by David Peace
You take the pint, the short, and the bottle of Barley Wine through into the pool room at the back –
Students and bikers, Vardis on the jukebox:
Let’s Go –
You drink the whiskey and then the Barley Wine.
There are four people on the other side of the pool table. They are staring at you. One of the girls gets up and walks over towards you. She is wearing a huge gold Star of David on her chest, her hair black and back-combed, her heavy make-up smudged.
She says: ‘I was Jimmy’s girlfriend.’
You say: ‘I was almost his solicitor.’
‘He didn’t kill himself; he wouldn’t.’
You nod.
‘He didn’t kill any little girl either; he couldn’t.’
You nod again: ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tessa,’ she says.
You hold out your hand: ‘John Piggott.’
‘I know,’ she smiles as she takes it.
‘You want a drink?’
‘I got one, ta.’
‘You want another?’
‘Twist my arm.’
‘Cider and black?’
She nods.
‘Sit down,’ you say and stand up.
You go into the other room, order the drinks, and come back with two pints.
Tessa’s not sat at the table and she’s not back on the other side of the room.
The two lads and the other girl are still staring at you. They are grinning now.
You look over at the toilet door and then back at the two lads and the girl. They shake their heads. They are laughing.
You walk over to them, still carrying the two pints.
They stop laughing.
‘Where’s Tessa gone?’
They shrug their shoulders and play with their beer mats.
You hold out the cider and black to the girl: ‘You want this?’
She looks up: ‘Ta very much.’
You set it down on the table.
‘You were Jimmy’s mates, yeah?’
They all nod. They are not grinning now, not laughing.
You take out a biro and piece of paper. You write down your name and phone number. You put it down on the table: ‘Will you give this to Tessa?’
‘Why?’ says one of the lads.
‘Never know when you might need a solicitor, do you?’
The girl looks at the two lads and then takes the paper.
You drink your pint in one, belch, and set the glass on the table. You take out two pound notes. You put them down next to the empty pint pot.
‘What’s that for?’ says one of the boys.
‘Have one on me, lads,’ you say and walk back to the bar. You buy your take-outs and leave.
Outside it’s raining again. You go into the Chinky and get some lunch to take out. You get it cheap because you once defended one of the staff in an assault case.
You come out and there she is, crouched down on the other side of the road in front of the Army Recruitment, head on her knees.
You cross the road and say: ‘Not thinking of joining up, are you?’
Tessa looks up: ‘What?’
‘After a free trip to the Malvinas, are you? See the world?’
‘The where?’
You nod at the picture in the window: ‘The Falklands.’
‘Piss off,’ she says, fiddling with one of her badges.
You point up the stairs to Polish Joe’s: ‘How about a haircut?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘OK. See you then.’
‘Hang on,’ she says, suddenly. ‘Where you off?’
‘Home.’
‘Where’s that?’
You point up the road past the College pub: ‘Just up there.’
She looks at your carrier bags: ‘What’s in them?’
‘Lunch.’
She smiles.
‘You want some?’
She nods and holds up her hand.
You pull her up.
‘You got any blow?’ she asks.
‘I might have.’
She smiles again: ‘What we waiting for then?’
You set off up the road, past the College and the Grammar School –
‘Bet you went there, didn’t you?’ she laughs.
‘Fuck off.’
‘Where you go then?’
‘Hemsworth, a long time ago,’ you say. ‘And you?’
‘Thornes.’
You turn on to Blenheim Road and walk along, the big trees keeping the rain off.
You’re going up the drive of number 28 when she says: ‘Isn’t this where that woman was murdered? That witch?’
‘Ages ago.’
‘You’re joking?’
You hold open the front door. ‘We all live in dead people’s houses.’
‘Fuck off,’ she says. ‘Which flat was it?’
‘Mine,’ you say.
‘You better be fucking joking?’ she says.
‘I have decorated.’
She is shivering and staring at you, the rain running off the guttering.
‘Up to you,’ you shrug. ‘Do what you want.’
She looks back out at the rain and steps inside: ‘Long as you’re not planning any bloody seances.’
‘Thought that’d be right up your street.’
‘Fuck off,’ she says again and follows you up the stairs.
You open the door to the flat. You go in first putting on the lights.
‘Come in,’ you say.
She walks down the hall and into the front room.
‘Have a seat,’ you say.
She sits down on the sofa.
‘What do you want to drink?’
‘What you having?’
‘Think I’ll have a lager to start with.’
She nods: ‘Stick some lemonade in ours, will you?’
You go into the kitchen. You open the fridge. There’s no lemonade.
‘Got enough bloody records, haven’t you?’ she shouts.
‘But no lemonade,’ you call back.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
You wash the glasses and find a tray and bring it back through with the Chinese. You have three cans in a carrier bag on your arm. You say: ‘Won’t be a minute.’
She stands up: ‘Where you going?’
‘Just got to nip upstairs.’
‘You’re never going to leave me on my own in here, are you?’
‘Be two minutes,’ you say. ‘Less you don’t want any draw?’
‘Two minutes?’
‘Stick a record on,’ you say. ‘It switches on at the wall.’
‘Two minutes –’
‘Two minutes,’ you say. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
You knock twice on Stopper and Norm’s door. You wait and then knock once again.
‘Who is it?’ whispers Norman.
Two fingers up at the spy-hole, you say: ‘JP.’
The three bolts slide back. The two locks turn. The door opens an inch.
‘What’s the password?’ says Norm over the chain.
‘Fuck off,’ you say.
‘What day is it?’
‘Fucking hell, Norm, it’s Thursday,’ you moan. ‘Just let us in, will you?’
He takes off the chain. He opens the door.
‘Thank you,’ you say.
He locks the locks. He bolts the bolts. He chains the door behind you.
You follow the sounds of Tomita down the hall into the front room.
Stopper’s on the sofa watching the snooker.
‘Aye-up, Peter,’ you say.
He pushes his sunglasses up into his hair and winks.
‘How much you want?’ asks Norm.
You put a tenner and the cans on the table: ‘Just an eighth and a couple of wraps.’
Norm picks up one of the cans and leaves the room.
You crack the other two cans. You hand one to Stopper.
‘Ta,’ he says. ‘You out tonight?’
&n
bsp; You look at your watch: ‘Maybe. And you?’
He shakes his head: ‘Tomorrow.’
Norm comes back in. He gives you an envelope.
‘Thanks,’ you say.
‘You stopping?’ he asks.
‘Can’t. I’ll see you tomorrow though, yeah?’
‘Nice one,’ nods Norm.
‘See you, Peter,’ you say to Stopper.
‘See you, John.’
You walk down the hall to the front door.
Norm unbolts the bolts. He unlocks the locks. He unchains the chain. He says: ‘You haven’t got a fucking lass downstairs, have you?’
‘Why?’
He puts his finger to his ear: ‘That’s fucking Ziggy, isn’t it?’
You smile.
‘You dirty bastard,’ he winks.
‘Just a friend.’
Pissed and stoned, you sleep fully clothed in the same bed, dreaming of King Herod and dead kids, the Baptist and Salome –
John and Salome, the wounds of Christ and the Spear of Destiny –
Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Jimmy Young and Jimmy Ashworth –
Mouths open, contorted and screaming and howling:
‘Hazel!’
You wake and hold her and touch her –
Hold her and touch her and fuck her –
You fuck her, hungover and hard –
Hard as her nails in your back:
‘Murder me!’
Blood on the sheets, blood on the walls –
She opens her eyes, she looks into yours: ‘This place stinks.’
‘I’m sorry –’
‘Of memories,’ she whispers. ‘Bad memories.’
Chapter 15
Clare is screaming: ‘Just fucking walked up to me, bold as fucking brass, and gives it a fucking Long time no see Clare.’
BJ speechless.
‘The cunt! Fucking cunt!’
BJ finding words: ‘Where?’
‘St Mary’s.’
‘Shit.’
‘Bold as fucking brass, he was.’
‘Fuck.’
Her room is trashed and smashed, her clothes and make-up lost among bottles and cans, papers and bags; wind howling around hostel, up stairs and down corridors, under doors and into room, rain hard against window –
This is Preston, Lancashire.
‘How did they find us, BJ?’ she cries. ‘How the fucking hell did they find us?’
BJ look up from floor: ‘Be kids.’
Clare is screaming.
BJ been up and down for days, Clare drunk for same –
Drunk and down since day BJ and Clare got here –
Almost one year now.
But never this down, never this drunk –
BJ a mess and Clare a mess –
Fucked.
BJ fucked, Clare fucked –
Fucked and now found.
‘What we going to do?’
‘Run,’ BJ say.
‘No fucking point,’ she sighs. ‘They’ll find us.’
‘Not if –’
‘If what? They’re fucking watching us!’
‘So what else we going to do?’ BJ cry. ‘Meet him?’
‘What he wants.’
‘Fuck off,’ BJ sob. ‘It’s a fucking trap.’
‘I don’t give a shit,’ she shouts. ‘I’ll not keep running all my fucking life.’
‘They’ll kill us.’
‘Good,’ she mutters.
BJ under covers. BJ hiding. BJ weeping.
There’s a knock on door –
BJ out from covers. Clare staring at door.
‘Clare?’ comes a man’s voice. ‘It’s me.’
‘Fuck, it’s only Roger,’ whispers Clare. ‘Let him in.’
BJ get out of her bed. BJ open her door. BJ let Roger Kennedy in. BJ go down corridor. BJ get in a cold bed. BJ lie under covers. BJ peep up at cracks in ceiling.
BJ wonder what mum is doing today –
Today is BJ’s seventeenth birthday.
BJ start to cry again.
BJ walk to other end of corridor. BJ knock on door.
‘Come in.’
BJ step into Old Walter’s room.
It’s still raining outside. It’s still cold inside.
Walter Kendall is sat at a table by only window. He is cutting something out of a newspaper. He sticks it into an old red exercise book.
‘You’re late,’ he smiles.
‘I’m sorry.’
He closes book: ‘How’s my Clare today?’
‘Busy.’
He laughs. He comes across his tiny room to sit beside BJ on bed.
Outside a train goes past. Window shakes.
‘Your eyes are red,’ he says and takes BJ’s hand. ‘What is it?’
‘They’ve found us.’
He lets go of BJ’s hand. He turns BJ’s face into his: ‘How could they have?’
‘Be her kids,’ BJ say.
‘How?’
‘When you all went to Blackpool.’
‘But how?’
BJ pull away from his grip: ‘If they were watching her kids in Glasgow, they could have easy followed her Suzie when she brought them down.’
‘But that was August. Why wait till now?’
‘Fuck knows.’
‘What you going to do?’
‘Clare wants to meet them.’
‘No?’
‘Yes.’
‘You can’t let her,’ he says.
‘I can’t stop her.’
‘They’ll kill her.’
‘I know.’
‘Kill you both,’ he says.
BJ nod.
‘What did she say?’
‘Good.’
BJ lying in Walter’s arms, BJ’s head on his chest, listening to his heart. BJ remembering when mum and BJ drank a whole bottle of dandelion and burdock and ate two big boxes of chocolates for BJ’s seventh birthday. BJ wondering if she remembers it too, but –
Same room, always same room; ginger beer, stale bread, ashes in grate. I’m in white, turning black right down to my nails, hauling a marble-topped washstand to block door, falling about too tired to stand, collapsed in a broken-backed chair, spinning I make no sense, words in my mouth, pictures in my head, they make no sense, lost in my own room, like I’ve had a big fall, broken, and no-one can put me together again, messages: no-one receiving, decoding, translating.
‘What shall we do for rent?’ I sing.
Just messages from my room, trapped between living and dead, a marble-topped washstand before my door. But not for long, not now. Just a room and a girl in white turning black right down to my nails and holes in my head, just a girl, hearing footsteps on cobbles outside.
Just a girl.
BJ wake up. BJ sweating. BJ crying –
Walter gone.
BJ run down corridor. BJ push open her door –
Clare is lying on her bed in Walter’s arms. Her eyes closed –
Walter is stroking her hair –
Pair of them covered in sweat. Pair of them covered in tears.
‘What happened?’
‘Bad dream,’ whispers Walter.
‘Same dream?’
Walter nods.
‘Did you look?’
Walter raises her sweater and bra, more words there written in blood:
Help me, I am in hell.
It is dawn:
Thursday 20 November 1975.
Chapter 16
We walk the hills for a third day in our black cloaks with our big sticks and our police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, searching for the scene of a crime, walking the hills for the third day in our black cloaks with our big sticks until day becomes night and we return to our wives called Joan and Patricia, Judith and Margaret, to laughter and telephones ringing through the rooms, meals being cooked, served and eaten, to our children called Robert and Clare, Paul and Hazel, to their feet upon the stairs and the slam of a ball against a ba
t or a wall, the pop of a cap gun and a burst balloon, to our houses in Harrogate and Wetherby, Sandal and West Bretton, our houses safe and far from harm and –
Here.
Until the next day when we return to walk the hills for a fourth day in our black cloaks with our big sticks and our police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, searching for the scene of the crime, the next day and the next, walking the hills in our black cloaks with our big sticks until days become night, one endless night and we’ve got no wives called Joan or Patricia, Judith or Margaret, no children called Robert or Clare, Paul or Hazel, only our black cloaks and our big sticks, our dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, our houses in Harrogate and Wetherby, Sandal and West Bretton, our houses big and empty and –
Full of nothing, nothing but –
Here.
Brotherton House, Leeds –
Walter Heywood, George Oldman, Dick Alderman, Jim Prentice, Bill and me.
‘Come on, George,’ smiles Walter Heywood, the Chief Constable. ‘Bloody kid can’t just vanish into thin air, can she?’
‘What it looks like,’ says Oldman and holds up today’s paper –
Tuesday 15 July 1969:
Girl Vanishes, Fourth Day, All-out Hunt –
By Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter.
‘Cars?’ asks the Chief Constable.
Oldman nods: ‘Crestas, Farinas, Consuls, Corsairs, Zephyrs, Cambridges and Oxfords. You name it, we’ve had a bloody sighting.’
‘What next then?’ asks the Chief.
‘Door-to-door again, outbuildings –’
Bill cutting Oldman off: ‘Me and Maurice are off back up Castleford, talk to them builders again, maybe call in on Don Foster himself.’
Heywood nodding –
George Oldman: ‘Don’t let us keep you then, Bill.’
Morning sunlight on the windscreen –
Bill dozing, me driving –
The radio on:
Troops into Derry;
GPO Strike cuts TV;
Last day of the Test.
The A639 through Woodlesford and Oulton, Methley and Allerton Bywater, following the Aire back into Castleford –
The radio on:
Elvis –
Lulu –
Cliff.
Coming into town, policemen and their cars, women gathered on the corners in their headscarves, children tight to their apron strings, the ambulance at the top end of Brunt Street, still waiting –
I park and wake Bill: ‘We’re here.’
We get out and nod to the uniform outside number 11, the curtains still drawn –
