by David Peace
It swings open.
You stand there. You shit yourself. You say: ‘Hello?’
There’s no answer.
You stand there. You shit yourself. You step forward. You say: ‘Hello?’
No answer.
You step forward. You go inside. You walk slowly down the hall. You say: ‘Hello?’
No-one.
You look in the bedroom. The bathroom. The living room. The kitchen –
You shit, shit, shit, shit, shit yourself:
The whole place has been ransacked –
Everything smashed. Everything broken –
Every single thing –
Every single thing except the bathroom mirror:
You put your fingers to the glass –
To the lipstick:
D-10.
Chapter 27
Hate & War:
Banging on Joe’s door –
Man hasn’t left his room in a week –
Two sevens:
1977 –
Thursday 9 June 1977 –
Hope I get to heaven:
‘Open fucking door!’
‘Who is it?’
I’m not who I want to be:
‘It’s BJ. Open fucking door!’
Locks slide, keys turn/new locks, new keys –
I laugh at your locks:
Wide white eyes at crack –
Paranoid looks to left/paranoid looks to right –
Perilous times:
BJ push open door into this private little Chapeltown hellhole; only window boarded up with a shattered door, a battered mattress on floor covered in loose tobacco and Rizlas, broken bottles and pipes, whole room under heavy smoke and songs, every wall and every surface, whole fucking room painted with red, gold and green sevens –
‘You do it?’
‘No,’ BJ say. ‘Tonight.’
‘You got the keys?’
BJ jangle them in his stoned black face: ‘What these look like?’
‘Keys to my heart,’ he nods and rolls another one.
BJ ask him, BJ check: ‘You up for this?’
Still nodding, he smiles as he lights up: ‘Show me mine enemy.’
BJ take it when he passes it –
Take it because BJ need it and BJ lie back on mattress, staring at sevens on walls and sevens on door, sevens on ceiling and sevens on floor –
All them pretty little sevens, all dressed up in red, dressed up in gold and green:
Two sevens –
Joe stagger-dancing around hell, his voice of thunder chanting: ‘War in the East, war in the West; War in the North, war in the South; Crazy Joe get them out –’
Two sevens beginning to bob and beginning to weave, swaying and dancing around each other until:
They two sevens clash –
Two sevens clash and weak hearts rock –
Weak hearts drop.
It’s dark:
Ten o’clock –
Sitting in a stolen Austin Allegro on Bradford Road, Batley –
Sitting in a stolen car watching a flat above a newsagent’s.
BJ get out and go to phonebox and dial flat –
It just rings and rings and rings:
No answer.
BJ go back to car and tell Joe: ‘All clear.’
Joe nods and gets out and follows BJ across road and round back of shops and walk down alley to a red gate to yard behind newsagent’s.
‘Wait here,’ BJ tell Joe and open gate and go through yard to back door.
BJ unlock back door and take stairs on right.
BJ stand at top of stairs, ear to black glass of door:
Nothing.
BJ unlock white door at top of stairs and step inside –
No lights.
BJ go down passage to front of flat and look out window –
Just Allegro across road.
Phone starts ringing –
Fuck –
Ringing and ringing and ringing.
BJ let it and walk down passage to door on left.
Phone stops as BJ step inside bedroom.
BJ open wardrobe and move lights and camera bags to one side and strain in dark to find magazines piled up at back.
BJ find them:
SPUNK.
BJ go through stack until BJ find ones BJ looking for –
Ones they don’t want no-one to see:
Issue 3 – January 1975.
BJ turn pages in gloom until BJ come to page BJ want –
Page they don’t want no-one to see:
A bleached blonde with her legs spread, mouth open and eyes closed, fingers up her cunt and arse –
Clare.
BJ take three copies and put lights and cameras back and close wardrobe and bedroom doors.
BJ walk down passage and phone starts ringing again, ringing and ringing and ringing, making BJ jump again, but BJ lock white door and go down stairs and lock back door, phone still ringing and ringing and ringing.
Joe is stood waiting by gate: ‘You get them?’
BJ nod and Joe nods back.
In another telephone box on Bradford Road, BJ dial number on slip of paper and let it ring and ring and ring until:
‘Hello.’
‘Jack Whitehead?’
‘Speaking.’
‘I’ve got some information concerning one of these Ripper murders.’
‘Go on.’
‘Not on phone.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Not important, but I can meet Saturday night.’
‘What kind of information?’
‘On Saturday,’ BJ say and look across road at Joe sat in Allegro and big sign above him. ‘Variety Club.’
‘Batley?’
‘Yeah,’ BJ say. ‘Between ten and eleven.’
‘OK,’ Whitehead says. ‘But I need a name?’
‘No names.’
‘You want money, I suppose?’
‘No money.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘You just be there.’
Chapter 28
Tuesday 21 March 1972 –
I’m listening to the radio and this is what it’s saying:
‘The two policemen were standing next to a yellow saloon car in Donegall Street when a 100lb gelignite bomb hidden inside exploded, killing them and four civilians instantly and driving broken glass into the faces and legs of dozens of office workers as every window in the street caved in. Limbs were flung into an estate agent’s premises and on to the road while nearly 100 people, most of them young girls, lay in the street covered in the shattered glass and screaming with pain and shock …’
The telephone is ringing.
I switch off the radio. I pick up the receiver: ‘Jobson speaking.’
‘You on fucking strike and all?’ says the voice on the other end –
Badger Bill Molloy –
Chief Superintendent Bill Molloy.
I say: ‘Had a bit of a late one last night.’
‘I heard.’
‘Who’s been blabbing?’
‘Sod them,’ he snaps. ‘We’ll have other things to celebrate tonight.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like fifty fucking grand and a new business partner, that’s what.’
‘He agreed then?’
‘Not quite,’ he laughs. ‘But with a bit of friendly persuasion, he will.’
‘When and where?’
‘Ten o’clock tonight, back of Redbeck.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘You about today?’
‘Doubt it, got to go over bloody Rochdale with George.’
‘Rochdale? What the hell for?’
He pauses. He says: ‘You know George, be something and nothing.’
‘What –’
‘Forget it,’ he laughs. ‘See you tonight.’
I start to speak but the line’s already dead.
I switch the radio back on and it says:
‘… In his summing up, the Jud
ge said he believed undoubtedly that the time these two detectives had spent trudging through the slime and the sludge of the underworld, dredging for the truth, had taken its toll and led these highly decorated officers to conspire and corruptly accept money …’
I switch it off again.
The wife comes in. She starts to dust. She says: ‘Who was that?’
‘Who was what?’
‘On the telephone?’
‘Bill.’
‘That’s nice,’ she smiles. ‘About work?’
I stand up. I say: ‘The wedding.’
She stops dusting. She says: ‘Thought it might have been about that little girl.’
‘What little girl?’
‘The one in Rochdale.’
‘What one in Rochdale?’
She nods, the Valium not quite biting: ‘Been missing since yesterday tea-time.’
Into Leeds, one hand on the steering wheel –
The other on the radio dial, searching:
‘… While local police remain optimistic about finding Susan safe and well, senior detectives from both Leeds City and the West Yorkshire Constabulary are expected in Rochdale later today, although police sources refused to confirm or comment on these reports …’
Park off Westgate, up the steps and into Brotherton House –
Everyone talking Northern bloody Ireland.
Up the stairs to top floor and the Boss –
Julie looks up from her typing. She shakes her head.
‘Five minutes,’ I say. ‘That’s all I ask.’
She steps inside. She’s out again within a minute. She’s all smiles: ‘Come back in half an hour.’
I look at my watch. I say: ‘Eleven?’
She nods. She goes back to her typing.
Downstairs in my own office with a cold cup of tea and an unlit cig. I reach down to unlock the bottom drawer of my desk. I take out a file –
A thick file, bound with string and marked with one word.
I know what Bill’s going to say and I don’t give a shit –
Behind his back or not.
I light the cig. I cut the knot. I open the file –
The thick file, marked with one word –
One name –
Her name:
Jeanette.
*
‘Just go straight in,’ smiles Julie.
I knock once. I open the door. I step inside.
Walter Heywood, Chief Constable of the Leeds City Police, is sat behind his desk with his back to the window and the Law Courts. The desk is strewn with papers and files, cigarettes and cups, photographs and trophies.
‘Maurice,’ he smiles. ‘Sit yourself down.’
I sit down across from the Chief Constable –
The short, deaf, blind man for whom it took three cracks and a World War to get in; the short, deaf, blind man who hears and sees everything –
The short, deaf, blind man who asks me: ‘What’s on your mind, Maurice?’
‘Susan Ridyard.’
Walter Heywood puts his hands together under his chin. He says: ‘Go on.’
‘Chief Superintendent Molloy has gone over to Rochdale and …’
‘You’d have liked to have gone with him?’
I nod.
‘Why’s that then?’
‘I did a lot of work on the Jeanette Garland case,’ I tell him.
‘I know that.’
‘A lot of my own work, on my own time.’
‘I know that too,’ he says.
I want to ask him how he knows. But I don’t. I wait.
He puts his hands down flat on his desk. He looks across at me. He says: ‘It was never our case in the first place, Maurice.’
‘I know that,’ I say. ‘But once we were asked, I …’
‘Let it get under your skin, eh?’
I nod again.
‘Now you think there could be some connection between this business in Rochdale and little Jeanette and you’re annoyed Bill’s over there with George Oldman while you’re stuck back here twiddling your thumbs talking to me?’
I shake my head. I open my mouth. I start to speak. I stop.
Walter Heywood smiles. He pushes himself up from behind his desk. He walks round the papers and the files, the cigarettes and the cups, the photographs and the trophies. He stands in front of me. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
I look up at him.
He looks down at me.
I say: ‘I’d just like to be involved, that’s all.’
He pats my shoulder. He says: ‘I know you would, Maurice. But it’s not for you, not this one.’
‘But –’
He grips my shoulder tight. He bends down into my ear. He says: ‘Listen to me, Maurice. You’ve made a name for yourself, you and Bill: the A1 Shootings, John Whitey; getting headlines, cracking cases. But you and I both know it were Bill that got them headlines, that cracked them cases. Not you. Stick with him, learn from him, and you’ll get your chance. But this isn’t it. Not yet. Listen to me and listen to Bill.’
I close my eyes. I nod. I open my eyes.
Walter Heywood walks back round to the other side of his desk. He sits back down. He puts his hands together under his chin again. He looks across at me. He says: ‘You’re in a good position, Maurice. Very good. Sit tight, wait, and let’s see what the future brings.’
I nod again.
‘Good man,’ says Walter Heywood, Chief Constable of the Leeds City Police, sat behind his desk with his back to the window and the Law Courts. ‘Good man.’
Back downstairs in my own office with a cold cup of tea and an unlit cig. I lock the door. I go to my desk. I unlock the bottom drawer. I take out the file –
The thick file, marked with one word.
I sit down. I light the cig. I open the file –
The thick file, marked with one word –
One name –
Her name:
Jeanette.
I take out a new notebook. I begin again –
Begin again to go through the carbons and the statements –
And then I stop –
Stop and pick up the phone –
Pick up the phone and dial –
Dial Netherton 3657 and listen to it ring –
Listen to it ring until it stops –
Until it stops and a woman’s voice says: ‘Netherton 3657, who’s speaking please?’
‘Is George there?’
‘He’s at work,’ she says. ‘Who is this?’
‘And where’s work these days? Rochdale way?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Jeanette.’
A black day in a black month in a black year in a black life with time to kill:
Black time –
Sat in the car in the dark with the radio on:
‘… Commander Kenneth Drury of the Flying Squad, the officer named in the investigation ordered by the Commissioner last week, has been suspended. The inquiry, which is being conducted by a deputy assistant chief constable of the Metropolitan Police, will look into allegations that the Flying Squad Chief spent a holiday in Cyprus with a strip-club owner and pornographer …’
Sat in the car in the dark on Brunt Street, Castleford –
Tuesday 21 March 1972:
A black day in a black month in a black year in a black life –
Of black times.
Almost ten –
The Redbeck car park, the Doncaster Road.
I pull in and park, lights out.
There’s a fog coming down again, the one streetlight blinking on and off.
Across the car park a dark Ford van flashes its lights twice.
I get out of my car. I lock the door. I cross the car park, my breath white against the black night.
The driver is John Rudkin, a hard man just out of uniform and on his way up:
Bill’s Boy.
The man in the passenger seat next to him is Bob Craven, another cunt just out of uniform –
Rudkin nods through the windscreen. I bang on the side of the van.
The back door opens. I get inside.
‘Evening,’ says Bill.
Dick Alderman and Jim Prentice are sat down the far end of the van, all in black like Bill –
Like me.
‘How was Rochdale?’ I ask him.
‘Sod that,’ he says and bangs the doors shut. ‘We got some real work to do.’
He nods down the van. Dick Alderman taps on the partition and off we set –
‘Some real money to make,’ Bill laughs.
Off we bloody go –
No turning back.
From the Redbeck car park back into Castleford –
Silence in the black of the back of the van –
Dim lights down black back roads –
Sat in the back of the black of the van –
Yorkshire, 1972:
You’ll wake up some morning as unhappy as you’ve ever been before.
The van slows down. It bumps over some rough ground. It stops.
Bill chucks me a black balaclava: ‘Put that on when you get inside.’
I put the balaclava in my coat pocket.
Dick Alderman and Bill already have theirs on.
Bill hands me a hammer: ‘Take that too.’
I put on my gloves. I pick up the hammer. I put it in my other pocket.
Rudkin comes round to the back. He opens the doors.
I jump out after Bill, Alderman and Prentice following.
We’re round the back of a row of shops somewhere in Castleford.
‘Maurice, you and Jim go round front to keep an eye out,’ says Bill.
We both nod.
Bill pulls down his balaclava. He turns to the others: ‘You lads set?’
Alderman, Rudkin, and Craven nod once.
We all follow Bill along the back of the shops. He stops by a metal gate in a high wall with broken glass set in the cement on the top.
‘This it?’ he says to Dick Alderman.
Alderman nods.
‘Right,’ says Bill to me and Jim. ‘You two look sharp.’
We both set off jogging to the end of the alley, both turning back at the corner to see what the others are doing –
Bill and Dick are hoisting Rudkin over the wall and the broken glass, Craven scanning the alley.
Jim and I walk round to the front of the shops on the high street. We walk along the pavement until we come to it:
Jenkins Photo Studio.
‘This it?’ I ask Prentice.