Inseparable Bond

by David Poulter

  ‘No, I didn’t hear anything,’ John answered.

  His wife walked in as Mahul remained watching the police activity with his arms folded.

  He purchased his cigarettes and continued his walk, passing the groups of policemen dressed in yellow jackets and looking suspiciously at John as he pushed by.

  Once inside the hotel kitchen, the woman’s death was the main topic of conversation.

  The chefs were laughing as one of the waiters said, ‘She wasn’t very good at her job if she couldn’t see her killer coming.’ John went over to his sink and commenced scrubbing the pans, turning his back on the staff and ignoring the conversation.

  He left work at 3 o’clock and went straight back to the hostel. There was a police car in the car park, He entered the hall and was approached by the warden. ‘Hello, John, can you come in here for a moment please,’ as he opened his office door. Standing at each side of his desk were two plain-clothed policemen and a uniformed policewoman. ‘Just sit there, John, these gentlemen need to ask you a couple of questions.’ John looked around the room; his heart was pumping as he sat on the small leather chair opposite the warden.

  ‘Can you tell us where you were between the hours of 8pm and midnight last night?’ the smaller of the two asked him.

  ‘Well I finished my work about 8pm and came straight back here,’ he confidently answered.

  The larger of the two bent down, putting his face .close to John’s and breathing stale tobacco breath into his face and said sternly, ‘Did you go to the fairground or anywhere near it between those hours?’

  ‘No, but I had to walk past it when I left work, it’s on the main road. I couldn’t avoid it but I didn’t go, I only got paid today and I had no money,’ he answered as he tried not to wriggle discomfortingly on his chair.

  The officer looked at the warden and said, ‘We’ve checked with the hotel and they confirmed this. I think we’d better see Gary Brown again, he’s the new one isn’t he?’ he asked the warden. ‘O.K. John, you can go now but we’ll probably want to speak to you again,’ the officer said to him.

  He left the office and went into the television room. The room was full of residents, all with frightened expressions on their faces.

  ‘Have they seen you, John?’ Elizabeth shouted over.

  ‘Yes, just now, they wanted to know what time I left work, that’s all,’ he answered, as he sat down and picked up the evening paper. The headlines read ‘Fortune-tellers misfortune’. He did not read the article and skipped through the pages. As he looked over the top of the page, he noticed Dorothy staring at him from her high backed tapestry chair. She had asked him if he wanted cocoa when he arrived back at 11pm last night. She looked away and left the room when she noticed him looking back at her.

  The atmosphere was tense, no one spoke, they just looked at each other with apprehension and suspicion.

  Raised voices could be heard in the hall, it was Gary Brown, their prime suspect. ‘I’ve told you already, I was playing billiards with Peter Scott, ask him if you don’t believe me, ask everybody, they all saw me,’ he shouted, as he stormed into the room.

  Gary looked at John. ‘The bastards think I killed that woman in the fairground,’ he said, as he glared at him.

  ‘How can they think that if all this lot saw you here?’ he answered back to Gary, as he pointed around the room.

  ‘Well, I want those bastards off my back,’ he shouted, as he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  John went over to put the television on in an attempt to break the silence, and moved to a closer seat away from the others to hide his guilt before it was discovered.

  Elizabeth was sitting on the floor, cradling Dorothy’s head in her lap. Graham Banks was on the settee, painting his nails with red varnish, dressed in a pale blue trouser suit.

  Violet was curled up in a chair, stroking Snowy, the hostel cat, and George Beckwith rocking his lifeless head against the back of the tapestry chair, gazing at the ceiling.

  Although it was early days of the investigation, the police understandably had started their enquiries with the inmates of the hostel but could not find any evidence to link the residents with the crime. Their search soon intensified, with their interests being concentrated on the fairground workers.

  When John was at work a few days later, he overheard some staff members talking about the fairground worker who had been arrested for the murder of the gypsy. It was confirmed in that night’s evening paper that an arrest had been made of a showman who worked on a gun stall opposite the gypsy’s caravan. He had been in constant conflict with her.

  John still felt no remorse for his crime, yet did feel relief on reading of the arrested showman. His ill-gotten gains had been used for the purchase of the clothes he had intended to buy when his wallet had been stolen the week before.

  Alfred Wallington was sleeping by the electric fire with his tongue stuck out further than John thought it possible for a tongue to stick out. He had killed two men by concussion and stabbed their wives when they stayed at his guest house in Brighton for a two-week holiday. He was found to be a psychopath and had spent seventeen years in the hospital wing in a tight security Sussex prison.

  His paying guests had complained about the cold toast they received every morning with their breakfast, and with the constant pressure and intimidation he endured by his twenty-five stone wife, he murdered the couples as they slept in their beds. He immediately walked into his local police station to admit to the crimes.

  He was an intelligent man and spent most of his day completing crossword puzzles in the television room. He was only five ft tall, dark hair but iron grey at the temples with a very dark skin. His neat little brown hands hung limply by his side as he snored with his mouth wide open and his head hanging over the chair. His small feet in pointed, polished shoes elevated on the footstool.

  He was in love with Martha Beckingsdale, but it wasn’t reciprocated, although they did sleep together discreetly. Residents could visit other residents in their rooms but had to leave by 11pm, when the security staff did their night rounds.

  Martha was a sweet old lady, but her appearance and mental problems were deceptive. She had a criminal record at the age of 15 for a string of shoplifting offences. She increased her ambitious criminal activities by forming a girl gang in the city of Nottingham, and terrorised the local council estate by drug dealing and house breaking. At the age of 16 she gave birth to the first of four children, all illegitimate.

  At the adult age of 21, she married a taxi driver, but he was impotent and she beat him constantly, they divorced two years later.

  She got a job in the cafeteria of British Home Stores and mixed ecstasy in the hot food, which she ground down before delivering it to the counter. She served a two year sentence in Styal open prison in Cheshire.

  On her release she spent the next twenty-five years as a prostitute in Manchester. At the age of 50 she got a job with North West Water.

  She moved in with her older sister in Macclesfield shortly after her husband died of cancer. A year after his death she poisoned her with weed killer, which she stirred nightly in her Horlicks, in the hope of acquiring the large detached house they shared.

  A post-mortem quickly revealed the cause of death and she received twelve years imprisonment.

  She was transferred to the hostel three years ago and spends most of her days knitting in front of the fire in winter, or in the conservatory in the summer months.

  She had constantly requested to cook for the residents but her requests were refused, she wasn’t even listed on the roster for kitchen cleaning duties.

  It was a fine morning when John left the hostel for another early shift at the hotel. He noticed a couple of policemen at the entrance to the fairground as he crossed the road to the grocers shop for his daily packet of cigarettes. ‘They got him then,’ said Mahul, as he took John’s money. His wife was stacking shelves dressed in a bright purple sari.

  ‘Yes I d
id hear something about it, another showman wasn’t it?’ John replied, as he left the shop, looking away from the policemen as their eyes followed him down the hill.

  He entered the hotel kitchen and starting his daily grind, which he had come to despise, but he was in no position to throw it in, and it was better than staying in the hostel all day.

  It was about 4 o’clock when he returned back to the hostel. The warden was standing at the front door with his hands in his pocket. He lowered his head, his eyes just visible under his bushy eyebrows. ‘John, I’ve been waiting for you, I need to see you in my office straightaway,’ he said, with a puzzled expression.

  The sight of the gypsy flashed through John’s mind as he followed the warden to his office, his heart pounding. Expecting to see plain-clothed police waiting in the room, his fear ceased and his heart rate decreased when the only other person in the room was a male nurse looking through the filing cabinet. ‘Sit down John, I’ve got some good news for you,’ the warden said, as he picked up some paperwork.

  ‘I have a reply from the prison authorities, it’s been countersigned by the Home Office, and they’ve agreed to a weekend home visit with your sister,’ he said, with a forced grin.

  ‘Oh, right, that’s good,’ replied John, although since the murder of the gypsy it had completely been erased from his mind.

  ‘Now the local police in Fleetwood have been informed, and will visit your sister as she will be responsible for collecting you at the railway station, and putting you back on the train,’ he said, as he flicked the pages of the application form.

  John was delighted with the news; it was a good time for him to leave with police activity still surrounding the area of the fairground, and the uneasy atmosphere that had stitched itself into the fabric of the hostel, since Tommy had murdered Sylvia.

  He left the office and went up the stairs, striding two at a time. As he briskly walked along the corridor, he quickly glanced into Gary’s room through the half open door. Gary was naked on his bed. He was snoring gently, the rays from the late afternoon sun shone through the small window and across his tall, firm body glistening over a layer of perspiration. His strong muscle-packed arms lay behind his head as if restraining him, with his legs slightly opened. His body was hairless, apart from under his arms and the bush of black pubic hair which went down in a thin straight line from his navel and opened out nesting his large heavy looking penis, which lay down the top of his left leg.

  His lips fluttered slightly as he snored. An open book lay beside him revealing a picture of a young naked black boy.

  John felt his penis grow uncomfortable, trapped in his pants. He walked into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Gary’s eye opened at the sound of a squeaking floorboard, he noticed John but closed his eyes again without moving his position.

  John stood looking down at Gary’s body, and noticed his penis flinch slightly. He stroked Gary’s hairless chest, Gary remained motionless, his eyes closed. John ran his hands down his flat stomach and into the bush of pubic hair, slowly lifting the heavy penis from his leg and lifting his heavy testicles with the other. His penis grew larger and heavier, becoming too thick to fill John’s cupped hand. He slowly worked it up and vigorously masturbated him while he remained in his submissive position. Gary groaned deeply as he ejaculated. A strong force of sperm shot high up to his chest leaving a trail in a straight line down his torso.

  His penis slowly receded as John carefully loosened his grip, placing it gently backs in its original position.

  Gary opened his eyes and said, ‘That was good,’ as he turned to face the wall. John backed out of the room, looking at Gary’s firm, protruding buttocks and strong muscle-packed back as he closed the door.

  The next morning, John was woken by the chimes of the church bells ringing loudly from the church opposite the hostel. He walked through the hall, passed Martha, Alfred, Dorothy, Elizabeth and Norman, who were dressed in their best waiting for the security nurse to escort them to the church service. It was a normal ritual every Sunday, but the group had dwindled down since Tommy had been taken away and Sylvia was no more with us.

  The attendance of the service was not compulsory and the majority of residents preferred to stay in the hostel. John had never been religious, although as a young boy his parents forced him to join the local choir at the Fleetwood Methodist Church.

  He was working the late shift that day, so he took the opportunity of spending a couple of quiet hours in the television room while some of the others were in the church.

  Ralf Parker was the only other resident in the room, noisily turning the pages of the Sunday paper as he puffed incessantly on a cigarette, flicking ash around his feet.

  He was a bald, unfortunate looking bloke. His small grey eyes deeply embedded in a hairless face with a large protruding broken nose. He had extremely large elephant-type ears, the right one having a chunk bitten out from some brawl in his prison days.

  He was never seen in anything other than a grey shell-suit and black trainers. He always sat alone due to his overpowering body odour; he probably had an allergic reaction to soap and water.

  He worked as a porter at the railway station next to the hotel where John worked, although they had little contact in or out of the hostel.

  He had done a lengthy sentence in Strangeways for an armed robbery, which had gone wrong. He shot and killed a bank security officer and became violent throughout his sentence. He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after he tried to hang his cellmate. He was transferred to the hostel about a year ago but was kept well sedated due to his sudden and unprovoked attacks, which regularly occurred.

  John reached down to Ralf Parker’s feet to retrieve the magazine supplement he had thrown to the floor. He took the magazine to the far end of the room to gain the light from the large window overlooking the garden, and avoiding Parker’s overpowering body odour circulating the room.

  He quickly flicked the pages, occasionally looking up at short intervals to watch Bernard Simpson’s attempt at cutting the grass with the aged lawnmower he had dragged out of the shed at the bottom of the garden. John watched his small frame bent over the heavy machine, being unaware of the unintentional curved roads of shaved lawn he was trailing behind him.

  John unconsciously took deep breaths of the sweet smell of grass-cuttings drifting through the open door, eliminating some of the foul smell from Parker’s sweating body.

  Bernard was the quietest resident in the hostel. He was one of the first to have been admitted shortly after it had been purchased by the authorities and converted to a half-way house institution for long-term offenders.

  He had molested children at a school in Hartlepool while employed as a caretaker. In those days, child molestation was not recognised as a serious offence and on the infrequent reporting of it, was not considered an intrusion or the possibility of any long-term sexual confusion for the victim.

  His molestation of a 10-year-old pupil ended his career with the school when a teacher had witnessed Bernard sexually assaulting the boy in the gymnasium’s changing room. Due to the parent’s outcry, he moved to Lincoln and worked as a gardener for the local council authorities whilst on probation for his assault.

  Being unsupervised, he constantly loitered around the park’s public toilets in an attempt to sexually interfere with children who regularly walked through from the nearby school.

  His sexual interference soon turned to a more violent nature when a young victim he had buggered in the toilet bled profusely from his rectum, and sent Bernard into a panic. He snapped his victim’s neck and buried his body in undergrowth behind the toilet block.

  Instantly realising his probation order would undeniably result in him being the investigation’s main suspect once the body was discovered, he terminated his job that day, yet the county council offered him a post on ticket sales of a boating lake in a public park at the other side of the town. He accepted the position.

  A search for
the missing schoolboy proved unsuccessful. It was three months later when a dog had clawed at the site and returned to its owner with a human bone in its mouth. On recovering the body, it was too decomposed to fully establish the cause, and certainly the time and date of death, with only his school satchel identifying him.

  Although Bernard was questioned along with the other council workers, the police did not have sufficient evidence to take the case any further. The case went unsolved.

  It was the height of summer on a hot Wednesday afternoon when he issued a ticket to a young lad who boarded a rowing boat unaccompanied.

  Bernard watched from his hut as the boy rowed the small boat behind the island in the centre of the lake. He locked the hut and climbed into the nearest boat. To avoid attracting attention, he slowly and casually rowed out to the island and moored the boat.

  Once he disembarked, he waved his arms to the boy as if in distress, beckoning him to row towards him. The isolated island was situated in the centre of the lake, housing a cluster of trees and bushes. The only residents were swans and ducks which used the island for housing and breeding in its natural environment. Once the boy excitingly climbed out of his boat to perform his heroic rescue of the stranded boatman, Bernard beckoned him to the cluster of trees and sexually assaulted him. The lad screamed in pain and fear, which alerted the few people walking the lake perimeter. They looked over at the island briefly but his cries were drowned by the disturbance of the fleeing birds, so they all continued their walk.

  After the assault, the boy endured the same death as Bernard’s previous victim. Bernard returned to the lakeside, having attached the boy’s boat to his.

  The police spent the following weeks combing the park after a witness had seen the boy in the vicinity, but they discounted the island as a possible crime scene due to its inaccessibility. Bernard’s second crime had also gone unsolved and after the lengthy and exhausting search, it was called off, the crime went unsolved.