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“The
famous girl’s boarding school [Queen Charlottes Academy] in North Yorkshire has
a little problem: it’s plagued with strange apparitions and happenings that
have become so bad that parents are withdrawing their girls. In desperation the
principle: Miss Evelyn Scott-Harris has summoned paranormal researchers from
the University to end it. Jericho Tibbs and Team 74 are also on scene because
the body of the late gardener: Jerome Hobbs was found dead in the greenhouse
and produced no soul.”
Alcohol
– Smoking - Strong language – Violence [including murder] – Strong sexual
references [including pornography] – Mild Horror.
Author’s notes about this episode:
[1]
This episode contains strong sexual references.
[2]
The original Title for this episode was: ‘THE DEVIL’S SCHOOL VISIT?’
[3]
A ‘Temporal Detectives’ original story.
[4] Look closely at the photograph; can you see a very very young version of a very very famous person? The photograph has been in the Public Domain for some years.
Concept
date: 16th June 2020
First published: Not available
Status: COMPLETED, BUT UNPUBLISHED.
Location: BOOK SERIES 0 – EPISODE 0.
Revisions: 4 [last revised February
2022]
Version: Final Draft?
Published Episode No. 00
Previous episode: NONE
Next episode: NONE
Age
recommendation: 15+
Average
reading time: Approx. 45 Minutes.
Angel-in-charge: Margret
Team
Assigned: Team 74
Human
Time: 1961AD-1380AH
Mission: 6
- 734756 - 6 – 1961
Episode Preview:
Both
girls were in the final year at the select and exclusive ‘ladies Academy’ but
were still bound by the strict dress coat that the school applied regardless of
age. So despite both being seventeen they had to continue wearing the same
uniform that the younger girls wore; a one piece summer dress, stiff hat,
sensible black shoes and white knee length socks. Even their panties were
regulation; plain white cotton. The older girls [the sixteen to eighteen year
olds] rebelled a bit by wearing stockings and suspenders, complete with
'naughty' knickers in the dormitory at night when unsupervised.
The girls
complained about the winter uniform too; a knee-length black pleated skirt,
white blouse and school tie with a black school jacket and black socks. They
referred to this uniform as the ‘funeral suit’. But it was Friday afternoon and
it was their turn to visit Mister Jerome Hobbs; the dashing and charming
Under-Gardner who lived next door to the big glasshouse at the bottom of the
south playing field. He was quite good looking with dark features; he told
people his mother was Italian and his English father had met her during the war
in Italy, when he drove tanks. To the girls he was better looking than Clark
Gable and of course was actually available and not just an image on the silver
screen.
They now
hurried and pushed open the side door to the big glasshouse and almost ran
through the numerous wooden shelves’ holding hundreds of pots and trays with
young plants growing. At the very end was apparently a big wooden cupboard
which was always locked. Only certain people knew it wasn’t a cupboard and the
girls knocked on the worn and weathered doors so hard that the thing rattled
and creaked, as if objecting to the abuse.
The pair giggled, making sure their hair was tidy and they each checked each other’s sparse make-up and waited. After ten minutes both girls were angry and disappointed at Jerome’s failure to appear. Reluctantly they walked slowly back through the glasshouse shouting their disappointment at each other. That’s when Kath stopped and just stared. Susan tugged at her arm and reminded her that it would ‘piss down’ soon and they best get back for afternoon tea. Then she saw the look on Kath’s face and followed her staring eyes to the floor. It was a foot sticking out from one of the big wood shelving units that held the bedding plants. Susan slowly knelt and peered under the shelf; she screamed and Kath joined her screaming and the pair ran from the glasshouse; still screaming as the late spring rain started to fall.
Jerome
Hobbs would not be entertaining any more young girls in his hidden boudoir
behind the big cupboard. The young man was stone dead beneath the plants he
loved as much as young girls. His face was contorted in agony and his right
hand – clenched into a fist – was gripping a page ripped from a magazine; a
very naughty ‘under the counter’ magazine. Someone had driven a very large
knife between his ribs with some force, yet there was little blood lying around
his stiff body. His trousers pockets hung outside; empty. Jerome’s wrist watch
was gone and the small solid gold ring that he wore on his right thumb was also
missing. He normally carried an old leather wallet in his back trouser pocket
that could be button up for security; that was gone too and the pocket had been
pulled open with such force that the button was missing.
The local
police concluded that someone had murdered and robbed the young gardener;
especially when they searched his little cottage and found it in utter chaos.
The sofa had been slashed open, the carpets pulled up and there was not a
single drawer or cupboard that hadn’t been opened and left. In his bedroom they
found the same scene; the mattress had even been cut open and his clothes were
strewn about the floor. The kitchen and bathroom didn’t escape the apparently
frenzied search; the porcelain cistern lay smashed with a small trickle of
water running from it and all the kitchen cupboards were open.
Even the
small oven door had been left open. The police concluded that the murder must
have been looking for something!
But it
was when the officer in charge [Detective Inspector Gerald Harper of Kent
Police CID] finally managed to prise the magazine page from the dead man’s
fingers that things took a turn for the worse. It had been ripped from an
‘Adult’ magazine and was a page of advertisements with one advertisement
circled in red ink. A company in Soho, London would pay ‘decent’ money for
films or photographs [colour or monochrome] featuring very young models in
sexual poses. That didn’t please the Inspector; he would now have to inform
Scotland Yard and get them to check out the Post Office Box Number shown on the
advertisement. He wasn’t the very best detective in the world and he certainly
didn’t want the much acclaimed Scotland Yard detectives pushing into his
investigation and taking all the credit for solving it.
His two
principal witnesses [Kath & Susan] were quickly removed from the school by
their concerned parents after making brief statements about finding the body.
Their excuse for visiting the glasshouse [which both girls stuck too] was to
ask Mister Hobbs about some strange plants they had seen growing by the Hockey
field. They both stated that he would know what they were and they could
impress the Biology Mistress with their newly acquired knowledge. Neither girl
revealed the true motive for their visit and certainly made no mention of what
lay behind the old cupboard.
Police
officers searching where the body was found, saw that the cupboard was locked
with a padlock and hasp and didn’t even bother to have it opened. Their
interview with the Headmistress didn’t provide much to go on; she simply read
them the details from Jerome Hobbs personal file. He was 22 years old and came
from Yorkshire [though he didn’t have any trace of a Yorkshire accent] was
obviously unmarried and had produced good references from York City Council
where he had served his Gardening Apprenticeship. She mentioned that the
School’s head Gardener; Mr. Harold Fields thought the world of him and often
praised his gardening skill and happy character. She added that he was quite
upset by Hobb’s sudden and shocking death.
Detective
Inspector Harper was a little surprised that the head Gardener was only 32 and
like Hobb’s, lived on the school grounds. He had a two bedroom cottage at the
rear of the school pavilion; which contained the showers and changing rooms. He
was married, but had no children and his wife; Janet worked in the school
kitchens as a ‘Diner Lady’. The pair didn’t have anything
criminal known about them and had produced good references from Maidstone City Council
where the pair had worked previously.
A month flew by
and Detective Inspector Harper didn’t even have a suspect and enquiries in
London by the metropolitan Police had drawn a blank. The ‘film’ company had
never heard of Hobb’s. The savage murder of the school Gardner was to disappear
from the public’s interest. But it drew the interest of another more tenacious
‘Detective Inspector’ and that was Jericho Tibbs of the temporal detectives
department.
Jericho
was reading the report from Demon Ingress about a minor demon [Rul] who had
appeared in the area no less than six times in the spring of 1961. Now that
interested Jericho because nothing was reported on his movements or actions
while there. As the Senior Agent [Louise Joskia] from that department stated;
“He just appears to visit, never does anything and the time line is unchanged.
Quite odd really.” Then, as if by chance, a report of a ‘Missing Soul’ landed
on Jericho’s desk from the very same place and time. A body had produced no
soul and the Collector had called it in. That body was a certain Jerome Hobb’s.
Jericho
checked his mirror and found that Jerome Hobbs last visit to the Human Life
Cycle was 1998 to 2061 and that, not only had he died too early, but was a
Time-traveller and now how lost his soul to the darkness because he had
died out of his ordained time.
He
gathered team 74 together and briefed them on their latest mission; jumping
back to Queen Charlottes Academy for Girls in the spring of 1961. Because a
minor demon was known to frequent the area at this time they were accompanied
by a Guardian of God; Preston Sutton. Preston was a slightly built Jamaican
fellow who normally introduced himself as the man named after two towns. He was
certainly a colourful character with a good sense of humour and the team
liked him immediately.
Alex and
Owen both chuckled at their characters for this assignment; Alex would play a
School Matron and young Owen would transmogrify into Jacqueline and play a
schoolgirl! Jericho and Wilson would play Insurance Inspectors from the Royal
Liverpool checking the schools safety procedures and equipment for their
insurance renewal. Preston Sutton was delighted to play a temporary cook
at the school. He was well suited to the role; when alive he had been a Chef
for a Kingstown hotel chain.
Jericho had decided to run this investigation from before Hobbs was killed and lost his soul. So the team jumped back to 1961; before the dreadful murder and strange happenings that occurred at the posh school.
End of Preview.
"ALEXANDRA AND THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL." 
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER
“All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.”
CAUTION:
“SOME OF THESE EPISODES CONTAIN VERY STRONG LANGUAGE, VIOLENCE, HORROR AND SEXUAL REFERENCES. Some are RECOMMENDED suitable for persons aged 15+ years only.”
THE AUTHOR.