He’s angry: ‘No I don’t or I wouldn’t ask you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s about Roger Hook’s investigation into Richard Dawson.’
Silence, then: ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
I hang up and look at my watch:
It’s gone noon, but already night outside.
At one-thirty Chief Constable Clement Smith telephones and asks me to step across the hall to his office.
I knock once and am told to come.
Clement Smith is behind his desk in a sports jacket, writing; Roger Hook across from him with his back to the door, waiting.
‘Afternoon,’ I say.
Roger turns and smiles: ‘Afternoon, Pete.’
I sit down in the chair next to him, facing Smith -
Smith doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look up, continuing to write -
Roger Hook sat there, just waiting -
Until, after two minutes of this, Smith looks up and says: ‘Go on then.’
I swallow, angry: ‘I’d like to ask you some questions about an investigation that would seem to be involving me on a personal level,’
‘So go on.’
I glance at Detective Chief Inspector Hook and back to Smith: ‘Now?’
‘That’s why you dragged us all the way in, wasn’t it?’
I say: ‘I would prefer to have the conversation in private.’
‘Stuff what you’d prefer Pete; it’s Sunday bloody afternoon.’
Hook stands up.
‘Sit down,’ says Smith.
‘Sir, I don’t mind…’ says Hook.
Smith has his hand raised: ‘I mind.’
Hook stops and sits back down.
Smith is staring at me, eyes black and waiting -
‘OK,’ I say. ‘A friend of mine, Richard Dawson, who I believe we all know?’
Smith and Hook nod.
‘Well last night, at the Midland Hotel, he tells me that yesterday morning police officers visited his bank and took away records relating to him. He said that a former Yorkshire police officer, Bob Douglas?’
Smith and Hook nod again.
‘He said that Douglas had told him that the reason for this investigation was because of his friendship with me. To put me in my place. Richard Dawson then asked me for help and I declined to assist him, as he was under investigation. This morning, however, I learnt that his house had been raided and, following a meeting I’ve just had with Bob Douglas, I would very much appreciate being told to what extent this investigation is concerned in any way with my friendship with Richard Dawson, or with me personally.’
I pause, then add: ‘I realise this is irregular and against procedure and I would like to stress that I’m not asking for, nor do I expect, any information about the investigation into Richard Dawson, other than whether or not it relates to me.’
Then I stop, waiting -
Smith sighs and turns his gaze to Hook, nodding -
Hook shrugs and says: ‘It doesn’t.’
Smith turns back to me, eyes black and twinkling.
‘That’s it?’ I say.
‘Dawson is under investigation,’ continues Hook. ‘But, for the moment, it doesn’t have anything to do with you or any other police officer.’
‘So why the secrecy?’
‘Well, that said, Richard Dawson is known socially by a number of senior police officers, as well as a number of other prominent local persons. So we’re treading carefully.’
‘As should you,’ says Clement Smith, those black eyes on me -
I sigh, sitting back in my chair.
Smith continues: ‘There could be a lot of fallout – especially if the press start jumping to the same bloody conclusions as one of my own Assistant Chief Constables.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Thought of being stuck over in Yorkshire, hearing all these stories…’
‘Two days and cursed bloody place is making you paranoid.’
‘No more than usual,’ I smile.
‘Now you know how you make other folks feel then,’ laughs Hook.
‘Was that the point?’ I say, not smiling.
‘No,’ says Detective Chief Inspector Hook.
‘Then you better tell Ronnie to keep it shut – he’s the one been telling Douglas bollocks about secret squads and putting me in my place.’
‘Sorry,’ he says, fucked off. ‘He’s got a big mouth and talks bollocks.’
Smith’s staring at Hook now, the black eyes on him -
‘I’ll take care of it,’ says Hook.
Smith stands up and says: ‘Can I go home now?’
Back down in the car park and there’s a man standing by my car.
Familiar, he looks familiar -
Me: ‘Can I help you?’
He raises a hand and shakes his head, walking over to another car -
A white one.
‘Wrong motor,’ he says, smiling.
I get in my car -
The black one.
And then somewhere over the Moors, I remember it’s a Sunday and almost Christmas and I suddenly hate myself, wondering what the fuck I thought I was doing, what the fuck I thought I was going to do, the bad dreams not leaving, just staying bad, like the headaches and the backache, the murder and the lies, like the cries and the whispers, the screams of the wires and the signals, like the voices and the numbers:
Thirteen.
5:00 p.m.
Sunday 14 December 1980:
Millgarth, Leeds.
Dark outside, darker in:
A ritual -
A sйance:
Round the table, hands and knees touching, between the cardboard boxes and the gorged files -
Mike Hillman is calling up the dead, passing out photographs, saying:
‘Theresa Campbell, murdered 26 June 1975. 26-year-old mother of three and convicted prostitute. Partially clothed, bloodstained body was discovered on Prince Philip Playing Fields, Scott Hall, by Eric Davies, a milkman.’
Peel -
‘Post-mortem revealed multiple stab wounds to abdomen, chest, and throat inflicted by a blade 4 inches in length, ѕ of an inch in width, one edge sharper than the other; severe lacerations to the skull and fractures to the crown, possibly inflicted by an axe. A white purse with Mummy on the front, containing approximately Ј5 in cash, was also noted to be missing from the deceased’s handbag. Neither murder weapons or purse have ever been found.’
He stops to let the pictures speak -
They all look up from the six by fours, all but DS Marshall -
Are there tears in her eyes?
‘Those are the facts,’ he says, repeating: ‘The facts. The rest is hearsay; but here goes -
‘Campbell had spent the evening at the Room at the Top nightclub in Sheepscar. She was last seen attempting to stop motorists at the junction of Sheepscar Street South and Roundhay Road, Leeds at 1:00 a.m.
‘According to the witnesses you have listed before you, it is believed that an articulated lorry with a dark-coloured cab and a tarpaulin-sheeted load stopped at the junction of Roundhay Road and Sheepscar Street South alongside Campbell and it is believed she had a conversation with the driver.
‘This location is the main route from the Al Wetherby Roundabout to the Leeds Inner Ring Road which services HGVs travelling on the M62, either east or west.’
Hillman pauses; we all glance up, all but Marshall -
A tune in my head, a song from somewhere:
I only have eyes for you -
The dream still here, here in my mouth, hanging in the room, the taste in my mouth -
The taste of blood, the smelclass="underline"
‘They call it the Box,’ says Hillman.
There’s a soft knock at the door and a young constable hands Bob Craven a note -
He glances at it, looks up at me, and passes it forward -
I open it:
Call Richard Dawson.
I put it in my pocket.
‘And that’s the last anyone saw of her till the milkman,’ Hillman’s saying.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘If there are no questions, let’s move onto the structure of the investigation. Mike?’
‘Fish and chip job as it was seen then, they still put Chief Superintendent Jobson on it, plus a couple of other names that’ll keep coming up: Detective Superintendents Alderman and Prentice, DIs as they were back in 75.’