David Peace - 1983

‘In a newspaper article in this morning’s Yorkshire Post, Mr and Mrs Atkins say they have not been kept informed of the progress of the inquiry into their daughter’s disappearance and have only learned of certain key developments through the press or television. Mr and Mrs Atkins were particularly critical of Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, the man leading the investigation. Hazel’s parents say that Mr Jobson spoke to them on just three occasions early in the inquiry but that he has since been either unavailable or unwilling to meet them .

‘Mr Jobson has so far refused to comment on…’

Radio off, glasses off -

I was sat in the chair in tears again;

In tears -

For I knew there was salvation in no-one else -

No other name under heaven .

In tears -

Tuesday 7 June 1983:

Day 27.

Just gone seven -

Morley Police Station -

The Incident Room .

No-one here but me -

No-one and nothing here but two dozen four-drawer filing cabinets, nearly two hundred card-index drawers, a two-tier wooden rack for the scores of Action books and ten trestle tables with five huge computers and twenty telephones, the telephones on tables fitted out as desks for writing up Actions , statements and reports, card-writing and cross-checking the house-to-houses and the cars, cross-indexing and entering data, updating files and sending out for more -

Or not, marking them:

No Further Action .

I opened the door to a small adjoining room:

Officer-in-Charge Investigation .

I sat down at my desk opposite a huge, pin-spattered map of Morley -

A huge, pin-spattered map of Morley and a photograph -

A photograph of a little girl -

A little girl, still lost.

I turned on to Blenheim Road, St John’s, Wakefield -

Old trees with old hearts cut, losing their leaves in June;

I parked in the drive of 28 Blenheim Road -

One big old tree, one big old house, one big old cut;

I closed my eyes. I opened them. I saw a star

– A single star, an angel -

A silent little angel;

I got out. I locked the car door. I spat -

Flesh;

I walked up the drive -

Shallow ugly daylight, brown stagnant rainwater;

The bottoms of my trousers, my shoes and socks, bloody -

Everything bloody;

I went inside. Up the stairs to Flat 5 -

Damp and stained -

Hearts still lost;

The door was open -

I stepped inside. I stood in the hall. I said: ‘Hello?’

There was no answer.

I walked down the hall.

The doors were all closed.

I stood before the bedroom door. I whispered her name.

Silence -

The branches tapping upon the glass.

I tried the door.

The door swung open.

The room and everything in it had been destroyed.

I went across the hall.

I stood before the bathroom door. I whispered her name again.

Silence -

The branches tapping upon the glass, their leaves lost.

I tried the door.

The door swung open.

The bath taps were on. The sink too. The room flooded.

I stepped inside. I turned off the bath taps. I pulled out the plug. I went over to the sink. I turned off the taps. I took off my glasses. I washed my face and hands in the water. I pulled out the sink plug. I dried my face and hands on my coat. I put my glasses back on. I looked into the mirror above the sink. I put my fingers to the glass -

The lipstick:

Everybody knows .

I ran back down the stairs. I ran back down the drive. I got in the car. I locked the doors.

I stared back up at the flat. I took off my glasses. I closed my eyes again;

The windows that looked inwards, the walls that listened to your heart -

Where one thousand voices cried .

Inside -

Inside our scorched hearts .

There was a house -

A house with no doors .

The earth scorched -

Heathen and always winter .

The rooms murder -

Here was where we lived:

Jeanette, Susan, Clare, Mandy and -

Caught in the branches and the tree -

An angel -

The branches tapping upon the glass, their leaves lost and never found -

Wanting in -

Sobbing, weeping, and asking to be found -

Hazel.

I looked down at the bruises on the backs of my hands -

The bruises that never healed.

Hazel, Hazel, Hazel -

The motorway across the Pennines, raining with occasional shotgun blasts of thunder and lightning as I drove over the Moors -

More missing children, more lost children -

More children, taken and murdered;

More voices -

Terrifying, hysterical, and screeching voices of doom, disaster and death .

I drove. I drifted -

Underground kingdoms, evil kingdoms of badgers and pigs, worms and insect cities; screaming swans upon black lakes while dragons soared overhead in painted skies of fading stars and then swept down through lamp-lit caverns wherein a blind owl searched for the last princess in her tiny feathered wings, the wolf back -

Past Manchester and on to Merseyside, that familiar taste in my mouth:

Flesh -

Fear.

I looked down at Michael Myshkin strapped to the bed.

He looked up at me -

His face sore. His eyes raw.

He whispered: ‘Only you today?’

‘Only me.’

‘Can’t keep away,’ he said.

I nodded. I smiled.

He didn’t smile back.

I opened my briefcase. I took out a photograph. I held it over him.

Michael Myshkin tried to turn away.

I pushed it towards him.

He closed his eyes.

‘She’s missing,’ I said. ‘Been missing twenty-seven days now.’

Silence -

‘I want you to tell me everything, Michael.’

Silence -

‘Everything -’

Silence -

‘About the Wolf.’

Michael Myshkin looked up at me. He said: ‘But you already know.’

I swallowed.

‘I told you,’ he said.

I fought tears.

‘A long time ago.’

I took a pen from my pocket. I wrote four words on the back of her photograph. I held it over him.

Myshkin looked up at the four untidy words:

I REGRET WHAT HAPPENED .

He began to cry.

I leant over the bed. I took his huge shoulders in my hands. I held him. I put my head on his chest. I listened to his heart. I held him in his dumbness -

In his dumbness and my blindness.

In both our tears.

I said: ‘It’s not too late -’

‘I still see the Underground Kingdom. It is evil and an animal place; a kingdom of lost corpses and children’s shoes, mines flooded with the tears and blood of the dead -’

‘Other times,’ I whispered -

‘A dragon howling at the burning skies and the empty churches, while local mobs search me out -’

‘Not your fault,’ I said -

‘For I was the Rat Man, Prince of Pests,’ he cried. ‘And I, I could have saved her. I could have saved them all. But -’

‘Never mind,’ I shouted.

Michael stopped. He was looking over my shoulder.

I turned around and there they were -

Stood in the open doorway:

Mrs Myshkin and Mrs Ashworth.

I let go of Michael. I stood. I started to speak -

Mrs Ashworth stepped forward. She slapped me hard across my face:

‘Rot in hell,’ she spat.

I nodded.

‘We’re all going to rot in this hell…’

I nodded.

Mrs Myshkin holding Michael -

His straps in one of my hands;

Michael rocking back and forth in his mother’s arms -