He nodded.
I leant in closer to his mouth: ‘Bit of Dutch courage for breakfast, eh?’
He tried to pull his head back.
I had him by the scruff: ‘Don’t fuck it up, Michael.’
He nodded. I patted him on his face. He smiled. I smiled back.
‘Ready?’ said Jim.
Everyone nodded. Ellis put down the box. He left it in the corridor for now. I handed him a package wrapped in brown paper. I opened the door.
We stepped inside -
Room 4:
James Ashworth, twenty-two, police issue shirt and trousers, lank hair everywhere, a cigarette burn and a bloody bruise to match the dirty black nails of his dirty yellow fingers -
Jimmy James Ashworth, former friend and neighbour of Michael Myshkin, child killer -
Jimmy Ashworth, the boy who found Clare Kemplay.
Jim Prentice and I stood by the door. Dick and Ellis brought the chairs and the table back into the centre of the room.
Dick put a chair behind Ashworth. He said: ‘Sit down.’
Ashworth sat down opposite Ellis.
Dick picked up the blanket from the floor. He put it over Ashworth’s shoulders.
Ellis lit a cigarette. He said: ‘Put your palms flat on the desk.’
‘Will you just tell me what you want?’ said Ashworth.
‘Just put your palms flat, Jimmy.’
Ashworth put his palms flat on the desk.
Dick paced about the room behind him.
Ellis put the brown paper package on the table. He opened it. He took out a pistol. He placed it on the table between him and Ashworth.
Ellis smiled at Ashworth.
Dick stopped pacing about the room. He stood behind Ashworth.
‘Eyes front,’ said Ellis.
Ashworth stared straight ahead in silence:
Room 4 quiet, the Belly quiet.
Ellis jumped up. Ellis pinned down Ashworth’s wrists.
Dick grabbed the blanket. Dick twisted it around Ashworth’s face.
Ashworth fell forward off his chair -
Coughing and choking, unable to breathe.
Ellis held down his wrists.
Dick twisted the blanket around his face.
Ashworth was on his knees on the floor -
Coughing and choking, unable to breathe.
Ellis let go of Ashworth’s wrists.
Ashworth span round in the blanket and into the walclass="underline"
CRACK -
Through the room, through the Belly.
Dick pulled off the blanket. He picked Ashworth up by his hair. He stood him up against the wall.
‘Turn around, eyes front.’
Ashworth turned around.
Ellis had the pistol in his right hand.
Dick had some bullets. He was throwing them up into the air. He was catching them.
Ellis asked me: ‘It’s all right to shoot him then, Boss?’
I nodded: ‘Shoot him.’
Ellis held the pistol at arm’s length in both hands. Ellis pointed the barrel at Ashworth’s head.
Ashworth closed his eyes. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
Ellis pulled the trigger -
CLICK -
Nothing happened.
‘Fuck,’ said Ellis.
He turned away. He fiddled with the pistol.
Ashworth had pissed himself.
‘I’ve fixed it,’ said Ellis. ‘It’ll be all right this time.’
He pointed the pistol again.
Ashworth still had his eyes closed.
Ellis pulled the trigger -
BANG!
James Ashworth, twenty-two, thought he was dead:
He opened his eyes. He saw the pistol. He saw the shreds of black material coming out of the barrel. He saw them floating down to the floor -
He saw us all laughing.
‘What do you want?’ shouted Ashworth. ‘What do you fucking want?’
Dick stepped forward. Dick kicked him in the balls.
Ashworth fell to the floor: ‘What do you want?’
‘Stand up.’
He stood up.
‘On your toes,’ said Dick.
‘Please tell me?’
Dick stepped forward. Dick kicked him in the balls again.
He fell to the floor again.
Ellis walked over to him. Ellis kicked him in the chest. Ellis kicked him in the stomach. Ellis handcuffed his hands behind his back. Ellis pushed his face down into the floor. Into his own piss.
‘Do you like rats, Jimmy?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Do you like rats?’
Dick stepped out into the corridor. He came back into the room. He had the box under the blanket.
Ashworth was still lying on the floor. Still lying in his own piss.
Dick walked over to Ashworth. Dick placed the box down on the ground next to Ashworth’s face.
Ellis pulled Ashworth’s head up by his hair.
Dick ripped off the blanket -
The rat was fat. The rat was dirty. The rat was staring through the wire of the cage. The rat was staring at Ashworth.
Dick tipped up the cage.
The rat slid closer to the wire. The rat slid closer to Ashworth.
‘Get him! Get him!’ laughed Dick.
The rat was frightened. The rat was hissing. The rat was clawing at the wire. The rat was clawing at Ashworth’s face.
‘He’s starving,’ said Dick.
Ellis pushed Ashworth’s face into the wire.
‘Careful,’ said Ellis.
The rat backed away.
Dick kicked the cage. Dick tipped the rat up into the wire -
It’s tail and fur against Ashworth’s face.
Jim Prentice was shouting: ‘Turn it round, turn it round.’
‘Open it,’ I said.
Dick tipped the cage on its backside. The wire door of the cage was facing up. Dick opened the wire door.
The rat was at the bottom of the cage. The rat was looking up at the open door.
Ellis brought Ashworth’s face down to the open door -
Ashworth, eyes wide -
Screaming and crying -
Ashworth, eyes wide -
Struggling and trying to get loose -
The rat was growling. The rat was shitting itself. The rat was looking up at Ashworth.
Ellis pressed Ashworth’s face down further into the open cage.
Ashworth was about to lose consciousness. Ashworth was crying out: ‘What have I done?’
I nodded.
Ellis pulled him back up by his hair: ‘What did you say?’
Ashworth was shaking. Ashworth was crying.
I shook my head.
Ellis pushed his face back down into the cage.
Ashworth screamed out again: ‘What have I done? Please just tell me what I’ve done?’
I nodded again.
Ellis pulled him back up again: ‘What?’
‘Tell me what I’ve done?’
‘Again?’
‘Please tell me what I’ve done?’
‘Again?’
‘Please -’
But Dick had his hand down in the cage. Dick lifted the rat out by its tail. Dick swung the rat into the wall -
SMASH!
Blood splattered across Ashworth and Ellis.
‘Fucking hell,’ shouted Ellis. ‘You fucking do that for?’
Dick dropped the dying rat on to the floor of Room 4. Dick walked over to James Ashworth, twenty-two, slumped in Ellis’s arms. Dick bent down. Dick brushed Ashworth’s long, lank hair out of his face. Dick wiped his hands down Ashworth’s cheeks, down his police issue shirt, down his trousers.
‘Good boy, Jimmy,’ smiled Dick. ‘Good boy.’
I turned to Jim Prentice: ‘Clean this up.’
I stepped out into the corridor. I looked at my watch:
It was almost ten o’clock -
Day 11.
I could hear footsteps coming down the steps, down the corridor, into the Belly.
I looked up:
John Murphy was coming towards me -
Detective Chief Superintendent John Murphy, Manchester CID.
‘John?’ I said. ‘The fuck you doing here?’
Murphy looked over my shoulder into Room 4. He said: ‘We’ve got a problem, Maurice.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘A big fucking problem, Maurice.’
Rochdale -
Lancashire.
Noon -
Sunday 22 May 1983:
The eleventh day -
The four thousand and eleventh day:
The gaunt, middle-aged woman was sitting alone in the gloom of her semi-detached home, sitting alone in the gloom shaking with tears, tears of sadness and tears of rage, tears of pain and tears of -
Horror -
Horror and pain, rage and sadness, raining down between her bone-white fingers, raining down between her bone-white fingers on to her broken knees, her broken knees on which was balanced -
The shoebox -
The shoebox she clutched between her bone-white fingers upon her broken knees, the shoebox damp with the tears of sadness and tears of rage, the tears of pain and tears of horror, the shoebox on which was written:
Susan Ridyard.
I looked away to the two photographs on top of the television, the one photograph of a little girl alone and smiling next to another photograph of that same little girl with her older brother and sister, the three children sat together in school uniforms -
Two girls and one boy -
That photograph of two girls and one boy which became just one girl and one boy in the photographs on the sideboard, the photographs in the hall, the photographs on the wall, the one girl and one boy growing -
Always growing but never smiling -
Never smiling because of the little girl they left behind on top of the TV, the little girl alone and smiling -
Never growing but always smiling -
Susan Ridyard -
The one they left behind:
Susan Louise Ridyard, ten, missing -
Last seen Monday 20 March 1972, 3.55 p.m.
Holy Trinity Junior & Infants, Rochdale.
I looked out of the window at the houses across the road, the neighbours at their curtains, the police cars and the ambulance, the rain hard against the double-glazing.
Beside me at the window, the doctor was fiddling with a bottle of pills, the pills that would sedate Mrs Ridyard, the pills that he desperately wanted to sedate her with so he could get away from this house, this horror -
This horror and that shoebox she clutched between her bone-white fingers, balanced upon her broken knees, that damp shoebox on which was written, written in a childish scrawclass="underline"
Susan Ridyard.
‘Anyone for a cup of tea?’ asked Mr Ridyard, bringing in a tray.
‘Thank you,’ I said, hate filling his wife’s eyes as she watched her husband pouring the milk and then the tea into their four best cups.
Derek Ridyard handed me a cup, then one to the doctor.
‘Love?’ he said, turning to his wife -
But before I could stand to stop her, before either the doctor or I could reach her, she had knocked the tea out of his hands with the shoebox, screaming -
‘How can you?’
Holding out the shoebox, crying -
‘This is your daughter! This is Susan!’
The doctor and I wrestling her back down on to the sofa, the husband dripping in hot scalding tea, the doctor forcing pills down her and calling for water, uniforms coming, police and ambulance, the shoebox out of her hands -
Out of her hands and into mine -
Mine holding the shoebox, the shoebox with its childish scrawl, its childish scrawl that through my fingers and into my face screamed, screamed up through a decade or more, screamed -
Screamed and cried with her mother:
Susan Ridyard.
In their bathroom, the cold tap was running and I was washing my hands -
‘I think about you all the time -
The people I had loved and those I had not; scattered or dead, unknown to me as to where or how they were -
‘Under the spreading chestnut tree -
The cold tap still running, still washing my hands -
‘In the tree, in her branches -
Washing and washing and washing my hands -
‘Where I sold you and you sold me -
The Owl -
‘I’ll see you in the tree -
Outside the bathroom I could still hear the woman’s muffled and terrible sobs, the shoebox here beside me on their pink and furry toilet mat, here amongst the smell of pine, piss and excrement -
‘In her branches.’