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SIMON UNDER SUSPICION OR RICKY FINDS A FAMILY It was one hell of a week. No mistake about that. In telling you about it my only problem is where to start. It’s all about Angie- or as I thought of her in the very beginning, “that girl”. Anything will do, to start a train of thought. A dead frog, a barking dog, a friend’s face at a window – and you’re off “down Memory Lane” as oldies so often call it. In my case, it was an empty beer can wedged in the fork of a tree, by the bus stop. It’s still there, rusting now, but so long as it remains, it’ll always remind me of the day that the girl spoke to me. And of everything that followed. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her. I’d been riding that bus-route for about a month. On project work we were allowed to use the City library and I’d been going there most afternoons, returning about half-four. There was usually a bunch of girls on the bus, it being going-home time, and they all wore the same light-blue blazer, white blouse, stripy tie and black trousers of the South Sussex High School – the only single-sex girls’ school remaining in the district. As a general rule I ignored girls. They recognised me for what I was- and ignored me. Melanie was the only female in my life. But in this particular bunch, one girl stood out from the rest. Not Page Three material – definitely not, although she had nicely-shaped boobs hidden by her school blouse. She was small and dark, with a heart-shaped face, rather old-fashioned. Somehow I felt that, underneath all that, she was – I don’t know how to put it. Sort of restless, like a kettle coming to the boil. The bus reached the old familiar stop. The girls piled off and stood for a moment chatting. I got off too and made towards school – a quarter-mile walk. I heard quick footsteps behind me. Turning, I saw the small dark girl. “Mind if I walk along with you?” she asked. “Be my guest” I replied – my usual response in situations like this. “I’ve often seen you on that bus” she countered. “My name’s Angela. Angie for short. What’s yours?” “I’m called Simon” I replied. “And I don’t shorten it to anything”. (I’ve heard several abbreviations but all are ridiculous – take “Si” for instance. Well, perhaps not!) I didn’t know how to go on from there. We’d walked on for a bit by now and in a short while we should have reached the School back gates and I’d have to leave her. And how to do that? Angie had other ideas. “If we go in here” she said “we can have a chat. Nicer than doing it on a mobile?” Now, “here” was a pair of broken rusty gates. They led to an abandoned lawn-tennis club that had folded some years before. It was a squalid place, with tufts of grass and shrubs growing up through the cracked surface of the courts, and here and there the remains of a sagging net. The club-house still stood, derelict and empty. I’d only once ventured inside. Once was enough. You could smell, before you saw them, piles of shit – human variety, ornamented with bits of torn-up newspaper. There was no shortage of used condoms either. Both, without doubt – the turds and the used rubbers – were the leavings of teenagers from the city day-schools. But what sort of girls they were, to allow themselves be brought here and shagged in these disgusting conditions, I hated to think. “I’m not going in there” I said, gesturing towards the club house. “It’s filthy. Like a shit-house, only worse”. “I know” she replied. “But the locker-room’s OK. That’s round the back. I know – I found it”. She was right. At first you would not have found the locker room door which was hidden by overgrown bushes. But inside, the place was relatively clean, apart from peeling paint and a bit of fallen plaster. “Well, this is very nice!” Angie commented. She put her hands on my shoulders, holding me there at arms’ length. For an instant I thought she was going to kiss me. For a moment or two she made no move. Then, “Are you one of those boys” she asked, “who have an operation done on them, so that they can’t ever - you know, go the whole way with a girl? I know how it’s done. My best friend’s kid brother was done on his tenth birthday. He had an injection into his balls which made them dry up. And now he’s forever showing off that he has no balls. He thinks it’s really cool”. Silly little boy, I thought, but didn’t say. Instead I nodded. “It takes some boys that way,” I murmured, my thoughts wandering off to last year, and a strange American boy, Jason Johnson, who’d been at the school then. His operation, which he always called “getting his balls stung out” had fairly stood his sex life on its head………The girl’s voice brought me down to earth again. “Have you had it done, that operation? No point in denying it. She’d guessed anyway. I nodded. “Yes, I had it done when I was twelve”. (Actually eleven years and seven months). “Thought so” replied the girl. “Your face is so nice and smooth-looking. And your voice is so high.” (Of all the eunuch things it was my high voice that bothered me most – that is, after the most obvious one of being unable to fuck girls). I didn’t respond to that, so she went on. “That’s good! Because I haven’t lost my cherry yet, and I don’t want to get pregnant”. She slipped one hand into mine, confidentially. “And you can’t make me pregnant”. (No, no chance, I thought ruefully). I didn’t say anything. The girl came out with another little gem. “You must have a lovely bum. Nice and smooth”. She squeezed my hand on the last word, which she dragged out into smooo-ooo-th. “You must have very beautiful thighs” I returned. “I should love to stroke them. And (greatly daring) maybe kiss them”. She blushed slightly. “I say, you are horny, aren’t you! Why did you have it done, your operation?” She didn’t sound inquisitive, just curious. “You must have been upset afterwards, a good-looking sexy boy like you, not able to do it anymore”. “I’d started to be too much of a nuisance with girls” I replied, and tried to laugh it off. I gave her an edited account of that long-ago session with my cousin Sue, showing off my schoolboy erection. Sue’s “You’re growing up fast and no mistake” –sarcastic, since I was very immature “down there”. Her invitation to “put it between my bum-cheeks, but only outside my pants and only the back way”. How I had taken her up on that, desperate to find a loose seam or flaw in the flimsy material, to somehow put my two inches of throbbing schoolboy cock inside her. To be able to go back to school and say how I’d fucked a girl…… “Rampant, eh?” Angie said. “Can’t say I’m surprised at you, though, getting a come-on from a girl like that”. She was silent for a bit. Then, out of the blue, “Do you want to see my fanny?” It wasn’t a question. She wanted to show me her fanny. But I said “Yes” all the same. Without another word Angie dropped her black trousers and hung them on a peg. Underneath, she wore no thong, but little white briefs, cut very low. I’d been right about one thing. She did have beautiful thighs. Kneeling on the floor I pressed my face against her and kissed the warm flesh, over and over. Then I kissed her again, where the thin material concealed her love-lips. She smelled of hot sex and the deodorant that all girls sprayed between their thighs.…….. “Little white pants,” I murmured. “When I’ve lost my cherry I shall wear black ones,” said Angie. (I had a momentary vision of her lying on some bed, legs wide open, while some 16-year-old hunk rolled a Durex on to his six-inch prick, to be able to empty his balls inside her safely, and make her a woman. I wondered if she’d have the black briefs ready in her school satchel, to put on afterwards). “Wait, while I pull them off” she said, pulling the flimsy things down her legs, and stepping out of them. “It’s very nice” I said. To be exact the sight would have had any intact boy foaming at the mouth. She had a nicely-shaped pussy with just a smudge of pubic hair. She opened her legs. Her fanny-lips were wide open and wet. “You can put two fingers in me if you like” she invited. I wanted to, but suddenly this all seemed wrong. “I don’t think we ought to do any more” I muttered. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Can’t you go on? Poor Simon! Tell me about it”. She gently kissed my face. “Because if I go on, I might make you want me – to do – to do - what I can’t” I stammered. (And I was embarrassed at the thought of showing her all I had inside my under-shorts – an inert stub of flesh wagging between my legs, as impotent as any riding-school pony’s, though only inches from a girl’s love-hole. She might giggle at the sight, and I couldn’t face that). She ruffled my hair. “You are a funny boy!” she laughed. “And you’re one of the nicest, kindest boys I’ve ever met. If your balls were still in, you should be the first to do it with me – shove it right up and break me in. But you’re right. I might get carried away”. She reached for her things and began to get dressed. “Actually” she said, as she pulled her knickers up, “I’m pleased you walked along with me, because I believe I’ve been being followed, these last few days”. “Followed?” I repeated, weakly. “Followed by whom?” “I’m not quite sure. But when I’ve been getting the bus, in the bus station, there’s been someone watching from across the street. An old guy. And once I thought I saw him near here- near your school. Just standing, watching. Of course I could be wrong”. She fastened the zip at the top of her pants. “There, respectable again!” Together we walked back to the street. Angie gave me a quick peck on my cheek. “’Bye then, nice Simon! See you soon, I hope”. She turned and walked away. I was to see her again, in exactly a week, in exactly the same spot. But only my worst nightmares would have warned me how different that meeting would be, or how horrible the circumstances. When I returned to school that afternoon it was to face the second upset of that week. It was caused by a silly little second-year called Paddy Wright, who I caught peeing in the showers. Paddy had light-brown hair and blue eyes, the sort of boy that girls immediately fall for. But for Paddy, girls had been taken permanently off the agenda, with two pricks of a hypodermic. Paddy lived with an aunt who decided he was getting “too, too interested in the opposite sex” – after one of his girl-friends had made him a present of her knickers. There was no doubt that she had shown him what she had underneath them, and that he’d shown her his two inches of twitching flesh. Perhaps they’d gone further. His aunt was taking no chances and decided to put a stop to any more pre-teen romances. Paddy had a day off school, to go and have his balls pricked. His aunt took him to a West London clinic, where boys were being neutered on a production line basis. Into the surgery, pants off, up on the table, prick, prick, pants on, finish. So many, according to him, you would have thought that balls were going out of fashion. Paddy returned to school, no longer a wannabe Romeo, but a boy-eunuch. (Hearing of this, his girlfriend lost interest). I ought to explain, perhaps, that in the four years since I was “done”, many foster-parents and even a few birth parents had weighed up the advantages – to themselves – of getting their boys neutered. A boy-eunuch would be more attentive in class, better behaved at home, and he wouldn’t pester the girls. It seemed to me, these days, that it was an even chance whether a boy kept his balls much past his twelfth birthday. But I’m digressing as usual. Paddy Wright’s operation was totally effective: his pouch had completely disappeared already and he had one of the smallest penises in his year. Another example of a boy who found it “real cool”, he was fond of showing off his reduced genitals, and all the other second-years envied his ability to use his penis in the shower like a water-pistol. He used to squeeze it hard and let it go with a rush. Already there were yellow drops running down the wall where he’d been trying to hit the fifth row of tiles. Peeing in the shower was very strictly forbidden, so I had to report him. This upset me. I hated having to report anyone. The third incident of that week had – I thought at the time – no connection with my encounter with Angie. I couldn’t have begun to imagine what connection there might possibly be. It happened like this. The bus station, in the city centre, was in two parts. The connection was through a narrow side street where I hardly ever ventured. In the side street there were just two establishments. One, a run-down wine merchant with dirty windows and faded, unattractive displays of cans and bottles. The other was a blank, black door, on which a board showed the words “South Sussex Regimental Association” and a phone number. It seemed to be permanently locked. Today it was different. On the doorstep stood a stout, bald man dressed in a navy blue blazer and grey flannels. He was shouting, needlessly loudly I felt, at what appeared to be a scarecrow. “You can’t come in!” he shouted. “You’ve no right, and you’re not wanted”. “I gotter come in” replied the pathetic ragged man replied. “And I ‘ave got the right, so I ‘ave! More than most, I ‘ave the right!”. Something in the sound of his voice rang a distant bell. Where and when had I heard it before? Suddenly it clicked. “Bolsover!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. (It was supposed to be a stentorian bellow but in fact sounded more than usually high and piercing, one of those eunuch things I had to live with.). Just at that moment another figure appeared on the doorstep – a woman- and by a sheer fluke I knew who she was. She raised a hand, as though shading her eyes to look at a distant warship “Why!” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you Simon Scott, Melanie Hamilton’s friend?” “Hello, Mrs Briggs” I said. Commandant Mrs Briggs was a relative of Melanie’s mother (the Hon. Selena Scott-Hamilton) and therefore one of mine also. In fact, it was probably a good thing that I couldn’t father children – with the size of my extended genealogy to date in the Scott line, I’d have had to have gone to Russia to find a girl that I wasn’t related to! Mrs Briggs headed the local Red Cross and many other things. I’d met her several times and found her sympathetic, as she was now. But we were interrupted at this point by the fat man, who demanded “Oo are you?” I didn’t reply direct, but asked Mrs Briggs “Won’t you introduce us?” “Major Boxall” said the fat man. “Oh, come, come!” said Mrs Briggs. “We both know that’s not right”. “Sergeant-major Boxall” said the fat man, shamefacedly. I now did the unforgivable thing. I always carried in my inside pocket, like a talisman, the military ID card that I’d been given, a few months before (you can read “Simon in the Orient” for details). The expiry date was long past. But the mug-shot was undeniably mine, and against “Rank”, the card showed “Second Lieutenant”. This I showed to Mrs Briggs, with my thumb over the expiry date, who studied it and passed it to the fat man. I saw him stiffen, as ingrained military discipline took over. (He had this thumb over the date, too). “Sorry, sir, I’m sure” he mumbled. “I never thought……” Commandant Mrs Briggs ignored him. “Simon, would I be right” she cut in “in saying that you can identify this old soldier?” (Bless you, Mrs Briggs, I thought, for saying “old soldier” when you might have said “person” or “old man”.) Then the bundle of rags spoke. “Mister Scott!” It said. “Gawd bless yer!” This was my cue, and if we were all bandying phoney ranks around, two chevrons more or less would make no difference. “Corporal Bolsover” I began, “Corporal Bolsover fought in the Second World War with Fourteenth Army. Later he served in 29 Commonwealth Brigade and with other units under the command of Far East Land Forces. After being discharged on age grounds, Corporal Bolsover chose to remain in south-east Asia as a civilian employee. In that capacity he acted as my servant on my recent secondment a few months ago”. I let this sink in, and then went on, “I’m sorry that I’m not permitted to say what I was doing in that part of the world. If you need confirmation of my secondment you should apply to General Frobisher, the Director of Military Intelligence”. (And that should be enough for anyone, I thought). Mrs Briggs might have thought “Pompous little twit!” I deserved it, but she didn’t say so. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary” she replied. “Mr Boxall, will you please take Corporal Bolsover inside, find him a bed-space, then go to the stores and get him a change of clothes – a combat jacket and trousers for preference, new socks………..oh- and a pair of boots and a beret. I’m sure the Corporal has his own cap badge”. “So I ‘ave, Mum” said the old man. “So I ‘ave, indeed”. From somewhere within his rags he produced a cap badge, unmistakably South Sussex Regiment, although all but the outline had been polished away over the years. “Come along then, my man” said Boxall (I could have cheerfully kicked him for “my man”, but too late, the door closed, leaving me alone with Mrs Briggs. “We’ve not been seeing much of you these last few weeks” said Mrs Briggs. “I saw Melanie at her mother’s house only last week, and she had no news of you. Can I give her any message?” I muttered something about being tied up with school project work, then “Please give Melanie my love and say I’ll see her this coming weekend”. “I’ll do, that, certainly” Mrs Briggs promised. “Have you time for a coffee, and perhaps a fruit pie or something?” I said I had. She was a lovely, generous woman and never embarrassed me by making pointed remarks. Accordingly Saturday afternoon, when I should have been practising for the 400 metres hurdles, found me doing a different kind of athletics at the Lymington Haven house, in the room where I’d slept when I first came to stay with the Knight-Foxes, all that time ago. Mrs Hodges, the housekeeper, still kept the bed made up and the room aired, in case of need. The room was being well-and-truly used at that moment, by Melanie and me. Our clothes were all over the floor. The white thong was mine, the black one hers. My head was clamped between Melanie’s thighs and I was giving it to her, hard, with my mouth (she rarely wanted to bother with games or sex toys these days). My arms reached up so that I could gently pinch her nipples while the tip of my tongue flicked her clitty. Her fingers ruffled my hair. She began doing wonderful things with her legs and her tummy muscles tautened into a ridge. “Oh, that’s so good! she moaned. “Oh, oh, oh!” She climaxed, and I got a good dose of her love-juices as she came. A short while later we lay side by side on the bed. At first we just held hands, then Melanie began fondling my cock between her fingertips. It did very little for me beyond making me want to pee, but I let her do it all the same. “What have you been doing with yourself all this time?” she asked after a bit. “I’ve not seen you for ages”. “To tell the truth, not a lot” I said. “We’re practising for the school sports and I’m doing a history project about the Wars of the Roses. Apart from that, nothing. I only wish there was more”. We chatted on for a bit, but I had to be back at school for the 6.30 callover, so all too soon we had to get dressed and part. Melanie gave me a wonderful goodbye kiss at the bus stop – a real tongue-sandwich. I was very, very fond of Melanie and my only fear was that one day she’d find my kind of loving insufficient. Two hours later I was walking up the school drive again. As I passed the music room, I heard a familiar sound: “How beautiful they are, the lordly ones “Who dwell in the hills, in the Harlow hills” The liquid notes floated across the garden. Now “The Immortal Hour” was Roddy’s new party piece, but he wasn’t singing alone. There was a second voice, less rounded, more acid, and that was Ricky. He was coming on well. Thousands of years ago, someone discovered that if a young boy was deprived of those two blobs of gristle between his legs, he would not only be incapable of having sex, but would sing like an angel. Ricky had only been “cut” six months ago, surgically I’d guessed, while Roddy got his balls pricked two years earlier. There was plenty of time for Ricky. Besides the singers, there was a rather plodding piano accompaniment, and I recognised the touch: that of my good friend James Brotherton. These days he liked to use his middle name: Harry. I think it had something to do with the title character in some silly children’s fantasy novels, but no matter. Yes, he was still with us, and since he was intact and there were no suggestions that he should ever be anything else, you may want to know why. Harry had a lovely personality, but he was saddled with all those things that make a boy unattractive, and it preyed on his mind. A bad skin, poor eyesight, round black NHS spectacles, thick lips, protruding teeth. Faced a few months earlier with the prospect of being moved to the Upper School, where the “hearties” would have massacred him, he’d had a nervous collapse. Dr Holroyd listened to Harry, and very humanely and sensibly decided to leave him among the eunuchs. “Their limbs are more white than shafts of moonshine, “They are more swift than the March wind, “They laugh, and are glad, and are terrible”. In the music room, the two castrati sang on, while a third – myself - walked on towards the main building. The week stretched ahead, featureless. If only something would happen! That wish was about to be granted with a vengeance. They say “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” I should have been more careful. The weekly routine changed, next morning, with the news that the public library’s computer was “down”, and they had no idea when service would be restored. All the stuff I wanted for my project was on their server, so that was that, for the next three or four days. I played around with the idea of asking for time off to visit battlefields, but on discovering that the site of the battle of Barnet (1471) was now a container-base, I gave that idea up. It wasn’t till Friday that the public library’s computer came back on stream. This proved to be very important in the immediate future. It was that afternoon that I got the 4.30 bus back to school as I’d done so many times before. The first thing I noticed was that Angie wasn’t on it. I didn’t know any of her schoolmates to speak to, so I said nothing. But getting off the bus at the usual place, something – I don’t know what – impelled me through the gates of the derelict tennis club, and round to the locker-room door. It was the smell that warned me, before I even saw Angie – Angie’s body, rather. Before I even saw her face, a livid grey colour, or her eyes, that stared emptily up at the paint-flaked ceiling, there was that unmistakable smell. I’d learned this much from my few days with the troops in Malaysia, that immediately after sudden death, the muscles of the bladder and rectum relax. Angie lay in a pool of her own body wastes, pitiful and disgusting in death. Not so many months ago I’d have rushed out screaming. But once again those Malaysia days came to the rescue. I stood where I was and made a mental photograph of what I saw. Angie’s dishevelled hair. The dark marks on her neck. Her torn blouse. Her black trousers, inside-out and thrown into a corner of the room. Her legs, splayed open, bruises on her thighs. I’d no doubt how she had died. When I’d registered every detail (wish I’d had Melanie’s digital with me) I went outside and took several lungfuls of fresh air. Even then the stench seemed to linger in my nostrils. Then I took out my mobile and rang Mr Trefusis. Moments later I saw his red Honda Civic draw in to the side of the road opposite. John Trefusis had never, ever, been fazed by anything I said or did. Even now, all he said was “Well, Scott, what’s this, that you want to show me?” In the charnel house that was once a locker room, his face wrinkled up at the horrible stench, but he made no comment till we were once again outside. “Well now” he said, in a rather judicious way. “It’s obviously a police matter so let’s ring them at once”. He did so, asking in a very knowledgeable way for the Information Room. “Now” he continued “in the very few minutes that we have, before they get here, let’s decide where we are. Did you know her? The truth, mind”. “I met her once” I said “last week, on the bus. She said her name was Angie. She showed me the locker room. It was her hide-out. We chatted for a bit”. “Just chatted?” “Yes”. I didn’t see any reason for saying more, and Mr Trefusis knew better anyway. What we’d done, or not done, was our secret, locked in the past by Angie’s death. “What did you talk about?” “She thought someone had been stalking her. It had been going on for some time. An old guy, she said”. “And why did you go back to the locker room today?” “She wasn’t on the bus. I just thought she might be there – I don’t know why, I just did”. “Okay, we’ll leave it like that for the present. Now, where do I fit in? Let’s say, you were distressed by what you found, you wanted advice from an adult, you naturally thought of me, since I’m your house-tutor, and I just happened to be in the town and not far away. That last bit is literally true; I’d been doing a bit of shopping.” That was all we had time for. A police car came to a noisy halt by the broken gates and two uniformed PCs got out. Ignoring us, they took turns to look inside the locker room. One of them spoke to someone else on his 2-way radio. Then both of them took out pocketbooks. I gave my name and confirmed that I’d found the body. Mr Trefusis gave his, and the PCs scribbled busily away. One of them went to the car, and returned with a roll of blue-and-white tape to cordon off the area. All this time the radio in the car was pumping out messages in a rapid unintelligible gabble, punctuated with “Over”. Then, to my surprise and Mr Trefusis’ evident relief, we were both allowed to go. “They know where to find us” said Mr Trefusis as he packed me into the Honda. “Now we’ll go and see the boss, and fill him in. Because I guess the law will then drop on us from a great height”. Dr Holroyd saw us immediately, busy though he was. I told him exactly what we’d agreed, Mr Trefusis and I. Dr Holroyd listened, without interrupting. “And that’s all, Scott?” he asked, when I’d finished. “You did say you knew this girl?” “Not to say ‘know’, sir” I replied. “I’d seen her before, several times, on the bus. But the first time I spoke to her was about a week ago”. “Try and remember which day” said Dr Holroyd gently. “It could be important”. “The Law” as Mr Trefusis had called it, arrived within the hour. It arrived in the person of Detective Inspector Lysaght, with a detective-constable whose name we never knew, and a uniformed WPC, also anonymous. DI Lysaght was a beefy young man with very short gingerish hair. He looked young for his rank. Ignoring Dr Holroyd’s outstretched hand, he took the remaining armchair, while the other two officers found themselves somewhere to sit at the back of the room. “Right, let’s get started, then” said the DI, in a strong Cardiff accent. “Are you the ‘Ead?” “I’m the Principal, yes” replied the Doctor. “My name’s Holroyd”. The DI grunted. “Single-sex school, this, is it” – glaring belligerently at each of us in turn. “That is correct” said Dr Holroyd. “Boys only, eleven to eighteen”. “There’s posh for you” returned the DI. “Local compre’ensive, me. Right then, let’s stop wastin’ time. We’ll start with yew”. (‘Yew’ was Mr Trefusis.) Before DI Lysaght could say anything further, there came a knock at the door. I never admired Dr Holroyd as much as I did just then, for this bit of stage-management. The door was opened by a stocky individual wearing a black jacket, striped trousers, a wing collar but no tie. He carried a black legal gown over one arm and a small briefcase in the other hand. “Come in, Alastair!” Dr Holroyd greeted the newcomer. “Glad you could make it at such short notice. Inspector, you may not know Alastair Grant, QC, a member of the criminal Bar. I felt we would be glad of his advice, don’t you agree?” The inspector said nothing, but looked unhappy. I had a suspicion he might have encountered the QC before and come off worst. “As I see it” said Grant, taking charge, “this gathering is in no sense an interview. It’s a fact-finding session. One pupil of this school” (indicating me) and one member of staff (indicating John Trefusis) found themselves at the crime scene. We should now establish what they can contribute, that would shed light on this affair. Isn’t that so?” What happened next, is best described in terms of Rugby Union. Imagine a midfielder, the ball under his arm, his eye on the opposing team’s goal line. Unaccountably, straight down the field he goes, hell-for-leather, no dodging, no sidestepping – headlong into the opponents’ massed forwards. DI Lysaght did this very thing. I guess his guiding principle was “Get a result – the method doesn’t matter much”. “As I see it” he countered “this meetin’ is a cover-up. Yew,” – he jerked a thumb at me “knew the murder victim well. Yew lured her to the spot and asked for sex. When she refused yew raped ‘er. Only things went too far, didn’t they – yew roughed ‘er up and she died. “Now yew” he went on, this time pointing at John Trefusis “went to the crime scene to arrange an alibi for our friend yere. And all the rest of yew in this posh school have been busy watchin’ each others’ backs. Isn’t that the size of it?” He glared round defiantly. Poor DI Lysaght. His charge at goal met with a solid wall of silence. No one spoke. I kept quiet because I was, frankly, gobsmacked; the Headmaster and John Trefusis because they were outraged, Grant because of his years of experience in criminal trials. However, he was the first to say anything – and that after several minutes had ticked by. “Proof of guilt in a crime like this” he said “is going to rest very largely – if not entirely – on forensic evidence. The guilty person will bear traces of his crime. I’m sure I needn’t elaborate. Wouldn’t you agree, Inspector?” DI Lysaght grunted “S’pose so”. “Well, then. You have – I won’t say made an accusation, still less stated a charge – let’s say put forward an hypothesis – that Simon Scott is directly involved. To move things forward I propose that Simon undergoes immediate examination by a police surgeon”. I went hot and cold all over, but Dr Holroyd was smiling. “An excellent notion” he said. “I would add that time is of the essence. If you see any problem, Inspector, would you please say? I do happen to be a lay member of the County Police Authority and I know the Chief Constable personally”. The wretched Lysaght saw no objection. He couldn’t. His unbelievably clumsy tactic of scaring me into a confession having failed, he could only go along with the procedure he should have followed in the first place. Think of the Rugby player face-down in the mud. He called up Police HQ. Dr Macfarlane was on the premises and would make himself available immediately. And so it was that a major part of the Lower School saw Yours Truly get into a yellow-and-blue checked police car and be driven out through the school gates. Lysaght drove. I sat between the young plain clothes man and the WPC. Later on, I’d find out that my friends weren’t surprised at all. They’d grown used to extraordinary happenings with me at the epicentre. At the police station I was shepherded through a side door, along a white-tiled corridor and into a small examination room. “Yere ‘e is” said Lysaght to the occupant, an elderly doctor. “I’ll leave ‘im to yew”. All three officers disappeared. Dr Macfarlane was a very nice, very slow old Scot. He made it obvious that he wasn’t going to be stampeded into saying or doing anything he didn’t believe in 100%. “Now, laddie” he began. “There’s just a few wee tests. Don’t worry ‘bout anything”. He opened a pad of report forms. He took a sample of my blood, from my elbow joint. He took swabs from my mouth and nose. He took particular interest in my hands, comparing them with some printed diagrams he had. With each test he made notes on a new page. When he’d finished examining my hands I thought we were through but we weren’t. “One last thing, sonny” said Dr Macfarlane. “Just slip off your shorts”. I did as he said. The Doctor headed up a new page, then looked up, and froze. I don’t know if the old Doc had ever neutered boys in general practice. But he knew what neutered boys looked like. He gave my anatomy a long, long look. Evidently it told him all he needed to know. He ripped that last leaf from the pad and tore it to tiny pieces. Without a word he picked up the pad and went out. In the distance I heard a door open and close. Minutes crawled by. I heard a door open and close again. Footsteps came along the passage. Then the door of the room was opened – by another WPC, one I’d not seen before. “Simon Scott?” she asked, ignoring the fact that I was nude from the waist down. (The usual expression is bollock-naked, but that was clearly not appropriate!) “I’m to tell you that you’re free to go. Turn right and right again. That takes you out of the building”. I pulled my shorts up and followed her instructions. By now, it seemed, I was of no interest to the police whatsoever. There was no one in the yard, still less a car to run me back to school. I set out to walk it. Tea was well-and-truly over by the time I arrived. I hoped to slip into evening prep. unobserved, but as I passed Dr Holroyd’s house the door suddenly opened. The Headmaster beckoned me to come inside. “Scott!” he began. “What a good thing I saw you. “Everything alright? “I think so, sir” I said. “At least, they told me I could go”. The Head smiled. “And well they might. I’ve had the Chief Constable on the phone for the last half hour, full of apologies. That ridiculous Welshman has been taken off the case, so he certainly won’t be bothering you again. Have you had any tea?” I told him I hadn’t, and had had to walk back. The Head was incensed, and it was obvious that someone was going to lose his job down at the station. Minutes later I was stuffing my face with cheese-on-toast and watching the evening news on the Headmaster’s TV. On local news there was quite a bit about the Tennis Club Murder as it was now called. “Police,” said the newscaster “investigating the suspicious death of schoolgirl Angela Robinson, are following several lines of enquiry.” (And how, I thought). At a so-called press conference, Angela’s parents were shown: her father wooden and silent, her mother distracted and sobbing. Asked why they had not raised the alarm when Angie first failed to return home, they said they thought she “was having a sleepover with friends”. A pretty long sleepover, since the pathologist’s report – they said - indicated that Angie had been dead three days, perhaps four. More reason, if any were needed, for letting me off the hook. For the past four days there had been about fifty witnesses, at any hour of the day or night, to say where I was and what I was doing. “Don’t worry about it” were the Head’s parting words. “Try and put it all behind you”. Not easy when Angie’s words still rang in my ears “You’re one of the nicest, kindest boys I ever met”. I owed her something for that. In fact I owed her a lot. I didn’t want to talk to anybody just then. It was my bad luck that on my way up to the dorm to change into my indoor shoes, I came face to face with the one person who was guaranteed to make facetious remarks: Sandie Ross. Like me, Sandie, at the age of eleven, had been sexually precocious. Like me he had a female cousin who was similarly inclined. Like me, he’d been caught in the act. While we were on sufficiently good terms to compare notes, we’d agreed that we’d both wanted the girls – that is, the girls’ fannies – more than life itself. Both of us had been neutered to prevent us ever doing it again. But there the resemblance ended. Sandie Ross didn’t like me, and it was mutual. “Way-hay-hay, Scott” he chortled. “Sucking up to the pigs again? What is it this time – another cushy trip abroad? Or a fast-track entry to MI5?” Something inside me snapped. On the wall of the stairway hung a fire-bucket full of water. I grabbed it off its bracket and emptied the contents over Sandie Ross’s head. Before he could retaliate, two more individuals came round the corner: Selwyn Cox, one of the stupidest boys in the school, and his bosom friend Cardew. I thought of an American movie I’d once caught on the telly – “Dumb and Dumber”. They stopped and gaped at what they saw. “Ross has had an accident with a fire bucket” I said. “Get a mop and some cloths from the cleaning cupboard and help him clear it up”. This said, I took the remaining flight of stairs at a run, slammed the dorm door behind me, flung myself down on my bed and sobbed my heart out. I wasn’t weeping only for myself. Somebody had to cry for Angie too. All in all it had been a hell of a day. If you were to ask me what I did on Saturday I couldn’t begin to tell you. I woke feeling utterly flat and let-down – just as I’d done years ago, the morning after getting my balls pricked, realising that my sex life was over before it had even started. The day slipped by in a kind of fog of unreality. Sensing I was in a foul temper, few people tried speaking to me. Someone told Matron I was ill, and within minutes she appeared, all smiles and starched cuffs. “Poor Simon” she said. “Your tummy is all upset”. I knew what would follow. She marched me off to the infirmary, where she directed me to pull my shorts down. After twisting a rubber band around my penis to prevent me wetting on her floor – she was convinced that neutered boys suffered from bladder weakness- she prepared a powerful soap-and-water enema, and having washed my bowels out, she gave me some filthy-tasting medicine and made me lie down. When this had no obvious effect on my mood the silly woman finally decided that my problem wasn’t gut-related and let me go. At about nine in the evening I had a rush of blood to the head and unaccountably set about cleaning all my shoes, then went to bed early and fell asleep almost at once. I didn’t hear anyone else come up. Sunday was different. After morning chapel I quickly got out of my cassock and surplice, slipped out of the school grounds by the back gate and caught one of the rare Sunday morning buses to the town terminus. Rather than endure the school Sunday lunch I’d decided to get something at the Lemon Tree. To get there I had to pass through the narrow alley that had the wine merchant on one side and the Regimental Association on the other. The wine merchant’s shop was locked, bolted and barred as usual. The black-painted door of the Regimental Association was also closed, but on the doorstep was a carton of milk and a square parcel. If there was anyone at home behind that black door they must be having a long lie-in. I glanced at the label on the parcel. It was printed with the words “T F Trawler, Books and Videos” with an address in Haywards Heath, and was addressed to “E J Boxall”. Wandering back to the terminus I saw a bus with “Haywards Heath” on the front. Without knowing why, I abandoned my plan to go to the Lemon Tree and instead got on the bus. Half an hour saw me in the small Sussex township, searching for the premises of “T F Trawler”. They weren’t hard to find. Tucked away in a side street, they amounted to a terrace house, the brickwork painted black, the door and window-frames yellow. The windows themselves were blacked-over. Little doubt of what the place was: a sex shop. Unsure where this new knowledge got me (if anywhere) I returned to the bus stop, to head back the way I’d come. There was a bus there already, waiting to leave, empty except for one other passenger. Someone I didn’t in the least mind seeing. “Hello Colin” I said. “Mind if I join you?” Colin Hislop was no less a boy-eunuch than the rest of us, although disease, not Neutersol, had destroyed his genitals. “What brings you to Haywards Heath?” he asked. He had a friendly smile, a quiet voice. “I was just going to ask you the same question” I replied. “I live here” Colin replied. “Or rather my parents do. I visit them most weekends. And – I’ve got a girlfriend here”. “I’ve got a girlfriend too” I confided. “She lives at Lymington Haven”. “Some girls understand” said Colin “about boys like us, don’t they? What we can do and what we can’t do, ‘down there’, in the knicker department. Only you never said why you’d come to Haywards Heath”. “I was following something up” I said. “The address of a firm called T F Trawler”. Colin pulled a face. “A horrible place that is. Really, really nasty. They’ve been raided a few times, for selling child porn and stuff like that”. At this point the bus driver started his engine and we moved off. “Simon,” Colin ventured “has this got anything – anything at all – to do with that girl who was found murdered? Everyone is saying that you knew her”. “Then everyone’s talking through their assholes” I said crudely. “I met her, that is, I talked to her – once, and once only. I didn’t even know her full name was Robinson till I saw it in the papers. Next time I saw her she was dead”. Colin said nothing. I decided to open up a bit more. “I thought, that first time, she was nice” I said. “And there was another thing. She thought she was being followed – stalked, if you like. She wasn’t sure who by, just some old man, she said. I mean, I wanted to help, and now she’s beyond help. I’ll never forget the way she looked, lying there – never”. Colin had an ice-clear logical brain, not the least impaired by his neutered state. It made him a genius at any maths problem, and it helped me now. “It sometimes works” he said “if you force yourself to think about something like that. Try and confront it. Form a mental picture and stay with it”. There and then, in the bus seat, I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up images of Angie. The first Angie to appear was a happy, excited Angie, one who’d let me kiss her thighs and asked if I wanted to see her fanny. Then that other, horrible picture, the one I was sure I’d never forget. From this picture, something was missing. What was that expression Colin had used? In the knicker department – that was it. Angie’s black trousers had been ripped off and thrown across the room. Before raping her, her killer would also have had to remove her knickers- her white knickers. They should have been conspicuous (“I have to wear white ones until I lose my cherry”) Angie had explained. Black ones might have escaped attention, but not white. But Angie’s knickers were nowhere in this picture, and I began to convince myself that wherever they were, her killer would not be far away. As the truth of this hit me, I began shaking all over… “Hey, Simon!” exclaimed Colin. “You’ve gone quite pale. Have you seen a ghost or something?” “No, not a ghost” I said quietly. “But you might call it a revelation”. Colin nodded. “If there’s anything I can do – anything at all, Simon, I’d like to help”. “You’ve already been a genius, Colin,” I told him, which left him confused. At the town terminus Colin left me to return to school. But I’d had nothing to eat, although it was now turned three, so I made my way to the Lemon Tree after all, and ordered a strange assortment of food. I was into my second jam doughnut when I saw someone waving from the far side of the room. That was the “Smoking” area, and for obvious reasons I used to sit as far away from there as possible. The waving was followed by a voice: “Mister Scott! Mr Scott, sir!” It was Bolsover – who else? I went across, braving the cigarette smoke and found a very smart Bolsover, with highly-polished boots and two newly-blancoed chevrons. He wasn’t alone. There was another old soldier with him, a little wizened man, like Bolsover in his 80’s, and with a long scar across his left cheek. Bolsover introduced me to him. “This is my mate Ben Braddock. We was in Kohima togevver”. (He pronounced it Co-eema, I assumed “together”). We chatted on for a bit, and then I happened to mention Sergeant-Major Boxall. At the mention of his name, old Ben Braddock stiffened. His shaggy eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Sar’ Major, you say, Mister Scott? Well, wot I want to know is, when was ‘e a sar’ major and where was ‘e a sar’major. No one knows anyfink abaht im. Nobody ever comes to see ‘im, not from the reg’ment. And ’e never talks abaht ‘is war service”. Bolsover nodded. To these old chaps it was very significant that Boxall never told them any yarns about his time in the army. I’d no doubt that Bolsover and Ben Braddock passed all their waking hours in re-living the Burma campaign and fighting their way to Rangoon, river by river, town by town. “Has he got a flat here?” I ventured. Bolsover shook his head. “Nah. ‘E lives out at Patcham. Got a bungalow, ‘e ‘as”. “Is there a Mrs Boxall?” Bolsover shook his head again, more vehemently. He and Ben exchanged a quick glance – a question to which the answer seemed to be “Yes”. “There’s anuvver fing” Bolsover confided. “All them pictures and videos of young girls in school uniform, gym slips an’ that. ‘Orrible, they are”. “’Orrible” agreed old Ben. “What I sez” Bolsover went on “what I sez is, if you’re goin’ to ‘ave a bint, for a bit o’ you-know-what, she oughter be a grown-up bint, abaht twenty, like. One as knows what it’s all abaht. Doin’ it wi’ school kids, that’s not right”. “Not right at all” agreed old Ben. There didn’t seem to be much more to say, so I made my excuses and left the old boys to their reminiscences. But not before I’d got the address of a certain bungalow in Patcham. But hey, I can hear you saying. This story is supposed to be about Ricky finding a family, and so far you’ve barely mentioned him. Quite right, too. But until now there hadn’t been anything to say. Where was I? Of course: half-three on Sunday afternoon, with evening chapel to get ready for. On arriving back at school I saw a letter waiting for me in the rack. (Mail arriving on Saturdays frequently didn’t get given out till next day. I don’t know why). I didn’t get much mail. It was a big red-and-blue airmail envelope with a colourful stamp, and addressed in a sloping hand I didn’t recognise, to “Master Simon Scott”. I didn’t care for “Master” much, but opened the letter all the same. It proved to be from a Dr Geller, with an address in Malaysia. She opened by saying that she believed I was Ricky’s friend, and she had a great secret which she was working on, but didn’t want him to know just yet. Now Ricky had once or twice mentioned a Dr Geller, saying that he’d briefly lived at her house and that she’d arranged for him to come to Britain. Eager to find out what the “great secret” might be, I read on. Now, Ricky had arrived at the school already a boy-eunuch. That much was obvious from the first time he got under the shower, when I’d noted his penis, nicely shaped though only the size of a six-year-old’s, limply dangling over a neatly-stitched empty scrotum. Unlike the majority of us, Ricky had been castrated – gelded – the traditional way: he had had his balls taken right out, the oldest surgical operation in the world. I wondered whether it had hurt! But he never spoke about his operation. He was never seen to be fiddling with his organ, as some boys were, and was apparently so unconcerned about the long-term consequences of losing his testosterone source, that I sometimes wondered if his best friends had told him yet. Reading on, I almost threw the letter straight in the trash-can in disgust. This Dr Geller, I soon worked out, made a living by castrating boys. But curiosity got the better of me, and I persevered, and soon found another familiar name: Lord Manningham, and that of course was Uncle Carl. In the last year or two I’d got used to the idea that Uncle Carl’s activities were all of a shady kind, and the Doctor’s letter confirmed this. I have to say I wasn’t the least surprised. Dr Geller had become involved, under pressure, in a contractual arrangement with Uncle Carl, from which there was no let-out. Uncle Carl and his assistants would trawl the area for orphaned pre-teen boys, whom he would sell on as houseboys to wealthy clients in the Middle East. Everyone knew that houseboys in that part of the world always had their balls taken out; it was part of the culture. With no choice in the matter, Dr Geller was required to make the boys eunuchs under strict surgical conditions. (This, I knew, was important: a recent newspaper article had exposed a traffic in boy-slaves from Europe to Morocco, where the boys were neutered with a burdizzo and put to work as eunuchs in male brothels). If you don’t know the word, a burdizzo is a ball-cord snipper, very popular with farmers and stock-breeders. Last year, Melanie had won a competition to appear in the Burdizzo Corporation’s house magazine as “Miss Burdizzo 2005” holding one of these gizmos ready for use, and dressed – or rather undressed – in a cowboy hat, a bright yellow crop-top, a minute black thong, high boots and black hold-up stockings with lacy tops. The picture would have given any intact boy a raging hard-on, and I must admit it gave even me quite a tingle! But the gadget was – rightly - banned in the West for use on humans. On arrival at Dr Geller’s, the Doctor had explained to Ricky that the laws of the country that was to be his new home, prevented him from ever getting married or having children. His body therefore didn’t need testicles, and that’s why they would be taken out, to prevent him ever “doing it” with a girl. He had never had any sexual experiences of any sort, and agreed to his operation without tears or fuss. Ricky had been castrated within the hour, but even before he was healed, Dr Geller had found a way of saving him from whatever he might have faced as a houseboy in the Emirates. She arranged, with Uncle Carl’s help, for Ricky to come to school at Southdown Hall. (And Uncle Carl would have exacted a stiff price for his help, I thought). Dr Geller felt that she owed it to Ricky to do more than this. He had arrived as a parentless, homeless- and now, thanks to her, sexless- waif, but with a thin – a pathetically thin – lifeline to another world. This was part of a United Airlines baggage tag. Besides showing Ricky’s name, this flimsy battered square of pasteboard showed a flight number, a serial number and a date. Ricky refused point-blank to part with this. It, and a few sea-shells, had been his only possessions when Dr Geller took him in. But she carefully copied out all the information. The date was the first clue. When Ricky made that flight he could have been no more than four. It seemed very likely he’d been accompanied, if so, who by? Could United Airlines archives give this information? Dr Geller thought that they could – and turned the problem over to Dr Lindenbaum – whoever he or she was. On that note Dr Geller’s letter ended. She was hopeful of being able to trace some relative or other, and it seemed possible – even likely – that Ricky’s antecedents on one side were American. She would write again when any further progress was made, and ended, rather formally “Very sincerely yours, Kristin Geller”. There was nothing I needed to say or do in response, so I carefully put the letter away and went to tea. On Sundays this was of the bread-and-butter-and-cakes variety, not a cooked meal. Even before I got through the refectory door I sensed the mood had changed. First, Jan Raxworthy’s shrill voice admonishing someone: “Don’t sit there, that’s Scott’s place!” (Poor Jan, plain and pasty-faced, even if he’d been left intact, who was he ever going to fuck?) Jack Elliott warned me that the tea had gone cold and without being asked, went for a fresh pot. Michael Banner fetched a plate of crab sandwiches, Jamie Roebuck a freshly toasted teacake with currants in. Not long after this it was time to retrieve my cassock and rather grubby surplice and lead the choir into evening chapel. I could scarcely keep my mind on what was being said. “We give Thee most humble and hearty thanks” prayed the Chaplain. Thanks for precisely nothing, I said to myself, irreverently. Right through the service it was the same: nothing seemed either relevant or true. Finally the Chaplain intoned “Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee” and we all filed out. But in the small hours, lying in bed, “Lighten our darkness” began to have some sense, as light began to flood in, from many angles. By the time that the dawn-light began to appear behind the shutters, I was clear in my own mind about what I wanted to do. Now a lot of you will have figured out what this was. To spell it all out would be boring. I’ll leave you the satisfaction of discovering if you guessed right. And for those who still have no idea, there will be the pleasure of finding out. On that Monday morning, at the first available break, I went in search of Harry Brotherton. “Harry” I asked him “what sort of a place is Patcham?” After all, Harry knew everything about the surrounding area. Harry shrugged. “Just a big housing estate – all bungalows. Right on the edge of the Downs. Very steep roads running parallel to one another. Not a lot there, not really”. “I need to go there” I said. “At a time when there’s no one about. Like five o’clock in the morning. The buses won’t be running so early. Any ideas?” Harry thought. “I could take you in me Dad’s van. Me driving”. “Have you got a driving licence?” (I knew the answer must be ‘no’. Harry was the same age as I was). “No. But I drive it every day, from the shop to the garridge, after closing time. I’m used to it. Going to Patcham wouldn’t be a problem. When do you want to go – ter-morrer?” “Tomorrow if possible, Harry” I said. Harry nodded. “Sure thing. Pick you up from here? What time?” I thought quickly. “Quarter to five?” Harry nodded again. “See you at the back gate, four-forty-five on the dot”. With that under my belt I went in search of Colin Hislop. This was very simple. In the last term or two Colin had taken up the clarinet. All I had to do was go to the music block and listen for the Minuet in Handel’s “Berenice” played badly. It wasn’t at all difficult. His playing was, in a word, pants. Colin’s face lit up as I came in. “Thank goodness!” he said. “I wanted an excuse for a break. Did you ever hear a more boring tune?” “Not many” I said, and reminded him that the day before, on the bus from Haywards Heath, he had offered to help me in any way he could. Again that warm reassuring smile. “You’ve got something planned, then?” I outlined my idea to him. No, I’m still not going to tell you what it was. Suffice it to say that as I went on, Colin’s eyes grew wider and wider, and his face became pinker and pinker. Fast forward several frames, to next morning: the scene the main A23, and to the interior of Harry’s father’s van. This was perfect camouflage for our needs: a dark green painted Citroen Berlingo, on its sides and on the rear doors the legend “THE HANDY STORES, J.A. & E. BROTHERTON” and some phone numbers. Colin and I, wearing track suits and PE shoes, crouched uncomfortably in the back. Harry turned off the main road into the Patcham estate: rows of bungalows set on parallel, steeply-sloping little roads, all with Lake District names. Job No 1 was to find No 42, Ullswater Close. Finding it, my heart sank. The rows of bungalows presented a solid front to the road, each one joined to its neighbour by a garage. From the street, there was no way through to the back – and I’d convinced myself that the clue to the mystery lay at the back. It was Harry – who else? - who noticed that after every third or fourth bungalow, there was a sort of right-of-way, a rough path, no more than two feet wide, running right through to the parallel road. I don’t know what they were for. Underground cables or something I expect. After some very careful counting we worked out that the path between 44 and 46 came out in Windermere Close next to No 27. Harry parked the van, but left the engine running. Colin and I went off to explore. “If anything goes wrong” I told him “you’re the getaway man. Straight back to the van and get the hell out of here. Don’t worry about me – I’ll look after myself”. Colin nodded. The path was separated from the back garden of No. 44 by a board fence, which I was just tall enough to be able to peer over. I saw a neatly mown lawn, flower-beds – and most importantly, in one corner, a big pile of lawn-mowings. Here, I gave Colin a bunk-up, afterwards scrambling over myself. The mowings gave us a soft landing. If anyone had been awake having an early breakfast we’d have been done for, but all curtains remained drawn. Using a tool-shed as cover, we waited a moment or two, but all was quiet. Our objective lay a few yards away, across that immaculate lawn, and on the other side of a three-foot chain link fence. It was a sea of weeds and tall grass, and the people in the adjoining houses must have just loved being next to it. The bungalows were all the same, with a utility extension at the back. These had one narrow window just below the eaves – too high up to see into from the ground. But I had spotted, in that overgrown wilderness, something that would help – an old-fashioned galvanised trash-can, with a curved lid and a handle on top. Colin and I manhandled this below the utility-room window and I motioned him to give me a bunk-up. It was like being in front of a fruit-machine when you hit the jackpot. The utility room was crossed and re-crossed with clothes-lines, and upon them was pinned girls’ underwear in large quantities and of every colour and style: pink nylon briefs, black thongs, floral tangas, bikini-bottoms – you name it. I was confident that Angie’s little white pants were in there somewhere. I scrambled down off the dustbin lid and hoisted Colin up to see for himself – this needed two witnesses. (It would have been a huge advantage to have had a digital camera just then. I’d been on the point of “borrowing” Melanie’s last week, but hadn’t the heart to.) “Gosh!” was all Colin could say when he got down. The next job was to get away – fast. Inevitably in replacing the dustbin where we’d found it, the lid fell off onto concrete, and then a dog started barking, followed by others. Urgency lent us wings. We both hurdled the chain-link fence, took the next-door lawn at a run and managed an untidy vault over the board fence, without coming down astride it (in the school gym I’d done this a time or two, the only occasion when it had been an advantage to be ball-less). We made quite a lot of noise, but by a miracle no one in those silent, curtained houses took any notice. “Back to school, Harry” I said, panting, when we reached the van. “School it is!” said Harry cheerfully, letting the clutch out. I hadn’t planned ahead as far as deciding what to do when we got back. In the event it was decided for us. Harry swung the van in at the back gate intending to drop Colin and me at the dorm. block – and there, holding up his hand to stop us, was Mr Trefusis, attired in a sweatshirt, jogger-bottoms and trainers, out on a morning run. “Well, good morning to the three of you!” he began. “What have we here? Under-age driving, breaking bounds, and I’m sure I can think of a few more crimes”. He turned to Harry. “Do I know you? Not one of mine, are you?” “Brotherton, sir. Day-boy, sir” gulped Harry. “Thought so. As a dayboy you’re nothing to do with me. I haven’t seen you; you were never here, alright?” Then, raising his voice “Cramps! Cramps!” Cramps, the night-duty janitor, had just emerged from the boiler-room and was about to go home to bed. He came shuffling over. “Cramps, do you know this young man?” (indicating Harry). “Yessir. Lives in the next street, sir”. “Right. Good. Get his keys off him, and drive him home. Park where he shows you. Any problems, give me a call.” He turned to Harry. “I’ll leave it to you, young Brotherton, to explain yourself to your long-suffering parents. Better say you fell among thieves”. With a “Let’s go then, young sir” Cramps drove off. I couldn’t repress a smile at “fell among thieves” Harry was so honest, so straightforward. “Now, you two” Mr Trefusis returned. “You first, Hislop. Breaking bounds is serious. Anything might happen to you. What do you say?” Colin’s chin had begun to wobble and his face had gone very pink. “Guilty, sir. I’d better take a beating”. This took some courage. Colin hated to be seen with his shorts down, showing his shrivelled empty sac, over which a penis no bigger than a toddler’s drooped lifelessly. Mumps had treated him cruelly. Mr Trefusis’ beatings were legendary. They consisted of one tremendous swipe on the bare bum from the sole of an outsize PE shoe. It was all over in seconds – all bar a red backside that took rather longer to fade and stop tingling. “A beating? No chance! Far too quick. You’ve got PE shoes on. Right – twice round the main building and then come to my flat for a bite of breakfast, after I’ve dealt with Master Scott here. Away you go!” “Now” he resumed, when Colin was out of earshot. “Tell me everything, where you’ve been and why. Don’t omit anything. Get me?” I “got him” alright, and began by explaining how my suspicions were roused by the parcel on the Regimental Association doorstep and with Boxall’s penchant – confirmed by two dependable people – for pictures of schoolgirls. “Of course, sir” I commented “there are lots of dirty old men in the city who try to stalk schoolgirls, but it seemed a possibility that he was the one who’d killed Angie”. “And so on a thousand-to-one chance, you decided to break bounds and go rushing about the countryside in a van with an unqualified driver. Why?” I explained my theory about Angela’s knickers – that where they might be found, her killer would not be far away. Mr Trefusis grunted. I continued right to the end, with what I’d seen through the utility room window. “M-mm” commented Mr Trefusis. “Couldn’t it have just been ordinary washing hung up to dry?” “There was nothing except girls’ knickers, sir” I said. “No towels, sheets, pillow cases – just knickers”. “M-mm” said Mr Trefusis again. “Sure you got the right address?” “Absolutely sure, sir”. Just then, Colin Hislop came panting back and Mr Trefusis let him in. “Hislop” asked Mr Trefusis “did you see what Scott has just been telling me he saw, on this early morning jaunt of yours?” “Yes, sir. Girls’ knickers of every shape, size and colour”. “Nothing else? No men’s wear at all, socks, face towels, vests, shirts?” “Nothing else, sir”. “In that case” said Mr Trefusis, switching off the kettle and the toaster “I propose we abandon breakfast here, and instead invite ourselves to breakfast with the Headmaster and make our report”. Croker, Dr Holroyd’s immaculately-dressed butler, was not in the least put out when we turned up on the doorstep, and he at once went in search of his master. Dr Holroyd was in his dressing gown but admitted us without question, while Croker went to re-lay the breakfast table for four. Needless to say I had to give a full account of our escapade to Patcham all over again. Dr Holroyd looked faintly amused when I described the utility room. “Sounds like a Chinese laundry” was his comment. “I suppose there’s no chance that that’s what it was?” “None at all, sir” I insisted. “Alright. That’s good enough. Now let’s all have our eggs-and-bacon and you can leave the rest to me. I think I know the best person to contact. Only I want a solemn promise from you both, that you won’t try to get involved any further. John, can I leave it to you to make sure they don’t?” On that point we ate our breakfasts and then dispersed, although Mr Trefusis had one more shot in his locker. “Scott, you deserve some sort of punishment for breaking bounds” he said with a wry smile. I waited. “Fisher and Silva have been practising “The Immortal Hour” for Speech Day, in a version scored as a duet for two sopranos. You can compose an alto part. Don’t mess it up, you’ll be singing it too” (I went cold all over). “If you want ideas about harmonisation, you’ll find scores of Handel’s Italian operas in the music library. Handel’s usual arrangement was for the principal soprano – a woman – to sing opposite a male alto castrato. Might be helpful. Alright? Any serious problems, come and see me”. I fled! Over the next couple of days while I slaved to write myself an alto part to sing with Roddy and Ricky, things began to unfold. What the media had dubbed “The Tennis Club Murder” I need hardly tell you about, because it was all on the late-night show “Crimewatch UK” presented by a Detective-Superintendent Bell, very smart and ultra-efficient-sounding. Whoever the Headmaster had contacted, it wasn’t the wretched Lysaght, obviously. What’s that? You never saw the show? Oh well, here’s all you need to know. The Police raided the Patcham bungalow within the hour. They removed all the knickers “and other evidence” which wasn’t specified but was probably child porn. Many of the knickers, which included Angie’s after all, had name-tapes sewn in, which linked up with other unsolved offences over the past few months. Boxall was taken in for questioning. DNA tests proved him to be Angie’s killer with no doubt at all. The Sunday tabloids got hold of the story too. Boxall’s twisted life wasn’t confined to chasing schoolgirls. He had set up a website to arrange meeting-places where perverts could take little boys, some as young as 7 or 8, where they were made to put on little girls’ party frocks, and even to wear diapers……….The rest is too disgusting to repeat. Boxall said nothing in his defence that made sense to anybody. As I write this, the Prosecution Service are still deciding if he’s fit to stand trial. It seems unlikely. As a dangerous psychotic he’ll end up in Rampton or Broadmoor, huge gloomy Victorian fortresses, where the criminally insane are shut up for the rest of their days. And so to Speech Day. Sometimes Dr Holroyd was fortunate in being able to attract a real celeb to present the prizes and say a few words, someone whom everyone wanted to listen to. We’d hoped for Ranulph Fiennes this year, but the Head had drawn the short straw and we were stuck with Lord Frederick Funkbury, a landowner with a big estate in the nearby Tilgate Forest. He was only coming because about 40 other people had been invited and refused. (Since no one wished to hear about the troubles of the landed aristocracy, Lord F. was excused from making a speech at all). I wasn’t up for anything this time around. Jon Roebuck, resplendent in his best suit and his ROSPA Bronze Cross, got some high-level certificate to do with the Outward Bound scheme. At one interval the School orchestra (including Colin Hislop) played a medley including the minuet from Berenice (this received polite clapping which was more than it deserved) and in the other, Roddy, Ricky and I sang “The Immortal Hour” which drew a standing ovation. The consequence was that the assembly broke up about one, leaving a large number of people – me included – at a loose end. I was wandering along the gravel on the south side of the main building when around the corner, from his private doorway, came Dr Holroyd, accompanied by a large old man in his 60’s and a little wizened old lady. “Ah, Simon!” said Dr Holroyd. “I want you to meet District Judge Wendell W. Benson, and Mrs Benson. They’re here to see Silva. Try and find him, will you?” The Judge looked a nice old boy. “Say, are you Simon Scott, Ricky’s friend?” he inquired. I said I was, and looked round for Roddy to send to find Ricky, but he’d vanished. Fortunately at that moment Ricky came wandering along. “These people have come to meet you, Ricky” I said. I’d no idea who they might be. Ricky stuck his hand out, as I’d taught him to do when meeting strangers. “Good morning” he said. “I don’t think I’ve………” “I’m your grandpa, Ricky” said the Judge. “And I’m your grandma, honey” chipped in the old lady. Ricky’s jaw dropped. So did mine. Though I didn’t say anything I was mentally rocking back on my heels. This was what Dr Geller had written me about. “This is Judge Benson” I said, completing the introductions. “And this is…..” “My wife Elizabeth” the Judge put in. “Always known as Lib”. “Gosh” Ricky managed to say. “I mean to say – I never thought - oh gosh!” His face went very red and I hoped he wasn’t going to cry. The Judge saved the situation. “Why don’t we all go for some lunch and get to know one another better?” he suggested. “I’ll go get us a taxi, Lib”. “No, I’ll do that” I said and dashed off to the main gate to find one. The Bensons might want a moment or two with their new-found grandson. Later, when we were seated at a table in one of the big bay windows of the Hilton Metropole, overlooking the sea, the Judge embarked on the long, involved and at times tragic story, that had emerged from the researches of Dr Lindenbaum and from a variety of sources. Here are the bare bones of it. The Bensons lived in a rural part of Pennsylvania near the small town of West Chester. They had – or had once had – a daughter, Linda Mae, who would have been about 30 by now. (“Cornflower-blue eyes and hair as yellow as butter” interjected the old lady. The Judge frowned but went on. Linda Mae had dropped out of High School and gone on voluntary service overseas. Her parting shot to her parents had been “You’ve never given me anything I wanted, and now I want my freedom”. In about the early 90’s, at a VSO convention, she had met, and subsequently married, a David Silva, who had been born in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, but had American papers, although ethnically he was more Chinese than anything else. Within a year, Ricky had been born. The Bensons knew nothing of either husband or baby, because Linda Mae never wrote. Then about three years later, one night, in the small hours, the Judge was awakened from sleep by the phone. Linda Mae was calling from Wilmington train station. She had been to the States to get Ricky’s birth registered, and to look up a few old friends. No, she hadn’t time to visit her parents, being even now on her way to Washington DC to pick up her return flight. (It was from this flight that Ricky’s baggage tag had survived, and his mother, travelling on her old passport, was in United’s passenger manifesto as Linda Mae Benson.) Not long after this, the Judge had a letter from VSO. In it, he learned that Linda Mae and her husband had gone back-packing into the interior of Cambodia and had been lost without trace. At that date, Cambodia was very unstable, with remnants of Khmer Rouge and other hostile elements roaming the jungle. VSO could hold out no hope of further news. From this point Ricky was an orphan. For the next few years various people – his mother’s former colleagues – saw to it that he didn’t starve, but when, ultimately, VSO pulled out, no one claimed him, and he was left behind. By this time part of the camp, and ultimately all of it, had begun to be taken over by “hippy” elements who tended to treat all children as common property. Ricky became streetwise enough to learn that if he stood in line in a food queue, there would probably be a meal at the end of it. This was Ricky’s situation when, six months earlier, he’d been trawled up by Uncle Carl’s workers, on the look-out for good-looking pre-teen boys to be turned into “safe” eunuchs and sold in the Middle East. The rest you know. “So there you have it. You’re an American citizen, Ricky! How’s about that?” No doubt Ricky was meant to register delight. Instead he said “Does that mean I’ll have to leave Southdown Hall and all my friends, and live in the States?” “Why no, Ricky” replied the Judge. “Not if you don’t want. But you’ll come visit us in the vacations, won’t you? And now, everybody, food’s getting cold”. We all set to, and talk passed to school, games, this and that. Then it happened. The old lady leant confidentially over to Ricky. “Say, do you have a girlfriend, honey?” she asked in a low voice, playfully patting his knee. “No, I haven’t” Ricky replied and went on artlessly…I made a note to do something about his social skills… “I’ve had this operation, and it helps me to sing better – it keeps my voice high – but it also means I’ll never be able to get married or have children, so I’ve not much use for girls. I can’t ‘do it’, you see”. The old lady dropped her fork on her plate with a clatter. “For mercy’s sakes!” she exclaimed. Ricky looked all round. “Why, have I said something?” he asked. The Judge leaned over and whispered something to his wife. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I did make out her query “You mean just like a riding-horse?” and saw the Judge nod in response. “For mercy’s sakes, Wendell!” she said again. “Well, it sure is a pity about that operation” said the Judge. “But I guess the law is the law, and we can’t change it. Now we won’t talk about it anymore. Who’s in line for some more pudding?” Lunch over, Ricky would be staying behind with the Bensons, who had got him permission to stay at the Hilton that night, and until they flew home. The Judge would trace Ricky’s birth registration and get him an American passport. Before I returned to school we all went for a breath of sea air. The Bensons were walking slowly along the sea front, Ricky and the Judge deep in talk. The Bensons would have a lot to talk about, but I guess the Judge would never quite come to terms that there would never be any great-grandchildren fathered by Ricky. Even less would the old lady accept that this beautiful boy, the image of her lost daughter – “cornflower-blue eyes and hair as yellow as butter”– had needed to have his balls snipped, cut out, to be made impotent and sterile, unable to ‘do it’ - just like a riding horse. How did I feel? I was in a state of shock, and no wonder. Several times that day I got the strangest feeling that I wasn’t there at all – that I was somewhere else, even somebody else. I suppose it had all been too much. Ricky had ceased, in the space of a few minutes, to be a destitute orphan from nowhere, Now he had a family, a most respectable family, and was a citizen of the most powerful country in the world…….. When this feeling had subsided some, I began to regret that I’d never replied to Dr Geller, got the necessary information, done the sleuthing on my own computer. Without doubt I could have done all that; broken the news more gently to Ricky, got used to the idea myself. But it was a bit late for regrets. There were a few more loose ends. One day, in the town, I bumped into Commandant Mrs Briggs. “You know, we’ve been so fortunate” she said. “After the Police arrested that dreadful man, I was at my wits’ end to know how to manage the Regimental Association. And do you know, that nice old man – the one you were friendly with – stepped in right away! So we gave him a third stripe and he’s over the moon!” I nodded. For certain, Sergeant Bolsover would look after the Centre, and the half dozen old soldiers that lived there, very well indeed. I had one final thing to do, for Angie. I bought a bunch of flowers, caught a bus, and got down at the old familiar stop. I walked along a few paces…………. The gate had gone. The trees were down, the bushes grubbed-up, the tennis courts obliterated. Only a square of concrete floor showed where the clubhouse had stood. A middle-aged woman was passing. She saw a tall, rather round-faced, Southdown Hall boy, with a bewildered expression and a bunch of flowers in his hand. “It’s been took down” she explained. “People were stopping and staring, so the Town Council took it down. It’s better so”. It seemed to go very quiet. The honk of a solitary car-horn was alone and haunted. Then I really howled! THE END |