9. Roof Rebel Desmond Binky

THE ACCUSED Part 9

Desmond Binky in the men’s wing of Brumpton Prison was aggrieved. They insisted that he shared a cell with Roman Mouncy, a priest convicted of one or two very unpleasant offences, and all Roman Mouncy wanted to do all day was pray to his god for forgiveness, for understanding, for anything Heaven might offer him, and Desmond had no desire to be in communication with what he considered an impossible deity. But he had to put up with slow muttering of Roman as he droned about his wickedness and all the bad things he’d done (including raping a child some time so long ago he couldn’t really recall it), and he suffered it until he’d had enough.

The Prison officers were no help. He complained and they suggested he might learn a thing of two from Roman Mouncy if he paid attention. They said he was a priest and therefore not only a good man, but bordering on being a saint, which went no way whatsoever explaining what he was doing in the prison in the first place.

“All I’ll learn is how to become a pervert,” he replied, and decided to have a revolution. Maybe just a single act of defiance against the crass misunderstandings of those with power over him. And he was well aware that there had been famous incidents in the past kin quite a few prisons. Rooftop rebellions in which prisoners with something on their minds hurtled slates and tiles down onto the yard below.

So Desmond hatched a plan. He knew there was a way up, through deserted attic areas, dangerous maybe, to the rooftop, but he could do it. He was fit and strong, wasn’t he? And he was equipped with a fair proportion of native wit that had often helped him out of tight corners in the past.

And whilst D.I Rosie Baur was sitting disconsolately in her cell he did it. He slipped unseen through a barely used and rather small three-quarters hidden door, and found his way upwards through dust and grime. Despite the detritus of ages he soon grabbed hold of the handle to the hatch that led to sunlight, rooftop freedom, and rebellion.

It didn’t take long for his adventure to be discovered, and one officer was ordered to follow him, a young and agile man in his thirties. He was Rick Parfitt, and he had a reputation for fair-mindedness and thorough decency. He would be the ideal man to talk the wretched Desmond Binky down if anyone could.

Rosie and Evelyn Enderby, her cellmate, watched through their cell window as the drama was played out.

“Take a look out there, Evelyn,” Rosie urged as saw the Binky man before anyone else, it seemed, as he seemed to extrude himself from the prison roof. Then it became clear that quite a few others noted and there were shouts and cat-calls a-plenty, mostly from the men in the cells in the other wings.

“What’s he up to?” whispered Evelyn.

“Some sort of protest I should think,” replied Rosie.

“It doesn’t look safe. I hope he doesn’t fall,” muttered Evelyn.

Then, after a period of almost unbelievably static inactivity, a van littered with electronic equipment pulled onto the prison yard. It was clearly a communication vehicle and she reckoned it must be the local television station wanting to get a piece of free drama in its news broadcasts.

Then she saw the uniformed figure of a prison warder. She didn’t know his name or that he was a well respected person in the gaol, just that he was there and teetering somewhat as if he wasn’t particularly sure about walking on a sloping roof. The slope didn’t look too safe and it looked as though it might be a tad greasy.

Faintly in the air she heard his voice as he shouted to the prisoner whilst hanging onto a crumbling chimney.

“Now Mr Binky, what are we doing up here? It’s not so safe, you know, and this is a pretty old roof.”

And she heard the short reply, “Sod off!”

“But Mr Binky, nothing can be worth the risk you’re taking. What is it? That ever-talking praying priest got on your nerves again?”

“Now just you keep your distance!” shouted the voice of the aggrieved prisoner, and Rosie Baur was sure, as she tried to focus on what was becoming a truly fascinating scene, that he was waving a knife that glinted dangerously in the sun.

“You don’t need that! Not when it’s me you’re talking to,” responded the warden.

Down below a cameraman had his shoulder-mounted camera pointing unwaveringly at the prison roof, and a sound engineer was doing his best to capture every nuance of the confrontation. Straining her neck, Rosie could just see them. This was going to make the main news that day, and when she had been out and about as a police Inspector it would have annoyed her, but in her present situation she honestly couldn’t have cared less.

“Now I’m going to take that blade off you, and we’ll have a nice little chat about how to safely resolve what I see is quite a serious problem for you,” said the warden, his quietly spoken words lost to the D. I. but hinted at by his body language.

Then the ultimate drama was enacted.

“I’ll take the knife, Desmond,” said the warden, and when he was close to the prisoner he reached out his hand to invite an end to the problem before it turned nasty he slipped on the sloping prison roof.

Arms flailing in order to rescue himself from a nasty and almost certainly terminal fall, he grabbed for the first thing that he could, the prisoner’s free arm.

There was a moment of stasis when time seemed to stand still, and the unfortunate Desmond Binky somehow landed in a blood-stained huddle and the officer looked on in true alarm.

Desmond Binky would suffer no more unwanted prayers or salutations to a deity he was sure he would never meet. His ears were suddenly deafened to the world about him and no number of prayers would ever come to his rescue

“Well,” said Rosie to her cellmate, “that’s a right turn up for the books!

“What is?” asked Evelyn.

“Well, said Rosie slowly and thoughtfully, “what we’ve just witnessed out the is an almost identical drama to what lies behind my being in this cell. I wonder if that young officer will be prosecuted for murder?”

© Peter Rogerson, 22.04.21

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