1974

I said, “Who is it?”

“Well, how the mighty have fallen,” sighed Derek Box.

“They’re not very clear.”

“I think you’ll find they’re clear enough to Councillor and former Alderman William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert Shaw, should you ever wish to present him with a couple of snaps for his family album.”

The old body came into focus, the flabby belly and the skinny ribs, the white hairs and the moles.

“Bill Shaw?”

“I’m afraid so,” smiled Box.

Christ.

William Shaw, Chairman of the new Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and the West Yorkshire Police Authority, a former regional organiser of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, representing that union on the National Executive Com mittee of the Labour Party.

I stared at the swollen testicles, the silhouettes of the knotted veins in his cock, the grey pubic hairs.

William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert.

Robert Shaw, the Home Office Minister of State and the man widely tipped Most Likely to Succeed.

Councillor Shaw, the Man Most Likely to Suck.

Fuck.

Councillor Shaw as Barry’s Third Man?

Dawsongate.

I said, “Barry knew?”

“Aye. But he lacked the tools, so to speak.”

“You want me to blackmail Shaw with these?”

“Blackmail’s not the word I had in mind.”

“What word had you in mind?”

“Persuade.”

“Persuade him to do what?”

“Persuade the Councillor that he should bare his soul of all his public wrongdoings, safe in the knowledge that his private life shall remain exactly that.”

“Why?”

“The Great British Public get the kind of truth they deserve.”

“And?”

“And we,” winked Box. “We get what we want.”

“No.”

“Then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

I looked down at the black and white photographs lying on the white tablecloth.

“And what kind of man was that?” I asked.

“A brave one.”

“You call these brave?” I said, pushing the photographs away with my grey right hand.

“In these times, yes I do.”

I took a cigarette from my pack and Paul reached across the table with the Ronson.

I said, “He’s not married is he?”

“Makes no odds,” smiled Box.

The waiter came back carrying an empty tray. “Ice-cream, Mr Box?”

Box waved his cigar in my direction. “Just one for my friend here.”

“Very good, Mr Box.” The waiter began piling the dirty plates and glasses on to the silver tray, leaving only the ashtray and the three photographs.

Derek Box ground out his cigar in the ashtray and leant across the table.

“This country’s at war, Mr Dunford. The government and the unions, the Left and the Right, the rich and the poor. Then you got your Paddys, your wogs, your niggers, the puffs and the perverts, even the bloody women; they’re all out for what they can get. Soon there’ll be nowt left for the working white man.”

“And that’s you?”

Derek Box stood up. “To the victor, the spoils.”

The waiter returned with a silver bowl of ice-cream.

Paul helped Derek Box into his cashmere coat.

“Tomorrow lunchtime, upstairs in Strafford Arms.”

He squeezed my shoulder tightly as he went out.

I stared down at the ice-cream in front of me, sitting in the middle of the black and white photographs.

“Enjoy your ice-cream,” shouted Derek Box from the door.

I stared at the cocks and the balls, at the hands and the tongues, the spit and the spunk.

I pushed the ice-cream away.

A one-coin call at the top of Hanging Heaton, the stink of curry on the receiver.

No answer.

Out the door, a fart in my stride.

The one-armed driver on the road to Fitzwilliam, the radio on low:

Michael John Myshkin leading on the local two o’clock, the IRA Christmas ceasefire on the national.

I glanced at the envelope on the passenger seat and pulled over.

Two minutes later and the one-armed driver was back on the road, the manila sins of Councillor William Shaw hidden beneath the passenger seat.

I checked the rearview mirror.

Almost dark and not yet three.

Newstead View revisited.

Back amongst the ponies and the dogs, the rust and plaggy bags.

I drove slowly along the dark street.

TV lights on in Number 69.

I parked in front of what was left of 54.

The pack had been to the terrace, feasting and fighting, leaving three black eyes where the windows had been.

Hang the Pervert and LUFC were written in dripping white paint above the front window.

A brown front door lay amongst a forest of chopped and charred sticks of furniture, kicked and severed in the middle of a tiny lawn strewn with a family’s tat.

Two dogs chased their arses in and out of the Myshkin family’s home.

I picked my way up the garden path, over the headless lamps and slashed cushions, nervously past a dog wrestling with a giant stuffed panda, and through the splintered doorway.

There was the smell of smoke and the sound of running water.

A metal dustbin sat on a sea of broken glass in the centre of a wrecked front room. There was no television or stereo, just the spaces where they’d been and a plastic Christmas tree bent in two. No presents or cards.

I stepped over a pile of human shit on the bottom step and went up the sodden stairs.

All the taps in the bathroom were on full, the bath over flowing.

The toilet and the sink had both been kicked in and shattered, flooding the blue carpet. There was runny yellow diarrhoea down the outside of the bath and NF sprayed in red above it.

I turned off the taps and pushed up the sleeve of my left arm with my bandages. I stuck my left hand into the ice-cold brown water and felt for the plug. My hand brushed against something solid at the bottom of the bath.

There was something in the bath.

My one good hand froze, then quickly I pulled the plug and my hand straight out together.