Jessamy Beech Ch. 09: Helston

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I don't mean to be disrespectful to the men and women of Her Majesty's Royal Navy in any way. And I'm sure that the actions of the few individuals portrayed in this instalment in no way reflect the values and ethos of the organisation as a whole.

*****

At Laidhay Croft on Scotland's north east coast, Jessamy Beech and Hamnavoe buried the renegade Trevithick's latest victims in a single shallow grave.

"It's a pity we couldn't find a JCB instead of a snowplough when we left Thurso," grunted Hamnavoe, clutching his fractured ribs, "it would've made this job a lot easier to do."

"The ground's not as hard here as it was on Mull," Jessamy replied. Despite the chill wind she was sweating. She scanned their surroundings as they dug, using replica implements from the crofting museum. Trevithick might still be here, hiding in the gathering dusk. And she didn't want to be surprised by him when their plan was to take him alive.

Not only could Trevithick open the elusive control bunker but he would once and for all prove Hamnavoe's innocence - IF they could persuade him to confess.

"When I told ye about Trevithick's real name, how did ye know who he was, lass?" Hamnavoe asked, as between them they lowered the first body into the ground, Jessamy trying hard not to look at their injuries.

"On Air Force One, Bromden gave me a laminated list of names. All the personnel authorised to open the control bunker. I carried it with me for twenty years - until that shit Keaton took it," Jessamy closed her eyes, remembering, "General Sir Kenneth Turkle, Admiral Dale Fredrickson - also known by his pseudonym Trevithick now, Air Chief Marshal Charles Harding - now dead, stupidly shot by me twenty years ago in Arnside, Major Angus Banavie ..."

"Okay, okay JB. There's nothing wrong with yer recall," Hamnavoe gave her an odd look, "I was ... just wondering."

They completed their grim task and found a sheltered corner in the wrecked visitor centre to eat what little food they had and spend the night. For once, even Hamnavoe was too tired for any sexual innuendo.

. . .

As Jessamy and Hamnavoe neared Inverness the following day, the number of abandoned vehicles increased. Hundreds, thousands of wrecked carcasses containing dried out corpses and their worldly belongings now gridlocked for eternity. They could no longer simply shunt rusting cars and vans off the road with their snowplough truck and carry on through, so they pulled over on the north side of the Kessock Bridge at Craigton to continue on foot.

"Take care, and thanks fer the lift," Hamnavoe patted the snowplough with one calloused hand as Jessamy tightened the waist strap of her rucksack. Burning off more calories than they were taking on, she'd lost a worrying amount of weight.

"Why the fuck are you talking to the truck" Jessamy asked.

"Good manners cost nothing," Hamnavoe replied.

Jessamy shook her head, bemused. Ahead of them, south across the Beauly Firth, Inverness lay in ruins. The once proud capital of the Highlands had become a maze of rubble strewn streets and meteorite craters. The River Ness itself meandered sluggishly through the middle of it, dammed in places by collapsed buildings and flooding the Caledonian Canal and the main road west towards Drumnadrochit and Fort William.

Jessamy squinted, then tapped Hamnavoe's arm, "Is that smoke?"

Hamnavoe looked where she was pointing. From the hill where the charred ruins of Inverness Castle still stood, a ragged trail of wispy smoke rose into the still air, "What d'ye think lass?"

"I think, that we haven't seen a single living soul since leaving Thurso. Looks like a campfire ... so it's possible it could be our man."

"Trevithick?"

Jessamy nodded, "If it's not, well ..."

"One way to find out," Hamnavoe nodded grimly, adjusting his grip on the M16. He gestured towards the bridge that would take them into the city, "ladies first ..."

"Why thank you sir. What a gentleman."

Hamnavoe laughed, "Once ma fuckin' ribs heal I'll show ye I'm no fuckin' gentleman."

Jessamy smiled at him, "I'll look forward to that."

It wasn't until a few minutes later as they picked their way across the Kessock Bridge that Jessamy realised that she'd meant it ...

CHAPTER NINE: HELSTON

Thirty years earlier.

" ... experts have predicted that the asteroid, named Thanatos after the personification of death in Greek mythology will pass within 25,000 kilometres of Earth. Both NASA and the European Space Agency have stressed once again that there is no ..."

"Turn it off please Vicky. I'm sick of hearing about that damned asteroid."

"Yes sir," Petty Officer Vicky Beech clicked off the Audi's radio, not taking her eyes off the road for a moment. Traffic streamed in both directions along the main routes in and out of the town of Helston. Holiday makers, personnel leaving the base for the weekend and the normal Friday evening rush hour traffic.

In the back seat, Dale Fredrickson pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt the beginnings of yet another migraine. It was a warm summer's evening and he felt almost claustrophobic as the staff car crept along at a snail's pace between vehicles full of families who'd obviously spent the day exploring Cornwall's stunning Lizard peninsula just to the south.

I could really do without traveling all the way up to Gloucester this evening, he thought wearily. But that was the price to be paid for rising so quickly through the ranks. Extra responsibility, extra hours.

Extra stress.

As a Captain in the Royal Navy, he'd been station commander of the Naval Air Station at Culdrose, near Helston for only six months. Before that there'd been one humanitarian aid mission overseas after another. He'd seen horrible and heart rending sights that would stick in his mind and haunt him forever but had also reinforced his conviction that he wanted to devote his life to helping people in need.

But now the Ministry of Defence had put a spanner in the works. They'd seen fit to offer him yet another promotion. This time to Admiral, if he took on an additional role as part of some new secret project.

Fredrickson glanced again at the paperwork on the leather upholstery next to him. A series of defence satellites, that had apparently been launched in secret over the previous twenty years. Satellites armed with cutting edge technology - charged particle beam weapons that could take out any target on Earth's surface with pinpoint accuracy, rendering most of the world's air forces, anti-terror organisations and military drones obsolete. The Russians knew nothing about them.

As one of the select few in the UK to be chosen to access the project's control bunker in the event of an emergency, Fredrickson had been prodded, poked, tested, psychologically evaluated and tested some more. He'd had his face biometrically scanned, both retinas and handprints photographed, voiceprint recorded and had had to commit a long, randomly generated number combination to memory.

Fredrickson scanned down the laminated list of others on the project, bemused - General Sir Kenneth Turkle, in his opinion an elitist snob, Air Chief Marshal Charles Harding, who he'd once met in Whitehall and taken an instant dislike to, Major Angus Banavie, an opinionated Scot and a ladies' man ...

The list went on. Why these individuals had been chosen above others he couldn't even guess. The powers that be could evidently detect some hidden quality that he couldn't.

Now that everything was in place, it was time to make certain it all worked. A test run. Which meant a weekend stay in a four star hotel in Gloucester. After he'd picked up his overnight bag and kissed Mrs Fredrickson goodbye, his driver would drop him off at nearby Camborne railway station to catch the train ...

"Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light ..."

"What was that sir?" Fredrickson caught sight of Vicky Beech's blue eyes watching him quizzically in the rear view mirror. He liked Petty Officer Beech - smart, efficient and quite pretty, even in the black uniform skirt and white blouse.

" Oh ... nothing. Do you have any plans for the weekend Vicky?"

Vicky Beech studied him, then looked away as the motorhome in front slowed at traffic lights, "As a matter of fact, it's my daughter's birthday tomorrow sir. My husband John and I are holding a party for her."

"I never knew you had a daughter," said Fredrickson, genuinely interested, "how old is she, if you don't mind me asking?"

"She's called Jessamy ... she'll be eight sir."

"Jessamy. What a lovely name."

"It's the name for the colour of jasmine petals."

Fredrickson nodded. His own sons were both grown up. One at university, the other at the naval college in Dartmouth, following in his father's footsteps. He'd missed much of their teenage years, being on the other side of the world on one ship or another.

But his one constant throughout had been Helen. Despite his long absences she'd stuck with him. Sweet, beautiful Helen Fredrickson. His rock. His anchor. He'd admitted openly that he'd be lost without her to come back to. And it was quite possibly her presence in his life that had dissuaded him from taking stupid, unnecessary risks while on operations.

But he still got the job done. And he was about to become the Royal Navy's youngest ever admiral because of it ...

. . .

The Fredricksons had bought their granite cottage on the edge of Porkellis village when Dale had been stationed at the naval base in Plymouth. They'd fallen in love with the rustic beamed ceilings and inglenook fireplace in the huge farmhouse style kitchen.

Being a grade two listed building in a conservation area they weren't permitted to drastically change the exterior. Helen however, had completely transformed the interior into a cosy but tastefully furnished home - suitable for entertaining high ranking naval officers.

Vicky pulled on to the short tarmac drive next to Helen Fredrickson's peppermint green Fiat and stopped the car.

"I'll just get my bag and laptop," Fredrickson told her and clambered out.

"Okay sir," Vicky Beech slipped off her seatbelt and stepped out of the car, taking a few moments to relish the tranquillity of the Fredrickson's garden. Swallows darted to and fro above the roof, gorging themselves on flying insects in preparation for their annual migration to Africa, while some way off a wood pigeon's monotonous call sounded across the fields.

Even where she and her family lived on the outskirts of Penzance twenty miles further west couldn't compare to this ...

Dale Fredrickson glanced up at the front of the house. The bedroom curtains were tightly closed, which wasn't at all surprising, as in the summer months the evening sun streaming through the windows could make their bedroom stiflingly hot.

He let himself in to the flagstoned hallway, and was about to call Helen's name when he noticed the orange Rab softshell jacket thrown carelessly over the newel post at the foot of the stairs.

Not his. And certainly not Helen's. She hardly owned a single item of clothing that wasn't some shade or other of purple. Trousers, blouses, cashmere sweaters, even her lingerie. Fredrickson had once joked when she'd been pregnant that she looked like a ripe Ribena berry, clad from head to toe in purple.

A faint voice sounded from above. Fredrickson cocked his head, listening. Helen?

"Fuck, she's tight ..." a man's voice.

Another sound, like flesh slapping against flesh.

Fredrickson's heart hammered in his chest as he placed a foot on the bottom stair ...

A creak of protesting bedsprings as something heavy shifted. Followed by a wordless moan.

Surely it wasn't what it sounded like. Helen must have turned on the TV in the bedroom while she was taking a shower. Perhaps binge watching something from Netflix while she knew she had the house to herself ...

"Ohmygod f-fuck me," gasped a voice. Helen's voice. But sounding strangely muffled as if she was talking around a mouthful of something.

Taking the stairs one at a time, being careful not to tread on the boards that he knew creaked, Dale Fredrickson stealthily climbed up towards the master bedroom. On an occasion months before he'd arrived home early to find his wife blissfully masturbating, oblivious as he watched her from the doorway as she pleasured herself and uncharacteristically muttered utter filth to some imaginary lover ...

"You're so big."

"Fuck me harder ... HARDER ..."

By the time she'd realised he was there, he'd had a raging hardon. After Helen had made some embarrassed apologies and tried in vain to hide the sex toys (all purple of course) she'd bought in secret online, they'd spent the entire evening in bed fucking like rabbits.

But if Helen was alone this time she was putting on a very convincing act.

Fredrickson prayed that Vicky Beech wouldn't follow him into the house wondering what was taking him so long. His luggage was downstairs in the study and would only have taken a minute or two at most to collect.

Dreading what he was about to find, he crept along the landing, as from the master bedroom a flurry of rhythmic activity started to knock their antique pine headboard against the wall ...

"Open your mouth ..." a man's voice filled with urgency.

"Uhh ..." Helen. His beautiful, loving wife Helen moaning like a pornstar.

"I'm gonna cum all over your ass bitch ..."

Fredrickson froze, just feet from the open door. Another man's voice?

This was too much to bear. There had to be a perfectly innocent explanation. He only regretted that if Helen was in their bed masturbating to porn on their bedroom TV, he didn't have the time to stay and make love to her. He had a car waiting outside. A train to catch.

Fredrickson looked into the bedroom.

Helen was naked except for deep purple holdup stockings and matching stilettos. She sat astride a man in the middle of their bed, thighs clamped around him, pushing herself down onto the glistening cock disappearing up inside her. Another man knelt behind, withdrawing his own twitching member from her gaping asshole just as he began to ejaculate thick ropes of pearly white semen, aiming each jet over her sweating back with a loud grunt. A third man knelt at the top of the bed, eyes tightly closed and face screwed up in concentration as he pumped his cock into Helen's eagerly awaiting mouth.

Fredrickson stared in disbelief. The man still fucking Helen was one of his own Merlin helicopter pilots - a Lieutenant Commander. He couldn't be certain but the one currently having his dribbling glans licked clean was one of the PT instructors from the station. It was then that he noticed the camera set up on a tripod in the corner of the room, silently filming the whole thing ...

None of them noticed Fredrickson as he stared in stunned astonishment at his own lovely wife lewdly rotating her hips on the thick, veiny cock impaling her, drawing every ounce of pleasurable sensation from it. No one even glanced towards him as she hungrily slurped away at the bloated bellend still oozing cum onto her quivering tongue, "Mmm ..."

How long had this been going on for? Did Helen make a habit of this while he was overseas - fucking his subordinates from the local naval base? Did this all get uploaded to some porn site for every twisted little pervert across the globe to wank over? His wife was nothing but a slut and he was going to be a laughing stock.

Fredrickson clenched his fists and jaw and was about to make his presence known when a high, musical voice suddenly called out from the ensuite bathroom, "Don't finish without me!"

A pretty redhead dressed in black lingerie hurried back into the bedroom, adjusting the harness of the enormous purple strapon she was wearing. Her big dark nipples strained against the sheer material of her too tight bra, "Sorry, but I just had to pee ... oh."

This was all too much.

The girl, who Fredrickson guessed to be still in her late teens froze as she spotted him, the strapon glistening with lubricant bobbing obscenely in front of her as if eager to get on with the task for which it had been designed, "Um ... Mrs Fr-fredrickson?"

Helen dreamily swirled her tongue around the PT instructor's foreskin, "Mmm ... what now?"

The man who'd been moments before enthusiastically fucking his wife's puckered little asshole looked up in horror at Fredrickson, still standing motionless in the doorway. His face paled as he realised they'd been found out - and by whom.

Still in the throes of ecstacy on the bed, Helen pushed a lock of sweat soaked hair from her face and happened to glance up ... and met her husband's gaze ...

Without waiting around to hear any of his wife's meaningless and grovelling apologies and excuses, Fredrickson turned and stumbled back downstairs trying to hold down the rage boiling up inside him. In the space of a couple of minutes, his entire life had been turned upside down. The one person he'd always thought he could trust and rely upon had betrayed him in the most cruel way possible.

"Is everything okay sir?"

Through the tears and red haze that blurred his vision, Fredrickson became aware of Vicky Beech standing on the doorstep, outside in the sunlight.

Blocking his way.

He didn't trust himself to answer. He felt trapped. Restricted. He had to get out of the house and away from there. He didn't think as he strode forward, roughly shoving the pretty Petty Officer out of his way, "MOVE!"

Taken by surprise, Vicky stumbled backwards on the polished slate doorstep, her hands grasping reflexively for something to stop her fall ...

KRACK!

The back of Vicky Beech's skull cracked open like an egg as her head hit the granite walkway outside. She took no more than a few seconds to die as blood quickly formed a pool around her head and shoulders.

Realising instantly what he'd just done, Dale Fredrickson hesitated for no more than a moment ... then panicked, sprinted for the Audi and climbed in.

"DALE, WAIT!" Helen Fredrickson came charging out of the front door. She'd discarded her heels and was trying in vain to cover her nakedness with an old 'Fly Navy' hoodie Dale used for DIY, "please, let me explain."

Fredrickson smiled to himself as he started the Audi's engine. What explanation could possibly account for what he'd just witnessed. His wife being fucked like a whore by not one, not even two, but three men at once. Men who were supposed to look up to him and respect him as their commanding officer. And what the girl with the strapon was planning to do he had no idea.

Helen wiped congealing semen off her cheek as she gawped in horror down at Vicky Beech, lying motionless in the flowerbed, "Ohmy god, Dale. What have you done?

There was no sign yet of Helen's three 'guests' - no doubt they'd be hurriedly getting dressed and preparing their own explanations and apologies. Whatever they had to day changed nothing. He'd killed Vicky Beech. Without looking back, Dale Fredrickson stamped on the Audi's accelerator and tore off away from Porkellis. He would never see the house or his wife ever again.

. . .

The platform at Camborne railway station an hour later was surprisingly busy. 'Change over day' for many of Cornwall's hotels and holiday lets was traditionally Saturday so it was unusual to see so many holiday makers heading back home a day early.

Dale Fredrickson clutched his train tickets in a trembling, sweating hand. The evening's temperature was dropping as it grew dark and he'd left his jacket in the Audi. Perhaps if he turned himself in to the police right away, they'd go easy on him. He hadn't intended to hurt Vicky Beech, much less kill her, but he hadn't been thinking straight.