I can hear the Cathedral bells.
Palms up, I ask, ‘What are we going to do?’
‘We? Nothing.’
I start to speak, he raises a hand and gives me a wink: ‘Leave it to your Uncle Maurice.’
For the second time in a week I park between the lorries of the Redbeck car park, though I can’t remember much about the last time I was here.
Just the pain.
Now I just feel hungry, starving.
That’s what I’m telling myself it is.
I go into the cafe, buy a sausage and chip sandwich and two cups of hot sweet tea.
I take them out and round to Room 27.
I open the door and go inside.
The air is old and cold, the smell of sweat and fear, death everywhere:
I stand in the dark centre of the room and I want to rip the soiled grey sheets down, pull the mattress from the window, burn the photos and the names from the walls, but I don’t.
I sit on the base of the bed and think about the dead and the missing, the missing and the dead:
Missing the dead.
I drive back to Leeds with a splitting headache, the sandwich cold and uneaten on the passenger seat.
I switch on the radio:
Yes Sir I Can Boogie.
I think about what I want to say to Rudkin, think about all the weird shit he’s said that now makes sense, think about all the shit I think he’s done, all the shit I know he’s done.
I park and walk into Millgarth -
into running bodies, shouts and boots, jackets on and tearing off, thinking:
There’s been another:
JANICE.
‘Fraser! Thank fucking Christ,’ shouts Noble.
‘What?’
‘Get over to Morley, Gledhill Road.’
‘What?’
‘There’s been another.’
‘Who?’
‘Another fucking post office.’
‘Shit.’
And bang, just like that I’m back on Robbery.
Mr Godfrey Hurst looks like someone’s sewn oranges into his skin, all the holes in his face swollen shut.
‘Heard the knock,’ he’s trying to say. ‘Came down the stairs and I opened the back door and thwack! Reckon they must have shoved door back in my face. Next news I’m on the floor then thwack! Reckon they must have kicked me in the head.’
‘That’s when I came down,’ says Mrs Doris Hurst, bird-thin, sheet-white, still stinking of piss. ‘I screamed and then one of them slapped me right hard across my face and then he put bag on my head and tied me up.’
Around us, parents are bringing in children with broken limbs and bleeding skins, nurses leading the injured and the worried back and forward through Casualty, everyone crying.
‘Believe it or not,’ I say as I take down what they’re saying. ‘Believe it or not, you’re both very lucky’
Mr Hurst squeezes his wife’s hand and tries to smile, but he can’t, he can’t because of the stitches, all thirty-five of them.
I ask, ‘How much did they get away with?’
‘About seven hundred and fifty quid.’
‘Is that a lot for you?’
‘We never used to have anything at all over weekend, but Post Office they’ve stopped collecting on Saturdays.’
‘Why’s that then?’
‘Cuts, I suppose.’
I turn back to Mrs Hurst. ‘You get a look at them?’
‘Not really, they were wearing masks.’
‘How many were there?’
She shakes her head and says, ‘I just saw two, but I had feeling there were more.’
‘Why did you think that?’
‘Voices, the light.’
‘This was about what time?’
Mr Hurst says, ‘About seven-thirty. We were getting ready for Church.’
‘And you said there was something about the light, Mrs Hurst?’
‘Just that kitchen looked dark, so I thought maybe there were more than two.’
‘And can you remember what they were saying?’
‘One was telling other to go upstairs.’
‘Did you hear any names or anything?’
‘No, but after they’d put bag on my head and tied me up, they seemed angry like, that there wasn’t more money, angry with someone.’
‘Can you remember exactly what they said?’
‘Just that…’ she purses her lips. ‘Exactly?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s important.’
‘One of them said that someone had, you know, fucked up,’ Mrs Hurst blushes and then adds, ‘Excuse me.’
‘And what did the other one say?’
‘Well, that’s what I mean. I think there was a third voice and he said that they’d deal with it later.’
‘A different voice?’
‘Yes, deeper, older. You know, like he was boss.’
I look at Mr Hurst, but he shrugs, ‘I was out cold. Sorry.’
I turn back to Mrs? and ask her, ‘These voices, where do reckon they were from?’
‘Local, definitely local.’
‘Anything else?’
She looks at her husband and then, slowly, shaking her head, says, ‘I think they were, you know, black men.’
‘Black men?’
‘Mmm, I think so.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Size. They were big and their voices, they just sounded like black men’s voices.’
I keep writing, wheels turning.
Then she says, ‘That or they were gypsies.’
I stop writing, wheels braking.
A nurse comes up, plain but pretty. ‘The doctor says you can both go home now if you want.’
Mr and Mrs Hurst look at each other and nod.
I close my notebook and say, ‘I’ll give you a lift.’
We turn into Gledhill Road, Morley, my old stomping ground and I’m thinking Victoria Road’s not far, wondering if they remember Barry Gannon, certain they remember that Clare Kemplay lived on Winterbourne Avenue, wondering if they were out that night looking for her, then thinking I must remember to call Louise, tell her I’ll probably be late, thinking maybe we can work this out, and that’s what I’m thinking when I see the squad cars parked in front of the post office, still thinking that when I see Noble and Rudkin getting out of the first car, that’s what I’m thinking when I turn to Mr Hurst and say, ‘It wasn’t me,’ that’s what I’m thinking when it gets really fucked up, forever, and -
Part 4. What’s my name?
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.