We both drained our glasses.
I said, “How’d you get on with Mrs Dawson?”
“She told me my life was in danger,” smiled Barry as he stood up.
“You’re joking? Why?”
“Why not? I know too much.”
We walked out through the double doors to the car park.
“You believe her?”
“They have something on everyone. The question’s just when they’ll use it.” Barry stubbed out his cigarette in the gravel.
“Who’s they?”
Barry was rummaging through his pockets, looking for his car keys. “They don’t have names.”
“Fuck off,” I laughed, the three pints and the fresh air giving me guts.
“There are Death Squads out there. Why not one for Barry Cannon?”
“Death Squads?”
“You think that shit is just for the Yellow Man or the Indian? There are Death Squads in every city, in every country.”
I turned and started to walk away. “You’ve fucking lost it.”
Barry caught my arm. “They train them in Northern Ireland. Give them a taste, then bring them back home hungry.”
“Fuck off,” I said, shaking him loose.
“What? You really think it’s gangs of Paddies in donkey jackets, lugging round big bags of fucking fertiliser, blowing up all these pubs?”
“Yeah,” I smiled.
Barry looked down at the ground, ran his hand through his hair, and said, “If a man comes up to you in the street and asks you for an address, is he lost or is he interrogating you?”
I smiled, “Big Brother?”
“He’s watching you.”
I glanced up at blue sky turning grey and said, “If you seriously believe her, you should tell someone.”
“Who am I going to tell? The Law? These people are the fucking Law. Every life is in danger.”
“So why go on? Why not top yourself like Garland?”
“Because I believe in right and wrong. I believe I will be judged and not by them. So fuck them all’s what I say.”
I looked at the gravel and wanted a slash.
“You coming or what, you pisshead?” said Barry, unlocking his car door.
“I’m going the other way,” I said.
Barry opened the door. “See you then.”
“Yeah, see you.” I turned and started to weave across the car park.
“Eddie!”
I turned round and squinted into the fading winter sun.
“You’ve never had that urge to go and deliver us all from evil then?”
“No,” I shouted across the empty car park.
“Liar,” laughed Barry, pulling shut his car door and starting the engine.
· PM Sunday afternoon, Castleford, waiting for the bus to Pontefract, glad to be out of the madness of Barry Gannon. Three and a half pints and almost glad to be going back to my rats.
The Ratcatcher: a story that had touched the hearts of York shire folk.
The bus was coming up the road. I stuck out my thumb.
The Ratcatcher: Graham Goldthorpe, the disgraced music teacher turned council Rat Man who had strangled his sister Mary with a stocking and hung her in the fireplace last Mischief Night.
I paid the driver and went to the back of the deserted single-decker to smoke.
The Ratcatcher Graham Goldthorpe, who had then taken a shotgun to his troubled mind and its visions of plague upon plague of dirty brown rats.
The Ratcatcher: a story close to the heart of Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent, the former Fleet Street Hack turned Prodigal Son who had shaken and shocked a county with his troubled tale and its visions of plague upon plague of dirty brown rats.
The Ratcatcher: my first story at the
I rang the bell wishing Jack Whitehead dead.
I stepped off the bus into the end of a Pontefract afternoon. I hid another cigarette inside my father’s old coat and beat the whip of a winter wind on the third attempt.
Ratcatcher Country.
It took me the exact length of the JPS to reach Willman Close from the bus stop, nearly treading in some bloody dogshit as I stubbed it out.
Dogshit in Willman Close, that would have really pissed Graham Goldthorpe off.
It was already dark and most of the Close had the lights on their Christmas trees all lit up. Not Enid Sheard though, the miserable bitch.
Not the Goldthorpes either.
I cursed my life and knocked on the glass door of the bungalow, listening to the barking of the huge Alsatian, Hamlet.
I’d seen it a hundred times before during my all-too-brief stint on Fleet Street. The families, the friends, the colleagues, and the neighbours of the dead or the accused, the very people who would act so offended, so appalled, so insulted, and even so angry at the mere mention of cash for their story. The self same families, friends, colleagues, and neighbours of the dead or the accused, the very people who would telephone a month later, suddenly so eager, so keen, so helpful, and so fucking greedy to mention cash for their story.
“Who is it? Who is it?” The miserable bitch wouldn’t even switch on the hall light, let alone open the door.
I hollered through the door, “It’s Edward Dunford, Mrs Sheard. From the
“Of course I remember. Today’s Sunday, Mr Dunford,” she screamed back over the noise of Hamlet the Alsatian.
“My editor,- Mr Hadden, said you telephoned and wanted to speak with one of his reporters,” I shouted through the rippled glass.
“I telephoned last Monday, Mr Dunford. I do my business during the working week, not on the Lord’s Day. I’d thank you and your Boss to do the same, young man.”
“I’m sorry Mrs Sheard. We’ve been very busy. I’ve come a long way and I don’t usually work…” I was mumbling, won dering whether Hadden had lied to me or just mixed up the dates.
“All I can say is, you better have my money then, Mr Dunford,” said Mrs Enid Sheard as she opened the door.
Nigh on penniless, I stepped into the dark and narrow hall and the stink of Hamlet the Alsatian; a stink I had hoped I would never have to suffer again.
The Widow Sheard, seventy irritable years if she was a day, ushered me through into the front room and once again I found myself sitting in the gloom with Enid Sheard, her memories and her lies, as Hamlet scratched at the foot of the glass kitchen door.
I perched on the edge of the sofa and said, “Mr Hadden said you wanted to talk…”
“I’ve never spoken with this Mr Hadden of yours…”
“But you do have something you want to share with us about the events next door?” I was staring at the blank face of the TV, seeing the dead eyes of Jeanette Garland, Susan Ridyard, and Clare Kemplay.
“I’d thank you not to interrupt when I’m speaking, Mr Dunford.”
