see a large car boot sale in the racecourse car park. The traders set up from 7.30 a.m. and the buyers are supposed to arrive from 9 a.m. onwards, although dealers have their ways of getting an early look. There’s always the hope that a Hepplewhite chair or the first Harry Potter will be put up for sale by some innocent. After the dealers have swept through, that hope has gone. There isn’t much chance of one of the public finding a real bargain. But the sale is still somewhere to go on a Sunday, a free show and a social occasion. The setting, with those views into Somerset and Wiltshire, is unequalled. But the downside is that it’s exposed to the elements.
On this breezy Sunday anything that wasn’t weighted down was taking to the air. The various wood and fabric structures used as rain covers or sunshades or just extra shelving were under threat from gusts. More than one table collapsed. Some traders spent most of the morning rearranging their displays. It wasn’t surprising that a visitor in a hooded jacket was able to move through the sale helping himself to food items. He’d got some way before one of the traders asked him for payment for a meat pie he’d picked up from a stall that sold hot food.
He replaced it at once.
‘You can’t do that,’ she told him. ‘It’s got a bite out of it. That’ll be one pound fifty.’
The man shrugged and moved on.
‘Hey!’ the woman said. ‘That’s no good to me. I can’t sell it. That’s theft.’
He was already some way off.
She asked the trader nearest to her to take over. ‘He’s not getting away with it. I’m going after him.’
‘Leave it, dear,’ the neighbour said. She was a peace-loving woman with a long chiffon scarf. She sold copper bracelets and good luck charms. ‘He won’t have any money on him. I’ve seen him nick stuff before. He’s simple.’
The pie woman wasn’t to be dissuaded. Snatching up the pie, she set off through the crowd and caught up with the man near a display of model cars. ‘This is your pie, mister. You owe me one pound fifty.’
He shook his head.
‘Here, take it,’ she said, thrusting it at him ‘Enjoy it. I can say it myself, because I made it, it’s a good pie. It’s no use to me or anyone else now you’ve bitten a chunk out of it. Just pay for it and that’s the end of the matter.’
‘Madam, I can’t,’ he said in a refined tone. ‘I have no money on me.’
‘That’s great. What are you doing here anyway, if you’ve got no money? This is a sale, not a fucking free-for- all.’ Her shouting was starting to get attention from the crowd and she felt compelled to take action rather than lose face. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Citizen’s arrest. I’m nicking you for theft. Anything you say will be used in evidence against you. Someone call the police. Who’s got a phone?’
The man under arrest shook his head. ‘Not me.’
‘I wasn’t asking you.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ He was co-operative, if nothing else. He looked bewildered.
Uncertain what to do next, the pie woman grasped the man’s arm and led him back towards her van. He came like a lamb.
It was the copper bracelet seller who reluctantly called the police on her mobile. ‘It’s not my name you want,’ she said into the phone. ‘It’s the lady who made the arrest. What’s your name, love?’
Before the pie woman could answer, the arrested man said, ‘Noddy.’
‘God help us!’ the copper bracelet seller said, and giggled. Somehow, she got control of herself and gave the essential facts and ended the call. ‘They said to keep him here if possible and they’ll send someone.’
The result of all this was self-defeating. No trade was done in the next half hour. The man calling himself Noddy had his own aroma competing with the appetising smell of the pies.
When two police officers eventually made their way through the crowd, the pie seller explained what had happened. As proof, she showed them the pie with the bite out of it.
‘And you arrested him?’ PC Andy Sullivan said.
‘Citizen’s arrest,’ the woman said. ‘It’s common law.’
‘I know that, ma’am. Do you want to press charges?’
‘I want to be paid for my pie, that’s all.’
It’s the job of uniformed police to defuse a situation whenever possible. Andy Sullivan spoke to the prisoner. ‘Why don’t you give the lady the money and settle the matter?’
‘Because I haven’t got any money, officer.’ Shabby and strong-smelling he may have been, but the man was polite, well-spoken and logical. Not the usual troublemaker.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Noddy.’
Sullivan revised his opinion.
A stifled sound of mirth came from behind the copper bracelet table.
While this was going on, Sullivan’s partner, PC Denise Beal, wished she was a million miles away. Her stomach was churning. She could see her short career in the police coming to a quick end if Noddy recognised her. She was trying to avoid eye contact. Sullivan moved his face closer to the prisoner’s. ‘If you mess with me, my friend, you’ll regret it. Now tell me your name.’
‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ll regret it.’
‘Don’t get smart with me. Who are you?’
‘That’s what I’m called. Noddy.’
‘He’s not right in the head,’ the copper bracelet woman said. ‘I’ve been trying to tell her.’
‘Hold on,’ the pie woman said. ‘I’m the victim in all this, not him. I’ve lost half a morning’s trade through him. I’m taking him to court.’
‘Where do you live?’ Sullivan asked the man.
The copper bracelet woman said, getting another fit of the giggles, ‘Toyland.’
Sullivan told her to shut up. Then he turned back to the man. ‘I’m waiting for an answer.’
‘I’m living up here for the present.’
‘But where exactly?’
‘Anywhere that’s dry on a wet night.’
‘So you’re homeless?’
The man nodded.
This touched the heart of the copper bracelet woman. ‘Did you hear that? He’s homeless. You can’t take a homeless man to court.’
‘I can and I will,’ the pie woman said. ‘He may sound like a smoothie, but he’s a thief. You can’t argue with the evidence.’ She held up the pie. But such was the force of her feelings that her thumb and finger met in the middle and the evidence collapsed and fell in bits on the ground. ‘Oh, buggery!’
‘I was going to say “crumbs”,’ the copper bracelet woman said, in giggles again. ‘Case dismissed, I reckon.’
This was all too much for the pie woman. ‘You bitch!’ Angry and defeated, she made a grab, caught hold of the other woman’s scarf and wrestled her to the ground. They rolled over and over, screaming, in a flurry of bare legs and black underwear, all dignity gone.
‘Get them apart,’ Andy Sullivan said to Denise.
It took half a minute and some grappling, but at least Denise was in trousers. She’d had recent training in detaining a suspect resisting arrest and she succeeded in getting the pie woman’s arm behind her back and forcing it upwards so that the other woman could squirm free.
‘Okay,’ Sullivan said to the pie woman, still on the ground. ‘Are you going to be sensible and calm down?’
She said, ‘Let go of me.’
The copper bracelet woman had retreated to the other side of her table and was brushing down her clothes. She said, ‘I could do her for assault. She almost strangled me.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Sullivan said. He nodded to Denise. ‘You can let go of her now.’
The pie woman got up, mouthing obscenities, but not giving voice to them.
Andy Sullivan was in control. ‘And now I think you ladies should go back to doing what you paid your fee for, selling your wares.’ ‘Where’s he gone?’ the pie woman said. ‘What happened to the thief?’
