Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (5 page)

‘Don’t suppose you told this to the investigating officers at the time, did you?’
‘As if they’d listen. They didn’t take any notice of me anyway, especially after what happened to me.’
I say, ‘Why? What happened to you Mr Kendall?’
Walter Kendall rolls over in his bed and smiles: his eyes white, the colour gone, the man blind.
‘How did it happen?’ I ask.
‘Friday 21 November 1975. I woke up and I was blind.’
I look over at Colin Minton, who shrugs his shoulders.
‘I could see, but now I’m blind,’ laughs Kendall.
I stand up. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Kendall. If you think of anything else, please …’
Kendall suddenly reaches out, grabbing the sleeve of my jacket. ‘Anything else? I think of nothing else.’
I pull away. ‘Call us.’
‘Be careful, Sergeant. It can strike anyone, anytime.’
I walk away, down the narrow corridor, pausing by the door to the room at the top of the stairs.
It’s cold here, out of the sun.
Colin Minton raises his eyes and starts to say how sorry he is.
‘Special Police? What fucking bollocks next?’ laughs Detective Inspector Rudkin.
We’re walking up Church Street, towards the garages.
‘These fucking people. They just never accept that the fucking mess they’re in is because they’re junkies and alcoholics. Has to be someone else or something else.’
Frankie’s laughing along. ‘Cunt went blind because he drank industrial-strength paint-stripper.’
‘See?’ says Rudkin.
‘Yeah,’ laughs Ellis. ‘Unlike Bob’s mate.’
‘If wit were shit,’ says Rudkin, shaking his head.
We turn the corner into Frenchwood Street.
On the left are the lock-ups, the garages.
Preston seems suddenly quiet.
That silence again.
‘It was that one,’ whispers Frankie, pointing to the one furthest from us, the one closest to the multi-storey car park at the end of the road.
‘Locked?’ asks Ellis.
‘Doubt it.’
We keep walking towards it.
My chest starts to constrict, ache.
Rudkin’s saying nowt.
Three Pakistani women in black cross in front of us.
The sun goes behind a cloud and I can feel the night, the endless fucking night I’ve always felt.
‘Take notes,’ I tell Ellis.
‘Like what?’
‘Feelings, man. Impressions.’
‘Bollocks. It’s been two years,’ he whines.
‘Do it,’ says Rudkin.
I can’t stop it:
I’m coming up the hill, swaying, bags in my hand. Plastic bags, carrier bags, Tesco bags
.
We get to the garage and Frankie tries the door.
It opens.
I’m freezing.
Frankie lights a cig and stands out in the road.
I step inside.
Black, bloody, bleak.
Full of flies, fat fucking flies.
Ellis and Rudkin follow.
The room has the air of the sea bed, the weight of an evil ocean hanging over our heads.
Rudkin is swallowing hard.
I struggle.
Used to stare out the window and bark at the trains
.
I’ve felt this before, but not often: Wakefield, December ’74.
Theresa Campbell, Joan Richards, and Marie Watts.
Today on the Moors.
Too often.
The sweet smell of perfumed soap, of cider, of Durex
.
The headache is intense, blinding.
There’s a bench, table, wooden crates, bottles, thousands of bottles, newspapers, scraps of this and that, blankets, odd bits of clothing.
‘They did go through this, yeah?’ says Ellis.
‘Mmm,’ mumbles Rudkin.
Trains pass, dogs bark.
I can taste blood.
I’ve slipped on to my knees and he’s come out of me. Now he’s angry. I try to turn but he’s got me by my hair, punching me casually, once, twice, and I’m telling him there’s no need for that, scrambling to give him his money back, and then he’s got it up my arse, but I’m thinking at least it’ll be over then, and he’s back kissing my shoulders, pulling my black bra off, smiling at this fat cow’s flabby arms, and taking a big, big bite out of the underside of my left tit, and I can’t not scream and I know I shouldn’t have because now he’s going to have to shut me up and I’m crying because I know it’s over, that they’ve found me, that this is how it ends, that I’ll never see my daughters again, not now, not ever
.
I look up. Ellis is staring at me.
This is how it ends
.
Rudkin has a pair of plastic gloves on, pulling a dirt-caked carrier bag out from under the bench.
Tesco’s.
He looks at me.
I squat down beside him.
He opens it up.
Porn mags, old and used.
He closes the bag and slings it back under the bench.
‘Enough?’ he says.
Not now, not ever
.
I nod and we go back out into the light.
Frankie lights another cig and says, ‘Lunch?’

Staring into dark pints, thinking worse thoughts, fucked if there’s anything I can do about it.
Frankie brings over the Ploughmans, all withered and bleached.
‘Fuck’s that?’ says Rudkin, getting up off his stool and going back to the bar.
Ellis raises his glass. ‘Cheers.’
Rudkin comes back and tips a whisky into the top of his pint and sits back down. He smiles at Ellis, ‘Impressions?’
Ellis grins back, reading Rudkin wrong, ‘Do I look like Dick fucking Emery?’
‘Yeah, and you’re about as much fucking use.’ Detective Inspector Rudkin’s stopped smiling. He turns to me. ‘Teach him something, Bob?’
‘I’m with you. Different bloke.’
‘Why?’
‘She was attacked indoors. Raped. Sodomised. She did receive substantial head injuries from a blunt instrument, however none were fatal or immobilising.’
Frankie’s got his head to one side. ‘Meaning?’
‘The killer or killers of Theresa Campbell and Joan Richards attacked them out in the open with one blow to the back of their heads. They were either dead or comatose before they hit the ground. Early indications are that the same is true of the latest one, Marie Watts.’
‘And it couldn’t be the same bloke over here using a different m.o.?’
‘It doesn’t really add up. If anything, the resistance, the struggle, was what kept him going.’
‘Turned him on?’ asks Ellis.
‘Yeah. He’ll have raped before, probably since.’
‘So why kill her?’
I’ve only one answer:
‘Because he could.’
Rudkin wipes ale from his face. ‘What about the placing of the boot and the coat?’
‘Similar.’
‘Similar how?’ repeats Frankie.
Ellis is about to chime up, but Rudkin cuts him off dead, ‘Similar.’
Frankie smiles and looks at his watch, ‘Best be getting back.’
‘No offence, mate,’ says Rudkin, patting Frank’s back.
‘None taken.’
We sup up and pile into the car.
It’s almost three and I’m fucking tired, half-pissed.
We’re going to drop Frankie back at the station, say our goodbyes, and head home.
I’m thinking of Janice, half dozing.
Ellis is telling Frankie about Kenny D.
‘Dumb fucking monkey,’ he laughs.
I can see Kenny’s splayed legs, his cheap underpants and shrivelled dick, the pleas in his eyes.
Rudkin’s going on about how we’ll hold him until they bring Barton in.
I picture Kenny in his cell, sweating and shitting it.
They’re all laughing as we swing into the car park.
Detective Chief Superintendent Hill is waiting for us as we come through the front door.
‘Got a minute?’ he says to DI Rudkin.
‘What is it?’
‘Not here.’
Me and Ellis stand around at the desk as Alf Hill takes Rudkin upstairs.
We wait, Frankie hanging around, talking up Lancs/Yorks rivalry.
‘Fraser, up here now,’ yells Rudkin from the top of the stairs.
I start up the stairs, stomach hollow.
Ellis starts to follow.
‘Wait there,’ I snap.
Rudkin and Hill up in the Lancashire Murder Room.
No-one else.
Hill’s putting down the phone.
‘Get that fucking file,’ shouts Rudkin.
I pull it out from the cabinet.
‘The Inquest in there?’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘What was the blood group they got off her?’
‘B,’ I say from memory, flicking through for the report.
‘Check it.’
I do and nod.
‘Read it to me.’
I read:
‘Blood grouping from the semen taken from victim’s vagina and rectum, blood group B.’
‘Pass it here.’
I do it.
Rudkin stares at it, flat on his palms:
‘Fuck.’
Hill too:
‘Shit.’
Rudkin holds it up to the light, turns it over, and hands it to Detective Chief Superintendent Hill.
Rudkin picks up the phone and dials.
Hill has sucked his lower lip in, waiting.
‘B,’ says Rudkin into the phone.
There’s a long silence.
Eventually Rudkin repeats, ’9 per cent of the population.’
Another silence.
‘Right,’ says Rudkin and passes the phone to Alf Hill.
Hill listens, says, ‘Will do,’ and puts down the phone.
I stand there.
They sit there.
No-one speaks for about two whole minutes.
Rudkin looks up at me and shakes his head like,
this can’t be fucking happening
.
I say, ‘What is it?’
‘Farley pulled some semen stains off the back of Marie Watts’s coat.’
‘And?’
‘Blood group B.’

9 per cent of the population
.
It’s somewhere around eight or nine in the evening, the light still with us.
My eyes, my shoulders, my fingers ache from the writing.
The phone from here to Leeds hasn’t stopped:
Panic Stations
.
Rudkin keeps looking up at me like,
this is fucked
, and I swear sometimes there’s bloody blame there.
We keep at it:
Transcribing, copying, checking, re-checking, like a gang of fucking monks hunched over some holy books.
Me, I keep thinking,
didn’t Rudkin fucking know this? What the fuck were him and Craven doing over here?
Ellis is just sat there scribbling away, totally blown away, head spinning like the fucking
Exorcist
.
I sketch the scene, the boot and the coat, and I look up and say, ‘I’m going to go back up there.’
‘Now?’ says Ellis.
‘We’re missing something.’
‘We going to stay night?’ asks Rudkin.
We all look at our watches and shrug.
Rudkin picks up the phone.
‘I’ll sort you out,’ says Frankie.
‘Somewhere nice, yeah?’ calls Rudkin, a hand over the receiver.
Up Church Street, the light almost gone, a train snaking out the station.
Yellow lights, dead faces at the glass.
Searching, looking for the lost, trying to find a Thursday night two years ago:
Thursday 20 November 1975.
It had rained during the day, helping keep Clare in the pub, the one at the bottom of the hill, St Mary’s, same name as the hostel.
To the left the multi-storey and Frenchwood Street.
I cross the road.
A car slows behind me, then passes.
A tramp on the corner, asleep on a bed of cans and newspapers.
He reeks.
I light up and stand over him, looking down.
He opens his eyes and jumps:
‘Don’t eat my fingers please, just my teeth. Take them, they’re no use to me now. But I need salt, have you got any salt, any at all?’
I walk past him, down Frenchwood Street.
‘SALT!’ he screams after me. ‘To preserve the meat.’
Shit
The street is dark now.
Estimates put the time of death between eleven and one. About the time she was thrown out of the pub.
The street would have been darker, after the rain, before the wind got going.
The bricks beside the garage have practically given up, wet even now with damp in May.
And then I feel it again, waiting.
I pull open the door.
It’s there, laughing:
You just can’t keep away, can you?
I’ve got a torch in my hand and I switch it on.
She’s pulling up her skirt, taking down her tan tights, letting the flab of her thighs fall loose
.
I sweep the room, the weight pressing down.
I’m not going to be able do this
.
There’s music, loud, fast, dense, from a car outside.
She’s smiling, trying to make it hard
.
The music stops.
I’ll make it hard
.
Silence.
I turn her round, pull down the black shiny briefs with their white streaks, and I’m getting bigger now, better, and she’s backing on to me
.
There’s rats in here.
But I don’t want that, I want this: her arse, but she reaches round and moves me towards her huge fucking cunt
.
Big fucking rats at my feet.
And I’m in her and then I’m out again and she’s slipped on to her knees …
Outside, I puke, fingers in the wall, bleeding.
I look up the street, no-one.
I wipe away the spit and shit, sucking the blood from my fingers.
‘SALT!’ comes the scream.
I jump.
Fuck
.
‘To preserve the meat.’
The tramp’s standing there, laughing.
Cunt
.
I push him back into the wall and he stumbles, falls over, staring up at me, into me, through me.
I swing my fist down into the side of his face.
He goes into a ball, whimpering.
I punch him again, a disconnected blow that bounces my fist off the back of his head and into the wall.
Frustrated I kick him and kick him and kick him again until there are arms around me, holding me tight, and Rudkin is whispering, ‘Easy Bob, easy’
In a corner of the Post House, I’m begging, pleading into a phone:
‘I’m sorry, we thought it’d be just a day trip and back but they want us to …’
She’s not listening and I can hear Bobby crying and she’s telling me I’ve woken him up.
‘How was your Dad?’
But it’s how the fuck do I think he is and apparently I don’t fucking care so I needn’t even waste my breath.
She hangs up.
I stand there, the smell of fried food from the restaurant, listening to everyone in the bar: Rudkin, Ellis, Frankie, and about five other Preston coppers.
I look down at my fingers, my knuckles, the scuffs on my shoes.
I pick up the phone and try Janice again, but there’s still no answer.
I look at my watch: gone one.
She’s working.
Fucking
.
‘They’re bloody closing up, can you fucking believe it?’ says Rudkin on his way to the bogs.
I go back into the bar and drink up.
Everyone’s pissed, really pissed.
‘You got any fucking decent clubs round here?’ says Rudkin coming back, still doing up his fly.
‘Think we could manage something,’ slurs Frankie.
Everyone tries to stand, talking about taxis, and this place and that, telling stories about this bloke and that lass.
I break away and say, ‘I’m going to hit the hay’
Everyone calls me a fucking puff and an arse bandit and I agree and feign drunkenness as I stumble off down the low-lit corridor.
Suddenly Rudkin’s got his arms round me again. ‘You all right?’ he asks.
‘I’ll be right,’ I say. ‘Just knackered.’
‘Don’t forget, I’m always here.’
‘I know’
He tightens his grip: ‘Don’t be afraid, Bob.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of this,’ he says, waving at everything and nothing, pointing at me.
‘I’m not.’
‘Piss off then, you puff,’ he laughs, walking off.
‘Have a good time,’ I say.
‘It’ll make you blind,’ he shouts down the corridor. ‘Like Old Walter.’
A door opens and a man peers out at me.
‘What you fucking want?’
He closes the door.
I hear the lock turn, him check it.
I knock on his door hard, wait, and then walk off to my room, digging the key into my arm.
Sat on the edge of the hotel bed in the middle of the night, the lamp on, Janice’s phone ringing and ringing, the receiver beside me on the sheet.
I go over to Rudkin’s bed and pick up the file.
Turn the pages, the copies we’re to take back.
I come to the Inquest.
I stare at that single, lonely, bloody letter.
Wrong, the
B
looks wrong.
I hold the paper over the lamp.
It’s the original.
Shit
–
Rudkin’s left them with the copy
.
I put the paper back and close the file.
Pick the receiver up from the bed.
Janice’s phone’s still ringing.
I put it down.
I pick up the paper again.
Put it down again.
I switch off the lamp and lie there in the dark of the Preston Post House, the room unbearably fucking hot, everything heavy.
Scared, afraid.
Missing something, someone
.
At last I close my eyes.
Thinking,
don’t be afraid
.