Chapter 18: Charlie and Reginald

December 1970, age 15

Two days after Christmas, Dan, Harry and myself were on the road north to Sheffield. We had debated bringing Harry’s mum but decided it was kinder to leave her in ignorance. When we reached our old home town, it felt like old times checking into the usual hotel. It was two Christmases ago that I was last there, back when Grandpa was still alive. That meant it had also been two years since I’d been to my parents’ graves. I resolved to fix that.

The surveillance op was being run by the hotel’s head of security, Colin, who was a former police officer. A former police officer who apparently wasn’t afraid of breaking and entering to plant a bug. Murph’s new ladyfriend, Ruth, was the key to all this, and Colin told us she was currently at work at a nearby cafe. A little while later when she finished work, she found herself met by a pair of guys who were very insistent that she visit some friends who wanted a chat. When she arrived in our hotel suite, I thought she looked about thirty and was a good looking lady, except that she looked tired, run-down and like she wasn’t taking good care of herself.

Dan tried to put her at ease, sitting opposite her on the comfortable sofas, Harry by his side. I kept my distance.

“Ruth, nine years ago, Harry here was in exactly the position that your son Charlie is in now. Murph had befriended his mother, started dating, got her using drugs and then moved himself into their flat. You see, he’s a parasite. He latches onto a woman with a home and uses her for his own gratification. And when you’re incapable of satisfying him, perhaps from drugs or just being out at work, he’ll use your son instead of you. That’s what he did with Harry. Murph raped him, repeatedly. It might have continued for years, except that his mum ended up in prison, and Harry was taken into care. Your son is at risk, Ruth.”

She looked horrified, staring wide-eyed at Harry. He was staring right back at her, not upset, but angry.

“We would like to help you escape him,” Dan continued, “to protect both you and your son.”

The plan that Dan laid out was risky. My preference was simply to get Ruth and Charlie out of town and deal with Murph at our convenience. I’d been overruled, though, with Dan approving Colin’s plan to run a sting operation alongside the police. It would rely on Ruth asking Murph provocative questions, and I wasn’t at all convinced it would work well enough to get an arrest.

After a long chat, Ruth was given a lift back to her part of the city, while Colin went to police HQ to set things up with his former colleagues. We weren’t expecting anything to happen fast, so I used the time to visit my parents’ graves. That was always a sombre thing. Harry came along for the ride to offer moral support, but he and Dan let me go to the grave alone. Caity had always been with me on previous visits, and we’d each spoken aloud to our parents. Though I was nearly sixteen, and it felt a bit silly, I still did it. I told my parents about school, about Caity, about all that was going on in my life. I told them I missed them every day and that I loved them. As I left, I embarrassed myself by having tears in my eyes.

During our drive back to the hotel the proverbial hit the fan. The first I knew of it was when our driver suddenly put his foot down. As we sped through Sheffield, breaking every speed limit, Dan explained that all hell was breaking loose at Ruth’s flat. By the sounds of it, Murph had flipped out that she hadn’t come home at the usual time, and a barnstorming argument had turned violent. When the surveillance team heard what sounded like a frying pan hitting something hard, they went in, breaking the door down. The look on Harry’s face was grim as he heard that.

Breaking traffic laws didn’t go unnoticed, and Dan swore when we heard the siren of a police car chasing us. (His swearing temporarily cracked mine and Harry’s grim looks.) We were close now, so we just let them chase us to Ruth’s place. Somehow, we arrived before the rest of the cavalry. Our driver got out and yelled to the police that there was a violent crime in progress, but Dan, Harry and I beat them into the building.

The scene we found was Ruth on the sofa holding her head, while Murph was on the floor restrained by two of our guys. Officially they had made a citizen’s arrest. As Dan checked on Ruth, Harry knelt by Murph’s head and said: “Well, well. Seems ya luck’s run out, ain’t it Murph. Remember me?”

There was something a bit sickening about seeing my best friend let hatred overtake him, but I didn’t interfere. Instead, I asked the guys: “Is the kid home?”

They gestured towards a corridor to the bedrooms. It wasn’t hard to find Charlie’s room because of the stickers on the door. The door was closed, so I knocked and called out his name. I could only imagine the terror that the little guy was feeling. I opened the door a little and called his name again, trying to sound friendly. My voice was still identifiable as a boy’s, not having finished its deepening process yet, which was a good thing just then. I opened the door the rest of the way and looked around the room. He didn’t appear to be there until I noticed the wardrobe door slightly open.

“Charlie, my name’s Finn. I’m here to help. Can I open the wardrobe door?”

There was a little whimper from inside which I took as a yes. The sight awaiting me would break the hardest of hearts. Charlie was a cute little boy of about seven, cowering in the bottom of the wardrobe, sucking his thumb and shaking uncontrollably. His freckled face was stained with tears, and his big brown eyes were full of fear.

I knelt down and said gently, “Murph can’t hurt you now, I promise. The police are going to lock him up for a long time.” I extended my arms to him. “Will you come out, or is there space for me to come in there too?”

He seemed to weigh those options up. Slowly he removed his thumb from his mouth and started pulling himself out, then in one sudden motion he was in my arms and crying hopelessly. My relationship with my sister wasn’t as close as it used to be. She had turned into a brat whom I tended to avoid. But with this little one in my arms, it felt good to be in big brotherly mode again.

I could hear more voices out in the living area which I assumed was more of the police or ambulance men.

“It’s alright mate”, I whispered. “Everything’s going to be fine. Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”

Charlie shook his head, which I was greatly relieved at. All I could do for the next few minutes was hold him, stroke his back and keep whispering that everything was okay. Eventually, Dan came into the room and told us that Ruth was being taken to hospital. That set Charlie off again wailing, and I glared at Dan. Then a policeman arrived and announced that he needed to take Charlie with him to the hospital. How can adults be so bloody dense sometimes?! With surprising force, I told him: “No. We’ll take him and meet you there.”

Dan probably saved me from being arrested for rudeness by asking for a word with the officer outside. I calmed Charlie down again and then managed to prise myself from his clutch long enough to find his shoes and coat. As we left, Charlie held onto my hand like his life depended on it.

Arriving at the hospital was probably more traumatic for me than Charlie. It was the same one where, nearly six years ago, Caity and I had been given the bad news of our parents’ deaths. Thankfully, this time, the news was very much better. Ruth had a concussion from being hit with a frying pan but had no serious injuries. The only time Charlie let go of my hand the whole time we were there was when he was allowed to see his mum.

When we heard that Ruth was to be kept in hospital overnight, I urged her to let Charlie stay with us at the hotel. But Charlie’s grandparents were on their way, so it wasn’t necessary. I found I was rather disappointed at that. I’d been enjoying the role of big brother.

Over the remaining few days of 1970, I spent a lot of time thinking about what might have happened to Charlie if we hadn’t been there to step in. Murph was the second guy I’d come across that had done terrible things to children. Both of those cases concerned boys, but I was sure that there were just as many terrible people that hurt little girls. I wanted to somehow find a way to help stop this sort of thing on a larger scale.

That wasn’t my only topic of contemplation. Tis the season for big ideas and resolutions and all that. But this time, I knew that I didn’t have space in my life for anything other than my O-Level exams which were getting perilously close. So I needed to free up some space in my head by extracting a few things that were in there clanging around and delegated them to others.

“Dan, can you arrange a meeting for Monday morning with the HH team? I want to come in and talk through a few ideas.” Monday would be the first working day of 1971, but school usefully didn’t start until Tuesday.

“Of course. You want to give me a clue what we’ll be talking about?”

“Influencing people. It fits into the battle plan. Thanks, Dan.” And I made a run for it before he could interrogate me. In the past, if I’d wanted something done I would talk to Dan, and he would deal with it. So my requesting a meeting was new. I wanted to start getting more involved in the nitty-gritty of the company. I suppose I also wanted to start building up some respect-credits with the key people, or it might have been ego, wanting them to know that big ideas were coming from me, not Dan.

The senior team at Harrison Holdings wasn’t concerned with the direct running of each of the subsidiaries. They liaised and oversaw things, and they took care of all of the charitable work mandated in Grandpa’s will. So there were eight people in the conference room on the 32nd floor of Marvel Tower on Monday morning: me, Dan, the heads of the finance, operations, investments and charity departments, the company’s in-house lawyer and Dan’s secretary.

I spent the first twenty minutes laying out my plan to help kids in bad situations. It was a simple idea that I’d pinched from the future history books and a lady named Esther Rantzen: Childline. A dedicated free helpline for kids in trouble. The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) would be our preferred partner, as they had a statutory legal authority to investigate and take action on child abuse. (They would adopt a horrible anti-divorced-fathers attitude in future years, but I’d cross that bridge later.) We would fund the technical side of the line but needed the NSPCC to provide the counsellors to answer the calls. The team were all onboard with the idea and would start making detailed plans and talking to the appropriate people.

The next item was a vague idea I had to provide more direct support to kids in rough inner-city areas by building something along the lines of youth centres. This was also about quietly influencing the attitudes of future generations to help speed the eradication of widespread sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. The finance guy, whom I took an instant dislike to, described it as brainwashing. We kicked the idea around for half and hour without reaching any conclusions.

Finally, I wanted a way to influence adults, too. (The finance guy immediately scowled.) This wasn’t charitable; it was big business. I wanted to become a media mogul. What I didn’t tell them was that owning a newspaper or news channel would be a useful way to take advantage of future knowledge. The room seemed to like this idea a lot more than the last, and I set them working on a draft bill to lobby parliament with, based on the future Cable and Broadcasting Act 1984. They didn’t know that of course, but I was able to give the legal guy a page of very detailed notes that he commented on as being ‘impressive, for a kid’.

School resumed the next day, and the pressure cooker was back on the front burner, hastened by the results of our mock exams taken before Christmas. I had done passably well in English, Science and French. I did much better in History, Art and Drama which I was happy about. In maths, I got an E. Ouch. I had four and a bit months till my O-Level exams, and those months were going to be intense.

That first day back at school, I found out that my promise to Charlie had been broken. Murph was no longer behind bars. Some idiotic judge had granted him bail until his trial. And of course, the first place Murph went was Ruth and Charlie’s flat. Thankfully that happened during the day while Ruth was at work and Charlie was at school. Colin at the hotel had kept a close eye on Murph’s case, and went to scoop up Ruth and Charlie the moment Murph was released.

It was just as well they were already in safety when Ewan took me aside to tell me, or I would have gone for a full frontal nuclear assault on Murph. As it was, I knew they would never be safe as long as he was around, so I had Ewan pass the word for them to be brought down to our house in London.

When I got home that afternoon, I went for my usual after-school swim. As I finished my twentieth lap, I found a very excited seven-year-old waiting for me! I got out to greet Charlie and Ruth and got an enthusiastic hug from the little guy. Unfortunately, that got him rather wet and earned a telling off from his mum. She needed a serious chill pill. I don’t know where Charlie inherited his smile from, but it didn’t appear to be from his mum!