1977

Frustrated I kick him and kick him and kick him again until there are arms around me, holding me tight, and Rudkin is whispering, ‘Easy Bob, easy’

In a corner of the Post House, I’m begging, pleading into a phone:

‘I’m sorry, we thought it’d be just a day trip and back but they want us to…’

She’s not listening and I can hear Bobby crying and she’s telling me I’ve woken him up.

‘How was your Dad?’

But it’s how the fuck do I think he is and apparently I don’t fucking care so I needn’t even waste my breath.

She hangs up.

I stand there, the smell of fried food from the restaurant, listening to everyone in the bar: Rudkin, Ellis, Frankie, and about five other Preston coppers.

I look down at my fingers, my knuckles, the scuffs on my shoes.

I pick up the phone and try Janice again, but there’s still no answer.

I look at my watch: gone one.

She’s working.

Fucking.

‘They’re bloody closing up, can you fucking believe it?’ says Rudkin on his way to the bogs.

I go back into the bar and drink up.

Everyone’s pissed, really pissed.

‘You got any fucking decent clubs round here?’ says Rudkin coming back, still doing up his fly.

‘Think we could manage something,’ slurs Frankie.

Everyone tries to stand, talking about taxis, and this place and that, telling stories about this bloke and that lass.

I break away and say, ‘I’m going to hit the hay’

Everyone calls me a fucking puff and an arse bandit and I agree and feign drunkenness as I stumble off down the low-lit corridor.

Suddenly Rudkin’s got his arms round me again. ‘You all right?’ he asks.

‘I’ll be right,’ I say. ‘Just knackered.’

‘Don’t forget, I’m always here.’

‘I know’

He tightens his grip: ‘Don’t be afraid, Bob.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of this,’ he says, waving at everything and nothing, pointing at me.

‘I’m not.’

‘Piss off then, you puff,’ he laughs, walking off.

‘Have a good time,’ I say.

‘It’ll make you blind,’ he shouts down the corridor. ‘Like Old Walter.’

A door opens and a man peers out at me.

‘What you fucking want?’

He closes the door.

I hear the lock turn, him check it.

I knock on his door hard, wait, and then walk off to my room, digging the key into my arm.

Sat on the edge of the hotel bed in the middle of the night, the lamp on, Janice’s phone ringing and ringing, the receiver beside me on the sheet.

I go over to Rudkin’s bed and pick up the file.

Turn the pages, the copies we’re to take back.

I come to the Inquest.

I stare at that single, lonely, bloody letter.

Wrong, the B looks wrong.

I hold the paper over the lamp.

It’s the original.

Shit -

Rudkin’s left them with the copy.

I put the paper back and close the file.

Pick the receiver up from the bed.

Janice’s phone’s still ringing.

I put it down.

I pick up the paper again.

Put it down again.

I switch off the lamp and lie there in the dark of the Preston Post House, the room unbearably fucking hot, everything heavy.

Scared, afraid.

Missing something, someone.

At last I close my eyes.

Thinking, don’t be afraid.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Wednesday 1st June 1977

Chapter 4

The court is a narrow yard of six houses, whitewashed up to the first storey, the windowframes showing the remnants of green paint. Entrance to the court is obtained through an arched, tunnel-like passage which runs between numbers 26 and 27 Dosset Street, both of which are owned by a Mr John McCarthy, a 37- year-old naturalised British subject born in France. Number 27, to the left of the passage, is McCarthy’s chandler’s shop, but the building doubles above and behind as a lodging house. Number 26 is also a lodging house and the rear ground floor has been partitioned, so that a second room has been created. This is her room, number 13.

It’s small, about twelve feet square, and is entered through a door at the right-hand side of the passage at the furthest end from the street. Apart from the bed, there are two tables, another smaller table and two dining-type chairs, one of which has a broken back. A fierce fire has been burning in the grate and the ashes disclose the remains of clothing. Above the fireplace opposite the door hangs a print entitled The Fisherman’s Widow. In a small wall cupboard next to the print there’s some crockery, some empty ginger beer bottles, and a piece of stale bread. A man’s pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window, one of two looking out into the courtyard at right angles to the door of the room.

I woke before the light, the rain clattering against the window, ladies’ heels down a dark alley.

I sat up in the sheets to see them perched upon the furniture, six white angels, holes in their feet, holes in their hands, holes in their heads, stroking their hair and wings.

‘You’re late,’ said the tallest one, coming over to my bed.

She lay down beside me and took my hand, pressing it against the walls of her stomach, hard beneath the white cotton cloth of her gown.

‘You’re bleeding,’ I said.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It’s you.’