1977

O Lord, why do you cast me off?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Wretched and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dread assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

from all sides they close in on me.

You have caused friend and neighbour to shun me;

my companions are in darkness.

Fucking and murders with hammers, the nails in His hand, fucking and murders with screwdrivers, the nails in His feet, fucking and murders, the tears in their eyes, fucking, the tears in His, murders, tears in mine.

‘We can go upstairs right now and it’ll all be over.’

And I ran from the Cathedral, through the double wooden doors, running from the hammer, through the hot black streets, running from Him, through the red bunting, the white and blue all gone, running from them all, through 5 June 1977, running.

Oh Carol.

And then finally I stood before the Griffin, my clothes in flames, hands and eyes to the sky, shouting:

‘Carol, Carol there’s got to be another way.’

The office was dead.

I sat down at my desk and I typed:

RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN

Police yesterday stepped up the hunt for the so-called Yorkshire Kipper, the man police believe could be responsible for the murders of four prostitutes and assaults upon three other women, following a fourth attack on Saturday morning.

Mrs Linda Clark, aged thirty-six of Bierley, Bradford, was attacked on wasteland off Bowling Back Lane, Bradford, following a night out at the city’s Mecca Ballroom.

Mrs Clark suffered a fractured skull and stab wounds to her stomach and back, after accepting a lift from a driver on the Wakefield Road. Mrs Clark will undergo a second operation later this week.

The police issued the following description of the vehicle and the driver they would like to question in relation to the attack upon Mrs Clark:

The man is white, approximately thirty-five years old, about six feet tall and of a large build. He has light brown shoulder-length hair and thick eyebrows. He was driving a white or light-coloured Ford Cortina Mark II with a black roof. Police urged any member of the public with information to contact the Bradford Incident Room direct on 476532 or 476533 or their local police station as a matter of some urgency.

I stopped typing and opened my eyes.

I walked upstairs and placed the sheet of paper in Bill’s tray.

I started to walk away but then I turned back, took out my pen and in red ink I wrote across the top:

It’s not him.

I walked down the steps and out of the dark and into yet more. The Press Club, Sunday- night busy.

George Greaves, head down on the table, the laces of his boots tied together, Tom and Bernard struggling to light their own fags.

‘Busy day?’ said Bet.

‘Yep.’

‘He’s keeping you on your toes, this Ripper of yours.’

I nodded and tipped the Scotch down my throat.

Steph squeezed my elbow. ‘Another?’

‘Just to be sociable.’

‘Not like you, Jack,’ she laughed.

Bet filled the glass again. ‘Don’t know, he had a visitor earlier.’

‘Me?’

‘Young guy, skinhead.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. I’ve seen him before, but for life of me I can’t remember his name.’

‘Did he say what he wanted?’

‘No. Another?’

‘Only sociable, I suppose.’

‘That’s the spirit.’

‘I’ll say,’ I said and downed the next one.

I paused upon the stair and then opened the door.

The room was empty, the windows open, my dirty curtains booming like grey sails on a big old Bride Ship bound for a New World, the warm night air fingering through me.

I sat down and poured myself another taste of Scotland, drank it, and picked up my book but began to drowse.

And that was when she came to me, there in the foothills I thought so fucking high, like I’d come so very, very far.

She put her hands over my eyes, cold as two dead stones:

‘Did you miss me?’

I tried to look round but I was so weak.

‘Did you miss me, Jackie boy?’

I nodded.

‘Good,’ and she put her mouth on mine.

I fled her tongue, her hard long tongue.

She stopped, her hand on my cock.

‘Fuck me, Jack. Fuck me like you fucked that whore before.’

The road consists of six narrow garages, each splattered with white graffiti, the doors showing remnants of green paint. They lie off Church Street, the garages forming a passage to the multi-storey car park at the other end. All six garages are owned by a Mr Thomas Morrison who died intestate and the garages have thus fallen into disrepair and disuse. Number 6 has become a home of sorts for the homeless, destitute, alcoholics, drug-addicted and prostitutes of the area.

It’s small, about twelve feet square, and entered through either of the double doors at the front. There are packing cases for tables, piles of wood and other rubbish. A fierce fire has been burning in a makeshift grate and the ashes disclose the remains of clothing. On the wall opposite the door is written The Fisherman’s Widow in wet red paint. In every other space are bottles, sherry bottles, bottles of spirits, beer bottles, bottles of chemicals, all empty. A man’s pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window, the only one, looking out on nothing.

I woke, his breath still warm and rank upon my pillow.

They had my books off my shelves, strewn across the room, all my little Jack the Ripper books, the whole bloody lot of them, and my tapes too, they had them out of my bottom drawer, all of my little tapes in all of their little cases with all of their neat little dates and places, all of them strewn across the room, my cuttings too.

She flew across the room, a scrap of paper between her teeth:

Preston, November 1975.

I was on my feet on my bed then on the floor on my knees:

I suffer your terrors; I am