Inseparable Bond (14 page)

He was in love
with Martha Beckingsdale, but it wasn’t reciprocated, although they
did sleep together discreetly. Residents could visit other
residents in their rooms but had to leave by 11pm, when the
security staff did their night rounds.

Martha was a
sweet old lady, but her appearance and mental problems were
deceptive. She had a criminal record at the age of 15 for a string
of shoplifting offences. She increased her ambitious criminal
activities by forming a girl gang in the city of Nottingham, and
terrorised the local council estate by drug dealing and house
breaking. At the age of 16 she gave birth to the first of four
children, all illegitimate.

At the adult
age of 21, she married a taxi driver, but he was impotent and she
beat him constantly, they divorced two years later.

She got a job
in the cafeteria of British Home Stores and mixed ecstasy in the
hot food, which she ground down before delivering it to the
counter. She served a two year sentence in Styal open prison in
Cheshire.

On her release
she spent the next twenty-five years as a prostitute in Manchester.
At the age of 50 she got a job with North West Water.

She moved in
with her older sister in Macclesfield shortly after her husband
died of cancer. A year after his death she poisoned her with weed
killer, which she stirred nightly in her Horlicks, in the hope of
acquiring the large detached house they shared.

A post-mortem
quickly revealed the cause of death and she received twelve years
imprisonment.

She was
transferred to the hostel three years ago and spends most of her
days knitting in front of the fire in winter, or in the
conservatory in the summer months.

She had
constantly requested to cook for the residents but her requests
were refused, she wasn’t even listed on the roster for kitchen
cleaning duties.

It was a fine
morning when John left the hostel for another early shift at the
hotel. He noticed a couple of policemen at the entrance to the
fairground as he crossed the road to the grocers shop for his daily
packet of cigarettes. ‘They got him then,’ said Mahul, as he took
John’s money. His wife was stacking shelves dressed in a bright
purple sari.

‘Yes I did
hear something about it, another showman wasn’t it?’ John replied,
as he left the shop, looking away from the policemen as their eyes
followed him down the hill.

He entered the
hotel kitchen and starting his daily grind, which he had come to
despise, but he was in no position to throw it in, and it was
better than staying in the hostel all day.

It was about 4
o’clock when he returned back to the hostel. The warden was
standing at the front door with his hands in his pocket. He lowered
his head, his eyes just visible under his bushy eyebrows. ‘John,
I’ve been waiting for you, I need to see you in my office
straightaway,’ he said, with a puzzled expression.

The sight of
the gypsy flashed through John’s mind as he followed the warden to
his office, his heart pounding. Expecting to see plain-clothed
police waiting in the room, his fear ceased and his heart rate
decreased when the only other person in the room was a male nurse
looking through the filing cabinet. ‘Sit down John, I’ve got some
good news for you,’ the warden said, as he picked up some
paperwork.

‘I have a
reply from the prison authorities, it’s been countersigned by the
Home Office, and they’ve agreed to a weekend home visit with your
sister,’ he said, with a forced grin.

‘Oh, right,
that’s good,’ replied John, although since the murder of the gypsy
it had completely been erased from his mind.

‘Now the local
police in Fleetwood have been informed, and will visit your sister
as she will be responsible for collecting you at the railway
station, and putting you back on the train,’ he said, as he flicked
the pages of the application form.

John was
delighted with the news; it was a good time for him to leave with
police activity still surrounding the area of the fairground, and
the uneasy atmosphere that had stitched itself into the fabric of
the hostel, since Tommy had murdered Sylvia.

He left the
office and went up the stairs, striding two at a time. As he
briskly walked along the corridor, he quickly glanced into Gary’s
room through the half open door. Gary was naked on his bed. He was
snoring gently, the rays from the late afternoon sun shone through
the small window and across his tall, firm body glistening over a
layer of perspiration. His strong muscle-packed arms lay behind his
head as if restraining him, with his legs slightly opened. His body
was hairless, apart from under his arms and the bush of black pubic
hair which went down in a thin straight line from his navel and
opened out nesting his large heavy looking penis, which lay down
the top of his left leg.

His lips
fluttered slightly as he snored. An open book lay beside him
revealing a picture of a young naked black boy.

John felt his
penis grow uncomfortable, trapped in his pants. He walked into the
room, closing the door quietly behind him. Gary’s eye opened at the
sound of a squeaking floorboard, he noticed John but closed his
eyes again without moving his position.

John stood
looking down at Gary’s body, and noticed his penis flinch slightly.
He stroked Gary’s hairless chest, Gary remained motionless, his
eyes closed. John ran his hands down his flat stomach and into the
bush of pubic hair, slowly lifting the heavy penis from his leg and
lifting his heavy testicles with the other. His penis grew larger
and heavier, becoming too thick to fill John’s cupped hand. He
slowly worked it up and vigorously masturbated him while he
remained in his submissive position. Gary groaned deeply as he
ejaculated. A strong force of sperm shot high up to his chest
leaving a trail in a straight line down his torso.

His penis
slowly receded as John carefully loosened his grip, placing it
gently backs in its original position.

Gary opened
his eyes and said, ‘That was good,’ as he turned to face the wall.
John backed out of the room, looking at Gary’s firm, protruding
buttocks and strong muscle-packed back as he closed the door.

The next
morning, John was woken by the chimes of the church bells ringing
loudly from the church opposite the hostel. He walked through the
hall, passed Martha, Alfred, Dorothy, Elizabeth and Norman, who
were dressed in their best waiting for the security nurse to escort
them to the church service. It was a normal ritual every Sunday,
but the group had dwindled down since Tommy had been taken away and
Sylvia was no more with us.

The attendance
of the service was not compulsory and the majority of residents
preferred to stay in the hostel. John had never been religious,
although as a young boy his parents forced him to join the local
choir at the Fleetwood Methodist Church.

He was working
the late shift that day, so he took the opportunity of spending a
couple of quiet hours in the television room while some of the
others were in the church.

Ralf Parker
was the only other resident in the room, noisily turning the pages
of the Sunday paper as he puffed incessantly on a cigarette,
flicking ash around his feet.

He was a bald,
unfortunate looking bloke. His small grey eyes deeply embedded in a
hairless face with a large protruding broken nose. He had extremely
large elephant-type ears, the right one having a chunk bitten out
from some brawl in his prison days.

He was never
seen in anything other than a grey shell-suit and black trainers.
He always sat alone due to his overpowering body odour; he probably
had an allergic reaction to soap and water.

He worked as a
porter at the railway station next to the hotel where John worked,
although they had little contact in or out of the hostel.

He had done a
lengthy sentence in Strangeways for an armed robbery, which had
gone wrong. He shot and killed a bank security officer and became
violent throughout his sentence. He was sectioned under the Mental
Health Act after he tried to hang his cellmate. He was transferred
to the hostel about a year ago but was kept well sedated due to his
sudden and unprovoked attacks, which regularly occurred.

John reached
down to Ralf Parker’s feet to retrieve the magazine supplement he
had thrown to the floor. He took the magazine to the far end of the
room to gain the light from the large window overlooking the
garden, and avoiding Parker’s overpowering body odour circulating
the room.

He quickly
flicked the pages, occasionally looking up at short intervals to
watch Bernard Simpson’s attempt at cutting the grass with the aged
lawnmower he had dragged out of the shed at the bottom of the
garden. John watched his small frame bent over the heavy machine,
being unaware of the unintentional curved roads of shaved lawn he
was trailing behind him.

John
unconsciously took deep breaths of the sweet smell of
grass-cuttings drifting through the open door, eliminating some of
the foul smell from Parker’s sweating body.

Bernard was
the quietest resident in the hostel. He was one of the first to
have been admitted shortly after it had been purchased by the
authorities and converted to a half-way house institution for
long-term offenders.

He had
molested children at a school in Hartlepool while employed as a
caretaker. In those days, child molestation was not recognised as a
serious offence and on the infrequent reporting of it, was not
considered an intrusion or the possibility of any long-term sexual
confusion for the victim.

His
molestation of a 10-year-old pupil ended his career with the school
when a teacher had witnessed Bernard sexually assaulting the boy in
the gymnasium’s changing room. Due to the parent’s outcry, he moved
to Lincoln and worked as a gardener for the local council
authorities whilst on probation for his assault.

Being
unsupervised, he constantly loitered around the park’s public
toilets in an attempt to sexually interfere with children who
regularly walked through from the nearby school.

His sexual
interference soon turned to a more violent nature when a young
victim he had buggered in the toilet bled profusely from his
rectum, and sent Bernard into a panic. He snapped his victim’s neck
and buried his body in undergrowth behind the toilet block.

Instantly
realising his probation order would undeniably result in him being
the investigation’s main suspect once the body was discovered, he
terminated his job that day, yet the county council offered him a
post on ticket sales of a boating lake in a public park at the
other side of the town. He accepted the position.

A search for
the missing schoolboy proved unsuccessful. It was three months
later when a dog had clawed at the site and returned to its owner
with a human bone in its mouth. On recovering the body, it was too
decomposed to fully establish the cause, and certainly the time and
date of death, with only his school satchel identifying him.

Although
Bernard was questioned along with the other council workers, the
police did not have sufficient evidence to take the case any
further. The case went unsolved.

It was the
height of summer on a hot Wednesday afternoon when he issued a
ticket to a young lad who boarded a rowing boat unaccompanied.

Bernard
watched from his hut as the boy rowed the small boat behind the
island in the centre of the lake. He locked the hut and climbed
into the nearest boat. To avoid attracting attention, he slowly and
casually rowed out to the island and moored the boat.

Once he
disembarked, he waved his arms to the boy as if in distress,
beckoning him to row towards him. The isolated island was situated
in the centre of the lake, housing a cluster of trees and bushes.
The only residents were swans and ducks which used the island for
housing and breeding in its natural environment. Once the boy
excitingly climbed out of his boat to perform his heroic rescue of
the stranded boatman, Bernard beckoned him to the cluster of trees
and sexually assaulted him. The lad screamed in pain and fear,
which alerted the few people walking the lake perimeter. They
looked over at the island briefly but his cries were drowned by the
disturbance of the fleeing birds, so they all continued their
walk.

After the
assault, the boy endured the same death as Bernard’s previous
victim. Bernard returned to the lakeside, having attached the boy’s
boat to his.

The police
spent the following weeks combing the park after a witness had seen
the boy in the vicinity, but they discounted the island as a
possible crime scene due to its inaccessibility. Bernard’s second
crime had also gone unsolved and after the lengthy and exhausting
search, it was called off, the crime went unsolved.

He made a
final and fatal mistake in his reign of terror, while assaulting
another schoolboy behind a public toilet, his violent attack was
interrupted by the boy’s Alsatian dog, who raced to the aid of his
young owner, and clamping its sneering teeth into the back of
Bernard’s neck.

He was
restrained by passers-by until the police arrested him. During
interrogation, he admitted to his two previous crimes and led the
police to the island where they exhumed the decomposed body of the
young boy.

He spent
twenty years in a psychiatric hospital and was transferred to the
hostel after serving his full sentence. He still carries the scars
of the Alsatian bite, where he seemingly appears proud of his
wound, and freely relays his experiences of his previous violent
and sadistic behaviour to anyone who curiously enquires.

The silence of
the room was abruptly disturbed by the arrival of the church
group.

Martha led the
brigade, still singing the final hymn as she removed her hat and
pulled up a chair by the fire. Elizabeth threw herself heavily on
the settee, followed by Dorothy, who squatted on the floor beside
her.