1983

by David Peace

  Reconstruction time.

  ‘Evans,’ I was shouting as I crossed the road, adjusting my glasses and looking at my watch. ‘Evans!’

  He was coming towards me, arms full of papers and files: ‘Sir?’

  ‘Get these fucking vans and cars out of here!’ I yelled. ‘Fucking circus.’

  He was apologising but I wasn’t listening -

  ‘And get everyone in the fucking hall.’

  ‘Mr Jobson?’ asked the plump grey-haired woman coming towards us with the disgusted expression.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said.

  ‘Marjorie Roberts,’ she replied. ‘The HT.’

  ‘The HT?’

  ‘The Head Teacher,’ mumbled Evans.

  I stuck out my hand: ‘Maurice Jobson. Detective Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘What would you like us to do, Mr Jobson?’ she sighed.

  ‘If you could ask all the children and their parents to step into the hall, that would be a big, big help.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said and walked off.

  ‘Miserable bitch,’ hissed Dick at my shoulder. ‘Been up here practically every bloody day and not even a cup of tea. Just when can she expect things to get back to normal, upsetting the kids and their routine etc etc. Stupid fucking cow.’

  I nodded: ‘Where’s Hazel?’

  ‘In the old cow’s office,’ said Evans.

  ‘And where is the old cow’s office?’

  ‘This way,’ said Dick and we followed him across the playground, through the children and their parents, to the black stone building. He opened a double set of green doors and we stepped into the school and that familiar smell, that familiar smell of children and detergent.

  We walked down a corridor, plastic supermarket bags hanging from the low pegs, the walls still decorated with pictures of Easter eggs. At the end of the corridor, Dick tapped on a door and opened it.

  Inside a middle-aged woman was sitting with a ten-year-old girl; a ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, clutching a black drawstring gym bag.

  ‘I’m Maurice Jobson,’ I said. ‘I’m the detective in charge.’

  The woman stood up: ‘I’m Nichola’s mother. Karen Barstow.’

  ‘Thank you very much for helping us,’ I said.

  ‘Anything to help find the poor little-’

  ‘Hello,’ I said to the ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, holding a black drawstring gym bag.

  ‘Hello,’ she said back.

  ‘You must be Nichola,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said the ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag -

  ‘Today I’m Hazel.’

  No other name.

  I walked out on to the stage, the children sat crosslegged at the front, the teachers and journalists standing at the sides, parents mouthing messages to their kids from the back.

  Mrs Roberts introduced me: ‘Everybody, this is Mr Jobson. He’s the policeman who’s going to find Hazel. Now I know a lot of you have talked to the other nice policemen about Hazel, but today we’re going to pretend it’s last Thursday again. We’re going to all try very hard to remember exactly what we did last Thursday and then we’re all going to do the same thing again. Maybe some clever person will remember something very important and that will help Mr Jobson find Hazel.’

  I stood there, nodding -

  The children staring at me, silently.

  Mrs Roberts had stopped speaking and was looking at me.

  In a low voice she whispered: ‘What about Hazel? Shall we introduce her.’

  I nodded. I turned to the side. I gestured for Nichola’s mother to lead her daughter out on to the stage -

  There was a wave of noise across the hall, all the teachers with their fingers to their lips as all the parents strained to see their own kids who were standing up and sitting down, confused and excited.

  ‘Children, sit down please,’ barked Mrs Roberts.

  I looked out at the rows and rows of children in front of me. I said: ‘This is Nichola, but today she is going to be Hazel.’

  ‘Will everybody please sit down!’ shouted Mrs Roberts again. ‘That means you too Stephen Tams.’

  ‘Now,’ I said, wishing WPC Martin was here and I wasn’t. ‘Who was with Clare last Thursday?’

  Silence -

  The kids were all looking at each other, then looking at their teachers and their parents, their teachers and their parents looking at me, all of them looking confused.

  I turned to Mrs Roberts: ‘What?’

  Mrs Roberts was staring at me. She was frowning.

  ‘What?’ I said again.

  Mrs Roberts, eyes wide, whispered: ‘Hazel? You mean Hazel?’

  I nodded. I mumbled: ‘I’m sorry. Hazel. Who was with Hazel last Thursday at home time?’

  Now there were hands going up, lots of hands, and the teachers and the parents were shaking their heads and then suddenly above the tiny hands, at the back of the room, I could see Mr and Mrs Atkins -

  Mr and Mrs Atkins staring at me and the little girl beside me.

  I turned to the girl -

  The ten-year-old girl with long straight fair hair and blue eyes, wearing an orange waterproof kagool, a dark blue turtleneck sweater, pale blue denim trousers with a distinctive eagle motif on the back left pocket and red Wellington boots, carrying a plastic Co-op carrier bag containing a pair of black gym shoes.

  She was holding my hand, her hand squeezing mine.

  Outside it had started to rain again, the parents and journalists under their umbrellas, the kids with their hoods up, the three of us getting pissed on from up above -

  And it hadn’t even started yet.

  ‘Whose fucking idea was it to have them here?’ I was shouting.

  ‘They wanted to be here,’ Evans was saying. ‘The press want to speak to them. Gives us more exposure.’

  ‘You should have fucking checked.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he was saying for the thousandth bloody time today.

  ‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘It’s done.’

  Dick looked at his watch: ‘Home time?’

  I looked at mine. I nodded at Evans: ‘Let’s get started.’

  Evans walked back across the playground to the TV crews and the journalists at the gates; the teachers, the parents and their kids impatiently waiting for the signal to begin. The TV crews and journalists were all over Evans with their questions and demands. Finally he ducked out from under their umbrellas and curses and gave the signal and, out of this pantomime and pandemonium, in the middle of the rain at the school gates, there she was again -

  Hazel Atkins:

  Coming through the gates, the other kids behind her, waving and stopping and waving and stopping, hands up and hands down and hands up and hands down, waving bye-bye to the ten-year-old girl with the medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag -

  Hazel:

  Walking up Rooms Lane towards her home in Bradstock Gardens, behind her the TV crews and the journalists with their lenses and their pens, the kids and their parents with their whispers and suspicions, the teachers and police with their hopes and their fears, all of us walking up the road in silent procession through the rain, the rain falling down through the dark, quiet trees and into her hair, into her medium-length dark brown hair and her quiet brown eyes, staining her light blue corduroy trousers, her dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, on to her red quilted sleev
eless jacket, soaking her black drawstring gym bag -

  Hazel:

  Watching her turn towards her house in Bradstock Gardens, the occasional car and lorry slowing, the Atkins in pieces in the rain, their tears in the road because she’d never walk up Rooms Lane again, never turn towards her home in Bradstock Gardens, never open that door and never come in from the rain, never be -

  Hazel:

  This was all they’d ever get -

  A ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag, a ten-year-old girl who was not their daughter, a reconstruction -

  Not Hazel:

  I stood in the road in tears again, a hand squeezing mine -

  The hand of a ten-year-old girl with long straight fair hair and blue eyes, wearing an orange waterproof kagool, a dark blue turtleneck sweater, pale blue denim trousers with a distinctive eagle motif on the back left pocket and red Wellington boots, carrying a plastic Co-op carrier bag containing a pair of black gym shoes -

  Clare:

  Waving bye-bye to the ten-year-old girl with the medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing the light blue corduroy trousers, the dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and the red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying the black drawstring gym bag, the ten-year-old girl who was walking away -

  Hazel:

  Walking away as the rain fell down through the dark, quiet trees and into her dark brown hair and her quiet brown eyes as her mother screamed and screamed, her nails in the road in the rain, screaming and screaming -

  This is what you’ve done, this is what you’ve done, this is what you’ve done.

  Then there were feet behind me, not children’s feet -

  But boots, police boots through the puddles -

  Dick shouting: ‘We got him, Boss.’

  The rain falling through the dark, quiet trees -

  ‘Up Church Street.’

  The little girls gone -

  ‘We’ve fucking got him.’

  Just the history and the lies -

  Resurrected.

  Chapter 8

  You have dreams -

  D-20, here comes retreat; Friday lunchtime you meet Gareth in Billy Walton’s and give yourself the afternoon off, it being his birthday, tea and fishcakes in teacakes with chips and peas sorting you out for the first pint of the weekend, racing pages open, Gareth still going on about Grittar losing the fucking National and how it’s not right, women trainers, be women football managers next, and you’re nodding along, the old woman on the table opposite you with her mouth full of lipstick, potato and fish, her eyes wrapped in bandages, she points at you with her fork.

  And in your dreams -

  Your bellies slopping with tea and fishcakes in teacakes, chips and peas, you cross the Springs to the indoor market and the secondhand book stall, Gareth getting his weekly additions to his porn stash, you helping him choose, the woman behind the stall pointing out a few he’s missed, you treating him, it being his birthday, the rain streaming in through the roof, you wonder what the fuck will happen to this place when they finish the Ridings, Gareth with his secondhand porn in a brown paper bag, the readers’ wives with their plastic carrier bags, their umbrellas and their meat, kids under their feet.

  In your dreams, you have wings -

  Back out in the puddles of blood, past the fish stalls, the tripe and offal shop, up the side of the Fleece, behind the back of the Bullring, out opposite the bus station and into Tickles, just in time for the afternoon stripper and that first pint of the weekend, Gareth moaning about the plastic glasses, standing room only as Disco Ken cues up Billie Jean and out traipses Tina, all tassels and tits, telling half the room to fuck off and forking anyone she’s missed, no wink today for John Piggott, solicitor to the strippers and the deejays, the bar men and the bouncers, the spots on Tina’s back catching in the lights.

  But all these wings in all your dreams -

  Three pints later you’re next door in Hills between turns, waiting for the two-thirty from fuck-knows-where, out of cigs and hungry again, busting for another slash, an old bloke holding open an Evening Post and a photo of Hazel Atkins with the words Hazel: Police Arrest Local Man in Morley, big-black-bloody-type and doesn’t-look-so-bloody-good says Gareth and hanging-is-too-good-for-him agrees the old boy, your brain, your bladder and your belly contorted, screaming and howling, the old man smiling, nodding and blinking, his teeth yellow, stained and loose in his gums bloody, black, and sore.

  Are huge and rotting things -

  Fifth pint and two packets of beef and onion, Gareth wants a decent pint across the Bullring in the Strafford, you telling him to piss off cos he only wants to go in Ladbrokes and why doesn’t he anyway because you’re quite happy here watching the little stage, the mirror ball shining and Phil Collins playing over the empty dancefloor, waiting for Disco Ken to give it a bit of Too Shy which is Blonde Debbie’s song, quite looking forward to Debbie coming on, fit despite two kids and the plasters the brewery make her put over her tattoos.

  The room red.

  Back out in the rain again, ducking next door for the night’s cigs, forty of them to be going on with, telling Gaz you’ll see him at six down the Waterloo, half-past at the latest, but he’ll be in Clothiers opening time if you change your mind, and you wander over the Bullring to Greggs and buy a bag of pasties for your tea, corned beef and Cornish, then you walk back up to St John’s, past the Grammar School and on to Blenheim Road, the tarmac coated with thousands of pieces of broken glass from a shattered windscreen, some of them a deep, dark and bloody red.

  You have dreams -

  Quarter-past five and you’re soaking in Matey, a big Gordon’s on the edge of the bath, slice and ice, careful not to bloody nod off again, out and dressed, fingers full of green super-strength Boots hair gel, washing down the last of the pasties with another gin and tonic, out of slice and ice, feeling better already, putting on Rod and wondering if you shouldn’t wear kegs instead of jeans, fucking the money and calling Azads for a taxi down the Waterloo and the start of the Westgate Run, smelling your breath on the phone and cleaning your teeth again and again and again.

  And in your dreams -

  Gareth’s at the bar already, half-drunk Tetley’s in his hand, everyone else piling in right behind you: Sarn, Kelly, Daz, Hally, Foz, Dickie, and Mark the Fireman, across the room a group of lasses starting the run themselves, hen night, everyone laughing and joking and Gareth doing the honours: a spirit for everyone in first pub then the birthday boy doesn’t buy another drink all night, yours a Southern Comfort, but he knows that and there’s an old man at the bar in a white coat with a tray of whelks and you quietly check your shoes for dog-shit, your ears burning.

  In your dreams, you have fears -

  You are in the White Hart before the hen party, Gareth and Sarn playing arrows, Kelly telling jokes and taking piss out of Hally and Foz, same old stories getting funnier and dirtier as the weeks turn into months and the months into years, Daz dissecting Leeds’ season starting with Harvey back in Waterloo, now on to Thomas, Dickie stoned and half asleep and Mark the Fireman putting shit on the jukebox and getting the same in return, beer in the ashtray, beer on the table, beer on the seat, beer on the floor, Kelly reminding everyone of the time Foz shat in a girl’s handbag upstairs in Raffles.

  But all your fears in all your dreams -

  Waggon and Horses is dead and Kelly reckons you should slow down and wait for the hen party, saying that now because he has to meet Ange in the Elephant, but a bloke at the bar reckons there’s been a fight in Smith’s Arms and you think you should skip it and go straight to the Old Globe, but you end up supping up even faster which pisses off Mark the Fireman because he’s just put a load more bollocks on the jukebox, Whiter Shade of Pale for fucking starters, and someone drops a Tampax from fuck-knows-where in his
pint to hurry him along, not that it’s used or stops him downing the pint in one.

  Are islands lost in tears -

  Landlord in Smith’s Arms says there was a few broken glasses was all, nothing he couldn’t handle, group of lads from Stanley on a Run, heard that Streethouse were coming into town looking for them, these lads fancying their chances but getting a bit edgy, few broken glasses was all, the hen party coming in, but your seal’s just gone and you’re stood staring at the bloody bogies wiped on the wall above the bog where someone’s written the Paunchy Cowboys and stuck up bits of bog roll everywhere with their own shit.

  The room white.

  Stopper and Norm are in the Old Globe and it’s half-seven already, the big old map of the world and pictures of ships which traditionally dictates a Captain Morgan’s followed by a Barley Wine and cider, Stopper shouting Ahoy! as his shipmates board, going on stoned about Captain Pugwash, the Black Pig and Master Bates, and you start on about The Flying Dutchman when you swear you hear Procul bloody Harem come on the sodding jukebox again but Hally says there isn’t a fucking jukebox you pissed fat legal cunt, never has been, not here.

  You have dreams -

  In Swan with Two you find the hen party again, better looking by the pint, specially one with the short brown hair who’s bound to be the bleeding fucking bride, not that she’d look at a fat cunt like you anyway, not that there’s a wedding ring in sight on any of them says Kelly, not that a ring means any-bloody-thing thinks Dickie, and she smiles as she goes to the bogs and tells Kelly to fuck off when he does his been-for-a-shit-darling routine as she comes out, her hair smelling of shampoo and smoke and you wonder if she did have a shit or just a piss, perched over the seat, not wanting to touch it.

  And in your dreams -

  Daz catches up with you in Henry Boons and he’s up to Hird now, the various crimes he should be shot or hung for, way he’s played this season, all Eddie Gray’s fault anyway, he picks the fucking team doesn’t he, fat bastard, no offence John, but everyone sups up quick, except Kel because Ange and her mates will be in Elephant which you think is good news because she’s got some nice mates has Ange, but you do have time for a swift one in Mid before Elephant, so you head up the back way past the Prison, everyone breaking into a chorus of Born Free as you go, everyone except you.