immediately came over to review the Theresa Campbell file, and John here and Bob Craven went over there last year after we got Joan Richards.’
Me thinking,
I glance across at him, he’s nodding, eager to butt in.
But Oldman’s keeping him out: ‘Now whatever you think, whether you count Clare Strachan in or not, we’re going to go back over to Preston and review that bloody file again.’
‘Waste of fucking time,’ spits Rudkin, at last.
Oldman’s going red, Noble’s face thunder.
‘I’m sorry sir, but me and Bob spent two days – was it? – over there last time and, I’m telling you, it’s not the same bloke. Wish it was, but it’s not.’
Ellis chiming in, ‘What do you mean you wish it was?’
‘Because he left so much fucking stuff behind him, it’s a wonder they haven’t nabbed the daft cunt already’
Noble snorts, like,
‘What makes you so sure it isn’t?’ asks Ellis.
‘Well, he’d raped her for a start and then he stuck it up her arse. Come both times, though I don’t know how he fucking did it. State of her.’
‘Ugly?’
‘Doesn’t begin to describe it.’
Ellis half-smiling, telling everyone what they already know: ‘Not like our boy. Not like him at all.’
Rudkin nods: ‘Just lets it fly in the grass.’
‘Anything else?’ I say.
‘Yeah then, when he’d had his fun, he jumped up and down on her until her fucking chest give in. Size ten wellies.’
I look at Oldman.
Oldman smiles and says, ‘Everyone finished?’
‘Yeah,’ shrugs Rudkin.
‘Good, because you don’t want to be late, do you?’
‘Aw, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Alf doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
‘Me again?’ Rudkin asks, looking round the room.
Noble points at Rudkin, Ellis, and me. ‘You three.’
‘What about Steve Barton and the Irish?’
‘Later, John. Later,’ says Oldman, standing up.
In the car park, Rudkin tosses the keys to Ellis. ‘You drive.’
Ellis looks like he’s going to come in his pants. ‘Sure,’ he says.
‘I’m going to get some kip,’ says Rudkin, getting into the back of the Rover.
The sun is shining and I switch on the radio:
‘Daft cunts,’ laughs Ellis.
I wind down the window and lean my head into the breeze as we pick up speed and head out on to the M62.
‘You know the fucking way?’ shouts Detective Inspector Rudkin from the back.
I close my eyes; 10CC and ELO all the way.
Somewhere over the Moors, I wake with a start.
The radio’s off.
Silence.
I stare at the cars and lorries on either side of us, the Moors beyond, and it’s difficult to think of anything else.
‘You should’ve seen it last February when I drove over with Bob Craven.’ Rudkin’s stuck his head between the front seats. ‘Got caught in a fucking blizzard. Couldn’t see owt but two foot in front. Fucking frightening it was. I swear you could hear them. We were shitting bloody bricks.’
Ellis glances from the road to Rudkin.
I say, ‘Alf Hill was one of the top men, wasn’t he?’
‘Aye. He was first to interview her. It was his men found the tapes and all.’
‘Fuck,’ whistles Ellis.
‘Hates her more than Brady.’
We’re all staring out across the Moors, at the sunshine shining silver, the dark patches of sudden cloud, the unmarked graves.
‘Never ends,’ says Rudkin, sitting back. ‘Never fucking ends.’
Half-nine and we’re pulling into the car park of the Lancashire HQ in Preston.
Detective Inspector Rudkin sighs and puts on his jacket. Trepare to be bored shitless.’
Inside, Rudkin does the talking at the desk as we shake hands, mention mutual friends, and walk up the stairs to Alf Hill’s office.
The uniformed Sergeant knocks on the door and we enter.
Detective Chief Superintendent Hill is a small man who looks like Old Man Steptoe after a rough night. He’s coughing into a dirty handkerchief.
‘Sit down,’ he spits into the cloth.
No-one shakes hands.
‘Back again,’ he grins at Rudkin.
‘Like a bad bloody penny, aren’t I?’
‘Wouldn’t say that John, wouldn’t say that. Always a pleasure, never a chore.’
Rudkin edges forward in his chair. ‘Anything new?’
‘On Clare Strachan? Not that springs to mind, no.’
He starts coughing again, pulls out the handkerchief, and eventually says, ‘You’re busy men I know, busy men. So let’s get on with it.’
We all stand up and head down the corridor to what I presume is their Murder Room, doors closing on either side of us as we go.
It’s a big room with big windows and a view of the hills above them and I’m pretty sure they had some of the Birmingham Pub Bombers here.
Alfred Hill pulls open a cabinet drawer. ‘Just where you left her,’ he smiles.
Rudkin is nodding.
There are other detectives in the room, sitting in their shirtsleeves smoking, the pictures of their dead watching, turning yellow.
Their lot, they eye us like we’d eye them.
Hill turns to one fat man with a moustache and tells him, ‘These lads are over from Leeds, reviewing Clare Strachan. If they need anything, give it to them. Anything at all.’
The man nods and goes back to the end of his cigarette.
‘Be sure to look in yeah, look in before you go,’ says Alf Hill as he heads off back down the corridor.
‘Thanks,’ we all say.
When he’s gone, Rudkin turns to the fat man and says, ‘You heard him Frankie, so go get us some pop or something cold. And leave your fags behind.’
‘Fuck off, Rudkin,’ laughs Frankie, tossing his JPS over to him.
Rudkin sits down, turns to me and Ellis and says, ‘Best get to work, lads.’
Clare Strachan: twenty-six going on sixty-two.
