Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (20 page)

‘Did her?’
‘Raped her. Ask Rudkin and Mike. They came round her place to pick me up, they saw state she was in.’
‘Yeah, yeah, and they seem to think that it was you who did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Beat the fucking living shit out of her.’
‘Bollocks. Fucking bollocks.’
‘You’re all over her, mate.’
‘Course I am, I fucking loved her.’
‘Bob …’
‘Listen to me, I’d wake up in bed next to my wife with come in my pyjamas, come all over me because I couldn’t stop fucking dreaming about her.’
‘Jesus Christ, Fraser.’

Alone
–
Alone together
:
I shut my eyes, you call my name
.
A cigarette, a plastic cup, a porno mag
.
The shoes on the wrong feet, the laces gone
.
Fingers round my throat, fingers down my throat
.
Fingers under skull skin, fingers at my temple bones
.
You shut your eyes, I call your name
:
Alone together – Alone
.
‘You going to charge me?’
Prentice pushes the tea towards me, ‘Drink it, Bob.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘It doesn’t look good, not good at all.’
‘I didn’t do it, Jim. I didn’t do it.’
‘Drink your tea, Bob. Before it gets cold.’
Black piss-holes stained with sleep, down white corridors stuffed full of memories to a bloody pillow stuffed full of albatross feathers, glimpsing happy days through windows and doors as they closed, to a table and three chairs beneath a bulb caged in mesh
.
‘Let’s start at the beginning again.’
I push the plastic cup forward and sigh, ‘Whatever.’
‘When did you meet her?’ asks Noble, lighting up.
‘Last year.’
‘When?’
‘4 November.’
‘Mischief Night?’
I nod, no smiles.
‘Where?’
‘She was in middle of road outside Gaiety, pissed. She looked to be soliciting, so we picked her up.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Rudkin.’
‘Detective Inspector Rudkin?’
‘Yeah, Detective Inspector Rudkin.’
‘And?’
‘Brought her in here. Found out she was covered by Eric Hall over at Jacob’s Well and …’
‘Detective Inspector Eric Hall?’
‘Yeah, Detective Inspector Eric Hall.’
‘So what did you do when you found that out?’
‘I drove her home.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And that’s when it started?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And how often did you see her?’
‘Often as I could.’
‘Which was?’
I shrug: ‘Every other day. Got easier when Eric set her up over here in Chapeltown.’
‘So you’re saying Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall, set up a convicted prostitute in a flat in Leeds?’
I nod.
‘Why the fuck would he do that?’
‘Ask him.’
Noble slams his palm down on to the table. ‘Fuck off, Fraser. I’m asking you.’
‘She told me it was like a thank you. Golden handshake.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘At the time.’
‘But …’
‘But I’ve since heard that he was pimping her and he’d got her the flat to set her up over here.’
‘How did you find that out?’
‘Joseph Rose, he’s listed on record as my P.I.’
Noble glances at Alderman.
Alderman nods at Prentice.
Prentice gets up and leaves the room.
Noble looks up from his notes. ‘OK. So for almost a year, beginning last November, you continued to meet Ryan?’
‘Yes.’
‘And this was usually at her flat on Spencer Place?’
‘From January, yeah.’
‘And during this time you were unaware that she was working for DI Hall?’
‘As a prostitute, yes. But I knew she still phoned him.’
‘But you knew she was working as a prostitute?’
‘Yeah, just not for him.’
‘So who did you think she was working for?’
‘Kenny D.’
‘Kenny D? That fucking nig-nog we had in here over Marie Watts, you’re taking piss?’
‘No.’
‘Jesus Christ, Fraser. You thought your girlfriend was working for him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘What she said. What he said.’
Noble pauses, swallows, and says, ‘So if you thought she was working for Kenny D, why did you think she kept phoning DI Hall?’
‘To get money out of him.’
‘How?’
‘Selling stuff she’d heard.’
‘Did she try and sell you stuff?’
‘No. She wasn’t that well connected round here.’
‘Did she get money off him?’
‘I don’t know. Ask him.’
Noble is staring at me, eyes locked again. ‘So you’re saying your relationship with this woman, Janice Ryan, it was purely for sex?’
I look up at the ceiling, the earth tilting.
Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal
.
I stare back at Noble and I shrug my shoulders and I tell him how it was: ‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Did you pay for it?’
Eyes locked, I tell him how it is: ‘Looks that way,’ I say ‘Fucking looks that way now.’
Silence.
Prentice comes back in and the three of them go into a huddle.
I wonder what time it is, unable even to guess what fucking day it is.
They return to their places and Noble says, ‘OK, who else knew about this relationship?’
‘Me and Janice?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell folk, but did you know? Did you Jim? Did you Dick?’
They don’t smile, they just keep it shut.
‘OK,’ says Noble again. ‘But by the start of this month you say your relationship with Ryan had deteriorated?’
‘Yeah.’
‘In what way?’
‘I hadn’t been able to see so much of her, what with Ripper and everything, and I wanted her to stop working.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I didn’t want her fucking dead, did I?’
‘Why was that?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘But you didn’t mind her fucking other blokes?’
‘Course I fucking did.’
‘So why didn’t you do owt about it?’
But I catch myself, just in time:
Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal
.
And I smile, ‘I couldn’t say so bloody much could I?’
‘Why was that?’
‘I’m married, aren’t I?’
‘But you were arguing a lot, you and Ryan?’
‘On and off, yeah.’
‘OK, so tell us about that last Saturday, the 4th.’
‘I’ve told you a million times.’
‘Well it won’t hurt to tell us one last time then, will it Bob?’
‘I went round on Friday and she wasn’t in. I was knackered, put my head down for a bit at her place, and waited.’
‘So you had a key?’
‘You know I did. You fucking took it, didn’t you?’
‘OK, go on.’
‘About 7, maybe 8, she came home …’
‘In the morning?’
‘Yeah, in the morning. She was in a bad way, she’d been tied up, whipped, bitten. There were marks across her breasts, her stomach, her backside. She said she’d been over to Bradford, Manningham, to meet Eric Hall. Said she got picked up by Vice, or that’s what she thought. There were four of them; they raped her, took photos.’
‘And did they, these men, they know anything about you or DI Hall?’
‘Apparently’
‘Apparently?’
‘She said they called Eric Hall, tried to call me. Whatever Eric said, it didn’t stop them.’
‘And she told you all this on the Saturday morning at her flat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then?’
‘Then DI Rudkin and DC Ellis came and picked me up, because of the attack on Linda Clark, and they brought me here.’
‘They picked you up at her place?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right, so how come they knew where to find you?’
‘I don’t know. I presume because they knew about me and Janice.’
‘But you’d never told them?’
‘No.’
‘And that was the last time you saw Ryan?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you went back to the flat?’
‘Yeah, a couple of times.’
‘On the Saturday?’
‘Yeah, I went back to the flat straight after the briefing.’
‘And?’
‘And she’d gone.’
‘Gone for good?’
‘Mmm.’
‘How did you know?’
‘She’d taken most of her gear.’
‘She leave a note?’
Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal
.
‘No,’ I lie.
‘And what time was that?’
‘About five on the Saturday afternoon.’
‘And so you were upset?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘So instead of returning to your assigned duties and your colleagues, you decided to drown your sorrows.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And during this time who did you see?’
‘I saw Joseph Rose.’
‘And this was when he told you about Detective Inspector Eric Hall pimping Janice?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I went over to Bradford to see him.’
‘And when was this?’
‘I’m not sure, but I think it was Monday’
‘And that was when you assaulted DI Hall?’
‘That’s when we had the fucking fight, if that’s what you mean?’
‘About Ryan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I took his car …’
‘DI Hall’s car?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And where did you go?’
‘I just drove around, I don’t remember where exactly.’
‘But eventually you ended up back in Chapeltown, just as the body of Rachel Johnson was discovered?’
‘Yeah, I think I went back to Janice’s flat, and when I woke up there was all the shit going on because of the Johnson girl.’
‘OK. One last thing; until today you’re saying you had no idea that Ryan was pregnant and that you were the father?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And that the reason forensics have got you all over her, it’s because of the last time you had sexual relations with her, with Ryan?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which would have been when?’
‘Possibly Thursday 2nd June.’
‘But you have no alibi for anytime between 5 p.m. on Saturday 4th June and the morning of Wednesday 8th?’
‘Except for when I saw Joseph Rose and later Eric Hall, no.’
‘But you’re unsure exactly when it was you saw them?’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
Noble is staring at me.
‘You do realise the fucking shit you’re in?’
I look up, the veins in my eyes shards.
‘Yes,’ I say.
He doesn’t blink.
‘The shit we’re all in?’
I nod.
‘All right then,’ he sighs. ‘It’s your call.’
I weigh it up, the arms of my body dead.
Cuts that won’t stop bleeding, bruises that won’t heal
.
‘I’d like to see my solicitor, please.’

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Monday 13th June 1977

Chapter 17

‘There’s something strange going on,’ said Hadden.
‘Like what?’
‘They reckon there’s been another and that they’ve only bloody got someone for it. Holding them.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No.’
‘Ripper?’
‘What it looks like.’
‘Bollocks. Who told you this?’
‘A little bird.’
‘How little?’
‘Stephanie.’
‘And she got it from?’
‘Desk at Bradford.’
‘Fuck.’
‘That’s almost what I said.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Make some calls.’
Fuck.
Back at the desk, I picked up the telephone and dialled Millgarth. ‘Samuel?’
‘Jack?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘I don’t know what you could mean.’
‘Oh yes you do.’
‘Oh no I don’t.’
‘OK. What time you going to stop playing silly buggers and start earning yourself a bit of what makes you happy?’
‘In about half an hour?’
I looked at my watch.
Shit.
‘Where?’
‘The Scarborough?’
‘It’s a date,’ and I hung up.
I looked at my watch again, checked my briefcase, and left.
I was the first in the Scarborough.
I put my pint on top of the telephone and dialled.
‘It’s me.’
‘Just can’t keep away, can you?’ she laughed.
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘It’s only been a couple of hours.’
‘And I miss you.’
‘Me too. Thought you were going to Manchester?’
‘I am, maybe. Just thought I’d give you a ring.’
‘That’d be nice.’
I laughed and said, ‘Thanks for the weekend.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘I’ll call you when I get back.’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘Bye then.’
‘Bye, Jack.’
She hung up first and then I put down the telephone, picked up my pint and went to a copper-topped table over in the corner.
I had a hard-on.
I looked at my watch, wanting to make the twelve-thirty train at the latest.
If they hadn’t caught the cunt, that was.
I could hear the rain lashing the windows.
‘Call this bloody summer,’ said the barman across the room.
I nodded, drained my pint and went back to the bar and ordered two bitters and a packet of salt and vinegar.
Back at the table I looked at my watch again.
‘Best not be flat,’ said Sergeant Samuel Wilson, sitting down.
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
‘And a merry bloody Christmas to you too,’ he laughed, then said, ‘What fuck happened to your hand?’
‘Cut myself.’
‘Fuck were you doing?’
‘Cooking.’
‘Fuck off.’
I offered him a crisp. ‘So?’
‘What?’
‘Samuel?’
‘Jack?’
‘Fuck off, it’s not
Come
bloody
Dancing
is it?’
He sighed. ‘Go on, what you heard?’
‘You got a body in Bradford and a bloke for it over here.’
‘And?’
‘It’s Ripper.’
Wilson killed his pint and grinned, cream on his lips.
‘Samuel?’
‘How about another, Jack?’
I finished mine and went back to the bar.
When I sat back down, he’d taken off his raincoat.
I glanced at my watch.
‘Not keeping you am I, Jack?’
‘No, got be over in Manchester this afternoon though.’ Then I added, ‘Depending on what you tell me. If you’re going to tell me anything that is?’
He sniffed up, ‘So how much is a busy man like you prepared to give a poor working man like myself?’
‘Depends what you got, you know how it works.’
He took out a piece of folded paper and waved it in front of me. ‘Internal memo from Oldman?’
‘Twenty?’
‘Fifty.’
‘Fuck off. I’m just confirming what I’ve already heard. If you’d come straight to your old mate Jack yesterday, then that’d be a different story wouldn’t it?’
‘Forty.’
‘Thirty.’
‘Thirty-five?’
‘Show us.’
He handed me the paper and I read:
At twelve noon Sunday 12 June, the body of Janice Ryan, twenty-two years old, a convicted prostitute, was found secreted under an old settee on wasteground off White Abbey Road, Bradford
.
A post-mortem has been carried out and death was due to massive head injuries caused by a heavy blunt instrument. It is thought that death occurred some seven days before due to the partial decomposition of the body
.
It is also thought from the pattern of the injuries that this death is not connected, repeat not connected, with the other murders publicly referred to as the
Ripper Murders.
At the present time no information is to be given to the press in regard to this crime
.
I stood up.
‘Where you going?’
‘It’s him,’ I said and walked over to the telephone. ‘What about my thirty-five quid?’
‘In a minute.’
I picked up the telephone and dialled.
Her telephone rang, and rang, and rang:
Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again
.
I hung up and then dialled again.
Her telephone rang, and rang, and –
‘Hello?’
‘Where were you?’
‘In the bath, why?’
‘There’s been another.’
‘Another?’
‘Him. In Bradford. Same place.’
‘No.’
‘Please, don’t go out. I’ll be over later.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as I can. Don’t go out,’
‘OK.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘Bye.’
And she hung up.
I walked back across the pub, visions of bloodstained furniture, holes and heads:
I have given advance warning so its yours and their fault
.
I sat down.
‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ I lied.
‘Don’t look it.’
‘So they got someone?’
‘Yep.’
‘Who?’
‘Fuck knows.’
‘Come on?’
‘Straight up. No-one knows, just brass.’
‘Why all the secrecy?’
‘I tell you, fuck knows.’
‘But they’re saying it’s not Ripper?’
‘That’s what they’re saying.’
‘What you reckon?’
‘Fuck knows, Jack. It’s weird.’
‘You heard owt else? Anything?’
‘How much?’
‘Call it an even fifty if it’s good.’
‘Couple of lads reckon some blokes have been suspended, but you didn’t hear that from me.’
‘Over this?’
‘Aye, that’s what a couple of lads here said.’
‘From Millgarth?’
‘That’s what they said.’
‘Who?’
‘DI Rudkin, your mate Fraser, and DC Ellis.’
‘Ellis?’
‘Mike Ellis. Fat twat with a big gob?’
‘Don’t know him. And they reckon they did this woman in Bradford?’
‘Now Jack, I didn’t say that. They’ve just been suspended, that’s all I know.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Aye.’
‘You surprised?’
‘Rudkin, no. Fraser, yes. Ellis, yeah but everyone hates him anyway.’
‘Cunt?’
‘Complete and utter,’
‘But everyone knew Rudkin was dirty?’
‘Lads don’t call him Harry for nowt,’
‘Fuck. What way?’
‘When he worked Vice he was keeping more than streets clean.’
‘And Fraser?’
‘You met him; he’s Mr fucking Clean. Owl’s always helped him along and all.’
‘Maurice Jobson? Why?’
‘Fraser’s married to Bill Molloy’s daughter, isn’t he?’
‘Fuck,’ I sighed. ‘And Badger Bill’s got cancer, yeah?’
‘Aye.’
‘Interesting.’
‘If you say so,’ shrugged Wilson.
I looked at my watch.
‘Best put that away,’ he said, pointing at the piece of paper on the table.
I nodded and put it in my pocket, taking out my wallet.
I counted out the notes under the table and handed him fifty.
‘That’ll do nicely, sir,’ he winked and stood up to go.
‘Anything at all, Samuel, give us a call?’
‘You bet.’
‘I mean it. If this is him, I want to know first.’
‘Got you,’ and he buttoned up his coat and was gone.
I looked at my watch and went to the telephone.
‘Bill? Jack.’
‘What you got?’
‘It’s strange, all right. Dead prostitute under a sofa in Bradford.’
‘Told you, Jack. I told you.’
‘But they’re saying it’s not a Ripper job.’
‘So why are they keeping it from us?’
‘I don’t know but, and this is just what I reckon, somehow some of brass have fucked up and there’s been some suspensions.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what rumour is round Millgarth.’
‘Who?’
‘That Sergeant Fraser for one. John Rudkin and someone else.’
‘Detective Inspector John Rudkin? Over what?’
‘Don’t know. Might be nowt to do with this, but seems odd yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve got a bloke going to let us know first thing he hears.’
‘Good. I’ll have Front Page on standby.’
‘But you best not say why’
‘You still going to Manchester?’
‘I think so, yeah. But I’ll come back via Bradford.’
‘Keep in touch, Jack.’
‘Bye.’
I sat on the train and smoked and drank a warm can, picked at a sandwich and flicked through a paperback book,
Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution
.
After Huddersfield I just dozed, bad ale and sleep to match, waking to the hills and the rain, hair stuck against a dirty window, drifting:
I look at my watch, it’s 7.07
.
I’m on the Moors, walking across the Moors, and I come to a chair, a high-backed leather chair, and there’s a woman in white kneeling before the chair, hands in angel prayer, hair across her face
.
I lean down to scoop the hair away and it’s Carol, then Ka Su Peng. She stands up and points to the middle of the long white dress and a word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
livE
.
And there on the Moors, in the wind and in the rain, she pulls the white dress up over her head, her yellow belly swollen, and then puts the dress back on, inside out, the word in bloody fingerprints there writ:
Evil
.
And a small boy in blue pyjamas comes out from behind the high-backed leather chair and leads her away across the Moors and I stand there in the wind and in the rain and I look at my watch and it’s stopped:
7.07
.
I woke, my head against the window, and looked at my watch.
I picked up my briefcase and locked myself in the toilet. I sat on the rocking bog and took out the porno mag.
Spunk
.
Clare Strachan in all her bloody glory.
Hard again, I checked the address and went back to my seat and the half-eaten cheese sandwich.
From Stalybridge into Manchester I tried to put all of Wilson’s shit together, re-reading Oldman’s memo, wondering what the fuck Fraser could have done, knowing suspensions could be anything these days:
Back-handers and one-handers, dodgy overtime and faked expenses, sloppy paperwork, no paperwork.
John bloody Rudkin leading Mr fucking Clean astray.
Clueless, I went back to the window, the rain and the factories, the local horror movies, remembering the photographs of death camps my uncle had brought back from the war.
I’d been fifteen when that war ended and now, in 1977, I was sat on a train, head against the black glass, the bloody rain, the fucking North, wondering if this one ever would.
I was thinking of Martin Laws and
The Exorcist
when we pulled into Victoria.
In the station, straight to a telephone:
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing.’
Out of Victoria, up to Oldham Street.