Then I took bags of fertiliser and put them on top of the bags of cement.
I sat on the bags and felt my legs and feet go cold.
I got up and picked a padlock and a key off the work-bench.
I got up and went out of the shed. I closed the door and locked it with the padlock.
I ran down the field, throwing the key off into the mud.
The door to Number 16 was still ajar,
I went inside and took a shit.
I turned off the TV.
I sat on their sofa and thought about Paula.
Then I went through their rooms and all of their drawers.
I found a shotgun in the wardrobe and boxes of shells. I wrapped it in a bin bag and went out to the car. I put the shotgun and the shells in the boot of the Maxi.
I went back to the bungalow and had a last look around, then I locked the door and went down the path.
I stood by the wall and looked up at the black row of sheds, the rain on my face, me covered in mud.
I got in the car and drove away.
4 LUV .
All for love.
Shangrila, raindrops falling from its gutters, crouched alone against the worn grey sky.
I parked behind another dirty hedge on another empty road and walked up another sad drive.
It was sleeting and I wondered again if it made a blind bit of difference to the giant orange fish in the pond and I knew George Marsh was suffering and that Don Foster must have suffered too and I didn’t know how that made me feel.
I wanted to go and see those big bright fish, but I kept on walking.
There were no cars in the drive, just two wet pints of milk sitting on the doorstep in a wire-frame basket.
I felt sick and scared.
I looked down.
I had a shotgun in my arms.
I pressed the doorbell and listened to the chimes echo through Shangrila, thinking of George Marsh’s bloody cock and Don Foster’s bloody knees.
There was no answer.
I pressed the doorbell again and started knocking with the butt of the gun.
Still no answer.
I tried the door.
It was open.
I went inside.
“Hello?”
The house was cold and almost quiet.
I stood in the hallway and said again, “Hello?”
There was a low hissing noise followed by a repeated dull click.
I turned left into a large white living room.
Above an unused fireplace there was an enlarged black and white photograph of a swan taking off from a lake.
She wasn’t alone:
On every table, on every shelf, on every windowsill, wooden swans, glass swans, and china swans.
Swans in flight, swans asleep, and two giant swans kissing, their necks and bills forming a big love-heart.
Two swans swimming.
Bingo.
Even down to the matchboxes above the empty fireplace.
I stood staring at the swans, listening to the hissing and the clicking.
The room was freezing.
I walked over to a big wooden box, leaving muddy footprints on the cream carpet. I put down the shotgun and lifted up the lid of the box and picked the needle off the record. It was Mahler.
I turned around suddenly, looking out across the lawn, thinking I could hear a car coming up the drive.
It was just the wind.
I went over to the window and stood looking down at the hedge.
There was something down there, something in the garden.
For a moment, I thought I could see a brown-haired gypsy girl sitting under the hedge, barefoot with twigs in her hair.
I closed my eyes, opened them, and she was gone.
I could hear a faint drumming sound.
I stepped back on to a deep cream rug, kicking a glass that was already lying on its side in a damp stain. I picked it up and placed it on a swan coaster on a glass coffee table, next to a newspaper.
It was today’s newspaper, my newspaper.
Two huge headlines, two days before Christmas:
RL STAR’S SISTER MURDERED.
COUNCILLOR RESIGNS.
Two faces, two sets of dark newsprint eyes staring up at me.
Two stories, by Jack fucking Whitehead and George Greaves.
I picked up the paper, sat down on a big cream sofa, and read the news:
The body of Mrs Paula Garland was found by police at her Castle-ford home early Sunday morning, after neighbours reported hearing screams.
Mrs Garland, thirty-two, was the sister of Wakefield Trinity forward Johnny Kelly. In 1969, Mrs Garland’s daughter Jeanette, aged eight, disappeared on her way home from school and, despite a massive police hunt, has never been found. Two years later, in 1971, Mrs Garland’s husband Geoff committed suicide.
Police sources told this correspondent that they are treating Mrs Garland’s death as murder and a number of people are believed to be helping police with their enquiries. A news conference has been sched uled for early Monday morning.
Johnny Kelly, twenty-eight, was unavailable for comment.
The dark newsprint eyes, Paula not smiling, looking already dead.
William Shaw, the Labour leader and Chairman of the new Wake-field Metropolitan District Council, resigned on Sunday in a move that shocked the city.
In a brief statement, Shaw, fifty-eight, cited increasing ill-health as the reason behind his decision.
Shaw, the older brother of the Home Office Minister of State Robert Shaw, entered Labour politics through the Transport and General Workers’ Union. He rose to be a regional organiser and repre sented the T.G.W.U. on the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
A former Alderman and active for many years in West Riding politics, Shaw was, however, a leading advocate of Local Government reform and had been a member of the Redcliffe Maud Committee.
Shaw’s election as Chairman of the first Wakefield Metropolitan District Council had been widely welcomed as ensuring a smooth transition during the changeover from the old West Riding.
Local Government sources, last night, expressed consternation and dismay at the timing of Mr Shaw’s resignation.
Mr Shaw is also Acting Chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Authority and it is unclear as to whether he will continue.
Home Office Minister of State Robert Shaw was unavailable for comment on his brother’s resignation. Mr Shaw himself is believed to be staying with friends in France.
