Hard bloody crime reporting from the wrong side of the hills, from the wrong year:
1975:
Culled from clippings, torn from tape.
Two years going on two hundred.
The History Man.
Bye Bye Baby.
Start at the finish.
Begin at the end:
I slowed on Church Street, crawling up the road, looking for Frenchwood Street, looking for the garages, her garage.
I stopped by a multi-storey car park.
The car stank, my breath rank from no sleep, no breakfast, just a bellyful of bad dreams.
The clock on the dashboard said nine.
Rain, buckets of it drenching the windows.
I pulled the jacket of my suit over my head and got out and ran across the road to an open door swinging in the piss.
But I stopped before it, dead in my tracks, my jacket down, the rain in my face, flattening my hair, sick with the stench of dread and doom.
I stepped inside, out of the rain, into her pain.
Under my feet, under my feet I felt old clothing, a blanket of rags and paper, bottles brown and green, a sea of glass with islands of wood, crates and boxes, a workman’s bench he surely used for that piece of work, his job.
I stood there, the door banging, everything before me, behind me, under me, over me, listening to the mice and the rats, the wind and the rain, a terrible soul music playing, but seeing nothing, blind:
I was an old man.
An old man lost in a room.
‘You look like a drowned rat. How long you been out here?’
‘Not long,’ I lied and followed the barmaid inside St Mary’s, in out of the rain.
‘What can I get you?’ she asked, putting the lights on.
‘A pint and a whisky’
She went back behind the bar and started pulling my pint.
I took a stool at the cold early bar.
‘There you go. Sixty-five, please.’
I handed her a pound note. ‘Odd name for a pub.’
‘That’s what they all say, but place’s more like a church anyway. I mean, just look at it.’
‘Same name as that place down the road?’
‘The hostel? Yeah, don’t remind me.’
‘Get a lot of them in, do you?’
‘All we get,’ she said, handing me my change. ‘What line you in?’
‘I work for
‘Knew it. You’re here about that woman who got done in a couple of years ago? What was her name?’
‘Clare Strachan.’
She frowns. ‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. Knew her did you?’
‘Oh yes. They reckon now it could have been this Yorkshire Ripper, don’t they? Imagine if it was, I mean bloody hell, he was probably in here.’
‘She came in a fair bit then, Clare?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it. Get you another?’
‘Go on then. What was she like?’
‘Loud and pissed. Same as rest of them.’
‘Was she on game?’
She started wiping the top of the bar. ‘Yeah. I mean, they all are from that place.’
‘St Mary’s?’
‘Yeah. She was so out of it, I mean she probably gave it away.’
‘Police talk to you about her?’
‘Yeah. Talked to everyone.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Like I say, just that she came in here a lot, got pissed, didn’t have a lot of brass and what she had she probably got from selling it up on French.’
‘What did they say?’
‘Police? Nothing, I mean like what would they say?’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes they tell you what they’re thinking.’
She stopped wiping. ‘Here, you’re not going to put any of this in paper are you?’
‘No, why?’
‘I don’t want that bloody Ripper reading my name, do I? Thinking I know more than I do, thinking he better silence me or something.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to say anything.’
‘Bet you always say that though, you lot, don’t you?’
‘As God is my witness.’
‘Yeah, right. Another?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m looking for a Roger Kennedy?’
The young man in the dim corridor, in the black glasses, he was shaking, sniffing, shitting himself.
I asked him again: ‘Roger Kennedy?’
‘He doesn’t work here any more.’
‘Do you know where I could find him?’
‘No. You’ll have to come back when the boss is here.’
‘Who’s that then?’
‘Mr Hollis. He’s the Senior Warden.’
‘And what time will he be in?’
‘He won’t.’
‘Right.’
‘He’s on holiday. Blackpool.’
‘Nice. When does he get back?’
‘Next Monday, I think.’
‘Right. I’m sorry, my name’s Jack Whitehead.’
