This was not how he had anticipated her reaction. The room went silent except for his shallow breathing.
He took his tray into the kitchen, scraped the half eaten omelette in the bin and went back to his bedroom.
He had momentarily lost control of Jennifer. The last few nights he had found impossible to sleep, even though he felt sick through the lack of sleep. He would cry each night, thinking to himself it should not have been like this, this wasn’t his plan. He cried so loudly he felt ashamed, but swore and hit himself in the face through inner rage. He had expected Jennifer to turn to him for compassion and sympathy, not the church-going bible bashers who constantly invaded the house, disrupting their privacy.
The next morning was another dull and grey day, an ideal climate to complement the mood of the town John Bell thought as he looked out of his bedroom window.
Jennifer was downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table, gazing out of the window. She had made herself a cup of tea. She looked tired and withdrawn, wearing an old shabby sweater. She looked up as he entered the kitchen. ‘Marion has just phoned, the police are all over the vicarage, they say his daughter has found something incriminating, it may not be an accident after all,’ she said, looking back at the stained kitchen window.
His daughter and son-in-law had arrived from Bournemouth. They stayed at the vicarage while making funeral arrangements for their father and sorting out the house. They were sorting out her father’s clothes and reached for a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe.
They discovered what appeared to be blood on the underside of the white suitcase. Removing the Persian carpet, it revealed congealed blood stains covering almost half of the rug. They contacted the police immediately.
Forensics was called in, soon revealing the same blood type as the victims. The vicar’s death now looked suspicious as they conducted a full forensic examination of the house.
Further evidence was found to suggest a struggle had taken place prior to his fall down the stairs. An autopsy revealed that his facial injuries were not a result of him falling down the stairs, bloodstains had been found on the landing. The cause of death was immediately changed from accidental to that of murder.
House-to-house enquiries were made in the immediate surrounding areas, which proved fruitless. Jennifer’s house was not considered close enough to be in a position of witnessing any recent untoward activity at the vicarage but she had been a good friend of the vicar and one of the last to see him alive. She could possibly be helpful with their inquiries.
The police were also keen to speak to John Bell. They were aware of his criminal past and had been issued with a report on his discharge from the hostel.
They arrived as Jennifer and John had just sat down for breakfast. Jennifer showed them into the sitting room and offered them tea, they refused. One detective sat on the sofa, the other walked around the room as they asked her a few questions, satisfied that she could not help them with their investigation.
They asked to speak to John Bell, allowing Jennifer to be present throughout their questioning.
‘Can you tell us where you were between 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock last Saturday, John?’ the detective asked him.
‘I was here at home all afternoon,’ he replied. His hands were moist and shaking, he felt perspiration under his armpits and seeping across his brow.
‘Can anyone verify that, John?’ he asked, his eyes looking up at his sweating brow.
‘Yes, my sister Jennifer was here all the time,’ he replied, looking over at Jennifer sitting in the upholstered wing chair.
‘Yes, he was in his room all afternoon,’ she replied.
The detective continued. ‘Did you actually see him in his room, Mrs Bellamy?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes, I took him a cup of tea and he also had a bath,’ she replied, wiping her eyes with a tissue.
Nervousness constricted John’s throat, he swallowed quickly, several times.
The other detective came over, he bent down and put his face close to John’s. ‘And did you leave the house at any time during those hours?’ he asked him, his heavy breath making his eyes blink.
‘No, I was here all afternoon, I’ve just told you that,’ he replied.
Jennifer pointed to the door saying, ‘If he had left the house I would have seen him on the stairs, I was sitting in that chair all afternoon with the door open,’ she said.
‘O.K. Mrs Bellamy, we’ll leave it there for now but we may need to speak to John again.’
‘Don’t go too far, will you?’ the detective said, as he stood up.
John remained in his chair as Jennifer took the detectives to the front door; they spoke privately to her before leaving.
She didn’t return to the sitting room. She went to the kitchen and closed the door.
John remained in his chair for a few minutes. He wiped his forehead with a used tissue Jennifer had left on the table.
Jennifer was sobbing at the kitchen table as he opened the door.
‘Please leave me alone, dear,’ she said, holding her head in her hands as she gazed out of the window.
He slowly closed the door and went back to his bedroom. His heart raced as he lay on his bed. He heard the front door close and went to the widow. He watched Jennifer walked down the drive onto the avenue; she turned right towards the sea, walking briskly with her head down.
He pounded his bedroom. He felt uncomfortable with Jennifer’s current attitude and the police questioning. He thought of the happy times he and Jennifer had enjoyed, the relaxed family atmosphere and the bonding they shared before the vicar entered her life. ‘That fucking bible basher has ruined everything,’ he shouted to himself.
Jennifer returned about an hour later. John heard her moving around the kitchen. A good smell came along the corridor, giving him an appetite.
He went downstairs and sat at the kitchen table, she was peeling potatoes in the sink, and a frying pan on the cooker was producing a strong odour of fried onions.
Jennifer turned to face John. ‘I’m sorry, dear, its been a terrible week, first it was Norman’s accident, then they say it was murder and now the police visiting the house, when will it all end?’ she said, turning back towards the sink.
John didn’t answer, he couldn’t answer.
The liver, onions and mashed potato was good. Jennifer remained silent throughout supper, staring at the food while she circled her fork in the mash, eating very little.
She picked up her plate, scraping the uneaten food in the bin. She walked into the sitting room and closed the door behind her.
John finished his meal, washed the dishes and went upstairs to the bathroom. The bath water was hot. He leaned his head against the plastic pillow and inhaled the steam in deep breaths. Lemon and camomile from an expensive glass bottle on the side of the bath, Jennifer’s favourite. She had good taste but little money.
He was reading a photographic magazine he had taken from his impressive collection which he kept hidden in his bedroom. He flicked through the pages containing pictures of young naked boys. While holding the magazine in one hand, he fondled himself with the other.
The magazine fell in the water. He quickly pulled it out again. Some of the pages had stuck together. He angrily threw it in the corner of the room.
The water was tepid now. He dried himself off on a fluffy white bath towel from the pile in the floor standing rack.
He heard Jennifer lock and bolt the front door. The hall light went out as she climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom. John lay on his bed gazing at the ceiling until he fell asleep.
He went downstairs for his breakfast, Jennifer had already gone. The house was silent. He quickly ate a bowl of cereal and walked to the tram stop opposite the vicarage.
A uniformed policeman stood by the garden gate and he could see silhouettes of people in one of the front rooms. People in the queue were chatting about the murder as they watched the house across the road.
He sat by the windo
w of the tram, joined by an obese woman with an equally obese child. She wore a pink tracksuit with the remnants of her breakfast spilt down the front; the mother wore a white tight fitting shell-suit. Her cheeks were red and her breath smelt sour as she pointed out of the window, talking to the child across John.
She irritated him and the smell of her stale under arm sweat was overpowering.
On arrival In Blackpool, he went into a charity shop on King Street. He rooted around books and videotapes in a box by the door, occasionally looking up at the pictures hanging on the walls. He came across a box of used underwear. He pulled out a pair of girl’s white knickers and took them over to the well-dressed old lady behind the small counter. He couldn’t really buy a pair of girl’s knickers in his local charity shop without attracting attention, he was known in those shops and thought it was best to be on the safe side. He had been on the safe side all along with his perverted fetish.
He noticed the car had gone when he returned home. The weather was bright but cloudy, Jennifer only drove in good weather, he assumed she had gone to the supermarket; he had noticed the shelves were looking bare.
He went to his bedroom, quickly taking the knickers out of his pocket to place in the drawer with the others. The drawer had been tidied; his underpants were neatly folded alongside the five pairs of various coloured knickers.
He turned to look at the bookshelf containing his collection of pornographic videos. It had been tidied; books that had been piled on top of each other in a rush were now put back in their rightful place. The massive heap of newspapers by the wardrobe had disappeared, so had the wastebasket. He looked around the room, it smelt aired and clean, an odour of polish hung in the air and the curtains had been taken down.
He felt his adrenalin levels rising, his pulse raising and his breath quickening as he frantically searched through the other drawers. His bottle of amyl-nitrate had disappeared from the bedside table. He ran downstairs and searched through the kitchen waste bin for the little discarded bottle. He retrieved it along with the soggy pornographic magazine he had left in the bathroom the previous night.
His shirt was sticking to his body with perspiration, he tried to breathe slowly.
He grabbed a Danish pastry from the glass plate and wolfed it in three fast mouthfuls.
All the net curtains had been taken down and washed. He looked through the kitchen window; they were dripping off the line.
He closed his eyes to think. He had always been so careful in hiding his deranged fetish.
A dark blue Volvo pulled up outside the house. John was watching through the sitting room window. He didn’t pull back or try to hide. He stood there watching the car door open. A man got out. He seemed to be stiff and uncomfortable. He rubbed his face vigorously and then tried to straighten his back as if he’d been driving all day. He looked up at the house and approached the front door. The stranger noticed John at the window and raised his hand to wave.
John went into the hall and opened the front door before the man had time to ring the bell. He was heavily built and looked tired. He carried a thin brown briefcase.
‘I need to speak with John Bell,’ the man asked.
‘I’m John, come in,’ he said, as he closed the door behind him.
They went through to the sitting room; the man sat on the sofa and opened his briefcase. He was John’s new probation officer, appointed on his predecessor’s retirement. The local police had contacted him as part of their investigations into the death of the vicar.
‘Why are you here?’ John asked.
‘It’s to do with the murder of the vicar, terrible case.’ The officer said, nodding slowly. ‘The investigation is very complex and we have to follow all the leads we get from the police, mainly interviewing all discharged offenders who live in the area,’ he said, his eyes locked on to John.
John Bell repeated what he had told the detectives, the probation officer was reading his copy of the statement, occasionally looking up with his camera eyes locking onto John.
The officer put the forced smile back on his face as he replaced the statement back in his briefcase.
‘That satisfies me, John, I’ll be off now, I have others to see,’ he said, as he pulled his large body away from the back of the sofa.
John saw him out, half waving to him as he climbed back into his Volvo.
John’s mouth was dry with fear. His tongue stuck to the top of his mouth and the inside of his teeth. He went to the kitchen sink and filled a cup with cold water. He bent over and drank greedily; it was cold on his front teeth. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and went into the back garden for fresh air.
He felt safe in the garden. It was his place. The high wall gave him a sense of security, probably due to the fact he had spent nearly half of his life surrounded by one. He sat on the fallen tree stump looking up to the sky.
Through a break in the clouds he could see the vapour trail from a plane heading north.
Jennifer had still not returned. He went back into the sitting room and stood looking at himself in the old flecked mirror. He ran his hand through his hair, it smelt of smoke. John took a step back from the mirror. The way the light fell made him look different. He found it difficult to recognise himself in the flecked mirror. He face looked thinner. He wondered whether he should put a tie on, Jennifer always said ties were respectable.
It was a warm morning, bright sunny and dry. John was clearing the rubbish from the front garden which had accumulated over the winter months. A rusty yellow skip had been positioned outside the house for the mountain of twigs and branches which were scattered around the garden.
With his arms full of branches and rubbish, he dodged the people on the pavement. Some were in a hurry; others ambled their way down to the promenade aimlessly.
Jennifer walked out of the house holding a mug of coffee in one hand, a plate of biscuits in the other.
‘That looks so much better, dear,’ she said, turning her head looking around the garden.
The swelling from he eyes had disappeared and she had fresh colour in her cheeks, she looked radiant in a bright yellow dress as she sat on the low wall watching, chatting to John as he worked. She smiled encouragingly.
They had barely exchanged a word since she had been told of the vicar’s death; she now seemed to be getting back to her old self.
Once the debris was cleared, he was able to put the garden in some sort of order.
The anticipation of summer was tangible. A of group of young boys raced past the wall towards the sea with small surfboards under their arms.
The population of the town would soon increase tenfold and remain constant with the amount of tourists that would visit during the summer season.
The heat of the early summer brought out an unpleasant odour of stagnant water from an old drum which he had found hidden under a pile of branches.
John took advantage of the skip, clearing out the garage so the car could be parked there over the winter, if it lasted that long. He was pleased with his day’s work. He looked at the front garden, stretching his aching back as he headed back to the house. He took his wellington boots off and left them by the back door, looking briefly at the back garden. This was going to be a challenge, he thought.
He was greeted with a good smell of steak and kidney pie as he walked into the kitchen, pulling off his sweater.
The last rays of the day’s sunlight forced their way through the dirty kitchen windows.
Jennifer was watching television in the sitting room. The windows looked large with the curtains open. Dust danced in the patches of light outlining on the floor.
‘Have you finished for the day, dear?’ she asked.
‘Yes, that’s it until tomorrow,’ John said, sitting down on the sofa.
‘I’ll see how the supper’s doing, you must he hungry,’ Jennifer said, as she left the room.
After his meal, he went outside before it got too dark, looking at his day’s work, he walked around smoking hi
s cigarette. The sun was just setting over the horizon and a cool breeze came off the sea. Two fat women passed the house, paused briefly to peer over the wall at the transformation of the garden.
The rain lashed John’s bedroom window waking him early. The weather forecast had said occasional showers under grey skies. This was not an occasional shower and looked well set in for the day as he looked up at the threatening sky.
The weather is what one normally associates with a funeral.
Jennifer was already dressed as he walked down the stairs, brushing her black overcoat on the back of the chair in the hall. She wore a plain suit, laced-up shoes, and large brim fur hat, all in black, except for the pink blouse showing over her collar. The plain black material made her look smaller and thinner, rather severe.
Patricia Vane was in the sitting room, her nose touching a tapestry on the wall as she investigated it for flaws. She had offered to drive Jennifer to the chapel for the service. They were both members of the bible class.
John didn’t go through to the sitting room; he emptied the last of the cereal into a bowl and poured himself a cup of tea.
‘See you later,’ she shouted, as they left the house.
John didn’t leave the house all day, spending most of it in his bedroom.
The consciousness of being hunted, snared and tracked down had begun to dominate him. When he closed his eyes he would see the vicar’s face, his fearful eyes, his shaking body and trembling hands.
Clearing the garden had erased it briefly from his mind. He prowled around each room like a hunted animal. The strong wind whistled around the house, kicking up dead leaves that were blown against the leaded panes and seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild regrets at the lack of achievements and wasted opportunities.
It was after four when Jennifer arrived back. Patricia had dropped her at the gate. She sat at the kitchen table, occasionally wiping a tear from her red and swollen eyes. She carefully removed her hat, brushing the brim with her handkerchief as she placed it on the kitchen table. She ran her small fingers through her hair, flattened by the large hat, and then unscrewed the pearl earrings, placing them neatly by her handbag.
Inseparable Bond Page 19