by Conrad Jones
‘Same thing happened in the tourist areas on Anglesey, especially around the Trearddur Bay area,’ I sympathised with his opinion. ‘The trouble with that is when they applied for planning permission the council forced them to build separate access to each floor in case of fires, so they had to fit fire escapes. Cost the developers a fortune.’
‘Serves them right in my mind,’ huffed one of them.
‘Most of them had to have metal fire escapes fitted to the outside of the buildings, cost a fortune to make them to measure,’ I added.
‘Yes,’ the postman took the bait. ‘Same thing happened up at Caer-glas. They had to fit metal stairs to the bedsits too.’
That was my starting point. I had the name of the street and a description of the building. It was a three-storey house with a metal fire escape fitted to the outside. I didn’t think that there would be too many of them in Corwen. I finished my pint and said my farewells politely, pretending that I was taking a stroll down to the river.
CHAPTER 2
Max Blackman
The Caer-glas neighbourhood was declining. Slate-built Victorian terraces mixed with taller apartment buildings and the occasional two-up-two-down stone-built house. I guessed that Max lived in the bedsit on the middle floor of the converted building. I couldn’t be sure, but the curtains were closed tightly, and my instinct told me that he was hiding in there. The building was run down and in need of repair. The paint was chipped, the woodwork peeling, and a few broken windows were visible from the street. Paint flaked from the railings on the fire escape as they snaked up the deteriorated side wall of the house. I was staring at the middle floor window and obviously looked out of place on the quiet street when a voice disturbed my thoughts.
‘Are you looking for Max Blackman?’ The voice asked chirpily. An elderly man in a green tweed jacket and matching flat cap stood uncomfortably close to me. I hadn’t heard him approach and his question startled me. ‘I bet you’re a reporter.’
‘Something like that,’ I winked at him. He seemed amiable enough.
‘I get you, secret squirrel and all that,’ he tapped his nose and smiled to reveal a full set of ageing yellow teeth. ‘Not police, are you?’
‘No.’
‘There have been a lot of reporters looking for him lately although their numbers seem to have dwindled the last week or so. He’s old news now.’
‘The focus changes with a story like that,’ I smiled. ‘Do you know him?’
‘I know of him.’
‘Have you seen him around today?’
‘No. The little creep is doing his best to hide,’ said the man. There was an acidity to his tone. ‘I haven’t seen him out of his flat for days. Don’t quote me on this but no one around here has got any time for him. He’s a bit of a queer one, if you know what I mean.’ The limp wrist was a clue to his message.
‘Do you know if he’s still around?’ I asked. It wasn’t lost on me that the male population of Corwen seemed to be a little on the homophobic side. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a chat with him.’
‘Yeah, yeah, slow down, I’m getting to that.’ He said secretly. He leaned closer and looked around before speaking. ‘We all know of him around here but like I said, no one bothers with him. He hasn’t told the whole truth.’
‘Why is that?’ I asked equally secretly.
‘He’s lived here about nine years already. That’s a long time in this neighbourhood. We’ve all seen his picture in the papers and on television but it’s nothing to be proud of is it?’
‘Not at all,’ I agreed, ‘quite the opposite in fact.’
‘Exactly,’ he peered up and down the street again. ‘Before all this came out, he was just a waster, now he’s a big deal or he thinks that he is, anyway. He thinks that everybody’s looking up to him because he almost got himself killed and eaten by some pervert weirdo from the next village. All I can say is, shame that he didn’t.’
‘It sounds to me like he isn’t the most popular man in the village.’ I laughed although I wanted to know why Blackman was disliked so much. It couldn’t all be down to his sexuality.
‘You could say that.’
‘Why is he so disliked?’ I got straight to the point. It was obvious that the man couldn’t wait to have a gossip, so I didn’t see the harm in asking for the dirt on him.
‘Let’s just say that there were allegations that he’d been messing about with a young boy a few years back.’ He tapped his nose again.
‘Was he arrested?’
‘No and the family upped and moved away soon after, but the rumours stayed here with him.’
‘I see,’ I nodded. That would explain why the Press had dropped him so quickly.
‘He’s just after money with the Critchley thing,’ the man tapped his nose again.
‘What makes you think that?’ I asked him with a straight face. ‘Do people think that he’s made his story up?’
‘Word has it that he had been to Critchley’s farm many a time before all this kicked off. He worked there through the summer holidays a few times when he was a teenager,’ his voice was almost a whisper. ‘He was no stranger to that place if you know what I mean.’
I nodded that I did. If the Press had heard whispers that Blackman knew Critchley, then that would explain why they’d backed off him so quickly. It would also explain why the police dropped his evidence from the investigation. An allegation made from a suspected paedophile would hardly stand up in court. It didn’t matter now that Critchley was dead. ‘I see that makes sense.’ I replied offering a handshake. ‘Maybe I’ll leave it alone. Thanks for the information though, it’s been nice talking to you.’
‘And you,’ he shook my hand with bony fingers. ‘Which paper did you say you worked for?’
‘I didn’t,’ I tapped my nose this time and his smile disappeared. As I turned to walk away, I saw the curtains twitching in the middle floor flat. Blackman was home. As I walked down the street, I dialled direct enquiries and asked for the landline number at Blackman’s address. It was a long shot, but it paid off with his number. I rang it and eventually it clicked to a message service. I left Blackman a message offering him a thousand pounds for an interview and added my mobile number at the end. Less than five minutes later, Max Blackman called me back.
CHAPTER 3
The Meeting
At eight o’clock the next morning I knocked on Blackman’s door. It was too early for the school runs to start; Caer-glas was quiet and as far as I could tell, no one had seen me arrive. I carried a holdall which I kept in the Land Rover. It held a number of items which had been useful when it came to dealing with Niners and I was convinced that Blackman had dabbled with the sinister at Critchley’s farmhouse. One way or the other, I was about to find out if he was one of them or not. When he opened the door, I wasn’t surprised by his appearance. He was short and slender. His blond hair was styled in a wavy bob, longer on one side than the other. His skin was smooth, almost feminine to look at and his mannerisms were camp, to say the least. There was no doubt in my mind that he was on the other bus as the postman had so eloquently pointed out. Blackman didn’t ask to see any identification and he was well-mannered and surprisingly articulate. He didn’t ask for any money up front which suited me. I had a thousand pounds in counterfeit twenty-pound notes in the holdall just in case he did ask.
His flat was untidy, and he pointed me towards a black leather settee while he took a matching armchair adjacent to it. We sat next to a coffee table in the middle of the living room. The table was littered with coffee cups, half-full ashtrays, old newspapers and a stack of fashion magazines. Another smaller table nearby held the spent spotless breakfast plate that Max had used earlier. In one corner of the room was a large plasma screened television which was muted and tuned to the BBC news channel. The developers had exposed the ceiling joists, both as a feature and to give the bedsit more height and a feeling of space. A teardrop shaped wicker chair was suspended by a chain from the joists above the
smaller table. The flat was stylish but unkempt.
Max sat down in the chair and tucked his legs beneath him. Flicking his hair effeminately, he picked up his mobile phone and put it on silent, stuffing it in his pants pocket and then sat back nervously in his chair. He took a cigarette and lit it, blowing the smoke out of the side of his mouth. It was shaking in his hand. He closed his green eyes and concentrated. ‘I suppose you want to know everything from the beginning?’
‘I think that would be a good place to start,’ I said. It was the first thing that I’d said to him. He had just assumed that I was who I said I was, and he guessed what I wanted to hear. It was a well-rehearsed routine for him.
‘Are you going to record it or make notes?’ he asked looking at my holdall. ‘Your lot usually do one or the other.’
‘I’ll record it,’ I said. I fiddled with my phone and pretended that I knew how to use it properly. ‘Ready when you are.’
‘It still knocks me sick when I think about it,’ he shivered as the vivid memories flooded into words. I had to make my mind up whether they were memories, or a cleverly concocted story manufactured to make some money from the gory events in Carrog. ‘I haven’t slept in two weeks,’ he began. ‘I can’t believe that this happened to me. There was no clue that he would turn on me like that. I swear to God that I looked into the eyes of the Devil and saw death in them. I’m lucky to be alive.’
‘I can see that you’re shaken by it,’ I said. He was either a great actor or he really was traumatised by it all. It was a very dramatic performance either way.
‘Believe me, God delivered me from Satan that day. I’m still in shock. I can’t trust people anymore. I can’t sleep and when I do try to sleep, I wake up in a panic, sitting straight up in bed, soaking wet with sweat. I’m still scared to death. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder.’ Max paused, taking a few rapid puffs off his cigarette. His eyes flickered up now and then. He was gauging my reaction to his story. I tried to look shocked.
‘Just start out with what happened that day,’ I tried to get him to focus. He had mentioned both God and the Devil so far and that sent spikes of caution through me. I needed to know which one he favoured.
‘I was in the Spar shop when Critchley showed up and asked if I wanted to have a party,’ Max said exhaling a cloud of smoke. ‘We all knew him from around the village. There was no way to guess he was a maniac. He was just an ordinary man. I didn’t think too much about him either way.’
‘Had you met him before that day?’ I asked. I wanted to see if he would lie to me. I knew that he had worked on his farm. His opening account from the Spar shop sounded like a lie to me as if he was distancing himself from Critchley.
‘I worked for him a couple of summers ago, just casual labour on the farm,’ Max blushed red. He wasn’t lying about knowing him but there was more to it than that. I could tell from the way he avoided eye contact that he was manufacturing parts of his story.
‘So, you were friendly with him before then?’
‘Well, sort of,’ his eyes went teary and his lips quivered. He looked down at the floor as if he was watching an invisible screen down there. The memories were swilling about in his mind and he was choosing which ones to recount.
‘What does ‘sort of’ mean?’
‘Look, he was nice to me when I was in school,’ Max shrugged but he still couldn’t keep eye contact with me. ‘He gave me a job for the summer, and he treated me well.’
‘It sounds like you looked up to him then?’
‘Well, sort of.’ Max was uncomfortable with my questions.
‘You’re gay, right?’ I asked. Better to let him know that I wasn’t going to beat around the bush.
‘Is that a problem?’ he quipped and wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging them to his chest. He looked offended.
‘Not for me but I could see it being a problem here in the village.’
‘I’m bi-sexual,’ he replied curtly.
‘And Critchley?’
Max seemed to cast his mind back before he answered. ‘I never thought he was gay or anything out of the ordinary at first, because the people in the village where he lived just never would have tolerated him. They don’t like gays in this part of the world. If they’d thought that he was gay, the men in the village would have messed him up. They jump guys like that around here. It’s just not accepted.’
‘So, he was in the closet then?’
‘I guess nobody really knew that he was gay, or into that kind of lifestyle. He just couldn’t have survived if anybody knew about him,’ Max emphasised that last sentence. I knew that he spoke from experience.
‘He kept it hidden?’
‘Yes,’ Max sulked. ‘Why are you going on about that, anyway?’
‘I’m trying to establish what type of man he was.’
‘I wish I had.’
‘Sorry, go back to the day in the Spar shop,’ I sat back to let him talk. I didn’t want to spook him until I’d heard everything that he had to say.
‘‘Let’s get some of the guys and all go down to the river and have a few beers,’’ he said to me in the shop. ‘I’ve got a hundred quid here. I’ll buy the beer.’’
‘Which guys?’ I stopped him.
‘Well anyone we knew that liked to party and wasn’t working,’ Max frowned at me. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It depends which guys went with you,’ I shrugged. ‘Did anyone go with you?’
‘No.’
‘Did you invite anyone else?’
‘No, we didn’t bother in the end,’ he snapped.
‘So, he wanted to go to the river with you alone?’
‘I don’t know what he was thinking,’ he sulked. ‘Do you want me to make it up?’
‘Not really, sorry,’ I smiled. There were never any other guys going to the river. He was lying to me and I knew it. It was no wonder that the journalists had seen through his story. He was a bad liar.
‘I was broke, and I hadn’t been out for a while,’ said Max, shrugging. ‘It sounded like a good idea to me. It was hot and sticky that day and a few beers by the river would be good. We walked to the beer aisle and he got the beer. Critchley said he had to stop by the farmhouse to change clothes. He was still in his blue overalls and wellingtons.’
I now believed Blackman was lying about his motives to go with Critchley in the first place. I guessed that Max knew what was happening when he accepted Critchley’s invitation to the farm. At least Max thought he knew what was happening. Maybe he didn’t know about the twenty odd other victims that had proceeded him to Critchley’s for a few beers. As it turned out, my instincts rang true.
Max had been around the block, but I was convinced that he was aware of what Critchley wanted that afternoon. At that point, my suspicion was that Max was bi-sexual and that he knew full well that Critchley’s offer of free beer didn’t include the company of any other guys. I wanted to ask who he thought the other guys were specifically but that could wait until later. The police had found thousands of photographic images on Critchley’s computer and it was suspected that his modus operandi was to offer his victims money so he could take sexy photos of them. Most agreed to the deal, not realising where they would end up. And money was the major motivator with Max. He lived pretty much from day-to-day. I believed Max went to that farmhouse to play Critchley’s games, but he was in for a surprise.
‘It was really hot that day,’ Max said lighting another cigarette from the packet which now nestled in the neck of his T-shirt. ‘Everything seemed pretty normal. I’d never seen the inside of the farmhouse where he lived and when we first got there, it looked like a pretty nice place. We went in the door and the smell hit me right away,’ said Max. ‘What is that smell? I asked him but, Dewi just brushed it off. He said there was a problem with the sewers on the farm. As we walked down the hall, the stench made me want to gag.’ Max wrinkled up his face. ‘I said let’s just grab a beer and get out of there and go to the river, and he said:
‘That sounds good. I can barely stand the smell myself.’ He said it was the sewer, and I’ve smelled some pretty raunchy sewers on farms before, so I just assumed he was telling the truth.’
Max leaned forward in his chair, his voice lowered dramatically. The droning monologue was hypnotic. He had told this story a dozen times. I concentrated on the gaps in his testimony and realised that we were on the portal, the point of no return. ‘His living room was big but there was no air in there. A small fan unit buzzed near the sash window. The dark coloured curtains were drawn and the intense sun outside was locked out. We sat down on his couch and popped open a beer. He had a beautiful fish aquarium and the colours of the fish were stunning in the darkened room. They were so pretty.’ Max let out a sigh.
I just nodded and listened.
‘As I looked around and my eyes began to adjust. I could see the living room walls were covered with photos and drawings of men working out.’ Max’s demeanour suddenly changed. He became impatient, almost brisk. ‘I hoped Critchley would hurry and change his clothes and we’d get out of there. It really stunk, and it was creepy somehow. I didn’t feel right.’
Now there was no doubt in my mind that Max had gone there to have sex with Critchley and that he had been with him before. He was lying.
‘Critchley told me he had all the drawings because he was a member of a health club. He was in pretty good shape; his arms were muscular and toned; he was strong and wiry from all the manual farm work. We were sitting on opposite ends of the couch, but it was a fairly small couch and there really wasn’t much space between us. He said some of the fish were piranha, and he told me how they like to eat each other. We sat there for a while, making small talk about when I’d worked on the farm for him and stuff,’ Max said, his voice falling again into that hypnotic drone and again abruptly breaking off, as if he were trying to shake off a bad memory. ‘He was being heavy and boring and if it wasn’t for that beer, I would have gone home. In fact, that’s what I was thinking,’ Max said his voice angry and hard. ‘But he was way ahead of me. Before I knew what hit me, he had a handcuff on my wrist and a curved knife up against my armpit. Right up under my heart.’ Max clasped his hands over his heart and twisted his body wildly in the chair.
