In Love with Richard

by Paul Kelly

  “Yes...”he said softly, almost inaudibly before he repeated himself aloud. “Yes, I killed them. I killed them all. It was what they deserved. None of them loved, well... no one other than themselves. There wasn’t an ounce of love in any one of them... None of them had regard for anyone but themselves. They were selfish bastards... all of them. Yes, they deserved to die and I’m not sorry for what I did to them. My Maya knows what it meant. She knows how much I love her now and always will and I will destroy anything or anyone who defiles my love for her.”

  Fiona ran out of the lounge and into the kitchen, holding her hands to her ears when Richard made his announcement, but Gardner produced a set of handcuffs and stood up from where he was crouching on the settee.

  When Fiona returned to the lounge she looked more composed as she stared at Reg, Gardner and he looked back at her knowing that there was something serious on her mind. She shrugged her shoulders and stood face to face with the policeman

  “If as you presume,” she said with a defiant note inn her voice... ”If you presume that Richard made all these telephone calls to all these people he is supposed to have killed,” she snarled, “ how then could you, or they... not trace the number he was calling from. Surely as a policeman you should have thought of that?” she screamed and Gardner shook his head sympathetically.

  “The 141 code, dear,” he said, “You must have heard of the 141 code where you can make a call to anyone and hide your identity as you do it... That’s modern technology and only if he made the calls at a public telephone box, there would be no trace. He doesn’t have a mobile phone, does he?”

  Fiona was about to say that Richard did have a mobile phone, but then in an instant she corrected herself and said nothing in the fear that she may incriminate Richard even further, as Gardner looked to the ceiling

  “You’d better come with me, Richard Bright,” he said and Richard made no resistance as he held his hands out before him

  “But tell me, Mr. Gardner... apart from the knife, which incidentally is mine, although I know you already know that. How did you guess it was I who strangled those girls?”

  Gardner fastened the cuffs as he spoke.

  “I remembered how you told me of your school days and how you hated those girls laughing and giggling at you... It seemed to be a particular ’hang-up’ with you and then when I discovered they all came from St. Michael’s, I put two and two together and your name came up. Easy, don’t you think? There’s only one flaw... Do you remember the man you thought you had killed when you were visiting Mrs. Thompson?” Richard looked to the ground, but did not answer as Gardner continued,” Well you should have learned your lesson there, Boy. You see another of your so-called victims didn’t die either.”

  Richard glared at Gardner when he said that.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered, “I’ve told you I did those murders. What more do you want?”

  “Well you were a little bit too hasty, Richard, You should have stuck to one killing at a time, but being the smart ass that you are, you thought you’d double your act. Didn’t you?”

  Richard thought immediately of Tobias and her cousin Smith

  “Jane Smith didn’t die. You must have been too tired after you killed her cousin. Perhaps that’s what it was, but you didn’t use the pressure on Jane Smith that you did on the others. She’s in hospital now and can give evidence against you... because although you have admitted to assaulting her, she also gave evidence that it was a man with a distinct stammer who attacked her... and she was pretty sure that was you.” And as the inspector drew his conclusions, Fiona returned to the lounge.

  “This is nonsense,” she screamed, “Richard is cured of his stutter. I have lived with him in this flat for a long time now and I can vouch that he has lost any trace of a stammer... Richard... Please tell me this isn’t true? I cannot believe that you would do this. I just can’t. Please tell me it is all a mistake?”

  “Richard only stammers when he is excited about something Fiona,” said Gardner. “With you he is restful and his stammer wouldn’t be apparent, but when he is planning to kill someone... well?”

  Richard looked at Fiona and there was a great sadness in his eyes.

  “I told you how much I loved your mother,” he said. “You must have realized how deep that love was. I know that you love me Fiona and in a way, I love you too, but the love of my life was and still is, Maya. I knew I could never ever love anyone again after my darling died and it is this love that drove me to do what I did. The girls laughed at me and I couldn’t stand that. The men abused your mother and that upset me too. I couldn’t stand that either.”

  As Gardner led Richard away from the flat, Fiona hid her face in her hands as she cried.

  “What will they do to him Inspector?” Fiona sobbed as she asked her urgent question... “I can’t bear to think of him going to prison. He would die if they did that to him.”

  Garner turned to where Fiona was standing and sighed,

  “I’m sorry Miss, but the evidence is strong against him and he has admitted guilt,” he said as he led Richard away.

  Fiona was distraught. She didn’t have anyone to discuss her grief with now that Maya had gone and then an idea struck her.

  “Richard’s mother... Yes, she should be told and he didn’t have any recent contact with her... Yes, yes, she should be told.”

  Fiona looked up her telephone address book to find the number, but she was confused for a moment as she couldn’t find any Mrs. Bright in her telephone directory and then she remembered that Richard called his mother, Lizzie and there under that name she found a telephone number. It seemed that Lizzie Bright had registered her name in the telephone directory as Lizzie. Perhaps she didn’t think that Bright was a suitable enough name for her to have...

  “Good morning. I am trying to trace a Mrs. Bright... a Mrs. Lizzie Bright. Could you help me please?”

  There was a rough response to Fiona’s enquiry and a gravel voice, barely audible said that she was indeed Mrs. Lizzie Bright.

  “What d’ya want with me?” she snapped.

  Fiona stopped for a moment, wondering just how she was going to tell Richard’s mother what had happened to him. It was drastic news and she shivered a little as she tried to talk. Her throat was dry and she knew her voice was weak.

  “I am a friend of your son, Mrs. Bright and...”

  Fiona was interrupted by the gravel voice again.

  “Didn’t know ‘e ‘ad any friends, did that one,” she announced and coughed loudly in her effort to speak, but Fiona ignored the remark she heard as she continued her conversation.

  “Yes, as I have said, Mrs. Bright. I am a friend of your son and I am afraid I have some rather sad news to tell you.”

  “Nothing you can tell me what I don’t already know. He never was no good was that boy an’ I told him so many times, but he wouldn‘t listen.” was the reply, but when Fiona spluttered out that Richard was accused of murder, omitting to say he had been found guilty not only of murder, but of several murders, Lizzie Bright had a very different response to what Fiona had expected.

  “What? What was that you said? My Richard is accused of murderin’ somebody... ? Well, I’m not surprised. Not one bit. I always told him he would come to a sticky end and would he listen to me... NEVER... He knew it all, or so he thought, but he knew bugger all and it’s proved I’m right in the end. Don’t it?”

  Fiona could not believe her ears at what she had heard. It seemed impossible that any mother would reject her son, so out of hand and especially in such a serious matter. She was about to say goodbye to Richard’s mother but the latter would not let the matter go. She coughed twice and apologised for her heavy breathing, saying that she had known better days when in reality, Fiona could guess that she was a heavy smoker.

  “Ever since ‘e
was a little sod...”said Lizzie before she coughed again. “He never was much good at nothin’... Always trying to skive off from lessons at school an’ things. Tellin’ everybody ‘e was a dyslexion,” she said, using her interpretation of the word, “but I could see through all that, I could. ’E was a lazy git an’ never ’ad no sense at all. That’s what I’ve always said and you can see how right I am now, can’t you?”

  Fiona put the telephone down and dried her eyes in her handkerchief before she telephoned the police station to enquire the whereabouts of Richard and asked if there was any possibility of her seeing him, but Tommy Gardner was not there and the police sergeant on the desk told her he would get Gardner to telephone her as soon as he got back. Fiona waited impatiently, pacing the lounge floor of her flat, but it was only about an hour later that Gardner did phone and the news wasn’t at all good. No-one would be allowed to see Richard until after the doctor had examined him and that wouldn’t be until much later that evening, but later that evening, the news was worse than even Fiona had expected. The doctor had diagnosed Richard as mentally disturbed, emphasizing that the most likely diagnosis was ‘mentally deranged’ and that was considered to be a lenient conclusion... Gardner told Fiona that the likelihood of prison for Richard was unlikely and that he would most probably be sent to an asylum for the insane, but Gardner was swift to add that even at that, Richard may well be given some community service if it was considered that he might well better serve the community in this particular way.

  “After all,” added Gardner as he stroked his chin in his usual way when he was having a ’deep thought’... “not all people who are mentally disturbed are considered to be ‘dangerous’ and with Richard’s musical talent, he may be better using that talent somewhere in the outside world rather than let it rot away in some dismal asylum, don’t you think?”

  Through all this that went on concerning Richard Bright, he never raised an eyebrow. He went into an asylum for the insane and continued playing his violin as if the world and everything in it was at peace and the music he played was Maya’s favourites. He left a note for Fiona.

  “Dear Fiona... Sorry about all this disturbance, but I am quite content with how things are progressing. Please don’t worry about me, but I would be grateful if you could write to the Royal College of Music for me and tell them I am sorry I cannot accept their kind invitation to commence studies with them early in August. Tell them I have more urgent and pressing business with her Majesty. Be good and always stay as you are. Maya would be proud of you, as I am.”

  ***

  But as Richard always said when he was involved with his crimes of vengeance, “What goes around, comes around...”

  He played his violin, all the time of his incarceration and never gave the slightest impression in the asylum that he wanted to be anywhere else. He played with love in his heart until he died at the early age of 42 and was buried together with his violin in the asylum cemetery... His beloved violin and a photograph of an unknown lady.

  FINIS

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