1983

I open it -

A school photograph:

Blue-sky background -

Eyes and smile shining up in my face;

One pair of mongol eyes -

One crooked little smile:

Jeanette Garland.

‘It was in his wallet,’ says Oldman. ‘His fucking wallet.’

Ronald Angus stands between me and George Oldman. He already smells of whiskey. He puts an arm around each of our shoulders.

I try to move away.

Angus grips my shoulder. He says: ‘He did it, Maurice.’

I look at him.

‘You know it in your heart,’ he says.

I turn. I walk down the corridor -

‘In your heart,’ shouts Angus.

I walk past Room 1 -

Jimmy Ashworth still sat at the table, long lank hair everywhere. He is crying.

So am I -

In my heart.

Back upstairs they’re choosing Myshkin a solicitor, calling in Clive McGuinness and a thousand fucking favours, the talk now of Chivas Regal and press conferences, new tankards and trophies, like we’re some gang of monkeys who’ve just found their own arses without a fucking map, but I’m still wishing there’d been no amalgamation, no West Yorkshire fucking Metropolitan Police, wondering where the fuck the Badger is -

‘Maurice?’

Ronald Angus is looking at me -

My Chief Constable.

‘Pardon?’

‘I said, George will do the Press Conference if you’ve no objections.’

I stand up. I say: ‘None whatsoever.’

‘Where you off now?’ asks George.

‘Well, if you’ve no objections,’ I say. ‘I thought someone ought to go up the pervert’s house and get some fucking evidence. If that is you’ve no objections?’

Out of Wakefield and up the Doncaster Road, past the Redbeck -

Blue lights spinning, the sirens screaming like the undead but buried -

Screaming all the way into Fitzwilliam -

Dick shouting: ‘You remember him, yeah?’

Nodding -

‘You know who nicked him?’

Nodding -

‘You know who they got him for a solicitor?’

Nodding -

‘You think he did it?’

Foot down -

‘I fucking hope he did.’

Foot down, nodding.

One, two, three, four -

Five o’clock:

54 Newstead View, Fitzwilliam -

Three police cars and a van, parked angular -

Doors open, hammers out -

His mam and his dad at the front door in their nightclothes -

Dick knocking them to one side on to their tiny front lawn -

Shouting: ‘We have a warrant to -’

Old man Myshkin coughing his blood and guts up, her screaming -

I give her a slap. I push them both back inside -

‘Upstairs,’ I say to Dick and Jim Prentice -

Old man Myshkin, hands full of stringy blood trying to comfort his wife -

I push them down into their tatty old sofa. ‘Sit down and shut up!’

‘Where’s Michael?’ she’s crying. ‘What have you done to Michael?’

‘Boss,’ says Dick -

Dick and Jim are standing in the doorway:

Jim is holding up a huge drawing of a rat -

A rat with a crown and wings -

Swan bloody wings.

Dick with a box full of photographs -

Photographs of ten or twelve young girls -

The windows look inwards, the walls listen to your heart;

School photographs -

Where one thousand voices cry;

Eyes and smiles shining up in my face -

Inside;

Ten pairs of blue eyes -

Inside your scorched heart;

Ten sets of smiles -

There is a house;

That same blue-sky background -

A house with no door;

One pair of mongol eyes -

The earth scorched;

One crooked smile -

Heathen and always winter.

100 miles an hour out of Fitzwilliam and down into Castleford, the undead but buried spinning and howling -

Spinning and howling all the way into Castleford -

Dick shouting: ‘You tell Oldman where we’re going?’

Shaking my head -

‘You called Bill, didn’t you?’

Shaking my head -

‘You think we should call him?’

Shaking my head -

‘I fucking hope you know what you’re doing?’

Foot down, shaking.

Heathen and always winter -

The car slows down. It bumps over the rough ground. It stops.

I chuck Dick and Jim their black balaclavas: ‘Put them on when you get inside.’

I stuff my balaclava in my coat pocket.

I hand them a hammer each.