1977

The black man didn’t.

Craven got into his car and drove off.

I sat there.

Five minutes later, I got out and went into the newsagent’s.

Inside it was bigger than it looked, selling Calor gas and toys as well as papers and fags.

There was a young Pakistani behind the counter.

I said to him, ‘Who owns this place?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Who’s the boss? Is it you?’

‘No, why?’

‘I wondered if the flat above was for rent?’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘I’d like to put me name down if it ever comes up. Who would I see about that?’

‘Don’t know,’ he said, thinking about it, thinking about me.

I picked up a Telegraph & Argus and handed him the money.

‘Best speak to Mr Douglas,’ he said.

‘Bob Douglas?’ I nodded.

‘Yes, Bob Douglas.’

‘Thank you very much,’ I said and left, thinking:

‘They are outstanding police officers who have our heartfelt thanks.’

Thinking, fuck off.

The Pride, Bradford, just down from the Telegraph & Argus. Tom was already there, coughing into his beer at the bar.

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Sorry, springing this on you.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Awful having to drink with the enemy.’

‘Sit down?’ I said, nodding at the table by the door.

‘Not getting a drink?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said and ordered one and another for him.

We sat down.

‘Not very nice,’ I said. ‘That piece about the letter.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said, palms up, genuine.

I took a sip and said, ‘They’re hoaxes anyway.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘They’re not from the bloody Ripper, tell you that.’

‘We had them tested.’

‘We? Thought it was nowt to do with you.’

‘There was evidence and all.’

‘Fuck it. It wasn’t why I phoned.’

‘Go on,’ he said, relaxing, relieved.

‘I want to know about one of yours, Eric Hall?’

‘What about him?’

‘Been suspended, yeah?’

‘Him and rest of them.’

‘Right. What you got on him?’

‘Not much.’

‘You know him?’

‘Say hello, that way.’

‘You know this last one, this Janice Ryan?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, I got me a bloke saying she was Eric’s bird, that Detective Inspector Hall pimped her a bit and all.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yep.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me like but, these days, not much bloody would.’

‘So you don’t know anything else? Anything extra on him?’

‘They’re a law unto themselves, Bradford Vice. But it’s same with your lot, I bet.’

I nodded.

‘To be honest,’ he continued. ‘I always thought he was a bit on thick side. You know, at press conferences, after work.’

‘Thick enough to murder the prostitute he was pimping and try and make it look like a Ripper job?’

‘Be beyond him, mate. Out of his bloody league, he’d be. Never pull it off.’

‘Maybe he hasn’t.’

Tom was shaking his head, sniffing up.

I said, ‘How well do you know lasses over here?’

‘What you asking, Jack?’

‘Come on. Do you know them?’

‘Some.’

‘You know a Chinese lass, Ka Su Peng?’

‘The one that got away,’ he smiled.

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘What do you know about her?’

‘Popular. But you know what they say about a Chinky?’

‘What?’

‘An hour later and you could murder another.’

I knocked once.

She opened the door, said nothing, and walked back down the bare passage.

I followed her and stood there, there in her room, with its sticks of shit and stink of sex, and I watched her rubbing hand-cream into her fingers and into her palms, up her wrists and into her arms, down into her knees.

There were the spits of an afternoon rain on the window, the bright orange curtains hopeless in the gloom, her rubbing her childish knees, me staring up her skirt.

‘Is this the last fuck?’ she asked later, lying in the back bedroom with the curtains drawn against the rain, against the afternoon, against the Yorkshire life.

And I lay there beside her, looking up at the stains on the ceiling, the plastic light fittings that needed a wipe, listening to her broken words, the beat of her battered heart, alone and depressed with my come on her thighs, her toes touching mine.

‘Jack?’

‘No,’ I lied.

But she was crying anyway, the magazine open on the floor beside the bed, her top lip swelling.

I parked outside a nice house with its back to the Denholme Golf Course.

There was a blue Granada 2000 sat in the drive.

I walked up to the door and rang the bell.

A gaunt middle-aged woman answered the door, fiddling with the pearls around her neck.

‘Is Eric in?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m from the Yorkshire Post.’

Eric Hall came out of the living room, his face black and blue, nose bandaged.