1980

panting, just questions, questions, questions, Papps pushing Hook back down the long, long corridor, for help, help, help, panting, Papps pushing down on Whitehead’s chest, breathe, breathe, breathe, panting, pushing open his mouth, kissing him, kiss, kiss, kiss, panting, then pushing me back into the wall, more questions, questions, questions, pushing down on his chest again, thump, thump, thump, panting, more feet down the long, long corridor, doctor, doctor, doctor, panting, Hook to me to Hook to Papps to Hook to me to Papps, questions, questions, questions, panting -

Just questions -

Questions and no answers.

Standing on the gravel in the cold drizzle, the bare trees and empty nests, watching the blue lights take him away, the woman in white from behind the desk handing Papps his blue blazer as he gets in the back of the ambulance with Jack for the short ride next door.

We walk to our cars.

‘Inspector!’ shouts the woman in white -

We both turn and she comes across the gravel to hand me two pieces of paper:

‘Leonard’s address,’ she says. ‘And Dr Papps said you wanted a list of Jack Whitehead’s visitors.’

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘You’re welcome,’ she smiles, but she doesn’t mean it, she can’t, why would she.

Lit match, gone -

Dark Jack.

Lit match, gone -

Like dark Jack, out -

Seeing through her eyes: Winter, collapse -

Dark Jack.

Winter, collapse -

Like dark Jack, out -

Seeing through her eyes:

1980 -

Out, out, out.

Millgarth, Leeds -

Outside the Ripper Room:

‘Inspector Craven? Can I have a word?’

‘Certainly Assistant Chief Constable Hunter,’ he says, saluting.

I walk over to the top of the stairs, Craven limping behind.

‘See much of Bob Douglas, do you?’ I ask him.

‘Every now and again, why?’

‘And how’s he doing?’

‘Fine. Last I heard.’

‘You’re not in touch much then?’

‘On and off, like I say. Less so now he’s over your way’

‘What’s he up to?’

‘Think it’s security work these days.’

‘Before that?’

‘When he quit he -’

‘When was that?’

‘75 sometime. He didn’t want to, mind – they made him.’

I nod: ‘So what did he do?’

‘Got a ton of brass, didn’t he? Bought a shop.’

‘A shop?’

‘Yeah, but he was never anything to do with any of this,’ he says, waving back over at the Ripper Room. ‘Before his time.’

‘I know.’

‘So why the sudden interest?’

‘He’s dead, Inspector.’

‘What?’

‘They found his body and that of his daughter in Manchester yesterday’

‘His body? What are you talking about?’ says Craven, pulling at his beard.

‘The bodies of Bob Douglas and his daughter.’

‘How? How did they die?’

‘They were murdered.’

Detective Inspector Robert Craven is swaying back and forth on his heels, shaking his head, eyes back and forth across my face, then over my shoulder -

I turn around and there’s John Murphy -

He looks from me to Craven and back again and says: ‘You heard then?’

‘Yep,’ I say, glancing back at Craven. ‘I was there.’

‘Christ,’ says Murphy.

‘Yep.’

‘His little lass and all?’

I nod.

Craven looks at us both and says: ‘Can you give me ten minutes?’

‘Forget it, Bob,’ I say. ‘You’ve had a shock, go home.’

He shakes his head: ‘Ten minutes.’

In the upstairs room again, our room -

The one next to his -

With the dead again, always the dead -

Alec McDonald says: ‘Tracey Livingston, Preston, Saturday 7 January 1978.’

Eyes upon the table top, upon the notebooks and the files.

Tracey left the Carlisle Hotel in the centre of town after last orders Saturday night. Her body was discovered in her flat the next day. She was thirty-three years old and had three kids. She was also a convicted prostitute.

‘Death was due to four blows to the head with an instrument that has yet to be recovered. There were also stab wounds to the abdomen and back, though these would not have proved fatal.

‘Alf Hill was in charge.’

In the upstairs room, silence -

Then Alec says: ‘You want me to go on?’

I nod -

And so he says: ‘On the Sunday evening, her friend Bob Jenkins came round for her. They had arranged to go out for a drink. When there was no answer, he was concerned enough to break down the door. He saw blood on the hall floor and followed the trail into the bedroom. Tracey was in bed, apparently sleeping. Jenkins pulled back the blankets to find her dead, covered in blood. His words not mine. The caretaker called the police.

‘Alf quickly contacted George Oldman, and Yorkshire sent their boys over. Like with us and Doreen Pickles, it was a combined investigation.’

Alec looks up from his notes: ‘You were there yeah, Bob?’

Craven nods, eyes red bloody raw.

Alec: ‘Anything you want to say?’

Craven: ‘It was full-on.’

‘Full-on? How do you mean?’

‘Well, it was Alf Hill’s show. Had the works; reconstructions, TV, radio, even a bloody sйance.’ Murphy: ‘A