‘Impossible,’ says Noble.
‘You’ve had him, you know you have.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘But somehow you’ve let him go.’
Silence -
Just the rain on the roof.
Noble leans forward and taps on the driver’s window -
The driver opens the door, shakes the rain from his umbrella and gets in, the smell of cigarettes and damp with him.
‘Millgarth,’ says Noble.
As the car pulls into the underground car park, I turn to Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Peter Noble and ask: ‘How did you catch Morris?’
‘Luck,’ he says. ‘Bloody luck.’
‘Bollocks, Pete,’ I say. ‘Bollocks.’
Alderman looks around in the front seat again, but Noble’s gone.
Back in our room, the one next to theirs, next to his, I close the door behind me.
They’re all there, plus Bob Craven, looking up from their work, waiting, expectant:
‘I should have said this before, but when you’re taking down all these names, can you denote the married ones.’
John Murphy smiles: ‘We have been.’
‘Thank you,’ I smile back, nodding: ‘Then let’s move on.’
Another Millgarth afternoon -
Dark outside, darker still in:
Another sйance -
Same ritual -
Round the table, hands and knees touching, more calls to the dead -
John Murphy this time, sheet-white with black-rings, calling them:
‘What a fucking year it was, 1977:
‘First up, Marie Watts, formerly Owens, thirty-two years of age, found dead Sunday 29 May on Soldiers Field, Roundhay; extensive head injuries, stab wounds to the abdomen, and a cut throat. Watts was a known prostitute and the connection with Campbell and Richards was obvious, leading to the formation of what was then known as the Prostitute Murder Squad. This was headed up by ACC Oldman, with Pete Noble the effective day-to-day gaffer.’
Murphy pauses, looking at Bob Craven, then continues:
‘As Bob said yesterday, it was the Watts murder where the press coined the Yorkshire Ripper moniker. Also when the first letter arrived. Plus the B type blood grouping taken from semen stains off Watts’ coat – it was them stains that linked in Clare Strachan in Preston and the letters, using saliva tests and the content of the letters and later the tape.’
Long pause, a deep, deep sigh, then:
‘The names, the numbers, the descriptions, the whole bloody lot, it’s all there and, to be honest if it hadn’t have been for what came next, who knows if we’d be sitting here today’
‘Skipping over, for now, the Linda Clark attack in Bradford, one week on from Marie Watts and the body of sixteen-year-old Rachel Johnson was found in the Reginald Street adventure playground on the morning of Wednesday 8 June, morning after the Jubilee. She had suffered appalling head injuries, though had probably died some time after the initial attack had taken place. She was not a prostitute, a ‘good-time girl’, or anything other than a sixteen-year-old Leeds shop assistant on her way home from a first bloody date.’
We’re all looking at the floor or the walls or the ceiling, our nails or our pens or our papers, anywhere other than Murphy and his files and photographs of her.
‘I’m sure,’ he says. ‘Like me, you remember her.’
‘Break,’ I say and stand up and walk out of the room, into the light of the corridor, through the phones and the typewriters, into the toilets and into a cubicle and throw up.
I am walking down the stairs, heading for a paper and some air, when there’s a hand at my elbow -
Bob Craven: ‘Mr Hunter?’
‘Yes?’
‘I wanted to ask you something?’
‘Go on.’
‘That business about noting down the married blokes, you’re saying you think he’s married?’
I look at Detective Superintendent Craven, the black beard and tick, the eyes to match -
I say: ‘You got time for a coffee, Bob?’
‘Have you?’
‘A quick one,’ I nod and we walk back upstairs to the canteen.
I bring over the coffees and sit down across the plastic table from him -
‘You take all this very seriously,’ I say.
‘Is there any other way?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that; what I mean is, you’re in deep.’
‘That a crime?’
‘No.’
He stops stirring his coffee and looks up: ‘I’ll be honest with you, it eats me up; same for a lot of the lads.’
‘Been a long time?’
‘Too long.’
‘You got any theories?’
He smiles: ‘Oh aye.’
‘Going to share them?’
‘With you?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that’s not why you’re here, is it Mr Hunter? Not really?’
‘What do you mean?’
The beard and eyes shining under the canteen lights: ‘It’s not just about Ripper, is it? It’s about seeing how many of us you can take down with him.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘It’s in your nature.’
I push the cup away and stand up: ‘I am here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to catch the Yorkshire Ripper.’
He’s staring up at me, almost smiling, smirking.
I should walk away, should leave him to it, but I don’t, I stay and I say: ‘There is a paranoia in this force, a paranoia that makes it dumb as well as blind.’
He’s smiling, laughing now, a white slash of teeth in the black beard.
I can’t walk away, can’t stop myself: “Unless that is, you have all got something to bloody hide.’
‘Like what?’ he’s staring up at me: ‘Like what?’
‘Fuck knows. Your stupidity?’ I say and regret it and know I always will.
‘Mr Hunter, I’ll tell you this: we’re going to catch our Ripper, not you.’
‘Then you’d better get a fucking move on,’ I say and turn and walk away.
‘Janice Ryan,’ says Murphy, and then stops, dead -
We all look up, the room cold and dark -
