1977

church in need of repair.

He leant forward, the hat still between his fingers, and said, ‘I can help you.’

‘Like you helped Michael Williams?’

‘I can make it go away’

‘Well you certainly got rid of Carol.’

‘Make it stop.’

I looked down at his hat, at the long fingers white at the tips. ‘Jack?’

I said, ‘I want it to stop. To end.’

‘I know you do. And it will, believe me.’

‘Is there only that way. The one way.’

‘I have a room. We can go upstairs right now and it’ll all be over.’

I was staring at the old woman with the walking stick, at the child in the corner, the brochures and the paintings, the light fading.

Jubela, Jubelo…

‘Not today,’ I said.

‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘I know’

I walked back through City Square, the moon almost full up in the blue night sky, back through the Friday night boys and girls and the start of the Jubilee Weekend, its threat of rain and promise of a fuck, through City Square and back to the office, knowing what could have been in an upstairs room, back to what would be waiting in another, there on my desk in amongst the rain and the fucks.

It was already starting to spit a bit.

I put down the toilet lid and took the letter from my pocket.

I was thinking about fingerprints and what the police would say but then how would they expect me to know and I knew there wouldn’t be any anyway.

I stared again at the postmark: Preston.

Posted yesterday.

First-class.

I used the end of my pen to slit the top of the envelope.

Still using the pen, I prised the paper out.

It was folded in two, the red ink leaking through the underside, a lump between the sheets.

I opened it up and tried to read what he’d written.

I was shaking, vinegar in my eyes, salt in my mouth.

It wasn’t going to end like this.

‘I’ll call George Oldman,’ said Hadden, still staring at the piece of heavy writing paper on his desk, not looking at the contents to the side.

‘Right.’

He swallowed, picked up the phone and dialled.

I waited, the moon gone, the rain here and the night out.

It was late in the evening, one hundred years too late in the evening.

A uniformed copper had come straight over to the Yorkshire Post Building, bagged the envelope and contents, and then driven Hadden and me straight here, to Millgarth, where we’d been ushered up to Detective Chief Superintendent Noble’s office, George Oldman’s old one, where they sat, Peter Noble and George, waiting for us.

‘Sit down,’ said Oldman.

The uniform put the clear plastic bags on the desk and made himself scarce.

Noble picked up a pair of tweezers and laid out the envelope and letter.

‘You’ve both handled it?’ he asked.

‘Just me.’

‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take your prints later,’ said Oldman.

I smiled, ‘You’ve already got them.’

‘Preston,’ read Noble.

‘Posted?’

‘Looks like yesterday’

Both of them looked like they were off somewhere deep.

Hadden was on the edge of his seat.

Noble placed the letter back in the clear bag and pushed it over to George Oldman, followed by the envelope and smaller parcel.

He read:

From Hell.

Mr Whitehead,

Sir, I send you skin I took from one women, which I preserved for you. Other bits I fried and ate and it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that cut it off if you only wait a while longer.

You’d like that I know.

Catch me when you can.

Lewis.

No-one spoke.

After a while Noble said, ‘Lewis?’

‘It wouldn’t be his real name?’ asked Hadden.

Oldman looked up and stared across his desk at me. ‘What do you reckon, Jack? This genuine?’

‘It’s written as a pastiche of a letter sent to a man called George Lusk during the Ripper Murders in London.’

Noble shook his head. ‘It was you who wrote the Yorkshire Ripper article, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘It was me.’

‘Marvellous. Bloody marvellous that was.’

Oldman: ‘Leave it, Pete.’

‘No, thank you.’

Hadden: ‘Jack…’

‘But we’re going to get every fucking nut-job from here to Timbukbloodytu writing in. For fuck’s sake.’

Oldman: ‘Pete…’

‘It’s no nut-job. It’s him.’

‘No nut-job? Look at it. How the fuck can you sit there and say that?’

I pointed to the small parcel at his elbow, at the thin slice of skin cut from Mrs Marie Watts:

‘How much proof do you want?’

On the steps outside, in the middle of the night, I lit up.

‘What’s with you and Noble?’ Hadden asked.

‘I don’t care for him.’

‘You don’t care for him?’

‘Nor him me.’

‘You seem pretty bloody certain that letter’s genuine.’

‘What? You don’t think so?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Jack. I mean, how the bloody hell do you know what a letter from a mass murderer looks like?’

I opened the door and there they were, standing with their six white backs to me.

I took off my jacket and poured myself a glass of Scotland, sat down and picked up Edwin Drood.

They kept their backs to me, looking up at the moon.

I smiled to myself and began to whistle: