by David Peace
On my knees, through the pile, stacking doubles to one side and holding on to every different issue I came to, clutching their plastic wrappings.
‘This it?’
‘Maybe some in the back.’
‘I want them.’
‘All right, all right.’
‘All of them.’
I stood there while Joe went into the back, stood there in the bright pink light, the cars outside in the rain, the blokes browsing, giving it to me sideways.
Joe came back, six or seven in his hands.
‘That it?’
‘You must have them all.’
I looked down and saw I’d got a good thirteen or fourteen.
‘It still going?’
‘No.’
‘How much?’
He tried to take them from me but then said, ‘How many you got there?’
I counted, dropping them and then picking them up, until I said, ‘Thirteen.’
‘Eight forty-five.’
I handed him a tenner.
‘You want a bag?’
But I was gone.
In the Market toilets, the cubicle door locked, on the floor, ripping open plastic bags, tearing through the pages, through the pictures and the photographs, the photographs of bums and tits, cunts and cuts, the hairy bits, the dirty bits, the bloody, bloody red bits, until I came – came to the yellow bits.
This is why people die.
This is why people.
This is why.
I stood upright in another box and dialled.
‘George Oldman, please.’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Jack Whitehead.’
‘Just a moment.’
I stood and waited inside the box.
‘Mr Whitehead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Assistant Chief Constable Oldman’s office is not accepting any more calls from the press. Could you please call Detective Inspector Evans on – ’
I hung up and puked down the inside of the red telephone box.
On my bed, a bed of paper and pornography, in prayer, the telephone ringing and ringing and ringing, the rain against the windows falling and falling and falling, the wind through the frames blowing and blowing and blowing, the knocks on the door knocking and knocking and knocking.
‘What happened to our Jubilee?’
‘It’s over.’
‘To remission and forgiveness, an end to penance?’
‘I can’t forgive the things I don’t even know’
‘I do, Jack. I have to.’
The telephone was ringing and ringing and ringing and she was still beside me on the bed.
I lifted up her head to free my arm, to stand.
Barefoot, I went to the telephone.
‘Martin?’
‘Jack? It’s Bill.’
‘Bill?’
‘Christ, Jack. Where you been? All bloody hell’s broken loose.’
I stood there in the dark, nodding.
‘Turns out the dead prostitute in Bradford, it’s only Fraser’s bloody girlfriend and that it’s him they’re holding.’
I looked back over at the bed, at her still on the bed.
Jane Ryan, read Janice.
Bill was saying, ‘Then Bradford got a letter from Ripper and they didn’t say anything to Oldman or anyone and they’ve only gone and fucking printed it in the morning edition, and sold it on to The Sun.’
I stood there, in the dark.
‘Jack?’
‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘Shit creek, mate. You better come in.’
I dressed in the dawn light, the dim light, and left her still on the bed.
On the stairs, I looked at my watch.
It had stopped.
Outside, I walked down the road to the Paki shop on the corner and bought a Telegraph & Argus.
I sat on a low wall, my back in a hedge, and read:
RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?
Yesterday morning the Telegraph & Argus received the following letter from a man claiming to be Yorkshire’s Jack the Ripper killer.
Tests carried out by independent experts and information from reliable police sources lead us here at the Telegraph & Argus to believe that this letter is genuine, and not the first such letter this man has sent.
We here at the Telegraph & Argus, however, believe the British Public should have the right to judge for yourselves.
From Hell.
Dear George
I am sorry I cannot give my name for obvious reasons. I am the Ripper. I’ve been dubbed a maniac by the Press but not by you, you call me clever cause you know I am. You and your boys haven’t a clue that photo in the paper gave me fits and that bit about killing myself, no chance. I’ve got things to do. My purpose is to rid streets of them sluts. My one regret is that young lassie Johnson, did not know cause changed routine that nite but warned you and XXXX XXXXXXXXX at Post.
Up to number five now you say, but there’s a surprise in Bradford, get about you know.
Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.
Sorry about young lassie.
Yours respectfully
Jack the Ripper.
Might write again later I not sure last one really deserved it. Whores getting younger each time. Old slut next time hope.
The next headline:
DID THE POLICE AND THE POST KNOW?
I sat on the low wall, bile in my mouth, blood on my hands, crying.
This is why people die.
This is why people.
This is why.
Caller: They’re going to let that bloody Neilson bloke, that Black Panther, going to let him appeal aren’t they?
John Shark: You’re against that are you Bob?
Caller: Well makes me laugh, it does. They’re locking up all the sodding coppers and setting free bloody criminals.
John Shark: You reckon you’ll notice?
Caller: Fair point, John. Fair point.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Tuesday 14th June 1977
Chapter 18
I open my eyes and say:
‘I didn’t do it.’
And John Piggott, my solicitor, stubs out his cigarette and says, ‘Bob, Bob, I know you didn’t.’
‘So get me fucking out of here.’
I close my eyes and say:
‘But I didn’t do it.’
And John Piggott, my solicitor, a year younger and five stone fatter, says, ‘Bob, Bob, I know.’
‘So why the fuck do I have to report to Wood Street bloody Nick every fucking morning?’
‘Bob, Bob, let’s just take it and get you out of here.’
‘But this means they can just pick me up any fucking time they want, haul me back in here.’
‘Bob, Bob, they can anyway. You know that.’
‘But they’re not going to charge me?’
‘No.’
‘Just suspend me without pay and have me report in every fucking morning until they find a way to fit me up?’
‘Yes.’
The Sergeant on the desk, Sergeant Wilson, he hands me my watch and the coins from my trousers.
‘Don’t be buying no tickets to Rio now.’
I say, ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘No-one said you did,’ he smiles.
‘So keep it fucking shut, Sergeant.’
And I walk away, John Piggott holding the door open for me.
But Wilson calls after me:
‘Don’t forget: ten o’clock, tomorrow, Wood Street.’
In the car park, the empty car park, John Piggott unlocks the car door.
‘Take a deep breath,’ he says, doing just that.
I get into the car and we go, Hot Chocolate on the radio again.
John Piggott pulls up on Tammy Hall Street, Wakefield, just across from the Wood Street Police Station.
‘I’ve just to nip in and get something,’ he says and heads into the old
building and up the stairs to his first-floor office.
I sit in the car, the rain on the windscreen, the radio playing, Janice dead, and I feel like I’ve been here before.
She was pregnant.
In a dream, in a vision, in a buried memory, I don’t know which or where, but I know I’ve been here before.
And it was yours.
‘Where to?’ asks Piggott as he gets back in.
‘The Redbeck,’ I say.
‘On the Doncaster Road?’
‘Yeah.’
She lay down beside me on the floor of Room 27 and I felt grey, finished.
I close my eyes and she’s under them, waiting.
She stood before me, her cracked skull and punctured lungs, pregnant, suffocated.
I open my eyes and rinse cold water over my face, down my neck, grey, finished.
John Piggott comes in with two teas and a chip sandwich.
It stinks out the room, the sandwich.
‘Fuck is this place?’ he asks, eyes this way and that.
‘Just somewhere.’
‘How long you had it?’
‘It’s not really mine.’
‘But you got the key?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Must cost a bloody fortune.’
‘It’s for a friend.’
‘Who?’
‘That journalist, Eddie Dunford.’
‘Fuck off?’
‘No.’
I stepped out of the old lift and on to the landing.
I walked down the corridor, the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.
I came to a door and stopped.
Room 77.
I wake and Piggott’s still sleeping, wedged under the sink. I count coins and head out into the rain, collar up.
In the lobby, under the on/off strip lighting, I dial.
‘Speak to Jack Whitehead, please?’
‘One moment.’
In the lobby, under the on/off lighting, I wait, everything gone quiet.
‘Jack Whitehead speaking.’
‘This is Robert Fraser.’
‘Where are you?’
‘The Redbeck Motel, just outside Wakefield on the Doncaster Road.’
‘I know it.’
‘I need to see you.’
‘Likewise.’
‘When?’
‘Give us half an hour?’
‘Room 27. Round the back.’
‘Right.’
In the lobby, under the on and the off, I hang up.
I open the door, Piggott awake, bringing a bucket of rain in with me.
‘Where you been?’
‘Phone.’
‘Louise?’
‘No,’ and know I should have.
‘Who did you call?’
‘Jack Whitehead.’
‘From the Post?’
‘Yeah. You know him?’
‘Of him.’
‘And?’
‘The jury’s still out.’
‘I need a friend, John.’
‘Bob, Bob, you got me.’
‘I need all the bloody ones I can get.’
‘Well, watch him. That’s all.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Just watch him.’
There’s a knock.
Piggott tenses.
I go to the door, say: ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s Jack Whitehead.’
I open the door and there he is, standing in the rain and the lorry lights, a dirty mac and a carrier bag.
‘You going to let me in?’
I open the door wider.
Jack Whitehead steps into Room 27, clocking Piggott and then the walls:
‘Fuck,’ he whistles.
John Piggott sticks out his hand and says, ‘John Piggott. I’m Bob’s solicitor. You’re Jack Whitehead, from the Yorkshire Post?’
‘Right,’ says Whitehead.
‘Have a seat,’ I say, pointing at the mattress.
‘Thanks,’ says Jack Whitehead and we all squat down like a gang of bloody Red Indians.
‘I didn’t do it,’ I say, but Jack’s having trouble keeping his eyes off the wall.
‘Right,’ he nods, then adds: ‘Didn’t think you did.’
‘What have you heard?’ asks Piggott.
Jack Whitehead nods my way, ‘About him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not much.’
‘Like?’
‘First we heard was there’d been another murder, in Bradford, everyone over there saying it was a Ripper job, his lot saying nothing, next news they’d suspended three officers. That was it.’
‘Then?’
‘Then this?’ says Whitehead, taking a folded newspaper out of his coat and spreading it over the floor.
I stare down at the headline:
RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?
At the letter.
‘We’ve seen it,’ says Piggott.
‘Bet you have,’ smiles Whitehead.
‘A surprise in Bradford,’ I whisper.
‘Kind of puts you in the clear.’
‘You’d think so, yeah,’ nods Piggott.
Whitehead says, ‘You think it was the Ripper?’
‘Who killed her?’ asks Piggott.
Whitehead nods and they both look at me.
I can’t think of anything, except she was pregnant and now she’s dead.
Both of them.
Dead.
Eventually I say, ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘Well, I’ve got something else. Another hat for the ring,’ says Whitehead and tips a pile of magazines out of his plastic carrier bag.
‘Fuck’s all this?’ says Piggott, picking up a porno mag.
‘Spunk. You heard of it?’ Whitehead asks me.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘How?’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘Well, you need to,’ he says and hands me a magazine open at a bleached blonde with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and fat fingers up her cunt and arse.
I look up.
‘Look familiar?’
I nod.
‘Who is it?’ asks Piggott, straining at the upside-down magazine.
I say, ‘Clare Strachan.’
‘Also known as Morrison,’ adds Jack Whitehead.
Me: ‘Murdered Preston, 1975.’
‘What about her? You know her?’ he asks and hands me another woman, Oriental, black hair with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and thin fingers up her cunt and arse.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Sue Penn, Ka Su Peng?’
Me: ‘Assaulted Bradford, October 1976,’
‘Give the boy a prize,’ says Whitehead quietly and hands me another magazine.
I open it.
‘Page 7,’ he says.
I turn to page 7, to the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a dick in her face and come on her lips.
‘Who is it?’ Piggott’s asking.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Jack Whitehead.
Piggott still asking: ‘Who is it?’
But the rain outside, it’s loud, deafening, like the lorry doors as they slam shut, one after another, in the car park, endlessly.
No food, no sleep, just circles:
Her cunt.
Her mouth.
Her eyes.
Her belly.
No food, no sleep, just secrets:
In her cunt.
In her mouth.
In her eyes.
In her belly.
Circles and secrets, secrets and circles.
I ask: ‘MJM Publishing? You checked it out?’
‘I was over there yesterday,’ says Whitehead.
‘And?’
‘Your run-of-the-mill porn publisher. Slipped a disgruntled employee twenty quid for the names and addresses.’
John Piggott asks, ‘How did you find out about it?’
‘Spunk?’
‘Yeah.’
‘An anonymous tip.’
‘How anonymous?’
‘Young lad. Skinhead. Said he’d known Clare Strachan when she was calling herself Morrison and living over here.’
I say, ‘You got a name?’
‘For him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Barry James Anderson, and I’d seen him before. Local. He’ll be in the files.’
I swallow; BJ.
‘What files?’ asks Piggott, playing catch-up, years behind.
‘Can’t you have a word with Maurice Jobson,’ presses Whitehead, ignoring Piggott. ‘The Owl’s taken you under his wing, hasn’t he?’
I shake my head. ‘Doubt it now.’
‘You told him anything about any of this?’
‘After that last time we spoke, I went to him to get the files.’
‘And?’
‘Gone.’
‘Fuck.’
‘A Detective Inspector John Rudkin, my bloody boss, he checked them out in April 1975.’
‘April ’75? Strachan wasn’t even dead then.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And he never brought them back?’
‘No.’
‘Not even after she did die?’
‘Never even fucking mentioned them.’
‘And you told Maurice Jobson all this?’
‘He worked it out for himself when he tried to pull the files.’
‘Which files?’ asks Piggott again.
Whitehead, foot down, ignoring him again: ‘What did Maurice do?’
‘Told me he’d deal with it. Next time I saw Rudkin it was when they came and picked me up.’
‘He say anything?’
‘Rudkin? No, just took a fucking swing.’
‘And he’s suspended?’
‘Yes,’ says Piggott, a question he can answer.
‘You spoken to him?’
‘He can’t,’ says Piggott. ‘It was one of the stipulations of his release. No contact with DI Rudkin or DC Ellis.’
‘What about Maurice?’
‘That’s OK.’
‘You should show him these,’ says Whitehead, pointing at the carpet of pornography before us.
‘I can’t,’ I say.
‘Why not?’
‘Louise,’ I say.
‘Your wife?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The Badger’s daughter,’ smiles Whitehead.
Piggott: ‘You going to tell me which fucking files you’re talking about. I think I should know
Mechanically I say, ‘Clare Strachan was arrested in Wakefield under the name Morrison in 1974 for soliciting, and was a witness in a murder inquiry.’
‘Which murder inquiry?’
Jack Whitehead looks up at the walls of Room 27, at the pictures of the dead, at the pictures of the dead little girls and says: ‘Paula Garland.’