1983

‘Beautiful creatures,’ Dawson continues. ‘I suppose you both know that once swans mate, they mate for life?’

‘If one of them dies,’ I nod. ‘The other one pines to death.’

‘Very romantic,’ says Bill -

There’s something in his voice, something he doesn’t like, something I don’t -

From under our umbrella, Bill points: ‘What’s that going to be down there?’

Halfway back down the slope, there is a large and freshly dug hole in the ground.

‘Fish pond,’ says Don Foster. ‘For his goldfish.’

‘Not Swan Lake then?’ laughs Bill.

‘Not quite,’ says Dawson.

Bill tilts the umbrella back so he can look at both of them; his old mate Don and his new mate John. Bill says: ‘Is there somewhere we can have a word?’

‘A word?’ repeats Don Foster, his tan fading with the light and the rain.

‘Aye,’ nods Bill. ‘A word.’

Foster looks at Dawson. Dawson looks over at a small cabin on the edge of the site. Foster looks back at Bill. He says: ‘The hut?’

Bill and I follow them over there.

John Dawson unlocks the door. We go inside. Don Foster lights a paraffin heater. Dawson pours out the tea from two large flasks. Bill flashes the ash. We sit there, like four blokes about to play a hand of cards.

It is raining hard now against the hut, against the window.

I look at Bill. I look at my watch. I look at Bill again.

Bill stamps his cigarette out on the floor. He takes a swig of his tea. He asks them: ‘I take it you both know we’ve got George Marsh at Brotherton?’

John Dawson and Don Foster glance at each other for a split second -

A split second in which you can see them thinking -

Thinking of denying that they actually know George Marsh -

A split second in which they change my life -

All our fucking lives -

A split second before Don Foster shakes his head. A split second before he says: ‘I wish you’d have come to us before, Bill.’

‘Why’s that then, Don?’

‘Could have saved us all a lot of bother.’

‘How’s that then, Don?’

Don Foster looks at John Dawson.

John Dawson looks at Bill.

Bill waits.

John Dawson says: ‘He was with me.’

Bill waits.

John Dawson says: ‘On Saturday.’

Bill waits.

John Dawson says: ‘Bit of cash in hand.’

Bill waits.

John Dawson stands up. He goes over to the window and the rain. He looks out at the skeleton of the enormous bungalow, its stark white bones rising out of the ground. John Dawson says: ‘He was here with me.’

I look at Bill.

Bill smiles. Bill turns to Don Foster. Bill says: ‘Wish you’d have come to us before, Don.’

Don Foster doesn’t smile. He just blinks.

‘Could have saved us all a lot of bother,’ says Bill. ‘A lot of bother.’

On the road home we stop by a telephone box.

Bill makes the call.

I sit and feel hollow and sick inside.

Bill opens the passenger door. It’s written all over his bloody face. All over the bloody Action form in his hand.

‘It’s bollocks,’ I say. ‘Fucking bollocks.’

‘Got no reason to hold him now.’

‘Fucking bollocks.’

‘Maurice -’

‘Load of fucking bollocks.’

‘What? They’re all fucking lying?’

‘It’s a load of fucking bollocks and you fucking well know it!’

‘Finished?’ Bill asks.

I clutch the wheel, my knuckles white when they should be bloody and scabbed.

‘Have you fucking finished?’ he asks again.

I nod.

‘Then I hope you’ll remember that we fucking owe John and Don.’

I nod again, my tongue bleeding.

‘Now let’s get bloody home,’ says Bill Molloy, the Badger, scrawling across the form:

N.F.A .

Home -

Home with its children’s feet upon the stairs, laughter and telephones ringing through the rooms, the slam of a ball against a bat or a wall, the pop of a cap gun and a burst balloon, the sounds of meals being cooked, served and eaten -

Home, sod that -

I drive through the fading summer evening, the fields of green and trees of brown, birds going home and the cattle to sleep, clouds in retreat and night upon the march with its promise of another summer’s day tomorrow, of cricket and croquet and the Great Yorkshire Show, and -

Fuck it. I see under the ground -

An underground kingdom, an animal kingdom of badgers and angels, worms and insect cities; white swans upon black lakes while dragons soar overhead in painted skies of silver stars and then swoop down through lamp-lit caverns wherein an owl searches for a sleeping little princess in her tiny feathered wings -

My underground -

My underground kingdom, this animal kingdom of corpses and rats and children’s shoes, mines flooded with the dirty water of old tears, dragons tearing up burning skies, empty churches and barren wombs, the fleas, rats and dogs picking through the ruin of her bones and wings, her starved white skeleton left here to weep by -

I park at the bottom of the hill, the stark white bones rising out of the ground and into the moonlight.

I get out into the moonlight, the ugly moonlight.

I walk up the hill.

My shoes and my socks sink into the sod.

In the ugly moonlight, I start to dig.

I drive home, the radio on:

Suspicious Minds -

War songs and bad news:

‘David Smith, one of the chief witnesses in the Moors Murder trial, was sentenced at Chester Assizes to three years’ imprisonment. Mr Smith, aged twenty-one, a labourer, pleaded guilty to wounding William