1977

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Sunday 12th June 1977

Chapter 16

– I turn and ask Mr Hurst where it’s best to park and the wife is looking sideways at him, us pulling up next to the squad cars, the Hursts looking at the three big men coming towards our car, us stopping there in the middle of the street, me getting out, Mr Hurst too, Mrs Hurst her hand to her mouth and me turning, straight into Rudkin’s fist, Noble and Ellis pulling him off, me reeling, coming back, him another arm loose and smashing it into me with a low kick to my balls and then there are some uniforms dragging me back by my jacket and bundling me into the back of a tiny Panda, Rudkin still screaming, ‘You cunt, you fucking cunt!’ and our car pulls off and I turn and watch them push Rudkin head down into a car, Ellis and Noble in behind him, my car sitting there in the middle of Gledhill Road, doors open, Mr and Mrs Hurst shaking their heads, hands on hips or at their lips.

The uniforms drive me into Leeds, into Millgarth, no-one speaking, lots of glances in the mirror, me with a wink, wondering what the fuck Maurice must have said, bracing myself for Complaints and the love of my Brother Officers.

Inside, the uniforms take me straight down to the Belly, the whole station deserted. They sit me down in one of the cells we use for interrogations and close the door. I look at my watch, it’s gone six, Sunday 12 June 1977.

Thirty minutes later I get up and try the door.

It’s locked.

Another thirty minutes later and the door opens.

Two uniforms who I’ve never seen before come in.

One of them hands me a pale blue shirt and pair of darker blue overalls and says, ‘Can you change into these please, sir.’

‘Why?’

‘Can you just do it, sir.’

‘Not until you tell me why’

‘We need your clothes to run some tests.’

‘What kind of tests?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know.’

‘Well, can you please get someone who does.’

‘I’m afraid there are no senior officers on duty.’

‘I’m a bloody senior officer.’

‘I know, sir.’

‘Well then, until someone can be good enough to tell me why I should hand over my bloody clothes to you, you can go and fuck yourself.’

The uniforms shrug and leave, locking the door behind them.

Ten minutes later the door opens again and four uniforms come in, grab my arms and legs, gag me and strip me.

Then they remove the gag and toss the shirt and overalls at me and leave, locking the door behind them.

I lie naked on the floor and look at my watch, but it’s gone.

I get up and put on the shirt and overalls, sit down at the table and wait, aware something’s gone wrong.

Very wrong.

I look up, the door opening.

Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in.

They pull up two chairs and sit down opposite me:

Dick Alderman and Jim Prentice.

They don’t look well.

Not happy.

‘Bob?’ says Prentice.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

‘Thought you might be able to tell us that?’

‘Come on,’ I say, looking from one to the other. ‘You here to question me?’

‘Chat,’ winks Prentice.

‘Fuck off,’ I say. ‘This is me, Bob Fraser. If something’s going down, just tell me.’

‘It’s never as simple as that though, is it Bob?’ says Jimmy Prentice and he offers me a fag.

I shake my head: ‘I don’t know, Jim. You tell me.’

They look at each other and sigh.

I say, ‘This is to do with John Rudkin, isn’t it?’

Dick Alderman shakes his head. ‘All right, Bob. Cut the crap and just tell us what happened to you between six o’clock the night of Saturday 4 June and six o’clock on the morning of Wednesday 8 June?’

‘Why?’

He smiles, ‘You do remember?’

‘Of course I fucking remember.’

‘Well that’s a bloody start, because up to now no other cunt seems to have a fucking clue.’

I pause and then say, ‘I was with Rudkin and Ellis.’

Prentice smiles. ‘That’s what they said.’

I start to speak, smiling, relieved and eager to expand.

But Alderman leans forward, ‘Yeah, that’s what they said. Up until about half-three this afternoon, that is. Just before they were both suspended from their duties. Just before they vowed to kick your fucking head in, next time they see you.’

I stare at him, at the face full of pride at the way he’s stuck the boot in, and I shrug my shoulders.

He smiles, a bloated smile: ‘What you say now, Bobby?’

I turn to Prentice. ‘You think I need someone from the Fed here?’

He shrugs: ‘Depends what you been up to Bob, depends what you done.’

‘Nothing.’

Alderman stands up. ‘You might want to have a think about that,’ he says. ‘Before we come back.’

And they leave, locking the door behind them.

The door opens, I look up.

Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in.

They sit down in the two chairs opposite me.

Dick and Jim.

They look better.

But not happy.

‘Bob?’ nods Prentice.

I say, ‘Just tell us what’s going on, will you?’

‘We don’t know, Bob. That’s why we’re here.’

‘To find out,’ adds Alderman.

‘Find out what?’

‘Find out what you got up to between Saturday night and Wednesday morning.’

‘What if I was to tell you that I went home? That I was with my wife?’

Alderman looks at Prentice.

Prentice says: ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yeah,’ I nod.

And they leave again, locking the door behind them.

The door opens.

Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in.

They don’t sit down.

Richard Alderman and James Prentice.

They look really fucked off.

Not happy.

‘Fraser,’ says Alderman. ‘I’m going to ask you for the last time: what you did, where you went, and who you saw between Saturday night and Wednesday morning?’

‘And don’t fucking lie to us, Bob,’ Prentice is saying. ‘Please, Bob?’

I look at them, the pair of them leaning over me, staring down at me, knowing they’d have beaten the truth out of me by now if I wasn’t who I was, what I was.

‘I was drinking,’ I say, say quietly and slowly.

They pull the chairs back and sit down.

‘And what should you have been doing?’ asks Alderman.

‘I was supposed to be on surveillance with Rudkin and Ellis.’

‘OK. So what were you doing?’

‘Like I say, I was drinking.’

‘Where?’

‘In my car, in the park,’

‘You see anyone?’

‘No.’

But I’m starting to see Karen Burns and Eric Hall, knowing I’m fucked.

‘I’m going to ask you again,’ says Alderman. ‘You see anyone, anyone at all during this time?’

‘No.’

‘OK,’ nods Alderman. ‘You want to tell us why you were drinking when you were supposed to be watching a suspect in a murder investigation; an investigation into the murders of four women that now, on one of the nights that you were supposed to be tailing our prime fucking suspect, now has risen to include the murder of a sixteen-year-old virgin.’

I’m staring at the table-top.

‘You going to tell me why you were drinking?’

‘Domestic problems,’ I whisper.

‘Would you care to elaborate?’

‘Not really, no.’

Prentice says, ‘It goes no further, Bob.’

‘Bollocks,’ I laugh. ‘It’ll be on other side of Moors before breakfast.’

‘You got no bloody choice,’ says Alderman.

‘The fuck I have. I want to know what this is about?’

‘You can fuck off,’ spits Alderman. ‘I am asking you as a senior officer, asking you why you were drinking for eighty-four hours, eighty-four fucking hours when you were supposed to be on duty?’

‘And I’ve already told you, I had domestic problems.’

‘And I’m telling you that answer will not suffice. So I’ll ask you one last time, what kind of fucking domestic problems?’

We stare into each other’s purple faces, eyes wide and teeth barred.

Prentice leans forward, tapping the table-top: ‘Come on, Bob. This is us.’

‘And this is me, Jim. This is me.’

He nods and Alderman follows him out, locking the door behind them.

About another half-hour later, the door opens.

Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice come in, three teas between them.

They sit down and push a tea across the table.

They look tired.

Not happy, resigned.

Jim Prentice says, ‘Bob? I’m going to ask you again just to give us a bit more about this domestic problem. It’d help us a lot. Help you.’

‘How?’

‘Bob, we’re all policemen here. All on the same side. If you don’t start helping us out a bit, then we’ll have to turn it over to another crew. And no-one wants that, do they?’

‘But you’re not going to tell us what this is about?’

‘Bob, how many more times? We already have. It’s about what you were up to in them “missing hours”?’

I pick up the cigarette Alderman’s chucked down beside my tea and lean forward to let him light it.

I sit back in the chair, the smoke curling up to the low ceiling, my head with it, until finally I say:

‘I was having an affair with another woman.’

Alderman sniffs up, disappointed: ‘Was? Past tense?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why’s that?’ he asks.

‘She left.’

‘What’s her name, this woman?’

I look up at the ceiling again and weigh up the odds.

‘Janice Ryan,’ I say.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Saturday morning.’

‘What time?’

‘About eight.’

‘And that’s why you were drinking?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Because she left you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Does your wife know?’

‘Know what?’

‘That you had a bit on the side?’

‘No.’

‘Is there anything more you want to tell us about your relationship with this other woman?’

‘No.’

‘Thanks, Bob,’ says Jim Prentice and they leave, locking the door behind them.

I look up, the room dark.

The door opens, men rush in and hood me and handcuff me.

They take me from the room, up the stairs, out to the night, into the back of a car, and then we go for a drive.

No-one’s speaking and the car smells of alcohol and cigarettes.

I’m guessing, but I think there are three other men in the car; two in the front and one next to me on the back seat.

About thirty minutes later we leave the road and pull up on what feels like wasteland.

The door opens and they take me out of the car, leading me across uneven ground.

I stumble once and someone hooks an arm through mine.

We stop and stand still for a moment, then they take off the hood.

Blinded by lights, I blink, blink, blink.

It’s night at the edges, white light at the core.

Noble, Alderman, and Prentice are standing before me, under the floodlights, the bright alien floodlights.

Centre-stage, a sofa.

A horrible, terrible, rotting, eaten, bloody sofa.

‘You been here before?’ asks Noble.

I’m staring at the sofa, the rusted metal springs sharpened to spikes, the velvet almost gone.

‘You know where you are?’ Prentice asks.

I look up at them, the angel glow around their faces, and I shake my head.

Again Alderman asks, ‘You been here before or not?’

And I have; in those nightmares, this is where I’d come, and so I’m nodding, saying, ‘Yes.’

And Noble lunges forward and punches me in the jaw and I fall to my knees, tears running down my cheeks, blood filling my mouth, the lights out.

Dark eyes, dark eyes that would not open.

Indian skin painted red, white, and blue, with welts, pus, and bruises.

Dark eyes, dark eyes turned back in death. Indian skin painted murder, lonely murder.

A slap and I’m awake, sat in a chair in a cell, hood and handcuffs gone.

‘Look at her!’ Noble is yelling. I try and focus on the table-top. ‘Look at her!’

Noble is standing, Alderman seated.

I pick up the photograph, the enlarged black and white photograph of her face, her swollen lids and risen lips, her blackened cheeks and matted hair, and I’m shaking, shaking, then puking, puking across the table, hot yellow bile all over the room.

‘Aw Christ, for fuck’s sake.’

I’m in a clean pair of overalls and shirt.

Noble and Alderman are sat across from me, three hot teas on the table.

Alderman sighs and reads from a piece of typed A4:

‘At 12 noon Sunday 12th June, the body of Janice Ryan, twenty-two years old, a convicted prostitute, was found secreted under an old settee on wasteground off White Abbey Road, Bradford.

‘A post-mortem has been carried out and death was due to massive head injuries caused by a heavy blunt instrument. It is thought that death occurred some seven days before due to the partial decomposition of the body.

‘It is also thought from the pattern of the injuries that this death is not connected, repeat not connected, with the other murders publicly referred to as the Ripper Murders.’

Silence.

Then Noble says, ‘She was found by a kid. Saw her right arm sticking out from under the couch,’

Silence.

Then I say, tears not dry, ‘And you think I did it?’

Silence.

Then Noble nods and says, ‘Yeah, and this is how I think you did it: I think you drove her out to Bradford, took her on to wasteground, hit her on head with a rock or stone, then you jumped up and down on her until you broke her ribs and ruptured her liver. You didn’t have a knife on you, but you thought you’d try and make it look like a Ripper job, so you pulled up her bra and pulled down her panties, took off her jeans, then dragged her by her collar over to couch and dumped it on top of her, then you threw her handbag away and pissed off.’

Silence.

Then I say, ‘But why?’

‘Forensics, Bobby,’ says Alderman. ‘We got her all over your clothes, you all over hers, you’re in her flat, under her fucking nails and up her bloody cunt.’

‘But why? Why would I kill her?’

Silence.

‘Bob, we know,’ says Alderman, glancing at Noble.

‘Know what?’

‘She was pregnant,’ he winks.

Silence, until Noble says:

‘And it was yours.’

I’m screaming, my hands pinned to the table, Alderman and Prentice trying to sit me back down, Noble walking away.

Screaming over and over, again and again:

‘Ask him, ask Eric fucking Hall. Get him in here. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t fucking me. I’d never.’

Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal.

‘Ask him, ask that fucking cunt. He did it, I know he fucking did. It wasn’t me. I’d never. I couldn’t.’

Screaming over and over, again and again.

I’m choking, head in an arm-lock, Alderman and Prentice trying to sit me down, Noble gone.

‘Thing is,’ says Noble, ‘Eric says that Janice called him for protection. Protection from you.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘OK, so how come he knows she’s pregnant by you if she never called him?’

‘She called him for money. She was his grass until he started pimping her.’

‘Bobby, Bobby, Bobby. This is going in fucking circles.’

‘Look, I’ve told you. You’re not listening. That last Saturday I saw her, the 4th, she’d been over to Bradford and was supposed to meet Eric but he sent a van for her and they picked her up and fucking did her didn’t they?’

‘Did her?’

‘Raped her. Ask Rudkin and Mike. They came round her place to pick me up, they saw state she was in.’

‘Yeah, yeah, and they seem to think that it was you who did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘Beat the fucking living shit out of her.’

‘Bollocks. Fucking bollocks.’

‘You’re all over her, mate.’

‘Course I am, I fucking loved her.’

‘Bob…’

‘Listen to me, I’d wake up in bed next to my wife with come in my pyjamas, come all over me because I couldn’t stop fucking dreaming about her.’

‘Jesus Christ, Fraser.’

Alone -

Alone together:

I shut my eyes, you call my name.

A cigarette, a plastic cup, a porno mag.

The shoes on the wrong feet, the laces gone.

Fingers round my throat, fingers down my throat.

Fingers under skull skin, fingers at my temple bones.

You shut your eyes, I call your name:

Alone together – Alone.

‘You going to charge me?’

Prentice pushes the tea towards me, ‘Drink it, Bob.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘It doesn’t look good, not good at all.’

‘I didn’t do it, Jim. I didn’t do it.’

‘Drink your tea, Bob. Before it gets cold.’

Black piss-holes stained with sleep, down white corridors stuffed full of memories to a bloody pillow stuffed full of albatross feathers, glimpsing happy days through windows and doors as they closed, to a table and three chairs beneath a bulb caged in mesh.

‘Let’s start at the beginning again.’

I push the plastic cup forward and sigh, ‘Whatever.’

‘When did you meet her?’ asks Noble, lighting up.

‘Last year.’

‘When?’

‘4 November.’

‘Mischief Night?’

I nod, no smiles.

‘Where?’

‘She was in middle of road outside Gaiety, pissed. She looked to be soliciting, so we picked her up.’

‘We?’

‘Me and Rudkin.’

‘Detective Inspector Rudkin?’

‘Yeah, Detective Inspector Rudkin.’

‘And?’

‘Brought her in here. Found out she was covered by Eric Hall over at Jacob’s Well and…’

‘Detective Inspector Eric Hall?’

‘Yeah, Detective Inspector Eric Hall.’

‘So what did you do when you found that out?’

‘I drove her home.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And that’s when it started?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And how often did you see her?’

‘Often as I could.’

‘Which was?’

I shrug: ‘Every other day. Got easier when Eric set her up over here in Chapeltown.’

‘So you’re saying Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall, set up a convicted prostitute in a flat in Leeds?’

I nod.

‘Why the fuck would he do that?’

‘Ask him.’

Noble slams his palm down on to the table. ‘Fuck off, Fraser. I’m asking you.’

‘She told me it was like a thank you. Golden handshake.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘At the time.’

‘But…’

‘But I’ve since heard that he was pimping her and he’d got her the flat to set her up over here.’

‘How did you find that out?’

‘Joseph Rose, he’s listed on record as my P.I.’

Noble glances at Alderman.

Alderman nods at Prentice.

Prentice gets up and leaves the room.

Noble looks up from his notes. ‘OK. So for almost a year, beginning last November, you continued to meet Ryan?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this was usually at her flat on Spencer Place?’

‘From January, yeah.’

‘And during this time you were unaware that she was working for DI Hall?’

‘As a prostitute, yes. But I knew she still phoned him.’

‘But you knew she was working as a prostitute?’

‘Yeah, just not for him.’

‘So who did you think she was working for?’

‘Kenny D.’

‘Kenny D? That fucking nig-nog we had in here over Marie Watts, you’re taking piss?’

‘No.’

‘Jesus Christ, Fraser. You thought your girlfriend was working for him?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘What she said. What he said.’

Noble pauses, swallows, and says, ‘So if you thought she was working for Kenny D, why did you think she kept phoning DI Hall?’

‘To get money out of him.’

‘How?’

‘Selling stuff she’d heard.’

‘Did she try and sell you stuff?’

‘No. She wasn’t that well connected round here.’

‘Did she get money off him?’

‘I don’t know. Ask him.’

Noble is staring at me, eyes locked again. ‘So you’re saying your relationship with this woman, Janice Ryan, it was purely for sex?’

I look up at the ceiling, the earth tilting.

Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal.

I stare back at Noble and I shrug my shoulders and I tell him how it was: ‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Did you pay for it?’

Eyes locked, I tell him how it is: ‘Looks that way,’ I say ‘Fucking looks that way now.’

Silence.

Prentice comes back in and the three of them go into a huddle.

I wonder what time it is, unable even to guess what fucking day it is.

They return to their places and Noble says, ‘OK, who else knew about this relationship?’

‘Me and Janice?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell folk, but did you know? Did you Jim? Did you Dick?’

They don’t smile, they just keep it shut.

‘OK,’ says Noble again. ‘But by the start of this month you say your relationship with Ryan had deteriorated?’

‘Yeah.’

‘In what way?’

‘I hadn’t been able to see so much of her, what with Ripper and everything, and I wanted her to stop working.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I didn’t want her fucking dead, did I?’

‘Why was that?’

‘Fuck off.’

‘But you didn’t mind her fucking other blokes?’

‘Course I fucking did.’

‘So why didn’t you do owt about it?’

But I catch myself, just in time:

Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal.

And I smile, ‘I couldn’t say so bloody much could I?’

‘Why was that?’

‘I’m married, aren’t I?’

‘But you were arguing a lot, you and Ryan?’

‘On and off, yeah.’

‘OK, so tell us about that last Saturday, the 4th.’

‘I’ve told you a million times.’

‘Well it won’t hurt to tell us one last time then, will it Bob?’

‘I went round on Friday and she wasn’t in. I was knackered, put my head down for a bit at her place, and waited.’

‘So you had a key?’

‘You know I did. You fucking took it, didn’t you?’

‘OK, go on.’

‘About 7, maybe 8, she came home…’

‘In the morning?’

‘Yeah, in the morning. She was in a bad way, she’d been tied up, whipped, bitten. There were marks across her breasts, her stomach, her backside. She said she’d been over to Bradford, Manningham, to meet Eric Hall. Said she got picked up by Vice, or that’s what she thought. There were four of them; they raped her, took photos.’

‘And did they, these men, they know anything about you or DI Hall?’

‘Apparently’

‘Apparently?’

‘She said they called Eric Hall, tried to call me. Whatever Eric said, it didn’t stop them.’

‘And she told you all this on the Saturday morning at her flat?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then?’

‘Then DI Rudkin and DC Ellis came and picked me up, because of the attack on Linda Clark, and they brought me here.’

‘They picked you up at her place?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right, so how come they knew where to find you?’

‘I don’t know. I presume because they knew about me and Janice.’

‘But you’d never told them?’

‘No.’

‘And that was the last time you saw Ryan?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you went back to the flat?’

‘Yeah, a couple of times.’

‘On the Saturday?’

‘Yeah, I went back to the flat straight after the briefing.’

‘And?’

‘And she’d gone.’

‘Gone for good?’

‘Mmm.’

‘How did you know?’

‘She’d taken most of her gear.’

‘She leave a note?’

Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal.

‘No,’ I lie.

‘And what time was that?’

‘About five on the Saturday afternoon.’

‘And so you were upset?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘So instead of returning to your assigned duties and your colleagues, you decided to drown your sorrows.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And during this time who did you see?’

‘I saw Joseph Rose.’

‘And this was when he told you about Detective Inspector Eric Hall pimping Janice?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I went over to Bradford to see him.’

‘And when was this?’

‘I’m not sure, but I think it was Monday’

‘And that was when you assaulted DI Hall?’

‘That’s when we had the fucking fight, if that’s what you mean?’

‘About Ryan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘I took his car…’

‘DI Hall’s car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And where did you go?’

‘I just drove around, I don’t remember where exactly.’

‘But eventually you ended up back in Chapeltown, just as the body of Rachel Johnson was discovered?’

‘Yeah, I think I went back to Janice’s flat, and when I woke up there was all the shit going on because of the Johnson girl.’

‘OK. One last thing; until today you’re saying you had no idea that Ryan was pregnant and that you were the father?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And that the reason forensics have got you all over her, it’s because of the last time you had sexual relations with her, with Ryan?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which would have been when?’

‘Possibly Thursday 2nd June.’

‘But you have no alibi for anytime between 5 p.m. on Saturday 4th June and the morning of Wednesday 8th?’

‘Except for when I saw Joseph Rose and later Eric Hall, no.’

‘But you’re unsure exactly when it was you saw them?’

‘Yes.’

Silence.

Noble is staring at me.

‘You do realise the fucking shit you’re in?’

I look up, the veins in my eyes shards.

‘Yes,’ I say.

He doesn’t blink.

‘The shit we’re all in?’

I nod.

‘All right then,’ he sighs. ‘It’s your call.’

I weigh it up, the arms of my body dead.

Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal.

‘I’d like to see my solicitor, please.’

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Monday 13th June 1977

Chapter 17

‘There’s something strange going on,’ said Hadden.

‘Like what?’

‘They reckon there’s been another and that they’ve only bloody got someone for it. Holding them.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘No.’

‘Ripper?’

‘What it looks like.’

‘Bollocks. Who told you this?’

‘A little bird.’

‘How little?’

‘Stephanie.’

‘And she got it from?’

‘Desk at Bradford.’

‘Fuck.’

‘That’s almost what I said.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Make some calls.’

Fuck.

Back at the desk, I picked up the telephone and dialled Millgarth. ‘Samuel?’

‘Jack?’

‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know what you could mean.’

‘Oh yes you do.’

‘Oh no I don’t.’

‘OK. What time you going to stop playing silly buggers and start earning yourself a bit of what makes you happy?’

‘In about half an hour?’

I looked at my watch.

Shit.

‘Where?’

‘The Scarborough?’

‘It’s a date,’ and I hung up.

I looked at my watch again, checked my briefcase, and left.

I was the first in the Scarborough.

I put my pint on top of the telephone and dialled.

‘It’s me.’

‘Just can’t keep away, can you?’ she laughed.

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘It’s only been a couple of hours.’

‘And I miss you.’

‘Me too. Thought you were going to Manchester?’

‘I am, maybe. Just thought I’d give you a ring.’

‘That’d be nice.’

I laughed and said, ‘Thanks for the weekend.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I’ll call you when I get back.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘Bye then.’

‘Bye, Jack.’

She hung up first and then I put down the telephone, picked up my pint and went to a copper-topped table over in the corner.

I had a hard-on.

I looked at my watch, wanting to make the twelve-thirty train at the latest.

If they hadn’t caught the cunt, that was.

I could hear the rain lashing the windows.

‘Call this bloody summer,’ said the barman across the room.

I nodded, drained my pint and went back to the bar and ordered two bitters and a packet of salt and vinegar.

Back at the table I looked at my watch again.

‘Best not be flat,’ said Sergeant Samuel Wilson, sitting down.

‘Fuck off,’ I said.

‘And a merry bloody Christmas to you too,’ he laughed, then said, ‘What fuck happened to your hand?’

‘Cut myself.’

‘Fuck were you doing?’

‘Cooking.’

‘Fuck off.’

I offered him a crisp. ‘So?’

‘What?’

‘Samuel?’

‘Jack?’

‘Fuck off, it’s not Come bloody Dancing is it?’

He sighed. ‘Go on, what you heard?’

‘You got a body in Bradford and a bloke for it over here.’

‘And?’

‘It’s Ripper.’

Wilson killed his pint and grinned, cream on his lips.

‘Samuel?’

‘How about another, Jack?’

I finished mine and went back to the bar.

When I sat back down, he’d taken off his raincoat.

I glanced at my watch.

‘Not keeping you am I, Jack?’

‘No, got be over in Manchester this afternoon though.’ Then I added, ‘Depending on what you tell me. If you’re going to tell me anything that is?’

He sniffed up, ‘So how much is a busy man like you prepared to give a poor working man like myself?’

‘Depends what you got, you know how it works.’

He took out a piece of folded paper and waved it in front of me. ‘Internal memo from Oldman?’

‘Twenty?’

‘Fifty.’

‘Fuck off. I’m just confirming what I’ve already heard. If you’d come straight to your old mate Jack yesterday, then that’d be a different story wouldn’t it?’

‘Forty.’

‘Thirty.’

‘Thirty-five?’

‘Show us.’

He handed me the paper and I read:

At twelve noon Sunday 12 June, the body of Janice Ryan, twenty-two years old, a convicted prostitute, was found secreted under an old settee on wasteground off White Abbey Road, Bradford.

A post-mortem has been carried out and death was due to massive head injuries caused by a heavy blunt instrument. It is thought that death occurred some seven days before due to the partial decomposition of the body.

It is also thought from the pattern of the injuries that this death is not connected, repeat not connected, with the other murders publicly referred to as the Ripper Murders.

At the present time no information is to be given to the press in regard to this crime.

I stood up.

‘Where you going?’

‘It’s him,’ I said and walked over to the telephone. ‘What about my thirty-five quid?’

‘In a minute.’

I picked up the telephone and dialled.

Her telephone rang, and rang, and rang:

Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.

I hung up and then dialled again.

Her telephone rang, and rang, and -

‘Hello?’

‘Where were you?’

‘In the bath, why?’

‘There’s been another.’

‘Another?’

‘Him. In Bradford. Same place.’

‘No.’

‘Please, don’t go out. I’ll be over later.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as I can. Don’t go out,’

‘OK.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Bye.’

And she hung up.

I walked back across the pub, visions of bloodstained furniture, holes and heads:

I have given advance warning so its yours and their fault.

I sat down.

‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ I lied.

‘Don’t look it.’

‘So they got someone?’

‘Yep.’

‘Who?’

‘Fuck knows.’

‘Come on?’

‘Straight up. No-one knows, just brass.’

‘Why all the secrecy?’

‘I tell you, fuck knows.’

‘But they’re saying it’s not Ripper?’

‘That’s what they’re saying.’

‘What you reckon?’

‘Fuck knows, Jack. It’s weird.’

‘You heard owt else? Anything?’

‘How much?’

‘Call it an even fifty if it’s good.’

‘Couple of lads reckon some blokes have been suspended, but you didn’t hear that from me.’

‘Over this?’

‘Aye, that’s what a couple of lads here said.’

‘From Millgarth?’

‘That’s what they said.’

‘Who?’

‘DI Rudkin, your mate Fraser, and DC Ellis.’

‘Ellis?’

‘Mike Ellis. Fat twat with a big gob?’

‘Don’t know him. And they reckon they did this woman in Bradford?’

‘Now Jack, I didn’t say that. They’ve just been suspended, that’s all I know.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Aye.’

‘You surprised?’

‘Rudkin, no. Fraser, yes. Ellis, yeah but everyone hates him anyway.’

‘Cunt?’

‘Complete and utter,’

‘But everyone knew Rudkin was dirty?’

‘Lads don’t call him Harry for nowt,’

‘Fuck. What way?’

‘When he worked Vice he was keeping more than streets clean.’

‘And Fraser?’

‘You met him; he’s Mr fucking Clean. Owl’s always helped him along and all.’

‘Maurice Jobson? Why?’

‘Fraser’s married to Bill Molloy’s daughter, isn’t he?’

‘Fuck,’ I sighed. ‘And Badger Bill’s got cancer, yeah?’

‘Aye.’

‘Interesting.’

‘If you say so,’ shrugged Wilson.

I looked at my watch.

‘Best put that away,’ he said, pointing at the piece of paper on the table.

I nodded and put it in my pocket, taking out my wallet.

I counted out the notes under the table and handed him fifty.

‘That’ll do nicely, sir,’ he winked and stood up to go.

‘Anything at all, Samuel, give us a call?’

‘You bet.’

‘I mean it. If this is him, I want to know first.’

‘Got you,’ and he buttoned up his coat and was gone.

I looked at my watch and went to the telephone.

‘Bill? Jack.’

‘What you got?’

‘It’s strange, all right. Dead prostitute under a sofa in Bradford.’

‘Told you, Jack. I told you.’

‘But they’re saying it’s not a Ripper job.’

‘So why are they keeping it from us?’

‘I don’t know but, and this is just what I reckon, somehow some of brass have fucked up and there’s been some suspensions.’

‘Really?’

‘That’s what rumour is round Millgarth.’

‘Who?’

‘That Sergeant Fraser for one. John Rudkin and someone else.’

‘Detective Inspector John Rudkin? Over what?’

‘Don’t know. Might be nowt to do with this, but seems odd yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve got a bloke going to let us know first thing he hears.’

‘Good. I’ll have Front Page on standby.’

‘But you best not say why’

‘You still going to Manchester?’

‘I think so, yeah. But I’ll come back via Bradford.’

‘Keep in touch, Jack.’

‘Bye.’

I sat on the train and smoked and drank a warm can, picked at a sandwich and flicked through a paperback book, Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution.

After Huddersfield I just dozed, bad ale and sleep to match, waking to the hills and the rain, hair stuck against a dirty window, drifting:

I look at my watch, it’s 7.07.

I’m on the Moors, walking across the Moors, and I come to a chair, a high-backed leather chair, and there’s a woman in white kneeling before the chair, hands in angel prayer, hair across her face.

I lean down to scoop the hair away and it’s Carol, then Ka Su Peng. She stands up and points to the middle of the long white dress and a word in bloody fingerprints there writ:

livE.

And there on the Moors, in the wind and in the rain, she pulls the white dress up over her head, her yellow belly swollen, and then puts the dress back on, inside out, the word in bloody fingerprints there writ:

Evil.

And a small boy in blue pyjamas comes out from behind the high-backed leather chair and leads her away across the Moors and I stand there in the wind and in the rain and I look at my watch and it’s stopped:

7.07 .

I woke, my head against the window, and looked at my watch.

I picked up my briefcase and locked myself in the toilet. I sat on the rocking bog and took out the porno mag. Spunk.

Clare Strachan in all her bloody glory.

Hard again, I checked the address and went back to my seat and the half-eaten cheese sandwich.

From Stalybridge into Manchester I tried to put all of Wilson’s shit together, re-reading Oldman’s memo, wondering what the fuck Fraser could have done, knowing suspensions could be anything these days:

Back-handers and one-handers, dodgy overtime and faked expenses, sloppy paperwork, no paperwork.

John bloody Rudkin leading Mr fucking Clean astray.

Clueless, I went back to the window, the rain and the factories, the local horror movies, remembering the photographs of death camps my uncle had brought back from the war.

I’d been fifteen when that war ended and now, in 1977, I was sat on a train, head against the black glass, the bloody rain, the fucking North, wondering if this one ever would.

I was thinking of Martin Laws and The Exorcist when we pulled into Victoria.

In the station, straight to a telephone:

‘Anything?’

‘Nothing.’

Out of Victoria, up to Oldham Street.

270 Oldham Street, dark and rain-stained, rotting black bin bags heaped up outside, MJM Publishing sat on the third floor.

I stood at the foot of the stairs and shook down my raincoat.

Soaked through, I walked up the stairs.

I banged on the double doors and went inside.

It was a big office, full of low furniture, almost empty, a door to another office at the back.

A woman sat at a desk near the back door, a bag, typing.

I stood at the low counter by the door and coughed.

‘Yes?’ she said, not looking up.

‘I’d like to talk to the proprietor please?’

‘The what?’

‘The owner.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Jack Williams.’

She shrugged and picked up the old telephone on her desk: ‘There’s a man here wants to see the owner. Name’s Jack Williams.’

She sat there, nodding, then covered the mouthpiece and said, ‘What do you want?’

‘Business.’

‘Business,’ she repeated, nodded again, and asked, ‘What kind of business?’

‘Orders.’

‘Orders,’ she said, nodded one last time, and then hung up.

‘What?’ I said.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Leave your name and number and he’ll call you back.’

‘But I’ve come all way over from Leeds.’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said.

‘Yep,’ she said.

‘Can I at least have his name?’

‘Lord High and Bloody Mighty,’ she said, ripping the piece of paper out of the typewriter.

I went for it: ‘Don’t know how you can work for a bloke like that.’

‘I don’t intend to for much longer.’

‘You out of here then?’

She stopped pretending to work and smiled, ‘Week next Friday.’

‘Good on you.’

‘I hope so.’

I said, ‘You want to earn yourself a couple of quid for your retirement?’

‘My retirement? You’re no spring chicken yourself, you cheeky sod.’

‘A couple of quid to tide you over?’

‘Only a couple?’

‘Twenty?’

She came over to the front of the office, a little smile. ‘So who are you really?’

‘A business rival, shall we say?’

‘Say what you bloody well want for twenty quid.’

‘So you’ll help me out?’

She glanced round at the door to the back office and winked, ‘Depends what you want me to do, doesn’t it?’

‘You know your magazine Spunk?’

She rolled her eyes again, pursed her lips, and nodded.

‘You keep lists of the models?’

‘The models!’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Addresses, phone numbers?’

‘Probably, if they went through the books but, believe me, I doubt they all did.’

‘If you could get us names and anything else on models that’d be great.’

‘What you want them for?’

I glanced at the back office and said, ‘Look, I sold a job lot of old Spunks to Amsterdam. Got a bloody bomb for them. If your Lordship is too busy to earn himself a cut, then I’ll see if I can’t set myself up.’

‘Twenty quid?’

‘Twenty quid.’

She said, ‘I can’t do it now.’

I looked at my watch. ‘What time you finished?’

‘Five.’

‘Bottom of stairs at five?’

‘Twenty quid?’

‘Twenty quid.’

‘See you then.’

I stood in a red telephone box in the middle of Piccadilly Bus Station and dialled.

‘It’s me.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Still in Manchester.’

‘What time you coming home?’

‘Soon as I can.’

‘I’ll wear something pretty then.’

Outside, the rain kept falling, the red box leaking.

I’d been here before, this very box, twenty-five years before, my fiancйe and I, waiting for the bus to Altrincham to see her Aunt, a new ring on her finger, the wedding but one week away.

‘Bye,’ I said, but she’d already gone.

I stepped back into the sheets of piss and walked about Piccadilly for a couple of hours, going in and out of cafйs, sitting in damp booths with weak coffees, waiting, watching skinny black figures dancing through the rain, the lot of us dodging the raindrops, the memories, the pain.

I looked at my watch.

It was time to go.

Going up to five, I found another telephone box on Oldham Street.

‘Anything?’

‘Nothing.’

At five to five I was huddled at the bottom of the steps, ringing wet.

Ten minutes later she came down the stairs.

‘I’ve got to go back up,’ she said. ‘I’m not finished.’

‘Did you get the stuff?’

She handed me an envelope.

I glanced inside.

She said, ‘It’s all there. What there is.’

‘I believe you,’ I said and handed her twenty folded quid.

‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ she laughed, walking back upstairs.

‘Bet it was,’ I said. ‘Bet it was.’

I went down to Victoria where they told me the Bradford train went from Piccadilly.

I ran up through the cats and the dogs and caught a cab for the last bit.

It was almost six when we got there, but there was a train on the hour and I caught it.

Inside, the carriage stank of wet clothes and stale smoke and I had to share a table with an old couple from Pennistone and their sweating sandwiches.

The woman smiled, I smiled back and the husband bit into a large red apple.

I opened the envelope and took out tissue-thin pieces of duplicate paper, three in all.

There were lists of payments, cash or cheque for February 1974 through to March 1976, payments to photoshops, chemists, photographers, paper mills, ink works, and models.

Models.

I ran down the list, out of breath:

Everything stopped, dead.

Clare Morrison, known to be Strachan.

Everything stopped.

I took out Oldman’s memo:

Jane Ryan, read Janice.

Everything -

Sue Penn, read Su Peng.

Stopped -

Read Ka Su Peng.

Dead.

There on that train, that train of tears, crawling across those undressed hells, those naked little hells, those naked little hells all decked out in tiny, tiny bells, there on that train listening to those bells ring in the end of the world:

1977.

In 1977, the year the world broke.

My world:

The old woman across the table finishing the last sandwich and screwing up the silver foil into a tiny, tiny ball, the egg and cheese on her false teeth, crumbs stuck in the powder on her face, her face smiling at me, a gargoyle, her husband bleeding his teeth into that big red apple, this big red, red, red world.

1977.

In 1977, the year the world turned red.

My world:

I needed to see the photographs.

The train crawled on.

I had to see the photographs.

The train stopped at another station.

The photographs, the photographs, the photographs.

Clare Morrison, Jane Ryan, Sue Penn.

I was crying and I wanted to stop, wanted to pull myself together but, when I tried, the bits didn’t fit.

Pieces missing.

1977.

In 1977, the year the world fell to bits.

My world:

Going under, to the sea-bed, better off dead, that evil, evil bed, those secret underwater waves that floated me up bloated, up from the sea-bed.

Beached, washed up.

1977.

In 1977, the year the world drowned.

My world:

1977 and I needed to see the photographs, had to see the photographs, the photographs.

In 1977, the year -

1977.

My world:

An imagined photograph.

Wear something pretty…

I didn’t stop in Bradford, just changed trains for Leeds and sat on another slow train through hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell:

Hell.

In Leeds I ran through the black rain along Boar Lane, stumbling, through the precinct, tripping, on to Briggate, falling, into Joe’s Adult Books.

‘Spunk? Back issues?’

‘By the door.’

‘You got every issue?’

‘I don’t know. Have a look.’

On my knees, through the pile, stacking doubles to one side and holding on to every different issue I came to, clutching their plastic wrappings.

‘This it?’

‘Maybe some in the back.’

‘I want them.’

‘All right, all right.’

‘All of them.’

I stood there while Joe went into the back, stood there in the bright pink light, the cars outside in the rain, the blokes browsing, giving it to me sideways.

Joe came back, six or seven in his hands.

‘That it?’

‘You must have them all.’

I looked down and saw I’d got a good thirteen or fourteen.

‘It still going?’

‘No.’

‘How much?’

He tried to take them from me but then said, ‘How many you got there?’

I counted, dropping them and then picking them up, until I said, ‘Thirteen.’

‘Eight forty-five.’

I handed him a tenner.

‘You want a bag?’

But I was gone.

In the Market toilets, the cubicle door locked, on the floor, ripping open plastic bags, tearing through the pages, through the pictures and the photographs, the photographs of bums and tits, cunts and cuts, the hairy bits, the dirty bits, the bloody, bloody red bits, until I came – came to the yellow bits.

This is why people die.

This is why people.

This is why.

I stood upright in another box and dialled.

‘George Oldman, please.’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

‘Just a moment.’

I stood and waited inside the box.

‘Mr Whitehead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Assistant Chief Constable Oldman’s office is not accepting any more calls from the press. Could you please call Detective Inspector Evans on – ’

I hung up and puked down the inside of the red telephone box.

On my bed, a bed of paper and pornography, in prayer, the telephone ringing and ringing and ringing, the rain against the windows falling and falling and falling, the wind through the frames blowing and blowing and blowing, the knocks on the door knocking and knocking and knocking.

‘What happened to our Jubilee?’

‘It’s over.’

‘To remission and forgiveness, an end to penance?’

‘I can’t forgive the things I don’t even know’

‘I do, Jack. I have to.’

The telephone was ringing and ringing and ringing and she was still beside me on the bed.

I lifted up her head to free my arm, to stand.

Barefoot, I went to the telephone.

‘Martin?’

‘Jack? It’s Bill.’

‘Bill?’

‘Christ, Jack. Where you been? All bloody hell’s broken loose.’

I stood there in the dark, nodding.

‘Turns out the dead prostitute in Bradford, it’s only Fraser’s bloody girlfriend and that it’s him they’re holding.’

I looked back over at the bed, at her still on the bed.

Jane Ryan, read Janice.

Bill was saying, ‘Then Bradford got a letter from Ripper and they didn’t say anything to Oldman or anyone and they’ve only gone and fucking printed it in the morning edition, and sold it on to The Sun.’

I stood there, in the dark.

‘Jack?’

‘Fuck,’ I said.

‘Shit creek, mate. You better come in.’

I dressed in the dawn light, the dim light, and left her still on the bed.

On the stairs, I looked at my watch.

It had stopped.

Outside, I walked down the road to the Paki shop on the corner and bought a Telegraph & Argus.

I sat on a low wall, my back in a hedge, and read:

RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?

Yesterday morning the Telegraph & Argus received the following letter from a man claiming to be Yorkshire’s Jack the Ripper killer.

Tests carried out by independent experts and information from reliable police sources lead us here at the Telegraph & Argus to believe that this letter is genuine, and not the first such letter this man has sent.

We here at the Telegraph & Argus, however, believe the British Public should have the right to judge for yourselves.

From Hell.

Dear George

I am sorry I cannot give my name for obvious reasons. I am the Ripper. I’ve been dubbed a maniac by the Press but not by you, you call me clever cause you know I am. You and your boys haven’t a clue that photo in the paper gave me fits and that bit about killing myself, no chance. I’ve got things to do. My purpose is to rid streets of them sluts. My one regret is that young lassie Johnson, did not know cause changed routine that nite but warned you and XXXX XXXXXXXXX at Post.

Up to number five now you say, but there’s a surprise in Bradford, get about you know.

Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.

Sorry about young lassie.

Yours respectfully

Jack the Ripper.

Might write again later I not sure last one really deserved it. Whores getting younger each time. Old slut next time hope.

The next headline:

DID THE POLICE AND THE POST KNOW?

I sat on the low wall, bile in my mouth, blood on my hands, crying.

This is why people die.

This is why people.

This is why.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Tuesday 14th June 1977

Chapter 18

I open my eyes and say:

‘I didn’t do it.’

And John Piggott, my solicitor, stubs out his cigarette and says, ‘Bob, Bob, I know you didn’t.’

‘So get me fucking out of here.’

I close my eyes and say:

‘But I didn’t do it.’

And John Piggott, my solicitor, a year younger and five stone fatter, says, ‘Bob, Bob, I know.’

‘So why the fuck do I have to report to Wood Street bloody Nick every fucking morning?’

‘Bob, Bob, let’s just take it and get you out of here.’

‘But this means they can just pick me up any fucking time they want, haul me back in here.’

‘Bob, Bob, they can anyway. You know that.’

‘But they’re not going to charge me?’

‘No.’

‘Just suspend me without pay and have me report in every fucking morning until they find a way to fit me up?’

‘Yes.’

The Sergeant on the desk, Sergeant Wilson, he hands me my watch and the coins from my trousers.

‘Don’t be buying no tickets to Rio now.’

I say, ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘No-one said you did,’ he smiles.

‘So keep it fucking shut, Sergeant.’

And I walk away, John Piggott holding the door open for me.

But Wilson calls after me:

‘Don’t forget: ten o’clock, tomorrow, Wood Street.’

In the car park, the empty car park, John Piggott unlocks the car door.

‘Take a deep breath,’ he says, doing just that.

I get into the car and we go, Hot Chocolate on the radio again.

John Piggott pulls up on Tammy Hall Street, Wakefield, just across from the Wood Street Police Station.

‘I’ve just to nip in and get something,’ he says and heads into the old building and up the stairs to his first-floor office.

I sit in the car, the rain on the windscreen, the radio playing, Janice dead, and I feel like I’ve been here before.

She was pregnant.

In a dream, in a vision, in a buried memory, I don’t know which or where, but I know I’ve been here before.

And it was yours.

‘Where to?’ asks Piggott as he gets back in.

‘The Redbeck,’ I say.

‘On the Doncaster Road?’

‘Yeah.’

She lay down beside me on the floor of Room 27 and I felt grey, finished.

I close my eyes and she’s under them, waiting.

She stood before me, her cracked skull and punctured lungs, pregnant, suffocated.

I open my eyes and rinse cold water over my face, down my neck, grey, finished.

John Piggott comes in with two teas and a chip sandwich.

It stinks out the room, the sandwich.

‘Fuck is this place?’ he asks, eyes this way and that.

‘Just somewhere.’

‘How long you had it?’

‘It’s not really mine.’

‘But you got the key?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Must cost a bloody fortune.’

‘It’s for a friend.’

‘Who?’

‘That journalist, Eddie Dunford.’

‘Fuck off?’

‘No.’

I stepped out of the old lift and on to the landing.

I walked down the corridor, the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell.

I came to a door and stopped.

Room 77.

I wake and Piggott’s still sleeping, wedged under the sink. I count coins and head out into the rain, collar up.

In the lobby, under the on/off strip lighting, I dial.

‘Speak to Jack Whitehead, please?’

‘One moment.’

In the lobby, under the on/off lighting, I wait, everything gone quiet.

‘Jack Whitehead speaking.’

‘This is Robert Fraser.’

‘Where are you?’

‘The Redbeck Motel, just outside Wakefield on the Doncaster Road.’

‘I know it.’

‘I need to see you.’

‘Likewise.’

‘When?’

‘Give us half an hour?’

‘Room 27. Round the back.’

‘Right.’

In the lobby, under the on and the off, I hang up.

I open the door, Piggott awake, bringing a bucket of rain in with me.

‘Where you been?’

‘Phone.’

‘Louise?’

‘No,’ and know I should have.

‘Who did you call?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

‘From the Post?’

‘Yeah. You know him?’

‘Of him.’

‘And?’

‘The jury’s still out.’

‘I need a friend, John.’

‘Bob, Bob, you got me.’

‘I need all the bloody ones I can get.’

‘Well, watch him. That’s all.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Just watch him.’

There’s a knock.

Piggott tenses.

I go to the door, say: ‘Yeah?’

‘It’s Jack Whitehead.’

I open the door and there he is, standing in the rain and the lorry lights, a dirty mac and a carrier bag.

‘You going to let me in?’

I open the door wider.

Jack Whitehead steps into Room 27, clocking Piggott and then the walls:

‘Fuck,’ he whistles.

John Piggott sticks out his hand and says, ‘John Piggott. I’m Bob’s solicitor. You’re Jack Whitehead, from the Yorkshire Post?’

‘Right,’ says Whitehead.

‘Have a seat,’ I say, pointing at the mattress.

‘Thanks,’ says Jack Whitehead and we all squat down like a gang of bloody Red Indians.

‘I didn’t do it,’ I say, but Jack’s having trouble keeping his eyes off the wall.

‘Right,’ he nods, then adds: ‘Didn’t think you did.’

‘What have you heard?’ asks Piggott.

Jack Whitehead nods my way, ‘About him?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Not much.’

‘Like?’

‘First we heard was there’d been another murder, in Bradford, everyone over there saying it was a Ripper job, his lot saying nothing, next news they’d suspended three officers. That was it.’

‘Then?’

‘Then this?’ says Whitehead, taking a folded newspaper out of his coat and spreading it over the floor.

I stare down at the headline:

RIPPER LETTER TO OLDMAN?

At the letter.

‘We’ve seen it,’ says Piggott.

‘Bet you have,’ smiles Whitehead.

‘A surprise in Bradford,’ I whisper.

‘Kind of puts you in the clear.’

‘You’d think so, yeah,’ nods Piggott.

Whitehead says, ‘You think it was the Ripper?’

‘Who killed her?’ asks Piggott.

Whitehead nods and they both look at me.

I can’t think of anything, except she was pregnant and now she’s dead.

Both of them.

Dead.

Eventually I say, ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘Well, I’ve got something else. Another hat for the ring,’ says Whitehead and tips a pile of magazines out of his plastic carrier bag.

‘Fuck’s all this?’ says Piggott, picking up a porno mag.

‘Spunk. You heard of it?’ Whitehead asks me.

‘Yeah,’ I say.

‘How?’

‘Can’t remember.’

‘Well, you need to,’ he says and hands me a magazine open at a bleached blonde with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and fat fingers up her cunt and arse.

I look up.

‘Look familiar?’

I nod.

‘Who is it?’ asks Piggott, straining at the upside-down magazine.

I say, ‘Clare Strachan.’

‘Also known as Morrison,’ adds Jack Whitehead.

Me: ‘Murdered Preston, 1975.’

‘What about her? You know her?’ he asks and hands me another woman, Oriental, black hair with her legs spread, mouth open, eyes closed, and thin fingers up her cunt and arse.

‘No,’ I say.

‘Sue Penn, Ka Su Peng?’

Me: ‘Assaulted Bradford, October 1976,’

‘Give the boy a prize,’ says Whitehead quietly and hands me another magazine.

I open it.

‘Page 7,’ he says.

I turn to page 7, to the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a dick in her face and come on her lips.

‘Who is it?’ Piggott’s asking.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Jack Whitehead.

Piggott still asking: ‘Who is it?’

But the rain outside, it’s loud, deafening, like the lorry doors as they slam shut, one after another, in the car park, endlessly.

No food, no sleep, just circles:

Her cunt.

Her mouth.

Her eyes.

Her belly.

No food, no sleep, just secrets:

In her cunt.

In her mouth.

In her eyes.

In her belly.

Circles and secrets, secrets and circles.

I ask: ‘MJM Publishing? You checked it out?’

‘I was over there yesterday,’ says Whitehead.

‘And?’

‘Your run-of-the-mill porn publisher. Slipped a disgruntled employee twenty quid for the names and addresses.’

John Piggott asks, ‘How did you find out about it?’

‘Spunk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘An anonymous tip.’

‘How anonymous?’

‘Young lad. Skinhead. Said he’d known Clare Strachan when she was calling herself Morrison and living over here.’

I say, ‘You got a name?’

‘For him?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Barry James Anderson, and I’d seen him before. Local. He’ll be in the files.’

I swallow; BJ.

‘What files?’ asks Piggott, playing catch-up, years behind.

‘Can’t you have a word with Maurice Jobson,’ presses Whitehead, ignoring Piggott. ‘The Owl’s taken you under his wing, hasn’t he?’

I shake my head. ‘Doubt it now.’

‘You told him anything about any of this?’

‘After that last time we spoke, I went to him to get the files.’

‘And?’

‘Gone.’

‘Fuck.’

‘A Detective Inspector John Rudkin, my bloody boss, he checked them out in April 1975.’

‘April ’75? Strachan wasn’t even dead then.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And he never brought them back?’

‘No.’

‘Not even after she did die?’

‘Never even fucking mentioned them.’

‘And you told Maurice Jobson all this?’

‘He worked it out for himself when he tried to pull the files.’

‘Which files?’ asks Piggott again.

Whitehead, foot down, ignoring him again: ‘What did Maurice do?’

‘Told me he’d deal with it. Next time I saw Rudkin it was when they came and picked me up.’

‘He say anything?’

‘Rudkin? No, just took a fucking swing.’

‘And he’s suspended?’

‘Yes,’ says Piggott, a question he can answer.

‘You spoken to him?’

‘He can’t,’ says Piggott. ‘It was one of the stipulations of his release. No contact with DI Rudkin or DC Ellis.’

‘What about Maurice?’

‘That’s OK.’

‘You should show him these,’ says Whitehead, pointing at the carpet of pornography before us.

‘I can’t,’ I say.

‘Why not?’

‘Louise,’ I say.

‘Your wife?’

‘Yeah.’

‘The Badger’s daughter,’ smiles Whitehead.

Piggott: ‘You going to tell me which fucking files you’re talking about. I think I should know

Mechanically I say, ‘Clare Strachan was arrested in Wakefield under the name Morrison in 1974 for soliciting, and was a witness in a murder inquiry.’

‘Which murder inquiry?’

Jack Whitehead looks up at the walls of Room 27, at the pictures of the dead, at the pictures of the dead little girls and says: ‘Paula Garland.’

‘Fucking hell.’

‘Yeah,’ we both say.

Jack Whitehead comes back with three teas.

‘I’m going to go see Rudkin,’ he says.

‘There’s someone else,’ I say.

‘Who?’

‘Eric Hall.’

‘Bradford Vice?’

I nod, ‘You know him?’

‘Heard of him. Suspended, isn’t he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about him?’

‘Turns out he was pimping Janice.’

‘And that’s why he’s suspended?’

‘No. Peter Hunter’s mob.’

‘And you think I should pay him a visit?’

‘He must know something about these,’ I say, pointing at the magazines again.

‘You got home addresses for them?’

‘Rudkin and Hall?’

He nods and I write them out on a piece of paper.

‘You should talk to Chief Superintendent Jobson,’ Piggott is telling me.

‘No,’ I say.

‘But why? You said you need all the friends you can get.’

‘Let me talk to Louise first.’

‘Yeah,’ says Jack Whitehead suddenly. ‘You should be with your wife. Your family’

‘You married?’ I ask him.

‘Was,’ he says. ‘A long time ago.’

I stand in the lobby, under the on/off strip lighting, and I die:

‘Louise?’

‘Sorry, it’s Tina. Is that Bob?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She’s at the hospital, love. He’s almost gone.’

In the lobby, under the on/off lighting, I wait, everything gone.

‘Bob? Bob?’

In the lobby, under the on and the off, I hang.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Wednesday 15th June 1977

Chapter 19

I sat in the Redbeck car park between two Bird’s Eye lorries, my head spinning from that room, those memories, and these options:

See Rudkin and Hall, or tail Fraser.

Heads or tails:

Heads.

I took out the scribble Fraser had given me:

Rudkin lived nearer, Eric Hall further.

Rudkin dirty, Hall dirtier

Hall dirty, Rudkin dirtier.

Heads or tails.

Staring across the car park at that room.

That room, those memories.

The writings on those wailing walls.

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, always back to Eddie.

In the rearview mirror, Carol waited on the back seat; white flesh and bruised tones, red hair and broken bones, the pictures from the wall, the pictures from my Nursery Walls, the pictures from down the Memory Lane.

I sat there in a car full of dead women, a car full of Rippers, and tossed the two-pence coin again.

Heads or tails:

Heads.

Durkar, another Ossett, another Sandal:

Another piece of White Yorkshire -

Long drives and high walls.

I drove past Rudkin’s, saw two cars in the drive and pulled up on Durkar Lane and waited.

It was 9.30 on the morning of Wednesday 15 June 1977.

I wondered what I’d say if I walked up that drive, rang that bell:

‘Excuse me, Mr Rudkin. I think you might be Yorkshire Ripper and I was wondering if you had any comment to make?’

And just as I was thinking that, another car pulled into his drive.

Five minutes later and Rudkin pulled out of his drive in his bronze Datsun 260, another man in the passenger seat, and headed down Durkar Lane.

I followed them down into Wakefield, stalling at the lights on the way in, out along the Dewsbury Road, over Shawcross, past the tip, down through Hanging Heaton and into Batley, through the centre until they pulled up outside RD News on the Bradford Road, on the outskirts of Batley.

Batley, another Bradford, another Delhi:

Another piece of Black Yorkshire -

Low walls and high minarets.

I drove past RD News and pulled up just beyond a Chinese take-away and waited.

Rudkin and the other man stayed inside the car.

It was 10.30 and the sun had come out.

Five minutes later and a maroon BMW 2002 pulled up just past Rudkin’s Datsun and two men got out, one black, one white.

I span round in my seat and made sure:

Robert Craven.

Detective Inspector Robert Craven -

‘They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.’

Craven and his black buddy went over to Rudkin’s car and Rudkin and a fat man got out.

Mike Ellis, I was guessing.

Then the four of them went inside RD News.

I closed my eyes and saw again rivers of blood in a woman’s time, umbrellas up, bloody showers, puddles all blood, raining cats and blood.

I opened my eyes, the sky blue, clouds moving fast up the hills behind the shops.

I got out of my car and crossed the road to a telephone box.

I dialled her flat.

She answered: ‘Hello?’

‘It’s me.’

‘What?’

‘I want to know. About the pictures, I need to know.’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘It’s important.’

‘What?’

‘Everything. Who took them? Who arranged it? Everything.’

‘Not on the phone.’

‘Why not?’

‘Jack, if I tell you on the phone, I’ll never see you again.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it?’

I stood in the red telephone box, in the middle of the red river of blood, below the blue sky, and I looked up at the window above the newsagent’s.

John Rudkin was looking out of the window, one hand on the frame, the other square, palms open, smiling from ear to ear.

‘Jack?’

‘I’ll come over then.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

And I hung up, staring at John Rudkin.

I went back to the car and waited.

Thirty minutes later, Rudkin came out of the shop, shirtsleeves, jacket over his shoulder, followed by the fat man and Craven.

The black man didn’t come out.

Rudkin, Craven, and the fat man shook hands, and Rudkin and the fat man got into the Datsun. Craven waved them off. I sat there, waiting.

Craven went back inside the newsagent’s.

I sat there, waiting.

Ten minutes later, Craven came back out.

The black man didn’t.

Craven got into his car and drove off.

I sat there.

Five minutes later, I got out and went into the newsagent’s.

Inside it was bigger than it looked, selling Calor gas and toys as well as papers and fags.

There was a young Pakistani behind the counter.

I said to him, ‘Who owns this place?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Who’s the boss? Is it you?’

‘No, why?’

‘I wondered if the flat above was for rent?’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘I’d like to put me name down if it ever comes up. Who would I see about that?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said, thinking about it, thinking about me.

I picked up a Telegraph & Argus and handed him the money.

‘Best speak to Mr Douglas,’ he said.

‘Bob Douglas?’ I nodded.

‘Yes, Bob Douglas.’

‘Thank you very much,’ I said and left, thinking:

‘They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.’

Thinking, fuck off.

The Pride, Bradford, just down from the Telegraph & Argus. Tom was already there, coughing into his beer at the bar.

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Sorry, springing this on you.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Awful having to drink with the enemy.’

‘Sit down?’ I said, nodding at the table by the door.

‘Not getting a drink?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said and ordered one and another for him.

We sat down.

‘Not very nice,’ I said. ‘That piece about the letter.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said, palms up, genuine.

I took a sip and said, ‘They’re hoaxes anyway.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘They’re not from the bloody Ripper, tell you that.’

‘We had them tested.’

‘We? Thought it was nowt to do with you.’

‘There was evidence and all.’

‘Fuck it. It wasn’t why I phoned.’

‘Go on,’ he said, relaxing, relieved.

‘I want to know about one of yours, Eric Hall?’

‘What about him?’

‘Been suspended, yeah?’

‘Him and rest of them.’

‘Right. What you got on him?’

‘Not much.’

‘You know him?’

‘Say hello, that way.’

‘You know this last one, this Janice Ryan?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, I got me a bloke saying she was Eric’s bird, that Detective Inspector Hall pimped her a bit and all.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yep.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me like but, these days, not much bloody would.’

‘So you don’t know anything else? Anything extra on him?’

‘They’re a law unto themselves, Bradford Vice. But it’s same with your lot, I bet.’

I nodded.

‘To be honest,’ he continued. ‘I always thought he was a bit on thick side. You know, at press conferences, after work.’

‘Thick enough to murder the prostitute he was pimping and try and make it look like a Ripper job?’

‘Be beyond him, mate. Out of his bloody league, he’d be. Never pull it off.’

‘Maybe he hasn’t.’

Tom was shaking his head, sniffing up.

I said, ‘How well do you know lasses over here?’

‘What you asking, Jack?’

‘Come on. Do you know them?’

‘Some.’

‘You know a Chinese lass, Ka Su Peng?’

‘The one that got away,’ he smiled.

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘What do you know about her?’

‘Popular. But you know what they say about a Chinky?’

‘What?’

‘An hour later and you could murder another.’

I knocked once.

She opened the door, said nothing, and walked back down the bare passage.

I followed her and stood there, there in her room, with its sticks of shit and stink of sex, and I watched her rubbing hand-cream into her fingers and into her palms, up her wrists and into her arms, down into her knees.

There were the spits of an afternoon rain on the window, the bright orange curtains hopeless in the gloom, her rubbing her childish knees, me staring up her skirt.

‘Is this the last fuck?’ she asked later, lying in the back bedroom with the curtains drawn against the rain, against the afternoon, against the Yorkshire life.

And I lay there beside her, looking up at the stains on the ceiling, the plastic light fittings that needed a wipe, listening to her broken words, the beat of her battered heart, alone and depressed with my come on her thighs, her toes touching mine.

‘Jack?’

‘No,’ I lied.

But she was crying anyway, the magazine open on the floor beside the bed, her top lip swelling.

I parked outside a nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course.

There was a blue Granada 2000 sat in the drive.

I walked up to the door and rang the bell.

A gaunt middle-aged woman answered the door, fiddling with the pearls around her neck.

‘Is Eric in?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m from the Yorkshire Post.’

Eric Hall came out of the living room, his face black and blue, nose bandaged.

‘Mr Hall?’

‘It’s all right Libby, love…’

The woman gave her pearls another tug and went the way he’d come.

‘What is it?’ hissed Hall.

‘About Janice Ryan?’

‘Who?’

‘Fuck off, Eric,’ I said, leaning into the doorway. ‘Don’t be a silly cunt.’

He blinked, swallowed, and said, ‘You know who I am, who you’re talking to?’

‘A dirty copper named Eric Hall, yeah.’

He stood there, in the doorway to his nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course, his eyes full of tears.

‘Let’s go for a drive, Eric,’ I suggested.

We pulled up in the empty car park of the George.

I turned off the engine.

We sat in silence and stared at the hedge and the fields beyond.

After a while I said, ‘Have a look in that bag at your feet.’

He opened his fat little legs and bent down into the bag.

He pulled out a magazine.

‘Page 7,’ I said.

He stared down at the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a prick to her gob and spunk on her face.

‘That yours?’ I asked him.

But he just sat there, shaking his head from side to side, until he said, ‘How much?’

‘Five.’

‘Hundred?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Five fucking thousand? I haven’t got it.’

‘You’ll get it,’ I said and started the car.

The office was dead.

I knocked on Hadden’s door and went in.

He was sat behind his desk, his back to Leeds and the night.

I sat down.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘They’ve let Fraser go.’

‘You seen him?’

‘Yep,’ I smiled.

Hadden smiled back, an eyebrow arched. ‘And?’

‘He’s been suspended. Reckons Rudkin and some bloke from Bradford Vice are up to their ears in it.’

‘What do you think?’

‘Well, I went out to have a look and Rudkin’s up to his ears in something, but I’m fucked if I know what.’

Bill Hadden didn’t look very impressed.

‘Saw Tom,’ I said.

Hadden smiled. ‘He apologise, did he?’

‘Sheep-faced, he was.’

‘And rightly-bloody-so.’

‘Said they still reckon the letter’s genuine.’

Hadden said nothing.

‘But,’ I went on. ‘He didn’t have anything on this Bradford copper.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Hall. Eric Hall?’

Hadden shook his head.

I asked, ‘You got anything new?’

‘No,’ he said, still shaking his head.

I stood up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’

‘Right,’ he said.

At the door, I turned back. ‘There was one other thing.’

‘Yeah?’ he said, not looking up.

‘You know the one in Preston?’

He looked up. ‘What?’

‘The prostitute they say was a Ripper job?’

Hadden was nodding.

‘Fraser said she was a witness in the Paula Garland murder,’

‘What?’

And I left him with his mouth open, eyes wide.

He was sitting in the dim lobby in a high-backed chair, his eyes on his hat, his hat upon his knee.

‘Jack,’ he said, not looking up.

‘I dream of rivers of blood, women’s blood. When I fuck, I see blood. When I come, death.’

Martin Laws leant forward.

He parted his thin grey hair between his fingers and the hole leapt from the shadows.

‘There has to be another way,’ I said, tears in the dark.

He looked up and said: ‘Jack, if the Bible teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that this is the way things are, the way things have always been, and will always be until the end.’

‘The end?’

‘Noah was insane until the rain.’

‘And there’s no other way?’

‘Must it be it must.’

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Wednesday 15th June 1977

Chapter 20

And Piggott drops me outside St James and is saying how if there’s anything I need or there’s anything more he can do, I should just give him a call, but I’m out of the car, door open, and up the stairs, out of breath, pulling myself up on the banisters, skidding across their polished floors, into the ward and shouting at that one and the other one, the nurses coming running, me pulling back the curtains on an empty bed, one saying how she’s so sorry and it was quite sudden in the end, quite sudden after all that time and how it’s always so difficult to predict but at least my wife was with him and in the end he’d closed his eyes like he just stopped and how upset she’d been but, in cases like this, it’s for the best and the pain’s gone and it wasn’t that drawn out in the end, and I’m just standing there at the bottom of his empty bed, staring at the empty bedside table, doors open, wondering where all the barley water’s gone and then I see one of Bobby’s cars, the little Matchbox police car Rudkin got him, and I pick it up and stand there just staring at the little car in the empty corner of the ward, the other nurse telling me how peaceful he looked and how much better off he is being dead and not alive and in pain and I look up at her face, at the red folds in her neck, the white damaged hair, the big blue eyes, and I wonder what on earth would possess someone to do this job, and then I think the same about my own job before I remember how I’m suspended and I probably won’t be doing my own job anyway, no matter what they say, and I look at my watch and realise how much I’ve lost track of the time, much I’ve lost track of the minutes, I’ve lost track of the hours, lost track of the days, track of the weeks, of the months, the years, decades, and I walk away down the polished corridor, the nurses still talking, another one coming out from the booth, the three of them watching me go until I stop and turn around and walk back up the corridor to thank them and thank them and thank them and then I turn around and I walk away again, down the polished corridor, the little police car in my hand, down the stairs and out the door into the morning, or what I think is a morning but the leaves on the trees are all tinged red and the sky is turning white, the grass blue, the people alien greys, the cars silent, the voices gone, and I sit on the steps, rubbing my eyes until they sting like bees and I stop and I stand up and walk down the long drive towards the road and wonder how the fuck I get home from here and so I stick out my thumb and stand there for a long time until I fall over and lie there beside the entrance to the hospital in the blue grass, staring up at the white sky, at the red leaves, and if I sleep, then I wake, and when I wake I get up and dust the blue grass off me and walk down the road to a bright red phone box and inside I find a white card for a taxi and I dial and ask a foreign voice in a foreign place for a cab and then I stand outside the box and watch the silent cars with all their Rippers at their wheels, watch them speeding up and down the road, watch them laughing and pointing at me, dead women in their boots, at their back windows, dead women waving and asking for help, white hands dangling from their boots, white hands pressed to their back windows, until at long, long, bloody last the taxi pulls up and I get in and tell him where I want to go and he looks at me like he doesn’t know where the fuck I mean but off we set, me sat up front, the radio on, him trying to talk to me but I can’t understand what on earth he’s saying or why on earth he would want to say anything to me until I ask him where the fuck he’s from and he doesn’t say anything after that, just concentrates on the road ahead until we pull up some two days fucking later outside my house and I tell him I’m sorry but I haven’t got any money so he’ll just have to wait there while I go inside and find some, which upsets him no end but what can he do, so I go up to the house and put my key in the lock but it doesn’t work any more so I ring the bell for the rest of the day until I go round the back and try another key in another lock but that doesn’t work either, so I spend the night knocking until I put the brick that stops the garage doors banging, I put that brick through the little window next to the back door and stick my hand in there but that doesn’t help at all so I set about the door with my fists and my feet until finally I get inside and go into the front room and take the milk money out of the top drawer and go back out down the drive to the taxi driver but if he hasn’t fucked off after all that, not that I can blame him, so I wave to the neighbours across the road and go back inside to find Louise and Bobby, going from room to room, but they’re not there, not in the drawers, not in the cupboards, and not under the beds, so I go back downstairs and pop round to Tina’s to see if they’ve nipped round there or if she knows where the bloody hell they’ve got to, so I wave to all the neighbours again and go up Tina’s drive and knock on her back door but she doesn’t open the door so I keep knocking into the middle of next week, Kirsty the dog yapping away on the other side, and I keep knocking until at long fucking last the door opens and it’s Janice, just fucking stood there, as large as life, and you could knock me down with a feather I’m that surprised, and I tell her straight, I thought you were dead I say, thought Eric Hall or John Rudkin raped you and hit you on the head and then jumped up and down on your chest, and she’s crying and saying no, saying she’s all right, and I ask if the baby’s all right and she says it is and so I ask if I can come in because I feel like a right prick stood out there for all the world and his wife to see, but she says no and shuts the door and I try and open the door again and she’s shouting and telling me how she’s going to call the police and I remind her how I am the police, but it’s obvious she’s not going to let me in and then I know she can’t really be Janice, because Janice would let me in, and I sit on Tina’s back step and wish in my heart I was more like Jesus, until I get up and go back round to mine and when I get to the drive I see the garage doors are wide open and banging in the rain and so I decide to go for a drive to try and find Louise and Bobby, fucked as I am if I know where they could be or where to start, but I get in her car and set off anyroad because it’s hardly like I’ve got a lot of bloody pressing engagements, is it?