by Lee Wood
Six weeks later, James got a call from Eden who informed him Dawn Waterman had taken her own life while being held in prison. After putting down the phone he openly wept more than any time since the death of his family.
Epilogue – March 1965
MEMORIES OF LARRY BROWN
They say it’s the place where Brigitte Bardot frolicked on the beach in the mid-1950s. I would have been about eight at the time and my desire for pretty girls wouldn’t bloom for a few years.
Ten years later, in early 1965, my five best friends and I met Claude when he came to England to study English at the Bell School of Languages.
My friends and I met him at a party and said we planned to visit the south of France in the summer and he invited us to visit his mother’s house in Vallauris, a small village that overlooks St Tropez.
So a few weeks later, I found myself standing on the same sand as France’s most desirable sex kitten. By then my interest in girls had kicked in. The only problem was – I was ten years too late.
Roger, David, Nick, Frank, Mick and Larry (that’s me) all clubbed together and we purchased a ten year old Land Rover. My dad was a motor mechanic and he made it hum like a violin. So off we went the six of us to the south of France to meet up with Claude.
For the next two weeks, we enjoyed the sunshine, the wine, the women and … more wine. Oh, and more women.
I think you could say a good time was had by all.
On the day before we were due to leave, my five friends went off in search of gifts to take home.
They came from richer backgrounds than me. They liked me for what I was and I joined the gang, but I was still the poor relation. I couldn’t afford to buy gifts. So Claude and I went swimming.
After thirty minutes, I was pretty exhausted and came out of the sea to rest. Claude decided he could take more.
He must have got cramp at some point and it was purely by chance I noticed him going under. I thought he was mucking about at first but soon realised he was in real trouble. So I rushed in and helped him back to shore. He kept thanking me for saving him but all I did was what anyone would have done.
A local gendarme had seen what happened and an ambulance had been called for.
Thankfully, Claude made a full recovery and was out by the morning in time to see us leave.
As we were about to say Au revoir, Claude’s father beckoned me over.
“Thank you for saving my son. Nothing I own can offer enough thanks so I’m giving you this as the only way I know how.”
And with that, he handed me a wrapped package.
I thanked him for his generous gift and told him it was what anyone would have done.
Luckily I’d taken a large suitcase and the package just about fitted inside.
In the time, we had been there we soon realised he was a man of few words. And very weird.
Back in Blighty, things moved on. Over the years, all six of us gradually went our separate ways and we sadly lost touch. David Gilmour (he never liked being called Dave) went on to join a rock band and become rich and famous.
I achieved neither of those things but I was happy. In the early seventies, I found true happiness and moved to Trentbridge to be with the love of my life, June.
The painting given to me by Claude’s father was weird. Over the years, I realised what it was.
Then we were blessed with a daughter, Dawn. With my job we were comfortable. Neither June or I ever wanted to be wealthy. We were happy with life and getting by. But I told June if we ever needed money the painting would come in handy.
The last time I saw the painting it was still in the loft with the handwritten note Claude’s father Pablo had attached to the back.
I was always going to tell her the full story but somehow never quite got round to it.
The End
Book Three
Dead Lucky
Lee Wood
http://leewoodauthor.com
The Trentbridge Tales series
Book One: MR LUCKY
Book Two: LUCKY BREAK
Book Three: DEAD LUCKY
Book Four: THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS
Christmas Eve
The boot of the black 4x4 opened as Kevin O’Connor flicked the dashboard switch. His two sons Tyson and Lennox walked calmly from the house they had just robbed of the three stockings full of children’s toys and every Christmas present sitting under the tree. It was the fourth house they’d hit that night. The next day there would be a lot of kids too young to understand and left thinking they had been bad and Father Christmas was punishing them. The thought of all those disappointed children and their parents brought a smile to Kevin’s face, and he chuckled to himself, “Ho ho ho.”
Chapter One
MONKEY DUST
Michael Crompton hadn’t had a lot of good luck in his nineteen-year life. His father walked out on the family when Michael was four. His mother turned to drink and by the time he was eight, she couldn’t cope any longer and he was sent to a children’s home only to fall under the claws of the Reverend Father Jonathan Lowbridge who loved to play with little boys in ways that made their flesh crawl and gave them nightmares for years after. By the time Michael was sixteen, he was living in a squat and within three months was addicted to heroin.
Like a lot of drug addicts in Trentbridge, over the past few weeks Michael had moved from heroin to a new and much cheaper, but just as powerful, street drug called ‘monkey dust’. At £3 a hit, you don’t have to steal too much to pay for your habit.
Michael had his first experience of monkey dust just six days earlier.
Five minutes earlier, he had injected himself with a shot and it made him feel invincible. He knew he could do anything. He was Superman. And to prove his superhuman strength, he decided to step out from the pavement on Town Road into the path of the twenty-ton delivery truck that was speeding towards him and stop it with his bare hands.
The medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
The last three months, the police have been swamped with over 950 reported incidents involving monkey dust. They were receiving more than ten callouts a day.
Reports say the drug produces high body temperatures in users and makes some of them feel impervious to pain and for others it can induce severe paranoia, hallucinations, hypothermia and agitation.
One of the noticeable side effects is that the drug makes users’ sweat smell distinctively like prawns or vinegar.
The local newspaper ran an article after a woman out shopping on the high street had been approached by drug users and asked for money. The article quoted her as saying, ‘I was walking along with my four year old son and pushing my baby in her pram when I was approached by one of these druggies who was off his face. He was shouting and begging me for money and was stumbling round. I’ve never been so scared.’
After the report appeared in the online edition, the newspaper received a large number of comments:
‘Perhaps a simpler way to sort dealers out would be to make them take all the drugs found in their possession in a ten-minute period, after making them eat all the money found on them. If they survive, arrest them, if they don’t chuck them in a skip...’
‘The police do a fantastic job when they can, but their roles are constantly pre-programmed for paperwork and other stupid tasks, and when the court system and prisons release before the paperwork is done, this must be really demoralising for the police to see these people back on the streets. Support your police, more bobbies on foot... remove the scum from the town...’
‘It’s costing too much in resources to deal with the illegal drugs problem and so we need a quick method of dishing out effective punishment to deter illegal drug use.’
‘For users of illegal drugs, thrash their bare backsides with ¾” bamboo, so that they wouldn’t dare risk a repeat.’
‘Dealers of all kinds of illegal drugs, execute them.’
‘They’ve got the right idea in Indonesia and we should learn from
them.
To wannabe junkie hopefuls of the legalisation of any illegal drug, please note that tobacco, alcohol and caffeine are all legal and don’t need including in the debate. Comprende?’
‘The prison system is a mess. Practically privatised to security companies who under staff them for maximum profit while they overflow with inmates who seem to rule the roost. Don’t blame the judges; they haven’t got anywhere to put the criminals. Blame the people at the top, the government. This ongoing period of austerity is strangling public services.’
(reply to above comment):
‘Yes, British prisons are permanently several hundred places below maximum capacity. It’s why we often see cases where we scratch our heads wondering how on earth the defendant wasn’t sent down. The magistrate or judge never say we’re under instructions to only jail those we absolutely must, instead they pretend to swallow some feeble mitigation. Crime numbers are through the roof while copper numbers have been cut by 20,000. The government say “we’re skint” while this year it is gifting, yes giving away, thirteen thousand million pounds in Foreign Aid. We’re being taken for mugs.’
‘I was driving through Waterloo Road last week; it’s like a tribute to the Thriller video. It’s not like it’s one or two every so often; there’s an infestation of people who are out of their mind on God knows what. Who wants to go to Hanley for their shopping when people are out of their skulls? Yet the council talk about regeneration – top marks for sense of humour, I guess. Nostradamus predicted that the dead will rise – maybe this is what he saw.’
‘There’s no point spending police time arresting these dealers if the courts are just going to kick them straight back onto the streets.’
According to the police, there is virtually no use of this particular drug in other towns or cities. It seems the epidemic of monkey dust is restricted to Trentbridge. What little intelligence the police have been able to gather suggests one of the local drug lords has exclusive access to the ‘product’. But, as yet, who that is remains unclear.
Two paid informers came forward to reveal the name of the person they saw supplying the drug to various dealers around the local night clubs, which led police to suspect who was behind it all.
However, for the past two months the drug squad had been watching his vehicles and known associates on and off and hadn’t seen anything which led them to believe he was involved. If he was, he certainly didn’t appear to be using the usual method of bringing the goods in by road. Maybe he had found another method, but so far they really didn’t have a clue.
Chapter Two
KEVIN O’CONNOR - JUNE
The advert in the classified section of the Trentbridge Times was exactly what Olivia Adams had been looking for. She couldn’t be doing with all this new-fangled internet stuff. It probably wouldn’t last anyway. No. The local newspaper was the first place she always looked.
It promised a fast and reliable service and special rates for the elderly from a well-established local family business.
Since her husband had passed away nearly four months earlier, and now into her eighties, she was finding it more and more difficult to look after the garden they had tended together for the past fifty-two years. So a company who offered tree-pruning services to the places she couldn’t reach anymore was perfect.
And such a wonderful service. She had only phoned the number in the advert just that very morning, and now the tree expert and his helper arrived to make everything right.
It was her lucky day. The company had received a last-minute cancellation so they could call round to see her straight away. And Mr O’Connor seemed like such a nice gentleman. By coincidence, it seemed his elderly mother lived not far away, and she has a garden much like Olivia’s, and with the same problems.
She hadn’t realised she had problems before, but now they were being pointed out to her she could see them.
“As you can see, Mrs Adams, the trees have powdery mildew on them.”
Funny she hadn’t noticed it before he went up his ladder and examined them.
Olivia put the side of her hand just above her eyes to avoid the bright sunshine as she looked up at the figure of Mr O’Connor towering some six inches above her five feet two. His broad Irish accent reminded her of Mr Kelly, her previous neighbour who, when he lived next door, had always given her a cheery “Top of the morning to you” as he left for work.
“The best way to treat them is with an organic fungicide. Organic means it’s good for the environment and doesn’t harm any wildlife or birds. It’s all very ethical, you see. We spray it on once a week, and after a few treatments, they should be as good as new. That will help contain things. And of course, we’ll lop the trees as you requested. By the time we’ve finished, you’ll find them much healthier. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t see a lot of rare birds coming to nest in the trees, once they’ve been brought back to their original state.”
It was a line Kevin O’Connor had told people many times. Especially when dealing with elderly people living on their own in a big house, just like the one he was standing in.
“When we’ve finished trimming the branches we’ll take them all away, so you don’t have to worry. You can leave everything in our safe hands.”
After years of practice, he had it down to a fine art. If he told you bananas were pink, you’d probably believe him.
“So to do all of the work it will be £850 plus VAT. Of course, if you want to avoid paying the old VAT and all the paperwork, then we can call it £800 for cash.”
Just over an hour later Kevin tapped on the back door of the house and waited until Mrs Adams appeared and invited them in.
“There you go, Mrs Adams. It’s all done. We’ve sprayed the trees and loaded the trimmed branches into the van. Would you take a look, it’s all good now.”
Mrs Adams smiled with relief. “You’ve worked hard. I’ve just made a cup of tea if you would like one.”
As the two workers accepted her offer and sat at the kitchen table, Olivia virtually gave them her entire life story. She could talk for England.
Olivia went upstairs to her ‘secret place’ where she hid her cash. She returned with the £800 and counted out the crisp twenty-pound notes into Kevin’s hand £100 at a time. He, in turn, passed each lot to his son.
Tyson O’Connor was a chip off the old block. As dishonest and unfeeling as his father. Of course not all of the travelling community are like this. Most have a heart of gold, but a few seem to have no conscience or feelings for anyone, except their own family.
Kevin knew from the creaking of the floorboards that she kept the money in her front bedroom. That could be handy to know. During her talking marathon she had told them about her daughter in Oxford and how she would be going to stay with her for a short break the following month.
When they came in from the garden, Kevin noticed the rear patio doors were wooden and had quite a large amount of rot. It wouldn’t take much for them to succumb to his trusted crow bar. And the house had no side gate. They could be in and out in a few minutes.
The money could be Mrs Adams’s life savings that she and her late husband scrimped and scraped to save over the years. So what?
Their motto being: Family is sacred, and anyone else can go to hell.
Kevin finished his tea. “Okay, Mrs Adams. We’ll see you in a week for the next treatment.”
Another sucker reeled in, he thought.
Kevin and his son walked out to the truck standing in the driveway of Mrs Adams’s property.
Olivia went out to wave goodbye to them. It’s so nice to be able to deal with a friendly and honest local company, she thought as they drove away.
Yes, she was right to use them for the work. The sign on the side of their vehicle, exactly as she had seen it in the advert. ‘KC Landscaping Services’. Tree specialists. Special rates for elderly clients. Local family business. Telephone for a free no-obligation quote.
It didn’t say the speci
al rates were lower or that in every case where elderly people were involved the amounts always seemed to be over five hundred pounds. Not bad when you’ve done the work, got the cash and finished the job in two hours. Or less if Kevin felt he could get away with it.
As she didn’t possess one of those awful computer things, she wasn’t aware the website gave the company address as 172 Union Road. Anyone who looked deeper would find this address belonged to a dental practice. It was an address Kevin O’Connor used in place of his real one.
Using a fake address is common practice amongst the travelling community to make people think they are a local company who can be trusted, rather than someone who would rip you off as soon as look at you. Certainly, in Trentbridge, you don’t want people to know you live anywhere near Fen Road. The other way is to use the services of an accommodation address company. It was strange how many landscaping companies listed their address as 23 King Street, the location of the local mailboxes etc. franchise.
Trading Standards had been trying to get evidence of Kevin’s activities for months. However, budget cuts meant they were overloaded with cases, and the more tricky ones were put to the bottom of the pile.
And when it comes to ‘tricky’, Kevin O’Connor was an expert.