Lost Lad

by Annable, Narvel

  "Look at that butch number over there."

  Simeon took note of a very desirable sculpture of deeply tanned muscles, apparently indifferent to their presence, languidly soaking up the sun, looking out over the water, reposing and posing on a nearby towel.

  "Thanks a bunch! You've screwed that up real good! Well done! Ten minutes ago he was looking in my direction. I was in with a chance. Having witnessed that grotesque spectacle, he now looks at the lake - no chance, kaput! I hope you're satisfied."

  This underlined the main difference in taste. Gary despised the effeminate, the fat, the ugly, the sick, the old, the poor, the narrow, the parochial, the ignorant, the untravelled, the uncultured, the unsuccessful and the stupid. Only the young, the butch, the beautiful, the intelligent, the rich and the sophisticated need apply. He hated Simeon's -

  " ... weird and wacky menagerie of creeps. What's wrong with normal people? How could you possibly have become bored with a gorgeous guy like Earl Vandenburg? He looks like Rambo for Christ's sake! And lives at the top of The Jeffersonian Building: a view to die for!"

  But Simeon Hogg had become bored with Earl Vandenburg who held forth at length on an erudite assessment of the merits of Weber. Just to make it even more difficult this obscure composer was pronounced 'Vaber'. The good-looking and trendy 'thirty-something' year old professional, insisted on describing in detail how Carl Maria von Weber skilfully steered German music from the Classical to the Romantic and how he made such an impact on Wagner. As the pedant rambled on and on, the superb view across the Detroit River over to Canada was a pleasant distraction for his dinner guest who would have much preferred to hear about the genius of Phil Spector - a name spelt just as it sounded.

  No. Simeon did not wish to hear about Weber. He preferred the company of dear old Hubert, an uncomplicated man of simple taste who enjoyed retailing the latest gossip from the Detroit bars. In Hubert's seedy apartment on the East Side, Simeon laughed until he cried listening to frequent accounts of that -

  " ... bitchy queen Marie. Boy is she ever pure acid! There we are, me and Bill Scruggs, minding our own business, having a quiet drink. She spots us on the far side of the room and the next thing, she screams out for the whole bar to hear -

  'Miss Scruggs! There ya are! Honey am a comin' over. Here comes my body ... '

  Then she sails over to us and we nearly died of embarrassment, especially for poor Bill who'd just had a toupee fitted.

  'Why, Miss Scruggs - what is that! A rug on ya head arr perceive. Honey - you aint a foolin' nobody - an arr love to pull hair.'

  To my horror she gave me a big hug like I was a long lost friend and shouted -

  'Ooo so cuddly - that nice big fat belly! Look everybody it's Hubert. Poor Hubert, that evil cretin Danny should not be referrin' to you as 'The Lady of the Vapours'. Not true. You don't go to the Club Baths seven days a week, no, you take Mondays off don't you? But be careful baby, you've had three re-treads on ya tongue this year to date. Yeah, an those teeth 'll need scrapin' again soon. That cum just builds up and up. Well it's true! It is. When I go to the Club Baths they hand me a towel. When you go, Hubert, they hand you knee pads!'"

  Gary, who hated such tittle-tattle from the low life of Simeon's quirky collection of friends, had no time at all for any of this nonsense. He viewed old fashioned Hubert as one of the dregs of Detroit, a shabbily dressed overweight beer belly who broke wind too often -

  "For God's sake don't suggest another meeting - I can't take the BO. He doesn't like me and I don't like him. Have a good look at him. Hubert is 'The Depression'. He gets his clothes from the Good Will. He belongs to the 1930's. He should have stayed there. And don't - PLEASE don't keep talking about Marie. She may be funny to you but, anybody who is anybody, avoids her like the plague. A vicious mixture of show-off, spite, chiffon and cheap make-up. As for Scruggs, well, he's just a complete waste of space."

  Gary Mackenzie was utterly frustrated by the social gay scene. His reasoning was simple. If a man wants to attract another man then -

  " ... why in hell's name do they behave like a woman? Why turn themselves into freaks. For God's sake that's just what they are - freaks! I'd like to punch their stupid faces! I really would ... are you listening to me? I'm at my wits end just trying to find one - single - real - macho man!!"

  Two old friends sat facing each other. One was thinking about the novel challenge of becoming a detective. The other was relishing his sudden release from educational bondage and now contemplated the naughty pleasures of introducing his avant-garde friend to the reactionary delights of Bog Hole which was already half a continent and an ocean away from Detroit, but culturally, may as well have been on the other side of the moon.

  Chapter 22

  Babbacombe to Horsley Woodhouse

  Having left America and all matters in the hands of his lawyer, Simeon Hogg went to enjoy a few days relaxing in Babbacombe, a very pleasant old fashioned sleepy resort near Torquay. In those same few days, Gary Mackenzie made the most of London and, having had his fill, joined Simeon at the Exmouth View Hotel with the intention of spending another few days. Exmouth was indeed in clear view, over the sea, looking north from Simeon's balcony just before breakfast on that last sunny morning of Sunday, April 27th 2003.

  Babbacombe had been necessary. After the stress of the previous months it was important to have had a neutral place of sanctuary to mentally re-group, to collect his thoughts, to lick his emotional wounds. The weather had been very kind. Day after day he had been able to enjoy familiar wooded paths and to discover new ones around that beautiful coast. He drifted around exploring tiny hidden coves. He was mesmerised and soothed by an angry sea delivering giant splashes creating a boil of a million bubbles, flows and runs in all directions. He was fascinated by deep plops and the sun seeking out the shallow bottoms. A dance of sun-lit mottles played across a shallow screen of light grey pebbles and then deeper, across alien foliage of dark green and brown. Rocks galore, some speckled and scarred with barnacles. Rocks everywhere, rocks bare, rocks bald and rocks growing hair of brilliant green sea moss. Leisurely, Simeon investigated headlands and rested frequently, soaking up the warm early springtime sunshine in sheltered nooks and crannies. Getting as close as possible to the swelling clear green water, the crashing waves, tasting the spray, hearing the cry of gulls - were all part of the healing process which he considered reasonably complete on that Sunday morning.

  Simeon now felt able to face the gentle fussing of Aunty Joyce who had been informed by letter that he would arrive with a friend 'around about late April'. Painful experience had taught him to be vague with arrival dates. This gave Simeon flexibility and prevented Joyce anxiously waiting at the door and fretting along with the whole neighbourhood.

  It should be mentioned that neither Joyce nor anyone else in Bog Hole possessed a telephone - with the exception of Aggie Oaks at the corner shop. Mrs Oaks had found a telephone useful since its first instalment back in 1969 and considered it her duty to convey important messages to other residents on the row. She was not overly burdened as such messages were rare in that humdrum and uneventful little oasis. This contented and old fashioned state of affairs with regard to primitive communications (notwithstanding the dawn of the 21st century) existed along side teenagers who were walking around using mobile phones. Simeon had noticed them on both sides of the Atlantic, mooching around in little groups, chattering about nothing into tiny telephones. He reflected that when he was their age, only the doctor and the vicar would be 'on the phone'. Indeed, he could not think of a single resident at Bog Hole who could, or would, use a telephone. They all left it to Aggie.

  Since pre-war days, very little had changed at Bog Hole. It was a historic, working class community which appeared to be locked into a time-warp. The quaint inhabitants, most of them relatives, all in their seventies, eighties and nineties had, back in his teens, embarrassed Simeon. After a lifetime spent in a brash, commercialised and anonymous urban environment, he now saw this
little fragment of Derbyshire as valuable and fragile. These kindly common folk were all old and would soon die. These precious people would leave empty houses: empty houses which (if not demolished) would soon be inhabited by the young, the innovators who would, very likely, destroy the character and charm of Bog Hole forever. Once gone, it would never return. Simeon Hogg the historian was already mourning the inevitable. If possible, he would have the National Trust requisition the old row and slap a preservation order on all the irreplaceable characters to ensure that they would live on forever.

  Getting Aunty Joyce (chapel every Sunday) to accept into her home, a strange man, required a carefully composed letter written with the utmost skill and diplomacy. It emphasised that Gary Mackenzie, a long standing friend, was of good character, sober, honest, hard working and, most important - extremely respectable. Utter nonsense of course, but most of the aforementioned, save 'respectable', had a measure of truth.

  In truth, Simeon himself would have never been permitted to pass through the portals of Aunty Joyce's very respectable house if she could have seen him (it had to be said many years before) in the centre of the famous circular mattress in the dark and musty bowels of the Ebony Stud Baths in Harlem. The scene giving most offence would be the occasion when a half dozen talented, but exhausted, sweaty, naked Negroes, after long exertions enjoyed the result of their hard work. A further score of fascinated on-lookers in that dim, subterranean chamber, were moved to applaud and cheer when, after receiving great collective efforts and intensive ministrations, the teenage Simeon finally achieved a new record in that murky and much visited (as Gary always called it) den of iniquity - a fifth orgasm. "Den of iniquity!" thought the mature man in some surprise, savouring the marathon erotic adventures of the boy he once was. The atmosphere was similar to a noisy evangelical black revivalist meeting or, perhaps more appropriately, blood thirsty Romans at the Colosseum calling for more gore and suffering. But in this instance it was an enthusiastic mob calling for pleasure: a collection of lascivious slavering black men, jumping, gesticulating, hooting, baying and shouting obscene encouragement to the group of workers -

  "Yeah man, go to it. Go go go."

  "Do it babe, do da white boy. Do it babe - he lovin' it."

  "Do it good. Do it. Do it. Do it ... "

  "Dat right, hear da man."

  "Ooo - move it! Give it gooood."

  "Lift it! Lift it! Arrrr yeah, right there, arrr yeah."

  "See dat sweet meat. Ooo sooo sweet an milky."

  "Hear dat kid. Yeah!

  "Oh! Yeah! Moan - moan baby. He so so very close .... "

  Such a scene was well outside the scope and compass of Aunty Joyce's experience or, indeed, her understanding. Blissfully ignorant, she was very proud and often boasted to neighbours and other villagers about her favourite nephew, the estimable and dignified schoolmaster who maintained the discipline and high standards of a past age.

  On the previous day Gary had been maintaining his usual high standards studying the interesting wild life at Petit Tor Point, which had been especially wild during that afternoon. Simeon was on Oddicombe Beach studying a long letter he had received from a retired police officer - Detective Inspector Derek Russell. This, in response to a request for a full and detailed account of the circumstances and personalities around the disappearance of Brian Forrester in the July of 1960. Simeon telephoned Derek Russell to thank him profusely for such valuable and privileged information and assured him it would be used only with great care and discretion -

  "Not at all, Mr Hogg, you have all the advantages of the amateur and I only hope you can succeed where John Winter and I failed. Proceed with caution! Remember murder, if murder it is, is not a game. If somebody has once killed to obtain silence, they may feel threatened enough to kill again. Also bear in mind that there may be no crime here at all. Some people disappear because they want to disappear - keep an open mind. Anyway, let me know the result - if any. Good luck!"

  It was about four o' clock on that Sunday afternoon when Simeon's new car came to rest in the car park of the Strensham service area en-route from Babbacombe to Horsley Woodhouse. Of course this extravagance was to alleviate the trauma of having to part with his beloved 1959 Cadillac. A painful separation of which he would never quite come to terms. Even at this stage, it was not too late, he could have it shipped over. Like the house it was unsold, still locked away in the darkness of his garage. Suddenly he was seized by a heart-wrenching pain. His magnificent Eldorado, all alone and abandoned, somehow, might know of his unfaithfulness in this traitorous purchase -

  "It's no good. I'll call Larry and tell him to send it ... "

  "Oh no, please no, not again ... " replied Gary, rocking on his seat, holding his head. "How many times do we have to go through this? Read my lips - it is not viable. It is too expensive - a fortune to get it over here, a fortune to maintain it. It is old and it will fall apart. It is 43 years old! I've seen you turn down much younger. It is too big. It won't work. For Christ's sake, look at yourself! You have problems parking up this car - tiny in comparison."

  Gary looked at the tragic pained face of his old friend and, in sympathy, felt something of his grief. Apart from a few infatuations, Simeon Hogg had never really loved any human as he had dearly loved this car.

  "Look ... it's steel, glass and leather. It isn't thinking about you. It can't think. It has no brain."

  The crisis passed. Simeon consoled himself with a pot of tea. Gary had a cup of coffee which he drank up quickly.

  "Well I suppose I've tasted worse." Ruefully, he looked over at the tea pot and estimated a further two cups, perhaps five minutes for each. Elbows on the table, supporting his head, he let out a deep sigh -

  "You English never drink water!" Simeon hardly heard this and continued to sip, soothing his throat, mind and body.

  "That's it!" added Gary. "The water is in the tea. You keep drinking tea instead of water. That explains ... " He was interrupted by a large thick envelope thrust in front of his face -

  "You should be reading this. It's the full story from a retired Detective Inspector who was on the case: people, places, times, theories, evidence (mostly lack of) - eleven pages typewritten. Treat it with care. It's highly confidential and for our eyes alone."

  Gary received the document and reverently skimmed over the covering letter.

  "He's charm itself. Nothing like the cops I've come across."

  "It's the way we do things here," responded the Englishman stiffly. This often heard attitude never failed to irritate the American, but annoyance was suppressed by a growing excitement: the excitement of a challenge and a taste for adventure. Some years before, after hearing an outline of the facts, Gary essayed a solution to the puzzle -

  "The Lord of the Manor, or the butler, or both, probably tended Brian's wounds. One or both got fresh. One or both were into chicken. Maybe Brian was willing: a new experience. Maybe he wasn't. Keen or not, later he could have got 'a conscience' - it happens to kids. Then it gets real dangerous: dangerous for butler or Lord or both."

  "So where is Brian?"

  "Probably walled up somewhere in that old heap."

  "They looked!"

  "They looked! - sure they looked. They did their job and hours later were able to say - 'We've done our job, guys, we've finished, we've looked, we've done for the day'. A team of cops poke around, they mooch around, they go through the motions. It's not difficult to rub dirt or old dust into fresh mortar to make it look old. They didn't tear that place apart. They wouldn't have dared. It's not difficult to carefully remove turf on a lawn, dig a hole, insert a body, take away about a third of the original dirt and carefully put back the turf. Result - no trace at all.

  Oh I could just see it! 'Yes, My Lord, no, My Lord. We'll not trespass on Your Lordship's privacy any longer than necessary. Your Lordship is too kind.' I've seen it. I've seen it with you. Like the time we were locked inside Melbourne Hall gardens and Lord Something or other, no less, had to esco
rt us out. So obsequious! You made me sick! Just like that odious Mr Collins in 'Pride and Prejudice', fawning, fussing, bowing ... "

  "I did not bow. I was simply being polite and apologetic to Lord Ralph Kerr for poor time-keeping."

  "Well, you get my point. The respectful kow-towing English police, especially four decades back, would not be eager to upset the lord by looking too hard for a body inside Something Hall."

  "Cressbrook Hall. And anyway, Algernon Hardman was a doctor, a PhD, not a lord."

  Back to the present. Gary, now armed with a seven page narrative including all the salient points, was confident that he could crack the mystery. This confidence was not only born of conceit but also based on a self-assured enthusiasm in his own street-wise credentials. He felt well qualified to deal with this particular type of crime. Gary had been around. He had attended the 'university of life' and sincerely believed that, given enough data, he could discover the key to unlock this conundrum -

  "You have to remember the limitations of the investigating team. I've not read it yet, but I'll bet ya these guys, no doubt born and bred in the sticks, were pretty innocent when it came down to sexual matters, especially gay sexual matters. Your average 1960 cop, or 1960 anybody, could hardly conceive of any sexual orientation other than the majority heterosexual norm. Back in the 1960's I spoke to older gay guys in London, London mind you, who'd never even heard of the term 'gay'. They described themselves as 'queer'! They used the same insulting word which was used by Joe Average.

  "What's your point? How will this find my friend?" asked Simeon.

  "My point is this: I can see further than the 1960 Derbyshire Police service. And, I genuinely don't want to offend you, Simeon, but I can see a lot further than you."