The blighted son, p.7
The Blighted Son, page 7
Several of the nationals approached the transplant centre but were simply given a polite “no comment” response. Others, in particular the local Greater Manchester media, carried photographs from both inside and outside Jim’s Gym, along with inconsequential comments from members. Some of the reports carried quotes from Leah Lieberman’s neighbours. Edwin had advised her that she could well be approached and she decided to stay with relatives until interest in the story waned. Rabbi Goldbladt gave instructions that anyone who approached the synagogue should be told simply that “we are unable to make any further comment”.
‘Fisher has obviously gone to ground. He’s not saying anything to anybody and I cannot see him changing his mind,’ Edwin informed his team as he and his colleagues scrutinised the coverage in the nationals the following day.
‘Just keep tabs on it,’ Ross requested. ‘We cannot be sure what this Fisher character is going to do next.’
‘He’ll do something, I’m sure. Right now, I reckon, he’ll be like the bear with the proverbial sore head. He was pretty angry when he realised his donor was Jewish and he won’t be happy that, as a result of our piece, he’s now being hounded by the press pack. I agree, he is likely to react in some way. My main worry is that he could send one of his heavies round, but most likely he’ll just stay low and ride it out until everything begins to die down – as it always does. I’ve got the feeling that he really doesn’t want any more run-ins with the law and that, right now, he’ll be preoccupied with having to get used to the idea that he’s a neo-Nazi with a Jewish heart. And there’s really not a lot he can do about that unless he decides to top himself – and I’m sure that’s not his style.’
‘Just keep tabs on it.’
‘The likelihood is that sometime in the next few weeks, he will have to go back to the hospital for a routine check-up, so there’s a pretty good chance I will get some feedback from the transplant team,’ Edwin reasoned.
‘There’s likely to be some more mileage in this story sooner or later. In the meantime, I’d like you to have a look at this one. We’ve just had a tip that a Manchester sailor who was bitten by a dog when he was recently in India, has died of rabies. Can you check it out?’
‘I will, Ross,’ replied Edwin, delighted to be working on a story with which he was not personally involved.
Chapter 3
When the national media interest in James Karl Fisher gradually petered out over the next few weeks and Edwin received no further letters or telephone calls about him, he convinced himself that the story had run its course.
But he could not have been more wrong.
One slow news day when Edwin was trawling through The Lancet and The British Medical Journal for potentially interesting stories to pursue, he took a phone call on his landline that was to boost the James Karl Fisher story back into the journalistic stratosphere.
‘Good afternoon, Edwin Benn, news room here,’ he said in an autopilot monotone.
‘Hi. There’s something that you need to know. I think you might be interested in it,’ said a female voice with what Edwin determined was a Liverpudlian accent.
‘May I ask who’s speaking? How can I help you?’ Edwin asked.
‘I think it’s more of a case of how I can help you… my name is Karen Passoa… you won’t know me… I’m Jim Fisher’s ex-wife. I’ve been reading your articles in the paper. Very interesting, but there is a lot you don’t know,’ she said.
‘May I call you Karen?’
‘Yeh, Karen’s fine, luvvy.’
‘Well, this all sounds very interesting, Karen. What’s the big story, if I might ask?’
‘Not over the phone if you don’t mind, Edwin… but I promise you, you’ll be more than interested. It’s dynamite, I can tell you.’
‘Well, you have certainly whetted my appetite, for sure. Can you just give me a hint of what it’s about? Just a flavour…’ asked Edwin.
‘All I can tell you is that you don’t know who he really is – or his background.’
‘OK then, Karen, when would you like to meet and where?’
‘Can you come over to my flat tomorrow? I’m in Speke, not far from the John Lennon Airport.’
Edwin had a quick look at his diary. ‘Yes, around 11 a.m. tomorrow. If that’s OK for you?’
‘Fine for me, Edwin. You’ll be shocked, I promise you.’
He wrote down her full address and mobile telephone number. ‘See you tomorrow, then. I shall look forward to it.’
‘You won’t regret it.’
*
Experience, plus a sensitive nose for a good news story, convinced Edwin that Karen had something genuinely interesting to impart.
‘I’ve just had an intriguing call out of the blue from Fisher’s ex-wife saying she’s got something to tell me about him that will be quite a shock… but she wasn’t prepared to tell me over the phone, so I’ve arranged to see her tomorrow over at her home in Speke,’ Edwin told Ross.
‘Are you sure it’s not some bloody ploy and you’ll find Fisher and his henchmen there when you arrive? You can’t be too careful.’
‘Hadn’t crossed my mind, to be honest. I’d have to say I think it all sounds genuine. I don’t think she has any love for the guy,’ Edwin replied.
‘OK, but I suggest you don’t go alone. Ask the picture desk if Mike is free and could go over there with you, just to be on the safe side.’
Ross Hetherington was a blunt-speaking, no-nonsense newsman who would sharply rap the knuckles of any journalist who failed to meet a deadline or whose work fell short of his high standards – but he was always fair and protective towards them. He would not let Edwin take any risks.
Edwin explained to Bill Royle on the picture desk that Ross thought it was best to double-up on the trip to Speke and, having checked his diary, he arranged for Mike to accompany him.
*
Around 9:30 a.m. the following day, Edwin met up with Mike in the photographers’ restroom and they headed off for Speke in Mike’s company car.
‘Do you know anything about this woman, Edwin?’ asked Mike as they headed out of the city.
‘Not a lot, to be frank, Mike,’ said Edwin. ‘She’s called Karen Passoa, so I reckon she must have married the guy she was having an affair with, which led to her getting kicked out by Fisher.’
‘Well, we’ll know soon enough.’
*
Within around an hour, they pulled into the forecourt of a modern block of flats a short distance from the Mersey Estuary and parked in a space marked “Visitor”. Mike rang the bell for flat number 9 and a moment later they heard a woman’s voice over the intercom.
‘Come on up, first floor on the left,’ she said.
They ignored the lift and walked up the stairs where Karen Passoa was waiting in the corridor outside her flat.
‘Hi, Karen. This is my colleague, Mike. We’ve been out on an early job in the office car so came straight here,’ Edwin explained convincingly. Mike nodded. Edwin did not feel that it would have been prudent to tell her the real reason they came as a twosome.
‘That’s OK. Come in and sit down,’ she said.
They walked through to an uncluttered, clinical-looking sitting room where they sat down at opposite ends of a cream leather sofa. Apart from a massive TV with a sixty or sixty-five-inch screen, a stereo unit and a tall glass-and-chrome unit displaying photographs, a pile of CDs and some sundry ornamental cylindrical ceramic bowls, there was little else in the room.
‘Thanks for coming over… anyway, can I get you guys a drink: tea, coffee or something stronger?’ Karen asked.
‘Coffee would be just great for me,’ said Edwin.
‘For me too,’ said Mike.
From their brief telephone conversation, Edwin had visualised that as a former glamour model now in her fifties, she would be a busty but no longer shapely blonde, wearing excessive make-up and dressed in a style of a much younger woman. Except for the fact that she had black, dyed hair, he was uncannily accurate. Her short white mini-dress left little to the imagination.
‘Well, you’ve certainly got us intrigued, Karen,’ said Edwin stirring two spoons of sugar into a mug of coffee sporting the Liverpool FC logo. ‘Do you mind if I take a few notes?’
‘Whatever, fine by me,’ she replied. Then, after taking a deep breath and crossing her legs, she began. ‘I guess the first thing you need to know is that he was not born James Karl Fisher. His real name is Karl Fischer – with the German spelling F-I-S-C-H-E-R.’
‘So, he was born in Germany, you’re saying. I thought I detected some slight accent when I went to interview him at the hospital but it was predominantly a Liverpool accent,’ mused Edwin.
‘Yes, I am pretty sure he was but he has dual nationality… and he’s gradually lost his German accent, you’re right. As far as I know, he first came over here when he was in his early twenties to take part in some international bodybuilding contest – and that’s where I first met him. I used to earn a bob or two as a cheerleader at some of the events around the country,’ Karen explained. ‘When his father died in Germany, he decided to stay here and with money that his father left in his will, he started a small haulage business which he grew into quite a big company.’
‘Did you know his father?’ asked Edwin.
‘No, I never met him. All I know is that he was called Herman Fischer. I don’t think that he liked his father much and I don’t think he ever really knew his mother. I think she was divorced from his father not long after Jim was born and he lost touch with her. His grandfather was called Otto, I think.’
‘Like Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of him. Guess it could be.’ Karen shrugged.
‘So, where did the name “James” come from?’
‘He just decided to call himself James so he could call his fitness club Jim’s Gym, or as I call it, Jim’s Whites-Only Gym. I know it’s now over near Rochdale but he had a smaller place over here in Liverpool at the same time he was running the haulage business. They were both called Jim’s Gym.’
‘That certainly explains a lot.’ Edwin glanced at Mike as he spoke.
‘Yes, he came from a big Kraut family, but, if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll tell you the real reason why he is such a horrible, violent, nasty racist pig,’ Karen said excitedly.
‘I’m sitting comfortably – go on.’ Edwin gestured for her to continue.
‘You’ll have to check out all the dates and details for yourself – you’ll be better than me at all the research stuff being a journalist – but his late father, Herman, always told him that they were related to a Nazi professor called Eugen Fischer who wrote a book about weeding out the so-called misfits and mental cases, which Adolf-bloody-Hitler read when he was in prison and which gave him the idea of his Master Race.
‘I know that Jim’s father was obsessed with this Nazi guy and he brainwashed Jim, or Karl as he have would been then, from when he was just a little lad and lived somewhere in Germany – somewhere I think near where the mad professor himself was born, in Baden something or other… I’m not sure exactly where. You might be able to find out.’
Edwin looked over at Mike, raised his eyebrows and took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That is quite a story. Dynamite, I’d say. You say that Jim’s father died?’
‘Yes, I’m pretty sure he died around twenty years or more ago when Jim would have been in his late teens, early twenties. I think he would have been about the same age as Jim is now and I think that he died of some heart condition. Must run in the family,’ said Karen.
Edwin was bursting with questions. ‘Were they both living together for some years in Germany then?’
‘That’s all a bit hazy but if he brainwashed Jim they must have been living together for quite some years, I reckon. When Jim came over to Liverpool to take part in some bodybuilding contest in his early twenties, I think he stayed here. His father stayed in Germany, I think, and was there until he died. I think he had some admin job with the public transport authority in Germany. Jim had an elder brother who he told me went to America, but I don’t know any more than that.’
‘What about Jim’s mother? Do you know anything about her?’
‘No, nothing really. He never spoke much about his mother. I’m pretty sure that his parents got divorced soon after Jim was born and he stayed with his father. I don’t know where his mother went and I don’t think Jim knew either. I think he may even have thought she was dead. If I’d stayed with Jim for longer I may have found out more about these things, but we were only together for less than three years.’
‘I gather you split up and got divorced when he found out you were having a relationship with someone else? I read something about it in a newspaper cutting,’ said Edwin.
‘That’s right. I met Fitzroy during one of the times that Jim was in prison and one thing just led to another. When he came out and found out my new man was from Jamaica, he went bloody crazy and physically threw me out. To be honest, I’d have left him anyway because his neo-Nazi activities were getting out of hand. He had the bloody cheek to say that if I’d been having a fling with a White guy he might have understood and been able to forgive me, but when he discovered Fitzroy was Jamaican, he just went bloody wild.
‘When we first met, he just used to say he did not like Jews and Blacks and I used to tell him he had no reason to say things like that, but it got worse and worse with rallies and marches, damaging synagogues, violence; and I wouldn’t have put up with that for much longer and he knew it. He was definitely brainwashed by his father who convinced him he was related to this professor who was one of Hitler’s cronies.’
‘Are you and Fitzroy now married?’ Edwin asked.
‘We are, yes, luvvy. It’s coming up to our fifth wedding anniversary soon.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
Edwin finished his mug of coffee and readjusted his position on the sofa. It had all been rather intense and the three needed a short emotional breather.
He reopened the conversation with another question, ‘Do you know anything more about Jim’s grandfather, Otto – Herman’s father?’
‘Not a lot, to be honest. But from what I did pick up from Jim, his father was also brainwashed by his father, Otto. I think he was one of Fischer’s big followers and claimed they were related. Whether they were or not, God only knows. Jim certainly never had anything to prove that they were. Again, that’s something you might want to check out.
‘It was like father like son, like son. Before we got divorced, Jim was attracting all the racists and deadbeats from all over Merseyside like flies round a pile of shit – excuse my language. He really hated everybody who did not fit into the Master Race mould – Jews, Blacks, homosexuals, Romany gypsies, even people who were disabled or mentally ill. It got really extreme. If he’d have had his way, he would have had them all sterilised, used for medical experiments or just exterminated.’
‘Just as a matter of interest, Karen, what does Fitzroy do?’ Edwin asked.
‘He’s a parks gardener. Keeps us well supplied with flowers for the flat in the spring and summer… all this is strictly off the record, you realise? If Jim thought I’d been talking to the press, he would probably send some of his heavies round. He won’t have changed… so no names, addresses or photos, sorry.’ She looked directly at Mike when she referred to photographs.
‘Absolutely, fully understand. Don’t worry about that. I’m just the driver today. Won’t be doing any photos,’ said Mike.
Edwin interposed, ‘To be honest, Karen, we couldn’t run a story in the paper anyway until everything had been carefully checked out. But I’m pretty sure that the editor will want to pursue it. We would obviously not attribute anything to you, and we’d almost certainly have to get back to Jim and he’s not likely to make any comment or confirm anything. The hospital may also take the view that as a patient still under their care, we would be hounding him and that it could affect his health. But what you’ve told us does explain a lot.’
As they prepared to leave the flat, Fitzroy returned home from work. Karen made the introductions and Edwin and Mike shook his hand.
‘Good to meet you,’ they said in unison. Then, after a few other inconsequential pleasantries, they said their goodbyes and left.
*
Even before he had reached his desk back in the newsroom, news editor Ross Hetherington broke off from a conversation with his PA.
‘Edwin, how did you get on?’
Edwin knew he only had ten seconds to “sell” the story.
‘Very good, Ross… his real name is Fischer, spelled the German way. He was brainwashed by his father who told him he was related to the Nazi professor whose book inspired Hitler’s Master Race ideology. That’s the guts of it.’
‘Bloody hell. You’re saying he’s one of Hitler’s disciples!’
‘Yes, you could say that. He was – and still is, as far as I know. But all this is strictly off the record. She made it very clear that we cannot quote her, that she would be really worried Fisher would take some sort of revenge if he discovered she had been talking to the press,’ Edwin explained.
‘We’d have to check it out anyway. We couldn’t take her word for it. We need to check out this Nazi professor – see if what she says all stacks up and if he was related to him.’
‘I shall enjoy that. Will make a start asap.’
