by David Peace
He pulls away: ‘Ask someone else.’
‘You mean Bob Craven? There isn’t anybody else, they’re all dead.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Fuck off,’ I say, reaching over and grabbing at his jacket, but -
He pushes me back and leaves me reaching out again in the dark room, there across 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, me reaching out, grabbing him, dancing in the dark room, here 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, dancing in the dark room, dancing until -
I’m down, his fist in my face, fingers at my throat -
And I reach up from the floor, from the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, but -
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he’s shouting, trying to get away.
‘Time to stop running,’ I’m shouting, but -
He’s kicking me, there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, kicking -
‘Get fucking off me.’
‘What happened?’
Kicking me, the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers -
‘I’m saying no more.’
‘Tell me!’
But he’s free and at the door -
Telling me: ‘They haven’t finished with you.’
Here among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, inside my coat I can feel the photographs -
Four black and white photographs of two people in a park -
Two people in a park:
One of them me.
And from among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, I hiss: ‘You’re dead.’
‘Not me,’ he laughs. ‘I got my insurance. How about you?’
‘They’ll find you and they’ll kill you if you don’t come with me.’
‘Not me,’ he says.
‘Go on, rim then,’ I spit -
‘Fuck off,’ he says, stepping outside. ‘It’s you who should be running; you they haven’t finished with – you.’
Face puffed and beaten, punctured and bruised 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 shout -
‘You’re dead.’
In the dark room, there across 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 garage door banging in the wind, in the rain -
‘Dead.’
In the multi-storey car park, I sit in the car and weep -
Fucking weep -
Four black and white photographs -
Four black and white photographs of two people in a park -
Two people in a park:
One of them me.
Four black and white photographs on the seat beside me -
Four black and white photographs and one piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
One piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
One piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -
Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -
Spunk, Issue 3, January 1975.
‘Clare Morrison,’ I say aloud. ‘Clare fucking Morrison.’
In the multi-storey car park, I sit in the car and dry my tears.
I get out and open the boot and when I’ve got the bag of Spunks and got the Exegesis, when I’ve got them from under the sea of socks and diaries, the handkerchiefs and the tie, I get back inside and start looking for Issue 3, but it’s not there -
One of the missing issues.
I stuff the Spunks back, thinking back, playing back the tapes in my head -
And I look back down at the piece of paper on the seat beside me -
The piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -
The piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -
Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -
Thinking back, playing back the tapes in my head:
‘Why Clare Strachau?’ I asked. ‘Because of the magazine? Because of Spunk?’
‘Strachau?’ he was saying, shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘Not the porn? Strachau’s murder had nothing to do with MJM?’
Stop -
Rewind:
‘Not the porn? Strachan’s murder had nothing to do with MJM?’
Stop:
Lying piece of shit -
I start the car, thinking:
‘It’s you who should be running; you they haven’t finished with.’
Richard Dawson lives in West Didsbury in a large, white and detached bungalow which had been designed by the architect John Dawson as a wedding present for his younger brother and his bride Linda -
I park on the road at the bottom of their drive and walk up the gravel to the front door.
Little Cygnet says the sign on the gatepost.
I press the chimes and look out over the garden, across the rain on the pond, trying to remember the last time I was here.
I turn back to press the bell again and there’s Linda -
Linda in a blouse and skirt, looking like she hasn’t slept in a week.
‘Hello, love,’ I say. ‘How are you?’
But she’s already crying and I put my arms round her and lead her back inside, closing the door, back into the cold, quiet house -
We sit down on the cream leather sofa in the gloom of their all-white lounge, Kelly Monteith on the TV without the sound.
And when she’s stopped shaking in my arms, I stand up and walk over to the mirrored drinks cabinet and I pour two large Scotch and sodas -
I hand her one and she looks up from the sofa, her eyes red raw, and she says: ‘What’s going on Peter?’
And I shake my head and say: ‘I’ve no idea, love.’
‘How’s Joan?’
‘You heard about the house?’
She nods: ‘You staying with her parents?’
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘What about you? Where are the kids?’
‘With my parents.’
‘What have you told them?’
‘That their Daddy’s gone away’
‘Linda,’ I say. ‘You got any idea where he’s gone?’
She shakes her head, the tears coming again: ‘Something’s happened to him, I just know it has.’
‘You don’t know that,’ I say.
‘He would have called me, I know he would have.’
‘What about the house in France?’
‘That’s what everyone says, but he wouldn’t – not without saying anything.’
‘Has anyone been in touch with the local police in France?’
‘That Roger Hook, he said they would.’
I sit down and take her hand: ‘When did you last see Richard?’
‘It’s been a week now.’
‘Last Sunday?’
She nods.
I squeeze her hand: ‘He tell you where he was going?’
‘He said he was going to sort things out.’
‘Sort things out?’
She nods again: ‘I thought he might mean he was going to see you.’
I shake my head: ‘He did call me.’
‘When?’
‘Would have been Saturday night.’
‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘Said he was worried about Monday, about going back to see Roger Hook.’
She looks up: ‘You think he was worried enough to run off?’
‘I don’t know, love. Do you?’
She looks back down at the drink in her hand and says quietly: ‘I don’t know anymore.’
‘Linda, love,’ I say, squeezing her hand. ‘How much did he talk to
you about work?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did he usually talk to you about his day at the office?’
She nods: ‘A bit.’
‘Did he mention people’s names? Sound off if he was upset?’
‘He was upset about Bob Douglas and their little girl Karen.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Who wasn’t. But usually?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says and lets go of my hand. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘For example, you knew Bob Douglas and his wife?’
‘But that was different, I introduced them.’
‘Right, right,’ I’m nodding. ‘Through the school?’
‘Yes,’ she says, standing up and beginning to pace.
‘I’m sorry, Linda,’ I say. ‘But can I ask you some names, see if they ring any bells?’
She stops by the window, the big cold front window.
I say: ‘Bob Craven?’
She has her back to me and the room, looking out of the window, silent -
‘Linda?’
Looking out of the window over the garden, across the rain on the pond.
I ask her again: ‘Bob Craven?’
Out of the window, over the garden, across the rain on the pond.
‘Linda?’
‘No,’ she says, standing slightly on tiptoes.
‘Eric Hall?’
The window, the garden, the rain, the pond, silent -
I say again: ‘Eric Hall?’
Silent, then -
‘Peter!’
‘What?’
‘No,’ she says, her hands on the glass, turning to me – turning back: ‘No!’
I get up, over to the window -
Linda saying over and over: ‘No! God, no!’
Roger Hook and Ronnie Allen are walking up the gravel to the front door.
‘No!’
I swallow and walk towards the door.
‘Oh no, please no!’
And I open the door and see the looks on their faces -
‘No, no, no,’ she’s screaming, tearing into the back of the house: ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’
The doorbell rings again -
‘Where is she?’ says Joan.
‘In the bedroom.’
‘What about the kids?’
‘They’re not here. With her parents.’
‘Do they know?’
I shake my head.
‘What happened?’ she asks, her face twitching, lip trembling.
‘Come in here,’ I say and lead her into the lounge -
‘You know Roger?’ I say. ‘And this is Ronnie Allen.’
Roger Hook smiles and Ronnie Allen shakes my wife’s hand: ‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Hunter.’
We sit down on the cream leather sofa and I say: ‘His body was discovered following a fire at a newsagents in Batley, West Yorkshire.’
‘Batley? A fire?’
I shake my head: ‘He’d been murdered, love.’
‘How? I mean what -’
I’ve got my hand up: ‘Listen love, I’m going to tell you the details because Linda will want to know and right now you’re the only person she’s going to let into that bedroom.’
Joan’s twitching, trembling.
‘The fire was on the Bradford Road, Batley, at a newsagents called RD News in the early hours of Tuesday morning, 23 December. His body wasn’t discovered until about lunchtime on Tuesday in the flat above the shop. It looks like the fire started in the flat.’
Roger Hook is listening, nodding along.
‘He had been stripped, stabbed, and strangled – his hands cut off, his teeth smashed in with a hammer. His body had then been doused in petrol and set alight.’
Joan’s trembling.
‘They were only able to identify the body because of his feet.’
‘His feet?’ she says.
‘He’d been born without a heel on his left foot,’ I’m telling her, when I hear -
‘No.’
A faint and dreadful sound from the doorway, and we all look up and there she is -
Her blouse gone, just a bra and skirt, blood dripping from her wrists onto the cream carpet -
‘No!’ screams Joan. ‘No, Peter please -’
And Ronnie’s got Linda in his arms, his hands across her wrists, the blood everywhere -
Me holding Joan back -
The blood everywhere -
Roger shouting into the telephone -
The blood -
The blood everywhere.
to bring a spirit out and that place is the lowest and the darkest the farthest from the sphere that circles all and e saw him down there 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 transmission interrupted on the twentieth of november nineteen seventy nine in batley tessa smith attacked on a path on grassland on the council estate where she lived with her boyfriend and her baby cutting across the grassland from a late opening estate grocery shop she was struck on the head from behind so hard that the hammer went through her skull and as she fell remembers the man with the beard and a moustache and he hit her again on the forehead but she was screaming and he ran away will not somebody help me will not somebody help me will not somebody help me her boyfriend watching from the window is chasing him down the street shouting ripper ripper hunt hunt ripper ripper cunt cunt but e am too fast for them e am away like a thief in the night to leave them standing upon the brink of griefs abysmal valley that collects the thunderings of endless cries so dark and deep and nebulous it is that try as you might you cannot see the shape of anything faces painted with pity there are no wails just the anguished sound of sighs rising and trembling through the timeless air the sounds of sighs of untormented grief cut off from hope to live on in death in a place where no light is her personality changed drastically since the attack she was always quick with a smile but now she seems to flare up at the slightest thing she only seems happy to be in the company of the baby she argues about every little thing in fact e am sad to say she has become a bit of a tyrant it will never be the same for any of us again even now we tell each other when we go out and where we are going we are all very nervous cut off from hope e have a great mistrust of men jimmy and e had planned to get married in the near future and when e came out of the hospital we got back together for a while but it just did not work out e am on edge all of the time and frightened at being alone with him all that mattered was that he was a fellow and e did not feel safe e preferred to be at home with my mother and my sisters e am obsessed with having my back to the wall all the time even when e am surrounded by friends e have tried to stop myself but e simply cannot stand anyone at my back cut off from hope in a place where no light is where the damned keep crowding up in front of me where the notes of anguish play upon my ears where sounds on sounds of weeping pound and pound at me a place where no light shines at all the laments the anguished cries of grief cut off from hope where we live behind wires and alarms alone with five cats and the three inch dents in my head the hair e cut myself in my own world crying in the chapel the curtains pulled in a housecoat with my cats to walk in the middle of the road scared of the shadows and the men behind me that in a yorkshire way they say weather is letting us down again but he is not here is a lorry driver called peter who drives a cab with a name beginning with the letter C on the side and 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 standing upon the brink of griefs abysmal valley faces painted with pity e beg of you in the name of the god e never knew save me from this evil place and worse and lead me there
Chapter 19
I wake in a dead man’s house on his cream sofa in his
blood-splattered white front room, his wife in the hospital, my own at her side.
I drink his tea and use his razor, his soap and his towels, listening to his radio play songs about videos, songs about Einstein, songs about spacemen, songs about toys, songs about games – waiting for the news:
‘Refusing to comment on various reports in yesterday’s papers, Mr Clement Smith, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester issued the following statement:
‘‘Unless there are exceptional circumstances in a particular case, and it is thought necessary in the public interest, it is not ordinarily the Chief Constable’s policy to comment on any police inquiry or investigation which may be in progress, or to confirm or deny the existence of any such investigation, should it or should it not exist.”
‘Meanwhile an unemployed man will appear before Rochdale magistrates later this morning in connection with the hoax call made to the Daily Mirror in Manchester last week from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Police managed to trace a second call placed to the Mirror offices on Friday night and arrested Raymond Jones at his parents’ home in Rochdale…’
I switch off his radio, wash his cup, straighten his kitchen, and check I’ve left nothing on.
Then I lock his door and leave his cream sofa, his blood-splattered white front room, his house, this dead man’s house -
Leave this sofa, this room, this house of the dead -
Leave it for another -
Yorkshire, bloody Yorkshire -
Primitive Yorkshire, Medieval Yorkshire, Industrial Yorkshire -
Three Ages, three Dark Ages -
Local Dark Ages -
Local decay, industrial decay -
Local murder, industrial murder -
Local hell, industrial hell -
Dead hells, dead ages -
Dead moors, dead mills -
Dead cities -
Crows, the rain, and their Ripper -
The Yorkshire Ripper -
Yorkshire bloody Ripper.
Thornton Crematorium is halfway between Denholme and Allerton, on the way back into Bradford.
I know the way, know the place -
On the dark stair, we miss our step.
Raining heavily, it’s nearly ten-thirty:
10:25:01 -
Monday 29 December 1980.
I park on the road and stare up the hill towards the dark building with the chimney, black in the weather, past small stones with small names, the dead flowers, cigarette ends and crisp packets, the dead leaves, tyres in the rain the only sound.
