1977

I hung up.

I looked at my watch:

Just gone six.

Slight change of plan.

Down the hall and back into records.

Back into 1974.

I spun the microfilm again, through the reels and over the lights.

Into Tuesday 24 December 1974.

Evening Post, Front Page:

3 DEAD IN WAKEFIELD XMAS SHOOT-OUT

Sub-headed:

Hero Cops Foil Pub Robbery

A photograph -

The Strafford, the Bullring, Wakefield.

A horrific shoot-out late last night in the centre of Wakefield left three people dead and three seriously injured in what police are describing as ‘a robbery that went wrong.’

According to a police spokesman, police were called after shots were reported at the Strafford Public House in the Bullring, Wakefield, at around midnight last night. The first officers on the scene were Sergeant Robert Craven and PC Bob Douglas, the two officers who last week were commended for their part in the arrest of the man suspected of the murder of Morley schoolgirl Clare Kemplay.

When the two officers entered the Strafford they discovered a robbery in progress and were shot and beaten by unidentified gunmen, who then escaped.

Members of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police’s Special Patrol Group arrived minutes later to find the two hero cops and another man suffering from gunshot wounds and three people dead.

Roadblocks were immediately set up on the Ml and M62 in all directions and checks ordered at all ports and airports but, as yet, no arrests have been made.

Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas were described as being in ‘a serious but stable condition’ in Wakefield’s Pinderfield Hospital.

Police are refusing to release the names of the dead until the next-of-kin have been contacted.

An Incident Room has been set up at Wood Street Police Station, Wakefield, and Detective Superintendent Maurice Jobson appealed for any member of the public with information to contact him in confidence as a matter of urgency. The number is Wakefield 3838.

I pressed print and watched those big lies, those outstanding lies come out.

Watched that by-line:

BY JACK WHITEHEAD, CRIME REPORTER OF THE YEAR

The Duck and Drake, in the gutters of the Kirkgate Market.

A gypsy pub, in the shadows of the Millgarth Nick.

Eight o’clock.

I took my pint and my whisky to the table by the door and waited, a plastic bag on the other seat.

I tipped the whisky into the pint and drank it down.

It had been a long time, maybe too long, maybe not long enough.

‘Same again?’

I looked up and there was Bob Craven.

Detective Inspector Bob Craven.

‘Bob,’ I said, standing up, shaking hands. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘Bloody Zulus got a bit restless up Chapeltown couple of weeks ago.’

‘You all right?’

‘Will be when I get a pint,’ he grinned and went off to the bar.

I moved the plastic bag on to my lap and watched him at the bar.

He brought two pints over and then went back for the whiskies.

‘Been a while,’ he said, sitting down.

‘Three years?’

‘Only that long?’

‘Aye. Seems like a lifetime,’ I said.

‘A lot of water under the bridge. A bloody lot.’

‘Last time must’ve been before Strafford then?’

‘Must have been. Straight after that’d have been Exorcist business you had, yeah?’

I nodded.

He sighed: ‘Fucking hell, eh? Things we’ve seen.’

‘How’s the other Bob?’ I asked.

‘Dougie?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well out of it, isn’t he?’

‘You weren’t tempted then?’

‘Pack it in?’

I nodded.

‘What the fuck else would I do? And you?’

I nodded again. ‘But what about Bob, what’s he do?’

‘He’s all right. Put his comp into a paper shop. Does all right. See him and I’m not saying there aren’t times when I wish it had been me who took the bullet. You know what I mean?’

I nodded and picked up my pint.

‘Little shop, little wife. You know?’

‘No,’ I shrugged. ‘But tell him I was asking after him, won’t you?’

‘Oh, aye. He’s still got your piece up on wall. We Salute You, that one.’

I sighed, ‘Only three years, eh?’

‘Another time, eh?’ he said and then picked up his pint. ‘Here’s to them; other times.’

We touched glasses and drained them.

‘My shout,’ I said and went back to the bar.

At the bar, I turned and watched him, watched him sitting there, watched him rubbing his beard and flicking at the dust on his trousers, picking up the empty pint glass and putting it down again, watched him.

I brought the drinks over and sat back down.

‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Enough Memory bloody Lane. What they got you on these days?’

‘Ripper,’ I said.

He paused, then said, ‘Yeah, course.’

We sat there, silent, listening to the noise of the pub: the glasses, the chairs, the music, the chat, the till. Then I said, ‘That’s why I called you actually’

‘Yeah?’

‘Ripper, yeah.’

‘What about the cunt?’

I handed him the plastic bag. ‘Bill Hadden got this in morning post.’

He took the bag and peeked inside.

I said nothing.

He looked up.