1977

Hill too:

‘Shit.’

Rudkin holds it up to the light, turns it over, and hands it to Detective Chief Superintendent Hill.

Rudkin picks up the phone and dials.

Hill has sucked his lower lip in, waiting.

‘B,’ says Rudkin into the phone.

There’s a long silence.

Eventually Rudkin repeats, ’9 per cent of the population.’

Another silence.

‘Right,’ says Rudkin and passes the phone to Alf Hill.

Hill listens, says, ‘Will do,’ and puts down the phone.

I stand there.

They sit there.

No-one speaks for about two whole minutes.

Rudkin looks up at me and shakes his head like, this can’t be fucking happening.

I say, ‘What is it?’

‘Farley pulled some semen stains off the back of Marie Watts’s coat.’

‘And?’

‘Blood group B.’

9 per cent of the population.

It’s somewhere around eight or nine in the evening, the light still with us.

My eyes, my shoulders, my fingers ache from the writing.

The phone from here to Leeds hasn’t stopped:

Panic Stations.

Rudkin keeps looking up at me like, this is fucked, and I swear sometimes there’s bloody blame there.

We keep at it:

Transcribing, copying, checking, re-checking, like a gang of fucking monks hunched over some holy books.

Me, I keep thinking, didn’t Rudkin fucking know this? What the fuck were him and Craven doing over here?

Ellis is just sat there scribbling away, totally blown away, head spinning like the fucking Exorcist.

I sketch the scene, the boot and the coat, and I look up and say, ‘I’m going to go back up there.’

‘Now?’ says Ellis.

‘We’re missing something.’

‘We going to stay night?’ asks Rudkin.

We all look at our watches and shrug.

Rudkin picks up the phone.

‘I’ll sort you out,’ says Frankie.

‘Somewhere nice, yeah?’ calls Rudkin, a hand over the receiver.

Up Church Street, the light almost gone, a train snaking out the station.

Yellow lights, dead faces at the glass.

Searching, looking for the lost, trying to find a Thursday night two years ago:

Thursday 20 November 1975.

It had rained during the day, helping keep Clare in the pub, the one at the bottom of the hill, St Mary’s, same name as the hostel.

To the left the multi-storey and Frenchwood Street.

I cross the road.

A car slows behind me, then passes.

A tramp on the corner, asleep on a bed of cans and newspapers.

He reeks.

I light up and stand over him, looking down.

He opens his eyes and jumps:

‘Don’t eat my fingers please, just my teeth. Take them, they’re no use to me now. But I need salt, have you got any salt, any at all?’

I walk past him, down Frenchwood Street.

‘SALT!’ he screams after me. ‘To preserve the meat.’

Shit

The street is dark now.

Estimates put the time of death between eleven and one. About the time she was thrown out of the pub.

The street would have been darker, after the rain, before the wind got going.

The bricks beside the garage have practically given up, wet even now with damp in May.

And then I feel it again, waiting.

I pull open the door.

It’s there, laughing:

You just can’t keep away, can you?

I’ve got a torch in my hand and I switch it on.

She’s pulling up her skirt, taking down her tan tights, letting the flab of her thighs fall loose.

I sweep the room, the weight pressing down.

I’m not going to be able do this.

There’s music, loud, fast, dense, from a car outside.

She’s smiling, trying to make it hard.

The music stops.

I’ll make it hard.

Silence.

I turn her round, pull down the black shiny briefs with their white streaks, and I’m getting bigger now, better, and she’s backing on to me.

There’s rats in here.

But I don’t want that, I want this: her arse, but she reaches round and moves me towards her huge fucking cunt.

Big fucking rats at my feet.

And I’m in her and then I’m out again and she’s slipped on to her knees…

Outside, I puke, fingers in the wall, bleeding.

I look up the street, no-one.

I wipe away the spit and shit, sucking the blood from my fingers.

‘SALT!’ comes the scream.

I jump.

Fuck.

‘To preserve the meat.’

The tramp’s standing there, laughing.

Cunt.

I push him back into the wall and he stumbles, falls over, staring up at me, into me, through me.

I swing my fist down into the side of his face.

He goes into a ball, whimpering.

I punch him again, a disconnected blow that bounces my fist off the back of his head and into the wall.