The Twin Deaths

The Killer started to shake uncontrollable, his mind became awash with the newspaper images of two call girls who had got themselves involved with senior government ministers, and possible Soviet agents, eventually bring down a British Government.

‘Someone should have killed those little tarts then and there, quickly and quietly with the minimum of fuss. Afterwards, chopped up into small pieces and flown far out over the North Sea their remains could have been dumped, where they belonged, into the cold waves below, nobody would have been any the wiser. After all who’d miss a couple of little tarts like that? But, instead we got a humiliating scandal smeared all over the newspapers, followed by a court case, only when that had been nearing its end had Ward chosen ‘suicide.’ That bastard had at least got what had been coming to him for trying to smarm his way out of pimping his two little sluts and then getting that fucking Ruskie involved.’

The Killer had slowed his pace eventually stopping altogether and had taken his handkerchief out with a theatrical flourish as if to blow his nose, so as not to attract attention. Forcing himself to breath in deeply, he gulped down lungful’s of fresh sea air, he then pretended to blow his noise and wipe his eyes against the stinging spray of a fresh coastal breeze. Finally feeling calmer, he resumed the habitual evening stroll along those same streets and houses that had greeted him morning and evening for the past year. Walking quite calmly again now and in a measured pace, his mind returned to the death of Dr Stephen Ward.

‘At least Ward had paid the correct fare for being the architect of the whole bloody charade. What a fucking little mess that bastard had got his country into. If it hadn’t been bad enough losing our empire to the bloody Yanks, now we have to kiss arse to the fucking Arabs because of their bloody oil.’

The Killer forced himself again to calm down again, remembering with pleasure, how he’d made the death of Ward look like a nice little ‘suicide.’

‘That smarmy rat hadn’t known what had hit him.’

 A wonderful feeling of power surged through the Killer’s body as his mind skimmed over his work that night. For a man of his experience it had not been difficult to make Wards death look less like murder and more like suicide.

‘Leaving no mess, no fuss, and no witnesses which, is just the way I like things. One thing I’ve learned in the army was you don’t rock the fucking boat, because if you do, that’s the end of you.’

Joining up at nineteen to escape his father this was what the Killer had always believed to have been the making of that shy youth into the Killer he was now.

‘Christ what a fucker my old man had been to his us all. The old bastard killing himself with drink was one thing, but then beating the living shit out of my dear old ma’ every fucking night of the week was quite another.’

The Killer had stopped walking again and was looking down the path that he’d now arrived at. Another evening circuit of after dinner strolling was now completed. It now looked like his evenings strolls would be his last in this sleepy seaside town. That morning he’d received a telegram giving only his cover name and a telephone number. The rest of the words on that piece of paper had just been rubbish, used against nosy parkers. The Killer didn’t like nosy parkers, as his neighbour’s in that quite street, part of a small sea-side town in England, had come to understand. The Killer stood completely still, staring at the black painted front door that seemed to also be standing as if at attention, staring back at him.

‘What secrets that old front door could tell the world.’

The Killer now had an important telephone call to make that evening. He had rehearsed the call in his mind all day, going over it for umpteenth time again during his evening meal. He’d been called back they needed him once more to help save his beloved country. However, as the Killer stood staring at his own front door, he changing his mind again, finally he told himself, ‘No, fuck em’ let the bastards sweat on me just this once.’

Walking up the path towards that wonderful door, the Killer suddenly, whilst putting his key into the lock, for what seemed like no reason at all, started to remember his first real leave from the army and how he thought he’d go back home to see how his mother and little sister were getting on without him around the house.

‘I decided not to call from the local pub first to let her know that I was on my way. I’d had a sort of bad feeling in the very pit of my stomach on that cold clear day. For the last eight months there had been no letters from my little sister and then none from my old ma’ in the last four months either. I’d decided to quietly slip into their end of terrace house. What I found out that evening had made me sick to the very pit of my soul. My little sister had had to take over running the entire household because of his mother being hospitalised into some grimy ward bed. Now, it seemed the old girl was never to leave it. If that hadn’t been bad enough, my darling little girl, my only sister, had also been expected to take over his mother’s role in the matrimonial bed too. I’d startled my sister, and due to her fear at seeing him back in the house again, the whole sorry tale had come out.’

The Killer had kissed away her sweet salty tears, she who was always to be stuck at six years old in his memory. Then the Killer had sent her out to a double feature at the local flicks, telling her to take that old school chum she’d been too ashamed to see anymore. The Killer had given his surprised sibling enough money, not just for the movies, but also for two Fish n’ Chips dinners to bring home afterwards.

‘Once alone in the darken kitchen he’d sat listening to the still house, waiting for my father’s return from his Working Man’s Club. It had been in the darkness of his mother’s kitchen that I’d pushed my army bayonet through my father’s throat and on into the spinal column, silently dropping the dead weight onto flagstone floor. No fuss, very little mess, except for his dying father pissing himself during death throws, then evacuated his bowls involuntarily after death. I’d cleaned up all that mess well before my sister had gotten home.’

While they’d both been eating their Fish n’ Chips, she had kept looking anxiously at their mother’s little china kitchen clock. The Killer had pouring a small amount of whiskey into his sister’s glass, her second drink of that evening, and casually announced, just before necking back a treble himself, that their dear old Dad wouldn’t be coming home anymore. She had looked up at him, her whiskey glass almost level to her lovely lips, in that moment the Killer knew he’d have killed a hundred men maybe even a thousand for just that special look his little sister wore on her face in that instant. Months afterwards the Killer thought just what that expression had meant, eventually he’d plumed for a disbelieving relief, sheer bloody relief that her daily and much worse nightly terror, was now at an end.

‘After we’d finish our food, with my sister holding an old torch left over from the war, I dug silently, half-way through the night at the back of own garden. We’d had been shielded, on that night of a full moon, by overgrown shrubs and bushes as their father hadn’t bothered to keep his own garden in trim, despite doing odd-jobs around his neighbours’ own tidy gardens for extra beer money. A nice deep hole I’d dug using the sweat of my own brow, during that long night, with my brave little girl shivering with the chill under a clear sky. I’d told to go on in and leave it all to me, but she wouldn’t budge, rooted to the spot, she had been, holding that dull beam of a wartime torch down into the grave of our abusive father. Neither she nor I have spoken of that glorious night since, but, we both knew, that they were all well rid of that bastard.’

The following week the Killer had reported his father missing at the local police station. The father being well known, not just the local police, but also the Metropolitan Police force, hadn’t warranted a major investigation at first. Eventually a few inquiries were made about what, if anything had happen on that last night the Killers father had been seen alive, but they soon lost any headway. A couple of Detectives had shown up on his sisters’ doorstep a week or so after the Killers army leave had been over. The Killers sister had played her part to perfection. Choosing the younger of the two policemen, she had ‘taken’ him into her confidence as the older one had been investigating around the house. Hinting at her father darker side, illegal gambling, wife-beating and a like, she’d gotten the young copper quite hot under his collar, finishing that sad tale with the recent death of her mother in hospital from cancer. When the older copper had come back from the garden wanting to ask some possibly difficult questions, about their nice tidy trim garden, with its freshly tilled earth, the young copper being posh and well educated, had quietly asked for a word with his older colleague outside. Coming back ten minutes later with the all clear, the young lad had even come back the next evening with a bouquet of flowers and amazingly, in those now far off days of rationing, an enormous box of Swiss Chocolates. The Killers’ sister eventually started to step out that young lad, who now is a Detective Chief Inspector. She eventually gave him a fine couple of boys, and a dear little girl who, the Killer always thought, had her mother’s eyes.’

The killer was standing at the foot of the path with his key still in his hand ready to enter its lock, time had seemed to stand still. Before her marriage the Killer had provided for his sister the cash to start at Night School, and the little girl had done him proud, even those elocution lessons had eventually paid off. At her own wedding to that posh copper, she’d not look out of place next to his haughty-tautly family. Thinking of his sister now, he realised she was the bravest person he had ever known. That was the country he fought for, a country of brave little sisters. Turning away from his front door and putting its key back in his pocket, the Killer quietly got into the car he’d bought only a few weeks earlier. As he pulled away from the curb and settled into the gentle flow of traffic, the Killer headed for a phone box over on the other side of his little seaside town, well away from nosy parkers with their prying eyes.

A Meeting of Minds

How Pauline Boty met & painted Christine Keeler

        The blonde woman replaced her telephone receiver into the cradle. She stands alone in the sitting room of a rundown studio flat situated in London’s west end. The flat had been recently purchased by her theatrical agent husband for her to use as an artist’s studio. The blonde stood smoking a cigarette reflectively, slowly turning over in her mind the syntax of a recent telephone conversation. It had been an unexpected conversation, and she was left with a tingle of excitement at a meeting now due to take place. The feeling had started to grow during this conversation with her husband and had caused a knot to grow in the pit of her stomach. Now that the conversation was over she was left with the notion of proceeding down a road for which there had no route map.

‘Darling,’ her husband had said, his smooth educated voice rising slightly with his own sense of pleasure, ‘I’ve got her to sit for you,’ theatricality adding, ‘I didn’t really have to work for it, apparently she already knows about you.’

‘Oh really?’ she had found herself asking, ‘I wonder where on earth she could possibly know me from?’

            ‘Well, darling,’ said Clive his voice warming to his favorite subject of the media, ‘apparently she had heard you on the Public Ear, who would ever have thought of that?’

The blonde could not tell whether her husband’s surprise was that this particular woman would listen to an über BBC Home Service arts programme, with a rather small and very exclusive audience, or that anybody should have listened at all.

She had found herself taking the defense about Public Ear knowing that Clive views regarding what her called the ‘great unwashed’ in modern British society always made her feel uneasy.

‘It does have a very loyal audience Clive darling,’ her voice had been strained with a flash of annoyance.’

Despite these comical comments, Clive had at first been keen on the idea when he had heard they were looking for a new face for the opening programme. He had persuaded his wife to take part in that first programme because unusually for the male dominated television world in the early 1960’s, a female face was being considered to front the project. She had proved to be so successful that the BBC had asked her back more than once, although this had later cooled after the more extreme of her paintings had been exhibited.

The programme had at first been described as ‘iconoclastic’ by the weightier of the Sunday papers. Clive, of course, had hooted with laughter at the review, saying it meant that no bugger actually had listened to it. Now it apparently appeared that Clive had managed to find at least one person, not in their immediate circle of friends, who had tuned in, maybe not to the first programme, but at least at some point. How strange though the Blonde women that it should have been Christine Keeler of all the women in London. Although she never considered that this particular women, whom she had wanted to sit for her, would be a fan of such an arty programme. Pauline wondered if this was due to her own snobbery, or because she listened to Clive’s family and over educated friends.

The blonde reflecting that her own family were not exactly doyens of the arts scene, they had even objected to her attending St. Martins Arts School. Even now, after finding some fame, if not fortune as Britain’s only female Pop Artist, they were still completely in the dark as to the importance of her work to the world of Pop Art, still finding the success of this new genre of art impossible to understand.

‘Yes Pauline darling, I know all about the audience figures,’ Clive had then said, breaking into her thought, tetchily adding, ‘The point is darling, that she knows about your political views and about the art you produce.’

 

Pauline wondered what this woman did really think about her art, or even the art scene as a whole. Perhaps she would want to talk about the arts in general way, not just making polite conversation, but showing a real knowledge and interest. Strangely perhaps, this had never crossed her mind earlier, even when the idea had come to her about using Keeler as a sitter, for the painting she had been planning about the Profumo Scandal.

             ‘Mind you,’ Clive had continued, his voice now trampling over her thoughts again, with a sigh the blonde tuned her husband back in to her head. At this point the conversation he was adopting his business tone, ‘she still asked for twenty bloody quid, I call that downright brassy.’

‘Brassy,’ was Clive’s favorite word for anything he thought of as common, uneducated, or even working class, part of the great world of the unwashed, as he liked to say. This word, Pauline was sure had its deep dark roots in Clive’s public school education.

‘All sitters get paid Clive,’ now it had been her turn to get tetchy tone in her voice, adding, ‘There is no need to negotiate my sitting rates, I can manage my own rates quite nicely, thank you Clive.’

Pauline had felt her voice beginning to rise and stretch in her annoyance, why had she felt the need to defend this woman? Maybe it was a reaction to how she had felt when her husband, like all the men in her, life felt that they should be able to have women under their personal control. Like the puppets on that new television series from America ‘Stingray’ that had been all over the newspapers recently, all had want to be the one to pull her strings. Even at St Martins, her fellow students, mainly being an all-male crowd, had liked to act towards her as big brothers would do to their little sisters. Well, thought the Blonde, she was her own boss, that she’d made clear from the beginning of her second term. Pauline Boty, she thought, was a match for any man, painter or otherwise and that included her own husband.

‘Yes darling, I do know all about models,’ Clive had answered primly. Pauline wondered how exactly, he had got to know about them.

‘Anyway she will be with you around three o’clock today, sorry for the short notice, darling’, his voice relaxed now again, happy to be in control again, adding, ‘but that was the best I could do,’ adding, ‘Oh, don’t forget to watch out for the Special Branch,’ finishing the call with a brief ‘Cheery ‘O’ the receiver gone dead.

Now sitting alone and smoking another cigarette, this parting remark started to play on her mind. There had been a piece in the papers about the poor cow still being followed whenever she went out. There I go again, thought Pauline, why is Keeler now ‘a poor cow,’ I’m starting to sound like Clive.

 

 ***

In a different part of the same London skyline, another woman, this time with striking red hair, was also considering a recent telephone conversation. She sat quietly smoking a cigarette watching as the smoke curled idly towards the living room ceiling. Finishing her smoke, the women got up and peered out of the front windows of a small mews flat. Outside was quiet and still, hardly a soul moved. The only sign of life like came from the two regular plain clothed detectives who were still keeping a not too inconspicuous eye on the flat.

The ‘Profumo Scandal’ had been over now for some months, and the redhead had spent some of that time in prison for perjury. Upon her release she had described the experience to her parents as it being much like school which, she had also hated. Now however the world had moved on and the busy new Labour government of Harold Wilson had far more important issues before it, but still the policemen had remained.

Any idea of the government was quite abstract for the red head, it belonging to a new jumble of faces and names most of which she could never match up. However brief her passing fifteen minutes of fame she had still enjoyed for a brief time ‘being somebody.’ In her life, as far back as this redhead could recall, she always had wanted to be ‘somebody.’

 

Turing her thoughts back to the telephone conversation, she realised that she hadn’t liked the man who had introduced himself to her as Clive very much. All Home Counties accent and brought up in a cosy atmosphere of old money and good education. There hadn’t been much money or education in her background. She had been brought up in a caravan with a single parent of a hard working mother and a lay-a-bout of a stepfather. Escaping their misery while was still in her late teens, she only found another, in the arms of pimps, losing a baby before turning twenty. Consolation from that experience had come only with her belief that any half cast bastard born into class conscious Britain would never have had much in life.

Escaping again, she had found herself in a London still recovering from the Second War. Working in a series life destroying topless clubs, the redhead soon grew tired of being pawed at by their drunken clientele. By the time she met Ward her mind was already resolved to chuck it all in. When Ward had offered her a way out, she hadn’t thought twice about it, grabbing at this escape ladder with both hands. Of course, it hadn’t turned out to be the different life she had been searching for. Ward had turned out to be no more than an upmarket pimp, who was soon busy introduced her to his upper class wealthy clients. Being embarrassed by her accent, forced Ward to pay for the redhead to have elocution lesions and gradually over time she had become a different person. The new Christine had risen one day, out from the ashes of her former self, even as she had lain dead beneath her own feet. 

Gradually, and with Ward’s help, Christine had caught brief glimpses of that new person which, not just he, but the redhead had wanted to become. This experience had left her wondering why men, no matter what background they came from, had to mould their woman into an image. The angel, or the a tart, beloved mother figure for their children, or their slut in bed, men always had to be in control of the lives of their women. Well now, she had been no angel in her life, but over time Christine had grown to hate those rich men as much as the low-life’s she had met in the strip clubs. That’s why Christine hadn’t liked that man who had called himself Clive she wasn’t going play the tart for anyone not anymore. Sighing, the redhead stubbed out her cigarette, moving away from the window.

***

 

The watchers below saw her shape disappear into the gloom of the flat, turning back to their murmured conversation, each one inclining his head slightly towards the others, as if in prayer. Their years spent huddling in back alleys and doorways had left each with his particular remedy for extreme cold or heat. Almost silently the voices audible only to each other, they returned to their conversation.

             ‘I telling you Frank’, the smaller man said while lighting a cigarette automatically cupping his heavy hands around the naked flame, ‘She is a right goer, the Sund’y papers said she’s up for anything’, he was grinning at his taller thinner companion. 

 

***

The sun was getting low in a washed out wintery sky over her flat in London’s fashionable West End. Pauline looked around the studio lighting yet another cigarette, two plumbs of smoke exiting her nose moving up towards the cloud of smoke that hung over her head. Looking out of her studio window on to the bustling street below, she caught sight of a man cleaning a car outside one of the Georgian town houses opposite. Like the building she was look out from it too had been converted into flats by, what had seem like press-gangs, of Irish labourers. Frowning at the sight of a car outside a house were see was sure none were owned, Pauline thought of her husband’s words about policeman and spies. Standing on tip-toe right in front of the window and turn her head as far as it would go around to the right, Pauline could get a look down the other end of the street. As she did so her blonde hair fell over her face covering up one eye. Pushing the hair back she could see two GPO men setting up a sort of a tent on the pavement. 

Just in that moment, as she was trying to connect these images to the thought of something sinister that had buried itself in her memory earlier, her telephone rang. In the still silence of her studio the shrill noise made her jump, and the cigarette fell from her hand that had been supporting her weight against the wall. Ordinarily this would not be an issue except on occasion the cigarette fell onto her new cream rug, ‘Shit’, she exclaimed grabbing the telephone receiver and the cigarette end at the same time managing to both speak into the ear piece and burn her thumb on the still lit cigarette.

Turning the receiver around the correct way, and stubbing out the offending cigarette Pauline heard the ‘pips’ of a call box then as the money was excepted came the words, ‘Hello, Hello!, can you hear me?’ It was a female voice which, she failed to recognise.

            ‘Yes, hello’, bellowed Pauline down the line, anxious now to know who this strange voice belonged too.

            ‘Alright you don’t need to shout for god’s sake, I’m down the road from your flat, not in Outer…,’ was the rather grumpy reply. ‘Hello is that Pauline?’ said the voice adding, ‘it’s Christine’.

Instinct now took over in Pauline and years of a good middle class upbringing and education took hold, even without her realising this at the time.

‘Oh, hello Christine’, she answered without a clue who this women was, but not wishing to give offence.

‘Look, can you tell me your address again please, when I took it down from your husband the other morning he said it so quickly, that I afraid I just sort of scribbled it down without really bothering looking at it’, the middle class accent was fighting with an underlying Northern burr, but as yet had not quite gained the upper hand

For Pauline recognition had final dawned, ‘Yes of course Christine, I’m so very sorry, he really is the limit isn’t he?’ Not waiting for an answer she rushed on with her address.

‘OK, pet…um, I mean, yes…thank you Pauline, very much I’ll be with you presently,’ Christine said quickly replacing the receiver, hoping to gloss over her nearly calling a famous artist ‘pet.’

Something about the telephone conversation hid away in Pauline’s brain, waiting to raise its head, the funny little clicking after Christine had hung up. 

Pauline absently wondered were Christine had picked up a phrase like presently, the word came from her Father’s generation, not their own.  Then looking again at the burn hole in the new rug she quickly discontinued from that train of thought. Imagining Clive’s reaction was not hard, Pauline knew he would not be at all happy about her burning a hole in one of his High Street Ken’ boutique purchases. Bugger she thought, you are a clumsy cow, wondering if she could just paint it white to blend the hole in?

Lighting yet another cigarette she blow a smoke ring which gave her such a childish pleasure she thought of Peter Blake and how had taught her how to blow smoke rings when they were student’s together at St Martins. Pauline was still close to Blake, looking upon him as the founder of the Pop Art movement in Britain which, she herself now belonged.

Laughing to herself, out loud she said, ‘Oh bugger you Clive and your ridiculously expensive rug, what’s it doing in my studio anyway?’

            She supposed it was Clive’s idea that an artist should be surrounded by beautiful and expensive things in their studio, providing inspiration no doubt. Well, bugger him, and bugger all the bossy men in her life for that matter too, she would do just as she pleased. Blowing another satisfactory big smoke ring, she then padded off to find some white paint. 

 

***

Sometime later, Pauline was uncertain exactly about the time as she had lost herself in a fight with the expensive rug, the bell went down stairs. Collecting her winkle-picker shoes she slipped each one in turn on as hopping toward the mirror to check her make-up. Here Pauline found that somehow, during the fight with the rug some white paint had got itself attached in her hair. Still picking the paint of stains of her blonde hair she opened the front door to be confronted by a slightly built woman wearing a head-scarf and dark glasses. The women stood quite still taking in the sight of Pauline, with her hands still raised to strands of hair. The idly wondered if the blonde facing her had nits. After both taking each other in, without a word Pauline stood to one side and the other women still wearing her scarf and dark glasses moved slowly past her into the rather ramshackle old hall. They walked back up the creaking stairs into the studio together without breaking their mutual silence. Once inside the flat Christine took off the head scarf, glasses and removed the cigarette from her mouth. Shaking the flaming red hair she was rightly infamous for with one hand, she offered the other out for a formal handshake saying, ‘Pauline Boty I presume?’

            ‘Christine Keeler I suppose’, said Pauline they awkwardly shook hands each not used to such displays of formality. Both women stepped towards each other the ice having been broken and exchanging kisses on each cheek just like the French. Laughing at their shared joke the women immediately became friends with each other. Pauline grabbing two wine glasses pouring into each a generous splash of last night’s house plonk from Oddbins, and started the story about an expensive rug, a cigarette burn and a tin of white paint.

A Night in the Life of... (a poem)

Epigraph : Out of every one hundred aircrew,

twenty seven survived their tour of operations.

The afternoon heat now gone, darkness

descends heavy like a blanket. Shaking,

I climb into flight boots, their roughness

soothes taught nerves. Smiles fixed, faking

gayer moods. A taste of bile in throats,

eyes staring, minds a'racing, our silence

drown out by engine noise. I watch spokes

going a'round, as we are drive out. Violence

in the air, the lighting that binds together.

Our aircraft rises out of darkening gloom

like the ancient colossus battling doom.

The air inside feels heavy on my chest, lungs

bursting, pulse a'racing, heavily breathing

I clamber into position. All now come together

within the skin of our machine, none can

have a selfish thought. Here we make our

stand, 300 Spartans holding the pass, we

soar over a sea glinting as made from glass.

On nights like these minds drift like clouds

caught swirling in the sharp searchlights,

to those who dwell in darkened shelters

a'waiting our bombs. Our aircraft weightless

now as death falls from her belly, descending

on our foe, now trapped in Dante's hell below.

At these moments my thoughts are speared,

he who pays the piper calls the tune.* Fear

strikes at my heart, that I too one day will,

be made pay the piper, for sins I commit still.

Job done, we turn for home, our thoughts

begin to roam, to those who a'wait alone.

In rooms brightened by dawn's rosy fingers,

a whispered prayer said each night, touching

our beloved pictures by candle light. Sleeping

but alert for sounds that precede our drone,

telling them we are safely home. Throughout

                        the ghostly ball, bombers moon** shined on all.

 

Glossary

*The Unknown Warrior by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

**This term refers to a full bright moon which illuminates

the earth like daylight, making it easier to find the target.

On such nights mass raids would take place, taking

advantage of the conditions. However this brightness

worked by ways.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya one of the most revered heroes of the Soviet Union.

Extracts of a letter to Nicholas Jones

The following are extracts, which until recently were held in state archives within the walls of the Kremlin. They follow the short partisan career of Zoya Kosmodemyanskya, I hope they contribute to your studies of my country.

     I have attempted a brief summing up of Zoya life and death at the end for you, because her fate only finally became known long after these extracts were written.

***

Extracts of a Memo

20th January 1942

… as to your instructions, I have completed a report on subject Kosmodemyanskya, Zoya from Partisan Unit 9903. Find enclosed are the pages of a letter Kosmodemyanskya wrote to her brother Alexander an army private.

     I am sorry comrade that her letter is incomplete, German artillery destroyed much of the command post two days after she had written her last letter.

            Now, you order me…

***

The remaining pages from Zoya’s letter to Alexander

My name is Zoya Kosmodemyanskya I’m eighteen years of age. I serve the Motherland fighting against the fascist invaders in a Partisan Unit. Tomorrow, two comrades and I will set out on a very important mission. If I don’t return, please will anyone finding this letter, which I leave here at the Command Post, send them to my brother Alexander. I will write the address at the end.

      My dearest darling Shura   I wish to spend this night before my mission writing to you my love. I have missed my little brother so much; my eyes fill with tears just to think of your handsome face. I can’t tell you much about my mission, but I hope it will make you proud of your sister.

      I’m going to tell you our story my angel, and send it to you with all my love. You will have this present to carry within your heart, as you in your turn will serve our Motherland. Ready as I’m to lay down my life for the Motherland, so that we can be free of these terrible German’s who slaughter our comrades; I wish to have this time alone with you my darling angel. Before I die, I hope to kill as many Germans as I can, and so must you too my Shura. We must each send as many as we can to hell, for none surely can go to heaven.

      Do you remember my darling, how our Grandfather foretold before his terrible murder, that two angels would be born in our village? I’ve told that story so to you many times, so that you will understand just how special we both are. I believe we are those two angels’ my darling, who must now rise up, and battle the forces who wish to suppress, and murder our people.

      When our family journeyed to Moscow from godless Siberia, how happy I was that we went to school together. Do you remember sitting on my lap after school, I would read, stroking your lovely black hair, and telling you of those heroes in my books? I told you then, that the death of such great heroes always leads to the triumph of their just and moral cause. So it will be with us my darling, we will be the heroes who’s deeds will lead our people back to the path of final victory.

      Do you still have my notebooks, which I gave to you when I left to join the partisans? All my thoughts regarding these heroes, who we met on our travels through those wonderful books, are in my notebooks. How high we flew my true darling, soaring through skies, spreading our angel’s wings over so many different lands, you alone were my fellow traveler.

      Mother and Father never understood that we should never have run to Siberia. Father was always so timid and afraid, that in the end, Mother was afraid too. They are both afraid of the shadows from their past. When I told Mother, I was leaving school to join the partisans, how she wept. However, I told her ‘Mother …

***

Extracts Memo

…the following is an account of the subject in question one Kosmodemyanskya Zoya, including her training and any missions that she was orders to carry out. Under the command of a Major Zhuravlëv, a school for saboteurs and partisans was set at Kuntsevo in October 1941, on the western outskirts of Moscow. The subject Kosmodemyanskya was among the first of the volunteers, she was a student before her arrival at Kuntsevo. The subject had been an active member of Komsomol since 1938, and was in her final year of State School No. 201.

      Kosmodemyanskya received five days training in demolition, some small arms and unarmed combat training. The subject joined Partisan- Reconnaissance Unit No. 9903.

      At the beginning of November 1941, Kosmodemyanskya crossed over the front on her first mission in a group of twelve. The group were unfortunately ambushed by a fascist patrol, although some of the group were killed and some others [defeatists who are now being sought by the NKVD] fled, Kosmodemyanskya carried out the mission with the remainder of the group.

      On 21 November a group of three, containing Kosmodemyanskya again crossed the front; their mission was to burn buildings occupied by the fascists, which were being used as stables for horses and billets for soldiers in the village of Petrishchevo. One group member completed his task and got away to the forest. It now appears that Kosmodemyanskya was only partially successful in her task, and was then captured. The third member of the group is now being sought by NKVD as it appears he either fled or may even have informed on his group.

       Kosmodemyanskya seems to have been interrogated through the night, and then executed the following morning. The village has now been recaptured and the local NKVD proceeds with their investigations at the time of writing.

      One last point comrade, it now appears that Kosmodemyanskya said a few words before the fascists hung her; we are in the process of finding witnesses of this action, as well as any photographs the fascists took at the time.

     

***

Extracts of a Letter Written to Nicholas Jones

I will sum up the evidence then, and add what I can from later investigations.

       Zoya was caught, because she had been betrayed by one of the other two group members, he confessed later and was shot by the Soviet NKVD. She was severally beaten, so badly in fact that two German soldiers left the room in disgust at the fellows’ actions. Giving her name only as Tanya, she refused to give any further information. Later in the night two women from the village also abused her for burning down their houses, they too were later shot by the NKVD. Nothing you will find was left to chance in the creation of a national hero.

       In the morning Zoya was marched to the centre of the village, the Germans had had hung a sign around her, with the word ‘Arsonist’ written on it. A gallows was erected and the German soldiers took photographs of the event, some of these where found by the NKVD on a dead German officer in Smolensk later in 1943.

       The eyewitness, whom the NKVD found at the village, said that Zoya had told the Germans to surrender. Her last words were ‘You can’t hang us all!’

       The story was printed in Pravda   at the end of January 1943; complete with pictures of the dead girl whose name at that time was still Tanya. Later identified as Zoya, by her brother Alexander she was made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the first women to be so honored. Russian soldiers took pictures of Zoya with them, into the Battle of Berlin in March 1945.

      Zoya was reburied in Novodevichie Cemetery and later generations of Soviet children honored her name.

      In 1943 a Soviet film was made named Zoya, it deals with the last days of her life, as well as some untrue portrayals of her family. Her brother Alexander, who was killed in 1945 fighting in East Prussia, was also made a Hero of the Soviet Union.

      After Soviet area finished, it became known that Zoya had done little damage to the German forces and may even have been mentally unstable. An old general long retired from the KGB, said her exploit was of no military value, and her life had been wasted.

A Tale Of Two Sisters

Short story I originally wrote for a BBC writing competition. The story had to have a symmetrical feel to the begin & the end. It's set in the London of the swinging 1960's.

Chapter 1: The Park

Looking up, I watched the clouds drifting over, blown by the wind from left to right. Some moved leisurely as if out on a quite Sunday stroll, smaller clouds although still fluffy and white darted about like little dogs let of their lead. As the wind picked up grey clouds started infecting the white with their colour, like paint being mixed on an artists’ pallet.

Sitting up I tuned my ears back to the girl lying next to me and although I had daydreamed throughout much of her story it was well known to me. Her father, a successful advertising executive, was still away in the United States leaving her mother and sister to manage running the house on their own. This I knew to be untrue as did most of her road, who had watched behind twitching net curtains as the Police arrested her father for wife battery. I mulled over whether to tell her this, but decided to leave her be for the moment. Turning to look at her, the sun briefly shone through picking out her profile and making a halo of her blonde hair. The oval face possessed a favorite feature, a dimpled chin, as I like a girl who possesses some masculine of features. The girls’ best assets however were her legs, which were long shapely and tanned. Looking at her naked thighs blossoming out of her mini skirt, I noticed goose bumps starting to appear as the autumn wind blew coldly over us. I wondered where her legs had got their tan this year, as a holiday without her father’s income would have been impossible, and why I wondered had she tanned her legs and not her face. Lighting two cigarettes, I put one into the girls’ mouth hoping to shut her up for a moment. Drawing deeply on her fag, she exhaled two plumes of smoke from each nostril and carried straight on with another story, this time about her big sisters’ boyfriend. Thinking about the big sister, who I had only seen from a distance and so had not had the chance to form a mental picture yet, I wondered who was the better looking.

The girl and I got up as she complained about the cold ground and sat on one of the park benches. Peering around the park in the gloomy light of dusk, I watched several dog owners walking their various mutts around the parks’ central water fall, which was now switched off for the winter. The park being a hangover from the Victorian days of council planning had neat rows of now empty flowers beds laid out like a cemetery. Losing interest in this view I started to think about the girls’ big sister. I didn’t know many facts about her, apart from, she was older than me by a year or two and two she made a lot of sexual noise with her boyfriend once they had crept up to her bedroom after a night out. I had now discovered that their old dear was so spaced out on some downers given to her by the doctor, that there was no real need to creep about the house anyway. Making a mental note to nick some of these the next time I was round their house, I suggested a coffee at the local café which at least was warm and had a jukebox.

Chapter 2: The Café

            Once in the café the girl started to brighten up mainly due to the amount of attention her legs were attracting. Most of the patrons’ at this time of day were the unemployable, dossers and tramps. They all gawped at the sight of so much naked flesh on display, licking the slack lips lustily of their open mouths. This made me feel uncomfortable, but my companion lapped up all this attention and actually seemed to enjoy the effect her skirt was having on these lowlifes.  She was starting to make me feel sick.

Sitting down, I glanced around at an interior that had not changed since the cafe had opened just after the war. It had been owned by an ex-soldier and his war bride wife, who had decorated the place very patriotically using pictures of Churchill and all that old rubbish. Now the ex-soldier was dead leaving his wife to run a place which she had grown to hate, alone. As her hatred had grown, so the café interior had gradually got darker, now the walls and ceiling were totally nicotine brown and the lino was chipped, cracked and missing in places. As our coffee arrived, I got up and put ‘Green Onions’ by Booker-T and the MG’s on the jukebox. This tune had become the unofficial Mod anthem of that year, as the group being American where thought cooler than some of our home grown bands. Sitting back down, the girl contemplated me as she smoked another of my cigarettes.

“You’ve been very quiet all afternoon, what’s the matter, you going off me?” She stubbed out her cigarette and pushed the glass ashtray towards me.

“I’ve got a lot of things on my mind,” I replied, distracted by the music now flowing out of the jukebox, “Work and such,” I continued lamely.

Eying me with a sullen expression, the girl finished her coffee with two large gulps, grasped her coat then stomped off out of the café. The randy old farts watched as her legs disappeared out of the door. Turning to see my reaction, each one avoided any eye contact with me, so quickly went back to stare glumly at whatever the waitress had put in front of them. I continued to sit quietly smoking and enjoy my music. With the tune over, I got up to pay and realised I still had the girls’ purse in one of the zipped pockets of my Parker. I now had to get the purse back to her house, before going to watch my beloved Fulham play our greatest rivals Chelsea at their manor, ‘The Bridge.’

Chapter 3 Big Sister

I knocked on the stained wooden front door, which had a boot mark in the middle of it, like someone had tried to kick it down. The door was opened slightly by the big sister. She peered through the small gap with a badly bruised and half closed swollen right eye.

“Christ” I said, “What the hell happened to you?” I followed this up with, “Sorry I just couldn’t help it.”

The big sister opened the door wider and sucked on a cigarette. Her left eye was also badly swollen, probably from crying and mascara had run down both of her cheeks.

            “You had better come in,” she said in a strained voice, made horse by crying. Moving back into the hallway she turned and retreated into the darkened house. Taken aback, I did as I was told and closing the door behind me followed after her into the kitchen. We both sat down at the kitchen table which was littered with the detritus of a night boozing and smoking.

            “Look,” I said, “you do know who I ‘am, you’ve not mistaken me for someone else?”

            “No I remember you,” she replied stubbing out her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, “you’ve been going out with our kid sister.”

I hadn’t been going out with the girl, but this was not the moment to argue about it. The big sister was in some sort of shock, staring glassy eyed passed my left shoulder towards the hall and front door. This gave me the creeps, so getting up I poured fresh cold water into the kettle and put it on the stove to boil. After opening most of the kitchen drawers, I found the rubbish bags and put the contents littered on the kitchen table into one before tying it up carefully. I took the bag out the back door and into the yard. I then washed up the ashtrays and dirty glasses leaving them on the sideboard to drain. I felt better moving about focusing my attention on something rather than sitting still. Setting a cup of tea in front of the big sister, I put two big spoons of sugar in it telling her to drink it, which to my surprise she did.

            “Thank you,” she said looking better, she even managed a half-smile.

Smiling back I gave her my handkerchief to wipe the mascara off her face.

            “I’ll ruin it,” she looked at the pure white cotton now streaked with black.

            “It’s a shame to cover up a pretty face with makeup and tears,” I said.

I meant it as well, apart from the bruising and her swollen eyes she was quite a looker.  Her eyes were a sort of green colour that I hadn’t seen before and she had the same small dimple on her chin that the girl had. All of this made for an appealing combination, even the bruises were starting to look sexy. So stretching out my hand I gently caressed her unbruised cheek and gave her my version of a winning smile. Dabbing at her face with my handkerchief, she took hold of my hand giving it a squeeze.

            “Why did you come here today anyway?” she asked turning my hand over to look at the time on my wrist watch. “Aren’t you going to watch the football today?”

            “Yeah, maybe,” I hesitated, “but I would like to know you’re going to be OK before going.” As I was talking I took out the purse placing it on the table between us. “Your sister stropped of out of the café this afternoon leaving her purse behind.”

She ignored the purse and still holding my hand, the big sister got up from the table leading me back through the hall and up the stairs to what must have been her bedroom. The room had been completely smashed up. Glass and other debris lay all over the floor, bedroom cupboard doors had been ripped of hinges and clothes thrown out and some had been ripped to shreds. The big sister offered no explanation. Instead, still leading me by the hand took me over to her bed and sat me down. Bending over me she tilted my chin gently upwards and kissed me, sliding her tongue into my mouth as I kissed her back. She started to remove my clothes and then hers all the while kissing me with her eyes tight shut. I didn’t say one word and neither did she.

Afterward, I lit two cigarettes putting one of them in her mouth she took a long pull on it and as she exhaled, said “Just like in the movies.”

The front door slammed downstairs, I looked at the big sister. “It’s OK I’ve locked my door. Feet came hurriedly pounding up the stairs, the door handle moved downwards and then a rap on the door. “Can I come in please,” said the girl.

The big sister put her finger to her lips, as I quietly got dressed. After putting my Parker back on, she motioned to me to hand her a dressing gown and slippers. Footsteps moved away from the bedroom door and I heard another door slam shut.

Treading carefully over the glass toward the door she said, “That’s the bathroom door, get out of the house now and I will see you tonight outside the cinema at eight,” giving me a big wet kiss on the cheek, adding, “if that’s OK with you?” giving me a proper smile for the first time.

I motioned that that was indeed OK, slipping out of the room and then out of the house thoughts racing around my head. Walking away, I looked up at the sky for the second time that day and wondered if those same clouds would bring Fulham as much luck, as I’d had this afternoon.