David Peace - 1983

You stand in the drive of a house that nobody wants to buy and you wonder what the Atkins will do, if they’ll go down South or if they’ll stay around here, stay around here and watch their neighbours’ children grow, watch their neighbours’ children grow while their own daughter rots in the ground, rots in the ground of the very place that took her away.

You stand in the rain in the cul-de-sac and you wonder.

You go back to the car. You get in. You lock the doors. You open the A-Z again.

You start the car. You turn right out of Winterbourne Avenue. You go back down Victoria Road -

Back past the Sports Ground, back past the school.

You turn right on to Rooms Lane. You go up Rooms Lane -

Past the church -

The rain falling through the dark, quiet trees .

You come to Bradstock Gardens. You turn right again.

Bradstock Gardens is a cul-de-sac, just like Winterbourne Avenue.

A cul-de-sac.

There are two policemen sat in a police car outside number 4.

The curtains are drawn, the milk on the step.

You turn to look at your notes:

‘A ten-year-old girl with medium-length dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing light brown corduroy trousers, a dark blue sweater embroidered with the letter H, and a red quilted sleeveless jacket, carrying a black drawstring gym bag -’

Sat beside you on the passenger seat -

Hazel looks at you -

Looks at you and says -

‘Help me -’

The rain falling through the dark, quiet trees -

‘We’re in hell.’

You reverse out of the cul-de-sac -

The Leeds & Bradford A-Z open on your lap, your notes and photocopies on the passenger seat beside you, out of Morley -

It is Saturday but there are no children -

All the children missing.

You drive out of Morley -

Down Elland Road and into Leeds -

They are playing that record about ghosts again.

You change stations but all you get is -

Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher.

No Hazel -

Not here .

At the Yorkshire Post reception, you ask the pretty girl with the nice smile and bleached hair if she has an address for one of their former employees.

‘Jack Whitehead?’ she repeats. ‘Who was he?’

‘A journalist,’ you say. ‘Crime.’

‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him,’ she frowns. ‘Do you know when he last worked for us?’

‘Saturday 18 July 1977.’

She shakes her head again. She picks up the phone: ‘Hi, it’s Lisa at reception. I’ve got a gentleman here asking about a Jack Whitehead who he says was a journalist here up until July 1977.’

She listens. She waits. She says: ‘Thank you.’

You watch her hang up. Her roots need doing.

She looks up. She smiles: ‘Someone will be down in a minute.’

The woman is in her mid-thirties and good-looking. She has a confident walk and a look of Marilyn Webb.

You stand up.

‘Kathryn Williams,’ she says, hand out.

‘John Piggott,’ you reply, holding her hand for as long as you dare.

‘You’re here about Jack Whitehead, I believe?’

You nod: ‘I’m a solicitor and I’ve become involved in an appeal and I know from memory and the microfilms that Jack Whitehead covered the original case.’

She tries to smile. She’s already bored. She says: ‘How can I help?’

‘To be honest,’ you mumble, ‘I don’t know if you can. I know that Jack Whitehead had some sort of accident in 1977 and that he no longer -’

‘Terrible,’ she says. She looks at her watch.

‘But I was hoping somebody might have an address, so I could maybe contact -’

She shakes her head: ‘Last I heard, he was still in hospital.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to know which one by any chance?’

‘Stanley Royd.’

You can see red brake-lights through the glass walls of the building, headlights and rain against the revolving doors.

‘I suppose he could be dead,’ you say.

‘Doubt it,’ she says. ‘We’d have heard.’

You nod again. And again.

‘Well,’ she smiles. ‘If there was nothing else…’

‘Thank you,’ you say. ‘Thank you very much.’

She walks you to the doors. She says: ‘Nice to have met you, Mr Parrot.’

‘Piggott,’ you smile.

She laughs and squeezes your arm: ‘I am sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ you say. ‘Thank you for your time.’

She has her hand out again: ‘Which case was it?’

‘Clare Kemplay.’

She starts to let go of your hand: ‘Whose appeal? Not -’

‘Michael Myshkin,’ you nod.

She drops it.

She’s slipped on to her knees and he’s come out of her. Now he’s angry. She tries to turn but he’s got her by her hair, punching her casually once, twice, and she’s telling him there’s no need for that, scrambling to give him his money back, and then he’s got it up her arse, but she’s thinking at least it’ll be over then, and he’s back kissing her shoulders, pulling her black bra off, smiling at this fat cow’s flabby arms, and taking a big, big bite out of underside of her left tit, and she can’t not scream and she knows she shouldn’t because now he’s going to have to shut her up and she’s crying because she knows it’s over, that they’ve found her, that this is how it ends, that she’ll never see her daughters again, not now, not ever -

BJ awake:

It is morning and there are sirens -

Police sirens.

Fuck .

BJ get up off bench, eyes blinking in grey light -

Heavy smell of diesel -

BJ go into bogs and puke in sink.

Fuck, fuck .

Preston Bus Station -

Friday 21 November 1975:

Fuck, fuck, fuck .

BJ run up hill from centre, back to hostel.

There is no-one in office -

Just fluorescent light flickering on and off.

BJ go upstairs and bang on her door: ‘Clare!’

But there’s no-one, nothing.

BJ try door and it opens. BJ step inside.

Room is trashed and smashed, more than usual -

More than what BJ did last night -

Someone else was here:

Walter .

BJ turn to leave her room and there he is, standing in doorway.

‘Who is it?’ he asks.

‘It’s me,’ BJ say. ‘Who fuck you think it is?’

He steps out of shadow, arms out: ‘Look!’

‘Fuck,’ BJ say -

‘Look at me!’

His eyes white, his eyes blind.

‘What happened?’

‘They were here,’ he says.

‘Who?’

‘You know who.’

‘What did they want?’

‘You and Clare,’ he says. ‘They turned both your rooms upside down.’

BJ look down at carrier bag in BJ’s hand. BJ tip it out on to her bed -

Clothes, make-up, a photograph:

Clare with her eyes and legs open, her fingers touching her own cunt .

‘What is it?’ gropes Walter.

BJ pick photograph up -

‘It’s not her,’ BJ say.

‘Where is she?’ asks Walter.

‘I don’t know.’

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ he whispers, tears on his cheeks.

‘We all are,’ BJ say.

BJ run up hill, past other St Mary’s, up Church Street and on to French -

Fuck, fuck, fuck:

Police cars and an ambulance parked in front of garages -

Last door -

Last door banging in wind, in rain -

Two policemen in black cloaks holding it open as they carry out a body on a stretcher, wind raising a bloody sheet:

A light green three-quarter-length coat with an imitation fur collar, a turquoise blue jumper with a bright yellow tank top over it, dark brown trousers, brown suede calf-length boots:

A complete wreck of a human being .