Chapter 7
In the night, the call -
Clement Smith, Chief Constable: ‘I need you back here. Vaughan Industrial Estate, off Pottery Lane.’
‘What is it?’
‘A bad one.’
‘You going to tell me anything more?’
‘Roger Hook asked for you. That’s all I know.’
‘Now?’
‘Now.’
‘I’ll see you there then.’
‘See you there.’
Another black drive through another black night -
Over the Moors -
The murder and the lies -
The cries and the whispers -
Of children.
Here always their cries, always their whispers -
Always murder and always lies -
Always the Moors -
Always night and always black.
Down through Prestwich, through Cheetham Hill and Collyhurst, to Ardwick and the wrong side of bloody tracks:
The Vaughan Industrial Estate, Ashburys -
Low dark buildings in the cold rain and the blue lights, police the black wraiths against the white light, their cloaks wings about a factory:
DEATH -
All the gods of the North are dead now, moribund -
I park between the vans and the cars, in a crater filled with dead water and a bird, a sparrow.
I turn up the collar of my coat against the rain and stumble -
The young policeman at the gate lifts his hood to check my card and point me towards an open mouth:
DEATH -
A figure walks behind me, dreadful -
In the doorway stand Clement Smith and Roger Hook, white faces staring at the floor, silent eyes raised my way, stung red with the cold and the rain, the tears -
Tongues moving but without words, a cigarette, hands shaking but not shaken -
I walk through them, into:
DEATH -
This is the place, the swans loose -
Heavy workbenches, oil and chains, tools; the stink of machines, oil and chains, tools; the sound of dirty water, oil and chains, tools; dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, tools.
High skylights, rain against the pane -
Strapped down upon a workbench, trapped in chains, wrapped in:
DEATH -
Wings nailed to the ash, pornography -
I step towards the bench, closer -
Skinned naked and blistered, closer -
Blooded blackened and beaten, closer -
Skinned and naked, blistered and blooded, blackened and beaten, closer -
Face and hair burnt, twisted towards his left -
In his mouth, a cassette -
Bob Douglas: DEAD -
All this and heathen too -
To his left, a door ajar, its upper half glazed.
I walk across the wet and bloody concrete floor, walk to the door and with my boot I push it open -
Push and see a muddy bath affixed to the wall, its head towards the light from a skylight, push and see:
DEATH -
On the dark stair, we miss our step -
I step towards the bath, closer -
Into the light from the pane, closer -
Towards her laying there in the bath, closer -
Into the pain from the dark, closer -
A thin and pathetic smile on her face, a black hole in a still heart -
In her hand, a teddy bear -
Karen Douglas:
DEAD -
Never let her slip -
I step backwards, back towards the child’s father -
Back towards Smith and Hook in the doorway, towards the hands and the tongues, the cigarettes, the cold and the rain, the tears -
Stepping back from, turning back from, running from:
DEATH -
Always the way.
Two hours later, damp skin and bones sat around the eleventh floor of Manchester Police Headquarters, phones ringing and boots running, this way and that -
Always this way and that.
I count twelve men -
Waiting:
Wednesday 17 December 1980 -
Nine o’clock.
Ten minutes later, another knock at the door -
The cassette in a plastic bag, the science done.
Roger Hook plugs in a tape recorder and Clement Smith takes the cassette from the bag:
‘Prints?’
A scientist nods.
‘Who?’
The scientist shakes his head: ‘They’re checking.’
Smith holds it up, turning it in his fingers, the black felt-tip pen scrawled across the clear plastic:
‘All this and Heathen too,’ he reads, looking at me -
‘Ripper Tape,’ I say. ‘That was done over a copy of a cassette called All this and Heaven too by a singer called Andrew Gold.’
Twelve open mouths and twelve curses: ‘Fucking hell fire.’
‘This him?’ says someone -
‘Doesn’t make any sense, why…’
‘A bloke and his kid…’
‘An ex-copper…’
‘Poor bastard…’
‘Unless Douglas fucking knew…’
Clement Smith stands up, signalling to Roger Hook: ‘Gentlemen, shall we listen to the tape first?’
Twelve men nodding, silent.
Hook presses play:
HISS -
Piano -
Drums -
Bass -
‘How can this he love, if it makes us cry?’
STOP .
HISS -
Cries -