Painkiller

Ted Rippon was having a bad night, his sweat soaked body curled tightly in the foetal position; his arms folded and pressed into his stomach.  The cramps came at all too regular intervals, twisting his tortured intestines and increasing the pressure on his already weakened sphincter. Ted rolled from his bed and stumbled, still in the foetal position, into the toilet. This is all I need! he thought as another bout of cramps gripped his already raw intestines.

Ted; or to give him his correct title: - Chief Inspector Ted Rippon of the Midlow Constabulary, was in his early forties and looked like someone in his early fifties. Five foot eight with sandy hair and grey eyes that hid under thick bushy eyebrows. Ted was quite a barrel of a man, with broad shoulders and an ever-thickening waistline. It had been noticeable that since the death of his wife some three years back, he had really let himself and his appearance go.

He had lived alone in their bungalow since then and missed her every single day.

Raising himself from the toilet seat, sweat gushing from every pore and pain still etched deeply in his face, Ted staggered over to the medicine cabinet, and after much shuffling of shampoo bottles, packets of pain killers and boxes of plasters he found what he was looking for, a bottle of kaolin and morphine. Giving himself the prescribed dose, he then made slow laboured progress into his kitchen. He managed to find a jug amongst the clutter of glasses and mugs in the cupboard by the sink and filled it with water, grabbing an empty glass tumbler he retired to his bedroom and prayed for sleep. Someone Up Above was not listening! He finally got to sleep at five am.

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In an attic apartment, close to the Fred Postlethwaite museum, someone else had stomach trouble. Not caused by a bug or self-indulgence but by constant blows to the abdomen.

John Robert Drinkwell was fully clothed and tied, arms outstretched, to a low beam. A sad replica of a latter day Christ; the similarity ended there however. Mr. Drinkwell’s feet were firmly on the ground, secured firmly that is by thin nylon rope to a ring fixed into the floor. The, once crisp, clean white shirt beneath his jacket was now soaked in sweat, blood and fear.  His once handsome face, distorted, a grotesque mask of fear and anguish, dripped tears and sweat onto the wooden floor at his feet. His tie hung limply from his neck and shuddered with each blow. Sweat from Johns’ chin occasionally bounced off the tie on it’s way to the floor, like tears from a helpless companion.  Added to this, his lips were cruelly stapled together.

His tormentor concentrated on hitting John in the stomach and in the kidneys. Not with his fists. His preferred modus operandi was to use a heavy cane, this being about 35mm in diameter and some 1200mm long.  Before each sickening blow, his tormentor hissed;  “ This one will hurt John. Oh yes it will hurt! Show me your pain John, show me your pain” Those were the last words that John Robert Drinkwell was to hear.

The broken body was found three days later nailed to a fence on the edge of a golf course in Compton Common