by David Peace
I took a pen from my pocket. I wrote four words on the back of her photograph. I held it over him.
Myshkin looked up at the four untidy words:
I REGRET WHAT HAPPENED.
He began to cry.
I leant over the bed. I took his huge shoulders in my hands. I held him. I put my head on his chest. I listened to his heart. I held him in his dumbness –
In his dumbness and my blindness.
In both our tears.
I said: ‘It’s not too late –’
‘I still see the Underground Kingdom. It is evil and an animal place; a kingdom of lost corpses and children’s shoes, mines flooded with the tears and blood of the dead –’
‘Other times,’ I whispered –
‘A dragon howling at the burning skies and the empty churches, while local mobs search me out –’
‘Not your fault,’ I said –
‘For I was the Rat Man, Prince of Pests,’ he cried. ‘And I, I could have saved her. I could have saved them all. But –’
‘Never mind,’ I shouted.
Michael stopped. He was looking over my shoulder.
I turned around and there they were –
Stood in the open doorway:
Mrs Myshkin and Mrs Ashworth.
I let go of Michael. I stood. I started to speak –
Mrs Ashworth stepped forward. She slapped me hard across my face:
‘Rot in hell,’ she spat.
I nodded.
‘We’re all going to rot in this hell …’
I nodded.
Mrs Myshkin holding Michael –
His straps in one of my hands;
Michael rocking back and forth in his mother’s arms –
The photograph of Hazel Atkins in my other hand.
‘This hell,’ Mrs Ashworth shouted again.
Mrs Myshkin whispering: ‘Why didn’t you say, Michael?’
Michael looking up at me from his mother’s arms –
Trembling and blinking through his sores and his tears;
He looked up –
Blood on his face. Tears on his cheeks –
His face as beautiful as the moon, as terrible as the night;
He looked up. He blinked. He screamed: ‘He told me not to!’
I turned away. I turned back to the doorway –
‘This hell!’
Dick was standing there, panting. ‘Boss –’
Michael Myshkin screaming over and over: ‘He told me not to!’
Chapter 53
Tuesday 7 June 1983 –
‘Do not let us fall into the trap –’
60 miles an hour –
‘Of voting for a schoolyard bully –’
70 miles an hour –
‘Or we will deserve to live on our knees.’
80 miles an hour –
‘Mr Scargill warned yesterday –’
90 miles an hour –
‘People will have to stand and fight –’
100 miles an hour –
‘Sooner or later.’
Foot down –
Everybody knows; everybody knows; everybody fucking knows.
The hate nailed to the shadows of your heart –
The fear stitched into the fat of your belly –
Hate and fear, fear and hate –
Putting hate and fear and fear and hate –
Putting them together and getting –
The Kingdom of Evil.
The key in your pocket –
The key to the Kingdom –
D-2.
You pull in behind the Redbeck Café and Motel. You park in the empty car park –
The Fear here –
The dogs barking, the waiting over –
The Wolf near.
You get out. You lock the car door. You run across the car park –
Puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot;
You run across the rough ground to the row of disused motel rooms –
The broken windows and the graffiti, the rubbish and the rats;
You run along the row towards the door –
The door banging in the wind, in the rain.
You stop before the door:
Room 27.
You pull open the door –
The room is dark and cold.
No light here:
Only pain –
Someone has been decorating:
The walls inscribed with pain –
Maps, charts, photographs of pain:
Photographs of little girls –
Pale skin, fair hair, white wings.
Across the maps, the charts, and the photographs –
Swastikas and sixes;
Across every surface –
Six six sixes.
You step inside – You try the light switch again –
No light here:
Only pain and darkness.
You step further inside:
Shattered furniture, splintered wood –
The base of the double bed pulled out into the centre of the room –
On the base of the bed, a portable tape recorder –
A cassette case marked:
On care to be had for the Dead.
You walk towards the bed –
You walk towards the bed and then you see her –
See her –
See her feet first –
Her tiny, tiny feet –
Her –
On the floor, between the bed and the wall –
Between the bed and the wall, on her face –
Her –
Hazel Atkins.
You look –
You look away.
You look –
You look down.
You kneel upon the base of the double bed. You lean against the wall.
You reach down. You turn her over –
In pen upon her chest:
6 LUV.
You collapse on the base of the bed and the portable tape recorder –
‘The only thing you learn in school is ABC –
But all I want to know about is you and me –’
You switch it off.
Silence –
The weeping the only sound;
Sat among the silent sixes, weeping on the base of the double bed –
Staring up through your tears at the photographs and the sixes –
The silent sixes, waiting –
Six six sixes.
The silence –
The long silence until you hear car tyres on the car park –
Puddles of rain water and motor oil under their wheels.
Doors banging, slamming –
Car doors slamming.
Boots across the car park –
Puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot.
You look down at the baby on the floor –
You look away;
Sat among the silent sixes, on the base of the bed –
Your wings, huge and rotting things –
Big black raven things that weigh you down, heavy –
That stop you standing –
Leave you sitting on the base of the double bed –
Staring through your tears at the photographs and the sixes –
The silent sixes, waiting –
Six six sixes.
They come to the door –
This door banging in the wind, in the rain.
They stop before the door:
Room 27.
They open the door –
Two figures in the doorway.
They step inside:
Maurice Jobson and another man.
They look at the walls –
The photographs and the sixes.
They look at the floor –
The girl on the floor.
They look at you –
The fat man on the double bed –
His wings, huge and rotting things –
Big black raven thin
gs that –
That weigh him down, heavy and burnt –
That stop him standing.
Maurice Jobson walks across the room –
He stands before you.
He reaches out to your face –
His cold fingers touch your damp cheek.
You bob your head forward –
You lean into him.
He holds you –
Holds you and strokes your hair.
You raise your hands –
You clasp your hands around his.
You squeeze his hand with yours –
His bruised hand in your bruised hand.
Chapter 54
Hate week:
I press doorbell again –
Again clock strikes thirteen.
I knock upon door. I bang upon door –
Never answers her phone, never answers her door; that is her way.
I sit down on doorstep with my back to door. I reach inside my army greatcoat. I take out an orange. I start to peel it.
Door opens a crack.
I turn round. I hold out a piece of orange.
Little lad, he tiptoes out into gloom. He reaches for outstretched orange –
Tips of our fingers touch.
I take his hand. I hold him by his wrist. I place a piece of orange in his mouth. It breaks skin of his little lips. He can taste old orange and his own blood. He is unable to speak. He is unable to tell me his mum’s not here, that she is at shop –
But she’ll soon be back, I nod.
I swing him through door and back inside his house, which is our house now –
Our house in middle of our street.
I close door. I wait.
Television is on: Play your cards right; Give us a clue; Only when I laugh –
I have no idea, I am a shadow.
I turn out lights –
Only television lights now: Dynasty, Fall Guy, Kids from Fame –
I have no fucking idea.
I take other orange from inside my army greatcoat. I offer it to little lad.
He shakes his head.
I say: ‘Your name is Barry, is it not?’
Little boy, he nods.
‘My name was Barry too,’ I tell him.
Little boy looks at his feet.
‘Here,’ I say. ‘Would you like this badge?’
Little boy looks up at badge in my hand:
UK Decay.
He shakes his head.
I hear key turn in door once –
(We think of key, each in his prison) –
and turn once only.
She opens door and her mouth. She turns to go, but I am on my feet across room.
I pull her back inside our house –
This was where we used to sleep (to dream, to scream) –
I spin her across room on to settee. I slam door –
(We keep pain on inside round here) –
‘Dream on,’ I say.
She sits on settee. She looks up at me, chest rising and chest falling –
Little lad watching us both.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Hello from one that got away.’
She just sits and stares.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
She sits. She stares. She says: ‘I thought you were dead?’
‘Oh no, not me,’ I say.
She starts to cry.
I sit down beside her. I put my arm around her.
Her hair smells of fat and smoke –
They are big tears that are falling on her old clothes.
‘Oh, don’t start with them waterworks, now will you?’ I smile.
She stops. She sniffs. She rubs her red nose. She dries her red eyes –
Little lad still watching us both.
‘Do you believe in ghosts, little Barry?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head.
‘Well, you bloody ought,’ I swear. ‘Didn’t he, mum?’
Then I hear them –
Hear them coming;
Coming to our house –
Our house in middle of our street (our house in middle of our hell).
Chapter 55
Sirens down the Doncaster and Barnsley Roads, into Wakefield:
Two cars, a van, and an ambulance –
No sirens on the ambulance.
Piggott cuffed and bagged on the floor of the van as we swept into Wood Street, taking him underground before the pack had either a hint or a whiff –
Just our lot all lined up and waiting for him, punching and kicking and spitting on him as we dragged him by his heels up and down the corridors –
Up and down the corridors.
Then we stripped him. We fingerprinted him. We photographed him –
Threw him in a cell.
‘Keep him sweet,’ I told Dick.
‘With the exception of the slight ligature marks on the ankles and wrists,’ Dr Alan Coutts was saying, ‘there are no wounds.’
I stopped writing. I said: ‘Cause of death then?’
‘Preliminary –’
‘What?’
‘Starvation and –’
‘What?’
‘Hunger and –’
‘What?’
‘Possibly vagal inhibition.’
‘Strangled?’
He shook his head: ‘A sudden and unexpected shock can also be enough to stimulate the vagal nerve and cause death –’
‘She died of fright?’
‘Or hunger.’
‘When?’
‘I can’t be precise yet,’ he said. ‘But –’
‘Approximately?’
‘Within the last 72 hours.’
‘Where?’
‘Initial examination of particles from the skin and nails have revealed the strong presence of coal dust.’
‘Local?’
He nodded.
‘Underground?’
He nodded.
I looked down at my hands –
History and lies.
They were standing at the end of the corridor, black shadows under the white lights –
‘Under the spreading chestnut tree –’
I walked down the corridor towards them.
They were waiting for me.
‘Mr and Mrs Atkins,’ I said.
They were staring at me.
I gestured to the four grey plastic seats against the cracked magnolia wall. I said: ‘I think we should sit down.’
There were staring –
‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that we have found a little girl and –’
They were waiting –
‘The little girl is not alive.’
They held each other’s hands in their own. They squeezed them.
‘The body was discovered earlier today in a disused room at the old Redbeck Café on the Doncaster Road.’
They both looked at the linoleum. They shook.
I had nothing more to say to them.
Mr Atkins looked up. Her father said: ‘How did she die?’
‘It would appear she died from a combination of a lack of food and water and –’
They were both looking up at me now.
‘Fright.’
‘When?’
‘Possibly within the last 72 hours but –’
Mrs Atkins’ mouth was open, contorted and screaming and howling –
She was slapping and scratching and punching me, trying to murder me –
Murder me –
Murder me –
Murder me –
Murder me –
I wished her mother would murder me –
‘Where I sold you and you sold me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Can I see her?’ asked Mrs Atkins, quietly.
I looked up.
WPC Martin had her by the arm, trying to ease her away.
I nodded.
Dr Coutts opened the door.
He switched on the overhead lights.
They flickered and then came on.
She was lying under a sheet on a gurney in the middle of the room.
Dr Coutts pulled back the sheet as far as her shoulders.
They stepped forward.
They fell on her.
Chapter 56
They take you naked into a ten by six interrogation room with white lights and no windows. They sit you down behind a table. They handcuff your hands behind your back. They throw a bucket of piss and shit across your face. They hose you down with ice water until you fall over in the chair. Then they leave you alone.
You are lying on the floor, handcuffed to the chair.
You can hear screams from other rooms –
You can hear laughter –
Dogs barking.
The screaming goes on and on for what seems like hours.
Then it stops.
You close your eyes.
You have dreams –
And in your dreams –
In your dreams, you have wings –
But all these wings in all your dreams –
Are huge and rotting things –
The room red.
The door opens. Three men in suits come in. They are carrying chairs.
One man has a grey moustache. The other is bald but for tufts of fine sandy hair:
Moustache and Sandy.
The last man you know:
Maurice Jobson; Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson –
Thick lenses and black frames:
The Owl.
They pick you up. They sit you in the chair. They undo your handcuffs.
‘Put your palms flat upon the desk,’ says Sandy.
You put your palms flat upon the desk.
Sandy sits down. He takes a pair of handcuffs from the pocket of his sports jacket. He passes them to Moustache.
Moustache walks around the room. Moustache plays with the handcuffs. Moustache sits down next to Sandy. Moustache puts the handcuffs over the knuckles of his fist. Moustache stares at you.
Maurice closes the door. He leans against it, arms folded. He watches you.
They all smile.
Moustache jumps up. Moustache brings his handcuffed fist down on to the top of your right hand.
You scream.
‘Put your hands back,’ says Sandy.
You put them back on the table.
‘Flat,’ says Sandy.
You try to lie them down flat.
‘Nasty,’ says Moustache.
‘You should get that seen to,’ says Sandy.
They both smile at you.
Sandy stands up. He goes out of the room.
Maurice follows him.
Moustache says nothing. He just stares.
Your right hand is red and throbbing.
Sandy comes back in with a blanket. He puts it over your shoulders. He sits back down. He takes out a packet of JPS from his sports jacket. He offers one to Moustache.
