David Peace - 1980

‘For me?’ I say.

‘Yeah, next door. Line 4.’

I get up.

‘It’s the wife,’ he winks as I get to the door.

I walk next door -

Next door into the Ripper Room -

Into the photos on the walls, the maps and the faces -

The charts and the boards, the chalk and the pen on every surface -

The mugs on the desks, the cigarettes in the ashtrays -

Everywhere:

Repetition, tedium -

Indexes, cross-index -

Files, cross-file -

References, cross-reference -

Everywhere:

Process -

Repetitious, tedious process -

Second after second -

Minute after minute -

Hour after hour -

Fifteen, sixteen hours a day -

Day in, day out -

Six, seven days a week -

Week in, week out -

Four weeks a month -

Month in, month out -

Twelve months a year -

Year in, year out -

Year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day, hour in, hour out, minute in, minute out, second in, second out, for -

Five years.

A fat man in a sports coat’s holding out the receiver -

‘Joan?’ I say, taking the phone.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ she says. ‘But the Chief Constable’s office just called.’

‘The Chief Constable’s office?’

‘About tonight? They wanted me to tell you that they’ve arranged for the tux to be sent round in about an hour.’

‘The tux? Tonight?’

‘Yes. I said I didn’t know when you’d be back so they wanted me to let you know.’

The Christmas Ball -

‘I’d forgotten.’

‘I thought you might have,’ she laughs. ‘Shall we cancel?’

‘No, we can’t. You’re sorted out?’

‘Yes. I’d completely forgotten too but…’

‘Well, it’ll be good. I’ll be back in a bit, stay the night, and come back first thing tomorrow.’

‘OK.’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Yes.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I put back the phone, conscious the whole of the room is watching me -

The photos on the walls, the maps and the faces -

The Ripper Room -

Him .

I drive back fast, over the Moors -

Fast over their cold, lost bones, the radio on loud:

Hunger Strikes & Dirty Protests -

Ripper, Ripper, Ripper .

Fast, over the Moors -

Over their cold, lost bones, the radio on:

Earthquakes & Hostages -

Ripper, Ripper, Ripper .

Over the Moors, radio gone -

Cold, lost bones:

The Strafford Shootings -

Christmas Eve 1974:

The pub robbery that went wrong .

Four dead, two wounded policemen -

Sergeant Robert Craven and PC Bob Douglas .

Driving, hating -

I hate Bob Craven and I don’t know why -

Don’t like the maybe why:

Hated him then, hate him now -

Hated him since the day I met him, stuffed full of tubes and drugs on a Pinderfields bed.

Hated him like it was only yesterday:

Friday 10 January 1975 -

In we came:

Me and Clarkie -

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Clark .

Two weeks on and they’d still got roadblocks across the county, the stink of an English Civil War, me and Clarkie walking down that long, long corridor, armed guards on the bloody hospital doors, Craven and Douglas on their backs in their beds, the only survivors .

Me and Clarkie, we shook hands with Maurice Jobson -

Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, legend -

The Owl.

There were a lot of other faces about, that rat-faced journalist Whitehead from the Post for one .

They didn’t know me then, but they would .

Douglas was sedated and Craven ought to have been -

Lying there, head back, calling out from the depths, eyes twinkling up from those same depths, screaming:

‘Kill the cunt! Kill ‘em all!’

But that was as close as we ever got -

Jobson wouldn’t let us near him: ‘Man’s in no state. Took a butt to the head.’

And for all the promises we’d got coming, all the cups of tea up the Wood Street Nick, we never did get a good go at him .

Over the Moors, snow across their cold, lost bones -

Clarkie turned to me and said: ‘It stinks. Fuck knows why, but it does.’

And I stared out at the lanes of lorries, the black poles and the telephone wires, thinking -

Murder and lies, lies and murder -

War:

My War -

‘Bloody Yorkshire,’ hissed Clarkie . Over the Moors -

Cold, lost bones:

It stank then and it stinks now, that same old smell -

Bloody Yorkshire .

The house, my affluent detached house and two-car garage is quiet, dark, one light on in an upstairs room, the curtains open.

I push open the bedroom door and there she is, in front of the mirror in her dressing gown, eyes red.

‘You OK?’

‘You startled me.’

‘Sorry. You been crying, love?’

‘No,’ she smiles. ‘Just soap.’

I walk over to her and kiss the top of her hair.

‘Didn’t expect you so soon,’ she says.

We’re looking at each other framed in the mirror, something missing.

‘I thought I’d put the tree up.’

‘We’ve left it a bit late, haven’t we? All the stuff’s up in the attic.’

‘I’ll get the steps from the garage. Have it up in no time.’

‘You’ll get filthy.’

‘Got time, don’t worry.’

‘Up to you.’

‘Got to make the effort.’

She’s nodding, staring back into the mirror, back into her own eyes -

‘Those lights are so old,’ she says.

The Christmas Ball, the Midland Hotel -

Saturday 13 December 1980.

Through the black city streets, the broken lights and the Christmas ones, down Palatine, Wilmslow, and the Oxford Roads, the official black car and driver taking us in towards the red and the gold, the money and the honey, the home of the loot, holding hands in our rented clothes on the back seat of a car that is not our own, through dominions of disease and depopulation, the black streets that would have you dead within the hour, taking us in towards a thousand hale and hearty Manchester folk, drunk in the seclusion of the Midland Hotel, the castle of loot, an abbey to the anointed and self-appointed City Fathers, with their city mothers, wives and daughters, their secret lovers, whores and sons.

Without no one -

Through the black city streets to the place where the red carpet meets the street at the doors to the Midland, these gates of iron in these strong and lofty walls with no hint of ingress or egress, where all that is outside can never be in and to hell with it, damn it, for here inside are the bright lights, the purples and the gold, the servants and the servings, the musicians and the music, the dancers and the dance, the Masked Christmas Ball.

Without nothing -

Through the beauty and the beautiful, the security and the secure, the fat and the fat, we are led to our seats, Joan’s arm tightening inside my own, our masks in place, through the high double doors into the dim velvet sea and the palatial splendour of the Dining Room, her Gothic windows of stained glass, the thrown shadows of her lamps and candles, her ornaments and tapestries ceiling to floor, all heavy with the weight of wealth, the stains of class and brass and the deep blood colour of Christmas reds, of Herod and his kids.

Within dreams -