The Criminal Escapades of Geoffrey Larkin

by R. W. Hughes

  ‘Is the next train going to Stockport Mrs?’ he asked, looking up at the woman as she pulled her headscarf tighter around her head and re-adjusted the collar of her heavy coat, turned up against the cold wind that was blowing in the early hours of the morning across that open area. After she had taken a last draw from the remains she threw the end of a lit cigarette onto the railway lines. She looked down on the young lad who had spoken to her. It was obvious, by his scruffy appearance so early in the morning, that he had been sleeping rough; he looked no older than her eldest son.

  *

  Ada Cooper had just finished her night shift as a cleaner. She had started at eight o’clock the previous evening after all the staff had left the block of offices where she was employed, finishing at 4.30 in the morning, leaving her sufficient time to catch the 5.30 early morning train to Stockport. Once there, she would then prepare breakfast for her husband and two sons before he went to work and they went to school. It was only then she could relax, sitting down to enjoy the highlight of her day; soaking her aching feet in a bowl of hot water.

  ‘What are your parents doing letting you wander around here at this time in the morning?’ she asked tersely.

  ‘I have no parents,’ he sulkily replied over his shoulder as he walked away.

  ‘This is the platform for Stockport,’ she shouted after him, feeling ashamed at being previously so abrupt.

  It was nearly 7.30am when Geoff eventually reached the burnt out house at the end of his street. He had stopped on the way at a second-hand shop to part with some of the items taken from the Dixon family but it was too early and they were closed.

  The old tramp had not been at the house that night. The ashes in the fireplace where they did their cooking were cold, so the old man had not been and left early. He looked in the secret hiding place and there was still a half full bottle of the cheap plonk the old guy drank, so he would be coming back again sometime. He needed to see Sir Reginald to ask his advice; he was experienced in this way of life, and he obviously knew the ropes, after all he was now the only friend he had in the world.

  He left the derelict house by sliding a loose board to one side, which was fastened over the existing smashed panel in the rear door. There were more people in the street now forming queues at the bus stops on the sides of the road, all making their way towards their place of work. They did not look very happy to be out so early in the morning; their hands plunged deep in their pockets and their shoulders hunched against the biting east wind.

  He made his way to his mother’s old council house. The key fit and he let himself in to the familiar front hall. But it was all slightly different now, someone had been and cleaned the place, the musty smell that had always been there in the past had disappeared. In the kitchen, the hole in the skirting board at the side of the gas cooker, where the mice appeared, had been replaced.

  His mother’s furniture had been removed, along with the carpets that stuck to your feet as you walked across them.

  He came down the stairs, his shoes making a hollow sound on the bare wooden floorboards. There was no food in the pantry but that was nothing new. There was no water from the taps so he couldn’t even rinse his face or quench his thirst. He was now quite hungry having finished the bread and cheese on the train journey to Stockport. His thoughts returned once again to the warm bed, the hot cooked meals that his first foster parent, Mrs. Dixon, used to prepare for all her family. He knew it was impossible for him to return there after taking their belongings. As Sir Reginald would say, ‘He had burnt his bridges behind him’.

  He eventually curled up in the corner of his old bedroom, remembering the very few pleasant things that had happened in his short life, before he eventually fell asleep. He was awakened early in the afternoon by the cold.

  Later that day, after he had swung his arms around and run on the spot to try and get warm and loosen the stiffness from his uncomfortable slumber, he decided to pay a visit to the small baker’s shop in a side street near his house; he had been there many times before in the past for his mother. He had managed to obtain enough money from the sale of the hair brush and other items to buy a hot meat and potato pie, plus a bottle of cheap plonk, a packet of fags and a box of matches from another nearby shop and he still had the money that he had taken from the Dixons.

  The man was used to selling packets of cigarettes to the kids in that area, he was also used to Geoff coming for these very same items for his mother. Geoff left the full bottle alongside the half bottle of cheap wine in the secret place in the derelict house at the bottom of the street, along with half the packet of cigarettes. ‘For the attention of Sir Reginald,’ he said aloud, he knew the old man would know who had left them.

  He then made his way back to the council house just as it was getting dark. ‘This suits me,’ he said aloud to himself, there would be no inquisitive eyes to watch him enter the property. There was a large white van parked outside when he arrived, so he hung around until two workmen loaded two bags of tools in the back of the vehicle and then drove off. He waited until the van was out of sight before slipping around to the back door of the house. The key he tried fit the lock but would not turn the latch. After several vain attempts to unlock the door it suddenly dawned on him that the workmen had been from the council to change the locks. New tenants would be moving in shortly. He could not gain access to the property and it was obvious his mother would not be returning to this house again. He was stumped!

  As he sat on the rear back doorstep pondering what to do next, the old tramps saying, ‘Make do and mend’, came to mind, it seemed to be most appropriate. He would have to find alternative accommodation, and pretty fast, if he was not going to spend the night walking the streets. He was relieved that he had not left his haversack in the premises, which he had considered as it was quite heavy to lug around and it was leaving a red sore weal on his shoulder.

  *

  Ada, the office cleaner, had prepared her family’s breakfast and sent them on their way. She was sitting in her kitchen soaking her aching feet in a bowl of hot water as her bunion was playing her up again, but she could not get the sight of the young boy at the railway station out of her mind.

  She was weary; she had been cleaning the four-storey block of offices for the last seven years and, at first, she had coped quite well carrying the mop buckets of hot water from the basement up the many flights of stairs. Then slowly mopping her way down, constantly replacing the dirty water with clean hot water, all meant extra journeys to the basement.

  Then there was the vacuuming and dusting on each floor, before she could lock the double fronted entrance door, and polish the large brass knob in its centre.

  None of the well-dressed office staff realised, while they slumbered in their beds, the amount of work that went into keeping their workplace clean and tidy. Ada’s usual routine was to go to bed for several hours once she had got her children off to school and her husband off to work, his job was driving one of the council dust carts. She would awaken in the early afternoon to do her own housework before preparing the tea for her returning family. Ada then left for her night shift.

  She had made up her mind. She slipped out of her house and hurried to the phone box at the corner of her street. She had a phone at home but it had been disconnected many weeks before because of unpaid bills. She found the telephone number of the social services in the directory; luckily it was a free number, she spoke to a rather haughty woman on the other end of the line. She in turn put her through to various departments, several times she felt like putting the phone down and giving up, but she persevered, finally reaching the person who could deal with her concerns. Ada reported what she had seen at the station that morning, giving a good description of Geoff Larkin, emphasising that one so young was in danger wandering around in that area so early in the morning.

  As she left the phone box she felt much better and she was glad she had made the effort. She knew that if she hadn’t done it she would have spent all
afternoon worrying about the young unkempt looking lad who she had been rather offhand with at the railway station.

  Her own son was about the same age and if he was ever in the same position as the unfortunate young man she hoped someone would try and help him the same as she had done. It was now quite dark and in the wintery night air Geoff shivered as he walked down the street, which was lit by the cold coloured orange street lamps. He had decided that he would now make his way to the allotments.

  It was Friday night and he knew that the allotment owner was never there with his female friend on a Friday night so the shed would be empty. He might not be very warm but at least he would be dry for the night.

  Luckily! As it turned out, there was still no lock on the shed door, just a thumb catch. Inside, there was a metal bed frame and several dark grey blankets. Geoff laid one blanket, doubled over, on the bed springs and the other he doubled over and spread over himself. They smelt very musty but he was too tired to care. He had no sooner placed his head on the rucksack that he was using as a pillow than he slipped into a deep sleep.

  Saturday morning arrived as a wet, windy and miserable day. Looking from the shed window he saw several men walk up the path that led down the centre of the allotments and make their way to their different garden sheds, nobody was working outside on their patches, the weather was just too bad.

  Geoff was on pins, he hoped that the awful weather would deter the owner of the shed he was occupying from coming that morning. As he looked through the dirty glass for the umpteenth time the heavy rain that was battering against the glass obscured his view of the narrow path. The strong wind that battered the wooden building made him jump every time the rickety door shook against the catch. He was glad to have made the decision to stay in the shed overnight.

  By mid-morning the rain had started to ease. He had finished the banana, the last of his food, and he had smoked one of the cigarettes, he found these took the hunger pangs away for a short while. He had started smoking several years earlier when he had found several ‘dimps’, (stubbed out half cigarettes) in his father’s pockets after he had come home from the local pub and fallen asleep in the kitchen. Geoff wanted to imitate the grown-ups. At first the dimps made him feel light-headed and a little sick but then he got to like the feeling and would have a smoke at every opportunity, but he told himself that he would definitely finish smoking if they ever made him cough like Sir Reginald.

  He collected his rucksack, replaced the blankets as he had found them then slowly opened the shed door. There was nobody about. Leaving the safety of the wooden building, he quietly closed the door behind him and boldly walked down the centre path, picking a couple of withered windblown apples from the grass on his way. The only person he saw was a man sitting on an upturned wooden box, cleaning and oiling his gardening tools. As he went past the man looked up, glanced at him and then continued with his task, much to Geoff’s relief.

  As he lifted his hand to open the latch on the gate that would let him out of the fenced-in allotments, the gate swung open and he looked up at the large man in whose hut he had just spent the night. The man pushed past him with a grunt and strode off down the path making his way towards the shed that Geoff had vacated several moments earlier. He watched the back of the man for several seconds then left through the open gate and on the familiar lane on the other side. ‘Lady Luck was looking after me there,’ he said to himself as he walked down the lane.

  He didn’t know who ‘Lady Luck’ was but Sir Reginald used the name quite a lot, so she was somebody of great importance and obviously carried a lot of influence.

  Over the last few days he had got into a routine. Early in the morning he would slip onto the platform at Stockport station through a damaged section of fencing and catch the train for the short journey to Piccadilly Manchester, the main city station.

  Once there he would mingle with the early morning crowds. One of the stalls sold papers and magazines; they were always very busy at that time of the day. Keeping one eye on the stall attendant and waiting customers he would, when an opportune moment arose from his position at the end of the stall, slip a block of Dairy Milk chocolate off the display stand and into his pocket. He found that sometimes the people, who bought sandwiches or a coffee or tea from one of the several cafés in the station, would leave half of a sandwich in its wrapper. On an average day he would end up with enough to make several full sandwiches, all with a variety of fillings. His favourite was the cheese and onion but then he liked the meat paste and cucumber too.

  Usually he collected three or four half-smoked cigarettes from the ashtrays but he had to be careful of the café attendants. He did not hang around inside the café but would walk casually past looking through the window. One glance was sufficient to tell him if there were any goodies left unattended, and more importantly, where the attendants were positioned.

  If their backs were facing the entrance he would be in the café, lift the spoils (as he called it) and be out again before they had turned to collect more empty cups and plates from the tables.

  He used to wash, as best he could, at the hand basins in the station toilets. It was while he was there one day that he became aware of a group of four lads, older and taller than himself; they had positioned themselves across the toilet exit.

  One of the lads he noticed was wearing a brown, leather jacket that finished with an elasticised belt at the waist. They were a craze at the time. It was the type that Geoff had always admired and always wanted. He’d seen them in the fancy clothes shops; they were called bomber jackets. The lad swaggered over in Geoff’s direction while the other three stayed by the entrance.

  ‘We’ve been watching you mate,’ said the lad in a threatening voice. ‘This is our patch you’re working!’

  ‘I don’t know anything about your patch, mate,’ replied Geoff as he put his haversack over his shoulder, he didn’t want that in his way if he had to make a run for it.

  While he was talking he had moved away, edging towards the line of urinals. He was followed slowly by the boy in the brown leather jerkin. Geoff moved along the urinals, he could sense that this group were out to cause trouble. He hoped that someone would come into the toilets then he could ask for help, but no one did. The boy following him was clenching and unclenching his fists in an ominous action. Coming to the end of the urinals Geoff was furtively looking around to see if there was another means of exit from the toilets.

  ‘You can look as much as you want pal. There’s only one way out of here and my mates are standing there,’ the bigger boy sneered as he made to grab Geoff’s shoulder.

  ‘Fuck Off! Fuck Off! Fuck Off!’ Geoff screamed the magic words into the face of the older boy, who was taken aback for all of two seconds, before his clenched fist proceeded towards Geoff’s face.

  The boy was encouraged by whoops of glee from the other lads at the door and shouts of, ‘Thump him, Sid. Give the little bugger a good kicking!’

  ‘Give him a knuckle butty.’

  But Geoff had already twisted free from the partial hold on his shoulder, at the same time moving well clear of the fist that passed by his cheek. His speedy spurt for the entrance caught the other three by surprise, pushing passed them before they realised. But one a little quicker than the others grabbed the straps of his haversack as he burst through the group. Geoff jerked to a stop, but only for a second as he allowed the haversack to slip off his shoulders, he then continued with his headlong flight, leaving the haversack in the hands of one of the lads at the toilet entrance. He turned and put up two fingers to the four lads standing watching his departure, the same sign that he’d seen older boys use at school. His flight came to an abrupt halt as he was grabbed by a tall man in a dark, navy suit with shiny buttons and wearing a large black helmet. Geoff’s struggle to free himself from the steel-like grip of this large uniformed adult was to no avail.

  A fleeting glance in the direction of the station toilets showed him there was no sign of the other four ol
der lads or his haversack, which contained all his worldly possessions. This was the first of many encounters that Geoff would have with the officers of the law.

  On several occasions the authorities tried to find him other foster parents but he always ran away, eventually ending up at the same place, Piccadilly railway station. After several days, sometimes a week, roaming the station, dodging the gang led by Sidney Locket and avoiding the railway employees; he would be detained by either the railway police or the school truant officials tipped off by the stall holders or the proprietors of the cafes, who had become weary of his petty pilfering.

  By now he had become an unruly, disruptive child and he only felt at ease with children of a similar age and in a comparable position to himself. Eventually, at the age of twelve, the authorities decided that it would be in his best interests if he was detained in a secure boarding school. This establishment contained about a hundred lads from his age up to young adults of eighteen. Several of the teachers, if you could call the adults who tried to control and keep some form of discipline in the classrooms teachers, were ex-military, naval or air force personnel at the end of their term of attachment in the armed forces, along with a sprinkling of redundant middle management employees who were looking for a change of career.

  They had attended a crash course in teaching, but had not reached the standard for the regular schools, so they had been offered places on a training scheme operated amongst other venues at remand home centres up and down the country. As there were few or no alternatives they usually accepted the positions offered to them, it also filled teaching posts that regular teachers were reluctant to apply for, allowing the education authorities to fulfil their quota.