As I left the flat, licking and sucking my knuckles and fingers, I saw the door across the landing open slightly.
“Keep your fucking nose out!” I shouted, running down the stairs.
“Less you want it bloody cutting off!”
Ninety miles an hour, spooked.
Foot down on Motorway One, exorcising the Ghosts of Wake-field Past and Present.
Into the rearview mirror, a green Rover hugging my tail. Me paranoid, making it for an unmarked police car.
Eyes high into the sky, driving inside the fat belly of a whale, the sky the colour of its grey flesh, stark black trees its mighty bones, a damp prison.
Into the mirror, the Rover gaining.
Taking the Leeds exit at the charred remains of the gypsy camp, the black frames of the burnt-out caravans more bones, standing in some pagan circle to their dead.
Into the mirror, the green Rover heading North.
Underneath the station arches, parking the Viva, two black crows eating from black bin-bags, ripping through the wasted meat, their screams echoing into the dark in this, the Season of the Plague.
Ten minutes later I was at my desk.
I dialled Directory Enquiries, then James Ashworth, then BJ.
No answers, everybody Christmas shopping.
“You look terrible.” Stephanie, files in her arms, fat as fuck.
“I’m fine.”
Stephanie stood there, in front of my desk, waiting.
I stared at the only Christmas card on my desk, trying to switch off the visions of Jack Whitehead fucking her up trap two, getting a little hard myself.
“I spoke to Kathryn last night.”
“So?”
“Don’t you bloody care?” She was already angry.
So was I. “It’s none of your business how I fucking feel.”
She didn’t move, just kept standing there, shifting her weight from foot to foot, her eyes filling up.
I felt bad and so I said, “I’m sorry Steph.”
“You’re a pig. A fucking pig.”
“I’m sorry. How is she?”
She was nodding her fat face, agreeing with her own fat thoughts. “It’s not the first time is it?”
“What did Kathryn say?”
“There have been others haven’t there?”
Others, always the bloody others.
“I know you, Eddie Dunford,” she went on, leaning forward across the desk, her arms like thighs. “I know you.”
“Shut up,” I said quietly.
“How many others have there been, eh?”
“Keep your bloody nose out, you fat bitch.”
Applause and cheers rang out across the office, fists banging on desks, feet stamping.
I stared at Kathryn’s Christmas card.
“You pig,” she spat.
I looked up from the card but she was gone, sobbing out the door.
Across the office George Greaves and Gaz raised their ciga rettes in salute, giving me the thumbs up.
I held up my thumb, fresh blood on my knuckle.
It was five o’clock.
“I still need to talk to the other one, James Ashworth. He was the one who actually found the body.”
Hadden looked up from his pile of Christmas cards. He put one of the larger cards to the bottom of the pile and said, “It’s all a bit thin.”
“She was round the bloody twist.”
“Did you try and get a quote from the police.”
“No.”
“Maybe just as well,” he sighed, continuing to look through his cards.
I was tired beyond sleep, hungry beyond food, the room beyond hot and all too real.
Hadden was looking up from his cards at me.
“Anything new today?” I asked, my mouth suddenly full of bilious water.
“Nothing that’s fit to print. Jack’s off on one of his…”
I swallowed. “One of his?”
“He’s playing his cards close to his chest, shall we say.”
“I’m sure he’s doing what’s best.”
Hadden handed back the draft of my piece.
I opened the folder on my knee, putting away the one piece and taking out another. “And then there’s this?”
Hadden took the sheet from me and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
I stared out of the window behind him, the reflection of the yellow office lights on top of a dark wet Leeds.
“Mutilated swans, eh?”
“As I’m sure you know, there’s been a spate of animal muti lations.”
Hadden sighed, his cheeks turning red. “I’m not stupid. Jack showed me the post-mortem.”
I could hear people laughing in another part of the building.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Hadden took off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’re trying too bloody hard.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“You’re like Barry. He was the same, always…”
“I wasn’t going to mention the post-mortem or Clare.”
Hadden was on his feet, pacing. “You can’t just write things and then assume it’s the bloody truth because you think it is.”
“I never do that.”
“I don’t know,” he was talking to the night. “It’s like you’re shooting at the whole bloody bush just on the off- chance there might be something in there worth killing.”
I said, “I’m sorry you think that.”
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat, you know.”
“I know.”
Hadden turned round. “Arnold Fowler’s worked for us for years.”
“
“You don’t want to be going out there and frightening the poor bloke with your horror stories.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Hadden sat back down and sighed loudly. “Get some quotes. Give it a paternal tone and don’t mention the bloody Clare Kemplay case.”
I stood up, the room suddenly going dark and then light again. “Thank you.”
“We’ll run it on Thursday. Straightforward abuse of animals.”
“Of course.” I opened the door for air, support, and an exit.
“Like the pit ponies.”
I ran for the bogs, my guts in my gob.
“Hello. Is Kathryn there please?”
