A Killer At Large

A Killer At Large

By

Richard Le Normand

Smashwords Edition

Copyright, 2012, Richard Le Normand

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

‘A Killer at Large’ is a novel. The characters, situations and some of the places are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any person, living or dead. Some of the events in this book could easily have taken place as many events happened during the Second World War which was never recorded. The author wishes to pay his respects to the French Resistance, whose enormous efforts and great sacrifice enabled the Allies to speed up the liberation of France and so shorten the War.

Acknowledgements

To dear Ruth For all her help and support when most needed

PROLOGUE

Would it ever have occurred to you that the person sitting next to you on the ten-thirty train from Brisbane to the Gold Coast could be a cold-blooded killer? No? Well think again. The cheerful looking and ageing gentleman in the seat next to you may be just that . . .

I smiled when I looked around the carriage at the four badly behaved teenage boys and wondered if given the same circumstances they would have been able over a period of three years, to quietly and efficiently slit the throats of eight men. Could they grip and hold back a man’s head whilst sliding a knife across his throat, listen to the gasp and then the gurgle as he choked to death? Could anything arouse in them the cold and deadly anger that had given me the power to kill? Listening to concert music that evening, the excited chatter of the young boys on their way out of the concert hall, I pondered the continual media coverage of an alleged Latvian war criminal of so long ago. Living in a country that has not had to face an enemy occupation brought back the memories. I realized the time had finally come to tell my story, of the exploitation of sex coupled with violent death. It was getting on for sixty years since it all began and maybe now it was time to relive the experience that I had so successfully put out of my mind for so long.

Chapter One

Jersey Channel Islands 1943

Walking up the stone slipway shortly after dawn that morning, I suddenly realized I had a machine gun pointing directly at me. I stood, frozen to the spot.

I had just reached the tender age of sixteen and had slipped out of the house, two hours before curfew ended. I had gone down to the beach to look at my fishing lines, which sadly only had the remains of two red mullet.

Unfortunately, the crabs had got there first . . .

I decided to adopt the image of a silly dim teenager, which at the time I was anyway, quite unaware of the danger I had placed myself in, I gave the German guards a big smile and a happy wave and would have continued on my way. This was not to be and so began unimaginable events over which I would have little control and which changed me from an innocent young teenager into a cold-blooded killer.

‘Halt. Kommen sie hier.’

I was grabbed by two scruffy guards who, having finished their night duty, were unshaven and had the typical German soldier sour smell that came from living off rye bread, heavy smoking, and living in cramped conditions where showers were the exception.

The gun emplacement was a machine gun located on the roof of a deserted café situated across the road opposite the top of the slipway.

From this same outpost some time later, a young man was killed trying to escape from the beach in a small boat. I was marched, or rather dragged, to the back of the café and taken into the kitchen. Although I could speak a little German, I was unable to understand what the guards were shouting to me, guessing they had been drinking on duty, but I was quite unprepared for what was to come.

They started hitting me. The blows came hard and fast. I tried to shout at them to stop but my mouth was full of blood and I was beyond speech and resistance. I was pushed down onto what must have been the kitchen table and struck in the face and body. I felt my legs being pulled apart. My vision was fading. A face with a very strange expression was the last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness.

I came to later, to the sounds of a German officer screaming at the two German guards who were then led away by two Feldgendamery guards. I was told later that the two soldiers had been executed without trial for sexually assaulting a civilian.

I was still lying on the kitchen table, hurting all over. My face was swollen and very sore but the agonizing pain was lower down, my bottom was on fire. I felt I had been ripped apart. I slid off the table and retrieved my pants and trousers but I could not stop myself from shaking all over. At the age of sixteen I had been brutally raped.

As well as the severe pain and aching all over my body, I was overcome with a terrible feeling of shame and disbelief at what had happened to me.

That feeling of shame was to stay with me for the rest of my life and was to turn into a deep, cold and lasting anger, which was to control my actions for many years.

The German officer walked up to me and slapped my face. ‘Young English piglet. You have flirted with two of my men and now they must die because of you. For that, I am arresting you on the charge of spying on the German coastal defenses in this area. Piglet, you will be taken to the Gloucester Street prison in St Helier where you will be interrogated and then I hope that will be the end of you.’

I was pushed into the back of the waiting truck and wedged between two of the soldiers. Although it was a warm sunny day, I was still shaking badly. I could detect sympathetic if not warm glances from the two Germans who held onto me all the way to the prison, but the last thing I wanted to do was jump out of the truck.

At the prison, I was taken to a room where I was told to strip, given a piece of soap, and a hose was turned on me. The water was very cold but I was too upset to care. I was being treated like an animal and felt completely humiliated. I tried hard to wash away all that had happened to my body that morning, but mentally I was to feel dirty for a long time to come.

Still wet all over and naked I was marched down a flight of stairs along a narrow passageway and pushed into a small cell: no window, just a dim ceiling light, a wooden bed, blanket and bucket. The guard slapped my bare buttocks, pushing me roughly into the cell and locked the door on his way out. I lay on the bare boards of the bed, with the blanket as a pillow. Lying on my side with my legs drawn up was the most comfortable position for me, still in shock at what had happened in such a short time. My mind going around in circles, I drifted into a deep sleep.

When I woke up it must have been, I guessed, some time in the late afternoon. I had no means of telling the time with no window in my cell, it could have been night or day but I never normally slept more than seven hours at a time. I now felt really frightened. It had all happened in such a short time. I wondered if my parents knew where I was. I forced myself to calm down and think clearly about what had happened, what my position was and what I should try to do to extricate myself from this mess.

-

My parents had sent me to the top boys’ school in Jersey, though it must have been very difficult for them. The family business was having a very hard time; the factory had been destroyed when the Germans bombed the Island. I was not a very good student, being a bit lazy, and I put more energy into enjoying myself than into my studies. However, my math’s master had made a lasting impression on me and I always tried to follow his logical way of resolving problems.

In 1940, soon after the terrible events of Dunkirk and the withdrawal of the Allied forces in France, a large number of people were evacuated to Britain from the Channel Islands. At this time, the Islands received several attacks from the air in preparation for the landing of the German occupying forces. They were to remain on the Islands for the next five years. I was twelve years old at that time and although frightened during the air raids, I and the other boys found it all rather exciting. Not so our parents, who realized all the dangers and shortages we were about to experience.

The shops soon became empty. All guns, cars, motorcycles and radios were handed over to the Germans. The island was put under a permanent curfew and the currency was changed from Sterling to Reich marks. The banks were emptied and the money sent to Berlin.

Some time later when the invasion of England was called off, Hitler de-cided to fortify the Channel Islands, in line with the fortifications being constructed all along the French coastline. Heavy guns were brought over to the Islands to fire on any shipping entering the English Channel. To achieve this, large numbers of ‘slaves’ from Russia and Europe were brought to the Islands. Very many of these slaves were to die during this enormous construction of the fortifications.

Hitler was very proud to have conquered part of the United Kingdom and had special books printed for all the schoolchildren in the Islands. We were ordered to learn the German language. Although I (like all the boys at my school) tried not to learn the language, I did learn enough to be very useful in what was to happen to me in the years to come.

My first experience of slave labor came about when I, with two other boys of my age, decided to go to Fort Regent to see if we could retrieve our air pistols and which we considered quite harmless.

Inside the Fort, we happened to open a door that led into a courtyard where, to our horror, we witnessed about twenty bedraggled men running in a circle. A German with a steel whip was hitting them to make them move faster. Luckily, we had not been seen and so retreated at great speed never to go near Fort Regent again!

At another time, the boy who sat next to me at school was taken away with his father. The Germans had found them in possession of a radio set. We were told they both died in a cattle truck on the way to Germany. In those days, many stories were told of similar events.

The Gestapo were always around, their intention to create fear and therefore discipline in the civil population. It was very successful.

-

On thinking about my experience behind the gun emplacement and all the other events leading up to this day, my fear slowly turned to a deep and cold anger that I could feel slowly rising up inside me. It took complete control of my body and brain. In a matter of minutes, I had changed from a happy young sixteen-year-old boy into what would turn out to be a cold blooded and dangerous man. How dangerous, I was soon to find out. A cold and calculating killer.

I realized that the German officer must have been told that I was flirting with the two Guards and had led them into thinking I was looking for a sexual encounter. Although I was ignorant of these things at the time, I did know that a few men were homosexual and did things together, but I knew I was certainly not like that. Girls to me were getting very interesting but as yet, in those days, quite unobtainable. I would call for a guard to bring me my clothes and take me to the officer in charge, I would explain that it was all a terrible mistake and could they ask for my parents to come and fetch me.

The cell door opened and two guards came in. They took hold of my arms. I was still naked, but they marched me along the passage and into a large bare room. An officer and an NCO were seated at a table.

The guards moved back and I was made to stand in the centre of the room on a wire mat. The two men at the table disappeared from view as the lights were switched on. The powerful lights were directed at me and I almost lost my balance trying to shield my eyes. I was now unable to see anyone else in the room. The nightmare of finding myself naked in a room full of people no longer mattered to me. I was far too worried about my situation and was past caring about my nakedness.

‘Piglet is the name we have here for you. Please give us your full name.’ That was the last time I was to hear the word ‘please.’

I gave my full name and address and tried to explain that this was all a big mistake and that all I had done was to break curfew in order to attend to my fishing lines. I asked as politely and as calmly as I could if they would call my parents and ask them to come and collect me. I heard the sound of laughter, and the officer in charge started speaking quite softly to me.

‘I think the name Piglet suits you better than your given name—a pink piglet without a tail. So we will from now on, address you as Piglet.’ A short silence and then in a much stronger and sharper tone: ‘It is not as simple as you would like, Piglet. Your identity card gave us your name, date of birth and address. We have informed your parents that you have been arrested for spying on our gun emplacements and that you have already been sent on to our Paris Headquarters for questioning.’

As his words sunk in, I had a deep feeling of fear and foreboding. I switched my mind to the events of that morning and felt the cold anger returning. Yes, I liked the name Piglet. The Germans would rue the day they messed with Piglet

‘When your mother became agitated, we warned her that you were very lucky to have been arrested by the Wehrmacht and not by the Gestapo. The Gestapo would have immediately arrested all your family, their close friends and your school friends also, Piglet. You also, Piglet, have been saved from a possible nasty slow death by the Gestapo—this is why you will be taken to Paris leaving the harbor three hours before dawn. You will be taken by train under escort to Paris where you will be interrogated. You will then be tried before a Ger-man Army court. At worst you will be sentenced to death, but at least it will