22. THE CONFESSION

What else can I say but THE END

The patient lay in his hospital bed, semi-conscious, eyes closed, not quite certain where he was and why he wasn’t sitting on his mobility scooter enjoying the warm breeze on his face whilst he tried not to look too goggle-eyed as he stared at two women who were half his age and twice as beautiful as they should be.

That’s what he’d been looking at when that blasted fog had come down inside his head, grey and permeating everything, combined with the most god-awful pain imaginable.

Did I think god-awful? I’m so sorry Lord, I didn’t mean God is anything like being awful. It’s just a saying, a few syllables that rattle around in my head not meaning what they seem to mean… but it was bad, very bad, I never want to feel its like again, I’d die rather...

Then, suddenly, he was here. There were noises all around him, sounds that meant both everything and nothing to him, and his eyes might open if he tried, but he couldn’t be bothered. He’d lived his life like that, not looking, just believing…

Then voices. A woman’s voice.

He listened and tried to make some kind of sense of the sounds it was making, until, gradually, they sort of focussed into syllables and words

“Angela, it’s almost beautiful,” it said.

What was almost beautiful?

Am I almost beautiful, is that what she means … it is a she, isn't it? I haven’t known so many women in my life, though there was the one with the wretched boy, the hateful little t**d who died in such a stupid way… and even when he was dead he wouldn’t go away…

“What is, Trayda?”

“Two men in the same side ward, both here because an ice cream salesman was murdered. One as innocent as the day he was born and the other as guilty as Hell.”

Who are they talking about? What ice-cream salesman? I never knew an ice-cream salesman… But I’m the innocent one, yes I am. I’m the one who has prayed every day of his life, prayed for enlightenment, prayed for love, and my prayers were answered in the sweet chirruping of birds from the Heavens for that’s where my Lord is, in the Heavens…

“So you finally agree, do you?”

“Agree, Angela?”

“With your sweet friend Reuben. And did you have it off with him when you worked together? He’s a fine looking figure of a man, nice hair, smart eyes, many a gal would be proud to be seen with him...”

“No I didn’t! Of all the things! We were colleagues. I was his Inspector, or rather he was my constable and then my sergeant when he got his stripes, and you don’t go round messing with your underlings...”

What is she talking about? I never messed with the one woman I ever cared for… I loved her, but that wasn’t messing, it was loving, pure and simple and ever so holy… And then I tried to save her life, I tried so hard but she died there and then with stains of me on her… I’m sorry about that but they said after they cut her up and examined her that she would have died any moment of any day and there was nothing anyone short of a skilled surgeon getting her in time could have done to save her, not even a man of God, not when her Lord calls her to him…

“I know you! You must have wanted to! Remember when we were at secondary school and you had that crush on Marvin Sykes? You had such long hair back then and when you were feeling excited or emotional you used to twiddle it in your fingers … and that school trip when Marvin was coming on to you on the coach… remember?”

“I remember. I guess I must have turned my hair curly that week!”

What does she mean, curly hair? Who is she talking to? I tried so hard to save her and I thought I had, but no… I kissed her cooling lips, I tried so hard and then the boy came along, I’d lost count of the time or I would have left her house so that he didn’t know our shame, but I was naked and he saw me trying so hard to save her… A clergyman in the altogether, trying to put every bit of medical knowledge he had into practice and pump her heart, make it beat, give her back her life … but my Lord had called her to him and that had to be that.

“What are we going to do now, Trayda? We can’t hang around here. Your murderer won’t wake up, not today, they said, and maybe never.”

“My murderer is awake, Angela,” sighed Trayda, “he’s just half asleep. I’ll bet he can hear what we’re saying, you and me. It was the shorts that gave him away.”

“Shorts? He’s a nudist, silly! He hardly ever wears anything”

A nudist? Me a nudist? I wouldn’t be seen dead in public without my clothes, my nice pressed black shirt, my collar, my sleek trousers with their sharp creases, I’m no nudist, though I’ve a horrible secret … once or twice, and only once or twice, or maybe three times or more, I’ve spotted the odd young lady on that nudist site, by accident, of course, it couldn’t be helped…

“He’s never been a nudist, Angela...”

He tried to shut the voices out of his mind, and might have done had the door not opened, or it sounded like the door opening, and someone else walked in…

oo0oo

“So you’re here, Trayda?” said Inspector Reuben Richards once the door had closed quietly behind him. “Come to see whether the murderer will save the courts and the judicial system a small fortune by dying before he goes to trial?”

“Not very satisfactory though, is it?” asked Trayda. “What evidence have you found that changes things?”

“He was attacked by that grandfather of the deceased. That was proof enough for me if proof were needed.”

“You mean, an elderly man follows you, sees who you suspect and acts on that mis-information?” asked Trayda.

“What do you mean, mis-information?”

“Arresting the poor man was all the evidence that Mr Stokesey’s granddad needed, and he followed it up even though you’d got it all wrong. I thought I’d made it quite clear. Mr Hampton had nothing to do with the killing of David Stokesey. It’s just unfortunate that his wife was seeking a bit of comfort outside the home and hit upon David. I suppose he was a comfort to her, and she to him. I guess they were a bit limited as to where they might get a bit of privacy, but there are areas between rocky outcrops above the beach where they could meet and, well, you can guess what.”

“That sounds more and more like a motive every time you mention it,” murmured Reuben.

“What about the shorts?”

“What shorts?”

“The ones that were washed up along with poor old Stokesey. And maybe a tee-short too, and underwear if you searched enough miles of the coastline until you found the tattered remains of them.”

“What on Earth have they got to do with it?”

“Other than they were taken off the ice-cream man post mortem? They were blue, the same type as United players wear every Saturday when they’re playing at home. The same shade as a schoolboy wore years ago when he accused a vicar of murdering his mother, the same shade as that boy wore when he choked himself to death on a combination of tea strainer and, of all things, a current bun. The same shade of blue and the same style of garment as has plagued that same vicar down the years since then until he saw him again on the beach one tragic night, under the moon, blue shorts and a white tee-shirt, returned in his mind to torment him one time too many.”

“You mean the reverend?” asked Reuben. “That’s nonsense!”

“He’ll wake up soon, and you can ask him,” suggested Trayda, “but I know that I’m right. And he’ll be too happy to get it off his chest. He wasn’t actually intoxicated when he collapsed, you know, I’d been in the pub when he had his glass of brandy. He was just at the end of his tether.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Reuben.

“I’ve checked up on him. There wasn’t much to go on, not what you’d call evidence, no real motive, but he did let it out early on that he was quite capable of clambering over the rocks even though he did ride on an electric scooter. I think, even then, that he wanted to face the truth. He wanted it all to end, and then the stroke as he rode towards us across the grass of Sandy Shores with the fear of his God in his mind. You’ll find I’m right: I’m quite sure of that.

“She’s right,” croaked a voice from the nearest bed, “she’s got it right… I’m sorry, so sorry, but the Lord will forgive me...”

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 09.04.19