In same room, always same room; ginger beer, stale bread, ashes in grate. I’m in white, turning black right down to my nails, hauling a marble-topped washstand to block door, falling about too tired to stand, collapsed in a broken backed chair, spinning I make no sense, words in my mouth, pictures in my head, they make no sense, lost in my own room, like I’ve had a big fall, broken, and no one can put me together again, messages: no-one receiving, decoding, translating.
‘What shall we do for rent?’ I sing.
Just messages from my room, trapped between living and dead, a marble-topped washstand before my door. But not for long, not now. Just a room and a girl in white turning black right down to my nails and holes in my head, just a girl, hearing footsteps on cobbles outside.
Just a girl -
Just a girl on my knees and he’s come out of me. Now he’s angry. I try to turn but he’s got me by my hair, punching me casually once, twice, and I’m telling him there’s no need for that, scrambling to give him his money back, and then he’s got it up my arse, but I’m thinking at least it’ll be over then, and he’s back kissing my shoulders, pulling my black bra off, smiling at this fat cow’s flabby arms, and taking a big, big bite out of underside of my left tit, and I can’t not scream and I know I shouldn’t because now he’s going to have to shut me up and I’m crying because I know it’s over, that they’ve found me, that this is how it ends, that I’ll never see my daughters again, not now, not ever.
BJ wake up, sweating:
It is Saturday 27 December 1980.
BJ lie in bed and watch rain and lights and cracks in ceiling.
There’s someone at door -
(Always someone at door) -
Someone knocking on door: ‘Phone.’
‘Ta,’ BJ say. ‘Ta very much.’
It is Saturday 27 December 1980 -
BJ back in Preston -
St Mary’s Hosteclass="underline"
Blood and Fire etched in stone above door.
‘What?’
‘Did you call him?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Where?’
‘You know where.’
‘You’ve got the picture?’
‘I’ve got picture.’
BJ hang up and stand in institutional corridor. BJ’s eyes black and lips raw, nose broken and hand bandaged. These green and cream walls defaced with insults and with numbers.
BJ staring at sevens, but they mean nothing now -
Not now in 1980 -
Now is time of sixes:
Six six sixes -
Illuminated.
BJ go back up steep stairs and walk down narrow corridor to room at end.
Door is open.
BJ go inside.
It is cold in here.
Light doesn’t work.
BJ sit at table by window.
It is raining outside.
There are pools of water forming on windowsill.
A train goes past.
A dog barks.
The window shakes -
Rattles.
BJ wish BJ were dead.
Chapter 40
Saturday 14 December 1974:
100 miles an hour -
North up the motorway:
Never leave home, never leave home, never fucking leave home ever -
Through the night, screaming:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
8.15 a.m.
Millgarth, Leeds:
Up the stairs to my old office -
‘He in?’ I say to Julie, my old secretary -
Julie on her feet: ‘He’s in a meeting.’
‘Who with?’ I say, not waiting -
‘Journalist from the Post.’
Fingers on the handle: ‘Jack?’
‘No.’
I let go of the handle.
‘You’ll have to wait,’ she says.
‘I can’t.’
She nods. She picks up the phone on her desk. She presses a button.
I hear his phone buzz on the other side of the door.
‘Thanks, love,’ I say.
She smiles. She says: ‘How’s Bishopgarth?’
‘Don’t ask me. I was in London until three o’clock this morning.’
‘Mr Oldman knows you’re back?’
‘If he’s any bloody brains, he does.’
She shakes her head. She says: ‘Won’t you sit down.’
I look at my watch. ‘I can’t.’
She picks up the phone again. She presses the button. The phone buzzes on the other side of the door.
‘Thank you,’ I say again.
The door opens a fraction. George is talking to someone inside. I hear him say: ‘You do your digging and I’ll do mine.’
I look at my watch.
I hear George laugh, hear him say: ‘Bismarck said a journalist was a man who’d missed his calling. Maybe you should have been a copper, Dunstan?’
I look at my watch again.
Julie presses the button. She keeps her finger on it.
George Oldman opens the door wide. He leads out a young man -
A young man I’ve never seen before.
‘Not a word,’ George is telling him. ‘Not a bloody word.’
George lets go of the young man’s hand.
The man walks off.
George Oldman turns to me. He’s pissed off.
‘Maurice,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Thought we’d have seen you sooner.’
‘I was in London at the conference,’ I say. ‘Nobody told me. Nobody called.’
‘Somebody must have -’
‘I sleep with the fucking radio on, George.’
He smiles. ‘What about them psychic contacts of yours?’
I ignore him. I walk past him into my old office.
He follows me inside.
I shut the door. I want to take my seat behind my desk. I don’t -
He does. He says: ‘It’s Leeds, Maurice.’
‘Jeanette Garland wasn’t. Susan Ridyard wasn’t.’
‘You’re as bad as that bloody journalist,’ he spits -
‘I’m not alone for once then?’
‘Early days, Maurice, you know that,’ he says. ‘Early days.’
I shake my head. I say: ‘It’s been over five years, George.’
‘Look in long run, it doesn’t bloody matter who -’
‘Long run?’ I laugh. ‘I’m the fucking long run, George. Not you.’
He sighs. He rubs his eyes. He looks at me across my old desk -
His eyes empty. His hands shaking. He says: ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything.’
He picks up a file off the desk. He flings it across at me. It lands on the floor. ‘There you go,’ he says.
I pick it up. I open it. I look at the photograph -
Clare Kemplay.
‘Was there anything else?’ he sighs.
I look up at him sat behind my desk. I tell him: ‘I want in.’
‘Talk to Angus,’ he says. ‘His call, not mine.’
‘George -’
He stands up. ‘I’ve got a fucking press conference in five minutes.’
The Conference Room, Millgarth Police Station, Leeds.
I stand at the back. I wait. I watch the faces -
Looking for the man who’d been upstairs with George.
There’s a nudge to my ribs. I turn around -
‘Jack,’ I say. ‘Just the man I wanted.’
‘That’s what all the girls say,’ grins Jack, fresh whiskey on his breath.
‘Thought it was someone else from the Post on this one?’
Jack laughs. He points down the front: ‘You mean him?’
The young man from upstairs is talking and laughing with the rest of the pack -
Hounds, the lot of them.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Scoop,’ laughs Jack.
‘Very funny, Jack,’ I sigh. ‘His fucking name please?’