1980

Fuck:

Gone two.

‘Pete?’

‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘Said, keep in touch mate.’

‘OK.’

I hang up and sprint downstairs, then shit -

Back up to our room again for the bag of Spunks -

Nods at Murphy and McDonald, weird looks from the pair of them -

Then back downstairs again, underground.

Snow -

At least they’ve given me a Saab -

I push out of Leeds, radio on:

‘Some shops are closing early today to allow staff to go home in daylight, this following a telephone threat to the Daily Mirror from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper, saying he would kill again today or tomorrow.’

Black snow -

The car freezing -

So this is Christmas?

Roads dead, coming down through Morley, thinking of Joanne Thornton, heading down into Batley, thinking of Helen Marshall -

And what have we done?

On to the Bradford Road, out of Batley itself and I can see the car up ahead, parked in the same spot -

I pull up a little way behind and lock the car and jog down the road, the snow now just a dirty cold grey rain, the long night coming down.

I tap on the driver’s door and look in -

No-one.

Fuck.

I try the door -

Locked.

I look up the road, down the road, across at RD News -

Deserted, the whole place, but for a steady stream of lorries in the rain.

Fuck, fuck.

And then I see her, coming out of the phonebox further up, her jacket over her head, running back towards the car in the lorry lights and sleet -

She sees me, jumps -

‘I was just calling you,’ she says, opening the car door, glancing back over at the newsagents.

‘Why? Something happened?’

‘No, no,’ she says, getting in and opening the other side for me -

We close the doors and sit there, the car cold and stale, her looking old and rough.

‘I just wanted to know when you’d be coming back,’ she says, embarrassed.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s been a bloody rotten day’

‘Laugh a minute here,’ she smiles.

‘Quiet?’

‘As the grave.’

‘You eaten anything?’

‘A pair of driving gloves and a map book.’

‘Sorry, should have brought something.’

‘I can last,’ she says.

I say: ‘You get off now.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll stay’

‘What time shall I come back?’

‘You’ve done enough.’

‘No, I want to.’

‘You sure?’

‘I wouldn’t say if I wasn’t.’

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘Is there anything else you want me to do?’

‘No, you better get something to eat, get some sleep.’

‘Think I’ve gone past sleep.’

‘Actually there is one thing,’ I say, taking out my notebook.

She’s smiling: ‘Thought there might be.’

‘Could you just ring Mrs Hall? Seemed to get on, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

‘Just see how she is.’

‘That it?’ she laughs. ‘See how she is?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I had this interview with a right pair from the Sunday Times. They said they’d been talking to her. You could just ask her about them?’

‘Ask her what about them?’

‘What they’d asked her, what she said.’

‘OK. The subtle approach?’

I tear out the page with Mrs Hall’s number on it -

‘It’s the top one,’ I say.

‘Who’s the other one?’

‘The Reverend Laws.’

‘I was just thinking about him,’ she says.

‘How awful for you.’

‘You don’t like him, do you?’ she asks.

‘No.’

‘Fair enough,’ she says.

I open the passenger door -

‘What time do you want me back?’ she asks.

I look at my watch and say: ‘Eleven, eleven thirty?’

She nods and starts the car: ‘See you then.’

‘Take care.’

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ she laughs as I close the door.

‘No,’ I say, and she pulls away, – gone.

Back in the Saab, I drive up the road for a bit until I’m opposite the park where I reverse into the drive of a house with an unlit Christmas tree in the window and then head back down past RDNews, parking near enough to be able to watch the upstairs window in the rearview mirror and the back of the alley in the wing, winding down the window a crack to stop the car steaming up and then I sit there, radio on, – listening, watching, waiting.

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