1980

‘Peter Hunter?’ shouts out the woman behind the bar, waving a telephone about -

And I’ve got my hand up, crossing the room.

She hands the phone across the bar -

‘This is Peter Hunter,’ I say into the receiver.

Him, that voice: ‘You alone?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘How do you know?’

I pause, replaying the route, scanning the room – the eyes and the stares – and then I say: ‘I am. Are you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Near enough.’

‘Where?’

‘Step outside, walk up the hill, turn left onto Frenchwood Street.’

‘And?’

But the phone is dead.

I walk up Church Street, the top of the multi-storey car park looming over the hill, the rain cold upon my face.

I turn left onto Frenchwood Street, a row of garages on the left side of the road, wasteland to the right, and I walk towards the last garage, the door banging in the wind, in the rain.

I pull back the door and there he is, standing among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, leaning against a bench made from crates and boxes.

‘Afternoon,’ says a young man in a dirty black suit -

Face puffed and beaten, punctured and bruised, a plaster across a broken nose, one hand bandaged, the other pulling lank and greasy hair out of blue and black eyes.

‘Who are you? You got a name?’

‘No names.’

I shrug, touching my own cuts: ‘What happened to you?’

He’s sniffing and touching his nose: ‘Occupational hazard. Goes with the places I go.’

I look away, looking around the garage, the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, the chipboard walls, the rusting cans and the broken bottles, the rotting rags and the soiled papers, the splattered chipboard walls -

The swastikas.

Staring at him in the dark room, I ask him: ‘Is that what you wanted to talk about? The places you go? This place?’

‘You been here before, have you Mr Hunter?’

I nod: ‘Have you?’

‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘Many times.’

‘Were you here the night of Thursday 20 November 1975?’

He pushes his hair back out of his beaten eyes, smiling: ‘You should see your fucking face?’

‘Yours isn’t that good.’

‘How’s that song go: if looks could kill they probably will?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I do,’ he says and hands me a folded piece of paper.

I open it and look at it, then back at him -

He’s smiling, smiling that faint and dreadful smile.

I look back down at the piece of paper in my hands -

A piece of black and white Xeroxed paper -

A piece of black and white Xeroxed pornography -

Fat and blonde, legs and cunt -

Clare Strachan.

Across the top of the page, in black felt-tip pen:

Spunk, Issue 3, January 1975.

Across the bottom, in black felt-tip pen:

Murdered by the West Yorkshire Police, November 1975.

Across her face, in black felt-tip pen:

A target, a dartboard.

I look back up at him, standing there among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers, leaning against a bench made from crates and boxes, face puffed and beaten, punctured and bruised, a plaster across his broken nose, one hand bandaged, the other picking at his scabs, his sores -

Itching and scratching at his scabs and his sores, running -

Running scared.

He smiles and says: ‘Here comes a copper to chop off your head.’

‘You do this?’ I ask.

‘What?’

‘Any of it?’

He shakes his head: ‘No, Mr Hunter. I did not.’

‘But you know who did?’

He shrugs.

‘Tell me.’

He shakes his head.

‘I’ll fucking arrest you.’

Shaking his head: ‘No, you won’t.’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘For what?’

‘Wasting police time. Withholding evidence. Obstruction. Murder?’

He smiles: ‘That’s what they want.’

‘Who?’

Shaking his head: ‘You know who.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Well then, you’ve obviously been overestimated.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning a lot of people seem to have gone to a lot of bother to make sure you’re not in Yorkshire and not involved with the Ripper.’

‘So why do they want you arrested?’

‘Mr Hunter, they want me dead. Arresting me’s just a way to get their hands on me.’

‘Who?’

He shakes his head, smiling: ‘No names.’

‘Stop wasting my time,’ I hiss and open the door -

He lunges over, slamming the door shut: ‘Here, you’re not going anywhere.’

We’re chest to chest, eye to eye in the dark room, among the bottles and the cans, the rags and the newspapers.

‘Start fucking talking then,’ I say, the Xerox up between us and in his face -

He pushes the paper away, a hand up: ‘Fuck off.’

‘You called me? Why?’

‘I didn’t bloody want to, believe me,’ he says, moving back over to the bench of crates and boxes. ‘I had serious doubts.’

‘So why?’

‘I was going to just post the picture, but then I heard about the suspension and I didn’t know how long you’d