leg.
“Fuck off you bloody puff!”
Out the door, sucking in the Yorkshire air, tears and bile across my face.
None of the injuries were post-mortem.
“I’m talking to you, puff.”
My mother was sat in her rocking chair in the back room, looking out at the garden in the light drizzle.
I brought her a cup of tea.
“Look at the state of you,” she said, not looking at me.
“Says you, not dressed at this time. Not like you,” I took a big mouthful of hot sweet tea.
“No, love. Not today,” she whispered.
Out in the kitchen the six o’clock news came on the radio:
Eighteen dead in an old people’s home in Nottingham, the second such fire in as many days. The Cambridge Rapist had claimed his fifth victim and England were trailing by 171 runs in the Second Test.
My mother sat staring out at the garden, letting her tea go cold.
I put the envelope on top of the chest of drawers and lay on my bed and tried to sleep, but couldn’t, and cigarettes didn’t help at all and only made things worse and likewise the mouth-fuls of whisky which just couldn’t or wouldn’t go or stay down, and soon I was seeing rats with little wings that looked more like squirrels with their furry faces and kind words but who would, suddenly, again become rats at my ear, whispering harsh words, calling me names, breaking my bones worse than any sticks or stones until I jumped up and put on the light, except it was day and the light was already on, and so off it would go and so on, sending out signals that no-one was receiving, least of all The Sandman.
“Hands off cocks!”
Shit.
“Anybody hurt in this wreck?”
I opened my eyes.
“Looks like you had quite a night.” Barry Cannon surveying the ruin of my room, a cup of tea in his hand.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, no escape at all.
“It lives.”
“Christ.”
“Thanks. And a good morning to you.”
Ten minutes later we were on the road.
Twenty minutes later, headache banging on an empty stomach, I had finished up my story.
“Well, that swan was found up in Bretton.” Barry was taking the scenic route.
“Bretton Park?”
“My father’s mates with Arnold Fowler and he told him.”
Blast from the past number ninety-nine; me sat cross-legged on a wooden school floor as Mr Fowler talked birds. The man had been a fanatic, starting a bird-watching club at every school in the West Riding, a colurruvin every local paper.
“He still alive?”
“And still writing for the
Almost laughing, I said, “So how did Arnold find out?”
“You know Arnold. Owt goes down in the bird world, Arnold’s the first to hear.”
“Seriously?”
Barry looked bored. “Well Sherlock, I imagine the good people at Bretton Park’11 have told him. Spends every waking hour up there.”
I looked out of the window as another silent Sunday sped by. Barry had seemed neither shocked nor even that interested in either the gypsy camp or the post-mortem.
“Oldman’s got a thing about gypsies,” was all Barry had said, before adding, “and the Irish.”
The post-mortem had gotten even less of a reaction and had had me wishing I’d shown the photographs to Barry or, at the very least, had the bloody guts to have looked at them myself.
“They must be bad,” was all I’d said.
Barry Cannon had said nothing.
I said, “It must’ve been a copper at the Redbeck.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“But why?”
“Games, Eddie,” he said. “They’re playing fucking games with you. Watch yourself.”
“I’m a big boy.”
“So I’ve heard,” he smiled.
“Common knowledge round these parts.”
“Whose parts?”
“Not yours.”
He stopped laughing. “You still think there’s a connection to them other missing girls?”
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. There could be.”
“Good.”
And then Barry began to rattle on about Johnny bloody Kelly again, the bad boy of Rugby League, and how he wouldn’t be playing today and no-one knew where the fuck he was.
I looked out of the window thinking, like who gives a shit?
Barry pulled over on the outskirts of Castleford.
“We here already?” I asked, imagining Dawson’s area would be much posher than this.
“You are.”
I didn’t follow, turning my head every which way.
“Brunt Street’s the first on the left back there.”
“Eh?” Lost, turning my head that way.
Barry Cannon was laughing. “Who the fuck lives at 11 Brunt Street, Castleford, Sherlock?”
I knew that address, raking through the pain in my brain until it slowly came to me. “The Garlands?”
“Give the boy a prize.”
“Fuck off.”
Barry looked at his watch. “I’ll meet you in a couple of hours at the Swan across the road. Swap horror stories.”
I got out of the car, pissed off.
Barry leant over to close the door. “I told you, you owe me one.”
“Yeah. Cheers.”
And laughing Barry was gone.
Brunt Street, Castleford.
One side pre-war terrace, the other more recent semi detached.
Number 11 was on the terrace side with a bright red door.
I walked up and down the street three times, wishing I had my notes, wishing I could phone first, wishing I didn’t stink of drink, and then rapped quietly and just once upon the red door.
I stood in the quiet street, waited, and then turned away.
