Inseparable Bond (32 page)

There was a
rumble of thunder. It was cold and wet; it was a thoroughly
miserable day and looked like it had set in for the day.

The hotel did
good business, the bar was busy and they were inundated with lunch
bookings from the visitors who were determined to get something out
of the day. John had a quick drink in the crowded bar and returned
to the esplanade. The typical early winter weather didn’t
relent.

He felt a
perverse satisfaction to walking in the rain, probably being denied
it for so long while in penal institutions. Passers-by bowed their
heads from the oncoming rain lashing in across the beach. The
biting wind got the better of him. He rushed into a café opposite
the pavilion clock tower. It was crowded with people. Waitresses
rushed around with plates of Sunday roast. The atrocious weather
had certainly been a boost for business.

All the tables
were taken so he took a seat at the counter and had a cup of coffee
and a Danish pastry. He left the money on the counter, as the bill
he constantly asked for didn’t arrive. He put his hood well over
his head and returned to the outside elements.

He called into
the public toilets, which had always been a popular meeting place
for the gays of the town. It was deserted apart from some old guy
having a coughing fit in the far cubicle. As he was leaving, a
young man with a large moustache brushed passed him and went to one
of the latrines, looking over his shoulder at John as he waited at
the door.

John slowly
returned to the latrines, looking at the guys gleaming shoes and
well-creased trousers. As he approached the latrine, he smelt
trouble, even before he got a whiff of it. He turned back to the
door and left the toilets, walking past a car which was parked
directly outside the entrance. It containing three dodgy looking
characters, their faces pressed against the car windows looking at
John as he passed.

He walked onto
the esplanade looking behind him at the car. The guys watched him
until he walked out of sight.

The car
cruised behind John at the same speed as he walked. He looked over
his shoulder to see the driver was the guy at the latrine. He was
bent low and hurried his pace as the welcoming sight of the house
came into view. He quickly walked up to the front door and locked
it behind him.

His heart was
beating rapidly as he peered through the side of the open curtain
in the front bay window. The youths sat in the car looking at the
house. John went through to the kitchen, taking his coat off and
shaking the rain over the kitchen floor. He returned to the sitting
room and peered through the curtains again. The car had gone.

Jennifer
arrived shortly afterwards with a large pork pie she had been given
from Sylvia. She mopped the rainwater off the kitchen floor and put
the kettle on.

‘Where did you
go, dear?’ she asked, as she squeezed the mop in the bucket.

‘I went to the
artist’s exhibition outside the Great Euston, but the weather was
so bad, they cancelled it,’ he replied.

‘That’s the
trouble with outdoor events, but they should realise the weather in
December is unpredictable,’ she said, putting the mop back in the
broom cupboard.

‘I’ll make
stew and dumplings for supper dear, but we’ll have some of this pie
with a nice cup of tea first, get the plates out, dear?’ she said,
hanging her coat behind the door.

John pulled a
kitchen chair out for her. He took the plates and Jennifer’s china
cup out of the unit and poured the water into the teapot. He drank
his mug of tea, cupped in his hands to warm them, relieved to he
home after his uncomfortable ordeal.

They spent the
rest of the evening watching television, drinking white wine. The
more Jennifer drank the more she chattered about Mavis Butler’s
idle son-in-law and her seven grandchildren. Norman appeared
interested but his mind was somewhere else and he felt
uncomfortable, regularly glancing over his shoulder at the sound of
a slowing car, half expecting the youths to return.

The next
morning was bin day. John wheeled the green bin to the front of the
house. Three doors up, a young guy was doing the same. He waved at
John and seemed to light up with smiles. Jennifer followed behind
carrying two bulging black bin liners, which she laid against the
bin.

He could hear
the sound of waste bins being emptied into the approaching truck as
it crept its way along the rows of houses.

The weather
was a lot warmer than yesterday, although the clouds were dark and
brooding. It had been raining heavily overnight by the look of the
large puddles that lined the road and the sandy soil on the other
side was dark with moisture.

He waited by
the bin until the truck arrived, watching the guys bending down
reaching for the bin liners, whose arses hung out over their dirty
trousers. Jennifer watched three kids, all highly excited about
taking a canoe on the boating lake opposite and already fighting
about who was going to have the paddles. Their parents were sitting
on the wall drinking cans of beer, undeterred by the cold
weather.

He wheeled the
green bin back to the garden and washed it out with hot water and
disinfectant. He wore gloves, which were a bit embarrassing as they
were like Marigold washing-up gloves with lots of little bumps on
the fingers for grip, and worst of all they were bright yellow.
Jennifer had bought them for him, thinking they were gardening
gloves. He wore them to avoid her being offended.

While he wore
the gloves, he picked up more branches which had blown onto the
lawn in the previous days wind.

Jennifer had
made him a sandwich and left it on the small table in the bay
window where she sat watching the group at the boating lake.

A guy
staggered over the road to join the kid’s parents sitting on the
wall. He too seemed worse for wear, his cigarette hanging out of
his mouth and clutching onto his can of beer.

‘They’re
obviously from out of town,’ Jennifer said, shaking her head in
disgust.

‘Well, I
haven’t seen them around here before,’ John replied, thinking how
attractive the drunk could be if he hadn’t been dressed in light
green fleece jacket and stained tracksuit bottoms. He had a
handsome rugged face, the type that John preferred.

‘Probably from
Blackpool,’ she said, sighing deeply.

The group
looked up to the sky as an air sea rescue helicopter appeared to
hover over the house. The noise of the throbbing rotors could be
heard inside the lounge. Jennifer quickly stood up and gazed at the
large yellow machine as it disappeared out to sea. The deafening
sound of its rotor blades could be heard faintly in the distance.
The group of drinkers ran up to the sand dunes to follow the path
of the helicopter as the kids scrambled out of their canoe to join
them.

It was just
after three when a police car parked outside the house. The two
uniformed officers remained in the vehicle, glancing briefly up at
the house and across the road at the helicopter in the distance,
hovering over the sea.

‘Either
something had happened to a fishing boat or they are going to move
that group on,’ Jennifer said, as she sat reclined in the wing
chair.

John didn’t
answer, his stomach churned, his mouth became dry and rasping and
his chest heaved as he looked over at the helicopter, trying to
ignore the presence of the police car.

It was ten
minutes before the second car pulled up behind the police car, a
dark blue Ford containing two plain-clothed officers and a
uniformed woman police officer in the back seat.

They all got
out of their cars simultaneously and approached the front door. One
of the uniformed officers remained at the front gate. Jennifer
answered the doorbell.

‘I’m Detective
Sutherland and this is Detective Morgan. We’d like to speak with
John Bell, is he in?’ they asked Jennifer.

‘He’s in the
lounge, is there anything wrong?’ she asked.

‘May we come
in? This won’t take long,’ the detective asked as Jennifer opened
the door wider. They came through to the lounge and introduced
themselves to John, showing him their identification badges.

‘We’d like to
have a look around your bedroom, John, if that’s alright with you?’
he asked. Jennifer offered them tea, her hands shaking nervously as
she went through to the kitchen. John, who walked up the stairs
ahead of them, directed the detective and the uniformed officer
into his bedroom.

They looked
through the collection of pornographic videos and a pile of gay
magazines piled knee high by the wardrobe. They picked up two pairs
of trainers, turning them over to look closely at the soles.

‘We’d like to
take these with us, if we may?’ they asked John.

‘Yes, but why,
what did I do?’ he replied, as he nervously fiddled with his
watch.

They put the
shoes in a plastic bag while the uniformed officer took a cigarette
butt from the ashtray and carefully placed it in a smaller bag
which he had taken from his pocket. They walked back down to the
lounge. Jennifer was sitting in her chair, the policewoman standing
next to her.

The drunken
group had returned to the wall, drinking from their cans as they
watched the house. The activity being of more interest to them than
a hovering helicopter.

‘We’d like you
to accompany us back to the police station, John, it’s just routine
to help us with our enquiries,’ the detective said, with a
reassuring smile.

A solicitor
had been appointed, who sat next to John in the interview room at
Blackpool police station. He was questioned for two hours into the
death of Norman Young, the vicar of Fleetwood Methodist church.

A witness had
come forward who recognised John Bell as he entered the back
kitchen door of the vicarage on the day Norman Young was murdered.
The description had fitted that of John. A cigarette butt had been
found stamped-out on the drive, along with footprints below the
study window.

His cigarette
butt from his ashtray, along with his two pairs of shoes had now
been taken to the laboratory for forensic examination.

Under intense
interrogation, and knowing that the results of the forensic tests
would prove a match, he admitted to the crime.

The detective
cautioned him and read him his rights as he was taken to a holding
cell.

The cell was
little more than a windowless metal box, where up to twelve inmates
can he held on one of the three steel benches bolted to the wall.
An ancient sink and toilet were at the far end of the cell. They
were rusty and discoloured. The smell from the toilet was
overpowering.

On the sound
of jangling keys, an officer opened the door, holding a pair of
overalls.

‘All right,
strip,’ he shouted as he threw the thin white overalls to John.

The officer
was wearing a pair of thin plastic disposable gloves that John
associated with an internal examination of his arse.

He took off
his clothes, passing them item by item to the waiting officer whose
gloved hands squeezed and shook every inch of the fabric before
tossing them into a box by the door.

‘Alright, now
stand up,’ the officer instructed, as he went through the
checklist.

John stood
naked facing him, as the officer looked him up and down.

‘Lift up your
equipment then turn around, bend over, and spread your cheeks.

He flinched as
the officer’s finger probed around the inside of his arse.

‘Now stand up,
turn around and open your mouth,’ the officer ordered. With a small
silver torch, he checked his mouth and nostrils. ‘Put the suit on,
lad, and sit there,’ he said, pointing to the metal bench.

Another
officer walked into the cell and whispered something in his
colleague’s ear.

He was
transferred to a cell to be held overnight before the next days
court hearing. An officer brought him a sandwich and an apple on an
airline style plastic tray containing a plastic beaker of weak tea.
He didn’t eat or drink as he sat on the side of a hard bed, holding
his face cupped in his hands.

He had asked
the officer for a pen and a piece of paper. He wanted to write a
letter of apology and regret to Jennifer. There was a long pause
before the familiar jangling of keys opened the cell door. The
officer threw four pieces of paper and a pencil on his bed. ‘If
you’re going to stab yourself with the fucking pencil, do me a
favour, and wait till my shift is over in ten minutes,’ he said,
leaving the cell and locking the door.

The case was
heard at Preston Crown Court ten days later. No jury were required,
due to his guilty plea. The spectator’s gallery was full with
newspaper reporters and the general public. A small group of
regular churchgoers from Fleetwood sat on the back row. Jennifer
didn’t attend.

The hearing
was quick. It took the judge five minutes to deliver his verdict
and on his summation he stated, ‘You were given the opportunity and
trust of entering back into society after a five-year spree of
crime. You have failed the authorities, your sister and yourself
with your latest killing of an innocent and respected pillar of
society. I consider you to be an extremely dangerous man who
plausibly gains trust from others. I am sending you to the only
place where you can be of no danger to the public. You will serve a
further sentence of twelve years without an appeal or parole. Take
him down.’ John Bell lowered his head as he was escorted from the
dock.

The next
morning, he was transported to Armley tight security prison in
Leeds.

At the end of
his two hour journey, he peered out of the small window of the
security van and saw the prison loom ahead. Snow had started to
fall on what appeared to be a medieval fortress of blackened stone
structures.