21 A Judgement

A conclusion without the solving bit!

WORDS MEAN DEATH

21 A Judgement

The foreman of the jury looked most decisive. Paul Wolf gazed at him and wondered what he was going to say. If justice was going to be done the man would utter the words Not Guilty loud enough for all the angels in the heavens to hear and rejoice at.

He snorted, and the police officer standing nearby scowled. He didn’t usually prejudge the prisoners, many of whom were little more than ordinary men or women you might find on any street in any town and who had gone about their lives the wrong way. Even murderers were like that. But this man, in the guise of a priest, had talked his way into the beds of older ladies, had beguiled them with promises of putting in good words for them at the pearly gate and at the same time whispered that they didn’t have to when they had gone to a solicitor and changed their wills in his favour before lying down in their beds and proceeding to die of... he knew what, though it didn’t bare thinking about so he didn’t think about it. What had happened was now in the past and nobody can accurately picture that. Not in words, not in flowery descriptions, not in a law court. And anyway, the deceased ladies were old, and didn’t old people always die? And wasn’t it better if that dying was done in the dead of night, silently, a heart stopping, even when once or twice he had been there sleeping with them, than painfully under the light of day with a blood-stained cough, like his own mother had when she was still young?

After all, to his mind, the whole thing, the case against him, the hours of boring waffle, proved nothing against him because he was an innocent on this world. An ordained priest, that’s what he was even if a foolish simple-minded Bishop had decided he shouldn’t be one, years ago. And that bishop was long dead, and so should his words be

And the dreadful writer who had somehow learned his story, or what he supposed that story to be, probably from insane rumours that bore little or no resemblance to the truth, and had put that into a story for the world to read if they went, as not so many did any more, to their local library and picked up a book and turned its pages. Of course that writer deserved to die! What man on this planet would allow that sort of thing to sully his name? Even if that writer changed it from Wolf to Fox? And wasn’t that an even greater insult?

And that agent, leeching the life-blood from the works of others, men or women whose only talent lay in the pens of others… refusing to destroy his own copy of the repulsive manuscript and vowing that it would be printed by or hook or by crook, he had enunciated those words with a sneer.

“But, Mr Copperly, or can I call you Mike, I have the tool from my car, my starting handle, and I have unblocked your foul toilet, have stirred your stinking s**t using the strength of my own arms and flushed it away, done all manner of things to aid you in your imitation of life, and you still intend to destroy me..?

And destroy him is what the fool had said he would do. So who could blame him if Mike deserved the death that had come to him? Surely there could be no guilt in ridding the planet of such as him?

Then those out to destroy him had brought the judge’s attention to his stupid wife. She had spent years pretending to be a wheelchair-bound cripple when he was around because he had assured her that was what she was, but him being around was not so often, because because of the house in Brumpton that had been bequeathed to him by some old biddy or other. He knew that in his absence she was unfaithful, even walking the streets unaided, the silly woman, Janice, who he had married, conducting the service himself with his clerical collar firmly in place,

The case of His Majesty versus Paul Wolf had been heard and the time had come for the judge decide on the sentence he would impose on the twisted man. So he started his speech, scowling with austere authority

“It’s a pity,” he rumbled, “that I can’t cover my head with a black cap and do my duty by sentencing you to be hanged by the neck until you are deemed to be very dead indeed, but that’s not possible in these enlightened times. So my alternative, when I contemplate your wickedness, Mr Wolf, is where and for how long you should be incarcerated away from any future victims you may take a dislike to...

Paul stiffened… Is that what he thinks this has all been about Me taking a dislike in a petty schoolboy way, telling tales to the teacher like I used to do, years and years ago… Like the time when I was a little tacker and begged Barbara Green to let me see her knickers even though I had no real reason to want to want to see them, and she should have let me, just for the fun of it, but she was so prudish about such things as underwear garment and so I couldn’t have my fun by telling everyone what she should have done and how dirty, filthy, nasty they were… So I told Mr Inkle that she had taken them off in the boys toilets and he never believed her story when she denied it because why should a nice boy like me tell that kind of make-believe story, and as punishment he thrashed her with his gigantic slipper and got the sack when her dad complained because Mr Inkle had marked the silly girl’s backside making it red and sore and I knew that her father was a police sergeant… I mean, it was all quite decent if a bully got dismissed, and I was the good guy…

But the judge had more to say…

“There are many other comments i might make that would seem to be of minor importance when measured against the two murders I have alluded to, for instance your life-long treatment of elderly ladies, starting, I believe, with the unproven murder of your own maternal grandmother when you were a minor as well as the systematic way you have used a pretence of religious faith to deceive other women until they allow you to inherit from them whatever riches they have.”

What use is money to the dead? And I put it to good use, living comfortably and spreading my faith to all who could be bothered to listen. I didn’t beg them to give me their money? It was their choice because I was a conduit to heaven’s gate...

“So, weighing everything up that we have heard in evidence during this painful trial I have no trouble in sentencing you to life imprisonment, and that it should be the whole of your life, until that life comes to an end…

What does he mean, all of my life? I’ve already lived for most of it in freedom! The silly fool doesn’t realise either, that I am a man of my God, and like all men of their god I am dedicated to deceiving the poor fools who think I have something extra to offer, and no prison will isolate me to the extent that I won’t be able to convert those supposed to guard me…

When the court was cleared DI Dorothy Bramble, in the company of DS Ian Rogers, was heard to mutter to him “and I hope that’s the last we hear of him…”

“And you can say that again, ma’am” replied the sergeant as they climbed into her car.

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 30.01.24