All Saints- Murder on the Mersey

by Brian L. Porter

  As he was about to turn and leave, a noise from somewhere behind the pavilion reached his ears. Instinct told him it was the sound of someone, a girl, in some distress.

  Louder, male voices could be heard, too, and Gerry Byrne, sensing something wasn't quite right about what he was hearing, padded almost on tiptoe to the small window, covered by steel mesh, that was fitted high up into the outside wall of the home changing room. Not being very tall, Gerry had to stand on the wooden bench seat and even then, reach up on tiptoes to gain a very restricted view of what was happening behind the pavilion.

  Four boys were out there, on the grass and they had a girl with them. From the sounds the girl was making, she wasn't enjoying or encouraging whatever they were doing.

  “Go on Plug, get her skirt off,” a voice Byrne didn't recognise ordered as a boy he recognised as Matthew Remington slapped the girl across the face, causing her not to scream but to cry, her tears only serving to fuel the boys' cruelty.

  “Shut up, you little bitch or it'll be a punch in the face next time,” Remington leered at her, as he tried to force the poor girl's legs apart.

  “Oh, move over, Plug, let me have a go at her,” said the unmistakable voice of Mark Proctor, much to Gerry Byrne's horror. He couldn't get high enough to see the girl's face, so he wasn't able to see who it was the boys had pinned down on the ground, but whoever it was, it was plainly obvious that what the boys were doing to her was very wrong. Gerry Byrne, still innocent in the ways of the world was in a quandary. He didn't know who the other boys were, but something in their voices told him they were older than Plug and Mark. He knew he had to do something to stop them from hurting the girl, but what could he, one young lad do against four of them, without probably getting badly hurt himself if they retaliated against any attempt he made to help her? He didn't have time to run back to Father Rooney and he suddenly thought of Angela. What would happen if she walked in to the situation now, and saw and heard what was happening? Dare he risk his sister being caught by the older boys and suffering the same fate as the girl on the grass?

  “Please don't do this,” the girl pleaded.

  “Shut it, bitch,” one of the older boys snapped at her. “For God's sake, Mark, if you can't the fucking skirt off, just lift it up and get on with it.”

  “She's struggling too much,” said Proctor.

  “So fucking slap her again,” said the unknown voice.

  As Gerry Byrne tried to think of a way to help the girl without ending up being beaten or worse by the four thugs outside the pavilion, fate, or maybe the God he would end up serving through the church, took a hand in proceedings.

  Some four hundred yards away, Angela was scurrying about under a clump of trees and bushes, seeking bird life, when she inadvertently disturbed a family of crows, roosting peacefully in one of the trees. The birds took to the air in a flurry of flapping wings, accompanied by a cacophony of screeching bird calls, and by chance flew directly in the direction of the ongoing assault, flying directly over the scene, forcing the girl's assailants to suddenly look up in surprise. Simultaneously, a man walking his dog in the fallow field just beyond the boundary of the school playing field began calling his dog, which had run off in pursuit of the birds that had caught his attention with their flapping and screeching. The dog found a small hole in the boundary fence and slithered through into the school field, and within seconds the four boys were surprised to see a muscular, black Doberman pinscher bounding across the field in their direction. The dog's owner's face appeared at the fence as he shouted, “Paddy, where are you boy?”

  “Bloody hell, lads, fucking leave her and leg it, quickly; don't you dare say a word, bitch or we'll be back,” said one of the older boys, and in less than a second the four boys abandoned the attack on the girl and ran off in the opposite direction to the dog's approach. Luckily for them, the dog stopped as it reached the distressed, crying girl, and began licking her face affectionately. From his position at the window, Byrne was able to witness the arrival of the man who had climbed the fence to follow his runaway dog.

  The man quickly ascertained that the girl was alright and amazingly accepted her claim that she'd fallen and hurt herself. Didn't he hear her screams? The thought ran through Gerry Byrne's mind. He seemed more concerned about his dog, Paddy, who's back bore a long, angry looking red scratch where he'd cut it as he'd wriggled under the seven foot high chain metal fence between the playing field and the narrow path that ran along the side of the adjoining farmer's field.

  Feeling it was safe to exit his hiding place in the changing room, Gerry stepped out and quickly ran round to the rear of the wooden structure to where the man was on his knees, his attention seemingly divided between the girl on the ground and Paddy the dog. When she saw him approaching, at first the girl's eyes registered fear, obviously thinking he was one of her attackers, perhaps returning to ensure her silence, but then she seemed to realise he was a newcomer to the scene.

  “Are you okay?” Gerry asked the girl, who looked up at him as though he were a being from another planet.

  “Seems the young lady fell down and hurt herself,” the man said to Gerry before the girl had a chance to reply, and at that moment, Angela arrived, and took one look at the girl and somehow, in the way that only a female possibly could, she seemed to know exactly what had happened.

  “What the heck's going on?” she asked.

  Gerry looked at his sister, as if to say, “don't say anything until he's gone.”

  As if on cue, satisfied that the girl was safe in the hands of her two 'friends' as he called them, the man clipped Paddy's lead to his collar and left the scene, leaving Gerry and Angela to attend to the girl.

  “Right, is someone going to tell me what happened here?” Angela asked again.

  “Four boys tried to do things to her,” Gerry said. “I could hear them and see some of it through the little window in the changing room, but I didn't know what to do to help her.”

  “Is that right?” Angela asked the girl, taking hold of one trembling hand.

  “Yes,” the girl said, trying hard not to burst into tears.

  “What's your name?” Angela asked her.

  “Elizabeth Dunne,” she replied. “They call me Lizzie.”

  “You're not from Speke Hill, Lizzie, are you?”

  “No, I met this boy, and arranged to meet him here, and he sneaked me in through the gate at the far end of the path along the field. I thought he fancied me, you know, and he was good looking and a bit older than me so I was flattered when he asked me to meet him. Anyway, when we got here, he changed completely, and there were three other boys waiting behind the building, and they tried to…to…you know?”

  “Bastards,” said Angela through clenched teeth.

  “What was this lad's name, Lizzie, and where did you meet him?”

  “He called himself Johnny, and I met him in a coffee bar in town last Saturday.”

  “Did you see him, Gerry?” Angela asked her brother.

  “Not properly, no,” Byrne replied. “But I know who two of them were.”

  “Who were they, Gerry?”

  “Mark Proctor and Plug, you know, Remington?”

  “Bloody hell.”

  Gerry had never heard his sister swear before, and the vehemence in her voice took him by surprise.

  “We've got to tell someone,” Angela quickly decided.

  “Oh please, I don't want to get into trouble,” Lizzie pleaded. “If my parents find out I've been hanging around with boys they'll kill me.”

  “But, they tried to rape you, Lizzie. That's what happened, isn't it?” said Angela, far more forcefully than Gerry would have thought possible at her age.

  “Yes, but they didn't actually do it in the end, did they?” said Lizzie.

  Ten minutes of discussion ended when Angela told Gerry he'd better take Father Rooney's gauntlets to him and think of an excuse for being late, while she walked Angela safely out of the grounds. Unfortunately for
the little group, Father Rooney, worried at Gerry's long absence, appeared at that very moment, and unused to lying to a priest, the children soon revealed all to the shocked looking Father.

  Lizzie refused point blank however, to reveal her surname or her address to Rooney, insisting she wanted to forget the whole episode. Knowing he couldn't force the girl to talk to him, Father Rooney stood silently for a minute as he tried to decide his next course of action. Reaching his decision, he ordered Angela and Gerry to go about their business as though nothing had happened.

  “Carry on with your walk, as you normally would, and I'll walk young Lizzie here safely out of school grounds. As for the boys responsible for this appalling act of savagery, you leave them to me. I don't want you two involved, do you understand?”

  “But Father,” an incensed Angela said, “we don't even know who the other boys are, and they're just going to get away with it, aren't they?”

  “No, they most certainly are not, Angela, and as for the other two boys, I can promise you that Proctor and Remington will reveal all to me. I'll make sure of it. But listen, if they know you two have talked to me and are involved in me finding out what's taken place here today, they could make things very difficult for you both for the remainder of your time at Speke Hill, do you understand that?”

  Gerry and Angela simultaneously chorused “Yes, Father.”

  Angela then asked, “But how will you say you found out, Father?”

  “Oh, you leave that to me, Angela. For one thing, I can say I came here to get my forgotten gauntlets and found this young girl, and she told me what had taken place. I can assure you they'll be terrified at the prospect of what may happen to them next, and they know she heard the names, Mark and Plug, and Johnny, so it won't seem too strange to them that I was able to identify them. Now, do as I've told you while I see Lizzie off the premises.”

  Feeling shaken and a little unsure of themselves, Angela and Gerry nevertheless did as Father Rooney asked and went back to their walk, though neither found any pleasure in their remaining time together. Gerry noticed that, despite her earlier enthusiasm, Angela never looked at The Observer's Book of Birds once during the rest of their walk. Brother and sister hugged each other as they parted a while later at the entrance to Angela's dormitory, having promised each other never to mention what had happened in front of a living soul, as long as they had to live at Speke Hill, trusting Father Rooney to make sure the guilty boys were punished.

  * * *

  Andy Ross now felt he had not only the explanation for Father Gerald Byrne's rather mixed-up nightmare, but more importantly, confirmation of what he guessed had been the beginning of an evil partnership of four young men who would go on to commit further acts of evil as they achieved maturity. Now, if only Christine Bland could extract the names of the two older boys from the depths of Gerald Byrne's memory. She now tried to do just that.

  “Tell me please, Gerald, what happened after that evening. Did you hear what happened to the boys who'd perpetrated the attack?”

  “We never heard a word. Father Rooney called me aside one day and told me the matter had been dealt with privately, within the orphanage as he put it. Though we'd promised never to talk about it, Angela and I discussed it years later when we'd both left the orphanage and our promise no longer held firm. We both agreed there had to have been some kind of cover-up. Speke Hill had closed ranks to protect its own. Maybe they did punish the boys in some way, but it was never made public, as far as we knew.”

  “And do you recall the names of those other boys, Gerald, the older ones who seemed to be egging on the two younger ones?”

  “I only know one of them was called Johnny, because I heard the other older boy say his name one time. I never saw his face because if I had done, I might have seen him with the other boy in the following days and been able to find out the other boy's name, but it never happened.”

  Christine Bland drew the session to a close and told the priest, “I'm going to count to five, now, Gerald. When I reach five, you'll wake up and your mind will recall what you've told me, not as a nightmare, but as a distant memory from long ago, and it will no longer disturb you. You were a child when what you've told me took place and you will no longer carry the burden of what you saw all those years ago”

  Ross said to her, before she began counting, “don't they usually tell people they won't remember what they've revealed under hypnosis?”

  “This isn't a stage act or a movie, Inspector. This is supposed to be a cathartic process for Father Byrne, a way to help him put the past to bed, so to speak, to banish the nightmare. He can only do that if he remembers the truth about the past, and not some twisted subconscious version of reality.”

  “I think I understand, and thank you for doing this.”

  “It's time to bring him back,” she said as she slowly began counting to five.

  Chapter 28

  Back to 'Billy Ruffian

  Randolph Newman stood head and shoulders above Detective Constable 'Tony' Curtis. At six foot four inches, he was a good six inches taller than Curtis, and his black, tightly curled hair, dark good looks that betrayed his Caribbean heritage and powerful physique had the effect of intimidating the young D.C. before they'd exchanged a word. Newman hadn't exactly looked pleased when Curtis kept up an incessant knocking on the front doors of The Belerophon at nine thirty in the morning. As landlord of the pub, he'd fallen into bed some time after one a.m. after closing the pub, making sure all was secure, and balancing the day's takings before locking them in the safe. He'd been in the cellar, changing a barrel of lager when the knocking began and made sure he finished the task in hand before climbing the stairs, crossing the floor of the pub and opening one of the double doors, just a crack, to identify the cause of the disturbance to his morning.

  “Yes?” he snapped at the sight of the young man in blue jeans and a leather jacket standing at his door.

  Curtis, forced to look up to face the man directly, took one look at Newman and gulped internally, before pulling his warrant card from the inside pocket of his jacket and holding it up for the landlord to examine.

  “Police,” he announced. “Detective Constable Curtis, Merseyside Police. I'd like a word, sir, if I may?”

  “Humph,” Newman shrugged. “I hardly thought you'd be from the Met, would you?”

  Curtis looked a little nonplussed by the remark.

  “Oh, never mind. Come on in, Detective. I was just about to put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?”

  “Er, right, thank you, sir. Coffee for me please.”

  Five minutes later the two men faced each other across a well used wooden topped table in the lounge bar of the pub.

  “How long have you been the landlord here, Mr. Newman?”

  “Oh, must be around ten years now, since I left the Royal Navy.”

  “I see, so you'd remember most of the regulars over that period?”

  “Well, maybe not all, but most of them, sure,” Newman replied. “What's this all about, Constable?”

  Curtis quickly filled Newman in on the reason for his visit and then reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket a removed photographs of both Matthew Remington and Mark Proctor. The landlord gazed at them for a few seconds, and then nodded.

  “Yes, I've seen them in here a few times. Two of the four apostles.”

  “Eh? What do you mean, Mr. Newman?”

  “The four apostles is what I called them, 'cos of their names, right?”

  “I'm sorry, I'm not with you.”

  “When we was very little kids, Constable, me and me brothers, well, our Mam taught us this simple little bedtime prayer. It went like this. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. God bless Mam and Dad, Samuel, Levi, and Gary. Of course, me brothers would insert my name instead of their own, but we could also add anyone else we wanted to the prayer, like grandparents, friends, cousins here and in Jamaica and so on. It was just easy for a little child to remember you see,
based on the four gospels of the New Testament, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, so when these four fellas stars coming in here, and I gradually overheard their names, I thought of them as being all saints' names, like the four apostles of my childish prayer, and I always thought of 'em that way, whenever I saw 'em in here.”

  Curtis was elated. They had a name for the fourth man. Though saint was the last name he'd apply to the men Newman just described.”

  “I heard about the murders on Radio Merseyside and on Mersey Radio. One of them said that one of the dead men had a record of serious sexual offences but they didn't give any details.”

  “We believe all four men were involved in a number of offences, Mr. Newman, but I can't go into details, I'm afraid.”

  “I understand, Constable,” Newman replied. “Need to know basis and all that, eh?”

  “Exactly,” said Curtis. “You'd have come across stuff like that in the Navy, I suppose.”

  “All the time. You can count on me to keep my mouth shut. I won't even tell my wife why you were here. She's upstairs and will be wondering where her cup of tea is,” he grinned. “I'll tell her you came about a fracas in the vicinity or something and asked if we'd heard anything.”

  “Mr. Newman, you don't know how helpful you've been. One last thing, did you ever overhear any of them mention any surnames?”

  “No, sorry Constable. It weren't even very often I overheard a first name. It probably took me three months of them coming in here before I gave 'em the four apostles name, it took that long to hear all their names.”

  “How about hearing any of their conversations?”

  “I'm a good landlord, Constable Curtis. That means I stay out of the faces and the business of my regulars. It wouldn't do to be eavesdropping on conversations, especially in an area like this, if you know what I mean.”