Lost Lad (23 page)

           
"That sounds nasty!"
said John.

           
"I've spoken to this chap about it.  There are no hard and fast rules.  They simply don't know.  Memory can return in weeks - or it can take many months.  There may be permanent loss concerning events just before and after the accident."

           
"So if we ever find him, he may not be able to tell us anything?"

           
"If we ever find him, John. 
If
we ever do find him."

But they never did find Brian Forrester. 

Not in any river, not in any wood, not in any copse, not in any field, nor in any pothole, nor any cave, nor in any mine, nor in any backstreet of any town or city.  A few weeks later the Army did lend a hand for several days when the search was widened - without result.  The case was reported in the local press together with the rather poor photographic image of Brian's face.  Even the Daily Mirror ran the story - all without result.  Jasper Wormall suffered a further surprise search as did Toby Piggs - without any result.  Within the limited resources available, Adolphus Coggan was watched for a short period.  The official report spoke of 'sailing close to the wind' but his 'rather dubious activities' had no known connection with minors and were within the law - just. 

Towards the Christmas of that year there was a sudden and explosive fracas in the steam room of the Derby Turkish Bath.  The cantankerous attendant ploughed into clouds of vapour to rescue Simon Tonks from outraged recriminations and an imminent violent attack.  It transpired he had been 'annoying' two macho construction workers.  All three bathers were told to leave and advised not to return.  As Simon was being escorted out of the building by the baths manager, one rough looking cleaner leaning on a mop nudged the other and was heard to say

           
"Yes!  'E stands need ta be a 'clairvoyant'.  Ya don't need ta be psychic ta know what that dirty bugger's bin up to."
  The other cleaner nodded sagely.  As ever, these occasional incidents did not effect his good service at Cressbrook Hall.

Simon was not in Derby that day solely to visit the baths.  After the style of 'the last throw of the dice', Detective Inspector Derek Russell had invited the little clairvoyant to carry out his own suggestion of touching Brian Forrester's bicycle.  This was arranged on the grounds that more information would be obtained from the witness if given the opportunity to 'show off'.  Simon was led into a room with five similar machines, all dull and dirty, a form of identity parade of cycles.  Russell and Winter looked on closely.  It was assumed that if the servant had previous knowledge of the machine, he would seek out the image of the mounted knight on the transfer, the only form of positive identification.  The two detectives watched Simon's simple little 'cartoon like' eyes very carefully indeed, as he minced up and down the line, gently touching the handlebars of each bike.  He went down and up and then down again - stopping in front of the last bicycle in the line, but one, the very same bicycle which Jasper Wormall had tried to hide outside the Herbert Strutt Belper Baths some five months before.  Simon did not appear to notice the transfer, but, with one hand he gripped a handlebar and the battered worn old saddle with the other hand.  In front of the two detectives, taking the part of an audience, wearing expressions of supreme scepticism, Simon closed his eyes, began to swoon and began to moan.  Finally he spoke in his 'other worldly' voice

           
"Safe ... well ... 'appy ... leave me alone ... leave me be ... am a long way off ... leave me be ... let me be ..."

Ten minutes later Russell and Winter were sipping tea in the police canteen.

           
"Well I'll be damned .. "
said Winter
  " .. if he so much as glanced at that transfer.  I watched him like a hawk!"

           
"And he knew you
would
be watching him like a hawk, John.  Remember what I told you about the skills of the conjurer.  His eyes were sweeping.  The smallest fraction of a second is all it takes.  He took three trips along that line - of course he saw the mounted knight."

           
"Is that it then!  If he's seen that bike before he must be
implicated.  We can lean on him.  You shouldn't have let him go."

           
"Would that it were it as simple as that!"
sighed the senior officer.
  "No.  I've mucked it up.  Stupid having five bikes; should've been at least ten.  Simon's got a fair chance of getting lucky - he knows that.  There are other possibilities.  We've never gone public on the transfer business, but a number of our lot know about it.  Simon's often in 'the nick', he could have overheard something, or been told something.  He's an expert lip reader."

           
"What should we make of Brian being a long way off, happy and wanting to be left alone?"
asked Winter.

           
"God knows!  Classic Simon Tonks is that.  Loves to tease, loves to pose a conundrum.  Just like the old mysteries of the oracle.  Just like in the Calder days." 

Derek Russell became thoughtful and peered into the bottom of his empty mug.

           
"You know, John, that bit about being content and 'wanting to be left alone' - that puts me in mind of Guzzly
Granddad's street boys ...  Simon likes to talk, he likes to feel important.  If he knows anything at all, eventually he'll talk.  Our best friend now is time.  Time rolls by and we keep our ears open.  We wait, John.  That's all we can do - wait."
        

And the years did roll by and they waited - in vain.  Life went on. Charles Hardman, carefully guarded by his possessive father, was educated at Cressbrook Hall by selected private tutors until 1966 when he entered Oxford University to read history.  In 1973 he had already acquired a reputation for studious and respected research into the local history, folklore and mysteries of Derbyshire.  His first book - 'Cryptic and Curious Corners of Derbyshire', was published the following year.  Several similar volumes followed.  His writing was distinguished by painstaking accurate documentation and welcomed by sceptics due to a willingness to explore all possible rational explanations for unexplained phenomena.

            In 1976 he married Helen, an upper class 'county' girl who shared his interest in the occult and encouraged his work.  It was a good marriage producing abundant happiness and two charming girls.  The family (which included Simon) were devastated by the death of Algernon Hardman in 1983.  The 1960 tragedy had brought Charles and his father very close. 

And more years went by.  The old century made way for the new century.  In Cressbrook Hall, little mention was ever made about 'the unsolved mystery of the lost lad'.  Indeed, more than four decades on, two new generations had been born who had never heard the tale of the missing cyclist. 

Brian Forrester had been completely forgotten by the general public ... until, that is, the end of April in the year 2003 ...   

Chapter 20

A Writhing Tangle of Lubricated Bodies

Fast forward to 2003 and we will find Simeon Hogg putting away his Ordnance Survey map of Derbyshire.  He walked over to his Derbyshire Life and Countryside calendar which was hanging in the kitchen.  Underneath a sparkling spring view of Dovedale, he looked at today, which was Thursday, April 17th which unexpectedly and joyfully had been his last day at school.  He looked at the remaining days of April which was just about a week and a half.  He made himself a promise.  He would get out of the United States before the end of April and he would see the coming of May in Derbyshire.  He would, for the very first time, visit the Lea Rhododendron Gardens which were always closed by the time he reached Britain in late July.  For the very first time in 43 years he would see the bluebells alongside the Cromford Canal. 

            For the umpteenth time he cast his mind back over the path of his life and bitterly regretted that, when it came to the crunch, he had always put financial security before quality of life.

Gary!  He must tell Gary.  Fortunately, having worked the early shift for the taxi company, Gary Mackenzie was home.  The excited phone call pouring out excited plans mainly consisted of Gary urging caution and making common-sense objections to what he considered to be precipitate and ill thought out actions. 

           
"To sell your house you really should be here to check it out.  Don't just leave it to the real estate guy.  What about your car?  Furniture?  Hold on, don't move - I'm coming over - now!"
          

The big surprise for Gary Mackenzie was Simeon's sudden release from his hated high school.  All of his friends knew that it was an obsession to return home to England, to bury himself in the wilds of the Peak District, to get as far away from Metropolitan Detroit as possible.  But suddenly, it had finally happened, the big move was at hand.  Thirty minutes later, two old friends sat facing each other.

Old friends.  An odd friendship which had survived for 35 years.  Simeon Hogg first met Gary Mackenzie at one of Finkle Joe's regular Saturday night parties in 1968.  Gary was 20, Simeon, who had just started teaching, was 23.  Finkle Joe was so called because he lived on Finkle Street on Detroit's east side.  He was choosy.  Guests had to be young (teenagers only) and desirable - that is, desirable to Joe.  Simeon scraped by on the age qualification as he could just about get away with 19.  In truth, if birth certificates had to be produced, very few in Joe's house would turn out to be genuine teenagers.  In those days youth was all and mendacity was the name of the game.  Thirty was dreaded and 40 was viewed as a form of living death. 

            Gary was too thin and too tall with a gangling body to pass the beauty qualification.  Worse, his less than ideal body suffered the eruptions and past scars of acne, however, an invitation was handed to him in the Woodward Bar one night because Finkle Joe thought that Gary, in the half light, looked rather like Troy Donahue. 

            The parties, which consisted of between ten to fifteen youngsters, were, in fact, sex orgies.  The action was preceded by the assembled guests sitting before a large TV screen watching Star Trek, a new series.  A popular theme in the weekly audience was an animated discussion, speculating on how well blessed was the inscrutable Mr Spock.  For the rest of his life, Simeon Hogg associated Star Trek as a prelude to sex. 

            During one slightly boring moment when Dr McCoy was trying to treat an injured alien (of uncertain gender) whose body was made up of living stone
('It's life, Jim, but not as we know it')
, Simeon's wandering eyes (together with a few other wandering eyes - not least Finkle Joe himself) came to rest upon the striking blond newcomer called Gary.  'Definitely a candidate for the first room', considered Simeon.  The 'first room' was the more respectable venue for the orgy which always started at the sound of the familiar closing Star Trek theme.  In this dimly lit area, the guests paired off and generally remained 'faithful' - well, for that evening at least.  In contrast the second room, pitch black, was a 'free for all', a writhing tangle of bodies well lubricated by much spilt semen, emitting an ongoing murmuring of deep ecstatic moans and groans. 

In that predatory world of quick conquests, the delicate flower of lust quickly withers when touched by the frost of familiarity.  Two hours later, two new friends, now firmly and forevermore platonic friends, were sitting facing each other inside a small cheap White Tower hamburger joint somewhere in Downtown Detroit.  The hard bright fluorescent lighting bounced around the tacky shiny stainless steel surfaces and finally onto the faces of Gary Mackenzie and Simeon Hogg, the only white, extra bright, white faces in the joint.  Such cruel light did not improve those faces already ravaged by an evening of over-indulgence and wanton excess.  Simeon was biting into his small 12 cent hamburger when Gary asked yet another enthusiastic question about England.  This was good because Simeon, who preferred older company anyway, was rather bored with his callow companion.  The centre of Detroit, an alien collection of skyscrapers, was the most un-English place in the world.  In such a place, competing with raucous incomprehensible Negro chatter, to hold forth on the subject of Georgian buildings in Buxton was, to the chronically homesick young teacher - sheer heaven.  With tomato ketchup trickling down his chin, Simeon Hogg, cheering all things British, sneered out at an ugly tangled harsh environment.  He waxed polemical, denouncing the brash commercialism and global domination of the United States.  He excoriated the abysmal quality of American television, boasting that he did not own a set and heaped praise on the superior standards of the BBC.