1977

I swallowed the last of my lunch, the first in a long time. ‘If it’s the same fellow, he’ll want you to know.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

I drove back to Leeds, the long way, stopping for a third pint at the Halfway House.

‘Not at all. Secrets should stay secret.’

And another.

Radio on:

Princess Anne greeted by noisy protesters as she opens the Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, police urged not to cooperate on new complaints procedure, Asian man given three years for killing white man.

Three years, that’s all it had been.

It was Wednesday 1 June 1977.

The office Derby-crazy.

Gaz was shouting, ‘What you got, Jack?’

‘Haven’t looked.’

‘Haven’t bloody looked? Come on, Jack. It’s the Derby. Jubilee Derby at that.’

‘Your common people’s race,’ echoed George Greaves. ‘None of your Royal Ascot here.’

‘They reckon there’ll be over a quarter of a million there,’ said Steph. ‘Be great.’

I opened up the paper, hiding the file.

Bill Hadden looked over my shoulder and whistled, ‘Minstrel five to one.’

‘It’ll be Lester’s eighth Derby if he does it,’ said Gaz.

I wanted to fold up the paper, but I didn’t want to see the file again. ‘Can’t see him not, can you?’

‘Go on, Jack. Back Baudelaire,’ smiled Bill.

I made an effort. ‘What you fancy George?’

‘A large one.’

‘Slap him Steph,’ shouted Gaz. ‘Can’t let him talk about you, like that.’

‘You hit him, Jack,’ laughed Steph.

‘Royal Plume,’ said George.

‘Who’s on it?’

‘Joe Mercer,’ said Gaz.

George Greaves was talking to himself. ‘Royal Plume in Jubilee year, it’s fate.’

‘Come on, Jack. I want to get down there before they’re in the stalls.’

‘Hang on, Gaz. Hang on.’

‘Milliondollarman?’ laughed Steph.

‘Can’t fucking rebuild Jack, can they,’ said Gaz.

I said, ‘Hot Grove.’

‘Carson and Hot Grove it is,’ said Gaz, out the door.

An hour later, Piggott had won his eighth Derby and we’d all lost.

We were down the Press Club, drowning our sorrows.

George was saying, ‘Trouble with racing is it’s like sex, great build-up but it’s all over in two minutes thirty six point four four seconds.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Gaz.

‘Unless you’re French,’ winked Steph.

‘Yeah, they don’t even have a great build-up.’

‘What would you know George Greaves,’ screamed Steph. ‘You haven’t had it in ten years and bet then you never took your socks off.’

‘You told me not to, said they turned you on.’

I picked up the file and left them to it.

‘Should’ve backed it for a place, Jack,’ shouted Gaz.

Grey evening sky, still hot with the rain to come, leaves green and stinking, tapping on my window like I LOVE YOU.

The moon down, the file open.

Murders and Assaults Upon Women in the North of England.

Sugar spilt, milk spoilt.

Mind blank, eyes hollow.

Unlucky stars fallen to the earth, they mocked me with their idiot lines, taunted me with their playground rhymes:

Jack Sprat who ate no fat.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.

Little Jack Horner, sat in his corner.

Jack and Jill went up the hill.

No Jill, the Jills all gone, just Jacks.

Jack in a box, Jack the lad.

Jack, Jack, Jack.

Yeah, I’m Jack.

Union Jack.

The same room, always the same room:

The ginger beer, the stale bread, the ashes in the grate.

She’s in white, turning black right down to her nails, hauling a marble-topped washstand to block the door, falling about, too tired to stand, collapsed in the broken-backed chair, spinning, she makes no sense, the words in her mouth, the pictures in her head, they make no sense, lost in her own room, like she’s had a big fall, broken, and no-one can put her together again, messages: no-one receiving, decoding, translating.

‘What shall we do for the rent?’ she sings.

Just messages from her room, trapped between the living and the dead, the marble-topped washstand before her door.

But not for long, not now.

Just a room and a girl in white turning black right down to her nails and the holes in her head, just a girl, hearing footsteps on the cobbles outside.

Just a girl.

I woke panting, burning, sure they’d be waiting.

They smiled and took my hands and feet.

I closed my eyes and let them rip me right back into that room, the same room, always the same room -

Different times, different places, different towns, different houses, always the same room.

Always that same bloody room.

The body is lying naked in the middle of the bed, the shoulders flat, the axis of the body inclined to the left side of the bed. The left arm is close to the body with the forearm flexed at a right angle, lying across the abdomen. The right arm is slightly abducted from the body and resting on the mattress, the elbow bent and the forearm supine with fingers clenched. The legs are wide apart, the left thigh at right angles to the trunk, the right forming an obtuse angle with the pubes.

The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs has been removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera. The breasts cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck have been severed all round, down to the bone.

The viscera are in various parts viz: the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the bed, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side, and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs are on the table.