Nineteen Seventy-seven

by David Peace

  I sat there nodding, saying nothing, nodding, thinking lots:

  Revenge.

  The lights at the front changed from blue to red and back again.

  His eyes danced across the room and back to me.

  ‘I made a lot of mistakes, got in way over my head, I think she must have done the same.’

  I stared straight ahead, the band about to come on. He tipped his Scotch into his pint.

  ‘You say, she must have. Why?’ I said. ‘What makes you think that?’

  He looked up from his pint, head on his lips, and smiled. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  From the front of the stage a man in a velvet dinner jacket bellowed into a loud microphone:

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, they say we’re dying, say we’re dead and buried, well they said the same about these boys but here to prove them wrong, back from the dead, from beyond the grave, the living dead themselves, please give a big Yorkshire Clubland welcome to the New Zombies!’

  The blue curtain went up, the drums started, and the song began.

  ‘She’s Not There,’ said the skinhead, looking at the stage.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said.

  He turned back to me. ‘Spot of late night reading,’ he said and passed the bag under the table.

  I took it and started to open it.

  ‘Not here,’ he snapped, nodding to the side: ‘Bogs.’

  I got up and walked through the empty tables, glancing back at the pale youth in the black suit, head bobbing to the keyboards from the stage.

  ‘Give you hand if you want,’ he called after me.

  I shut the cubicle door and closed the toilet lid, sat down and opened the plastic bag.

  Inside was another bag, a brown paper bag.

  I opened the brown bag and pulled out a magazine.

  A nack mag, pornography.

  Cheap pornography.

  Amateurs:

  Spunk.

  The corner of one page was folded down.

  I turned to the marked page and there she was:

  White hair and pink flesh, wet red holes and dry blue eyes, legs spread and flicking her clit.

  Clare Strachan.

  I was hard.

  I was hard and she was dead.

  I came out of the toilets, back into the ballroom, the skinny woman in the long pink dress dancing alone in front of the stage, one hundred stark albino faces staring back at the bar where four coppers were talking to the barmaid, pointing at our empty table.

  Two of the police suddenly ran outside.

  The other two were looking at me.

  I had the bag in my hands.

  I was afraid, really fucking scared, and I knew why.

  The policemen walked through the tables, coming towards me, getting nearer.

  I started back the other way towards my table.

  I felt a hand on my elbow.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

  ‘The gentleman who was at your table, do you know where he might have gone?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. Why?’

  ‘Would you mind stepping outside for a moment, sir?’

  ‘No,’ I nodded, letting myself be led through the tables, the band still playing, the pink lady still dancing, the ghosts still watching me.

  Outside it was raining again and we stood together, the three of us under the canopy.

  The two policemen were both young and nervous, unsure: ‘May I have your name please, sir?’

  ‘Jack Whitehead.’

  The one looked at the other. ‘From the papers?’

  ‘Yep. Do you mind if I ask what this is about?’

  ‘The man who was at your table, we believe he may have stolen that Austin Allegro over there.’

  ‘Well I’m sorry Officer, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Don’t even know his name.’

  ‘Anderson. Barry James Anderson.’

  Bells ringing, peeling back the years.

  The two other policemen were coming back across the car park, wet and out of breath.

  ‘Fuck,’ said the older of the two, head down, hands on his knees.

  ‘Who we got here?’ asked the other.

  ‘Says he’s Jack Whitehead from the Post,’

  The fat, older copper looked up, ‘Fuck me it is and all. Talk of the bloody devil.’

  ‘Don,’ I said.

  ‘Been a while,’ he nodded.

  Not nearly fucking long enough, I was thinking, the day complete; this plagued day of blighted visions and wretched memory, no stones unturned, no bones still sleeping, the dead abroad, wrought from the living.

  ‘This is Jack Whitehead,’ Sergeant Donald Humphries was saying, the rain heavy on the canopy above our heads. ‘It was him and me who found that Exorcist job that night I was telling you about.’

  Yeah, I thought, like he ever talked about anything but that night, like for a moment he understood the things we saw that night, that night we stood before the hills and the mills, before the bones and the stones, before the living and the dead, that night Michael Williams lay naked in the rain upon his lawn and cradled Carol in his arms and stroked her bloody hair for one last time.

  But maybe I was doing him a disservice, for the smile went behind a clouded face and he shook his head and said, ‘How’ve you been Jack?’

  ‘Never better. And yourself?’

  ‘Can’t complain,’ he said. ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’

  ‘Bit of supper,’ I said.

  He pointed to the bag in my hand and smiled, ‘Spot of shopping and all?’

  ‘Less than 200 days to Christmas, Don.’

  I drove back, hitting eighty.

  I did the steps in a heartbeat, opened the door, boots off and on to the bed, opened the mag, glasses on and into Clare:

  Spunk.

  Issue 3 – January 1975.

  I turned it over, nothing.

  I opened up the inside, something:

  Spunk is published by MJM Publishing Ltd. Printed and Distributed by MJM Printing Ltd, 270 Oldham Street, Manchester, England.

  I went over to the telephone and dialled Millgarth.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Fraser please.’

  ‘I’m afraid Sergeant Fraser went off –’

  ‘Telephone down, back to the bed, back to – Carol, striking Clare’s pose.

  ‘This what you like?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘This what your dirty little Chinese bitch does?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, Jack. Fuck me.’

  I ran into the kitchen, opened the drawer, took out the carving knife.

  She had her fingers up her cunt, ‘Come on, Jack.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I shouted.

  ‘You’re going to use that are you?’ she winked.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘You should take it Bradford,’ she laughed. ‘Finish what he started.’

  I flew across the room, the knife and a boot in my hands, on to the bed, battering her head, her white skin streaked red, her fair hair dark, everything sticky and black, laughter and screams until there was nothing left but a dirty knife in my hand, grey hairs stuck to the heel of my boot, drops of blood across the crumpled colour spread of dear Clare Strachan, fingers wet and cunt red.

  My fingers were turning cold, dripping blood.

  I’d cut my hand on the carving knife.

  I dropped the knife and boot and put a thumb to my skull and felt the mark I’d made:

  I suffer your terrors; I am

  desperate.

  I turned and there she was.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I wept.

  Carol said, ‘I love you, Jack. I love you.’

  John Shark: So you didn’t reckon much to Royal Flotilla then Bob?

  Caller: Bloody weather let us down and all.

  John Shark: But them fireworks. They were a bit special …

  Caller: Oh aye, but my point is how many fofa these days, how
many remember King George’s Jubilee?

  John Shark: When was that then Bob?

  Caller: See what I mean? Nineteen-thirty-five it was John, nineteen-bloody-thirty-five.

  The John Shark Show

  Radio Leeds

  Sunday 12th June 1977

  Chapter 15

  In the dream I was sitting on the sofa again, on the wasteground, the sofa thick with blood, the blood seeping into my clothes and into my skin and next to me, sat beside me, was that journalist jack Whitehead, blood running down his face, and I looked down and Bobby was on my knee in his blue pyjamas holding a big black book and he started to cry, and I turned to jack Whitehead and said, ‘It wasn’t me.’

  She’s asleep on the big hard chair next to mine, Bobby back home with next doors.

  I get up to go, knowing he’s going to die, knowing it’ll be the minute I’m gone, but knowing I can’t stay, can’t stay knowing:

  Knowing I’ve got to find those files, find those files to find him, find him to stop him, stop him to save her, save her to end these thoughts.

  Knowing I’ve got to end these thoughts of Janice.

  Knowing I’ve got to end these thoughts of Janice, end these thoughts of Janice to end everything, end everything to start again HERE.

  Here with my wife, here with my son, here with her dying father.

  My new deal, new prayer:

  Stop him to save her,

  Save her to start again.

  To start again.

  HERE.

  She opens her eyes.

  I nod morning and apologies.

  ‘What time did you get here?’ she whispers.

  ‘After I knocked off, about eleven.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says.

  ‘Bobby with Tina?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She mind?’

  ‘She’d say if she did.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I say, looking at my watch.

  She moves to let me pass, then catches my sleeve and says, ‘Thanks again, Bob.’

  I bend down and kiss the top of her head. ‘See you later,’ I say.

  ‘See you,’ she smiles.

  I drive from Leeds to Wakefield, the Ml Sunday morning quiet, radio loud:

  Eighty-four arrested outside the Grunwick Processing Laboratories in Willesden. The Metropolitan Police accused of unnecessary brutality, aggressive and provocative tactics.

  I park on Wood Street, another shower starting, not a soul to be seen.

  ‘Bob Fraser, from Millgarth.’

  ‘And what can I do for you, Bob Fraser from Millgarth?’ asks the Sergeant on the desk as he hands back my card.

  ‘I’d like to see Chief Superintendent Jobson, if he’s about?’

  He picks up the phone, asks for Maurice, tells him it’s me, and sends me up.

  I knock twice.

  ‘Bob,’ says Maurice, on his feet, hand out.

  ‘Sorry to barge in like this, without ringing.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s good to see you Bob. How’s Bill?’

  ‘Just come from the hospital actually. Not much change though.’

  He shakes his head. ‘And Louise?’

  ‘Bearing up as ever. Don’t know how she does it.’

  And we slip into a sudden silence, me seeing that taut boned body in its striped pyjamas sipping tinned fruit off a plastic spoon, seeing him and Maurice, the Owl, with his thick lenses and heavy rims, the pair of them taking thieves, pulling villains, breaking skulls, cracking the Al Shootings, getting famous, Badger Bill and Maurice the Owl, like something out of one of Bobby’s books.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Bob?’

  ‘Clare Strachan.’

  ‘Go on,’ he says.

  ‘You know Jack Whitehead? He gave me these, got them off Alf Hill in Preston,’ and I hand him the Wakefield file references.

  Maurice reads them, looks up and asks, ‘Morrison?’

  ‘Clare Strachan’s other name.’

  ‘Right, right. Her maiden name, I think.’

  ‘You knew?’

  He pushes the frames up the bridge of his nose, nodding. ‘You pulled them?’

  Less sure, I hesitate and then say, ‘Well, that’s half of why I’m here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’ve been pulled.’

  ‘And?’

  I swallow, fidget, and say, ‘This is between us?’

  He nods.

  ‘John Rudkin took them.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They’re not in her file at Millgarth. And he’s never even mentioned them.’

  ‘You spoken to him?’

  ‘I haven’t had chance. But there’s another thing as well.’

  ‘Go on.’

  I take another deep one. ‘I went over to Preston with him a couple of weeks ago, and we went through all the files.’

  ‘About Clare Strachan?’

  ‘Yeah, and we were to take copies back. Anything we didn’t have, anything we might have missed. And, anyway, I saw one of the files he was taking back and he’d taken the originals, not copies.’

  ‘Could’ve been a mistake?’

  ‘Could have been, but it was the Inquest.’

  ‘The Coroner’s Report?’

  ‘Yeah, and the blood grouping looked wrong. Like it had been typed in later.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘B.’

  ‘And you think Rudkin had altered it?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t …’

  ‘When you were over there the last time?’

  ‘No, no. He went over after we got Joan Richards.’

  ‘But why would he want to change it? What would be the point?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m just saying it looked wrong. And one way or another he knows it’s wrong.’

  Maurice takes off his glasses, rubs his eyes, and says, ‘This is serious, Bob.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Really bloody serious.’

  He picks up the phone:

  ‘Yes. I’d like a check on two files, both Morrison, initial C. First one is 23rd August 1974, Caution for Soliciting 1A. Second one is 22nd December 1974, Witness Statement 27C, Murder of GRD initial P.’

  He puts down the phone and we wait, him cleaning his specs, me biting a nail.

  The phone rings, he picks it up, listens and asks:

  ‘OK. Who by?’

  The Owl is staring at me as he speaks, unblinking:

  ‘When was that?’

  He’s writing on the top of his Sunday paper.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He puts down the phone.

  I ask, ‘What did they say?’

  ‘A DI Rudkin signed them out.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘April 1975.’

  I’m on my feet: ‘April 1975? Fuck, she wasn’t even dead.’

  Maurice stares down at his newspaper, then looks up, eyes rounder and wider and larger than ever:

  ‘GRD-P,’ he says. ‘You know who that is?’

  I slump back down in my chair and just nod.

  ‘Paula Garland,’ he says to himself, the mind behind the glasses off and scuttling along the corridors down to his own little hells.

  I can hear the Cathedral bells.

  Palms up, I ask, ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We? Nothing.’

  I start to speak, he raises a hand and gives me a wink: ‘Leave it to your Uncle Maurice.’

  For the second time in a week I park between the lorries of the Redbeck car park, though I can’t remember much about the last time I was here.

  Just the pain.

  Now I just feel hungry, starving.

  That’s what I’m telling myself it is.

  I go into the cafe, buy a sausage and chip sandwich and two cups of hot sweet tea.

  I take them out and round to Room 27.

  I open the door and go inside.

  The ai
r is old and cold, the smell of sweat and fear, death everywhere:

  I stand in the dark centre of the room and I want to rip the soiled grey sheets down, pull the mattress from the window, burn the photos and the names from the walls, but I don’t.

  I sit on the base of the bed and think about the dead and the missing, the missing and the dead:

  Missing the dead.

  I drive back to Leeds with a splitting headache, the sandwich cold and uneaten on the passenger seat.

  I switch on the radio:

  Yes Sir I Can Boogie.

  I think about what I want to say to Rudkin, think about all the weird shit he’s said that now makes sense, think about all the shit I think he’s done, all the shit I know he’s done.

  I park and walk into Millgarth –

  into running bodies, shouts and boots, jackets on and tearing off, thinking:

  There’s been another:

  JANICE.

  ‘Fraser! Thank fucking Christ,’ shouts Noble.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get over to Morley, Gledhill Road.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s been another.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Another fucking post office.’

  ‘Shit.’

  And bang, just like that I’m back on Robbery.

  Mr Godfrey Hurst looks like someone’s sewn oranges into his skin, all the holes in his face swollen shut.

  ‘Heard the knock,’ he’s trying to say. ‘Came down the stairs and I opened the back door and thwack! Reckon they must have shoved door back in my face. Next news I’m on the floor then thwack! Reckon they must have kicked me in the head.’

  ‘That’s when I came down,’ says Mrs Doris Hurst, bird-thin, sheet-white, still stinking of piss. ‘I screamed and then one of them slapped me right hard across my face and then he put bag on my head and tied me up.’

  Around us, parents are bringing in children with broken limbs and bleeding skins, nurses leading the injured and the worried back and forward through Casualty, everyone crying.

  ‘Believe it or not,’ I say as I take down what they’re saying. ‘Believe it or not, you’re both very lucky’

  Mr Hurst squeezes his wife’s hand and tries to smile, but he can’t, he can’t because of the stitches, all thirty-five of them.

  I ask, ‘How much did they get away with?’

  ‘About seven hundred and fifty quid.’

  ‘Is that a lot for you?’

  ‘We never used to have anything at all over weekend, but Post Office they’ve stopped collecting on Saturdays.’