A BURIED BODY 5.

The elderly Adam Bingley goes for a walk...

A BURIED BODY 5.

“The easiest way out of Primrose Hill Retirement home, even for a man of a certain age,“ thought Adam Bingley, “would have been through the window when I was a whipper-snapper, but now I’m getting on in years it still might be fun.”

He looked at himself in the mirror and grinned. “They wouldn’t believe it even if I begged them to,” he mused, “Old Greenwich has done the counting like he does every evening and he knows that I’m here and counted, so whoopee! I’ll be a kid again and go visiting…”

Then he looked down at himself. “Better slip some pants on,” he thought in the silence of his head, “can’t have little old ladies sniggering at my whatsit if they chance to go peeping!”

When he was happy with his appearance he opened the window to his room and climbed on a chair, which he kept neatly positioned so that if he needed to look out over the grounds and daydream he could sit on it, and if he needed to climb out he could stand on it. This time he heaved himself uncomfortably up and taking great care opened the window.

“Now for the hard bit,” he mumbled, and he painfully and slowly swung both legs through the open window until he could sit uncomfortably on the window sill.

“I must stop doing this,” he muttered so that a passing cat looked inquisitively up to see why one of those daft humans was crawling through a window that was normally shut fast and at the same time talking to him.

After a few moments of holding his breath and closing his eyes the elderly Adam Bingley stretched his legs out until he thought they mut be close to the grass that had been recently mowed, and let himself drop.

He landed in a crumpled heap and carefully managed to push and pull himself upright before cackling quietly to himself, and whispered “see, I’m not as daft as they think I am!” and started moving like a crippled shadow over the lawns of Primrose Hill Retirement home towards the main entrance.

“Bootiful,” he muttered as he stepped onto the pavement and became one of the very few pedestrians that were out for a breath of fresh air. It was a peasant enough evening, tacked onto the end of a summer that had been mainly dreadful in terms of the weather.

He knew where he was gong, all right, but first there was the Green Dragon for him to look at. He had some change in his pocket, quite enough, he thought, for a taste of the wonderful locally brewed beer that he had spent his life loving with a quiet and innocent passion.

The Green Dragon had plywood boards across its windows, turning it into a rather blind dragon, and the doors were locked and didn’t even rattle much when he shook them.

“Never mind,” he grunted, “There’s the Red Fox, a pub he’d spent long hours in whilst courting his Mary all those years ago. Yes: he’d go there and enjoy a taste of the magic he had fallen in love with when the law had suggested he might be too young to drink alcoholic beverages.

The Red Fox was twin of the Green Dragon and too was bolted shut.

“What’s happened to the world,” he asked himself, “if a man needs a drink where might he go?”

“You talking to me, old timer?” said a young man, possibly still in his teens by the sound of his voice. Adam looked at the youth and nodded when he saw a shadow of himself all those years ago. So he echoed his own thoughts, “where does a man go if he wants a drink these days?”

“There’s the Brickmakers round the corner,” the lad said, “but look to yourself old timer, your flies are undone and summat’s popping out for a breath of fresh air.. Better not let the rozzers see you like that or they’ll have you up before the beak for indecent exposure.”

Adam Bingley grabbed for his trousers and hastily pulled his zip into place.

“Silly me,” he muttered “I hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s easily done, mate,” replied the lad, “and the Brickmakers is just round that there corner. Tarrah!” and he was off with the sort of haste that Adam would easily have managed all those years ago.

The Brickmakers had always been there, at least for the decades he had been around, and it had gloried in a bad reputation back in the good old days, being a favourite haunt of prostitutes and petty criminals. “But,” thought Adam, “I wouldn’t have gone near the place back in the day but beggars can’t be choosers…”

He was in that public house for only a few minutes for two very good reasons. Firstly, it had undergone a cpnsiderable amount of refurbishment and seemed to be the haunt of the middle classes these days, and secondly, the cost of a pint of bitter as advertised on a board above the bar was considerably more than the change he knew he had in his pocket, and to make quite sure he was right he took it out and counted it.

“What’s happened to the world?” he asked himself, and he turned round slowly and made his way back to the street.

“It’s come to a fine pass when a bloke can’t even afford a pint of beer,” he mumbled to himself, and a passing woman told him she couldn’t agree more.

Still feeling thirsty he gave up on the beer front and struggled to remember the way to his own home. It was no great distance, at least not to a fit and younger man, but to Adam it was like a marathon. Soon he set out and after less than half an hour he leaned against a wall in order to ease the ache that had developed in his back. But he had covered the biggest part of his walk and he soon set off to see what his own house was like or whether it, like half the pubs in town, had been boarded over. But now, it would still be there or Arnold would have told him and all Arnold had said was… was… something or other, what was it? Something to do with the garden being dug.

He actually swore to himself when he found himself standing by his own front door and realised that he didn’t have a key. It was very dark when he struggled past the front of the house and went round the back, stumbling as he went because there were a few obstacles that hadn’t been there before he had moved to Primrose Hill.

He sighed when he saw that part of the garden had been dug.

“You’re a gem, Arnold” he grunted, and then he heard the shed door squeaking as it swung on its hinges, blown by the least gust of wind.

“And what’s the blighter done there?” he mumbled, “leaving it open for any old Tom, Dick or Harry to rob me!”

He staggered towards the shed but failed to notice that there was a considerable excavation en route to it, where the police had retrieved the body that had turned out to belong to Dominic Stokes.

It was by no means a deep hole, but, hidden in the darkness it had caught him by surprise.

And, shocked and stumbling, he found himself falling into it and lying almost like a corpse himself on the freshly dug soil.

TO BE CONTINUED

© Peter Rogerson 01.10.24

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