All is Fair

by All is Fair (retail) (epub)

  ‘A few nights later, I was back at the surgery checking my medical bag and getting it ready for the next morning when I found one of my bottles of morphine was missing. I’d been to a dozen or so patients that day, including your mother, and at every visit I’d left the bag for short periods of time while I went to wash my hands or get a drink for my patient. At most of those visits a relative or neighbour was present, and so any one of them could have taken it, but when it came down to it, I was responsible for all the medication I was carrying and would be in serious trouble for the loss, so although it was wrong of me, I told my boss that I had accidentally broken it. I did get a very serious reprimand, but thankfully my boss decided to take no further action against me as nothing like that had happened before.

  ‘The next day, I arrived to see your mother only for you to tell me she had died in the night. I was surprised, as I wasn’t expecting this for another few weeks at least, but the doctor didn’t appear to show any concerns. Then I was busy helping to arrange for your mother to be laid out, so it wasn’t until later that I remembered the missing morphine and realised that you must have taken it and given her an overdose. I couldn’t do anything about it, though, as I’d already lied to my boss that I’d broken the bottle.

  ‘I can’t say as I blame you for doing what you did. Watching someone you love die is not easy. Day after day, week after week, seeing them in agony, slowly withering away… well, it’s enough to break the most caring person. And during that time you have no life of your own, having to be at the beck and call of the person who is ill.’ She paused for a moment to look stolidly at Jenny before she added, ‘Did you reach the stage where you’d had enough, Jenny, and just wanted it all to stop so you could get on with your own life?’

  Jenny jumped up from her seat. ‘How dare you accuse me of killing my mother!’ she cried. ‘How dare you! I did no such thing and you can’t prove I did. Any one of those other patients or their relatives could have taken that morphine, as you’ve already said. If anyone is in trouble, it’s you for covering up the fact that you lost a bottle. Now get out. GET OUT, I said.’

  Gwen didn’t move a muscle. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said evenly. ‘If I went to the police with this I would be in trouble, not only with them but also with my superiors for lying over what happened. I could even get struck off. But how would your new family react to hearing that their long-lost daughter could be a murderer? Would they still want you around them? You’ve probably got a boyfriend, a pretty girl like you; if he was thinking of marrying you… well, he’d think twice once he learned you might have killed your mother.’

  Jenny stared at her, horrified. ‘You’re that desperate you would blacken me in front of my family and wreck my future with them?’

  Gwen nodded. ‘Yes, I am. If there was any other way for me to get the sort of money I need to start my new life, then I would. It’s not personal, Jenny. I like you. Obviously, I can’t force you to give me the money, and if you don’t, I will just have to manage without it, but before I leave here I will see your parents and tell them what I’ve told you, and that’s a promise. Even if they say they believe you didn’t take that morphine, there would always be that doubt in their minds that you just might have, and they will never completely trust you again. Can you bear that, living for the rest of your life knowing that every time any of your family look at you, at the back of their minds they will always be wondering… did she or didn’t she? And if she did, could she do it to one of us?’

  She paused for a moment before she added, ‘Don’t try and fob me off by saying you can’t get your hands on such a sum. Your family own a fair; they must be loaded. Two grand will be petty cash to them. I don’t care how you get it – that’s your problem – but I want that money or else I will pay them a visit.’

  Jenny’s whole body sank in despair. If she didn’t get Gwendoline the money, then her future with her real family – whom she had grown to love so much she couldn’t imagine her life without them in it – would be ended. Her relationship with Tom was only temporary, but the thought of him thinking she had hastened her mother’s death just so she could get on with her own life was unbearable to her.

  That amount of money and probably more besides would be in the safe in her parents’ van, as her father only went to the bank once a week. She knew where the key was kept; they had allowed her this knowledge by way of letting her know how much they trusted her. Later this afternoon the whole family would be working in the fair and the van would be empty. She could make it look like there’d been a robbery so no suspicion would fall on her. But would she be able to live with herself afterwards, knowing that she had stolen from her own family, regardless of the reason?

  Chapter Twenty

  Julie waited until lunchtime, when she knew Speedy’s habit was to sit on a stool in the maintenance van and read the newspaper while he ate a sandwich he had made before leaving for work earlier that morning, washed down with tea from a Thermos. They wouldn’t be disturbed, as the rest of the team would either be in their own vans having a meal or paying a visit to a nearby café or pub.

  His unwrapped sandwich on his knee, Speedy was just pouring tea from the flask into an enamel mug when she entered the van. He smiled at her as she clambered over discarded spare parts on the floor on her way over to join him.

  ‘You didn’t come back to pick your bike up after I’d seen to it for you. It just needed a bit of grease around the handlebar where it slotted into the frame.’

  She perched her backside against the workbench. ‘I borrowed one of the other ones to practise on. But thank you. I much appreciate you sorting it for me.’ She took a deep breath before she continued. ‘Look, Speedy, I know that the bike the police returned is not the one Dicky had his accident on. The handlebar on that one was bent. The bar on the bike the police returned wasn’t. That can only mean that the bike Dicky had his accident on must have been swapped with the one the police took away.’ She paused momentarily. ‘The only person who could have done that was you, Speedy. Why on earth would you do such a thing? And you took a lot of trouble to convince me I was mistaken when I told you that I knew the bike the police returned wasn’t the one Dicky was riding.’

  He looked at her blankly for several long moments before he turned his head away and in silence continued pouring out his tea. The mug filled, he asked, ‘Would you like a cup? I’ve enough for another left in the flask.’

  She shook her head. ‘No thanks. I just want answers to my questions.’

  He screwed the lid back on the flask and put it down, then picked up the mug and took a sip of the hot liquid before cradling it between his hands and sighing heavily. ‘If I hadn’t swapped the bikes over, then the police would have found that the one Dicky was riding had been deliberately tampered with.’

  Julie gawped at him, astounded, as she processed what he had told her. Eventually she said, ‘You meddled with Dicky’s bike? You… you meant to harm… to kill him? But why, Speedy, why?’

  He took another sip of his tea before he responded. ‘Yes, I meant to kill him. As payback for killing my brother. Like for like, Julie.’

  She was utterly stupefied by his admission. She had expected a simple explanation for him swapping over the bikes, but not this, never this. So stunned was she, all she could do was listen to him as he went on.

  ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough how he treated us in the team, like we were imbeciles, it became even more important to me to deal with him after I found out how he was treating you, Julie. The bully just had to be stopped.’ He eyed her sorrowfully. ‘I knew he was abusing you. I saw him once through your van window. I’d come to ask his permission for something – well, you know we weren’t allowed to do anything without his say-so for fear of the sack – and as I went to knock on the door I heard him having a go at you. He was accusing you of flirting with one of the customers who had asked for your autograph after a performance. He was obviously furious as the bloke hadn’t asked for his. But him ac
cusing you of flirting was a joke when he was playing around behind your back with any woman he could get his hands on.’

  He noticed the look on her face. ‘So that’s not news to you. You knew about his cheating. That man didn’t deserve you, he really didn’t. Anyway, then I heard you cry out, so I went to the window and peeped though. He had you in an armlock and was punching you in the ribs. How I stopped myself from bursting in and attacking him myself I don’t know. It was only down to the fact that I was no match for him and all it would have achieved was me getting the sack and losing the chance to avenge my brother.’

  A lone tear fell from his eye; he hurriedly wiped it away with the back of his hand and spoke distractedly. ‘I adored my brother. Kenny was four years older than me. He’d always been my hero. My father died from influenza when I was seven and my brother took his responsibilities as head of the household very seriously, even though he was only eleven years old. My mother didn’t earn that much from her job in the hospital laundry, but Kenny did anything he could to help her out. His odd jobs kept us off the streets.

  ‘He’d always been into motorbikes, right from a young age, when our Uncle Brian used to take him for a spin on his old Norton sixteen horsepower. It was pre-war, but my uncle kept it in immaculate condition. From the first time Uncle Brian took him out on it, Kenny was smitten, and from then on, any spare time he had, he was always around Brian’s house helping him look after it. He got so good he only had to listen to the engine noise to know if it was running at peak performance or if something was off, and he’d know just how to put it right.

  ‘When Kenny was sixteen, my uncle taught him to ride. After that, all he lived for was being allowed to take the bike out for a spin. Idolising my brother like I did, anything he did I wanted to do, and he was so chuffed when I asked him to teach me motorbike maintenance. Seemed I had as much of a gift for it as he did, and soon local riders were bringing their bikes to our house for us to fix. Of course, we were cheaper than a garage, and the money we earned really helped my mother.

  ‘I was about fifteen at the time, so Kenny would have been nineteen, when one night one of his mates from work asked him if he’d go to the speedway with him as his friend had let him down. Kenny couldn’t afford it, but the mate said he’d stand him the ticket sooner than go on his own. It was a special meeting, with famous riders from all around the country. Kenny was full of it when he came home. From then on, all he craved was to be a speedway rider. It became an obsession. Good money could be made, the sort that could change our lives, allow our mother to cut back on her workload. But it wasn’t just the money with Kenny; he was determined he was going to be up there with the best in the country, if not the best. He would have done it, knowing my brother, had not…’ he paused for a moment, and it was obvious that it was very difficult for him to utter the name, ‘Dicky Otterman made sure he didn’t.

  ‘But anyway, from then on, Kenny worked all hours fixing bikes for locals. I often woke up in the middle of the night to find him in the yard using the light from an oil lamp to see by. Some of the money he earned he kept to buy parts with, until he had all he needed to build his own bike. The day he put the final touches of paint to it and it was ready for its trial run was one that I will never forget. Four years it had taken him to build that bike, and I’ve never seen anyone so proud of what he’d managed to do. He then spent as much time as he could practising on it on a large piece of waste ground near where we lived until he felt he was good enough to apply to the manager of the speedway track for a place in the team. He was lucky, as there was a place going at the time, but he was up against it as a dozen or so others had applied for it too. Dicky Otterman was one of them.

  ‘The manager held elimination races, two riders against each other, until eventually the two left were Kenny and Dicky and the winner of that race would get the place on the team. My brother was by far the better rider and he knew that, but he wasn’t the big-headed sort by any means and tackled this like it was the ride of his life. I’d gone with him to the trials to cheer him on. When the final race came, I so wanted to go and wish him good luck, so although I wasn’t allowed in the back, I sneaked in to try and find him. I searched everywhere and eventually found myself in a small lean-to-like structure behind the main building. There were a few bikes in there, and one of them was Kenny’s. There was a man with his back to me squatted down at the side of it. He seemed to be doing something to the front wheel. He was dressed in riding gear like Kenny wore, so I obviously thought it was him.

  ‘When I called out his name, the man jumped up and spun around to face me and I realised that it wasn’t my brother but the bloke he was racing against – Dicky Otterman. When I asked him what he was doing with my brother’s bike, he told me he wasn’t doing anything, just admiring it, wishing his own bike was as good. You knew Dicky better than anyone, Julie; he had a way with him that made people believe everything he was saying. Knowing how proud Kenny was of that bike, I was so chuffed to hear another rider praising it and I couldn’t wait to tell him, but at the time I knew the final race would be starting very soon so all I had on my mind was to find him so I could wish him the best of luck. I asked Dicky if he knew where Kenny was and he told me he was around somewhere but as spectators weren’t allowed in the back he’d pass the message on for me and I’d better get back outside as I didn’t want to do anything that might cause my brother to be disqualified, did I. That was the last thing I wanted, so I scarpered off quick.

  ‘The race started very shortly after that. At first it was neck and neck, but then soon my brother was ahead and it was obvious that Dicky didn’t stand a chance of catching him. I was jumping up and down in excitement, screaming out Kenny’s name, and then there was just two laps to go and Dicky was yards behind Kenny by now and it would have taken a miracle for him to overtake him. Then it all seemed to happen in slow motion. Kenny was heading down a straight towards a bend when the front wheel started to wobble and I could see he was having trouble steering the bike, then the front wheel flew off and he came flying off too, tumbling across the track to crash against one of the fencing posts. I just froze and my mind went blank. I could see the track officials and the other spectators rushing over to him, but I couldn’t move. It was like I was at the pictures watching a film. Then what had happened suddenly hit me and I vaulted the fence and raced over to my brother, screaming out his name. Just as I got there, some of the other spectators who had arrived before me stopped me and held me back. It was then that I knew Kenny was dead.

  ‘What happened after that is all a daze. I can’t tell you how devastated I was that my brother, my hero, was gone. The police came, and after they’d done their investigation, they put it down to an accident, saying that the wheel bolts either hadn’t been tightened properly or had worked loose during the ride and caused the wheel to come off. I couldn’t understand it. My brother had checked the bike over meticulously before we set off for the trial races – I’d helped him, in fact – and I knew he’d have checked it after every elimination race too. But who was I to argue with the police mechanics?

  ‘My mother was inconsolable. It was bad enough when she lost my dad, but now her eldest son… well, it was like her life’s blood had just drained out of her. After Kenny’s death, it was me now that was head of the house and I needed to step up to help my mother. Thankfully, through Kenny’s teaching me mechanics when I left school, I’d managed to land myself an apprenticeship with a local garage and had just a few months left before I received my indenture papers. Money was very tight, but we managed.

  ‘About six months after Kenny died, the owner of the garage where I worked told me he wanted me to strip down a motorbike a client wanted rebuilding. It was a 1940s Triumph 3T 350cc, a beautiful bike I’d have given my right arm to own. I was unbolting one of the wheels when suddenly the memory came back of me going to look for Kenny before the last elimination race on the day he died and finding Dicky Otterman squatting down beside it. That was when I
remembered that when he’d jumped up and spun round, he’d slipped something into his pocket, and I realised it must have been a spanner. He wasn’t admiring Kenny’s bike; he wouldn’t have needed to be squatting down by the front wheel to do that. He was squatting by the wheel because he was loosening the bolts. Whether he meant to kill Kenny or just scupper his chances of winning…’

  He paused and swallowed his now tepid tea before he went on. ‘So, the very next night, as soon as I’d finished work, I went to the speedway track to accuse Dicky of tampering with my brother’s bike and tell him I was going to the police. When I asked for him in the office, pretending to be a friend, I was told that he no longer worked at the track and they had no idea where he was. They had heard through the grapevine that he had worked at several tracks since but hadn’t lasted long, and there was a rumour that he had left speedway riding to join a travelling fair as a stunt rider on the Wall of Death.

  ‘This news was a blow to me as it meant Dicky could be anywhere in the country. I had realised by then that going to the police was a waste of time as I had no physical evidence of what he’d done to Kenny’s bike, so it would be my word against his, but I was determined I was going to find him and make him pay somehow for what he’d done to my brother and the suffering he’d caused my mother and me. I had to put it on hold, though, as I couldn’t leave my mother. As I mentioned, she took my brother’s death badly, and by this time she was hardly able to drag herself out of bed. She started to miss shifts at work so of course she was eventually sacked, which meant the burden of providing for us fell on me. Money was even tighter then, just my wage keeping us both and what I could earn on the side fixing motorbikes for the locals, but we got by.