Roy A. Higgins's Blog

I was eventually asked to give the police my witness statement regarding the death of the child, and to my surprise I was also interviewed about the subsequent killings of Skinner and Short. Seamus O’Malley was being held as the prime suspect for the killings, and my testimony, along with that of other members of the band, was expected to convict him of the crime. I’d expected to be interviewed in a stark interview room, similar to the ones I’d seen on television programmes, but on my arrival at the police station, a constable guided me to a comfortable office room.Detective Inspector Trimble was leading the investigation; he’d lost most of his hair, except for a ring of predominantly silver hair which travelled around the back of his neck, before curling over his collar for want of a recent trim. The inspector had grown a moustache to compensate for his follicle deficiency, and with a genial face he looked like the stereotypical image of a favourite grandfather. A gold half hunter pocket watch, on a rose-gold chain, adorning a three piece suit, and his shoes were highly polished as if he’d once been in the army. Trimble sat on a green leather swivel chair behind a large mahogany desk, where he consulted his pocket watch frequently, as if he were late for a more important meeting. Due to its many years of faithful service, not only to Trimble, but to the generations that came before him, the old desk had seen better days, and the once vibrant green leather top with gold tooling, had faded to a greenish grey, never more to return to its former glory. Framed and displayed on a blue velvet background, a collection of police badges caught the eye; while around the walls hung photographs of police football teams, and the inspector shaking hands with local dignitaries. On an inferior chair, probably one of a set of dining chairs, sat another plain clothes officer, while a female stenographer, in police uniform, occupied an identical chair with her back against the wall, her reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose, and a writing pad lying expectantly in her lap.“Please sit down,” invited the inspector.Trimble may have had a genial face, but his colleague, who appeared to be Savage by name and savage by nature, instigated the interview. His hair was dark and slicked back using Brylcreem, while a flat moonlike face, coupled with a small pointed nose and horned rimmed spectacles, gave the impression of an owl waiting expectantly to pounce. “Detective Inspector Trimble, and Detective Sergeant Savage in interview with; state your name please,” said Savage.“Raymond Evans,” I answered, much too loudly due to my nervousness, and I instantly felt embarrassed at my over-exuberant response. Not even my mother called me Raymond unless I was in some kind of trouble, but under the circumstances Ray would have seemed a little informal. “How long have you known Seamus O’Malley?” Savage questioned me. “I only met him last Saturday for the very first time. We were involved in a minor road traffic accident and Seamus was a pedestrian who was injured slightly.”“Did the accident occur on the street where O’Malley lives?” asked Savage with a puzzled expression. It appeared to be his introduction to the concept of a road traffic accident, and he momentarily floundered while attempting to ask the right questions. “No, the accident happened on the Shadcroft estate, not far from the Manxman public house.”Savage appeared to be even more confused by my explanation. “Then can you explain how you came to witness the discovery of a child’s body almost a mile away from the Shadcroft estate, and on the street where O’Malley lives?”“After the accident we gave Seamus a lift home and he invited us into his house for a bottled beer.” “Why on earth would a pedestrian, who you’d never before met, invite you to his house for a beer?” He leant forward aggressively as he spoke, and invaded my space as if he didn’t believe a single word of my explanation. I moved my chair backwards, not because Savage intimidated me, although I have to admit he did, but to avoid the obnoxious smell of his foul breath. “I personally had never met him before, but he works on the same building site as Freddie.” “Who on earth is Freddie?” asked Savage, as he shuffled the papers in front of him to discover the answer to his own question. “Frederick Cope,” interjected the inspector. He’d been studying the case notes avidly, and never once had he raised his eyes from the type written pages laid out before him. “What was Seamus O’Malley’s state of mind when he was told that the child might be dead?” asked Savage, but before I could answer his question, he added. “Was he angry?”“He appeared to be angry, he suggested we break into the squat and discover the truth.” “Were you angry?” snapped Savage, leaning forward once again and giving me another whiff of his halitosis problems.“Why should I be angry? I puzzled. “I didn’t even know the druggies existed until we went to authenticate Mrs O’Malley’s story.”  “I suggest that you became angry, on seeing the body of the child, Mr Evan’s, and that along with Seamus O’Malley, and  others, you plotted to kill Thomas Skinner and Teresa Short.” “Now wait a minute,” I yelled. “If I’m a suspect, instead of the witness I was led to believe, then this interview is over until I have a lawyer present.” I didn’t know anything about lawyers, or whether I was entitled to have one represent me, but I’d seen criminals on television react in much the same manner, when the hot seat appeared to be getting a little too hot, and it always appeared to halt the proceedings.Detective Inspector Trimble held up his hand as a signal for Savage to cease his interrogation. “You’re not a suspect, at this stage, Mr. Evans,” said Trimble, trying to defuse the tension between myself and his subordinate officer. “If you’re in need of a lawyer, at any time during the interview, I’ll gladly inform you. Now can we continue please?”I reluctantly nodded my approval and Trimble took over the questioning.“How did O’Malley appear when he discovered the child’s body? Was he upset? Did he become angry? Did he shout or threaten?”“He was stunned like the rest of us, and upset,” I answered, selecting one of the options made available to me. “We all were. Seamus collapsed on the floor and began to cry. I never saw such a tough looking guy break down in tears like that.”“Did he threaten the lives of Skinner and Short?” “We never saw Skinner and Short, but he said if he ever set eyes on them they were as good as dead.”  “He threatened to kill them?” prompted the inspector, and the stenographer wrote frantically in shorthand on her writing pad.I could have bitten my tongue for my indiscretion, and instantly tried to make amends. “People say those things all the time, they don’t mean them literally. My mother threatens to kill me three or four times a week.”Trimble smiled in recognition. “In your opinion, is Mr O’Malley capable of murder?”  “I’ve only met him once, so I’m not qualified to comment.” Trimble lit a cigarette and offered one to me. “No thanks I don’t smoke.” “Have you never smoked Mr. Evans?”  “I tried them while at school,  but they made me feel dizzy and sick so I never took them up.” “What about Seamus O’Malley, does he smoke?”“He never smoked in my presence,” I answered truthfully. “Thank you, Mr. Evans. The sergeant will show you out. “Cope and Cheshire are both smokers by their own admission; so is Bloomfield,” Trimble told Savage after he’d shown me to the door, “which makes them prime suspects, but that doesn’t rule out any of the others. If the killer was a non smoker, and smoked just to imitate the child’s injuries, he would have felt pretty sick afterwards, there were a lot of burns on the bodies so he must have smoked at least twenty cigarettes. Unless he vomited in the canal, there is nothing at the scene to suggest that he was sick. This may indicate that the killer was a regular smoker, but if he wasn’t I’d like to know about it. Did you get photographs taken of our suspects as I asked?”“Yes sir, they were told it was routine when they arrived at the station.”“And did they buy it?”“They did sir.”“Good. Show their pictures to the local shopkeepers and see if any of our non-smokers bought cigarettes around the time of the murders.” “Over what time scale,” asked Savage. “Do we know when the deaths actually occurred?” “The bodies were in the second stages of decomposition,” Trimble mused, “my guess would be within a timescale of a matter of hours of vacating the squat, until about seventy-two hours ago. We won’t know anymore until we receive the autopsy report.”As the killer had bought his cigarettes from a dispenser in The Manxman public house, Savage’s enquires  revealed absolutely nothing. Seamus O’Malley remained the primary suspect, despite having been released without charge due to a lack of evidence. The vigilante, whoever he might be, hadn’t left  a single clue as to his identity.

Our first professional engagement was quite a success, considering that we’d only been together for a few short weeks. The stage proved to be too small to accommodate us, as I’d predicted it would be, with Freddie and Brian, who being the singers always fronted the band, spilling onto the dance floor. We were upset by what we’d witnessed the day before, and I found it difficult to concentrate on something so trivial as playing guitar, but the success of the booking, which we gauged by audience reaction, helped to raise our spirits.After the performance the publican paid us the agreed pittance, from what must have been an impressive evening’s takings, judging by the size of the crowd, and he was happy to honour his handshake contract by booking us to play on alternate Sundays.I’d been expecting a visit from the Blakewater constabulary throughout the whole of Sunday, as a constable at the scene had taken our names and addresses after discovering the baby. He’d asked a few basic questions, the answers to which he’d written in his notebook, and he informed us that we’d be receiving a visit from plain clothes division, but no visit had has yet materialised, and no formal statement had been taken.While we were packing away our equipment, after the performance, Freddie received a tap on the shoulder.“Hi Freddie, you have a good band there.” A dark haired young man was offering his congratulations, and intended to make use of his recent sales experience, and past relationship, to take advantage of the situation.“If you’re looking for a singer, I’m your man,” he blurted out without embarrassment. I was flabbergasted by the nerve of this guy, and couldn’t help but put him straight when Freddie and Brian failed to do so. “We don’t need a singer,” I told him abruptly. “Freddie and Brian can sing just fine.”“I just thought  the band would be better with a front man to complete the line up.” “Well you thought wrong. Besides we all have a financial investment in this band, every penny we earn goes into paying  higher purchase agreements for our equipment. There was an embarrassing silence, during which Freddie and Brian looked uncomfortable, until the stranger broke the silence.“If you aren't looking for a singer;  who manages the band?” “We don’t have a manager,” answered Brian. “In fact we haven’t even considered one.” I take it this battered old van belongs to the band?” continued Dominic, for that turned out to be his name, and after receiving confirmation that his observation was correct, he continued. “If you give me the job, I’ll buy a new van, as my financial contribution, and I’ll guarantee that the diary will never be empty of bookings.” We pondered his offer individually, until Dominic played his trump card. “Where do you hold band practise?”“The band practise in Brian’s bedroom,” answered Hank, but I can’t practise with the others as the room is too small and the drums are too noisy.” “You need to practise together,” said Dominic, stating the obvious, and everyone nodded in agreement. “I know a publican,” he went on to say. “I’m sure he’ll let you practise in his function room; as long as you drink his beer during band practise,” he added as an afterthought.I noticed that he didn’t name the pub, perhaps he thought we might go behind his back and arranged practise nights ourselves.“Will he charge us?” asked Brian.“You don’t expect free beer do you?” Dominic quipped.“For the room you idiot not the beer,” corrected Brian, although he knew Dominic was joking. “If he does I’ll pay for the room myself, or I’ll find another venue.” Freddie asked Dominic to leave  while we considered his offer.“I think we should adopt Dominic as our manager on a trial basis,” he suggested. “He could receive an equal share of the profits, and he’ll buy a new van as his financial contribution."  “I agree that we’ll eventually need a manager,” I admitted, “but I envisioned one with more experience in the music business.”“Dom is the best salesman I’ve ever met,” Brian informed us, “if anyone can negotiate bookings  its Dom.”We took a vote and being outvoted by three votes to one, it didn’t much matter whether I liked the appointment or not.
*  *  *  *
I read the coroner’s report in the local newspaper. It confirmed our observations that the child’s body displayed signs of bruising, partially healed broken bones, and cigarette burns. The whereabouts of the parents were unknown, and a police search was currently underway. A verdict of death by systematic abuse and neglect, by a person or persons unknown, was the coroner’s ruling until more evidence could be gathered. The local newspaper reported that Thomas Skinner, the chief suspect in the child’s murder, had received little schooling as a consequence of his habitual truanting, while never having done an honest day’s work in the whole of his life. The reporter had discovered mug shots of the runaways. They appeared to have been taken while in custody, as they stood in front of a measuring chart and held what appeared to be an arrest number which had been redacted. The picture showed that Skinner stood six feet tall, and was as skinny as a lamppost. He wore dirty clothes and his hair was long, straggly, and unwashed. Skinner was reported as being eighteen years of age, although he looked much older than his years due to his drug addicted lifestyle. He’d become addicted to heroin, the report claimed, having graduated to that particular drug of choice after experimenting with marijuana, and amphetamines. The baby’s mother, Teresa Short, was Skinner’s junior by a couple of years, and a runaway from local authority care since the age of thirteen, the report went on to say. Her picture showed that she had matted hair, which she obviously never bothered to comb, a dirty face, which she never appeared to wash, and spots around her mouth due to repeated solvent abuse. Addicted to heroin, the report concluded that Short used the baby, which may or may not have been Skinner’s biological child, as a begging tool with which to obtain money for drugs. Their current whereabouts were said to be unknown, but the police would like to interview them with regard to the child’s death.
*  *  *  *
At the very moment when Seamus O’Malley crashed through an upstairs window with his digger, Skinner and Short exited through the back door. A short distance from the house was the Leeds to Liverpool Canal, the main artery for the transportation of coal from the south Lancashire coalfields, and raw cotton from the port of Liverpool to the mill towns of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire, before the nation’s road and rail network made them largely redundant. Running along the towpath until they were clear of the squat, and any search which might take place, the couple stumbled across one of the many derelict industrial buildings along the canal side. Skinner tried the latch of a rotting wooden door set into a factory wall, and to his relief it opened to provide a refuge. Stone steps descended to an uneven flagged floor some six feet below ground level. “Go down the steps you stupid bitch,” he told Short, who appeared reluctant to do so, and he gave her a push to encourage her to descend before closing the door behind them.The room was in darkness, except for a shaft of light which shone almost vertically down a coal shoot to form a pool of light on the cellar floor. Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom Skinner could see that the cellar contained wooden pallets, stacked so high that they almost reached the vaulted ceiling. Metal oil drums ate up a large proportion of the cellar floor, indicating that the coal boiler had been converted to the use of oil.Although the boiler had been converted before the mill’s closure, due to competition from cheaper foreign imports, a large quantity of coal sacks littered the cellar floor, and an old coal shovel leant against the boiler door as if left there only yesterday.It was late afternoon as they entered the cellar, and the pair decided to lay low until they were sure that the hue and cry had died down, but as darkness began to fall and with nowhere else to go, they were persuaded, by circumstances, to stay the night. Thomas Skinner began constructing a makeshift bed using wooden pallets, while Teresa Short ventured onto the towpath, after dark, to fill coal sacks with grass, which she intended to use as pillows and a mattress. Being April it was cold in the cellar once darkness descended, and only the light from the moon provided intermittent light to a small part of the room, as the moon disappeared behind the clouds and reappeared again. On the plus side the bed was comfortable, and they had plenty of sacks with which to cover themselves.
*  *  *  *
A couple of days later, the runaways received an unexpected visitor. He knew that wherever the couple were hiding they would need to feed their drug addiction, so while the police searched randomly for the runaways in sheds, outhouses and garages, in an ever increasing circle around the location of the squat, the visitor had set out to discover their source of pharmaceutical supply. He found the local dealer, but the dealer had no information to impart, in fact he denied knowing the runaway couple, and couldn’t be persuaded otherwise, even with a financial inducement, but on his second night of questioning the inquisitor met with an addict with information to sell.“I saw Short filling sacks with grass about a mile down the canal towpath. It’s my guess they’re holed up in a derelict building because she seemed to be making a mattress.“Where exactly did you see her?” the inquisitor asked, while hiding his facial features using a hat and a scarf, although it was unlikely that the addict would have been able, or willing, to identify his inquisitor had he not worn the disguise.  “There’s a cellar on the towpath,” the addict told his benefactor, when a monitory note was waved in his face. “You enter through a door in the factory wall; I’ve used it before for shooting up. “You can’t miss it because swans have built a nest nearby.” The inquisitor paid the addict for his information, and from the snitch’s testimony he discovered the cellar with little difficulty. At that moment the moon came from behind a cloud; peering down the coal shoot the visitor could make out two figures beneath a pile of sacking. He opened the cellar door and tiptoed down the steps until he reached the cellar floor. He need have had no concerns about disturbing them, as the couple were comatose from recent drug use. Picking up the coal shovel to use as a weapon should he need one, he poked the man, and waited, shovel in hand, for a reaction. When the expected reaction never came he dragged the man from his makeshift bed, and apart from groaning, and a little light resistance, he was easily subdued and tied to one of the cast iron pillars which supported the ceiling.  The girl was even easier to handle and offered no resistance at all as he tied her to the pillar alongside her partner.He stripped them of their clothing and waited patiently for their return to consciousness, prodding them occasionally to assess their progress.  Once aware of their predicament, the visitor lit the first of a packet of cigarettes with which to begin the planned torture. He’d gagged the couple with pieces of filthy sacking to stifle their cries for help, and he alternated the burning with a  beating using the coal shovel. He was not, in his opinion, a violent man, but God had spoken to him in Exodus 21: 23-25. He read aloud, by the light of the moon, from a small burgundy coloured bible with gilt edged pages, a confirmation gift which he cherished and carried with him at all times.
“Whenever hurt is done, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, and wound for wound.”
In the early stages of the torture he was sickened by his violent actions, especially against the girl, who was a victim of circumstances and the influence of Skinner, but after a while he warmed to his task, as he inflicted bruises and cigarette burns on his victims to mimic the injuries found on the baby. He discovered, to his surprise, that he wanted to hear their screams, as they would have heard the baby scream, but it was essential they remained gagged so as not to attract attention. He continued to inflict burns on his victims until his cigarette packet became empty, and then he carefully gathered up the cigarette butts and replaced them in the empty cigarette packet. The coal shovel he left where he’d found it. Even if the police identified the shovel as the weapon used to beat his victims, there would be no fingerprint evidence, as he’d been careful to wear gloves. By the light of a torch, he carefully removed all of his footprints from the dusty cellar floor using a piece of sacking, as he retreated backwards from the scene of the crime towards the cellar steps. His shoe size, tread, and manufacture of shoe, would consequently remain a mystery, so that future comparisons could not be made between footprints and the footwear that made them. Without a twinge of conscience he abandoned his victims to suffer the symptoms of withdrawal from their self administered drug abuse, before dying from the effects of dehydration, starvation, or from the injuries he'd inflicted on them. Initially he’d considered ringing the police anonymously, to report their whereabouts, but the bible had made it clear that the child had died, and so in consequence must the perpetrators of that death, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, nothing less would suffice.
*  *  *  *
Detective Inspector Trimble arrived on the scene, accompanied by a detective sergeant, after the discovery of the bodies by children playing along the canal towpath. Their first sensation was of the terrible stench. The corpses were bloated, and partially eaten by rats, which appeared to have climbed the bodies to reach the choice morsels, as the eyeballs were missing from the corpses, and maggots squirmed in the vacant eye sockets.Trimble was a career policeman nearing pensionable retirement, and the most senior detective on the Blakewater police force. He’d joined the force as a uniformed officer some forty years earlier, and was fast approaching his sixtieth birthday. He’d investigated murder cases before, crimes of passion, street stabbings, and family disagreements gone wrong, but nothing remotely resembling this.“I think we’ve found our runaways sergeant,” Trimble speculated, while covering his lower face with a handkerchief in a futile attempt to mask the smell of the decaying corpses. “The burns and the bruises suggest torture, but the perpetrator left them here to die, he didn’t kill them.” “What makes you think that sir?” “Can you see the congealed blood on the bodies’ sergeant? Their hearts were pumping as they were being eaten by rats.”

On the return journey to Brian’s house, a lady driver stopped, quite suddenly, at a pedestrian crossing. Freddie hit the brakes, but being ineffective, like every aspect of the old van, which Freddie had purchased with our money, but without our knowledge, from a local scrap yard, we shunted the lady’s car, pushing it onto the pedestrian crossing and striking an unfortunate pedestrian on the shins.
*  *  *  *
The van was completely unroadworthy. The accelerator pedal, along with the accelerator pedal linkage, were both missing, having been robbed from the van to repair an equally unroadworthy vehicle. Luckily the engine sat between the front seats, and as the engine cover was also a missing item, it was a simple matter for the co-driver, who was essential to the process of driving the van, to accelerate, on the driver’s instruction, by pulling on a lever attached to the carburettor. I’d also discovered a worrying excavation in the cargo area.  The hole must have been situated directly above the fuel tank, as the smell of petrol fumes was overpowering. I speculated that the van might explode if people continued to smoke, although no one appeared to share my pessimistic view. To make matters worse the roof panel had become detached above the windscreen, where the spot welds had failed, and when on the move it flapped like the sole of a hobo’s boot.
*  *  *  *
The damage caused by the shunt was indiscernible on the battered old van, but far more obvious on the lady’s shiny new car, as we crowded around the point of the collision making unhelpful observations. “Who’s going to pay for the damage to my car,” asked the lady? Who appeared to be distressed beyond what might reasonably be expected when faced with a dented bumper and a broken tail light. “Don’t you worry missus, I saw everyting, so I did,” volunteered the pedestrian. But that was before he recognised our driver. “Be Jaysus, is tat yourself Freddie?” he asked, instantly forgetting his role as witness for the prosecution. Freddie worked on a construction site as a carpenter, and by coincidence the pedestrian, an Irishman by the name of Seamus O’Malley, worked on the same building site driving mechanical diggers and dumpers.  His neck was as thick as the top of my leg and covered with tattoos. They climbed from beneath his T-shirt, reached the underside of his chin and the back of his ears, while covering his huge arms and terminating at his wrists. LOVE was tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand, while HATE was tattooed on his left, in capital letters, with flying bluebirds situated at the base of each thumb. Although he’d shaved his head to disguise the fact that he was balding prematurely, the difference between his shiny dome, where hair follicles no longer survived, and the shaved area, was  easily discernible.“How are you coping Freddie Cope?” asked Seamus, while laughing at his own pun, the accident forgotten and the lady driver ignored, as she attempted to remove the damage from her car by rubbing it with a wet finger. “Why are you driving tis battered old van?” Seamus asked. “You could have feckin killed me.”“We’ve formed a band, and this van is our temporary transport,” Freddie answered.  “We’ve just arranged our first commercial booking at the Manxman.” “Fair play to you Freddie me boy. “Will you still speak to old Seamus when you’re rich and famous?” He laughed again at his poetical brilliance, as he realised his sentence rhymed. “I’m a poet and I didn’t know it,” he quipped, and we all laughed at his remark out of politeness rather than genuine amusement.“Never mind the chit-chat,” said the lady driver. “You promised to be a witness to the accident.” “Oh shut te feck up missus,” said Seamus. “You backed into tese boys, so you did.”Seamus was in his early-thirties with an English wife and two small children. He’d crossed the Irish Sea looking for work, and had never more returned to the island of his birth. He loved his mother, and kept in touch by letter, and by the odd telephone call, but she’d re-married after his father died suddenly, and while Seamus was little more than a boy. He'd missed his father, and refused to accept his stepfather, who having little interest in children in general, and in Seamus  in particular, ignored him except to physically punish him for the slightest of misdemeanours. Seamus spent an unhappy couple of years after his mother re-married, and couldn’t grow up fast enough to leave Ireland, and his abusive stepfather, behind.“Can we give you a lift?” Freddie asked out of guilt, as Seamus hobbled around theatrically rubbing his damaged shin and making grimacing faces. Seamus didn’t need to be asked twice, and climbed into the front seat of the van without answering, while Freddie exchanged insurance details with the lady motorist and the rest of us climbed into the back. On arrival at his home, Seamus opened five bottles of Guinness using his teeth, as a bottle opener appearing to be an unnecessary accoutrement in the O’Malley household. Drinking glasses also appeared to be an irrelevance, as we were expected to drink directly from the neck of the bottles, even though Seamus had inserted each and every one of them into his mouth to remove the bottle tops. Seamus rolled up his trouser leg to reveal a purple bruise, which had rapidly developed on his swollen shin.“Just look at tat feckin ting,” he complained, while we all laughed, unsympathetically, at his misfortune. Mrs Seamus joined  the conversation after hanging out her washing in the cobbled rear yard.  “You know the druggies who live in the squat down the street?” she asked her husband, eager to impart her latest snippet of doorstep gossip. Seamus grunted, while displaying a distinct lack of interest in his wife’s commentary, but she continued regardless of his apathetic response. “I was talking to her next door, and the rumour is that their baby might be dead. That baby is filthy and neglected, it’s a crying shame; you can hear it screaming when you walk past the squat, while the parents are out of their heads on drugs, but no one has heard it crying lately.” “Tere’s only one feckin way to find out,” called out Seamus, jumping to his feet and accepting the mantle of investigator without nomination. Seamus lived in a row of stone built terraced houses built on a severe slope. Although re-surfacing of the roads had taken place in the locality a decade earlier, the cobbles on this particular street remained purposely untouched. This gave the delivery horses, which were fast disappearing from Lancashire’s industrial landscape, a better grip as they pulled milk floats, coal wagons, and rag and bone carts up the steep incline. Families at the top of the street were waiting to be re-housed, while at the bottom of the hill all the families had gone, and the houses were in the process of demolition to make way for a brave new world of concrete and steel multi-storey flats. Seamus hurried down the hill towards the squat, despite his damaged leg, with the rest of us following in his wake. Once outside of the squat, he began shouting obscenities through the letterbox, and when no-one answered his challenge he used his shoulder in an attempt to force an entry. Seamus was a powerfully built man, and the door was old and in a poor state of preservation, but despite this apparent mismatch the door stubbornly refused to give way to his brutal methods of persuasion. “Come out you druggie bastards,” he called through the letterbox, but the occupants, if indeed there were any occupants, had little intention of opening the door to a stocky foul mouthed Irishman with a shaved head, and covered from head to toe with tattoos.“Go around te back and see if you can get in tere Freddie,” Seamus ordered. Freddie did his bidding, and I accompanied him to offer either moral or physical support, whichever might be needed. The back door was also locked, and Freddie had no more success in breaking down the back door than had Seamus at the front of the house. First he ran at the door using his shoulder and backed away gasping in pain. Then he tried kicking it in and jarred his knee so badly that he was left hobbling. “You have a go,” Freddie suggested.I’d seen doors broken to matchwood on television, by the use of a shoulder, or by kicking it open in a single attempt with the sole of a boot, but the reality of breaking and entering using physical force appeared to be a very different proposition.“After watching you bust your shoulder and then your knee, you must be joking,” I told him.When we returned to the front of the house, having failed  to gain entry, Seamus headed towards the construction site,  without a single word as to his intentions. People had gathered in the street on hearing the ruckus; many of them watching the proceedings from the safety of their front doorsteps, while others joined the growing number of dissidents gathered outside the squat. “What’s gooin on?” asked a scruffy individual wearing a grubby waistcoat, a collarless shirt with rolled up shirtsleeves, a trouser belt far in excess of what was required to support his trousers, worn in conjunction with braces for good measure, and a filthy flat cap perched on the top of his head.“Seamus is trying to break intut squat,” answered his neighbour.“What the ell for?”“Somebody towd him that yon druggies av kilt their babby.”“Bloody ell!” the enquirer replied.The crowd turned in unison in the direction of a rumbling sound approaching from the direction of the construction site. A bright yellow digger, which had been left unattended over the weekend,  by no other than Seamus himself, was travelling towards the squat.The digger had the appearance of a modified tractor, which boasted a large hydraulic bucket at the front, used for pushing soil into piles and loading trucks, and a long articulated arm supporting a smaller bucket at the rear, for use when digging.When the digger reached the squat it stopped abruptly. Everyone in the vicinity stepped back in anticipation, as Seamus raised the bucket on its long extending arm. The downstairs windows had been bricked up to deter children from entering the derelict buildings. Seamus could easily have demolished one of the bricked in windows with the slightest touch from the digger. Instead, he decided to enter the building via the second floor. The upper floors were open to the elements, as unruly youngsters found it great sport to throw missiles through the upstairs windows, making upper floor occupation impossible. Crashing through an already broken window pane, Seamus dropped the digger’s arm. The bucket hit the stone windowsill with a jolt, and as the digger moved backwards bricks and glass crashed onto the street below. Seamus moved forward again, turned off the digger’s engine, and then to everyone’s amazement he exited the cab and began climbing the hydraulic arm until he reached the bucket. The roof had already begun to collapse, and Seamus entered the building through a dangerously unstable opening. The upstairs rooms appeared to be unused, as expected, and he descended to the floor below by way of a creaky wooden staircase. On his downward journey he extracted a turned wooden spindle from the banister rail, to use as a weapon should he need one, and he brandished it menacingly in anticipation of an attack. Reaching the ground floor unmolested, he had a clear view down the hall and into the kitchen. He noticed that the back door of the house had been left ajar, as if someone had left the property in a hurry, which must have been the case, as it had been locked when Freddie and I had tried to get in a short time before. At the bottom of the staircase was the front door, and Seamus slid back the bar bolts and turned the key in the lock to let us in. Randy and I were instructed by Seamus, who'd nominated himself to be our leader and was consequently delivering orders, to search the front room for any signs of a baby, while Seamus investigated the kitchen, yard, and outbuildings, and the other two searched the back room. A lighted candle stood on a wooden orange crate in the centre of the room, glued into position by a mountain of wax, which had solidified over time around the base. Dirty mattresses, scavenged from other abandoned houses, lay on the floor, as if multiple occupants had been using the squat. The floor was littered with abandoned needles, and to my disgust human excrement, but no signs of a baby.After our fruitless search we  met in the hall. “Nothing in there except for used needles and piles of shit,” I told Seamus.Freddie and Brian reported a similar scenario, and Seamus suggested that we search upstairs. “Is the staircase safe?” asked Randy, eyeing it with suspicion.“I came down the feckin ting didn’t I,” answered Seamus tetchily. We climbed the rickety staircase to search the bedrooms, and Seamus opened a wardrobe to discover a stout cardboard box advertising a popular brand of washing powder. We could tell from the smell that it didn’t contain washing powder, as Seamus carefully placed the box on the floor, and opened it up to reveal its contents.Inside was the emaciated body of baby girl swaddled in a filthy blanket, and resembling an Egyptian mummy. Almost a year old, she was malnourished, and so small that she could have passed for a child of half her age. Her pallor was of a waxy yellow, more like a waxwork dummy and not like a real child at all, and her lips and eye rims were tinged with purple. Seamus removed the blanket which bound her, and we discovered that cigarette burns, and bruises, covering the whole of her tiny body. I felt a lump rise in my throat, and I struggled to fight back the tears as we stared at the tiny creature in amazement. This was a scene I had never envisaged, and will never forget for as long as I live.Seamus collapsed in a heap on the filthy bedroom floor, and despite his rough exterior he cried like a baby.

APRIL 1964

In April 1964 the Beatles held the top five spots in the Billboard top forty singles in America. The Rolling Stones released their debut album, unimaginatively named the Rolling Stones. BBC 2 began broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Thieves stole the head from the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. Twelve of the Great Train Robbers received sentences totalling three hundred and twelve years, and I joined the rock and pop band Satan’s Whiskers.
*  *  *  *
Soon after the bodies were discovered, I was questioned by the police, but let me start from the very beginning.I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, studying my appearance as I trimmed my unruly eyebrows using the moustache trimmer attachment on my electric razor. My mother often chased me around the house with a pair of eyebrow tweezers to rectify the eyebrow problem, but as she plucked her own eyebrows to destruction, before replacing them with a thin pencil line, I made sure that she never caught me. After naming the newly formed band Satan’s Whiskers, I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the others to follow my example and grow whiskers as a gimmick. A week without shaving and the stubble of the first few days looked a little more beard-like; although I had to concede that the side growth was disappointing, which would undoubtedly provide ammunition for the others to ridicule my efforts. On an impulse I shaved the beard into a goatee. If I didn’t like the final result the whole thing would have to be removed, but what the hell, easy come, and easy go. I examined my handiwork in the mirror from every angle, until I was satisfied that the goatee was an improvement on what preceded it, and looked even more satanic than did a full beard.
*  *  *  *
Freddie Cope was already at Brian’s house when I arrived for band practise. I’d met Freddie and Brian, for the first time, a few weeks earlier, when I’d gone into Blakewater for a night out with a friend. It transpired that Freddie and Brian planned to form a band, so the conversation inevitably drifted into that territory. I was the owner of a bass guitar, in fire engine red, which was currently languishing in my parent’s loft, after a previously failed attempt to form a band. Being in need of a bass player to turn their duo into a trio, they asked me to audition. I wasn’t confident of my musical abilities, as it had been a couple of years since I last played the guitar. I practised throughout Saturday, and wished, on a number of occasions, that I hadn’t agreed to audition for fear of embarrassing myself, but I needn’t have worried, as I was accepted as a member of the fledgling band by a unanimous vote.“Hi Ray,” said Freddie, in his usual cheery way, as I entered the smoky atmosphere of Brian’s bedroom.Freddie was a happy-go-lucky character, with a ruddy complexion and curly blond hair. He was around my height of a couple of inches below six feet tall, but I always wore high heeled boots which elevated me by a couple of inches.“I can’t breathe in here,” I told them as I entered the room, open a bloody window.” “Open it yourself,” Freddie told me, as I pushed past him to open a window before I suffocated in the smoky atmosphere.Brian, who was the exact opposite of Freddie, in both nature and appearance, grunted a reluctant “Hello,” while continuing to tune his guitar with a cigarette dangling precariously from his lips, and smoke drifting into his eyes, which made him blink continuously and his eyes to water profusely. Because the two of them were so different in nature I found it difficult to understand how they had ever become such good friends. Brian Cheshire was dark-haired, with a swarthy Mediterranean appearance, and a little shorter than  Freddie. He always needed a shave, and even though he assured me that he’d shaved that very morning, I’m embarrassed to report that his beard growth was more impressive than was mine after a week of nurturing.“Will Hank be coming to band practise?” I asked. Frank Rivers was our absentee drummer, and known affectionately as Hank. “No, he works on Saturdays,” replied Freddie, “but practising in Brian’s bedroom, with a drum kit, isn’t going to be an option anyway.”

*  *  *  *
Hank had played drums in a public house, along with an elderly organist, before Freddie persuaded him to dissolve his partnership and join our newly formed band. Hank and Freddie were maternal cousins, although they were so alike that they could easily have been mistaken for brothers. Hank had never practised with the band, but we had played together once, at a wedding reception. The reception had been held in a large hotel in the market square, and when I say hotel I mean a public house with bedrooms, and named The Queens Hotel rather than the Queens Arms or the Queens Head.The booking had been successful, even though we’d only practised a few numbers, and had to repeat our first spot of the evening in the second half. I felt embarrassed by our lack of versatility, but no one appeared to mind, as the booking was of the easily obtained and unpaid variety, a wedding present from Hank and Freddie to a common female relative. The bride’s father helped to flesh out our limited programme by requesting Eve of Destruction, on no less than four separate occasions, which could hardly be described as an appropriate sentiment given the occasion of his daughters’ wedding. During the interval, and on the back of a successful first set, we thought up names for the band. Many were suggested and just as quickly rejected, until I pointed out the name of a cocktail on the drinks menu, containing gin, Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, and orange juice, with a dash of orange bitters, and from this observation the band Satan’s Whiskers was born.
*  *  *  *
While we were practising Randy Bloomfield (1)entered the bedroom; escorted by Brian’s mother carrying a tray of drinking glasses filled to the brim with chilled orange juice. Randy was a married man with a baby daughter, and a wife who at twenty years of age had resigned herself to becoming a band widow. Randy’s hair had begun to turn prematurely grey, even though he was barely a year older than his wife, but his eyebrows remained thick, black, and bushy. Randy had strong features, with heavy brows, while his nose gave the appearance of having been remodelled inside a boxing ring, although in truth it was a natural feature on the landscape of his face. Randy liked to take people outside of their comfort zone. He found it amusing to see them squirm, and with that in mind he invited us onto the stage at the Greyhound public house, when we turned up to watch his band play.“We have another band in the audience,” he informed the assembled crowd. “If you cheer loudly  enough they might be persuaded to come up onto the  stage and give us a  number.”We were dumbstruck, as we’d only practised four songs, and all of them chosen because they consisted of just three chords, but the audience didn’t appear to notice our musical inadequacies, and his plan to embarrass us came unstuck when we went down a storm. He may have been trying to embarrass us, but he actually did us a favour, as it gave us the confidence we needed. I in particular would have been reluctant to go on stage before we were perfect, but after the reception we received, perhaps more for our bravery than our musical ability, Freddie and Brian were keen to get the band up and running as quickly as possible.Randy’s band regularly played at a public house on the estate of council owned properties where he and Brian lived. The pub was popular with the younger demographic, but as the booking fee was disappointingly low; Randy was looking to offload this regular Sunday night venue in favour of the more lucrative offers which were flooding in, as his bands popularity gained momentum.“I’ve got a proposition for you,” he announced, as he helped Mrs Cheshire with the distribution of refreshments.“We’ve been offered a booking tomorrow night, which I’d like to accept, but we’re obligated to play at The Manxman. I’ve spoken with the publican, and he’s prepared to give you a trial, if you’d be interested.”“We definitely are interested?” Brian blurted out, without any consultation on the matter. “Can we go and see him right now?” “I’ll come with you if you like and introduce you,” Randy volunteered, as he wanted the matter settled as quickly as possible. Although the pub was within walking distance of Brian’s house, we chose to drive, as walking was never going to be a consideration with transport parked at the front door. The pub consisted of a large public room divided by folding doors. A red carpet, covered with a busy pattern, helped to disguise the beer stains caused by frequent spillages, although it failed to hide the shiny spots of chewing gum, which had been trodden into the carpet and were accumulating daily around the bar. Customers with drinks insisted, to my annoyance, in congregating around the bar and making it unnecessarily difficult for others to get served, despite many seats and tables being unoccupied. Randy introduced us to the publican, who was busy pulling pints of beer behind the  bar, which ran down the whole of the wall with beer pumps and optics at regular intervals along its length. “This is the band I was telling you about Jack. They’re available tomorrow, and willing to stand in if you’re prepared to give them a trial.”“Stage is in there,” the landlord informed us, as he finished serving a customer and came from behind the bar to push back the dividing doors. Mounted on braked wheels, the tiny stage was a single step above ground level. A backdrop of vertical silver strips caught the reflected light from a glitter ball, which the publican switched on for effect, and it sparkled in a myriad of colours, while he watched in wonder as if seeing it for the very first time. “The stage appears to be a bit small,” I observed. “We’ll never get the four of us and all our equipment on there.”“Randy’s band  spills onto the dance floor,” we were informed by the landlord, which Randy confirmed with a nod of his head. “If you’re a success, I’ll book you to play alternate Sundays, with Randy’s band doing the others.” We concluded the business agreement with a handshake, but I understood why Randy wanted to move to pastures new, as payment for our musical services was close to non-existent at this venue, although at this stage of our fledgling career, the money didn’t matter half as much as laying claim to our first commercial booking.

Footnote

(1) The character described as Randy Bloomfield went on to record the single “Looking Good Feeling Bad,” his own composition, and  two country music albums under the stage name of Randy Blue and Deep Water.

George and Edward Whittaker were brothers, of eleven and ten years of age respectively, they were the oldest siblings of a large family of children, who shared a common mother, a number of different fathers, and were the product of a single parent home. Georgie and Teddy often vandalised the streets of Blakewater, while their drug addicted mother appeared to have lost control, if indeed she ever exerted control in the first place. Once tired of breaking windows in the derelict properties awaiting demolition, the boys headed towards the canal towpath, where horses once towed barges laden with coal, to fuel the steam engines which powered the cotton looms. A pair of mute swans had built a nest in the shallow water, where a retaining wall had collapsed allowing stones from the wall, and soil of the banking, to fall into the water and create an artificial island. “I wonder if there are any eggs in that nest.” Teddy queried of his brother, as he threw a large stone at the pen to scare her from the nest. The pen left the in a hurry, and Teddy laughed, but he hadn’t taken account of the large cob swimming serenely on the almost ripple-less water close by. The angry cob launched itself at the boys with a flapping of its wings, and with its long neck outstretched in a gesture of attack. The boys ran for their lives, with the swan giving chase in fits, starts, and flutters. The boys were scared by this unexpected attack, and they ran, and they ran, until long after the swan had given up the chase. As they bent double, while gulping in Lancashire’s polluted industrial air; they began to laugh hysterically due to the adrenaline rush of having escaped the angry cob, “Shush, Georgie ordered. What’s that noise?”Teddy stopped laughing, at his brother’s command, and listened to the buzzing sound which appeared to be emanating from a cast iron grate set into the canal towpath beneath their feet. “There must be a cellar down there.” “Let’s find it,” said Teddy, with the intent of creating more mayhem.Twenty feet from the grate and set into a factory wall, they discovered a planked door of rotting wood. It had, at some time, been fitted with an asp and a staple, indicating that it had once been secured against intrusion using a padlock. Georgie operated the latch, and pushed the door open to reveal a flight of worn stone steps, fashioned by time, and the footsteps of long forgotten workers.  The buzzing sound became louder as they descended the steps, accompanied by a squeaking sound which initially they failed to identify. Georgie went first, in his capacity of older brother, with Teddy hanging onto his shirt for security, and peering nervously over his brothers' shoulder. The room would have been in total darkness, except for a shaft of light which intermittently flooded through the grated coal shoot on which they’d so recently been standing. A second shaft of light followed them down the steps from the open doorway, creating distorted shadows which led them to an uneven flagged floor in the cellar below. “Can you see anything?” asked Teddy nervously, while leaning so heavily against his brother, to enable a view, that they toppled down the last few steps and fell in a heap on the cellar floor.“You idiot,” Georgie moaned under his breath, as he examined a grazed knee.It was becoming increasingly dark, as they left the light afforded by the open door, but the boys were aware that the room was cluttered with objects of an industrial nature, as they felt their way between oil drums, and wooden pallets, to approach the source of the buzzing sound. “Get ready to run,” Georgie warned his brother. “It may be a bee’s nest, or even worse it could be wasps.”“What’s that horrible smell?” Teddy asked, while covering his nose, and mouth, with a rather unsavoury looking handkerchief retrieved from his trouser pocket. “I don’t know,” answered his brother, screwing up his face in disgust, “but I think I’m going to be sick.” Rounding an oil drum, Georgie imagined he could see the outline of two people standing in the shadows.“I think there’s somebody over there,” he whispered into Teddy’s ear, and they hid behind a stack of wooden pallets in total silence for fear of discovery. “They seem to be tied up; do you think we should free them?”“You do it,” said Teddy, whose concern for his own safety far outweighed his curiosity, “I’ll wait here.”Georgie crept closer to the human shapes, while ensuring he remained hidden from view. He could distinguish the people a little clearer as he approached the light from the coal shoot. One appeared to be a woman, not much taller than he, and with long straggly hair. The other one also had long straggly hair, and could easily have been a woman, but Georgie reasoned the second figure to be a man because of the height difference. They were standing facing each other in total silence, and Georgie listened intently to hear if something was being said above the unidentified buzzing and squeaking sounds. Suddenly the sun came out from behind a cloud, and a shaft of light streamed down the coal shoot illuminating the figures. Flies swarmed all around them, and Georgie could see that they were tied to one of the iron pillars which supported the vaulted ceiling. Rats milled around their ankles squeaking excitedly, and the couple stared at Georgie from eyeless sockets.

I awoke the following morning to the sound of my travelling alarm clock. Eloise was gone. I quickly bathed in the bathroom down the hall, wasting little time in dressing as it was a freezing cold morning and the heating was still not on. When I entered the dining room, Oise was serving Godfrey with his breakfast of two lightly boiled eggs in a double egg cup. Cheese and ham slices were set out on a platter in two neat rows, and there was plenty of bread and jam. Her hair was once more controlled by the black velvet ribbon, her apron was in place, and the all of buttons on her blouse were securely fastened once more.“Good morning sir,” she said rather formally. “How would you like your eggs?”“Boiled for four minutes please miss,” I answered.When my eggs arrived the whites were runny, so I sent them back, explaining that I would like them cooked until the whites were solid and only the yokes were runny. They re-appeared a few minutes later looking exactly as before, and admitting defeat I ate them anyway.After breakfast Godfrey went upstairs to retrieve his briefcase. As there was only the old German lady in the restaurant Oise and I could talk freely.“Why do you tease me?” she asked.“You started it with the good morning sir,” I replied. “I mean last night.”I had no idea what on earth she was talking about. “I don’t understand, I haven’t teased you,” I protested.“You kissed me like my father, with the mouth closed,” she complained.French kissing hadn’t really reached industrial Lancashire, in fact I’d only once tried it and was accused of being disgusting. “I’m sorry,” I apologised. “You’ll have to teach me how to do it properly.”Her face changed from a frown into a broad smile, and she kissed me on the cheek just seconds before Godfrey re-appeared looking businesslike with his leather briefcase.
*  *  *  *
At the Valkenswaard factory Dhr Weiner, met us in the reception area. He was short in stature, which ran contrary to many of the other Dutchmen I’d seen since my arrival, who appeared to be tall, in general, or at the very least as tall as me. He had the look of a Hollywood heartthrob of years gone by, with swept back hair, which was black and wavy, and a pencil thin moustache. He displayed a pleasant and welcoming manner, and escorted us to his office for coffee, where he asked about our journey and the standard of our hotel accommodation. The hotel didn’t compare with the Rode Leeuw in Amsterdam, but this was a small town and the hotel little more than a family run guesthouse, but the food was good and the hotel, I’d discovered, had fringe benefits.Dhr Weiner went on to offer an overview of the Valkenswaard factory. Giving Godfrey the opportunity to comment on the factory in England, in which he showed interest, as they compared notes.After drinking the coffee, which I found extremely bitter, we were given a guided tour of the factory. It was small, in comparison to the Vallard factory in Blakewater, which employed four and a half thousand people, while the Dutch plant employed a fraction of that number. We ended our tour at a repair workshop, which housed control panels in various states of repair or modification. A young man was hard at work. He was tall, with dark hair, but without the dark complexion of our host. Dhr Weiner introduced us. “This is Dhr Peeters our electronics repair man,” “Dhr Peeters, meet Dhr Dale and Dhr Evans from England.”The young mangreeted us warmly. “You will be working with Dhr Peeters repairing the delay line machines,” he told me. “We will meet for lunch, when we will dine at a restaurant in the market square,” and with that he turned and left the workshop with Godfrey trailing in his wake.“Have you brought tools and an overall?” asked Dhr Peeters.I’d been expecting a conventional training programme, or at the very least a watching brief, and I was taken aback.“I wasn’t told I would need to,” I protested lamely.“I will find you an overall and you must borrow my tools, please.” said Dhr Peeters obligingly.Returning with a brown nylon smock, similar to his own, but in approximately my size, he passed me a circuit diagram, written in Dutch, and set me to work repairing one of the machine panels.I was dumb struck; I hadn’t a clue how the machine worked, or even what it did. Had I been able to oblige, there would have been little point in my visiting the Dutch factory at all. I wondered if I should complain to Dhr Weinerat lunch time, but decided to speak with Godfrey instead.Lunch was booked at a cafe next door to the horse butcher. The menu of ham and cheese, salami sausage, and horse meat, was to be the staple diet each day, although a different soup with crusty bread began each meal. Managing to isolate Godfrey from our hosts I told him of my concerns. Godfrey turned a bright shade of red, as he often did when faced with a problem he would rather not be required to solve, or a person who he would rather not have to deal with.“Don’t make waves,” he told me, “just pick up what you can and we’ll sort things out when we get back to England.”This didn’t make me feel any better, I’d been hoping for a little more support, although I should have known better than to expect support from Godfrey.
*  *  *  *
Godfrey met me in the repair workshop at five o’clock; he’d had a good day, having spent it in Dhr Weiner’soffice discussing technical manuals and drinking coffee, two of his favourite occupations. I hadn’t had a good day, and I wanted to discuss my work problems, but Godfrey only wanted to talk about Oise.“I think she likes me,” he said blushing at his own revelation. “Last night we talked until midnight and we got on really, well.”I wondered if I should enlighten him as to the facts of life, especially as Godfrey had really pissed me off, but on reflection I decided against it.When we arrived at the hotel, Oise was in the bar serving the card players with drinks. We both greeted her, and Godfrey blushed as we ascended the stairs to wash and change for dinner. When I entered the bedroom I noticed that something felt different. The clothes that I’d placed in the drawers appeared to have been removed and re-folded. In the wardrobe my overcoat, jacket, and a number of shirts, appeared to be in a different order on the clothes rail, and my electric razor, toothpaste, and toothbrush, all appeared to be in different locations on a shelf above the washbasin. Someone must have been in my room to make the bed, I reasoned, perhaps wipe down the washbasin and shelf, which might account for the rearranging of my toiletries, but why would a maid remove, and refold, all of my underwear and sweaters, or re-position my hanging clothes in the wardrobe? I also remembered leaving my suitcase unzipped in the wardrobe, ready to receive dirty washing destined for home, but it was unzipped no more. I was convinced that someone had searched my room, but why, and what were they looking for?I asked Godfrey if he’d noticed any differences in how he’d left his room that morning, and how he’d found it on our return from work that evening, but apart from his bed having been made, Godfrey hadn’t noticed anything unusual.The evening was a repeat performance, with Godfrey talking about radio signals, before repeating his conversations of the day with Dhr Weiner. Oise and I snatched a few moments alone when Godfrey left his seat to visit the toilet.“Is he always such a boring man?” she asked, breathing out heavily as if she’d been unable to breathe while in his company.“He thinks you fancy him,” I giggled.“I don’t understand, what is fancy?” She looked puzzled.“He thinks you’re attracted to him.” “I could never be attracted to Dhr Dale,” she said with a shudder. “He is so boring, and not a very handsome man.”“What type of man are you attracted to?” I queried expectantly.“You have a mirror in your bedroom,” she said with a cheeky smile. “I suggest you look into it.”As Godfrey reappeared I changed the subject, and asked about the lack of heating in my bedroom. “My father does not put on the heating until winter arrives,” she informed me.“How much winter does there need to be?” I complained. “The ice is a foot thick and people are skating.” “My father says that the winter begins in December, but I could tell him that the English softies would like on the heating.”It was the 29th November, one more day and two more nights and the heating would finally be on. I leant forward while Godfrey was distracted and whispered into her ear. “I can wait for the heating to come on if you promise to keep me warm in bed.”When Godfrey continued the conversation where he’d left off, I decided to have another early night. It was ten-thirty and the card players were beginning to leave the hotel and head for home. The old German lady, who usually came down to dinner, hadn’t put in an appearance, and I figured that if I went to bed early Godfrey might be persuaded to do the same. Oise would then be able close the hotel and join me in my room. I read for a while, waiting for her to arrive, until I fell asleep, waking the following morning in a sitting position with the book still in my hand. Oise hadn’t arrived, and I wondered what I might have done to offend her. I remembered how annoyed she’d been about the French kissing, or more accurately the lack of it, had I inadvertently annoyed her again because I’d left her to cope with Godfrey alone? She wasn’t at breakfast, and Godfrey hadn’t seen her since going to bed the night before, so why hadn’t she visited my room? Dhr Bos appeared to be the waiter, as well as the chief cook and bottle washer at breakfast. I wanted to ask him what had happened to Oise, but I didn’t want to tip off the old man as to our relationship. In any case conversations with Dhr Boswere extremely difficult due to the language barrier, and usually ended in total confusion. I asked him if anyone, other than the maid, had been in my bedroom, but although he pretended not to understand, his acute embarrassment told me that he knew more than he was telling me.I worked throughout the day, my thoughts wandering back to Oise, and what I might have done to upset her. Dhr Peeters was more helpful than on the previous day, when he’d appeared to be a little under pressure, and spent more time talking to me. He told me that he was married with two small children; both of them girls, but that they were hoping for a boy next time. He rented his home, and he owned a little yellow Daff car, which he insisted on showing to me at morning break. He proudly explained that it was the world’s first belt driven car with continuously variable transmission. I pretended to be impressed, but every time I looked at it I couldn’t help visualising Noddy and Big Ears.
*  *  *  *
After lunch, Godfrey left to catch an evening flight back to England. I was sure that I wouldn’t miss his company, but surprisingly I felt alone once he’d left.Oise wasn’t in the bar when I returned to the hotel, and I asked her brother, who was on duty in her absence, where she was.“She will be down in half an hour to cycle to her English class in Eindhoven,” he answered.I bought a small beer and waited until she appeared.“Why didn’t you come to my room last night?” I asked. “Did you miss me?” “Is the Pope a Catholic?” “Of course the Pope is a Catholic, why are you talking about the Pope?” “Forget about the Pope, what happened to you last night?” I wanted to know.“Frau Muller was taken ill, I sent for the doctor and sat with her until morning.” “I thought I’d done something to upset you,” I said, the relief palpable, despite the fact that poor Frau Muller had been taken ill. “Not this time,” she laughed, as she retrieved her bicycle from a multitude of other bicycles parked in racks outside of the hotel.“Does everyone in The Netherlands ride a pushbike?” I asked.“What is a pushbike?” She looked puzzled by my adjective.“Sorry, I mean a bicycle.”“Why do you call it a pushbike?” she asked. I didn’t have a clue, so I made up my own explanation.“Where I live it’s so hilly, and hard to peddle, so people often push their bicycles.”I wasn’t trying to be funny, in fact I was trying to give her the most rational explanation I could muster, but she became hysterical with laughter and fell off her bicycle. She put her hands on my shoulders to stop herself from falling, and as I put my arm around her waist to steady her, our lips came together. I remembered to part my lips and felt her tongue slip between them and explore the inside of my mouth.“That is better,” she told me. “You will, however, need some more practising.” “Before you leave, who is it that makes my bed and changes my linen at the hotel?” I asked.“I do,” she told me.“In that case did you tidy the clothes in my drawers, and rearrange the hanging clothes in my wardrobe?” “I have to make the beds, wash the linen, serve breakfast, dinner, and lunch, and work behind the bar, why would you think I have the time, or the inclination, to tidy up your drawers?”“Could someone else have done it?”“Only I and my father have a key to your room, and he only cooks and plays cards, I can’t imagine him wanting to tidy your clothes.”She picked up her bicycle. “I will return at nine-thirty,” she called as she rode off towards Eindhoven, looking back just once to give me a cheery wave.After a solitary evening meal I decided to explore the delights of the market square. I entered the first bar and ordered a pilsner. The barman filled a glass with froth, before placing it on the bar for my perusal. I waited for the froth to settle, expecting the barman to fill it, but instead he wiped the froth from the top of the glass with a wooden spatula and pushed it towards me.“Is that it?” I asked. “Good top ja?” replied the barman, looking pleased with his creation and expecting me to feel the same way. “To hell with good top,” I said angrily. “I’ve paid for beer not froth, fill the bugger up.” “Engels,” announced the barman loudly. Everyone in the bar nodded and sighed knowingly, as if that explained my peculiar behaviour.In Amsterdam the announcement of “Engels” wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, but in this small market town it caused quite a stir, and a ripple of conversation began amongst the previously solitary and silent men. One man, who sat alone at the opposite end of the bar, moved closer to me and in very good English asked me. “What part of England are you from?”“Lancashire,” I answered, as I didn’t expect him to have heard of Hartbrook, where I lived, or Blakewater where I worked and played. “Is that close to London?” the man queried.I decided it would be far too complicated to explain that Lancashire was in fact a county and not a town or city, so I picked the name of the closest big city to my home. “No, it’s nearer to Manchester.” “Ah, Manchester United; Bobby Charlton; Georgie Best; Dennis Law,” and then the Dutchman ran out of players whose names he could recall.I felt obligated to buy my new found friend a drink, so I pulled out a few coins, threw them onto the bar counter, and ordered a Pilsner. Pretty soon I had six new best friends all of them firing questions at me about England and Manchester United. Even though their motives were blatantly mercenary, after two nights of discussing radio signals with Godfrey, I was more than happy with the alternative company.I left the bar at ten o’clock and staggered back to the hotel a little worse for wear, I thought I spotted the man who’d alighted from the Eindhoven bus, but I was so drunk that I could easily have been mistaken. Oise was behind the bar and she eyed me sternly, as would a mother chastising a naughty child. I remember ordering a Pilsner, but she gave me a black coffee instead.“Drink that and go to bed,” she ordered.“Will you come and tuck me in?” I asked while trying to wink at her but failing dismally.She tried hard to be annoyed, but found it difficult to conceal a smile.“If you drink your coffee and go straight up to bed,” she promised, “I will call to see if you are asleep when I come up.”“And what if I’m awake?” I asked hopefully, but she didn’t reply.


*  *  *  *
I'm sorry for any disappointment but my contract with Amazon won't allow me to publish more than 20% of my novel on any other site but their own, so this will have to be my last free chapter. If anyone wants to read the rest of the story then obviously it can be purchased, in e-book form, or paperback, from Amazon, but that is not the object of this exercise.
Publishing the first four chapters has been an experiment to answer a couple of questions I wanted answering. 

When you publish with Amazon the book is hidden in the bowels of the company, and no-one ever sees it unless they ask for it specifically. This is not a good system for unknown authors, who sell on average 50 copies, mainly to friends and family, so I'm considering  using an agent and a traditional publisher, if I can find one to raise my profile and boost my sales.  Agents, I've discovered, want to read the first 50 pages of a novel before making a decision, but would my first 50 pages be engaging enough? One reviewer has already stated that my novel is a slow burner,  so would this be detrimental in getting my novel noticed?


By the Book Reviews (Canada)

This is Higgins’ first novel. According to the book’s cover he is a retired electrical engineer, which only makes me wish that he’d been lousy at that job so he could have turned to writing earlier. He has a deftness of observation, an ear for natural dialogue, and enough narrative bravery that it’s fair to say he would have carved out a solid career as a novelist with hearty sales and a couple of fat film rights cheques stuffing his bank account. Nonetheless, Weekend in Amsterdam has been worth the wait. It’s a damn good novel.
Book Republik (Cairo)
I was sceptical at first. The opening pages of the book make it a slow burner. It is foolish to give up on a book so easily and a couple of chapters in I was well rewarded. The novel suddenly turns into a page-turner and the calm starting pace is forgotten. A spy tale with a difference ensues. None of the James Bond stuff here, just down to earth human nature. Roy A Higgins, great job and looking forward to more from you.

Question 1.  If my book was on the shelf for all to see, would anyone idly pick it up and begin to read it? Most people judge a book by its cover, so would the cover attract readers to look inside?
Answer. The take up rate to read Chapter One has been 130 people to date, not a lot, I must admit, but  more than I expected. I personally would never pick up an unknown novel and start reading to find out if it was any good, and if everyone was lazy, like me, my project would have fallen flat on its face at the first hurdle.

Question 2. What percentage of readers would want to read Chapter Two after reading chapter One?

Answer. So far 117 people went on to read chapter two, that is 90% of the original readers. That's encouraging, as I was hoping for, but not expecting 50% of readers to want to continue reading the story. This tells me that what I have written is readable and engaging, 10% didn't like it but you can't please everyone.

Question 3. Would readers want to continue reading, knowing that they may never find out what happens in the story without buying it? I tend to read a novel all the way through, even if I'm not really enjoying it, and would hate to read a part of it and never find out what happens in the end.

Answer To date 88 people have stuck with it through three chapters, but chapter three has not been available for long, so I expect that number to rise, two days ago Chapter two had only 75 reads. It's expected that for whatever reason people will fall by the wayside, but the results of my experiment have been positive. Thank you to all who have unwittingly helped me with my enquires.

 After breakfast we packed our suitcases and
headed for the railway station. Opened to the public in 1889, Amsterdam centraal station was
built to impress. It was a beautiful building of brick and stone construction,
with a number of Dutch gables and towers along its facade.“Look at this,” I said to Godfrey, as I
read from an information sheet in the stations foyer. “The station is mounted on three man-made
islands, and resting on over 8,000 wooden piles driven deep into the mud.” I thought it a fascinating fact, but
Godfrey remained unimpressed. We drank a strong coffee in the station cafe,
with which he was impressed, and enjoyed a tasty Danish pastry while awaiting
the arrival of the train to Eindhoven.
The train arrived on time, something unheard of in my hometown of Blakewater,
where trains were often overdue, with no apology or attempt to improve the
service. Godfrey suggested that we share a first
class carriage, even though my junior staff status dictated otherwise. I would
have welcomed the solitude, as I had no idea what topics of conversation to
discuss with Godfrey, and I was nursing a hangover from the night before. I
pointed out that my ticket didn’t state first class, but Godfrey reassured me that
if the inspector challenged us, he’d pay the difference in fares from our
travelling expenses.“Which film did you see last night,” I
asked?“I decided not to go.” he answered. “I
studied today’s itinerary and then I went to bed early.”Soon after settling into the carriage,
two men entered and stored their luggage on the rack. I recognised one of them as
a foreman at the factory where Godfrey and I worked, although the other man I
had no recollection of ever having seen before. They said, “Good morning,” before
realising, through conversation, that we all worked at the same Blakewater factory,
although visiting different locations.“Are you senior staff?” asked the
tool-room foreman, fiercely conscious of his newly acquired senior staff
status.“Yes,” answered Godfrey, telling no
lies.The tool-room foreman studied me
closely, and although I looked the part in my new overcoat, suspicion showed on
the foreman’s face as old memories began to form.“He isn’t,” said the foreman, pointing
his stubby index finger directly at me. “He did some electrical wiring in the
tool-room. You don’t belong in first class young man,” he said, glaring at me
spitefully, “I’m going to call for the ticket inspector and have you removed
unless you leave right now.”I hated the class system at the factory.
There were three separate and very different restaurants, one specifically for
senior staff managers and foremen, one for junior staff charge-hands and maintenance
staff, of which I was one, and one for the rank and file production workers.
The factory also had senior staff toilets which the rest of the workforce
weren’t allowed to access, the key to this status symbol being highly prized
amongst the privileged few who held that honour. The mood in the carriage became tense as
I glared angrily at the tool-room foreman. Godfrey, who knew from experience
what was about to happen next, tried to defuse the situation by explaining our
intention to pay the discrepancy in fares, but I was not in an explaining kind
of mood.  “You
little shit,” I yelled, “who the hell do you think you are? Get up from your
seat and I’ll knock you down again faster than you can fall.” “You can’t talk to him like that,” said his
travelling companion in disbelief. “He’s a member of senior staff.”“I don’t give a flying fuck what he is,
or you either for that matter,” I roared. “But if he’s not out of this carriage
in two seconds flat, he goes out of that window and you along with him.”The tool-room foreman turned quite white,
he was shaking, and all of his bravado had deserted him. He began gathered his
belongings, and along with his travelling companion they left in a hurry to look
for a carriage with a better class of clientele. As they were in the process of leaving,
a man in a raincoat who appeared to be searching for a carriage, stopped for a
moment to watch the fracas, but seeing the way in which I’d ejected other
passengers, he decided to move on.The ticket inspector arrived shortly
thereafter. Perhaps it was the foreman’s parting shot, but the inspector had
been expected anyway and Godfrey paid the discrepancy in our fares.I tried to calm down and forget about
the incident by looking out of the window in search of windmills. I was amazed when
I didn’t see any at all, as I’d been led to believe that The Netherlands was
the land of windmills. As a child, I’d played spot the windmill
with my parents when visiting the seaside town of Blackpool, a popular holiday resort,
and luckily, for a child like me, on my very own doorstep. My father always declared
that the last one to see the windmill, which surprisingly stood on a housing
estate, would have to pay for the ice-creams. He, of course, was always the
last one to spot it, while I was always allowed to be the first. After
watching the flat Dutch landscape pass by for over an hour, without spotting a
single windmill, I gave up the challenge and drifted off to sleep, only to
awake as the train pulled into Eindhoven
station.As we disembarked, I spotted the
tool-room foreman, and his travelling companion, at the far end of the
platform. Leaving Godfrey to guard the suitcases I chased after them. They
panicked as they spotted me bearing down on them, and made a dash for the exit
dragging their heavy suitcases, in a futile attempt to escape my wrath. Leaning
forward, with my hands on my knees as I attempted to catch my breath, I laughed
at their panic stricken retreat, but as they never once looked back, they
failed to realise that I never intended to catch them, and that I’d stopped chasing.
As we left the railway station we
spotted the tool-room foreman, and his companion, hailing a taxi for their
journey to the Eindhoven factory.
Godfrey and I were travelling a further eleven kilometres to Valkenswaard, and to save on travelling
expenses for more important purchases like beer, we caught the service bus.  It was colder in the Netherlands than on our departure
from England. As we travelled on the bus, I tried to explain to Godfrey that
the Gulf Stream keeps England milder in winter than it would otherwise be,
whilst Eindhoven, although further
south than our home in Lancashire, had no such advantage. We passed frozen ponds and canals, which
were confidently being used for skating. Skating was a risky occupation in
England, as the ice was rarely thick enough to support the weight of an adult, or
a child, and could never be totally relied upon even on the coldest of winter
days.The driver called out Valkenswaard, and we alighted in the market
square. It was a market day, and the town was alive with activity. Some of the
stallholders were dressed in national costume, with painted clogs stuffed with
newspapers as insulation against the winter cold.Clogs were still worn by some Lancashire
people, but confined to the older generation, traditionalists who’d never worn but
clogs since childhood. I’d never worn clogs in my life, as my parents were
affluent enough to buy me shoes. Many of my less fortunate classmates had
little choice in the matter, as clogs were cheaper to buy and lasted longer
when worn on the feet of destructive children.In The Netherlands they made their clogs
entirely from wood, while in Lancashire, although having a wooden sole clad
with irons, rather like a horse shoe, the tops were made from stiff leather and
laced up like a shoe, or fastened with buttoned straps. Some of the stall
holders were selling clogs, or klompen in the Dutch vernacular. They appeared to be made from
plain unvarnished wood, or painted red for local use, but stained and varnished
with transfers of windmills for tourist consumption. Many had been converted to become table
lamps, with a single clog representing the hull of a barge, while the
elliptical lamp shade gave the appearance of a sail. I’d purchased one of these
lamps for my mother when as a child I’d visited Middleburg on a school holiday. Although she professed to like it, at
its presentation, it had been consigned to a cupboard and never more seen the
light of day. The ground floor, of the hotel Cordial,
consisted of a narrow room with a dark oak bar which ran for three quarters of
its length. It was filled with knick-knacks, as appeared to be the Dutch
tradition, with foreign coins glued to the bar top, while banknotes, from
around the world, jostled for position with photographs of residents and
visitors alike around the walls. Adjacent to the bar were circular tables, with
a solitary glass ashtray centred on each, along with a quantity of beer mats so
that drinkers wouldn’t leave rings on the highly polished table tops. At the
rear of the room the tables were no longer circular but square, laid with crisp
white table cloths, nickel silver cutlery, and with condiments for use by
diners. There was no reception desk at which to check
in, and except for a group of elderly men who were playing cards and drinking Bols Genever, the room was empty. Among
the card players, a man of late middle age wearing a white shirt with dark
trousers and a food stained apron, welcomed us.“Dhr Dale?” he enquired of me as I
looked by far the more prosperous of the two in my best blue suit and brand new
overcoat.“I’m Dale,” said Godfrey, a little
peeved that he’d been mistaken for the underling, “and this is Mr Evans,” he said, gesturing towards
me.“Dhr Bos,” said the man, patting
his chest to indicate that his name was Dhr Bos, or Mr Forest in
translation.“Ah so you’re the boss?” said Godfrey,
mistaking his name for his vocational title. The man failed to correct Godfrey’s
mistake, as being unable to speak a significant amount of English he was
unaware that confusion existed. We
were hungry, as except for a Danish pastry consumed at the railway station in Amsterdam,
we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Godfrey tried to make Dhr Bos understand,
by pointing down his throat and saying food very loudly. Dhr Bos wasn’t
in the least bit deaf, but Godfrey, like many British travellers, tended to treat
people as if they were, as it takes less effort to shout than to learn a
foreign language.“Yah,” said Dhr Bos,
proving the theory that shouting at foreigners really does cross the language
barrier.Dhr Bos disappeared
through a door at the far end of the room, which lead into what I assumed must
be the kitchen. Almost immediately, a carbon copy of Dhr Bos appeared
through the very same door. He was dressed like the man who had exited, but was
much younger, as if the door led into some kind of age reversal chamber.“Dhr Bos,” he announced.Now Godfrey really was confused, surely
they couldn’t both be the boss. Recognising his confusion I whispered into his
ear.“I think this is probably Dhr Bos junior,
the son of Dhr   Bos.”Godfrey turned a bright shade of pink,
as he often did when embarrassed, which happened to be every time anyone spoke
to him.“My father will prepare food,” announced
Dhr Bos junior. “If you would like to
follow me I will show you to your rooms where you may freshen up.”He escorted me to a room at the top of
the stairs, and Godfrey to a similar room three doors along the landing. The
bedroom was old fashioned, with a large walnut veneered wardrobe inlaid with
tulips and chrysanthemums. It featured two bow fronted drawers beneath mirrored
doors, which were used to store extra bedding, and judging by the current
temperature of the room I was definitely going to need extra bedding.The beautiful old wooden bed looked like
Santa’s sleigh, with a scroll shaped headboard in highly polished walnut veneer
and a footboard to match. It was decorated with the same floral patterns, which
must once have been inlaid with highly coloured woods, but which had faded over
the years to become almost indistinguishable in colour from each other. A
cast iron radiator, similar to the ones I remembered from my school days, sat
beneath a window which overlooked the market square, while a second window, on
an adjacent wall, overlooked the “Eindhovenseweg,” the road on which we’d
arrived, and on which we’d return when the time came for our departure. While looking out of the window, a bus
pulled up at the bus stop, and a man in early middle age, wearing a trench coat
and trilby hat, got off the bus. It was about half an hour since our arrival in
Valkenswaard, and I reasoned that
this must be the next bus to arrive from Eindhoven.
He looked slightly out of place, because of his style of dress, as did Godfrey
and I, a stranger to the town, and the more I watched him the more familiar he began
to look to me.After a little memory searching I was
convinced that I’d seen him on our train from Amsterdam. I vaguely remembered him
looking into our carriage, as if searching for a place to sit, and on seeing
that it was already occupied, he’d quickly moved on. I’d also noticed him on the station
platform, as I rested with my hands on my knees, after chasing the tool room
foreman and his friend. Most of the passengers had been startled to see a
madman chasing passengers, some had appeared scared and others angry, but this
individual was the only person to have remained calm and unruffled, and that
had registered in my mind.He stood at the bus stop for a very long
period of time, and appeared to be taking a keen interest in the hotel. I
thought that perhaps he was looking for somewhere to stay, him being in a
strange town, but I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to miss our bus and
had to catch the next one, when we’d arrived on the same train. He stared at
the hotel, until he spotted me watching him from my bedroom window. Immediately
he looked away, as if embarrassed by my having seen him, and he quickly
disappeared from view in the crowded market.The radiator was stone cold, as was the
water in the only tap situated on a triangular washbasin in the corner of the
room. I discovered hot water in the one and only bathroom, which was a short
walk along the landing, and situated next to Godfrey’s room. Dhr Bos had prepared
coffee, with cream in a small white jug. Cubes of brown and white sugar jostled
for position in a cut glass sugar bowl, with nickel silver sugar tongs on top.
Ham and cheese, sliced salami, and a very pink and rather rubbery meat, which
Godfrey and I failed to identify, were arranged neatly around a huge charger
like toppled dominoes. Godfrey pointed to the rubbery meat and asked Dhr Bos
for identification, only to be met by a blank stare. Godfrey worked his way
around the plate pointing out each item in turn.“Ham,” suggested Godfrey.“Yah, ham,” agreed Dhr Bos.“Cheese,” pointed out Godfrey.“Kaas,” corrected Dhr Bos, believing
that what Godfrey required was a Dutch translation of what was on offer. “Salami,” said Godfrey, pointing at the pink
circles with flecks in them.“Yah,” agreed Dhr Bos.“Meat,” stressed Godfrey pointing at the
pink rubber.  “Paardenvlees,”
said Dhr Bos, before leaving us to ponder his explanation.Having failed to satisfy our curiosity
about the origins of what was on offer, but being ravenously hungry, we ate the
questionable meat before taking a constitutional around the market square.
Three doors away from the hotel we passed a butchers shop with cuts of meat
displayed on white ceramic tiles in the shop window. Some of the meat looked
rather like the meat we’d just eaten, and I pointed out the shop sign to
Godfrey.
Dhr
Van der Gaag. de paard slager.

My observation meant nothing to Godfrey until
he noticed what I had already seen, a picture of a horse’s head at each end of
the sign.“Paardenvlees,” I told him,
“horse meat.”
*
*  *  *
I came down for my evening meal around seven
o’clock, after indulging in a hot bath in the bathroom along the landing.
Godfrey was already at the bar and talking to a pretty teenage girl who was
serving drinks. She’d tied her blonde hair into a short pony tail, and wore a white
blouse over a dark skirt, along with an apron around her waist and sensible
shoes.“This is Eloise, Dhr Bos’s daughter,”
said Godfrey by way of introduction.“I prefer to be called Oise,” said
the girl, pronouncing it as Weese, while looking at me through the prettiest
blue eyes I’d ever seen.“I prefer to be called Ray,” I told her,
while holding out my hand for her to take. She held my hand for longer than was
sociably acceptable, until I reluctantly broke contact out of embarrassment,
unable to hold her gaze under the relentless scrutiny of those beautiful blue
eyes.Oise showed us to our
table, explaining that it would be ours exclusively for the duration of our
stay. I noticed that she filled her uniform to perfection. Some may have commented
that she filled it a little too well, but I wasn’t one of them.The evening meal consisted of erwt soep,
which turned out to be a pea soup rather like my grandmother used to make,
but with pieces of salami sausage used instead of the pig’s trotter which she
always favoured. This was followed by biefstuk,
gebakken aardappelen en erwten, which we managed to translate, in advance
of its arrival, as probably a steak, which was accompanied by fried potatoes, and
garden peas extracted from a tin. Like the homemade soup it was excellent. “I enjoyed that,” I told Godfrey. “The
radiators might be cold, the water in my bedroom certainly is, but if this is
the standard of cooking at least we won’t go hungry.”The final course was aardbei ijs, which
after a good deal of wild guesswork remained a mystery until the arrival of
strawberry ice-cream. This would have been welcome had it been summertime, but
in these bitter winter temperature’s something hot with custard would have been
far more appreciated.After our meal we returned to the bar
and to Eloise. It transpired that during the winter months the hotel was
quiet, we currently being the only guests, except for an elderly German lady
who lived in the hotel on a permanent basis. Oise explained that the
family did not live at the hotel, but because of the old lady’s residency, she
stayed in a spare bedroom on most nights of the week, perchance the old lady,
who was not in the best of health, needed night time assistance. It soon became obvious that despite
having a fiancé in Blakewater, Godfrey was smitten by Oise. He dominated
the conversation, boring everyone to distraction with his talk of radio signals,
while Oise flashed come and rescue me glances. In fairness I did try to
steer the conversation in a different direction on many occasions, but Godfrey always
steered it back to the subject that he knew and loved.At ten-thirty I admitted defeat. Leaving
Oise to her fate, I excused myself, on the grounds that it had been a
long day, and went to my bedroom to read my novel. The old radiator still wasn’t
working, and the room was freezing cold. I wasn’t in the habit of wearing
pyjamas, in fact I hadn’t even brought a pair with me, so I raided the bedding
drawer for extra blankets, stripped to my shorts and a tee shirt, and put on a
sweater for extra warmth.













































































































































































Propping myself into a sitting position,
I began to read. I awoke around midnight to a tapping sound on my bedroom door.
My book was open at page one, indicating that I must have fallen asleep
instantaneously. I responded to the intrusion feeling a little disorientated. I
didn’t bother to dress, reasoning that it must be Godfrey on his way to bed and
wanting to discuss work schedules for the following day. Opening the door, only
slightly, as I’d no intentions of letting Godfrey into my room at this late
hour, I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t Godfrey tapping on my door, but
Eloise. Her hair was hanging loose around her shoulders, the apron had
disappeared, and she’d unfastened an extra button on her blouse.

Retracing my steps I passed a couple of cinemas along the way, and wondered which film Godfrey had chosen to watch. The western Shalako was playing at the first one, while the science fiction film Barbarella was playing at another. I’d heard that Jane Fonda did a striptease in the film Barbarella, while Brigitte Bardot, who co-starred in Shalako, was in my opinion the sexiest woman on the planet. I wondered should I go to the cinema, as I wasn’t enjoying myself  in Amsterdam, but I decided against it as I only had a limited amount of time to spend in Amsterdam, and I could go to the cinema anytime.On the Damrak, and not far from my hotel, I discovered a bar with music and the sound of people’s chatter and laughing coming from within. I attempted to peer through the window, but my view was blocked by a heavy, burgundy coloured curtain, supported on a heavy brass pole. Although I stood on tiptoe in an attempt to peer over the curtain, which was supported half way up the window frame, I failed to see inside, which should have served as a deterrent, but it didn't. Taking pot luck I entered the bar and found myself in a hallway; there I was greeted by a doorman who spirited away my overcoat for a second time that evening. The bar was laid out like a house, perhaps it had once been so, with a staircase to my right, and a hallway leading to a closed door at its far end. Being directed towards a doorway halfway down the hallway, and to my left, I entered the front room, only to discover that the crowd scene, along with the music, was all taped, and except for the barman, and two bar girls who were hustling  sailors, I discovered the room to be empty. The girls were employed to boost the bar’s takings, as Greta had done earlier at the nightclub, and could well have been offering the same personal services. I was relieved to discover them to be busy, and although I wanted to leave, I ordered a small pilsner to ensure that I was reunited with my overcoat when I left. A few minutes later a man entered the bar, and although the barroom was almost empty, he chose to sit on a barstool beside me. He was short in stature, late middle aged, and although his hair had begun to recede at the temples, there were absolutely no signs of grey; in fact it was a rather unnatural shade of auburn, and I speculated that it may be dyed. The man’s face looked crumpled, like an unmade bed, while his waist line had expanded over the years, probably due to too many nights spent drinking in seedy bars. He ordered his drink in Dutch, before speaking to me in perfect English.“You are from England, are you not?” “Yes I am,” I answered, wondering how this strange little man could possibly have known my nationality. “I am from Russia. My name is Vladimir.”“Mine’s Ray,” I answered, and took the proffered hand.“Do you work in the Netherlands, or are you here for your pleasure?” “I’m on my way to Eindhoven, for work experience.” I answered.  “I’m only staying in Amsterdam overnight.” “Pity,” said Vladimir, “it’s such a lovely city. What kind of work do you do?” “I work for a company making components for television and radio sets,” I told him, while wishing the man would go away and pester someone else.“Electronics is the future comrade; Russia is very much in need of young men with technological knowledge and new ideas.” I began to feel uncomfortable in Vladimir’s company, as the cold war was currently at its height. Films and television were awash with spy stories involving Soviet agents, and calling me comrade sent a shiver up my spine.“Why are you in Amsterdam?” I asked, without really wanting to know the answer to my own question.Vladimir leaned forward and whispered into my ear as if it were of national importance. “I am chief of security at a Soviet radio station here in Amsterdam.” I pictured a uniformed security guard at a radio station broadcasting Russian folk songs, with perhaps a little Soviet propaganda thrown in for good measure, but that interpretation could not have been further from the truth. As he leaned forward the jacket of his brown double breasted suit gaped open, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of a small calibre handgun beneath his left armpit. The fact that he wore a firearm convinced me of his diplomatic immunity, which would not have been necessary had he been a glorified doorman at a radio station broadcasting folk songs.The sailors left the bar, and the bar girls descended on us like vultures. I was under the impression that I was obligated to buy the girls a drink to avoid conflict with the management, so I chatted to one of the girls in a friendly way, while she nuzzled my neck and nibbled at my ear. Vladimir, in contrast, had no such illusions. He shouted angrily at the girls, who quickly returned to their seats at the opposite end of the bar. I waited for the fallout from the doorman, who appeared from the hallway on hearing the commotion. He stared in our direction, but realising that the Russian was  doing the shouting, he disappeared.“We are having such a nice talk,” said Vladimir to explain his outburst. “We do not need to be interrupted by two silly girls and their inane chatter.”I agreed with him out of politeness, although I’d been enjoying the company of the girls far more than that of Vladimir, which I found to be intimidating, although I couldn’t explain why.“You must be aware that the Soviet Union will eventually annex Western Europe,” Vladimir continued, as if nothing untoward had taken place. “It is one land mass after all, not some foreign land far across the sea like America. This is where the future of the European countries lies, as part of a unified Soviet Union, making it the most powerful nation on earth. It would stretch from Vladivostok on the pacific coast, to Lisbon on the Atlantic coast. Just image the power of such a nation.“I think the Americans might have something to say about the Soviet Union annexing Europe,” I told him, feeling a little irritated by the arrogance of this ridiculous little man.“The Americans will not be interested in risking a nuclear confrontation to protect Europe. The Soviet Union will have overtaken the United States in firepower in less than five years time, and then you will see how much they care about your tiny island.I felt more than a little patriotic, and pissed off with Vladimir’s observations. “The Germans thought they could conquer Europe, but they came unstuck, perhaps the Soviet Union won’t find the annexing of Europe quite as easy as you seem to think.”“The Germans could easily have conquered Europe, if Hitler had not made the same mistake that Napoleon made over a century earlier,” continued Vladimir confidently.“What mistake?” I asked, walking straight into Vladimir’s propaganda trap.“By attacking Russia of course,” answered Vladimir, although he failed to explain that the terrible winter weather, starvation, and poor logistics had been the major factors in Napoleon’s defeat on the Russian front. “Most of Europe had already surrendered,” he continued, “and your little island would not have been able to resist the might of the German Reich without Russian assistance.”“We weren’t alone,” I continued, bravely trying to fight my corner even though I was far from an expert on the subject. “We had the Commonwealth countries and the Americans fighting alongside us.”“And do you think that the Americans would have come to your aid if the Japanese had not bombed Pearl Harbour? Don’t be so naive. Churchill was clever to declare war on Japan, as America would never have declared war on Germany had he not done so. He manoeuvred them into the war.I couldn’t disagree with his assessment, but I didn’t want the Russian to get the better of me, so remembering what my father had told me I made my case.“The Americans had already come to our aid. Churchill asked Roosevelt for assistance, he was sympathetic but the American people had no appetite for war, so he came up with the idea of lease-lend. Russia also benefitted from lease-lend. I seriously doubt if your country would have been able to contain the Germans on the Russian front without American armaments.I think I might have won that round because he changed the subject. “That argument aside, all western politicians are fools, and will be militarily unprepared when Europe is annexed. Only Enoch Powell has the vision to see the reality of what it to come, but after his rivers of blood speech he is a discredited man, branded a racist, and just like Winston Churchill when he warned of the dangers from Nazi Germany, no one is prepared to take him seriously.”Vladimir appeared to have a grudging respect for Powell. I was unaware of any concerns he may have had about national security, although I did remember something of his rivers of blood speech.Powell’s constituents had been expressing their concerns about the number of Afro-Caribbean’s settling in their area. Kenya had announced repatriation of its Asian population, and most, because they held British passports, were expected to settle in Britain. Powell speculated that at the current rate of immigration, Britain would have accepted seven million coloured immigrants by the year two thousand, plus the offspring of a generation. He prophesied that coloured ghettos would inevitably spring up, leaving the white population as a minority in some areas, unless immigration was halted immediately and repatriation begun. After his speech he’d been branded a racist, and Edward Heath, the Tory leader, sacked him from his position as shadow defence minister. I knew nothing of Powell’s involvement in cold war politics, perhaps he’d made a speech about Soviet expansionism, as a shadow defence secretary it was quite possible  he had, but if such a speech had ever been made I was unaware of it. Vladimir appeared to be concerned that if Powell became powerful, within a future conservative government, perhaps the next leader of the party, or a future prime minister (2), it could be detrimental to the Soviet Union’s expansionist plans, which were going full steam ahead with the invasion of Czechoslovakia to depose the liberal regime of Alexander Dubcek. I didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking, and wondered what all this political rhetoric was leading up to. I didn’t have long to wait to find out. “We need operatives, friends to help us achieve our aims.” “Are you talking about me?” “Yes of course,” answered Vladimir, as if it should have been obvious to me from the very beginning.“I work in a factory making light bulbs and components for radio and television sets. What possible use could I be to the Soviet Union?”“You would be surprised how valuable you could be. What is more you would be well rewarded for your services.”“I would never sell out my country,” I responded patriotically, but Vladimir wasn’t finished.“If a third world war were to occur between the Americans and the Soviet Union, it would not be fought in either of our countries; Europe would become the battleground, and the prize. Better a peaceful annexing of Europe than its annihilation, don’t you think? You would be helping to save the European people from destruction, not betraying them; they would become Soviet citizens instead of casualties of war. Think carefully about what I have said, we will talk again on the subject soon.” The bar had filled, unnoticed, while we’d been talking. Two Gypsy women in traditional peasant dress, who looked to be mother and daughter, were pedalling their wares. The older woman was selling roses and telling fortunes, while the younger one sold trinkets from a peddler’s tray held by a leather strap around her neck. She wore a long black skirt, which brushed the floor as she moved, and around her waist she wore a white apron tied with a large bow at the back. Above the skirt she wore a white blouse with puff sleeves, which was heavily embroidered around the neck with flowers, as was the apron and the hem of her skirt. She glanced at Vladimir  as if for his approval, but when he didn’t react she turned her attentions towards me.“Zijn jullie Russisch?” she asked.“She would like to know if you are Russian,” Vladimir translated.She must have known who Vladimir was, and it was obvious, from her body language, that she was wary of him, otherwise why would she seek his approval, and then assume that I was Russian.“English,” I answered, and then as an afterthought I translated. “Engels, one of the few words I’d learned during my short stay.”“You buy necklace for your sweetheart?” suggested the girl, making my Dutch translation redundant.She leant forward to display the necklace, lifting the pendant with her fingers and holding it close to my face. At first glance I thought it to be a flying swan cast in a base metal, although on closer examination it turned out to be a winged penis complete with testicles. It took me a considerable amount of time to concentrate on the pendant, as I had a clear view down her blouse as she bent forward. I found myself transfixed by her nipples, which were dark, and even darker than her olive skin.“I don’t have a sweetheart,” I protested, after regaining my composure.“You buy one for yourself?” she insisted, unwilling to take no for an answer.“No thank you.” She glanced at Vladimir, and when he showed not the slightest interest in the transaction she continued with her sales pitch.“Fucking scissors?” she announced, which took me very much by surprise, as I was unused to hearing a woman swear.She produced a pair of painted wooden scissors from her tray; they were about ten inches long, with a naked woman, sporting huge breasts, attached to one of the blades, while a naked man with an enormous erect penis, almost as big as himself, was attached to the other. As she squeezed the handles the two naked bodies came together, and the huge penis disappeared from view, before reappearing as she operated the scissor action. I politely declined her offer, and she moved away muttering and cursing under her breath.I looked at my watch; it was after eleven. “I think I’ll call it a night and go back to my hotel,” I announced, still feeling uncomfortable in the presence of Vladimir. “I have to catch a train in the morning.”“You don’t really want to stay at a hotel?” said Vladimir, phrasing his comment more like an instruction than a question, before adding, “so impersonal, don’t you think? Why don’t you stay at my home? I have a nice big bed, big enough for the two of us, and I can cook us breakfast in the morning.”Suddenly the penny dropped, a man twice my age with dyed hair, who becomes annoyed because his companion is receiving attention from a bar girl. He wasn’t annoyed because she was hustling drinks; he was annoyed because she was flirting and he was jealous.“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” I told him. “In fact you aren’t even in the right forest.”  “I am so sorry if I misinterpreted the signals,” apologised Vladimir. I didn’t know what signals I was sending out, I didn’t even know that I was sending out signals, but whatever I was doing, if this was the consequence, I must remember to stop doing it. “I hope you are not offended and we can still be friends.” He held out his hand to shake, and I took it out of politeness. “You will accompany me to another bar where I know I can find what I am looking for?” said Vladimir, ending with the word “please,” as if it were an afterthought. I wasn’t sure if his statement was a request or an order, as Vladimir’s requests often appeared more like orders, but I decided to go along with him to avoid any unpleasantness. Vladimir introduced me to a very different type of establishment . The room was long and narrow, barely wide enough to walk around the elliptical bar counter, which sat in the centre of the room like an island in a sea of chattering people. Loud music blared out, almost drowning out the noise of the chatter, which to my uninitiated ear sounded like the stirring music I’d heard played in the newsreels at Hitler rallies.A couple behind the bar counter were dancing a polka, from one end of the bar to the other, and for the first time since my arrival in the city I was enjoying the atmosphere.“This is not what I expected,” I told Vladimir.“It’s a Bavarian bar, he informed me, but didn’t elaborate on its true purpose. Soon after our arrival a skinny teenage boy, with bleached blonde hair, came into the bar. He scanned the room as if looking for someone. Spotting Vladimir he waved cheerily, and approaching kissed him full on the lips to stake his claim, in case I had other ideas.“This is my regular boy,” Vladimir explained, putting his arm around the shoulders of the skinny youth.I felt uncomfortable witnessing the kissing and cuddling taking place between this child, and a middle aged man with dyed hair and a face like an unmade bed, but then I’d felt uncomfortable in Vladimir’s company for most of the evening. I made the decision that two being company, and three being a crowd, I’d bid them both goodnight and returned to the hotel.
Footnote
(1) In his first speech to the Conservative Party conference, as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Powell outlined a fresh defence policy, jettisoning what he saw as outdated global military commitments. He stressed that Britain was a European power, and should be in an alliance with Western European states against a possible attack from the East. He defended Britain's nuclear weapons program, and argued that with a weapon so catastrophic, it is possession and the right to use it which count.
(2) Before becoming Shadow Defence Secretary, Powell had stood in the party leadership election. He came a distant third, behind Edward Heath and Reginald Maudling, but  undeterred he stated that he’d left his visiting card, meaning that he’d demonstrated himself to be a potential future leader.

In the US presidential election Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeated the Democratic candidate Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate George C Wallace. The Beatles released their self titled album, popularly known as The White Album. In the third series of Star Trek the first ever interracial kiss was aired on US national television, between Captain James T Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, and I embarked on my planned trip to The Netherlands.
*  *  *  *
 When the taxi arrived to take me to the airport, I didn’t have the faintest idea what awaited me in Amsterdam. Godfrey Hillendale sat comfortably in the back seat of the taxi. Although younger than I, he was also my boss by virtue of a university degree. He was reputed to be an electronics boffin, although I’d yet to see any proof of that claim. Godfrey was in excess of six feet tall, very slim, with a sharp bird like face. His hair, which grew over his collar, was wild and red, and receding significantly at the temples. Godfrey spent most of the working day in his office, with the door firmly closed against intruders. He drank copious amounts of black coffee, and had amassed a huge collection of polystyrene coffee cups, which were stacked in huge towers around his office making it almost impossible to enter. I couldn’t see the fascination of collecting coffee cups, but apparently they carried different batch numbers, which made his hobby rather like collecting train numbers, which I found equally mystifying.“Good morning Ray,” called out Godfrey from the back of the cab.“Good morning God,” I replied, a little less cheerily, as I couldn’t, with the best will in the world, be described as a morning person. Initially I’d begun calling him God behind his back, and admittedly in malice; as I’d been promised the job as head of the department before Godfrey had taken up the post. After performing that duty for several months, in an unpaid capacity, I’d been rewarded for my efforts by the unannounced arrival of Godfrey to take my place. This had resulted in some unhelpful behaviour on my part I’m ashamed to say. As we became more familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, I realised that Godfrey had few, if any, management skills, and was happy to hide in his office, with his precious coffee cup collection, while I continued to run the department as before. Realising that Godfrey relied upon me, and was unable to confront me, I soon began to call him God to his face, and Godfrey seemed happy to accept the promotion.To mark the occasion of our trip, I’d dressed in my best blue suit, purchased directly from the retailers shop window, while wearing my brand new overcoat in an attempt to look businesslike. I was what they termed, in the trade, a stock size, the outfitter explaining that my measurements exactly matched those of the shop window dummies, so that the display suits fitted me perfectly. Convinced that they were of a superior quality, and fitted me better than a made to measure suit, I would regularly ask if any of the demonstration suits were for sale, which they often were, as material runs came to an end and the sample suits became redundant. Godfrey had made no such concessions to the trip. He wore his everyday grey flannels, blue blazer, and camel coloured duffle coat with peg buttons, finished off with his university scarf, which he wore with pride as a badge of academic achievement. I had little in common with Godfrey, and the initial flurry of excited conversation, about the trip, quickly dried up. I tried all the subjects on which I felt knowledgeable, music, television programs, books, history, news, and even politics, of which I knew precious little, but Godfrey was not what you might call a man of the world,and had little knowledge on any of my chosen subjects. “What do you like to do in your free time?” I asked him, frustrated by his lack of enthusiasm on any of my proffered subjects for conversation.“I like to drive onto the moor with my girlfriend.” Finally we had something in common, but Godfrey, being Godfrey, just had to go and ruin it. “To receive and transmit radio signals.” I was surprised to hear that Godfrey had a girlfriend, but it was of no surprise to discover that she shared his passion for radio signals. I wasn’t averse to taking my girlfriends onto the moor, but not to transmit and receive radio signals. By the time we reached the airport we were sitting in silence. I wondered what on earth we would talk about until Wednesday, the day when Godfrey was scheduled to return to England leaving me behind. I was excited about the flight. As a child I’d flown on family holidays to the Isle of Man, in transport planes converted, by the addition of seats, to become passenger aircraft in the aftermath of the war. On this occasion I was flying, for the first time, on a jet aircraft, something which had been an ambition since BOAC introduced their Comet in the early nineteen-fifties. Manchester’s airport couldn’t have been more different from the Squires Gate airport of my childhood, which as memory served consisted of a single story prefabricated building, akin to the ones where fighter pilots scrambled from battered old armchairs during the war years. This airport was of ultra modern design, built in concrete and steel, and of enormous proportions, with huge chandeliers of droplet shaped glass cascading from the ceiling in the departure lounge. Godfrey and I became separated on the aeroplane, as Godfrey was graded as senior staff. This entitled him to travel business class, while I travelled economy as my reduced status dictated. I sat next to a boy of perhaps eight or nine years of age, who although travelling with his mother, shared my enthusiasm for flying, and insisted on holding my hand as the plane took off for Amsterdam.
*  *  *  *
I met up with Godfrey at the baggage collection, and we caught a service bus into the city of Amsterdam. We were booked into the Rode Leeuw or Red Lion, which was situated on a road known as the Damrak. The Damrakappeared to be the main artery of the city,with many of the large stores and hotels situated along its length. Trams ran to and from the railway station at its commencement, and with hindsight I wishedthat we’d caught one of them, but without knowledge of the hotel’s location , or a command of the Dutch language, we chose to walk in the hope that the hotel wasn’t very far. The hotel had a large reception desk, with a number of female receptionists to welcome guests. Uniformed porters, wearing pork pie hats, were fighting for suitcases to enhance their meagre salaries by way of tips, and I felt uncomfortable because of all the attention being lavished upon us. Against my wishes, the porter took our suitcases into the nearest lift. The lift operator, who sat on a high stool beside a panel of buttons, enquired of the porter which floor the gentlemen would like, and I learned that we were expected to tip, not only the porter, but the lift operator on each and every occasion we travelled in the lift. With this realisation I resolved to always use the stairs.My room turned out to be spacious, with a king sized bed, a sitting area with two comfortable armchairs, a coffee table, tea and coffee making facilities, and a bathroom with a separate shower. The decor was modern, but impersonal, in creams and white, with pictures on the walls so boring that no one even noticed what they depicted. A single chocolate had been positioned on each pillow as a welcome gift, and  I made a cup of coffee, sat in one of the comfortable armchairs, and greedily devoured them both.Once resuscitated I unpacked my suitcase, showered, and putting on my best blue suit and a pair of suede Chelsea boots, which were currently the height of fashion, I met up with Godfrey in the restaurant for dinner. We were given an English language menu and I chose whitebait for a starter, simply because I’d never tried it before, while for my main course I chose Weinerschnitzel for the very same reason. I wasn’t keen on either of mychoices, and decided to play it safe by ordering apfelstrudel for desert. This selection turned out to be made using raisins, nuts, cinnamon, and alcohol, along with the apples, but tasty none-the-less.Amsterdam’s prostitutes sat in illuminated windows to ply their trade, I’d been told, and I determined to witness this spectacle for myself. Godfrey refused to accompany me, and decided to take himself off to the cinema instead. I’d no idea in which direction I would find the red light district, and being too embarrassed to ask, I turned right as I exited the hotel, which proved to be entirely the wrong direction.I felt uneasy, and not for the first time since arriving in Amsterdam. Convinced that I was being followed, although I had absolutely no reason for thinking anything of the kind, I frequently turned abruptly, in an attempt to spot someone behaving suspiciously. I told myself I was being paranoid, but still the feeling of unease persisted. Following the crowds I found myself in Rembrandtplein, a square which had little connection  with Rembrandt, other than the proximity of his statue, which occupied the centre of the square. The square was surrounded by bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, with doormen resembling gorillas in evening suits, cajoling punters to enter their establishments in preference to the establishments of others. For a long time I resisted the carefully rehearsed pitches, but after a complete circuit of the square, and feeling extremely cold in the winter weather, I succumbed to the pressure and accepted the next invitation.The doorman, who followed me into the nightclub, insisted on helping me off with my overcoat, which he spirited away so that a change of mind, on my part, wouldn’t likely occur. The nightclub consisted of a single room, with a curved bar in one corner which ate up a quarter of the room. Bench seating surrounded the remaining walls, with a handful of tables and chairs increasing the seating capacity nominally. Five or six men occupied the shadows, all of them alone, as was I, and all of them wondering how the hell they’d let themselves be suckered into entering the nightclub. I approached the bar and ordered a pilsner, which I knew from advertisements to be a beer.“Shorts only,” grunted the barman rudely. “Bacardi and coke then,” I grunted back. I’d never drunk Bacardi, and didn’t know if I liked it, but I did know I liked  cola so how bad could it be?After paying an extortionate price for my drink, which tasted of  cola and little else, I positioned myself on a high bar-stool. The barman reached under the counter, flicked a switch, and a spotlight flooded the dance floor with a bright light. Immediately a door beside the bar opened, and a girl of perhaps sixteen, or seventeen years of age, entered the room to dance in the glow of the spotlight. She wore a red cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a red leather waistcoat, with tassels, leather cuffs, also with tassels, and leather chaps, which showed her cheeky bare bottom through cut-outs at the rear. In my limited experience of strip clubs, strippers who labelled themselves exotic dancers, only wiggled while removing items of  clothing, but this girl could really dance. Twirling a lasso she jumped in and out of the loop, sending it high above her head, and back down again to her ankles. At one stage she dropped the loop over my head, and pulling it tightly she trapped my arms against my sides. She danced away  while holding onto the end of the rope, then shortened the distance between us using climbing hand movements along the rope. She wiggled her small breasts in my face, before releasing me from my captivity, and my acute embarrassment. Removing her leather cuffs, she dropped them, one by one,at my feet. This was followed after a lengthy spell of teasing, exposing one breast and then the other, before the removal of her waistcoat. The chaps came offwith one almighty tug, to reveal a red leather gee-string, which she inched up and down using her thumbs to tantalise the assembled audience. Sitting on a bar stool she removed her boots, and danced wearing only the hat and the smallest of red leather garments imaginable.Her hair was hidden beneath the cowboy hat, which she removed to cover herself,as she unfastened the gee-string and dropped it to the floor. Her hair was long, and as she removed the hat it tumbled to her waist. It was chestnut brown in colour, and completely natural in hue, as I was able to verify by comparison from my privileged position.The music stopped, the lights went out, and everyone clapped politely, but instead of disappearing, she perched on a bar-stool beside me. I’d watched her with interest as she danced, but I now found it impossible to look at her, even though I wanted to do so.“Would you like to buy Greta a drink?” she asked in  heavily accented English.Obviously she’d been briefed as to my whereabouts, and to my nationality. Perhaps she’d been deliberately chosen to dance because she spoke my native tongue. The doorman, who’d enticed me to enter the club, approached the girl carrying a pink silk dressing gown. As she alighted from the bar stool, she gave me one last look at what was on offer as she put on the dressing gown, leaving it wide open, just for just a moment, as she flicked her long hair over the collar. The doorman stayed close by until I ordered the requested drink, which was green in colour and served in a wine glass. It appeared to be a spirit, possibly chartreuse or crème de menthe. I’d once tried a drink of similar colour, served flaming like the brandy on a Christmas pudding. Foolishly I’d burned my mouth on the glass, never realising that it might have heated up in the flame. There was no way that this drink would light, because although it cost an extortionate price, it was not a spirit, but a peppermint drink known as green sticky.“I have a room upstairs if you are looking for a good time” Greta announced.I wasn’t expecting to be propositioned. I’dbelieved the scam to be charming punters into buying overpriced drinks, never realising that this girl had been forced into prostitution to pay for her travel arrangements from Eastern Europe, and her overpriced lodgings. Greta was beautiful; her lifestyle having had insufficient time to take its toll on her youthful body and pretty face. I was sorely tempted to take her up on her offer, but considering the extortionate price of drinks, in this establishment, I was concerned about the cost of her personal services, and what would be the consequences should I be unable to pay the bill.
Another punter entered the club, and soon the lights came on to herald the nextstripper. Greta left her drink untouched on the bar, and silently slipped away. The new stripper was twice the age of Greta. She was dressed as a Turkish belly dancer, and I waited until the last of her seven veils had fallen to the floor before finishing my drink, retrieving my overcoat, which I worried I might never see again, and leaving the warm smoky atmosphere of the club to inhale the cold fresh air of the square.

CHAPTER ONE
In the US presidential election Republican challenger Richard Nixon defeated the Democratic candidate Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and American Independent Party candidate George C Wallace. The Beatles released their self titled album, popularly known as The White Album. In the third series of Star Trek the first ever interracial kiss was aired on US national television, between Captain James T Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, and I embarked on my planned trip to The Netherlands.
*  *  *  *
 When the taxi arrived to take me to the airport, I didn’t have the faintest idea what awaited me in Amsterdam. Godfrey Hillendale sat comfortably in the back seat of the taxi. Although younger than I, he was also my boss by virtue of a university degree. He was reputed to be an electronics boffin, although I’d yet to see any proof of that claim. Godfrey was in excess of six feet tall, very slim, with a sharp bird like face. His hair, which grew over his collar, was wild and red, and receding significantly at the temples. Godfrey spent most of the working day in his office, with the door firmly closed against intruders. He drank copious amounts of black coffee, and had amassed a huge collection of polystyrene coffee cups, which were stacked in huge towers around his office making it almost impossible to enter. I couldn’t see the fascination of collecting coffee cups, but apparently they carried different batch numbers, which made his hobby rather like collecting train numbers, which I found equally mystifying.“Good morning Ray,” called out Godfrey from the back of the cab.“Good morning God,” I replied, a little less cheerily, as I couldn’t, with the best will in the world, be described as a morning person. Initially I’d begun calling him God behind his back, and admittedly in malice; as I’d been promised the job as head of the department before Godfrey had taken up the post. After performing that duty for several months, in an unpaid capacity, I’d been rewarded for my efforts by the unannounced arrival of Godfrey to take my place. This had resulted in some unhelpful behaviour on my part I’m ashamed to say. As we became more familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, I realised that Godfrey had few, if any, management skills, and was happy to hide in his office, with his precious coffee cup collection, while I continued to run the department as before. Realising that Godfrey relied upon me, and was unable to confront me, I soon began to call him God to his face, and Godfrey seemed happy to accept the promotion.To mark the occasion of our trip, I’d dressed in my best blue suit, purchased directly from the retailers shop window, while wearing my brand new overcoat in an attempt to look businesslike. I was what they termed, in the trade, a stock size, the outfitter explaining that my measurements exactly matched those of the shop window dummies, so that the display suits fitted me perfectly. Convinced that they were of a superior quality, and fitted me better than a made to measure suit, I would regularly ask if any of the demonstration suits were for sale, which they often were, as material runs came to an end and the sample suits became redundant. Godfrey had made no such concessions to the trip. He wore his everyday grey flannels, blue blazer, and camel coloured duffle coat with peg buttons, finished off with his university scarf, which he wore with pride as a badge of academic achievement. I had little in common with Godfrey, and the initial flurry of excited conversation, about the trip, quickly dried up. I tried all the subjects on which I felt knowledgeable, music, television programs, books, history, news, and even politics, of which I knew precious little, but Godfrey was not what you might call a man of the world,and had little knowledge on any of my chosen subjects. “What do you like to do in your free time?” I asked him, frustrated by his lack of enthusiasm on any of my proffered subjects for conversation.“I like to drive onto the moor with my girlfriend.” Finally we had something in common, but Godfrey, being Godfrey, just had to go and ruin it. “To receive and transmit radio signals.” I was surprised to hear that Godfrey had a girlfriend, but it was of no surprise to discover that she shared his passion for radio signals. I wasn’t averse to taking my girlfriends onto the moor, but not to transmit and receive radio signals. By the time we reached the airport we were sitting in silence. I wondered what on earth we would talk about until Wednesday, the day when Godfrey was scheduled to return to England leaving me behind. I was excited about the flight. As a child I’d flown on family holidays to the Isle of Man, in transport planes converted, by the addition of seats, to become passenger aircraft in the aftermath of the war. On this occasion I was flying, for the first time, on a jet aircraft, something which had been an ambition since BOAC introduced their Comet in the early nineteen-fifties. Manchester’s airport couldn’t have been more different from the Squires Gate airport of my childhood, which as memory served consisted of a single story prefabricated building, akin to the ones where fighter pilots scrambled from battered old armchairs during the war years. This airport was of ultra modern design, built in concrete and steel, and of enormous proportions, with huge chandeliers of droplet shaped glass cascading from the ceiling in the departure lounge. Godfrey and I became separated on the aeroplane, as Godfrey was graded as senior staff. This entitled him to travel business class, while I travelled economy as my reduced status dictated. I sat next to a boy of perhaps eight or nine years of age, who although travelling with his mother, shared my enthusiasm for flying, and insisted on holding my hand as the plane took off for Amsterdam.
*  *  *  *
I met up with Godfrey at the baggage collection, and we caught a service bus into the city of Amsterdam. We were booked into the Rode Leeuw or Red Lion, which was situated on a road known as the Damrak. The Damrakappeared to be the main artery of the city,with many of the large stores and hotels situated along its length. Trams ran to and from the railway station at its commencement, and with hindsight I wishedthat we’d caught one of them, but without knowledge of the hotel’s location , or a command of the Dutch language, we chose to walk in the hope that the hotel wasn’t very far. The hotel had a large reception desk, with a number of female receptionists to welcome guests. Uniformed porters, wearing pork pie hats, were fighting for suitcases to enhance their meagre salaries by way of tips, and I felt uncomfortable because of all the attention being lavished upon us. Against my wishes, the porter took our suitcases into the nearest lift. The lift operator, who sat on a high stool beside a panel of buttons, enquired of the porter which floor the gentlemen would like, and I learned that we were expected to tip, not only the porter, but the lift operator on each and every occasion we travelled in the lift. With this realisation I resolved to always use the stairs.My room turned out to be spacious, with a king sized bed, a sitting area with two comfortable armchairs, a coffee table, tea and coffee making facilities, and a bathroom with a separate shower. The decor was modern, but impersonal, in creams and white, with pictures on the walls so boring that no one even noticed what they depicted. A single chocolate had been positioned on each pillow as a welcome gift, and  I made a cup of coffee, sat in one of the comfortable armchairs, and greedily devoured them both.Once resuscitated I unpacked my suitcase, showered, and putting on my best blue suit and a pair of suede Chelsea boots, which were currently the height of fashion, I met up with Godfrey in the restaurant for dinner. We were given an English language menu and I chose whitebait for a starter, simply because I’d never tried it before, while for my main course I chose Weinerschnitzel for the very same reason. I wasn’t keen on either of mychoices, and decided to play it safe by ordering apfelstrudel for desert. This selection turned out to be made using raisins, nuts, cinnamon, and alcohol, along with the apples, but tasty none-the-less.Amsterdam’s prostitutes sat in illuminated windows to ply their trade, I’d been told, and I determined to witness this spectacle for myself. Godfrey refused to accompany me, and decided to take himself off to the cinema instead. I’d no idea in which direction I would find the red light district, and being too embarrassed to ask, I turned right as I exited the hotel, which proved to be entirely the wrong direction.I felt uneasy, and not for the first time since arriving in Amsterdam. Convinced that I was being followed, although I had absolutely no reason for thinking anything of the kind, I frequently turned abruptly, in an attempt to spot someone behaving suspiciously. I told myself I was being paranoid, but still the feeling of unease persisted. Following the crowds I found myself in Rembrandtplein, a square which had little connection  with Rembrandt, other than the proximity of his statue, which occupied the centre of the square. The square was surrounded by bars, restaurants, and nightclubs, with doormen resembling gorillas in evening suits, cajoling punters to enter their establishments in preference to the establishments of others. For a long time I resisted the carefully rehearsed pitches, but after a complete circuit of the square, and feeling extremely cold in the winter weather, I succumbed to the pressure and accepted the next invitation.The doorman, who followed me into the nightclub, insisted on helping me off with my overcoat, which he spirited away so that a change of mind, on my part, wouldn’t likely occur. The nightclub consisted of a single room, with a curved bar in one corner which ate up a quarter of the room. Bench seating surrounded the remaining walls, with a handful of tables and chairs increasing the seating capacity nominally. Five or six men occupied the shadows, all of them alone, as was I, and all of them wondering how the hell they’d let themselves be suckered into entering the nightclub. I approached the bar and ordered a pilsner, which I knew from advertisements to be a beer.“Shorts only,” grunted the barman rudely. “Bacardi and coke then,” I grunted back. I’d never drunk Bacardi, and didn’t know if I liked it, but I did know I liked  cola so how bad could it be?After paying an extortionate price for my drink, which tasted of  cola and little else, I positioned myself on a high bar-stool. The barman reached under the counter, flicked a switch, and a spotlight flooded the dance floor with a bright light. Immediately a door beside the bar opened, and a girl of perhaps sixteen, or seventeen years of age, entered the room to dance in the glow of the spotlight. She wore a red cowboy hat, cowboy boots, a red leather waistcoat, with tassels, leather cuffs, also with tassels, and leather chaps, which showed her cheeky bare bottom through cut-outs at the rear. In my limited experience of strip clubs, strippers who labelled themselves exotic dancers, only wiggled while removing items of  clothing, but this girl could really dance. Twirling a lasso she jumped in and out of the loop, sending it high above her head, and back down again to her ankles. At one stage she dropped the loop over my head, and pulling it tightly she trapped my arms against my sides. She danced away  while holding onto the end of the rope, then shortened the distance between us using climbing hand movements along the rope. She wiggled her small breasts in my face, before releasing me from my captivity, and my acute embarrassment. Removing her leather cuffs, she dropped them, one by one,at my feet. This was followed after a lengthy spell of teasing, exposing one breast and then the other, before the removal of her waistcoat. The chaps came offwith one almighty tug, to reveal a red leather gee-string, which she inched up and down using her thumbs to tantalise the assembled audience. Sitting on a bar stool she removed her boots, and danced wearing only the hat and the smallest of red leather garments imaginable.Her hair was hidden beneath the cowboy hat, which she removed to cover herself,as she unfastened the gee-string and dropped it to the floor. Her hair was long, and as she removed the hat it tumbled to her waist. It was chestnut brown in colour, and completely natural in hue, as I was able to verify by comparison from my privileged position.The music stopped, the lights went out, and everyone clapped politely, but instead of disappearing, she perched on a bar-stool beside me. I’d watched her with interest as she danced, but I now found it impossible to look at her, even though I wanted to do so.“Would you like to buy Greta a drink?” she asked in  heavily accented English.Obviously she’d been briefed as to my whereabouts, and to my nationality. Perhaps she’d been deliberately chosen to dance because she spoke my native tongue. The doorman, who’d enticed me to enter the club, approached the girl carrying a pink silk dressing gown. As she alighted from the bar stool, she gave me one last look at what was on offer as she put on the dressing gown, leaving it wide open, just for just a moment, as she flicked her long hair over the collar. The doorman stayed close by until I ordered the requested drink, which was green in colour and served in a wine glass. It appeared to be a spirit, possibly chartreuse or crème de menthe. I’d once tried a drink of similar colour, served flaming like the brandy on a Christmas pudding. Foolishly I’d burned my mouth on the glass, never realising that it might have heated up in the flame. There was no way that this drink would light, because although it cost an extortionate price, it was not a spirit, but a peppermint drink known as green sticky.“I have a room upstairs if you are looking for a good time” Greta announced.I wasn’t expecting to be propositioned. I’dbelieved the scam to be charming punters into buying overpriced drinks, never realising that this girl had been forced into prostitution to pay for her travel arrangements from Eastern Europe, and her overpriced lodgings. Greta was beautiful; her lifestyle having had insufficient time to take its toll on her youthful body and pretty face. I was sorely tempted to take her up on her offer, but considering the extortionate price of drinks, in this establishment, I was concerned about the cost of her personal services, and what would be the consequences should I be unable to pay the bill.
Another punter entered the club, and soon the lights came on to herald the nextstripper. Greta left her drink untouched on the bar, and silently slipped away. The new stripper was twice the age of Greta. She was dressed as a Turkish belly dancer, and I waited until the last of her seven veils had fallen to the floor before finishing my drink, retrieving my overcoat, which I worried I might never see again, and leaving the warm smoky atmosphere of the club to inhale the cold fresh air of the square.