1980

After a few minutes, I stand up and go into the bathroom and change my clothes and wash the blood from my face and my hair, off my hands, rinsing the sink clean after I’m done, clean of the brown water.

‘Helen?’ I say, banging on her door -

I keep knocking: ‘Helen?’

I try the door -

Locked -

Fuck.

Downstairs in the lobby of the Griffin, I ring the bell -

‘Can you tell me if Miss Marshall is in?’ I ask the receptionist.

He looks down his list and turns to the keys hanging on the pegs behind him and then looks back at me and shakes his head: ‘She’s out.’

I’m about to go but then ask him: ‘Any messages?’

‘Mr Hunter?’

I nod.

‘I believe your wife called a number of times last night.’

‘That all?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m sure.’

It takes the best part of an hour to Levenshulme, the rain sleet then snow then sleet then rain, the roads empty, the landscape dead.

At ten o’clock, local radio tells me the news:

‘An explosion last night destroyed a newsagents and badly damaged adjoining premises on the Bradford Road, Batley. Nine people were taken to hospital to be treated for shock and cuts caused by flying glass. One person had to be kept in for further treatment. Fire officers are investigating claims that the explosion was caused by gas canisters sold at the newsagents.

‘Many shops will again close early tonight as police continue to investigate a call made to the Daily Mirror from a man claiming to be the Yorkshire Ripper and threatening to kill again today. Meanwhile police released a new description and photofit of the man seen in the Alma Road vicinity of Headingley at the time police estimate Laureen Bell was brutally murdered.

‘The man is described as…’

I switch off the radio -

I know what he looks like.

I park on their road in the nice part of Levenshulme, the part on the way out to Stockport, the Exegesis on my lap, listening to the tapes in my head:

Robert Charles Douglas: October 12, 1946 – born Mirfield, West Yorks; April 1964 – joins Bradford police; August 1973 – marries Sharon Pearson; February 1974 – daughter Karen born; December 17, 1974 – arrests Michael Myshkin; December 24, 1974 – shot and wounded Strafford Arms, Wakefield; October 13, 1975 – forced to retire from West Yorkshire Police. Moves to Manchester.

Stop -

Rewind:

Bradford police -

Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall -

Bradford Vice.

Rewind:

‘Trust your Uncle Bob.’

Thinking -

Uncle Bob?

Wondering -

Detective Inspector Robert Craven -

Or former policeman Robert Douglas -

Stop.

I take a couple of painkillers for my back -

Then I put a couple of copies of Spunk in a carrier bag and I get out, lock the door, and walk up their road through the slight rain to their detached house.

There are no lights on, no car in the drive.

I walk up to the front door and ring the bell and wait -

A woman’s voice from behind the patterned glass says: ‘Yes?’

‘Mrs Douglas?’

‘Yes?’

‘Police, love.’

I hear the chain go on and then the door opens -

Sharon Douglas peers through the gap and over the chain: ‘Police?’

‘Yes,’ I nod, showing her my identification.

‘This about Bob and Karen?’

‘Yep, in a way. Can I come in?’ She takes the chain off and opens the door -

I step inside the dark detached house. ‘Go through,’ she says, nodding at the lounge door to the right -

I go into the lounge with it’s unframed Degas print, the Christmas cards and the tree, the photos of their daughter, the TV on, the sound off.

‘Sit down,’ she says -

I sit down on the big settee.

She sits down in one of the matching chairs next to an electric fire with artificial glowing coal -

Mrs Douglas is still red and black around her eyes, but no longer bloated with tea and sympathy; good-looking, she’s got short blond hair, like Lady Diana Spencer, purple trousers and a black sweater.

I say: ‘There was a fire in Batley last night at the newsagents your husband owns.’

‘They called in the night,’ she nods.

‘Who did, love?’

‘The police,’ she nods again, fighting back the tears: ‘I wanted to go over there, to the shop, but I’ve no car have I?’

‘Family, friends, give you a lift?’

‘Not local, no.’

‘Where you from?’

‘Bradford.’

‘Manchester born and bred me,’ I say. ‘Live out at Alderley Edge.’

She smiles: ‘Nice.’

‘We like it,’ I say. ‘Miss it, do you? Being a Yorkshire lass, stuck over here with us pagans?’

She nods again.

I say: ‘Will you go back?’

She shakes her head, biting her lip.

‘You shouldn’t be on your own.’

‘It’s too soon to go,’ she says. ‘All her things are here, her toys, all his stuff.’

I ask: ‘Why did you move over this way?’

‘Bob,’ she says. ‘Wanted to get away’

‘From Yorkshire?’ I smile. ‘Can’t say I blame him.’

She smiles politely, eyes dead and blank.

I ask: ‘Were you married long?’

‘Seven years.’