Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (22 page)

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Wednesday 15th June 1977

Chapter 19

I sat in the Redbeck car park between two Bird’s Eye lorries, my head spinning from that room, those memories, and these options:
See Rudkin and Hall, or tail Fraser.
Heads or tails:
Heads.
I took out the scribble Fraser had given me:
Rudkin lived nearer, Eric Hall further.
Rudkin dirty, Hall dirtier
Hall dirty, Rudkin dirtier.
Heads or tails.
Staring across the car park at that room.
That room, those memories.
The writings on those wailing walls.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie
, always back to Eddie.
In the rearview mirror, Carol waited on the back seat; white flesh and bruised tones, red hair and broken bones, the pictures from the wall, the pictures from my Nursery Walls, the pictures from down the Memory Lane.
I sat there in a car full of dead women, a car full of Rippers, and tossed the two-pence coin again.
Heads or tails:
Heads.
Durkar, another Ossett, another Sandal:
Another piece of White Yorkshire –
Long drives and high walls.
I drove past Rudkin’s, saw two cars in the drive and pulled up on Durkar Lane and waited.
It was 9.30 on the morning of Wednesday 15 June 1977.
I wondered what I’d say if I walked up that drive, rang that bell:
‘Excuse me, Mr Rudkin. I think you might be Yorkshire Ripper and I was wondering if you had any comment to make?’
And just as I was thinking that, another car pulled into his drive.
Five minutes later and Rudkin pulled out of his drive in his bronze Datsun 260, another man in the passenger seat, and headed down Durkar Lane.
I followed them down into Wakefield, stalling at the lights on the way in, out along the Dewsbury Road, over Shawcross, past the tip, down through Hanging Heaton and into Batley, through the centre until they pulled up outside RD News on the Bradford Road, on the outskirts of Batley.
Batley, another Bradford, another Delhi:
Another piece of Black Yorkshire –
Low walls and high minarets.
I drove past RD News and pulled up just beyond a Chinese take-away and waited.
Rudkin and the other man stayed inside the car.
It was 10.30 and the sun had come out.
Five minutes later and a maroon BMW 2002 pulled up just past Rudkin’s Datsun and two men got out, one black, one white.
I span round in my seat and made sure:
Robert Craven.
Detective Inspector Robert Craven –
‘They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.’
Craven and his black buddy went over to Rudkin’s car and Rudkin and a fat man got out.
Mike Ellis, I was guessing.
Then the four of them went inside RD News.
I closed my eyes and saw again rivers of blood in a woman’s time, umbrellas up, bloody showers, puddles all blood, raining cats and blood.
I opened my eyes, the sky blue, clouds moving fast up the hills behind the shops.
I got out of my car and crossed the road to a telephone box.
I dialled her flat.
She answered: ‘Hello?’
‘It’s me.’
‘What?’
‘I want to know. About the pictures, I need to know.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘It’s important.’
‘What?’
‘Everything. Who took them? Who arranged it? Everything.’
‘Not on the phone.’
‘Why not?’
‘Jack, if I tell you on the phone, I’ll never see you again.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Isn’t it?’
I stood in the red telephone box, in the middle of the red river of blood, below the blue sky, and I looked up at the window above the newsagent’s.
John Rudkin was looking out of the window, one hand on the frame, the other square, palms open, smiling from ear to ear.
‘Jack?’
‘I’ll come over then.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
And I hung up, staring at John Rudkin.
I went back to the car and waited.
Thirty minutes later, Rudkin came out of the shop, shirtsleeves, jacket over his shoulder, followed by the fat man and Craven.
The black man didn’t come out.
Rudkin, Craven, and the fat man shook hands, and Rudkin and the fat man got into the Datsun. Craven waved them off. I sat there, waiting.
Craven went back inside the newsagent’s.
I sat there, waiting.
Ten minutes later, Craven came back out.
The black man didn’t.
Craven got into his car and drove off.
I sat there.
Five minutes later, I got out and went into the newsagent’s.
Inside it was bigger than it looked, selling Calor gas and toys as well as papers and fags.
There was a young Pakistani behind the counter.
I said to him, ‘Who owns this place?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Who’s the boss? Is it you?’
‘No, why?’
‘I wondered if the flat above was for rent?’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘I’d like to put me name down if it ever comes up. Who would I see about that?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said, thinking about it, thinking about me.
I picked up a
Telegraph & Argus
and handed him the money.
‘Best speak to Mr Douglas,’ he said.
‘Bob Douglas?’ I nodded.
‘Yes, Bob Douglas.’
‘Thank you very much,’ I said and left, thinking:
‘They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.’
Thinking, fuck off.
The Pride, Bradford, just down from the
Telegraph & Argus
. Tom was already there, coughing into his beer at the bar.
I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Sorry, springing this on you.’
‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Awful having to drink with the enemy.’
‘Sit down?’ I said, nodding at the table by the door.
‘Not getting a drink?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said and ordered one and another for him.
We sat down.
‘Not very nice,’ I said. ‘That piece about the letter.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said, palms up, genuine.
I took a sip and said, ‘They’re hoaxes anyway.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘They’re not from the bloody Ripper, tell you that.’
‘We had them tested.’
‘We? Thought it was nowt to do with you.’
‘There was evidence and all.’
‘Fuck it. It wasn’t why I phoned.’
‘Go on,’ he said, relaxing, relieved.
‘I want to know about one of yours, Eric Hall?’
‘What about him?’
‘Been suspended, yeah?’
‘Him and rest of them.’
‘Right. What you got on him?’
‘Not much.’
‘You know him?’
‘Say hello, that way.’
‘You know this last one, this Janice Ryan?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, I got me a bloke saying she was Eric’s bird, that Detective Inspector Hall pimped her a bit and all.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yep.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me like but, these days, not much bloody would.’
‘So you don’t know anything else? Anything extra on him?’
‘They’re a law unto themselves, Bradford Vice. But it’s same with your lot, I bet.’
I nodded.
‘To be honest,’ he continued. ‘I always thought he was a bit on thick side. You know, at press conferences, after work.’
‘Thick enough to murder the prostitute he was pimping and try and make it look like a Ripper job?’
‘Be beyond him, mate. Out of his bloody league, he’d be. Never pull it off.’
‘Maybe he hasn’t.’
Tom was shaking his head, sniffing up.
I said, ‘How well do you know lasses over here?’
‘What you asking, Jack?’
‘Come on. Do you know them?’
‘Some.’
‘You know a Chinese lass, Ka Su Peng?’
‘The one that got away,’ he smiled.
‘That’s the one.’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘What do you know about her?’
‘Popular. But you know what they say about a Chinky?’
‘What?’
‘An hour later and you could murder another.’
I knocked once.
She opened the door, said nothing, and walked back down the bare passage.
I followed her and stood there, there in her room, with its sticks of shit and stink of sex, and I watched her rubbing hand-cream into her fingers and into her palms, up her wrists and into her arms, down into her knees.
There were the spits of an afternoon rain on the window, the bright orange curtains hopeless in the gloom, her rubbing her childish knees, me staring up her skirt.
‘Is this the last fuck?’ she asked later, lying in the back bedroom with the curtains drawn against the rain, against the afternoon, against the Yorkshire life.
And I lay there beside her, looking up at the stains on the ceiling, the plastic light fittings that needed a wipe, listening to her broken words, the beat of her battered heart, alone and depressed with my come on her thighs, her toes touching mine.
‘Jack?’
‘No,’ I lied.
But she was crying anyway, the magazine open on the floor beside the bed, her top lip swelling.
I parked outside a nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course.
There was a blue Granada 2000 sat in the drive.
I walked up to the door and rang the bell.
A gaunt middle-aged woman answered the door, fiddling with the pearls around her neck.
‘Is Eric in?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Jack Whitehead.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m from the
Yorkshire Post.’
Eric Hall came out of the living room, his face black and blue, nose bandaged.
‘Mr Hall?’
‘It’s all right Libby, love …’
The woman gave her pearls another tug and went the way he’d come.
‘What is it?’ hissed Hall.
‘About Janice Ryan?’
‘Who?’
‘Fuck off, Eric,’ I said, leaning into the doorway. ‘Don’t be a silly cunt.’
He blinked, swallowed, and said, ‘You know who I am, who you’re talking to?’
‘A dirty copper named Eric Hall, yeah.’
He stood there, in the doorway to his nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course, his eyes full of tears.
‘Let’s go for a drive, Eric,’ I suggested.
We pulled up in the empty car park of the George.
I turned off the engine.
We sat in silence and stared at the hedge and the fields beyond.
After a while I said, ‘Have a look in that bag at your feet.’
He opened his fat little legs and bent down into the bag.
He pulled out a magazine.
‘Page 7,’ I said.
He stared down at the dark-haired girl with her legs spread, her mouth open, her eyes closed, a prick to her gob and spunk on her face.
‘That yours?’ I asked him.
But he just sat there, shaking his head from side to side, until he said, ‘How much?’
‘Five.’
‘Hundred?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Five fucking thousand? I haven’t got it.’
‘You’ll get it,’ I said and started the car.
The office was dead.
I knocked on Hadden’s door and went in.
He was sat behind his desk, his back to Leeds and the night.
I sat down.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘They’ve let Fraser go.’
‘You seen him?’
‘Yep,’ I smiled.
Hadden smiled back, an eyebrow arched. ‘And?’
‘He’s been suspended. Reckons Rudkin and some bloke from Bradford Vice are up to their ears in it.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well, I went out to have a look and Rudkin’s up to his ears in something, but I’m fucked if I know what.’
Bill Hadden didn’t look very impressed.
‘Saw Tom,’ I said.
Hadden smiled. ‘He apologise, did he?’
‘Sheep-faced, he was.’
‘And rightly-bloody-so.’
‘Said they still reckon the letter’s genuine.’
Hadden said nothing.
‘But,’ I went on. ‘He didn’t have anything on this Bradford copper.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Hall. Eric Hall?’
Hadden shook his head.
I asked, ‘You got anything new?’
‘No,’ he said, still shaking his head.
I stood up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’
‘Right,’ he said.
At the door, I turned back. ‘There was one other thing.’
‘Yeah?’ he said, not looking up.
‘You know the one in Preston?’
He looked up. ‘What?’
‘The prostitute they say was a Ripper job?’
Hadden was nodding.
‘Fraser said she was a witness in the Paula Garland murder,’
‘What?’
And I left him with his mouth open, eyes wide.
He was sitting in the dim lobby in a high-backed chair, his eyes on his hat, his hat upon his knee.
‘Jack,’ he said, not looking up.
‘I dream of rivers of blood, women’s blood. When I fuck, I see blood. When I come, death.’
Martin Laws leant forward.
He parted his thin grey hair between his fingers and the hole leapt from the shadows.
‘There has to be another way,’ I said, tears in the dark.
He looked up and said: ‘Jack, if the Bible teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that this is the way things are, the way things have always been, and will always be until the end.’
‘The end?’
‘Noah was insane until the rain.’
‘And there’s no other way?’
‘Must it be it must.’

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Wednesday 15th June 1977

Chapter 20

And Piggott drops me outside St James and is saying how if there’s anything I need or there’s anything more he can do, I should just give him a call, but I’m out of the car, door open, and up the stairs, out of breath, pulling myself up on the banisters, skidding across their polished floors, into the ward and shouting at that one and the other one, the nurses coming running, me pulling back the curtains on an empty bed, one saying how she’s so sorry and it was quite sudden in the end, quite sudden after all that time and how it’s always so difficult to predict but at least my wife was with him and in the end he’d closed his eyes like he just stopped and how upset she’d been but, in cases like this, it’s for the best and the pain’s gone and it wasn’t that drawn out in the end, and I’m just standing there at the bottom of his empty bed, staring at the empty bedside table, doors open, wondering where all the barley water’s gone and then I see one of Bobby’s cars, the little Matchbox police car Rudkin got him, and I pick it up and stand there just staring at the little car in the empty corner of the ward, the other nurse telling me how peaceful he looked and how much better off he is being dead and not alive and in pain and I look up at her face, at the red folds in her neck, the white damaged hair, the big blue eyes, and I wonder what on earth would possess someone to do this job, and then I think the same about my own job before I remember how I’m suspended and I probably won’t be doing my own job anyway, no matter what they say, and I look at my watch and realise how much I’ve lost track of the time, much I’ve lost track of the minutes, I’ve lost track of the hours, lost track of the days, track of the weeks, of the months, the years, decades, and I walk away down the polished corridor, the nurses still talking, another one coming out from the booth, the three of them watching me go until I stop and turn around and walk back up the corridor to thank them and thank them and thank them and then I turn around and I walk away again, down the polished corridor, the little police car in my hand, down the stairs and out the door into the morning, or what I think is a morning but the leaves on the trees are all tinged red and the sky is turning white, the grass blue, the people alien greys, the cars silent, the voices gone, and I sit on the steps, rubbing my eyes until they sting like bees and I stop and I stand up and walk down the long drive towards the road and wonder how the fuck I get home from here and so I stick out my thumb and stand there for a long time until I fall over and lie there beside the entrance to the hospital in the blue grass, staring up at the white sky, at the red leaves, and if I sleep, then I wake, and when I wake I get up and dust the blue grass off me and walk down the road to a bright red phone box and inside I find a white card for a taxi and I dial and ask a foreign voice in a foreign place for a cab and then I stand outside the box and watch the silent cars with all their Rippers at their wheels, watch them speeding up and down the road, watch them laughing and pointing at me, dead women in their boots, at their back windows, dead women waving and asking for help, white hands dangling from their boots, white hands pressed to their back windows, until at long, long, bloody last the taxi pulls up and I get in and tell him where I want to go and he looks at me like he doesn’t know where the fuck I mean but off we set, me sat up front, the radio on, him trying to talk to me but I can’t understand what on earth he’s saying or why on earth he would want to say anything to me until I ask him where the fuck he’s from and he doesn’t say anything after that, just concentrates on the road ahead until we pull up some two days fucking later outside my house and I tell him I’m sorry but I haven’t got any money so he’ll just have to wait there while I go inside and find some, which upsets him no end but what can he do, so I go up to the house and put my key in the lock but it doesn’t work any more so I ring the bell for the rest of the day until I go round the back and try another key in another lock but that doesn’t work either, so I spend the night knocking until I put the brick that stops the garage doors banging, I put that brick through the little window next to the back door and stick my hand in there but that doesn’t help at all so I set about the door with my fists and my feet until finally I get inside and go into the front room and take the milk money out of the top drawer and go back out down the drive to the taxi driver but if he hasn’t fucked off after all that, not that I can blame him, so I wave to the neighbours across the road and go back inside to find Louise and Bobby, going from room to room, but they’re not there, not in the drawers, not in the cupboards, and not under the beds, so I go back downstairs and pop round to Tina’s to see if they’ve nipped round there or if she knows where the bloody hell they’ve got to, so I wave to all the neighbours again and go up Tina’s drive and knock on her back door but she doesn’t open the door so I keep knocking into the middle of next week, Kirsty the dog yapping away on the other side, and I keep knocking until at long fucking last the door opens and it’s Janice, just fucking stood there, as large as life, and you could knock me down with a feather I’m that surprised, and I tell her straight, I thought you were dead I say, thought Eric Hall or John Rudkin raped you and hit you on the head and then jumped up and down on your chest, and she’s crying and saying no, saying she’s all right, and I ask if the baby’s all right and she says it is and so I ask if I can come in because I feel like a right prick stood out there for all the world and his wife to see, but she says no and shuts the door and I try and open the door again and she’s shouting and telling me how she’s going to call the police and I remind her how I am the police, but it’s obvious she’s not going to let me in and then I know she can’t really be Janice, because Janice would let me in, and I sit on Tina’s back step and wish in my heart I was more like Jesus, until I get up and go back round to mine and when I get to the drive I see the garage doors are wide open and banging in the rain and so I decide to go for a drive to try and find Louise and Bobby, fucked as I am if I know where they could be or where to start, but I get in her car and set off anyroad because it’s hardly like I’ve got a lot of bloody pressing engagements, is it?
Part 5
The damned