Slowly, I stood up.
I fell back down once and then walked out of the half-built house.
The car was sitting in the dark, doors shut.
I tried both doors.
Locked.
I picked up a broken brick, walked round to the passenger window and put the brick through it.
I put my hand inside and pulled up the lock.
I opened the door, picked up the brick and battered in the lock on the glove compartment.
I pulled out map books and damp cloths and a spare key.
I went round to the driver’s side, opened the door and got in.
I sat in the car, staring at the dark empty houses, remem bering the best game I’d been to with my father.
Huddersfield were playing Everton. Town got a free kick on the edge of the Everton area. Vie Metcalfe steps up, bends the ball round the wall, Jimmy Glazzard heads it in. Goal. Referee disallows it, forget why, says take it again. Metcalfe steps up again, bends the ball round the wall, Glazzard heads it in. Goal, the whole crowd in fucking stitches.
· fucking 2.
“Press’ll have a field day. Bloody bury them,” laughed my father.
I started the engine and drove back to Ossett.
In the drive at Wesley Street, I looked at my father’s watch.
It was fucking gone.
Must have been about three or so.
Fuck, I thought as I opened the back door. There was a light on in the back room.
Fuck, I ought to at least say hello. Get it over with.
She was in her rocking chair, dressed but asleep.
I closed the door and went up the stairs, one at a time.
I lay on the bed in my piss-stinking clothes, looking at the poster of Peter Lorimer in the dark, thinking it would’ve broken my Dad’s heart.
Ninety miles an hour.
Part 3
Chapter 10
Sunday 22 December 1974.
At five in the morning, ten policemen led by Detective Super intendent Noble broke down the door of my mother’s house with sledgehammers, slapped her across the face when she came out into the hall and pushed her back inside the room, ran up the stairs with shotguns, dragged me from my bed, pulling my hair out in clumps, kicked me down the stairs, punching me as I landed, and dragged me out the door and across the tarmac and into the back of a black van.
They slammed the doors and drove away.
In the back of the van they beat me unconscious, then slapped me across the face and urinated on me until I came round.
When the van stopped, Detective Superintendent Noble opened the back door and pulled me out by my hair, spinning me across the rear car park of Wakefield Police Station, Wood Street.
Two uniformed officers then pulled me by my feet up the stone steps and inside the Police Station, where the corridors were all lined with black bodies, punching and kicking and spitting on me as they dragged me by my heels again and again, up and down, up and down, the yellow corridors.
They took photographs, stripped me, cut the bandage off my right hand, took more photographs, and fingerprinted me.
A Paki doctor shone a torch into my eye, wiped a spatula round my mouth, and scraped under my nails.
They took me naked into a ten by six interrogation room with white lights and no windows, sat me down behind a table and handcuffed my hands behind my back.
Then they left me alone.
Sometime later they opened the door and threw
Then they left me alone again.
Sometime later they opened the door and hosed me down with ice water until I fell over on the chair.
Then they left me alone, lying on the floor, handcuffed to the chair.
I could hear screams from another room.
The screaming went on for what seemed like an hour, and then stopped.
Silence.
I lay on the floor and listened to the humming of the lights.
Sometime later the door opened and two big men in good suits came in carrying chairs.
They unlocked the handcuffs and picked up the chair.
One of the men had sideburns and a moustache and was about forty. The other man had fine sandy hair and his breath smelt of puke.
Sandy said: “Sit down and put your palms flat upon the desk.”
I sat down and did as I was told.
Sandy tossed the handcuffs to Moustache and sat down opposite me.
Moustache walked around the room behind me, playing with the handcuffs.
I looked down at my right hand, flat upon the table, four fingers made one, a hundred shades of yellow and red.
Moustache sat down and stared at me, putting the handcuffs on his fist like a knuckle-duster.
Suddenly he jumped up and brought the handcuffed fist down on top of my right hand.
I screamed.
“Put your hands back.”
I put them on the table.
“Flat.”
I tried to lay them down flat.
“Nasty.”
“You should get that seen to.”
Moustache was sitting down opposite me, smiling.
Sandy got up and went out of the room.
Moustache said nothing, just smiled.
My right hand throbbed blood and pus.
Sandy came back with a blanket and put it over my shoulders.
He sat down and took out a pack of JPS, offering one to Moustache.
Moustache took out a lighter and lit both their cigarettes.
They sat back and blew smoke at me.
My hands began to twitch.
Moustache leant forward and dangled the cigarette over my right hand, rolling it between two fingers.
