Nineteen Eighty (23 page)

‘So you’ve nothing to add?’
‘Nothing.’
‘OK then, how about the fact that Candy Simon and Tracey Livingston were also both reported missing to police officers prior to the discovery of their bodies and, in Candy’s case, her bloodstained underwear was also found.’
‘I’ve nothing to say about that either.’
‘OK, something closer to home then. Have you managed to get any explanation for the fact that it took Manchester police a whole week to locate Elizabeth McQueen’s handbag, despite the fact that it was less than 100 yards from where her body had been discovered.’
‘Mr McNeil,’ I say, fists up. ‘All these issues that you raise are obviously matters of concern to us and are part and parcel of the review that we’ve undertaken but, honestly and I hope for the last time, let me say that it would be unprofessional of me to pass comment on these matters at this time.’
‘Unprofessional?’
‘Yes.’
Driscoll hands McNeil a piece of paper from his briefcase and McNeil says: ‘May I read you something?’
‘Feel free,’ I sigh.
McNeil reads: ‘So
much about the Ripper is ifs and buts – one cannot be 100% certain, for instance, that all the murders are linked. What we are saying is that they are all similar and are the ones we are most interested in. For reasons obvious to all officers there is a
certain amount of information that has to be kept back for the vital confrontation with the man responsible for the killings
.
‘On the balance of probability the man who sent the tape and wrote the letters is the Ripper but there can always be a question mark and it would be wrong for officers to eliminate suspects because they had not got a Geordie accent. We give certain guidelines but in the end, I feel, it will be some officer’s intuition that leads us to the killer. Hopefully, some officer will be in the right place at the right time and give us the break we need. So let’s make that break and nail him.’
McNeil stops reading.
Silence once again –
Until Driscoll says: ‘You’ve never heard that before, have you Mr Hunter?’
I shake my head: ‘No, that’s the first time. Who said it?’
‘Assistant Chief Constable Noble in this month’s issue of the
West Yorkshireman.’
I glance over at Evans, who says: ‘It’s the West Yorkshire Police newspaper.’
‘Right,’ I nod.
‘Do you have any comment to make about that?’ asks McNeil.
‘It’s good advice.’
‘What about him saying that all the murders might not be linked, that the tape might be a hoax?’
‘He didn’t actually say that. But what he did say was good advice.’
‘What about the murders not all being linked, what about that?’
‘He’s right, you can’t be 100% certain.’
‘Janice Ryan? What about her? Always been a big question mark over her.’
‘Like I just said, you can’t be 100%.’
‘So you’re not at present investigating any connection between the murders of Janice Ryan and a Bradford Vice detective called Eric Hall?’
Evans is on his feet, trying to interrupt –
I’m shaking my head: ‘No we aren’t.’
‘That’s not what his widow is saying.’
Me: ‘You’ve spoken to Mrs Hall?’
McNeil and Driscoll both nod –
‘She’s mistaken then,’ I say.
‘And so there’s no truth in reports that the murders of Hall and Ryan are being linked in any way to raids earlier today on premises in Greater Manchester, which are in turn being connected to the murders there of Robert Douglas and his six-year-old daughter Karen last week?’
‘I don’t know anything about any raids.’
Driscoll: ‘Well we’ve received information that the offices of Asquith and Dawson and various city centre premises belonging to them were raided at dawn today’
I’m looking at Evans, who’s still stood up and looking at me, our eyes and hands all over the place –
‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ I say, eventually.
McNeil: ‘Are you aware that there are rumours circulating to the effect that you are to be removed from this so-called
Brains Trust
, this
Super Squad
, due to your personal connections to Richard Dawson, the man targeted in today’s raids?’
‘That’s it,’ says Evans. ‘I’ve heard enough of this.’
They both stand up, McNeil and Driscoll, their hands raised in apology –
Mouthing and whispering this and that about getting off on the wrong foot –
Foot in their mouths, no offence intended –
But I’m just sat there, reeling –
When Anthony McNeil leans across the desk, hand out: ‘Thank you for your time.’
I put my own hand out automatically, unable to speak –
And then he tightens his grip on my hand and whispers: ‘You think the tape’s a hoax, don’t you?’
Evans: ‘Mr McNeil –’
‘Yes or no?’
Evans: ‘He’s not going to be drawn into –’
‘Yes or no?’
Silence again, fucking silence –
McNeil, Driscoll, and Evans, all staring at me –
Staring at me sat there behind Noble’s desk –
In Noble’s chair –
‘Yes or no Mr Hunter?’
‘No.’

*

Searching for a phone and a car, upstairs and down, Millgarth giving me the bloody run around, the finger –
At last, long bloody last, into a phone in a corner of the Ripper Room: ‘Roger?’
‘Pete? Thank Christ for that.’
Me: ‘What the fucking hell’s going on?’
‘Smith’s only had Vice raid Dawson’s office and that place you went on Oldham Street.’
‘Shit.’
‘And he’s told the press of possible links to the Douglas murders.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Gets worse, mate.’
‘What?’
‘Dawson never showed up this morning.’
‘Where was he?’
‘Fuck knows. His solicitor knows nothing, sat there waiting like us, couldn’t get in touch with him.’
‘You called his wife?’
‘Not a clue. Hysterical.’
‘Shit, she’ll have been onto Joan.’
‘He called you has he?’
‘No.’
‘You heard about the raids?’
‘From the
Sunday
bloody
Times.’
‘Fucking hell.’
‘Yeah, told me I was going to be removed from the Ripper because of it.’
‘Because of Dawson?’
‘Yep.’
‘Bollocks. You coming back over?’
‘Can’t,’ I say, looking at my watch again –
Fuck:
Gone two.
‘Pete?’
‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘Said, keep in touch mate.’
‘OK.’
I hang up and sprint downstairs, then
shit –
Back up to our room again for the bag of
Spunks –
Nods at Murphy and McDonald, weird looks from the pair of them –
Then back downstairs again, underground.
Snow –
At least they’ve given me a Saab –
I push out of Leeds, radio on:
‘Some shops are closing early today to allow staff to go home in daylight, this following a telephone threat to the
Daily Mirror
from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper, saying he would kill again today or tomorrow.’
Black snow –
The car freezing –
So this is Christmas?
Roads dead, coming down through Morley, thinking of Joanne Thornton, heading down into Batley, thinking of Helen Marshall –
And what have we done?
On to the Bradford Road, out of Batley itself and I can see the car up ahead, parked in the same spot –
I pull up a little way behind and lock the car and jog down the road, the snow now just a dirty cold grey rain, the long night coming down.
I tap on the driver’s door and look in –
No-one.
Fuck
.
I try the door –
Locked.
I look up the road, down the road, across at RD News –
Deserted, the whole place, but for a steady stream of lorries in the rain.
Fuck, fuck
.
And then I see her, coming out of the phonebox further up, her jacket over her head, running back towards the car in the lorry lights and sleet –
She sees me, jumps –
‘I was just calling you,’ she says, opening the car door, glancing back over at the newsagents.
‘Why? Something happened?’
‘No, no,’ she says, getting in and opening the other side for me –
We close the doors and sit there, the car cold and stale, her looking old and rough.
‘I just wanted to know when you’d be coming back,’ she says, embarrassed.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s been a bloody rotten day’
‘Laugh a minute here,’ she smiles.
‘Quiet?’
‘As the grave.’
‘You eaten anything?’
‘A pair of driving gloves and a map book.’
‘Sorry, should have brought something.’
‘I can last,’ she says.
I say: ‘You get off now.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll stay’
‘What time shall I come back?’
‘You’ve done enough.’
‘No, I want to.’
‘You sure?’
‘I wouldn’t say if I wasn’t.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘Is there anything else you want me to do?’
‘No, you better get something to eat, get some sleep.’
‘Think I’ve gone past sleep.’
‘Actually there is one thing,’ I say, taking out my notebook.
She’s smiling: ‘Thought there might be.’
‘Could you just ring Mrs Hall? Seemed to get on, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Just see how she is.’
‘That it?’ she laughs. ‘See how she is?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I had this interview with a right pair from the
Sunday Times
. They said they’d been talking to her. You could just ask her about them?’
‘Ask her what about them?’
‘What they’d asked her, what she said.’
‘OK. The subtle approach?’
I tear out the page with Mrs Hall’s number on it –
‘It’s the top one,’ I say.
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘The Reverend Laws.’
‘I was just thinking about him,’ she says.
‘How awful for you.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Fair enough,’ she says.
I open the passenger door –
‘What time do you want me back?’ she asks.
I look at my watch and say: ‘Eleven, eleven thirty?’
She nods and starts the car: ‘See you then.’
‘Take care.’
‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she laughs as I close the door.
‘No,’ I say, and she pulls away, – gone.
Back in the Saab, I drive up the road for a bit until I’m opposite the park where I reverse into the drive of a house with an unlit Christmas tree in the window and then head back down past RDNews, parking near enough to be able to watch the upstairs window in the rearview mirror and the back of the alley in the wing, winding down the window a crack to stop the car steaming up and then I sit there, radio on, – listening, watching, waiting.
same half worn india autoway cross ply tyres that were on front wheels at the scene of my mate marie watts so e truly am luckiest woman in yorkshire a lady well known in the preston area short black leather jacket blue jeans blue shirt carrying a blue denim handbag slim dark haired and attractive with a full sensual mouth stare into her you still breathing looking at the dead see if you find suffering equal to transmission six tracey livingston thirty one found in her flat on ash lane preston Saturday the seventh of January nineteen seventy eight death due to four blows to the head with an instrument which has not been recovered stab wounds to the abdomen and possibly to the back which would not have proved fatal the wounds were such that the assailants clothing will be heavily bloodstained stare into her misery and she looks at you and with both hands she opens her chest and says see how you tear me see the monstrous punishment you still breathing looking at the dead see if you find suffering equal to a lumpy bundle covered in blankets she had initially been attacked as she stepped through her door and had received four massive blows to the head her killer had then removed her coat before lifting her onto the bed her faded denim jeans and pants had been dragged down together but her jeans had been partially pulled back up her bra had been hoisted above her breasts which were exposed she had been stabbed six times in the stomach and there were further signs of stabbing attempts to her back although her skin was not broken and some slash marks along the left side of her body caused by a knife or chisel approximately half an inch wide a blood sample showed that tracey had consumed twenty measures of spirits and had died at midnight a vaginal swab revealed the presence of semen but this was thought to be as a result of sexual activity some time before a size seven boot print from a dunlop Warwick Wellington boot the same as that found on joan richards thigh found on the bottom bed sheet in the silence of a flat after death just the clock and the drip of the tap the blood in pools in the hall the lumpy bundle covered in blankets on the bed just the clock and the drip of the tap the thick dark hair matted with the thick dark blood the repeated knocking on the door the silence of a flat after death on her thigh a bloody hand print on her bed sheet a bloody boot print she was banging on the roof of a car obviously the worse for drink and using the sort of foul language no decent woman would have been using and when e stopped she jumped in beside me without any coaxing and we drove to her flat and e took my claw hammer from under the seat and stuffed it inside my coat and hung my coat up inside her flat and then e waited until she was sitting on the bed with her back to me before e struck with four blows that knocked her to the floor and then e hoisted her up and back onto the bed and exposed her breasts and the lower part of her body and then e hit her with one end of the hammer and clawed at her with the other watching the marks appear in her flesh and e stuck a knife into her stomach and because we were inside the blood looked red for the first time and not the black colour it always looked in the dark and e threw the sheets over her and left her alone in her bedroom making horrible gurgling sounds though e knew she would not be in any state to tell anyone what had happened for e knew it would be a long time before they would come and e knew they would look away e knew they could not stare into her misery her looking at them with both hands opening her
Chapter 13
A shot –
Awake, sweating and afraid in the car in the night – the car dirty, the night black.
I look at the clock:
Midnight –
Shit
.
I switch on the overhead light and check my own watch.
I switch off the light again:
Sat in the dark, thinking –
Where is she?
I get out of the car –
I walk up the road in the sleeting rain to the phonebox –
I open the door and –
BANG!
I’m flat on my back on the pavement, glass raining down –
There are bells ringing and there are screams, feet running –
People tearing out of the
Chop Suey –
And I’m trying to stand up when –
BANG!
More glass raining down, more bells ringing, more screams, more feet running and I’m up –
Up and across the road, a car braking and swerving to avoid me –
There is smoke billowing out of RD News, the whole front gaping open –
‘Gas!’ someone’s shouting. ‘Gas!’
I sprint past the chemist, its glass all gone, alarm deafening –
Chinese waiters running here and there, the restaurant emptying –
Women customers tripping in long dresses and high heels, men with blood in their hair, on their faces, their hands –
Round the back and into the alley, people in their dressing gowns and coats coming out, dogs barking –
And I get to the back gate and it’s open and I go into the yard and there are sirens now –
And I reach for the back door and I open it and –
BAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!
I’m flat on my arse again –
Face burnt back by the intense heat, the smoke and the flames –
And there are people in the yard pulling me away, talking in different tongues –
Back out in the alleyway, an old woman saying: ‘You all right, love? Told them about all them gas canisters, I have.’
I push her away and go back down the alley but the fire engines are already here, an ambulance pulling up –
And the flames are licking out the windows, touching up the walls –
I turn and see two uniforms at the other end of the alley, so I jog back the other way –
Back round on to the Bradford Road, melting into the crowd that’s forming back down the road, all muttering and chuntering on about gas –
Scanning the faces –
Then I ease myself away, back to the car –
And I get in and am gone.
Foot down, heading up through Hanging Heaton, making my way back through Morley and into Leeds.
I park under the arches near the station and switch on the light:
I’ve got cuts across my face, blood in my ears, blood in my hair, blood on my hands.
I switch off the light and take the bag of
Spunks
from the back seat and get out, locking the door, tearing back up to the Griffin.
‘Helen?’ I shout, banging on her door –
I keep knocking: ‘Helen?’
A door opens down the corridor:
It’s Hillman, a pair of blue pyjamas –
Shit
.
‘What’s wrong?’ he’s saying, coming down the corridor. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, stood there covered in blood and clutching a bag of porn.
‘What happened to you?’
‘There was a fire. It’s nothing serious. Where’s Helen?’
‘A fire? Where?’ he’s asking, saying: ‘You look terrible, you should go to hospital.’
‘Mike,’ I say, grabbing him. ‘Where’s Helen?’
He’s shaking his head: ‘She was in the bar earlier.’
‘When?’ I say, looking at my watch.
‘I don’t know. What time is it now?’
‘Almost two,’ I say. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ he keeps saying. ‘I think she was going to meet someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says again. ‘She was acting a bit odd.’
‘Odd?’
‘Like she had something on her mind.’
‘What time?’
‘About eight, nine maybe.’
‘She say anything to John or Alec?’
‘Doubt it; I was sat with Mac and no-one’s seen Murphy since this afternoon.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Murphy? No idea.’ Then he says: ‘You’re hurting me, sir.’
And I look down at my hands gripping the tops of the arms of his pyjamas and I let him go, bloody marks across him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘You need to see someone,’ he says, an arm helping me along.
‘Who? See who?’
‘A doctor I mean.’
I pull away: ‘I can’t.’
‘You look bloody awful.’
‘Just cuts and bruises,’ I say, taking out my key.
‘You need to get them looked at.’
‘I’m going to my room, I’ll be fine.’
He stands in front of his own door, watching me.
I walk off: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘You sure you’re all right?’
I nod and raise my hand, a thumb up.
At my door, I turn and look back down the corridor –
But he’s gone.