At ten-eleven someone tried the passenger door and then tapped on the glass. I leant across the passenger seat and opened the door.
“Turn the car around and head back into Leeds,” said the Maroon Suit with orange hair, getting in. “Anybody know you’re here?”
“No,” I said, turning the car around, thinking Bad Fucking Bowie.
“What about your girlfriend?”
“What about her?”
“She know you’re here?”
“No.”
The Maroon Suit sniffed hard, his orange hair turning this way and that. “Turn right at the park.”
“Here?”
“Yeah. Follow the road down to the church.”
At the junction by the church the Maroon Suit sniffed hard again and said, “Pull up here and wait ten minutes and then walk down Spencer Place. After about five minutes you’ll come to Spencer Mount, it’s the fifth or sixth on the left. Number 3 is on the right. Don’t ring the bell, just come straight up to flat 5.”
I said, “Flat 5, 3 Spencer Mount…” But the Maroon Suit and his orange hair were off and running.
At about ten-thirty I was walking along Spencer Place, thinking fuck him and this cloak and dagger shit. And fuck him again for making me walk down Spencer Place at ten-thirty like it was some kind of sodding test.
“Just looking are you, love?”
From ten until three, seven nights a week, Spencer Place was the busiest stretch of road in Yorkshire, bar the Manningham area of Bradford. And tonight, despite the cold, was no excep tion. Cars crawled up and down the road in both directions, brakelights shining red, looking like a Bank Holiday tailback.
“Like what you see, do you?”
The older women sat on low walls in front of unlit terraces while the younger ones walked up and down, stamping their boots to keep the cold at bay.
“Excuse me Mr Officer…”
The only other men on the street were West Indians, hopping in and out of parked cars, trailing heavy smoke and music behind them, offering wares of their own and keeping an eye on their white girlfriends.
“You tight fucking bastard!”
The laughter followed me round the corner on to Spencer Mount. I crossed the road and went up three stone steps to the front door of number 3, above which a chipped Star of David had been painted on the grey glass.
From Yid Town to Pork City, in how many years?
I pushed open the door and went up the stairs.
I said, “Nice neighbourhood.”
“Piss off,” hissed the Maroon Suit, holding open the front door to flat 5.
It was a one-room bedsit with too much furniture, big windows and the stink of too many Northern winters. Karen Carpenter stared down from every wall, but it was Ziggy playing guitar from inside a tiny Dancette. There were fairy lights but no tree.
The Maroon Suit cleared some clothes from one of the chairs and said, “Please sit down Eddie.”
“I’m afraid you have the advantage,” I smiled.
“Barry James Anderson,” said Barry James Anderson proudly.
“Another Barry?” The armchair smelt stale.
“Yeah, but you can call this one BJ,” he giggled. “Everybody does.”
I didn’t bite. “OK.”
“Yep, BJ’s the name, bjs the game.” He stopped laughing and hurried over to an old wardrobe in the corner.
“How did you know Barry?” I said, wondering if Barry Cannon had been a puff.
“I saw him around, you know. Just got talking.”
“
“Saw him around where?”
“Just around. Cup of tea?” He said, rooting around in the back of the wardrobe.
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
I lit a cigarette and picked up a dirty plate for an ashtray.
“Here,” said BJ, handing me a Hillards carrier bag from the back of the wardrobe. “He wanted you to have this if anything happened to him.”
“If anything happened to him?” I repeated, opening the bag. It was stuffed full of cardboard folders and manila envelopes. “What is it?”
“His life’s work.”
I stubbed out my cigarette in dried tomato sauce. “Why? I mean, what made him leave it here?”
“Say it: why me, you mean,” sniffed BJ. “He came round here last night. Said he needed somewhere safe to keep all this. And, if anything happened to him, to give it to you.”
“Last night?”
BJ sat down on the bed and took off his jacket. “Yeah.”
“I saw you last night, didn’t I? In the Press Club?”
“Yeah, and you weren’t very nice were you?” His shirt was covered in thousands of small stars.
“I was pissed.”
“Well, that makes it all right then,” he smirked.
I lit another cigarette and hated the sight of the little queer and his star shirt. “What the fuck was your business with Barry?”
“I’ve seen things, you know?”
“I bet,” I said, glancing at my father’s watch.
He jumped up from the bed. “Listen, don’t let me keep you.”
I stood up. “I’m sorry. Sit down, please. I’m sorry.”
BJ sat back down, his nose still in the air. “I know people.”
“I’m sure you do.”
He was on his feet again, stamping his feet. “No, fuck off. Famous people.”
I stood up, my hands out. “I know, I know…”
“Listen, I’ve sucked the cocks and licked the balls of some of the greatest men this country has.”
“Like who?”
“Oh no. You don’t get it that easy.”
“All right, then. Why?”
“For money. What else is there? You think I like being me? This body? Look at me! This isn’t me.” He was on his knees, screwing up his star shirt. “I’m not a puff. I’m a girl in here,” he screamed, leaping to his feet and tearing down one of the Karen Carpenter pin-ups, screwing it up in my face. “She knows what it’s’like. He knows,” he said, turning and kicking the stereo, sending Ziggy scratching to a halt.
Barry James Anderson fell to the floor by the record player and lay with his head buried, shaking. “Barry knew.”
I sat back down and then stood back up again. I went over to the crumpled boy in his silver star shirt and maroon trousers and picked him up, gently putting him down on the bed.
“Barry knew,” he whimpered again.
I went over to the Dancette and put the needle on the record, but the song was depressing and jumped, so I turned off the music and sat back down in the stale armchair.
“Did you like Barry?” He’d dried his face and was sitting up, looking at me.
“Yeah, but I didn’t really know him that well.”
BJ’s eyes were filling up again. “He liked you.”
“Why’d he think something was going to happen to him?”
