Clare with her eyes and legs open, her fingers touching her own cunt.
‘What do you think?’
‘Doesn’t look like you,’ BJ say, thinking about photos they took of BJ -
Photos they took of BJ and Bill.
‘Don’t say that,’ she’s saying. ‘Don’t say that.’
It’s night before Christmas and I’m coming up hill, swaying, bags in my hand. Plastic bags, carrier bags, Tesco bags. A train passes and I bark, stand in middle of road and bark at train. I am a complete wreck of a human being wearing a light green three-quarter length coat with an imitation fur collar, a turquoise blue jumper with a bright yellow tank top over it and dark brown trousers and brown suede calf-length boots. I turn left and see a row of six deserted narrow garages up ahead, each splattered with white graffiti and their doors showing remnants of green paint, last door banging in wind, in rain. I hold open door and I step inside. It is small, about twelve feet square, and there is sweet smell of perfumed soap, of cider, of Durex. There are packing cases for tables, piles of wood and other rubbish. In every other space there are bottles; sherry bottles, bottles of spirits, beer bottles, bottles of chemicals, all empty. A man’s pilot coat doubles as a curtain over window, only one, looking out on nothing. A fierce fire has been burning in grate and ashes disclose remains of clothing. On wall opposite door is written Fisherman’s Widow in wet red paint. I hear door open behind me and I turn around and I’m -
Screaming, Clare is screaming and screaming -
Horrible, terrible, miserable screams.
‘Wake up! Wake up!’ BJ shouting, shouting and shouting -
Horrible, terrible, miserable shouts.
Her eyes white and wide in dark, she tears open her blouse and pulls up her bra, three words there written in blood on her chest:
Part 2. We’re already dead
‘Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast; – or of one thing exclusively.’
– Voltaire
Chapter 13
It’s 1969 again -
July 1969:
All across the UK, they’re staring at the sun, waiting for the moon -
Ann Jones, Biafra, the Rivers of Blood,
Brian Jones, Free Wales, the Dock Strikes,
Marianne Faithfull and Harvey Smith,
Ulster.
But here’s the news today, oh boy -
Memo from Maurice:
Jeanette Garland, 8, missing Castleford.
It’s a Sunday -
Sunday 13 July 1969.
Leeds -
Brotherton House, Leeds:
Lot of bloody suits for one little girl missing just one day; Leeds City doing their County Cousins a huge fucking favour:
Blame it on Brady, blame it on Hindley -
Blame it on Stafford and Cannock Chase.
Walter Heywood, Badger Bill Molloy, Dick Alderman, Jim Prentice, and me:
Maurice Jobson; Detective Inspector Maurice Jobson -
Not forgetting Georgie Boy:
George Oldman; the County Cunt himself.
A lot of blue suits, a lot more politics, all of it bullshit -
Georgie Boy getting fat and red, huffing and puffing, about to blow -
Nobody listening, everybody straining to hear the radio next door:
Across the city, up in Headingley, England playing the West Indies; trying to regain the initiative after losing Boycott LBW to Sobers.
‘Be a press conference tomorrow,’ George is saying, giving a toss -
No-one else but me.
‘Big appeal on telly,’ he says. ‘We’ll find her.’
‘Not if GPO have their way,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘Bloody strike coming, isn’t there?’ nods the Badger.
‘Marvellous,’ sighs George. ‘Bloody marvellous.’
It’s all over his face; fat and red and written as large:
Personal-
NO MOORS MURDERS HERE.
The car out to Castleford -
No-one speaking, not one bloody word -
Just the cricket on a tranny, the sky clouding over -
Bad light.
Brunt Street, Castleford -
Out on the pavement in front of the terrace, George nodding at the uniform -
In through the red door.
George with the introductions: ‘Mr and Mrs Garland, this is Detective Superintendent Molloy and Detective Inspector Jobson.’
We both nod at the skinny man with the two lit cigarettes and his blonde wife with the ten bitten nails; the skinny man and his blonde wife sat behind their red front door with the curtains drawn at noon -
Poor before, poorer now.
Mrs Garland goes to the window and peeps out between the curtains -
It’s 1969, the second day.
Back out on the pavement, staring across the road through the skeletons of half-built semis, the tarpaulin flapping in the breeze, watching the lines of black figures beating their way up the hills through the empty spaces with their big sticks and downward glances, the silent police dogs called Nigger and Shep, Ringo and Sambo, the white ambulance parked at the top of the street, waiting.
Cigarettes lit, George blowing his nose.
‘What now?’ asks Bill.
‘Do neighbours again?’ replies George. ‘Get your hands dirty.’
I shrug, sick in the pit.
Bill grins across the street at the row of unfinished homes: ‘I’ll do t’other side.’
‘Someone ought to,’ I say, pointing at the sign -
The sign that reads:
Foster’s Construction.
‘Always so cheerful, she was. Always smiling. It’s terrible. Broad daylight and all. There are so many bloody oddballs about these days. Not safe in your own bloody home, are you? I bet you meet all bloody sorts, you lot. I mean, that’s the thing about mongols, isn’t it? Always happy, aren’t they? Never saw her without a smile on her face. Can’t say I envy them much, her mam and her dad. Mustn’t be easy on either of them. They take so much looking after, don’t they? Shocking really. Can I get you another cup? But then they’re so happy. I don’t reckon they know any better, do they? They’re lucky that way. Must be nice to be always smiling. Bet you wish you could say same, don’t you? Makes you wonder what this world is bloody coming to though, doesn’t it? Just popped down road for some bloody sweets, next door said. Broad bloody daylight. Terrible. But you think you’ll find her, don’t you? You think she’s all right, don’t you?’
‘Terrible,’ says Mr Dixon, the man in the cornershop. ‘We open at three, rain or shine, and there’s always a queue of them and Jeanette’s always among them, rain or shine. Have to watch her with her money mind, being as she is.’
‘But not yesterday, you say?’
‘No,’ he shakes his head. ‘Not yesterday.’
‘The other kids,’ I ask him. ‘How are they with her, being as she is?’
‘Right kind they are,’ he nods to himself. ‘Lived on street since day she was born, Jeanette has.’
‘And yourself, you didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious yesterday?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing out the ordinary?’
‘Nowt much happens round here, Inspector.’
I nod.
‘Not till this.’
There’s a familiar figure leaning against the Jensen parked outside the shop:
‘Jack?’ I say -
Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter for the Yorkshire Post.
He offers me his open packet of Everest: ‘Maurice, any news?’
I take a cigarette. I shake my head: ‘You tell me, you’re the paperboy.’
Jack lights mine then his.
The gentle Sunday afternoon wind is tugging at the tails of his raincoat, its fingers through his thin hair.