David Peace - 1983

‘I can’t,’ I say.

She looks at me -

‘I have to go back.’

‘She had wings, Maurice. Bloody wings -’

I nod.

‘I saw her.’

‘I know.’

She squeezes my hand -

‘I’ll be back in a bit,’ I say.

‘Promise?’

‘Cross my heart.’

She squeezes my hand again -

‘Lock the door,’ I tell her.

There are three envelopes on my desk. I sit down with an unlit cig. I open the top envelope. I pull out two sheets of typed A4 and three enlarged black and white photographs:

The post-mortem .

I wipe my eyes. I look at my watch:

Eleven-thirty -

Saturday 14 December 1974.

I reach for the phone book. I turn the pages. I find the number I want. I pull the telephone closer. I dial, a handkerchief over the mouthpiece.

The number rings. And rings -

‘Ossett 256199. Who’s speaking please?’ a woman asks.

‘Is Edward there?’

‘Just a minute, please.’

There’s a pause -

Beethoven down the other end of the line.

‘Edward Dunford speaking.’

I ask him: ‘Saturday night all right for fighting?’

‘Who’s this?’

I wait.

‘Who is it?’

‘You don’t need to know.’

‘What do you want?’

‘You interested in the Romany Way?’

‘What?’

‘White vans and gyppos?’

‘Where?’

‘Hunslet Beeston exit of the M1.’

‘When?’

‘You’re late,’ I say. I hang up -

4 LUV .

You are sat in the car park of the Balne Lane Library for the last time -

It is Saturday 4 June 1983:

The car doors locked, you are staring into the rearview mirror and then the wing; the rearview and then the wing; rearview and then wing -

The relentless sound of the rain on the roof, the radio on as loud as it can go:

‘200 arrests at USAF base at Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire; VC’s widow accuses Healey of despicable and cheap conduct over his remarks about Mrs Thatcher and the Falklands; Dr Owen warns that the Tories need a constraining force to combat Mrs Thatcher and Norman Tebbit and that voters are afraid of Big Sister… ’

No Little Sister -

Rearview then wing; rearview wing; rearview:

Not today -

D-5 .

The key turns in the lock and you are up the stairs two at a time, pulling the last box down from the shelf -

July 1969 .

Threading film, winding spools -

STOP -

Monday 14 July 1969:

Local Girl Missing – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter .

The parents of missing eight-year-old Jeanette Garland made an emotional plea late last night for information that might lead police to their daughter’s whereabouts. Jeanette was last seen on Saturday on her way to buy sweets at a local shop .

Tuesday 15 July 1969:

Girl Vanishes, Fourth Day, All-out Hunt – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter .

STOP -

Saturday 19 July 1969:

Medium Contacts Police – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter .

STOP -

Back to the shelf, back to 1972 -

Friday 24 March 1972:

Medium Links Susan and Jeanette – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter of the Year .

Police last night refused to comment or speculate on reports that local medium and TV personality Mandy Wymer had found a connection between the missing Rochdale schoolgirl Susan Ridyard and Jeanette Garland, known as the Little Girl Who Never Came Home, who was eight years old when she disappeared from her Castleford street in 1969 .

STOP.

STOP.

STOP -

Into the library toilets, dry-heaving -

Your stomach burning, bleeding again -

You retch. You puke. You spew -

Knowing it’ll soon be over, soon -

But you have to go back there:

Back to the room (back to all their rooms) -

Back to the shelf again (take them all down again):

The films, the spools -

STOP -

AGAIN -

Saturday 21 December 1974:

Murder Hunt – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter of the Year .

A fresh murder hunt was launched in Wakefield today following the discovery of the body -

STOP -

AGAIN AND AGAIN -

Monday 23 December 1974:

RL Star’s Sister Murdered – by Jack Whitehead, Crime Reporter of the Year .

Police found the body of Mrs Paula Garland at her Castleford home early Sunday morning, after neighbours heard screams .

STOP -

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN -

You retch. Puke. Spew -

Blood in your mouth, blood on your shirt, blood on your hands -

Again and again and again -

Until it stops.

You drive through Wakefield and up the Barnsley Road, out of Wakefield and along the Doncaster Road, past the Redbeck into Castleford -

You pull up by a red telephone box. You get out. You walk over to the telephone box and open the door.

The phone is ringing.

You pick up the receiver. You listen -

There is a foreign voice on the other end;

You hang up. You wait -

No-one phones.

You stand in the red telephone box. You listen to the relentless sound of the rain on the roof of the telephone box. You watch the silent cars with all their killers at the wheel, watch them speed up and down the road, watch them point and laugh at you, missing children in their boots, tiny hands pressed to their back windows -

You pick up the receiver. You listen -

There’s no-one there;

The world outside so sharp and full of pain.

Brunt Street, Castleford -

You’ve been here before .

The car stinks of sick. You wind the window down. You stare across at 11.

The red door opens. A woman comes out under a flowered umbrella. She locks the door behind her. She walks past the car, her boots on the wet pavement as she goes -

Down Brunt Street -

Echoing .

‘Terrible,’ says the old woman for the third time, her arms folded against the rain and the memories, the bruised and bandaged fat man on her doorstep.

You nod.

‘Just seemed to be one bloody thing after another,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘All started with the little lass though.’

You nod again.

‘If that’d never have happened,’ she sighs. ‘They could have had everything.’

And you nod again.

‘But he goes and kills himself, husband. Next their Johnny, he starts getting in all kinds of bother, letting his talent go to waste. Then -’

You look up.

She is staring down the street. ‘Then she’s murdered, mother. Right there.’

You follow her pointing bones down the street to number 11.

‘Right there on our own bloody doorstep,’ she sighs again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Terrible,’ you say.

‘Terrible,’ says the old woman across the road. ‘Never same again, mother was.’

You shake your head.

‘You wouldn’t be, would you?’

You shake your head again.

‘Lovely little lass,’ she sighs, folding the tea-towel in her hands. ‘Always so cheerful, she was. Always smiling.’

And you shake your head again.

‘I mean,’ she says. ‘That’s the thing about mongols, isn’t it? Always happy, aren’t they? I don’t reckon they know -’

You look up.

She is staring across the road. ‘They’re lucky that way.’

You turn round and look across at the red door.

‘Broad daylight it was,’ she sighs again. ‘Broad bloody daylight.’

‘Terrible,’ you say.

‘Terrible,’ says Mr Dixon, the man in the cornershop. ‘Back then didn’t used to open up until three of an afternoon so there always be a queue of kiddies and she’d be among them. Had to watch her with the money mind, being how she was.’