1977

‘Just can’t keep away, can you?’ she laughed.

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘It’s only been a couple of hours.’

‘And I miss you.’

‘Me too. Thought you were going to Manchester?’

‘I am, maybe. Just thought I’d give you a ring.’

‘That’d be nice.’

I laughed and said, ‘Thanks for the weekend.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I’ll call you when I get back.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘Bye then.’

‘Bye, Jack.’

She hung up first and then I put down the telephone, picked up my pint and went to a copper-topped table over in the corner.

I had a hard-on.

I looked at my watch, wanting to make the twelve-thirty train at the latest.

If they hadn’t caught the cunt, that was.

I could hear the rain lashing the windows.

‘Call this bloody summer,’ said the barman across the room.

I nodded, drained my pint and went back to the bar and ordered two bitters and a packet of salt and vinegar.

Back at the table I looked at my watch again.

‘Best not be flat,’ said Sergeant Samuel Wilson, sitting down.

‘Fuck off,’ I said.

‘And a merry bloody Christmas to you too,’ he laughed, then said, ‘What fuck happened to your hand?’

‘Cut myself.’

‘Fuck were you doing?’

‘Cooking.’

‘Fuck off.’

I offered him a crisp. ‘So?’

‘What?’

‘Samuel?’

‘Jack?’

‘Fuck off, it’s not Come bloody Dancing is it?’

He sighed. ‘Go on, what you heard?’

‘You got a body in Bradford and a bloke for it over here.’

‘And?’

‘It’s Ripper.’

Wilson killed his pint and grinned, cream on his lips.

‘Samuel?’

‘How about another, Jack?’

I finished mine and went back to the bar.

When I sat back down, he’d taken off his raincoat.

I glanced at my watch.

‘Not keeping you am I, Jack?’

‘No, got be over in Manchester this afternoon though.’ Then I added, ‘Depending on what you tell me. If you’re going to tell me anything that is?’

He sniffed up, ‘So how much is a busy man like you prepared to give a poor working man like myself?’

‘Depends what you got, you know how it works.’

He took out a piece of folded paper and waved it in front of me. ‘Internal memo from Oldman?’

‘Twenty?’

‘Fifty.’

‘Fuck off. I’m just confirming what I’ve already heard. If you’d come straight to your old mate Jack yesterday, then that’d be a different story wouldn’t it?’

‘Forty.’

‘Thirty.’

‘Thirty-five?’

‘Show us.’

He handed me the paper and I read:

At twelve noon Sunday 12 June, the body of Janice Ryan, twenty-two years old, a convicted prostitute, was found secreted under an old settee on wasteground off White Abbey Road, Bradford.

A post-mortem has been carried out and death was due to massive head injuries caused by a heavy blunt instrument. It is thought that death occurred some seven days before due to the partial decomposition of the body.

It is also thought from the pattern of the injuries that this death is not connected, repeat not connected, with the other murders publicly referred to as the Ripper Murders.

At the present time no information is to be given to the press in regard to this crime.

I stood up.

‘Where you going?’

‘It’s him,’ I said and walked over to the telephone. ‘What about my thirty-five quid?’

‘In a minute.’

I picked up the telephone and dialled.

Her telephone rang, and rang, and rang:

Warn whores to keep off streets cause I feel it coming on again.

I hung up and then dialled again.

Her telephone rang, and rang, and -

‘Hello?’

‘Where were you?’

‘In the bath, why?’

‘There’s been another.’

‘Another?’

‘Him. In Bradford. Same place.’

‘No.’

‘Please, don’t go out. I’ll be over later.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as I can. Don’t go out,’

‘OK.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Bye.’

And she hung up.

I walked back across the pub, visions of bloodstained furniture, holes and heads:

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

I sat down.

‘You all right?’

‘Fine,’ I lied.