1983

Or maybe just me -

Just me.

Fuck him -

Fuck them all -

The bloody lot of them:

I am the Owl.

Prentice slams on the brakes:

It is 1.30 a.m. -

Tuesday 24 December 1974:

The Bullring -

Wakefield.

There is an ambulance and a couple of Pandas at the bottom of Wood Street -

Our two cars with all doors open;

Bill sat in the passenger seat of one car telling us how it’s going to be:

‘Dick and Jim, get up Wood Street and wait for the call. Start rewriting this; times, calls, the whole fucking thing.’

They nod. They go.

‘You hold the line here,’ he tells Rudkin. ‘Everyone out of sight, especially Brass.’

Rudkin nods.

Bill looks at his watch: ‘Put the call in for the SPG in three minutes.’

Rudkin nods again.

‘Me?’ asks Murphy.

‘You get fucking lost and fucking lost fast,’ hisses Bill. ‘Not your patch.’

He nods. He goes.

Bill looks at me -

I nod.

He stands up. He walks over to the back of the car -

I follow.

He hands me the Webley. He takes the L39 for himself.

He closes the boot of the car.

There are faint, distant screams on the wind.

Bill Molloy looks at me. He stares at me -

I stare back at him:

There is cancer in his eyes and he knows it; no-one at his bedside when he dies.

‘Know what we’re going to have to do, don’t you?’ he asks -

I nod.

‘Let’s get going then.’

I follow him across the Bullring -

Towards the screams.

I look up at the first floor of the Strafford -

The lights are on.

Bill looks at his watch. He opens the door -

The screams loud.

We go up the stairs. We go into the bar -

Into the screams. Into the smoke. Into the music:

Rock ’n’ Roll.

The record on the jukebox stuck -

In hell:

A woman is standing behind the bar with blood on her. She is screaming.

An old man is sat at a table by the window. He has one hand raised.

Bob Craven is standing in the centre of the room. He is not moving.

Bob Douglas is lying on his stomach by the toilets. He is crawling.

A big man is on his back on the floor. He is opening and closing his eyes -

Derek Box next to him, dead.

Bill walks up to Craven. He asks him: ‘What happened here, Bob?’

There is blood running from Craven’s ear -

He can’t hear.

Bill hits him across the face -

Craven blinks. He doesn’t speak.

I go over to Bob Douglas. I turn him over on to his back -

He stares up at me.

I ask him: ‘Who did this?’

He speaks but I cannot hear him.

I lean closer to his mouth: ‘Who?’

I listen -

I look up -

Bill Molloy standing over us -

I repeat: ‘Dunford.’

‘Kill the cunt,’ he says. ‘Kill them all.’

I nod.

Bill turns. He shoots the old man sat at the table by the window.

He shoots him dead.

Bill looks at his watch. He looks back down at me -

I stand up.

I walk over to the woman behind the bar.

She has stopped screaming.

She is curling herself into a ball on the floor between the open till and the bar.

She stares up at me -

I know her:

Her name is Grace Morrison.

I know her sister too -

Her name is Clare Morrison.

I have my finger on the trigger of the gun in my hand. I close my eyes -

I see my star, my angel -

My silent bloody angel -

In hell.

I open my eyes -

We all are -

The record on the jukebox stuck -

In hell -

‘Kill them,’ Bill is shouting. ‘Kill them all!’

Chapter 50