1977

I turned and there she was.

‘I’m sorry,’ I wept.

Carol said, ‘I love you, Jack. I love you.’

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Sunday 12th June 1977

Chapter 15

In the dream I was sitting on the sofa again, on the wasteground, the sofa thick with blood, the blood seeping into my clothes and into my skin and next to me, sat beside me, was that journalist jack Whitehead, blood running down his face, and I looked down and Bobby was on my knee in his blue pyjamas holding a big black book and he started to cry, and I turned to jack Whitehead and said, ‘It wasn’t me.’

She’s asleep on the big hard chair next to mine, Bobby back home with next doors.

I get up to go, knowing he’s going to die, knowing it’ll be the minute I’m gone, but knowing I can’t stay, can’t stay knowing:

Knowing I’ve got to find those files, find those files to find him, find him to stop him, stop him to save her, save her to end these thoughts.

Knowing I’ve got to end these thoughts of Janice.

Knowing I’ve got to end these thoughts of Janice, end these thoughts of Janice to end everything, end everything to start again HERE.

Here with my wife, here with my son, here with her dying father.

My new deal, new prayer:

Stop him to save her,

Save her to start again.

To start again.

HERE.

She opens her eyes.

I nod morning and apologies.

‘What time did you get here?’ she whispers.

‘After I knocked off, about eleven.’

‘Thanks,’ she says.

‘Bobby with Tina?’ I ask.

‘Yeah.’

‘She mind?’

‘She’d say if she did.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ I say, looking at my watch.

She moves to let me pass, then catches my sleeve and says, ‘Thanks again, Bob.’

I bend down and kiss the top of her head. ‘See you later,’ I say.

‘See you,’ she smiles.

I drive from Leeds to Wakefield, the Ml Sunday morning quiet, radio loud:

Eighty-four arrested outside the Grunwick Processing Laboratories in Willesden. The Metropolitan Police accused of unnecessary brutality, aggressive and provocative tactics.

I park on Wood Street, another shower starting, not a soul to be seen.

‘Bob Fraser, from Millgarth.’

‘And what can I do for you, Bob Fraser from Millgarth?’ asks the Sergeant on the desk as he hands back my card.

‘I’d like to see Chief Superintendent Jobson, if he’s about?’

He picks up the phone, asks for Maurice, tells him it’s me, and sends me up.

I knock twice.

‘Bob,’ says Maurice, on his feet, hand out.

‘Sorry to barge in like this, without ringing.’

‘Not at all. It’s good to see you Bob. How’s Bill?’

‘Just come from the hospital actually. Not much change though.’

He shakes his head. ‘And Louise?’

‘Bearing up as ever. Don’t know how she does it.’

And we slip into a sudden silence, me seeing that taut boned body in its striped pyjamas sipping tinned fruit off a plastic spoon, seeing him and Maurice, the Owl, with his thick lenses and heavy rims, the pair of them taking thieves, pulling villains, breaking skulls, cracking the Al Shootings, getting famous, Badger Bill and Maurice the Owl, like something out of one of Bobby’s books.

‘What’s on your mind, Bob?’

‘Clare Strachan.’

‘Go on,’ he says.

‘You know Jack Whitehead? He gave me these, got them off Alf Hill in Preston,’ and I hand him the Wakefield file references.

Maurice reads them, looks up and asks, ‘Morrison?’

‘Clare Strachan’s other name.’

‘Right, right. Her maiden name, I think.’

‘You knew?’

He pushes the frames up the bridge of his nose, nodding. ‘You pulled them?’

Less sure, I hesitate and then say, ‘Well, that’s half of why I’m here.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ve been pulled.’

‘And?’

I swallow, fidget, and say, ‘This is between us?’

He nods.

‘John Rudkin took them.’

‘So?’

‘They’re not in her file at Millgarth. And he’s never even mentioned them.’

‘You spoken to him?’

‘I haven’t had chance. But there’s another thing as well.’

‘Go on.’

I take another deep one. ‘I went over to Preston with him a couple of weeks ago, and we went through all the files.’

‘About Clare Strachan?’

‘Yeah, and we were to take copies back. Anything we didn’t have, anything we might have missed. And, anyway, I saw one of the files he was taking back and he’d taken the originals, not copies.’

‘Could’ve been a mistake?’

‘Could have been, but it was the Inquest.’

‘The Coroner’s Report?’

‘Yeah, and the blood grouping looked wrong. Like it had been typed in later.’