1983

He shook his head.

‘Who was there, remind me?’

He shook his head. He said: ‘Just Jimmy in end.’

‘No girlfriends? Penpals?’

He shook his head.

‘What about work?’

Nothing.

‘You had mates at work, yeah?’

He nodded.

‘Castleford, wasn’t it? Photo studio?’

He nodded again.

‘Who was your mate there then?’

‘Mary.’

‘Mary who?’

‘Mary Goldthorpe,’ he said. ‘But she’s dead.’

‘Anyone else?’

He shook his head. Then he said: ‘Sharon, the new girl.’

‘What was her last name?’

‘Douglas,’ he said.

‘Sharon Douglas?’ I said.

He nodded.

I turned to Dick Alderman.

Dick Alderman nodded.

I took off my glasses. I rubbed my eyes. I put them back on: ‘Anyone else?’

‘Just Mr Jenkins,’ he said and this time I nodded -

‘Ted Jenkins,’ I said. ‘That’d be right.’

The cage door open to the wet Scouse night, a voice shouted after us: ‘Mr Jobson?’

We both turned round, a tall prison officer coming after us.

‘Just thought you ought to know,’ he panted. ‘Myshkin had a meeting with his solicitor on Saturday.’

‘Thanks,’ said Dick. ‘We saw his name on the visitors’ list.’

‘But I was there, yeah?’ the prison officer said. ‘In the room with them when Myshkin told this solicitor feller he didn’t do it.’

‘Is that right?’ Dick said. ‘Going to appeal, is he?’

‘Myshkin said a policeman told him to say he did it,’ the prison officer nodded. ‘Made him confess.’

‘Say which policeman, did he?’ asked Dick.

‘He couldn’t remember the name,’ said the prison officer. ‘But solicitor cut him off before he could say much else.’

‘Smart man,’ I said.

Dick asked him: ‘Myshkin say anything else?’

The officer tapped his temple with two fingers. ‘He said a wolf did it.’

‘Did what?’ said Dick.

‘Killed the little girl.’

‘A wolf?’ snorted Dick.

‘Yeah,’ the officer nodded, still tapping his temple. ‘That’s what he said.’

‘He get many other visitors, does he?’ I asked.

‘Just his mad mam and the God Squad,’ laughed the officer. ‘Poor sod.’

‘The poor sod,’ I repeated.

In the visitors’ car park of the Park Lane Special Hospital, we sat in the dark in silence until I asked Dick: ‘What do you know about John Winston Piggott?’

‘Father was one of us.’

‘Jesus.’ I shook my head. ‘That was his father?’

Dick nodded.

‘What’s he look like, the son?’

‘Right fat bastard,’ he laughed. ‘Office on Wood Street.’

‘Like father, like son?’

‘Who knows?’ Dick shrugged. ‘But he was Bob Fraser’s solicitor, wasn’t he?’

‘Christ almighty,’ I said.

‘Dйjа bloody vu,’ said Dick.

‘What’s he know, Piggott?’

‘Fuck knows.’

‘Well, you’d better fucking well find out,’ I said, the taste in my mouth again. ‘And fucking fast.’

Chapter 5

You wake about eight and lie in bed eating cold Findus Crispy Pancakes -

Raw, uncooked in the middle, watching the TV-AM news on the portable:

‘Police are to hold an inquiry into the death of a prisoner at Rotherhite Police Station. Mr Nicholas Ofuso, thirty-two, became unconscious and died of asphyxiation due to inhalation of vomit after nine policemen had gone to his flat in answer to a domestic dispute. Mr Ofuso struggled during the journey to Rotherhite Police Station and just before arrival he vomited. As his handcuffs were removed he went limp. He was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation accompanied by a cardiac massage.’

It is Tuesday 17 May 1983 -

D-23 .

After half an hour you make a cup of tea, then you get washed and dressed. You fancy a curry for lunch, a hot one with big fat prawns, but it is pissing down as you open the door and remember you have to see Mrs Myshkin today -

The newspaper lying on the mat, face up; Hazel Atkins:

Missing.

You go back upstairs and puke up all the pancakes and the tea, a flabby man on his knees before his bog, a flabby man who does not love his country or his god, a flabby man who has no country, has no god -

You don’t want to go to work, you don’t want to stay in the flat:

A flabby man on your knees.

You drive over one bridge and under another, past the boarded-up pubs and closed-down shops, the burnt-out bus stops and the graffiti that hates everything, everywhere, and everyone but especially the IRA, Man United, and the Pakis -

This is Fitzwilliam:

Back for the second time in a week, in a year.

Least it has stopped raining -

Turning out rite nice for once.

The off-licence is the only thing open so you park the car and go inside and slide the money through a slot to an Asian man and his little lad standing in a cage in their best pyjamas among the bottles of unlabelled alcohol and the single cigarettes. The father slides your change back, the son your twenty