Nineteen Seventy-seven

by David Peace

  ‘Not long enough.’

  ‘Jack, Jack. Always the same, always so sad.’

  I was thinking, not here, not in the street.

  I said, ‘Can we go somewhere. Somewhere quiet?’

  He nodded at the big black building looming over the Scarborough, ‘The Griffin?’

  ‘Why not.’

  The Reverend Martin Laws led the way, walking ahead in his stoop, a giant too big for this world or the next, his grey hair protruding from under his hat, licking the collar of his coat. He turned to hurry me along, through the passers-by, past the shops, between the cars, under the scaffolding and into the dim lobby of the Griffin.

  He waved at some seats in the far corner, two high-backed chairs under an unlit lamp, and I nodded.

  We sat down and he took off his hat, placing it on his lap, his case at his calves.

  He smiled at me again, through his long grey stubble and his dirty yellow skin, an old newspaper, just like mine.

  He smelt of fish.

  A Turkish waiter approached.

  ‘Mehmet,’ said Reverend Laws. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Father, so good to have you back. We are fine, all of us. Thank you.’

  ‘And the school? The little one settled in?’

  ‘Yes, Father. Thank you. It was just as you said.’

  ‘Well, if there’s ever anything more I can do, please …’

  ‘You’ve been too kind, really.’

  ‘It was nothing. My pleasure.’

  I coughed, fidgeting in my jacket.

  ‘Are you ready to order, Father?’

  Reverend Laws smiled at me. ‘Yes, I believe we are. Jack?’

  ‘Brandy, please. And a pot of coffee.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Father?’

  ‘A pot of tea.’

  ‘Your usual?’

  ‘Thank you, Mehmet.’

  He bowed quickly and was gone.

  ‘Lovely, lovely man. Not been here that long, just since the trouble.’

  ‘Good English.’

  ‘Yes, exceptional. You should tell him, be your friend for life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish it on him.’

  Reverend Laws smiled again, that same quizzical smile of faint disbelief that either melted or froze you. ‘Come on now,’ he said. ‘You’re being too hard on yourself. I enjoy being your friend.’

  ‘It’s hardly mutual.’

  ‘Sticks and stones, Jack. Sticks and stones.’

  I said, ‘She’s back.’

  He looked down at the hat in his hands. ‘I know.’

  ‘How could you?’

  ‘Your call the other night. I could feel …’

  ‘Feel what? Feel my pain? Bollocks.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted to meet me? To abuse me? It’s OK, Jack.’

  ‘Look at you, you hypocritical cunt, sat there all pompous and papal in your dirty old raincoat with your hat on your cock and your little bag of secrets, your cross and your prayers, your hammer and your nails, blessing the fucking wogs, turning the tea into wine. It’s me Martin, it’s Jack, not some lonely little old woman who hasn’t had a fuck in fifty years. I was there, remember? The night you fucked up.’

  I’d stopped and he was just sat there.

  The night Michael Williams cradled Carol in his arms one last time.

  Just sat there, the hat revolving in his fingers.

  The night Michael Williams …

  He looked up and smiled.

  The night …

  I opened my mouth to start up again, but it was the waiter he was smiling at.

  Mehmet put down the drinks and then took a small envelope from his pocket and pressed it into the Reverend’s hands.

  ‘Mehmet, I couldn’t. There’s no need.’

  ‘Father, I insist,’ he said and was gone.

  I looked round at the Griffin’s lounge, watching the waiter scurry off back to his hole down below, an old woman with a walking stick trying to stand up from another high-backed chair, a child reading a comic, the dark yellow light at the front desk, the old brochures and paintings and lights almost gone, and it didn’t seem such a mystery why the Reverend Martin Laws was drawn to the Griffin Hotel, looking as it did for all the world like an old church in need of repair.

  He leant forward, the hat still between his fingers, and said, ‘I can help you.’

  ‘Like you helped Michael Williams?’

  ‘I can make it go away’

  ‘Well you certainly got rid of Carol.’

  ‘Make it stop.’

  I looked down at his hat, at the long fingers white at the tips. ‘Jack?’

  I said, ‘I want it to stop. To end.’

  ‘I know you do. And it will, believe me.’

  ‘Is there only that way. The one way.’

  ‘I have a room. We can go upstairs right now and it’ll all be over.’

  I was staring at the old woman with the walking stick, at the child in the corner, the brochures and the paintings, the light fading.

  Jubela, Jubelo …

  ‘Not today,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘I know’

  I walked back through City Square, the moon almost full up in the blue night sky, back through the Friday night boys and girls and the start of the Jubilee Weekend, its threat of rain and promise of a fuck, through City Square and back to the office, knowing what could have been in an upstairs room, back to what would be waiting in another, there on my desk in amongst the rain and the fucks.

  It was already starting to spit a bit.

  I put down the toilet lid and took the letter from my pocket.

  I was thinking about fingerprints and what the police would say but then how would they expect me to know and I knew there wouldn’t be any anyway.

  I stared again at the postmark: Preston.

  Posted yesterday.

  First-class.

  I used the end of my pen to slit the top of the envelope.

  Still using the pen, I prised the paper out.

  It was folded in two, the red ink leaking through the underside, a lump between the sheets.

  I opened it up and tried to read what he’d written.

  I was shaking, vinegar in my eyes, salt in my mouth.

  It wasn’t going to end like this.

  ‘I’ll call George Oldman,’ said Hadden, still staring at the piece of heavy writing paper on his desk, not looking at the contents to the side.

  ‘Right.’

  He swallowed, picked up the phone and dialled.

  I waited, the moon gone, the rain here and the night out.

  It was late in the evening, one hundred years too late in the evening.

  A uniformed copper had come straight over to the Yorkshire Post Building, bagged the envelope and contents, and then driven Hadden and me straight here, to Millgarth, where we’d been ushered up to Detective Chief Superintendent Noble’s office, George Oldman’s old one, where they sat, Peter Noble and George, waiting for us.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Oldman.

  The uniform put the clear plastic bags on the desk and made himself scarce.

  Noble picked up a pair of tweezers and laid out the envelope and letter.

  ‘You’ve both handled it?’ he asked.

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take your prints later,’ said Oldman.

  I smiled, ‘You’ve already got them.’

  ‘Preston,’ read Noble.

  ‘Posted?’

  ‘Looks like yesterday’

  Both of them looked like they were off somewhere deep.

  Hadden was on the edge of his seat.

  Noble placed the letter back in the clear bag and pushed it over to George Oldman, followed by the envelope and smaller parcel.

  He read:

  From Hell.

  Mr Whitehead,

  Sir, I send you skin I took from one women, which I preserved for you. Other bits I fried and ate and it was very nis
e. I may send you the bloody knif that cut it off if you only wait a while longer.

  You’d like that I know.

  Catch me when you can.

  Lewis.

  No-one spoke.

  After a while Noble said, ‘Lewis?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be his real name?’ asked Hadden.

  Oldman looked up and stared across his desk at me. ‘What do you reckon, Jack? This genuine?’

  ‘It’s written as a pastiche of a letter sent to a man called George Lusk during the Ripper Murders in London.’

  Noble shook his head. ‘It was you who wrote the Yorkshire Ripper article, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘It was me.’

  ‘Marvellous. Bloody marvellous that was.’

  Oldman: ‘Leave it, Pete.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Hadden: ‘Jack …’

  ‘But we’re going to get every fucking nut-job from here to Timbukbloodytu writing in. For fuck’s sake.’

  Oldman: ‘Pete …’

  ‘It’s no nut-job. It’s him.’

  ‘No nut-job? Look at it. How the fuck can you sit there and say that?’

  I pointed to the small parcel at his elbow, at the thin slice of skin cut from Mrs Marie Watts:

  ‘How much proof do you want?’

  On the steps outside, in the middle of the night, I lit up.

  ‘What’s with you and Noble?’ Hadden asked.

  ‘I don’t care for him.’

  ‘You don’t care for him?’

  ‘Nor him me.’

  ‘You seem pretty bloody certain that letter’s genuine.’

  ‘What? You don’t think so?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Jack. I mean, how the bloody hell do you know what a letter from a mass murderer looks like?’

  I opened the door and there they were, standing with their six white backs to me.

  I took off my jacket and poured myself a glass of Scotland, sat down and picked up Edwin Drood.

  They kept their backs to me, looking up at the moon.

  I smiled to myself and began to whistle:

  ‘The man I love is up in the gallery …’

  Whirling, Carol flew across the room, teeth bared and nails out; out for my eyes, out for my ears, out for my tongue, wrenching me out from my chair to the floor.

  Screaming: ‘You think it’s amusing? These things are amusing to you?’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  Laughing: ‘Amusing?’

  ‘Rest, I just want to rest.’

  Hissing: ‘Hell breaks loose and you want to rest. We should put you up against the wall.’

  The others chanting: ‘Up against the wall. Up against the wall with him.’

  ‘Please, please. Let me be.’

  Mocking: ‘Let me be, let me be? And who will let us be, Jack?’

  ‘I’m sorry, please …’

  Taunting: ‘Well sorry’s just not good enough, is it?’

  They’d opened the windows, the rain coming in, the curtains billowing.

  Howling: ‘The man I love is up in the gallery …’

  She took my hair and dragged my face out on to the ledge: ‘He’ll kill again and soon. See that moon?’

  The rain in my face, a stomach full of night, the black moon in my eye: ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘You know but you won’t stop him.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  They had my tapes out of the drawers, spinning the reels, streamers in the wind, my books, my childhood crimes, tearing them to shreds –

  Wailing: ‘The man I love is up in the gallery …’

  ‘You know who he is.’

  ‘I don’t. He could be anyone.’

  ‘No he couldn’t. You know he couldn’t.’

  And then she put her mouth over mine, sucking out my breath, her tongue choking me.

  ‘Fuck me, Jack. Fuck me like you used to.’

  I broke away, screaming over and over: ‘You’re dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.’

  Whispering: ‘No, Jack. You are.’

  They picked me up off the floor and carried me to my bed and laid me down, Carol stroking my face, Eddie gone and my Bible open, reading:

  ‘This will happen in the last days: I will pour out upon everyone a portion of my spirit; and your sons and daughters shall prophesy; your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’.

  ‘We love you, Jack. We love you,’ they sang.

  Don’t lose yourself, not now.

  In the last days.

  Caller: This bloke Moody, he’s the Head of Scotland Yard’s Obscene Publications Squad right?

  John Shark: Was, yeah.

  Caller: And all the time he’s accepting bribes and doing favours for these Porn Barons. Un-bloody-believable.

  John Shark: All a far cry from Dixon of Dock Green.

  Caller: Fuck, he was probably at it and all. Bloody coppers. Make you sick.

  The John Shark Show

  Radio Leeds

  Saturday 4th June 1977

  Chapter 7

  I wake alone from an empty sleep, alone in Janice’s empty sheets, alone in her empty bed, in her empty room.

  It’s Saturday morning, 4 June, and I’ve had two hours fitful kip, hot sun coming up.

  I lean over and switch on the radio:

  Three policemen shot dead in Ulster, man on Nairac murder charge, ITV still on strike, Scotland fans arriving in London, Keegan joins Hamburg for half a million, temperatures expected to reach seventy.

  Or more.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, head waking:

  Red lights, shotgun blasts, cancer wards, death camps, bodies under tan raincoats, terrible rooms peopled by the dead.

  I put on my boots and walk across the hall and bang on Karen Burns’ door.

  Dragging the waters, drowning gulps from the black river:

  Keith Lee, another Spencer Boy, bare-chested in jeans: ‘What the fuck you want?’

  ‘Seen Janice?’

  Karen lying on her stomach on the bed, Keith glances round: ‘This business or personal?’

  I push him back into the room, ‘That’s not an answer Keith. That’s a question.’

  Karen raises her head, ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I know what you did to Kenny, man. Used up a lot of goodwill.’

  I slap him and tell him: ‘Kenny was sticking it into Marie Watts behind Barton’s back. Fuck another man’s woman you get everything that’s coming to you.’

  Karen pulls a dirty grey sheet over her head, white arse my way.

  Keith rubs his face and points a finger: ‘Yeah well, I’ll remember that next time Eric Hall or Craven come knocking.’

  I stare him down.

  He looks round the room, nodding to himself.

  Something’s up with our Keith, something more than Kenny getting a slapping.

  But fuck him.

  I pull the sheet off Karen Burns, white, twenty-three, convicted prostitute, drug addict, mother of two, and slap her across the arse:

  ‘Janice? Where the fuck is she?’

  She rolls over, tits flat, one hand over her cunt, the other chasing the sheet: ‘Fuck off, Fraser. I haven’t seen her since Thursday night.’

  ‘She wasn’t working last night?’

  ‘Fuck knows. All I’m saying is I didn’t see her.’

  I let the sheet drop over her and turn back to Keith: ‘What about Joe?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s keeping a low profile.’

  ‘Man hasn’t left his room in a week.’

  ‘Cos of that shit with Kenny?’

  ‘Fuck that. Two sevens, man.’

  ‘You believe that bollocks?’

  ‘I believe what I see.’

  ‘And what do you see, Keith?’

  ‘A million little apocalypses and a lot of bloody reckonings.’

  I laugh: ‘Get a flag, Keith. It’s the Jubilee.’


  ‘Fuck off.’

  I say, ‘Very patriotic,’ and shut the door on the pieces of shit and their shitty little world.

  A key turns in the lock, the handle next.

  And there she is, tired and full; tired from fucking, full from fucking.

  ‘What you doing here?’

  ‘I told you, I’m leaving her.’

  ‘Not now, Bob. Not now,’ and she goes into the bathroom, slamming the door.

  I follow her.

  She’s sat on the toilet, lid down, crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Leave it, Bob.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She’s swallowing, trying to stop the sobs.

  I’m on the toilet floor, holding up her chin, asking, ‘What happened?’

  In the backs of expensive motors, leather gloves gripping the back of her neck, cocks up her arse, bottles up her cunt …

  ‘Tell me!’

  She’s shaking.

  I hold her, kissing her tears.

  ‘Please …’

  She stands up, pushing me off, over to the mirror, wiping her face, ‘Fuck it.’

  ‘Janice, I need to know …’

  She turns square, hands on her hips: ‘All right. They picked me up …’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who do you fucking think?’

  ‘Vice?’

  ‘Yeah, Vice.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘You saw their warrant cards?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake Bob.’

  ‘You told them to call Eric?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Eric told them to call you.’

  There are ropes around my chest, thick heavy ropes, getting tighter with every second, every sentence.

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They laughed and called the station. Called your house.’

  ‘My house?’

  ‘Yes, your house.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘They couldn’t find you, Bob. You weren’t there.’

  ‘So what …’

  ‘You weren’t there, Bob?’

  The ropes burning my chest, breaking my ribs.

  ‘Janice …’

  ‘You want to know what happened then? You want to know what they did next?’

  ‘Janice …’

  ‘They fucked me.’

  Bile in my mouth, my eyes closed.

  She’s screaming: ‘Look at me!’

  I lift the lid and cough, her behind me.

  ‘Look at me!’