His father had been killed in his van with an ashtray that belonged to him, that would only have his fingerprints on it as the murderer had been wearing gloves. So, as matters stood, he would be the only suspect and it would be him that was hung for it. His thoughts raced again and it struck him that the only way out of this for him that he could see was that he needed to make his father’s death look accidental. Fairgrounds were full of hazards for the men that worked on them, so accidents were not uncommon. But how did he make his father’s death look like one, enough to convince the police that that was how he’d died?
He jumped up from the floor and began pacing up and down as his thoughts continued to whirl. Nothing plausible presented itself to him. He was at the point where he actually thought he could physically feel the hangman’s noose around his neck when, like a thunderbolt, a memory from years ago crept into his mind. He’d been about ten at the time when one of his father’s labourers had been helping to erect the helter-skelter. The skeleton of it had been constructed and the slide encircling it was in place. The labourer on the small landing at the top of the slide, where those about to slide down would sit on a mat before they pushed themselves off down the steep incline, had been about to secure the last of the barrier boards in place running down the side of the slide, when he had suddenly lost his balance and toppled through the empty space that he had been just about to fill. He fell forty foot or so. His death had been recorded as accidental. The same as his own father’s would be because that was how he also was going to have appeared to have died.
He would have to wait until it was dark but, if he moved his father’s body and placed it face down on the ground immediately below the last top board of the skelter, his father’s death could not possibly be deemed as being caused by anything else other than him having accidentally fallen from the top. What an old man like him had been doing at the top of the helter-skelter late at night in the first place was anyone’s guess. Once Sonny had done that, all that was left for him to do in case the police did come calling, was to make sure that there was nothing to show that his father had been in his van.
But just as he was feeling pleased with himself for his clever plan to distance himself from his father’s death, a glaring problem struck. The police or attending doctor would question why there was no blood on the ground. He looked over at his father’s body and his eyes settled themselves on the pool of blood surrounding his head that had started to congeal around the edges, the rest in the middle of the puddle still liquid. The solution was simple. If he scooped up as much as he could, he could pour it on the ground before he positioned his father’s head face down on top of it.
Sonny could find no further flaws in his plan, so as far as he was concerned it was perfect. All that remained for him to do once he had executed it was act as shocked and upset when his father’s body was discovered as everyone else.
Chapter Twenty
It was a young lad that was to find Sam’s lifeless body at just after seven the next morning when taking the family dog out to do its business. The family were distraught when informed of Sam’s death. Then, once word travelled, the whole Grundy community sank into a state of mourning. Sam had been a much-beloved ringmaster and his loss would be deeply felt.
The fact that he’d appeared not to have arrived home last night hadn’t unduly concerned Solly or Gem, as they’d assumed he’d decided to stay up in Sunderland and have a few drinks with some old friends of his. That he had returned and not informed them, had come to be at the top of the skelter then lost his balance and fallen off it to his death, was a complete and utter mystery that no one in the community could fathom. No one had seen Sam arrive back last night, so could offer no information to aid the police with their investigation. No sign of any foul play was found when an inspection of the top of the skelter was made, and the crush to the front of his skull was confirmed to them by the doctor as consistent with him having fallen such a long way. After questioning, the family told the police that Sam had no reason whatsoever to end his own life. In fact, he had been excited at the prospect of expanding his business with the purchase of the new ride he had gone to see in Sunderland that day. After only being on the scene for less than two hours, the police informed the family they were satisfied that, for reasons only known to Sam himself, he had decided to go to the top of the Skelter and whilst there had lost his balance and fallen over the side. His death was accidental and the post mortem carried out later confirmed this.
* * *
Sonny was not now going to die from hanging through being blamed for a murder he didn’t commit but he still could by other methods and far more painful ones if he didn’t find that package, and quick. The return of Bossman to collect the package could be imminent.
The first opportunity he had to revisit the hiding place was later that afternoon, which he managed to engineer. Despite the family’s grief, the business needed to be kept running as well as a funeral arranged. Seeing a way to get his brother and his wife away from the van for a couple of hours, Sonny suggested that Gem and Solly would be the best ones to arrange the funeral as they had been on better terms with their father than he had and would know more about how he would have wanted his funeral. They agreed. They decided that they would also arrange for an announcement of Sam’s death to be put in the World’s Fair births, deaths and marriages section, so that everyone in the fairground community who had known him could attend the funeral if they so wished.
Sonny assured his brother that while they were away dealing with these matters, himself, Jimmy and Robbie would take care of everything else. Regardless of his own grief at the unexpected and sudden death of his beloved father, Solly could not fail to notice that Sonny seemed to have had a change of personality all of a sudden, appearing to be as grief-struck at his father’s death as he himself was. Still, if it had taken his father’s death to make him realise just what he had been missing out on for all these years family-wise, then one good thing would have come out of it as far as Solly was concerned. He warmed to the thought that, finally, it looked like he was getting his brother back and they could become as close as they had been before Sonny had changed.
Sonny let half an hour go by to be sure that Gem and Solly would by then be safely engaged making the arrangements with the undertaker for his father’s funeral, and his nephews working, before going back inside his brother’s van to find the package. He wasn’t concerned now about any of the other members of the community seeing him go into the van as they would have known he had been in there all morning closeted with his family, grieving together. They would think he was still dealing with matters pertaining to that. Besides, they would all be more concerned that once Sonny took over the reins of the business, as fairground tradition dictated, nothing would change for them and Sonny would continue on in the same way as his father had. Little did they know that there would be no fair for them to be worried about.
Inside the bedroom, he had just grabbed hold of the bedcovers, preparing to pull them off, when he heard someone come in the van. It must be Robbie or Jimmy come back to fetch something. They would have no need to come into their parents’ bedroom. If he remained quiet, they wouldn’t know he was here. But then a horrifying thought struck. Both room-sectioning curtains weren’t shut and whoever was in the van would only have to look in this direction and they would see him. Praying that they hadn’t and that he could slip inside one of the wardrobes to hide himself, he slowly turned around to check and, to his horror, saw Solly looking quizzically at him from over in the living room. Acting as though he hadn’t at all been caught red-handed doing something he shouldn’t be, he casually let go of the covers and made his way back into the living room area to stand before Solly and casually ask, ‘What are you doing back so soon?’
‘When we got to the undertaker’s he was busy with other people and had another appointment straight after to go out to visit another client, so we’re going back later. More to the point, what are you doing in
my bedroom? You were about to search for something inside our hiding place, that is very obvious to me, Sonny. Just what are you after?’ Then he thought he knew just what. ‘Dad’s will. Oh, God, now I know why you’ve been so helpful. You wanted us out of the way so you could get your hands on it. And here was me thinking you’d realised that you’d missed your family for all these years and wanted to be part of us again.’ He disgustedly shook his head. ‘Couldn’t you wait until after the funeral, at the official will reading, to claim your inheritance? Already made an appointment with a solicitor, have you?’
Solly would rather he did think that was why he was in his bedroom and not for the reason he really was. ‘That’s about the size of it.’
Solly glared darkly at him. ‘Well, you’ve wasted your time because the will’s not here. I suspect Dad would have kept a copy of it and put it with his other papers in his van somewhere.’
Sonny smirked. ‘I’ve waited a long time to claim my inheritance and, as soon as I do, the business is all mine to do what the hell I like with. Well, except for a ride as that is traditionally what the second son gets. If Dad hasn’t stated exactly the ride he’d left you, I will be generous and let you have your pick.’
Solly was frowning, bemused. ‘What do you mean by that? That once the business is yours, you can do what you like with it?’
Sonny looked at his brother for a moment before he responded, ‘Well, you’re going to find out sooner or later so you might as well know now. I’m selling up and using the money to build my own business. It will be far more successful than this poxy fair is.’
Solly gawped at him. ‘But you can’t, Sonny. What about me and Gem and our children, what we will do if you sell the fair? And not just us, but all the people that work for us? Dad worked all hours to build the business to what it is today. For his children he did that, Sonny, so he’d leave us with something worth having to make sure we were well provided for. How could you do this to him?’
Sonny snorted in derision. ‘The fair means nothing to me nor do any of the people that work for it. I couldn’t give a damn what happens to you all. I’ve been biding my time for years for Dad to die so I can get away from you all and now my patience has paid off.’
‘What have we ever done to make you despise us like this?’ Solly bewilderedly demanded of him.
The chance to offload feelings he'd kept to himself for so many years was too great for Sonny to resist. He blared, ‘You know that outsiders see us as scum, are only ever willing to mix with us when they’re at the fair, using us to have their fun. Yet you all still pander to them, doff your cap at them when they pass you by, turn the other cheek when any of them spit at us in the streets. Mam lied to me. She told me that outsiders treated us like that because they were jealous of us, of the way we lived, but that’s not true. I was nineteen when I fell in love with an outsider. She was stunning to look at, fun to be with, everything about her was all I wanted in a woman. I adored her, would have died for her to save her. It took me all my courage to ask her to marry me. She laughed in my face, told me that apart from the fact that her parents would disown her and none of her friends would talk to her again, that she would never lower herself to marry a thieving gypsy. She said she wouldn’t be seen dead in the street with me, the only thing she saw me good enough for was a bit of fun, but it had to be somewhere private where no one could see her with me for fear of the shame and embarrassment of any of her lot finding out she’d letting a traveller have sex with her. Oh, she was nice enough to say I was the best she’d had in that way, I’ll give her that.
‘But the joke of all that was that it was her that was beneath me, that it was me that would be lowering myself marrying her. She lived in a pokey two-up, two-down terrace with her parents in a slum. Her father was a drunken wastrel and they all survived on what her mother earned as a cleaner and the board money her kids who were at work gave her. She had a dead-end job herself as a machinist for a factory. Yet I was the son of a man who owned his own business. I hated you then, Solly, because I don’t know how you managed it, but you married an outsider. She’d defied her parents to be with you, didn’t care what all the other outsiders would think of her. Yes, I admit it, I was jealous of you because you obviously had something special about you that I didn’t have, something that made Gem turn her back on her family and the life she had to be with you.’
He started pacing up and down, arms flaying about in an angry manner. ‘If I hadn’t been anything to do with the fair, Belinda would have married me and we’d have been happy together. I wanted to run away from the fair and everything associated with it, to make a fresh start where no one knew me, invent a new background for myself so no one would ever look at me like scum any more as they did once they knew I was a fairground worker. But I had no money and the only work I was skilled to do was all to do with the fair. So I was stuck with it. How I managed to be civil to outsiders who came to the fair from then on, I’ll never know. But after what Belinda did what she did to me, I promised myself I’d never let any woman treat me like that again and I never have. I also vowed I was going to pay back as many outsiders as I could for the way they treated me.
‘It took me a while to come up with my idea. It wasn’t perfect as I really wanted them all to know what I’d done to them but that wasn’t possible without me giving myself away and them getting the police on me, so my revenge on them would be my secret. That’s why I distanced myself from you all, because I didn’t want anyone, especially my family, finding out what I was doing and reporting me to the police. I bought myself some good clothes, changed my appearance so even you wouldn’t have recognised me if you passed me in the street. I was Raymond Goodman, luxury car dealer in the area looking for premises to expand my business. I got myself invited into wealthy people’s homes, those idiots believing they were making a new business contact who they’d be making money out of, when really it was me that was fleecing them and making fools of them too.
‘I drank their fine wines, ate their rich food, had my way with their woman and stole anything I could from them I felt worth selling on for decent money. The night before last I was relieving the wife of a local councillor of any jewellery that I felt was worth a bob or two at a pawn shop and of any cash she had lying about, as she was sleeping in her marital bed after we’d had rampant sex. What I would have given to have seen her face, her husband’s face, everyone’s face who I’ve taken for a ride in the past, when they eventually find out that the suave, wealthy businessman they invited into their homes and lavishly entertained believing that I was going to be useful to them in helping them line their own pocket, when they find out that I was in fact nothing more than a fairground worker.’ He stopped his pacing to grin triumphantly at his brother. ‘You see, Solly, very soon your brother won’t be a filthy fairground worker any longer but rich and famous. King of the Nightclubs, that’s what I’ll be known as. A while ago I came up with a better way to get my revenge on outsiders.
‘I was in a club, a high-class joint; a couple of drinks and a plate of food in that place cost more than some men earned in a week. I found out that there was a waiting list of wealthy people desperate to become a member of it so they could be seen there by all the rest of the rich and famous in their town. They’d do anything it took to get their hands on that membership. The barman who was telling me all of this said that they would try and bribe the owner with weekends at their place in the country, a private box at the races. It was rumoured that women would even sleep with him, they were that desperate. And do you know who the owner was? A little fat Greek or Turkish immigrant. The sort of man that normally those wealthy people wouldn’t dream of mixing in the same circle with. If he lay dying in the street, they’d step over him with their noses stuck in the air pretending they hadn’t seen him. But those same people were treating that little ugly gnome of a man, who could speak only broken English, like he was a God to them, hanging on his every word. I could tell that they all detested that they were hav
ing to pretend to like that man, but they had no choice to though, had they, or else they risked him taking their membership of his club off them. How humiliating would that have been for them when their other rich friends and wealthy neighbours found out they weren’t seen as being good enough to be members of his club.
‘That got me to thinking that if I was the owner of that club, then it would be me they were all kowtowing down to, treating me like I was royalty, pandering to all my whims, just so they could keep socialising with the other rich and famous cronies inside my club. So that’s what I’m going to do with the money I make from the fair when I sell it. I’m going to open an exclusive night club, eventually a string of them in fact, that the cream of society will flock to because they will be the only place anyone of any worth is wanting to be seen socialising in.
‘My clubs, though, are going to be a lot more classy that that foreign immigrant’s. I’m going to have it designed to feel like you are entering a palace. It will be plush and luxurious, the best of everything. The bar will be stocked with every drink available to be served in sparkling cut-glass glasses. Only the very best entertainers will be dancing and singing for my guests; a handpicked top-class chef cooking the food; properly trained waiters and waitresses pandering to the punters’ every whim. Apart from the floor shows, there will be a gambling room, another for a classy type of strip show, and other rooms for people who want privacy to entertain their guests in. The profits from that club will finance the start of the rest of them.
All the Fun of the Fair Page 32