Jack and His Mum

They hanged Jack’s father! Jack didn’t think he had done it, nor did Jack’s mother but they found his sweater near the girl’s house and two people had seen his car close to the girl’s house. And Jack’s mum couldn’t afford a lawyer. Jack was only ten, so nobody took any notice of him, when he said that he was biking to Benny’s place and he saw his father’s car, only his father wasn’t driving it. He saw the man plainly! He had bushy eyebrows and red hair. Jack didn’t know the numbers on the number plate but he knew the letters were DYK because he thought it funny, sounding like dick. Y’know, his thingy!

Jack’s mum said that the paper reckoned that the police wanted a quick conviction because Emma Brown was the second girl to go missing in the area in a matter of months. The paper reckoned too that without a body, the evidence was circumstantial and full of holes, so they never should have hanged his father!

Jack wasn’t allowed to go into the court, but he bunked school a few times to watch the crowd leaving and every day that man with the bushy eyebrows and red hair seemed to be slinking out, shifty eyed. Nobody listened to Jack. It was understandable, what with the stress his mum was under, but Jack was frustrated and wee Trixie, their dog was the only prepared to listen.

Jack wasn’t allowed to watch the hanging either! He wanted to. He wanted to remember about it because when he grew up people would listen to him! It was hard for Jack and his young brother at school. And for his mum too, because when the other kids teased them about their father being a molester and murderer, Jack was no ‘words will never hurt me’ bloke. He used his fists to do the talking, which always ended with him going home with a note and his mum facing up to the headmaster!

By the time Jack was seventeen, he was a big strapping lad and well-used to looking after himself. His mum had become a recluse so he had do the shopping and many of the chores he couldn’t palm off to his brother. During the past seven years, he had been keeping an eye out for the man with the bushy eyebrows and the red hair, but had not seen him. He kept quiet about it, just whenever he was in town, he kept an eye out. He had a part time job delivering wood and coal, which was ideal for him, because he was around the town and able to care for his mum at the same time.

A year or so on, Jack had the embarrassing job of buying some knickers for his mum. As usual she wrote it all down on a sheet of paper, which he was to hand over to the oldest shop assistant lady he could find. He kept his head down in embarrassment but had to look for an assistant because they all seemed to be busy. His eyes settled in a shock of greying red hair! Alert he stood back in anticipation of the bushy eyebrows. It was him! The man was looking through young girl’s frilly stuff!

Keeping out of sight, Jack watched as the man left the shop without buying anything and walked up the street. Jack followed at a discreet distance, right to the edge of town where the man went into a house. 29 Stanberry Street was the address, Jack committed it to memory. From that time on, Jack kept up a sort of surveillance on the man. By asking a neighbour, he found that the man’s name was Vincent, first or last name, nobody knew, but he was regarded as a hermit. He didn’t go out much, most often when he did go out, it was into the nearby forest.

After weeks of watching 29 Stanberry Street, Jack saw Vincent walking towards the forest, so he followed him. Vincent looked back several times, and once Jack thought he had been seen, but the man kept on. Jack used to play in the forest with Benny, but they had never seen the hut that Vincent approached and unlocked. It was secluded, and ramshackled so it would be easy enough to miss, Jack supposed. Vincent was inside for quite a while and Jack was tempted to creep up on him, but he resisted. Eventually, the man left after securing the padlock to the door. Jack stayed behind until the man was well away and scouted the hut. There were no windows and the cracks in the door had been filled with what looked like crushed up paper. He found a stick and poked some of the paper inside. It was too dark to see in there but he thought he could smell candle wax or perhaps kerosene, so Jack assumed he had light in there.

For another couple of months Jack kept watch on the man Vincent. He didn’t seem to buy much food, he either went to the shop looking at girls’ frillies, went to his forest hut, looked at people’s washing lines or watched kids leaving the primary school.

There was a news flash! Six year old Jinny Green had not come home from school! Jack knew. He had prepared for such an event, so he collected his stuff and headed for the forest hut, to find it locked and no sign of anyone. He thought that maybe he was wrong after all, but then he heard the approaching footsteps.  Jack concealed himself is the bushes.

Vincent hurried past, carrying young Jinny with a handkerchief stuffed over her mouth. He fumbled awkwardly with the lock and Jack thought to take him there and then, but decided to stick with his plan. Once Vincent and Jinny were inside, Jack rigged a tripwire just outside the door. He gave the door two hard raps, and ducked around the corner of the building. At first there was no reaction, but then after what Jack thought was an eternity, he heard the door open and close, he hoped he would hear the man fall, but he had not walked onto the tripwire!

Jack thought it was now or never, so rushed out and swung the club he had fashioned from a pine branch and whacked Vincent square on the head! He went down like a bag of spuds! Quickly Jack tied a thin cord with a slipknot to Vincent’s index finger and tied the other end to a tree. He repeated the tying with the other hand, and as he stretched his arms tight, Vincent began to arouse. Jack sat him up and Vincent winced in pain, he was securely tied with wide, outstretched arms, and any movement caused excruciating pain to his index fingers.

Conscious that the little girl would be freaking out in the hut behind him, Jack hoped this wasn’t going to take long. But he wanted Vincent to be lucid.

‘You killed little Emma Brown, didn’t you?’ Jack looked him in the eye.

‘No, I...’ Vincent trailed off, aware that Jack knew

In full sight of him, Jack calmly urinated into a beaker he had brought with him, and then filled a hypodermic syringe with the contents. He approached Vincent who became fearful of the imminent injection!

‘Alright, alright, I will tell you!’ Vincent squirmed.

Jack opened the hut door and quietly removed the handkerchief from Jinny’s mouth comforting her because was safe now. She was going to witness Vincent’s confession.

Later, Jack, calmly who was walking hand in hand with Jinny, was picked up by a passing car and dropped off at the police station. Later, the police found the incapacitated and very sore Vincent. In the hut they found underwear that was identified as Emma’s and the other girl’s and after hard interrogation he eventually showed them where he had buried the two girls.

For Jack’s mum there was no apology from the police nor was she compensated by the government, to do that she had to claim but she didn’t have the spirit. Jack took her to live in a country village where at least the birds were friendly.