This was evidently the now legendary thieves’ kitchen. There was a gang of them. The apprehended suspect was probably the leader. And the stolen goods were all there, the pop-up toaster, piles of money. And more. There were strange things. Artificial legs. A glass eye. Obviously this robber band owned to a few disabled members. It was all quite dramatic.
But it was bugger all compared to what Uncle John witnessed back at the police station. The suspect had not been taken to the cells, he was being interviewed in the chief constable’s office. And Uncle John knew that if you climbed up on a box in the back corridor you could see in through a little hatch and look down into this office.
I don’t know how he knew this, but he did know it, so he lost no time in shinning up and taking a peep.
What he saw was to remain with him for the rest of his life.
The Captain and several of the squaddies had the suspect held down across the chief constable’s desk. They grasped him by the hands and feet and the suspect was screaming. One of the squaddies pushed a handkerchief into his mouth and The Captain pulled at the man’s clothing. He was undressing him. As my uncle looked on, The Captain pulled down the man’s trousers to reveal a pair of artificial limbs.
My uncle was amazed, this man was an invalid, he didn’t have any legs.
Then the jacket was pulled from him and his shirt. The man’s arms weren’t real. They were false arms with false hands. The man was a total amputee.
My uncle says that The Captain was shouting. He shouted, “You see, he’s all of them. All of them.” And it was only later that my uncle realized what it meant. This man was all the criminals. He was the child and the woman and the tall man and the fat man, and who knows who else. He obviously owned a collection of different-sized arms and legs. He could make himself as tall or short as he wanted, depending upon which he wore. My uncle worried about the arms and hands though. He’d seen false legs in action, Douglas Bader flew Spitfires wearing false legs. But how could false arms and hands work? But somehow they did, this man was obviously one master of disguise and one most extraordinary master criminal.
As Uncle John looked on, he saw The Captain unstrapping the man’s false arms and legs. The man was really struggling, like a lunatic. He spat out the handkerchief, but a squaddie rammed it back in again. When the arms and legs had been removed the man didn’t struggle quite so much, but he writhed about. It was quite horrible to watch apparently, but Uncle John said that it was all too fascinating to turn away from. Although he wishes he had now.
What happened next was really freaky. One of the squaddies was holding onto the man’s hair and it came away in his hands. It was a wig, but when it came away it brought the man’s ears along with it. They were false ears. And when the squaddie tried to put the wig back on, he knocked off the man’s nose.
The Captain was worrying at the man’s vest and he ripped that open to expose a number of buckles and straps and these he began to undo. The man’s shoulders came off next, they were just rounded pads. His chest was a sort of stuffed bra affair and when The Captain tore off the man’s underpants, his genitals were made of rubber.
Things got somewhat out of control then. My uncle recalls seeing a squaddie pulling the handkerchief out of the man’s mouth, bringing with it the teeth and lips. The skin of the face appeared to be latex and it came off like a mask, revealing a hard dark material that might have been wood.
A rib cage, that was obviously wood, got yanked away. Inside was a lot of stuffing, like a Guy Fawkes dummy, and within minutes the entire frame was disassembled, leaving absolutely nothing.
There was no man inside there, not one little piece of a man.
And that is basically the end of the story as my uncle told it. He swore it was true and that he saw it happen with his own eyes. He was a retired policeman and I for one find it hard to believe that he made it up. I’ve never heard anything like it before and I don’t pretend to know what it means. But that’s it.
Further questioning on my part turned up a very little. The bits and pieces, of what amounted to nothing more than a dummy, but which had undoubtedly been a struggling man moments before, were gathered up, put into sacks and taken away. Uncle John had enough wisdom to mention nothing of what he’d seen to his fellow officers. He never saw The Captain or the mysterious squaddies ever again. Nor did he wish to.
That’s it.
Of course The Captain and the mysterious squaddies of the unlisted regiment didn’t know that Uncle John had witnessed all this. He had shinned down from his box and slipped back to the front desk. So when they came out of the chief constable’s office, all looking somewhat green of face and carrying several large sacks, he was the first policeman they saw. So they said, “Oi, you, Constable, give us a hand to get this evidence loaded.” And they stuck two of the sacks into his hands and marched him out to a waiting van.
He loaded the sacks in and returned for another two which he also put into the back. There was a lot of talking going on and no-one was looking at him. So Uncle John thought, Well, nobody is ever going to believe a word of this when I tell them, so why don’t I just dig into one of these sacks, take out the nose or a hand or something as proof and stick it in my pocket.
So that is just what he did. Or what he tried to do. He opened up the neck of one of the sacks and took a peep inside. It was stuffed with all this padding and straps and wooden bits and so forth, but right on the top was the mouth. The lips and the teeth. Uncle John was about to reach in, when the lips parted and the teeth moved and this little voice said, “Help me, help me.” Well, I warned you.
4
Close Encounters of The Third Reich
Russell never went for lunch. He always waited until Frank went for lunch, then he did some tidying up. He really did want to get at those teacups in the sink. But he didn’t want to offend Morgan, so he usually settled for a bit of dusting and rearrangement. Today he had planned to have a go at the religious relics. John the Baptist’s mummified head needed a dose of Briwax and the phial of The Virgin’s Tears had dried up again, so called for a quick squirt from the cold tap (which isn’t dishonest if it’s just “topping up”).
But untrue to form upon this day, Russell put on his waxed jacket with the poacher’s pockets[10] and sallied forth into the streets of Brentford.
The Ealing Road first, he thought. If The Flying Swan ever had existed, then some trace of its whereabouts must remain. That was about as straightforward as you can get. People’s memories tend to be uneven and unreliable, but as Jim Campbell says, “Buildings are the pinions of history.” If a building had once existed, some trace, no matter how small, probably would remain.
Well, it might, for Goddess’ sake!
It’s a very short walk from Fudgepacker’s to the Ealing Road. You just turn right at The Red Lion. Most of the properties are old. Victorian at the very least. There are two pubs there, The Bricklayer’s Arms and The Princess Royal. Further up there’s The New Inn; so that makes three. Not bad in two hundred yards. But this is Brentford. And Brentford has the only football club in the country with a pub on each of its four corners.
Russell reasoned that should there be a gap somewhere, or a new building looking somewhat out of place, there was potential. So he marched up the Ealing Road. He couldn’t trudge, Russell, nor could be plod, marching was all he knew. Or jogging. Well, jogging was good for you, and you have to look after your health.