1977

‘He’s not here. I want to go home.’

‘The fuck was that?’ Noble’s shouting at Craven. ‘You said you could fucking deliver her…’

‘Ask fucking Fraser.’

‘Tuck off,’ says Rudkin. ‘Nowt to do with us.’

Craven’s spewing, spit in his beard, the lot of us jammed into Noble’s office, Oldman wedged behind the desk, pitch black outside, same inside:

‘She grasses for you, doesn’t she?’

‘So fucking what,’ says Ellis and I know then he’s been shagging her.

And so does Craven: ‘You fucking her Mike? Taking a leaf out of his book,’ he yells, pointing my way.

Me with a feeble: ‘Fuck off.’

Noble’s shaking his head, staring round the room at us, ‘Right fucking balls-up.’

‘OK. Now what?’ asks Rudkin, looking from Noble to Oldman.

‘Total fucking cock-up.’

‘We can’t let the cunt just walk. He’s our man, I know it,’ says Ellis.

‘He’s not going anywhere but down,’ says Noble.

‘Fucking know it,’ Ellis is saying.

Rudkin looking to George, ‘So what then?’

Oldman:

‘Do it the hard way’

He’s naked on his knees, on the floor, in the corner, holding his balls, body bloody.

My arms are weak.

‘Come on,’ Rudkin is screaming, over and over, again and again, screaming, ‘Where the fuck were you?’

I was searching for a whore.

He’s crying.

Ellis, fists into Fairclough’s face, ‘Tell us!’

I was searching for a whore.

He’s crying.

‘You murdering fucking cunt. She wasn’t a slag. She was a good girl. Sixteen fucking years old. From a good Christian family. Never even had a bloody fuck! A child, a bloody child.’

I was searching for a whore.

He just keeps crying, face like Bobby, no noise, just tears, mouth open, crying, like a child, a baby.

‘The truth. Give us the fucking truth!’

I was searching for a whore.

Just crying.

Rudkin picks him up off the floor, rights the chair and ties him to it with our belts, taking out his cigarette lighter.

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

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

Crying.

Rudkin flicks the lighter open and Ellis and me, we take a leg each and keep his knees apart as Rudkin puts the flame to Donny’s tiny little balls.

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

Screaming.

The door flies open.

Oldman and Noble.

Noble: ‘Let him go!’

Us: ‘What?’

Oldman: ‘It’s not him. Let him fucking go.’

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Thursday 9th June 1977

Chapter 12

Silence.

A hot, dirty, red-eyed silence.

Twenty-four hours for the four of us.

Oldman was staring at the letter in his hands, the piece of flowered cloth in another plastic envelope on the desk, Noble avoiding me, Bill Hadden biting a nail in his beard.

Silence.

A hot, dirty, yellow, sweaty silence.

Thursday 9 June 1977.

The morning’s headlines stared up from the desk at us:

RIPPER RIDDLE IN MURDER OF RACHEL, 16 .

Yesterday’s news.

Oldman put the letter flat on the desk and read it aloud again:

From Hell.

Mr Whitehead,

Sir, this is a little something for your drawer, would have been a bit of stuff from underneath but for that dog. Lucky cow.

Up to four now they say three but remember Preston 75, come my load up that one. Dirty cow.

Anyway, warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.

Maybe do one for queen. Love our queen.

God saves

Lewis.

I have given advance warning so its yours and their fault.

Silence.

Then Oldman: ‘Why you Jack?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why’s he writing to you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He’s got your home address,’ said Noble.

Me: ‘It’s in the book.’

‘It’s in his, that’s for sure.’

Oldman picked up the envelope: ‘Sunderland. Monday’

‘Took its time,’ said Noble.

Me: ‘Bank Holiday. The Jubilee.’

‘Last one was Preston, right?’ said Hadden.