1977

He’s nodding, rubbing his throat.

‘Or I’ll come back and I will fucking kill you.’

In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone on the street.

I dial again, no Louise.

I dial again and again, no Louise.

I dial the hospital but they won’t put me through.

I dial York and ten minutes later the Sister tells me Mr Ronald Prendergast died this morning of the haemorrhage caused by the injuries sustained during the robbery.

I look up and see the sky through the trees.

See more rain.

I dial again, no Louise.

I dial again and again, no Louise.

I dial the hospital but they hang up.

Fuck Karen Burns.

Fuck Joe Rose.

Fuck Ronald Prendergast.

Fuck the fucking Ripper.

Fuck Maurice.

Fuck Bill.

Fuck Louise.

Fuck them all.

She’s gone:

I’m gone

In hell.

Battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me.

In hell in a stolen car.

Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall, out of the Bradford HQ at Jacob’s Well, and that’s where I am, Jacob’s Well, waiting in a stolen car, his car, Eric’s car, the one I took from his drive out in Denholme:

No-one home, the taxi gone, my money with it.

Round the back of Eric’s little castle, through the rain on the panes, the nets and the gaps in the curtains, kicking in his back door, through the stink of the family pets, the family photos, into his study with the big windows and views of the golf course, through his boxes of medals, his old coins, looking for anything, any piece of Janice, any little piece of her, finding nothing, taking the housekeeping and the keys to his brand new Granada 2000 in Miami fucking blue.

Cunt.

Down the Halifax Road, on to Thornton Road, through Allerton and into Bradford, one road straight to Jacob’s Well.

Radio on:

‘Mr Clive Peterson, the sub-postmaster at Heywood Road, Rochdale, was found unconscious early this morning after challenging intruders on his premises. Police on both sides of the Pennines were examining the possibility of a link to a similar series of crimes in the Yorkshire area.

‘Mr Ronald Prendergast of New Park Road, Selby, died this morning having failed to regain consciousness after he disturbed intruders at his sub-post office on 4 June. Mr Prendergast is the second sub-postmaster to have been killed in as many months. A spokesman for the Post Office said…’

Cunts.

Foot down.

One road straight to him, to Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall.

Cunt.

In an empty Bank Holiday car park, trying to think straight, trying to get some quiet in my brain, the rain drumming on the roof, the radio droning on:

‘The RAC described conditions as the worst in years

Bitter winds and rain forecast.

‘Weather is the only enemy to the biggest party in twenty-five years…’

Wanting a party of my own, getting out of Eric’s car to find a phone box.

In hell in a stolen car, the lights all red.

I’m sat on the bonnet of his brand new Miami-blue Granada 2000, waiting for him.

He comes across the deserted car park, a sheepskin coat in summer, rain flattening his thin fair hair and crap ‘tache, and he sees me, clocks the car, his car, and starts running, about to go fucking mental like I knew he would, and it hits me then how far I’ve come and it can’t be more than 5 p.m. on Monday 6 June 1977, but it hits me then there’s no way back from here.

This is where I am:

‘You fucking cunt,’ he’s screaming. ‘That’s my fucking car. How you, what the…’ and he pushes me off the bonnet on to the ground, jumping on top of me, the pair of us rolling about in the puddles, him punching me once in the side of the head.

But that’s all he’s getting.

I hit back, once, twice, getting him down, the side of his face flat on the car park tarmac:

‘Fuck is she, Eric?’

He struggles, but when he speaks his lips bleed into the floor.

I pull him up by the thin bits of shit he calls hair:

‘Fuck is she?’

‘How the fuck I know, you cunt. She’s your fucking tart…’

I smash his skull down into the ground and pull it back and his eyes are rolling about and I’m thinking stop it, stop it, stop it, you can’t do that again, you can’t do that again, you cannot do that again or you’ll kill him, you’ll kill him, you will kill him, and there’s blood pouring from his scalp and I’m fucked here and I grip his face between my hands until he focuses and I say:

‘Eric, don’t make me do that again.’

And he’s nodding but I don’t know what that means.

‘Eric, I know you were pimping her.’

And he’s still nodding but it could mean fucking anything.

‘Eric, come on.’

And I slap him across his pink fat cheeks with the bits of car park stuck there between the broken blood vessels and fucked-up blood pressure.

‘Eric…’

He’s coming back, the nodding slowing.

‘Eric, I know what you were doing, so just tell me where she is?’

He looks at me, the whites of his eyes red-streaked nicotine, the blacks wide in the blue, and through the spit he says:

‘I pimped her before. She asked me…’

My fists clench, he flinches, but I stop:

‘Eric, the truth…’

There are tears running down him.

‘It’s the truth.’

I pick him up, the pair of us falling about like a couple of ballroom drunks.

I lean him against the bonnet of his Miami-blue Granada 2000: