After a few moments, I knock on Noble’s door -
There’s no answer -
No-one home.
I park the Saab under the dark arches and walk back up to the Griffin, the carrier bag full of Spunks in my hand.
I walk straight into the bar, but there’s no-one there, no-one I know.
I go upstairs and I knock on Helen Marshall’s door -
Then Murphy’s -
Mac’s -
Mike Hillman’s -
Fuck.
Furious, I go back downstairs and have one whiskey in the bar and decide to head back to RDNews because I’ve got nowhere else to go and I can’t sleep until I get the post-mortem on the body, my back killing me anyway, although I’m fucked if I know how I’m going to get the post-mortem, and I’m heading out the front door of the Griffin when the smug little man from behind the desk says:
‘Mr Hunter?’
And I stop and I say: ‘Yep?’
‘Message for you.’
‘Thank you,’ I say and he hands me a crumpled old manila-brown envelope and I open it and-
chest saying see how you tear me see the monstrous punishment you still breathing looking at the dead see if you find suffering equal to this lumpy bundle covered in blankets on the bed in the silence of a flat after death the repeated knocking on the door transmission seven received at three ten PM on friday the twenty seventh of January nineteen seventy eight in a world where people do not care cast aside by those so cruel and treated like a mule unloved is to miss the love that all parents should give yet they cast you aside put you out of their minds they put you in care there is no love there yet the staff really care or they would not be there yet why was it me lord why me lonely and unloved in a timber yard off great northern street huddersfield why me last seen alive on tuesday the twenty fourth of January nineteen seventy eight where loneliness is to go outside and get into a white corsair for a quick five pounds to go outside to the lumber yard on great northern street in the black and dirty snow the viaduct overhead the liverpool leeds hull trains passing by lonely and unloved the taxi rank the black bricks the black wood the black damp the tip damp the derelict school damp the tripe works and abandoned houses damp the canal and the cattle market bloody and damp where the snow will not settle where people do not care the public toilets a countryside of pain and ugly anguish where you fall down in despair falling to your knees in prayer asking god to rescue you from this cruel snare but no one comes no one comes but him in his white corsair with his five pounds for a quick one amongst the wood the timber and the lumber in a world where people do not care e was lured into the deepest hole and e undid my trousers and wait he said he had to urinate and got out of the car and when he came back he asked me to get out and get into the back so we could have sexual intercourse and it was then he hit me and at first e thought it was with his hand and e said there is no need for that you do not even need to pay but he hit me again and it was not his hand but a hammer and he hit me again then e dragged me by my hair into a far corner of the yard and e was not moaning but e was not dead and e could not take my eyes off of him he said do not make any noise and you will be all right then he took off my panties and had intercourse with me and e lay there with him on top of me unloved and when he had finished intercourse he took out a knife and he stabbed me six times in my heart and chest stripped me threw all my clothes and things about and put my body into a narrow space between a stack of wood and a disused garage and covered me with a sheet of asbestos then he went home the next morning a driver found my black bloodstained panties and he hung them on the door to give the lads a bit of a laugh they also saw the bloodstains in the mud and on the polythene but they thought nothing of it because all sorts of things went on at night in the wood yard and they left me between the stack of wood and the disused garage in this countryside of pain and ugly anguish and still e wait for them to come and find me on friday e was a missing person so they gave the alsatian police dog my black bloodstained panties to sniff and within ten minutes the alsatian had found me between the stack of wood and the disused garage found me with my sweater and my bra pushed up and just a pair of socks left on it was three ten PM on friday the twenty seventh of January nineteen seventy eight and they say there is no greater pain than to remember in our present grief past happiness but e will tell you the greatest pain is to remember in our present grief past grief and only grief
Chapter 14
Five hours later and half the Manchester Police force are round my house but I’m still sat in Noble’s bloody office waiting for Chief Constable Ronald Angus to show his face, standing up and sitting down, on and off the phone to Joan, standing up and sitting down, Noble and Prentice and the rest of them in and out.
‘Sit down, Peter,’ says Angus as he comes in, patting me on the back.
Noble gets up from behind his desk to make way for Big Chief Ron.
‘Let’s have a look,’ he says, sitting down.
Noble hands him the sheet of paper encased in the plastic bag, the envelope in another -
Angus holds up the envelope: ‘Mr Peter Hunter,’ he reads. ‘The Griffin, eh?’
I nod.
‘Saturday?’ he says, squinting at the postmark -
‘Manchester,’ I say.
He puts down the envelope on the desk and picks up the letter:
Dear Officer,
Sorry I haven’t written before, but heed this early warning: will kill wife and kids.
Jack the Ripper.
Ronald Angus puts down the letter and looks up at me and then across the room at Peter Noble -
‘Handwriting’s same,’ says Noble.
Angus nods: ‘Or at least a very good likeness.’
‘We were waiting for you, but we’ve got the lab at Wetherby standing by’
Angus ignores him and asks me: ‘Have you been in touch with Mrs Hunter?’
‘Yes.’
‘You told her?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t have any kids, do you?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘That’s lucky’
I look at my watch:
It’s three in the morning -
Christmas Eve, 1980.
I look up and say: ‘I want to go home, sir.’
Chief Constable Ronald Angus looks at Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Peter Noble and shrugs: ‘Fair enough.’
I stand up and turn to Noble: ‘Thanks, Pete.’
He nods and says: ‘We’ll be in touch.’
I turn to go as the phone starts ringing -
‘Drive carefully,’ says Angus as Noble picks up the phone.
I nod and open the door.
‘Mr Hunter,’ says Noble, one hand over the mouthpiece, gesturing for me to wait.
Me: ‘What is it?’
Angus, looking at Noble: ‘What?’
Noble nodding, into the phone: ‘Fucking hell.’
Me, at his side: ‘What?’
‘Right,’ says Noble and slams down the phone -
‘What?’ say Angus and me at the same time.
‘Eric Hall’s wife.’
Me: ‘What?’
‘She’s dead.’
Me: ‘What?’
‘Son found her hanging in the kitchen thirty minutes ago.’
The drive back out to Denholme:
Prentice, Noble, and me -
The snow blowing about but not settling, the car silent but for Christmas carols on the radio.
Prentice, Noble, and me -
There are tears in my eyes.
We park behind a blue and white at the bottom of the drive, a Ford outside the garage.
Noble leads the way up to the door, Prentice hanging back, and knocks -
A uniform opens the door, introduces himself, mutters a few words and we go through into the front room where a young man is sat on the gold sofa staring into what looks like a glass of whiskey.