Inseparable Bond (10 page)

‘Come on mate,
let’s go for a game before this lot get there first,’ Harold said,
as he gave John a reassuring pat on his arm.

John Bell was
now 48. From his teenage years he had spent half of his life in
institutions in the hope of reforming him to a law-abiding citizen,
but it was yet to be discovered if his time of imprisonment and
hospital treatment has proved a success.

He was under
the supervision of the welfare and probation officer who would be
immediately notified by the hostel warden in view of any immediate
crisis.

Due to his
lengthy sentence, John needed gradations so he can gradually test
out increasing freedom and responsibility as well as the ability to
earn a living.

He was to face
many special problems as he had no family members apart from his
sister, but her husband would not allow him to visit the house and
his sister had been restricted to the occasional prison visit to
see her brother but with no outside contact.

John had a
restless night’s sleep, he found the silence of the house fearful
as the last fourteen years had been spent by the sounds of cell
doors banging, the constant jingling of keys and sobbing of
inmates.

Both probation
and social officers who were eager to get employment for John as
soon as possible visited him the next day. They had arranged an
interview for him as a dishwasher in a local hotel, an unskilled
and low paid job and it was only a temporary position without
interest or excitement.

He had to
remain in the hostel until the officers were satisfied that he
could adjust into society and not return to his criminal
neighbourhood in Blackpool and Thornton.

The hostel was
a safe environment for the short-term, but he was reduced to
sharing this accommodation with the mentally defective, the
psychologically disturbed, the alcoholics and the drug addicts, but
he had been assured the hostel would play a major part in reforming
him, his parole being granted with a condition of residence at a
probation hostel.

Shortly after
his probation officer left, he took his first steps into the
outside world and walked down the steep hill into the town. He
dodged the traffic as he entered Wakefield shopping centre. Sitting
on a seat in the glass-covered arena, he watched the hundreds of
people pass as they went about their shopping.

Fashion had
drastically changed over the years, girls with midriffs and the
majority of youngsters wore baseball caps, piped music filled the
air with a strong smell of coffee from the café stall behind
him.

He went into
the café and sat at an isolated table at the far end. He had been
sitting for over half an hour watching people eating and chatting,
until realising it was a self-service café. Not being used to that
system other than at meal times in prison, he left the café and
headed back to the hostel where he felt safer and comfortable.

As he walked
through the front door, the warden was behind the small desk,
‘You’re soon back John, everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Well, yes,’
he said hesitatingly.

The warden
came from behind his desk. ‘Now sit here a minute,’ he said, as he
took a seat next to him. ‘It’s been a long time, John, things have
changed, you have changed and it will take time to adjust to the
outside. I know what you are going through,’ he reassuringly said
to John as he placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve got
an interview in the Station Hotel tomorrow; your probation officer
is going with you, so you’ll be all right, don’t worry.’ The warden
went back to his desk and John went to his bedroom.

He missed his
evening meal and lay on his bed watching his small television when
a knock came to his door. He reached over from his bed and opened
it to see Harold holding a dish of peaches and ice cream.

‘What happened
to you mate, you missed liver and onions, but I bribed Elizabeth to
give me this for you, can I come in?’

‘Thanks,
that’s very kind of you,’ John said. as he pushed the door
open.

Harold sat on
his bed and passed John the bowl of peaches with a spoon.

‘I didn’t feel
like anything to eat, I was in town today,’ John said, as juice
trickled down his chin.

‘You don’t
need to stay in your room, mate,’ Harold said.

‘I’m fine up
here thanks, Harold. I’ve got an interview at the station tomorrow
so I’ll be down for breakfast at eight, and I’ll see you then.’
John said.

‘If you want
company, just bang on room 8 mate. I’ve got to work soon so I’ll be
off then,’ Harold said, as he left the room, rubbing John’s hair
with his hand.

He had a
better night’s sleep with only a few whimpering cries from the
rooms along the corridor. He woke early at 6.30am and got dressed
in the dark grey suit the social worker had supplied him with in
preparation for his interview.

He went down
for breakfast and sat with Dorothy. Harold was not due back from
his night shift at the bus depot until 8.30.

‘Did you enjoy
your peaches last night?’ Dorothy said with a sly grin.

‘Yes, I did,
it was kind of Harold to bring them to me,’ John replied.

‘Is that all
he gave you?’ she said as she turned to the girl on the next table
laughing.

‘What do you
mean Dorothy?’ he innocently asked.

‘Oh, I just
thought he might have given you something else, if you know what I
mean;’ John knew exactly what she had meant but ignored her
question and left the table, listening to he giggling as he walked
out of the dining room.

His probation
officer was reading paperwork in the hall while he waited for
John.

‘Now you do
look smart, that fits you well John, are you ready?’ he asked as he
opened the front door. ‘How do you find the place, are they all
friendly?’ he asked John as he opened his car door.

‘Now the head
chef knows all about your time inside, so you don’t have to mention
that, just answer his questions and you’ll be fine. I’ll be waiting
outside for you when you’re finished,’ the probation officer said,
as he pulled out of the drive.

As they drove
to the hotel, John looked over at the public park with the
children’s swings and roundabouts. The officer grabbed his arm.
‘You know that’s out of bounds John, get found in there and you’re
back inside, you do know that, don’t you?’ the officer said. John
nodded his head in agreement.

Arriving at
the hotel, they walked to the staff entrance and into the kitchen
to the head chef’s office. He was a huge man with his tall hat,
which emphasised his height.

‘Just sit
there, John and we’ll quickly go through it,’ the chef said from
his desk.

‘Now I know
all about your previous so there’s no need to go into that, the
job’s straightforward enough, you’ll be shown what to do by the
other three porters and after a couple of shifts, you’ll be on your
own, how does that sound John?’ he asked as he leant over his
desk.

‘That sounds
fine with me.’

‘Good,’ said
the chef. He sat back in his chair and his facial expression
changed. ‘Now look John, you’ve been a bad lad, so there’s no need
to be telling anyone about that, let’s just keep that to ourselves,
shall we?’ he said.

‘Yes I think
that’s best,’ John replied.

The chef stood
up and opened the door. ‘Right, John; see you Sunday morning at
seven,’ as he showed John out.

John sat in
the car as the chef spent a much longer period with the probation
officer than he had with John. The officer returned smiling at the
outcome. ‘Well done John, you’ve got yourself a job,’ he said, as
he drove out of the hotel car park.

The probation
officer dropped John at the gates of the hostel on his way to
Wakefield prison. He went to his room feeling slightly humiliated
as he felt he had been treated like a child in search of his first
job, but the welfare authorities had secured it. And he was not in
a position to refuse.

He had just
taken his suit off when there was a knock on his door. ‘John, its
Harold.’

John opened
the door and Harold pushed through. ‘Oh sorry mate, you’re half
naked, how was the interview, did you get it?’ Harold asked as he
sat on the end of the bed.

‘Yes, I start
on Sunday morning at seven,’ he replied.

As Harold sat
on the bed, his eyes following John’s every move, he said, ‘My God,
you’ve got a hell of a packet under them pants mate, a right
mouthful. I bet the cons had a good time with you inside,’ as he
got up from the bed putting his hands on Johns waist.

‘Sorry Harold,
it’s not my thing,’ he said, as he removed Harold’s hands from his
waist.

Harold stood
up from the bed, ‘Fuck you,’ he said, and slammed the door as he
left.

John had been
subject to many similar situations with the cons inside, but mainly
under forced conditions or when he had the urge to join into group
sex sessions. Harold was a strange looking guy; John didn’t feel
comfortable with him in close proximity, irrespective of the
friendship he showed. His teeth appeared too big for his thin face
and his large eyes seemed to spark when he got angry, a typical
psychopath and with previous convictions.

Peter Stout
was watching some cartoons. He was a 21-year-old black guy, and had
arrived at the hostel a couple of weeks before John, after being
released from a young offenders’ institution.

His father had
been a drunkard and a bully. Stout had first been convicted at the
age of 12 for indecently assaulting a woman on the top deck of a
bus, and he himself had been the victim of attempted buggery by his
father, who he had stabbed three times in the chest for revenge.
His father survived but Stout was convicted and received a six-year
sentence.

A mild-faced,
sturdily built middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses; opened
the door. He was wearing an open dressing gown revealing his
stained underwear.

It was Tommy
Marsh. He had spent most of his life in and out of prisons for a
string of crimes. His latest was in Nottingham, where he entered a
school in an attempt to abduct a young girl, but when a teacher
intervened, he stabbed her to death and drank the blood that
spurted from her wounds. To look at him he appeared like a friendly
village vicar or a kindly grandfather.

He went to sit
next to Peter Stout and whispered in his ear.

‘Fuck off, you
sick bastard,’ Peter said, as he got up and slammed the door as he
left.

Tommy moved
onto the chair which Peter had left, and changed the television
channel to a quiz show. Tommy shouting the answers out occasionally
disturbed the silence of the room. The kitchen door swung open and
Nancy appeared peeling an orange. She was a strange girl, very thin
and bit of a hippie with her long flowing hair, bells and beads,
she was a vegetarian, fruit and vegetables only, she loved oranges
and ate up to twelve a day, even her perfume smelt of oranges. She
went over to sit with Tommy, placing a slice of her orange in his
mouth.

Nancy liked
setting fire to things, she had burnt a wool factory to the ground
in Batley and went on a rampage though the Bradford bus depot,
setting fire to the parked vehicles. She was finally caught in
Otley before the fire took hold in a paper factory. She looked over
at John and with her staring eyes she said, ‘Don’t give me that
pissie look, creep, else I’ll burn you.’ John looked away.

She would
cause trouble in the hostel every chance she got, she had serious
mood swings and bouts of depression. She had been married for two
years before she was arrested. After spending five years in
Holloway, she came out a lesbian.

Elizabeth
could be heard coughing in the dining room as she laid the tables
for the evening meal, a strong smell of cabbage drifted into the
television room.

Wayne Russell
entered the room, whistling and tapping the evening paper on his
leg as he walked in. ‘Evening everybody,’ he shouted, disturbing
the tranquil atmosphere and waking John from his snooze. ‘That
smells good, what are we having then?’ he said as he looked around
the room at the few residents sitting around.

He was a loud,
always joyful fellow, who like many of the others appeared normal
to anyone on the street, yet Wayne covered his psychologically
disturbed mind with laughter and humour. He had spent ten years in
a psychiatric prison hospital in Newcastle for trying to cut off
his fathers tongue with a pair of scissors in revenge for the
kicking he received from his father when he returned home from
school. He had also been made to walk around the house in only a
short vest along with his two brothers and sister, being constantly
slapped on the buttocks by his father’s slippers. After spending
time in a young offenders’ institute, he settled down with a nice
Lancashire lass in a small flat in Preston. She admitted to having
an affair with a garage mechanic, when he became angry, he punched
her and throttled her with a towrope. She suffered multiple bruises
and lacerations, including black eyes and a split lip; he then
rolled her body in a carpet and dumped her face down in a field.
Thinking she was dead, he walked away but on looking back, he saw
her move and raise her head slightly. He went to his van and
returned with a can of petrol, threw the petrol over her and set
her alight. The smoke alerted workers at a nearby factory who
called the police. Wayne was arrested as he tried to hang himself
on a tree close to the scene. His wife died three days later in
hospital.

Under
interrogation he admitted to the murder of four other girls over a
period of twelve months. He told the police the location of where
the bodies were buried.

They recovered
the four badly decomposed bodies in an abandoned mill a few miles
outside Preston. The girls had been strangled with the same towrope
and their bodies half-burnt.