Ahead of his Time by Adrian Cousins (read novels website .TXT) 📗

Now interviewing in 1977, there was no requirement for the candidate to provide identification for proof of right to work and no DBS checks. I could have been interviewing and potentially employing some nutter or a serial killer. This role’s essential requirement consisted of two main threads. Firstly, would they look good in a brown smock-coat and secondly, could they use a screwdriver. Both candidates seemed more than competent in both categories. However, rather than offering the job to the second candidate who had some previous appropriate experience, I thought this could provide a temporary solution to what to do with Martin – assuming he was capable of using a screwdriver.

Both DIs returned with the forensic officer just after four pm, and Roy left them in my capable hands. However, after guiding them to the secretarial training suite, they closed the door on me, leaving me stranded in the corridor.

Last September, when I typed the letter about the Yorkshire Ripper, I’d had a niggling concern about the possible exposure as the author and the potential consequences that could entail. Earlier today, I’d realised my school-boy error of posting them locally, thus giving the letters the Fairfield postmark.

Over the past four months, there were no reported arrests for the two murders in West Yorkshire. I’d made the reasonable assumption my letter was treated as the work of some crank or would-be Mystic-Meg. Or perhaps some other charlatan horoscope nut who claimed to be able to predict the future, but hey, I would say that as I have the star sign of Aries. Why they were so interested in who typed it, I couldn’t fathom, unless they believed it was the real killer who’d fabricated a wild story to deflect the murders from themselves and onto Peter Sutcliffe.

I was sure if they could link the letter to one of those typewriters, there was no way they could connect the letter to me as anyone could have used it. Four months on, my fingerprints would no longer be on the typewriter.

With the door closed on me, I wandered back to the staff room, reasonably confident that I had nothing to concern myself regarding this particular issue. However, then the obvious occurred to me and produced a cloak of doom that flattened my mood to a new low. The police were not lifting fingerprints, as they already had mine on the letter I sent. Oh, bollocks, I’d been such a pea-brain. I didn’t think about fingerprints when I’d sent the letters. At the time, I was only concerned about the typewriter being traced. I’d not concerned myself with DNA being harvested from the licked stamps and envelopes, as in this era it hadn’t been discovered. However, like a total numb-skull, I hadn’t considered that the paper and envelope were smothered with my sweaty fingerprints. Now all they had to do was fingerprint everyone, and I would be caught.

Slipping ever further into a melancholy mindset, I considered what else could turn to shit today. As I chain-smoked through a packet of cigarettes, I half expected the forensic officer to be able to pinpoint me as the perpetrator just by flicking his powder and brush around. Yes, I was losing all sense of proportion.

The situation escalated a few minutes before five when the detectives had finished their work and presented me with a receipt for one of the typewriters they were seizing for further investigation. Roy was stunned, and we discussed for some time how one of our students could have typed a letter about some crime committed hundreds of miles away in Yorkshire. I tried to play down the situation, saying it was probably coincidence and just a school prank which had got out of hand. I was now regretting the decision to send the letter in the first place as it seemed to only have the effect of putting the school under suspicion and not leading to stopping the Yorkshire Ripper as intended.

With the trepidation of what George had to say at the pub tonight, and then the impending doom of a continued argument with Jenny later, I left school feeling quite depressed. Today really had turned to shite.

12

Corona

The Three Horse Shoes lounge bar was reasonably quiet, with only three other punters enjoying an early evening drink. It was one of the few times I’d ventured into the pub when Dawn and Dennis weren’t perched on their designated bar stools. Ensconced on Dennis’s stool and nursing my pint, I waited for George, trying to avoid thinking about the day’s events. When George arrived a little after six, he wasn’t alone as he’d brought Martin with him.

“Lad, I stopped by and picked up Martin. Thought it would be good to get him out of the house.

“Right … okay,” I nonchalantly replied. “You’ll have to drop him off though, as I can’t be late tonight because Jenny is seriously on the war-path. The tanks are on the front lawn, so to speak.”

“I am here, you know!” interjected Martin. He did look a little brighter today, although he still had that mopey look with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his green parka.

“Yeah, sorry, Martin,” I offered with a wave of my hand as an apology.

“Lad, I presume it didn’t go too well with Jenny last night, then? It was a bit tense in that kitchen when she walked in.”

“Oh, George, it was a bloody disaster, and she’s seen his car!” I pointed at Martin, who was now taking a butchers around the pub and the few other punters who were sitting at a table near the cigarette machine – he’d probably never seen one of those before.

“Ah, sorry to hear that, lad. You did sound a bit distracted when I called at lunchtime. I presume that’s been playing on your mind all day.”

Brian, the landlord, plonked George’s pint on the bar. George turned to Martin, who was now transfixed by the