1974

Chapter 7

· AM, Thursday 19 December 1974.

My mother was sat in her rocking chair in the back room, staring out at the garden in the grey morning sleet.

I handed her a cup of tea and said, “I’ve come for my black suit.”

“There’s a clean shirt on your bed,” she said, still looking out of the window, not touching the tea.

“Thanks,” I said.

“What the fuck happened to your hand?” said Oilman from the Manchester Evening News.

“I got it caught,” I smiled, taking my seat down the front.

“Not the only one, eh?” winked Tom from Bradford.

West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police HQ, Wood Street, Wakefield.

“Aye, and how’s that bird?” laughed Gilman.

“Shut it,” I whispered, red-faced, checking my father’s watch, 8.30.

“Someone died?” said New Face, sitting down behind three black suits.

“Yeah,” I said and didn’t turn round.

“Shit, sorry,” he mumbled.

“Southern wanker,” muttered Gilman.

I looked back at all the TV lights. “Fuck, it’s hot.”

“Which way you come in?” asked Tom from Bradford.

New Face said, “The front.”

“Many folk outside?”

“Fucking hundreds.”

“Shit.”

“Got a name?” whispered Gilman.

“Yeah,” I smiled.

“Address?” said Gilman, loud and proud.

“Yeah,” we all said together.

“Fuck.”

“Morning ladies,” said Jack Whitehead, sitting down directly behind me, kneading my shoulders hard.

“Morning Jack,” said Tom from Bradford.

“Keeping your hand in, Scoop?” he laughed.

“Just in case you miss anything, Jack.”

“Now, now, girls,” winked Gilman.

The side door opened.

Three big smiles in three big lounge suits.

Chief Constable Ronald Angus, Detective Chief Superin tendent George Oldman, and Detective Superintendent Peter Noble.

Three fat cats who had got their cream.

A bang and a whistle as the microphones went on.

Chief Constable Angus picked up a piece of white A4 paper and grinned broadly.

“Gentlemen, good morning. A man was arrested early yes terday morning on the Doncaster Road, Wakefield, following a brief police chase. Sergeant Bob Craven and PC Bob Douglas had signalled to the driver of a white Ford transit van to pull over in connection with a faulty brakelight. When the driver of the van refused, the officers gave chase and eventually forced the vehicle off the road.”

Chief Constable Angus, wavy hair like a grey walnut whip, paused, still beaming, like he was expecting applause.

“The man was brought here to Wood Street, where he was questioned. During the course of a preliminary interview, the man indicated he had information about more serious matters. Detective Superintendent Noble then proceeded to interview the man in relation to the abduction and murder of Clare Kemplay. At eight o’clock yesterday evening, the man confessed. He was then formally charged and will appear in court before Wakefield Magistrates later this morning.”

Angus sat back with the look of a man stuffed full of Christmas Pudding.

The room erupted in a firestorm of questions and names.

The three men bit their tongues and broadened those grins.

I stared into Oldman’s black eyes.

“You think you’re the only cunt putting that together?”

Oldman’s eyes on mine.

“My senile bloody mother could.”

The Detective Chief Superintendent looked at his Chief Con stable and exchanged a nod and a wink.

Oldman raised his hands. “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Yes, the man in custody is also being questioned about other similar offences. However, at the present time, that is all the information I’m able to give you. But, on behalf of the Chief Constable, Detective Superintendent Noble, and all the men who have been involved in this investigation, I would like to publicly thank Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas. They are outstanding officers, who have our heartfelt thanks.”

Again, the room was ablaze with names, dates, and questions.

Jeanette ‘69 and Susan ‘72, unanswered.

The three men and their grins stood up.

“Thank you, gents,” shouted Noble, holding the side door open for his superiors.

“Fuck off!” I shouted in my black suit, clean shirt, and grey bandages.

HANG THE BASTARD,

HANG THE BASTARD,

HANG THE BASTARD NOW.

Wood Street, Wakefield’s Trinity of Government: The Nick, the Court, and the Town Hall. Just gone nine and mob deep.

COWARD, COWARD, MYSHKIN IS A COWARD!

Two thousand housewives and their unemployed sons. Gilman, Tom, and me, in the thick of the thick. Two thousand hoarse raw throats and their sons. A suedehead with his Mam, a Daily Mirror, and a home made noose. Proof enough.

COWARD, COWARD, MYSHKIN IS A COWARD.

Ugly hands pulling, grabbing, and pushing us; This way and that way and that way and this. Suddenly pinched, getting my collar felt by the long arm of the law.

Sergeant Fraser to the rescue.

STRING HIM UP! STRING HIM UP! STRING THE BLOODY BASTARD UP.

Behind the marble walls and the thick oak doors of Wakefield Magistrates Court there lay a brief kind of calm, but not for me.

“I need to talk to you,” I whispered, spinning round and straightening my tie.

“Too fucking right,” hissed Eraser. “But not here and not now.”

The size tens tapped off down the corridor.

I pushed through the door into Court Number Two, packed tight and quiet.

Every seat taken, standing room only.

No families, only the gentlemen of the press.

Jack Whitehead down the front, leaning over the wooden railing, laughing with an usher.

I stared up at the stained-glass windows with their scenes of hills and sheep, mills and Jesus, the light outside so dull that the glass just reflected back the strips of electric lights that buzzed so loudly overhead.

Jack Whitehead turned round, narrowed his eyes, and saluted me.

Low beneath the marble and the oak, the muffled chants of the crowd outside seemed to bleed in under all our whispers, their screams marking out time on some ancient galley.

“It’s fucking mental out there,” panted Gilman.

“At least we got in,” I said, leaning against the back wall.

“Aye. Fuck knows what happened to Tom and Jack.”

I pointed to the front of the public gallery. “Jack’s down there.”

“How the fuck he get there so fast?”

“There must be some underground tunnel or something linking here and the Nick.”

“Aye. And Jack’11 have a bloody key,” snorted Gilman.

“That’s our Jack.”

I turned suddenly towards the stained-glass windows as a black shape rose on the outside and then fell away like some giant bird.

“What the fuck was that?”

“A placard or something. Natives are getting restless.”

“Not the only ones.”

And then there he was, right on cue.

A dock full of plainclothes staring out at the court, one of them handcuffed to him.

Michael John Myshkin stood at the front of the dock in a dirty pair of blue overalls and a black donkey jacket, fat as fuck with a head too big.

I swallowed hard, my stomach churning with rising bile.

Michael John Myshkin blinked and blew a bubble of spit with his lips.

I reached for my pen, pain shooting from my nail to my shoulder, and had to lean back against the wall.

Michael John Myshkin, looking older than twenty-two, grinned at us with the smile of a boy half his age.

The Court Clerk stood up in the pit below, coughed once and said, “Are you Michael John Myshkin of 54 Newstead View, Fitzwilliam?”

“Yes,” said Michael John Myshkin, looking round at one of the detectives in the dock.

“You are accused that on or between the twelfth and four teenth of December you did murder Clare Kemplay against the peace of Our Sovereign Lady the Queen. Further, you are charged that at Wakefield on the eighteenth of December you did drive without due care and attention.”

Michael John Myshkin, Frankenstein’s Monster in manacles, rested his one free hand on the front of the dock and sighed.

The Clerk of the Court nodded at another man sat opposite.

The man stood up and announced, “William Bamforth, County prosecuting solicitor. For the record, Mr Myshkin has no legal representation at present. On behalf of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police, I am asking that Mr Myshkin be remanded in custody for a further eight days so that he might continue to be questioned about offences of a similar nature to that with which he has already been charged. I would also like to’remind the people in court and particularly the members of the press that this case remains sub-judice. Thank you.”

The Clerk stood up again. “Mr Myshkin, do you have any objection to the prosecuting solicitor’s request that you be held in custody for a further eight days?”

Michael John Myshkin looked up and shook his head. “No.”

“Do you wish reporting restrictions be lifted?”

Michael John Myshkin looked at one of the detectives.

The detective shook his head ever so slightly and Michael John Myshkin whispered, “No.”

“Michael John Myshkin, you will be remanded in custody for eight days. Reporting restrictions remain.”

The detective turned, pulling Myshkin behind him.

The whole of the public gallery craned forward.

Michael John Myshkin stopped at the top of the stairs, turned to look back at the court, then almost slipped and had to be steadied by one of the officers.

The last we saw of him was a big hand disappearing down the steps into the belly of the court, waving bye-bye.

That was the hand that took life, I thought.

And then the murdering bastard was gone.

“What do you think?”

I said, “He looks the part.”

“Aye. He’ll do,” winked Gilman.

It was going up to eleven when the Viva, followed by Oilman’s car, turned into Dewsbury Crematorium.

The sleeting rain had eased to a cold drizzle but the wind was as raw as it had been last week, and there was no fucking way I could light a cigarette with one hand in bandages.

“Later,” muttered Sergeant Fraser at the door.

Gilman looked at me but said nowt.

Inside, the crematorium was packed silent.

One family, plus press.

We took a pew at the back of the chapel, straightening ties and wetting down hair, nodding at half the newspaper offices of the North of England.

Jack fucking Whitehead down the front, leaning over his pew, chatting with Hadden, his wife, and the Cannons.

I stared up at another stained-glass wall of hills and sheep, mills and Jesus, praying that Barry got a better one than my father had.

Jack Whitehead turned, narrowed his eyes, and waved my way.

The wind whistled round the building outside, like the cries of the sea and her gulls, and I sat and wondered whether birds could talk or not.

“Wish they’d bloody get on with it,” whispered Gilman.

“Where’s Jack?” asked Tom from Bradford.

“Down there,” I smiled.

“Fuck me. Not another bloody tunnel?” laughed Gilman.

“Mind your language,” whispered Tom.

Gilman studied his prayer book. “Shit, sorry.”

I turned suddenly towards the stained-glass window as Kathryn Taylor, all in black, walked down the aisle past the glass, arm in arm with Fat Steph and Gaz from Sport.

Gilman gave me a hard nudge and a wink. “You lucky barstool.”

“Fuck off,” I hissed, red-faced, watching the knuckles on my one good hand turn from red to white as they gripped the wooden pew.

Suddenly the organist hit all the bloody keys at once.

Everybody stood up.

And there he was.

I stared at the coffin at the front of the room, unable to remember if my father’s had been a paler or darker wood than Barry’s.

I looked down at the prayer book on the ground, thinking of Kathryn.

I looked up, wondering where she was sitting.

A fat man in a brown cashmere coat was staring at me across the aisle.

We both turned and looked down at the floor.

“Where have you been?”

“Manchester,” said Kathryn Taylor.

We were outside the crematorium, standing on the slope between the door and the cars, the wind and the rain colder than ever. Black suits and coats were filing out, trying to light cigarettes, put up umbrellas, and shake hands.

“What were you doing in Manchester?” I asked, knowing full bloody well what she was doing in Manchester.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, walking away towards Fat Steph’s car.

“I’m sorry.”

Kathryn Taylor kept walking.

“Can I phone you tonight?”

Stephanie opened the passenger door and Kathryn bent down and picked up something from the seat.

She turned round and hurled a book at me, screaming, “Here, you forgot this the last time you fucked me!”

A Guide to the Canals of the North flew across the crematorium drive, scattering schoolgirl photographs in its wake.

“Fuck,” I spat, scrambling to pick up the photos.

Fat Steph’s small white car reversed out of the crematorium car park.

“Plenty more fish in the sea.”

I looked up from the ground. Sergeant Fraser handed me a picture of a smiling blonde ten-year-old.

“Fuck off,” I said.

“There’s no need for that.”

I snatched the photo from him. “No need for what?”

Hadden, Jack Whitehead, Gilman, Gaz, and Tom were all milling about up by the doorway, watching us.

Fraser said, “I’m sorry about your hand.”

“You’re sorry? You fucking set me up.”

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

“Bet you fucking don’t.”

“Listen,” said Fraser. “We need to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

He pushed a scrap of paper into my top pocket. “Call me tonight.”

I walked away towards my car.

“I’m sorry,” shouted Fraser against the wind.

“Piss off,” I said, taking my keys out.

Next to the Viva, two big men were stood talking by a deep red Jaguar. I unlocked my door, took the keys out, then opened it, all with my left hand. I leant inside the car, dumped the fucking book and the photos on the back seat, and put the keys in the ignition.

“Mr Dunford?” said the fat man in the brown cashmere coat, across the roof of the Viva.

“Yeah?”

“Fancy a spot of lunch?”

“What?”

The fat man smiled, rubbing his leather-gloved hands together. “I’ll treat you to lunch.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Let’s just say, you won’t regret it.”

I looked back up the hill to the crematorium doorway.

Bill Hadden and Jack Whitehead were talking to Sergeant Fraser.

“All right,” I said, thinking fuck a Press Club wake.

“Do you know Karachi Social Club on Bradford Road?”

“No.”

“It’s next to Variety Club, just before you come into Batley.”

“Right.”

“Ten minutes?” said the fat man.

“I’ll just follow you.”

“Champion.”

Paki Town, the only colour left.

Black bricks and saris, brown boys playing cricket in the cold.

The Mosque and the Mill, make it Yorkshire 1974:

The Curry and the Cap.

Having lost the Jag at the last set of traffic lights, I pulled into the unsurfaced car park next to the Batley Variety Club and parked beside the deep red car.

Shirley Bassey was playing the Christmas Show next door and I could hear her band rehearsing as I picked my way through the dirty puddles, full of cigarette ends and crisp packets, to the strains of Goldfinger.

The Karachi Social Club was a detached three-storey building that had once been something to do with the rag trade.

I walked up the three stone steps to the restaurant, switched on the Philips Pocket Memo, and opened the door.

Inside, the Karachi Social Club was a cavernous red room with heavy floral wallpaper and the piped sounds of the East.

A tall Pakistani in a spotless white tunic showed me to the only table with customers.

The two fat men were sitting side by side, facing the door, two pairs of leather gloves before them.

The older man, the one who had invited me to lunch, stood up with an outstretched hand and said, “Derek Box.”

I shook hands across the table with my left hand and sat down looking at the younger man with the well-boxed face.

“This is Paul. He helps me,” said Derek Box.

Paul nodded but said nowt.

The waiter brought over a silver tray with thin popadums and pickles.

“We’ll all have the special, Sammy,” said Derek Box, breaking a popadum.

“Very good, Mr Box.”

Box smiled at me. “Hope you like your curry hot.”

“I’ve only had it once before,” I said.

“Well, you’re in for a right bloody treat then.”

I stared around the huge dim room with its heavy white tablecloths and thick silver cutlery.

“Here,” said Derek Box, spooning some pickles and yoghurt on to a popadum. “Pile a load of this on.”

I did as I was told.

“You know why I like this place?”

“No?” I said, wishing I hadn’t.

“Because it’s private. Just wogs and us.”

I picked up my sagging popadum in my left hand and shoved it into my mouth.

“That’s the way I like things,” said Box. “Private.”

The waiter returned with three pints of bitter.

“And the fucking grub’s not bad either, eh Sammy?” laughed Box.

“Thank you very much Mr Box,” said the waiter.

Paul smiled.

Derek Box raised his pint glass and said, “Cheers.”

Paul and I joined him and then drank.

I took out my cigarettes. Paul held out a heavy Ronson lighter for me.

“This is nice, eh?” said Derek Box.

I smiled. “Very civilised.”

“Aye. Not like that kind of shit there,” said Box, pointing at my grey bandaged hand on the white tablecloth.

I looked down at my hand and then back at Box.

He said, “I was a great admirer of your colleague’s work, Mr Dunford.”

“You knew him well?”

“Oh aye. We had a very special relationship.”

“Yeah?” I said, picking up my pint.

“Mmm. Mutually beneficial it was.”

“In what way?”

“Well, I’m in the fortunate position to be able to occasionally pass on information that comes my way.”

“What kind of information?”

Derek Box put down his pint and stared at me.

“I’m no grass, Mr Dunford.”

“I know.”

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

I took a big gob full of beer and then quietly I asked him, “What kind of businessman?”

He smiled. “Motor cars, though I have ambitions towards the building trade, I make no bones about it.”

“What kind of ambitions?”

“Thwarted ones,” laughed Derek Box. “At moment.”

“So how did you and Barry…”

“As I say, I’m no angel and I’ve never pretended otherwise. However, mere are men in this country, in this county, who have a bit too much of the pie for my liking.”

“The construction pie?”

“Aye.”

“So you were giving Barry information about certain people and their activities in the building world?”

“Aye. Barry showed a particular interest in, as you say, the activities of certain gentlemen.”

The waiter returned with three plates of yellow rice and three bowls of deep red sauce. He laid a dish and a plate in front of each of us.

Paul picked up his bowl and upended it over the plate of rice, mixing it all in together.

The waiter said, “Would you like nans, Mr Box?”

“Aye, Sammy. And another round.”

“Very good, Mr Box.”

I took the spoon from my curry bowl and let a small amount slide on to the rice.

“Get stuck in, lad. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”

I took a forkful of curry and rice, felt the fire in my mouth, and drained my pint.

After a minute, I said, “Yeah, that’s all right that is.”

“All right? It’s fucking delicious is what it is,” laughed Box with an open red mouth.

Paul nodded, breaking into a matching curry grin.

I took another forkful of curry and rice, watching the two fat men edging nearer to their plates with every mouthful.

I remembered Derek Box, or at least I remembered the stories people used to tell about Derek Box and his brothers.

I took a mouthful of yellow rice, looking over to the kitchen door for the next pint.

I remembered the stories of the Box Brothers practising their high-speed getaways down Field Lane, how kids would come down and watch them on a Sunday morning, how Derek was always the driver and Raymond and Eric were always the ones jumping in and out of the cars as they sped up and down Church Street.

The waiter returned with another silver tray of beer and three flat nan breads.

I remembered the Box Brothers getting sent down for robbing the Edinburgh Mail Train, how they claimed they’d been fitted up, how Eric had died inside just weeks before their release, how Raymond had moved to Canada or Australia, and how Derek had tried to enlist for Vietnam.

Derek and Paul were ripping their nans apart and wiping their bowls clean.

“Here,” said Derek Box, tossing me half a nan.

Having finished, he smiled, lit a cigar, and edged his chair back from the table. He took a big pull off his cigar, examined the end, exhaled and said, “Were you an admirer of Barry’s work?”

“Mm, yeah.”

“Such a waste.”

“Yeah,” I said, the lights catching the beads of sweat in Derek Box’s fair hairline.

“Seems a pity to let it go unfinished, so much of it unpub lished, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know…”

Paul held out the Ronson for me.

I inhaled deeply and tried to flex the grip of my right hand. It hurt like fuck.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on at the moment, Mr Dunford?”

“The Clare Kemplay murder.”

“Appalling,” sighed Derek Box. “Bloody appalling. There aren’t words. And?”

“That’s about it.”

“Really? Then you’re not continuing your late friend’s crusade?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“I was led to believe you were in receipt of the great man’s files.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’m not a grass, Mr Dunford.”

“I know, I’m not saying you are.”

“I hear things and I know people who hear things.”

I looked down at a forkful of rice lying cold upon my plate. “Who?”

“Do you ever drink in the Strafford Arms?”

“In Wakefield?”

“Aye,” smiled Box.

“No. I can’t say that I do.”

“Well, maybe you should. See, upstairs is a private club, bit like your own Press Club. A place where a businessman such as myself and an officer of the law can get together in a less formal setting. Let our hair down, so to speak.”

I suddenly saw myself on the back seat of my own car, the black upholstery wet with blood, a tall man with a beard driving and humming along to Rod Stewart.

“You all right?” said Derek Box.

I shook my head. “I’m not interested.”

“You will be,” winked Box, his eyes small and lashless, straight from the Deep.

“I don’t think so.”

“Give it to him, Paul.”

Paul reached down under the table and brought out a thin manila envelope, tossing it across the dirty plates and empty pints.

“Open it,” Box dared me.

I picked up the manila envelope and stuck my left hand inside, feeling the familiar sheen of glossy enlargements.

I looked across the white tablecloth at Derek Box and Paul, visions of little girls wearing black and white wings stitched into skin swimming through the lunchtime bitter.

“Take a fucking look.”

I held the envelope down with my grey bandages and slowly removed the photographs with my left. I pushed back the plates and the bowls and laid out the three enlarged black and white photographs.

Two men naked.

Derek Box was grinning, a slash for a smile.

“I hear you’re a bit of a cunt man, Mr Dunford. So I apologise for the vile content of these snaps.”

I moved each picture apart.

Barry James Anderson, sucking the cock and licking the balls of an old man.

I said, “Who is it?”

“Well, how the mighty have fallen,” sighed Derek Box.

“They’re not very clear.”

“I think you’ll find they’re clear enough to Councillor and former Alderman William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert Shaw, should you ever wish to present him with a couple of snaps for his family album.”

The old body came into focus, the flabby belly and the skinny ribs, the white hairs and the moles.

“Bill Shaw?”

“I’m afraid so,” smiled Box.

Christ.

William Shaw, Chairman of the new Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and the West Yorkshire Police Authority, a former regional organiser of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, representing that union on the National Executive Com mittee of the Labour Party.

I stared at the swollen testicles, the silhouettes of the knotted veins in his cock, the grey pubic hairs.

William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert.

Robert Shaw, the Home Office Minister of State and the man widely tipped Most Likely to Succeed.

Councillor Shaw, the Man Most Likely to Suck.

Fuck.

Councillor Shaw as Barry’s Third Man?

Dawsongate.

I said, “Barry knew?”

“Aye. But he lacked the tools, so to speak.”

“You want me to blackmail Shaw with these?”

“Blackmail’s not the word I had in mind.”

“What word had you in mind?”

“Persuade.”

“Persuade him to do what?”

“Persuade the Councillor that he should bare his soul of all his public wrongdoings, safe in the knowledge that his private life shall remain exactly that.”

“Why?”

“The Great British Public get the kind of truth they deserve.”

“And?”

“And we,” winked Box. “We get what we want.”

“No.”

“Then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

I looked down at the black and white photographs lying on the white tablecloth.

“And what kind of man was that?” I asked.

“A brave one.”

“You call these brave?” I said, pushing the photographs away with my grey right hand.

“In these times, yes I do.”

I took a cigarette from my pack and Paul reached across the table with the Ronson.

I said, “He’s not married is he?”

“Makes no odds,” smiled Box.

The waiter came back carrying an empty tray. “Ice-cream, Mr Box?”

Box waved his cigar in my direction. “Just one for my friend here.”

“Very good, Mr Box.” The waiter began piling the dirty plates and glasses on to the silver tray, leaving only the ashtray and the three photographs.

Derek Box ground out his cigar in the ashtray and leant across the table.

“This country’s at war, Mr Dunford. The government and the unions, the Left and the Right, the rich and the poor. Then you got your Paddys, your wogs, your niggers, the puffs and the perverts, even the bloody women; they’re all out for what they can get. Soon there’ll be nowt left for the working white man.”

“And that’s you?”

Derek Box stood up. “To the victor, the spoils.”

The waiter returned with a silver bowl of ice-cream.

Paul helped Derek Box into his cashmere coat.

“Tomorrow lunchtime, upstairs in Strafford Arms.”

He squeezed my shoulder tightly as he went out.

I stared down at the ice-cream in front of me, sitting in the middle of the black and white photographs.

“Enjoy your ice-cream,” shouted Derek Box from the door.

I stared at the cocks and the balls, at the hands and the tongues, the spit and the spunk.

I pushed the ice-cream away.

A one-coin call at the top of Hanging Heaton, the stink of curry on the receiver.

No answer.

Out the door, a fart in my stride.

The one-armed driver on the road to Fitzwilliam, the radio on low:

Michael John Myshkin leading on the local two o’clock, the IRA Christmas ceasefire on the national.

I glanced at the envelope on the passenger seat and pulled over.

Two minutes later and the one-armed driver was back on the road, the manila sins of Councillor William Shaw hidden beneath the passenger seat.

I checked the rearview mirror.

Almost dark and not yet three.

Newstead View revisited.

Back amongst the ponies and the dogs, the rust and plaggy bags.

I drove slowly along the dark street.

TV lights on in Number 69.

I parked in front of what was left of 54.

The pack had been to the terrace, feasting and fighting, leaving three black eyes where the windows had been.

Hang the Pervert and LUFC were written in dripping white paint above the front window.

A brown front door lay amongst a forest of chopped and charred sticks of furniture, kicked and severed in the middle of a tiny lawn strewn with a family’s tat.

Two dogs chased their arses in and out of the Myshkin family’s home.

I picked my way up the garden path, over the headless lamps and slashed cushions, nervously past a dog wrestling with a giant stuffed panda, and through the splintered doorway.

There was the smell of smoke and the sound of running water.

A metal dustbin sat on a sea of broken glass in the centre of a wrecked front room. There was no television or stereo, just the spaces where they’d been and a plastic Christmas tree bent in two. No presents or cards.

I stepped over a pile of human shit on the bottom step and went up the sodden stairs.

All the taps in the bathroom were on full, the bath over flowing.

The toilet and the sink had both been kicked in and shattered, flooding the blue carpet. There was runny yellow diarrhoea down the outside of the bath and NF sprayed in red above it.

I turned off the taps and pushed up the sleeve of my left arm with my bandages. I stuck my left hand into the ice-cold brown water and felt for the plug. My hand brushed against something solid at the bottom of the bath.

There was something in the bath.

My one good hand froze, then quickly I pulled the plug and my hand straight out together.

I stood staring at the draining water, drying my hand on my trousers, a dark shape forming beneath the shitty brown water.

I stuck both hands under my armpits and screwed up my eyes.

There was a blue leather Slazenger sports bag in the bottom of the bath.

It was zipped up and on its side.

Fuck it, leave it, you don’t want to know.

Mouth dry, I crouched down and flicked the bag upright.

The bag felt heavy.

The last of the water ran down the plughole, leaving just a shit-stained sludge, a nail brush, and the blue leather Slazenger bag.

Fuck it, leave it, you don’t want to know.

I used the bandaged hand to steady the bag and began to unzip it with my left.

The zip jammed.

Fuck it.

It jammed again.

Leave it.

The fresh stench of shit.

You don’t want to know.

Fur, I could see fur.

A fat dead tabby cat.

A twisted spine and an open mouth.

A blue collar and a name tag I wouldn’t touch.

Memories of pet funerals, Archie and Socks buried back in the Wesley Street garden.

Fuck it, leave it, but you bloody asked.

Out on the landing, two more doors.

The bigger bedroom, the one on the left with the two twin beds, stank of piss and old smoke. The mattresses had been pulled off and the clothes piled on them. There were scorch marks up the wall.

Again sprayed in red, Wogs Out, Fuck the Proves.

I walked across the landing to another cheap plastic plate that said, Michael’s Room.

Michael John Myshkin’s room was no bigger than a cell.

The single bed had been tipped on its side, the curtains pulled from their rail, the window cracked by the falling ward robe. Posters torn from the walls, having taken strips of the magnolia wallpaper with them as they went, lay on a floor strewn with American and English comics, sketch pads and crayons.

I picked up a copy of The Hulk. The pages were wet and reeked of piss. I let it fall and used my foot to sift through the piles of comics and pieces of paper.

Beneath a book about Kung-Fu, a sketch book looked intact. I bent down and nicked it open.

A full page cover of a comic stared back up at me. It had been hand-drawn in felt-tip pen and crayon:

Rat Man, Prince or Pest?

By Michael J. Myshkin.

In a childish hand, a giant rat with human hands and feet was sitting on a throne in a crown, surrounded by hundreds of smaller rats.

Rat Man was grinning, saying, “Men are not our judges. We judge men!”

Above the Rat Man logo, in biro, was written:

Issue 4, 5p, MJM Comics.

I turned to the first page.

In six panels, the Rat People asked Rat Man, their Prince, to go above ground and save the earth from the humans.

On page two, Rat Man was above ground being chased by soldiers.

By page three, Rat Man had escaped.

He’d sprouted wings.

Fucking swan’s wings.

I stuffed the sketch pad comic inside my jacket and closed the door on Michael’s Room.

I walked down the stairs, banging and children’s voices coming from the front door.

A ten-year-old boy in a green sweater with three yellow stars was stood on a dining room chair, balanced on the front step, hammering a nail into the frame above the door.

His three friends were egging him on, one of them holding a washing-line noose in his dirty little hands.

“What you doing?” said one of the boys as I came down the stairs.

“Yeah, who are you?” said another.

I looked pissed off and official and said, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” said the boy with the hammer, jumping from the chair.

The boy with the noose said, “You police?”

“No.”

“We can do what we want then,” said the boy with the hammer.

I took out some coins and said, “Where’s his family?”

“Pissed off,” said one.

“Not coming back and all, if they know what’s good for them,” said the boy with the hammer.

I shook the coins and said, “Father’s a cripple?”

“Yeah,” they laughed, making spastic wheezing noises.

“What about his Mam?”

“She’s a fucking evil witch, she is,” said the boy with the washing-line.

“She work?”

“She’s a cleaner at school.”

“Which one?”

“Fitz Junior on main road.”

I moved the chair out of the doorway and walked down the path, looking at the dark quiet terraces on either side.

“You going to give us some brass?” the youngest boy shouted after me.

“No.”

The boy with the hammer put the chair back, took the line from his friend, stood on the chair, and hung the noose from the nail.

“What’s that for?” I asked, unlocking the Viva.

“Perverts,” shouted one of the boys.

“Here,” laughed the boy with the hammer, standing on the chair. “You best not be one.”

“There’s a dead cat upstairs in the bath,” I said as I got into the car.

“We know,” giggled the youngest boy. “We fucking killed it, didn’t we?”

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, all good children go to heaven.

I sat in my car across the road from Fitzwilliam Junior and Infants.

It was going up to five and the school lights were still on, illuminating walls of Christmas drawings and paintings inside.

There were children playing soccer in the dark playground, chasing after a cheap orange ball in a pack of baggy trousers and dark wool sweaters with those big yellow stars.

I sat freezing in the Viva, my bandages stuffed up into my armpit, thinking of the Holocaust and wondering if Michael John Myshkin had gone to this school.

After ten minutes or so, some of the lights went out and three fat white women came out of the building with a thin man in blue overalls. The women waved goodbye to the man as he walked over to the children and tried to take their ball from them. The women were laughing as they left the school gates.

I got out of the car and jogged across the road after the women.

“Excuse me, ladies?”

The three fat women turned round and stopped.

“Mrs Myshkin?”

“You’re joking?” spat the largest woman.

“Fress are you, love?” smirked the oldest.

I smiled and said, “Yorkshire Post.”

“Bit late aren’t you?” said the largest.

“I heard she worked here?”

“Until yesterday, aye,” said the oldest.

“Where’d she go?” I asked the woman with the steel-rimmed spectacles who hadn’t said anything.

“Don’t look at me. I’m new,” she said.

The oldest woman said, “Our Kevin says one of your lot is putting them up in some posh hotel over in Scarborough.”

“That’s not right,” said the new one.

I stood there, thinking fuck, fuck, fuck.

There were shouts from the playground and a charge of monkey boots.

“They’re going to put that bloody window through,” sighed the largest woman.

I said, “You two worked with Mrs Myshkin, yeah?”

“For more than five years, aye,” said the oldest.

“What’s she like then?”

“Had a hard life, she has.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well he’s on Sick because of dust…”

“The husband was a miner?”

“Aye. Worked with our Pat,” said the largest.

“What about Michael?”

The women looked at each other, grimacing.

“He’s not all there,” whispered the new woman.

“How do you mean?”

“Bit slow, I heard.”

“Does he have any mates?”

“Mates?” said two of the women together.

“He plays with some of the young ones on his street, like,” said the oldest woman, shuddering. “But they’re not mates.”

“Ugh, makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?” said the new woman.

“There must be someone?”

“Don’t pall around with anyone much, not that I know.”

The other two women both nodded their heads.

“What about people from work?”

The fattest woman shook her head, saying, “Doesn’t work round here, does he? Castleford way?”

“Aye. Our Kevin said he’s at some photographer’s.”

“Mucky books, I heard,” said the new one.

“You’re having me on?” said the oldest woman.

“What I heard.”

The man in the blue overalls was stood back at the school gates, a padlock and a chain in his hands, shouting at the children.

“Bloody kids these days,” said the largest woman.

“Bloody nuisance they are.”

I said, “Thanks for your time, ladies.”

“You’re welcome, love,” smiled the older one.

“Anytime,” said the largest lady.

The women giggled as they walked away, the new one turning round to wave at me.

“Merry Christmas,” she called.

“Merry Christmas.”

I took out a cigarette and fumbled in my pockets for some matches, finding Paul’s heavy Ronson lighter.

I weighed the lighter in my left hand and then lit the ciga rette, trying to remember when I’d picked it up.

The pack of children ran past me on the pavement, kicking their cheap orange football and swearing at the caretaker.

I walked back to the padlocked school gates.

The caretaker in the blue overalls was walking across the playground, back to the main building.

“Excuse me,” I shouted over the top of the red painted gates.

The man kept walking.

“Excuse me!”

At the door to the school the man turned round and looked straight at me.

I cupped my hands. “Excuse me. Can I have a word?”

The man turned away, unlocked the door, and went inside the black building.

I leant my forehead against the gate.

Someone had tattooed Fuck out of the red paint.

Into the night, wheels spinning.

Farewell Fitzwilliam, where the night comes early and nowt feels right, where the kids kill cats and the men kill kids.

I was heading back to the Redbeck, turning left on to the A655, when the lorry came screaming out of the night, slamming its brakes on hard.

I braked, horns blaring, skidding to a stop, the lorry inches from my door.

I stared into the rearview mirror, heart pounding, headlights dancing.

A big bearded man in big black boots jumped down from his cab and walked towards the car. He was carrying a big black fucking bat.

I turned the ignition, slamming my foot down on to the accelerator, thinking Barry, Barry, Barry.

The Golden Fleece, Sandal, just gone six on Thursday 19 December 1974, the longest day in a week of long days.

A pint on the bar, a whisky in my belly, a coin in the box.

“Gaz? It’s Eddie.”

“Where the fuck you sneak off to?”

“Didn’t fancy Press Club, you know.”

“You missed a right bloody show.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Jack totally fucking lost it, crying…”

“Listen, do you know Donald Foster’s address?”

“What the fuck do you want that for?”

“It’s important, Gaz.”

“This to do with Paul Kelly and their Paula?”

“No. Look, I know it’s Sandal…”

“Yeah, Wood Lane.”

“What number?”

“They don’t have fucking numbers on Wood Lane. It’s called Trinity Towers or something.”

“Cheers, Gaz.”

“Yeah? Just don’t fucking mention my name.”

“I won’t.” I said, hanging up and wondering if he was fucking Kathryn.

Another coin, another call.

“I need to speak to BJ.”

A voice on the other end, mumbling from the other end of the world.

“When will you see him? It’s important.”

A sigh from the ends of the earth.

“Tell him, Eddie called and it’s urgent.”

I went back to the bar and picked up my pint.

“That your bag over there?” said the landlord, nodding at a Hillards plastic bag under the phone.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said and drained my pint.

“Don’t be leaving bloody plastic bags lying around, not in pubs.”

“Sorry,” I said, walking back over to the phone, thinking fuck off.

“There’s me thinking it could be a bomb or anything.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I muttered as I picked up Michael John Mysh-kin’s sketch book and the photos of Councillor William Shaw and Barry James Anderson, thinking it is a bomb you stupid fucking cunt.

I parked up on the pavement outside Trinity View, Wood Lane, Sandal.

I stuffed the plastic bag back under the driver’s seat with A Guide to the Canals of the North, stubbed out my cigarette, took two painkillers, and got out.

The lane was quiet and dark.

I walked up the long drive towards Trinity View, triggering floodlights as I went. There was a Rover in the drive and lights on upstairs in the house. I wondered if it had been designed by John Dawson.

I pressed the doorbell and listened to the chimes cascade through the house.

“Yes? Who is it?” said a woman from behind the artificially aged door.

“The Yorkshire Post.”

There was a pause and then a lock turned and the door opened.

“What do you want?”

The woman was in her early forties with dark expensively permed hair, wearing black trousers, a matching silk blouse, and a surgical collar.

I held up my bandaged right hand and said, “Looks like we’ve both been in the wars.”

“I asked you what you wanted.”

Mr Long Shot Kick de Bucket said, “It’s about Johnny Kelly.”

“What about him?” said Mrs Patricia Foster, much too quickly.

“I was hoping either you or your husband might have some information about him.”

“Why would we know anything about him?” said Mrs Foster, one hand on the door, one hand on her collar.

“Well, he does play for your husband’s club and…”

“It’s not my husband’s club. He’s only the Chairman.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve not heard from him then?”

“No.”

“And you’ve no idea where he might be?”

“No. Look, Mr…?”

“Cannon.”

“Cannon?” said Mrs Patricia Foster slowly, her dark eyes and tall nose like an eagle’s looking down on me.

I swallowed and said, “Would it be possible to come inside and have a word with your husband?”

“No. He’s not home and I have nothing else to say to you,” Mrs Foster said, closing the door.

I tried to stop the door shutting in my face. “What do you flunk’s happened to him, Mrs Foster?”

“I’m going to call the police, Mr Cannon, and then I’m going to call my very good friend Bill Hadden, your boss,” she said from behind the door as the lock turned.

“And don’t forget to call your husband,” I shouted and then turned and ran down the floodlit drive, thinking a plague on both your houses.

Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent, in a phonebox on the Barnsley Road, beating the ground to startle the snakes.

Here goes nothing:

“Wakefield Town Hall, please?”

“361234.”

I looked at my father’s watch, thinking 50/50.

“Councillor Shaw, please?”

“I’m afraid Councillor Shaw’s in a meeting.”

“It’s a family emergency.”

“Can I have your name, please?”

“I’m a friend of the family. It’s an emergency.”

I looked across the road at the warm front rooms with their yellow lights and Christmas trees.

A different voice said, “Councillor Shaw’s up at County Hall. The number is 361236.”

“Thanks.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

I hung up, picked up, and dialled again.

“Councillor Shaw, please?”

“I’m sorry, the Councillor’s in a meeting.”

“I know. It’s a family emergency. I was given this number by his office.”

In one of the upstairs windows across the road, a child was staring out at me from a dark room. Downstairs a man and a woman were watching the TV with the lights off.

“Councillor Shaw speaking.”

“You don’t know me Mr Shaw, but it’s very important we meet.”

“Who is this?” a voice said, nervous and angry.

“We need to talk, sir.”

“Why would I want to talk to you? Who are you?”

“I believe someone is about to attempt to blackmail you.”

“Who?” the voice pleaded, afraid.

“We need to meet, Mr Shaw.”

“How?”

“You know how.”

“No I don’t.” The voice, shaking.

“You have an appendix scar and you like to have it kissed better by a mutual friend with orange hair.”

“What do you want?”

“What kind of car have you got?”

“A Rover. Why?”

“What colour?”

“Maroon, purple.”

“Be in the long-stay car park at Westgate Station at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Alone.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ll find a way.”

I hung up, my heart beating ninety miles an hour.

I looked up at the window across the road but the child had gone.

Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent, bringing a plague to all their houses, bar one.

“Where’ve you been?”

“All over.”

“Did you see him?”

“Can I come in?”

Mrs Paula Garland held open the red front door, wrapping her arms tight around herself.

A cigarette was burning in a heavy glass ashtray and Top of the Pops was on low on the TV.

“What did he look like?”

“Shut the door, love. It’s cold.”

Paula Garland closed the red front door and stood staring at me.

On the TV, Paul Da Vinci was singing Your Baby Ain’t Your Baby Anymore.

A tear dripped from her left eye on to her milk-white cheek.

“She’s dead then.”

I walked over to her and put my arms around her, feeling for her spine beneath the thin red cardigan.

I had my back to the TV and I could hear applause and then the opening to Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me.

Paula lifted her head up and I kissed the corner of her eye, tasting the salt from her damp stained skin.

She was smiling at the TV.

I turned to one side and watched as Pan’s People, dressed as Sexy Santas, cavorted around the Goodies, their hair alight with tinsel and trimmings.

I lifted Paula up, moving her small stockinged feet on to the tops of my shoes, and we began to dance, banging the backs of our legs into the furniture until she was laughing and crying and holding me tight.

I woke with a start on her bed.

Downstairs, the room was quiet and smelt of old smoke.

I didn’t switch on a light, but sat down on the sofa in my underpants and vest and picked up the phone.

“Is BJ there? It’s Eddie,” I whispered.

The ticking of the clock filled the room.

“What luck. It’s been too long,” whispered back BJ down the line.

“You know Derek Box?”

“Unfortunately that’s a pleasure I’ve yet to have.”

“Well he knows you and he knew Barry.”

“It’s a small world.”

“Yeah, and not a pretty one. He gave me some photos.”

“That’s nice.”

“Don’t piss around BJ. They’re photos of you sucking the cock of Councillor William Shaw.”

Silence. Just Aladdin Sane on high at the other end of the world.

I said, “Councillor Shaw is Barry’s Third Man, yeah?”

“Give the boy a prize.”

“Fuck off.”

The light went on.

Paula Garland was standing at the bottom of the stairs, her red cardigan barely covering her.

I smiled and mouthed apologies, the phone wet in my hand.

“What are you going to do?” said BJ down the line.

“I’m going to ask Councillor Shaw the questions Barry never got to ask.”

BJ whispered, “Don’t get involved in this.”

I was staring at Paula as I said, “Don’t get involved? I’m already involved. You’re one of the fucking bastards who got me involved.”

“You’re not involved with Derek Box, neither was Barry.”

“Not according to Derek Box.”

“This is between him and Donald Foster. It’s their fucking war, leave them to it.”

“You’ve changed your tune. What are you saying?”

Paula Garland was staring at me, pulling down the bottom of her cardigan.

I raised my eyes in apology.

“Fuck Derek Box. Burn the photos or keep them for yourself. Maybe you’ll find another use for them,” giggled BJ.

“Fuck off. This is serious.”

“Of course it’s fucking serious, Eddie. What did you think it was? Barry’s fucking dead and I couldn’t even go to his funeral cos I’m too fucking frightened.”

“You’re a lying little prick,” I hissed and hung up.

Paula Garland was still staring at me.

Me, the circles in my head.

“Eddie?”

I stood up, the leather sofa stinging the backs of my bare legs.

“Who was that?”

“No-one,” I said, pushing past her up the stairs.

“You can’t keep doing this to me,” she shouted after me.

I went into the bedroom and took a painkiller from my jacket pocket.

“You can’t keep cutting me out like this,” she said, coming up the stairs.

I picked up my trousers and put them on.

Paula Garland was standing in the bedroom doorway. “It’s my little girl that’s dead, my husband that killed himself, my brother that’s gone.”

I was struggling with the buttons of my shirt.

“You chose to get involved with this whole fucking bloody mess,” she whispered, tears falling on to the bedroom carpet.

My shirt buttons still undone, I put on my jacket.

“No-one made you.”

I pushed a dirty grey bandaged fist into her face and said, “What about this? What do you think this is?”

“The best thing that ever happened to you.”

“You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why? What you going to do?”

We were stood in the doorway at the top of the stairs, sur rounded by silence and night, staring at each other.

“But you don’t care, do you Eddie?”

“Fuck off,” I cursed, down the stairs and out the door.

“You don’t really fucking care, do you?”