down …’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I think I know someone who’ll give him a good home. Remember that chap last week, the one whose Afghan hound was killed by that bus? He said he’d never find a dog as good as the one he’d lost, and he couldn’t afford to go out and buy one. Well, I might persuade him to have a look at this one.’

  ‘Carl’s his name,’ I said.

  ‘No, it was something like Newport …’

  ‘The dog I mean!’ I laughed.

  ‘How do you know that if it’s a stray?’ he asked pointedly.

  So I told him the detailed story and he praised the travelling woman for her efforts to secure a place for Carl, but said he’d treat the dog as a stray. If Newport did not want Carl, then we’d make a fuss about him in the local papers. That would surely produce someone who’d love and cherish him.

  That evening, Alwyn rang me.

  ‘Carl’s gone to a good home,’ he said. ‘Mr Newport said he looks like a pedigree animal … he’s delighted.’

  And so the story did have a happy ending. Some two weeks later, I saw Mr Newport walking Carl beside a local stream.

  The dog’s lovely silky coat had been beautifully groomed and Carl appeared to be in superb condition; dog and master looked the picture of happiness and contentment.

  And when I said, ‘Hello, Carl,’ the dog wagged his tail.

  *

  Ownership of a large dog is one way of ensuring a moderate level of physical fitness.

  Because large dogs must have regular exercise and lots of activity, then their owners can also benefit; they receive beneficial exercise and activity. It was this simple logic that came to mind one evening when I found myself off duty and having a drink with Chris Ellis.

  Until that time, I knew him chiefly by sight. In his early thirties, he was a quiet, well-dressed man who worked for a local department store. He lived in Aidensfield and drove his second-hand mini into Ashfordly every day to work. His home was a tiny stone cottage tucked under the lee of the hill, where he had two small children and a charming, but mousey wife. She rarely mixed with the other young women but did send her two children, a boy aged three and a girl four and a half, to playgroup. As some of my children also attended the same group, I was acquainted with the family.

  I liked Chris. He was a pleasant-mannered man who took life seriously, perhaps a little too seriously, but he did his best for his family. Although his wage was low, he kept a clean, tidy home and ensured that his family were well fed and content. And I knew his wife had a part-time job which helped to clothe the family.

  On the evening in question, he and I were among half a dozen men who had volunteered to do a little maintenance to the Catholic church we all attended: the roof gutters needed cleaning, the path needed weeding, some woodwork needed a coat of paint and several other jobs demanded attention.

  Father Luke had recruited a band of volunteers, and as we worked, I found myself alongside Chris Ellis. Afterwards, we all adjourned to the Brewers’ Arms for a pint or two. I found myself telling Chris about my love of the North York Moors and highlighting some of the sights and scenes to be explored. He surprised me by saying he had never ventured onto the moors — I told him there were isolated streams where the children would love to play, castles and old abbeys to visit, some picturesque walks to undertake, beauty spots to admire, villages to potter around and craftsmen’s premises to examine. I told him about some particular places where we took our children — places where they could roam without hindrance and paddle in the cool waters of crystal clear moorland streams. There were wild bilberries and brambles to pick in the autumn and basking adders to observe in the summer …

  But although Chris had lived all his life on the southern edge of those moors, he had never ventured into their depths.

  ‘I’d love to go, Nick,’ he confessed to me over our drinks, ‘but I haven’t the time now. As a kid, we never had a car so Dad couldn’t take us, but now that I manage to run an old car, I never have time to take a ride out there …’

  ‘But you must have!’ I cried. ‘What about weekends?’

  ‘I work Saturdays,’ he said. ‘All day, in the shop. Wednesday is my half day, but Marie goes out on Wednesday afternoons to her little job while I look after the children. She takes the car, you see. She works for a plumber, does his book-keeping. It’s not much, four hours a week, but it helps with clothes for the kids.’

  ‘And Sundays?’ I persisted.

  ‘We go to my mother-in-law’s for lunch and stay the afternoon.’

  ‘Every Sunday?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Every Sunday after Mass.’

  My heart felt for him. ‘You mean she asks you …’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded, sipping at his pint. ‘We can’t get out of it. She gets upset if we suggest not going. She can’t see why we don’t want to go … to be honest, I’m pretty fed up. I mean, once every fortnight wouldn’t be too bad, but every week …’ and he shook his head almost in despair.

  ‘You’ve tried to break the routine?’ I asked.

  ‘You bet I have. I have no parents now, so I can’t use them as my excuse. But she’s a widow, Marie’s her only child and she insists on doing Sunday lunch for us all — she loves seeing the bairns. Sometimes, I think we’re doing a Christian duty towards her, and sometimes I think it’s a real pain …’

  ‘She sounds very selfish to me,’ I muttered. I could appreciate the woman’s loneliness, but she ought to have some respect for her daughter’s own needs and recreation. Marie’s mother was rapidly making herself into a burden.

  ‘I mean,’ Chris went on. ‘It’s not as if she hasn’t friends, she has lots. She goes to the WI, she’s busy with flowers for the church and that sort of thing, so she’s not totally alone like some old folks. She could invite some of her friends in — some other lonely person would love the chance for company at lunch.
’

  I commiserated with him and we bought more drinks. He poured out his agony to me and I felt it was probably the first time he had been able to do this: his wife would be biased towards her mother. As we grumbled into our pint pots, I heard myself saying,

  ‘What you need, Chris, is a dog.’

  ‘A dog?’ he was puzzled.

  ‘Yes, a big dog. One that needs lots of exercise. One that would benefit from long walks on the moors. One you could train to your own standards, or even show in local dog shows …’

  ‘Why would I want a dog like that?’ he puzzled.

  ‘To get you out of your mother-in-law’s house on a Sunday,’ I smiled. ‘You’d need to train it, exercise it …’

  ‘I can’t afford to buy a dog like that,’ he sighed.

  ‘You’d get a good one from the dogs’ home in York,’ I told him.

  And so he did. That February, he turned up with a beautiful golden retriever called Cassius and promptly set about training him and exercising him.

  Very soon, Chris and Cassius were familiar figures about the village and along the neighbouring footpaths, often strolling beside the village stream or through the fields. One day, I asked how his new mother-in-law avoidance scheme was working.

  ‘So far so good,’ he beamed. ‘I’m taking things slowly. I’ve not put it to the test yet, but I’ve told mother-in-law that big dogs need exercise and training. I said there are dog training classes at weekends and that I might have to miss lunch one of these Sundays.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, she agreed, funnily enough. It seems her husband kept labradors and had to exercise them, so she knows about dogs …’

  In the weeks that followed, I kept in touch with Chris and his plot. Then, one Sunday, he’d told his mother-in-law that he could not come to lunch. Marie and the children would come as usual, but he had to attend a one-day dog-training course with Cassius. It was to be held in Malton.