Nineteen Seventy-seven

by David Peace

  ‘Mr Hollis. He’s the Senior Warden.’

  ‘And what time will he be in?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s on holiday. Blackpool.’

  ‘Nice. When does he get back?’

  ‘Next Monday, I think.’

  ‘Right. I’m sorry, my name’s Jack Whitehead.’

  ‘You’re not a copper, are you?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘They were here a couple of days ago, that’s all. So who are you?’

  ‘I’m a journalist. For Yorkshire Post.’

  That didn’t seem to make him feel any better. ‘This about Clare Strachan then? The woman who used to live here?’

  ‘Yeah. Is that what the police wanted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You speak to them did you?’

  ‘Yes. I wish Mr Hollis was here.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘I think you better come back when Mr Hollis is here.’

  ‘Well, actually you could save him some bother. I only want to ask a couple of questions. Nothing for the paper.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Just background. Is there anywhere we could sit down? Just for a couple of minutes?’

  He pushed his glasses up his nose again and pointed to the white light at the end of the corridor.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name?’ I said as I followed him into a dreary lounge, the rain in pools at the bottom of the old spoiled windowframe.

  ‘Colin Minton.’

  I shook his hand and said again, ‘Jack Whitehead.’

  ‘Colin Minton,’ he repeated.

  ‘Polo?’ I offered and took a seat.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘So Colin, you worked here long?’

  ‘About six months.’

  ‘So you weren’t here when it all happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is there anyone about who was? This Mr Hollis?’

  ‘No. Just Walter.’

  ‘Walter?’

  ‘Walter Kendall, the blind bloke. He lives here.’

  ‘He was here two years ago?’

  ‘Yeah. He was one of her friends.’

  ‘Would it be possible to have a word?’

  ‘If he’s in.’

  I stood up. ‘Get out much does he?’

  ‘No.’

  I followed Colin Minton out of the lounge and up two flights of dark stairs to a narrow corridor. We walked down the linoleum passageway to the room at the very end.

  Colin Minton knocked on the door, ‘Walter, it’s Colin. I’ve got someone here to see you.’

  ‘Bring him in,’ came back a voice.

  Inside the tiny room a man sat at a table before a window of running rain, his back to us.

  Colin’s face had gone red. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. Jack?’

  ‘Jack Whitehead,’ I said to the back of the man’s head. ‘From the Yorkshire Post.’

  ‘I know,’ said the man.

  ‘You’re Walter Kendall?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  Colin shifted from foot to foot, trying to smile.

  ‘It’s all right, Colin,’ said Walter. ‘You can leave us.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said as Colin Minton made his exit, closing the door behind him.

  I sat down on the small bed, Walter Kendall still facing the other way.

  A train went past outside, shaking the window.

  ‘Must be two o’clock,’ said Walter.

  I looked down at my watch. ‘Unless it’s late.’

  ‘Be like you then,’ said Walter, turning.

  And for a moment that face, Walter Kendall’s face, it was the face of Martin Laws, of Michael Williams, the face of the living, the face of the dead.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re late, Mr Whitehead.’

  That face, those eyes:

  That grey unshaven face, those white unseeing eyes.

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean?’

  ‘She’s been dead almost two years.’

  That tongue, that breath.

  That white tongue, that black breath.

  ‘I’m here following a remark made by the Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, when he recently suggested that Clare Strachan could have been murdered by the same man who has been murdering prostitutes in the West Yorkshire area.’

  Mr Kendall said nothing, waiting.

  So I said again, ‘So I’m here to look into any connection there might be and any information you can give would be greatly appreciated.’

  Another train, another shake.

  And then he said: ‘In the August we went into Blackpool, me and Clare. She’d heard her kids were coming down with her Aunty or someone. Scottish Week it was. So we got the first coach in and she could hardly sit still could Clare. Said she was going to wet herself, she was that excited. And it was a lovely day, wide blue sky, first thing, all clean as a new pin. And we met her daughters and her Aunty under the Tower and they were such lovely little things, all red hair and new teeth. About four and two I think they must have been. And there were a lot of tears because it had been a year or more and Clare, she had their Christmas presents from the year before and their smiles, Clare said it was almost worth the wait. And we went down on to the sands and it was still quiet, the tide just gone, the beach all engraved ridges and ripples and she took them down to the foam, the surf, and they took off their shoes and socks and kicked through the little waves the three of them, and me and the Aunty we just sat on the wall watching them, the Aunty crying and me too. Then we all five of us went to get ice-cream at some back-street place Clare knew and it was lovely stuff, Italian, and Clare had a Cappuccino with bits of chocolate flake on the top and because I liked look of it so much she bought me one as well as my ice-cream, then we went round some of the arcades and put the little ones on the donkeys even though Clare she thought that it was cruel, keeping the donkeys like they do but it was such a laugh because one of them donkeys he had a mind of his own he did and he sets off with the eldest one on board, sets off at a right pace, and she’s loving it the little girl is, laughing her head off, but there’s the donkey man and the rest of us chasing them up the beach, caught them in the end but it took some doing and I don’t think donkey man thought it was so funny but we were in stitches we were. Then we had a lunch up in the Lobster Pot, bloody big fishes they do there, Moby Dicks Clare called them. Nice cup of tea too, strong as Scotch they say. Then we took a tram up to the Pleasure Beach and you should have seen them, Mr Whitehead, spinning around in them giant tea-cups, riding in flowers, wearing daft hats and sucking on huge pink sticks of rock, but I found Clare, outside the Gold Mine she was, big tears down her cheeks because they had to get the five o’clock train or something and the Aunty was saying that they’d maybe come down again for the Illuminations, get a special coach, but Clare was shaking her head, the little ones hanging off her neck, knowing that this was it and I couldn’t watch at the station, it was too much, them all saying their goodbyes, the youngest not knowing what it was all about but the other one just sucking in her lips like her Mummy and not letting go of her hand, terrible it was, the heart’s not built for that stuff and after, after we went to the Yates’ and she got so pissed, so fucking pissed, but who can blame her Mr Whitehead, a day like that, living like she did, knowing what she did, eight weeks later fucked up the arse, her chest crushed by size ten boots, never to see those little girls again, their beautiful red hair, their new teeth, can you blame her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But they do, don’t they?’

  I stared past him, the rain on the window, an underwater cave, a chamber of tears.

  ‘Are you going to print that?’

  I stared at him, the tears on his cheeks, trapped in this underwater cave, this chamber of tears.

  I swallowed, caught my breath
at last and said: ‘The night she died, who knew who she was going to meet?’

  ‘Everybody did.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Whitehead, I think you know who it was.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Walter Kendall held his fingers up to the rain:

  ‘Where you seek one there’s two, two three, three four. Where you seek four there’s three, three two, two one and so on. But you know this anyway.’

  I was on my feet, shouting at the blind man with the white eyes and the grey face, shouting into those eyes, that face:

  ‘Tell me!’

  He spoke quickly, one finger in the air:

  ‘Clare left the pub up the road, St Mary’s, at ten-thirty. We told her not to go, told her she shouldn’t, but she was tired Mr Whitehead, so fucking tired of running. They said, your taxi’s here but she just walked up the street, up to French, up through the rain, rain worse than this, up to a car parked in the dark at the top, and we just watched her go.’

  ‘Go to who?’

  ‘A policeman.’

  ‘A policeman? Who?’

  Lancashire Police Headquarters, Preston.

  A big plainclothes with a moustache showed me up to the second-floor offices of Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill.

  The big man knocked on the door, and I popped in another polo.

  ‘You can go in,’ said the plainclothes.

  ‘Jack Whitehead,’ I said, hand out.

  The small man behind the desk put away his handkerchief and took my hand.

  ‘Have a seat, Mr Whitehead. Have a seat.’

  ‘Jack,’ I said.

  ‘Well Jack, can I get you anything to drink: tea, coffee, something stronger. Toast the Queen?’

  ‘I’d better not. Got a long drive back.’

  ‘Right, so what is it brings you over our way then?’

  ‘Like I said on the telephone, it’s the Clare Strachan murder and what George Oldman said a couple of days ago, about the possibility of there being a link …’

  ‘With the Ripper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘George was saying how it was you who coined that one.’

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘Unfortunately?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, you should be proud. Good piece of journalistic licence like that, should be proud.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘George thinks publicity will help him. You’ve done him a favour.’

  ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that, wouldn’t say that at all. Case like this, you can’t do anything without the public’

  ‘You got quite a bit with Clare Strachan at first.’

  He’d taken out his handkerchief again, examining the contents, about to add some more, ‘Not really’

  ‘Did you get anywhere with the diary?’

  ‘The diary?’

  ‘You seemed to think at the time that there was a diary in her missing bag.’

  He was coughing hard, a hand on his chest.

  ‘Did anything ever come of that?’

  His face was bright red, panting into his hankie, whispering, ‘No.’

  ‘What made you think there was a diary?’

  Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill had his hand up:

  ‘Mr Whitehead …’

  ‘Jack, please.’

  ‘Jack, I’m not quite sure what we’re doing here. Is this an interview, is that what we’re doing here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you’re not going to print any of this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So like, what exactly are we going through all this for? I mean, if you’re not going to print anything?’

  ‘Well, background. Given the possibility that it’s the same man.’

  He took a sip of water, disappointed.

  I said, ‘I don’t mean to waste your time.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant, Jack. Not what I meant at all.’

  ‘Can I ask you then, sir, do you think this murder, that it is the same man?’

  ‘Off the record?’

  ‘Off the record.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And on the record?’

  ‘There are certainly similarities,’ he said, nodding at the window, ‘similarities, as my erstwhile colleague across those hills has said.’

  ‘So off the record, what makes you think it’s not the same man?’

  ‘We had over fifty men on her, you know.’

  ‘I thought it was eighty?’

  He smiled. ‘All I’m saying is we did a thorough job on her, very thorough. It’s been said that because of who she was, her history, what she was, that we didn’t give it priority but I can tell you we worked flat out while we could. It’s a lie, a complete lie to say that we don’t take things like what happened to her seriously. Of course something like the murder of a kiddie, course it gets the headlines, gets the attention and keeps it, but I was one of first in that garage and I’ve seen some stuff, stuff like Brady and his, but what they’d done to her, slag or not, well no-one deserves that. No-one.’

  He was away, far away, back in that garage, back with his own tapes.

  And we sat there, in our silences, until I said:

  ‘But it wasn’t him.’

  ‘No. From what George has shown us, what we’ve heard from the lads they sent over, no.’

  ‘Can you be specific?’

  ‘Look, George wants them linked. I’m not going to touch that.’

  ‘OK. So how’s George linked them?’

  ‘Off the record?’

  ‘Off the record.’

  ‘Blood group, life-style of the victim, head injuries, and some positioning of the body, some arrangement that we’re not publicising.’

  ‘Blood group?’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘Which group?’

  ‘B.’

  ‘B. That’s rare.’

  ‘Ish. Nine per cent.’

  ‘I’d call that rare.’

  ‘I’d call it inconclusive.’

  ‘So what makes you so conclusively against it?’

  ‘Clare Strachan was penetrated, sodomised twice, once postmortem, hit on the head with a blunt instrument, but not fatally, throttled, but not fatally, and after all that she was finally killed, finally killed by a punctured lung which was caused by someone jumping up and down on her chest until one of her ribs snapped off and speared her lung, flooding it with blood so she choked, drowned.’

  Again we sat in our silences, our desperate little silences, our nails down the window panes, our faces to the glass, wanting out out out.

  ‘Can I ask you one more question then?’

  He folded up the handkerchief again and nodded.

  ‘You interviewed the people from the hostel?’

  ‘St Mary’s? Yes. Had them all in.’

  I paused, my lips dry, a terrible vision on the hills out the window, above the room, a vision of the drunk and the mental, the drunk and the mental howling at a moon glimpsed through cell bars, bars high on a dark cell wall.

  Eventually I said, ‘And what did they tell you? What did they say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you speak to a Walter Kendall?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘The blind man? Repeatedly’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  Alfred Hill, Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill, he looked me dead for the first time and he said:

  ‘Mr Whitehead, you have an extremely high reputation among the men of the West Yorkshire force, a high reputation as a diligent crime reporter who assists investigations and I’m prepared to give a lot of rope on that account, a lot of rope, but I must say I object to the insinuation.’

  ‘What insinuation?’

  ‘I am well, well aware of the things Mr Kendall has said, has said repeatedly, and I’m surprised that a journalist, a man
of your reputation, surprised you would even credit such nonsense with a question.’

  I smiled. ‘So I’ll take it that it’s not a line of inquiry you are presently pursuing, shall I?’

  Alfred Hill said nothing.

  ‘One last question?’

  He sighed.

  ‘You said that Clare Strachan was a prostitute?’ He nodded.

  ‘Did she have convictions?’

  He was tired, wanted me gone and said, ‘See for yourself,’ and pushed an open file towards me.

  I leant forward.

  On a typed sheet, two dates:

  23/08/74.

  22/12/74.

  Next to each date, letters and numbers:

  See WKFD/MORRISON-C/CTNSOL1A.

  See WKFD/MORRISON-C/MGRD-P/WSMT27C.

  ‘What do they refer to?’

  ‘One’s a caution for soliciting, one a statement.’

  ‘WKFD?’

  ‘Wakefield.’

  In the car, on the Moors, in tears, on my cheeks.

  Laughing:

  Big fucking howling gales of laughter, foot down through another bucket of Jubilee piss.

  Laughing:

  Thinking, dumb, dumb, dumb.

  Looking in the rearview, asking myself:

  ‘Do I look like a violin?’

  Laughing:

  Hell’s teeth he was thick, thicker than I could have ever dreamt.

  Laughing:

  Because he was thick and he was mine.

  Laughing:

  Foot down, window open, head out in the rain, shouting:

  ‘So fucking play me.’

  Laughing:

  ‘Go on cunt, play me!’

  I pulled up just past a red box, put my jacket up over my ears and ran for it.

  I dialled.

  ‘I want to come over.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she half-laughed.

  It had stopped raining just as it started to get dark, just to give them their street parties, just to let them light their stupid beacons.

  Ka Su Peng was waiting at the corner of Manningham and Queens, short black hair and dirty skin, in a black dress and tights, a bag and a jacket over her arm.

  I pulled up and she got in.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘You don’t want to use the flat?’

  ‘No, not if you don’t mind.’

  ‘It’s your money,’ she said and I wished she hadn’t, really wished she hadn’t said that.

  So I turned left and left again until we were going down Whetley Hill and she said, ‘Where are we going?’