1974

Chapter 5

Dawn at the Redbeck Cafe and Motel, Tuesday 17 December 1974.

I’d driven all night and then come back here, as though it all came back here.

I paid two weeks up front and got what I paid for:

Room 27 was round the back, two bikers on one side and a woman and her four kids on the other. There was no phone, toilet, or TV. But two quid a night got me a view of the car park, a double bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a sink, and no questions.

I double-locked the door and drew the damp curtains. I stripped the bed and tacked the heaviest sheet over the curtains and then propped the mattress up against the sheet. I picked up a used johnny and stuffed it inside a half-eaten packet of crisps.

I went back out to the car, stopping for a piss in those toilets where I’d bought my ticket to this death trip.

I stood there pissing, not sure if it was Tuesday or Wed nesday, knowing this was as close as I could get. I shook it off and kicked open the cubicle door, knowing there’d be nothing but a melting yellow turd and puffter graffiti.

I went round the front to the cafe and bought two large black coffees with loads of sugar in dirty styrofoam cups. I opened the boot of the Viva and took the black bin-sack and the black coffees back to Room 27.

I double-locked the door again, drank down one of the coffees, emptied the bin-sack over the wooden base of the bed and went to work.

Barry Cannon’s files and envelopes were by name. I laid them out alphabetically on one half of the bed and then went through Hadden’s thick manila envelope, stuffing the sheets of paper into Barry’s relevant files.

Some names had titles, some ranks, most just plain mister. Some names I knew, some rang bells, most meant nothing.

On the other half of the bed, I spread out my files in three thin piles and one big one: Jeanette, Susan, Clare and, to the right, Graham Goldthorpe, Ratcatcher.

In the back of the wardrobe I found a roll of wallpaper. Taking a handful of my father’s pins, I turned over the wallpaper and tacked it to the wall above the desk. With a big red felt-tip pen I divided the back of the paper into five big columns. At the top of each column, in red block capitals, I wrote five names:

JEANETTE, SUSAN, CLARE, GRAHAM, and BARRY.

Next to the wallpaper chart I pinned a map of West Yorkshire from the Viva. With my red pen, I marked four red crosses and a red arrow straight out Rochdale way.

Drinking down the second cup of coffee, I steeled myself.

With trembling hands, I took an envelope from the top of Clare’s pile. Asking for forgiveness, I ripped open the envelope and took out three large black and white photographs. My stomach hollow, my mouth full of pins, I walked back over to my wallpaper chart and carefully pinned the three photographs above three of the names.

I stood back, tears on my cheeks, and gazed upon my new wallpaper, upon skin so pale, hair so fair, and wings so white.

An angel in black and white.

Three hours later, my eyes red with tears from the things I’d read, I got up from the floor of Room 27.

Barry’s story: 3 rich men: John Dawson, Donald Foster, and a third who Barry couldn’t or wouldn’t name.

My story: 3 dead girls: Jeanette, Susan, and Clare.

My story, his story-two stories: Same times, same places, different names, different faces.

Mystery, History:

One Link?

I had a small stack of coins on top of the payphone inside the lobby of the Redbeck.

“Sergeant Fraser please?”

The lobby was all yellows and browns and stank of smoke. Through the double glass doors I watched some kids playing pool and smoking.

“This is Sergeant Eraser.”

“It’s Edward Dunford speaking. I’ve received some infor mation about Sunday night, about Barry…”

“What kind of information?”

I cradled the phone between my chin and my neck and struck a match. “It was an anonymous call to the effect that Mr Cannon had gone to Morley in connection with Clare Kemplay,” I said with a cigarette between my teeth.

“Anything else?”

“Not over the phone.” To the side of the phone, etched in biro, were the words Young Cock and six telephone numbers.

“We better meet before the inquest,” said Sergeant Eraser.

Outside it had started to rain again and the lorry drivers were all pulling coats over their heads as they ran for the cafe and the bogs.

I said, “Where?”

“Angelo’s Cafe in an hour? It’s opposite Morley Town Hall.”

“OK. But I need a favour?” I looked for an ashtray but had to use the wall.

Eraser whispered down the line, “What?”

The pips went and I put in another coin. “I need the names and addresses of the workmen who found the body.”

“What body?”

“Clare Kemplay’s.” I began to count the love-hearts scribbled here and there around the phone.

“I don’t know…”

“Please,” I said.

Someone had written 4eva Igeva inside one of the hearts in red.

Eraser said, “Why me?”

“Because I think you’re a decent bloke and I need a favour and don’t know anybody else to ask.”

Silence, then, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“One hour then,” I said, hanging up.

I replaced the receiver, picked it up again, put in another coin, and dialled.

Des Shags Convicts Wives.

“Yeah?”

“Tell BJ, Eddie called and give him this number, 276578. Tell him to ask for Ronald Cannon, Room 27.”

Fuck You Wakey Ken.

I replaced the receiver, picked it up again, put in another coin, and dialled.

True Love Never Dies.

“Peter Taylor speaking?”

“Hello. Is Kathryn there please?”

“She’s still asleep.”

I looked at my father’s watch.

I said, “When she wakes up, can you tell her Edward called.”

“All right,” said her father, like it was some fucking enormous favour.

“Bye.” I replaced the receiver, picked it up again, put in my last coin, and dialled.

An old woman came into the lobby from the cafe smelling of bacon.

“Ossett 256199.”

“It’s me, Mum.”

“Are you all right, love? Where are you?”

One of the kids was chasing another around the pool table, brandishing a pool cue.

I said, “I’m fine. I’m at work.”

The old woman had sat down in one of the brown lobby chairs opposite the payphone and was staring out at the lorries and the rain.

“I might have to go away for a couple of days.”

“Where?”

The kid with the pool cue had the other one pinned down on the baize.

“Down South,” I said.

“You’ll phone, won’t you?”

The old woman farted loudly and the kids in the pool room stopped fighting and came running out into the lobby.

“Of course…”

“I love you, Edward.”

The kids rolled up their sleeves, put their lips to their arms, and began blowing raspberries.

“Me too.”

The old woman was staring out at the lorries and the rain, the kids dancing round her.

I replaced the receiver.

4 LUV .

Angelo’s Cafe, opposite Morley Town Hall, breakfast busy.

I was on my second cup of coffee, way past tired.

“Can I get you anything?” Sergeant Fraser was at the counter.

“Cup of coffee, please. Black, two sugars.”

I stared around the cafe at the wall of headlines guarding every breakfast:

534 Million Trade Deficit, Gas Up 12%, IRA Xmas Truce, a picture of the new Dr Who, and Clare.

“Morning,” said Fraser, setting down a cup of coffee in front of me.

“Thanks.” I drained my cold cup and took a sip from the hot one.

“I spoke with the coroner first thing. He says they’re going to have to adjourn.”

“They were pushing it a bit anyway.”

A waitress brought over a full breakfast and set it down in front of the Sergeant.

“Yeah, but what with Christmas and the family, it would’ve been nice.”

“Shit, yeah. The family.”

Fraser heaped half the plate on to his fork. “Do you know them?”

“No.”

“Lovely people,” sighed Fraser, mopping up the juice of the eggs and the tomatoes with a piece of toast.

“Yeah?” I said and wondered how old Fraser was.

“They’ll release the body though, so they’ll be able to have the funeral.”

“Get it out the way.”

Fraser put down his knife and fork and pushed the spotless plate to one side. “Thursday, I think they said.”

“Right. Thursday.” I couldn’t remember if we’d cremated my father last Thursday or Friday.

Sergeant Fraser sat back in his chair. “What about this anony mous call then?”

I leant forward, my voice low. “Like I said. Middle of the bleeding night…”

“Come on Eddie?”

I looked up at Sergeant Eraser, his blond hair, watery blue eyes and puffy red face, the trace of a Scouse accent and the simple wedding ring. He looked like the boy I had sat next to in chemistry.

“Can I level with you?”

“I think you’d better,” said Eraser, offering me a cigarette.

“Barry had a source, you know.” I lit the cigarette.

“A grass, you mean?”

“A source.”

Eraser shrugged, “Go on.”

“I got a call at the office last night. No name, just be at the Gaiety on Roundhay Road. You know it, yeah?”

“No,” laughed Eraser. “‘Course I bloody do. How did you know this was straight up?”

“Barry had a lot of contacts. He knew a lot of people.”

“What time was this?”

“About ten. Anyway, I went along and met this lad…”

Eraser had his sleeves on the table, leaning forward, smiling. “Who was he then?”

“Black lad, no name. Said he’d been with Barry on the Sunday night.”

“What did he look like?”

“Black, you know.” I stubbed out my cigarette and took another one from my own pack.

“Young? Old? Short? Tall?”

“Black. Curly hair, big nose, thick lips. What do you want me to say?”

Sergeant Eraser smiled. “He say if Barry Cannon was drinking?”

“I asked him and he said Barry had had a few but he wasn’t smashed or anything.”

“Where was this?”

I paused, thinking this was where I’d fuck up, then said, “The Gaiety.”

“Be some witnesses then?” Eraser had taken out his notebook and was writing in it.

“Gaiety witnesses, yeah.”

“I don’t suppose you tried to persuade our dark friend to relate any of this information to a member of his local con stabulary?”

“No.”

“So then?”

“About eleven or so, he said Barry said he was going over to Morley. That it was something to do with the Clare Kemplay murder.”

Sergeant Eraser was staring over my shoulder at the rain and the Town Hall opposite, “Like what?”

“He didn’t know.”

“You believe him?”

“Why not?”

“Fuck off, he’s having you on. Eleven o’clock on a Sunday night, after a skinful in the Gaiety?”

“That’s what he said.”

“All right. What do you reckon Gannon knew that could have made him come all the way over here, at that time on a Sunday night?”

“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what this lad told me.”

“And that’s it?” Sergeant Fraser was laughing. “Bollocks. You’re supposed to be a journalist. You must have asked him more questions than that.”

I lit another bloody cigarette. “Yeah. But I’m telling you, the lad knew fuck all.”

“All right, so what do you think Gannon found out?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know. But it does explain why he was in Morley.”

“Brass’11 love this,” sighed Fraser.

A waitress came over and took away the cups and the plate. The man on the next table was listening to us, looking at a photofit of the Cambridge Rapist that could have been anyone.

I said, “Did you get the names?”

Sergeant Fraser lit another cigarette and leant forward. “This is between us?”

“Of course,” I said and took out a pen and a piece of paper from my jacket.

“Two builders, Terry Jones and James Ashworth. They’re working on the new houses behind Wakefield Prison. It’s Foster’s Construction, I think.”

“Foster’s Construction,” I echoed, thinking Donald Foster, Barry Gannon, link.

“I don’t have their addresses and I wouldn’t give you them even if I did. So that’s your lot.”

“Thank you. Just one more thing?”

Fraser stood up. “What?”

“Who has access to the Clare Kemplay post-mortem report and photographs?”

Fraser sat back down. “Why?”

“I’m just curious. I mean, can any copper working the case get to see it?”

“It’s available, yeah.”

“Have you seen it?”

“I’m not on the case.”

“But you must have been part of the search party?”

Fraser looked at his watch. “Yeah, but the Murder Room’s out of Wakefield.”

“So you wouldn’t know when it first became available?”

“Why?”

“I just want to know about the procedure. I’m just curious.”

Fraser stood back up. “They’re not good questions to be asking, Eddie.” Then he smiled and winked and said, “I best be off. See you across the road.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Sergeant Fraser opened the cafe door and then turned back. “Keep in touch, yeah?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“And not a bloody word right?” He was half laughing.

“Not a word,” I muttered, folding up my piece of paper.

Gaz from Sport was coming up the Town Hall steps.

I was having a last cigarette, sat on the steps. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“That’s right bloody charming that is,” said Gaz, giving me his toothless grin. “I’m a witness I am.”

“Yeah?”

The grin was gone. “Yeah, straight up. I was supposed to meet Baz on Sunday night but he didn’t show up.”

“It’s going to be adjourned, you know?”

“You’re fucking joking? Why?”

“Police still don’t know what he was doing on Sunday night.” I offered Gaz a cigarette and lit another one for myself.

Gaz solemnly took the cigarette and the light. “Know he was fucking dead though, don’t they?”

I nodded and said, “Funeral’s Thursday.”

“Fuck. That quick?”

“Yeah.”

Gaz sniffed hard and then spat on one of the stone steps. “Seen the boss?”

“I haven’t been inside yet.”

He stubbed out his cigarette and started up the steps. “Best make a move.”

I said, “I’m going to wait here. If they need me, they know where I am.”

“Don’t blame you.”

“Listen,” I said, calling after him. “You heard anything about Johnny Kelly?”

“Fuck all,” said Gaz. “Some bloke in the Inns last night was saying Foster’s had it with him this time though.”

“Foster?”

“Don Foster. Trinity Chairman.”

I stood up. “Don Foster’s the chairman of Wakefield Trinity?”

“Yeah. Where the fuck you been?”

“Waste of bloody time that was.” Thirty minutes later, Gaz from Sport was coming down the Town Hall steps with Bill Hadden.

“You can’t rush these things Gareth,” Hadden was saying, looking odd without a desk.

I got up from my cold step to greet them. “At least they can go ahead with the funeral.”-

“Morning Edward,” said Hadden.

“Morning. Have you got a minute?”

“Family seemed to be taking it better than you’d think,” said Gaz, lowering his voice and glancing back up the steps.

I said, “That’s what I’d heard.”

“Very strong people. You want a word?” Hadden put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ll see everyone later,” said Gaz from Sport, down the steps two at a time, seizing his chance to dance.

“What about Cardiff City?” Hadden called after him.

“We’ll murder them Boss!” Gaz shouted back.

Hadden was smiling. “You can’t buy that kind of enthusiasm.”

“No,” I said. “That’s true.”

“What was it then?” Hadden said, folding his arms against the cold.

“I thought I’d go and see the two men who found the body, tie it in with this psychic and a bit about the history of Devil’s Ditch.” I said it much too quickly, like a man who’d had thirty minutes to think about it.

Hadden began stroking his beard, which was always bad news. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

“You think so?”

“Mmm. Except the tone worries me a little.”

“The tone?”

“Mmm. This medium, this psychic, it’s more of a background feature. Supplement stuff. But the men who found the body, I don’t know…”

Right back in his face: “But you said she knows the name of the killer. That’s not background, that’s Front Page.”

Hadden, not rising to the bait, said, “You’re going to talk to them today?”

“I thought I’d go over there now, seeing as I’ve got to go over to Wakefield anyhow.”

“All right,” said Hadden, walking off towards his Rover. “Bring it all back to me by five and we’ll go over it for tomorrow.”

“You got it,” I shouted, checking my father’s watch.

A Leeds and Bradford A to Z open on my lap, my notes on the passenger seat beside me, I nosed through the back and side streets of Morley.

I turned on to Victoria Road and drove slowly along, pulling up just before the junction with Rooms Lane and Church Street.

Barry must have been coming the other way, heading towards the Wakefield Road or the M62. The lorry would have been here, at the traffic lights on Victoria Road, waiting to turn right up Rooms Lane.

I flicked back through my notebook, faster and faster, back to the very first page.

Bingo.

I started the car, pulling out to wait at the traffic lights.

To my left, on the other side of the crossroads, a black church and, next to it, Morley Grange Junior and Infants.

The lights changed, I was still reading.

“At the junction of Rooms Lane and Victoria Road, Clare said goodbye to her friends and was last seen walking down Victoria Road towards her home…”

Clare Kemplay.

Last seen.

Goodbye.

I drove across the junction, a Co-op lorry waiting to turn right up Rooms Lane.

Barry’s lorry would have been here too, at the traffic lights on Victoria Road, waiting to turn right up Rooms Lane.

Barry Cannon.

Last seen.

Goodbye.

I crawled slowly along Victoria Road, car horns at my rear, Clare skipping along on the pavement beside me in her orange kagool and her red Wellington boots.

“Last seen walking down Victoria Road towards her home.”

The Sports Ground, Sandmead Close, Winterbourne Avenue.

Clare was standing at the corner of Winterbourne Avenue, waving.

I indicated left and turned on to Winterbourne Avenue.

It was a cul-de-sac of six older semi-detached and three new detached.

A policeman’ was standing in the rain outside number 3.

I reversed up the drive of one of the new detached houses to turn around.

I stared across the road at 3 Winterbourne Avenue.

Curtains drawn.

The Viva stalled.

A curtain twitched.

Mrs Kemplay, arms folded, in the window. The policeman checked his watch. I pulled away.

Foster’s Construction.

The building site was behind Wakefield Prison, yards from Devil’s Ditch.

Lunchtime on a wet Tuesday in December and the place was as quiet as the grave.

A low tune on the damp air, Dreams Are Ten A Penny.

I followed my ears.

“All right?” I said, pulling back the tarpaulin door of an unfinished house.

Four men chewing sandwiches, slurping tea from flasks.

“Help you?” said one.

“Lost are you?” said another.

I said, “I’m actually looking for…”

“Never heard of them,” said one.

“Journalist are you?” said another.

“Shows does it?”

“Yeah,” they all said.

“Well, do you know where I can find Terry Jones and James Ashworth?”

A big man in a donkey jacket stood up, swallowing half a loaf of bread. “I’m Terry Jones.”

I stuck out my hand. “Eddie Dunford. Yorkshire Post. Can I have a word?”

He ignored my hand. “Going to pay me are you?”

Everybody laughed into their tea.

“Well, we can certainly discuss it.”

“Well, you can certainly piss off if you don’t,” said Terry Jones to more laughter.

“Seriously,” I protested.

Terry Jones sighed and shook his head.

“Got a right bloody nerve, some folk,” said one of the men.

“Least he’s fucking local,” said another.

“Come on then,” yawned Terry Jones, before swilling out his mouth with the last of his tea.

“Make sure he bloody coughs up,” shouted another man as we went outside.

“Have you had a lot of papers here?” I asked, offering Terry Jones a cigarette.

“Lads said there was a photographer from Sun, but we were up Wood Street Nick.”

There was a thick drizzle in the air and I pointed to another half-built house. Terry Jones nodded and led the way.

“Police keep you long?”

“No, not really. Thing like this though, they’re not going to take any bloody chances are they?”

“What about James Ashworth?” We were standing in the doorway, the rain just missing us.

“What about him?”

“They keep him a long time?”

“Same.”

“Is he about?”

“He’s sick.”

“Yeah?”

“Something going around.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Terry Jones dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his boot and added, “Gaffer’s been off since Thursday, Jimmy yesterday and today, couple of other lads last week.”

I said, “Who found her, you or Jimmy?”

“Jimmy.”

“Where was she?” I said, looking out across the mud and the piss.

Terry Jones hawked up a massive piece of phlegm and said, “I’ll show you.”

We walked in silence over the building site to the trough of wasteland that runs parallel to the Wakefield-Dewsbury Road. A ribbon of blue and white police tape was strung along the ridge of the ditch. Across the ditch, on the road side, two coppers were sat in a Panda car. One of them looked across at us and nodded at Terry Jones.

He waved back. “How long do they keep this up?”

“No idea.”

“They had tents all over this until last night.”

I was staring down into Devil’s Ditch, at the rusted prams and the bicycles, at the cookers and the fridges. Foliage and litter snaked through everything, pulling it down into its mouth, making it impossible to see the bottom.

“Did you see her?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Fuck.”

“She was lying on top of a pram, about halfway down.”

“A pram?”

He was staring off at something far, far away. “Police took it. She had, aw fuck…”

“I know.” I had my eyes closed.

“Police said we hadn’t to tell anyone.”

“I know, I know.”

“But, fuck…” He was fighting with a lump in his throat, tears in his eyes.

I handed him another cigarette. “I know. I saw the photo graphs from the post-mortem.”

He pointed with the unlit cigarette at a separately marked piece of ground. “One of the wings was over there, near the top.”

“Fuck.”

“I wish to Christ I’d never seen her.”

I stared into Devil’s Ditch, the photos on the wall at the Redbeck swimming through my mind.

“If only it hadn’t been her,” he whispered.

“Where does Jimmy Ashworth live?”

Terry Jones looked at me. “I don’t think that’s a right good idea.”

“Please?”

“He’s taken it badly. He’s only a lad.”

“It might help him to talk,” I said, looking at a dirty blue pram halfway down the slope.

“That’s bollocks,” he sniffed.

“Please?”

“Fitzwilliam,” said Terry Jones and turned and walked away.

I ducked down under the blue police ribbon and, leaning into Devil’s Ditch by the root of a dead tree, I plucked a white feather from a bush.

An hour to kill.

I drove up past the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, parked, and jogged back into Wakefield through the rain, quick ening my pace as I passed the school.

Fifty minutes to kill.

Being Tuesday, I walked round the second-hand market, smoking cigarettes and getting soaked to the skin, staring at the prams and the children’s bicycles and the pickings from the house clearances of the dead.

The Indoor Market stank of wet clothes and there was still a book stall where Joe’s Books had been.

I glanced at my father’s watch, leafing through the pile of old superheroes.

Forty minutes to kill.

Every Saturday morning for three years, my father and I had got the 126 at half-past seven from Ossett bus station, my father reading the Post, talking about football or cricket, the empty shopping bags on his lap, as I dreamt of the pile of comics that was always my wage for helping Joe.

Every Saturday morning until that Saturday morning Old Joe hadn’t opened up and I had stood there waiting, my father coming by with two bags of shopping, the cheese wrapped in paper on the top.

Thirty-five minutes to kill.

In the Acropolis at the top of Westgate, where I’d once fancied the waitress, I forced down a plate of Yorkshire Pudding and onion gravy and then puked it straight back up in the little toilet in the back, the toilet where I’d always fantasised I’d finally get to fuck that waitress called Jane.

Twenty-five minutes to kill.

Outside in the rain, I headed on up to the Bullring, past the Strafford Arms, the hardest pub in the North, past the hairdresser’s where my sister had worked part-time and met Tony.

Twenty minutes to kill.

In Silvio’s, my mother’s favourite cafe and the place where I used to secretly meet Rachel Lyons after school, I ordered a chocolate eclair, I took out my damp notebook and began to read through the scant notes I had on Mystic Mandy.

“The future, like the past, is written. It cannot be changed, but it can help to heal the wounds of the present.”

I sat in the window and stared out at Wakeh’eld.

Futures past.

It was raining so hard now that the whole city looked under water. I wished to Christ it was, that the rain would drown the people and wash the place the fuck away.

I had killed all the time I had.

I drank down the cup of hot sweet tea, left the eclair, and headed back up to St Johns, a tea-leaf stuck to my lip and a feather in my pocket.

Blenheim Road was one of the most beautiful in Wakefield, with big strong trees and large houses set back in their own small grounds.

Number 28 was no exception, a rambling old house that had been subdivided into flats.

I walked across the drive, avoiding the holes full of puddles, and went inside. The windows in the hallway and on the stairs were stained glass and the whole place had the stink of an old church in winter.

Number 5 was on the first-floor landing, to the right.

I looked at my father’s watch and rang the doorbell. The chimes sounded like Tubular Bells and I was thinking of The Exor cist when the door opened.

A middle-aged woman, fresh from the pages of Yorkshire Life in her country blouse and country skirt, held out her hand.

“Mandy Wymer,” she said and shook hands briefly.

“Edward Dunford. From the Yorkshire Post.”

“Please, come in.” She pressed herself into the wall as I passed, leaving the front door ajar as she followed me down the dim hall, hung with dim oils, into a big dim room with large windows blocked by larger trees. There was a litter tray in one corner and the whole room smelt of it.

“Please sit down,” said the lady, pointing to the far corner of a large sofa draped in a tie-dyed cloth.

The woman’s conservative appearance jarred, both with the Oriental-cum-hippy decor and with her profession. It was a thought I obviously couldn’t disguise.

“My ex-husband was Turkish,” she suddenly said.

“Ex?” I said, switching on the Philips Pocket Memo in my pocket.

“He went back to Istanbul.”

I couldn’t resist. “You didn’t see it coming?”

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

I sat on the far end of the sofa, feeling like a twat, unable to think of anything to say.

Eventually I said, “I’m not making a very good impression, ami?”

Miss Wymer rose quickly from her chair. “Would you care for some tea?”

“That’d be nice, if it’s no trouble?”

The woman almost ran from the room, stopping suddenly in the doorway as though she had walked into a plate of glass.

“You smell so strongly of bad memories,” she said quietly, her back to me.

“Pardon?”

“Of death.” She stood in the doorway, shaking and pale, her hand gripping the frame of the door.

I got up. “Are you OK?”

“I think you’d better leave,” she whispered, slipping down the frame of the door and on to the floor.

“Miss Wymer…” I went across the room towards her.

“Please! No!”

I reached out, wanting to pick her up. “Miss Wymer…”

“Don’t touch me!”

I backed off, the woman curling into a tight ball.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s so strong.” She was moaning, not speaking.

“What is?”

“It’s all over you.”

“What is?” I shouted, angry, thinking of BJ and these days and nights spent in rented rooms with the mentally ill. “What is, tell me?”

“Her death.”

The air was suddenly thick and murderous.

“What are you fucking talking about?” I was going towards her, the blood drumming in my ears.

“No!” She was screaming, sliding back on her arse up the hall, her arms and legs splayed, her country skirt riding up. “God no!”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I was screaming now, flying up the hall after her.

She scrambled to her feet, begging, “Please, please, please, leave me alone.”

“Wait!”

She turned into a room and slammed the door on me, trap ping one of the fingers of my left hand in the hinges for a second.

“You fucking bitch!” I shouted, kicking and punching the locked door. “You crazy fucking bitch!”

I stopped, put my throbbing left fingers in my mouth and sucked.

The flat was silent.

I leant my head against the door and quietly said, “Please, Miss Wymer…”

I could hear scared sobs from behind the door.

“Please, Miss Wymer. I need to talk to you.”

I heard the sound of furniture being moved, of chests of drawers and wardrobes being placed in front of the door.

“Miss Wymer?”

A faint voice came through the layers and layers of wood and doors, a child whispering to a friend beneath the covers.

“Tell them about the others…”

“Pardon?”

“Please tell them about the others.”

I was leaning against the door, my lips tasting the varnish. “What others?”

“The others.”

“What fucking others?” I shouted, pulling and twisting at the handle.

“All the others under those beautiful new carpets.”

“Shut up!”

“Under the grass that grows between the cracks and the stones.”

“Shut up!” My fists into wood, my knuckles into blood.

“Tell them. Please tell them where they are.”

“Shut up! Fucking shut up!”

My head against the door, the tide of noise retreating, the flat silent and dim.

“Miss Wymer?” I whispered.

Silence, dim silence.

As I left the flat, licking and sucking my knuckles and fingers, I saw the door across the landing open slightly.

“Keep your fucking nose out!” I shouted, running down the stairs.

“Less you want it bloody cutting off!”

Ninety miles an hour, spooked.

Foot down on Motorway One, exorcising the Ghosts of Wake-field Past and Present.

Into the rearview mirror, a green Rover hugging my tail. Me paranoid, making it for an unmarked police car.

Eyes high into the sky, driving inside the fat belly of a whale, the sky the colour of its grey flesh, stark black trees its mighty bones, a damp prison.

Into the mirror, the Rover gaining.

Taking the Leeds exit at the charred remains of the gypsy camp, the black frames of the burnt-out caravans more bones, standing in some pagan circle to their dead.

Into the mirror, the green Rover heading North.

Underneath the station arches, parking the Viva, two black crows eating from black bin-bags, ripping through the wasted meat, their screams echoing into the dark in this, the Season of the Plague.

Ten minutes later I was at my desk.

I dialled Directory Enquiries, then James Ashworth, then BJ.

No answers, everybody Christmas shopping.

“You look terrible.” Stephanie, files in her arms, fat as fuck.

“I’m fine.”

Stephanie stood there, in front of my desk, waiting.

I stared at the only Christmas card on my desk, trying to switch off the visions of Jack Whitehead fucking her up trap two, getting a little hard myself.

“I spoke to Kathryn last night.”

“So?”

“Don’t you bloody care?” She was already angry.

So was I. “It’s none of your business how I fucking feel.”

She didn’t move, just kept standing there, shifting her weight from foot to foot, her eyes filling up.

I felt bad and so I said, “I’m sorry Steph.”

“You’re a pig. A fucking pig.”

“I’m sorry. How is she?”

She was nodding her fat face, agreeing with her own fat thoughts. “It’s not the first time is it?”

“What did Kathryn say?”

“There have been others haven’t there?”

Others, always the bloody others.

“I know you, Eddie Dunford,” she went on, leaning forward across the desk, her arms like thighs. “I know you.”

“Shut up,” I said quietly.

“How many others have there been, eh?”

“Keep your bloody nose out, you fat bitch.”

Applause and cheers rang out across the office, fists banging on desks, feet stamping.

I stared at Kathryn’s Christmas card.

“You pig,” she spat.

I looked up from the card but she was gone, sobbing out the door.

Across the office George Greaves and Gaz raised their ciga rettes in salute, giving me the thumbs up.

I held up my thumb, fresh blood on my knuckle.

It was five o’clock.

“I still need to talk to the other one, James Ashworth. He was the one who actually found the body.”

Hadden looked up from his pile of Christmas cards. He put one of the larger cards to the bottom of the pile and said, “It’s all a bit thin.”

“She was round the bloody twist.”

“Did you try and get a quote from the police.”

“No.”

“Maybe just as well,” he sighed, continuing to look through his cards.

I was tired beyond sleep, hungry beyond food, the room beyond hot and all too real.

Hadden was looking up from his cards at me.

“Anything new today?” I asked, my mouth suddenly full of bilious water.

“Nothing that’s fit to print. Jack’s off on one of his…”

I swallowed. “One of his?”

“He’s playing his cards close to his chest, shall we say.”

“I’m sure he’s doing what’s best.”

Hadden handed back the draft of my piece.

I opened the folder on my knee, putting away the one piece and taking out another. “And then there’s this?”

Hadden took the sheet from me and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

I stared out of the window behind him, the reflection of the yellow office lights on top of a dark wet Leeds.

“Mutilated swans, eh?”

“As I’m sure you know, there’s been a spate of animal muti lations.”

Hadden sighed, his cheeks turning red. “I’m not stupid. Jack showed me the post-mortem.”

I could hear people laughing in another part of the building.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Hadden took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’re trying too bloody hard.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“You’re like Barry. He was the same, always…”

“I wasn’t going to mention the post-mortem or Clare.”

Hadden was on his feet, pacing. “You can’t just write things and then assume it’s the bloody truth because you think it is.”

“I never do that.”

“I don’t know,” he was talking to the night. “It’s like you’re shooting at the whole bloody bush just on the off-chance there might be something in there worth killing.”

I said, “I’m sorry you think that.”

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, you know.”

“I know.”

Hadden turned round. “Arnold Fowler’s worked for us for years.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want to be going out there and frightening the poor bloke with your horror stories.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Hadden sat back down and sighed loudly. “Get some quotes. Give it a paternal tone and don’t mention the bloody Clare Kemplay case.”

I stood up, the room suddenly going dark and then light again. “Thank you.”

“We’ll run it on Thursday. Straightforward abuse of animals.”

“Of course.” I opened the door for air, support, and an exit.

“Like the pit ponies.”

I ran for the bogs, my guts in my gob.

“Hello. Is Kathryn there please?”

“No.”

The office was quiet and I had almost finished what I had to do.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“No.”

I was drawing wings and roses upon my blotter. I put down my pen.

“Can you tell her Edward called?”

They hung up.

I scrawled The Medium & The Message across the top of the article in biro, then added a question mark and lit a cigarette.

After a few drags, I tore a sheet of paper from my notebook, stubbed out my cig, and wrote two lists. At the bottom of the page I wrote Dawson and underlined it.

I felt tired, hungry, and utterly lost.

I closed my eyes against the harsh bright office light and the white noise that filled my thoughts.

It took me a moment to pick out the sound of the phone.

“Edward Dunford speaking?”

“This is Paula Garland.”

I leant forward in my chair, my elbows on the desk sup porting the weight of the phone and my head. “Yes?”

“I heard you saw Mandy Wymer today.”

“Yeah, sort of. How did you know?”

“Our Paul said.”

“Right.” I’d no idea what to say next.

There was a long pause, then she said, “I need to know what she said.”

I was upright in my chair, changing hands and wiping the sweat on my trouser leg.

“Mr Dunford?”

“Well, she didn’t say very much.”

“Please, Mr Dunford. Anything at all?”

I had the phone cradled between my ear and my chin, looking at my father’s watch and stuffing The Medium & The Message into an envelope.

I said, “I can meet you in the Swan. About an hour?”

“Thank you.”

Down the corridor, into records.

Through the files, cross index, tear it down.

Looking at my father’s watch, 8.05 PM

Back in time:

· July 1969, the Moon Landings, small steps and giant leaps.

· 12 July 1969, Jeanette Garland, 8, missing.

· 13 July, A Mother’s Emotional Plea.

· 14 July, Detective Superintendent Oldman appeals.

· 15 July, police retrace Jeanette’s last small steps.

· 16 July, police widen search.

· 17 July, police baffled.

· 18 July, police call off search.

· 19 July, Medium Contacts Police.

Small Steps and Giant Leaps.

17 December 1974, a notebook full of scrawled quotes.

Looking at my father’s watch, 8.30 PM

Out of time.

The Swan, Castleford.

I was at the bar, ordering a pint and a Scotch.

The place was Christmas busy with a works do, everybody chanting along to the jukebox.

A hand at my elbow.

“Is one of them for me?”

“Which one do you want?”

Mrs Paula Garland picked up the whisky and made her way through the crowd to the cigarette machine. She put her handbag and glass on top of the machine.

“Do you come here often, Mr Dunford?” she smiled.

“Edward, please.” I put my pint down on top of the machine. “No, not often enough.”

She laughed and offered me a cigarette. “First time?”

“Second,” I said, thinking of the last time.

She took a light from me. “It’s not usually this busy.”

“You come here often then?”

“Are you trying to pick me up, Mr Dunford?” She was laughing.

I blew smoke above her head and smiled.

“I used to come here a lot,” she said, the laughter suddenly gone.

I was unsure what to say and said, “Seems like a nice local.”

“It was.” She picked up her drink.

I tried very hard not to stare but she was so pale against the red of her sweater, the rolls and folds of its neck making her whole head seem so very small and fragile.

And, as she drank the whisky, little spots of red appeared on her cheeks, making her look as though she’d been punched or beaten.

Paula Garland took another mouthful and drained her glass. “About Sunday. I…”

“Forget it. I was right out of order. Another one?” I said, all a bit too quickly.

“I’m all right for now, ta.”

“Well, just say.”

Elton John took over from Gilbert O’Sullivan.

We both looked awkwardly around the pub, smiling at the party hats and the mistletoe.

Paula said, “You saw Mandy Wymer then?”

I lit another cigarette, my stomach flipping. “Yeah.”

“Why did you go?”

“She claimed she told the police where to find Clare Kem-play’s body.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“Two builders found the body.”

“What did she say?”

“I didn’t really get a chance to ask her,” I said.

Paula Garland pulled hard on her cigarette and then said, “Does she know who did it?”

“She claims to.”

“She didn’t say?”

“No.”

She was playing with her empty glass, spinning it on top of the cigarette machine. “Did she mention Jeanette?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” There were tears in her eyes.

“She said something about ‘the others’, that’s all.”

“What? What did she say?”

I stared around the pub. We were almost whispering but it was the only sound I could hear, like the rest of the world had been switched off.

“She said I should ‘tell them about the others’ and then she just rambled on about bloody carpets and the grass between the stones.”

Paula Garland had turned her back to me, her shoulders trembling.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry Mr Dunford,” she said to the red velvet wall paper. “You’ve been very kind to come here, but I need to be alone now.”

Paula Garland picked up her bag and her cigarettes. When she turned around her face was streaked with faint black lines from her eyes to her lips.

I held up my palms, blocking her path. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Please,” she insisted.

“At least let me give you a lift home.”

“No thank you.”

She pushed past me, out through the crowd and the door.

I drained my pint and picked up my cigs.

Brunt Street, the dark line of terraces facing the white-fronted semis, few lights on either side.

I parked on the semi side, at the opposite end to Number 11, and counted Christmas trees as I waited.

There was a tree but no lights in Number 11.

Nine trees and five minutes later, I heard her tall brown boots. I watched from low down in my seat as Paula Garland unlocked the red door and went inside.

No lights went on in Number 11.

I sat in the Viva just watching, wondering what I’d say if I dared to knock upon that red door.

Ten minutes later, a man in a cap with a dog came out of one of the semis and crossed the road. He turned and stared at my car as his dog took a shit on the terrace side of the street.

The lights in Number 11 had still not gone on.

I started the Viva.

My mouth greasy from a bad plate of Redbeck chips, I arranged a small stack of coins on top of the payphone and dialled.

“Yeah?”

“Did you tell BJ Eddie called?”

I could see the same kids playing pool through the double glass doors.

“He left a message. He’ll call you back at twelve.”

I hung up.

I checked my father’s watch, 11.35 PM

I picked up the receiver and dialled again.

On the third ring, I hung up.

Fuck her.

I sat down to wait in the brown lobby chair where the woman had farted this morning, the click of the pool balls and the curses of the kids keeping me awake.

Twelve on the dot I was out of my chair and on top of the phone before any of the kids had a chance.

“Yeah?”

BJ said, “Ronald Cannon?”

“It’s me, Eddie. You got my message?”

“Yeah.”

“I need your help and I want to help you.”

“You didn’t seem so sure last night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So you should be. Have you got a pen?”

“Yeah,” I said, scrambling through my pockets.

“You might want to speak to Marjorie Dawson. She’s in the Hartley Nursing Home in Hemsworth and she’s been there since Sunday, since she saw Barry.”

“How the fuck did you find that out?”

“I know people.”

“I want to know who told you.”

“I want never gets.”

“Fuck off, BJ. I have to know.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Fuck.”

“I can tell you this though: I saw Jack Whitehead coming out of the Gaiety and he looked smashed and mad. You should be careful my dear.”

“You know Jack?”

“We go way, way back.”

“Thank you.”

“Mention it,” he laughed and hung up.

I awoke three times from the same dream on the floor of Room 27.

Each time thinking, I’m safe now, I’m safe now, go back to sleep.

Each time the same dream: Paula Garland on Brunt Street, clutching a red cardigan tight around her, screaming ten years of noise into my face.

Each time a big black crow came out of a sky a thousand shades of grey and clawed through her dirty blonde hair.

Each time chasing her down the street, after her eyes.

Each time frozen, waking cold on the floor.

Each time the moonlight seeping into the room, shadows making the photos on the wall come to life.

The last time, the windows all running with blood.