David Peace - 1983

‘Hello,’ she said back.

‘You must be Nichola,’ I said.

‘No,’ said the ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H , and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag -

‘Today I’m Hazel.’

No other name .

I walked out on to the stage, the children sat crosslegged at the front, the teachers and journalists standing at the sides, parents mouthing messages to their kids from the back.

Mrs Roberts introduced me: ‘Everybody, this is Mr Jobson. He’s the policeman who’s going to find Hazel. Now I know a lot of you have talked to the other nice policemen about Hazel, but today we’re going to pretend it’s last Thursday again. We’re going to all try very hard to remember exactly what we did last Thursday and then we’re all going to do the same thing again. Maybe some clever person will remember something very important and that will help Mr Jobson find Hazel.’

I stood there, nodding -

The children staring at me, silently.

Mrs Roberts had stopped speaking and was looking at me.

In a low voice she whispered: ‘What about Hazel? Shall we introduce her.’

I nodded. I turned to the side. I gestured for Nichola’s mother to lead her daughter out on to the stage -

There was a wave of noise across the hall, all the teachers with their fingers to their lips as all the parents strained to see their own kids who were standing up and sitting down, confused and excited.

‘Children, sit down please,’ barked Mrs Roberts.

I looked out at the rows and rows of children in front of me. I said: ‘This is Nichola, but today she is going to be Hazel.’

‘Will everybody please sit down!’ shouted Mrs Roberts again. ‘That means you too Stephen Tams.’

‘Now,’ I said, wishing WPC Martin was here and I wasn’t. ‘Who was with Clare last Thursday?’

Silence -

The kids were all looking at each other, then looking at their teachers and their parents, their teachers and their parents looking at me, all of them looking confused.

I turned to Mrs Roberts: ‘What?’

Mrs Roberts was staring at me. She was frowning.

‘What?’ I said again.

Mrs Roberts, eyes wide, whispered: ‘Hazel? You mean Hazel?’

I nodded. I mumbled: ‘I’m sorry. Hazel. Who was with Hazel last Thursday at home time?’

Now there were hands going up, lots of hands, and the teachers and the parents were shaking their heads and then suddenly above the tiny hands, at the back of the room, I could see Mr and Mrs Atkins -

Mr and Mrs Atkins staring at me and the little girl beside me.

I turned to the girl -

The ten-year-old girl with long straight fair hair and blue eyes, wearing an orange waterproof kagool, a dark blue turtleneck sweater, pale blue denim trousers with a distinctive eagle motif on the back left pocket and red Wellington boots, carrying a plastic Co-op carrier bag containing a pair of black gym shoes.

She was holding my hand, her hand squeezing mine.

Outside it had started to rain again, the parents and journalists under their umbrellas, the kids with their hoods up, the three of us getting pissed on from up above -

And it hadn’t even started yet.

‘Whose fucking idea was it to have them here?’ I was shouting.

‘They wanted to be here,’ Evans was saying. ‘The press want to speak to them. Gives us more exposure.’

‘You should have fucking checked.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he was saying for the thousandth bloody time today.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘It’s done.’

Dick looked at his watch: ‘Home time?’

I looked at mine. I nodded at Evans: ‘Let’s get started.’

Evans walked back across the playground to the TV crews and the journalists at the gates; the teachers, the parents and their kids impatiently waiting for the signal to begin. The TV crews and journalists were all over Evans with their questions and demands. Finally he ducked out from under their umbrellas and curses and gave the signal and, out of this pantomime and pandemonium, in the middle of the rain at the school gates, there she was again -

Hazel Atkins:

Coming through the gates, the other kids behind her, waving and stopping and waving and stopping, hands up and hands down and hands up and hands down, waving bye-bye to the ten-year-old girl with the medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H , and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag -

Hazel:

Walking up Rooms Lane towards her home in Bradstock Gardens, behind her the TV crews and the journalists with their lenses and their pens, the kids and their parents with their whispers and suspicions, the teachers and police with their hopes and their fears, all of us walking up the road in silent procession through the rain, the rain falling down through the dark, quiet trees and into her hair, into her medium-length dark brown hair and her quiet brown eyes, staining her light blue corduroy trousers, her dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H , on to her red quilted sleeveless jacket, soaking her black drawstring gym bag -

Hazel:

Watching her turn towards her house in Bradstock Gardens, the occasional car and lorry slowing, the Atkins in pieces in the rain, their tears in the road because she’d never walk up Rooms Lane again, never turn towards her home in Bradstock Gardens, never open that door and never come in from the rain, never be -

Hazel:

This was all they’d ever get -

A ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light blue corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H , and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag, a ten-year-old girl who was not their daughter, a reconstruction -

Not Hazel:

I stood in the road in tears again, a hand squeezing mine -

The hand of a ten-year-old girl with long straight fair hair and blue eyes, wearing an orange waterproof kagool, a dark blue turtleneck sweater, pale blue denim trousers with a distinctive eagle motif on the back left pocket and red Wellington boots, carrying a plastic Co-op carrier bag containing a pair of black gym shoes -

Clare:

Waving bye-bye to the ten-year-old girl with the medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing the light blue corduroy trousers, the dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H , and the red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying the black drawstring gym bag, the ten-year-old girl who was walking away -

Hazel:

Walking away as the rain fell down through the dark, quiet trees and into her dark brown hair and her quiet brown eyes as her mother screamed and screamed, her nails in the road in the rain, screaming and screaming -

This is what you’ve done, this is what you’ve done, this is what you’ve done .

Then there were feet behind me, not children’s feet -

But boots, police boots through the puddles -

Dick shouting: ‘We got him, Boss.’

The rain falling through the dark, quiet trees -

‘Up Church Street.’

The little girls gone -

‘We’ve fucking got him.’

Just the history and the lies -

Resurrected.

You have dreams -

D-20 , here comes retreat; Friday lunchtime you meet Gareth in Billy Walton’s and give yourself the afternoon off, it being his birthday, tea and fishcakes in teacakes with chips and peas sorting you out for the first pint of the weekend, racing pages open, Gareth still going on about Grittar losing the fucking National and how it’s not right, women trainers, be women football managers next, and you’re nodding along, the old woman on the table opposite you with her mouth full of lipstick, potato and fish, her eyes wrapped in bandages, she points at you with her fork.