But even the old magic can’t save us now, and I turn away and try and stand and Carol says, ‘Stay!’ But it’s been twenty-five years or more, and I have to get away, have to leave her here alone in this street, in this river of blood.
And I look up and there’s just Laws, just the Reverend Laws, the moon, and him.
Carol gone.
I was standing in my room, the windows open, black and blue as the night.
I’d got a glass of Scotland in my hand, to rinse the blood from my teeth, a Philips Pocket Memo to my lips:
‘It’s 30th May 1977, Year Zero, Leeds, and I’m back at work…’
And I wanted to say more, not much more, but the words wouldn’t obey me so I pressed stop and went over to the chest of drawers, opened my bottom drawer and stared at all the little tapes in all their little cases with all their neat little dates and places, like all those books of my youth, all my Jack the Rippers and Dr Crippens, the Seddons and Buck Ruxton, and I took one out at random (or so I told myself), and I lay back, feet up on the dirty sheets, staring at the old, old ceiling as her screams filled the room.
I woke up once, dark heart of the night, thinking, what if he’s not dead?
The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Tuesday 31st May 1977
Chapter 3
The Murder Room, Millgarth.
Rudkin, Ellis, and me.
Just gone six, the morning of Tuesday 31 May 1977.
Sat around the big table, the phones dead, tapping the top.
In through the double doors, Assistant Chief Constable Oldman and Detective Chief Superintendent Noble, dumping two big manila folders on the table.
Detective Inspector Rudkin squints at the cover of the top one and gives it a, ‘Ah for fuck’s sake, not again.’
I read Preston, November 1975.
Fuck.
I know what this means:
Two steps forward, six steps back-
November 1975: The Strafford Shootings still in everyone’s face, internal inquiries coming out our ears, Peter Hunter and his dogs still sniffing round our arses. The West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police with our backs to the wall and our mouths shut, if you knew what was good for you, which side your bread was buttered on etc, Michael Myshkin going down, the judge throwing away the key.
‘Clare Strachan,’ I murmur.
November 1975: COMING DOWN AGAIN.
Ellis puzzled.
Rudkin about to fill him in, but George shuts him up: ‘As you know, Clare Strachan, a convicted prostitute, was found raped and battered to death in Preston almost two years ago now, in November 1975. The Lancashire lads immediately came over to review the Theresa Campbell file, and John here and Bob Craven went over there last year after we got Joan Richards.’
Me thinking, they’re cutting Rudkin out, why?
I glance across at him, he’s nodding, eager to butt in.
But Oldman’s keeping him out: ‘Now whatever you think, whether you count Clare Strachan in or not, we’re going to go back over to Preston and review that bloody file again.’
‘Waste of fucking time,’ spits Rudkin, at last.
Oldman’s going red, Noble’s face thunder.
‘I’m sorry sir, but me and Bob spent two days – was it? – over there last time and, I’m telling you, it’s not the same bloke. Wish it was, but it’s not.’
Ellis chiming in, ‘What do you mean you wish it was?’
‘Because he left so much fucking stuff behind him, it’s a wonder they haven’t nabbed the daft cunt already’
Noble snorts, like, that’s Lancashire for you.
‘What makes you so sure it isn’t?’ asks Ellis.
‘Well, he’d raped her for a start and then he stuck it up her arse. Come both times, though I don’t know how he fucking did it. State of her.’
‘Ugly?’
‘Doesn’t begin to describe it.’
Ellis half-smiling, telling everyone what they already know: ‘Not like our boy. Not like him at all.’
Rudkin nods: ‘Just lets it fly in the grass.’
‘Anything else?’ I say.
‘Yeah then, when he’d had his fun, he jumped up and down on her until her fucking chest give in. Size ten wellies.’
I look at Oldman.
Oldman smiles and says, ‘Everyone finished?’
‘Yeah,’ shrugs Rudkin.
‘Good, because you don’t want to be late, do you?’
‘Aw, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Alf doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill Head of Lancashire CID.
‘Me again?’ Rudkin asks, looking round the room.
Noble points at Rudkin, Ellis, and me. ‘You three.’
‘What about Steve Barton and the Irish?’
‘Later, John. Later,’ says Oldman, standing up.
In the car park, Rudkin tosses the keys to Ellis. ‘You drive.’
Ellis looks like he’s going to come in his pants. ‘Sure,’ he says.
‘I’m going to get some kip,’ says Rudkin, getting into the back of the Rover.
The sun is shining and I switch on the radio:
Two hundred dead in a Kentucky Nightclub fire, five charged in the Captain Nairac murder, twenty-one coloured youths arrested in connection with a spate of street robberies in South-East London, twenty-three million watch the Royal Windsor Show.
‘Daft cunts,’ laughs Ellis.
I wind down the window and lean my head into the breeze as we pick up speed and head out on to the M62.
‘You know the fucking way?’ shouts Detective Inspector Rudkin from the back.
I close my eyes; 10CC and ELO all the way.
Somewhere over the Moors, I wake with a start.
The radio’s off.
Silence.
I stare at the cars and lorries on either side of us, the Moors beyond, and it’s difficult to think of anything else.
‘You should’ve seen it last February when I drove over with Bob Craven.’ Rudkin’s stuck his head between the front seats. ‘Got caught in a fucking blizzard. Couldn’t see owt but two foot in front. Fucking frightening it was. I swear you could hear them. We were shitting bloody bricks.’
Ellis glances from the road to Rudkin.
I say, ‘Alf Hill was one of the top men, wasn’t he?’
‘Aye. He was first to interview her. It was his men found the tapes and all.’
‘Fuck,’ whistles Ellis.
‘Hates her more than Brady.’
We’re all staring out across the Moors, at the sunshine shining silver, the dark patches of sudden cloud, the unmarked graves.
‘Never ends,’ says Rudkin, sitting back. ‘Never fucking ends.’
Half-nine and we’re pulling into the car park of the Lancashire HQ in Preston.
Detective Inspector Rudkin sighs and puts on his jacket. Trepare to be bored shitless.’
Inside, Rudkin does the talking at the desk as we shake hands, mention mutual friends, and walk up the stairs to Alf Hill’s office.
The uniformed Sergeant knocks on the door and we enter.
Detective Chief Superintendent Hill is a small man who looks like Old Man Steptoe after a rough night. He’s coughing into a dirty handkerchief.
‘Sit down,’ he spits into the cloth.
No-one shakes hands.
‘Back again,’ he grins at Rudkin.
‘Like a bad bloody penny, aren’t I?’
‘Wouldn’t say that John, wouldn’t say that. Always a pleasure, never a chore.’
Rudkin edges forward in his chair. ‘Anything new?’
‘On Clare Strachan? Not that springs to mind, no.’
He starts coughing again, pulls out the handkerchief, and eventually says, ‘You’re busy men I know, busy men. So let’s get on with it.’