Nineteen Eighty (34 page)

Chapter 20
It was New Year’s Eve:
I was walking across a car park, puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot, heading for a door –
A door to an upstairs room –
A door banging in the wind, in the rain –
I climbed the dark stairs one at a time and stopped before the door –
The door to the upstairs room –
The door banging in the wind, in the rain
.
I pulled open the door and stepped inside –
Inside:
Inside there was a man sat upon a low table, a man with a beard and a shotgun in his hands, staring at a TV with the sound turned low, the walls tattooed with shadow and pain –
The pain of the photographs –
Joyce Jobson, Anita Bird, Grace Morrison, Carol Williams, Theresa Campbell, Clare Strachan, Joan Richards, Ka Su Peng, Marie Watts, Linda Clark, Rachel Johnson, Janice Ryan, Elizabeth McQueen, Kathy Kelly, Tracey Livingston, Candy Simon, Doreen Pickles, Joanne Thornton, Dawn Williams, Laureen Bell, Karen Douglas, Libby Hall –
The pain of twenty-two photographs, plus the one on the low table next to him –
The one on the table next to him –
I picked up the photograph –
The one on the table –
It was Helen Marshall
.
The man turned from the TV –
Prom the people on the TV singing hymns, the people on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features, machines –
The people on the TV singing hymns with no face, no features, machines –
People on the TV singing hymns of hate:
‘You are a beast with no feelings, a coward, not a man. All people hate you. I think you are the Devil himself.’
On the TV singing hymns of hate:
‘You are a very inadequate person, certainly physically and mentally. You can’t make a relationship with a live woman. Possibly your only relationships are with dead women.’
The TV singing hymns of hate:
‘Doesn’t it bother you to think people hate you for doing this? It is nothing to be proud of, the things you do.’
TV singing hymns of hate:
‘You are the worst coward the world has ever known and that should go down in the Guinness Book of Records.’
Singing hymns of hate:
‘You are an obscenity on the face of the earth. When they catch you and put you away, they will throw away the key.’
Hymns of hate:
‘Look over your shoulder, Ripper. Many people are looking for you. They hate you.’
Of hate –
The man with the beard turned from the TV –
Turned from the TV, from the hate –
Turned and said:
‘You don’t see them, you don’t – but I see them; they are hunting me down
–
I must move on.’
And he put the gun to his mouth, fingers on the trigger, and –
– a shot
.
I’m awake –
Awake in my car on Alma Road, Headingley –
Sweating, afraid –
Birds overhead, screaming.
I look at my watch:
06:03:00 –
Tuesday 30 December 1980:
Alma Road –
The ordinary street in the ordinary suburb, not one hundred yards from a main road.
The ordinary street in the ordinary suburb where a man took a hammer and a knife to another man’s daughter, to another man’s sister, another man’s fiancée.
The ordinary street in the ordinary suburb where the Yorkshire Ripper took his hammer and his knife to Laureen Bell and shattered her skull and stabbed her fifty-seven times in her abdomen, in her womb, and once in her eye –
In this ordinary street in this ordinary suburb, this ordinary girl –
This ordinary girl, now dead.
‘I’m not sure about this,’ the woman in white is saying, trying to take hold of the sleeve of my raincoat. ‘I really think you should speak to Mr Papps.’
But I’m away –
Away through the second-hand furniture, the large wardrobes, the dressers and the chairs, the heavy carpets and the curtains –
Away through the skin and the bones, their striped pyjamas and their spotted nightgowns, their slippers and their vespers, their scratchings and their mumblings –
Away up their stairs, down their corridors –
Half green, half cream –
Fresh green, fresh cream –
Wet paint –
Away –
My wings, away –
The woman in white at my heels, still saying: ‘I’m not sure about this.’
My warrant card in her face: ‘Open the doors.’
And she starts turning keys, unlocking doors, until –
Until we come to the last door at the end of the last corridor –
Jack’s door.
We stand there, panting –
Panting until –
Until I say: ‘Open it, please.’
And she turns the key, unlocks the door.
‘Thank you,’ I say and open the door.
I step inside, closing the door behind me –
Behind me, so it’s just me and Jack –
Jack’s lying on his back in a pair of grey striped pyjamas, his hands loose at his sides, eyes open and face blank, his whole head and face shaven.
‘Mr Whitehead,’ I say.
‘Mr Hunter,’ he replies.
‘Sounds like someone fixed the toilet?’
He nods: ‘And I miss it.’
‘The dripping?’
‘Yes, the dripping.’
And there is silence –
Just silence –
Just silence until –
Until I ask: ‘How was Pinderfields?’
‘Blood on the floor.’
‘Pardon?’
‘There’s always blood on the floor over there.’
‘Pinderfields?’
And Jack sighs, eyes watering –
Tears slipping down his face –
Down his cheek –
His neck –
Onto his pillow –
The mattress –
Onto the floor in puddles –
Puddles of tears upon the stone floor –
The tips of my wings wet.
‘Carol?’ I say.
And he looks up at me, the tears streaming, and he nods: ‘Two pieces of a broken heart.’
‘But do they fit?’ I ask.
‘That’s the question,’ he weeps. ‘That’s the question.’
I look down at the tips of my wings –
The puddles of tears –
The blood on the floor and –
And I lean towards him and I ask him: ‘The things you’ve seen…’
He nods, the tears streaming –
‘All the things you’ve seen,’ I say. ‘Who did those things?’
The tears streaming –
I lean close, wings across us both –
‘Who?’
Tears streaming –
Closer, wings across us –
‘Who?’
His tongue against my face –
‘Who?’
His lips to my ears –
‘Who?’
His words in whispers –
‘Who?’
Whispers –
Whispers in the dark –
And I listen:
‘What looks like morning –’
Listen to the whispers in the dark:
‘It is the beginning of the endless night –’
To the whispers and the tears:
‘Hab rachmones.’
Foot down –
Empty streets, rain –
Straight onto Laburnum Road –
West Yorkshire Police Headquarters –
Voices singing –
Christmas songs and football songs –
Rugby songs and Ripper songs –
At the desk: ‘Angus? Chief Constable Angus?’
A uniform shaking his head, the smell of alcohol upon his breath: ‘He’s not here, sir.’
‘Pete Noble?’
‘Not here, sir.’
‘Bob Craven?’
‘No-one’s here.’
Me: ‘Where are they?’
‘Dewsbury.’
‘Dewsbury?’
‘They’ve got him, haven’t they’
Me: ‘Who?’
‘Ripper!’
‘What?’
‘The fucking Ripper!’
Me: ‘What about him?’
‘Caught the fucking Ripper, haven’t they,’ he laughs, bringing up a can of bitter from behind the desk and draining it –
‘The Yorkshire bloody Ripper!’
Dewsbury:
12:03:03 –
Tuesday 30 December 1980
–
The End of the World:
In a car park up the road from the police station, puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot –
Birds overhead, screaming –
Rain pouring –
The hills black above us, the clouds darker still.
Locking the door, coat up over my head, running –
Running for Dewsbury Police Station –
Dewsbury Police Station –
Modern bricks amongst the black –
Crowds gathering, word spreading –
Off-duty coppers coming in, shifts not going home –
I push on through, card out amongst the many:
‘Assistant Chief Constable Hunter to see Chief Constable Angus.’
‘Downstairs,’ shouts one of the men behind the desk, struggling to keep the pack at bay.
And downstairs I go –
Through the double doors and down the stairs –
Downstairs –
Underground –
Until I come upon them –
A dark room full of dark men:
Ronald Angus, Maurice Jobson, Peter Noble, Alec McDonald, John Murphy –
Plus two faces –
Familiar faces –
Familiar faces, dark faces –
Dark faces in a dark room –
A dark room with one wall half glass –
The glass, a two-way mirror –
Light from behind the glass –
Behind the glass, the stage set –
Three chairs and a table –
The players –
Alderman and Prentice –
Today’s special guest:
Peter David Williams of Heaton, Bradford –
34-year-old, married, lorry driver –
Black beard and curly hair, a blue jumper with a white v-neck band –
Behind the glass –
Prentice saying: ‘What about Wednesday 10 December?’
Williams: ‘I was at home with the wife.’ Alderman: ‘Every time you’ve been seen, you always have same story – at home with the wife.’
‘But it’s right.’
‘I think it’s strange.’
‘Why?’
‘How can you be so sure that’s where you were?’
‘I’m always at home every night when I’m not on an overnight stay’
Prentice: ‘So how come you were in Sheffield on Sunday?’
‘I picked up a couple hitchhikers and they paid us a tenner to take them to Sheffield.’
‘Where’d you pick them up, Peter?’
‘Bradford.’
‘So they paid you a tenner to take them to Sheffield?’
He nods: ‘Yes.’
Alderman: ‘Bollocks.’
‘It’s right.’
‘Is it fuck; you went to Sheffield to pick up a prostitute.’
‘That’s not true.’
Prentice: ‘So how come your car’s been clocked in all these daft bloody places?’
‘Daft places?’
‘Manchester, for one. Moss Side.’
‘Manchester?’
Alderman: ‘Been there, have you Pete? Moss Side?’
‘No, never.’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘But I got it here:
FHY 400K, Moss Side, Manchester.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘I don’t know how either; but I tell you this – it’s bad bloody news, I know that.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, car’s there but you’re not. No-one’s going to swallow that in a month of bloody Sundays, are they?’
‘But I remember now. I left it outside Bradford Central Library one night after it broke down and then I went back and picked it up next day. Someone must have taken it for a ride over that way and then put it back.’
Alderman, laughing: ‘Fuck off.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Someone nicks your motor and – hang on, first someone fixes your motor and then they nick it and drive round red-light areas and then put it right back on same spot where you left it night before?’
‘Yes.’
Alderman: ‘Fuck off, Pete.’
Silence –
Silence until –
Until Prentice says softly: ‘You put the false plates on because you knew you were going to Sheffield, knew you were going to red-light district, and you knew we’d be watching.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘I think it is. I think you know it is.’
‘To be honest with you, I’ve been so depressed that I put plates on because I was thinking of committing a crime with the car.’
Silence –
Silence until –
Until Prentice says: ‘When you were arrested Pete, why did you leave your car and go down the side of that house?’
‘To urinate.’
Alderman: ‘To what?’
‘To piss.’
Prentice: ‘I think you went for another purpose. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Williams nods.
Alderman picks up a brown sports bag from under the table and he opens it and takes out four plastic bags and he places them on the table:
Two hammers, a screwdriver, and a knife.
Prentice: ‘I think you’re in serious trouble.’
Peter Williams: ‘I think you’ve been leading up to it.’
‘Leading up to what?’
Silence –
Silence until –
Until Peter D. Williams says: ‘The Yorkshire Ripper.’
Silence –
More silence until –
Until Prentice leans forward and says: ‘What about the Yorkshire Ripper?’
Silence –
One last silence until –
Until Peter David Williams says: ‘Well, it’s me.’
And Prentice stands up and then sits down again, Alderman in his chair with a glance back at the glass –
Back at the glass –
The other side of the glass –
Nine hearts pounding –
Pounding, pumping –
Pumping, the adrenaline pumping –
Pumping and turning and smiling and nodding and then there –
There behind me –
Oldman –
George Oldman –
Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman –
And he’s smiling and nodding, leaving us –
Going next door –
Noble: ‘George, no!’
Leaving us with our hands to the glass, the two-way mirror –
Hands to the glass, the two-way mirror –
‘George!’
The glass, the mirror –
On the other side of the glass, the other side of the mirror –
Where Prentice is asking: ‘You feel better now Peter, do you?’
And the Yorkshire Ripper –
The Yorkshire Ripper looks up as the door opens –
The door opens and in steps George –
And he walks up to him –
To the Yorkshire Ripper and he says –
Says to the Yorkshire Ripper: ‘I’m the one you almost bloody killed as well.’
And the Yorkshire Ripper –
The Yorkshire Ripper, he looks at George and he says: ‘They are all in my brain, reminding me of the beast I am.’
Prentice saying: ‘You’ll feel better now.’
‘Just thinking about them all reminds me of what a monster I am.’
And Alderman stands up and takes George by the arm, leading him away, Jim Prentice asking the Yorkshire Ripper –
Asking him: ‘You want anything, Peter?’
‘I want to tell Monica,’ says the Yorkshire Ripper –
Says the Yorkshire Ripper with a glance into the glass –
A glance into the glass –
The glass –
The glass, the mirror –
The other side of the glass, the other side of the mirror –
On the other side of the mirror where Angus –
Chief Constable Angus is saying –
Shouting –
‘Get the whiskey out!’
Noble giving the orders: ‘Put him in a cell – someone inside and someone outside the door, round the clock.’
Maurice Jobson in his ear, whispering –
Noble nodding along: ‘Yeah, and get out a couple of shotguns.’
Maurice, whispering –
Noble, another nod, calling the shots: ‘We’re taking no chances tonight, so I want the paperwork and the guns out.’
Angus shouting –
‘And the bloody whiskey!’
Up the stairs –
Beaming coppers at every turn –
At every turn only too glad to point the way –
To point the way, to shake your hand, to pat your back and crack another can –