1974

Chapter 9

Saturday 21 December 1974.

What the fuck is this?” A newspaper full across the face woke me.

“You tell me you love me, tell me you care, and then you fuck me up the arse and write this shit.”

I sat up in the bed, rubbing the side of my face with a bandaged hand.

Yeah, Saturday 21 December 1974.

Mrs Paula Garland, in blue flared jeans and a red wool sweater, stood over the bed.

The Yorkshire Post headline stared up from the eiderdown:

11 DAY IRA XMAS TRUCE.

“What?”

“Don’t give me that, you lying piece of shit.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She picked up the paper, opened it, and started to read:

A Mother’s Plea by Edward Dunford.

Mrs Paula Garland, sister of the Rugby League star Johnny Kelly, wept as she told of her life since the disappearance of her daughter, Jeanette, just over five years ago.

“I’ve lost everything since that day,” said Mrs Garland, referring to her husband Geoff’s suicide in 1971, following the fruitless police investigation into the whereabouts of their missing daughter.

“I just want it all to end,” wept Mrs Garland. “And maybe now it can.”

Paula stopped reading. “Do you want me to go on?”

I sat on the edge of the bed, a sheet around my balls, staring at a patch of bright white sunlight on the thin flowered carpet.

“I didn’t write that.”

“By Edward Dunford.”

“I didn’t write it.”

The arrest of a Fitzwilliam man in connection with the disappear ance and murder of Clare Kemplay has brought a tragic hope of sorts to Mrs Garland.

“I never thought I’d say it but, after all this time, I just want to know what happened,” cried Mrs Garland. “And if that means knowing the worst, I’ll just have to try and live with it.”

“I didn’t write it.”

“By Edward Dunford,” she repeated.

“I didn’t write it.”

“You liar!” screamed Paula Garland, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me off the bed.

I fell naked on to the thin flowered carpet, repeating, “I didn’t write it.”

“Get out!”

“Please, Paula,” I said, reaching for my trousers.

She pushed me over as I tried to stand, screaming and screaming, “Get out! Get out!”

“Fuck off, Paula, and listen to me.”

“No!” she screamed again, taking a piece out of my ear with her nails.

“Fuck off,” I shouted and pushed her away, gathering up my clothes.

She collapsed into a corner by the wardrobe, curling into a ball and sobbing, “I fucking hate you.”

I put on my trousers and shirt, blood dripping from my ear, and picked up my jacket.

“I never want to see you again,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to,” I spat back, down the stairs and out the door.

Bitch.

The clock in the car coming up to nine, bright white winter light half blinding me as I drove.

Fucking bitch.

The A655 morning clear, flat brown fields as far as the eye could see.

Bloody fucking bitch.

The radio on, Lulu’s Little Drummer Boy, the back seat full of carrier bags.

Stupid bloody fucking bitch.

Pips on the hour, my ear still smarting, here comes the news:

“West Yorkshire Police have launched a murder investigation following the discovery of a woman’s body in aflat in the St John’s part of the city, yesterday.”

The blood dead in my arms, cold.

“The woman has been named as 36-year-old Mandy Denizili.”

Flesh strangling bone, off the road and on to the verge.

“Mrs Denizili worked as a medium under her maiden name of Wymer and became nationally known after helping the police with a number of investigations. Most recently, Mrs Denizili claimed to have led police to the body of murdered schoolgirl Clare Kemplay. This was a claim strongly denied by Detective Superintendent Peter Noble, the man leading that investigation.”

My forehead on the steering wheel, hands over my mouth.

“While police are at present releasing few details about the actual crime itself, it is believed to have been particularly brutal.”

Struggling with the door and the bandage, bile down the armrest and on to the grass.

“The police are appealing for anyone who knew Mrs Denizili to please contact them as a matter of urgency.”

Crazy bloody fucking bitch.

Out of the car and on to my knees, the bile trailing down my chin and into the dirt.

Bloody fucking bitch.

Spitting bile and phlegm, that scream in my ears as she’d slid back on her arse up the hall, those arms and legs splayed, that country skirt riding up.

Fucking bitch.

Gravel in my palms, soil on my forehead, staring at the grass in the cracks in the road.

Bitch.

From the pages of Yorkshire Life.

Thirty minutes later, my face black with dirt and my hands stained with grass, I was stood in the lobby of the Redbeck Motel, a bandage round the phone.

“Sergeant Fraser, please.”

The yellows, the browns, the stink of smoke-it almost felt like home or much the same.

“Sergeant Fraser speaking.”

Thinking of crows perched on telephone wires, I swallowed and said, “This is Edward Dunford.”

Silence, only the hum of the line waiting for words.

The click of pool balls from behind the glass doors, won dering what day of the week it was, wondering if it was a school day, thinking of the crows on the telephone wires and wondering what Fraser was thinking.

“You’re fucked, Dunford,” said Fraser.

“I need to see you.”

“Fuck off. You’ve got to turn yourself in.”

“What?”

“You heard. You’re wanted for questioning.”

“In connection to what?”

“In connection to the murder of Mandy Wymer.”

“Fuck off.”

“Where are you?”

“Listen…”

“No, you fucking listen. I’ve been trying to speak to you for two fucking days…”

“Listen, please…”

Silence again, just the hum of the line waiting for his words or mine.

The click of pool balls from behind the glass doors, won dering if it was always the same game, wondering if they even bothered to keep score, thinking of the crows on the wire again and wondering if Fraser was tracing this call.

“Go on,” said Fraser.

“I’ll give you names and dates, all the information I have about Barry Gannon and all the stuff he found out.”

“Go on.”

“But I need to know everything you’ve heard about what’s going on with Michael Myshkin, what he’s saying about Jeanette Garland and Susan Ridyard. And I want his confession.”

“Go on.”

“I’ll meet you at twelve noon. I’ll give you all I’ve got, you give me what you’ve got. And I want your word you won’t try and bring me in.”

“Go on.”

“If you arrest me, I’ll drop you right in it.”

“Go on.”

“Give me till midnight, then I’ll come in.”

Silence, only the hum waiting for the word.

The click of pool balls from behind the glass doors, won dering where the farting old woman was, wondering if she had died in her room and nobody had found her, thinking of the crows on the wire and wondering if Fraser had set me up at the Hartley Nursing Home.

“Where?” whispered Sergeant Fraser.

“There’s a disused petrol station at the junction of the A655 and the B6134 going out to Featherstone.”

“Twelve?”

“Noon.”

The line dead, the hum gone, feeling much the same.

The click of pool balls from behind the glass doors.

On the floor of Room 27, emptying my pockets and bags, staring at the tiny cassettes marked BOX AND SHAW, pressing play:

“I’m no angel either, but I am a businessman.”

Transcribing my words and theirs in my own injured hand.

“Persuade the Councillor that he should bare his soul of all his public wrongdoings.”

Putting a photograph to one side.

“Tomorrow lunchtime, upstairs in the Strafford Arms.”

Changing cassettes, pressing play:

“Because of the fucking money.”

Printing in capitals.

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

Listening to lies.

“I didn’t know he was a journalist.”

Turning over the tape.

“All of the others under those beautiful new carpets.”

Rewind.

“Don’t touch me!”

Pressing record to erase.

“You smell so strongly of bad memories.”

On the floor of Room 27, stuffing a manila envelope full of Barry’s bits and the things he’d found, licking it locked and scrawling Fraser’s name across the front.

“You didn’t see it coming?”

At the door of my Redbeck room, swallowing a pill and lighting a cigarette, a manila envelope in my hand and a Christmas card in my pocket.

“I’m a medium Mr Dunford, not a fortune teller.”

One door left.

Noon. Saturday 21 December 1974.

Between a lorry and a bus, driving past the disused Shell petrol station at the junction of the A655 and the B6134.

A mustard-yellow Maxi sat on the forecourt, Sergeant Fraser leaning against the bonnet.

I drove on for a hundred yards and pulled in, wound down my window, turned round, pressed record on the Philips Pocket Memo, and drove back.

Pulling up beside the Maxi, I said, “Get in.”

Sergeant Fraser, a raincoat over his uniform, walked round the back of the Viva and got in.

I pulled out of the forecourt and turned left up the B6134 to Featherstone.

Sergeant Fraser, arms folded, stared straight ahead.

For one moment, I felt like I’d stepped into an alternate world straight out of Dr fucking Who, where I was the cop and Fraser was not, where I was good and he was not.

“Where are we going?” said Fraser.

“We’re here.” I pulled into a lay-by just past a red caravan selling teas and pies.

Turning off the engine, I said, “You want anything?”

“No, you’re all right.”

“Am I? You know Sergeant Craven and his mate?”

“Yeah. Everyone knows them.”

“You know them well?”

“By reputation.”

I stared out of the brown mud-stained window, over the low brown hedges dividing the flat brown fields with their lone brown trees.

“Why?” said Fraser.

I took a photograph of Clare Kemplay out of my pocket, one of her lying on a hospital slab, a swan’s wing stitched into her back.

I handed the photo to Fraser. “I think either Craven or his partner gave me this.”

“Fuck. Why?”

“They’re setting me up.”

“Why?”

I pointed to the carrier bag at Fraser’s feet. “It’s all in there.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Transcripts, documents, photographs. Everything you need.”

“Transcripts?”

“I’ve got the original tapes and I’ll hand them over when you decide you need them. Don’t worry, it’s all there.”

“It better be,” said Fraser, peering into the bag.

I took two pieces of paper from inside my jacket and gave one of them to Fraser. “Knock on this door.”

“Flat 5, 3 Spencer Mount, Chapeltown,” read Fraser.

I put the other piece back in my pocket. “Yeah.”

“Who lives here?”

“Barry James Anderson; he’s an acquaintance of Barry Cannon’s and the star of some of the snaps and tapes you’ll find in the bag.”

“Why are you giving me him?”

I stared out towards the ends of the flat brown fields, at blue skies turning white.

“I’ve got nothing else left to give.”

Fraser put the piece of paper inside his pocket, taking out a notebook.

“What have you got for me?”

“Not so bloody much,” said Fraser, opening the notebook.

“His confession?”

“Not verbatim.”

“Details?”

“There aren’t any.”

“What’s he said about Jeanette Garland?”

“He’s copped for it. That’s it.”

“Susan Ridyard?”

“Same.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” said Sergeant Eraser.

“You think he did them?”

“He’s the one confessing.”

“He say where he did all these things?”

“His Underground Kingdom.”

“He’s not all there.”

“Who is?” sighed Fraser.

In the green car, by the brown field, under the white sky, I said, “Is that it?”

Sergeant Fraser looked down at the notebook in his hands and said, “Mandy Wymer.”

“Fuck.”

“Neighbour found her yesterday about 9 AM She had been raped, scalped, and hung with wire from a light fitting.”

“Scalped?”

“Like Indians do.”

“Fuck.”

“They’re keeping that from your lot,” smiled Fraser.

“Scalped,” I whispered.

“Cats had had a go too. Real horror show stuff.”

“Fuck.”

“Your ex-boss turned you in,” said Fraser and closed the notebook.

“They think I fucking did it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a journalist.”

“So?”

“So they think you might know who did it.”

“Why me?”

“Because you must have been one of the last fucking people to see her alive, that’s why.”

“Fuck.”

“She mention her husband?”

“She didn’t say anything.”

Sergeant Fraser flicked open the notebook again. “Neighbours have told us that Miss Wymer was involved in some kind of argument on Tuesday afternoon. According to your former employer, that must have been either just before or just after she saw you.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

Sergeant Fraser looked me in the eye and closed his notebook again.

He said, “I think you’re lying.”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know, force of habit?”

I turned and looked out over the dead brown hedge at the dead brown field with its dead brown tree.

“What did she say about Clare Kemplay?” said Fraser quietly.

“Nothing much.”

“Like what?”

“You think there’s a link?”

“Obviously.”

“How?” I said, my dry mouth cracking, my wet heart thumping.

“Fuck, how do you think they’re linked? She was working the cases.”

“Noble and his lot are denying it.”

“So what? We all know she was.”

“And?”

“And then there’s always you.”

“Me? What about me?”

“The missing link.”

“And that makes it all somehow connected?”

“You tell me?”

I said, “You should’ve been a bloody journalist.”

“You too,” hissed Fraser.

“Fuck off,” I said, starting the car.

“Everything’s connected,” said Sergeant Fraser.

I checked the rearview mirror twice and pulled out.

At the junction of the B6134 and the A655, Fraser said, “Midnight?”

I nodded and pulled up alongside the Maxi on the forecourt of the empty garage.

“Make it Morley,” said Sergeant Fraser, picking up the carrier bag as he got out.

“Yeah. Why not?”

One card left to play, I checked the rearview mirror as I pulled away.

City Heights, Leeds.

I locked the car under white skies going grey with their threats of rain and never snow, thinking it must be all right round here in the summer.

Clean sixties high-rise: flaking yellow and sky-blue paint work, railings beginning to rust.

Climbing the stairs to the fourth floor, the slap of a ball against a wall, children’s shrieks upon the wind, I was thinking of The Beatles and their album covers, of cleanliness, of Godli ness, and children.

On the fourth floor, I walked along the open passageway, past steamed-up kitchen windows and muffled radios, until I came to the yellow door marked 405.

I knocked on the door of Flat 405, City Heights, Leeds, and waited.

After a moment, I pressed the doorbell too.

Nothing.

I bent down and lifted up the metal flap of the letterbox.

Warmth watered my eyes and I could hear the sounds of horse racing on a TV.

“Excuse me!” I yelled into the letterbox.

The racing died.

“Excuse me!”

Eyeball back to the letterbox; I spy a pair of white towelling socks, coming this way.

“I know you’re in there,” I said, standing up.

“What do you want?” said a man’s voice.

“I just want a word.”

“What about?”

Playing the last card in my last hand, I said to the door, “Your sister.”

A key turned and the yellow door opened.

“What about her?” said Johnny Kelly.

“Snap,” I said, holding up my bandaged right hand.

Johnny Kelly, blue jeans and sweater, a broken wrist and beaten Irish face, said again, “What about her?”

“You should get in touch with her. She’s worried about you.”

“And who the fuck are you?”

“Edward Dunford.”

“Do I know you?”

“No.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

I took the Christmas card from my pocket and handed it to him. “Merry Christmas.”

“Stupid bitch,” said Kelly, opening it and staring at the two plastic strips of Dymo tape.

“Can I come in?”

Johnny Kelly turned back into the flat and I followed him down a narrow hall, past a bathroom and a bedroom, and into the living room.

Kelly sat down in a vinyl armchair, clutching his wrist.

I sat on the matching settee facing a colour TV full of horses silently jumping fences, my back to another winter afternoon in Leeds.

Above the gas fire a Polynesian girl was smiling in various shades of orange and brown, a flower in her hair, and I was thinking of brown-haired gypsy girls and roses where roses were never meant to go.

The half-time scores were coming up under the horses: Leeds were losing at Newcastle.

“Paula all right is she?”

“What do you think?” I said, nodding at the open paper on the Formica coffee table.

Johnny Kelly leant forward, peering at the print. “You’re from the fucking papers, aren’t you?”

“I know your Paul.”

“It were you who fucking wrote that shit, weren’t it?” said Kelly, leaning back.

“I didn’t write that.”

“But you’re from the fucking Post?”

“Not now, no.”

“Fuck,” said Kelly, shaking his head.

“Listen, I’m not going to say anything.”

“Right,” smiled Kelly.

“Just tell us what happened and I promise I’ll say nothing.”

Johnny Kelly stood up. “You’re a fucking journalist.”

“Not any more.”

“I don’t fucking believe you,” said Kelly.

“All right, say I am. I could just write any old shit anyway.”

“Usually do.”

“Right, so just talk to me.”

Johnny Kelly was behind me, looking out of the huge cold window at the huge cold city.

“If you’re not a journalist any more, why you here?”

“I’m here to try and help Paula.”

Johnny Kelly sat back down in the vinyl armchair, rubbing his wrist, and smiled. “Not another.”

The room was darkening, the gas fire brightening.

I said, “How’d it happen?”

“Car accident.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Kelly.

“You were driving?”

“She was.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Mrs Patricia Foster?”

“Bingo.”

“What happened?”

“We’d been away and were on our way back…”

“When was this?”

“Last Friday night.”

“Go on,” I said, thinking of pens and paper, cassettes and tapes.

“We’d stopped off for a few coming back and so she said she’d better drive last bit because I’d had more than her like. Anyway, we were coming down the Dewsbury Road and, I don’t know, we were mucking around I suppose, and next news some bloke just steps out into the road and, bang, we hit him.”

“Where?”

“Legs, chest, I don’t know.”

“No, no. Where on Dewsbury Road?”

“As you come into Wakey, near Prison.”

“Near them new houses Foster’s building?”

“Yeah. Suppose so,” smiled Johnny Kelly.

Thinking everything’s connected, thinking there’s no such thing as chance, there is a plan, and so there is a god, I swal lowed and said, “You know they found Clare Kemplay near there?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Kelly was looking beyond me. “I didn’t know that.”

“What happened then?”

“I reckon we only glanced him like, but it was dead icy so the car started to spin and she lost control.”

I sat there in my polyester clothes, on the vinyl settee, staring at the Formica tabletop, in the concrete flat, thinking of the rubber and the metal, the leather and the glass.

The blood.

“We must have hit the curb and then a lamppost or something.”

“What about the man you hit?”

“I don’t know. As I say, I reckon we only clipped him like.”

“Did you look?” I asked, offering him a cigarette.

“Did we fuck,” said Kelly, taking a light.

“Then what?”

“I got her out, checked she was all right. Her neck was not too clever, but there was nothing broke. Just whiplash. We got back in and I drove her home.”

“The car was all right then?”

“No, but it went like.”

“What did Foster say?”

Kelly stubbed out his cigarette. “I didn’t bloody wait to find out.”

“And you came here?”

“I needed to get out of the road for a bit. Keep me head down.”

“He knows you’re here?”

“Course he bloody does,” said Kelly, touching his face. He picked up a white card from the Formica table and tossed it across to me. “Bastard even sent me an invite to his fucking Christmas party.”

“How did he find you?” I said, squinting at the card in the dark.

“It’s one of his places, isn’t it?”

“So why hang around?”

“Cause at the end of the fucking day, he can’t say so bloody much can he.”

I had the feeling that I’d just forgotten something very fucking bad. “I’m not with you?”

“Well he’s been shagging me fucking sister every Sunday since I was seventeen.”

Thinking, that wasn’t it.

“Not that I’m complaining.”

I looked up.

Johnny Kelly looked down.

I had remembered that very fucking bad thing.

The room was dark, the gas fire bright.

“Don’t look so fucking shocked pal. You’re not the first who’s tried to help her and you won’t be last.”

I stood up, the blood in my legs cold and wet.

“You off to the party, are you?” grinned Kelly, nodding at the invitation in my hands.

I turned and walked down the narrow hall, thinking fuck them all.

“Don’t forget to wish them a merry bloody Christmas from Johnny Kelly, will you?”

Thinking fuck her.

Hello love.

Cash and carrying it.

Ten seconds later, parked outside some Paki shop, the last of my cash in bottles and bags on the floor of the car, radio rocking to a Harrods bomb, a cigarette in the ashtray, another in my hand, pulling pills out of the glove compartment.

Drunk and driving.

Ninety miles an hour, necking Scotchmen, upping downers and downing uppers, scattering Southern girls and seaview flats, ploughing through the Kathryns and the Karens and all the ones that went before, chasing tail-lights and little girls, scrambling love under my wheels, turning it over in the tread of my tyres.

Fuhrer of a bunker of my own design, screaming, I’VE NEVER DONE BAD THINGS.

Motorway One, foot down and taking it bad, sucking the night and its bombs and their shells through the vents in my car and the teeth in my mouth, trying and crying and dying for one more kiss, for the way she talks and the way she walks, offering up prayers without deals, love without schemes, begging her to live again, live again, HERE FOR ME NOW.

Tears soft and cock hard, screaming across six lanes of shit, I’VE NEVER DONE ONE SINGLE FUCKING GOOD THING.

Radio 2 suddenly silent, white motorway lines turning gold, men dressed in rags, men dressed in crowns, some men with wings, others without, braking hard to swerve around a crib of wood and straw.

On the hard shoulder, hazard lights on.

Bye-bye love.

11 Brunt Street, all in black.

Brakes to wake the dead, out the green Viva and kicking the fuck out of the red door.

11 Brunt Street, the back way.

Round the houses, over the wall, a dustbin lid through the kitchen window, taking out shards of glass with my jacket as in I went.

Honey, I’m home.

11 Brunt Street, quiet as the grave.

Inside, thinking, when I get home to you, I’m going to show you what I can do, taking a knife from the kitchen drawer (where I knew it would be).

Is this what you wanted?

Up the steep, steep stairs, into Mummy and Daddy’s room, tearing up the eiderdown, ripping out the drawers, tipping shit this way and that, make-up and cheap knickers, tampons and fake pearls, seeing Geoff swallowing the shotgun, thinking NO FUCKING WONDER, your daughter dead, your wife a whore who fucks her brother’s boss and more, spinning a chair into the mirror, BECAUSE THERE COULD BE NO LUCK WORSE THAN THIS FUCKING LUCK.

Giving you all you ever wanted.

I walked across the landing and opened the door to Jeanette’s room.

So quiet and so cold, the room felt like a church. I sat down upon the little pink bedspread next to her congregation of teddys and dolls and, dropping my head into my hands, I let the knife fall to the floor, the blood on my hands and the tears on my face freezing before they could both join the knife.

For the first time, my prayers were not for me but for everyone else, that all of those things in all of my notebooks, on all of those tapes, in all of those envelopes and bags in my room, that none of them were true, that the dead were alive and the lost were found, and that all of those lives could be lived anew. And then I prayed for my mother and sister, for my uncles and aunts, for the friends I’d had, both good and bad, and last for my father wherever he was, Amen.

I sat for a while with my head down, clasping my hands together, listening to the sounds of the house and my heart, picking the one from the other.

After a time, I rose from Jeanette’s bed and, closing the door on the room, I went back into Mummy and Daddy’s room and the damage I’d done. I picked up the eiderdown and put back the drawers, gathering up her make-up and her underwear, her tampons and her jewellery, sweeping up the mirror’s shards with my shoe and righting the chair.

I went back down the stairs and into the kitchen, picking up the bin lid and closing all the cupboards and the doors, thanking Christ no-one had called the fucking cops. I put the kettle on, let it boil, and brewed a milky mug with five large sugars. I took the tea into the front room, stuck the telly on, and watched white ambulances tear across the black wet night, ferrying the bombed and blown this way and that as a bloody Santa and a senior policeman both wondered what kind of person could do such a thing and so near to Christmas.

I lit a cigarette, watching the football scores and cursing Leeds United, wondering which game would be on Match of the Day and who’d be the guests on Parkinson.

There was a tap on the front window, then a knock on the door, and I suddenly froze, remembering where I was and what I’d done.

“Who is it?” I said, stood up in the middle of the room.

“It’s Clare. Who’s that?”

“Clare?” I turned the latch and opened the door, my heart beating ninety miles an hour.

“Ah, it’s you Eddie.”

A heart dead in its tracks. “Yeah.”

Scotch Clare said, “Paula in, is she?”

“No.”

“Oh, right. Saw the light and I thought she must be back. Sorry,” smiled Scotch Clare, squinting into the light.

“No she’s not back yet, sorry.”

“Never mind. I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell her.”

“Are you OK, love?”

“Fine.”

“OK. See you then.”

“Night,” I said, my breathing coming fast and shallow as I shut the door.

Scotch Clare said something I didn’t catch and then her footsteps went away, back down the street.

I sat back down on the sofa and stared at the school photo graph of Jeanette on top of the TV. There were two cards beside her, one of a cabin made of logs in the middle of a snow-covered forest, the other plain white.

I took Johnny Kelly’s plain white invitation from Donald Foster out of my pocket and walked over to the TV.

I switched off Max Wall and Emerson Fittipaldi and went back out into the silent night.

Snap.

Back to the big houses.

Wood Lane, Sandal, Wakefield.

The lane was strung with parked cars. I picked my way through the Jags and the Rovers, the Mercs and the BMWs.

Trinity View, all floodlit and party decked.

A huge Christinas tree stood on the front lawn, dripping in white lights and tinsel.

I walked up the drive towards the party, following the com peting strains of Johnny Mathis and Rod Stewart.

The front door was open this time and I stood for a moment in the doorway, watching women in long dresses carrying paper plates of food from one room to the next and forming queues up the stairs for the bathroom, while men in velvet tuxedos stood around with tumblers of Scotch and fat cigars.

Through the door to the left I could see Mrs Patricia Foster, minus collar, refilling the glasses of a group of big men with red faces.

I walked into the room and said, “I’m looking for Paula.”

The room went dead.

Mrs Foster opened her mouth but didn’t speak, her eagle eyes darting about the room.

“Do you want to step outside, son?” said a voice behind me.

I turned round into Don Foster’s smiling face.

“I’m looking for Paula?”

“I heard. Let’s go outside and talk about it.”

Two big men with moustaches stood behind Foster, the three of them all in tuxedos and bow ties, frills down the fronts of their shirts.

“I’m here for Paula.”

“You weren’t invited. Let’s go.”

“Merry bloody Christmas from Johnny Kelly,” I said, flicking Kelly’s invitation at Foster.

Foster glanced at his wife and then turned slightly to one of the men and muttered, “Outside.”

One of the men stepped towards me. I raised my hands in surrender and walked towards the door.

Turning round at the door, I said, “Thanks for the Christmas card, Pat.”

I watched the woman swallow and look at the carpet.

One of the men gently pushed me forward into the hall.

“Is everything all right, Don?” asked a man with grey curly hair and a fist full of Scotch.

“Yeah. This gentleman was just leaving,” said Foster.

The man tilted his head my way. “Do I know you?”

“Probably,” I said. “I used to work for that bloke over there with the beard.”

Chief Constable Ronald Angus turned and looked into the other room, where Bill Hadden was stood talking with his back to the door.

“Really? How interesting,” said Chief Constable Angus, taking another mouthful of whisky and rejoining the party.

Donald Foster was holding open the door for me and I got another gentle push in the back.

There was laughter coming from an upstairs room; a woman’s laugh.

I walked out of the house, the two men at my side, Foster behind me. I thought about sprinting across the lawn, making a dash for the Golden Fleece, wondering if they’d try and stop me in front of the party, knowing they would.

“Where are we going?”

“Just keep walking,” said one of the men, the one wearing a claret shirt.

We were at the top of the drive and I could see a man coming up from the gate towards us, half running, half walking.

“Shit,” said Don Foster.

We all stopped.

The two men looked at Foster, waiting for an order.

“It never bloody rains,” muttered Foster.

Councillor Shaw was out of breath, shouting, “Don!”

Foster walked a little way down to meet him, arms open, palms up, “Bill, nice to see you.”

“You shot my dog! You shot my bloody dog.”

Shaw was shaking his head, crying, trying to push Foster away.

Foster took him in a big bear hug, hushing him.

“You shot my dog!” screamed Shaw, breaking free.

Foster pulled him back into his arms, burying the man’s head inside his velvet tux.

Behind us on the steps to the door, Mrs Foster and a few guests stood shivering.

“What’s going on, love?” she said, her teeth and glass chat tering.

“Nothing. Everyone go back and have a good time.”

They all stood there on the steps, frozen.

“Go on. It’s bloody Christmas!” shouted Foster, Santa rucking Claus himself.

“Who wants to dance with me?” laughed Pat Foster, shaking her skinny tits and turning everyone back inside.

Dancing Machine thumped through the door, the fun and games resumed.

Shaw stood there, sobbing into Foster’s black velvet jacket.

Foster whispering, “This isn’t the time, Bill.”

“What about him?” said the man in the claret shirt.

“Just get him out of here.”

The other man in the red shirt took my elbow and started to lead me down the drive.

Foster didn’t look up, whispering into Shaw’s ear, “This is special, special for John.”

We walked past them, down the drive.

“You drive here did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Pass us your keys,” said Claret.

I did as I was told.

“That yours?” said Red pointing at the Viva, up on the pavement.

“Yeah.”

The men smiled at each other.

Claret opened the passenger door and lifted up the seat. “Get in the back.”

I got in the back with Red.

Claret got in behind the wheel and started the engine. “Where to?”

“New houses.”

I was sat in the back wondering why I hadn’t even bothered to try and get away, thinking maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as all that and how it couldn’t be any worse than the beating I’d taken at the Nursing Home, when Red hit me so fucking hard my head cracked the plastic side window.

“Shut the bloody fuck up,” he laughed, grabbing me by the hair and forcing my head down between my knees.

“If he were a nig-nog, he’d make you suck his cock,” shouted Claret from the front.

“Let’s have some fucking music,” said Red, still holding my head down.

Rebel Rebel filled the car.

“Turn it up,” shouted Red, lifting me back up by the hair, whispering, “Fucking puff.”

“Is he bleeding?” shouted Claret over the music.

“Not enough.”

He pushed me back towards the window, gripped me by the throat with his left hand, sat back a little way and rabbit-punched me on the bridge of my nose, sending hot blood across the car.

“That’s better,” he said and gently laid my head against the cracked glass.

I looked out at the centre of Wakefield on the Saturday before Christmas, 1974, the warm blood trickling from my nose to my lips and down on to my chin, thinking it’s quiet for a Saturday night.

“Is he out?” said Claret.

“Yep,” said Red.

Bowie gave way to Lulu or Ferula or Sandy or Cilia, The Little Drummer Boy washing over me, as Christmas lights became prison lights and the car bumped over the waste ground of Foster’s Construction.

“Here?”

“Why not.”

The car stopped, the Little Drummer Boy gone.

Claret got out and held up the driver’s seat as Red tipped me out on to the ground.

“He’s fucking gone, Mick.”

“Aye. Sorry, like.”

I lay face down between them, playing dead.

“What we supposed to do? Just leave him?”

“Fuck no.”

“What then?”

“Have some fun.”

“Not tonight Mick, I can’t be arsed with it.”

“Just a bit, eh?”

They took an arm each and dragged me across the ground, bringing my trousers down to my knees.

“In here?”

“Aye.”

They pulled me through the tarpaulin and across the wooden floor of a half-built house, splinters and nails ripping through my knees.

They sat me on a chair and bound my hands behind my back, pulling off my trousers over my shoes.

“Go bring car over here and put lights on.”

“Someone’ll see us.”

“Like who?”

I heard one of them go out and the other one come in close. He put his hand down inside my underpants.

“I hear you like a bit of cunt,” Red said, squeezing my balls.

I heard the engine of the car and the room was suddenly filled with white light and Kung-Fu Fighting.

“Let’s get it over with,” said Claret.

“Joe Bugner!” said a punch to the gut.

“Coon Conteh!” said another.

“George fucking Foreman,” said one across the jaw.

“The Ali Shuffle,” a pause, me waiting, then one from the left, one from the right.

“Bruce fucking Lee!”

I went flying back on the chair on to the ground, my chest fucked.

“Fucking puff,” said Claret, bending down and spitting into my face.

“We should fucking bury the cunt.”

Claret was laughing, “Best not mess with George’s foun dations.”

“I hate these fucking brainy bastards.”

“Leave him. Let’s go.”

“That it?”

“Fuck it, let’s just get back.”

“Take his car?”

“Get a taxi on Westgate.”

“Fucking hell.”

A kick in the back of the head. A foot upon my right hand. Lights out.

The cold woke me.

Everything was pitch-black with purple borders.

I kicked the chair away and pulled my hands out of the binding.

I sat up in my underpants on the wooden floor, my head loose, my body raw.

I reached across the floor and pulled my trousers to me. They were wet and stank of another man’s piss.

I put them on over my shoes.

Slowly, I stood up.

I fell back down once and then walked out of the half-built house.

The car was sitting in the dark, doors shut.

I tried both doors.

Locked.

I picked up a broken brick, walked round to the passenger window and put the brick through it.

I put my hand inside and pulled up the lock.

I opened the door, picked up the brick and battered in the lock on the glove compartment.

I pulled out map books and damp cloths and a spare key.

I went round to the driver’s side, opened the door and got in.

I sat in the car, staring at the dark empty houses, remem bering the best game I’d been to with my father.

Huddersfield were playing Everton. Town got a free kick on the edge of the Everton area. Vie Metcalfe steps up, bends the ball round the wall, Jimmy Glazzard heads it in. Goal. Referee disallows it, forget why, says take it again. Metcalfe steps up again, bends the ball round the wall, Glazzard heads it in. Goal, the whole crowd in fucking stitches.

· fucking 2.

“Press’ll have a field day. Bloody bury them,” laughed my father.

I started the engine and drove back to Ossett.

In the drive at Wesley Street, I looked at my father’s watch.

It was fucking gone.

Must have been about three or so.

Fuck, I thought as I opened the back door. There was a light on in the back room.

Fuck, I ought to at least say hello. Get it over with.

She was in her rocking chair, dressed but asleep.

I closed the door and went up the stairs, one at a time.

I lay on the bed in my piss-stinking clothes, looking at the poster of Peter Lorimer in the dark, thinking it would’ve broken my Dad’s heart.

Ninety miles an hour.