We all stand up and head down the corridor to what I presume is their Murder Room, doors closing on either side of us as we go.
It’s a big room with big windows and a view of the hills above them and I’m pretty sure they had some of the Birmingham Pub Bombers here.
Alfred Hill pulls open a cabinet drawer. ‘Just where you left her,’ he smiles.
Rudkin is nodding.
There are other detectives in the room, sitting in their shirtsleeves smoking, the pictures of their dead watching, turning yellow.
Their lot, they eye us like we’d eye them.
Hill turns to one fat man with a moustache and tells him, ‘These lads are over from Leeds, reviewing Clare Strachan. If they need anything, give it to them. Anything at all.’
The man nods and goes back to the end of his cigarette.
‘Be sure to look in yeah, look in before you go,’ says Alf Hill as he heads off back down the corridor.
‘Thanks,’ we all say.
When he’s gone, Rudkin turns to the fat man and says, ‘You heard him Frankie, so go get us some pop or something cold. And leave your fags behind.’
‘Fuck off, Rudkin,’ laughs Frankie, tossing his JPS over to him.
Rudkin sits down, turns to me and Ellis and says, ‘Best get to work, lads.’
Clare Strachan: twenty-six going on sixty-two.
Bloated and fucked before he even got to her.
Married twice, two kids up in Glasgow.
Previous convictions for soliciting:
A complete wreck of a human being, said the judge.
Wound up in St Mary’s hostel, Preston, living with fellow prostitutes, drug addicts, and alcoholics.
On Thursday 20 November 1975, Clare had had sex with three different men, only one of whom had ever been traced.
And eliminated.
The morning of Friday 21 November 1975, Clare was dead. Eliminated.
A boot up her cunt, a coat over her head.
I look up at Rudkin and say, ‘I want to go to the hostel, then the garages.’
Ellis has stopped writing.
‘What for?’ sighs Rudkin.
‘Can’t picture it.’
‘You don’t want to,’ he says, putting out his cig.
We tell the Sergeant on the desk where we’re going and walk back out into the car park.
Frankie comes tearing out after us. ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he pants.
‘You’re all right,’ says Rudkin.
‘Boss says I better. Show some hospitality.’
‘Going to spring for lunch are you?’
‘Think we could manage something, aye.’
‘Magic,’ grins Rudkin.
Ellis is nodding along like, this is the fucking fast lane.
Me, I feel sick.
St Mary’s hostel is one hundred years old or more, up the road from Preston Station.
Blood and Fire, tattooed into the wall above the door.
‘Any of the same staff still working here?’ I ask Frankie.
‘Doubt it.’
‘What about residents?’
‘You’re joking? Couldn’t find anyone a week later.’
We walk through a dim stinking corridor and peer into the reception cubicle.
A man with lank greasy hair to his shoulders is writing with a radio on.
He looks up, pushes his black NHS frames back up his nose, and sniffs. ‘Help you?’
‘Police,’ says Frankie.
‘Yeah,’ he nods, like, what the fuck they done now?
‘Ask you a few questions?’
‘Yeah, sure. What about?’
‘Clare Strachan. Where can we talk?’
He stands up. ‘Lounge through there,’ he points.
Rudkin leads the way into another shitty room, draughty windows and rotting sofas covered in cig burns and dried food.
Frankie keeps going, ‘And you are?’
‘Colin Minton.’
‘You the warden?’
‘Deputy. Tony Hollis is the senior warden.’
‘Is Tony about?’
‘He’s on holiday’
Softly-softly: ‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Blackpool.’
‘Close.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sit down,’ says Frankie.
‘I wasn’t here when that happened,’ says Colin suddenly, like he’s had enough of this already.
Rudkin takes over: ‘Who was here?’
‘Dave Roberts and Roger Kennedy, and Gillian someone or other I think.’
‘They still about?’
‘Not here, no.’
‘They still work for Council?’
‘No idea, sorry.’
‘Did you ever work with them?’
‘Just Dave.’
‘He talk about Clare Strachan and what happened?’
‘A bit, yeah.’
‘Can you remember anything he said?’
‘Like what?’
It’s Frankie’s town so we don’t say anything when he starts up again, saying, ‘Anything. About Clare Strachan, the murder, anything at all?’
‘Well, said she was mad like.’
‘What way?’
‘Crazy. Should have been in hospital, what Dave said.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Used to stare out the window and bark at the trains.’
Ellis says, ‘Bark?’
‘Aye, bark like a dog.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yeah, that’s what he said.’
Rudkin catches my eye and I take over with, ‘Dave say anything about boyfriends, stuff like that?’
‘Well I mean, she was on game like.’
‘Right,’ I nod.
‘And he said she was always pissed and she’d let all the blokes here have it off with her and there’d sometimes be fighting and stuff because of her.’
‘How was that?’
‘I don’t know, you’d have to ask them that were here, but like there was some that’d get jealous.’
‘And she wasn’t right choosey, yeah?’
‘No. Not very.’
‘She was fucking the staff and all,’ says Rudkin.
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘I do,’ he says. ‘Afternoon she was murdered she’d had a session with your man Kennedy, Roger Kennedy’
Colin doesn’t say anything.
Rudkin leans forward and smiles, ‘Still go on, that kind of thing?’
‘No,’ says Colin.
‘You’ve gone red,’ laughs Rudkin, standing up.
I say, ‘Which was her room?’
‘I don’t know. But I can show you upstairs.’
‘Please.’
Just me and Colin go upstairs.
At the top I say, ‘None of the same residents still here?’
‘No,’ he says but then, ‘Actually, hang on.’
He goes to the end of the long narrow corridor and bangs on a door, then opens it. He talks to someone inside and then beckons me over.
The room is bare and bright, sunlight across an empty chair and table, across a man lying on a little bed, his face to the wall, his back to me and the door.
Colin gestures at the seat, saying, ‘This is Walter. Walter Kendall. He knew Clare Strachan.’
‘I’m Detective Sergeant Fraser, Mr Kendall. I’m with Leeds CID and we’re looking into a possible link between the murder of Clare Strachan and a recent crime in Leeds.’
Colin Minton is nodding, staring at Walter Kendall’s back.
‘Colin here, he says you knew Clare Strachan,’ I continue. ‘I’d be very grateful for anything you can tell me about Miss Strachan or the time of her murder.’
Walter Kendall doesn’t move.
I look at Colin Minton and say, ‘Mr Kendall?’
Slowly and clearly, his face still to the wall, Walter says, ‘I remember the Wednesday night, Thursday morning, I woke to terrible screams coming from Clare’s room. Real bellowing cries. I got out of bed and ran down the corridor. She was in the room at the top of the stairs. The door was locked and I banged on it for a good five minutes before it opened. She was alone in the room, drenched in sweat and tears. I asked her what had happened, was she all right. She said it was just a dream. A dream, I said. What kind of dream? She said she’d dreamt there was a tremendous weight upon her chest, forcing the air from her lungs, pushing the very life from her, and all she could think was she’d never see her daughters again. I said it must have been something she’d eaten, nonsense I didn’t even mean, but what can you say? Clare just smiled and said she’d had the same dream every night for almost a year.’