Making tracks to solve the mystery of big cat spotted prowling a golf course

I must have been eight or nine when I found a copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles in my Christmas stocking. It was a beautiful book, hardbound, with lots of illustrations, but I’m not sure I ever read it.

At that age I would never have sat still long enough to plough through 200 pages. I was too busy chasing a ball around the garden. Later, I was too busy chasing girls; but I still took it down off the shelf from time to time and flipped through the pages to look at those pictures.

There was Sherlock Holmes in his trusty fore-and-aft hat, pursing criminals across a rugged hilltop, pacing his study as he tried to make sense of a thickening plot, or inspecting mysterious objects for clues as to who has committed the latest dastardly outrage. But the image I always came back to, the one that first made me think about a life of fighting crime, was the ace detective, crouching down in the woods, holding a magnifying glass to a set of enormous footprints.

So I had to laugh, as I took out my digital camera, got down on my knees and edged my way through two inches of crusty snow on the 14th green of Ganton golf course. Seriously, I actually did laugh out loud, despite the fact that I’d been called in to work an extra shift thanks to an outbreak of flu.

It was like a sketch from Monty Python. The sun was going down, a bitter wind was blowing through the gorse bushes and a bank of yellowish clouds was about to bring a fresh shower of snow off the North Sea to cover what might or might not have been the tracks of a large animal. Could it be a cat? Or was it a dog?

I suppose if I’d paid closer attention when I was on that wildlife course a couple of years previously I might have had a clue – but I seem to remember I had my new girlfriend Ann on my mind back then, and not a lot else.

With the snow under my knees melting and seeping through my uniform trousers and then the thermal long johns that were an essential part of my rural officer’s kit, I got ready to snap the first picture of a vague impression that was rapidly being obliterated.

As I steadied myself, a gust of wind blew a large wet flake down my right ear. Sod it, I thought. If I could learn to keep my mouth shut I might have been back at base now supping tea and munching on homemade Christmas shortbread.

“It’s your own stupid fault,” was my colleague’s Ed’s opinion when we spoke before the briefing that day. “You know what the press are like.”

He was right. But when a man from the Gazette rang in to say that someone – of course he couldn’t reveal the identity of his source – claimed to have spotted a police officer loading a large, tranquillised beast into a Ministry of Defence Land Rover up on Fylingdales Moor, under the shadow of the early-warning radar station, there was no way I could take him seriously.

When he added that the animal in question was through to be a large cat, possibly a panther, the temptation to play along was overwhelming. What was I supposed to say – the official wording, if you like – was that we’d had no such reports and had no knowledge of any confirmed sightings of large cats in the Ryedale area.

Which was the truth. But it’s a bit of a mouthful, and besides, I’ve always had this mischievous streak, and in this case there was no middle ground. People were either believers or non-believers. The temptation to stoke the fires of the rumour was too great.

So, being me, I gave our intrepid reporter the Pannett line: “I can neither confirm nor deny the rumour,” I said , my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. A week later a copy of the paper was thrust into my face by Inspector Finch.

Under a banner headline I saw my name; and there, highlighted in big bold letters were my words.

“Police wildlife officer PC Mike Pannett’s remark,” the piece read, “had lent weight to local suspicions that some kind of wild beast has indeed been trapped up on the Moor and spirited away. Has it gone to a secret research establishment? And are Ryedale Police involved in a cover-up?”

“Thanks to your indiscretion Pannett, I’ve been deluged with letters, phone calls and emails. Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do than deal with this kind of thing?’” He held a printout towards me. “Addressed to me personally. A lady from Ganton.” I reached out to take it from him but he snatched it away.

“No, I’ll read it to you, shall I?” Without waiting for an answer he put on his glasses and started. “Several times this last month I have seen a large black creature prowling the golf course. After Monday’s snowfall a set of huge footprints, with claw marks, appeared in the snow on the 14th green.

“I suggest, Pannett, that it’s time we stop treating this as a bit of a lark and start taking the public’s concerns seriously. I further suggest that it’s time for you to investigate, don’t you agree? Now!” he said, as I got up from the table. “Before it gets dark!”

So there I was, clutching my camera with numb fingers and snapping away, even as the footprints filled with fresh snow. If Inspector Finch, or Birdie as we called him, wanted pictures, even if they did nothing more than show a vague smudge. And if I came down with pneumonia – well, it would be on his head. You get like that some days. Cursed, you might say.

However, as I said, I have a mischevious streak, and I suspected that – deep down – our inspector had a sense of humour. So I spent a few more minutes out there on all fours, creating my own paw-prints in the snow with my outstretched hand. And then as an after-thought I picked up a twig and added a bit of definition, a few claw-marks. Then I plonked my wellie down next to it, to give it a sense of scale, and took a few more snaps.

If the press wanted a big cat, I thought, well, how about a lion, rampaging over Ganton golf course?

Packing the camera away in my pocket, I trudged back along the fairway to the car, my knees were wet through, cursing as a lump of snow fell into my right boot and melted. What am I doing? I thought.

How did I end up out here, chasing phantoms, when I should be at home decorating the Christmas tree and laying in the wine? Well, if I’d gained nothing else, I’d got myself a New Year’s resolution. From now on I will be a model police officer. I will give the press what I’m supposed to give them: a humourless, boring, formulaic response.

It’s a good job I’m an optimist. Mr Cheerful, that’s me. Ask anybody. Even as I negotiated the rush-hour traffic along the A64, my wet trousers sticking to my thighs and a nasty little tickle at the back of my throat, the sight of all those Christmas trees that seemed to illuminate every porch and window in Norton lifted my mood. But it was only temporary.

Back at the station I founded a deserted parade room. All that remained of our Christmas treat were a few crumbs scattered across the table and my mug of tea, now stone cold.

“Thanks a bunch, team,” I muttered as I threw my coat over the back of a chair, “and bah humbug to the lot of you!” To cheer myself up I downloaded and printed my “lion” paw prints and slipped a copy into Birdie’s in-tray.

Not On My Patch, Lad, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is out now in paperback, priced £7.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop call 0800 0153232 or online at www.yorkshirepost.co.uk.