by David Peace
Fuck.
A line of coppers with sticks, searching playing fields for something –
A murder weapon.
Someone –
A missing child, me.
Torches and capes in rain, fanned out like a bloody army of night marching towards BJ –
But they can’t see BJ, not yet:
They are walking away from lights of road, into shadow –
BJ hit mud and ground, crouching and crawling across one pitch, rolling and tumbling on to another, slowly –
Slowly until they pass and they’re gone, behind, and BJ start to crawl again –
Crawl and crouch off towards dual-carriageway and road to fuck knows where –
Anywhere but here –
Glancing back at coppers with their sticks, their torches and their capes, thanking fucking Christ they hadn’t dogs out tonight –
BJ get to gardens, gardens of houses that stand between BJ and road.
BJ slink along looking for another one without its lights on, at least its curtains drawn.
BJ come to one, dark.
BJ scale wooden fence and drop down into their shrubbery and cross their neatly trimmed lawn and go along side of their house and into their front garden where BJ hide in their privets while BJ check coast is clear –
Like in a war film.
After a minute or so BJ step out into street and walk along pavement next to big and busy road, walk towards roundabout where BJ will hitch a way out of here –
Out of Nazi Germany.
And BJ is walking along, yellow lights coming, red lights leaving, practising German and thinking about trying to cross to other side where it’s just more playing fields and some woods, thinking at least there’d be somewhere to run if Krauts showed their sour Nazi faces –
Thinking of somewhere to run when a car stops –
A car stops and driver winds down his window –
Winds down his window and says –
He says: ‘Hello Barry, you’re all wet.’
Chapter 25
We turn into Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big trees with hearts cut into their bark, losing their leaves in July –
Big houses with their hearts cut into flats, losing their paintwork and their lead;
We turn into Blenheim Road and I am filled again with hate –
Filled with hate at Mystic Mandy, the medium and the fraud –
Hate at wasted time with sideshow freaks from the Feasts and the Fairs;
Hate at Wally Heywood, Georgie Oldman, and Badger Billy –
Hate at who and what they are –
What they know and will not do;
But most of all this day –
Saturday 19 July 1969 –
I am filled with hate at me;
Hate at me for who and what I am –
What I know and will not do:
(Just a lullaby in the local tongue) –
Hate.
We park on Blenheim Road –
The big trees with hearts cut into bark, the big houses with hearts cut into flats;
We park and finally I say: ‘What the fucking hell is this, Bill?’
He stinks of his lunch and guilt. He slurs: ‘George reckons –’
‘Since when did you give two shits what George fucking Oldman reckoned –’
‘Maurice –’
‘We know who fucking did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Took her.’
‘No, we don’t.’
‘Yes, we do.’
‘No, we don’t.’
‘Yes, we fucking do.’
‘Maurice, it isn’t pantomime season yet.’
‘Oh yes it fucking is.’
‘Fuck off, Maurice,’ he says and opens the car door –
(Local, local hates) –
I get out. I slam my door.
We walk up the drive of 28 Blenheim Road –
One big tree with hearts cut into bark, one big house with her heart cut into flats;
We walk up the drive full of shallow holes and stagnant water –
The bottoms of our trousers, our socks and our shoes, muddy in July.
George Oldman is already here, waiting under the porch with a black umbrella. He puts out his cigarette. He nods: ‘Gentlemen.’
‘George,’ says Bill.
I’ve got nothing to say.
‘Going up?’ asks Bill.
‘Best wait for Jack,’ says George.
I say: ‘Jack?’
‘Jack Whitehead,’ says George.
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Thought he was your mate,’ says Bill.
‘He is, but –’
‘Him that set this up,’ says George. He hands me today’s Post –
I read aloud: ‘Medium Contacts Police.’
I shake my head. I hand the paper back to George. I look at my watch:
It’s gone one –
Wasted, wasted time.
‘Talk of the Devil,’ says Bill –
Jack’s Jensen pulls into the drive. He parks at an angle and gets out. His face is grey and his eyes are red, another one pissed up. He sparks up. He waves his cigarette: ‘Hello, hello, hello. If it ain’t the boys in blue.’
‘Number 5, is it, Jack?’ asks George.
Jack nods. Jack stumbles –
(No local angels here) –
Jack drops his fag. Jack picks it up. Jack slaps me on the back.
We go inside 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
The big house with her heart cut into flats, losing her paintwork and her lead;
We go inside and walk up the stairs to Flat 5 –
The glass in the windows stained.
We walk up the stairs to Flat 5 on the first-floor landing –
The air cold and damp, the air stained.
Jacks knocks on the door: ‘Police, love. Open up in the name of the law.’
Bill looks at me. I look at the floor.
The door opens a crack, a chain on –
Between the wood of the door and the wood of the frame, the pale face of a beautiful woman, the metal chain across her mouth.
‘It’s Jack Whitehead, love. These are the police officers I was talking about.’
Between the wood, this pale and beautiful face nods.
The door closes briefly then opens again wider, the chain gone –
The woman is in her early thirties. She is wearing a white silk blouse and a dark wool skirt.
She is truly beautiful –
(Local beauty) –
She says: ‘Please, come in.’
We step inside Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road –
A flat cut out of its heart;
We follow the woman down a dim hall, the walls hung with dark paintings, and into a big room, the walls and chairs draped in Persian rugs –
The whole flat stinks of cat piss and petunia.
Jack does the introductions: ‘These two gentlemen are Detective Superintendents George Oldman and Bill Molloy, and this is Detective Inspector Maurice Jobson –
‘Gentlemen, this is Mrs Mandy Denizili, or –’
‘Mandy Wymer,’ she smiles, shaking our hands.
‘Mystic Mandy,’ nods Jack. ‘As she is known professionally.’
She looks at Jack. She sighs. She gestures at the sofa and the armchair. She says: ‘Please sit down.’
George takes the armchair, Jack a cushion on the floor, Bill and I the sofa –
A low and ornately carved table pressing into our knees and shins.
‘Tea?’ she asks.
‘That’d be grand,’ smiles George, Bill and I nodding.
‘Not for me, love,’ says Jack. ‘Never touch the stuff.’
‘Excuse me for just a minute,’ she says. She goes off through another door.
‘Denizili?’ Bill asks Jack.
‘Husband was Turkish.’
I look up from the unlit candles on the tab
le: ‘Was?’
‘Not about,’ says Jack.
Bill is laughing: ‘You think she knows owt about the two-thirty at York?’
‘I’m a medium, Mr Molloy, not a fortune-teller,’ says Mandy Wymer. She is stood in the doorway with a tray in her hands.
‘Sorry,’ says Bill, hands up in apology. ‘No offence.’
She brings in the tray of teacups and a teapot. She sets it down on the low table. She smiles at Bill: ‘None taken.’
It is a truly beautiful smile.
George sits forward in the armchair. He says: ‘Jack here tells us you have some information about this little girl who’s gone missing up Castleford way?’
She hands him his cup of tea. She nods: ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘What kind of information?’
‘We’re desperate,’ I add. ‘Must be.’
She looks at me. She smiles. She hands Bill and me our cups of tea. Then she kneels down on the other side of the low ornately carved table –
‘I am a medium, gentlemen,’ she says again. ‘And it is sometimes possible for me to hear, see, and feel things that other people perhaps cannot.’
We all nod –
Three coppers staring at the beautiful woman knelt before us, Jack struggling to keep his eyes open, Bill the grin off his chops.
‘It is also the case that on occasion the dead can speak through me.’
‘You think she’s dead then, Jeanette?’ asks George.
Mandy Wymer doesn’t answer him. She lights one of the fat white candles on the low table. She stands up. She goes over to the large windows. She draws the heavy crimson curtains –
The room dark but for the candlelight, she returns to the table.
Bill: ‘Mrs Denizili –’
She has her hand up in the shadows: ‘Please, Mr Molloy –’
‘But –’
I have my hand on Bill’s arm.
She lights a second fat white candle on the low table. Then another. And another. She says: ‘Now please take the hand of the person on your left and close your eyes.’
She takes George’s right hand. He takes Bill’s. Bill takes mine. I take Jack’s –
Jack waking with a start to hold hers.
The five of us lean forward in a circle around the table and the candles, the numbers on a clock –
(Local time) –
It is Saturday 19 July 1969.
Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big trees with hearts cut into their bark, losing their leaves in July;
28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big house with her heart cut into flats, losing her paintwork and her lead;
Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big room with hearts dark, losing our way and our head;
Walls hung with dim paintings and Persian rugs –
The smell of cat piss and petunia, Bill and Jack’s breath;
My eyes are open –
Her breasts rising and falling beneath her white silk blouse;
Beneath the shadows –
Low sobs, muffled sobs, she is weeping;
Her breasts rising and falling beneath –
Her shadows –
Looking into my eyes –
Rising and falling –
Beneath her shadows –
She is snarling, carnivore teeth:
‘This place is worst of all, underground;
The corpses and the rats –
The dragon and the owl –
Wolves be there too, a swan –
The swan dead.
Unending, this place unending;
Under the grass that grows –
Between the cracks and the stones –
The beautiful carpets –
Waiting for the others, underground.’
Silence –
Silence, the circle unbroken:
Holding George’s right hand. George Bill’s. Bill mine. I Jack’s –
Jack holding hers:
Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big trees with hearts cut into their bark, losing their leaves in July;
28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big house with her heart cut into flats, losing her paintwork and her lead;
Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield –
Big room with dark ways, hearts and heads lost;
My eyes are open –
Low sobs, muffled sobs, she is weeping;
Looking into my eyes –
Weeping;
Rising and falling –
Beneath her shadows:
‘It’s happened once before –’
Cavernous tears:
‘– and it’s happening now.’
Tears, then –
Silence –
The silence, but outside:
Outside behind the heavy crimson curtains, the branches of the big tree are tapping upon the glass of the big windows, their leaves lost in July –
Wanting in;
Wanting her –
My eyes open and looking into hers;
I want to drop Bill’s hand, let go of Jack –
To reach out across the table –
Free her from the chains –
The prisons:
The certain death that I see here –
That terrible, horrible voice that gloats, that boasts:
‘I AM NO ANGEL –
‘I AM NO FUCKING ANGEL!’
Looking into my eyes –
Weeping;
Rising and falling –
Beneath her shadows:
In the Season of the Plague, the meat –
Two black crows eating from black bin-bags, ripping through her sweet meat –
Screams echoing into the dark, sliding back on her arse up the hall, arms and legs splayed, her skirt riding up; scared sobs from behind a door, the sound of furniture being moved, of chests and drawers and wardrobes being placed in front of the door –
A faint voice through the layers and layers of wood, a child whispering to a friend beneath the covers: ‘Tell them about the others …’
On my feet, across the table –
Teacups and teapot falling to the floor –
I shake her –
I scream: ‘What others?’
Her eyes open and looking into mine –
She says: ‘All the others under those beautiful carpets.’
‘What fucking others?’
Bill and George are on their feet now –
The candles out –
Pulling back the curtains, Jack spewing into his palm –
I am screaming –
I am summoning her back from the Underground, the court of the Dead:
A cold and dark December place when I open up the bedroom door to find her lying cold and still upon the floor –
Bill and George taking my arms –
Pulling me off;
Her pushing me off –
Pushing me away, whispering: ‘Please tell them where they are.’
‘What?’ I say –
Standing up in the light;
But in the light –
The dead daylight –
There are bruises on the backs of my hands –
(Local bruises) –
Bruises that won’t heal.
Part 3
Dreams less sweet
‘The Christian Church has always condemned magick, but she has always believed in it. She did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communion with the Devil.’
– Voltaire
Chapter 26
Tapping against the pane –
Monday 30 May 1983 –
D-10:
She is lying on her side in a sleeveless black T-shirt with her back to you –
Branches tapping against the pane;
You are lying on your back in your underpants a
nd socks –
The branches tapping against the pane;
Lying on your back with the taste of fried rice and vodka in your mouth –
Listening to the branches tapping against the pane;
D-10:
Monday 30 May 1983 –
You are listening to the branches tapping against the pane.
It is raining again outside and they are arguing again upstairs.
You sit in the kitchen eating Findus Crispy Pancakes in silence, the radio on:
‘Sterling at new high on hopes of Tory landslide as Foot attempts to refute latest opinion polls; Mr Cecil Parkinson, the Conservative Party Chairman, dismisses suggestions that his party has been subjected to significant infiltration by far right members of the National Front and the League of St George; a report to be published today says shopping centres built in the 1960s and …’
You get up. You change stations. You find some music:
Spandau Ballet –
True.
She stands up. She switches off the radio.
You go over to the sink. You rinse cold water over the plates and the grill. You turn around, hands still wet. You say: ‘What was Jimmy doing in Morley?’
‘What?’
‘When they nicked him? Why was he in Morley?’
She shrugs. She says: ‘He was coming to see me.’
‘You?’
‘It’s where I live, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Do now.’
She goes out of the kitchen. You follow her into the front room. She is putting on her coat.
You are stood in the doorway. You say: ‘Dangerous place, Morley.’
She doesn’t say anything. She walks towards you. She says: ‘Excuse me.’
You say: ‘Do you know Hazel Atkins? Her family?’
She shakes her head. She tries to push past you.
You grab her arm: ‘What about Clare Kemplay? Did you know her?’
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘Jimmy did.’
‘Fuck off,’ she hisses. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Michael Myshkin told me.’
‘What does he know.’
‘He knew Jimmy; they were mates.’
‘Fuck off,’ she spits. ‘It was years ago and they were never mates; they were only bloody kids.’
‘Best mates, Michael said.’
‘It was years ago and Jimmy’s bloody dead because of that fucking Joey!’
And that’s it:
She’s gone –
Just like that.
You drive through Wakefield and out over the Calder, the car retching and then coughing, hacking its way up the Barnsley Road and out past the Redbeck –