Sorcerer

by Menon, David

  The pub they headed to was one of the oldest such establishments in Hale and the food menu benefitted from the fact that they’d employed an actual chef as opposed to a waiter who could use a microwave. The restaurant section at the back, behind the main bar, was somewhat elegantly decked out in white linen tablecloths and plain white plates and bowls. They decided to order a bottle of Chablis to drink whilst they perused the menu.

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing with this Mick’ said Doreen.

  ‘I don’t’ Jack answered. ‘But isn’t that what all the fun is about?’

  Doreen thought that Jack was a real paradox. He was her most trusted friend, a man to whom she would trust her life and that of her husband Roger. He was the businessman with the hard side that Doreen had never wanted to know everything about. He’d built himself a fabulous home even though it’s modern, minimalist décor conflicted with Doreen’s taste for the more classic, traditional, cluttered sort of style. And yet he had the devil in him when it came to sex. She feared it would end up being his downfall, especially when she knew that deep down Jack would give his right arm to find a soul mate. But she also knew why he was so rattled today.

  ‘Jack, have you done anything about the death of Mary Griffin?’

  Jack looked up from his menu. ‘Like what, exactly? Arrange a resurrection?’

  ‘Don’t be flippant, Jack’.

  ‘Well honestly, Doreen, what did you expect me to say?’

  ‘Well I don’t know’ said Doreen, in a loud kind of whisper. ‘But you were more involved with the family than most other people know about, Jack’.

  Jack swirled some wine round in the bottom of his glass. ‘I’m leaving well alone’.

  ‘Jack, the woman is dead’.

  ‘Yes, and you know what she did when she was alive. That’s why I won’t be going to pay my respects’.

  SORCERER EIGHT

  Gabby felt like she deserved an explanation from her mother so she decided to go round and see her. She knew that her mother was now staying with Griffin and that she’d have to face that monster but it was necessary. Her mother appeared at the door in a white bathrobe. It was past eleven in the morning.

  ‘Mum? Where the hell have you been? Did you get my messages?’

  ‘Yes I got them all. Come in’.

  Jenny led her through to the kitchen where she filled the kettle at the sink.

  ‘Mum, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve left your Dad, Gabby’.

  ‘To move in with that pervert? Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Can I remind you that the pervert as you refer to him is your grandfather and isn’t guilty of what he’s been accused of?’

  ‘Oh and you know that do you?’

  ‘Gabby, where’s your family loyalty?’

  ‘And where’s yours to your own husband who you haven’t been to see in hospital?’

  Jenny paused. She did feel guilty about not going to see Ed.

  ‘I had to leave your father’.

  ‘Mum, he’s had a breakdown’.

  ‘I can’t do anymore for him, Gabby. I’m sorry but I just can’t’.

  ‘He needed you, Mum’ said Gabby. ‘He really needed you’.

  Gabby broke down and cried. Her mother came to her and tried to hug her but Gabby pushed her away.

  ‘How could you leave him like that, Mum?’

  ‘Because I’d had enough! I couldn’t take another day of trying to get through to him. I’ve been doing it for twenty years and I’m exhausted. I’m worn out, Gabby, and I can’t take anymore. You’ll just have to understand’.

  ‘Oh and it’s all about you, isn’t it? You are a selfish cow’.

  ‘Gabby, do you mind not speaking to me like that. I am still your mother’.

  ‘Oh don’t you dare play the big parent thing with me, Mum. You’ve lost that right. And do you know why he’s been difficult all these years? Because of that filthy pervert you’ve got into bed with!’

  George then came into the kitchen, also dressed only in a robe.

  ‘Oh speak of the devil and he shall appear’ said Gabby. ‘So here he is. The family child abuser’.

  ‘Jenny, I couldn’t let you take that onslaught on your own. Now, Gabby, just calm down and … ‘

  ‘ … calm down!’Gabby shrieked. ‘You’re the reason my Dad is in the state he’s in’.

  ‘Look, Gabby, I don’t know what he’s told you but … ‘

  ‘ … shut up! You make my skin crawl!’

  ‘Gabby, that’s enough!’ Jenny demanded.

  Gabby slapped her mother hard across her face. Jenny gasped with shock and pain and George moved towards the two women but was stopped in his tracks when Gabby held up her fist towards him.

  ‘You come any closer and so help me I will kill you’ said Gabby.

  Jenny was so stunned she couldn’t speak.

  ‘Look, Gabby, you’re clearly upset’ said George, trying to sound as soothing as he could. ‘But you need to calm down and listen to reason. And you need to respect your mother’.

  ‘Respect my mother? She’s nothing but a slapper’.

  ‘Oh you’ve been well and truly got at’ said George.

  ‘By the step-son you abused?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Jenny, still stroking her reddened face.

  ‘I’ll let your boyfriend explain that one’ said Gabby. ‘Let him explain to you what he did to Dad’.

  Jenny turned to George. ‘What is she talking about?’

  ‘The same pack of lies Ed has been using to make excuses for himself all his life’.

  ‘Oh?’ said Gabby. ‘Lies are they? Just like all those boys from Pembroke House who went through Hell thanks to you? Are you going to say they’re all liars too?’

  ‘George can defend himself against any mud that’s thrown at him, Gabby’ said Jenny.

  ‘Oh I wouldn’t sound so smug if I was you but if a child abuser is the latest must-have accessory for the woman who feels she missed out on all the parties, then, as they say, fill your boots’.

  ‘Gabby, please, you’re breaking my heart!’ Jenny pleaded.

  ‘ … tough! Deal with it! You were so desperate you jumped into bed with your own father-in-law, a man who’s been accused of physically and sexually abusing teenage boys. Think about that when he gives you an orgasm, Mum’.

  ‘Gabby, that is disgusting’.

  ‘No Mum, what is disgusting is that you’ll let him anywhere near you’. She then turned to George. ‘Why don’t you do the world a favour and just drop dead’

  Now that Ed Lake was in the psychiatric unit of Wythenshawe hospital following his breakdown it wasn’t possible for him to be interviewed until the medical staff gave their okay. So Jeff and Rebecca could divert their attention to interviewing others in the rapidly growing case against George and the now deceased Mary Griffin.

  When they got to 19, Burlington Drive, Hale, they found a sort of upmarket terraced semi in a tree lined street that actually looked quite decent, thought Rebecca. At the front there was a bay window at both ground and upstairs levels and a small yard with a wall around it that was about three meters high. Across the road was a high school. It must make the area quite busy in the mornings and late afternoons, thought Jeff.

  ‘Tony Chambers?’ asked Rebecca after his knock on the door had been answered.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  Jeff could’ve burst out laughing at the man’s affected big hard man routine. He must’ve watched too many episodes of the Sweeney. That’s DVD box sets for you.

  ‘I’m DI Rebecca Stockton, Greater Manchester police’ she revealed as she held up her warrant card. ‘My colleague here is Detective Superintendent Jeff Barton’.

  ‘So what do you want with me?’

  ‘Oh just a little chat’ said Rebecca.

  ‘About when you were the duty manager of the care home for boys known as Pembroke House?’ Jeff added. ‘You’ve probably seen in t
he media that the remains of three people, including a baby and a child, have been found there during renovations. We understand you worked there from 1986 until it closed in 1993? Those human remains have been estimated to be about twenty years old which means you were working there when something may have happened’.

  ‘Keep your voices down’ said Tony as he took off his gardening gloves. ‘And come inside. I don’t want to have this conversation where all the gossips can hear us’.

  ‘Have you got something to tell us then, Tony?’ asked Rebecca.

  Tony Chambers ignored Rebecca’s question as he led them into his house. ‘My wife is at work’ he said. ‘I took early retirement’.

  ‘Yes, we understand you moved on to the prison service after you left Pembroke?’ Rebecca went on.

  ‘And I retired from there last year, look, will you tell me what exactly it is you want?’

  ‘Well I’d have thought that was obvious’ said Jeff. ‘We need to ask you certain questions’.

  ‘Alright, alright’ snapped Chambers. ‘Go into the living room and sit down. I’ll just go and wash my hands and be there in a minute. I’ve been tending to the back garden’.

  The floor of the living room was covered in darkly varnished wood that looked like it had been laid fairly recently. There was a large mirror above the fireplace which was framed in brass made to look like gold. A couple of tall yucca plants stood to one side between the fireplace and the flat screen TV that dominated the entire room. A large flower arrangement covered the space where the fire would’ve been raging and both Jeff and Rebecca sat down on one of the two large cream coloured sofas. Jeff quite liked the place. He’d sometimes thought that he and Lillie Mae would buy an older place when Toby and the other kids they’d planned to have had all grown up and flown the nest. Somewhere they could do a lot to and really make their own with plenty of space for just the two of them but also for when the grandchildren came to stay. Sadly those dreams had been destroyed. He’d be growing old without Lillie Mae by his side and there were moments when it hurt like Hell.

  Tony Chambers came in and sat down on the other sofa. He folded his hands together and leaned forward. He looked nervous.

  ‘So what went on when you were at Pembroke House, Tony?’

  Tony wrapped himself over and over again in all the ways he’d used down the years to forget what had dragged him out of his job at Pembroke. But none of it worked. The day of reckoning had come. He was minded to completely capitulate and bare his soul for the first time since he’d been put on the spot like this. There was nothing else he could do. The police would cut through the crap in the end. No point in prolonging the agony.

  ‘I haven’t spoken about any of this for twenty years’ said Tony.

  ‘Spoken about what, Tony?’ Jeff wanted to know.

  ‘I was never party to anything that … that went on in that dungeon. None of the staff were. There’s no point in you going after any of them. They’re guilty of nothing except turning a blind eye’.

  ‘Well you’d better tell us what you know’ said Rebecca.

  ‘It was a hell hole’.

  ‘So why didn’t you leave?’

  ‘He had something on all of us’ Tony revealed. ‘George Griffin I mean’.

  ‘So you’re saying he was blackmailing you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what he was doing’.

  ‘You’ll need to elaborate a bit more, Tony?’ said Jeff, trying to hide his impatience. Interviewing Tony Chambers was like trying to pull teeth.

  ‘I presume you’ve looked at the employment records for Pembroke? That’s how you found me?’

  ‘Well we were hoping that professionals in the field of child care would’ve stepped up to the mark and come forward once they knew we were investigating events at Pembroke’ said Jeff. ‘I mean, I presume you do read the papers, Tony?’

  ‘There was no child care at Pembroke’ said Tony. ‘We fed them, we made sure they washed and got to school on time. But we didn’t care for them’.

  ‘Did you administer beatings using for instance the cane?’

  ‘Yes’ Chambers confirmed.

  ‘So you were guilty of physical abuse?’

  ‘We were expected to be more than just strict. The place ran on fear and that came directly from Griffin. Look, when you were looking at those employment records, didn’t you notice that staff turnover at Pembroke was very low? People tended to stay for a long time’

  ‘Yes, actually, we did’ Rebecca confirmed.

  ‘And that was because of Griffin’s blackmail. When I was recruited, before I actually started work, Mary Griffin visited me. You see, they looked very carefully into the background of anyone they employed to make sure they had something on them that they could use. Mary Griffin was the one who came and told me that they’d found out about my past and what she’d do if I talked or decided to leave’.

  ‘What was that past?’

  ‘You can probably tell from my accent that I’m not from Manchester. I’m from Bristol. I moved up here to get away from my first marriage. The trouble is I never got divorced’.

  ‘So you’re a bigamist?’

  ‘Yes and Mary Griffin said she’d use that against me. I don’t know how she found out but she did. One of the other lads was from Glasgow. He’d moved away because he owed money to all the wrong people in Glasgow’s gangland. Mary Griffin said she’d tell them where to find him if he talked. Another lad had done a bit of credit card fraud and another one was hiding from a wife who’d accused him of domestic violence. Another one had run off with his brother’s wife and the family were after him. We all had things we were hiding and they used us. Mary Griffin said we could sleep easy only if we did as we were told, kept our mouths shut and didn’t think about leaving until they said we could go’.

  ‘Why do you think they did that?’

  ‘They wanted, and this is going to sound pretty stupid in the circumstances, people they could trust and rely on not to rock their boat. They didn’t want to have to find others to blackmail. They wanted to get on with their evil deeds and not waste any time breaking new people in. Then when the home closed down and the Griffins moved to Spain we all just went our separate ways. None of us wanted to risk talking. They could still damage us’.

  ‘So what did they do that they wanted to keep so secret?’

  ‘In the dungeon … well the Griffins restrained them, tied them up, gagged them. Then George Griffin had sex with them. Mary Griffin filmed it all and they sold the films to a distributor in Amsterdam. They went all over the world from there and made the Griffins an absolute packet’.

  ‘So you did know what was happening?’

  ‘Like I told you we turned a blind eye’.

  ‘And you and all the others who worked there were happy for those boys to suffer the way they did just so that your dirty little secrets weren’t exposed?’

  ‘Oh you can judge me all you like but what choice did we have? I honestly don’t know how some of the boys survived it. They were raped over and over again and some of them were only eleven or twelve. Their faces when they were being led down to the dungeon … I’ll never forget the looks. And then when they were done with … well that was even worse’.

  ‘Were you the ones who took them down to the dungeon?’ Jeff wanted to know.

  ‘Yes’ Tony confirmed. ‘Look, we the staff were guilty of the physical abuse and of taking them down to the dungeon. But we weren’t the paedophiles’.

  ‘I’m sure that distinction is what helps you sleep at night’ said Rebecca.

  ‘We’d done other stuff but we weren’t like Griffin and his wife. That’s why it got to all of us in the end’.

  ‘But not enough to risk revealing your own pasts in order to save those young boys from what they were being forced to do?’ said Jeff.

  Tony Chambers simply looked away and then said ‘I expect you think we were all cowards?’

  ‘You were complicit in the sexual abuse of young boy
s who should’ve been able to look to you for protection’ said Jeff with all the contempt he could muster. ‘You went beyond being just cowards’.

  ‘And you’ll need to give us the details of that first wife you forgot to get divorced from’ said Rebecca. ‘You’ve admitted to a crime of bigamy. There’ll need to be an investigation’.

  ‘And in the meantime’ said Jeff. ‘We will need to place you under caution pending further enquiries into your admission of the physical abuse of young boys in your care. You also failed to report to police crimes of sexual abuse committed against the same young boys. This is only the beginning for the likes of you, Tony. You’re going to need a very good lawyer’.

  By the time Owen got home from his shift at the hospital both he and Gabby were exhausted.

  ‘Do you mind if we get a takeaway for dinner?’ asked Owen. ‘I really don’t feel like cooking anything and I guess you don’t either’.

  ‘I was going to suggest the same thing’ said Gabby who was snuggled up to her fiancé on the sofa. ‘Do you fancy pizza?’

  ‘Pizza sounds great’ said Owen.

  ‘I’ll ring in a minute’ said Gabby. ‘I just want to stay here like this for a bit longer. How was your day?’

  ‘Busy busy mad busy’.

  ‘You’ve been fantastic with all my trials and tribulations, Owen’.

  ‘I only did what I thought was right’ said Owen. ‘We’re family, babe’.

  ‘How long do you think they’ll keep Dad in hospital?’

  ‘A few days’ said Owen. ‘They need to assess him and work out his long-term treatment. They also need to be sure he won’t do anything to himself’.

  Gabby felt a shiver go down her spine. ‘Oh, Owen, don’t. I couldn’t bear to even think about it’.

  ‘And whilst he’s in there we can sort out all his issues to do with money. One of my aunties went through these kind of financial problems a few years back and me and my Mum got it all sorted out for her. The biggest mistake you can make is to ignore it which is what your Dad has been doing and what my Auntie did. But she’s okay now and so will your Dad be’.

  ‘How did you sort your Auntie out?’