1983

Jack nods. Jack stumbles -

(No local angels here) -

Jack drops his fag. Jack picks it up. Jack slaps me on the back.

We go inside 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

The big house with her heart cut into flats, losing her paintwork and her lead;

We go inside and walk up the stairs to Flat 5 -

The glass in the windows stained.

We walk up the stairs to Flat 5 on the first-floor landing -

The air cold and damp, the air stained.

Jacks knocks on the door: ‘Police, love. Open up in the name of the law.’

Bill looks at me. I look at the floor.

The door opens a crack, a chain on -

Between the wood of the door and the wood of the frame, the pale face of a beautiful woman, the metal chain across her mouth.

‘It’s Jack Whitehead, love. These are the police officers I was talking about.’

Between the wood, this pale and beautiful face nods.

The door closes briefly then opens again wider, the chain gone -

The woman is in her early thirties. She is wearing a white silk blouse and a dark wool skirt.

She is truly beautiful -

(Local beauty) -

She says: ‘Please, come in.’

We step inside Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road -

A flat cut out of its heart;

We follow the woman down a dim hall, the walls hung with dark paintings, and into a big room, the walls and chairs draped in Persian rugs -

The whole flat stinks of cat piss and petunia.

Jack does the introductions: ‘These two gentlemen are Detective Superintendents George Oldman and Bill Molloy, and this is Detective Inspector Maurice Jobson -

‘Gentlemen, this is Mrs Mandy Denizili, or -’

‘Mandy Wymer,’ she smiles, shaking our hands.

‘Mystic Mandy,’ nods Jack. ‘As she is known professionally.’

She looks at Jack. She sighs. She gestures at the sofa and the armchair. She says: ‘Please sit down.’

George takes the armchair, Jack a cushion on the floor, Bill and I the sofa -

A low and ornately carved table pressing into our knees and shins.

‘Tea?’ she asks.

‘That’d be grand,’ smiles George, Bill and I nodding.

‘Not for me, love,’ says Jack. ‘Never touch the stuff.’

‘Excuse me for just a minute,’ she says. She goes off through another door.

‘Denizili?’ Bill asks Jack.

‘Husband was Turkish.’

I look up from the unlit candles on the table: ‘Was?’

‘Not about,’ says Jack.

Bill is laughing: ‘You think she knows owt about the two-thirty at York?’

‘I’m a medium, Mr Molloy, not a fortune-teller,’ says Mandy Wymer. She is stood in the doorway with a tray in her hands.

‘Sorry,’ says Bill, hands up in apology. ‘No offence.’

She brings in the tray of teacups and a teapot. She sets it down on the low table. She smiles at Bill: ‘None taken.’

It is a truly beautiful smile.

George sits forward in the armchair. He says: ‘Jack here tells us you have some information about this little girl who’s gone missing up Castleford way?’

She hands him his cup of tea. She nods: ‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘What kind of information?’

‘We’re desperate,’ I add. ‘Must be.’

She looks at me. She smiles. She hands Bill and me our cups of tea. Then she kneels down on the other side of the low ornately carved table -

‘I am a medium, gentlemen,’ she says again. ‘And it is sometimes possible for me to hear, see, and feel things that other people perhaps cannot.’

We all nod -

Three coppers staring at the beautiful woman knelt before us, Jack struggling to keep his eyes open, Bill the grin off his chops.

‘It is also the case that on occasion the dead can speak through me.’

‘You think she’s dead then, Jeanette?’ asks George.

Mandy Wymer doesn’t answer him. She lights one of the fat white candles on the low table. She stands up. She goes over to the large windows. She draws the heavy crimson curtains -

The room dark but for the candlelight, she returns to the table.

Bill: ‘Mrs Denizili -’

She has her hand up in the shadows: ‘Please, Mr Molloy -’

‘But -’

I have my hand on Bill’s arm.

She lights a second fat white candle on the low table. Then another. And another. She says: ‘Now please take the hand of the person on your left and close your eyes.’

She takes George’s right hand. He takes Bill’s. Bill takes mine. I take Jack’s -

Jack waking with a start to hold hers.

The five of us lean forward in a circle around the table and the candles, the numbers on a clock -

(Local time) -

It is Saturday 19 July 1969.

Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

Big trees with hearts cut into their bark, losing their leaves in July;

28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

Big house with her heart cut into flats, losing her paintwork and her lead;

Flat 5, 28 Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

Big room with hearts dark, losing our way and our head;

Walls hung with dim paintings and Persian rugs -

The smell of cat piss and petunia, Bill and Jack’s breath;

My eyes are open -

Her breasts rising and falling beneath her white silk blouse;

Beneath the shadows -

Low sobs, muffled sobs, she is weeping;

Her breasts rising and falling beneath -

Her shadows -

Looking into my eyes -

Rising and falling -

Beneath her shadows -

She is snarling, carnivore teeth:

‘This place is worst of all, underground;

The corpses and the rats -

The dragon and the owl -

Wolves be there too, a swan -