I looked at him.
‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said.
I followed him into the black Market, into the shadows of the stalls, the evening wind blowing the rubbish and the stink in with us.
Deep in the dark heart, Craven stopped by a stall and took out the magazine.
‘Page is marked,’ I said.
He turned the pages.
I waited -
Heart cracking, ribs breaking.
‘Who knows about this?’ he asked, his back to me.
‘Just me and Bill Hadden.’
‘You know who this is, don’t you?’
I nodded.
He turned round, the page open and dangling from his hand, his face black and lost in the shadows and the beard.
‘It’s Clare Strachan,’ I said.
‘You know who sent it?’
‘No.’
‘There was no note?’
‘No. Just what you got there.’
‘They’d marked the page though?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You still got the envelope?’
‘Hadden has.’
‘You remember when and where it was posted?’
I swallowed and said, ‘Two days ago in Preston.’
‘Preston?’
I nodded and said, ‘It’s him, isn’t it?’
His eyes flew across my face: ‘Who?’
‘Ripper.’
There was a smile deep in there, just for a moment, deep behind that beard.
Then he said quietly, ‘Why you call me, Jack? Why not straight to George?’
‘You’re Vice, yeah? Your neck of the woods.’
He stepped forward, out of the shadow of the stall, and he put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You did the right thing, Jack. Bringing this to me.’
‘I thought so.’
‘You going to print anything?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘Well then, I won’t.’
‘Not yet.’
‘OK.’
‘Thanks, Jack.’
I moved out of his grip and said, ‘What now?’
‘Another pint?’
I looked at my watch and said, ‘Better not.’
‘Another time, then.’
‘Another time,’ I said.
At the edge of the Market, out of the heart, the shit and the stink still strong, Detective Inspector Bob Craven said, ‘Give us a call, Jack.’
I nodded.
‘I owe you,’ he said.
And I nodded again – unending, this whole fucking hell unending.
The footnotes and the margins, the tangents and the detours, the dirty tabula, the broken record.
Jack Whitehead, Yorkshire, 1977.
The bodies and the corpses, the alleys and the wasteland, the dirty men, the broken women.
Jack the Ripper, Yorkshire, 1977.
The lies and the half-truths, the truths and the half-lies, the dirty hands, the broken backs.
Two Jacks, one Yorkshire, 1977.
Down the hall and back into records.
Into 1975.
I spun the microfilm one last time, through the reels and over the lies.
Into Monday 27 January 1975.
MAN KILLS WIFE IN EXORCISM
Sub-headed:
But I couldn’t read, couldn’t read another -
I dialled her flat.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up and dialled again.
No answer.
I hung up.
I pulled into the Redbeck car park and parked between the dark lorries, the empty cars, and switched off the radio with the engine.
I sat in the night, waiting, wondering, worrying.
I got out and walked across the car park, through the potholes and the craters, a black moon rising.
Outside Room 27, I paused, listened, knocked.
Nothing.
I knocked, listened, waited.
Nothing.
I opened the door.
Sergeant Fraser was lying on the floor in a ball, the chair and table splintered, the walls bare, lying on the floor in a ball under all the shit that had been up on the walls, lying on the floor in a ball of splintered wood, in a ball of splintered hell.
I stood in the doorway, the black moon over my shoulder, the night across us both.
He opened his eyes.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Jack.’
He raised his head to the door.
‘Can I come in?’
He opened his mouth slowly and then closed it again. I walked across the room to him and bent down. He was
