‘And what did Maurice Jobson say?’
‘Said he’d get back to me.’
‘And did he?’
‘What do you think?’
‘So you’ve no idea what he did with Eric’s stuff?’
‘No.’
‘So he might have handed it all over to George Oldman? To the Ripper Squad?’
‘He might have, yes. And you might sprout wings and fly home.’
I smile: ‘So I take it no-one’s ever contacted you about the stuff since?’
‘No.’
‘Can you remember what was in these notes?’
‘Mr Hunter, I made copies.’
‘Who knows that?’
‘Only you now.’
I nod outside: ‘Mr Laws?’
‘Only you.’
‘I see.’
‘He did bad things, Eric. I know that. He was no saint -’
‘Not like me.’
‘No, not like you. But he didn’t deserve what happened to him, not that.’
Not like me -
Saint Cunt.
I take the lift up to my room -
It’s stifling, the radiator on full.
I open a window on the unpleasant night and her ugly rain, the haunted station and the silence.
I sit on the edge of the bed, hating Leeds, hating Yorkshire.
I shut the window, draw the dusty curtains.
I close my eyes and let the radio eat the silence thinking -
It’s always the way, out this way.
In the middle of the night I’m awake again, sweating and afraid -
Hymns on the radio, that dream of TVs and faces with no face, that taste in my mouth -
Awake, the pains in my back, reaching for Joan, fighting back the tears, reaching for someone -
No-one there.
transmission October nineteen seventy six white abbey bradford ka su peng found in a telephone box by police with two holes in her head in need of fifty eight stitches from a black and crinkly bearded man who picked her up outside the perseverance on lumb lane in my dark car with my tired eyes and crinkly beard we drove to the playing fields and e said how much and she said a fiver and e said ok but you must get out of the car and take off your clothes and lie on the grass and she did not want to e could see it in her eyes where snowflakes were dancing but she said e have to urinate and she was squatting down like a real lady urinating in the grass when e dropped my hammer she said e hope that was not a knife and e said no it was my wallet just strip and she had almost finished her urinating that was when e hit her on the head with the hammer and e hit her on the head with the hammer again and she lay in the grass with her hand to her head the hand all covered in blood lay on the grass and e just stood and watched her looking at her hand the hand all covered in blood the snowflakes dancing and e masturbated and then e threw the tissues at her and put a fiver in her bloody hand and said please do not call the police or e will come and kill you again next time snowflakes are dancing and he stood there looking down at me moving his hand up and down the snowflakes dancing and he said please do not call the police or e will have to kill you and he put a five pound note in my hands and he went away and e managed to half walk half crawl to the telephone box and call an ambulance and they came and took me away and put fifty eight stitches in my head and back and e was in hospital for seven weeks and they said you are lucky to be alive but all e could remember was dialing nine nine nine lying on the floor of the telephone box waiting the snowflakes dancing and a man in a dark car kept driving past and he seemed to be staring and looking for me and it was the man who hurt me you are lucky to be alive they told me but psychic phenomena activated by epileptic discharge arising in the temporal lobe may occur as complex visual or auditory or combined auditory visual hallucinations or illusions or memory flashbacks erroneous interpretations of the present in terms of the past as an inappropriate feeling of either familiarity or strangeness deja vu jamais vu phenomena or as emotions commonly fear these phenomena are called experiential as they assume a vivid immediacy for the effected patient which they liken to actual events yet the patients are also aware that these phenomena occur incongruously and out of context as if they were superimposed upon the ongoing stream of consciousness with the exception of fear which is often interpreted as fear of impending events or attack or snowflakes dancing but you are lucky to be alive lucky to be alive to be alive but e am not now for e live in the place where the leaves are black and the branches are twisted and entangled and bloom poisoned thorns and around me echo wails of grief that over and over cry you are lucky to be alive lucky to be alive to be alive but cut this wood and the blood turns dark around the wound and from the splintered trunk pours a mixture of words and blood so eat my leaves in this mournful forest where my body torn away from itself hangs forever among the thorns of my own alien shade my home a hanging place where my many wounds breathe grieving sermons in blood and the mutilations that have separated me from all my leaves gather them round the foot of this sad bush the snowflakes dancing alive in the grass with a fiver in my bloody hand transmission three received
Chapter 6
Leeds -
Millgarth:
The canteen -
Under the hum of the lights, the machines and their numbers: two, one, four, six, eight -
Tuesday 16 December 1980:
Almost eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight:
I wait until Murphy’s finished eating his breakfast and then say: ‘Something else came up last night.’
He looks up from his dirty plate, a mouthful of toast.
I say: ‘Go for walk?’
Murphy raises his eyebrows slightly, shrugs, and then follows me down the stairs and out into the Market -
It’s gloomy but dry, no sun, only thick grey sheets of cloud.
We walk up George Street until we find a small cafй.
A couple of sweet teas in front of us, Murphy sits waiting -
I say: ‘You remember we were talking about Eric Hall?’
He nods.
‘His widow came to the hotel last night.’
‘You’re joking?’
I shake my head: ‘With a priest.’
‘What did she want?’
‘Reckons Eric was up to his neck in the Ripper.’
‘Yeah so? Bradford Vice wasn’t he? Bound to be.’
‘Yeah, but above and beyond the call of duty.’
‘Ah, fuck.’
‘He was involved somehow with Janice Ryan.’
‘Fucking never-ending this shit,’ he sighs: ‘Go on.’
‘Says her Eric was even a suspect at one point.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘So was another copper, one from Millgarth; the one that killed himself?’
‘Bob Fraser?’
‘Yep.’
Murphy lights a cigarette: ‘Load of old bollocks though, yeah?’
I nod: ‘Perhaps.’
‘And that was it? That was all she said?’
‘She spelt it out; says that Eric Hall was killed because he knew it wasn’t the Ripper who did Ryan.’
Murphy’s smiling: ‘I might agree with her that there’s a fair chance the Ripper didn’t do Ryan, but she can piss right off about Eric. He was as bent as a two-bob fucking note. We were bleeding going to nick him.’
‘Yep,’ I say, nodding.
Murphy leans forward: ‘I thought he was supposed to be into something with a gang of blacks who were knocking off post offices. Remember that?’
I keep nodding.
‘It went belly up, so they took it out on Eric. And his wife. That’s what we heard, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I feel sorry for her, the poor cow. But I still reckon Eric brought it all on himself.’
‘And her.’
‘And her.’
‘Maurice Jobson was in charge; is in charge of it.’
‘They never got anyone then?’