by David Peace
‘I thought I’d put the tree up.’
‘We’ve left it a bit late, haven’t we? All the stuff’s up in the attic.’
‘I’ll get the steps from the garage. Have it up in no time.’
‘You’ll get filthy.’
‘Got time, don’t worry.’
‘Up to you.’
‘Got to make the effort.’
She’s nodding, staring back into the mirror, back into her own eyes –
‘Those lights are so old,’ she says.
The Christmas Ball, the Midland Hotel –
Saturday 13 December 1980.
Through the black city streets, the broken lights and the Christmas ones, down Palatine, Wilmslow, and the Oxford Roads, the official black car and driver taking us in towards the red and the gold, the money and the honey, the home of the loot, holding hands in our rented clothes on the back seat of a car that is not our own, through dominions of disease and depopulation, the black streets that would have you dead within the hour, taking us in towards a thousand hale and hearty Manchester folk, drunk in the seclusion of the Midland Hotel, the castle of loot, an abbey to the anointed and self-appointed City Fathers, with their city mothers, wives and daughters, their secret lovers, whores and sons.
Without no one –
Through the black city streets to the place where the red carpet meets the street at the doors to the Midland, these gates of iron in these strong and lofty walls with no hint of ingress or egress, where all that is outside can never be in and to hell with it, damn it, for here inside are the bright lights, the purples and the gold, the servants and the servings, the musicians and the music, the dancers and the dance, the Masked Christmas Ball.
Without nothing –
Through the beauty and the beautiful, the security and the secure, the fat and the fat, we are led to our seats, Joan’s arm tightening inside my own, our masks in place, through the high double doors into the dim velvet sea and the palatial splendour of the Dining Room, her Gothic windows of stained glass, the thrown shadows of her lamps and candles, her ornaments and tapestries ceiling to floor, all heavy with the weight of wealth, the stains of class and brass and the deep blood colour of Christmas reds, of Herod and his kids.
Within dreams –
‘Something wicked this way comes,’ smiles Clement Smith, the Chief Constable raising his mask with a wink as our wives fall into the comfort of compliments.
I sit down next to him, shaking hands with an MP, a councillor, a millionaire and all their present wives, local Masons and Rotarians the table of them –
‘How goes the war?’ laughs Clive Birkenshaw, the councillor drunk on a punch as crimson as his face.
‘The hunt more like,’ says Donald Lees of the Greater Manchester Police Authority.
‘What?’ I say.
‘You’ve been over in Yorkshire after their Ripper?’
I nod, the laughter and the music too much.
‘Most apt,’ Lees carries on, leaning across the corpse of his wife. ‘Hunter in Ripper Hunt, said the Manchester Evening News.’
‘Apt,’ comes the echo around the tablecloth.
‘Any luck?’
I look down at my hand, shaking my head, and I bring the whiskey up to my lips and let it fall down my throat.
Joan and Clement Smith have changed seats so the wives can chat.
I take another mouthful.
Clement Smith orders more.
I’m exhausted –
The cigars already out, the dance-floor filling, time flying –
And then suddenly across the room I think I see Ronald Angus and Peter Noble on another table by the door but, when I look again, it isn’t –
Can’t have been and Leeds is just a dream –
A terrible dream –
Like the Ripper, their Ripper.
I sit back in my chair, letting the Velvet Sea wash over me, playing her tricks with the horizon; the wail of violins, the hoarse voice of Clement Smith deep in debate, his wife and mine making their way through the waves, off to powder their noses.
Then I feel a hand on mine –
I look down at a man crouched beside my chair: ‘Pardon?’
‘I said we have a mutual friend.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Helen,’ he grins, a short thin man with brown stained teeth.
‘Helen who?’
But he just winks: ‘From her Vice days. Tell her I said hello.’
‘What?’
But he’s wading away, back into the velvet sea, waving, back into her dance.
I interrupt Clement Smith: ‘Who was that?’
‘Who?’
‘That man, the one who was just at the table? Talking to me?’
Smith’s laughing: ‘Wearing his mask was he?’
‘No, but I can’t place him.’
He sits up slightly in his seat: ‘I didn’t see him. Sorry. Where is he?’
‘Doesn’t matter, just wondered who he was.’ I pick up a glass and drink some more, lost –
‘Peter?’
I look up from the drink: ‘Richard. Merry Christmas.’
‘If only,’ he says.
The man is tall and gaunt, pale as a ghost, the black mask in his hand and a blood-red shirt only accentuating his grim pallor, mumbling.
‘What?’
He asks: ‘We talk?’
I stand up, nodding, leaving my cigar in the ashtray, and follow Richard Dawson through the tables and out into the Lobby –
Richard Dawson, businessman, Chairman of one of the local Conservative Parties, a friend.
He’s shaking, sweating.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
He says: ‘Do you know Bob Douglas?’
Ghosts –
Again the ghosts of Christmases past:
Again the Strafford Shootings –
Again the wounded coppers:
Sergeant Robert Craven and PC Bob Douglas.
I nod: ‘Used to. Why?’
‘Well, I’ve been using him as a security advisor. Anyway, late last night he calls to tell me that he’s heard that I’m the subject of a bloody police investigation; then at lunchtime today my bank in Didsbury calls and says that a couple of detectives have taken away all their financial records pertaining to my accounts with them.’
‘What?’
‘I’m in bloody shock.’
‘You should’ve called straight away’
‘I didn’t want to. I’d seen you were over in Leeds and I don’t like to take advantage of the fact that we’re friends or anything.’
‘Richard! What are friends for?’
He smiles wanly.
‘Let’s sit down,’ I say, walking us over to a pair of crimson and gold lobby chairs.
‘Spoiling your evening,’ he mumbles again.
‘Rubbish. Start from the beginning.’
‘That’s a good question in itself. I didn’t know there was a beginning, didn’t know anything had started until last night.’
‘What about Bob Douglas? When did he come on the scene?’
‘End of October, start of November. I was worried about the house. He came out and had a look, tightened things up. I got to know him, like him.’
‘You know about –’
‘Yeah, yeah. Told me all about it. Why? What do you know about him?’
‘I went over there after the shootings, but he was sedated so I never actually spoke to him. By all accounts he was a good bloke. Good copper. When he left, he went kicking and screaming.’
‘That’s what he said. Ten years in the police, then out on his arse.’
I nod: ‘So after the house, what kind of stuff was he doing for you?’
‘Consulting. Insurance work. Nothing heavy.’
‘Until last night?’
‘Yes. Called about midnight. Said he’d been out and about, you know. And he’d heard from a so-called reliable source that I’d been targeted for investigation.’
‘A policeman. One of your lot.’
‘He say who?’
‘Said he couldn’t.’
‘He say why you were being investigated?’
He looks down at his hands, the carpet: ‘Financial irregularities. Supposedly’
‘What kind of financial irregularities?’
‘We don’t know. That’s all he heard.’
‘Did he get a name? Of the man in charge?’
‘Roger Hook.’
Fuck.
‘What about the bank? They give you anything more?’
‘No,’ he’s shaking his head. ‘Bloody humiliating though, I can tell you. Your bank manager, your golf partner and friend, calling you at home to tell you that the police have been in asking about you, taking away their records on you.’
‘I’m sorry, Richard.’
‘You know this Roger Hook?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It doesn’t make any difference. You’ve nothing to hide.’
He looks up from the carpet, his hands: ‘Who knows what they’ll find.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing to find, is there?’
His eyes still aren’t meeting mine.
‘Richard,’ I say. ‘Tell me there’s nothing to find.’
‘Who knows?’
‘You do, for Chrissakes man.’
‘Look –’
‘Jesus, Richard.’
‘I need your help.’
I look him in the eye, hold him there, tell him: ‘There’s nothing I can do for you.’
‘Pete –’
I stand up, ready to walk.
‘There’s something else,’ he says.
I stop.
‘About you,’ he says.
‘Me? What about me?’
‘You asked me why, why I was being targeted?’
I nod.
‘Douglas said it’s down to you.’
‘What is? What are you talking about?’
‘This. I’ve been singled out because I’m friends with you.’
‘Rubbish. Utter rubbish.’
He has hold of my arm: ‘Peter –’
‘Douglas is wrong. You’re wrong.’
‘To put you in your place, that’s what they told him.’
I turn away, freeing myself from his grip.
Him: ‘What are you going to do?’
I turn back: ‘Nothing.’
‘You’re just going to leave me up to my neck in all this?’
‘There’s nothing I can do, Richard. You’re under investigation.’
‘Because of you, I am.’
I’m walking away again, deaf to him –
But he has the last word, across the lobby and through the Dining Room doors, spinning me round, hissing into my face: ‘What are friends for, eh Pete?’
Walking away, walking away through the velvet sea, Joan talking to Linda Dawson, his wife –
The pair of them turning, smiling.
Him: ‘What are friends for, eh?’
Me taking her by the arm, through the darkness and the decay, pulling her away, away from the music and the blood –
‘What are friends for?’
Within nightmares.
The house is black.
I put the car in the garage and go inside.
Joan’s sitting on the settee in the dark, her coat still on.
I switch on the Christmas tree lights and sit down beside her.
‘What is it? What happened with Richard?’ she says. ‘He’s under investigation. To do with his business.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No. But he thinks it’s something to do with his friendship with me, with us.’
‘What?’
‘Someone told him that’s why he’s under investigation.’
‘Who told him that?’
‘An ex-copper. You don’t know him.’
‘And is it right? Is that why he’s under investigation?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘What am I going to say to Linda?’
‘I don’t know but, until all this is cleared up, we’re going to have to be careful.’
She is nodding.
‘I’m sorry, love.’
She keeps nodding.
I can’t think of anything else to say, anything to make any of it any better.
I lean forward and pick the Evening News off the coffee table.
It doesn’t help:
Laureen’s Mum in Ripper Plea.
Dirty Protests.
Under the newspaper are some forms and a pamphlet –
Application forms to adopt.
‘What are these?’ I ask, picking them up.
Joan tries to take them from me: ‘Not now, love,’ she says. ‘Talk about it another time.’
‘A Vietnamese baby?’ I say, looking down at the cover of the pamphlet.
‘Not now, Peter,’ she says again, taking the papers from me as she goes upstairs.
Later in bed, I hug her and we try to have sex but I can’t –
And after, I say: ‘I think it’s a good idea.’
She doesn’t say anything –
And after that we lie in the double bed, staring up at the ceiling, apart –
On the dark stair –
She turns away on her side and I get up and put the radio on.
I get back into bed and lie there –
Awake, sweating and afraid –
Eyes wide –
On the dark stair –
The North after the bomb, machines the only survivors –
There were people on the TV singing hymns –
People on the TV singing hymns with no face –
People on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features –
And at my feet, they had her down on the floor at my feet, her hands behind her back, stripped and beaten, three of them raping her, sodomising her, taking their turns with a bottle and a chair, cutting her hair, pissing and shitting on her, making her suck them, making her suck me, ugly gulls circling overhead, screaming –
‘Sti rip sll iwl lik Hunter!’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
Joan’s holding me, my heart beating, breaking.
‘What on earth were you dreaming about?’
I can feel come in my pyjamas.
‘Nothing,’ I say, thinking –
No more sleep, no more sleep, no more sleep.
cash all this and heaven too missing the news from nowhere what e was once alive e still am dead a complete wreck of a human being wearing a light green three quarter length coat with an imitation fur collar a turquoise blue jumper with a bright yellow tank top over it dark brown trousers and brown suede calf length boots found friday the twenty first of november nineteen seventy five one laceration to the back of her head caused by a hammer and extensive injuries to her head face body and legs caused by violent kicking and stamping on her left breast were bite marks which indicated a gap in the upper front teeth of the attacker there were no stab wounds in a deserted garage in preston in a row of six narrow garages each splattered with white graffiti the doors showing remnants of green paint they lie off church street the garages forming a passage to the multi storey car park at the other end number six has become a home of sorts for the homeless destitute alcoholics drug addicted prostitutes of the area small about twelve feet square and entered through either of the double doors at the front there are packing cases for tables piles of wood and other rubbish a fierce fire has been burning in a makeshift grate and the ashes disclose the remains of clothing on the wall opposite the door is written the fishermans widow in wet red paint in every other space are bottles sherry bottles bottles of spirits beer bottles bottles of chemicals all empty a mans pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window the only one looking out on nothing and e saw the floor was wet with anguished tears the damned silent and weeping and walking at a litany pac
e the way processions push along in our world and without a word he handed her a five pound note and she unclipped her shiny black plastic handbag placed it on the floor of the garage and bending down she removed one of her boots lowered her trousers and stepped out of the legs and repeated the process with her panties she braced her back against the garage wall and she was ready a moment later he had entered her lifting her brassiere to play with her breasts he discovered a second brassiere he lifted it up and began to kiss and suck the left breast moving his mouth a few inches above the breast he bit deeply and climaxed turning her around he attempted to bugger her and again he had an orgasm he was still inside her body half leaning away from him when he smashed her on the back of the head and she fell forward onto the floor he zipped up his trousers and began to kick her on the face on the head on the breasts on the body on the legs he kicked her and went on kicking her he dragged her body a few yards further away from the door put her legs back into her trousers and pulled them up leaving the second brassiere above the breasts he pulled down the first one stuffed one boot tightly between her thighs he removed her overcoat and placed it over her body and over her face he picked up the shiny black plastic handbag left the garage and hid the handbag in a refuse tip four hundred yards from the garage the purse he tucked under a bush in avenham park he kept her three rings and lighter swabs from the vagina and anus indicated semen had been deposited by a secretor of the rare blood group B the blood group of the man at the hostel who had had sexual intercourse with the dead woman the previous day was discovered to be group A her shiny black plastic handbag and purse missing a diary thought to be in her bag could hold the clue to the womans killer and e am anxious about anyone who has been missing from preston since last thursday up to four now they say three but remember preston nineteen seventy five come my load up that one
Chapter 4
In the War Room I switch on the cassette recorder:
And when we die
And float away
Into the night
The Milky Way
You’ll hear me call
As we ascend
I’ll say your name
Then once again
Thank you for being a friend.
I put the thirteenth photograph on the wall, the smell of earth and damp in the twelve photos, in the map, in the files, the smell of earth and damp in the floor and in the walls, and I sit back down in the earth and damp, eyes closed.
