CONSTABLE AROUND THE GREEN a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain's best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 12) by NICHOLAS RHEA

Author:NICHOLAS RHEA [RHEA, NICHOLAS]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Joffe Books cozy crime and mystery
Published: 2020-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

6. Men of Dubious Ability

Tis God gives skill,

But not without men’s hands:

He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins

Without Antonio.

MARY ANN EVANS (GEORGE ELIOT), 1819–80

One fine spring morning as I was walking down the village street in Aidensfield in full uniform, I heard a strange sound. It was rather like a stone hitting metal, something akin to a pebble being propelled with great force at a tin can or even thrown up by the tyre of a passing car to strike a roadside direction sign.

Puzzled, I looked around and almost immediately noticed that the weather-vane on the tower of the parish church was spinning wildly. Something had struck it with considerable force and I wondered if it was one of the village youths testing his skills with an air rifle — the vane, in the shape of a cockerel, was far too high and far too remote from the road to have been hit by a pebble thrown up by a passing car. I saw no one and heard nothing further; the weather-vane was still intact and from my vantage point did not appear to have suffered any damage, so I resumed my patrolling.

Although puzzled by this, I did not consider it worthy of further investigation until a couple of days later.

A similar incident happened when I was talking to George Ward outside his pub. Before our very eyes, a starling suddenly toppled from its perch on the rim of a chimney-pot just along the street.

“Somebody’s shot it!” cried George as the stricken bird landed on the pavement with a thud.

“I didn’t hear any shots,” I commented as I went forward for a closer look.

The bird was dead and a trickle of blood oozed from its nostrils and beak, but there was no outward sign of injury. It hadn’t been shot. There was no indication that it had been struck by either air-gun pellets, shotgun pellets or a rifle bullet; it looked as if it had been stunned.

“That’s bloody funny,” said George, and I then told him about the weather-vane. Standing where I was, it was easy to see that if someone had been responsible for both actions, the missiles had come from roughly the same area. I popped the dead starling into a waste-bin and went on my way.

In the days that followed, I heard of several similar incidents, all minor in their own way while collectively they presented a puzzle. It was not something with which to exercise my official mind, however. Nonetheless, I was curious about other reports. People in the village had seen a beer bottle, left on a wall by a drinker, suddenly shatter for no apparent reason. Old Mr Harker had his trilby hat knocked off by an unknown force and a garden gnome had his nose removed.

A pair of Miss Fogarty’s red silk knickers had suddenly soared from her washing-line when there was not a breath of wind and a tom cat, wooing his heart’s desire from an outhouse roof, suddenly fled with a piercing yowl.

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