1974

Chapter 8

Dawn on Friday 20 December 1974.

Hate Week.

Awake on the floor of Room 27, covered in the ripped-up snow of a hundred sheets of red penned lists.

Lists, I’d been writing lists since I’d left Paula’s. A big fat red felt-tip pen in my left hand, circles in my head, scrawling illegible lists across the backs of sheets of wallpaper.

Lists of names.

Lists of dates.

Lists of places.

Lists of girls.

Lists of boys.

Lists of the corrupt, the corrupted, and the corruptible.

Lists of the police.

Lists of the witnesses.

Lists of the families.

Lists of the missing.

Lists of the accused.

Lists of the dead.

I was drowning in lists, drowning in information.

About to write a list of journalists, but tearing the whole fucking lot into confetti, cutting my left hand and numbing my right.

DON’T TELL ME I DON’T FUCKING CARE.

On my back, thinking of lists of the women I’d fucked.

Dawn on Friday 20 December 1974.

Hate Week.

Bringing the pain.

· AM in the long-stay car park, Westgate Station, Wakefield.

I sat frozen in the Viva, watching a dark purple Rover 2000 pull into the car park, a single black and white photograph in a manila envelope beside me.

The Rover parked in the furthest space from the entrance.

I sat and let him wait through the radio news, through the IRA ceasefire, through Michael John Myshkin’s continuing efforts to help the police with their enquiries, through sightings of Mr John Stonehouse MP in Cuba, and through Reggie Bosan-quet’s failing marriage.

No-one moved inside the Rover.

I lit another fucking cigarette and, just to show him who was the fucking boss, I sat through Petula’s Little Drummer Boy.

The Rover’s engine started up.

I stuffed the photograph inside my jacket pocket, pressed record on the Philips Pocket Memo, and opened the door.

The Rover’s engine went dead as I approached through the grey light.

I tapped on the glass of the passenger door and opened it.

I glanced at the empty back seat and got in, shutting the door.

“Just look straight ahead, Councillor.”

The car was warm and expensive and smelt of dogs.

“What do you want?” William Shaw sounded neither angry nor afraid, just resigned.

I was staring straight ahead too, trying not to look at the thin grey figure of respectability, his driving gloves limply clutching the steering wheel of a parked car.

“I asked you what you want,” he said, glancing at me.

“Keep looking straight ahead, Councillor,” I said, taking the creased photograph out of my pocket and putting it on the dash board in front of him.

With one glove Councillor William Shaw picked up the photograph of BJ sucking his cock.

“I’m sorry, it’s a bit bent,” I smiled.

Shaw tossed the photograph on to the floor by my feet. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

“Who says I’m trying to prove anything?” I said and picked up the photograph.

“It could be anyone.”

“It could be. But it’s not, is it?”

“So what do you want?”

I leant forward and pushed in the cigarette lighter below the car radio.

“Thai man in the photograph, how many times have you met him?”

“Why? Why do you want to know that?”

“How many times?” I repeated.

Shaw tightened his gloves around the steering wheel. “Three or four times.”

The lighter popped out and Shaw flinched.

“Ten times. Maybe more.”

I put a cigarette to my lips and lit it, thanking God again for helping out a one-armed man.

“How did you meet him?”

The Councillor closed his eyes and said, “He introduced himself.”

“Where? When?”

“At some bar in London.”

“London?”

“Some Local Government conference in August.”

They set you up, I was thinking, they fucking set you up Councillor.

“And then you met him again up here?”

Councillor William Shaw nodded.

“And he’s been blackmailing you?”

Another nod.

“How much?”

“Who are you?”

I stared out across the long-stay car park, the station announcements echoing over the empty cars.

“How much have you given him?”

“A couple of thousand.”

“What did he say?”

Shaw sighed, “He said it was for an operation.”

I stubbed out the cigarette. “Did he mention anyone else?”

“He said there were men who wanted to hurt me and he could protect me.”

I looked at the black dashboard, afraid to look at Shaw again.

“Who?”

“No names.”

“He say why they wanted to hurt you?”

“He didn’t have to.”

“Tell me.”

The Councillor let go of the steering wheel, looking round. “First you tell me who the bloody hell you are.”

I turned quickly, pushing the photograph hard into his face, forcing his right cheek against the glass of the driver’s door.

I didn’t let go, pressing the photograph harder into his face, whispering into the Councillor’s ear, “I’m a man who can hurt you very fucking quickly and very fucking now, if you don’t stop whining and start answering my fucking questions.”

Councillor William Shaw was banging his hands against the tops of his thighs in surrender.

“Now you tell me, you fucking puff.”

I let the photograph fall and sat back.

Shaw leant forward over the steering wheel, rubbing both sides of his face between his gloves, tears and veins in his eyes.

After almost a minute, he said, “What do you want to know?”

Far away on the other side of the car park I could see a small local train crawl into Westgate Station, dumping its tiny passengers on the cold platform.

I closed my eyes and said, “I need to know why they want to blackmail you.”

“You know,” sniffed Shaw, sitting back in his seat.

I turned sharply, slapping him once across the cheek. “Just fucking say it!”

“Because of the deals I’ve done. Because of the people I’ve done deals with. Because of the fucking money.”

“The money,” I laughed. “Always the money.”

“They want in. Do you want figures, dates?” Shaw was hys terical, shielding his face.

“I don’t give a fuck about your shitty little backhanders, about your weak fucking cement and all your dodgy fucking deals, but I want to hear you say it.”

“Say what? What do you want me to say?”

“Names. Just say their fucking names!”

“Foster, Donald Richard Foster. Is that who want?”

“Go on.”

“John Dawson.”

“That’s it?”

“Of them that matter.”

“And who wants in?”

Ever so slowly and quietly Shaw said, “You’re a bloody journalist aren’t you?”

A feeling, a gut feeling.

“Have you ever met a man called Barry Gannon?”

“No,” screamed Shaw, banging his forehead down into the steering wheel.

“You’re a fucking liar. When was it?”

Shaw lay against the steering wheel, shaking.

Suddenly sirens wailed through Wakefield.

I froze, my belly and balls tight.

The sirens faded.

“I didn’t know he was a journalist,” whispered Shaw.

I swallowed and said, “When?”

“Just twice.”

“When?”

“Last month sometime and then a week ago, last Friday.”

“And you told Foster?”

“I had to. It couldn’t go on, it just couldn’t.”

“What did he say?”

Shaw looked up, the whites of his eyes red. “Who?”

“Foster.”

“He said he’d deal with it.”

I stared out across the car park at the London train arriving, thinking of seaview flats and Southern girls.

“He’s dead.”

“I know,” whispered Shaw. “What are you going to do?”

I picked a dog hair off my tongue and opened the passenger door.

The Councillor had the photograph in his hands, holding it out towards me.

“Keep it, it’s you,” I said, getting out.

“He looks so white,” said William Shaw, alone in his expensive motor, staring at the photograph.

“What did you say?”

Shaw reached over to close the door. “Nothing.”

I leant back into the car, holding the door open, shouting, “Just tell me what you fucking said.”

“I said he looks so different that’s all, paler.”

I slammed the door on him, tearing across the car park, thinking Jimmy James fucking Ashworth.

Ninety miles an hour.

One hand in the glove compartment, a bandage on the wheel, sifting through the pills and the maps, the rags and the fags.

The Sweet on the radio.

Nervous darts into the rearview mirror.

Finding the micro-cassette, yanking the Philips Pocket Memo out of my jacket, ripping one tape out, ramming another in.

Rewind.

Pressing play:

“It were like she’d rolled down or something.”

Forward.

Play: “I couldn’t believe it was her.”

Listen.

“She looked so different, so white.”

Stop.

Fitzwilliam.

69 Newstead View, TV lights on.

Ninety miles an hour, up the garden path.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

“What do you want?” said Mrs Ashworth, trying to close the door on me.

A foot in the door, pushing it back.

“Here, you can’t just come barging into people’s houses.”

“Where is he?” I said, knocking past her into one of her saggy tits.

“He’s not here, is he. Here, come back!”

Up the stairs, banging open doors.

“I’m calling the police,” shouted Mrs Ashworth from the foot of the stairs.

“You do that, love,” I said, looking at an unmade bed and a Leeds United poster, smelling winter damp and teenage wank.

“I’m warning you,” she shouted.

“Where is he?” I said as I came back down the stairs.

“He’s at work, isn’t he.”

“Wakefield?”

“I don’t know. He never says.”

I looked at my father’s watch. “What time did he set off?”

“Van came at quarter to seven, same as always.”

“He’s mates with Michael Myshkin, isn’t he?”

Mrs Ashworth held the door open,her lips pursed.

“Mrs Ashworth, I know they’re friends.”

“Jimmy always felt bloody sorry for him. He’s like that, it’s his character.”

“Very touching, I’m sure,” I said, walking out the door.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” shouted Mrs Ashworth from the front step.

At the bottom of the path, I opened the garden gate and stared up the road at the burnt-out Number 54. “I hope your neighbours agree.”

“You’re always making something out of nothing, you people,” she screamed after me, slamming the front door shut.

Flat out down the Barnsley Road into Wakefield, glances in the rearview mirror.

Radio on.

Jimmy Young and the Archbishop of Canterbury debating Anal Rape and The Exorcist with the housebound of Britain.

“They should ban them both. Disgusting, that’s what they are.”

Through the Christmas lights and the first spits of rain, up past the County and Town Halls.

“Exorcism, as practised by the Church of England, is a deeply religious rite and not something to be entered into lightly. This film creates a totally false impression of exorcism.”

I parked opposite Lumbs Dairy by the Drury Lane Library, the rain coming down cold, grey, and heavy.

“If you take the guilt out of sex, you take guilt away from society and I do not think society could function without guilt.”

Radio off.

I sat in the car smoking, watching the empty milk floats return home.

Just gone eleven-thirty.

I jogged down past the prison and on to the building site, the Foster’s Construction sign rattling under the rain.

I pushed open the tarpaulin door of an unfinished house, the radio playing Tubular Bells.

Three big men, stinking and smoking.

“Fuck, not you again,” said one big man with a sandwich in his mouth and flask of tea in his hand.

I said, “I’m looking for Jimmy Ashworth.”

“He’s not here, is he,” said another big man with the back of his NCB donkey jacket to me.

“What about Terry Jones?”

“He’s not here either,” said the donkey jacket to the grins of the other two men.

“Do you know where they are?”

“No,” said the sandwich man.

“What about your Gaffer, is he about?”

“Just not your lucky day is it.”

“Thanks,” I said, thinking choke on it you thick fucking twat.

“Don’t mention it,” sandwich man smiled as I went back out.

I turned up the collar of my jacket and stuck my hands and bandages deep into my pockets. Down there, with Paul’s Ronson lighter and the odd pennies, I found a feather in my pocket.

I walked through the piles of cheap bricks and the half-built houses towards Devil’s Ditch, thinking of that last school photograph of Clare, with her nervous pretty smile, stuck on to the black and white shots on my Redbeck walls.

I looked up, the feather in my fingers.

Jimmy Ashworth was stumbling and running across the wasteland towards me, big red spots of blood dropping from his nose and his scalp on to his skinny white chest.

“What the fuck’s going on?” I shouted.

He slowed to a walk as he drew near me, pretending like nothing was up.

“What happened to you?”

“Just piss off, will you.”

In the distance, Terry Jones was coming up behind Jimmy from Devil’s Ditch.

I grabbed Jimmy’s arm. “What did he say to you?”

He tried to twist free, screaming, “Get off me!”

I grabbed the other arm of his jacket. “You’d seen her before, hadn’t you?”

“Fuck off!”

Terry Jones had broken into a jog, waving at us.

“You told Michael Myshkih about her, didn’t you?”

“Fuck off,” shouted Jimmy, twisting out of his jacket and shirt, breaking into a run.

I span round, rugby tackling him into the mud.

He fell into the mud beneath me.

I had him pinned down, shouting, “Where had you fucking seen her?”

“Fuck off!” Jimmy Ashworth was screaming, looking up past me into a big grey sky that was pissing down all over his muddy, bloody face.

“Tell me where you’d fucking seen her.”

“No.”

I slapped my bandaged hand across his face, pain shooting up my arm into my heart, yelling, “Tell me!”

“Get the fuck off him,” said Terry Jones, pulling me backwards by the collar of my jacket.

“Fuck off,” I said, my arms flailing and lashing out at Terry Jones.

Jimmy Ashworth, breaking free from my legs, got to his feet and ran bare-chested towards the houses, the rain, the mud, and the blood running down his naked back.

“Jimmy!” I shouted, wrestling with Terry Jones.

“Leave it fucking be,” hissed Jones.

Over by the houses, the three big men had come out and were laughing at Jimmy as he sprinted past them.

“He’d fucking seen her before.”

“Leave it!”

Jimmy Ashworth kept on running.

The three big men stopped laughing and started walking over towards me and Terry Jones.

He released me, whispering, “You best piss off.”

“I’m going to fucking have you, Jones.”

Terry Jones picked up Jimmy Ashworth’s shirt and jacket. “Then you’re wasting your time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he smiled sadly.

I turned and walked away towards Devil’s Ditch, wiping the mud from my hands on to my trousers.

I heard a shout and looked round to see Terry Jones, his arms up, shepherding the three big men back towards the half-built houses.

There was no sign of Jimmy Ashworth.

I stood on the lip of the Ditch, looking down at the rusted prams and bicycles, the cookers and the fridges, thinking all of modern life is here and so was Clare Kemplay, aged ten.

My fingers black with dirt, I took the small white feather from my pocket.

At Devil’s Ditch, I looked up into the big black sky and put the small white feather to my pale pink lips thinking, if only it hadn’t been her.

The Strafford Arms, the Bullring, Wakefield.

The dead centre of Wakefield, the Friday before Christmas.

Mud Man, up the stairs and through the door.

Members only.

“It’s all right Grace, he’s with me,” said Box to the woman behind the bar.

Derek Box and Paul at the bar, whiskys and cigars in their hands.

There was Elvis on the jukebox.

Just Derek, Paul, Grace, Elvis, and me.

Box got up from his stool and walked across the room to a table in the window.

“You look like shit. What the fuck happened to you?”

I sat down opposite Box, my back to Paul and the door, looking out on a wet Wakefield.

“I went down Devil’s Ditch.”

“I thought they’d got someone for that?”

“So did I.”

“Some things are best left,” said Derek Box, examining the end of his cigar.

“Like Councillor Shaw?”

Box relit his cigar. “Did you see him?”

“Yeah.”

Paul put a whisky and a pint in front of me.

I tipped the whisky into my pint.

“And?”

“And he’s probably talking to Donald Foster as we speak.”

“Good.”

“Good? Foster had Barry fucking killed.”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Barry got ambitious.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Barry had his own agenda.”

“So what? Foster must be fucking insane. We can’t just let it go. We’ve got to do something about it.”

“He’s not insane,” said Box. “Just motivated.”

“You know him well or something?”

“We were in Kenya together.”

“Business?”

“Her Majesty’s business. We did our National fucking Service in the Highlands, protecting fat cunts like I am now, fighting the fucking Mau Maus.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. They’d come down from the hills like a tribe of bloody Red Indians, raping the women, cutting the cocks off the men, stringing them upon fence posts.”

“You’re joking?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“No.”

“We weren’t angels, Mr Dunford. I was with Don Foster when we ambushed a fucking War Party. We shot them in the knees with.303s so we could have some fun.”

“Fuck.”

“Foster took his time. He taped the screams, the dogs barking, claimed it helped him sleep.”

I picked up Paul’s lighter from the table and lit a cigarette.

Paul brought over two more whiskys.

“It was war, Mr Dunford. Just like now.”

I picked up my glass.

Box was sweating as he drank, his eyes off deep in the dark.

“A year ago they were going to bring back rationing. Now we got inflation at fucking 25 per cent.”

I took a mouthful of whisky, drunk, scared, and bored. “What does that have to do with Don Foster or Barry?”

Box lit another cigar and sighed. “The trouble with your generation is that you know nowt. Why do you think the man with the boat beat the man with the pipe in ‘70?”

“Wilson was complacent.”

“Complacent my arse,” laughed Box.

“Go on then, you tell me.”

“Because likes of Cecil King, Norman Collins, Lord Renwick, Shawcross, Paul Chambers at ICI, Lockwood at EMI and McFadden at Shell, and others like them, they sat down and said enough was bloody enough.”

“So?”

“So these men have power; the power to build or break men.”

“What’s that got to do with Foster?”

“You’re not fucking listening to me! I’ll spell it out in your talk.”

“Please…”

“Power’s like glue. It sticks men like us together, keeps every thing in place.”

“You and Foster are…”

“We’re peas in a pod, me and him. We like to fuck and make a buck and we’re not right choosey how we do either. But he’s got too big for his fucking boots and now he’s cutting me out and it pisses me off.”

“So you use me and Barry to blackmail his mates?”

“We had a deal, me and Foster and another man. That other man is dead. They waited until he came back from Australia and took him as he came out of his mother’s flat in Blackpool. They bound his arms behind him with a towel and then wrapped him in twenty foot of tape from his shoulders to his hips. Then they stuffed him into the boot of his car and drove him on to Moors. When it was dawn, three men held him upright and a fourth thrust a knife into his heart five times.”

I was looking down into my whisky glass, the room slightly spinning.

“That was my brother they killed. He’d been back home one fucking day.”

“I’m sorry.”

“At the funeral, there was a card. No name, just said, Three can keep a secret, if two are dead.”

“I don’t want any part of this,” I said quietly.

Box nodded once at Paul sat over by the bar and said loudly, “It seems like we overestimated you, Mr Dunford.”

“I’m just a journalist.”

Paul came up behind me, a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Then you’ll do as you’re told, Mr Dunford, and you’ll get your story. Leave the rest to us.”

I said again, “I don’t want to be part of this.”

Box cracked his knuckles and smiled. “Tough shit. You are a part of it.”

Paul picked me up by my collar.

“Now piss off!”

Mud Man on the run.

Back down Westgate.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Barry and Clare.

Little dead Clare Kemplay, kissed this boy and made him cry.

Clare and Barry.

Dirty Barry, when he’d been good he’d been very, very good, when he’d been bad he’d been very, very bad.

A policeman stood in a doorway, keeping out of the rain. Me, the urge to fall to my knees at his feet, praying he was a good man, and tell him the whole fucking sad story, to come in out of the rain.

But tell him what?

Tell him I was in over my head, covered in mud and drunk as fuck.

Mud Man, straight into Leeds, dirt cracking as I drove.

Mud Man, straight into the office bogs, caked in shit.

A clean face and one clean hand, a dirty suit and a black bandage, sitting down behind my desk at 3 PM on Friday 20 December 1974.

“Nice suit, Eddie lad.”

“Fuck off, George.”

“Merry Christmas to you too.”

Messages and cards littered the desk; Sergeant Fraser calling twice that morning, Bill Hadden requesting my presence at my earliest convenience.

I slumped back in my chair, George Greaves farting to the applause of the few back from lunch.

I smiled and picked up the cards; three ‘from Down South, plus one with my name and office punched into plastic Dymo tape and stuck to the envelope.

On the other side of the office, Gaz was taking bets on the Newcastle-Leeds game.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the card with my teeth and my left hand.

“Do you want in, Eddie?” shouted Gaz.

On the front of the card was a cabin made of logs in the middle of a snow-covered forest.

“Ten bob on Lorimer,” I said, opening the card.

“Jack’s got him.”

Inside the card, over the Christmas message, were stuck two more strips of Dymo tape.

Quietly I said, “I’ll have Yorath then.”

Punched into the top plastic strip was: KNOCK ON THE DOOR OF…

“You what?”

Punched into the bottom plastic strip was: FLAT 405, CITY

HEIGHTS .

“Yorath,” I said, staring at the card. “Anyone I know?” I looked up.

Jack Whitehead said, “I just hope it’s from a woman.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you were hanging around with young boys,” smiled Jack.

I put the card inside my jacket pocket. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. With orange hair.”

“Who’d you hear that from then, Jack?”

“A little bird.”

“You stink of drink.”

“So do you.”

“It’s Christmas.”

“Not for much longer,” grinned Jack. “Boss wants to see you.”

“I know,” I said, not moving.

“He asked me to come and find you, make sure you didn’t get lost again.”

“Going to hold my hand?”

“You’re not my type.”

“Bollocks.”

“Fuck off, Jack. Listen.”

I pressed play again:

“I couldn’t believe it was her. She looked so different, so white.”

“Bollocks,” said Jack again. “He’s talking about the photo graphs in the papers, on TV.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Her face was everywhere.”

“Ashworth knows more than that.”

“Myshkin fucking confessed.”

“That means fuck all and you know it.”

Bill Hadden sat behind his desk, his glasses halfway down his nose, stroking his beard and saying nowt.

“You should see all the shit they took from the little pervert’s room.”

“Like what?”

“Photos of little girls, boxes of them.”

I looked at Hadden and said, “Myshkin didn’t do it.”

He said slowly, “But why make a scapegoat of him?”

“Why do you think? Tradition.”

“Thirty years,” said Jack. “Thirty years and I know firemen never lie and coppers often do. But not this time.”

“They know he didn’t do it and you know he didn’t.”

“He did it. He coughed.”

“So fucking what?”

“You ever heard the word forensic?”

“That’s bullshit. They’ve got nothing.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Hadden, leaning forward in his chair. “It seems like we’ve had this conversation before.”

“Exactly,” muttered Jack.

“No, before I believed Myshkin did it, but…”

Hadden raised his hands. “Edward, please.”

“Sorry,” I said, staring at the cards on his desk.

He said, “When are they going to remand him again?”

“First thing Monday,” said Jack.

“More charges?”

“He’s already coughed to Jeanette Garland and that Rochdale lass…”

“Susan Ridyard,” I said.

“But I’ve heard there’s more in offing.”

I said, “He said owt about where the bodies are?”

“Your back garden, Scoop.”

“Right then,” said Hadden, being Dad. “Edward, you have that background piece on Myshkin ready for Monday. Jack, you do the remand.”

“Will do, Chief,” said Jack, getting up.

“Nice piece on those two coppers,” nodded Hadden, ever the proud father.

“Thanks. Nice blokes, I’ve known them a while,” said Jack at the door.

Hadden said, “See you tomorrow night, Jack.”

“Yep. See you Scoop,” laughed Jack as he left.

“Bye.” I was on my feet, still looking at the cards on Hadden’s desk.

“Sit down for a moment, will you,” said Hadden, standing up.

I sat back down.

“Edward, I want you to take the rest of the month off.”

“What?”

Hadden had his back to me, staring out at the dark sky.

“I don’t understand,” I said, understanding him exactly, focusing on one small card tucked in amongst the rest.

“I don’t want you coming into the office like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like this,” he said, turning and pointing at me.

“I was on a building site this morning, getting the story.”

“What story?”

“Clare Kemplay.”

“It’s over.”

I stared at the desk, at that one card, at another cabin made of logs in the middle of another snow-covered forest.

“Take the rest of the month off. Get that hand seen to,” said Hadden, sitting back down.

I stood up. “You still want that Myshkin piece?”

“Yeah, of course. Type it up and give it to Jack.”

I opened the door, last ditch, thinking fuck ‘em all:

“Do you know the Fosters?”

Hadden didn’t look up from his desk.

“Councillor William Shaw?”

He looked up. “I’m sorry, Edward. Really I am.”

“Don’t be. You’re right,” I said. “I need help.”

At my desk for the last time, thinking take it fucking national, sweeping the whole bloody table-top into a dirty old Co-op carrier bag, not giving a fuck who knew I was gone.

Jack fucking Whitehead slapped an Evening News on to the empty desk, beaming, “Something to remember us by.”

I looked up at Jack, counting backwards.

The office silent, all eyes on me.

Jack Whitehead right back in my face, not blinking.

I looked down at the folded paper, the banner headline:

WE SALUTE YOU.

“Turn it over.”

A telephone was ringing on the other side of the office, no-one answering it.

I turned over the bottom half of the paper to a photograph of two uniformed coppers shaking hands with Chief Constable Angus.

Two uniformed coppers, naked:

A tall one with a beard, a short one without.

I stared down at the paper, at the photograph, at the words beneath the photograph:

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 picked up the paper and folded it in two, stuffing it into the carrier bag, winking, “Thanks, Jack.”

Jack Whitehead said nothing.

I gathered up the carrier bag and walked across the silent office.

George Greaves was looking out the window, Gaz from Sport was staring at the end of his pencil.

The telephone began to ring on my desk.

Jack Whitehead picked it up.

At the door, Fat Steph, with an armful of files, smiled and said, “I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s Sergeant Fraser,” shouted Jack from my desk.

“Tell him to fuck off. I’ve been sacked.”

“He’s been sacked,” said Jack, hanging up.

One two three four, down the stairs and through the door:

The Press Club, members only, going up to five.

At the bar, a member for now, a Scotch in one hand, the phone in the other.

“Hello. Is Kathryn there please?”

Yesterday Once More on the jukebox, my money.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

Fuck The Carpenters, my eyes stinging from my own smoke.

“Can you tell her Edward Dunford called?”

I hung up, downed the Scotch, lit another cigarette.

“Same again please, love.”

“And one for me, Bet.”

I looked round.

Jack fucking Whitehead taking the next stool.

“You fucking fancy me or something?”

“No.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?”

“We should talk.”

“Why?”

The barmaid set two Scotches in front of us.

“Someone’s setting you up.”

“Yeah? Big fucking news, Jack.”

He offered me a cigarette. “Who is it then, Scoop?”

“How about we start with your mates, the Two Bobbies?”

Jack lit a cigarette for himself and whispered, “How’s that?”

I swung my right hand round, waving the bandages in his face, toppling forward and shouting, “How’s that? What the fuck do you think this is?”

Jack moved out of the way, catching my bandages in his own hand.

“They did that?” he said, pushing me back into my seat, eyes on the black wad at the end of my arm.

“Yeah, in between burning down gypsy camps, stealing post mortem photos, and beating confessions out of the retarded.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just the new West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police going about their business, supported by the good old Yorkshire Post, the copper’s friend.”

“You’ve fucking lost it.”

I downed the Scotch. “So everyone keeps saying.”

“Fucking listen to them then.”

“Piss off, Jack.”

“Eddie?”

“What?”

“Think of your mother.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Hasn’t she been through enough? It’s barely been a week since you buried your father.”

I leant over and poked two fingers into his bony chest. “Don’t you ever fucking bring my family into this.”

I stood up and took out my car keys.

“You’re not fit to drive.”

“You’re not fit to write, but you do.”

He was stood up, holding me by the arms. “You’re being set up, just like Barry was.”

“Fucking let go.”

“Derek Box is as bad as it fucking gets.”

“Let go.”

He sat back down. “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

“Piss off,” I hissed, climbing the stairs, hating his lying guts and the stinking world in which he dwelt.

The M1 southbound out of Leeds, seven o’clock busy, the rain beginning to sleet in my headlights. Always on My Mind on the radio.

In the fast lane, glances in the rearview mirror, glances to the left, the gypsy camp gone.

Flicking through the radio stations, avoiding the news.

Suddenly the Castleford turn-off came out of the dark like a lorry, its lights on full.

I swerved across three lanes, horns screaming at me, the trapped faces of angry ghosts in their cars cursing me.

Inches from death, thinking bring it on.

Bring it on.

Bring it on.

Knock on the door of…

“You’re drunk.”

“I just want to talk,” I said on the step of Number 11, waiting for that big red door in my face.

“You’d better come in.”

The fat Scottish woman from two down was sat on the sofa in front of Opportunity Knocks, staring at me.

“He’s had a few,” said Paula, closing the door.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” laughed the Scottish woman.

“I’m sorry,” I said and sat down on the sofa next to her.

Paula said, “I’ll make a cup of tea.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want another, Clare?”

“No, I’ll get off,” she said, following Paula into the kitchen.

I sat on the sofa in front of the TV, listening to whispers from the next room, watching a young girl tapdance into the hearts and homes of millions. Just above her, on top of the TV, Jeanette smiled her handicapped grin across the room at me.

“See you later, Eddie,” said Scotch Clare at the door.

I thought about getting up, but stayed put and mumbled, “Yeah, goodnight.”

“Aye. Be nice,” she said as she closed the big red door behind her.

There was applause on the screen.

Paula handed me a mug of tea. “Here you go.”

I said, “I’m sorry about this. And last night.”

She sat down next to me on the sofa. “Forget it.”

“Always turning up like this and then all that shit I said last night, I didn’t mean any of it.”

“It’s all right, forget it. You don’t have to say anything.”

Some robot aliens were eating instant mashed potato on the TV.

“I do care.”

“I know.”

I wanted to ask about Johnny but I put down the tea and leant over, bringing her face closer to my own with my left hand.

“How’s your hand?” she whispered.

“It’s fine,” I said, kissing her lips, her chin, and her cheeks.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“I want to.”

“Why?”

A monkey in a flat cap was drinking a cup of tea on TV.

“Because I love you.”

“Please don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“So say it again.”

“I love you.”

Paula pushed me away and took my hand, switching off the TV and leading me up the steep, steep stairs.

Mummy and Daddy’s Room, the bedroom so cold I could see my breath.

Paula sat down on the bed and began to undo her blouse, her bare skin all covered in goose-bumps.

I pushed her back on to the eiderdown, kicking off my shoes with two loud thuds.

She squirmed beneath me, trying to wriggle free of her trousers.

I pushed up her blouse and black bra and began sucking at her pale brown nipples, biting her ever so slightly.

She was pulling off my jacket and pushing down my trousers.

“You’re filthy,” she giggled.

“Thanks,” I smiled, feeling the laughter in her belly.

“I love you,” she said and pulled her hands through my hair, pushing my head gently down.

I went where I was told, tugging down the zip of her trousers and pulling off her pale blue cotton knickers with them.

Paula Garland pushed my head into her cunt, wrapping her legs across my back.

My chin became wet, stinging as it dried.

She pushed me back.

I went.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you,” I mumbled, a face full of cunt.

She pulled me back up, over her tits.

I kissed her as I went, hitting her lips with the taste of herself.

Her tongue on mine, both tasting of cunt.

I pulled myself up, pain in my arm, and pushed her over on to her belly.

Paula lay on the eiderdown, her face in the pillow, wearing only her bra.

I looked down at my cock.

Paula raised her arse slightly and then back down.

I pushed her hair up and kissed her neck and the backs of her ears, working myself between her legs.

She raised her arse again, juices and sweat making it wet.

I sat back and began rubbing my cock on the lips of her cunt, bandages in her hair, my left palm flat on the small of her back.

She raised her arse higher, backing her cunt on to my cock.

My cock touched her arse.

She reached her hand round to my cock, guiding it away from her arse and into her cunt.

Inside and out, inside and out.

Paula, opening and closing her fist on the bed.

Inside and out, inside and out.

Paula, face down, fists closed.

I slipped out hard.

Paula, fists open, sighing.

My cock touched her arse.

Paula, trying to look round.

A bandaged hand on the back of her neck.

Paula, a hand flailing after my cock.

My cock on the edge of her arsehole.

Paula, shouting into the pillow.

In tight.

Paula Garland, screaming and screaming into the pillow. A bandaged hand pinning down her face, another round her belly.

Paula Garland, trying to break free from my cock. Me, fucking her hard up the arse. Paula, limp and shaking with tears. Inside and out, inside and out. Paula, blood on her arse.

Inside and out, inside and out, blood on my cock. Paula Garland, crying. Coming and coming and coming again. Paula, calling out for Jeanette. Me, coming again.

Dead dogs and monsters and rats with little wings.

There was someone walking around in my head, shining a torch and wearing big boots.

She was outside in the street, pulling a red cardigan tight around herself, and smiling at me.

Suddenly a big black bird swooped down from the sky and into her hair, chasing her down the street, taking out huge clumps of blonde hair all bloody at the roots.

She was lying in the road with her pale blue cotton knickers showing, like a dead dog hit by a lorry.

I awoke and went back to sleep, thinking I’m safe now, I’m safe now, go back to sleep.

Dead dogs and monsters and rats with little wings.

There was someone walking around in my head, shining a torch and wearing big boots.

I was sitting in a wooden cabin gazing at a Christmas tree, the smell of good cooking filling the house.

I took a big box, gift-wrapped in newspaper, from under the tree and pulled the red ribbon loose.

Carefully I opened the paper so I might read it later.

I stared at the small wooden box on my knee, resting on the newspaper and the red length of ribbon.

I closed my eyes and opened the box, the dull thud of my heart filling the house.

“What is it?” she said, coming up behind me and touching my shoulder.

I covered the box with my bandaged hand, burying my head in her red gingham folds.

She took the box from my hands and looked inside.

The box fell to the floor, the house full of good cooking, the thud of my heart, and her bloody screams.

I watched as it slid out of the box and across the floor, writing spidery messages with its bloody cord as it went.

“Get rid of it,” she screamed. “Get rid of it now!”

It flipped on to its back and smiled at me.

I awoke and went back to sleep, thinking I’m safe now, I’m safe now, go back to sleep.

Dead dogs and monsters and rats with little wings.

There was someone walking around in my head, shining a torch and wearing big boots.

I was awake, lying underground on a door, freezing.

Above me, I could hear the muffled sounds of a television, Opportunity Knocks.

I stared up into the dark, tiny specks of light coming closer.

Above me, I could hear the muffled sounds of a telephone ringing and wings beating.

I saw through the dark, rats with little wings that looked more like squirrels with their furry faces and kind words.

Above me, I could hear the muffled sounds of a record playing, The Little Drummer Boy.

The rats were at my ear, whispering harsh words, calling me names, breaking my bones worse than any sticks or stones.

Beside me, the muffled sounds of children crying.

I jumped up to put on the light but it was already on.

I was awake, lying on the carpet, freezing.