by David Peace
‘You always go to a party after work?’
‘No, but it’s Jubilee, isn’t it?’
Rudkin smiles, ‘Bit of a patriot are you, Don?’
‘Yeah I am, as a matter of fact.’
‘Fuck you drink with wogs and whores for then?’
‘I told you, I just wanted a drink.’
I say, ‘So you just sat there in the corner, sipping a half you?’
‘Yeah, that was about it.’
‘Didn’t have a dance or a bit of a cuddle?’
‘No.’
‘Smoke a bit of the old wog weed, did you?’
‘No.’
‘So then you just went home?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what time was that then?’
‘Must have been about three-ish.’
‘And where’s home?’
‘Pudsey.’
‘Nice place, Pudsey’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Live alone do you Donny?’
‘No, with my mum.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Light sleeper is she, your mum?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, did she hear you come in?’
‘Doubt it.’
Rudkin, big fat fucking grin: ‘So you don’t sleep in the same fucking bed or anything daft like that?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Here,’ spits Rudkin, the hard stare in Fairclough’s face. ‘The shit you’re in, you’ll wish you had been fucking your mum. Understand?’
Fairclough’s eyes drop, nails up to his mouth.
‘So,’ I say, ‘what we got is this: you knocked off work about one, went down to a party on Leopold Street, had a couple of drinks, drove home to Pudsey for about three. Right?’
‘Right,’ he’s nodding. ‘Right.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me.’
‘And?’
‘And anyone who was at that party.’
‘Whose names you don’t know?’
‘Just ask anyone who was there. They’ll pick me out, I swear.’
‘Let’s hope so. For your fucking sake.’
Upstairs, out of the Belly.
No sleep.
Just coffee.
No dreams.
Just this:
Shirtsleeves and smoke, grey skins with big black rings crayoned across our faces:
Oldman, Noble, Prentice, Alderman, Rudkin, and me.
On every wall, names:
Jobson.
Bird.
Campbell.
Strachan.
Richards.
Peng.
Watts.
Clark.
Johnson.
On every wall, words:
Screwdriver.
Abdomen.
Boots.
Chest.
Hammer.
Skull.
Bottle.
Rectum.
Knife.
On every wall, numbers:
1.3′
1974.
32.
1975.
239 + 584.
1976.
X3
1977.
3.5.
And Noble is saying:
‘We got a witness, this Mark Lancaster, who says he saw a white Ford Cortina, black roof, on Reginald Street about two this morning. Fairclough’s motor. No question.’
We’re listening, waiting.
‘Right, Farley is saying that this is definitely the same man. No question. And Bob Craven’s lads have turned up another witness who saw this guy, this Dave, the night Joan Richards was murdered. Description’s a ringer for Fairclough. No question.’
Listening, waiting.
‘I say we stick the cunt in a line-up, see if this witness’ll pick him out.’
Waiting.
‘No alibi, motor spotted at the time of death, witness has him for Joan Richards, same blood group, what you reckon?’
Oldman:
‘Cunt’s going down.’
The magnificent seven.
We’re standing there, in the line-up, in the room we use for press conferences, the chairs all folded up at the back, Ellis and me either side of Fairclough, two guys from Vice and a couple of civilians making up the numbers and a fiver each.
The coppers, we all look alike.
The civilians are both over forty.
No-one looks like Donny.
And there we stand, in the line-up, numbers three, four, and five. Number four shaking, stinking, smelling like FEAR, HATE, and DIRTY THOUGHTS.
‘This isn’t right,’ he’s moaning. ‘I should have a lawyer.’
‘But you haven’t done anything, Donny,’ says Ellis. ‘Or so you keep saying.’
‘But I haven’t.’
‘We’ll see,’ I say. ‘We’ll see who’s not done anything.’
Rudkin sticks his head in, ‘Right, quiet now ladies. Eyes front.’
He opens the door wider and Oldman, Noble, and Craven lead in Karen Burns.
Karen fucking Burns.
Fuck.
She looks down the line, looks at Craven, who nods, and steps towards us.
Noble puts a hand on her arm to hold her back.
He turns to Rudkin, ‘Where are the bloody numbers?’
‘Shit.’
Noble rolls his eyes and turns to Karen Burns and says in a low voice, ‘When you see the man you saw last year on the night of 6th February please stand before him and touch his right shoulder.’
She nods, swallows, and steps towards the first man.
She doesn’t even look at him.
Past the second, straight to us.
She stands before Ellis, and I’m wondering if he’s ever fucked her, if there’s a man in this room who hasn’t.
Ellis is almost smiling.
She glances down the line at me.
I fix on the wall ahead, the white patches where the pictures were.
She moves on.
Fairclough coughs.
She’s standing in front of him.
He’s staring at her.
‘Eyes front,’ hisses Rudkin.
She’s staring back.
He’s smiling.
She moves her hand.
The whole row turns.
She adjusts the strap of her bag and turns to me.
I can see the teeth of Fairclough’s grin out the corner of my eye, in my face.
He’s laughing.
I swallow.
She’s before me, smiling.
I pull her from the bed, across the floor.
My eyes dead ahead.
Just a pair of pink knickers, tits out.
Staring me up and down.
And she’s under me, hands across her face because I’m slapping the shit out of her.
I can feel myself start to rock, a mouth full of sand.
And I slap her again and then I look down at her bleeding lips and nose.
She won’t stop staring.
The bloody smears on her chin and neck, her tits and arms.
I’ve got sweat running down my face, down my neck, down my back, down my legs, rivers of salt.
And I pull off her pink knickers and drag her back to the bed and pull open my trousers and push it into her.
She doesn’t move.
And I slap her again and turn her over.
Rudkin’s next to her, Ellis turning sideways back down the line.
And she starts struggling, saying we don’t need to do it like this.
She moves her arm, her hand coming up.
But I push her face down into the dirty sheets and bring my cock up.
I step back.
And stick it in her arse and she’s screaming.
She sniffs, wipes her nose, and she smiles.
And she’s lying there on the bed, semen and blood running down her thighs.
I look down.
And I get
up and do it again and this time it doesn’t hurt.
‘He’s not here,’ she says, not even looking at six and seven.
I look up.
‘Would you like to go through them one more time? Just to be sure,’ says Noble.
‘He’s not here.’
‘I think you should take one more …’
‘He’s not here. I want to go home.’
‘The fuck was that?’ Noble’s shouting at Craven. ‘You said you could fucking deliver her …’
‘Ask fucking Fraser.’
‘Tuck off,’ says Rudkin. ‘Nowt to do with us.’
Craven’s spewing, spit in his beard, the lot of us jammed into Noble’s office, Oldman wedged behind the desk, pitch black outside, same inside:
‘She grasses for you, doesn’t she?’
‘So fucking what,’ says Ellis and I know then he’s been shagging her.
And so does Craven: ‘You fucking her Mike? Taking a leaf out of his book,’ he yells, pointing my way.
Me with a feeble: ‘Fuck off.’
Noble’s shaking his head, staring round the room at us, ‘Right fucking balls-up.’
‘OK. Now what?’ asks Rudkin, looking from Noble to Oldman.
‘Total fucking cock-up.’
‘We can’t let the cunt just walk. He’s our man, I know it,’ says Ellis.
‘He’s not going anywhere but down,’ says Noble.
‘Fucking know it,’ Ellis is saying.
Rudkin looking to George, ‘So what then?’
Oldman:
‘Do it the hard way’
He’s naked on his knees, on the floor, in the corner, holding his balls, body bloody.
My arms are weak.
‘Come on,’ Rudkin is screaming, over and over, again and again, screaming, ‘Where the fuck were you?’
I was searching for a whore.
He’s crying.
Ellis, fists into Fairclough’s face, ‘Tell us!’
I was searching for a whore.
He’s crying.
‘You murdering fucking cunt. She wasn’t a slag. She was a good girl. Sixteen fucking years old. From a good Christian family. Never even had a bloody fuck! A child, a bloody child.’
I was searching for a whore.
He just keeps crying, face like Bobby, no noise, just tears, mouth open, crying, like a child, a baby.
‘The truth. Give us the fucking truth!’
I was searching for a whore.
Just crying.
Rudkin picks him up off the floor, rights the chair and ties him to it with our belts, taking out his cigarette lighter.
‘You fucking sit here and you think about where the fuck you were at two o’clock yesterday morning and what you were bloody doing.’
I was on the floor of the Redbeck, in tears.
Crying.
Rudkin flicks the lighter open and Ellis and me, we take a leg each and keep his knees apart as Rudkin puts the flame to Donny’s tiny little balls.
I was on the floor of the Redbeck, in tears.
Screaming.
The door flies open.
Oldman and Noble.
Noble: ‘Let him go!’
Us: ‘What?’
Oldman: ‘It’s not him. Let him fucking go.’
Caller: You saw this about that four-year-old, this little lass? Taken from a bloody Jubilee party, raped and murdered in a graveyard while her parents are toasting Queen.
John Shark: What a Jubilee for them.
Caller: Then there’s that woman who was pushed off cliffs at Botany Bay after another Jubilee party.
John Shark: And that’s on top of bloody Ripper.
Caller: You said it, John; some bloody Jubilee.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Thursday 9th June 1977
Chapter 12
Silence.
A hot, dirty, red-eyed silence.
Twenty-four hours for the four of us.
Oldman was staring at the letter in his hands, the piece of flowered cloth in another plastic envelope on the desk, Noble avoiding me, Bill Hadden biting a nail in his beard.
Silence.
A hot, dirty, yellow, sweaty silence.
Thursday 9 June 1977.
The morning’s headlines stared up from the desk at us:
RIPPER RIDDLE IN MURDER OF RACHEL, 16.
Yesterday’s news.
Oldman put the letter flat on the desk and read it aloud again:
From Hell.
Mr Whitehead,
Sir, this is a little something for your drawer, would have been a bit of stuff from underneath but for that dog. Lucky cow.
Up to four now they say three but remember Preston 75, come my load up that one. Dirty cow.
Anyway, warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.
Maybe do one for queen. Love our queen.
God saves
Lewis.
I have given advance warning so its yours and their fault.
Silence.
Then Oldman: ‘Why you Jack?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why’s he writing to you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘He’s got your home address,’ said Noble.
Me: ‘It’s in the book.’
‘It’s in his, that’s for sure.’
Oldman picked up the envelope: ‘Sunderland. Monday’
‘Took its time,’ said Noble.
Me: ‘Bank Holiday. The Jubilee.’
‘Last one was Preston, right?’ said Hadden.
Noble sighed, ‘He gets about a bit.’
Hadden asked, ‘Lorry driver?’
I said, ‘Taxi driver?’
Oldman and Noble just sat there, mouths shut.
‘That last one,’ said Hadden. ‘That stuff he sent, that was from Marie Watts?’
‘No,’ said Noble, looking at me.
Hadden, eyes wide: ‘What was it then?’
‘Beef,’ smiled Noble.
‘Cow,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Noble, the smile gone.
I asked Oldman, ‘But this must match what Linda Clark was wearing?’
‘It would appear to,’ stressed Noble.
I repeated, ‘Appear to?’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Oldman, hands up, looking at Hadden and me. ‘I’m going to be frank with you, but I must insist that this remain completely off the record.’
‘Understood,’ said Hadden.
Noble was looking at me.
I nodded.
‘Yesterday was about the worst day of my career as a police officer. And this,’ said Oldman, holding up the plastic envelope with the letter, ‘this didn’t help. As Pete says, the jury was still out on the last letter but this one, the tests are more conclusive.’
I couldn’t help myself: ‘Conclusive?’
‘Yes, conclusive. One, it’s the same bloke as before. Two, the contents are genuine. Three, initial saliva tests indicate the blood group we’re interested in.’
‘B?’ said Hadden.
‘Yes. The tests on the first letter were spoiled. Four, there are traces of a mineral oil on both letters that have been present at each of the crime scenes.’
I was straight in: ‘What kind of oil?’
‘A lubricant used in engineering,’ said Noble, clear this was as specific as he was going to get.
‘Finally,’ said Oldman. ‘There’s the content: the threat to kill just days before Rachel Johnson, the Queen and the Jubilee, and the reference to Preston and him coming his load.’
Hadden said, ‘That wasn’t in any of the papers?’
‘No,’ said Noble. ‘And that’s what distinguishes that crime from the others.’
I was straight at Oldman: ‘So you think he did it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Alf Hill’s sceptical.’
‘Not any more,’ said Oldman, nodding at the letter.
WKFD.
&nb
sp; Wakefield.
‘Would it be possible for me to take a look at the Preston file?’
‘Talk to Pete later,’ shrugged Oldman.
Bill Hadden, on the edge of his seat, eyes on the letter: ‘Are you going to go public with it?’
‘Not at this stage, no.’
‘And so we’re not to print anything?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to brief the other editors, Bradford, Manchester?’
‘Not unless they start getting fan mail like this, no.’
I said, ‘It’ll put a few noses out of joint if it gets out.’
‘Well, let’s see that it doesn’t then.’
Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman picked up his glass of water and stared out at the pack.
Millgarth, 10.30 a.m.
Another press conference.
Tom from Bradford: ‘At this stage do you have a picture in your mind of the kind of man you’re looking for?’
Oldman: ‘Yes, we now have a very clear picture in our minds of the type of man we are looking for, and obviously no woman is really safe until he is found. We are looking for a psychopathic killer who has a pathological hatred of women he believes are prostitutes. We believe he is probably being protected by someone because on several occasions he must have returned home with heavily bloodstained clothing. This person is in urgent need of help, and anyone who leads us to him will be doing him a service.’
Gilman from Manchester: ‘Would the Assistant Chief Constable be prepared to describe the type of weapons members of the public should be on the lookout for?’
‘I believe I know the weapons that have been used but no, I am not prepared to say what, other than that they include a blunt instrument.’
‘Have any weapons been recovered?’
‘No.’
‘Have any eye-witnesses come forward in connection to the murder of Rachel Johnson?’
‘No. As yet we have not had any detailed descriptions of this man.’
‘Have you got any suspects?’
‘No.’
‘What have you got?’
Back in the office, the sun on the big seventh-floor windows, burning paper under glass.
Leeds on fire.
I got out my fiddle:
NO WOMAN SAFE WITH RIPPER FREE, SAY POLICE
Detectives hunting West Yorkshire’s Jack the Ripper killer finally established last night that the same man had brutally murdered five women in the North of England.
Forensic scientists at the Home Office laboratories, Wetherby, yesterday managed to link the sadistic attacks on four prostitutes with that on Rachel Johnson, a sixteen-year-old shop assistant.
Her mutilated body was found in an adventure playground alongside Chapeltown Community Centre on Wednesday morning.
