Constable Around the Village (10 page)

“Yes, here,” he said, showing me the document in question.

Every warrant is a directive signed by a magistrate, and the policeman must read it with a view to learning what his duty is to be. This one said that the Police in Ashfordly must distrain goods to the value of £107.15s.8d because of the non-payment of rates by a Mr Charles Edward Hatfield of The Bungalow, Church Lane, Crampton.

I read it carefully, scarcely believing my eyes. I had no idea these things were actually issued; we had been told about them at Training School and we had been given a good grounding about the problems and routine of executing them. It was rather like learning about Henry
VIII or Napoleon—we knew they had existed but never expected to meet them.

But this document was real enough, and it was signed by Alderman Fazakerly to give it authenticity.

“What shall I do with it, Sergeant?” I reverted to the formal mode of address.

“You will deal with it,” he smiled wickedly.

I studied the terrifying piece of paper for a long time, wondering how I would cope. Charlie Bairstow watched me and I knew my hesitancy was amusing him, but I was determined not to allow him better me this time. I’d had enough of his pranks with zebras, ghosts and the like. This was a real job.

“I must get the money out of him,” I said. “Otherwise we seize goods to the value of £107.15s.8d.”

“He won’t pay up, he never does,” came the reply.

“He’s a regular?” I asked.

“One of the regulars, perhaps
the
most regular of the regulars,” Charlie Bairstow told me. “Mr Hatfield never pays his rates. The Council always send people around, they cajole him and bully him, but he never pays. Then we get lumbered with a distress warrant to seize goods to the value of the outstanding amount.”

“I’ll need more than the stated amount, won’t I?”

“Yes, much more. You must arrange to sell the seized goods at a local auction, leaving enough profit to pay expenses and to ensure there’s enough to pay off the rates.”

“I might frighten him into paying cash?”

“You might,” he laughed.

Tucking the offensive piece of paper in my pocket, I
sallied
from the office and journeyed over to Crampton, about six miles away. I had never encountered Mr Charles Edward Hatfield and wondered what kind of person could leave his rate payments so that they accumulated into impossible amounts.

I soon found out.

Before actually knocking on his door, however, I popped into my own office to swot up the rules and procedures on distress warrants. My memory did not produce the precise
rules, and I knew my notes taken at Training School would guide me.

Certain items had not to be seized when I swooped on The Bungalow; they were the wearing apparel or the
bedding
of the person and his family, and I was not allowed to seize the implements of his trade to the value of £5. This was to allow the fellow to continue to earn. I was not allowed to seize goods which he did not own or which were the subject of hire-purchase agreements and rentals. I could not break into the house to carry out this duty, and I had not to raid him during the night hours. All this was coming home to me now; my training had been sound.

I had to mark the seized goods in a manner which was clear and conspicuous; this was for the benefit of the removal men when they arrived in due course, and it was an offence for the householder to delete my marks. I decided the best way was to take a pile of sticky labels and fix these to the seized items, endorsing each one with my signature.

Having marked all the goods, I had then to leave them in the house until I could arrange a sale. This meant
contacting
the local auction room on the understanding that the sale had to take place not earlier than the sixth nor later than the fourteenth day after I had marked the goods, unless the householder agreed in writing to an earlier sale. I knew the saleroom at Ashfordly held weekly sales on a Friday, so that seemed not to present problems.

If the fellow had no goods, or there were insufficient to cover the costs, I had to endorse the warrant and return it to the Justices’ Clerk. That seemed simple enough. What the Clerk did thereafter was not my problem, I hoped.

Armed with this useful information, I continued my journey to Crampton and parked my motor-cycle in Church Lane. The Bungalow was not difficult to find.

It was a rickety construction of dark green hue,
comprising
timber and corrugated-iron sheets rusting about the metal edges and needing a coat of paint upon the wooden bits. A short red-brick chimney protruded from the roof and clouds of black smoke were belching from it. The smoke rose straight into the sky, which, to my countryman’s eye, indicated a fine day tomorrow. All the windows were closed
and needed cleaning, while the garden resembled a rough shoot or a haven for harassed weeds. An untidy thorn hedge bordered the premises and there was a little wooden gate leading into the grounds. A rough path led through the weeds to a rustic porch with honeysuckle climbing about it. It was picturesque in a grotty sort of way.

I let myself in, marched along the path with the
determination
of a constable under orders and knocked on the battered old door. I could hear movements inside and eventually a scruffy man with a grey beard revealed himself.

“Mr Hatfield?” I asked.

“That’s me, son,” he smiled through the untidy mop of hair.

“P.C. Rhea,” I introduced myself. “From Aidensfield.”

“Aye, I guessed as much. You’ll have come with one of those distress warrants, I’ll guess.”

“I have, yes. It’s for a large amount, non-payment of your rates …”

“Come in, son. We’ll talk about it. I don’t believe in paying rates. Would you, for a spot like this? I know it’s my home, and I know it’s falling down, but rates? I never use the library, I don’t send kids to school, I never drive a car along the roads, I don’t spend any of the ratepayers’ money, so why should I pay rates, Mr Rhea? Answer me that.”

By now, we were inside and it was dark and dingy. There was no one else in the house and he led me towards a wooden table with a dirty top overflowing with cups and milk-bottles.

“Cup of tea?” he invited.

“No thanks, I’ve just had one,” I lied. I couldn’t face drinking from one of those cups. The whole place was filthy and almost devoid of furniture.

“How much is it?” he asked.

“One hundred and seven pounds, fifteen shillings and eightpence,” I informed him, reading from the warrant.

“That’s accumulated over four or five years,” he smiled. “They don’t know what to do with me. They daren’t put me in prison. Every year, I get my rate demands and every year I fail to pay. Then, every year, the bobby calls with one of those bits of paper and tells me I’ll be for it if I don’t cough
up. But I never do, Mr Rhea. Have a look around. What can you take? Clothing, no. Bedding, no. Implements of my trade? I have none. That table? It’s my sister’s—she loans it to me. Cups and saucers, pots and pans—they’re hers. You can’t take them. My radio and television—I rent them. I’ve nothing, Mr Rhea.”

“You haven’t a job?”

“Not me! Why work? I can get money from the State, enough to feed me and keep me warm. Why work, eh? Look at you, doing a job like this. You can’t like it….”

“I don’t, not this sort of thing.”

“Then why do it? Why not live every day as if there’s no tomorrow, eh?”

“I couldn’t….” I found myself beginning a discussion with him and knew I’d lose. You can’t argue with folks of fixed opinions and it was clear to me that this character had very fixed views on life. “Look, Mr Hatfield, I’m here to seize goods in this house to the value of the warrant. May I now look around?”

He indicated the living-room door and I walked in. It was almost bare. The floor was uncovered, showing bare sandstone with a worn rug upon the area in front of the empty fireplace. A battered old armchair occupied a corner—in a sale it might fetch five shillings. And that was all,
except
for the television and the radio in the corner near the window.

“Rented,” he said, shoving his hand under the TV set. He pulled out a rental agreement for each item and I had to agree. I could not seize those.

“Bedroom?” he asked me.

I nodded and he showed me into a small room at the rear. There was a single bed neatly made and covered with a faded eiderdown. Beside it stood a cane chair painted blue, while a wardrobe had been built into one wall. I opened it; it contained his clothes, such as they were. There was not even a chest of drawers. Next to the bedroom there was a crude bathroom albeit with an electric heater for the water and a water-closet.

And that was it. My seizures were:- living-room, nil; kitchen, nil; bathroom and bedroom, nil.

“Nothing, Mr Rhea, like I said,” and he smiled wickedly at me. I knew I was beaten. How long would the Council tolerate this, I wondered? He might be threatened with imprisonment if he failed to pay this time.

“Look,” I tried to be firm. “It’ll mean prison for you, Mr Hatfield. You can’t keep on like this for ever. The Council has been very, very tolerant with you….”

“I wrote to ’em, a long time ago, Mr Rhea, and suggested they send me to prison. I’d be fed and clothed in there, eh? And I still wouldn’t pay my rates.”

“Why have you stopped paying them?” I decided to ask. “You must have paid until four or five years ago.”

“I did, young man, and was pleased to pay my way. But it’s these scroungers, you know, folks who live off those who are daft enough to work and pay taxes. Well, I couldn’t see why an old man like me should have to pay for idle sods who can’t be bothered to earn their keep. So I stopped my rates, a form of protest, you see.”

“If everybody stopped, Mr Hatfield, there’d be no education for the kids, no roads, no future for anyone.”

“Get the scroungers back to work and I’ll pay up,” he said with an air of finality.

“I’ll call back tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll expect the cash. I can’t accept cheques.”

“There’ll be nowt for you, young man. Sorry. It’ll be a wasted journey.”

He was right, but I had to go through the motions of exhausting every possibility. Besides, Sergeant Bairstow would want me to account for my actions, and he’d want money.

While I was in Crampton, I decided to undertake a short foot patrol about the village and was soon chatting to the locals over garden walls, in house doorways and in the street. This was rural policing at its best—a friendly type of person willing and happy to pass the time of day. with the local bobby. And it was an old man who hailed me from his greenhouse.

“Here, Bobby, come and see this,” he beckoned.

I let myself into his neat garden and entered the well-kept greenhouse. It was full of cacti; large and small, plain and
decorative, and he pointed to one with a huge red flower at the end of a thick stem.

“How about that?” he beamed.

“Very, very nice,” I enthused. “Did you grow it?”

“I did,” he said proudly. “And do you realise it flowers only once every seven years. And this is it. Seven years and she’s flowering today, my birthday, would you believe. By, I am capped.”

He then told me all about cacti and quoted lots of weird foreign names. He kept me there nearly half an hour but I enjoyed his prattle. Finally he said, “My missus will have a kettle on. Come and have a cup.”

I learned his name was Albert Peacock and we had a very enjoyable cup of tea and a chat.

“Now then,” he said after I’d met his wife, drunk his tea and looked at more cacti on his window-ledges, “I asked you in for a reason.”

“Trouble?” I asked.

“Nay,” he said, “but I seed you up at old Hatfield’s spot.”

“Yes, I called just now,” I confirmed.

“Rates, again, I’ll bet. The old sod never pays, you know, and you fellers keep coming with warrants. We know what he’s like, and the village reckon it’s time he was made to pay. We all pay up.”

“There’s very little anyone can do,” I said. “He has
nothing
to sell …”

“He’s worth thousands,” said Albert. “Mebbe tens of thousands. He’s got money all over, because he never pays for owt. He’s the tightest bloke I’ve come across, is yon.”

“Is he? His place looks terrible….”

“It is terrible because he neglects it, and won’t pay for a tin o’ paint or tools to fettle his garden with. He’ll tell you a load of rubbish about spongers, but that’s all tommy-rot.”

“I can’t raid his bank account,” I smiled.

“Nay, but you can raid his loft,” he nodded knowingly.

“Loft?”

“You didn’t see it?”

“There’s no door into a loft in that cottage,” I said.

“There is, thoo knows,” he winked. “In t’bedroom, far corner. Loose boards, they are, looking just like the others
in the ceiling. No handles, nor nowt. Just a flat board sitting in place. Push it up and a ladder’ll come down, folding down over.”

“How do you know this?”

“Late one night, I thought I heard somebody in my garden, so I crept out. Well gone midnight, it was, and I saw a light in Hatfield’s spot. So, being nosey, I had a look and saw him climbing up. He hadn’t drawn his curtains, ’cos he hasn’t any.”

“And what’s up there?” I put the obvious question.

“Paintings,” he said. “Lots of paintings.”

“Valuable ones?”

“They’ll be valuable, or he wouldn’t have ’em,” said Albert. “Then I saw him one day at a sale, buying up all the old oils and watercolours.”

“Thanks, Mr Peacock,” I smiled.

“No saying how you knew, eh?”

“Not a word,” I promised.

I went back immediately.

He answered the door and was clearly surprised to see me so soon.

“Hello, Mr Hatfield,” I beamed. “I just got down to the bottom of the village when I realised I hadn’t looked in your loft.”

“Loft?” he blanched.

“Yes, looking at your cottage from down the village, there’s clearly a loft. I wondered if you had anything up there that we might sell to raise the money.”

I could see his mind working. For a person who collects or hoards, money is of less value than the goods in
question
, and I knew his brain was working rapidly.