by David Evans
Strong felt a surge of adrenaline.
Montgomery’s voice replayed in his head, “Lord! How many more times?” “Lord!”
And then another, similar voice from that hoax tape of over twenty years before, “Lord! You are no nearer catching me now.” That was how it went, he was sure.
He read on. Montgomery was currently living with one Rosemary Hudson; now there was a name from the past. She’d been working the streets when he was first on the beat. She’d plenty of convictions for soliciting plus two for running a disorderly house but nothing since 1990, probably too old by then. Still, he thought, interesting company for Montgomery to keep. He made a mental note to have a word with Rosie at some point.
Just after six, Strong sauntered in to the Black Rock pub. The aroma of beer and smoky atmosphere gave a comforting feeling to many. It was a good Tetley’s house frequented by many of his colleagues. True to form, the man he wanted was sitting in the corner below a print of Westgate in the early 1900’s that seemed to adorn every public house in the town. Pint in hand, he joined Sergeant Bill Sidebotham.
“Now then, Colin,” Sidebotham said, “we don’t often see you in here.”
“I thought I’d have a better chance of finding you here than back at the office.”
Sidebotham laughed. A jovial character in his early fifties, of rotund build and a permanently flushed face, left Strong wondering if he suffered from high blood pressure. Whenever he saw him, he couldn’t help thinking of childhood days listening to the old Light Programme on the radio, Junior Choice and The Laughing Policeman.
Sitting down on a stool at the beaten copper-topped table opposite the sergeant, he took a gulp of his beer before carefully centring his glass on the cardboard beer mat. “Not many in tonight,” he remarked, looking round.
“A lot o’ lads have taken overtime. Trinity game tonight agin’ Cas.”
Strong nodded. Cas – Castleford – local rivals, and many of the shift were rugby league fans. “Not your game then?”
“Naw, have you seen the weather out there?” The sergeant pulled a face. “My arthritis doesn’t cope with standing out on the terraces on a night like this, let alone crowd control.”
Strong smiled before taking another drink and broaching the subject he’d come to quiz Sidebotham about. “How good’s your memory?” he asked, knowing full well there wasn’t a case in the last twenty-five years that he didn’t know the ins and outs of.
“How far back d’you want me to go?”
“Remember the Ripper enquiry?”
“Go on.”
“We got a couple of letters and a tape from some perv with a Geordie accent taunting George Oldfield.”
“I remember it well. But, listen,” Sidebotham lowered his voice and leant closer, “I don’t know if anyone told you but we got someone by the name of Sutcliffe for that, and he didn’t have a Geordie accent.”
“Very dry, Bill. Do we still have a copy of the tape somewhere?”
“Should do. They had phone lines and everything so the public could ring in and listen to it.”
“See if you can dig one out and drop it up to me tomorrow.”
“What’re you up to, Colin? We never did track that bastard down. Got someone in mind for it?”
“No, just something that’s niggling away at me. Maybe something and nothing. Anyway,” he paused to finish his pint, “I’m starving. I’m off home for some grub. I hope Laura’s made something a bit more substantial than my salad lunch.”
The twenty-minute drive home afforded him the opportunity to sift through his thoughts. Could it be, that after all this time, he had the chance to solve one of the most puzzling aspects of the Yorkshire Ripper enquiry? Stranger things had happened. In fact, it was only by pure chance that Sutcliffe had been caught when he was. A routine check of a suspicious car’s number plates that night in Sheffield in 1981 ended the hunt that had begun nearly six years earlier. Montgomery was sixty-three, which meant that in 1979, when the hoax tape was made, he had been forty-two, well within the age limits of the suspect. Also, if he didn’t live in the Sunderland area, nor had done for years, when the search focused there, he wouldn’t have been considered. Not unless he was interviewed for something else. There again, his accent had changed, the result of living in Glasgow for some fifteen or twenty years.
It was just after seven when Strong pulled onto the drive in front of his modest detached house on the outskirts of Wakefield. As he opened the front door, the delightful aroma of one of Laura’s savoury dishes came wafting out to greet him, evaporating all thoughts of Billy Montgomery.
3
“Just over there. Behind that Escort,” Jean instructed the taxi driver, her voice trailing off. “Shit,” she said quietly, almost to herself.
“What’s wrong?” the man sitting next to her asked.
“Oh, nothing.” She turned to face him. “Look,” she said, “I’ve had a great time …”
“I can feel a ‘but’ coming on.”
“…but, do you mind if I don’t invite you in tonight? It’s just … well, my big brother’s turned up. And that usually means complications.”
“Is this the bit where you say, you’re a lovely bloke but …”
She laughed. “No. Have a bit of confidence. Listen, give me a call tomorrow. Okay?” With that, she kissed him long and hard. “That’ll have to do you for now.” She smiled, opened the door and stepped out.
Jean watched the taxi drive off before strolling over to the driver’s door of the car parked on the driveway in front of her house. The huddled figure inside didn’t stir. She rattled the glass and giggled at her brother’s shocked return to consciousness.
Bob Souter was in the deep sleep that can only be induced by extreme tiredness. The drive from Glasgow had seen to that. His heart rate surged with the rude awakening. He looked bleary eyed through the window at his smiling sister.
She opened the driver’s door. “Come on,” she said, “Tell me all about it.”
While Bob brought his belongings safely inside, Jean brewed two mugs of coffee.
“You’ve cut your hair; it looks nice,” Bob said.
She sat down on the cream mock leather sofa, her legs tucked underneath her. “Thanks.”
He took a drink and began to search for a position to place the mug on the carpet.
“Not there!” she snapped. “Put it on the table, on a mat. I’ve just had this carpet cleaned.”
He rose and did as instructed. “So who’s the bloke?” he asked, settling back down beside her.
“What bloke?”
“Come on, Jean. You’ve lost the dowdy image you had with Trevor The Tosser. It must be a new bloke.”
“Piss off, Bob.”
He held up both hands. “Whoa. Bit of a raw nerve there?”
“Grow up will you. I just had a night out with some girl friends of mine, that’s all.” Jean scowled.
He had the distinct impression she was lying.
“So what’s this visit all about?”
“I’ve got a new job.”
“Good for you. Whereabouts?”
“You remember John Chandler?”
“Vaguely.”
“He was my boss on the Star. Anyway, he rang me up out of the blue a few weeks back and said he was looking for a Crime and Home Affairs Correspondent on the Yorkshire Post. He’s got a top job there now.”
Jean took a sip of her coffee. “That’s a bit of a change from the Glasgow Herald. So what about Sandra?”
He took a deep breath but said nothing, his eyes avoiding his sister.
“Oh not again, Bob,” she said in sympathetic tones.
He looked all round the room as if searching for what he wanted to say.
Jean sat quietly, waiting for him to find the right words.
Finally, he began. “Do you know, my life seems to have been peppered with smooth-talking bastards.”
Again
, Jean didn’t react.
“You got any cigarettes?” he asked. “I know I should give them up but this isn’t the right time.”
She took a packet from her handbag and passed them to him.
He lit one up. “I reckon it was last September when it all started to go wrong,” he said. “Sandra joined a new practice as an associate architect. Then she started working late. Meetings with clients after work. ‘All part of my new responsibilities,’ she’d said.” He paused and took a long drag on his cigarette. “Trouble was it all involved some smart arse. ‘Frankie needs me to be with him,’ she’d say. It was all, Frankie this, Frankie that. It always seemed to be Frankie. And just who was he? Frankie bloody Buchanan that’s who, principal of Buchanan Associates, her new boss.”
“I’m sorry.”
He turned towards his sister. “I really thought she was the one, you know.”
He got up and walked slowly round the room. “She was gorgeous, Jean.”
“I know.”
“That first time I saw her…” He leaned against the wall, shook his head and smiled. It was lust at first sight he thought. Out loud, he said, “It was at a barbecue. One of those do’s with all ‘nice couples’. I didn’t really fancy it but I’d nothing better on. She was standing next to some wimp, being bored to death, when I kind of rescued her.” He looked up, straight at Jean. “Two years we’d been together, you know?”
“You don’t need to do this,” she said.
“But it’s like a boil, full of poison. It needs to be lanced.”
“If you’re so keen on medical analogies, be careful it doesn’t become a scab. Keep picking at it and it’ll never heal.”
He gave a faint smile. “She betrayed me, Jean. I thought we could maybe start a family, especially after ... well, you know.” His eyes were moist. “She reckoned I was after a substitute for Adam.”
She winced. “That was nasty.”
“Anyway, she made it pretty clear that that wasn’t on the agenda.” He started wandering around the room again. “I mean I could live with that. I would have liked to, but … if she didn’t feel ready then …”
Jean rose from the settee, went over to her brother and hugged him. “That’s enough,” she said.
They stood, silently, just holding one another for several minutes.
“Come on, let’s get you something to eat.” She took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen. “Omelette all right for you?” She set a pan on the hob. “Some mushrooms and tomatoes in it?”
“Great.” He smiled.
Jean cracked a couple of eggs and prepared the rest.
“Why does it always end in disaster? Is it me?”
She gave him a look that made it plain he’d asked a rhetorical question.
Slowly a broad grin broke out on Bob’s face. “Thanks, sis,” he said, “It’s good to see you.”
She smiled back at him. “Go on, fetch those mugs in and make us another.”
He went back into the living room, picked up the mugs then stood for a moment studying the room. All evidence of Trevor appeared to have been removed since he last visited. Trevor who had pissed off with a young bimbo from the office twelve months ago. Jean’s wedding photograph on top of the TV was replaced by one of their parents at the party to celebrate their silver wedding. He walked over and picked it up and studied their laughing faces. Sadness overcame him as he remembered they’d only had another two years together. His father succumbed to lung disease from a lifetime at the coal face. His mother had followed a year later. Heart, they’d said.
“So how long do you plan to stay?” Jean asked from the kitchen, “not that I want to get rid of you before you’ve taken your coat off, so to speak.”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks maybe, till I get sorted.”
“When do you start at the Post?”
“Next Monday.”
He was examining the CD collection when Jean returned. “I see he took his country and Western collection, then.”
“Bloody good riddance and all.” She set the tray of food and cutlery down on the coffee table. “All that heartbreaking shit. Drove me bonkers.”
Bob laughed. He’d never heard his sister swear as much.
She ignored him, taking the mugs back to the kitchen. “Do you want another one?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Me neither. I’ll make up the bed in the back room upstairs. Try and keep it tidy.”
“Yes, mum,” he said, mouth full of omelette.
“Sorry, Bob, it’s just I wasn’t expecting anybody to stay. I didn’t mean to sound … well, anyway, you’re welcome to bunk down for as long as you need.”
“Thanks.”
“So what are you going to do with yourself until next week then?”
He lifted the evening paper and began to scan the pages. “Well, I’d like to work on a few things, just so I’m not going in with a blank sheet of paper, if you know what I mean.”
Jean settled back onto the sofa. “I saw your old mate Colin just before Christmas. Any plans to see him?”
Colin, of course, he thought.
They had been best friends ever since a small, dark curly-haired, six-year-old Bob Souter was introduced to his new primary school class. After a brief punch-up in the playground on that first day with a taller fair-haired Colin Strong, they developed a mutual respect and became firm friends. Years together playing for the same football teams meant they had an almost telepathic understanding on the pitch. While Colin went off to university in Nottingham, Bob, after almost making it as a professional footballer, began to mould himself a successful career in journalism. He was Colin’s best man at his wedding in 1980. Bob felt that Colin was the sort of mate you could go months, even years without any more than a Christmas card but still knock on his door in the middle of the night and be welcomed with open arms.
“I said, any plans to see Colin?” Jean interrupted his reverie.
“What? Oh yeah,” he said, thoughts buzzing around his brain, “I’ll give him a call. I haven’t seen him in a long while. It’ll be nice to catch up.” And he wouldn’t be a bad contact to nurture either, he considered.
4
The kitchen was impregnated with the smells of fresh coffee and hot toast. The sounds of a household preparing to face the new day were unmistakeable. From the radio, details of the latest hotspots on the roads were being announced, the kettle was proclaiming its high-pitched importance and Amanda was engrossed in a heated discussion with her mother, Laura, on the rights and wrongs of animal testing. Amanda was seventeen years old; headstrong, full of frustration, full of ambition. Strong set foot into this maelstrom through the back door.
“So what do you think, Dad?” Amanda turned to him.
“What I think,” he said, taking off his coat and nodding towards an old black Labrador slowly waddling in behind him, “is that old Jasper won’t be with us much longer. He’s really slowed down since Christmas.”
Amanda rushed over to the dog and hugged him, all lines of argument forgotten.
“What was up with you last night?” Laura focussed on him instead. “Something on your mind?”
Laura should have been a detective, he thought. He was sure she’d slept all night. How he wished he’d done the same.
She thrust a mug of fresh coffee into his hand. “It’s not like you to get up and walk Jasper. Not worried about this court case coming up tomorrow are you? Toast’s on by the way.”
“Court? Oh, the case – no, that should be open and shut. No, I just didn’t sleep very well, that’s all. Thanks, I’ll get it in a minute.”
She gave him a look that told him she didn’t believe him.
He had washed his hands and was searching in vain for the towel that should have been tucked into the handle of the oven door.
“Here.” Laura produced the missing item as if by magic from the worktop behind her. “It’s not like you, though.
You can normally sleep for England.”
“Hey, you don’t do such a bad job yourself.” He was drying his hands and keen to move the subject on. “Listen, I wanted to ask you, do you still have that speech therapist visit the school? What was her name, Mrs. Gold something?”
“Goldsmith, Jenny Goldsmith. Yes, she’s coming in tomorrow as it happens. Why?”
“I met her husband at one of the school functions a few years ago didn’t I? Isn’t he at the University? Something to do with studying regional dialects or something?”
The toast made its exit from the toaster in dramatic fashion and he began to butter himself a slice.
“Go easy with that please, you know I’m concerned about your arteries.”
With his back to Laura, he felt safe enough to raise his eyebrows but said nothing. Amanda, who was busy packing her bag at the table, caught the gesture and grinned.
“I think he’s still there,” Laura said. “Why? What are you up to, Colin?”
“Nothing.” His mouth full of toast.
“Here, use a plate. I seem to be the only one that cleans up around here.”
“Right, it’s time I’m off,” Amanda announced. “See you two later.”
“Bit early for you, isn’t it?” He made an exaggerated gesture of looking at his watch.
“I’m calling at Lucy’s on the way. I’ve got some notes to copy,” she answered from the hallway.
“And I want you to clean that room of yours when you get back, young lady,” Laura called after her, “it’s an absolute disgrace.” But it was too late, she’d already gone.
He just shook his head.
“Right, I best be off as well.” Laura slipped on her coat and grabbed her bag. She gave her husband a kiss as she passed. “See you tonight sometime. Don’t forget I’ve got the suits from the Local Authority coming in for a meeting at six, so I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”