by David Peace
I turn around and there she is:
Naked and bitten, red streaks across her breasts, across her arse.
‘Who?’
‘Who what?’
‘Who was it?’
She slips down the wall and on to the bathroom floor, sobbing.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Four of them.’
‘Uniforms?’
‘No.’
‘Where?’
‘A van.’
‘Where?’
‘Manningham.’
‘Fuck you doing in Bradford?’
‘You said it wasn’t safe round here.’
I’ve got her in my arms, cradling her, rocking her, kissing her.
‘You want a doctor?’
She shakes her head and then looks up. ‘They took photos.’
Fuck, Craven.
‘One of them have a beard, a limp?’
‘No.’
‘You sure?’
She looks away and swallows.
There’s bright sunlight on the window, creeping across the toilet mat, getting nearer.
‘They’re dead,’ I hiss. ‘All of them.’
And then suddenly there are car doors slamming outside, boots on the stairs, banging on the doors, banging on our door.
I’m out in the room, ‘Who is it?’
‘Fraser?’
I open the door and there’s Rudkin, Ellis behind him.
Rudkin: ‘Fuck you doing here? We’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
Visions of Bobby, broken eggs and red blood on white baby cheeks, cars braking too late.
Too late.
‘What’s wrong? What is it?’
But Rudkin’s staring past me into the bathroom, at Janice on the floor:
Naked and bitten, red streaks across her breasts, across her arse.
Ellis has his mouth open, tongue out.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s been another.’
I turn and close the door in their faces.
In the bathroom I say, ‘I’ve got to go.’
She says nothing.
‘Janice?’
Nothing.
‘Love, I’ve got to go.’
Nothing.
I take a blanket off the bed and bring it into the bathroom and put it over her.
I bend down and kiss her forehead.
And then I go back to the door and when I open it they’re still stood there, peering past me.
I close the door and push between them, down the stairs and into the car.
I sit in the back, heavy duty sunlight in my face.
Rudkin drives.
Ellis keeps turning round, grinning, desperate to start up but this is Rudkin’s car and he’s in the driving seat and he’s saying nowt.
So I look out at Chapeltown, the trees and the sky, the shops and the people, and feel dull.
If it’s him, it feels different.
Blank, my mind blank:
The trees are green, not black.
The sky blue, not blood.
The shops open, not gutted.
The people on the streets living, not dead.
Noon in a different world.
And then I think of Janice:
The trees black.
The sky blood.
The shops gone.
The people dead.
And we’re back:
Millgarth, Leeds.
Saturday 4 June 1977.
Noon.
The gang’s all here:
Oldman, Noble, Alderman, Prentice, Gaskins, Evans, and all their squads.
And Craven.
I catch his eye.
He smiles, then winks.
I could kill him now, here, in the briefing room, before lunch.
He leans over to Alderman and whispers something, patting his breast pocket, and they both laugh.
Three seconds later Alderman looks at me.
I stare back.
He looks away, a slight smile.
Fuck.
They’re all whispering, I’m losing it:
Wasteground, a long black velvet dress on wasteground.
Oldman starts up:
‘At a quarter to seven this morning a paper boy heard cries for help coming from wasteland beside the Sikh temple on Bowling Back Lane in the Bowling area of Bradford. He discovered Linda Clark, aged thirty-six, lying seriously injured with a fractured skull and stab wounds to her abdomen and back. A preliminary investigation suggests that her head injuries were caused by hammer blows. She was rushed to hospital and is now in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, under twenty-four-hour guard. Despite the seriousness of her injuries, Mrs Clark has been able to give us some information. Pete.’
She’s on her stomach on the wasteground, her bra up and her panties down, his trousers too.
Noble stands:
‘Mrs Clark spent Friday night at the Mecca in the centre of Bradford. Upon leaving the Mecca, Mrs Clark went to queue for a taxi to her home in Bierley. Because the queue was too long, Mrs Clark decided to start walking and flag down a taxi on the way. At some point later, a car pulled up and offered Mrs Clark a lift, which she accepted.’
Noble pauses, shades of George.
He comes in his hand and then he cuts her.
‘Gentlemen, we’re looking for a Ford Cortina Mark II saloon, white or yellow, with a black roof.’
We’re on our feet, practically out the door.
A triangle of skin, of flesh.
‘Driver is white, approximately thirty-five, large build, about six foot, with light brown shoulder-length hair, thick eyebrows and puffed cheeks. With very large hands.’
For later.
The whole room is on fire:
WE’VE GOT HIM, WE’VE FUCKING GOT HIM.
I look at Rudkin, on the edge, impassive, miles, years away.
But it’s not the same.
Alderman is saying, ‘SOCO are checking tyre-marks as we speak, Bradford going door-to-door.’
The knock on the door, the thousand knocks on a thousand doors, a thousand wives with sideways eyes at husbands white as sheets, a thousand sheets.
Noble again: ‘Forensics will be back within the hour, but Farley’s already saying this is our man. Our Ripper,’ he says, spitting the last words out.
Unending.
Oldman stands back up, pausing before his troops, his own private little army:
‘He’s fucked up lads. Let’s get the cunt.’
We’re all up, wired.
Noble’s shouting over the electricity:
‘Into your squads: DS Alderman and Prentice to Bradford, DI Rudkin upstairs, Vice and Admin here.’
I turn and see Detective Chief Superintendent Jobson at the door, the Owl, looking drained and old, eyes red under the thick frames.
I nod and he works upstream through the crowd in the doorway. ‘How’s Bill?’ he’s saying over the noise.
‘Not good,’ I say.
We’re standing off to one side.
Maurice Jobson’s got an arm on my elbow. ‘And Louise and the little one?’
‘OK, you know.’
‘I’ve been meaning to drop by, but with all this …’ he’s looking round the room, the squads heading out, Vice and Admin standing about, Craven watching us.
‘I know, I know.’
He looks at me. ‘Must be tough on you?’
‘Worse for Louise, with Bobby every day and having to go up to the hospital.’
‘Least she’s from a police family. Knows the score.’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Give them my love, yeah? And I’ll try and get in to see Bill sometime this weekend. If I can,’ he adds.
‘Thanks.’
Then he looks at me again and says, ‘You need anything, you let me know, yeah?’
‘Thanks,’ and we’re gone; him over to George, me up the stairs thinking:
Uncle Maurice, the Owl, my guardian angel.
Rudkin and Ellis
are sat in silence in Noble’s office, waiting.
Ellis starts up the minute I come in: ‘You think we’ll have to go back to Preston?’
‘Fuck knows,’ I say, sitting down.
He keeps going, ‘What you think Boss?’
Rudkin shrugs his shoulders and yawns.
Ellis: ‘I reckon we’ll have him by tomorrow.’
Rudkin and me say nothing.
Ellis keeps talking to himself: ‘Maybe they’ll send us down Mecca. That’d be all right, have a drink and chat up some birds …’
The door opens and in comes Noble with a file.
He sits down behind his desk and opens the file: ‘Right. Donny Fairclough, white, thirty-six, lives in Pudsey with his old mum. Taxi driver. Drives a white Ford Cortina with a black roof.’
‘Fuck,’ says Ellis.
Noble’s nodding, ‘Exactly. His name came up last year with Joan Richards.’
‘He likes to bite,’ I add, thinking, naked and bitten, red streaks across her breasts, across her arse.
‘Yeah, good,’ says Noble, looking pleased. ‘We’ve had him in a couple of times …’
Rudkin looks up. ‘Blood group?’
‘B.’
We pull up on Montreal Avenue, a hundred yards down from the rank.
There’s a tap on the glass.
Rudkin winds down the window.
One of Vice leans in, big fat grin.
I’ve got him fucking Janice on the floor of a van, taking photos, sucking her tits …
‘He’s just come on.’
I come up behind them, pull him back by his hair, and slit his throat with a broken bottle …
‘Owt else?’ asks Rudkin.
‘Fuck all.’
I drag him out the van, trousers round his ankles, and I get out my camera …
Ellis is saying, ‘We should just nick the cunt. Kick it out of him.’
‘You with us?’ says Rudkin, turning round to me.
The bloke from Vice glances at me and then tosses the keys on to the back seat. ‘It’s the brown Datsun round on Calgary.’
‘Least he’ll never make us,’ laughs Ellis.
‘Off you go then,’ grins Rudkin.
‘Me?’ says Ellis.
‘Give him the keys,’ Rudkin tells me.
I pass them forward, the Vice guy still staring in at me.
‘You fucking fancy me or something?’
He smiles, ‘You’re Bob Fraser aren’t you?’
I’ve got my hand on the handle, ‘Yeah, why?’
Rudkin is saying, ‘Leave it, Bob.’
The prick from Vice is backing away from the car, doing the usual, ‘What’s his problem?’ speech.
Rudkin is out talking to him, glancing back.
Ellis turns round, sighs, ‘Fuck,’ and gets out.
I sit there in the back of the Rover, watching them.
The Vice copper walks off with Ellis.
Rudkin gets back in.
‘What’s his name?’ I ask.
Rudkin’s looking at me in the rearview mirror.
‘Just tell me his name?’
‘Ask Craven,’ he says. Then, ‘Fuck, get in the front. He’s off.’
And I’m into the front, the car starting, and we’re off.
I pick up the radio, calling Ellis.
Nothing.
‘The cunt’s still yapping,’ spits Rudkin.
‘Should’ve let me go solo,’ I say.
‘Bollocks,’ he says, glancing at me. ‘You’ve done enough bloody solo.’
We’re at the junction with Harehills.
Fairclough’s white Cortina with its black roof is turning left into Leeds.
I try Ellis again.
He picks up.
‘Get your fucking finger out,’ I’m shouting. ‘He’s heading into Leeds.’
I cut him off before he can piss off Rudkin any further.
Fairclough turns right on to Roundhay Road.
I’m writing:
4/6/77 16.18 Harehills Lane, right on to Roundhay Road.
Foot down, writing:
Bayswater Crescent.
Bayswater Terrace.
Bayswater Row.
Bayswater Grove.
Bayswater Mount.
Bayswater Place.
Bayswater Avenue.
Bayswater Road.
Then he’s right on to Barrack Road and we keep straight on.
‘Right on to Barrack Road,’ Rudkin’s shouting at me, me into the radio at Ellis.
I’ve got Ellis in the rearview, indicating right.
‘He’s on him,’ I say.
Ellis’s voice booms through the car: ‘He’s pulling up outside the clinic’
We go right and pull up past the junction on Chapeltown Road.
‘Just some fat Paki bitch with a ton of shopping,’ says Ellis. ‘Coming your way.’
We watch the Cortina pass us and turn back up the Roundhay Road.
‘Proceeding,’ I say into the radio and Rudkin pulls out.
‘Tell Ellis to pick him up again at the next lights,’ says Rudkin.
I do it.
And Rudkin pulls in.
We’re at the entrance to Spencer Place, to Janice.
I look at him.
‘You got some sorting out to do,’ he says and leans across me, opening my door.
‘What you going to say?’
‘Nowt. Be here at seven.’
‘What about Fairclough?’
‘We’ll manage.’
‘Thanks, Skip,’ I say and get out.
He pulls the door to and I watch him drive off up the Roundhay Road, radio in hand.
I check my watch.
Four-thirty.
Two and a half hours.
I knock on the door and wait.
Nothing.
I turn the handle.
It opens.
I step inside.
The window open, drawers out, bed stripped, radio on:
Hot Chocolate: So You Win Again …
The cupboards bare.
I pick a letter off the dresser.
To Bob.
I read it.
She’s gone.
Caller: And thing is, more than half these Union Jacks, they’re bloody upside-down.
John Shark: Disgusting.
Caller: No, you can laugh John, but imagine if it were a load of upside-down crosses hanging from everywhere.
John Shark: An upside-down Union Jack and an upside-down cross, they’re hardly the same.
Caller: Course they bloody are, you daft bugger. There’s a cross on flag isn’t there?
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Sunday 5th June 1977
Chapter 8
‘There’s been another,’ Hadden had said.
But I’d just lain there, waiting, watching tiny black and white Scottish men on their knees, tearing chunks of turf out of the ground with their bare hands, the phone slipping in my own hand, thinking, Carol, Carol, is this the way it will always be, forever and ever, oh Carol?
‘Press conference is tomorrow.’
‘Sunday?’
‘Monday’s a Bank Holiday.’
‘It’s going to play hell with your Jubilee coverage.’
‘She’s not dead.’
‘Really?’
‘She got lucky.’
‘You think so?’
‘Oldman reckons he was disturbed.’
‘Hats off to George.’
‘Oldman says you should get in touch the minute you receive anything.’
‘He took something then?’
‘Oldman’s not saying. And neither should you.’
Oh Carol, no wonders for the dead?
Jubelum …
There was another voice in the Bradford flat, there in the dark behind the heavy curtains.
Ka Su Peng looked up, lips moving, the words late:
‘In October last year I was a prostitute.’
Ten thousand miles to end up thus:
‘I don’t know many of the others so I’m usually alone. I do the early time on Lumb Lane, before the pubs close. He picked me up outside the Perseverance. The Percy they call it. It was a dark car, clean. He was friendly, quiet but friendly. Said he hadn’t slept much, was tired. I said, me too. Tired eyes, he had such tired eyes. He drove us to the playing fields off White Abbey and he asked me how much and I said a fiver and he said he’d give it to me after but I said I wanted it first because he might not pay me after like happened before. He said OK but he wanted me to get into the back of the car. So I got out and so did he and that’s when he hit me on the head with the hammer. Three times he hit me and I fell down on to the grass and he tried to hit me again but I closed my eyes and put up my hand and he hit that and then he just stopped and I could hear him breathing near my ear and then the breathing stopped and he was gone and I lay there, everything black and white, cars passing, and then I got up and walked to a phone box and called the police and they came to the phone box and took me to hospital.’
She was wearing a cream blouse and matching trousers, feet together, bare toes touching.
‘Can you remember what he looked like?’
Ka Su Peng closed her eyes, biting her bottom lip.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘It’s OK. I don’t want to remember, I want to forget, but I can’t forget, only remember. That’s all I do, remember.’
‘If you don’t want to talk about it …’
‘No. He was white, about five feet six inches …’
I felt a hand on my knee and there he was again, as if by magic, smiling through the gloom, meat between his teeth.
‘Stocky build …’
He patted his paunch, burped.
‘With dark wavy hair and one of them Jason King moustaches.’
He primped at his hair, stroking his moustache, that grin.
‘Did he have a local accent?’
‘No, Liverpool perhaps.’
He arched an eyebrow.
‘He said his name was Dave or Don, I’m not sure.’
He frowned and shook his head.
‘He was wearing a yellow shirt and blue jeans.’
‘Anything else?’
She sighed, ‘That’s all I can remember.’
He winked once and was gone again, as if by magic.
She said, ‘Is that enough?’
‘It’s too much,’ I whispered.
After the horror, tomorrow and the day after.