Nineteen Eighty (10 page)

‘And then you never came and he ended up dead and I –’
Summer Seventy Seven –
A10 on a roll:
The Porn Squad, the Dirty Squad –
Drury, Moody & Virago:
‘The architects of this conspiracy of corruption; monumentally evil men who lived among the sewerage of society.’
West Yorkshire next, Bradford Vice, then someone called the dogs off –
Eric Hall dead
.
‘He hated you, Mr Hunter. They all do. But they hate you because they know you find things out, find them out, that you’re a good man. Even Eric, he called you Saint –’
‘Saint?’
‘Saint Cunt.’
I smile, but then it’s gone and I’m back there:
Summer Seventy Seven –
The last miscarriage
.
Baby dead
.
I look up –
She says: ‘So I think you can help me.’
‘How?’
‘Eric knew Janice Ryan. Knew her very well. When she turned up under that sofa, he was a suspect and so was another policeman: a Detective Sergeant Fraser at Millgarth. You remember him?’
‘Killed himself on the Moors?’
‘Yes he did; two days before Eric was murdered. Did you know he’d been involved in the Ripper Hunt?’
‘No but, to be honest, today was only our third day.’
‘Well, Eric was sure this Sergeant Fraser had killed Ryan. She was pregnant with his child and, as I say, they had him in –’
‘Who?’
‘This man Fraser. They had him in for it, but then another letter came, supposed to be from Ripper, and that was that. He was out, scot-free, and she was Number 6.’
‘And you don’t believe she was killed by the Ripper?’
‘No.’
‘You think Fraser killed her?’
‘Or someone else.’
‘Someone else?’
‘Well, Eric didn’t keep his mouth shut did he? He said it was Fraser, especially after the bloke topped himself. That Saturday, the day before, he kept on and on about it. Calling people up, the papers. That journalist Jack Whitehead, he’d been up at the house that same week. Eric was calling anybody, anybody who’d listen. So someone put them onto Eric. To shut him up.’
‘Someone put this gang onto Eric? Because he thought Fraser killed Janice Ryan?’
‘Because he knew it wasn’t the Ripper.’
I’m staring between the seats, the sound of the clock filling the car, watching the lights at the other end of the arches.
‘You said you had proof?’
She is nodding: ‘Eric wrote a lot of stuff down. He kept copies, tapes. He knew he’d need them someday.’
‘Who have you told?’
‘Me? Anyone who’d listen.’
‘What about the copies, the tapes? You told anyone about them?’
‘George Oldman.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said I should turn everything over to the man in charge of the investigation into Eric’s death.’
‘Who was?’
‘
Is
, Mr Hunter. It’s still open. No-one’s been arrested.’
‘I’m sorry. Who is –’
‘Maurice Jobson.’
The Owl
.
‘And did you?’
‘What?’
‘Give him Eric’s notes?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘When it happened; three years ago.’
‘And what did Maurice Jobson say?’
‘Said he’d get back to me.’
‘And did he?’
‘What do you think?’
‘So you’ve no idea what he did with Eric’s stuff?’
‘No.’
‘So he might have handed it all over to George Oldman? To the Ripper Squad?’
‘He might have, yes. And you might sprout wings and fly home.’
I smile: ‘So I take it no-one’s ever contacted you about the stuff since?’
‘No.’
‘Can you remember what was in these notes?’
‘Mr Hunter, I made copies.’
‘Who knows that?’
‘Only you now.’
I nod outside: ‘Mr Laws?’
‘Only you.’
‘I see.’
‘He did bad things, Eric. I know that. He was no saint –’
‘Not like me.’
‘No, not like you. But he didn’t deserve what happened to him, not that.’
Not like me –
Saint Cunt.
I take the lift up to my room –
It’s stifling, the radiator on full.
I open a window on the unpleasant night and her ugly rain, the haunted station and the silence.
I sit on the edge of the bed, hating Leeds, hating Yorkshire.
I shut the window, draw the dusty curtains.
I close my eyes and let the radio eat the silence thinking –
It’s always the way, out this way
.
In the middle of the night I’m awake again, sweating and afraid –
Hymns on the radio, that dream of TVs and faces with no face, that taste in my mouth –
Awake, the pains in my back, reaching for Joan, fighting back the tears, reaching for someone –
No-one there.
transmission October nineteen seventy six white abbey bradford ka su peng found in a telephone box by police with two holes in her head in need of fifty eight stitches from a black and crinkly bearded man who picked her up outside the perseverance on lumb lane in my dark car with my tired eyes and crinkly beard we drove to the playing fields and e said how much and she said a fiver and e said ok but you must get out of the car and take off your clothes and lie on the grass and she did not want to e could see it in her eyes where snowflakes were dancing but she said e have to urinate and she was squatting down like a real lady urinating in the grass when e dropped my hammer she said e hope that was not a knife and e said no it was my wallet just strip and she had almost finished her urinating that was when e hit her on the head with the hammer and e hit her on the head with the hammer again and she lay in the grass with her hand to her head the hand all covered in blood lay on the grass and e just stood and watched her looking at her hand the hand all covered in blood the snowflakes dancing and e masturbated and then e threw the tissues at her and put a fiver in her bloody hand and said please do not call the police or e will come and kill you again next time snowflakes are dancing and he stood there looking down at me moving his hand up and down the snowflakes dancing and he said please do not call the police or e will have to kill you and he put a five pound note in my hands and he went away and e managed to half walk half crawl to the telephone box and call an ambulance and they came and took me away and put fifty eight stitches in my head and back and e was in hospital for seven weeks and they said you are lucky to be alive but all e could remember was dialing nine nine nine lying on the floor of the telephone box waiting the snowflakes dancing and a man in a dark car kept driving past and he seemed to be staring and looking for me and it was the man who hurt me you are lucky to be alive they told me but psychic phenomena activated by epileptic discharge arising in the temporal lobe may occur as complex visual or auditory or combined auditory visual hallucinations or illusions or memory flashbacks erroneous interpretations of the present in terms of the past as an inappropriate feeling of either familiarity or strangeness deja vu jamais vu phenomena or as emotions commonly fear these phenomena are called experiential as they assume a vivid immediacy for the effected patient which they liken to actual events yet the patients are also aware that these phenomena occur incongruously and out of context as if they were superimposed upon the ongoing stream of consciousness with the exception of fear which is often interpreted as fear of impending events or attack or snowflakes dancing but you are lucky to be alive lucky to be alive to be alive but e am not now for e live in the place where the leaves are black and the branches are twisted and entangled and bloom poisoned thorns and around me echo wails of grief that over and over cry you are lucky to be alive lucky to be alive to be alive but cut this wood and the blood turns dark around the wound and from the splintered trunk pours a mixture of words and blood so eat my leaves in this mournful forest where my body torn away from itself hangs forever among the thorns of my own alien shade my home a hanging place where my many wounds breathe grieving sermons in blood and the mutilations that have separated me from all my leaves gather them round the foot of this sad bush the snowflakes dancing alive in the grass with a fiver in my bloody hand transmission three received
Chapter 6
Leeds –
Millgarth:
The canteen –
Under the hum of the lights, the machines and their numbers: two, one, four, six, eight –
Tuesday 16 December 1980:
Almost eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight, eight:
I wait until Murphy’s finished eating his breakfast and then say: ‘Something else came up last night.’
He looks up from his dirty plate, a mouthful of toast.
I say: ‘Go for walk?’
Murphy raises his eyebrows slightly, shrugs, and then follows me down the stairs and out into the Market –
It’s gloomy but dry, no sun, only thick grey sheets of cloud.
We walk up George Street until we find a small café.
A couple of sweet teas in front of us, Murphy sits waiting –
I say: ‘You remember we were talking about Eric Hall?’
He nods.
‘His widow came to the hotel last night.’
‘You’re joking?’
I shake my head: ‘With a priest.’
‘What did she want?’
‘Reckons Eric was up to his neck in the Ripper.’
‘Yeah so? Bradford Vice wasn’t he? Bound to be.’
‘Yeah, but above and beyond the call of duty.’
‘Ah, fuck.’
‘He was involved somehow with Janice Ryan.’
‘Fucking never-ending this shit,’ he sighs: ‘Go on.’
‘Says her Eric was even a suspect at one point.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘So was another copper, one from Millgarth; the one that killed himself?’
‘Bob Fraser?’
‘Yep.’
Murphy lights a cigarette: ‘Load of old bollocks though, yeah?’
I nod: ‘Perhaps.’
‘And that was it? That was all she said?’
‘She spelt it out; says that Eric Hall was killed because he knew it wasn’t the Ripper who did Ryan.’
Murphy’s smiling: ‘I might agree with her that there’s a fair chance the Ripper didn’t do Ryan, but she can piss right off about Eric. He was as bent as a two-bob fucking note. We were bleeding going to nick him.’
‘Yep,’ I say, nodding.
Murphy leans forward: ‘I thought he was supposed to be into something with a gang of blacks who were knocking off post offices. Remember that?’
I keep nodding.
‘It went belly up, so they took it out on Eric. And his wife. That’s what we heard, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I feel sorry for her, the poor cow. But I still reckon Eric brought it all on himself.’
‘And her.’
‘And her.’
‘Maurice Jobson was in charge;
is
in charge of it.’
‘They never got anyone then?’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘What? That Yorkshire never got anyone? Get away, these blokes haven’t nicked anyone since Michael bloody Myshkin.’
‘No, no – odd Maurice heading up the investigation?’
‘Why?’
‘Well he’s what? Wakefield?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And where was Eric Hall done?’
‘His house?’
‘Yeah, which is Denholme. Bradford.’
‘But Eric was out of Jacob’s Well. They’re hardly going to hand it over to his own mob are they?’
I shrug: ‘Suppose not. But why Maurice?’
‘Fuck knows and, to be honest, who the fuck cares.’
‘Something does bother me, John – but I can’t put my finger on it.’
‘I can: the same old Yorkshire horse-shit we get every time we come over here,’ he yawns. ‘But if you want me to add this to the list, after your mate Tricky Dicky Dawson, then I’ll ask around.’
I can’t tell if he’s pissed off with me, or trying to piss me off –
I push away the cold tea: ‘She said Eric had notes, copies of stuff, some tapes. She gave them to Maurice Jobson, but never heard anything back. She reckons they prove that the Ripper didn’t kill Ryan, and back up a lot of other stuff too.’
Murphy upright, interested: ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I was thinking, you’re doing Janice Ryan right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Eric Hall’s name is bound to be in there somewhere, bound to come up. And Bob Fraser.’
He’s nodding.
‘So why don’t you ask Craven to let you see the file on Eric and the one on Fraser? See if Eric’s tapes and stuff is in there.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Eric’s notes. Anything?’
‘Right. And if it’s not?’
‘She’s got copies.’
‘Yeah, suppose so,’ he says, staring away over my shoulder and out the window.
‘You OK?’
‘Ah, you know,’ he says, standing up. ‘It’s fucking Liz McQueen next, isn’t it?’
The room upstairs –
Smaller and darker than ever –
Another call for the dead, reverse charges:
I say: ‘Elizabeth McQueen?’
The Spaghetti Lady –
‘This is me,’ says Murphy. ‘And I’ll keep it brief.’
The room is hushed, Craven a notepad out for the first time, waiting for John to begin:
‘On Monday 28 November 1977, the naked body of a woman was found in Southern Cemetery, Manchester. She was later identified as Elizabeth McQueen, born on October 31 1946 in Edinburgh. McQueen was married with two children and had two cautions for soliciting. Death had resulted from brain damage caused by several blows to the head from either a hammer or an axe. The lower body had a number of lacerations, which had been inflicted after death by a sharp instrument. An attempt had also been made to sever her head. No weapons have ever been recovered.
‘McQueen had been last seen on Saturday 19 November 1977 when she’d left her home in Kippax Street, Rusholme. It has always been the belief that she met her death shortly afterwards.
‘When she left her home she was carrying a handbag which was initially not recovered. A workman found the bag on December 5. Hidden in the lining of the bag was a brand new five-pound note.
‘I was in charge of this Inquiry.’
Murphy pauses, stops dead, then says: ‘And I fucked it up.’
Silence –
It’s always the way –
‘As I say, our initial search of the crime scene failed to recover the missing handbag. We lost time and we never got it back.’
Another pause, another stop, another silence –
‘Before the bag turned up, I’d come over to Wakefield and met with George Oldman. We’d decided that while there were similarities, there were also several dissimilarities.’
On the dark stair, we miss our step –
I’m staring down at George’s press release before me:
‘We have no reason to believe at this stage that there is any connection between the murder in Manchester and the ones I am investigating.’
‘Then we found the bag and the fiver, and the rest you know.’
Another release, John’s:
‘We have a line of enquiry which is directly connected with the murder of a woman in Manchester and we are following that line of enquiry in the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police area. There is a team of detectives from Greater Manchester who are working with detectives from West Yorkshire. We will be visiting factories in the Bingley, Shipley and Bradford areas and are interviewing all male employees. As to any links with the unsolved murders in West Yorkshire, it is far too early to draw any conclusion and Mr Oldman and myself are keeping an open mind.’