When?
As soon as I can. Dont go out,
OK.
Promise?
Promise.
Bye.
And she hung up.
I walked back across the pub, visions of bloodstained furniture, holes and heads:
I have given advance warning so its yours and their fault.
I sat down.
You all right?
Fine, I lied.
Dont look it.
So they got someone?
Yep.
Who?
Fuck knows.
Come on?
Straight up. No-one knows, just brass.
Why all the secrecy?
I tell you, fuck knows.
But theyre saying its not Ripper?
Thats what theyre saying.
What you reckon?
Fuck knows, Jack. Its weird.
You heard owt else? Anything?
How much?
Call it an even fifty if its good.
Couple of lads reckon some blokes have been suspended, but you didnt hear that from me.
Over this?
Aye, thats what a couple of lads here said.
From Millgarth?
Thats what they said.
Who?
DI Rudkin, your mate Fraser, and DC Ellis.
Ellis?
Mike Ellis. Fat twat with a big gob?
Dont know him. And they reckon they did this woman in Bradford?
Now Jack, I didnt say that. Theyve just been suspended, thats all I know.
Fuck.
Aye.
You surprised?
Rudkin, no. Fraser, yes. Ellis, yeah but everyone hates him anyway.
Cunt?
Complete and utter,
But everyone knew Rudkin was dirty?
Lads dont call him Harry for nowt,
Fuck. What way?
When he worked Vice he was keeping more than streets clean.
And Fraser?
You met him; hes Mr fucking Clean. Owls always helped him along and all.
Maurice Jobson? Why?
Frasers married to Bill Molloys daughter, isnt he?
Fuck, I sighed. And Badger Bills got cancer, yeah?
Aye.
Interesting.
If you say so, shrugged Wilson.
I looked at my watch.
Best put that away, he said, pointing at the piece of paper on the table.
I nodded and put it in my pocket, taking out my wallet.
I counted out the notes under the table and handed him fifty.
Thatll do nicely, sir, he winked and stood up to go.
Anything at all, Samuel, give us a call?
You bet.
I mean it. If this is him, I want to know first.
Got you, and he buttoned up his coat and was gone.
I looked at my watch and went to the telephone.
Bill? Jack.
What you got?
Its strange, all right. Dead prostitute under a sofa in Bradford.
Told you, Jack. I told you.
But theyre saying its not a Ripper job.
So why are they keeping it from us?
I dont know but, and this is just what I reckon, somehow some of brass have fucked up and theres been some suspensions.
Really?
Thats what rumour is round Millgarth.
Who?
That Sergeant Fraser for one. John Rudkin and someone else.
Detective Inspector John Rudkin? Over what?
Dont know. Might be nowt to do with this, but seems odd yeah?
Yeah.
Ive got a bloke going to let us know first thing he hears.
Good. Ill have Front Page on standby.
But you best not say why
You still going to Manchester?
I think so, yeah. But Ill come back via Bradford.
Keep in touch, Jack.
Bye.
I sat on the train and smoked and drank a warm can, picked at a sandwich and flicked through a paperback book, Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution.
After Huddersfield I just dozed, bad ale and sleep to match, waking to the hills and the rain, hair stuck against a dirty window, drifting:
I look at my watch, its 7.07.
Im on the Moors, walking across the Moors, and I come to a chair, a high-backed leather chair, and theres a woman in white kneeling before the chair, hands in angel prayer, hair across her face.
I lean down to scoop the hair away and its Carol, then Ka Su Peng. She stands up and points to the middle of the long white dress and a word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
livE.
And there on the Moors, in the wind and in the rain, she pulls the white dress up over her head, her yellow belly swollen, and then puts the dress back on, inside out, the word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
Evil.
And a small boy in blue pyjamas comes out from behind the high-backed leather chair and leads her away across the Moors and I stand there in the wind and in the rain and I look at my watch and its stopped:
7.07.
I woke, my head against the window, and looked at my watch.
I picked up my briefcase and locked myself in the toilet. I sat on the rocking bog and took out the porno mag. Spunk.
Clare Strachan in all her bloody glory.
Hard again, I checked the address and went back to my seat and the half-eaten cheese sandwich.
From Stalybridge into Manchester I tried to put all of Wilsons shit together, re-reading Oldmans memo, wondering what the fuck Fraser could have done, knowing suspensions could be anything these days:
Back-handers and one-handers, dodgy overtime and faked expenses, sloppy paperwork, no paperwork.
John bloody Rudkin leading Mr fucking Clean astray.
Clueless, I went back to the window, the rain and the factories, the local horror movies, remembering the photographs of death camps my uncle had brought back from the war.
Id been fifteen when that war ended and now, in 1977, I was sat on a train, head against the black glass, the bloody rain, the fucking North, wondering if this one ever would.
I was thinking of Martin Laws and The Exorcist when we pulled into Victoria.
In the station, straight to a telephone:
Anything?
Nothing.
Out of Victoria, up to Oldham Street.
270 Oldham Street, dark and rain-stained, rotting black bin bags heaped up outside, MJM Publishing sat on the third floor.
I stood at the foot of the stairs and shook down my raincoat.
Soaked through, I walked up the stairs.
I banged on the double doors and went inside.
It was a big office, full of low furniture, almost empty, a door to another office at the back.
A woman sat at a desk near the back door, a bag, typing.
I stood at the low counter by the door and coughed.
Yes? she said, not looking up.
Id like to talk to the proprietor please?
The what?
The owner.
Who are you?
Jack Williams.
She shrugged and picked up the old telephone on her desk: Theres a man here wants to see the owner. Names Jack Williams.
She sat there, nodding, then covered the mouthpiece and said, What do you want?
Business.
Business, she repeated, nodded again, and asked, What kind of business?
Orders.
Orders, she said, nodded one last time, and then hung up.
What? I said.
She rolled her eyes. Leave your name and number and hell call you back.
But Ive come all way over from Leeds.
She shrugged her shoulders.
Bloody hell, I said.
Yep, she said.
Can I at least have his name?
Lord High and Bloody Mighty, she said, ripping the piece of paper out of the typewriter.
I went for it: Dont know how you can work for a bloke like that.
I dont intend to for much longer.
You out of here then?
She stopped pretending to work and smiled, Week next Friday.
Good on you.
I hope so.
I said, You want to earn yourself a couple of quid for your retirement?
My retirement? Youre no spring chicken yourself, you cheeky sod.
A couple of quid to tide you over?
Only a couple?
Twenty?
She came over to the front of the office, a little smile. So who are you really?
A business rival, shall we say?
Say what you bloody well want for twenty quid.
So youll help me out?
She glanced round at the door to the back office and winked, Depends what you want me to do, doesnt it?
You know your magazine Spunk?
She rolled her eyes again, pursed her lips, and nodded.
You keep lists of the models?
The models!
You know what I mean.
Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Addresses, phone numbers?
Probably, if they went through the books but, believe me, I doubt they all did.
If you could get us names and anything else on models thatd be great.
What you want them for?
I glanced at the back office and said, Look, I sold a job lot of old Spunks to Amsterdam. Got a bloody bomb for them. If your Lordship is too busy to earn himself a cut, then Ill see if I cant set myself up.
Twenty quid?
Twenty quid.
She said, I cant do it now.
I looked at my watch. What time you finished?
Five.
Bottom of stairs at five?
Twenty quid?
Twenty quid.
See you then.
I stood in a red telephone box in the middle of Piccadilly Bus Station and dialled.
Its me.
Where are you?
Still in Manchester.
What time you coming home?
Soon as I can.
Ill wear something pretty then.
Outside, the rain kept falling, the red box leaking.
Id been here before, this very box, twenty-five years before, my fiancee and I, waiting for the bus to Altrincham to see her Aunt, a new ring on her finger, the wedding but one week away.
Bye, I said, but shed already gone.
I stepped back into the sheets of piss and walked about Piccadilly for a couple of hours, going in and out of cafes, sitting in damp booths with weak coffees, waiting, watching skinny black figures dancing through the rain, the lot of us dodging the raindrops, the memories, the pain.
I looked at my watch.
It was time to go.
Going up to five, I found another telephone box on Oldham Street.
Anything?
Nothing.
At five to five I was huddled at the bottom of the steps, ringing wet.
Ten minutes later she came down the stairs.
Ive got to go back up, she said. Im not finished.
Did you get the stuff?
She handed me an envelope.
I glanced inside.
She said, Its all there. What there is.
I believe you, I said and handed her twenty folded quid.
Pleasure doing business with you, she laughed, walking back upstairs.
Bet it was, I said. Bet it was.
I went down to Victoria where they told me the Bradford train went from Piccadilly.
I ran up through the cats and the dogs and caught a cab for the last bit.
It was almost six when we got there, but there was a train on the hour and I caught it.
Inside, the carriage stank of wet clothes and stale smoke and I had to share a table with an old couple from Pennistone and their sweating sandwiches.
The woman smiled, I smiled back and the husband bit into a large red apple.
I opened the envelope and took out tissue-thin pieces of duplicate paper, three in all.
There were lists of payments, cash or cheque for February 1974 through to March 1976, payments to photoshops, chemists, photographers, paper mills, ink works, and models.
Models.
I ran down the list, out of breath:
Everything stopped, dead.
Clare Morrison, known to be Strachan.
Everything stopped.
I took out Oldmans memo:
Jane Ryan, read Janice.
Everything
Sue Penn, read Su Peng.
Stopped
Read Ka Su Peng.
Dead.
There on that train, that train of tears, crawling across those undressed hells, those naked little hells, those naked little hells all decked out in tiny, tiny bells, there on that train listening to those bells ring in the end of the world:
1977.
In 1977, the year the world broke.
My world:
The old woman across the table finishing the last sandwich and screwing up the silver foil into a tiny, tiny ball, the egg and cheese on her false teeth, crumbs stuck in the powder on her face, her face smiling at me, a gargoyle, her husband bleeding his teeth into that big red apple, this big red, red, red world.
1977.
In 1977, the year the world turned red.
My world:
I needed to see the photographs.
The train crawled on.
I had to see the photographs.
The train stopped at another station.
The photographs, the photographs, the photographs.
Clare Morrison, Jane Ryan, Sue Penn.
I was crying and I wanted to stop, wanted to pull myself together but, when I tried, the bits didnt fit.
Pieces missing.
1977.
In 1977, the year the world fell to bits.
My world:
Going under, to the sea-bed, better off dead, that evil, evil bed, those secret underwater waves that floated me up bloated, up from the sea-bed.
Beached, washed up.
1977.
In 1977, the year the world drowned.
My world:
1977 and I needed to see the photographs, had to see the photographs, the photographs.
In 1977, the year
1977.
My world:
An imagined photograph.
Wear something pretty
I didnt stop in Bradford, just changed trains for Leeds and sat on another slow train through hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell:
Hell.
In Leeds I ran through the black rain along Boar Lane, stumbling, through the precinct, tripping, on to Briggate, falling, into Joes Adult Books.
Spunk? Back issues?
By the door.
You got every issue?
I dont know. Have a look.
On my knees, through the pile, stacking doubles to one side and holding on to every different issue I came to, clutching their plastic wrappings.
This it?
Maybe some in the back.
I want them.
All right, all right.
All of them.
I stood there while Joe went into the back, stood there in the bright pink light, the cars outside in the rain, the blokes browsing, giving it to me sideways.
Joe came back, six or seven in his hands.
That it?
You must have them all.
I looked down and saw Id got a good thirteen or fourteen.
It still going?
No.
How much?
He tried to take them from me but then said, How many you got there?
I counted, dropping them and then picking them up, until I said, Thirteen.
Eight forty-five.
I handed him a tenner.
You want a bag?
But I was gone.
In the Market toilets, the cubicle door locked, on the floor, ripping open plastic bags, tearing through the pages, through the pictures and the photographs, the photographs of bums and tits, cunts and cuts, the hairy bits, the dirty bits, the bloody, bloody red bits, until I came came to the yellow bits.
This is why people die.
This is why people.
This is why.
I stood upright in another box and dialled.
George Oldman, please.
Whos calling?
Jack Whitehead.
Just a moment.
I stood and waited inside the box.
Mr Whitehead?
Yes.
Assistant Chief Constable Oldmans office is not accepting any more calls from the press. Could you please call Detective Inspector Evans on
I hung up and puked down the inside of the red telephone box.
On my bed, a bed of paper and pornography, in prayer, the telephone ringing and ringing and ringing, the rain against the windows falling and falling and falling, the wind through the frames blowing and blowing and blowing, the knocks on the door knocking and knocking and knocking.
What happened to our Jubilee?
Its over.
To remission and forgiveness, an end to penance?
I cant forgive the things I dont even know
I do, Jack. I have to.
The telephone was ringing and ringing and ringing and she was still beside me on the bed.
I lifted up her head to free my arm, to stand.
Barefoot, I went to the telephone.
Martin?
Jack? Its Bill.
Bill?
Christ, Jack. Where you been? All bloody hells broken loose.
I stood there in the dark, nodding.
Turns out the dead prostitute in Bradford, its only Frasers bloody girlfriend and that its him theyre holding.
I looked back over at the bed, at her still on the bed.
Jane Ryan, read Janice.
Bill was saying, Then Bradford got a letter from Ripper and they didnt say anything to Oldman or anyone and theyve only gone and fucking printed it in the morning edition, and sold it on to The Sun.
I stood there, in the dark.
Jack?
Fuck, I said.
Shit creek, mate. You better come in.
I dressed in the dawn light, the dim light, and left her still on the bed.
On the stairs, I looked at my watch.
It had stopped.
Outside, I walked down the road to the Paki shop on the corner and bought a Telegraph & Argus.
I sat on a low wall, my back in a hedge, and read:
RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?
Yesterday morning the Telegraph & Argus received the following letter from a man claiming to be Yorkshires Jack the Ripper killer.
Tests carried out by independent experts and information from reliable police sources lead us here at the Telegraph & Argus to believe that this letter is genuine, and not the first such letter this man has sent.
We here at the Telegraph & Argus, however, believe the British Public should have the right to judge for yourselves.
From Hell.
Dear George
I am sorry I cannot give my name for obvious reasons. I am the Ripper. Ive been dubbed a maniac by the Press but not by you, you call me clever cause you know I am. You and your boys havent a clue that photo in the paper gave me fits and that bit about killing myself, no chance. Ive got things to do. My purpose is to rid streets of them sluts. My one regret is that young lassie Johnson, did not know cause changed routine that nite but warned you and XXXX XXXXXXXXX at Post.
Up to number five now you say, but theres a surprise in Bradford, get about you know.
Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.
Sorry about young lassie.
Yours respectfully
Jack the Ripper.
Might write again later I not sure last one really deserved it. Whores getting younger each time. Old slut next time hope.
The next headline:
DID THE POLICE AND THE
POST KNOW?
I sat on the low wall, bile in my mouth, blood on my hands, crying.
This is why people die.
This is why people.
This is why.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Tuesday 14th June 1977
I open my eyes and say:
I didnt do it.
And John Piggott, my solicitor, stubs out his cigarette and says, Bob, Bob, I know you didnt.
So get me fucking out of here.
I close my eyes and say:
But I didnt do it.
And John Piggott, my solicitor, a year younger and five stone fatter, says, Bob, Bob, I know.
So why the fuck do I have to report to Wood Street bloody Nick every fucking morning?
Bob, Bob, lets just take it and get you out of here.
But this means they can just pick me up any fucking time they want, haul me back in here.
Bob, Bob, they can anyway. You know that.
But theyre not going to charge me?
No.
Just suspend me without pay and have me report in every fucking morning until they find a way to fit me up?
Yes.
The Sergeant on the desk, Sergeant Wilson, he hands me my watch and the coins from my trousers.
Dont be buying no tickets to Rio now.
I say, I didnt do it.
No-one said you did, he smiles.
So keep it fucking shut, Sergeant.
And I walk away, John Piggott holding the door open for me.
But Wilson calls after me:
Dont forget: ten oclock, tomorrow, Wood Street.
In the car park, the empty car park, John Piggott unlocks the car door.
Take a deep breath, he says, doing just that.
I get into the car and we go, Hot Chocolate on the radio again.
John Piggott pulls up on Tammy Hall Street, Wakefield, just across from the Wood Street Police Station.
Ive just to nip in and get something, he says and heads into the old building and up the stairs to his first-floor office.
I sit in the car, the rain on the windscreen, the radio playing, Janice dead, and I feel like Ive been here before.
She was pregnant.
In a dream, in a vision, in a buried memory, I dont know which or where, but I know Ive been here before.
And it was yours.
Where to? asks Piggott as he gets back in.
The Redbeck, I say.
On the Doncaster Road?
Yeah.
She lay down beside me on the floor of Room 27 and I felt grey, finished.
I close my eyes and shes under them, waiting.
She stood before me, her cracked skull and punctured lungs, pregnant, suffocated.
I open my eyes and rinse cold water over my face, down my neck, grey, finished.
John Piggott comes in with two teas and a chip sandwich.
It stinks out the room, the sandwich.
Fuck is this place? he asks, eyes this way and that.
Just somewhere.
How long you had it?
Its not really mine.
But you got the key?
Yeah.
Must cost a bloody fortune.
Its for a friend.
Who?
That journalist, Eddie Dunford.
Fuck off?
No.
I stepped out of the old lift and on to the landing.
I walked down the corridor, the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.
I came to a door and stopped.
Room 77.
I wake and Piggotts still sleeping, wedged under the sink. I count coins and head out into the rain, collar up.
In the lobby, under the on/off strip lighting, I dial.
Speak to Jack Whitehead, please?
One moment.
In the lobby, under the on/off lighting, I wait, everything gone quiet.
Jack Whitehead speaking.
This is Robert Fraser.
Where are you?
The Redbeck Motel, just outside Wakefield on the Doncaster Road.
I know it.
I need to see you.
Likewise.
When?
Give us half an hour?
Room 27. Round the back.
Right.
In the lobby, under the on and the off, I hang up.
I open the door, Piggott awake, bringing a bucket of rain in with me.
Where you been?
Phone.
Louise?
No, and know I should have.
Who did you call?
Jack Whitehead.
From the Post?
Yeah. You know him?
Of him.
And?
The jurys still out.
I need a friend, John.
Bob, Bob, you got me.
I need all the bloody ones I can get.
Well, watch him. Thats all.
Thanks.
Just watch him.
Theres a knock.
Piggott tenses.
I go to the door, say: Yeah?
Its Jack Whitehead.
I open the door and there he is, standing in the rain and the lorry lights, a dirty mac and a carrier bag.
You going to let me in?
I open the door wider.
Jack Whitehead steps into Room 27, clocking Piggott and then the walls:
Fuck, he whistles.
John Piggott sticks out his hand and says, John Piggott. Im Bobs solicitor. Youre Jack Whitehead, from the Yorkshire Post?
Right, says Whitehead.
Have a seat, I say, pointing at the mattress.
Thanks, says Jack Whitehead and we all squat down like a gang of bloody Red Indians.
I didnt do it, I say, but Jacks having trouble keeping his eyes off the wall.
Right, he nods, then adds: Didnt think you did.
What have you heard? asks Piggott.
Jack Whitehead nods my way, About him?
Yeah.
Not much.
Like?
First we heard was thered been another murder, in Bradford, everyone over there saying it was a Ripper job, his lot saying nothing, next news theyd suspended three officers. That was it.
Then?
Then this? says Whitehead, taking a folded newspaper out of his coat and spreading it over the floor.
I stare down at the headline:
RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?
At the letter.
Weve seen it, says Piggott.
Bet you have, smiles Whitehead.
A surprise in Bradford, I whisper.
Kind of puts you in the clear.
Youd think so, yeah, nods Piggott.
Whitehead says, You think it was the Ripper?
Who killed her? asks Piggott.
Whitehead nods and they both look at me.
I cant think of anything, except she was pregnant and now shes dead.
Both of them.
Dead.
Eventually I say, I didnt do it.
Well, Ive got something else. Another hat for the ring, says Whitehead and tips a pile of magazines out of his plastic carrier bag.
Fucks all this? says Piggott, picking up a porno mag.
Spunk. You heard of it? Whitehead asks me.
Yeah, I say.
How?
Cant remember.
Well, you need to, he says and hands me a magazine open at a bleached blonde with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and fat fingers up her cunt and arse.
I look up.
Look familiar?
I nod.
Who is it? asks Piggott, straining at the upside-down magazine.
I say, Clare Strachan.
Also known as Morrison, adds Jack Whitehead.
Me: Murdered Preston, 1975.
What about her? You know her? he asks and hands me another woman, Oriental, black hair with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and thin fingers up her cunt and arse.
No, I say.
Sue Penn, Ka Su Peng?
Me: Assaulted Bradford, October 1976,
Give the boy a prize, says Whitehead quietly and hands me another magazine.
I open it.
Page 7, he says.
I turn to page 7, to the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a dick in her face and come on her lips.
Who is it? Piggotts asking.
Im sorry, says Jack Whitehead.
Piggott still asking: Who is it?
But the rain outside, its loud, deafening, like the lorry doors as they slam shut, one after another, in the car park, endlessly.
No food, no sleep, just circles:
Her cunt.
Her mouth.
Her eyes.
Her belly.
No food, no sleep, just secrets:
In her cunt.
In her mouth.
In her eyes.
In her belly.
Circles and secrets, secrets and circles.
I ask: MJM Publishing? You checked it out?
I was over there yesterday, says Whitehead.
And?
Your run-of-the-mill porn publisher. Slipped a disgruntled employee twenty quid for the names and addresses.
John Piggott asks, How did you find out about it?
Spunk?
Yeah.
An anonymous tip.
How anonymous?
Young lad. Skinhead. Said hed known Clare Strachan when she was calling herself Morrison and living over here.
I say, You got a name?
For him?
Yeah.
Barry James Anderson, and Id seen him before. Local. Hell be in the files.
I swallow; BJ.
What files? asks Piggott, playing catch-up, years behind.
Cant you have a word with Maurice Jobson, presses Whitehead, ignoring Piggott. The Owls taken you under his wing, hasnt he?
I shake my head. Doubt it now.
You told him anything about any of this?
After that last time we spoke, I went to him to get the files.
And?
Gone.
Fuck.
A Detective Inspector John Rudkin, my bloody boss, he checked them out in April 1975.
April 75? Strachan wasnt even dead then.
Yeah.
And he never brought them back?
No.
Not even after she did die?
Never even fucking mentioned them.
And you told Maurice Jobson all this?
He worked it out for himself when he tried to pull the files.
Which files? asks Piggott again.
Whitehead, foot down, ignoring him again: What did Maurice do?
Told me hed deal with it. Next time I saw Rudkin it was when they came and picked me up.
He say anything?
Rudkin? No, just took a fucking swing.
And hes suspended?
Yes, says Piggott, a question he can answer.
You spoken to him?
He cant, says Piggott. It was one of the stipulations of his release. No contact with DI Rudkin or DC Ellis.
What about Maurice?
Thats OK.
You should show him these, says Whitehead, pointing at the carpet of pornography before us.
I cant, I say.
Why not?
Louise, I say.
Your wife?
Yeah.
The Badgers daughter, smiles Whitehead.
Piggott: You going to tell me which fucking files youre talking about. I think I should know
Mechanically I say, Clare Strachan was arrested in Wakefield under the name Morrison in 1974 for soliciting, and was a witness in a murder inquiry.
Which murder inquiry?
Jack Whitehead looks up at the walls of Room 27, at the pictures of the dead, at the pictures of the dead little girls and says: Paula Garland.
Fucking hell.
Yeah, we both say.
Jack Whitehead comes back with three teas.
Im going to go see Rudkin, he says.
Theres someone else, I say.
Who?
Eric Hall.
Bradford Vice?
I nod, You know him?
Heard of him. Suspended, isnt he?
Yeah.
What about him?
Turns out he was pimping Janice.
And thats why hes suspended?
No. Peter Hunters mob.
And you think I should pay him a visit?
He must know something about these, I say, pointing at the magazines again.
You got home addresses for them?
Rudkin and Hall?
He nods and I write them out on a piece of paper.
You should talk to Chief Superintendent Jobson, Piggott is telling me.
No, I say.
But why? You said you need all the friends you can get.
Let me talk to Louise first.
Yeah, says Jack Whitehead suddenly. You should be with your wife. Your family
You married? I ask him.
Was, he says. A long time ago.
I stand in the lobby, under the on/off strip lighting, and I die:
Louise?
Sorry, its Tina. Is that Bob?
Yeah.
Shes at the hospital, love. Hes almost gone.
In the lobby, under the on/off lighting, I wait, everything gone.
Bob? Bob?
In the lobby, under the on and the off, I hang.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Wednesday 15th June 1977
I sat in the Redbeck car park between two Birds Eye lorries, my head spinning from that room, those memories, and these options:
See Rudkin and Hall, or tail Fraser.
Heads or tails:
Heads.
I took out the scribble Fraser had given me:
Rudkin lived nearer, Eric Hall further.
Rudkin dirty, Hall dirtier
Hall dirty, Rudkin dirtier.
Heads or tails.
Staring across the car park at that room.
That room, those memories.
The writings on those wailing walls.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, always back to Eddie.
In the rearview mirror, Carol waited on the back seat; white flesh and bruised tones, red hair and broken bones, the pictures from the wall, the pictures from my Nursery Walls, the pictures from down the Memory Lane.
I sat there in a car full of dead women, a car full of Rippers, and tossed the two-pence coin again.
Heads or tails:
Heads.
Durkar, another Ossett, another Sandal:
Another piece of White Yorkshire
Long drives and high walls.
I drove past Rudkins, saw two cars in the drive and pulled up on Durkar Lane and waited.
It was 9.30 on the morning of Wednesday 15 June 1977.
I wondered what Id say if I walked up that drive, rang that bell:
Excuse me, Mr Rudkin. I think you might be Yorkshire Ripper and I was wondering if you had any comment to make?
And just as I was thinking that, another car pulled into his drive.
Five minutes later and Rudkin pulled out of his drive in his bronze Datsun 260, another man in the passenger seat, and headed down Durkar Lane.
I followed them down into Wakefield, stalling at the lights on the way in, out along the Dewsbury Road, over Shawcross, past the tip, down through Hanging Heaton and into Batley, through the centre until they pulled up outside RD News on the Bradford Road, on the outskirts of Batley.
Batley, another Bradford, another Delhi:
Another piece of Black Yorkshire
Low walls and high minarets.
I drove past RD News and pulled up just beyond a Chinese take-away and waited.
Rudkin and the other man stayed inside the car.
It was 10.30 and the sun had come out.
Five minutes later and a maroon BMW 2002 pulled up just past Rudkins Datsun and two men got out, one black, one white.
I span round in my seat and made sure:
Robert Craven.
Detective Inspector Robert Craven
They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.
Craven and his black buddy went over to Rudkins car and Rudkin and a fat man got out.
Mike Ellis, I was guessing.
Then the four of them went inside RD News.
I closed my eyes and saw again rivers of blood in a womans time, umbrellas up, bloody showers, puddles all blood, raining cats and blood.
I opened my eyes, the sky blue, clouds moving fast up the hills behind the shops.
I got out of my car and crossed the road to a telephone box.
I dialled her flat.
She answered: Hello?
Its me.
What?
I want to know. About the pictures, I need to know.
It was a long time ago.
Its important.
What?
Everything. Who took them? Who arranged it? Everything.
Not on the phone.
Why not?
Jack, if I tell you on the phone, Ill never see you again.
Thats not true.
Isnt it?
I stood in the red telephone box, in the middle of the red river of blood, below the blue sky, and I looked up at the window above the newsagents.
John Rudkin was looking out of the window, one hand on the frame, the other square, palms open, smiling from ear to ear.
Jack?
Ill come over then.
When?
Soon.
And I hung up, staring at John Rudkin.
I went back to the car and waited.
Thirty minutes later, Rudkin came out of the shop, shirtsleeves, jacket over his shoulder, followed by the fat man and Craven.
The black man didnt come out.
Rudkin, Craven, and the fat man shook hands, and Rudkin and the fat man got into the Datsun. Craven waved them off. I sat there, waiting.
Craven went back inside the newsagents.
I sat there, waiting.
Ten minutes later, Craven came back out.
The black man didnt.
Craven got into his car and drove off.
I sat there.
Five minutes later, I got out and went into the newsagents.
Inside it was bigger than it looked, selling Calor gas and toys as well as papers and fags.
There was a young Pakistani behind the counter.
I said to him, Who owns this place?
Pardon?
Whos the boss? Is it you?
No, why?
I wondered if the flat above was for rent?
No, its not.
Id like to put me name down if it ever comes up. Who would I see about that?
Dont know, he said, thinking about it, thinking about me.
I picked up a Telegraph & Argus and handed him the money.
Best speak to Mr Douglas, he said.
Bob Douglas? I nodded.
Yes, Bob Douglas.
Thank you very much, I said and left, thinking:
They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.
Thinking, fuck off.
The Pride, Bradford, just down from the Telegraph & Argus. Tom was already there, coughing into his beer at the bar.
I put my hand on his shoulder and said, Sorry, springing this on you.
Yeah, he smiled. Awful having to drink with the enemy.
Sit down? I said, nodding at the table by the door.
Not getting a drink?
Dont be daft, I said and ordered one and another for him.
We sat down.
Not very nice, I said. That piece about the letter.
Nothing to do with me, he said, palms up, genuine.
I took a sip and said, Theyre hoaxes anyway.
Fuck off.
Theyre not from the bloody Ripper, tell you that.
We had them tested.
We? Thought it was nowt to do with you.
There was evidence and all.
Fuck it. It wasnt why I phoned.
Go on, he said, relaxing, relieved.
I want to know about one of yours, Eric Hall?
What about him?
Been suspended, yeah?
Him and rest of them.
Right. What you got on him?
Not much.
You know him?
Say hello, that way.
You know this last one, this Janice Ryan?
Yeah?
Well, I got me a bloke saying she was Erics bird, that Detective Inspector Hall pimped her a bit and all.
Fuck.
Yep.
Doesnt surprise me like but, these days, not much bloody would.
So you dont know anything else? Anything extra on him?
Theyre a law unto themselves, Bradford Vice. But its same with your lot, I bet.
I nodded.
To be honest, he continued. I always thought he was a bit on thick side. You know, at press conferences, after work.
Thick enough to murder the prostitute he was pimping and try and make it look like a Ripper job?
Be beyond him, mate. Out of his bloody league, hed be. Never pull it off.
Maybe he hasnt.
Tom was shaking his head, sniffing up.
I said, How well do you know lasses over here?
What you asking, Jack?
Come on. Do you know them?
Some.
You know a Chinese lass, Ka Su Peng?
The one that got away, he smiled.
Thats the one.
Yeah. Why?
What do you know about her?
Popular. But you know what they say about a Chinky?
What?
An hour later and you could murder another.
I knocked once.
She opened the door, said nothing, and walked back down the bare passage.
I followed her and stood there, there in her room, with its sticks of shit and stink of sex, and I watched her rubbing hand-cream into her fingers and into her palms, up her wrists and into her arms, down into her knees.
There were the spits of an afternoon rain on the window, the bright orange curtains hopeless in the gloom, her rubbing her childish knees, me staring up her skirt.
Is this the last fuck? she asked later, lying in the back bedroom with the curtains drawn against the rain, against the afternoon, against the Yorkshire life.
And I lay there beside her, looking up at the stains on the ceiling, the plastic light fittings that needed a wipe, listening to her broken words, the beat of her battered heart, alone and depressed with my come on her thighs, her toes touching mine.
Jack?
No, I lied.
But she was crying anyway, the magazine open on the floor beside the bed, her top lip swelling.
I parked outside a nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course.
There was a blue Granada 2000 sat in the drive.
I walked up to the door and rang the bell.
A gaunt middle-aged woman answered the door, fiddling with the pearls around her neck.
Is Eric in?
Who are you?
Jack Whitehead.
What do you want?
Im from the Yorkshire Post.
Eric Hall came out of the living room, his face black and blue, nose bandaged.
Mr Hall?
Its all right Libby, love
The woman gave her pearls another tug and went the way hed come.
What is it? hissed Hall.
About Janice Ryan?
Who?
Fuck off, Eric, I said, leaning into the doorway. Dont be a silly cunt.
He blinked, swallowed, and said, You know who I am, who youre talking to?
A dirty copper named Eric Hall, yeah.
He stood there, in the doorway to his nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course, his eyes full of tears.
Lets go for a drive, Eric, I suggested.
We pulled up in the empty car park of the George.
I turned off the engine.
We sat in silence and stared at the hedge and the fields beyond.
After a while I said, Have a look in that bag at your feet.
He opened his fat little legs and bent down into the bag.
He pulled out a magazine.
Page 7, I said.
He stared down at the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a prick to her gob and spunk on her face.
That yours? I asked him.
But he just sat there, shaking his head from side to side, until he said, How much?
Five.
Hundred?
What do you think?
Five fucking thousand? I havent got it.
Youll get it, I said and started the car.
The office was dead.
I knocked on Haddens door and went in.
He was sat behind his desk, his back to Leeds and the night.
I sat down.
Well? he said.
Theyve let Fraser go.
You seen him?
Yep, I smiled.
Hadden smiled back, an eyebrow arched. And?
Hes been suspended. Reckons Rudkin and some bloke from Bradford Vice are up to their ears in it.
What do you think?
Well, I went out to have a look and Rudkins up to his ears in something, but Im fucked if I know what.
Bill Hadden didnt look very impressed.
Saw Tom, I said.
Hadden smiled. He apologise, did he?
Sheep-faced, he was.
And rightly-bloody-so.
Said they still reckon the letters genuine.
Hadden said nothing.
But, I went on. He didnt have anything on this Bradford copper.
Whats his name?
Hall. Eric Hall?
Hadden shook his head.
I asked, You got anything new?
No, he said, still shaking his head.
I stood up. Ill see you tomorrow, then.
Right, he said.
At the door, I turned back. There was one other thing.
Yeah? he said, not looking up.
You know the one in Preston?
He looked up. What?
The prostitute they say was a Ripper job?
Hadden was nodding.
Fraser said she was a witness in the Paula Garland murder,
What?
And I left him with his mouth open, eyes wide.
He was sitting in the dim lobby in a high-backed chair, his eyes on his hat, his hat upon his knee.
Jack, he said, not looking up.
I dream of rivers of blood, womens blood. When I fuck, I see blood. When I come, death.
Martin Laws leant forward.
He parted his thin grey hair between his fingers and the hole leapt from the shadows.
There has to be another way, I said, tears in the dark.
He looked up and said: Jack, if the Bible teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that this is the way things are, the way things have always been, and will always be until the end.
The end?
Noah was insane until the rain.
And theres no other way?
Must it be it must.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Wednesday 15th June 1977
And Piggott drops me outside St James and is saying how if theres anything I need or theres anything more he can do, I should just give him a call, but Im out of the car, door open, and up the stairs, out of breath, pulling myself up on the banisters, skidding across their polished floors, into the ward and shouting at that one and the other one, the nurses coming running, me pulling back the curtains on an empty bed, one saying how shes so sorry and it was quite sudden in the end, quite sudden after all that time and how its always so difficult to predict but at least my wife was with him and in the end hed closed his eyes like he just stopped and how upset shed been but, in cases like this, its for the best and the pains gone and it wasnt that drawn out in the end, and Im just standing there at the bottom of his empty bed, staring at the empty bedside table, doors open, wondering where all the barley waters gone and then I see one of Bobbys cars, the little Matchbox police car Rudkin got him, and I pick it up and stand there just staring at the little car in the empty corner of the ward, the other nurse telling me how peaceful he looked and how much better off he is being dead and not alive and in pain and I look up at her face, at the red folds in her neck, the white damaged hair, the big blue eyes, and I wonder what on earth would possess someone to do this job, and then I think the same about my own job before I remember how Im suspended and I probably wont be doing my own job anyway, no matter what they say, and I look at my watch and realise how much Ive lost track of the time, much Ive lost track of the minutes, Ive lost track of the hours, lost track of the days, track of the weeks, of the months, the years, decades, and I walk away down the polished corridor, the nurses still talking, another one coming out from the booth, the three of them watching me go until I stop and turn around and walk back up the corridor to thank them and thank them and thank them and then I turn around and I walk away again, down the polished corridor, the little police car in my hand, down the stairs and out the door into the morning, or what I think is a morning but the leaves on the trees are all tinged red and the sky is turning white, the grass blue, the people alien greys, the cars silent, the voices gone, and I sit on the steps, rubbing my eyes until they sting like bees and I stop and I stand up and walk down the long drive towards the road and wonder how the fuck I get home from here and so I stick out my thumb and stand there for a long time until I fall over and lie there beside the entrance to the hospital in the blue grass, staring up at the white sky, at the red leaves, and if I sleep, then I wake, and when I wake I get up and dust the blue grass off me and walk down the road to a bright red phone box and inside I find a white card for a taxi and I dial and ask a foreign voice in a foreign place for a cab and then I stand outside the box and watch the silent cars with all their Rippers at their wheels, watch them speeding up and down the road, watch them laughing and pointing at me, dead women in their boots, at their back windows, dead women waving and asking for help, white hands dangling from their boots, white hands pressed to their back windows, until at long, long, bloody last the taxi pulls up and I get in and tell him where I want to go and he looks at me like he doesnt know where the fuck I mean but off we set, me sat up front, the radio on, him trying to talk to me but I cant understand what on earth hes saying or why on earth he would want to say anything to me until I ask him where the fuck hes from and he doesnt say anything after that, just concentrates on the road ahead until we pull up some two days fucking later outside my house and I tell him Im sorry but I havent got any money so hell just have to wait there while I go inside and find some, which upsets him no end but what can he do, so I go up to the house and put my key in the lock but it doesnt work any more so I ring the bell for the rest of the day until I go round the back and try another key in another lock but that doesnt work either, so I spend the night knocking until I put the brick that stops the garage doors banging, I put that brick through the little window next to the back door and stick my hand in there but that doesnt help at all so I set about the door with my fists and my feet until finally I get inside and go into the front room and take the milk money out of the top drawer and go back out down the drive to the taxi driver but if he hasnt fucked off after all that, not that I can blame him, so I wave to the neighbours across the road and go back inside to find Louise and Bobby, going from room to room, but theyre not there, not in the drawers, not in the cupboards, and not under the beds, so I go back downstairs and pop round to Tinas to see if theyve nipped round there or if she knows where the bloody hell theyve got to, so I wave to all the neighbours again and go up Tinas drive and knock on her back door but she doesnt open the door so I keep knocking into the middle of next week, Kirsty the dog yapping away on the other side, and I keep knocking until at long fucking last the door opens and its Janice, just fucking stood there, as large as life, and you could knock me down with a feather Im that surprised, and I tell her straight, I thought you were dead I say, thought Eric Hall or John Rudkin raped you and hit you on the head and then jumped up and down on your chest, and shes crying and saying no, saying shes all right, and I ask if the babys all right and she says it is and so I ask if I can come in because I feel like a right prick stood out there for all the world and his wife to see, but she says no and shuts the door and I try and open the door again and shes shouting and telling me how shes going to call the police and I remind her how I am the police, but its obvious shes not going to let me in and then I know she cant really be Janice, because Janice would let me in, and I sit on Tinas back step and wish in my heart I was more like Jesus, until I get up and go back round to mine and when I get to the drive I see the garage doors are wide open and banging in the rain and so I decide to go for a drive to try and find Louise and Bobby, fucked as I am if I know where they could be or where to start, but I get in her car and set off anyroad because its hardly like Ive got a lot of bloody pressing engagements, is it?
Part 5
The damned
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Thursday 16th June 1977
I look at my watch, its 7.07.
Im on the Moors, walking across the Moors, and I come to a chair, a high-backed leather chair, and theres a woman in white kneeling before the chair, hands in angel prayer, hair across her face.
I lean down to scoop the hair away and its Carol, then Ka Su Peng. She stands up and points to the middle of the long white dress and a word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
livE.
And there on the Moors, in the wind and in the rain, she pulls the white dress up over her head, her yellow belly swollen, and then puts the dress back on, inside out, the word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
Evil.
And a small boy in blue pyjamas comes out from behind the high-backed leather chair and leads her away down the corridor, the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.
We come to a door and stop.
Room 77.
I woke with a start in my car, my chest tight, sweating and breathing fast.
I looked at the clock in the dashboard.
7.07.
Fuck.
I was on Durkar Lane, Durkar, at the bottom of Rudkins drive.
I looked in the rearview mirror. Nothing.
I sat there, waiting.
Twenty minutes later, a woman in her dressing-gown opened the front door and took in the two pints of milk from the doorstep.
I waited until shed shut the door, then I started the car, put the radio on, and drove off.
Down into Wakefield, out along the Dewsbury Road, over Shaw-cross, down through Hanging Heaton and into Batley, radio on:
Two masked men who broke into a sub-post office in Shadwell, beat up the sub-postmaster and his wife, and fled with L750, are being sought by the police. One of the men is said to be very violent.
Mr Eric Gowers, aged sixty-five, and his wife May, aged sixty-four, were taken to hospital but later allowed home.
Through the centre until I pulled up on the outskirts of Batley, just beyond the Chinese take-away on the Bradford Road.
Just beyond RD News.
Just beyond a bronze Datsun 260.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up.
I stood in the red telephone box again, looking up at the window above the newsagent.
Is Eric there?
Whos calling?
A friend.
John Rudkin was looking out of the window, one hand on the frame, the other square, palms open, not smiling.
This is Eric Hall.
You got the money?
Yes.
Be in the George car park at noon.
I hung up, staring at John Rudkin.
I went back to the car and waited.
Thirty minutes later, Rudkin came out of the shop carrying a child in his arms, followed by a woman in sunglasses.
The boy was wearing blue pyjamas, the woman black.
They got into the Datsun and drove off.
I sat there.
Five minutes later, I got out of the car and went round the back of the shops, down the alley, past the dustbins, the piled-up bin bags, the rotting cardboard boxes, counting the windows as I went.
I did my sums and looked up at two windows and two pairs of old curtains staring down from up above the back wall, the back wall with the broken bottles cemented in its lip.
I tried the red wooden door and opened it slowly.
All I needed now was the Paki from inside to pop his brown mug out.
I closed the door to the yard behind me and picked my way through the crates and the Calor gas canisters and got to the back door.
Wondering what the fuck I would say, I opened the door.
There was a passage out to the front of the shop, stacked high with boxes of Walkers crisps and old magazines. To my right were the stairs.
In for a penny, I took my chance and crept up them.
At the top was a white door with glass in it.
It was dark beyond the glass.
I stood there, listening.
Nothing.
In for a pound, I tried the door.
Locked.
Fuck.
I tried it again, knew it would give.
I took out my penknife and slid it in between the wall and the door.
Nothing ventured, I leant in.
Nothing.
Nothing gained, I tried it again.
The knife broke in the hinges, the frame of the door splintered, my hand cut and bleeding again, but I was in.
I stood there, listening.
Nothing.
Another dim passage.
I wrapped my handkerchief around my palm and walked softly down the passage to the front of the flat, three closed doors off to the sides.
The flat stank, the ceilings as low and oppressive as the smell.
In the front room there was a settee, a chair, a table, a television, and a telephone on a box. Empty pop bottles and crisp packets littered the floor.
There was no carpet.
Only a big dark fucking stain in the floorboards.
I went back down the passage and tried the first door on the right.
It was a small kitchen, bare.
I tried the door on the left.
It was a bedroom, one with a pair of old curtains, thick, black and drawn.
I switched on the light.
There was a huge double bed, stripped, with another big dark fucking stain on the orange flowered mattress.
There were fitted wardrobes down one wall.
I opened them.
Lights, photographers lights.
I closed the wardrobe doors and switched off the light.
Across the passage was the last door.
It was a bathroom and another pair of old curtains, drawn and black.
There were towels and there were mats, newspapers and paints, the bath spotless.
I ran cold water over my hand and wiped it dry.
I closed the door and went back down the passage.
I stood at the top of the stairs and pulled the splinters from the white door.
I tried to force the lock back in, but it wouldnt go.
I left the door as it was and went back down the stairs.
I stood on the bottom step, listening.
Nothing.
I went out the back way, into the yard, through the red wooden door, and out.
I walked down the alley past the dustbins, the piled-up bin bags and the rotting cardboard boxes, a little yellow dog watching me go.
I went back round the front of the shops, past the Chinky, and got back into my car.
It was just gone eleven.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up.
I drove past the George, Denholme, pulled up, reversed up a drive and turned back round.
I had a bad feeling, but I couldnt let it go, couldnt leave it like this.
I drove slowly back along the road and turned down the side of the pub, into the car park round the back.
It was almost noon.
There were four or five cars parked, three facing out towards the hedge and the fields, two with their noses against the back of the pub.
None of them were blue Granadas.
I parked in a corner, that bad feeling still feeling bad, looking out on the hedge and the fields.
I sat there, waiting, staring into the rearview mirror.
There were two men sitting in a grey Volvo, waiting, staring into their rearview mirror.
Fuck.
Two cars along, Eric Hall got out of a white Peugeot 304.
I watched him coming towards me, hands deep in his sheepskin.
He came round the back of the car and tapped on my window.
I wound it down.
He leant down and asked me: What you waiting for? Christmas?
You got the money?
Yeah, he said and stood back up.
I was staring into my rearview, watching the two heads in the Volvo. Where is it?
In the car.
What happened to the Granada?
Had to fucking sell it, didnt I? Pay you.
Get in, I said.
But the moneys in the car.
Just get in, I said, starting the car.
He walked round the back and got in the other side.
I reversed out and down the side of the George.
Where we going?
Just for a drive, I said, turning into the traffic.
What about the money?
Fuck it.
But
Eyes on the road, I was into the rearview every second glance. There were two blokes sat in a grey Volvo, back there. You saw them, yeah?
No.
I hit the brakes and swerved into the side of the road, into the verge.
Them, I said, pointing at a grey Volvo flying past. Fuck.
Nothing to do with you?
No.
You wouldnt have been thinking of doing me in or shooting me or anything clever like that, would you?
No, he said, sweating.
I reversed back down the verge and swung back round the way wed come.
Foot down, I said, So who the fuck were they?
I dont know. Honest.
Eric, youre a dirty fucking copper. An old hack like me turns up on your doorstep and asks for five grand, you just going to roll right over? I dont fucking think so.
Eric Hall said nothing.
We drove back past the George, the Volvo gone.
Who you tell? I asked him again.
Look, he sighed. Pull up, please.
I went a little way on then parked near a church on the Halifax Road.
For a bit we just sat there, silent, no sun, no rain, nothing.
Eventually he said, Im up to my bloody neck in it as it is.
I said nothing, just nodded.
Ive not exactly played by the fucking rules, you know what I mean? Ive turned a blind eye every now and again.
And not for free, eh?
He sighed again and said, And who the bloody hell ever has or ever fucking would?
I said nothing.
I was going to pay you, straight up. Still will, if thats what it takes. Not five grand, I havent got it. But I got two and half for the car and its yours.
I dont want the fucking money, Eric. I just want to know what the fucks going on?
Them blokes in the car park? I havent a fucking clue, but Im betting theyre something to do with that cunt Peter Hunter and his investigation.
What did they suspend you for?
Backhanders.
That all?
Its enough.
Janice Ryan?
Shit I could do without right now.
When did you last see her?
He sighed, wiping his palms on the tops of his thighs, and shook his head, Cant remember.
Eric, I said. Fuck the money and tell me. By time Hunters finished with you, youre going to need every fucking penny you can get your dirty little hands on. So start by telling me some fucking truth and save yourself two and half grand.
He looked up out the top of the windscreen, up at the black steeple in the sky, then he put his head back in the seat and said softly, I didnt fucking kill her.
Did I say you did?
Two weeks ago, he said. She called me, said she needed money to get away, said shed got some information to sell.
You meet her?
No.
You know what kind of information she had?
About some robberies.
Which robberies?
She didnt say
Past or future?
She didnt say
I looked at the fat frightened face, saw it sweating in my passenger seat.
You tell anyone this?
He swallowed, nodded.
Who?
A sergeant from Leeds. Names Fraser, Bob Fraser.
When did you tell him?
Not long after.
Whyd you tell him?
Eric Hall turned his face my way and pointing at his eyes said, Because he fucking beat it out of me.
Whyd he do that?
He was pimping her, wasnt he?
Thought that were you?
A long time ago.
That magazine, those pictures? What do you know about them?
Nothing. Straight up. She never mentioned them.
I sat at the wheel, lost.
After a while, Eric Hall said, Anything else you want to know?
Yeah, I said. Who the fuck killed her?
Eric Hall sniffed up and said, I got my fucking theory.
I turned to look at him, at that fat fucking slug of a man, a man happy to save himself two fucking grand though his soul was racked with lies, though hellfire and only hellfire awaited him.
Do tell, Sherlock?
He shrugged like it was no big deal, like it was on the front of every fucking newspaper, like the fat slug lived to fight another day, and smiled, Fraser.
Not Ripper?
He laughed, The Ripper? Fucks that?
I stared up at the cross above us and said, One last thing.
Shoot, he said, still smiling.
The cunt.
Ka Su Peng?
Who? he said, too quickly, not smiling.
Chinese girl? Sue Penn?
He shook his head.
Eric, youre Bradford Vice right?
Was.
Sorry, was. But Im sure you can still remember all your girls. Specially ones Ripper had a fucking pop at right in the middle of your bloody patch. No?
He said nothing.
I said again, It was Ripper, yeah?
Thats what they say
What about you? What do you say?
I say let sleeping dogs lie.
I started the car and turned back the way wed come, driving in a fast silence.
I pulled up outside the George.
He opened the door and got out.
Kill yourself, I whispered.
What? he said, looking back into the car.
Shut the door, Eric, I said and put my foot down.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again. No answer.
I hung up.
Back into Bradford, out of Bradford, back into Leeds, foot down all the way: Killinghall Road, Leeds Road, the Stanningley bypass, Armley.
Under the dark arches, tempted by a last afternoon drink, succumbing in the Scarborough, a quick whisky into the top of a pint, down in one in the shadow of the Griffin.
Into the end of the afternoon, a breeze blowing through the centre, plastic bags and old papers round my shins, looking for a telephone that worked, just one.
Samuel?
Jack.
Any news?
They let Fraser go.
I know.
Well, dont let me keep you.
Sorry.
Dont suppose you know where he is?
What?
He was supposed to check in at Wood Street Nick this morning, but he never.
He never?
He never.
Anything else?
One dead darkie.
Ripper?
Not unless hes started on blokes and all.
No, anything about Ripper?
No.
Bob Craven in?
You sure?
Put us through, Samuel.
Two clicks and a ring.
Vice.
Detective Inspector Craven please,
Whos calling?
Jack Whitehead.
Hang on.
Two fingers over the mouthpiece and a shout across the room.
Jack?
Been a while, Bob.
It has that. How are you?
Well, and yourself?
Keeping busy.
Got time for a pint?
Always got time for a pint, Jack. You know me.
Whens best for you?
About eightish?
Yeah, fine. Where do you fancy?
Duck and Drake?
Eight oclock it is.
Bye.
Through the dirty afternoon streets, the breeze wind, the plastic bags birds, the newspapers snakes.
I turned into a cobbled alley out of the gale, searching for the walls, the words.
But the words were gone, the alley wrong, the only words lies.
I walked up Park Row and on to Cookridge Street, up to St Annes.
Inside the Cathedral was deserted, the wind gone, and I walked down the side and knelt before the Pieta, and I prayed, a thousand eyes on me.
I looked up, my throat dry, my breathing slow.
An old woman was leading a child by the hand down the aisle towards me, and when they reached me, the child held out an open Bible and I took it from him and watched them walk away.
I looked down and I read the words I found:
During that time these men will seek death, but they will not find it; They will long to die, but death will elude them.
And I walked through the Cathedral, through the double doors, through the afternoon, through the plastic bags and the snakes, I walked through it all.
Everything gone, everything wrong, only lies.
The office was dead.
I went down the hall and into records.
Into 1974.
I spun the microfilm through the reels, over the lights. Into Friday 20 December 1974. Front Page:
WE SALUTE YOU.
A photograph
Three big smiles:
Chief Constable Angus congratulates Sergeant Bob Craven and PC Bob Douglas on a job well done.
They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.
I pressed print and watched those three big smiles, those outstanding police officers come out.
Watched that by-line:
BY JACK WHITEHEAD,
CRIME REPORTER OF THE YEAR
I knocked on Haddens door and went in.
Still sat behind the desk, his back still to Leeds.
I sat down.
Jack, he said.
Bill, I smiled.
Well?
Frasers done a runner.
You know where he is?
Maybe.
Maybe?
I have to check.
He sniffed up and tidied up some pens on his desk.
I asked, You got anything new?
Jack, he said, not looking up. You said something about Paula Garland, the last time you were in.
Yeah.
He looked up, Well?
Well what?
You said something about a connection, a link?
Yeah?
Bloody hell, Jack. What have you found out?
Like I said, Clare Strachan
The Preston Ripper job?
Yeah. She went by the name Morrison and under that name shed made a statement as a witness in the Paula Garland murder.
And thats it?
Yeah. Fraser said Rudkin and maybe some other officers knew this, but its never been officially recorded in the Preston inquiry. Or anywhere else.
And theres nothing else?
No.
Nothing youre not telling me?
No. Course not.
And you found this out from Sergeant Fraser?
Yeah. Why?
Just getting it straight in my mind, Jack. Just getting it straight.
You got it straight then?
Yeah, he said, eyes on mine.
I stood up.
Sit down a minute, Jack, he said.
I sat down.
Hadden opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a large manila envelope.
This came this morning, he said, tossing it across his desk. Take a look.
I pulled out a magazine.
A nack mag, pornography.
Cheap pornography.
Amateurs:
Spunk.
The corner of one page folded down.
Page 7, said Bill Hadden.
I turned to the marked page and there she was:
Bleached white hair and flaccid pink flesh, wet red holes and dry blue eyes, legs spread, flicking her clit:
Clare Strachan.
I was hard again.
This morning? I asked, throat hoarse.
Yeah, postmarked Preston.
I turned the envelope over, nodding.
Anything else?
No, just that.
Just the one issue?
Yeah, just that.
I looked up, the mag in my hands.
Hadden said, You didnt know she was doing this kind of stuff?
No.
You any idea who might have sent it?
No.
You dont think your Sergeant Frasers gone west do you?
No.
I see, said Hadden, nodding to himself. I said, What we going to do with it?
I want you to make some calls, find out what the fucks going on out there.
I stood up.
He was picking up a phone as he said, And Jack?
Yeah, I said, one hand on the doorknob.
Be careful, yeah?
I always am, I said. I always am.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up.
I looked at my watch:
Just gone six.
Slight change of plan.
Down the hall and back into records.
Back into 1974.
I spun the microfilm again, through the reels and over the lights.
Into Tuesday 24 December 1974.
Evening Post, Front Page:
3 DEAD IN WAKEFIELD XMAS SHOOT-OUT
Sub-headed:
Hero Cops Foil Pub Robbery
A photograph
The Strafford, the Bullring, Wakefield.
A horrific shoot-out late last night in the centre of Wakefield left three people dead and three seriously injured in what police are describing as a robbery that went wrong.
According to a police spokesman, police were called after shots were reported at the Strafford Public House in the Bullring, Wakefield, at around midnight last night. The first officers on the scene were Sergeant Robert Craven and PC Bob Douglas, the two officers who last week were commended for their part in the arrest of the man suspected of the murder of Morley schoolgirl Clare Kemplay.
When the two officers entered the Strafford they discovered a robbery in progress and were shot and beaten by unidentified gunmen, who then escaped.
Members of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Polices Special Patrol Group arrived minutes later to find the two hero cops and another man suffering from gunshot wounds and three people dead.
Roadblocks were immediately set up on the Ml and M62 in all directions and checks ordered at all ports and airports but, as yet, no arrests have been made.
Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas were described as being in a serious but stable condition in Wakefields Pinderfield Hospital.
Police are refusing to release the names of the dead until the next-of-kin have been contacted.
An Incident Room has been set up at Wood Street Police Station, Wakefield, and Detective Superintendent Maurice Jobson appealed for any member of the public with information to contact him in confidence as a matter of urgency. The number is Wakefield 3838.
I pressed print and watched those big lies, those outstanding lies come out.
Watched that by-line:
BY JACK WHITEHEAD,
CRIME REPORTER OF THE YEAR
The Duck and Drake, in the gutters of the Kirkgate Market.
A gypsy pub, in the shadows of the Millgarth Nick.
Eight oclock.
I took my pint and my whisky to the table by the door and waited, a plastic bag on the other seat.
I tipped the whisky into the pint and drank it down.
It had been a long time, maybe too long, maybe not long enough.
Same again?
I looked up and there was Bob Craven.
Detective Inspector Bob Craven.
Bob, I said, standing up, shaking hands. What happened to your face?
Bloody Zulus got a bit restless up Chapeltown couple of weeks ago.
You all right?
Will be when I get a pint, he grinned and went off to the bar.
I moved the plastic bag on to my lap and watched him at the bar.
He brought two pints over and then went back for the whiskies.
Been a while, he said, sitting down.
Three years?
Only that long?
Aye. Seems like a lifetime, I said.
A lot of water under the bridge. A bloody lot.
Last time mustve been before Strafford then?
Must have been. Straight after thatd have been Exorcist business you had, yeah?
I nodded.
He sighed: Fucking hell, eh? Things weve seen.
Hows the other Bob? I asked.
Dougie?
Yeah.
Well out of it, isnt he?
You werent tempted then?
Pack it in?
I nodded.
What the fuck else would I do? And you?
I nodded again. But what about Bob, whats he do?
Hes all right. Put his comp into a paper shop. Does all right. See him and Im not saying there arent times when I wish it had been me who took the bullet. You know what I mean?
I nodded and picked up my pint.
Little shop, little wife. You know?
No, I shrugged. But tell him I was asking after him, wont you?
Oh, aye. Hes still got your piece up on wall. We Salute You, that one.
I sighed, Only three years, eh?
Another time, eh? he said and then picked up his pint. Heres to them; other times.
We touched glasses and drained them.
My shout, I said and went back to the bar.
At the bar, I turned and watched him, watched him sitting there, watched him rubbing his beard and flicking at the dust on his trousers, picking up the empty pint glass and putting it down again, watched him.
I brought the drinks over and sat back down.
Anyway, he said. Enough Memory bloody Lane. What they got you on these days?
Ripper, I said.
He paused, then said, Yeah, course.
We sat there, silent, listening to the noise of the pub: the glasses, the chairs, the music, the chat, the till. Then I said, Thats why I called you actually
Yeah?
Ripper, yeah.
What about the cunt?
I handed him the plastic bag. Bill Hadden got this in morning post.
He took the bag and peeked inside.
I said nothing.
He looked up.
I looked at him.
Lets go for a walk, he said.
I followed him into the black Market, into the shadows of the stalls, the evening wind blowing the rubbish and the stink in with us.
Deep in the dark heart, Craven stopped by a stall and took out the magazine.
Page is marked, I said.
He turned the pages.
I waited
Heart cracking, ribs breaking.
Who knows about this? he asked, his back to me.
Just me and Bill Hadden.
You know who this is, dont you?
I nodded.
He turned round, the page open and dangling from his hand, his face black and lost in the shadows and the beard.
Its Clare Strachan, I said.
You know who sent it?
No.
There was no note?
No. Just what you got there.
Theyd marked the page though?
Yeah.
You still got the envelope?
Hadden has.
You remember when and where it was posted?
I swallowed and said, Two days ago in Preston.
Preston?
I nodded and said, Its him, isnt it?
His eyes flew across my face: Who?
Ripper.
There was a smile deep in there, just for a moment, deep behind that beard.
Then he said quietly, Why you call me, Jack? Why not straight to George?
Youre Vice, yeah? Your neck of the woods.
He stepped forward, out of the shadow of the stall, and he put a hand on my shoulder. You did the right thing, Jack. Bringing this to me.
I thought so.
You going to print anything?
Not if you dont want me to.
I dont want you to.
Well then, I wont.
Not yet.
OK.
Thanks, Jack.
I moved out of his grip and said, What now?
Another pint?
I looked at my watch and said, Better not.
Another time, then.
Another time, I said.
At the edge of the Market, out of the heart, the shit and the stink still strong, Detective Inspector Bob Craven said, Give us a call, Jack.
I nodded.
I owe you, he said.
And I nodded again unending, this whole fucking hell unending.
The footnotes and the margins, the tangents and the detours, the dirty tabula, the broken record.
Jack Whitehead, Yorkshire, 1977.
The bodies and the corpses, the alleys and the wasteland, the dirty men, the broken women.
Jack the Ripper, Yorkshire, 1977.
The lies and the half-truths, the truths and the half-lies, the dirty hands, the broken backs.
Two Jacks, one Yorkshire, 1977.
Down the hall and back into records.
Into 1975.
I spun the microfilm one last time, through the reels and over the lies.
Into Monday 27 January 1975.
Evening Post, Front Page:
MAN KILLS WIFE IN EXORCISM
Sub-headed:
Local Priest arrested
But I couldnt read, couldnt read another
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up.
I pulled into the Redbeck car park and parked between the dark lorries, the empty cars, and switched off the radio with the engine.
I sat in the night, waiting, wondering, worrying.
I got out and walked across the car park, through the potholes and the craters, a black moon rising.
Outside Room 27, I paused, listened, knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked, listened, waited.
Nothing.
I opened the door.
Sergeant Fraser was lying on the floor in a ball, the chair and table splintered, the walls bare, lying on the floor in a ball under all the shit that had been up on the walls, lying on the floor in a ball of splintered wood, in a ball of splintered hell.
I stood in the doorway, the black moon over my shoulder, the night across us both.
He opened his eyes.
Its me, I said. Jack.
He raised his head to the door.
Can I come in?
He opened his mouth slowly and then closed it again. I walked across the room to him and bent down. He was clutching a photograph
A woman and child.
The woman in sunglasses, the boy in blue pyjamas.
His eyes were open and looking up at me.
Sit up, I said.
He gripped my forearm.
Come on, I said.
I cant find them, he whispered.
Its OK, I nodded.
But I cant find them anywhere.
Theyre OK.
He tightened his grip, pulling himself up on my arm. Youre lying, he said. Theyre dead, I know they are,
No, theyre not.
Dead, like everyone else.
No, theyre fine.
Youre lying.
Ive seen them,
Where?
With John Rudkin.
Rudkin?
Yeah, I think theyre with him.
He stood up, looking down at me.
Im sorry, I said.
Theyre dead, he said.
No.
All dead, he said and picked up a table leg.
I tried to stand upright, but I wasnt quick enough.
I was too slow.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Friday 17th June 1977
Kill them all.
Driving.
Radio on:
The charred remains of an unidentified black man were discovered yesterday on Hunslet Can.
A post-mortem revealed that the man had died from stab wounds, before being doused in petrol and set alight.
A police spokesman said that a definite attempt had been made to disguise the identity of the victim, leading police to believe the man may have had a police record.
The man is described as being in his late twenties, about six foot tall, with a big build.
Police appealed for members of the public with any information as to the identity of either the victim or his killers to contact their nearest police station as a matter of urgency. Police stressed that all information will be treated in the strictest confidence..
Radio off.
Driving, scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreaming:
Kill them all.
Its dawn.
I stop at the bottom of Durkar Lane.
Theres a car in his drive, milk on his doorstep, my family inside.
And I sit there at the bottom of his drive, wishing I had a gun, crying.
I stop.
Dawn, 1977.
I press the doorbell and wait.
Nothing.
I press it again and dont stop.
I see a pink shape behind the glass, hear voices inside, the door opens and theres his wife, and shes saying, Bob? Its Bob. Just a minute.
But I can hear Bobby and I push past her, up the stairs, kicking open doors until I find them in the back bedroom, her sat up in bed holding my son, Rudkin pulling on his jacket, coming towards me.
Come on, I say. Were going.
No-ones going anywhere, Bob, says Rudkin, putting a hand on me, starting the fight, me bringing the chair leg up into the side of his head, him holding his ear, swinging out, missing, me grabbing his hair and pulling his fucking face down into my knee, again and again, until I can hear shouting and screaming and crying, Rudkins wife pulling me off him, scratching my cheeks, Rudkin still swinging out until he finally connects and I fall back through the door, turning and slapping his wife away, Rudkin punching me hard in the side of my face, my teeth into my tongue, blood everywhere, though fuck knows whose, her shielding Bobby, almost standing on the far end of the double bed, arms tight about him.
And then theres a pause, a lull, just the sobbing and the crying, the throbbing and the aching.
Stop it, Bob, shes crying. Stop it, will you!
And all I can say is, Were going.
Then Rudkin brings his fist down into my face and it all starts up again, me bringing my head straight into his, stars fucking everywhere, him reeling back, me following through, chasing exploding stars and meteorites across the room with my fists, across John bloody Rudkins face, kicking and punching him into a big black fucking hole, reaching the bed and grabbing Bobby and trying to pull him free until Rudkin takes me round the neck and starts choking the living fuck out of me.
Stop it, shes crying. Stop it, will you!
But he doesnt.
Stop it, John, shes crying. Youll kill him.
Rudkin drops me to my knees and I fall forward into the bed, my face in the mattress.
He steps back and theres another pause, another lull, still the sobbing and the crying, the throbbing and the aching, and the longer it goes on, the pause, the lull, the longer I lie here, the sooner theyll relax.
So I lie there, eating bed, waiting until Louise, Rudkin, his wife, until one of them lets me get a look in, lets me get whats mine:
Bobby.
And I lie there, limp, still waiting until Rudkin says:
Come on, Bob. Lets all go downstairs.
And I can feel him weaken as he bends down to pull me back up, feel him weaken as I reach down for the chair leg, as I bring it up and round and into the side of his face, as he falls howling into the bedroom window, cracking the glass, her watching him go, so I can reach up and take Bobby from her and Im on my feet and out the door and through the wife whos tumbling back down the stairs as fast as Im following her, Louise on my heels, shouting and screaming and crying, until I trip on Rudkins wife at the foot of the stairs and Louise topples over me, Rudkin stumbling into the pile-up, blood running down his face, into his eyes, blinding the cunt, me shouting, bellowing, howling:
Hes my fucking son and all!
Her shouting, screaming, crying:
No, no, no!
Bobby pale with shock and shaking in my arms on top of Rudkins wife, under the other two, me trying to pull us out from under them until Rudkin gets a punch, a kick, a fuck-knows-what into my ear and I fall back, Bobby gone, her pulling them free, Rudkin pinning me down, me doing the shouting, the screaming, the crying:
You cant do this. Hes my fucking son.
And shes backing into their living room, her hand on his head, his head in her hair, until she says:
No hes not.
Silence.
Just this silence, that silence, just that long, long, fucking silence, until she says again:
Hes not.
I try to stand, to push Rudkins foot off me, like if I stand Ill be able to understand the shit shes saying, and at the same time Rudkins wife is repeating over and over:
What? What do you mean?
And theres him, head to toe in blood, palms up, saying:
Leave it. For christssakes, leave it.
But he needs to fucking know.
Not now he fucking doesnt.
But he was fucking a whore, a dead fucking whore, a dead fucking pregnant whore.
Louise
Just because shes dead doesnt make it any fucking different. It was still his kid she was carrying.
I get to my knees, arms out towards them, towards Bobby, my Bobby.
Get away!
Rudkin screaming, Louise
And then his wife walks over and slaps him across the face and stands there just looking at him, just looking at him before she spits in his face and walks out the front door.
Anthea, he shouts. You cant go outside like that.
I stand but hes still got me, shouting at his wife:
Anthea!
And my hands are out to Bobby, the back of his head, my Bobby.
Get away, she says. John, get him away from us!
But hes torn is John Rudkin, torn between letting his wife go and letting me loose, and its making him weak and making me strong, me seeing Bobby just a couple of feet across the room and then Im away and over there, a punch into the side of her lying fucking head and another until she lets me take whats mine, lets me have him, lets me have my Bobby, Rudkin walking straight into my fucking elbow, me with one hand on Bobby, the other holding on to Rudkins hair, spinning him into his marble mantelpiece and on into Louise, him sending her flying so me and Bobby are out the room, into the hall, out through the door, and down the drive, Bobby crying and calling for his Mummy, me telling him its all right, everythings going to be all right, telling him to stop crying, Mummy and Daddy are just joking, and all the time I can hear them behind me, hear their feet, hear her saying:
John, no! The baby! Mind Bobby!
And suddenly I feel my back go, like I dont have one anymore, and Im down on my knees in his drive and I dont want to drop Bobby and I dont want to drop Bobby and I dont want to drop Bobby and I dont want to drop Bobby and I dont want to drop Bobby.
No! Youll kill him!
And then Im lying face down in his drive and Bobbys gone, lying face down in his drive with them walking over me, running for the car, him clattering the cricket bat down on to the ground by my head, her saying:
Were even, Bob. Even.
And then theyre gone, everything white, then grey, and finally black.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Friday 17th June 1977
I look at my watch, its 7.07.
Im riding in an old elevator, watching the floors pass, going up.
I step out of the elevator and on to the landing.
A young boy in blue pyjamas is standing there, waiting.
He takes my hand and leads me down the corridor, down the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.
We come to a door and stop.
I put my fingers on the handle and turn.
Its open.
Room 77.
I woke on the floor, a terrible black and heavy pain across my skull.
I put my hand to the side of my head, felt the dried, caked blood.
I lifted my head, the room bathed in bright light.
Morning light, a morning light from out on the Common, from out on the Common where the steam rose from the backs of the ponies and the backs of the horses.
I sat up in that morning light, sat up on the sea of ripped-up paper, the smashed-up furniture, putting the photographs and the notes back together.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie every fucking where.
But all the Queens horses, all the Queens men, we couldnt put Eddie together again.
Couldnt keep Jackie together again either.
I tried to stand, felt sick in my mouth, and pulled myself over to the sink and spat.
I stood and ran the tap, cupping the cold grey water over my face.
In the mirror, I saw him, me.
Limbs of straw and will of wicker, trampled under hooves, horses hooves, Chinese horses.
I looked at my watch.
It was gone seven.
7.07
I sat in my car in the Redbeck car park, squeezing the bridge of my nose, coughing.
I started the engine, turned the radio off, and pulled away.
I drove into Wakefield, past the ponies and the horses on Heath Common, black stacks where the beacons had been, and up through Ossett and down through Dewsbury, black slags where the fields had been, past RD News and out of Batley, into Bradford.
I pulled up on her street, parking next to a tall oak decked out in her best summer leaves.
Green.
I knocked again.
It was cold on the stairs, out of the sun, the leaves tapping on the windows.
I put my fingers on the handle and turned.
I went inside.
The flat was quiet and dark, nobody home.
I stood in her hallway, listening, thinking of the place above RD News, these places where we hid.
I went into the living room, the room where wed met, the orange curtains drawn, and I sat down in the chair in which I always sat and I decided to wait for her.
The cream blouse and matching trousers, that first time. The bare bruised and dirty knees, the last time.
Ten minutes later I got up and went into the kitchen and stuck the kettle on.
I waited for the water to boil, poured it into a cup and went back into the living room.
And then I sat there in the dark, waiting for Ka Su Peng, wondering how I got here, listing them all:
Mary Ann Nichols, murdered Bucks Row, August 1888.
Annie Chapman, murdered Hanbury Street, September 1888.
Elizabeth Stride, murdered Berners Street, September 1888.
Catherine Eddowes, murdered Mitre Square, September 1888.
Mary Jane Kelly, murdered Millers Court, November 1888.
Five women.
Five murders.
I felt the tide coming in, the Bloody Tide, lapping at my shoes and socks, crawling up my legs:
What happened to our Jubilee?
The tide coming in, the Bloody Tide, lapping at my shoes and socks, crawling up my legs:
Carol Williams, murdered Ossett, January 1975.
One woman.
One murder.
Felt the waters rising, the Bloody Waters of Babylon, those rivers of blood in a womans time, umbrellas up, bloody showers, puddles all blood, raining red, white, and bloody blue:
Joyce Jobson, assaulted Halifax, July 1974.
Anita Bird, assaulted Cleckheaton, August 1974.
Theresa Campbell, murdered Leeds, June 1975.
Clare Strachan, murdered Preston, November 1975.
Joan Richards, murdered Leeds, February 1976.
Ka Su Peng, assaulted Bradford, October 1976.
Marie Watts, murdered Leeds, May 1977.
Linda Clark, assaulted Bradford, June 1977.
Rachel Johnson, murdered Leeds, June 1977.
Janice Ryan, murdered Bradford, June 1977.
Ten women.
Six murders.
Four assaults.
Halifax, Cleckheaton, Leeds, Preston, Bradford.
The Bloody Tide, a Bloody Flood.
I closed my eyes, the tea cold in my hands, the room more so. She leant forward, parting her hair, and I listened again to her song, our song:
To remission and forgiveness, an end to penance?
I needed a piss.
Oh Carol.
I opened the door and switched on the light and there she was:
Lying in the bath, water red, flesh white, hair blue; her right arm dangling down the side, blood across the floor, deep snakes bitten into her wrists.
On my knees:
I pulled her from the bath, I pulled her from the waters, wrapped her body in a towel and tried to squeeze her into life.
On my knees:
I rocked her back and forth, her body cold, her lips both blue, the black holes in her hands, the black holes in her feet, the black holes in her head.
On my knees:
I called her name, I begged her please, I told her the truth, no more lies, just to open her eyes, to hear her name, to hear the truth:
I love you, love you, love you
And she said:
I do, Jack. I have to.
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Friday 17th June 1977
I park up on the Moors, in the place they call the Grave, the pain fading, the day too:
Friday 17 June 1977.
I take out my pen and go through the glove compartment.
I find a map book with some blank back pages and I rip them out.
I write page after page, before I stop and screw them up.
I get out and go to the boot, take out the tape and the hose and do what I have to do.
And then I just sit there until finally, finally I pick up the pen and start again:
Dear Bobby,
I dont want a life without you.
Theyll tell you lies about me,
like the lies they told me.
But I love you and Ill be there,
watching over you, always.
Love Daddy.
I switch on the engine and put the note on the dashboard and stare out across the Moors where all I can see out there, beyond the windscreen, all I can see is his face, his hair, his smile, his little tummy sticking out of those blue pyjamas, making a telescope out of his hands, and then I cant see him for the tears, I cant see him for
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Saturday 18th June 1977
Thanks, I said and walked across the lobby.
I pressed seven and rode the Griffins old elevator, watching the floors pass, going up.
I stepped out of the elevator and on to the landing.
I walked down the corridor, down the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.
I came to the door and stopped.
I put my fingers on the handle and turned.
It was open.
Room 77.
The Reverend Laws was sitting in a wicker chair in the window, Leeds City Station grey amongst the chimneys and the roofs, the pigeons and their shit.
Everything was laid out on a white towel on the bed.
Sit down, Jack, he said, his back to me.
I sat down on the bed beside his tools.
What time is it?
I looked at my watch:
Almost seven.
Good, he said, standing.
He drew the curtains and brought the wicker chair into the centre of the room.
Take off your shirt and sit here.
I did as he said.
He picked up the scissors from the bed.
I swallowed.
He stood behind me and began to snip.
Something for the weekend?
Just a little off the top, I smiled.
When hed finished, he blew across the top of my head and then brushed the loose grey hairs away.
He walked back over to the bed and put down the scissors.
Then he picked up the Philips screwdriver and the ball-pein hammer and stood behind me, whispering:
Thy way is the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are unknown.
I closed my eyes.
He put the point of the screwdriver on the crown of my skull.
And I saw the two sevens clash and it happening again, and again, and again, coats over faces, boots placed on thighs, a pair of panties left on one leg, bras pushed up, stomachs and breasts hollowed out, skulls caved in, heavy duty manners, Dark Ages and Witch Trials, ancient English cities, ten thousand swords flashing in the sunlight, thrice ten thousand dancing girls strewing flowers, white elephants caparisoned in red, white, and blue with the prices we pay, the debts we incur, the temptations of Jack under cheap raincoats, another rollneck sweater and pink bra pushed up over flat white tits, snakes pouring from stomach wounds, white panties off one leg, sandals placed on the flabs of thighs, good-time girls with blood, thick, black, sticky blood, matting their hair with pieces of bone and lumps of grey brain, slowly dripping into the grass of Soldiers Field, the fires behind my eyes, a white Marks & Spencer nightie, soaked black with blood from the holes hed left, so full of holes, these people so full of holes, all these heads so full of holes, Daniel before the ancient wall in the ancient days, playing with matches behind my eyes, there written tophet: white Ford Capris, dark red Corsairs, Landrovers, the many ways a man can serve his time, HATE, no subject, no object, just HATE: Yorkshire Gangsters and Yorkshire Coppers, the Black Panther and the Yorkshire Ripper, Jeanette Garland and Susan Ridyard, Clare Kemplay and Michael Myshkin, Mandy Wymer and Paula Garland, the Strafford Shootings and the Exorcist Killing: Michael Williams and Carol Williams, holding her there in the street in my arms, blood on my hands, blood on her face, blood on my lips, blood in her mouth, blood in my eyes, blood in her hair, blood in my tears, blood in hers, Blood and Fire, and Im crying because I know its over, and above the fireplace opposite the door hangs a print entitled The Fishermans Widow, a mans pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window, Philips screwdrivers, heavy Wellington boots, ball-pein hammers, the Minstrel by a neck, the ginger beer, the stale bread, the ashes in the grate, just a room and a girl in white turning black right down to her nails and the holes in her head, just a girl, hearing footsteps on the cobbles outside, the heart absent, the door locked from the inside, keeping on running but knowing you wont get far: shotguns in Hanging Heaton, shotguns in Skipton, shotguns in Doncaster, shotguns in Selby, Jubela, Jubelo, Jubelum, him stroking his beard, him shaking his head, winking once and gone, where you seek one theres two, two three, three four; where you seek four three, three two, two one, the ones that get away and the ones that never can, the man I love, up in the gallery in the last days, the time at hand, when your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams, no wonders for the dead, just dreams smiling through the gloom, meat between his teeth, patting his paunch, burping, primping his hair, stroking his moustache, grinning, arching an eyebrow, frowning and shaking his head, winking once and gone again after the horror: tomorrow and the day after, getting away again, wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors: I am desperate, my companions in darkness, and theres got to be another way, The Fishermans Widow in wet red paint, sherry bottles, bottles of spirits, beer bottles, bottles of chemicals, all empty, just a room in hell, Twenty-five Years of Jubilee Hits, hell around every corner, every dawn, dead elm trees, thousands of them in dark panting streets, leering terrace backs, surrounded by silent stones, buried by the black bricks, through courtyards and alleyways, foot upon brick, brick upon head, the houses that Jack built, and hes coming, ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies, hes coming, fuck you then you sleep/kiss you then you wake, and hes here and there is no hell but this one, Lucky Cow, up to five now they say four but remember Preston 75, come my load up that one, Dirty Cow, God saves the People of Leeds and the cuts that wont stop bleeding, the bruises that wont heal, and I feel it coming on again so wear something pretty because this is why people die, this is why people, this is why, up to number five now you say, but theres a surprise in Bradford, get about you know, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie; outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks, men seeking death but not finding it, longing to die but death eluding them, like remission and forgiveness, an end to penance, burning niggers on Hunslet Carr, gollums on the train, Nigerians face down in the Calder, the red and the white and the blue, the Valleys of Death, the Moors of Hell, lonely hells, endlessly: the set-ups and the frames, the fit-ups and the blame, the whispering grasses, the weeping, bleeding statues, neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, families bound and slaughtered aboard Black Ships, mothers tied and watching daughters raped aboard Bride Ships, the White Ship sunk off Albion, me trapped on a train in a snowstorm on top of the Moors, in the rooms of the dead, in the houses of the dead, on the streets of the dead, in the cities of the dead, the country of the dead, world of the dead, us driving together along a road, after the rain, after the Jubilee, the fireworks spent, the red and the white and the blue gone, drowning in the bloody belly of the whale in the last few days, men eating shotguns, sucking gas, nigger gangs slitting the throats of fat white coppers as they sit in their houses watching Songs of Praise with their backs to the door, their sons swearing revenge, their children crying for the rest of their lives, endlessly: lost in rooms, chimneys taller than steeples, minarets taller than chimneys, cursed Islam in every town, Backyard Crusades, crusades for the dead, crusades without end, mornings that are night, sat in sudden silences, making calls from red boxes, policemen tall and blond, covered from head to toe in blood, evil connecting with evil, green trees shining silver with the stuff, sleep-starved dreams stretching the bones, racking them, the long faces from hell, singing their songs of the damned and the doomed: odes to the dead, prayers for the living, lies for the lot, screaming coaches flying past empty, doors open, chunks of cancerous phlegm sliding down the sink-hole, standing in the shadows in the wings of the truth, bruised by sleep, help me, in the shadows of her thighs, the blacks of her eyes, fuck you then you sleep/kiss you then you wake, in rooms above shops, the real flesh, the stones in my shoes, sat together on bloody sofas, the night Michael Williams drove a 12 nail into his Carols head, INTO MY CAROLS HEAD, to save her soul alive, my Carol, thinking Ive forgotten something, Chinese horses flying past, backs empty, eyes open, talking nothing but surrender, futures written as pasts, people left behind in private, sovereign angsts, right royal hells, telling lies and telling truths full of holes, so full of holes, these people so full of holes, all these heads so full of holes, the time at hand, outside the dogs and sorcerers, the whoremongers and murderers crouched in Southern cemeteries raining down blows to the heads of Scottish slags with blunt household instruments, in 1977 suffering your terrors, in 1977 I am desperate, in 1977 my companions are in darkness, in 1977 when young men see visions and the old men dream dreams, dreams of remission and forgiveness, an end to penance, in 1977 when the two sevens clash and the cuts wont stop bleeding, the bruises not healing, the two witnesses their testimony finished, their bodies lying naked in the streets of the city, the sea blood, the waters wormwood, women drunken with the blood and the patience and faith of the saints, and I stand at the door and knock, the keys to death and hell and the mystery of the woman, knowing this is why people die, this is why people, in 1977 this is why I see
He brought the hammer down.
No future.
This book is dedicated to the victims of the
crimes attributed to the Yorkshire Ripper, and their
families.
This book is also dedicated to the men and women who tried to stop
those crimes.
However, this book remains a work of fiction.
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, MAY 2009
Copyright S 2000 by David Peace
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in
Great Britain by Serpents Tail, an imprint of Profile Books Ltd.,
London, in 2000.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the authors imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Nineteen
Seventy-Seven is on file at the Library of Congress.
eISBN:
978-0-307-74165-3
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