Michael John Myshkin of Jenkins Photo Studio, Castleford -
Michael John Myshkin the man who is saying he murdered Clare Kemplay:
‘… she wouldn’t let me kiss her, so I kissed her anyway and then she wouldn’t shut up. Said she was going to tell her mam and dad and police, so I strangled her. Then I cut her and put the rose up her and the wings in her back…’
He is grossly overweight, his enormous head bowed and shaking -
Handcuffed, spots of blood are dropping from his nose on to the table.
He is crying. He has pissed himself.
Dick and I step inside.
Angus, Oldman and Noble turn round -
‘Maurice,’ says George. ‘This is Michael John Myshkin.’
I look back at Myshkin -
Head bowed and shaking.
‘Michael’s just been telling us what a bad boy he’s been, haven’t you, Michael?’
Myshkin doesn’t answer.
Noble bangs both palms down loud on the table. ‘Answer the man!’
Myshkin nods -
A fat and stupid moon in a black and cruel night;
‘Tell these gentlemen what you just told us, Michael,’ says Ronald Angus.
Michael Myshkin looks up at me -
Trembling and blinking through his fears and tears.
I say: ‘We’re listening, Michael.’
Michael John Myshkin smoothes down his hair. He blinks. He nods. He whispers: ‘I was driving the van in Morley and I saw her and I fancied her and I stopped and got her into the van but she wouldn’t let me kiss her, so I kissed her anyway and then she wouldn’t shut up. Said she was going to tell her mam and dad and police, so I strangled her. Then I cut her and put the rose up her and the wings in her back. Just like the others.’
‘Which others?’ I say.
‘Them two others.’
‘You did them too, didn’t you, Michael?’ says Noble.
He nods.
Noble: ‘Susan Ridyard?’
He nods.
Noble: ‘Jeanette Garland?’
Michael Myshkin looks from Noble to me for a split second -
A split second in which you can see him -
See him see her -
See Jeanette -
A split second in which he loses his life -
A split second before he nods.
‘Did what?’ shouts Noble.
‘Killed them.’
I say: ‘Michael? Where did you kill them?’
‘Under the grass, between the cracks and the stones -’
‘Where?’
‘Those beautiful carpets.’
‘Where is this?’
‘My kingdom,’ he says. ‘My underground kingdom.’
Noble steps forward. He slaps him hard across the top of his head. He shouts: ‘You’re going to have to do fucking better than that, you dirty fat fucking bastard!’
‘Come on,’ says Oldman. ‘Leave him to think on. I need a drink.’
‘A bloody whiskey,’ laughs Angus. ‘A bloody big one.’
Dick follows them out into the corridor.
I wait until they’re all out in the corridor. I lean across the table. I lift the lad’s head up. I look him in the eye. I tell him: ‘You didn’t really do it, did you, Michael?’
Michael Myshkin stares back. He doesn’t blink -
He shakes his enormous head.
‘But you know who did, don’t you, Michael?’
He looks at the table. He smoothes down his hair.
‘Who was it, Michael?’
He looks up -
There is blood on his face, tears on his cheek -
This fat and stupid moon in this black and cruel night;
He looks up. He blinks. He smiles. He laughs. He says: ‘The Wolf.’
They are waiting for me outside Room 4.
We walk back down the long, long corridor.
The two girls are still sat in Room 2.
They are wearing long skirts, tight sweaters and big shoes. They are about thirteen or fourteen years old.
‘Who are they?’ I ask Oldman.
‘These are two that first told us about Myshkin.’
I stand in the doorway of Room 2. I stare at them -
They have love bites on their necks.
‘One of them goes out with the lad that found the body,’ says Oldman.
‘Jimmy Ashworth?’
He nods: ‘Him and Myshkin live on same street out Fitzwilliam. He’s been driving Jimmy up and down to Morley to see her. They reckon he’s on some kind of pills to make his balls grow and his tits shrink. The lasses say he’s always whipping it out in churchyard. The one next to Morley Grange -’
‘Who pulled him?’
‘Girls went into Morley Station with their mams last night. Morley phoned it through. I sent John Rudkin up Fitzwilliam. He gets there. Myshkin’s done a runner. White Ford fucking Transit no less. Bob Craven and Bob Douglas spot him on the Doncaster Road. They chased him. They nicked him. Their collar.’
‘That’s it? A wank in the graveyard and he does a runner?’
George shakes his head.
‘What else you got?’
George hands me an envelope.
I open it -
A school photograph:
Blue-sky background -
Eyes and smile shining up in my face;
One pair of mongol eyes -
One crooked little smile:
Jeanette Garland.
‘It was in his wallet,’ says Oldman. ‘His fucking wallet.’
Ronald Angus stands between me and George Oldman. He already smells of whiskey. He puts an arm around each of our shoulders.
I try to move away.
Angus grips my shoulder. He says: ‘He did it, Maurice.’
I look at him.
‘You know it in your heart,’ he says.
I turn. I walk down the corridor -
‘In your heart,’ shouts Angus.
I walk past Room 1 -
Jimmy Ashworth still sat at the table, long lank hair everywhere. He is crying.
So am I -
In my heart.
Back upstairs they’re choosing Myshkin a solicitor, calling in Clive McGuinness and a thousand fucking favours, the talk now of Chivas Regal and press conferences, new tankards and trophies, like we’re some gang of monkeys who’ve just found their own arses without a fucking map, but I’m still wishing there’d been no amalgamation, no West Yorkshire fucking Metropolitan Police, wondering where the fuck the Badger is -
‘Maurice?’
Ronald Angus is looking at me -
My Chief Constable.
‘Pardon?’
‘I said, George will do the Press Conference if you’ve no objections.’
I stand up. I say: ‘None whatsoever.’
‘Where you off now?’ asks George.
‘Well, if you’ve no objections,’ I say. ‘I thought someone ought to go up the pervert’s house and get some fucking evidence. If that is you’ve no objections?’
Out of Wakefield and up the Doncaster Road, past the Redbeck -
Blue lights spinning, the sirens screaming like the undead but buried -
Screaming all the way into Fitzwilliam -
Dick shouting: ‘You remember him, yeah?’
Nodding -
‘You know who nicked him?’
Nodding -
‘You know who they got him for a solicitor?’
Nodding -
‘You think he did it?’
Foot down -
‘I fucking hope he did.’
Foot down, nodding.
One, two, three, four -
Five o’clock:
54 Newstead View, Fitzwilliam -
Three police cars and a van, parked angular -
Doors open, hammers out -
His mam and his dad at the front door in their nightclothes -
Dick knocking them to one side on to their tiny front lawn -
Shouting: ‘We have a warrant to -’
Old man Myshkin coughing his blood and guts up, her screaming -
I give her a slap. I push them both back inside -
‘Upstairs,’ I say to Dick and Jim Prentice -
Old man Myshkin, hands full of stringy blood trying to comfort his wife -
I push them down into their tatty old sofa. ‘Sit down and shut up!’
‘Where’s Michael?’ she’s crying. ‘What have you done to Michael?’