Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (23 page)

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Thursday 16th June 1977

Chapter 21

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 down the corridor, the threadbare carpet, the dirty walls, the smell
.
We come to a door and stop
.
Room 77
.
I woke with a start in my car, my chest tight, sweating and breathing fast.
I looked at the clock in the dashboard.
7.07.
Fuck
.
I was on Durkar Lane, Durkar, at the bottom of Rudkin’s drive.
I looked in the rearview mirror. Nothing.
I sat there, waiting.
Twenty minutes later, a woman in her dressing-gown opened the front door and took in the two pints of milk from the doorstep.
I waited until she’d shut the door, then I started the car, put the radio on, and drove off.
Down into Wakefield, out along the Dewsbury Road, over Shaw-cross, down through Hanging Heaton and into Batley, radio on:
‘Two masked men who broke into a sub-post office in Shadwell, beat up the sub-postmaster and his wife, and fled with Ł750, are being sought by the police. One of the men is said to be “very violent”
.
‘Mr Eric Gowers, aged sixty-five, and his wife May, aged sixty-four, were taken to hospital but later allowed home.’
Through the centre until I pulled up on the outskirts of Batley, just beyond the Chinese take-away on the Bradford Road.
Just beyond RD News.
Just beyond a bronze Datsun 260.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up.
I stood in the red telephone box again, looking up at the window above the newsagent.
‘Is Eric there?’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘A friend.’
John Rudkin was looking out of the window, one hand on the frame, the other square, palms open, not smiling.
‘This is Eric Hall.’
‘You got the money?’
‘Yes.’
‘Be in the George car park at noon.’
I hung up, staring at John Rudkin.
I went back to the car and waited.
Thirty minutes later, Rudkin came out of the shop carrying a child in his arms, followed by a woman in sunglasses.
The boy was wearing blue pyjamas, the woman black.
They got into the Datsun and drove off.
I sat there.
Five minutes later, I got out of the car and went round the back of the shops, down the alley, past the dustbins, the piled-up bin bags, the rotting cardboard boxes, counting the windows as I went.
I did my sums and looked up at two windows and two pairs of old curtains staring down from up above the back wall, the back wall with the broken bottles cemented in its lip.
I tried the red wooden door and opened it slowly.
All I needed now was the Paki from inside to pop his brown mug out.
I closed the door to the yard behind me and picked my way through the crates and the Calor gas canisters and got to the back door.
Wondering what the fuck I would say, I opened the door.
There was a passage out to the front of the shop, stacked high with boxes of Walkers crisps and old magazines. To my right were the stairs.
In for a penny, I took my chance and crept up them.
At the top was a white door with glass in it.
It was dark beyond the glass.
I stood there, listening.
Nothing.
In for a pound, I tried the door.
Locked.
Fuck
.
I tried it again, knew it would give.
I took out my penknife and slid it in between the wall and the door.
Nothing ventured, I leant in.
Nothing.
Nothing gained, I tried it again.
The knife broke in the hinges, the frame of the door splintered, my hand cut and bleeding again, but I was in.
I stood there, listening.
Nothing.
Another dim passage.
I wrapped my handkerchief around my palm and walked softly down the passage to the front of the flat, three closed doors off to the sides.
The flat stank, the ceilings as low and oppressive as the smell.
In the front room there was a settee, a chair, a table, a television, and a telephone on a box. Empty pop bottles and crisp packets littered the floor.
There was no carpet.
Only a big dark fucking stain in the floorboards.
I went back down the passage and tried the first door on the right.
It was a small kitchen, bare.
I tried the door on the left.
It was a bedroom, one with a pair of old curtains, thick, black and drawn.
I switched on the light.
There was a huge double bed, stripped, with another big dark fucking stain on the orange flowered mattress.
There were fitted wardrobes down one wall.
I opened them.
Lights, photographer’s lights.
I closed the wardrobe doors and switched off the light.
Across the passage was the last door.
It was a bathroom and another pair of old curtains, drawn and black.
There were towels and there were mats, newspapers and paints, the bath spotless.
I ran cold water over my hand and wiped it dry.
I closed the door and went back down the passage.
I stood at the top of the stairs and pulled the splinters from the white door.
I tried to force the lock back in, but it wouldn’t go.
I left the door as it was and went back down the stairs.
I stood on the bottom step, listening.
Nothing.
I went out the back way, into the yard, through the red wooden door, and out.
I walked down the alley past the dustbins, the piled-up bin bags and the rotting cardboard boxes, a little yellow dog watching me go.
I went back round the front of the shops, past the Chinky, and got back into my car.
It was just gone eleven.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up.
I drove past the George, Denholme, pulled up, reversed up a drive and turned back round.
I had a bad feeling, but I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t leave it like this.
I drove slowly back along the road and turned down the side of the pub, into the car park round the back.
It was almost noon.
There were four or five cars parked, three facing out towards the hedge and the fields, two with their noses against the back of the pub.
None of them were blue Granadas.
I parked in a corner, that bad feeling still feeling bad, looking out on the hedge and the fields.
I sat there, waiting, staring into the rearview mirror.
There were two men sitting in a grey Volvo, waiting, staring into their rearview mirror.
Fuck
.
Two cars along, Eric Hall got out of a white Peugeot 304.
I watched him coming towards me, hands deep in his sheepskin.
He came round the back of the car and tapped on my window.
I wound it down.
He leant down and asked me: ‘What you waiting for? Christmas?’
‘You got the money?’
‘Yeah,’ he said and stood back up.
I was staring into my rearview, watching the two heads in the Volvo. ‘Where is it?’
‘In the car.’
‘What happened to the Granada?’
‘Had to fucking sell it, didn’t I? Pay you.’
‘Get in,’ I said.
‘But the money’s in the car.’
‘Just get in,’ I said, starting the car.
He walked round the back and got in the other side.
I reversed out and down the side of the George.
‘Where we going?’
‘Just for a drive,’ I said, turning into the traffic.
‘What about the money?’
‘Fuck it.’
‘But …’
Eyes on the road, I was into the rearview every second glance. ‘There were two blokes sat in a grey Volvo, back there. You saw them, yeah?’
‘No.’
I hit the brakes and swerved into the side of the road, into the verge.
‘Them,’ I said, pointing at a grey Volvo flying past. ‘Fuck.’
‘Nothing to do with you?’
‘No.’
‘You wouldn’t have been thinking of doing me in or shooting me or anything clever like that, would you?’
‘No,’ he said, sweating.
I reversed back down the verge and swung back round the way we’d come.
Foot down, I said, ‘So who the fuck were they?’
‘I don’t know. Honest.’
‘Eric, you’re a dirty fucking copper. An old hack like me turns up on your doorstep and asks for five grand, you just going to roll right over? I don’t fucking think so.’
Eric Hall said nothing.
We drove back past the George, the Volvo gone.
‘Who you tell?’ I asked him again.
‘Look,’ he sighed. ‘Pull up, please.’
I went a little way on then parked near a church on the Halifax Road.
For a bit we just sat there, silent, no sun, no rain, nothing.
Eventually he said, ‘I’m up to my bloody neck in it as it is.’
I said nothing, just nodded.
‘I’ve not exactly played by the fucking rules, you know what I mean? I’ve turned a blind eye every now and again.’
‘And not for free, eh?’
He sighed again and said, ‘And who the bloody hell ever has or ever fucking would?’
I said nothing.
‘I was going to pay you, straight up. Still will, if that’s what it takes. Not five grand, I haven’t got it. But I got two and half for the car and it’s yours.’
‘I don’t want the fucking money, Eric. I just want to know what the fuck’s going on?’
‘Them blokes in the car park? I haven’t a fucking clue, but I’m betting they’re something to do with that cunt Peter Hunter and his investigation.’
‘What did they suspend you for?’
‘Backhanders.’
‘That all?’
‘It’s enough.’
‘Janice Ryan?’
‘Shit I could do without right now.’
‘When did you last see her?’
He sighed, wiping his palms on the tops of his thighs, and shook his head, ‘Can’t remember.’
‘Eric,’ I said. ‘Fuck the money and tell me. By time Hunter’s finished with you, you’re going to need every fucking penny you can get your dirty little hands on. So start by telling me some fucking truth and save yourself two and half grand.’
He looked up out the top of the windscreen, up at the black steeple in the sky, then he put his head back in the seat and said softly, ‘I didn’t fucking kill her.’
‘Did I say you did?’
‘Two weeks ago,’ he said. ‘She called me, said she needed money to get away, said she’d got some information to sell.’
‘You meet her?’
‘No.’
‘You know what kind of information she had?’
‘About some robberies.’
‘Which robberies?’
‘She didn’t say’
‘Past or future?’
‘She didn’t say’
I looked at the fat frightened face, saw it sweating in my passenger seat.
‘You tell anyone this?’
He swallowed, nodded.
‘Who?’
‘A sergeant from Leeds. Name’s Fraser, Bob Fraser.’
‘When did you tell him?’
‘Not long after.’
‘Why’d you tell him?’
Eric Hall turned his face my way and pointing at his eyes said, ‘Because he fucking beat it out of me.’
‘Why’d he do that?’
‘He was pimping her, wasn’t he?’
‘Thought that were you?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘That magazine, those pictures? What do you know about them?’
‘Nothing. Straight up. She never mentioned them.’
I sat at the wheel, lost.
After a while, Eric Hall said, ‘Anything else you want to know?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Who the fuck killed her?’
Eric Hall sniffed up and said, ‘I got my fucking theory.’
I turned to look at him, at that fat fucking slug of a man, a man happy to save himself two fucking grand though his soul was racked with lies, though hellfire and only hellfire awaited him.
‘Do tell, Sherlock?’
He shrugged like it was no big deal, like it was on the front of every fucking newspaper, like the fat slug lived to fight another day, and smiled, ‘Fraser.’
‘Not Ripper?’
He laughed, ‘The Ripper? Fuck’s that?’
I stared up at the cross above us and said, ‘One last thing.’
‘Shoot,’ he said, still smiling.
The cunt
.
‘Ka Su Peng?’
‘Who?’ he said, too quickly, not smiling.
‘Chinese girl? Sue Penn?’
He shook his head.
‘Eric, you’re Bradford Vice right?’
‘Was.’
‘Sorry, was. But I’m sure you can still remember all your girls. Specially ones Ripper had a fucking pop at right in the middle of your bloody patch. No?’
He said nothing.
I said again, ‘It was Ripper, yeah?’
‘That’s what they say’
‘What about you? What do you say?’
‘I say let sleeping dogs lie.’
I started the car and turned back the way we’d come, driving in a fast silence.
I pulled up outside the George.
He opened the door and got out.
‘Kill yourself,’ I whispered.
‘What?’ he said, looking back into the car.
‘Shut the door, Eric,’ I said and put my foot down.
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again. No answer.
I hung up.
Back into Bradford, out of Bradford, back into Leeds, foot down all the way: Killinghall Road, Leeds Road, the Stanningley bypass, Armley.
Under the dark arches, tempted by a last afternoon drink, succumbing in the Scarborough, a quick whisky into the top of a pint, down in one in the shadow of the Griffin.
Into the end of the afternoon, a breeze blowing through the centre, plastic bags and old papers round my shins, looking for a telephone that worked, just one.
‘Samuel?’
‘Jack.’
‘Any news?’
‘They let Fraser go.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t suppose you know where he is?’
‘What?’
‘He was supposed to check in at Wood Street Nick this morning, but he never.’
‘He never?’
‘He never.’
‘Anything else?’
‘One dead darkie.’
‘Ripper?’
‘Not unless he’s started on blokes and all.’
‘No, anything about Ripper?’
‘No.’
‘Bob Craven in?’
‘You sure?’
‘Put us through, Samuel.’
Two clicks and a ring.
‘Vice.’
‘Detective Inspector Craven please,’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Jack Whitehead.’
‘Hang on.’
Two fingers over the mouthpiece and a shout across the room.
‘Jack?’
‘Been a while, Bob.’
‘It has that. How are you?’
‘Well, and yourself?’
‘Keeping busy.’
‘Got time for a pint?’
‘Always got time for a pint, Jack. You know me.’
‘When’s best for you?’
‘About eightish?’
‘Yeah, fine. Where do you fancy?’
‘Duck and Drake?’
‘Eight o’clock it is.’
‘Bye.’
Through the dirty afternoon streets, the breeze wind, the plastic bags birds, the newspapers snakes.
I turned into a cobbled alley out of the gale, searching for the walls, the words.