1977

‘You’re fucking joking?’

‘No.’

‘What’s going to happen to Eric?’

‘He’s been sent home for a bit.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Craven’s shitting himself. Reckons Leeds’ll be next.’

I start to smile.

‘Don’t think for a moment Eric’ll forget.’

I nod.

Rudkin stands up.

I say, ‘Thanks, John.’

‘You won’t thank me, not when see what he did last night.’

‘But thanks for helping me.’

‘She’s gone, Bob. Go back to your family and everything’ll be all right.’

I nod.

‘I can’t hear you,’ he says.

‘OK,’ I say.

Oldman stands up, looks at us, like this is all he ever sees.

No days off.

We wait, but it’s not like before.

The game’s over.

‘At about 5.45 a.m. this morning, the body of Rachel Louise Johnson, sixteen years of age, shop assistant, of 66 St Mary’s Road, Leeds 7, was found in the adventure playground compound, between Reginald Terrace and Reginald Street, Chapeltown, Leeds. She was last seen at 10.30 p.m. Tuesday 7th June in the Hofbrauhaus in the Merrion Centre, Leeds.

‘She is described as follows: five feet four inches with proportionate build, shoulder-length fair hair and wearing a blue-and-yellow check gingham skirt, a blue jacket, dark blue tights and high-heeled clog-fronted shoes in black and cream with brass studs around the front.

‘A post-mortem is being carried out by the Home Office Pathologist, Professor Farley. So far as can be ascertained the deceased had been subjected to violent blows about the head with a blunt instrument and had not been sexually assaulted.

‘The body had been dragged a distance of some fifteen or twenty yards from where the initial assault took place. Her assailant’s clothing will be heavily bloodstained, particularly the front of any jacket, shirt, or trousers worn by him.

“There is no evidence that Rachel Louise Johnson was an active prostitute.’

Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman sits down, his head in his hands, and we say nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing until Detective Chief Superintendent Noble stands up in front of the board, the board that says in big bold letters:

Theresa Campbell.

Clare Strachan.

Joan Richards.

Marie Watts.

Until he stands there and says, ‘Dismissed.’

Noble looks up and says, ‘What about Fairclough?’

‘We lost him,’ says Rudkin.

‘You lost him?’

Ellis is burning a hole into the side of my face.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s my fault, sir,’ I say.

Noble has his hand up, ‘Whatever. Where is he now?’

Ellis says, ‘At home. Asleep.’

‘Then you’d better go and fucking wake him up, hadn’t you.’

He’s on his knees, on the floor, in the corner, hands up, nose bloody.

My body weak.

‘Come on,’ shouts Rudkin. ‘Where the fuck were you?’

I was battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people.

‘Working,’ he screams.

Ellis, fists into the wall, ‘Liar!’

I was raping whores, fucking them up the arse.

‘I was.’

‘You murdering bastard. You tell me now!’

I was breaking into houses, stealing cars, beating up cunts like Eric Hall.

‘I was working.’

‘The fucking truth!’

I was searching for a whore.

‘Working, I was fucking working.’

Rudkin picks him up off the floor, rights the chair and sits him in it, nodding at the door.

‘You fucking sit here and you think about where the fuck you were at two o’clock this morning and what you were bloody doing?’

I was on the floor of the Redbeck, in tears.

We’re standing outside the Belly, Noble staring through the peephole into the cell.

‘What’s the cunt doing?’ asks Ellis.

‘Not much,’ says Noble.

Rudkin looks up from the end of his cigarette, asks, ‘What next?’

Noble comes away from the hole, the four of us in a prayer circle. He looks up at the low ceiling, eyes wide like he’s trying not to cry, and says:

‘Fairclough’s the best we got for now. Bob Craven’s out pulling in witnesses, Alderman’s door-to-door, Prentice is down the cab firm. Just keep at him.’

Rudkin nods and stamps out his cigarette, ‘Right then. Back to work.’

Rudkin and I sit down across the table from Donny Fairclough, Ellis leaning against the door.

I sit forward, elbows on the table: ‘OK, Don. We all want to go home, right?’

Nothing, head down.

‘You do want to go home, don’t you?’

A nod.

‘That makes four of us. So help us out, will you?’

Head still down.

‘What time did you clock on yesterday?’

He looks up, sniffs, and says: ‘Just after lunch. One-ish.’

‘And what time did you finish?’

‘Like I said, about one in morning.’

‘And what did you do then?’

‘I went to a party.’

‘Where? Whose?’

‘Chapeltown, one of them kind. I don’t know whose it was.’

‘You remember where?’

‘Off Leopold Street.’