Alec got a girlfriend. Her name was Chloe. She was sweet with long blonde hair. She liked him lots. She said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ He took her up the fields. They swam in the lake. They drank beer and kissed. They held hands in public. They talked about when their first time might be. Their friends envied them. They were good together.
Hannah ignored them. The first time Chloe came to tea, Hannah excused herself. Hannah’s father shouted her back. He said, ‘show the guest some respect.’ Their mother smiled lots at Chloe. She fed her second-helpings. She offered to run them into town. Hannah glared hate. Her parties got longer. She broke curfews. She took to rolling in drunk. She reeked of cigarettes. Hannah’s father slapped her, made her smoke more till she spewed.
Their mother cried. She said, ‘why can’t you be a bit more like Alec?’ They argued downstairs. They shouted till pots smashed. Their mother took a bundle of clothes and headed round her sister’s.
Hannah’s father shouted after her, ‘there won’t be no third chances, I’ll tell you that for sure.’
Till one day, Alec headed round to Chloe’s and rapped the door. He had a bag with a bunch of food for a picnic up the fields. He had his swim shorts. He buried a four-pack deep in. The sun beat down. Chloe’s mother answered. She glared at him. She said, ‘well?’
Alec frowned.
She said, ‘well?’
Alec said, ‘is everything all right, Mrs…’
She said, ‘don’t everything-all-right-Mrs me.’
There was a bustle behind. She flashed back, snapped: ‘get back in there.’
Alec tried to peer round. He said, ‘Chloe?’
She said, ‘she’s not here. Not now, not ever.’
She went for the door to slam. She leaned out, hissed: ‘you dirty little inbred.’ Then she slammed it.
Alec started heading home then he passed the track up the fields and he swung up and got to the lake. He sat and took off his tee-shirt and felt the sun on his shoulders. He swam a little then he got out and laid on the tufty grass and fished the beer from his rucksack. He sat and drank till the sun went in and all four cans were gone.
When Alec got home the house was dark but for the TV flickering an old film in the front room. Hannah’s father was sat on the couch asleep with his head back and his mouth open. He clutched a last beer that had tipped down his shirt. An empty whisky bottle sat up in front with a good few inches left in it. Alec leaned over Hannah’s father and took the bottle. He trod careful upstairs past his mother’s room. Her bed was still empty. Her clothes were still gone.
Alec had pretty much polished off the whisky when the front door clicked and steps came up the stairs. They padded past his room. They paused, then carried on up to the attic. He waited a moment then he followed her up. When he pushed open her door she was stood facing him like she knew he was coming. She did that curl-smile thing and said, ‘well, hi.’ Alec shook his head and drained the rest of the whisky. He started but tripped over his words. She curl-smiled some more and shrugged off her cardigan. She took the bottom of her crop-top and cross-armed it over her head. She never took her eyes off him. He tripped over his words some more. She said, ‘well?’
She toyed the top button of her denim mini and shrugged her hips and let it fall. She peeled off her tights then her lemon-yellow knickers. He saw the slide between her legs. When he looked back up she’d unclipped her bra and was naked. She shrugged out her hair and stepped towards him. When he stepped back she placed a finger to her lips and held out her other arm and kept coming. She took him and lifted off his tee-shirt then she got down and fumbled at his jeans-zip. He shrugged her back on the floor and looked down on her. He said: ‘bitch.’
She big-eyed up and that curl-smile flashed back. She got up and flopped on her bed and said, ‘isn’t this what you want?’
Alec fixed her eyes. He said, ‘I want nowt.’
Her smile went and she spat her words: ‘you always did get what you wanted.’
Then she fixed eyes and started to scream. It was a real high-pitched scream and there were words in it that would have woke drunks alone. The more Alec tried to hush her, the more high-pitched she went.
It was clear how it looked. When Hannah’s father came stumbling up the stairs he blinked his eyes and saw Hannah curled nude on her bed. He saw Alec hung over her half-undressed with his flies down. He reached for Alec. Alec reached back for the whisky bottle and ducked out of the way. He made for the door. Hannah’s father caught him and slammed his head in the door frame. They both fell. As they fell Alec swung the hand that held the whisky bottle hard as he could against his skull. There was a crack and the glass broke and the bit he was still holding he dug deep into the darked-out face above him. Then there was a roar from Hannah’s father, a gurgle that came from deep inside him. He limped up and slipped over Alec and there was the thud-crash-thud of him falling down the stairs.
Then there was silence and Hannah switched on her bedside light. Alec was caked in blood like the rabbits that time. It poured on the carpet and down the stairs. Alec slumped up on the door-frame. After a bit she came over, still naked, and pulled him into her.
* * * *
Seventeen Days
This is a true story. Names have been changed.
Marjorie Fairbanks:
I turned on the news and I thought, this can’t be right. There must be some mistake. These sorts of things just don’t happen round here.
Pc Roy Bleasdale:
I even called him Sir. I said, excuse me Sir, out of the car. Nothing. He never even looked at me. I said, I don’t tell anybody twice. Out of the car, now. Then I saw the gun. I knew for a fact he was going for my head. He shot me across the nose. The young dog came out then. He shot him twice, which just gave me enough time to start and run.
Dorothy Bostock:
It was the first time I saw Marjorie Fairbanks with tinted highlights. I remember thinking, there’s a mad killer on the loose, and she’s gone and got tinted highlights.
Pc Ian Jenkins:
We were seconds behind him. The car had hardly started crackling. We followed him with dogs. They took us to the edge of a ravine. The sun was setting. There was no way we were going down there.
Derek Firkin:
They should have smoked the bastard of his hole while they had the chance.
Marjorie Fairbanks:
I said to Dot, that’s Mike Neville over there. Him from Look North. He’s coming over. Would you mind telling us about the goings-on? Go on then, if you must. Thank you, he says. One take, that’s all it took. I’ve got it on videotape.
Pc Richard Bazeley:
The bullets matched those used in the shooting of Pc Marley and the elderly couple in Lincolnshire. We had a name: Billy Richards. He became the most wanted man in Britain.
Police description:
White, early 30s, approximately five feet eight inches tall, slim build, sallow complexion, thin face with high cheekbones and prominent eyes, short dark curly hair, clean-shaven.
Sandra West, bakery:
The police vans would park up on the village green. We’d take them out tea and cakes. It was the least we could do. Nothing fancy - scones, flapjacks. Then you got the TV lot. Any chance of a free cuppa, love? Not on your life.
Pc Michael Williams, Lincoln:
The Hardens were such lovely people. I spoke to them on the phone just the week before.
Des Barnes, journalist:
We were following the police messages on the radio. You could in those days. It was a great help. We heard they’d surrounded a barn. They’d found a heat source. We rushed down there. Right on deadline. They found nothing. They said it might have been a fox. Or a badger. Great. Hold the front page.
Det Supt John Rutherford:
A thick mist had been hanging about the place for days. It would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack at the best of times. With the mist, it was nigh on impossible.
Carla Markham:
We lived on a farm on the edge of the forest. They put a guard on our door. They said, stay away from the windows. We got a police escort just to nip down to Costcutters. Out-riders, the works. To fetch bread and milk! Now I know how royalty feels. I thought to myself, I could get used to this.
Des Barnes:
If I’m honest, we were struggling to give the story legs.
Yorkshire Evening Press, June 25:
If the manhunt continues tomorrow, a group of children from the York area, members of the Young Ornithologists’ Club, will not be able to go on a planned bird watching expedition to the Bridestones in Dalby Forest.
Paula Jones:
I was sixteen. I was with a lad down the car park woods. I’m saying no names. All of a sudden this copper shows up. Pull your pants up, love, he says, there’s a nutter on the loose. Pull your pants up. That’s what he says. The embarrassment. I could have died.
Angela Beaker:
I was driving down the Pickering road, and there he was. Just popped his head out of the bushes, like one of those thingamajigs off the Attenborough programmes. His eyes went right through me. I’ll never forget those eyes. They give me nightmares even now. Two days later, that’s when he shot that poor man in Malton. It dawned on me how lucky I’d been.
Marjorie Fairbanks:
There were eight hundred police out combing those woods. Helicopters, the works. Vans back half-way up Fryup Bank. And Angela Beaker says she saw him first? The things I could tell you about that woman.
Pc Ian Jenkins:
He went to ground. The trail went cold. He was trained in survival skills. For four days, nothing.
Len Rivis:
A man walked into my shop and bought a loaf, a can of pilchards and other food. He looked like an ordinary, mild-mannered man. He left the shop and a few seconds later I heard a shot. I ran outside and saw Sergeant Ward lying in the road.
Mavis Sleight, teacher:
It wasn’t cowboys and indians. It was the mad killer this, the mad killer that. You know how kids are. Guns going off all over the place. Bang bang, you’re dead. I shouldn’t say that. But, you know.
Chief Constable Kenneth Groves:
Sergeant Ward paid the supreme price. His service to the British police cannot be praised too highly. Our thoughts are with his wife and his one-year old daughter.
Jane Ryton:
My daughter couldn’t go out on her pony. No, they said, it’s too dangerous. Well, she’s out on that pony every day of the week, come hell or high water.
Yorkshire Evening Press, July 3:
The man, who answered Richards’ description, was seen by a woman at Railway Cottages. There was also a report that a goat had been milked, not by its owner.
Les Farrow:
He came to the back door. I didn’t think anything at first. I thought he was a tramp. Then I saw the gun. I remember thinking, oh well then, here we go then. This is it.
Det Supt John Rutherford:
Initially, until he got to know the Farrows, he kept them bound. They were tied up. But once this trust between them developed, I think they ended up on first-name terms.
Violet Farrow:
I made him sandwiches. He was very interested in watching the news.
Brian Farrow:
As the night went on, we got talking as if we had known each other for years. He was calling me Brian and my father he was calling dad.
Violet Farrow:
He was ever so polite. He said, I’m going to have to tie you up. I’m sorry about this. He said, I won’t hurt you. I thought, that’s easy for you to say.
Derek Firkin:
They thought they had him. Turns out it was a scarecrow. A bloody scarecrow!
Dave McCabe, survivalist:
I tracked his footprints in the dew. I saw a portion of plastic bag on the ground. It seemed to move. As I put my hand forward, suddenly a foot flew back and hit me on the knee. The plastic bag had been on top of him. I couldn’t even see him. I shouted, he’s here, and jumped backwards. The policemen hit the ground.
James Bell:
I went out to offer a cup of tea to a policeman. I thought he was manning a checkpoint. He shouted at me to get back inside. Charming. Then I saw the stun grenades being thrown over the wall.
Pc Michael Brown:
We had him surrounded. There was no way out. Then there was a shot. We thought he was shooting at us, so we opened fire. That was the order. To begin with, it wasn’t clear whose gun had done what.
Marjorie Fairbanks:
I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. We’ve got him. It’s over. I went straight in the newsagents. We’ve got him. It’s over. Sighs of relief all round. Thank goodness for that. The poor families. The TVs left, just like that. A great long queue of them. They’d ruined the verges.
Yorkshire Evening Press, July 5:
RICHARDS LIVED OFF CAT FOOD
At some point in his final desperate days, Billy Richards was driven to eat cat food. Tins of cat food were stored in an outbuilding of the Farrows’ house in East Mount. The tins of cat food were stored in large packs, one of which had been opened.
Derek Firkin:
They had an inquest. Don’t ask me why. I don’t give a shit who shot him. The bottom line is, we were well rid.
Noelle Curry, Richards relative:
We will see to it that he doesn’t have a pauper’s grave. No matter what he did, we think as members of the family he deserves better than that. We never met him, but we have been told that before all this he was a pleasant, respectable man.
Dorothy Bostock:
We never saw the tinted highlights again.
Marjorie Fairbanks:
Tinted highlights? No, no. Is that what she said? I’ll show you the videotape
* * * *
Odd Kirk
I don’t reckon the sun’s ever come up quite the same since the day it happened. I’ve been watching it for years now and to me it still don’t look right somehow. Maybe it’s just me thinking it, sending myself doolally after what I’ve done. But I swear every morning it creeps up and it’s looking at me, all knowing like. And when you reckon the sun’s acting like that over you there isn’t a right lot you can do about it, beyond burying yourself away like a mole in the soil.
That’s what I’ve been doing more or less in the score or so years that have gone by since. But however tight I shut them curtains to stop that damn sun lighting me up, it still don’t stop the inside of my head from pounding out the truth. No way it’s ever going to stop harassing me neither, not unless the deaf and dumb lass was to happen right back on my doorstep and give me the chance to tell her that it wasn’t never meant to work out this way.
The deaf and dumb lass went by the name of Mitzi Barker. Her being deaf and dumb, she was the kind of lass you went up the lane with if you didn’t want no-one shouting their gob off about it after. Funny but it’s the small things I recall best about her, like the way her hair reeked of bonfires and how that little old checkered dress of hers rode right up her thigh with no help from me.
After we’d finished our business we’d head over the trout farm and I’d hunker down and poach us up a couple of rainbows for our tea. That Mitzi Barker, she was thin as an ear of barley and I always figured a good nosh-up was the least I could do for her troubles. Sometimes if I was feeling mean I’d slap the backs of her knees with the wet fish just to hear her squeal, seeing as it was damn near the only sound she ever made. Then we’d head over to the dip and get us a nice burn-up going away from the wind and have a few swigs of beer and a puff of baccy out of my bait box. We’d eat the rainbows with our bare hands, riving the pink meat off the backbone till only its inners stayed put. After, maybe we’d get it going again if we were inclined that way.
Them days no-one never called me odd, least never to my face. Far as I could see they had no reason to and if they did I’d most likely have brayed my big fist down on the tops of their heads for finding it. They
said even then one day my temper was going to get me in a whole heap of trouble and I guess if them people knew what had become of me they’d be standing in that pub of theirs swigging down their I-told-you-so’s all night long.
The way I see it, things started to go wrong the day I got myself in all sorts of trouble fishing for rainbows on Burgess land. It never crossed my mind them rich folk would give two hoots about nowt but a plaggy bag full of rainbows but then I never had no cause to be well up with what goes on in rich folks’ heads.
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