‘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.’