1983

‘Always a need for manners, Joseph.’

Joe is screaming.

BJ howling.

They lean into Joe’s face and say: ‘Gledhill Road, Morley. Whose idea was that?’

Joe is shaking. Joe is crying.

They ask him: ‘You still work for Eric, do you?’

Joe is wide-eyed -

Following them and their hammer as they pace beneath single white bulb -

Joe not daring to blink.

‘Joseph,’ they say. ‘Who set it up?’

Joe is opening and closing his stupid fat lips.

‘You do know who it was?’

Joe is nodding.

They lean down into his face and hiss: ‘So tell us.’

Joe is sniffing and Joe is stammering: ‘The one in Morley?’

‘Yes?’

‘Eric, it was Eric.’

‘Eric?’

Joe is nodding and nodding and nodding.

‘No-one else?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t think it up all on your lonesome, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Didn’t think you’d use the money to get away, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Get away from your obligations, your commitments?’

‘No.’

‘To us? To your friends?’

‘No.’

‘Not to drop your friends in the shit and do a runner; that not your plan?’

‘No.’

‘Payback?’

And Joe Rose looks up at BJ for a split fucking second -

A split fucking second in which he ends his life.

The Black Angel, the hair in his eyes and the blood on his teeth, he is standing by the window in the Church of the Abandoned Christ on the seventh floor of the Griffin Hotel in the ghost bloodied old city of Leodis. His clothes are shabby and his wings are burnt. There is a white towel upon the bed. He draws the curtains and places the wicker chair in the centre of the room. He takes off my shirt. He picks up the razor. He finishes and he blows the loose hair away. He picks up a Philips screwdriver and a ball-peen hammer. He stands behind me. He puts the point of the screwdriver on the crown of my skull. He brings the hammer down -

Down for a second time -

Down for a third -

Until they say: ‘He’s dead.’

He looks up at single, blood-specked light bulb and then down at man tied up and soaked in blood under it; two other men in overalls and masks with hammers and wrenches stood over Joe -

He takes off his mask and he looks at BJ, stares at BJ -

Tied up and splattered in Joe Rose’s blood under a single white light bulb.

He comes towards BJ.

He takes BJ’s face in his hands.

He wipes away Joe’s blood with BJ’s tears.

He kisses BJ’s forehead and he kisses BJ’s cheek.

He takes a photograph from inside his overalls.

He shows it to BJ.

It is BJ’s mother.

BJ mouth open and -

He puts a finger to BJ’s lips.

He says: ‘I think you need a new friend, Barry.’

BJ nod.

He says: ‘Can I be your friend?’

BJ nod.

He taps photograph of BJ’s mother: ‘I’ll help you then.’

BJ nod.

‘Will you help me?’

BJ nod.

‘Will you go to the Spencer Boys for me?’

BJ nod.

‘Will you tell them Joe is dead?’

BJ nod.

‘Will you tell them Eric Hall killed him?’

BJ -

‘Will you?’

BJ -

He taps photograph again: ‘I’ll help you, if you help me.’

BJ -

‘Isn’t that what friends are for?’

Head bobbed and wreathed, BJ nod -

It is 1977 -

Not heaven.

Chapter 37

The family gone -

The telephone is ringing and ringing and ringing.

I don’t answer it -

I haven’t time.

Sunday 26 March 1972:

‘I think about you -’

Crawling through Huddersfield and on to the M62, over the moors and on to Rochdale, the stage bare but for