Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (13 page)

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Tuesday 7th June 1977

Chapter 10

It was pissing it down.
Real fucking sheets of the stuff, across six lanes of empty Jubilee motorway.
Over the Moors, across the Moors, under the Moors:
Fuck you then you sleep
.
Kiss you then you wake
.
No-one; no cars, no lorries, nothing:
Deserted spaces, these overground places.
The world gone in the flash of a bomb.
But if there’s no-one here, no-one left, how is it I wake so bruised from sleep?
I switched off
Twenty-five Years of Jubilee Hits
and put my foot down, just the tapes in my head playing full blast:

DIARY MAY BE CLUE TO KILLER

A diary thought to be in her missing bag could hold the clue to a woman’s killer
.
Twenty-six-year-old Clare Strachan was found battered to death in a disused garage a quarter of a mile from Preston town centre, and last night police toured public houses in a bid to trace her killer
.
Miss Strachan was last seen at 10.25 p.m. on Thursday when she left a friend’s house
.
A woman noticed her body as she passed the open doors of the garage in Frenchwood Street, Preston
.
At a press conference today Detective Superintendent Alfred Hill said robbery was the likely motive behind the killing. He said a diary thought to be in her lost bag would hold a vital clue
.
He said: ‘I am anxious to hear about anyone who has been missing from Preston since Thursday
.’
Det. Supt. Hill, second in command of Lancashire CID, is leading a team of eighty detectives hunting the killer
.
Miss Strachan, originally from Scotland, lived in the Avenham area of Preston and also used the surname Morrison
.
Hard bloody crime reporting from the wrong side of the hills, from the wrong year:
1975:
Eddie gone, Carol dead, hell round every corner, every dawn
.
Dead elm trees, thousands of them
.
Culled from clippings, torn from tape.
Two years going on two hundred.
The History Man.
Bye Bye Baby.
Start at the finish.
Begin at the end:
I slowed on Church Street, crawling up the road, looking for Frenchwood Street, looking for the garages, her garage.
I stopped by a multi-storey car park.
The car stank, my breath rank from no sleep, no breakfast, just a bellyful of bad dreams.
The clock on the dashboard said nine.
Rain, buckets of it drenching the windows.
I pulled the jacket of my suit over my head and got out and ran across the road to an open door swinging in the piss.
But I stopped before it, dead in my tracks, my jacket down, the rain in my face, flattening my hair, sick with the stench of dread and doom.
I stepped inside, out of the rain, into her pain.
Under my feet, under my feet I felt old clothing, a blanket of rags and paper, bottles brown and green, a sea of glass with islands of wood, crates and boxes, a workman’s bench he surely used for that piece of work, his job.
I stood there, the door banging, everything before me, behind me, under me, over me, listening to the mice and the rats, the wind and the rain, a terrible soul music playing, but seeing nothing, blind:
‘Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.’
I was an old man.
An old man lost in a room.

‘You look like a drowned rat. How long you been out here?’
‘Not long,’ I lied and followed the barmaid inside St Mary’s, in out of the rain.
‘What can I get you?’ she asked, putting the lights on.
‘A pint and a whisky’
She went back behind the bar and started pulling my pint.
I took a stool at the cold early bar.
‘There you go. Sixty-five, please.’
I handed her a pound note. ‘Odd name for a pub.’
‘That’s what they all say, but place’s more like a church anyway. I mean, just look at it.’
‘Same name as that place down the road?’
‘The hostel? Yeah, don’t remind me.’
‘Get a lot of them in, do you?’
‘All we get,’ she said, handing me my change. ‘What line you in?’
‘I work for
Yorkshire Post.’
‘Knew it. You’re here about that woman who got done in a couple of years ago? What was her name?’
‘Clare Strachan.’
She frowns. ‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. Knew her did you?’
‘Oh yes. They reckon now it could have been this Yorkshire Ripper, don’t they? Imagine if it was, I mean bloody hell, he was probably in here.’
‘She came in a fair bit then, Clare?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it. Get you another?’
‘Go on then. What was she like?’
‘Loud and pissed. Same as rest of them.’
‘Was she on game?’
She started wiping the top of the bar. ‘Yeah. I mean, they all are from that place.’
‘St Mary’s?’
‘Yeah. She was so out of it, I mean she probably gave it away.’
‘Police talk to you about her?’
‘Yeah. Talked to everyone.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Like I say, just that she came in here a lot, got pissed, didn’t have a lot of brass and what she had she probably got from selling it up on French.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Police? Nothing, I mean like what would they say?’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes they tell you what they’re thinking.’
She stopped wiping. ‘Here, you’re not going to put any of this in paper are you?’
‘No, why?’
‘I don’t want that bloody Ripper reading my name, do I? Thinking I know more than I do, thinking he better silence me or something.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything.’
‘Bet you always say that though, you lot, don’t you?’
‘As God is my witness.’
‘Yeah, right. Another?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m looking for a Roger Kennedy?’
The young man in the dim corridor, in the black glasses, he was shaking, sniffing, shitting himself.
I asked him again: ‘Roger Kennedy?’
‘He doesn’t work here any more.’
‘Do you know where I could find him?’
‘No. You’ll have to come back when the boss is here.’
‘Who’s that then?’
‘Mr Hollis. He’s the Senior Warden.’
‘And what time will he be in?’
‘He won’t.’
‘Right.’
‘He’s on holiday. Blackpool.’
‘Nice. When does he get back?’
‘Next Monday, I think.’
‘Right. I’m sorry, my name’s Jack Whitehead.’
‘You’re not a copper, are you?’
‘No, why?’
‘They were here a couple of days ago, that’s all. So who are you?’
‘I’m a journalist. For
Yorkshire Post.’
That didn’t seem to make him feel any better. ‘This about Clare Strachan then? The woman who used to live here?’
‘Yeah. Is that what the police wanted?’
‘Yes.’
‘You speak to them did you?’
‘Yes. I wish Mr Hollis was here.’
‘What did they say?’
‘I think you better come back when Mr Hollis is here.’
‘Well, actually you could save him some bother. I only want to ask a couple of questions. Nothing for the paper.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘Just background. Is there anywhere we could sit down? Just for a couple of minutes?’
He pushed his glasses up his nose again and pointed to the white light at the end of the corridor.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name?’ I said as I followed him into a dreary lounge, the rain in pools at the bottom of the old spoiled windowframe.
‘Colin Minton.’
I shook his hand and said again, ‘Jack Whitehead.’
‘Colin Minton,’ he repeated.
‘Polo?’ I offered and took a seat.
‘No thanks.’
‘So Colin, you worked here long?’
‘About six months.’
‘So you weren’t here when it all happened?’
‘No.’
‘Is there anyone about who was? This Mr Hollis?’
‘No. Just Walter.’
‘Walter?’
‘Walter Kendall, the blind bloke. He lives here.’
‘He was here two years ago?’
‘Yeah. He was one of her friends.’
‘Would it be possible to have a word?’
‘If he’s in.’
I stood up. ‘Get out much does he?’
‘No.’
I followed Colin Minton out of the lounge and up two flights of dark stairs to a narrow corridor. We walked down the linoleum passageway to the room at the very end.
Colin Minton knocked on the door, ‘Walter, it’s Colin. I’ve got someone here to see you.’
‘Bring him in,’ came back a voice.
Inside the tiny room a man sat at a table before a window of running rain, his back to us.
Colin’s face had gone red. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. Jack?’
‘Jack Whitehead,’ I said to the back of the man’s head. ‘From the
Yorkshire Post.’
‘I know,’ said the man.
‘You’re Walter Kendall?’
‘Yes, I am.’
Colin shifted from foot to foot, trying to smile.
‘It’s all right, Colin,’ said Walter. ‘You can leave us.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ I said as Colin Minton made his exit, closing the door behind him.
I sat down on the small bed, Walter Kendall still facing the other way.
A train went past outside, shaking the window.
‘Must be two o’clock,’ said Walter.
I looked down at my watch. ‘Unless it’s late.’
‘Be like you then,’ said Walter, turning.
And for a moment that face, Walter Kendall’s face, it was the face of Martin Laws, of Michael Williams, the face of the living, the face of the dead.
‘What?’
‘You’re late, Mr Whitehead.’
That face, those eyes:
That grey unshaven face, those white unseeing eyes.
‘I don’t understand what you mean?’
‘She’s been dead almost two years.’
That tongue, that breath.
That white tongue, that black breath.
‘I’m here following a remark made by the Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, when he recently suggested that Clare Strachan could have been murdered by the same man who has been murdering prostitutes in the West Yorkshire area.’
Mr Kendall said nothing, waiting.
So I said again, ‘So I’m here to look into any connection there might be and any information you can give would be greatly appreciated.’
Another train, another shake.
And then he said: ‘In the August we went into Blackpool, me and Clare. She’d heard her kids were coming down with her Aunty or someone. Scottish Week it was. So we got the first coach in and she could hardly sit still could Clare. Said she was going to wet herself, she was that excited. And it was a lovely day, wide blue sky, first thing, all clean as a new pin. And we met her daughters and her Aunty under the Tower and they were such lovely little things, all red hair and new teeth. About four and two I think they must have been. And there were a lot of tears because it had been a year or more and Clare, she had their Christmas presents from the year before and their smiles, Clare said it was almost worth the wait. And we went down on to the sands and it was still quiet, the tide just gone, the beach all engraved ridges and ripples and she took them down to the foam, the surf, and they took off their shoes and socks and kicked through the little waves the three of them, and me and the Aunty we just sat on the wall watching them, the Aunty crying and me too. Then we all five of us went to get ice-cream at some back-street place Clare knew and it was lovely stuff, Italian, and Clare had a Cappuccino with bits of chocolate flake on the top and because I liked look of it so much she bought me one as well as my ice-cream, then we went round some of the arcades and put the little ones on the donkeys even though Clare she thought that it was cruel, keeping the donkeys like they do but it was such a laugh because one of them donkeys he had a mind of his own he did and he sets off with the eldest one on board, sets off at a right pace, and she’s loving it the little girl is, laughing her head off, but there’s the donkey man and the rest of us chasing them up the beach, caught them in the end but it took some doing and I don’t think donkey man thought it was so funny but we were in stitches we were. Then we had a lunch up in the Lobster Pot, bloody big fishes they do there, Moby Dicks Clare called them. Nice cup of tea too, strong as Scotch they say. Then we took a tram up to the Pleasure Beach and you should have seen them, Mr Whitehead, spinning around in them giant tea-cups, riding in flowers, wearing daft hats and sucking on huge pink sticks of rock, but I found Clare, outside the Gold Mine she was, big tears down her cheeks because they had to get the five o’clock train or something and the Aunty was saying that they’d maybe come down again for the Illuminations, get a special coach, but Clare was shaking her head, the little ones hanging off her neck, knowing that this was it and I couldn’t watch at the station, it was too much, them all saying their goodbyes, the youngest not knowing what it was all about but the other one just sucking in her lips like her Mummy and not letting go of her hand, terrible it was, the heart’s not built for that stuff and after, after we went to the Yates’ and she got so pissed, so fucking pissed, but who can blame her Mr Whitehead, a day like that, living like she did, knowing what she did, eight weeks later fucked up the arse, her chest crushed by size ten boots, never to see those little girls again, their beautiful red hair, their new teeth, can you blame her?’
‘No.’
‘But they do, don’t they?’
I stared past him, the rain on the window, an underwater cave, a chamber of tears.
‘Are you going to print that?’
I stared at him, the tears on his cheeks, trapped in this underwater cave, this chamber of tears.
I swallowed, caught my breath at last and said: ‘The night she died, who knew who she was going to meet?’
‘Everybody did.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Whitehead, I think you know who it was.’
‘Tell me.’
Walter Kendall held his fingers up to the rain:
‘Where you seek one there’s two, two three, three four. Where you seek four there’s three, three two, two one and so on. But you know this anyway.’
I was on my feet, shouting at the blind man with the white eyes and the grey face, shouting into those eyes, that face:
‘Tell me!’
He spoke quickly, one finger in the air:
‘Clare left the pub up the road, St Mary’s, at ten-thirty. We told her not to go, told her she shouldn’t, but she was tired Mr Whitehead, so fucking tired of running. They said, your taxi’s here but she just walked up the street, up to French, up through the rain, rain worse than this, up to a car parked in the dark at the top, and we just watched her go.’
‘Go to who?’
‘A policeman.’
‘A policeman? Who?’
Lancashire Police Headquarters, Preston.
A big plainclothes with a moustache showed me up to the second-floor offices of Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill.
The big man knocked on the door, and I popped in another polo.
‘You can go in,’ said the plainclothes.
‘Jack Whitehead,’ I said, hand out.
The small man behind the desk put away his handkerchief and took my hand.
‘Have a seat, Mr Whitehead. Have a seat.’
‘Jack,’ I said.
‘Well Jack, can I get you anything to drink: tea, coffee, something stronger. Toast the Queen?’
‘I’d better not. Got a long drive back.’
‘Right, so what is it brings you over our way then?’
‘Like I said on the telephone, it’s the Clare Strachan murder and what George Oldman said a couple of days ago, about the possibility of there being a link …’
‘With the Ripper?’
‘Yes.’
‘George was saying how it was you who coined that one.’
‘Unfortunately.’
‘Unfortunately?’
‘Well …’
‘I wouldn’t say that, you should be proud. Good piece of journalistic licence like that, should be proud.’
‘Thank you.’
‘George thinks publicity will help him. You’ve done him a favour.’
‘You don’t agree?’
‘Wouldn’t say that, wouldn’t say that at all. Case like this, you can’t do anything without the public’
‘You got quite a bit with Clare Strachan at first.’
He’d taken out his handkerchief again, examining the contents, about to add some more, ‘Not really’
‘Did you get anywhere with the diary?’
‘The diary?’
‘You seemed to think at the time that there was a diary in her missing bag.’
He was coughing hard, a hand on his chest.
‘Did anything ever come of that?’
His face was bright red, panting into his hankie, whispering, ‘No.’
‘What made you think there was a diary?’
Detective Chief Superintendent Alfred Hill had his hand up:
‘Mr Whitehead …’
‘Jack, please.’
‘Jack, I’m not quite sure what we’re doing here. Is this an interview, is that what we’re doing here?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re not going to print any of this?’
‘No.’
‘So like, what exactly are we going through all this for? I mean, if you’re not going to print anything?’
‘Well, background. Given the possibility that it’s the same man.’
He took a sip of water, disappointed.
I said, ‘I don’t mean to waste your time.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant, Jack. Not what I meant at all.’
‘Can I ask you then, sir, do you think this murder, that it is the same man?’
‘Off the record?’
‘Off the record.’
‘No.’
‘And on the record?’
‘There are certainly similarities,’ he said, nodding at the window, ‘similarities, as my erstwhile colleague across those hills has said.’
‘So off the record, what makes you think it’s not the same man?’
‘We had over fifty men on her, you know.’
‘I thought it was eighty?’
He smiled. ‘All I’m saying is we did a thorough job on her, very thorough. It’s been said that because of who she was, her history, what she was, that we didn’t give it priority but I can tell you we worked flat out while we could. It’s a lie, a complete lie to say that we don’t take things like what happened to her seriously. Of course something like the murder of a kiddie, course it gets the headlines, gets the attention and keeps it, but I was one of first in that garage and I’ve seen some stuff, stuff like Brady and his, but what they’d done to her, slag or not, well no-one deserves that. No-one.’
He was away, far away, back in that garage, back with his own tapes.
And we sat there, in our silences, until I said:
‘But it wasn’t him.’
‘No. From what George has shown us, what we’ve heard from the lads they sent over, no.’
‘Can you be specific?’
‘Look, George wants them linked. I’m not going to touch that.’
‘OK. So how’s George linked them?’
‘Off the record?’
‘Off the record.’
‘Blood group, life-style of the victim, head injuries, and some positioning of the body, some arrangement that we’re not publicising.’