Inseparable Bond (6 page)

He had gone to
medical school at the request of his father, but failed many of the
stringent courses as Palmer was more intent on profit and
profligacy than medicine.

He stole from
his employer and took advantage of his trusted position to seduce
his employer’s patients, where he assisted a top surgeon in the
local hospital. Eventually the surgeon lost patience with his
troublesome assistant and enrolled him as a ward orderly at the
Stafford Infirmary.

Palmer quickly
found that this did not lesson his opportunities for sex and
stealing and he also grabbed the opportunity to indulge in a new
passion – poisons.

Many poisons
were reported missing from the dispensary and the authorities
barred him from the dispensary, but Palmer was not easily
rebuffed.

A male nurse
had been unwise enough to accept the offer of a drink at the local
bar with him, unaware that Palmer was having a relationship with
his wife. After only two glasses of whisky, the male nurse became
violently sick and died four hours later in his sleep. Although the
authorities were suspicious, nothing could be proved against Palmer
who was the last person to see him alive. He was subsequently
sacked from the hospital for theft.

Palmer went
about producing false medical papers and qualifications to the
Hampshire medical authorities and was soon set up in practice in
Bournemouth after purchasing a large house in the town centre from
the proceeds of his lucky gambling addiction.

With there
being a shortage of doctors in the town, the locals were eager to
put their lives in the new doctor’s hands. He married Marion Sykes,
a local woman who was illegitimate, her father had committed
suicide earlier that year and her mother had taken refuge in drink.
Both Marion and her mother had been left well provided for on his
death, with her mother living in a half a million pound house on
Canford Cliffs.

Marion had
been awarded a large amount of money and a regular allowance.
Marion’s mother was opposed to the marriage, but it went ahead
against her disapproval.

The couple
were very much in love but their happiness was clouded when their
children kept dying. Two were killed by mysterious convulsions when
they were only a few days old, and the third son being the only one
to survive.

Several of
Palmer’s friends and relations were not so lucky, he called to
visit his uncle Jack in nearby Southampton, he was a drunken
degenerate and Palmer invited him for a drink in his uncle’s local
pub.

His uncle died
a few days later, leaving him a comfortable amount of money on his
death.

Palmer invited
his mother-in-law to stay with his wife and the one son, yet
although she was an alcoholic, she still had enough of her wits
about her to detest her daughter’s husband. She was dead two days
after arriving at their house.

That nobody
found anything suspicious into the deaths of those around Palmer
was down to his fine performance as an actor. To the community he
was a respected, church-going man, charming, kind and generous. His
wife thought he was doing his best to save her mother when he gave
her medication and personally prepared her food.

He was clever
enough to allay suspicion by calling in a second opinion, a fellow
local doctor who, although an ageing 70-year-old, was prepared to
agree with the young doctor’s diagnosis. The death of his
mother-in-law was not as profitable as he had expected. Her
property was tied up and the little money left for her daughter was
a mere drop in the ocean compared to the amount of his mounting
gambling debts.

He owed
thousands of pounds to his best friend after a run of bad luck. He
invited him back to his house and after a convivial evening, he
took to his bed with a severe stomach pain.

His wife was
called and she remained by his side until he died two days
later.

Palmer’s wife
was becoming upset about the death of her mother, her children and
now his friend and all in the same house. Palmer’s finances were
now in a more hopeless state than ever.

With his debts
now out of control, he took out two life policies on his wife, as
he needed to gain money desperately, desperate enough to murder the
woman he loved.

Strangely the
insurance companies did not bother to ask how a doctor with a small
salary could afford to pay the large premiums required for the two
policies.

He managed to
tide himself over with more borrowing from friends, when as luck
would have it, his wife returned home from visiting friends with a
heavy cold and feeling unwell. She took to her bed and received
many phone calls from her relatives asking into her condition.
Palmers devoted care soon turned a minor ailment into a chronic
antimony poisoning.

On her death,
he took the precaution of getting further opinions from two other
doctors who were prepared to concur with Palmers diagnosis.

The insurance
companies were at first reluctant to settle the policies he had
taken out such a short time before and were suspicious at such a
sudden death in a seemingly healthy 27-year-old woman, but faced
with the verdict of two doctors of good repute, they decided not to
call for an inquest.

On the large
pay out, Palmer was able to clear his debts, shrugging off the
suspicions of the two insurance companies, but when he applied for
life insurance for his young son, their suspicions were alerted and
they investigated his application and the recent death of his
wife.

The police
were drawn into the investigation when a warrant was issued to
search Palmer’s house and exhume the bodies of his wife and his
recent visitor where an autopsy was performed. The results were
conclusive; they had all been poisoned with large doses of
insecticide. He was sentenced to life and John Bell was sentenced
to a shared cell with Raymond Palmer.

‘What’s it
like in this place then?’ Palmer asked.

‘Ninety per
cent boredom, ten per cent on a knife edge, the inmates run it,
pretty much, and if anything kicks off, there’s nothing the screws
can do apart from call for reinforcements, so they’re given a fair
bit of leeway,’ Bell replied.

‘I’d like to
get my hands on that bastard who shoved me in here,’ said Palmer,
‘he’s a cruel, hard-faced bastard who enjoys looking at guy’s
arses. It’s not my first time in the slammer but it’s the first
time a screw has touched my arse like that,’ Palmer said.

‘Which screw
was that then?’ asked Bell.

‘That big
bloke with the shaven head, Dickson, I think they called him.’ Bell
realised it was the same screw who had threatened him after he had
disturbed the young lad giving him a blowjob in the shower
block.

‘I know him.
He gets the young lads to go down on him when there’s nobody
around,’ said Bell.

‘Well if I get
chance, I’d like to see how he likes it,’ Palmer said, as his
rubbed his hands before grabbing his crotch.

Palmer threw
his bedding on the lower bunk and climbed onto it mumbling, ‘I’ll
get that bastard, you wait, the first time you’re on your own,
you’re a dead man,’ he muttered.

It was known
throughout the sex offenders wing that many of the inmates have
sexual problems, for people who have difficulties with social
relationships are likely to have difficulties with sexual
relationships and in this place there were many who will manifest
themselves through, shyness, exhibitionism, untruthfulness, and the
tendency to exploit others, yet this was never subjected to a
prison officer, or at least as far as Bell was aware, yet the
thought of this did excite his sadistic sexual appetite.

There were
many homosexuals on the wing, Bell being one of them, but in the
‘nick’ they are still known as ‘queers’, by now being an historic
term.

Although they
were still in the minority, they were looked upon as profoundly
different from the others and the first to be raped, particularly
if their crimes had been towards children.

Through the
unavailability of the opposite sex, there is a greater proportion
of homosexuality in the prison than in the average population on
the outside, plus the sex offenders and an unknown number of other
offenders who are also deviant and inadequate.

The other
wings in the prison offered home visits at weekends, where two
nights at home is long enough to re-establish a sexual relationship
in a natural atmosphere, but for Bell and many others in his high
security offender’s wing, nobody was ever given the privilege.

Most prisoners
would masturbate because there is little else to do but it still
leaves the sexual pathology and complex problems untouched where
there is a lack of affection and tenderness from a partner.

Rape is
commonplace and goes unreported due to the repercussions from other
inmates, resulting in further rapes. This normally happens late at
night in the cells or the shower block, like the incident Bell had
witnessed a few months earlier.

Palmer was
hanging over the corridor railings watching the arrival of a new
set of inmates, with his eyes firmly fixed on officer Dickson as he
unfastened the handcuffs of an old guy and pushed him along the
corridor. As he walked back into the cell he repeated his
intentions, ‘I’ll shag that bastard good and proper one day,’ he
said.

Palmer lay on
his bunk, staring out at the small barred window. Along the landing
we could hear spyglasses clicking as a member of the staff did
their hourly check.

The screw
arrived at our cell and slammed the door shut and locked it.

An hour or so
later the spyglass opened, then shortly afterwards the inspection
hatch below the spyglass opened. That was unusual, Palmer sat up,
and a hand appeared and tossed a folded piece of paper through the
hatch. Palmer rolled off his bunk and picked up the note, An eye
winked and the spyglass closed as he climbed back on to his bunk
and read the note, ‘Yes, got ya,’ he said, as he smiled at
Bell.

Someone
unknown to Bell had passed the note to him, but it clearly stated
that Dickson would be working alone as it was the weekend and
staffing was short.

The next
morning the cells were opened by Dickson and two other screws who
were to control the wing, normally it required a brigade of six so
only half of the inmates were allowed to shower at that time.

Bell and
Palmer walked to the shower block with their towels followed by
four other inmates, underworld friends of Palmer’s and probably his
partners in crime.

When they
entered the shower block, Dickson was walking along the row of
latrines when one of Palmer’s mates closed the door from the
landing and stood with his back to the door, holding it tightly
closed.

The other guys
approached Dickson and overpowered him in the struggle. They forced
him down on his stomach on the wet floor, encouraged by the
chanting of the other inmates.

As one inmate
held his mouth closed, two others removed his radio, keys and belt
and dragged his trousers and underpants to his ankles.

They lifted
his white shirt over his head to restrain his lashing arms, then
opened his legs as wide as they could, while Palmer dropped his
trousers to lubricate his throbbing erect penis with soap. He
climbed on top of Dickson and thrust his penis deep into his
rectum.

As Dickson
wriggled and moaned, the others chanted, ‘Fuck him, fuck the
bastard,’ as Palmer continued his deep powerful thrusts while his
two accomplices held open his legs while the other pressed his foot
firmly on the back of his neck.

On the final
thrust, Palmer groaned with delight and climbed off the limp body
of Dickson, the others turned him over to reveal the terrified
expression on the officer’s face as they urinated over his half
naked body.

He slowly
climbed to his feet and ran to the door stumbling as he fell down
due to his uniform trousers being around his ankles. As he entered
the door, the inmate moved away and Dickson fled pulling up his
pants as he left.

Palmer was
delighted and ran around the shower block screaming, ‘I got the
bastard, I got the bastard,’ followed by chants and back slapping
from the others.

Dickson never
reported the vicious and violent rape and he was never to be seen
again, it was rumoured that he had asked for an immediate transfer
after two weeks sick leave and was placed to control the young
offender’s wing.

Although
Palmer was a friendly soul as far as cellmates go, he was not to be
reckoned with and got immediate recognition from the others after
the attack on Dickson.

He was soon
instated as a wing Baron and got the many privileges associated
with his role. He would regularly receive visitations from the
younger inmates who would be forced to perform oral sex and
masturbation on him while Bell would lie on his bunk listening to
the groans from Palmer’s sexual delight. Often buggery would take
place, but only should the young guys be in agreement in the hope
of being rewarded with special privileges.

Almost all of
the inmates were promiscuous who constantly felt dissatisfied and
were full of inner loneliness, knowing they could not sustain a
lasting relationship in prison or in the outside world. Some
inmates are compelled to seek sexual expression through
exhibitionism or fetishism yet find themselves punished for their
perversions and often alienated from the rest of the inmates.

Although
homosexuality is widely available on the wing and often practised,
officially it is forbidden, yet inmates do turn a blind eye to long
term prisoners, particularly the Barons or team leaders who should
they be capable of having a homosexual relationship, normally with
a young inmate, are able to have it discreetly.