Roger Hook is listening, nodding along.
‘He had been stripped, stabbed, and strangled – his hands cut off, his teeth smashed in with a hammer. His body had then been doused in petrol and set alight.’
Joan’s trembling.
‘They were only able to identify the body because of his feet.’
‘His feet?’ she says.
‘He’d been born without a heel on his left foot,’ I’m telling her, when I hear -
‘No.’
A faint and dreadful sound from the doorway, and we all look up and there she is -
Her blouse gone, just a bra and skirt, blood dripping from her wrists onto the cream carpet -
‘No!’ screams Joan. ‘No, Peter please -’
And Ronnie’s got Linda in his arms, his hands across her wrists, the blood everywhere -
Me holding Joan back -
The blood everywhere -
Roger shouting into the telephone -
The blood -
The blood everywhere.
to bring a spirit out and that place is the lowest and the darkest the farthest from the sphere that circles all and e saw him down there a lorry driver called peter who drives a cab with a name beginning with the letter C on the side and he lives in bradford transmission interrupted on the twentieth of november nineteen seventy nine in batley tessa smith attacked on a path on grassland on the council estate where she lived with her boyfriend and her baby cutting across the grassland from a late opening estate grocery shop she was struck on the head from behind so hard that the hammer went through her skull and as she fell remembers the man with the beard and a moustache and he hit her again on the forehead but she was screaming and he ran away will not somebody help me will not somebody help me will not somebody help me her boyfriend watching from the window is chasing him down the street shouting ripper ripper hunt hunt ripper ripper cunt cunt but e am too fast for them e am away like a thief in the night to leave them standing upon the brink of griefs abysmal valley that collects the thunderings of endless cries so dark and deep and nebulous it is that try as you might you cannot see the shape of anything faces painted with pity there are no wails just the anguished sound of sighs rising and trembling through the timeless air the sounds of sighs of untormented grief cut off from hope to live on in death in a place where no light is her personality changed drastically since the attack she was always quick with a smile but now she seems to flare up at the slightest thing she only seems happy to be in the company of the baby she argues about every little thing in fact e am sad to say she has become a bit of a tyrant it will never be the same for any of us again even now we tell each other when we go out and where we are going we are all very nervous cut off from hope e have a great mistrust of men jimmy and e had planned to get married in the near future and when e came out of the hospital we got back together for a while but it just did not work out e am on edge all of the time and frightened at being alone with him all that mattered was that he was a fellow and e did not feel safe e preferred to be at home with my mother and my sisters e am obsessed with having my back to the wall all the time even when e am surrounded by friends e have tried to stop myself but e simply cannot stand anyone at my back cut off from hope in a place where no light is where the damned keep crowding up in front of me where the notes of anguish play upon my ears where sounds on sounds of weeping pound and pound at me a place where no light shines at all the laments the anguished cries of grief cut off from hope where we live behind wires and alarms alone with five cats and the three inch dents in my head the hair e cut myself in my own world crying in the chapel the curtains pulled in a housecoat with my cats to walk in the middle of the road scared of the shadows and the men behind me that in a yorkshire way they say weather is letting us down again but he is not here is a lorry driver called peter who drives a cab with a name beginning with the letter C on the side and lives in bradford in a big grey house elevated above the street behind wrought iron gates with steps leading up to the front door number six in its street peter will have committed crimes before and is connected to the containerbase at stourton and he will kill for the last time in leeds on Wednesday the tenth of december nineteen eighty standing upon the brink of griefs abysmal valley faces painted with pity e beg of you in the name of the god e never knew save me from this evil place and worse and lead me there
Chapter 19
I wake in a dead man’s house on his cream sofa in his blood-splattered white front room, his wife in the hospital, my own at her side.
I drink his tea and use his razor, his soap and his towels, listening to his radio play songs about videos, songs about Einstein, songs about spacemen, songs about toys, songs about games – waiting for the news:
‘Refusing to comment on various reports in yesterday’s papers, Mr Clement Smith, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester issued the following statement:
‘‘Unless there are exceptional circumstances in a particular case, and it is thought necessary in the public interest, it is not ordinarily the Chief Constable’s policy to comment on any police inquiry or investigation which may be in progress, or to confirm or deny the existence of any such investigation, should it or should it not exist.”
‘Meanwhile an unemployed man will appear before Rochdale magistrates later this morning in connection with the hoax call made to the Daily Mirror in Manchester last week from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper. Police managed to trace a second call placed to the Mirror offices on Friday night and arrested Raymond Jones at his parents’ home in Rochdale…’
I switch off his radio, wash his cup, straighten his kitchen, and check I’ve left nothing on.
Then I lock his door and leave his cream sofa, his blood-splattered white front room, his house, this dead man’s house -
Leave this sofa, this room, this house of the dead -
Leave it for another -
Yorkshire, bloody Yorkshire -
Primitive Yorkshire, Medieval Yorkshire, Industrial Yorkshire -
Three Ages, three Dark Ages -
Local Dark Ages -
Local decay, industrial decay -
Local murder, industrial murder -
Local hell, industrial hell -
Dead hells, dead ages -
Dead moors, dead mills -
Dead cities -
Crows, the rain, and their Ripper -
The Yorkshire Ripper -
Yorkshire bloody Ripper.
Thornton Crematorium is halfway between Denholme and Allerton, on the way back into Bradford.
I know the way, know the place -
On the dark stair, we miss our step.
Raining heavily, it’s nearly ten-thirty:
10:25:01 -
Monday 29 December 1980.
I park on the road and stare up the hill towards the dark building with the chimney, black in the weather, past small stones with small names, the dead flowers, cigarette ends and crisp packets, the dead leaves, tyres in the rain the only sound.
Know the place well -
I’ve been here before:
Sunshine hurting, it’s gone ten:
The leather strap of my father’s watch, itching in the heat -
Thursday 7 July 1977 -
Parked on the road, staring up the hill towards the pale building with the chimney, white in the bright light, the small stones with the small names, flowers, the white clouds in the blue sky, trees, the birds singing -
I’m taking down number plates, putting faces to names, on my own time and of my own leave -