Nineteen Eighty (11 page)

Murphy staring at the tabletop, silent –
An open mind –
I say: ‘Any questions?’
Silence –
‘Break then.’
On the bright stair, John Murphy his head in his hands –
I put a hand on his shoulder –
He looks up, eyes red.
I say: ‘I’m going to head over to Wakefield for the press conference; try and get a word with Maurice as well.’
He nods.
‘You OK to hold the fort here?’
He nods again.
‘I reckon this is a good place to pause, take stock. Also we could do with a recap on the ones that got away: Jobson, Bird, Peng, Clark, and Kelly, yeah?’
‘Right.’
I look at my watch:
Eleven –
I say: ‘I’ll meet you back at the Griffin about sixish?’
‘Fine.’
I stand up.
He looks back down at the stair again.
‘John?’ I say.
He looks up.
‘You’re too hard on yourself.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he says. ‘That’s just it.’
The Road to Wakey Fear –
Rain, rain, and a bucket load of pain:
The Four Horsemen riding on the radio waves, the Ripper laughing at their heels, whip in hand:
2,133,000 record jobless, Helen Smith, the Yorkshire Ripper; all hostages alive and well
.
Abba and the football, winter:
The wet lanes, the dark tires, the wet trees, the dark skies, and here she comes again, here she comes again, here she comes again, here she comes again, banging on my head with a piece of rock –
The Wakey turning, braking hard:
Never let her slip away –
And then it was Nineteen Seventy Five again, war across the UK:
Wood Street –
Wakefield, January 1975:
Me and Clarkie sat across from Maurice Jobson –
Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, legend:
The Owl.
The Strafford, always the bloody Strafford.
Four dead:
Derek Box.
Paul Booker.
William ‘Billy’ Bell.
And the barmaid, Grace Morrison.
Box, Bell, and Morrison: D.O.A. Christmas Eve 1974.
Booker never going to make it, dead on Christmas Day.
Craven and Douglas:
‘hero cops on the mend’
with a visit and a handshake from the Home Secretary.
January 1975 –
Maurice Jobson, legend, said: ‘Some bloody Christmas that was, eh?’
‘Anything new?’
‘No.’
‘What about Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas?’
‘Doing OK, like the papers say.’
‘Anything more from them?’
‘No. Dougie still can’t remember a thing. Bob, nothing new.’
‘But he’s…’
‘The ranting’s stopped, aye.’
I opened up my notebook and said: ‘So there’s not a lot more than shots fired at the Strafford, they respond, up the stairs, bodies, smoke, four blokes in hoods with shotguns, more shots, beaten, left for dead. That’s it?’
‘That’s your lot,’ nodded Maurice
.
‘I’d still like to speak to them.’
Maurice all smiles: ‘And you will, Pete. You will’
But I didn’t.
Two hours later the call from home –
On the dark stair, we miss our step –
There are corridors and passages, some lit and some not, there were doors and there were locks, some will open, some would not
.
And that was that, until now –
1980 –
On the dark stair:
I knock twice.
‘Pete,’ he says, on his feet, hand out.
‘This a bad time?’
‘Not at all. Good to see you, Pete.’
‘Thank you,’ I say and sit down across from Maurice Jobson –
Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, legend:
The Owl
.
‘You’re looking well,’ he says.
‘Really? Thank you,’ I smile. ‘You know why I’m here?’
‘The short straw?’
I laugh: ‘You could say that.’
‘So how’s it going?’
‘Slowly,’ I say.
Maurice nods, a sympathetic smile: ‘That’s war for you.’
I say: ‘Anyway, I’d like to go over the initial investigations with you; the ones you were in charge of?’
‘Right.’
‘And I’ve also got a couple of questions about Clare Strachan and Janice Ryan as well.’
A nod.
‘Is that OK?’
‘Fire away, Pete. Fire away’
‘All right, you headed up Theresa Campbell and Joan Richards; so I was wondering, aside from the stuff that’s in the files, all the documented stuff, if there was anything you wanted to add, anything that you felt needed emphasising, points that need raising, anything at all basically’
Maurice Jobson leans forward in his chair and smiles: ‘What you want to know is why they took me off them, yeah?’
‘Crossed my mind, yep.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you shall I? The minute I clapped eyes on the body of Theresa Campbell, I knew that the man who killed her would kill again and continue to kill until we stopped him. He’s got the urge Pete, and that kind of urge doesn’t go away. Nine months later, less than two miles from where I’d stood and looked down at Theresa Campbell, I stood in the dirty snow of a dismal alley and looked down at what he’d left of Joan Richards. He’d stabbed her fifty-two times, Pete. Fifty-two bloody times. I told the Brass, told George, the lads, the press – anyone who’d bloody listen, told them all that he’d kill and kill again and keep on killing. But Theresa and Joan, they were slags Pete. Whores, as they say over here. And no-one mourns a whore, except her kids, her husband, her mates, and the bloody coppers that have to look at her dead fucking body in the snow. So no-one was right bothered, except me and my lads, but then we got a stroke of luck. A little stroke Pete, and that’s all it takes right?’
I nod.
‘Another whore comes forward and says she saw Joan’s last customer, saw his face and saw his motor.’
Maurice leans back in his chair, eyes closed, a mantra:
‘Thirty years old, short and fat, mouse-coloured hair, full beard with sideburns, round nose and hooded eyes. His left hand was deformed, with a scar as if it had been burned and which extended from the knuckles on the back of the hand up the wrist. He was also wearing a plain gold, square-topped ring on the third finger of his left hand and also a plain gold ring on the second finger of the same hand. He was wearing a dark blue working jacket over dark blue overall-type trousers and black boots or Wellingtons with a thick sole pattern. His clothing was covered in dust. He was driving a dark green Land Rover with a hard top, which was darker than the rest of the body. The passenger door was patched up with silver or grey paint. There was a small aerial on the front nearside wing near the windscreen.’
Maurice pauses, opens his eyes and leans forward, keen:
‘When we released this information, other girls came to us and said they also recognised this bloke as a regular punter, thought he was Irish, maybe called Sean. We also got tire marks to match the Land Rover near where we found Joan. A little stroke Pete, and this was the way we went.’
Maurice pauses again for a moment, staring at me.
‘Do you think we were wrong, Pete?’
I shrug, unsure what to tell him.
‘Anyway, that was the way we went,’ he sighs. ‘Mind, not that anyone really gave a toss. Still, didn’t stop us and we just kept on going, wading through the cars and the tires, knowing we’d come to him, knowing we’d find him. But then it gets to end of 76 and he’s not killed again has he, so they start to wind us down, send me back over here and that was that. Six months later Marie Watts comes along, George takes it himself, a couple of weeks later the letters start and we get the Johnson lassie and so then, by time you get to the bloody tape, that really was fucking that.’
‘And you think that was a mistake? The tape?’
‘Pete,’ he says. ‘I’m saying nowt, except you wouldn’t catch me panting along behind that banner.’
I ask him: ‘What about Clare Strachan? You think …’
‘Same. All tied up with them bloody letters and that fucking tape.’
‘75, you sent Bob Craven and John Rudkin over, yeah?’
‘Yeah. Be about first thing Bob did when he got back.’
‘And, back then, neither them nor you made a link with Theresa Campbell?’
‘There was none to make.’
‘And now?’
Palms out, open, he says: ‘Who can say, Pete? Who can say?’
I say nothing, the pair of us just sat there, just sat there in the silence –
After a bit I say: ‘Whatever happened to John Rudkin?’
Maurice Jobson rolls his eyes: ‘Not a happy chapter for us, any of us.’
I sit there, more silence, waiting –
He says: ‘You were going to ask me about Janice Ryan, weren’t you?’
I nod.
‘Well,’ he says. ‘I’ll save you some bother. Ryan was involved with two coppers; Eric Hall, who I believe you were all set to come and have a pop at?’
‘Yep.’
‘Well you probably know then that he was, apparently, pimping Janice Ryan. Janice Ryan who, it turns out, was also fucking one of our lads, Bob Fraser. Heard of him?’
‘Yep.’
‘Thought you might have. Well, when Ryan turned up dead under a sofa in Bradford, it turned out she was pregnant and Bob Fraser was the father.’
I keep it shut now, letting him go on –
‘This is the same Bob Fraser who was married to Louise Molloy. Heard that name?’
‘No.’
‘Bill Molloy?’
I sit forward: ‘Badger Bill?’
Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, one half of that same legend, nods –
The Badger and the Owl, boyhood heroes from an Eagle world, a Dan Dare world, a different world –
I say: ‘He was your partner wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. And Bob Fraser was married to his daughter, Louise.’
‘Bloody hell,’ I say.
‘It gets worse, Pete. Much worse.’
I’m nodding, just nodding, my mind turning, spinning.
He says: ‘When we found out the Ryan slag had been pregnant, we had Hall and Fraser straight in, Hall saying Fraser had done her, Fraser saying it was Hall, a right bloody mess
–
George doing all he could to keep it out of papers. Middle of all this, Bill dies; been on the cards, cancer. Next news, a letter turns up from bloody Ripper saying it was him, Ripper who did Ryan, so that was that again. We let Fraser go, but then Fraser only goes and finds out that his Louise has also been having an affair with John fucking Rudkin, his senior officer, and that Rudkin is father of his lad. Tips Fraser over edge this does, gasses himself up on Moors, as you know.’
I nod.
‘Couple of days later, Eric Hall gets his throat cut and his wife raped.’
‘And you got that?’
‘For my sins, aye. Didn’t want Bradford on it, didn’t want you either,’ he laughs. ‘I was off Ripper, so it was me. Like I had nowt better to do.’
‘Never got anyone?’
‘No, and we never will.’
‘But?’
‘But he was up to his fucking neck in shit, was their Eric. I mean, you were going to do him anyway?’
I nod again.
‘Some reckon he was running a string of whores and maybe, just maybe, he was into it with a gang of nignogs who were knocking over sub post-offices. You remember that?’
Nodding again, saying: ‘You get anywhere with that?’
‘You heard of the Spencer Boys?’
‘No.’
‘Spend time over here and you will. Five of them: two brothers, Steve and Clive Barton, a Kenny somethingorother, a Keith Lee and a Joseph Rose. Thinking was that it were them that did the post offices, but Robbery couldn’t pin it on them. Anyway, pain in the fucking arse it was, – but what goes around comes around, as they say: Clive got banged up for GBH or something, Kenny and Keith got fitted up by Drug Squad, all in Armley doing big stretches. No parole. Steve did a runner and then the burned body of a nigger turned up on Hunslet Carr and we’ve always reckoned that was Joe Rose, who no-one’s seen hide nor hair of since 77.’
‘And you think they did Eric Hall?’
‘Don’t think it Pete, I know it.’
‘How?’
‘Two schools of thought here, but what we know for sure is Eric and these boys had a mutual acquaintance in Janice Ryan. Either Eric was in with them from the start or he wasn’t and Ryan told him about the Spencer Boys and their hobby and then Eric tried to blackmail them. Either way, they had to shut him up.’
‘Which way you lean?’
‘Me? The third way; I like to think best of people Pete, so I’d like to think he was building a case or something and they found out.’
I smile: ‘That’s what his wife says.’
‘You’ve spoken to her?’
‘She came to see me. Said she had information about Janice Ryan. Said Eric was killed because he knew too much, that he had files and stuff, that she gave them to you.’
‘Poor cow,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘The things they did to her. She gave me them files but, between you and me, it’s just his bloody ramblings. But like I say, it’s a better way to remember a copper.’
I nod and we fall back into the silence, rain outside the window, the room cold –
Then I cough and ask: ‘What’s this journalist Jack Whitehead got to do with all this?’
‘Jack? Well, your Widow Hall claims Jack found out Eric was connected to Janice Ryan and tried to blackmail him.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No. Tell you Pete, 1977 was one hell of a summer, as they say’
‘Did you question him?’
‘Jack? Hardly’
‘What you mean?’
‘Well, our Jack’s been a bit quiet lately’
‘What? He’s dead?’
‘Good as. He’s in Stanley Royd, isn’t he?’
‘Stanley Royd?’
‘The Bin, Loony Bin, Nut House, Funny Farm? Just up road from here.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Only went and tried to hammer a twelve inch bloody nail into his own fucking head, didn’t he?’
Say again: ‘You’re joking?’
‘Wish I were Pete, wish I bloody were.’
‘Bloody hell.’
Maurice Jobson looks at his watch and says: ‘You’re going to be late.’
I look at my watch:
Shit, the press conference –
I stand up, shaking hands with him, saying: ‘Thank you, Maurice.’
‘Anytime, Pete. Anytime.’
Then at the door: ‘Christ, Maurice, I almost forgot…’
‘What?’
‘You never said …’
‘Never said what?’
‘What happened to Rudkin, he in the Bin too?’
‘As good as,’ he smiles. ‘Emigrated to Australia.’
‘With the Badger’s daughter?’
‘And the little lad,’ he says and hands me a photo from his wallet:
A woman and a boy on a beach with a ball –
‘You got kids haven’t you?’ says Maurice Jobson.
Summer Seventy Seven –
The last miscarriage –
The baby dead –
One hell of a summer –
One hell:
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I haven’t.’
In dark winter the hounds of hate, the steam upon their tongues and backs, they await –
Out of breath, I take my place at another showdown:
The Training College gymnasium –