1980

I look down at the shotgun across my knees -

Sat among the silent sixes, on the table -

On the table -

Wings, huge and rotting things -

Big black raven things that weigh me down, heavy -

Stop me standing -

Sitting on the table, the shotgun on my knees -

Staring at the sixes -

Silent sixes, waiting -

The door banging in the wind, in the rain -

They open the door -

Two figures in the doorway at the end of the passage -

Two shotguns -

The passage is dark and they can smell the stink of another shotgun -

The stink of bad things, the stink of death -

The stink of the Strafford.

They step inside -

A rotting, eaten mattress against a window -

They walk down the passage to the front -

To the bar -

They pull open another door -

The door to the bar -

The last door -

Two figures in the doorway -

Two shotguns -

Two figures and two shotguns:

Alderman and Murphy -

Richard Alderman and John Murphy -

The shotgun across my knees -

The silent sixes, the shadows -

Wings, huge and rotting things -

Big black raven things that -

That weigh me down, heavy and burnt -

That stop me standing -

That stop me -

Stop me -

– a shot.

David Peace

David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet, GB84, The Damned Utd, and Tokyo Year Zero. He was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, and has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the German Crime Fiction Award, and the French Grand Prix de Roman Noir for Best Foreign Novel. He lives in Yorkshire.

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