by David Peace
I stop reading and look up at Joan standing there, standing there in the drive of her parents’ house, her own arms around herself.
‘You didn’t know?’ she’s asking me -
I shake my head and say: ‘Bastards, the fucking bastards.’
And she’s crying and so am I, unable to hold back my tears, unable to catch hers, unable to stop them, and all the things we’ve lost, there’s so much, we’ve lost so very much, too much, the things we’ve lost, there are so many, we’ve lost so very many things, too many, and I put my arm around her and lead her back up the drive and into her parents’ house, her parents’ house like the house that was our house, the house that was our house until Thursday night, her mother and father stood in the hall, his arm round her, her hands to her face, my arms round Joan, her hands to my face, my black ash face, and I look at the three of them and I say -
‘I’m sorry.’
is hard to hear e will stand real close and say thank you for being a friend and when we die and float away into the night the milky way you will hear me call as we ascend hear me cry but surely we were meant to win this fight not howl like dogs in the rain transmission eleven received on ash lane bradford on Sunday the ninth of September nineteen seventy nine identified as dawn Williams a large laceration on the back of her head and seven stab wounds in her trunk three of them round her umbilicus the knife reintroduced into the chest wound on a number of occasions she had numerous bruises and abrasions and had been struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed with a giant three sided screwdriver new suffering in the round of rain eternal a piteous sight confusing me to tears cursed cold and falling heavy unchanging thick hail and dirty water mixed with snow coming down in torrents through the murky air the earth stinking from this soaking rain wherein a ruthless and fantastic beast with all three of his throats howls out doglike above the drowning sinners of this place his eyes red his beard slobbered black his belly swollen he has claws for hands and he rips the spirits flays and mangles her in the shadows of the yard behind number thirteen pulling at her blouse lifting her brassiere pulling down her jeans and panties putting away the hammer taking out the screwdriver the knife stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing stabbing replacing the blouse under a piece of carpet some leaves the rain welcome back to bradford said the sign above the door round the back in an old carpet a dead girl in a distorted jackknife posture in a cheesecloth shirt bra pushed up to expose her breasts and her jeans undone and partly pulled down stabbed seven times in the stomach and the shoulder blade with a four inch blade he is thirty two dark five feet eight inches tall calls himself ronnie or Johnnie related to the detective no he is an electrician from durham no he is a former sailor now electrician who loves dancing no e have seen his face in the stamp on the envelope of the letter he sent and e will not leave this place until he is caught no he is a father of two who works at a pumping station and has a dog no he is a lorry driver called peter who drives a cab with a name beginning with the letter C on the side and he lives in bradford in a big grey house elevated above the street behind wrought iron gates with steps leading up to the front door number six in its street peter will have committed crimes before and is connected to the containerbase at stourton and he will kill for the last time in leeds on Wednesday the tenth of december nineteen eighty a piteous sight confusing me to tears the onedin line finished this is the bradford police dawn has been reported missing since yesterday evening and we wondered if she had gone home no she has not and this is most unusual right we will keep checking and we will let you know as soon as we have any news this is just not like her perhaps it is a hoax a sick joke there are so many e thought e would ring you and have a chat we have no news yet e have got daughters too and e know what it is like then the doorbell and she is gone and we would like you to come up and identify her we will send a car around the colour of the coward on my face his body one mass of twitching muscle grabbing up fistfuls of mud quiet only with mouthfuls of food then barking thunder on dead souls who wished they were deaf and e say it is not usual for one of us to make the journey e am making now but it happens e was down here once before soon after e had left my flesh in death she sent me through these walls and down as far as the pit of judas
Chapter 18
The breakfast is greasy, the conversation cold, the weather both and the radio on:
‘Accusation and counter-accusation fill many of the Sunday papers this morning concerning the suspension of Peter Hunter, an Assistant Chief Constable with the Greater Manchester Police.
‘Under the headline, Hunter: Conspiracy or Coincidence? an editorial in the Observer asks whether Mr Hunter’s suspension is in any way linked to an apparently hostile report he was preparing into the management and practices of the West Yorkshire Police in regard to their handling of the on-going Ripper Inquiry. A report that has now been shelved.
‘However the Mail on Sunday carries quotes from unnamed police sources claiming that the suspension is due to Mr Hunter’s own associations with a prominent local criminal from whom Mr Hunter had accepted lavish hospitality, photographs of which are ‘doing the rounds’ in some of the less salubrious Manchester pubs and clubs.
‘Meanwhile other papers continue to lead with either the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper or the prospects for the release of the fifty-two hostages being held…’
I swallow my food and get up from the table.
‘Where are you going?’ her mother asks.
‘Preston.’
‘Preston?’ repeats her father.
‘Preston,’ I nod.
Joan doesn’t even look up from the plate before her, greasy and cold.
Preston -
Sunday 28 December 1980:
11:05:02 -
I’m too early -
Much too early.
I don’t need to find St Mary’s, so I park in a multi-storey car park near the station and listen to the radio for a bit longer before I decide to sort out the car, stuffed full of half the office – the unopened post and cards; plus the Christmas presents – the various pens and socks, the diaries and chocolates, the handkerchiefs and tie; then the stuff from the Griffin – the Exegesis and the tapes, Hall’s notes and mine, the boot full of Spunks.
I open the doors and the boot and start shifting stuff about and when I’ve got the porn and the important stuff lying in the boot under a sea of socks and diaries, handkerchiefs and the tie, then I close the boot and get back inside, the unopened post and cards in a pile on the passenger seat, and with a mouth full of chocolate liquors I start going through the envelopes, one by one, the cards and the post, one by one, the official and the personal, one by -
One:
Flat and manila, in slanting black felt-tip pen:
Peter Hunter,
Police Chief,
Manchester.
Flat and manila, in slanting black felt-tip pen:
Photos Do Not Bend.
Flat and manila -
I rip it open and take them out -
Photographs, four of them -
Four photographs of two people in a park:
Piatt Fields Park, in wintertime.
Photographs, black and white -
Black and white photographs of two people in a park by a pond:
A cold grey pond, a dog.
Four black and white photographs of two people in a park -
Two people in a park:
One of them me.
St Mary’s, Church Street, Preston -
12:54:05 .
I’m sitting at a sticky-topped table by the door, the rain outside, the cold inside.
I’ve got a half of bitter in front of me, salt and vinegar crisps spilling here and there, sideways glances from the regulars.
I keep looking at my watch, my new digital watch -
12:56:05 .
Sitting at the sticky-topped table by the door, wondering if he’s here or if he’ll show, wondering if I would if I were him, wondering just who the fuck
he is – the fuck I am.
An empty glass in front of me, salt and vinegar stinging my fingers, front-on stares from two men by the dartboard.
I look at my watch -
12:58:03 .
Sat there, damp and cold -
Evil eyes -
I look at -
‘Peter Hunter?’ shouts out the woman behind the bar, waving a telephone about -
And I’ve got my hand up, crossing the room.
She hands the phone across the bar -
‘This is Peter Hunter,’ I say into the receiver.
Him, that voice: ‘You alone?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘How do you know?’
I pause, replaying the route, scanning the room – the eyes and the stares – and then I say: ‘I am. Are you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Near enough.’
‘Where?’
‘Step outside, walk up the hill, turn left onto Frenchwood Street.’
‘And?’
But the phone is dead.
I walk up Church Street, the top of the multi-storey car park looming over the hill, the rain cold upon my face.
I turn left onto Frenchwood Street, a row of garages on the left side of the road, wasteland to the right, and I walk towards the last garage, the door banging in the wind, in the rain.
I pull back the door and there he is, standing among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, leaning against a bench made from crates and boxes.
‘Afternoon,’ says a young man in a dirty black suit -
Face puffed and beaten, punctured and bruised, a plaster across a broken nose, one hand bandaged, the other pulling lank and greasy hair out of blue and black eyes.
‘Who are you? You got a name?’
‘No names.’
I shrug, touching my own cuts: ‘What happened to you?’
He’s sniffing and touching his nose: ‘Occupational hazard. Goes with the places I go.’
I look away, looking around the garage, the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls -
The swastikas.
Staring at him in the dark room, I ask him: ‘Is that what you wanted to talk about? The places you go? This place?’
‘You been here before, have you Mr Hunter?’
I nod: ‘Have you?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘Many times.’
‘Were you here the night of Thursday 20 November 1975?’
He pushes his hair back out of his beaten eyes, smiling: ‘You should see your fucking face?’
‘Yours isn’t that good.’
‘How’s that song go: if looks could kill they probably will?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I do,’ he says and hands me a folded piece of paper.
I open it and look at it, then back at him -
He’s smiling, smiling that faint and dreadful smile.
I look back down at the piece of paper in my hands -
A piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
A piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -
Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -
Clare Strachan.
Across the top of the page, in black felt-tip pen:
Spunk, Issue 3, January 1975.
Across the bottom, in black felt-tip pen:
Murdered by the West Yorkshire Police, November 1975.
Across her face, in black felt-tip pen:
A target, a dartboard.
I look back up at him, standing there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, leaning against a bench made from crates and boxes, face puffed and beaten, punctured and bruised, a plaster across his broken nose, one hand bandaged, the other picking at his scabs, his sores -
Itching and scratching at his scabs and his sores, running -
Running scared.
He smiles and says: ‘Here comes a copper to chop off your head.’
‘You do this?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘Any of it?’
He shakes his head: ‘No, Mr Hunter. I did not.’
‘But you know who did?’
He shrugs.
‘Tell me.’
He shakes his head.
‘I’ll fucking arrest you.’
Shaking his head: ‘No, you won’t.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘For what?’
‘Wasting police time. Withholding evidence. Obstruction. Murder?’
He smiles: ‘That’s what they want.’
‘Who?’
Shaking his head: ‘You know who.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Well then, you’ve obviously been overestimated.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning a lot of people seem to have gone to a lot of bother to make sure you’re not in Yorkshire and not involved with the Ripper.’
‘So why do they want you arrested?’
‘Mr Hunter, they want me dead. Arresting me’s just a way to get their hands on me.’
‘Who?’
He shakes his head, smiling: ‘No names.’
‘Stop wasting my time,’ I hiss and open the door -
He lunges over, slamming the door shut: ‘Here, you’re not going anywhere.’
We’re chest to chest, eye to eye in the dark room, among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers.
‘Start fucking talking then,’ I say, the Xerox up between us and in his face -
He pushes the paper away, a hand up: ‘Fuck off.’
‘You called me? Why?’
‘I didn’t bloody want to, believe me,’ he says, moving back over to the bench of crates and boxes. ‘I had serious doubts.’
‘So why?’
‘I was going to just post the picture, but then I heard about the suspension and I didn’t know how long you’d be about.’
‘Just this,’ I say, holding up the Xerox. ‘That was all?’
He nods.
‘Why?’
‘I just want it to stop. Want them to stop.’
‘Who?’
‘No fucking names! How many more times?’
In the dark, dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls, I look at him -
Look at him and then Clare, and I say: ‘So why here? Is this where it all started? With her?’
‘Started?’ he laughs. ‘Fuck no.’
‘Where it ended?’
‘The beginning of the end, shall we say’
‘For who?’
‘You name them?’ he whispers. ‘Me, you, her – half the fucking coppers you’ve ever met.’
I look back down at the piece of paper in my hands -
The piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
The piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -
Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -
‘Why Strachan?’ I ask. ‘Because of the magazine? Because of Spunk?’
‘Why they murdered Clare?’ he’s saying, shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘Not the porn? Strachan’s murder had nothing to do with MJM?’
‘No.’
‘I want names -’
‘I’ll give you one name,’ he whispers. ‘And one name only’
‘Go on?’
‘Her name was Morrison.’
‘Who?’
‘Clare – her maiden name was Morrison.’
‘Morrison?’
He’s nodding: ‘Know any other Morrisons, do you Mr Hunter?’
In the dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splat
tered chipboard walls, I say -
‘Grace Morrison.’
Nodding: ‘And?’
The dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls, I say -
‘The Strafford. She was the barmaid at the Strafford.’
Nodding, smiling: ‘And?’
Dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls, in this dark room I whisper -
‘They were sisters.’
Nodding, smiling, laughing: ‘And?’
In the dark, dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls, I look down -
I look back down at the piece of paper in my hands -
A piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
A piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -
Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -
In the dark room, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls, I look up and say again -
‘The Strafford.’
He smiles: ‘Bullseye.’
In this dark room, I ask: ‘How do you know this?’
Not nodding, not smiling, not laughing, he says: ‘I was there.’
‘Where? You were where?’
‘The Strafford,’ he says and opens the door -
I lunge over, slamming the door shut: ‘You’re not going anywhere, pal. Not yet.’
We’re chest to chest again, eye to eye in the dark room, here among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers -
He sniffs up: ‘That’s your lot, Mr Hunter.’
‘Fuck off,’ I yell. ‘You tell me what happened that night?’
