The Criminal Escapades of Geoffrey Larkin (3 page)

He spent that first night of his escape in the station. The first three hours being in the station toilet cubicle. As the lock was broken he ended up sitting on his haversack with his back to the toilet door and his feet up against the base of the WC.

That was until, in the early hours, someone tried to get in and banged and thumped on the closed door. They continued until in the deepest voice he could muster he shouted for them to. ‘Fuck Off!' The magic words seemed to work, the person on the other side of the door muttered something that he could not make out, and then decided to move on.

He felt quite pleased with himself. He had heard the older lads at school use this language before and one of them had been suspended for using these very same words to one of the teachers. They were obviously words that older people used, so the person on the other side of the toilet door would think he was older and bigger than he really was. He had heard the old man say occasionally,
‘Fortune favours the brave',
and now he thought he knew what he meant.

He waited until it was all quiet in the toilets again, then slowly opened the cubicle door, ready to slam it closed again if anyone was there waiting for him. Even though it was a cold night he was sweating as he slipped out of the toilet block and quickly mingled amongst the crowds in the station, whose numbers never seemed to dwindle no matter what time of night or day it was.

He sat on his rucksack in a dark corner near a stall that sold newspapers and magazines, the collar of his jacket turned up and his hands tucked deep in his trouser pockets. It was there that he dozed fitfully until the early hours of the morning. It was the cold that awakened him.

He rose stiff and sore after the most uncomfortable first night in his young life on the run from his foster home and the relevant authorities who would by now be searching for him. As much as he disliked the foster home, he now had to admit to himself that he missed the warm bed and clean sheets, and he had enjoyed the regular hot meals at the Dixons' family home.

At the station, he noticed that people stood in front of a massive board then went to look at a screen that hung from the ceiling that gave instructions on various trains from different numbered platforms. He strolled over to join the group inspecting the board. At first he struggled to understand the workings of this timetable, until he realised, using his novice reading capabilities, he was looking at the arrivals side of the board. On the other side was the departures section, here he found a listing for Stockport. The train left from platform three at 5.35am. He smiled to himself, feeling quite pleased with the way he had on his own without any adult assistance solved this, what to him had been a massive problem.

He looked at the girl's watch on his wrist. Just one hour to wait.

He had little difficulty getting past the ticket inspector; he slipped on to the platform when they opened some gates to allow an electric driven tractor to pass through, pulling several trailers piled high with stacks of newspapers. He was trying not to hurry but at the same time keep the trucks between himself and the inspector at the entrance. When he was a good distance along the platform he casually joined the people already there. This gate served platforms three and four, unsure which train he needed to catch he approached a woman standing on her own.

‘Is the next train going to Stockport Mrs?' he asked, looking up at the woman as she pulled her headscarf tighter around her head and re-adjusted the collar of her heavy coat, turned up against the cold wind that was blowing in the early hours of the morning across that open area. After she had taken a last draw from the remains she threw the end of a lit cigarette onto the railway lines. She looked down on the young lad who had spoken to her. It was obvious, by his scruffy appearance so early in the morning, that he had been sleeping rough; he looked no older than her eldest son.

*

Ada Cooper had just finished her night shift as a cleaner. She had started at eight o'clock the previous evening after all the staff had left the block of offices where she was employed, finishing at 4.30 in the morning, leaving her sufficient time to catch the 5.30 early morning train to Stockport. Once there, she would then prepare breakfast for her husband and two sons before he went to work and they went to school. It was only then she could relax, sitting down to enjoy the highlight of her day; soaking her aching feet in a bowl of hot water.

‘What are your parents doing letting you wander around here at this time in the morning?' she asked tersely.

‘I have no parents,' he sulkily replied over his shoulder as he walked away.

‘This is the platform for Stockport,' she shouted after him, feeling ashamed at being previously so abrupt.

It was nearly 7.30am when Geoff eventually reached the burnt out house at the end of his street. He had stopped on the way at a second-hand shop to part with some of the items taken from the Dixon family but it was too early and they were closed.

The old tramp had not been at the house that night. The ashes in the fireplace where they did their cooking were cold, so the old man had not been and left early. He looked in the secret hiding place and there was still a half full bottle of the cheap plonk the old guy drank, so he would be coming back again sometime. He needed to see Sir Reginald to ask his advice; he was experienced in this way of life, and he obviously knew the ropes, after all he was now the only friend he had in the world.

He left the derelict house by sliding a loose board to one side, which was fastened over the existing smashed panel in the rear door. There were more people in the street now forming queues at the bus stops on the sides of the road, all making their way towards their place of work. They did not look very happy to be out so early in the morning; their hands plunged deep in their pockets and their shoulders hunched against the biting east wind.

He made his way to his mother's old council house. The key fit and he let himself in to the familiar front hall. But it was all slightly different now, someone had been and cleaned the place, the musty smell that had always been there in the past had disappeared. In the kitchen, the hole in the skirting board at the side of the gas cooker, where the mice appeared, had been replaced.

His mother's furniture had been removed, along with the carpets that stuck to your feet as you walked across them.

He came down the stairs, his shoes making a hollow sound on the bare wooden floorboards. There was no food in the pantry but that was nothing new. There was no water from the taps so he couldn't even rinse his face or quench his thirst. He was now quite hungry having finished the bread and cheese on the train journey to Stockport. His thoughts returned once again to the warm bed, the hot cooked meals that his first foster parent, Mrs. Dixon, used to prepare for all her family. He knew it was impossible for him to return there after taking their belongings. As Sir Reginald would say, ‘
He had burnt his bridges behind him'.

He eventually curled up in the corner of his old bedroom, remembering the very few pleasant things that had happened in his short life, before he eventually fell asleep. He was awakened early in the afternoon by the cold.

Later that day, after he had swung his arms around and run on the spot to try and get warm and loosen the stiffness from his uncomfortable slumber, he decided to pay a visit to the small baker's shop in a side street near his house; he had been there many times before in the past for his mother. He had managed to obtain enough money from the sale of the hair brush and other items to buy a hot meat and potato pie, plus a bottle of cheap plonk, a packet of fags and a box of matches from another nearby shop and he still had the money that he had taken from the Dixons.

The man was used to selling packets of cigarettes to the kids in that area, he was also used to Geoff coming for these very same items for his mother. Geoff left the full bottle alongside the half bottle of cheap wine in the secret place in the derelict house at the bottom of the street, along with half the packet of cigarettes. ‘For the attention of Sir Reginald,' he said aloud, he knew the old man would know who had left them.

He then made his way back to the council house just as it was getting dark. ‘This suits me,' he said aloud to himself, there would be no inquisitive eyes to watch him enter the property. There was a large white van parked outside when he arrived, so he hung around until two workmen loaded two bags of tools in the back of the vehicle and then drove off. He waited until the van was out of sight before slipping around to the back door of the house. The key he tried fit the lock but would not turn the latch. After several vain attempts to unlock the door it suddenly dawned on him that the workmen had been from the council to change the locks. New tenants would be moving in shortly. He could not gain access to the property and it was obvious his mother would not be returning to this house again. He was stumped!

As he sat on the rear back doorstep pondering what to do next, the old tramps saying,
‘Make do and mend',
came to mind, it seemed to be most appropriate. He would have to find alternative accommodation, and pretty fast, if he was not going to spend the night walking the streets. He was relieved that he had not left his haversack in the premises, which he had considered as it was quite heavy to lug around and it was leaving a red sore weal on his shoulder.

*

Ada, the office cleaner, had prepared her family's breakfast and sent them on their way. She was sitting in her kitchen soaking her aching feet in a bowl of hot water as her bunion was playing her up again, but she could not get the sight of the young boy at the railway station out of her mind.

She was weary; she had been cleaning the four-storey block of offices for the last seven years and, at first, she had coped quite well carrying the mop buckets of hot water from the basement up the many flights of stairs. Then slowly mopping her way down, constantly replacing the dirty water with clean hot water, all meant extra journeys to the basement.

Then there was the vacuuming and dusting on each floor, before she could lock the double fronted entrance door, and polish the large brass knob in its centre.

None of the well-dressed office staff realised, while they slumbered in their beds, the amount of work that went into keeping their workplace clean and tidy. Ada's usual routine was to go to bed for several hours once she had got her children off to school and her husband off to work, his job was driving one of the council dust carts. She would awaken in the early afternoon to do her own housework before preparing the tea for her returning family. Ada then left for her night shift.

She had made up her mind. She slipped out of her house and hurried to the phone box at the corner of her street. She had a phone at home but it had been disconnected many weeks before because of unpaid bills. She found the telephone number of the social services in the directory; luckily it was a free number, she spoke to a rather haughty woman on the other end of the line. She in turn put her through to various departments, several times she felt like putting the phone down and giving up, but she persevered, finally reaching the person who could deal with her concerns. Ada reported what she had seen at the station that morning, giving a good description of Geoff Larkin, emphasising that one so young was in danger wandering around in that area so early in the morning.

As she left the phone box she felt much better and she was glad she had made the effort. She knew that if she hadn't done it she would have spent all afternoon worrying about the young unkempt looking lad who she had been rather offhand with at the railway station.

Her own son was about the same age and if he was ever in the same position as the unfortunate young man she hoped someone would try and help him the same as she had done. It was now quite dark and in the wintery night air Geoff shivered as he walked down the street, which was lit by the cold coloured orange street lamps. He had decided that he would now make his way to the allotments.

It was Friday night and he knew that the allotment owner was never there with his female friend on a Friday night so the shed would be empty. He might not be very warm but at least he would be dry for the night.

Luckily! As it turned out, there was still no lock on the shed door, just a thumb catch. Inside, there was a metal bed frame and several dark grey blankets. Geoff laid one blanket, doubled over, on the bed springs and the other he doubled over and spread over himself. They smelt very musty but he was too tired to care. He had no sooner placed his head on the rucksack that he was using as a pillow than he slipped into a deep sleep.

Saturday morning arrived as a wet, windy and miserable day. Looking from the shed window he saw several men walk up the path that led down the centre of the allotments and make their way to their different garden sheds, nobody was working outside on their patches, the weather was just too bad.

Geoff was on pins, he hoped that the awful weather would deter the owner of the shed he was occupying from coming that morning. As he looked through the dirty glass for the umpteenth time the heavy rain that was battering against the glass obscured his view of the narrow path. The strong wind that battered the wooden building made him jump every time the rickety door shook against the catch. He was glad to have made the decision to stay in the shed overnight.

By mid-morning the rain had started to ease. He had finished the banana, the last of his food, and he had smoked one of the cigarettes, he found these took the hunger pangs away for a short while. He had started smoking several years earlier when he had found several ‘dimps', (stubbed out half cigarettes) in his father's pockets after he had come home from the local pub and fallen asleep in the kitchen. Geoff wanted to imitate the grown-ups. At first the dimps made him feel light-headed and a little sick but then he got to like the feeling and would have a smoke at every opportunity, but he told himself that he would definitely finish smoking if they ever made him cough like Sir Reginald.

He collected his rucksack, replaced the blankets as he had found them then slowly opened the shed door. There was nobody about. Leaving the safety of the wooden building, he quietly closed the door behind him and boldly walked down the centre path, picking a couple of withered windblown apples from the grass on his way. The only person he saw was a man sitting on an upturned wooden box, cleaning and oiling his gardening tools. As he went past the man looked up, glanced at him and then continued with his task, much to Geoff's relief.

As he lifted his hand to open the latch on the gate that would let him out of the fenced-in allotments, the gate swung open and he looked up at the large man in whose hut he had just spent the night. The man pushed past him with a grunt and strode off down the path making his way towards the shed that Geoff had vacated several moments earlier. He watched the back of the man for several seconds then left through the open gate and on the familiar lane on the other side. ‘Lady Luck was looking after me there,' he said to himself as he walked down the lane.

He didn't know who ‘Lady Luck' was but Sir Reginald used the name quite a lot, so she was somebody of great importance and obviously carried a lot of influence.

Over the last few days he had got into a routine. Early in the morning he would slip onto the platform at Stockport station through a damaged section of fencing and catch the train for the short journey to Piccadilly Manchester, the main city station.

Once there he would mingle with the early morning crowds. One of the stalls sold papers and magazines; they were always very busy at that time of the day. Keeping one eye on the stall attendant and waiting customers he would, when an opportune moment arose from his position at the end of the stall, slip a block of Dairy Milk chocolate off the display stand and into his pocket. He found that sometimes the people, who bought sandwiches or a coffee or tea from one of the several cafés in the station, would leave half of a sandwich in its wrapper. On an average day he would end up with enough to make several full sandwiches, all with a variety of fillings. His favourite was the cheese and onion but then he liked the meat paste and cucumber too.