UNCLE GEORGE    [Part 3 of 10?]

By Richard Banks

I concluded my work for the day by burning the papers in the hearth and, after feeding myself again, made ready for the gig. We departed in John’s car about seven for a pub called the Green Man where there was live music most Saturdays. My first impression that he was a likeable sort of guy proved only too true, and it came as no surprise that he knew my uncle rather better than most people know their neighbours.

         “George,” he assured me, “was a grand old chap, always ready to lend a hand when one was needed. He did a lot of jobs for me and other people around here, only taking money to cover the cost of the materials he used. In return I would run him over to Cromer when he had business there, or to the Hare and Hounds on a Sunday when the bus there don’t run.”

         “So he liked a pint then, my uncle?”

         “Not particularly. But he liked the company there, fellows like himself if you get my drift.”

         “You mean he was...gay?”

         “Well, he never said as much, but there was no hiding it. Not that he ever attempted to, though it would have been better for him had he tried. It wouldn’t have been an issue in London, or even in Norwich, but in this backwater the folks aren’t exactly progressive.”

         “So they gave him a hard time?”

         “Yeah, much was said, sometimes to his face, other times in not so quiet whispers behind his back. When the farmers were hiring he was always the last to be asked. How he managed before he got his pension I’ll never know. It couldn’t have been easy.”

         “Did he ever mention me?”

         “Only once and then not by name. Said he had made a will and left everything to a nephew he hadn’t seen in twenty years. Said you were a bright boy with a curious mind who would exceed all expectations, including your own, if you were prepared to go the extra mile.”

         “Meaning?”

         “Work hard, I guess. That’s what I thought at the time, proud uncle hoping his nephew would do well and have the breaks he didn’t. Left school at fourteen your uncle and was often out of work. He would have been pleased to see you doing better.”

         By the time we arrived at the Green Man I was feeling more than a little guilty of being the beneficiary of a poor man whom I had done nothing to help in the twenty three years our lives had overlapped. Whatever else I did that evening I was definitely going to raise a glass in his honour and say a quiet, but sincere thank you to my uncle and benefactor.

         The pub was the largest within five miles and, on a live music night, full to the rafters. Under the stern gaze of its landlord, a former commando called Hikey, it had a surprisingly diverse clientele of all ages where the upwardly mobile rubbed shoulders with the rough and ready, and feuding biker gangs maintained an uneasy truce with each until off the premises.

         On discovering that John, like myself, was partial to a Guinness we got served and sat ourselves down at the last table with unclaimed seats. The Rocket Boys were a man down on their original line-up. Barely recognisable from their heyday they were still a good turn and going down well with the locals when, to my horror, I spotted my assailants of the previous day standing together near the stage. Having inadvertently made eye contact with one of them, he and the others were now returning my gaze with surly expressions that while not exactly friendly were at least an improvement on what they were showing me the previous day. Had Callow’s intervention been enough to ensure my safety? I was soon to find out.

         The Group’s first set over, the oldest guy among them beat a straight line towards me beer glass in hand. About fifty years of age he was someone you wouldn’t want to be upsetting. Tall and thickset he had the build of a man who spent much of his time lifting weights in a gym. His patronage of a tattoo parlour was also evident from the decorations on his arms and chest which the hang-loose vest he was wearing did little to hide. The hell’s angel face on his chest was scarcely less threatening than his own that, from below a shaven head, was staring, in unfriendly fashion, at everyone about him - everyone that is but myself who was now being favoured by his best attempt at a smile.

         “Hi, I’m Frankie Beale,” he said, extending his free hand for the shaking. “I gather you’ve already met my boys. Sorry about the misunderstanding. Now we know you’re George’s kith and kin it won’t happen again. A great bloke your uncle; we got on well. He knew my Dad way back, were in the same class at school. Always stood by his friends did George even when it did him no good. But that’s the sort of guy he was, and we did well by him when we could. Let me know if you need any help taking stuff down to the tip, I’ll send one of the boys over with the van.”

         Having no wish to renew my acquaintanceship with his sons I thanked him for his ‘kind offer’ but declared myself, as yet, undecided what to do with Uncle’s effects. He nodded thoughtfully and after further expressions of regret over, “the passing of good old George” returned to the company of his sons. Relieved to see him go I was, at the same time, puzzled by some of the things he had said. Even though I knew next to nothing about my uncle it seemed unlikely that he and Frankie had ever been friends. If that had been the case why hadn’t he come to the funeral? And what was he alluding to when he said that uncle stuck by his friends, ‘even when it did him no good’, a strange turn of phrase. Had uncle got too close to the Beale’s and suffered as a consequence? If Frankie had said a little more than he intended it was probably not a good idea to be asking him any awkward questions. I was at peace with the Beale’s, no point in risking that!

         It was not until we were heading back to Petherdale that John expressed surprise that I should know the Beale’s. On assuring him that I didn’t I recounted my encounter with Frankie’s sons and Mr Callow’s intervention.

         “Good grief,” he exclaimed, “you’ve had a narrow escape. It’s serious grief for anyone who gets on the wrong side of them. People around here don’t even talk about them in case they get to hear what’s said.”

         “Did my uncle have any involvement with them? It won’t go any further than ourselves.”

         “That’s OK mate. I know I can trust you to keep it to yourself, but there’s not much I can tell you. Your uncle knew Frankie Beale that’s for sure; I saw them talking in the street several times. Your uncle was never at ease when they were together. As to what they were saying I was never close enough to hear.”

         “And he never spoke of Frankie, or his sons?”

         “Never. He would have known better than most not to do that. The only other thing I can tell you is that I once saw Frankie give your uncle something from his wallet, probably money, but I can’t say for sure, so maybe what he said about doing well by George wasn’t so far from the truth. However, if I was you I would let it go, some things are best not to know.”

         It was, of course, good advice, and well meant, but not enough to put me off making enquiries at the bank and the newspaper. What could be the harm in that? 

 (to be Continued)

 Copyright Richard Banks

UNCLE GEORGE        [Part 2 of 10]

Richard Banks 

         Mother was right not to expect too much, but while it was no palace, and little in it less than twenty years old, it was clean and well maintained, a pot of paint and some brushes in the kitchen indicating that uncle had been busy at his DIY shortly before his death. The lounge in the front, no more than a metre back from the road, was both broader and longer than I expected, and upstairs there were two bedrooms, one big enough to take a double bed, and a bathroom with an emersion heater that supplied hot water to the sink and bath. Without central heating and double glazing it wouldn’t be worth much if I chose to sell, but no one could claim it had been neglected. On the hearth of an open fireplace there was a pile of logs and a scuttle full of coal. Never having made a fire before, I was less than certain how to go about it, but with an evening chill developing I determined, with the help of mother’s matches, to give it a try. Working on the principle of Daily Mirror first, followed by wood and progressively larger pieces of coal my efforts were soon rewarded by a decent blaze that very definitely warmed the air, providing one didn’t stray too far from the fireplace. Too tired to do much else but unpack and eat the remaining sandwiches mother had made me, I settled down for the night on the sofa pulling it close to the hearth and observing the fire slowly burn itself out.

         I slept well and on waking found the sun shining in my eyes through the middle of uncle’s thick woollen curtains that, despite my best efforts, could never be made to meet in the middle. The spartan chillness of his bathroom was even less to my liking and, once I had established that there was no food in the house a trip to the nearest supermarket quickly became number one on my ‘to do’ list.

         I had decided to stay in the house until the following weekend returning to London on the Sunday in order to be ready for work the following day. There was much to do and only eight days to do it in and find out what sort of place Buremarsh was. The sight of

my next door neighbour out back washing his car was the opportunity I needed, not only to find out where the nearest supermarket was, but to check him out, along with the rest of my neighbours. Were these people I wanted to be living cheek by jowl with? If not, the house would definitely go up for sale, but right from the start nothing could be clearer than that I was going to get on well with John. What’s more in the twenty or so minutes I spent talking to him I found out nothing likely to put me off my other neighbours, one of whom was only there at weekends. The good news didn’t end there. The village of Craventhorpe was only three miles away, a local beauty spot with two tearooms, a Waitrose and a large pub-restaurant called the Wheatsheaf.

         On arrival I was much taken with what I found, and having done my shopping and eaten brunch in the pub returned to Petherdale somewhat later than I intended. John’s Mini Cooper was missing but a note pinned to my back door invited me to join him that evening to see a local group called the Rocket Boys who had once had a top ten hit and been on Top of the Pops. Having added the word yes and pinned the note to his back door I started on my second task of the day which was the sorting of my uncle’s papers. Had my mother been present this would have been achieved in less than an hour but left to my own devices I was all for a more cautious approach. There might, I reasoned, be something of value among them, an insurance policy, premium bonds, evidence of a bank or post office account that no one knew about. If unlikely, it was not impossible and I resolved to look through everything at least once.

         I was also intent on solving a mystery, in finding out what my uncle had done that could not be spoken of. Whatever it was, he had done me a favour and if I could do something to restore his reputation that was, perhaps, the least I could do. Whatever his faults he had not been an idle man and, in addition to the paint pots found, his kitchen cupboards were full of brushes and cleaning products. He was also a man with a library of some thirty to forty books on art and art/history, including the catalogue of an art gallery in Swaffham. Evidently there was more to my uncle than might have been expected from an agricultural labourer of limited education.          

         It was one o’clock and with nothing much done I adjourned to the kitchen for a snack I neither needed or deserved. It was there, while rummaging through his cutlery drawer that I found the two keys that further delayed my sifting of his papers, one large and rusted while the smaller of the two was much like a key I used at work for the opening and locking of a metal security cabinet. That it served no such purpose in Uncle’s house was only too apparent, but nevertheless they both had to fit something so, on eating the pie and beans I had been cooking, I went from room to room trying in vain to find the locks they fitted. It was with a sense of annoyance at time wasted that an hour later I returned to the gathering up of uncle’s papers determined to do at least one useful thing that day before tea and the gig to follow. 

         Having put every last sheet of paper into a bin bag I worked my way through them all putting everything to be burned on the hearth and those papers worthy of closer scrutiny onto the rug behind me. Two hours later only two papers had made it onto the rug, a standard pro-forma from the Upshire Bank regarding an account on which the rate of interest rate had changed and a letter from the Cromer Echo requesting an interview on an unspecified subject for which the newspaper was prepared to pay ‘a sum to be agreed’. Curiously both papers had been dispatched within a few days of each other in September 1994. Was this the glimmer of a mystery that might also produce an unexpected windfall? Was the account still open? If so the capital sum it contained would be much increased by over twenty years of compound interest. As for the letter that was certainly worth looking into. 

 

(To be continued)

 

Copyright Richard Banks

  

 

UNCLE GEORGE       [Part 1 of 10] 

by Richard Banks

 

When I stood up in church and did the eulogy it was only too obvious to the dozen or so persons present how little I knew about my uncle. We had met only three times, at my christening and twice when I was a small boy not yet at school – at least that’s what I’m told. If so, then uncle would have been in his late fifties, an unmarried man, who my mother described as a confirmed bachelor. Father puffed hard on his pipe when she said that, always a sign that something had met with his disapproval, a something that might be shared with his brothers at the Feathers but nothing that could be said in the presence of the womenfolk. Not that they didn’t have chapter and verse on whatever it was but to them the good name of the family demanded that knowledge of the miscreant, and his misdeeds, be hidden away inside them, in a part of the brain labelled ‘private, keep out’.

         Thus in 2015 when the solicitor’s letter arrived informing me that Uncle had left me his house in Norfolk, and everything in it, mother was not as pleased as I thought she would be. The property, she said, would likely be rundown and in need of repair. Uncle George had no money, never did have, was nothing more than a casual labourer working on farms when there was work to be had. He only had the house because it belonged to his father who brought it up cheap as a sitting tenant. Nothing in it was likely to be worth a penny piece and I would probably have to pay someone to take it all away. As for his papers they must be burned unread. No good, she said, ever came from reading a man’s private papers. Indeed, she would come with me to make sure this was done. Given her aversion to lengthy car trips there was little prospect of her doing so and, once she had my assurance that I would do as she decreed, her involvement was restricted to the buying of a large box of matches.

          I set out, on a Friday morning from my bedsit in Clerkenwell for the offices of Matlock & Wells in Cromer with the uneasy feeling that they might have more to gain from my uncle’s demise than myself. However, by the time I pulled into the car park at the rear of their premises I was in a more optimistic mood. The day was unusually warm for May, a clear blue sky, and the sun shining brightly on a countryside bursting into life after a long winter. The thought occurred to me that if my uncle’s house was in reasonable condition it might be possible to both live and work there. Why not I thought. Other people do it, why not me? Almost all my work was done on computer and it mattered little where it and myself were located. Even if I did have to show up at the office once or twice a week it was definitely doable and, who knows, Ally, my girlfriend of nine months, might well be amenable to life in the country.

         My meeting with Mr Wells did nothing to dent my good mood and having been given a road map of the local area and the keys to the house I was soon out of Cromer and making my way down country lanes scarcely wider than the car. Nothing in London had prepared me for this and, as I slowed down to negotiated a bend in the road, what I feared might happen very nearly did. The roar of an on-coming vehicle was followed almost immediately by the sight of a red Jeep Wrangler coming full pelt at me. There was nothing do be done but slam on the brakes and, with the driver of the jeep doing the same, we screeched to a halt no more than a foot apart.

         Four young men dressed in army camouflage tops and slashed jeans spilled out onto the road and advanced towards me shouting abuse, the most vocal of them brandishing a crowbar. With the prospect of worse to come, and neither fight or flight being an option, I locked the doors and sat tight. It was time for soothing words, but my opening observations that everything was cool and that no damage had been done were not having the desired effect. A guy with a tattoo on his face was pummelling my bonnet with clenched fists while another was threatening to break my nearside window if I didn’t open up.

         It is at moments like this that you wish you had a Guardian Angel who would suddenly appear and make everything OK. Thankfully for me such beings do exist, although not usually at the wheel of a Ford Mondeo, clad in plus fours and a tweed jacket. Having pulled up behind the jeep my saviour was now striding fearlessly into the fray demanding an end to hostilities. Remarkably his intervention could not have been more successful, my assailants now as quiet and inoffensive as a turned-off alarm clock.

         “Get back in your vehicle,” demanded my deliverer and, without so much as a whimper, they did as they were told. Having dealt with them he proceeded, stern faced, towards me.

         “You’ll have to back-up,” he said. “There’s a passing bay thirty yards back. You will need to pull into it and let them through.” He was, evidently, a man used to being obeyed and although he spoke civilly enough he seemed no better disposed to me than he was to them. It was time to put myself on the side of the good guys so I thanked him warmly for his intervention. He looked a little surprised but made no comment except to say that he would walk back with me and that I was to tuck-in as close to the hedge as I could; they weren’t, he said, likely to be too careful on their way past.

         A minute or so later the jeep roared past with my benefactor observing their departure from behind my rear bumper. “Have you business here?” he asked, his voice wary but not unfriendly. Bearing in mind that his car was still parked in the middle of a narrow country lane I wasted no time in telling him that my uncle had died and that I had come to take possession of his house in the village of Petherdale.

         “So, you’re Phillip Jones’s, George’s kin. Yes, you’re not unlike him. The house is two miles along on the right, but there’s no village, Petherdale is a row of cottages built by a farmer of that name. There’s a driveway at the side and parking spaces at the back. I’m sorry for what happened back there. You’ve just made the acquaintance of the Beale boys. They’ve been having a little trouble lately with a gang from London. No doubt they saw your plates and concluded you were one of them. I’m Roy Callow, local councillor and JP. No doubt their father will be bending my ear tomorrow telling me it was all a misunderstanding. I’ll tell him who you are and why you’re here. You won’t be bothered again. So, welcome to the district of Buremarsh, Mr Jones. Wait here until I’m past and then take it steady to your destination.”

         A few minutes later he was by and I was on my way again, thankful that my journey was soon to end. Ten minutes later I was parked at the rear of Uncle’s house and using the key so often in his hand to open what was now my back door.

 

(To be Continued)

Copyight Richard Banks

 FIRST LIE 

By Richard Banks

Mother had told Charlie to always tell the truth and that bad things happened to people who told lies. He assumed that she held fast to this advice until one day Granny arrived wearing a new hat full of brightly coloured feathers that would not have been out of place in an Indian headdress. Her contention that it was new seemed unlikely as it was well known within the family that Granny did her clothes shopping in charity shops. What happened next was definitely a lie. When asked what she thought of the strange object on Granny’s head mother replied, without a flicker of guilt, that it was the best hat she had seen that year.

Charlie took a sharp step back, expecting his mother to be struck by lightening, but nothing happened. He watched her take another sip from her tea cup and waited for her to choke on a tea leaf, but nothing happened.

At the end of Granny’s visit mother saw her to the front door saying that she hoped Granny’s friend, Mrs Geraldson, was recovered from the flu and to thank her for the delicious cake she had made for the church fete. That was another lie, the cake was mouldy, and mother had thrown it in the bin.

These were lessons well learned and when Charlie broke a window in father’s greenhouse he was able to say without a twinge of conscience, “it wasn’t me, Dad, it must have been some other boy”.

 

The End.

Copyright Richard Banks

   ANNIE (a daughter, wife and mother)

By Richard Banks

Annie Eliza was born out of wedlock in 1841, the first child of George Smith and Ruth Chapman. Her father was a soldier in the 2^nd Regiment of the Queen’s Life Guards, stationed at Regents Park Barracks. The Regiment provided the mounted guard for ceremonial parades and processions in London, such as those for Queen Victoria’s coronation and marriage. Ruth, had come to London from Sussex to work as a domestic servant. George would, no doubt, have cut a dashing figure on horseback and Ruth was one of many young women exposed ‘to the all powerful redcoat’ and ‘succumbing to Scarlet Fever’.       

         Although the army actively discouraged marriage for enlisted men George and Ruth were given permission to marry a year after Annie’s birth enabling the three of them to live together in barracks and later in lodgings. One of the benefits of George’s employment was that Annie would have been educated at the Regimental School well before the introduction of mandatory schooling. The school sought to instil notions of discipline, duty and respect in line with military ideals as well as teaching practical skills that would have equipped their pupils for future employment. By the standards of the time the children also received a good academic education, including spelling, reading, writing, diction, grammar, English history, geography, arithmetic and algebra. George would have been paid two-pence a month for Annie to attend and one penny for each of his children that came after her.  

         Growing up in salubrious areas such as Knightsbridge and Windsor put Annie in close proximity to a world of privilege and wealth seldom glimpsed by other working class children. From a young age Annie would have learned to take a pride in her father’s position and espouse regimental values of honour and dignity. How she spoke and comported herself would have conveyed the impression, even in later life, that she was from a good family. 

         By 1854 Anne had been joined by five siblings. The family was living in lodgings near to barracks when epidemics of scarlet fever and typhus arrived in London. Within weeks four of Annie’s siblings died, sparing only herself and one sister, Emily. Despite the trauma of these deaths family life continued and George and Ruth had several more children, including a son named Fountaine. By now Anne was in her teens and almost ready to begin working life. 

         At the time of the 1861 census she was working as a housemaid in the Westminster home of an architect; a few doors away was living Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Her duties as a maid of all work were many and involved long hours. The pay was poor and it is unlikely she had very much free time. However, for the first time in her life she had her own room. 

         In 1862 tragedy again entered her life when her father, now in civilian life, working as valet to a former officer, committed suicide by cutting his throat. The reason or reasons why he did so are unclear but since leaving the army it appears he had become a heavy drinker. 

         In 1869 Annie’s life took an upward turn when she married John Chapman, a lodger at her mother’s house. He was a private coachman, a job that put him near the top of the hierarchy of servants. They lived reasonably well by working class standards of the time. Indeed it was observed that many coachmen and their wives harboured delusions of grandeur, especially those who, like John, worked in the West End of London. In 1870 Annie’s first child was born to be followed by seven more. 

         In 1879 John became head coachman to Francis Tress Barry, a man of considerable wealth with a country estate, St Leonards Hill, near Windsor.  John’s duties now extended to the supervision of the estate’s stable block. The family’s accommodation in the coachman’s house would have been a significant improvement on previous lodgings and Annie may well have employed a charwoman or day maid. 

         Barry’s house was only four miles from Ascot racecourse and in 1881 was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales, plus other royals, attending the races. They were often to return for dinners and shooting parties. Living close to high society, and benefiting from John’s well paid employment, the family had all but become middle class – what could possibly go wrong? 

         The answer is to be found in a letter written in 1889 to the Pall Mall Gazette by Annie’s younger sister, Miriam. She wrote: ‘Just before I was six years old, my father cut his throat, leaving my mother with five children, three girls older, and one younger than myself.’

         All, she wrote, had signed the abstinence pledge to forgo ‘fermented spirits’ but her eldest sister [Annie] was unable to adhere to this commitment. ‘We tried to persuade the one given to drink to give it up. She was married and in a good position. Over and over again she signed the pledge and tried to keep it. Over and over again she was tempted and fell.’ Annie’s struggle, according to Miriam, had been a lifelong one and that she had inherited ’the curse’ of alcoholism from their father.          

         Her letter further states that of Anne’s eight children, ‘six of these have been victims of the curse.’ Indeed, all died within days or weeks of being born or suffered medical conditions likely to have been a consequence of Annie’s addiction. In 1882 after her eldest child, Emily Rose, had died of meningitis Annie began to acquire a reputation for public drunkenness. In the December of that year she was persuaded by her sisters to enter a sanatorium in Spelthorne, West London. One year later she was discharged and according to Miriam, ‘came out a sober wife and mother’.

         However, after a year of abstinence she was again observed wandering the St Leonards Estate the worse for wear. John was presented with an ultimatum by his employer, either to remove her from his estate or face dismissal. With two surviving children to consider, including one who was severely disabled, John and Annie agreed too separate. It was agreed that John pay her 10/-s a week maintenance and that she return to the family home in Knightsbridge. With the help and support of her mother and sisters there was still hope she could overcome her addiction, but within weeks Annie’s inability to stop drinking caused her to leave the home of her pledge adhering family. 

         It is likely she relocated to Notting Hill, a poor working class area, where she met a Jack Sievey and the two of them became a pair, probably on account of their mutual love of alcohol. In 1884 they moved to Whitechapel in search of work. Known as Mrs Sievey she was described by a friend as a respectable woman, never using bad language, clever, and industrious when sober. They lived in Dorset Street, a road the social reformer, Charles Booth, described a few years later as ‘the worst I have seen,’ on account of its poverty, misery and criminality. As Annie and Jack almost certainly had enough money between them to afford better lodgings it would seem that most of what they had was spent on alcohol. 

         In December 1886 her situation worsened when John’s maintenance payments ceased. Learning that he was gravely ill Annie set-off to walk the twenty-five miles to Windsor where John, now retired from Barry’s service, had taken a house. Their reunion was a brief one, John dying on Christmas Day. Back in Whitechapel she seemed genuinely remorseful although her grief may have had more to do with the loss of her maintenance money. Early the following year Jack Sievey deserted her, leaving Annie without a protector, imperative in a neighbourhood renown for its criminality. 

         Annie’s life became increasingly affected by drink, despondency and ill health that included tuberculosis. Nevertheless she attempted to earn money by selling matches, flowers and her own crochet work. Occasionally, she would return to her family who would give her clothes and, in Miriam’s words try to, ‘win her back, for she was a mere beggar’. Annie’s brother, now resident in Clerkenwell, was also approached for help and likely gave her money as well as buying her the occasional drink. Like Annie he was an alcoholic whose addiction later led him to steal from his employers. 

         In 1888 Annie began to spend her weekends at the Dorset Street lodging house of Crossinghams in the company of Edward Stanley, a brewery worker, who paid for their accommodation from Saturday through to Monday morning, also paying for Annie to stay there a night or two more. Their relationship appears to have been an exclusive one and Annie, trying to affect an appearance of marital respectability, purchased and wore rings which Stanley described as a wedding ring and keeper, ie an engagement ring.

         On 7 September 1888 Annie’s friend Amelia Palmer saw her lingering on Dorset Street looking unwell and apparently penniless. Asked if she would be going to Stratford Market to sell her crochet work Annie replied, ‘I am too ill to do anything’ and then, ten minutes later, when their paths crossed again, ‘I must pull myself together and get some money or I shall have no lodgings.’ By this time she may well have been sleeping rough on some of the nights she was not with Stanley. 

         On the evening of 7^th September Annie appeared at Crossinghams having apparently begged five pence. By 1.45 am when the kitchen was cleared of those unable to pay for a bed her money had largely been spent on alcohol and a meal of potatoes. With insufficient money to pay for a bed Annie wandered out into the night with no other option but to sleep rough. 

         Her murder in the early hours of 8 September 1888 was the second of five thought to have been committed by the serial killer, Jack the Ripper.   

        

                                                    ***** 

         It was generally assumed in 1888 that the Ripper’s five victims were prostitutes. That belief has persisted into modern times. The available evidence indicates that only one was. All had problems with alcohol which for four of them wrecked stable relationships contributing to their slide into desperate poverty. Sadly nothing of Annie’s tragic life would be remembered today had it not been for her brutal murder.

[Bibliography: ‘The Five. The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper.’ A book written by Halle Rubenhold and published by Transworld Publishers (part of Penguin Random House UK group of companies.]

 

Copyright Richard Banks

SALVATION

By Richard Banks                                   

 

If I had one wish it would be to declare all wishes null and void. Call me cynical, a spoilsport, anything you like but if you had my job you'd be wanting the same. Right now you're thinking about all the good I'm doing, how I help to transform people's lives; lives full of hardship that without me and the wishes would be as grey and cheerless as the never changing sky. Well, what can I say? With three million viewers I must be doing something right; if I don't bring them pleasure then why do they watch? For thirty minutes each month on ‘UK Plus’ they get to hope that they will be chosen, one of ten people randomly selected by computer to have their wishes made reality. The real winners are those who lose. For them there is still hope. OK, they say, so I didn't win this time but there's always next week and, if that doesn't happen, there's the week after and the week after that. Someone's got to win, why not me? In a world where deaths outnumber live births by ten to one their chances of winning constantly increase.

         My sympathy goes to the chosen ones, the poor mutts who think that all their troubles are over, then they find out about the rules, the unpublished small print that no one thought to tell them about. Cash prizes are limited to 50,000 credits, enough to buy an apartment in a domed village but nothing left to pay the bills; and if you don't live in a domed village there's no shortage of desperadoes who will cut your throat for what you have got and they want. Happy days! Then there's the crazy people who think miracles can be done. Cure me of the sickness they say, I want to live in a warm place where the sun still shines, take me back in time, I know you can do it!

         But we can't. This is reality, it's all we have. Choose what you want but prepare to be disappointed. The lucky ones are those who make only moderate demands and having only moderate expectations are moderately satisfied. A man who wanted to see the sun was taken to a mountain top above the cloud bank. A woman who wanted to make love with Brad Pitt junior, was granted half an hour of his time, and went home more satisfied than most. The winner who came out best was the guy who wanted a litre of Ginsplash every day for the rest of his life. As he was on the wrong side of forty this was considered a reasonable request. He's the happiest drunk you'll ever meet. For him the world is a great place, it exists at the bottom of a glass.

         Most of our winners aren't that fortunate. All suffer from the same disadvantage, that having won they are no longer eligible for further wishes. For most of them no wishes, no prospect of wishes, equals no hope. No wonder that the suicide rate for winners is three times higher than for the rest of us. By now you're thinking I don't get much job satisfaction. I don't, but at least I get to live in a domed village. Life in the bubble may not be normal but if normal is what we once had, normal no longer exists. At least we're alive. In the combat zones no one lives, twenty million deaths for every second of war. But not here, not on this sceptred isle. We were spared, no rockets, no bombs, not a single casualty, not a single building destroyed. Then the clouds rolled in. We thought they would pass, that it was just a matter of time before we woke up one morning to see a blue sky. Thirty years on we know that’s not going to happen, not for us, not for many generations to come. Our world is a twilight place where few crops grow and those that do are contaminated with the same sickness that's in all living things. We that were once sixty million are now down to four, but we cling on. Food is grown in factories, electricity generated, new buildings constructed. We have adapted, we continue to adapt. Every year some small progress is made but as yet there is no cure for the sickness. In the accountancy of human life if we do not balance the books in twenty years mankind will be extinct. We are on the edge, but not done yet. The newborns contain less radiation than their parents. For most the difference is not significant, in some it is. These fortunate few are nurtured within the benign environment of a dome. In time they will be paired with others of their kind. In them is our salvation.

         For now, we must take consolation in the few pleasures that remain. Our lives are short, fifty years for those in domes, thirty-five for the rest. What would we do without the wishes? On TV screens crackling with radiation those who watch dare to dream and believe in the possibility of better. For a short while behind drawn curtains the world is out of sight and the things that remain seem more precious than those lost. It could be worse, they say. While there are life and wishes there is also hope.

         Important people also get wishes. For them there is no need for random selection. They are chosen as a reward for services rendered, members of the ruling council, district marshals and occasionally TV personalities like myself. Yes, I too have a wish. Having observed the shortcomings in other people's wishes I have been careful not to waste mine. I have chosen psycho-stasis, ten days in an induced coma where I can be in an ideal world of my own construction. I tell the therapist precisely what I want and she programmes my mind like others programme computers. For ten days I can be anyone I want, do anything I want, in any place or time. It's a fantasy world in which the mind moves but the body doesn't. For some it's more real than reality.

         Sometimes things go wrong, but not often. The nurse assures me that their success rate is 98%. She attaches electrodes to my head and chest, explains the procedure yet again and punctures my arm with a needle. Have a good trip she says. I close my eyes knowing that the next time I open them I will be in the south of France, circa 2001. The programme downloads and I slip into unconsciousness.

                                                       *****       

         I awake in a pleasant enough room that has floral wallpaper, a cupboard, and a media viewer. It's morning on day one. I get out of bed and cross the room towards the window. My legs are unsteady but this is to be expected; it will, I'm told, soon pass. I draw back the curtains and stare out at a landscape that's definitely not the south of France. This is England, the way it used to me. It's a sunny, windswept day, the radiator beneath the window is cooling but still warm. My disappointment is eclipsed by the sight of the sun and the blue sky that surrounds it. I shower, select some clothes from the cupboard and go exploring. The building I am in is a large one, evidently a hotel. There is food cooking, a full English breakfast. The smell of bacon mingles with that of sausage, mushrooms and coffee.

         At the end of a corridor is a staircase. I follow my nose and descend two flights to a dining room where the food is set out in metal bowls within a long wooden cabinet that separates the kitchen from the dining area. I help myself. A jolly woman in white overalls asks me whether I want tea or coffee. I ask if I can have both. She laughs, says I will need a tray, finds one and, when my hands shake, she takes my breakfast to a table where the cutlery is already set out. Other people enter the room, but little is said. They choose their meals, sit down and eat. There are no children. I wonder why, surely there must be children.

         I’m drinking the last of the coffee when a woman, a youngish sort of woman, asks if she might join me.  It sounds like an old joke. Am I falling apart is the standard response. Instead I gesture politely towards an empty chair. Her name is Lyn. Lyn is pleasant, informal, but businesslike. She says I am her ten o'clock. I wonder if she is the escort I requested.

         “Why don't we go through to the conservatory,” she says, “it will be quieter there.” It is. 

We sit by the French windows in the full glow of the sun. Outside, in the garden the rhododendrons are almost in bloom. It’s Spring.

         “How goes it?” she asks.

         I nearly say that it is not what I asked for, but this would be absurd. The woman exists only in my imagination. How can she explain the malfunction in my programming?

         “I'm fine.”

         She smiles. “How is your room?”

         “It has a nice view,” I say, “the sun shines in.”

         “Yes, we thought you would like that. It's east facing. There's nothing better than waking in a sunlit room. Don't you agree?”

         I do. She knows I do.

         She smiles, changes the subject. “Your publisher's been in touch. He sends his best wishes.”

         I suppress my annoyance. I speak quietly, but firmly. “I'm Gerry Donovan, the TV presenter, I don't have a publisher.”

         “What about the other Gerry?” she asks.

         “Which Gerry is that?”

         “This Gerry.” She hands me a book. “Give it a read. I'll be interested to know what you make of it. No hurry. We'll talk again tomorrow. Until then, make yourself at home.”

         She terminates our meeting with yet another smile. Her smile is irritating, affected. It seems to be saying that she knows things that I don't. I decide that if she wants me to read the book that's a good reason for not doing so. I take a walk in the garden but it's still cold so I come back in. The book lies on the table where I left it. I pick it up. It's an hour and a half until lunch and there's nothing else to do. I turn to chapter one. I start reading, get to page twenty-two and stop. This is a narrative I know only too well. It's about me, Gerry Donovan, a TV presenter in the year 2050 granting wishes to the poor wretches that have survived the apocalypse. Someone has been observing me, writing down the minutia of my life for an unsanctioned biography that reads like fiction. It's an outrage! Who has done this? I turn back to the inside flap of the cover where there is a short biography of the author. His name is Gerry Baker. His life is summed up in three short paragraphs. Beneath them is his picture; it’s a picture of me.

Copyright Richard Banks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE OLD BOOK OF SPELLS (Part 2 & Last)

 THE OLD BOOK OF SPELLS (Part 2 & Last) 

By Richard Banks  

At 2 pm I set out and by evening I’m crossing the Tamar Bridge into Cornwall. The campsite’s near Bodmin, but it’s not open until the morning, so I pull up in a lay-by on the A38 and spend the night there. Come morning I buy a tent in Liskeard and drive the rest of the way to the campsite. It’s in a field, next to an old manor house where the local toffs live. Buy a ticket at the gate and join the early arrivals at a fast food van that’s serving breakfast.

Nothing to do now but put up the tent and suss out the new arrivals. There’s a girl called Lorinda in the next tent who’s came with her best friend, Trish, and Trish’s boyfriend. She’s not best pleased with the arrangement and spends most of her time outside the tent, while Trish and boyfriend cavort energetically inside. 

When it starts raining I invite her in for a coffee. Ask her what she knows about The Anointed Order, but she’s never heard of it. Says she’s only come for the drugs and the chance to get her kit off during the maypole dancing, or whatever it is they do here. She says the organisers of the other events she’s been to are always on the look out for handmaidens and they get given the most incredible psychedelic drugs that you can’t get anywhere else - at least not in the club she goes to. She asks if I’ve got any drugs. I say no, but when the festival drug dealer turns up I buy a few spiffs, and arrange to meet Lorinda in the evening. 

Meanwhile, the site is filling-up with people and tents, but no one resembling the collector is among them. People are also arriving at the house, mainly in expensive cars. According to a guy who’s been here before they are the High Priests, who only come down to the site for special events. No one knows who they are because they keep their faces covered and have made up names like Incubus and Belias. As well as the usual guys on security they also have their own minders, and no one who hasn’t been invited gets inside the house. 

This isn’t good news. If the collector is a priest or a minder getting near him is going to be one big problem. But maybe he isn’t, so I spend the rest of the day by the way in, watching the latest arrivals. Come evening I still haven’t seen him and when Security close the gates for the night I go back to the tent. It’s not long before Lorinda joins me and we start chatting about all the things she’s been doing since we last met; the main news being that this guy from the house has asked her to be a handmaiden for a big ceremony they’re having there at midnight. 

It’s too good a chance to miss, so I tell her about the murder I didn’t do and how I need to get inside the house to see if the collector’s there. She thinks all this is terribly exciting and can’t wait to help me, especially if I let her have one of the spiffs I bought. Two spiffs later and we’ve hit on this plan, where she lets me in through this window on the first floor. I don’t know what I’m going to do once I’m inside, but if this pans out anything like the last film I saw I will not only prove my innocence but get back the book as well. 

The first part of the plan goes like clockwork. Lorinda goes into the house and ten minutes later she’s opening the window so I can climb in from this tree outside. The ceremony’s taking place in a courtyard in the centre of the house and I can see it all from another window on the first floor. Any hope I have of spotting the collector, however, is dead in the water; everyone, except for the handmaidens, is decked out like the Ku Klux Clan, in white robes that cover their faces. The handmaidens seem to be there mainly for decoration, but Lorinda has a starring role. She gets to lie on this marble table and writhe around, while the head priest anoints her from head to foot with linseed oil. Then he picks up a ceremonial sword and pretends to run her through with it, while she throws out her arms and does this cute little scream that’s probably not in the script. All this time the other priests are chanting ‘Comius, Comius, Prince of Darkness’ but he don’t come and after a while they give up and have a prayer instead. 

While all this is very interesting I’m no further forward than before. I get out of the same window I came in by and go back to the tent. Half an hour later Lorinda arrives back in her ceremonial robe, looking like she’s just drunk a brewery dry. Instead of the night of passion we were planning she falls down outside the tent and I have to haul her in. 

I figure it’s best to let her sleep it off, but midway through the night she has a dream in which she’s an oven ready chicken being chased across Bodmin Moor by a fox that sometimes turns into a fire breathing goat. Up she gets and races off, like she’s been shot out of a rocket. I go after her and when she trips over a power cable I grab her and, despite the fact that she’s as slippery as a bar of soap, drag her back to the tent. 

The disturbance, however, hasn’t escaped the notice of Security, and, by following the strong aroma of linseed oil, their man has no trouble in finding us. At first he’s going to throw us off the site but then we realise we know each other. It’s Ernie, who I shared a cell with for six months. I pump him for information about who's staying in the house, but he doesn’t have their names. All he knows is that their car numbers are cross referenced to their room numbers. But, as he says, if I can find out which room my man is staying in I can use the car number to hack into the DVLA’s internet site. I bung him twenty quid for his trouble and he says for another twenty he can let me have a ceremonial robe for wearing inside the house. I agree, and when everyone on site are back sleeping, he brings it along to the tent. 

In the morning, just before brunch, Lorinda wakes up, and I tell her what’s happened and that we have to get back in the house as soon as possible. She says that’s no problem because there’s another ceremony in the evening, after which the Order are having a slap up dinner. The significance of the dinner is that they have to take off their hoods to eat it, so I will be able to ID the Collector and follow him back to his room. What’s more, the priest who was rubbing her down with oil was also reciting stuff from a book that could be the one that belonged to uncle George.

At last everything’s going my way and I can’t wait for the off. But wait I have to because the ceremony doesn’t start until 8 pm. Lorinda’s got the same job as before, except that she’s been told to cut out the ad-libs. Anyway, she goes into the house about 7:30 and I follow her in, ten minutes later, dressed up in the ceremonial robe that Ernie flogged me. 

The sun is setting and when it’s nearly dark the ceremony begins. It’s the same old business as the night before, but this time there’s a thunder storm rumbling overhead. If ever the Order is going to conjure up the Dark Prince this is the night, except that when they get to the Comius, Comius bit a bolt of lightening comes down, strikes one of the minders and fuses all the lights. Needless to say this causes quite a stir, but once the lights come back on and the priests work out that the minder is still the minder and not the Prince, they all troop off to dinner, except the minder, who’s carted off to hospital. 

Sure enough, once everyone’s in the dining hall, the priests take off their hoods and park them on the floor under their seats. At first I don’t see the Collector, or anyone like him. Then he looks round at a waiter and I spot him. All I got to do is sit tight until the dinner’s finished and follow him back to his room. It should be a doddle, but it ain’t. After the cheese and biscuits, the Head Priest says something in Latin and everyone gets up and puts their hoods back on.

Keeping my eyes on the Collector is worse than the three card trick. Far worse! There must be at least fifty guys in robes and they’re all on their feet, going every which way. I’m trying hard not to take my eyes off him, but the hood I’m wearing isn’t helping because the eye holes are too far apart. However, once he’s out of the dining hall there’s less people, and by the time I follow him up three flights of stairs he’s on his own. Half way along a corridor he stops and gets out the key to his room, but, like me, he’s having trouble seeing, so he takes off his hood. Whoever this guy is he ain’t the collector. As if things can’t get any worse he susses out that I’ve been following him and asks me what my priestly name is. 

The game’s up, so I do a runner back down the corridor, hoping I can make it to the ground floor and duck out, through the back door, with the hired help. By the time I make the stairs, the security alarm is ringing, and the word is out that there’s an unwelcome visitor in the house. If the heavies get me I’m toast - the collector may not be the only one who wants me dead. Down below, two minders are running up the stairs towards me. There’s no way I’m going to get past them, so it’s right turn at the next landing, and along a corridor on the first floor. In addition to the guys behind, there’s another one running towards me. I put my head down and crash into him. He hits the floor but I’m still going. Ten yards on I see the window through which I came the previous night and climb out onto the tree. It’s dark and I can hardly see the ground, but the minders are almost at the window, so I take a chance and jump. I think I’m going to break an ankle but the ground’s soft and although I take a tumble there’s no damage done.

I need to disappear into the night but the robe I’m wearing is almost glowing, so I stop behind a bush and tear it off. My lungs are bursting, but stopping ain't an option, so I run hard towards the camp site. I’m nearly there when someone comes straight at me and shines a torch in my face. I zig-zag round him, nearly collide with a tree, and tumble down an embankment that slopes down to the camp site. By now I can hear dogs barking and they don’t sound like they’re going to lick my face. As they can run faster than me, I'm guessing it won't be long before they catch up. 

I’m in a panic. If I have a guardian angel this is the time for it to come to my rescue. Then it appears, except that it’s not an angel, it’s Lorinda. She’s packed a bag with all the money we’re got and on the assumption that a speedy exit is the order of the day, is haring off towards a hole in the perimeter fence that she nearly fell through the previous night. I follow on and we scramble through it and onto an unlit road that’s darker than the average coal cellar. We start running again but there’s no need. The dogs haven’t left the campsite and if their pitiful whimpering is anything to go by they’re not liking the pungent smell of linseed oil still wafting from our tent. We slow down, get our bearings and figure out our next move. 

What happens next is the arrival of the number ten bus to Plymouth. As get away vehicles go it’s not the fastest, but at ten pounds a head it’s definitely the cheapest. An hour later we’re in Plymouth and an hour after that we’re on an overnight coach to Poole. 

Why Poole? you’re thinking. The answer is logical, if not obvious. Lorinda knows a man there who owes another man a favour, and the last named man is Lorinda’s dad. What’s more, the man in Poole owns a yacht, and that’s our ticket out of the country, away from the Anointed Order, the police and everyone else that will do us down. And the good news doesn’t stop there, for Lorinda's old man owns a casino on the Costa del Sol, where he launders money for the same mob I used to work for. It’s a safe haven that might well have a need for my professional services.  

                                                            ********** 

So, it’s all ended well you’re thinking. Okay, so he didn’t prove his innocence to the police, get back uncle George’s book, or get even with the collector, but he’s met this really fun chick and now they’re going to get it together in a warm, sunny place that’s a distinct improvement on north London. While it’s better than a goalless draw at the Emirates I’m not sure how I should be feeling. Had it been down to Tom Cruise everything would have been sorted inside three hours, but real life ain’t like that. 

In real life there’s only so much a guy can do – sometimes, whatever you do ain’t enough - but a guy and a girl together, that’s different. Right from the start it felt different, the proof that it was came on the motorway, south of Exeter. That’s when Lorinda remembers she has something for me. She unzips her bag and rummages through it like she can’t find what she’s searching for, which is odd, because what finally comes out is nearly as big as the bag - it’s a book. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. “Is this the one you’re looking for?” she says, and sure enough it is. 

It turns out that when the lightning came down and the lights went out, my quick fingered little magician takes the book off the High Priest’s lectern and drops it down behind the table she’s lying on. It’s like taking candy from a baby. While everyone’s attention is focused on the stricken bouncer she gets off the table, slips the book into her bag, and as the Anointed Order go off to dinner she exits the house with the other handmaidens.

What happens after that you already know, so I guess this really is the end of the story. Lorinda says that it has more ups and downs than the Himalayas and that if I don’t finish it now while we’re on an up I will only have myself to blame. I take her point. What happens next I don’t know, but it’s a new start, a new story. The old one's over; there’s only one thing left to say - The End.

 

Copyright Richard Banks

THE OLD BOOK OF SPELLS (Part 1 of 2)

 THE OLD BOOK OF SPELLS (Part 1 of 2) 

By Richard Banks

When I first heard the news about uncle George I was sad. Not that I was ever close to the old boy, only met him three or four times, but he was family, Dad’s brother, the last of his generation. Then I got the letter from his solicitor and I felt a whole lot better. Turns out I was his nearest living relative and sole beneficiary. Thought I had won the lottery without buying a ticket. How big the jackpot was I didn’t know, but as Uncle George lived in a three storey house on the Caledonian Road I figured it was the nearest thing to a fortune I would ever see. 

After three years in Pentonville, and one on the dole, my lucky star was shining like never before. Then the clouds started rolling in and not even the sun was getting through. Should have known it was too good to be true. Uncle George hadn’t left me the house, it wasn’t his to leave; he only lived on the ground floor and that was rented. All I had was the stuff inside it and a bill for last month’s rent. Decided that the best thing to do was clear the flat before another month's rent was due and sell anything likely to fetch a price. With a bit of luck I could pay off his debts and still make a few quid. 

Wasn’t thinking that for long. One look around his pad was enough to tell me that there was better stuff on the local tip. Even then I thought there might be some money hidden away. Old people do that, especially when they don’t have bank accounts - whole wads of notes at the back of drawers or on top of cupboards. That’s when I found the shilling piece, and an old book of spells. At least I think that’s what it was. The old time writing didn’t make much sense, but the pictures were clear enough. It wasn’t no bible book, that’s for sure. 

I remember Mum saying that uncle George had a dark side, now I knew what it was. In the same cupboard I found his ceremonial robe and a certificate saying that he was member one hundred and thirty four of the Anointed Order of Gehenna. It didn’t seem right to take them down to the tip where they might get noticed, so I burned them in the back garden. Almost burned the book too, then thought better of it. Why not take it to that second hand bookshop in Camden Town, I thought; anything that old must surely be worth a fiver, so that’s what I did. 

As soon as I walk through the door I know I'm in the right place. This isn’t any old book shop, it's the Psychic Antiquarian Resource Gallery; the resource being books and magazines on every weird notion and religion that’s ever been invented. The guy behind the counter looks surprisingly sane. If he has a ceremonial robe at least he isn't wearing it. In fact he's better turned out than uncle George’s solicitor. What’s more he’s a real charmer. This is a man who can really close a deal, a born salesman, but I'm not buying, and at first neither is he.

He takes one look at the split in the binding and almost pushes the book back at me across the counter. Then something gets his attention and he opens it up. The guy would make a good poker player, but for a split second he lets down his guard and I can see he’s interested, really interested. Then he’s back to his poker face, sighs, says what a pity it isn’t in better condition, points out a creased page and a dark stain on another. Sighs again. I’m thinking that he’s going to offer me a fiver when it’s worth a pony or maybe fifty quid. Instead, he quotes me the full fifty. So how much is it really worth? I don’t trust him, so I say I’m not sure, that I think it might be worth more. He shakes his head, almost winces as he finds another stain in the margin of a picture; then his attention switches to the picture itself. It’s Old Nick himself, eyes glowing like they’re going to jump off the page. The guy can’t help himself, he’s almost drawling. Ups his offer to eighty quid, but by now he knows I’m on to him, that I’m going to say no and move on to other book shops.

When I do say no, he shrugs his shoulders like he’s none too bothered, but he knows a private collector who might pay more. If I leave my card maybe he will get in touch. I don’t have a card, so I write down my address and telephone number on a piece of paper he gives me. He smiles, wishes me luck and we say goodbye.

It’s 4:30, too late to find another book shop, so I head home. Figure if this book is as hot as I think it is then the collector will be on the phone before morning. I’m not disappointed, except that it’s not the telephone that rings, it’s the door bell. I open up to find this guy on the doorstep. His name is Mackenzie. He says he’s come about the book. I invite him in. This is dangerous, but he looks okay so I take a chance. It’s a chance too many. 

Not sure when he hit me, probably the first time I turned my back on him. All I know is that when I come round I’m lying on the parlour floor, staring up at Mrs B from the next door flat. Turns out that when I hit the deck, the old dear hears the bang and starts hammering on the wall like she does when she wants me to turn down the radio. Except that this time I don’t shout back, so she comes out her front door and finds mine open. 

Luckily for her, my visitor has grabbed what he came for and legged it out of the building. She wants to call the police, but the police and me don’t get along, so I say I’ll do it when I know what’s missing. What’s missing, of course, is the book, nothing else, just the book, and now I’m certain it’s worth serious money. I want it back and my devious little friend in the bookshop is just the man to help me find it. 

Next morning I’m there bright and early, half expecting the shop to be shut, but the sign in the window says ‘Open’, so I go in. It’s quiet, even quieter than a bookshop ought to be. Right away I’m smelling trouble and it ain’t long in coming. The door into the office is open and there’s books and magazines all over the floor. I ring the bell on the counter and, when no one comes out, I go in. 

At first I don’t see him, then I look behind his desk and there he is, flat out, with his head bashed in. He’s not breathing, and, unless his name is Lazarus, he won’t be getting up again. Cut and run, I’m thinking. You’re an ex-con with form for GBH. If the police find you here they won’t be looking for anyone else. Then I see this poster in his hand. It’s like he’s trying to give it to me; it’s stupid, but it makes sense. He’s holding the poster because it’s important, because it has something to do with the man who killed him - the same man who, but for Mrs B, would have done the same to me. This is all about the book and if I want to see it again the poster is my only chance. I take it from him and go back into the shop. There’s nobody there, or in the street outside. I slip out of the front door and walk back to my car several streets away. I mustn’t do anything to attract attention, and I don’t. 

By the time I get back home I’m thinking that the book is the least of my problems. I might have got out of the shop without anyone seeing me but my fingerprints are all over the counter and maybe some in the office. It won’t be long before the police find them and make the match with the ones I gave them four years ago. It’s not enough for a conviction, but if I’ve also been seen on CCTV then I’m definitely in the shit. What’s more the poster I took from the book guy also connects me to the shop and who’s to say his DNA isn’t all over it. Whatever else I do today, I need to burn it before the police find it. 

I take it out of my jacket pocket and go into the kitchen, intending to incinerate it in a saucepan. Then I think, no, slow down, if the book guy thought this important then it’s important enough to read. So I do. It’s about some sort of hippy gathering that’s taking place in Cornwall, 'The Festival of Gehenna and the Awakening Lights'.

Straightaway my mind goes back to Uncle George and the Anointed Order of Gehenna. Are they connected, I’m thinking, and sure enough they are; in the small print there’s an address, the same one that was on uncle George’s certificate. My mind’s working overtime and everything’s making sense. By holding on to the poster, the book guy was saying that his killer and the festival are connected, ‘go to the festival and there you will find him, book and all.’

And do I want to go? You bet I do. This guy is my get out of jail card. If I can find him, get his name and address, I might just be able to convince the police that it’s him, not me they should be looking for. But that’s a conversation for another day. Right now I’m wanting to avoid the police, and a festival campsite, in the middle of nowhere, seems like the perfect spot. 

There’s no time to lose. I change the plates on my car and get money from the bank. I also need a change of image. Appearances are important and I don’t want to be recognised, so I shave my head, wear a new age shirt I should have thrown out years ago and put on a big pair of shades. 

 (To be Continued)

Copyright Richard Banks