Nineteen Seventy-seven

by David Peace

  Suddenly she asked, ‘You think he’ll ever come back?’

  ‘Has he ever gone away?’

  ‘Sometimes, sometimes I can hear his breathing on the pillow next to me,’ she said, her sad face hewn from violence with blunt tools, black and blue leaves of hair weeping across the damage.

  I reached out across the dark, ‘May I?’

  She leant forward, parting her hair.

  In the back room she drew the curtains.

  I placed a ten pound note under the clock on the bedside table and then we sat with our backs to each other on opposite sides of the same single bed, unbuttoning our clothes on a Sunday morning in Bradford.

  I stood up and lowered my trousers.

  When I turned round she was lying on the bed, naked.

  I laid down on top of her, my penis limp.

  She moved her hand between my legs until she stopped and pushed me on to my back and leant over to the bedside table and took out a johnny.

  She placed it over my cock and then straddled me, me inside her.

  She began to move up and down, her tits just nipples, up and down, her sallow body bones, up and down, eyes closed, up and down, mouth open, up and down, up and down, up, down, up, down, up.

  I closed my eyes.

  Down.

  We dressed in silence.

  At the door I said, ‘Can I come again?’

  ‘Now?’ she asked, and we both laughed, surprised.

  Assistant Chief Superintendent George Oldman with a grave smile:

  ‘Gentlemen, as you are aware, at approximately three a.m. on Saturday morning, the 4th, Mrs Linda Clark, aged thirty-six, of Bierley, was subjected to a violent assault on wasteland behind the Sikh temple on Bowling Back Lane, Bradford. In the course of the attack, Mrs Clark sustained a fractured skull and stab wounds to her back and abdomen. On Saturday morning Mrs Clark underwent surgery and will have to undergo another operation later this week. However, despite the seriousness of her injuries, Mrs Clark has been able to provide us with a detailed account of the time leading up to her attack.’

  He paused, sipped a glass of water and continued:

  ‘Mrs Clark spent Friday night at the Mecca ballroom in the centre of Bradford. She was wearing a long black velvet dress and a green cotton jacket. At approximately two o’clock Mrs Clark left the Mecca and made her way to Cheapside where she began to queue for a taxi. About fifteen minutes later she decided to start walking back towards Bierley. About thirty minutes later Mrs Clark accepted a lift from the driver of a white or yellow Ford Cortina Mark II with a black satin-look roof which pulled up on the Wakefield Road. Mrs Clark was then driven on to Bowling Back Lane where the assault took place. Mrs Clark has been able to provide a detailed description of the driver.’

  He paused again.

  ‘The man we would like to speak to is white, approximately thirty-five years of age, about six feet and of a large build. He is described as having light brown shoulder-length hair with thick eyebrows and puffy cheeks. We would appeal for any member of the public who knows a man fitting this description and who drives a white or yellow Ford Cortina Mark II with a black roof, or who has access to such a vehicle, to please contact the Bradford Incident Room or their local police station as a matter of some urgency.’

  Another sip of water, another pause.

  ‘I would like to add that forensic evidence gathered at the scene of the attack leads me to believe that the man responsible for the assault upon Mrs Clark is the same man who murdered Theresa Campbell, Clare Strachan, Joan Richards, and Marie Watts, the same man who we believe assaulted Joyce Jobson in Halifax in 1974, Anita Bird in Cleckheaton also in 1974, and Miss Ka Su Peng in Bradford last October.’

  Pause.

  The whole room:

  The Yorkshire Ripper.

  I wrote: Clare Strachan?

  I circled her name.

  Oldman was asking for questions:

  ‘Roger?’

  ‘Would the Assistant Chief Constable care to elaborate on the forensic evidence that points to this latest attack being the work of the, the work of the Yorkshire Ripper?’

  ‘At this point, no.’

  He’s getting away …

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘The description given by Mrs Clark seems to contradict previous descriptions that have been issued. For example, both Anita Bird and Ka Su Peng said that their attacker had dark curly hair and a beard or moustache …’

  George, his knife out:

  ‘Yes but Jack, the lady in Bradford, Miss Peng, she claimed her attacker also had a Scouse accent which contradicted Anita Bird and the description Miss Bird herself gave was based on the assumption that the man who passed her in the street was the same man who later attacked her.’

  ‘An assumption you previously supported.’

  ‘That was then, Jack. That was then.’

  I walked back through the deserted Kirkgate Market, through the quiet Sunday city streets, through the bunting, all red, white, and blue, under the three o’clock sun.

  I turned into a cobbled alley out of the heat, searching for the wall and a word written in red.

  But the word was gone or the alley wrong and the only words were Hate and Leeds.

  So I walked up Briggate and on to the Headrow, up to the Cathedral and went inside.

  I sat down at the back, in the cold quiet black, sweating from the stroll, panting like a dog.

  There was an old woman with a walking stick trying to stand up in the front pew, a child reading a prayer book, dark low lights at the altar, the statues and the paintings, their eyes on me.

  I looked up, my sweat dry, my breathing slow.

  And there I was before Him, before the cross, thinking about fucking and murders with hammers, seeing the nails in his hands, thinking about fucking and murders with screwdrivers, seeing the nails in his feet, the tears in their eyes, the tears in His, the tears in mine.

  And then the child led the old woman by the hand down the aisle and when they reached my pew they paused under the statues and the paintings, the shadows against the altar, and the child held out his open prayer book and I took it from him and watched them walk away.

  And I looked down and I read aloud the words I found:

  Psalm 88

  For my soul is full of troubles,

  and my life draws near to Sheol.

  I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;

  I am like those who have no help,

  like those forsaken among the dead,

  like the slain that lie in the grave,

  like those whom you remember no more,

  for they are cut off from your hand.

  You have put me in the depths of the Pit,

  in the regions dark and deep.

  Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

  and you overwhelm with all your waves.

  You have caused my companions to shun me;

  you have made me a thing of horror to them.

  I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

  my eyes grow dim through sorrow.

  Every day I call on you, O Lord;

  I spread out my hands to you.

  Do you work wonders for the dead?

  Do the shades rise up to praise you?

  Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

  or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

  Are your wonders known in the darkness,

  Or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

  But I, O Lord, cry out to you;

  in the morning my prayer comes before you.

  O Lord, why do you cast me off?

  Why do you hide your face from me?

  Wretched and close to death from my youth up,

  I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.

  Your wrath has swept over me;

  your dread assaults destroy me.

  They surround me like a flood all day long;

  from all sides they close in on me.

  You have caus
ed friend and neighbour to shun me;

  my companions are in darkness.

  Fucking and murders with hammers, the nails in His hand, fucking and murders with screwdrivers, the nails in His feet, fucking and murders, the tears in their eyes, fucking, the tears in His, murders, tears in mine.

  ‘We can go upstairs right now and it’ll all be over.’

  And I ran from the Cathedral, through the double wooden doors, running from the hammer, through the hot black streets, running from Him, through the red bunting, the white and blue all gone, running from them all, through 5 June 1977, running.

  Oh Carol.

  And then finally I stood before the Griffin, my clothes in flames, hands and eyes to the sky, shouting:

  ‘Carol, Carol there’s got to be another way.’

  The office was dead.

  I sat down at my desk and I typed:

  RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN

  Police yesterday stepped up the hunt for the so-called Yorkshire Kipper, the man police believe could be responsible for the murders of four prostitutes and assaults upon three other women, following a fourth attack on Saturday morning.

  Mrs Linda Clark, aged thirty-six of Bierley, Bradford, was attacked on wasteland off Bowling Back Lane, Bradford, following a night out at the city’s Mecca Ballroom.

  Mrs Clark suffered a fractured skull and stab wounds to her stomach and back, after accepting a lift from a driver on the Wakefield Road. Mrs Clark will undergo a second operation later this week.

  The police issued the following description of the vehicle and the driver they would like to question in relation to the attack upon Mrs Clark:

  The man is white, approximately thirty-five years old, about six feet tall and of a large build. He has light brown shoulder-length hair and thick eyebrows. He was driving a white or light-coloured Ford Cortina Mark II with a black roof. Police urged any member of the public with information to contact the Bradford Incident Room direct on 476532 or 476533 or their local police station as a matter of some urgency.

  I stopped typing and opened my eyes.

  I walked upstairs and placed the sheet of paper in Bill’s tray.

  I started to walk away but then I turned back, took out my pen and in red ink I wrote across the top:

  It’s not him.

  I walked down the steps and out of the dark and into yet more. The Press Club, Sunday-night busy.

  George Greaves, head down on the table, the laces of his boots tied together, Tom and Bernard struggling to light their own fags.

  ‘Busy day?’ said Bet.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘He’s keeping you on your toes, this Ripper of yours.’

  I nodded and tipped the Scotch down my throat.

  Steph squeezed my elbow. ‘Another?’

  ‘Just to be sociable.’

  ‘Not like you, Jack,’ she laughed.

  Bet filled the glass again. ‘Don’t know, he had a visitor earlier.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Young guy, skinhead.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve seen him before, but for life of me I can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

  ‘No. Another?’

  ‘Only sociable, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ I said and downed the next one.

  I paused upon the stair and then opened the door.

  The room was empty, the windows open, my dirty curtains booming like grey sails on a big old Bride Ship bound for a New World, the warm night air fingering through me.

  I sat down and poured myself another taste of Scotland, drank it, and picked up my book but began to drowse.

  And that was when she came to me, there in the foothills I thought so fucking high, like I’d come so very, very far.

  She put her hands over my eyes, cold as two dead stones:

  ‘Did you miss me?’

  I tried to look round but I was so weak.

  ‘Did you miss me, Jackie boy?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Good,’ and she put her mouth on mine.

  I fled her tongue, her hard long tongue.

  She stopped, her hand on my cock.

  ‘Fuck me, Jack. Fuck me like you fucked that whore before.’

  The road consists of six narrow garages, each splattered with white graffiti, the doors showing remnants of green paint. They lie off Church Street, the garages forming a passage to the multi-storey car park at the other end. All six garages are owned by a Mr Thomas Morrison who died intestate and the garages have thus fallen into disrepair and disuse. Number 6 has become a home of sorts for the homeless, destitute, alcoholics, drug-addicted and prostitutes of the area.

  It’s small, about twelve feet square, and entered through either of the double doors at the front. There are packing cases for tables, piles of wood and other rubbish. A fierce fire has been burning in a makeshift grate and the ashes disclose the remains of clothing. On the wall opposite the door is written The Fisherman’s Widow in wet red paint. In every other space are bottles, sherry bottles, bottles of spirits, beer bottles, bottles of chemicals, all empty. A man’s pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window, the only one, looking out on nothing.

  I woke, his breath still warm and rank upon my pillow.

  They had my books off my shelves, strewn across the room, all my little Jack the Ripper books, the whole bloody lot of them, and my tapes too, they had them out of my bottom drawer, all of my little tapes in all of their little cases with all of their neat little dates and places, all of them strewn across the room, my cuttings too.

  She flew across the room, a scrap of paper between her teeth:

  Preston, November 1975.

  I was on my feet on my bed then on the floor on my knees:

  I suffer your terrors; I am

  desperate.

  A diary.

  I suffer your terrors; I am

  desperate.

  There had been a diary.

  I pulled the room apart, the six of them whirling and wailing in murderous cacophony, books in the air, tapes on the floor, cuttings to the wind, fingers in my ears, their hands across my eyes, their lies, my books, his lies, my tapes, her lies, my cuttings, her fucking diary:

  I suffer your terrors; I am

  desperate.

  The telephone was ringing.

  John Shark: Well, Sir Robert Mark said and I quote [reads]: The cancer of corruption which existed in the Obscene Publications Squad has been exposed and exorcised.

  Caller: Bollocks John, that’s what it is.

  John Shark: You’re not impressed?

  Caller: Course I’m not. He also said that none of it would have come to light if it hadn’t have been for the bleeding press. Not very bloody reassuring that, is it? Relying on your lot.

  John Shark: I believe Sir Robert said the whole country owes us a debt.

  Caller: Not from me you don’t. Not from me.

  The John Shark Show

  Radio Leeds

  Monday 6th June 1977

  Chapter 9

  Fuck Oldman.

  Fuck Noble.

  Fuck Rudkin.

  Fuck Ellis.

  Fuck Donny Fairclough.

  Fuck the fucking Ripper.

  Fuck Louise.

  Fuck them all.

  She’s gone:

  I’m gone

  In a hell.

  Battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me.

  In a hell of fireworks.

  I’m out of her room and back across the hall, through the door, Keith gone, Karen looking up from the bed with a ‘not again, the fuck …’ and I pull her from the bed, across the floor, just a pair of pink knickers, tits out, shouting into her face, ‘She’s gone, taken her stuff, where she go?’ and she’s under me, hands across her face because I’m slapping the shit out of her because if anyone knows where Janice is it’s Kare
n Burns, white, twenty-three, convicted prostitute, drug addict, mother of two, and I slap her again and then I look down at her bleeding lips and nose, the bloody smears on her chin and neck, her tits and arms, and I pull off her pink knickers and drag her back to the bed and pull open my trousers and push it into her and she’s not even struggling, just shifting my weight on the bed so I come out and now she’s looking up at me and I slap her again and turn her over and she starts struggling, saying we don’t need to do it like this but I just push her face down into the dirty sheet and bring my cock up and stick it in her arse and she’s screaming and it’s hurting me but I keep going until I come and fall back on to the floor and she’s lying there on the bed, semen and blood running down her thighs, her arse in my face, and I get up and do it again and this time it doesn’t hurt and she’s quiet and then I come and go.

  In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone.

  I’m lying on the floor of the phone box, it’s dark outside except for the bonfires and street lights, the fireworks and the headlights, the big Chapeltown trees bending over me, the owls in the trees with their wide, wide fucking round eyes, and I’m cursing Maurice fucking Jobson, Uncle Maurice, the Owl, my guardian angel, with his least she’s from a police family. Knows the score speech and all that you need anything, you let me know bollocks: well come down here to this fucking box and get me out of here and bring her back to me, come on cunt before I take a knife to those wings, those stinking black wings, those stinking black fucking wings of death, come on and bring her back to me, here in my little red box, here in my dark age, my stone age, the dead age, cradling the receiver, bring her back to see me crying, see me weeping, see me sobbing in a ball on a phone box floor, the hair in my hands, the bloody hair in my hands, the bloody clumps of hair in my hands.

  In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone.

  ‘The fuck …’

  I’ve got Joe fucking Rose by his throat, heavy smoke across the room, mattress against the window, two sevens painted on every surface, the dumb stoned fucking chimpanzee shitting his pants.

  ‘I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘So tell me …’

  He’s shaking, white-ball-eyes to the ceiling, stuttering: ‘Janice?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know where she is, man. I swear.’