A Death in Winter

by Jim McGrath

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, sobbing. ‘I’m caught by me balls.’

  ‘Hoist by your own petard,’ said Clark and giggled.

  ‘Don’t mock me,’ whined Freddie. This was too much for Clark and he dissolved into convulsive laughter, which quickly spread to Collins.

  As Freddie hung by his balls, trying not to move, the occasional muffled groan escaped his lips. Collins and Clark were bent double. Tears streaming down their cheeks. They were laughing so much that they could barely breathe and their stomach muscles screamed for relief. After several unsuccessful attempts, they managed to gain some composure and eased a block of wood from the coal bunker under Freddie’s feet. This took some of the strain off his torn scrotum, but the rusted nail still held him.

  Clark suggested that Freddie looked as if he was trying to hump the fence, which was enough to set Collins off again.

  Clark left Collins laughing and went in search of a phone, finding one in the butchers around the corner. He phoned for an ambulance and the fire brigade. As an afterthought, he rang the Desk Sergeant to report what had happened.

  When the ambulance arrived, the men had to fight their way through seven police officers who had crowded into the back yard. All of them, at one time or another, had nicked Freddie and wanted to be present on the day that divine justice was meted out to the greatest wanker on the patch. Two had even managed to find their Box Brownies and were happily snapping away, recording the event for posterity. All of them wanted to be able to claim that they had been present on the day that Freddie’s sack had been shredded.

  Despite their best efforts to ease Freddie off the nail, the ambulance men had to concede defeat and let the fire brigade take over. To much cheering from their colleagues in the police, they were eventually able to cut through the nail – although the vibrations caused by the hacksaw’s grinding passage across the nail had led to a series of screams from Freddie that sounded like a banshee’s death cries.

  Finally freed, to a chorus of cheers from the ever-sympathetic police, Freddie was taken to hospital with 4 inches of nail still imbedded in his scrotum. On the toss of a coin, it was agreed that Collins would go with the ambulance and Clark would return to the station.

  Clark’s return was triumphal, but he was modest in taking the credit. He insisted that it had been Collins who actually pulled Freddie down the fence and onto the nail. He’d only leant on Upright to make sure that he was firmly impaled.

  By the time Collins got back to the station, Freddie was all tucked up in a nice clean hospital bed. His scrotum had nineteen stitches in it and one testicle. The amount of damage done to the remaining testicle was unclear, but it would certainly be out of working order for a prolonged period.

  On entering the canteen, Clark stood up and introduced Constable Collins to the assembled throng as the Shredder in Chief. A cheer went up from the near-full canteen and a chant of “Shredder, Shredder”.

  As Collins got stuck into a plate of mashed potatoes, sausages and peas, all liberally covered in dark brown gravy, Clark brought him up to date. ‘I spoke to Hicks about Spencer. He wants us to sweat him a bit. Maybe call him in for questioning early next week. He also wants to join us next week when we speak to Ravenal.’

  ‘OK. Anything else?’

  ‘He also said that he wants to see you before you clock off.’

  ‘Damn.’

  Collins knocked on the Inspector’s door and waited to be called in. Hicks was at his desk, his shirt sleeves rolled up. Another of those stinking French cigarettes was hanging from the corner of his mouth, meaning that Collins came to attention and saluted in a cloud of blue smoke.

  ‘Sit yourself down, lad. I imagine you’re knackered after the day you’ve had, but not as knackered as Upright Freddie,’ said Hicks, laughing.

  ‘I think I’d agree with you on that, Sir, but I’m not sure what to make of this Shredder stuff.’

  ‘Take it as a complement. You’re one of the lads now. Besides, it’s always useful to have a nickname that implies a certain proclivity for violence. The villains on the patch will think twice before mixing with you.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t ask to see you to talk about balls. Tell me how you broke the code?’

  ‘I didn’t, Sir. My landlady did.’

  ‘You shared police information with your landlady?’ asked Hicks, his voice rising.

  ‘No, Sir – not on purpose, that is,’ replied Collins, and quickly outlined the events of the previous evening.

  ‘I see. I hope you didn’t share any other police information with her?’

  ‘No, Sir,’ lied Collins.

  ‘Well, no harm done then. In fact, some good was done. The Queen’s Other Head is a pub in Stratford-upon-Avon. Odd thing is, it has a reputation as a hangout for queers. The Manor is a hotel not far from Stratford and the “Meet Bucky” message confirms what Carol Midgley said about the boyfriend picking Simone up from the school.’

  ‘So now we can ask the kids about a particular date.’

  ‘Correct. You know, Collins, you’ve been like a rat up a drainpipe with this enquiry. I’m impressed. Keep it up. Now, get the hell out of here and get some sleep.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir. Good night.’

  Collins was almost out the door when Hicks said, ‘By the way, you can thank your landlady from me for her help. Unofficially, of course.’

  Collins smiled and shut the door without reply.

  Thursday 14th February 1963.

  Handsworth, 08.00hrs.

  It was 8.15 when Mr Mitchell of Mitchell’s Greengrocers waved at Clark and Collins from across the road.

  ‘Morning, Clarkee. Who’s this then?’

  ‘Hello Bert, meet Probationary Constable Collins. I’m supposed to break him in.’

  ‘Pay him no attention lad. He’s always been a cheery git. Yoe should see him after we’ve lost a game. Fit to slit his wrists, he is. Anyhow, I’ve got a problem for yoe.’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘Yeah. Come on.’ Mitchell led them down the alley to the rear of the shop to a locked storeroom. ‘Here,’ he said, giving them the key, ‘I found him in the shed this morning. He can’t be any more than fourteen. He’s in a hell of a state and I don’t think being locked up will help, but I’m buggered if I know what to do with him.’

  ‘OK, let’s have a look,’ said Clark.

  Collins unlocked the door, which was suddenly flung open and a ball of fury came charging out. Clark sidestepped the youth, but left his leg trailing. The boy hit the outstretched leg and skidded on his hands and knees across the backyard.

  Clark pulled him up by the scruff of the neck and shook him. ‘Calm down, lad, or I’m going to thump you.’

  The boy was about 5 feet 8 inches, of slim build and wearing a pair of jeans, a shirt and a jumper. He had no coat and his face and hands were red with the cold. He stood beside Clark, shaking with the type of cold that burns its way into your bones and that once endured is never forgotten. Despite that, however, there was still fight in his eyes. The world may have given him a good kicking, but he was ready for round two.

  ‘Come on, lad, calm down. Yoe look froze. Let’s go and have a cuppa in Mr Mitchell’s nice warm backroom. Then yoe can tell me why you’re sleeping in his shed on the coldest fucking night of the year.’

  It was only after the lad had drank two mugs of tea and demolished both a bacon sandwich and, moments later, an egg sandwich that Clark asked him, ‘What’s yoer name, lad?’

  Colour was returning to the kid’s face and he’d stopped shaking. ‘Jamie O’Conner’.

  ‘And how old are you, Jamie?’

  The boy hesitated before answering, ‘I’m sixteen,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t look it,’ said Collins.

  ‘I’ve always l
ooked young for my age. It’s because of me fair hair.’

  ‘Well, we’ll leave that for a minute,’ said Clark. ‘Where do yoe live?’

  ‘Nowhere. Me old man threw me out last Tuesday.’

  ‘Where have yoe been staying since then?’

  ‘The first night I stayed with this friend of mine, but his wife came home on Wednesday and there wasn’t room for me. He gave me a few bob to get something to eat, but there weren’t enough for a room. So I reckoned that there would be somewhere to sleep behind the shops.’

  ‘And where does this mate of yours live?’

  ‘Over on Hagley Road. I’m not sure of the address. I know where it is like, but I don’t know the address.’

  ‘Any chance yoe can go home?’

  ‘Na. None’.

  ‘Well, if you’re sixteen, there’s nothing we can do for yoe. If Mr Mitchell here presses charges, we could lock yoe up for the night. Do you want that?’

  Jamie’s answer was just about audible, ‘No.’

  Collins caught Clark’s eye and beckoned him outside.

  ‘You don’t believe that bullshit that he’s sixteen, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Clark.

  ‘Then we should call the council and get him into a children’s home.’

  ‘Maybe, but there’s more going on here than he’s letting on.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It takes one hell of a hard bastard to throw his own son out of the house in the middle of winter. Whatever the reason it must be summut serious. Secondly, how many married men do yoe know have a young lad as a friend? A friend that they don’t want their wife to know about?’

  ‘You mean he’s queer?’

  ‘Possibly, but if he goes into care and gets labelled as a poofter he’s going to have a hard time. Let’s try and find him some place to stay for a few days until we get the full story.’

  Collins looked at Clark and a smile slowly formed at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘What? What you grinning at, you Irish fuck?’

  ‘You. The hard man with a gooey soft centre. Who’d have guessed?’

  ‘Yoe’ll find out how soft I am when I put me foot so far up yoer arse that my toes tickle your tonsils. You cheeky git. C’mon, let’s sort this out.’

  ‘Wait, I have an idea.’

  One telephone call and twenty minutes later, Agnes turned into the alleyway next to the greengrocers and parked up. At first, Jamie had been suspicious of the suggestion that he stay with a woman in Handsworth Wood. He was sure it was a con and that he would be taken to a council home, but five minutes with Agnes and she had him begging to stay with her.

  Back on the street, Collins asked, ‘So what are we going to write this up as?’

  ‘Exactly like it were. Young man by the name of Jamie O’Conner of no fixed abode found sleeping rough in the storeroom of Mitchell’s Greengrocers. Mr Mitchell did not want to press charges and, after a stern warning, the young man was allowed to go.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Jamie said nothing on the short journey home. Agnes could see that he was exhausted and suggested that he have a hot bath and go to bed. They could talk later. While he slept, she washed his clothes and hung them over a radiator to dry. When she looked in on him mid-afternoon he was still asleep – the eiderdown tucked under his chin.

  Collins waited until he could change out of his uniform before he visited Mary. He surveyed the street furtively. Embarrassed that someone might see him go in and think he was a regular customer. Satisfied that there was no one watching, he rang Mary’s doorbell.

  ‘Who is it? asked a voice from behind the plain black door.

  ‘Collins, I called earlier.’ He heard a bolt being drawn back and the click of a Yale lock as it was released.

  A mop of blonde hair, piled high in a beehive, blue eyes and a pert nose looked around the door jam. Collins was aware of being inspected and tried to appear relaxed and confident, as if calling on a prostitute was something he’d spent his entire life doing. Inspection over, Mary stepped back and opened the door just far enough for him to squeeze past. She was wearing a plain blue dressing gown, which had been selected for comfort rather than sex appeal.

  Inside, Collins found himself in a short corridor with red walls and black ceiling and doors. The effect was like walking into a small hot cave.

  ‘It’s the door on the left,’ Mary said, ‘unless I can interest you in a session with Mistress Karla in her dungeon of pain before we start. I do special discounts for the police.’

  Collins felt the blood rush to his face and mumbled, ‘No I don’t. I…’

  Taking pity on him, Mary relented and said, ‘It’s alright, I’m just kidding. Agnes told me what you wanted and I’ll help if I can. Would you like a cuppa?’

  ‘That would be great.’

  As Mary busied herself boiling the kettle and finding some biscuits in the cupboard, Collins inspected the room. It was small, maybe nine by ten, with no windows and a connecting door to Mary’s dungeon. The only furniture in the room consisted of a small folding table, two wooden chairs and a rocking chair pulled close to the gas fire, which was blasting away on full power. Heaped against the chimney breast was a pile of paperbacks. The top one was Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory. She has decent taste in books, thought Collins, as he removed his coat.

  Handing Collins his drink Mary said, ‘This is where I reside when I’m not humiliating, beating, bossing around and generally insulting some poor punter for £3 an hour or £2/10s if they’re a regular. So, tell me Constable Collins, what do you want to know?’

  ‘The girl that was murdered was strangled by a ribbon of cloth or something similar. We think she was having sex when she died, but there were no bruises or signs that she fought back. So it probably started out as just ordinary sex and then the guy got overexcited and strangled her.’

  ‘You mean a sex game gone wrong?’

  ‘Sex game?’

  ‘Yeah. In the last few years I’ve noticed more and more punters want girls to smother them. Either by sitting on their faces, putting a bag over their head or choking them with a belt. It makes them come like an express train.’

  ‘But how…?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Maybe it’s like the old stories of men who were hung. When their neck weren’t broken by the fall, they would hang there for a couple of minutes slowly suffocating. Many of them were supposed to have come as they died, but you’d have to ask Pierrepoint about that.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Albert Pierrepoint,’ she said slowly, as if talking to an idiot. ‘England’s chief executioner for the last thirty years.’

  ‘But that doesn’t explain the girl…’

  ‘God, what it is to be innocent. It has the same effect on women.’

  Collins tried to hide his embarrassment. ‘Do you have any clients who like to choke you?’

  ‘I’m sure some would love to choke Madam. But I don’t trust anyone enough to give them a chance to kill me – by accident or intent. But I know a couple of the girls who do offer it.’

  ‘Can you give me their numbers?’

  ‘Sure, but I think they’ll tell me more than they will you. How about I speak to them and give you a ring when I’ve seen them?’

  ‘That sounds fine. Thanks.’

  ‘OK.’ They were silent for a few moments.

  Collins could see that Mary was thinking. Finally, she asked, ‘Have you thought that whoever the killer is he might be more interested in young girls than strangulation? There’s much more demand for young girls, and boys come to that, than for girls willing to play strangulation games.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Collins.

  ‘For lots of men it’s all about the age of the boy or girl. Some like really
young kids. Others like kids on the turn. I think they like teaching them about sex. Corrupting them. Moulding them into their own little fuck machines. If that’s the case, then strangulation may not be this guy’s main interest.’

  ‘Does anyone in Birmingham provide kiddies or young girls?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Only one?’

  ‘When you meet Joey Bishop, you’ll understand why there’s only one supplier. He doesn’t like competition. Be careful. Don’t go alone. He’s a right mean fuck.’

  Collins jotted down Bishop’s address. His tea finished, he was just about to stand up when Mary said, ‘OK, out with it. What do you want to ask me?’

  ‘I don’t have—’

  ‘Rubbish. Every man who comes in here has one of two questions that they ask: “How did you get started on the game?” or “Do you ever come when having sex with a customer?”’

  ‘And what do you say?’

  ‘I lie. With the first question, I tell them a story that fits with their fantasies. For the second, I say that only a very small number of customers can make me come and imply that they are one of the chosen few. Those with half a brain know I’m lying, but play along. Does that answer your question?’

  ‘Not really. I was wondering, what’s the most painful thing a punter has asked you to do?’

  ‘Well, at least that’s original. Looking to add to your repertoire, are we? Let me think. Some punters like me to beat them, walk on them in my high heels, or kick them where it hurts. A few like me to rub embrocation on their cock and balls, and a very small number, maybe one or two, like me to push the embrocation up their bum. Of course, I use a rubber glove when I do that. How’s that for you?’ Mary asked, smiling.

  Collins crossed his legs and winced. ‘How the hell could anyone enjoy that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they’re messed up,’ said Mary, ‘but it doesn’t mean they’re evil. They don’t harm anyone except themselves.’

  When Collins arrived home, he found Agnes and Jamie chatting in the kitchen. The boy looked a 100% better than he had earlier in the day. Both he and his clothes had scrubbed up nicely. Gone was the cold, tired and dejected kid, and in his place was a vibrant, animated youth. From the way he was looking at Agnes, it was clear that she had done much to engineer the change.