Nineteen Eighty (24 page)

*

I open my eyes –
The telephone’s ringing –
I reach across the bed, across the open copies of
Spunk
, the sheets from the
Exegesis
, and I pick up the phone: ‘Helen?’
‘Peter?’
I say: ‘Joan, I’m sorry.’
‘Been so worried about you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, trying to sit up on the bed, grey light coming through the thin hotel curtains.
‘Where have you been?’
I look at my watch:
It’s seven o’clock –
Tuesday 23 December 1980.
‘Peter?’
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I asked where you’ve been?’
‘Surveillance.’
‘Surveillance?’
‘There was no phone, I’m sorry.’
‘I was just worried, that’s all.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You sound terrible.’
‘Just tired.’
‘Were you asleep?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Have you heard from Linda?’
‘That’s why I’ve been trying to call; Richard hasn’t been home since Sunday and she thought he might be with you.’
‘With me?’
‘She drove over looking for you.’
‘Oh no.’
‘You don’t know where he is then?’
‘No; Roger Hook told me he didn’t show up for the questioning yesterday morning.’
‘Questioning?’
‘It was just routine. He knew it was, but then Clement Smith went and had Vice raid his offices.’
‘Vice?’
My head’s throbbing: ‘Yeah, Vice.’
Joan says: ‘You think he’s all right?’
‘I think he might have gone abroad, you know?’
‘No, not Richard. Not without telling Linda.’
‘He’s not been himself, love. Really nervous, paranoid.’
‘Where would he go?’
‘The house in France.’
‘No? You really think so?’
‘Where else would he go?’
‘Should I say anything to Linda?’
‘If she calls again, you could mention it,’ I say. ‘I can’t remember if it had a phone, can you?’
‘It didn’t.’
‘You sure?’
‘You said that was the best thing about the place.’
I’m sat on the bed, on one of the magazines, holding the phone, nodding –
My head splitting: ‘You’re right.’
Joan says: ‘When you coming home, love?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’
‘I know. I’ll be definitely back tomorrow night. Maybe before.’
‘Hope so.’
‘I love you.’
‘Me too,’ she says.
‘Bye-bye.’
‘Bye-bye.’
She hangs up and I sit on the bed, on one of the magazines, the phone dead in my hand, staring into the hotel mirror.
After a few minutes, I stand up and go into the bathroom and change my clothes and wash the blood from my face and my hair, off my hands, rinsing the sink clean after I’m done, clean of the brown water.
‘Helen?’ I say, banging on her door –
I keep knocking: ‘Helen?’
I try the door –
Locked –
Fuck
.
Downstairs in the lobby of the Griffin, I ring the bell –
‘Can you tell me if Miss Marshall is in?’ I ask the receptionist.
He looks down his list and turns to the keys hanging on the pegs behind him and then looks back at me and shakes his head: ‘She’s out.’
I’m about to go but then ask him: ‘Any messages?’
‘Mr Hunter?’
I nod.
‘I believe your wife called a number of times last night.’
‘That all?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘You sure?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m sure.’
It takes the best part of an hour to Levenshulme, the rain sleet then snow then sleet then rain, the roads empty, the landscape dead.
At ten o’clock, local radio tells me the news:
‘An explosion last night destroyed a newsagents and badly damaged adjoining premises on the Bradford Road, Batley. Nine people were taken to hospital to be treated for shock and cuts caused by flying glass. One person had to be kept in for further treatment. Fire officers are investigating claims that the explosion was caused by gas canisters sold at the newsagents
.
‘Many shops will again close early tonight as police continue to investigate a call made to the
Daily Mirror
from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper and threatening to kill again today. Meanwhile police released a new description and photofit of the man seen in the Alma Road vicinity of Headingley at the time police estimate Laureen Bell was brutally murdered
.
‘The man is described as …’
I switch off the radio –
I know what he looks like.
I park on their road in the nice part of Levenshulme, the part on the way out to Stockport, the
Exegesis
on my lap, listening to the tapes in my head:
Robert Charles Douglas: October 12, 1946 – born Mirfield, West Yorks; April 1964 – joins Bradford police; August 1973 – marries Sharon Pearson; February 1974 – daughter Karen born; December 17, 1974 – arrests Michael Myshkin; December 24, 1974 – shot and
wounded Strafford Arms, Wakefield; October 13, 1975 – forced to retire from West Yorkshire Police. Moves to Manchester
.
Stop –
Rewind:
Bradford police –
Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall –
Bradford Vice.
Rewind:
‘Trust your Uncle Bob.’
Thinking –
Uncle Bob?
Wondering –
Detective Inspector Robert Craven –
Or former policeman Robert Douglas –
Stop.
I take a couple of painkillers for my back –
Then I put a couple of copies of
Spunk
in a carrier bag and I get out, lock the door, and walk up their road through the slight rain to their detached house.
There are no lights on, no car in the drive.
I walk up to the front door and ring the bell and wait –
A woman’s voice from behind the patterned glass says: ‘Yes?’
‘Mrs Douglas?’
‘Yes?’
‘Police, love.’
I hear the chain go on and then the door opens –
Sharon Douglas peers through the gap and over the chain: ‘Police?’
‘Yes,’ I nod, showing her my identification.
‘This about Bob and Karen?’
‘Yep, in a way. Can I come in?’ She takes the chain off and opens the door –
I step inside the dark detached house. ‘Go through,’ she says, nodding at the lounge door to the right –
I go into the lounge with it’s unframed Degas print, the Christmas cards and the tree, the photos of their daughter, the TV on, the sound off.
‘Sit down,’ she says –
I sit down on the big settee.
She sits down in one of the matching chairs next to an electric fire with artificial glowing coal –
Mrs Douglas is still red and black around her eyes, but no longer bloated with tea and sympathy; good-looking, she’s got short blond hair, like Lady Diana Spencer, purple trousers and a black sweater.
I say: ‘There was a fire in Batley last night at the newsagents your husband owns.’
‘They called in the night,’ she nods.
‘Who did, love?’
‘The police,’ she nods again, fighting back the tears: ‘I wanted to go over there, to the shop, but I’ve no car have I?’
‘Family, friends, give you a lift?’
‘Not local, no.’
‘Where you from?’
‘Bradford.’
‘Manchester born and bred me,’ I say. ‘Live out at Alderley Edge.’
She smiles: ‘Nice.’
‘We like it,’ I say. ‘Miss it, do you? Being a Yorkshire lass, stuck over here with us pagans?’
She nods again.
I say: ‘Will you go back?’
She shakes her head, biting her lip.
‘You shouldn’t be on your own.’
‘It’s too soon to go,’ she says. ‘All her things are here, her toys, all his stuff.’
I ask: ‘Why did you move over this way?’
‘Bob,’ she says. ‘Wanted to get away’
‘From Yorkshire?’ I smile. ‘Can’t say I blame him.’
She smiles politely, eyes dead and blank.
I ask: ‘Were you married long?’
‘Seven years.’
‘So he was a copper when you met him, Bob?’
Nodding: ‘Yeah, did you know him well?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not well.’
‘He didn’t want to leave, you know?’
‘So I hear.’
‘We did all right though.’
‘He never worked at this shop in Batley then?’
‘No. Wasn’t him, was it. He rents it to some Pakis.’
‘So what did he do?’
‘He’s got his business interests.’
‘His
business interests?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ she shrugs.
‘Fair enough,’ I say.
‘Sorry, look at me forgetting my manners,’ she says, standing up suddenly. ‘Have a cup of tea, will you?’
‘Go on then. If you’re making one.’
She crosses the room and then stops in the doorway: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Peter Hunter,’ I smile.
‘Sharon,’ she smiles back. ‘Sharon Douglas …’ and then she stops –
Stops and turns right round –
I’m still smiling at her.
‘Peter Hunter, did you say?’
I nod, smiling.
‘You were here on Sunday, that was you. You’re the bloke that investigates all the police, aren’t you?’
I try to keep smiling: ‘And we met at Headquarters –’
‘And you were over in Wakefield after Bob got shot, I remember you now. They were always –’
‘They were always what, love?’
But she looks right at me, shaking her head: ‘I think you’d better leave.’
I stay put, right where I am: ‘They were always what, Sharon?’
‘I want you to leave.’
I stand up and take a
Spunk
out: ‘I need to talk to you about these.’
‘Get out!’ she shouts, not even a glance at the magazine.
‘These his
business interests
, are they love?’
‘Get out!’
‘Look at it, Sharon.’
‘Get out!’
I walk towards her: ‘This how you two met, was it?’
‘Fuck off!’ she shouts, heading for the door –
I follow her out into the hall: ‘Don’t worry, love. I’ve got them all. Every bleeding issue.’
She opens the door and grabs my arm, pulling and then pushing me out into the drive –
‘Bastard!’ she screams. ‘My daughter’s dead, you fucking bastard!’
‘Which issue were you –’
‘Fucking bastard!’ she spits and slams the door.
I hold the magazine open up to the glass, saying: ‘Have to make some copies for your neighbours.’
‘I’m calling the police,’ comes the voice from the other side of the door –
‘Good idea,’ I say, walking off. ‘We love a bit of smut.’
And then somewhere over the Moors again, I remember it’s almost Christmas and I hate myself afresh, wondering what the fuck I thought I was doing, what the fuck I thought I was going to do, the bad dreams not leaving, just staying bad, like the headaches and the backache, the murder and the lies, the cries and the whispers, the screams of the wires and the signals, like the voices and the numbers:
666
.
Parked by a church on the way into Denholme, the
Exegesis
on my lap, listening to the tapes in my head again –
Listening and revising, filling in the blanks –
Fleshing out the bones –
Convinced:
Robert Charles Douglas was born in Mirfield, West Yorkshire on October 12, 1946, sharing a birthday with the cultist and black magician Aleister Crowley. Attended Mirfield Grammar School, briefly enrolling at a technical college before leaving to join the Bradford police when he was eighteen. Age of twenty-seven, Douglas married Sharon Pearson, a
glamour model
ten years his junior. February 1974, daughter Karen born. 1974, as a Detective Constable, Douglas became nationally known as one of the two policemen responsible for the arrest of Michael Myshkin, the man later convicted of the murders of Jeanette Garland, Susan Ridyard, and Clare Kemplay. Only weeks later Douglas was again in the headlines, this time as the victim of a serious gunshot wound received as he attempted to foil a
robbery
at the Strafford Arms public house in the centre of Wakefield. Forced to retire from the police on disability grounds on October 13, 1975, the
day after his twenty-ninth birthday. It was a decision he’d annealed three times. With the substantial compensation for the injuries and his forced retirement, Douglas bought a new house in Levenshulme in Manchester and a newsagents in Batley. He later sublet the newsagents in order to concentrate on other
business interests
with a Bradford Vice detective named Eric Hall and a Manchester businessman called Richard Dawson. They started publishing a pornographic contact magazine –
Spunk.
His life however began to deteriorate from October 13, 1975. Always a heavy drinker – even as a serving policeman Douglas was considered to be ‘unstable’ and ‘a weak link’ by some of his colleagues – from 1975 on, Douglas was involved in a number of minor incidents all of which, however, highlighted a growing dependency on alcohol. Throughout 1977, Douglas was frequently reported missing by his wife and, on his intermittent returns to their Manchester home, police were called by neighbours reporting insulting and threatening behaviour and physical assaults upon his wife. In June 1977 both Eric Hall and his girlfriend, a sometime
Spunk
model called Janice Ryan, were murdered. Douglas was not mentioned in either investigation. During the summer of 1979, Douglas was actually listed as a missing person by local police who were unable to locate him. He eventually turned up at his brother’s flat in Glasgow in September 1979. He returned to his wife later the same month, apparently having given up drinking. He remained in Manchester until late November 1980 when he once again began disappearing for days at a time. Bob Douglas was scared, running – sometime between Tuesday 16 and Wednesday 17 December 1980, Bob Douglas and his daughter were murdered
.
Douglas, Dawson, and Hall –
Convinced:
Obsessed, possessed, convinced.
I pull up once more in front of that lonely house with its back to the Denholme golf course and I walk up the drive and I ring the bell –
Another voice from behind another door: ‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Hall? It’s Peter Hunter.’
I listen to a chain being dropped and two locks sliding back –
The door opens:
‘Good afternoon, Mr Hunter,’ smiles Libby Hall –
‘Is it?’ I say, looking round at the looming night and the constant rain into sleet into snow into rain into sleet into snow that seems to be haunting me, plaguing me, cursing me.
‘Come in,’ she says. ‘I seem to be quite the flavour of the month.’
‘Thank you,’ I say and walk through into the front room.
‘Do sit down,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ I say again and sit down on the big golden sofa.
‘What happened to your face?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Really,’ she smiles. ‘Will you have a cup of tea?’
‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’ve just had one.’
‘If you’re sure I can’t tempt you?’ she laughs, sitting down beside me on the sofa.
‘You said you’d been having a lot of visitors?’
‘It seems so,’ she smiles. ‘First you and DS Marshall, then the Reverend called by again, not that that was such a surprise, then Helen Marshall came back last night, and now you again, not to mention my son; he’s forever popping in and out, checking up on me no doubt.’
‘You saw DS Marshall yesterday then, did you?’