by David Peace
The house is quiet and stinks of smoke and dope.
I tap on her door at the top of the stairs.
She comes to the door looking like a Red Indian, her dark hair and skin covered in a film of sweat, like she’s just been fucking and fucking for real.
The nights I’ve dreamt about her.
‘You can’t come in. I’m working.’
‘There’s been another.’
‘So?’
‘You can’t stay round here.’
‘So how about your place?’
‘Please,’ I whisper.
‘You going to make an honest woman of me, are you Mr Policeman?’ ‘I’m serious.’
‘So am I. I need money.’
I pull out notes, screwing them up in her face.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ I nod.
‘What about a ring, Prince Bobby?’
I sigh and start to speak.
‘One like you gave your wife.’
I look at the carpet, the stupid flowers and birds woven together under my feet.
I look up and Janice slaps me once.
‘Piss off, Bob.’
‘Fucking give him up!’
‘Piss off!’
Ellis pushes her head back, banging it against the wall. Tuck off!’
‘Come on, Karen,’ I say. ‘Just tell us where he is and we’re away.’
‘I don’t fucking know.’ She’s crying and I believe her.
We’ve been at this now for over six hours and DC Michael Ellis wouldn’t know the fucking truth if it walked up and smacked him in the gob, so he walks up to Karen Burns, white, twenty-three, convicted prostitute, drug addict, mother of two, and smacks her in the gob instead.
‘Easy Mike, easy,’ I hiss.
She falls away against her wallpaper, sobbing and angry.
Ellis tugs at his balls. He’s hot, fucked off, and bored and I know he wants to pull down her pants and give her one.
I say, ‘Half-time Mike?’
He sniffs and rolls his eyes and walks back down the hall.
The window’s open and the radio on. A hot Sunday in May and all you’d usually hear would be Bob fucking Marley, but not today. Just Jimmy Savile playing twenty-five years of Jubilee hits, as every cunt and his stash hide under their beds, waiting for the sirens to stop, the shit to end.
Karen lights a cig and looks up.
I say, ‘You do know Steve Barton?’
‘Yeah, unfortunately.’
‘But you’ve no idea where he is?’
‘If he’s any bloody sense, he’ll have legged it.’
‘Has he any bloody sense?’
‘Some.’
‘So where’d he leg it to?’
‘London. Bristol. I’ve no fucking idea.’
Karen’s flat stinks and I wonder where the kids are. Probably been taken off her again.
I say, ‘You reckon he did it?’
‘No.’
‘So give me a name and I’m out of here.’
‘Or what?’
‘Or I’ll go and get some fucking lunch and let my mate out there question you, and then I’ll come back and we’ll take you down Queens Street.’
She tuts, exhales, and says, ‘Who do you want?’
‘Anyone who likes a bit of strange. Anything odd.’
‘Anything odd?’ she laughs.
‘Anything.’
She stubs out the cigarette on a plastic tray of chips and curry sauce and gets up and takes an address book out of the knife drawer. The room now stinks of burning plastic.
‘Here,’ she says, tossing the little book over to me.
I scan the names, the numbers, the licence plates, the lies.
‘Give me someone.’
‘Under D. Dave. Drives a white Ford Cortina.’
‘What about him?’
‘No rubber, likes to stick it up your arse.’
‘So?’
‘He doesn’t say please.’
I take out my notebook, copy down the licence plate.
‘Heard he don’t always pay and all.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘There’s a taxi driver who likes to bite.’
‘We’ve heard.’
‘That’s your lot then.’
‘Thanks,’ I say and see myself out.
I drop the coins.
‘Joseph?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Fraser.’
‘Bobby the bobby. Just a matter of time I says, and see if it ain’t so.’
I am in the phone box two down from the Azad Rank, watching a couple of Paki kids bowling at each other. Ellis is sleeping off his Sunday lunch in the car: two cans of bitter and a fat cheese sandwich. There’s Sunday cricket on the radio, more heat forecast, birds singing, lilting bass and sax from a terrace.
It can’t last.
The man on the other end is Joseph Rose: Joe Rose, Jo Ro. Another Paki kid joins the game.
I say, ‘SPG are coming to take everyone away, and not to Zion.’
‘Fuck them.’
‘See you try,’ I laugh. ‘You got some names for me?’
Joseph Rose: part-time prophet, part-time petty thief, full-time Spencer Boy with draw to score and debts to pay, he says:
‘This be concerning Mrs Watts?’
‘In one.’
‘Your pirate won’t stay away, no?’
‘No. So?’
‘So people be spooked anyway’
‘By him?’
‘Nah, nah. The two sevens, man.’
Fuck, here we go. ‘Joseph, give me some fucking names.’
‘All I hear is the ladies say it’s Irish. Same as befores.’
The Irish.
‘Ken and Keith know anything?’
‘Same as I say’
As I hang up two black SPG transit vans fly down the street and I’m thinking, fuck the Spencer Boys:
HEAVY DUTY DISCIPLINE COMING DOWN.
It’s going up to eight and the car is getting smaller, light starting to fade. Across Leeds 7 bonfires are going up, and not fucking Jubilee Beacons. Me and Ellis are still sat off Spencer Place, doing fuck all but sweat and get on each other’s tits.
Nervous, like the whole fucking city:
Ellis stinks and we’ve got the windows down, smelling the wood and Rome burn, cat calls and yells upon the hot black air: the ones we’ve not pinched building barricades, putting out the milk bottles for later.
Edgy:
I’m thinking about giving Louise a ring, wondering if she’ll be back from the hospital, feeling bad about Little Bobby and yesterday, coming back to Janice and getting fucking stiff, and then it all comes down.
HARD:
Glass smashing, brakes slamming, a red car careering down the road, zig-zagging, its windscreen gone, hitting one kerb, flipping over at the foot of a lamppost.
‘Christ,’ shouts Ellis. ‘That’s Vice.’
We’re both out of the car, running across Spencer Place to the upturned motor.
I look up the street:
There’s a bonfire on a piece of wasteland at the top of the road illuminating a small gang of West Indians, black shadows dancing and whooping, thinking about finishing off what they’ve just started, sticking the boot in.
I stare into the black night, the barricades and bonfires, the high flames all loaded with pain:
A proud coon steps forward, all dreadlocks and Mau Mau attitude:
Come and have a go.
But I can already hear the sirens, the SPG, the Specials and Reserves, our sponsored fucking monsters let loose on the wind, and I turn back to the red car.
Ellis is bending down, talking to the two men upside-down inside.
‘They’re all right,’ he shouts to me.
‘Call an ambulance,’ I say. ‘I’ll stay with them until cavalry get here.’
‘Fucking niggers,’ says Ellis, running back to our car.
I get down on all fours and peer into the car.<
br />
It’s dark and at first I don’t recognise the men inside.
I say something like, ‘Don’t try and move. We’ll have you out in a minute.’
They nod and mumble.
I can hear more cars and brakes.
‘Fraser,’ moans one of the men.
I peer in and over at the man trapped in the passenger seat.
Fucking Craven, Detective Inspector Craven.
‘Fraser?’
I pretend I can’t hear him, saying, ‘Hang on, pal. Hang on, mate.’
I look back up the road again and see a transit van spewing out SPG, tearing off after the wogs through the bonfire.
Ellis is back. ‘Soon as the ambulance gets here, Rudkin wants us back at the Station. Says it’s a right madhouse.’
‘Like this isn’t? You wait with them,’ I say, standing up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll be back in a bit.’
Ellis is muttering and cursing as I tear off back up towards number 2, back up towards Janice.
‘Fuck you want?’
‘Let us in. I just want to talk.’
‘There’s a surprise,’ she says but opens the door to let me in.
She’s barefoot in a long flower skirt and t-shirt.
I stand in the centre of the room, the window open, the smell of smoke and the start of a riot outside.
I say, ‘They threw a brick or something at a Vice car.’
‘Yeah?’ she says, like it doesn’t happen every other night of the fucking week.
I shut my mouth and put my arms round her.
‘So that’s what you want?’ she laughs.
‘No,’ I lie, fucked off and hard.
She squats down, pulling at my zip as I fall back and sink into the bed.
She starts sucking, my mind black sky with stars popping in and out, listening to the sirens and the screams, knowing the shit hasn’t even begun.
‘Fuck you been?’
‘Shut up, Ellis.’
‘It was fucking DI Craven in the car, you know?’
‘You’re joking?’
I get into the car, the street still full of blue lights and SPG.
The bonfires out, the wogs nicked, Craven and his mate in St James, and DC Ellis still not content.
I let him drive.
‘So where were you?’
‘Leave it,’ I say quietly.
‘Rudkin’s going to fucking murder us,’ he moans.
‘Is he fuck,’ I sigh.
I stare out the open window at Black Leeds, Sunday 29 May 1977.
‘You think no-one knows about you and that slag?’ says Ellis suddenly. ‘Everyone knows. Fucking embarrassing, it is.’
I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t care if he knows or not, don’t care who knows, but I don’t want Louise to know and now I can’t keep little Bobby’s face out of my mind.
I turn and say, ‘Tonight’s not the night. Save it for later.’
For once he takes my advice and I go back to the window, him to the road, steeling ourselves.
Millgarth Police Station.
Ten o’clock going on the Middle Ages.
Live from my own Dark Ages:
Down the stairs into the dungeons, keys and locks turning, chains and cuffs rattling, dogs and men barking.
Let the Witch Trials begin:
DI Rudkin’s in his shirtsleeves and crop at the end of the white heat/white light corridor.
‘Good of you to join us,’ he smirks.
Ellis, pinched face and itching palms, nods in apology.
‘Bob Craven all right, is he?’
‘Yeah, cuts and bruises,’ gabbles Ellis.
I say, ‘Got anything?’
‘Full house tonight.’
‘Anything concrete?’
‘Maybe,’ he winks. ‘And you?’
‘Same as before: the Irish, the taxi driver, and Mr Dave Cortina.’
‘Right then,’ says Rudkin. ‘In here.’
He opens a cell door and it’s, aw fuck.
‘One of yours yeah, Bob?’
‘Yeah,’ I mouth, stomach gone.
They’ve got Kenny D, Spencer Boy, in his cheap checked underpants bent back over the table in the Black Christ Hold: head and back pinned down against the wood, arms outstretched, feet splayed, cock’n’balls open to the world.
Rudkin shuts the door.
The whites of Kenny’s eyes are on their stalks, straining to see who’s come into his upside-down hell.
He sees me and takes it in: five white coppers and him: Rudkin, Ellis, and me, plus the two uniforms holding him down.
‘Spot of routine questioning was all it was,’ laughs Rudkin. ‘Only Sambo here, he’s got a bit of a guilty conscience and decides to be the black Roger fucking Bannister.’
Kenny is staring up at me, teeth locked in pain.
The door opens behind me, then closes. I glance round. Noble’s got his back against the door, watching.
Rudkin smiles at me and says, ‘Been asking for you, Bob.’
My mouth’s dry and cracks when I ask, ‘Has he said anything else?’
‘That’s just it, isn’t it lads,’ Rudkin laughs along with the two uniforms. ‘You want to tell DS Fraser here, why it was you wanted to have a word with Sambo in first place?’
One of the uniforms, champing for his leg up, gushes, ‘Found some of his gear round number 3 Francis Street.’
He pauses, letting it sink in:
Mrs Marie Watts of 3 Francis Street, Leeds 7.
‘And then he denies even knowing the late Mrs Marie Watts,’ crows Rudkin.
I’m standing in the cell, walls closing in, the heat and stink rising, thinking, aw fuck Kenny.
‘I’ve told him,’ says Rudkin, ‘I’m going to add some blue to that black skin of his if he doesn’t start giving us some answers.’
Down on the table, Kenny closes his eyes.
I bend down, my mouth to his ear. ‘Tell them,’ I hiss.
He keeps his eyes closed.
‘Kenny,’ I say, ‘these men will fuck you up and no-one will give a shit.’
He opens his eyes, straining to stare into mine.
‘Stand him up,’ I say.
I go over to the far wall opposite the door; there’s a newspaper cutting taped to the grey gloss paint.
‘Bring him closer.’
They bring him in, eyeball to the wall.
‘Read it, Kenny,’ I whisper.
There’s blood on his teeth as he reads aloud the headline: ‘No action against policemen over detainee’s death.’
‘You want be the next fucking Liddle Towers?’
He swallows.
‘Answer me.’
‘NO!’ he screams.
‘So sit down and start talking,’ I yell, pushing him down into the chair.
Noble and Rudkin are smiling, Ellis watching me closely.
I say, ‘Now Kenny, we know you knew Marie Watts. All we want to know first is how come your fucking stuff was at her place?’
His face is puffed up, his eyes red, and I hope he’s fucking smart enough to know I’m his only friend here tonight.
At last he says, ‘I’d lost me key, hadn’t I?’
‘Come on, Kenny. It’s not fucking Jackanory.’
‘I’m telling you. I’d taken some stuff from my cousins and I lost my key and Marie says it was all right to dump it at hers.’
I look up at Ellis and nod.
DC Ellis brings his fists down hard from behind into Kenny’s shoulder blades.
He screams, falling to the floor.
I’m down there with him, eyeball to eyeball.
‘Just fucking tell us, you lying piece of black shit.’
I nod again.
The uniforms haul him back up into the chair.
He’s got his fat pink mouth hanging open, tongue white, hands to his shoulders.
‘Oh, why are we waiting, joyful and triumphant,’ I start singing as th
e others join in.
The door opens and another bloke looks in, laughing, and then goes back out.
‘Oh why are we waiting, joyful and triumphant, oh why are we waiting …’
I give the sign and it stops.
‘You were fucking her, just say it.’
He nods.
‘I can’t hear you,’ I whisper.
He swallows, closes his eyes, and whispers, ‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah what?’
‘I was …’
‘Louder.’
‘Yeah. I was fucking her, right.’
‘Fucking who?’
‘Marie.’
‘Marie who?’
‘Marie Watts.’
‘What about her, Kenny?’
‘I was fucking her, Marie Watts.’
He’s crying; big fat fucking tears.
‘You dumb fucking monkey.’
I feel Rudkin’s hand on my back.
I turn away.
Noble winks.
Ellis stares.
It’s over.
For now.
I stand in the white corridor outside the canteen.
I call home.
No answer.
They’re still at the hospital or up in bed; either way she’ll be fucked off.
I see her father in the bed, her walking up and down the ward, Bobby in her arms, trying to get him to stop crying.
I hang up.
I call Janice.
She answers.
‘You again?’
‘You alone?’
‘For now.’
‘What about later?’
‘I hope not.’
‘I’ll try and get over.’
‘Bet you will.’
She hangs up.
I look at the bleached floor, at the bootmarks and the dirt, the shadows and the light.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know where to go.
Caller: You see this yesterday [reads]: Screaming Mob Surrounds the Queen. A royal walkout in Camperdown Park turned into a frightening display of hysteria as thousands of people, screaming and yelling, broke through flimsy rope barriers and swarmed around the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Police tried to fend them off but she was jostled by people shrieking, ‘I’ve touched the Queen.’
John Shark: Poor cow.
Caller: And if that isn’t enough [reads]: Earlier in the day, council workmen were called out to erase anti-royalist slogans from walls and hoardings along the Queen’s route.
John Shark: Bloody Jocks, worse than the Micks.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Monday 30th May 1977
