David Peace - 1980

‘Something wicked this way comes,’ smiles Clement Smith, the Chief Constable raising his mask with a wink as our wives fall into the comfort of compliments.

I sit down next to him, shaking hands with an MP, a councillor, a millionaire and all their present wives, local Masons and Rotarians the table of them -

‘How goes the war?’ laughs Clive Birkenshaw, the councillor drunk on a punch as crimson as his face.

‘The hunt more like,’ says Donald Lees of the Greater Manchester Police Authority.

‘What?’ I say.

‘You’ve been over in Yorkshire after their Ripper?’

I nod, the laughter and the music too much.

‘Most apt,’ Lees carries on, leaning across the corpse of his wife. ‘Hunter in Ripper Hunt , said the Manchester Evening News.’

‘Apt,’ comes the echo around the tablecloth.

‘Any luck?’

I look down at my hand, shaking my head, and I bring the whiskey up to my lips and let it fall down my throat.

Joan and Clement Smith have changed seats so the wives can chat.

I take another mouthful.

Clement Smith orders more.

I’m exhausted -

The cigars already out, the dance-floor filling, time flying -

And then suddenly across the room I think I see Ronald Angus and Peter Noble on another table by the door but, when I look again, it isn’t -

Can’t have been and Leeds is just a dream -

A terrible dream -

Like the Ripper, their Ripper .

I sit back in my chair, letting the Velvet Sea wash over me, playing her tricks with the horizon; the wail of violins, the hoarse voice of Clement Smith deep in debate, his wife and mine making their way through the waves, off to powder their noses.

Then I feel a hand on mine -

I look down at a man crouched beside my chair: ‘Pardon?’

‘I said we have a mutual friend.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Helen,’ he grins, a short thin man with brown stained teeth.

‘Helen who?’

But he just winks: ‘From her Vice days. Tell her I said hello.’

‘What?’

But he’s wading away, back into the velvet sea, waving, back into her dance.

I interrupt Clement Smith: ‘Who was that?’

‘Who?’

‘That man, the one who was just at the table? Talking to me?’

Smith’s laughing: ‘Wearing his mask was he?’

‘No, but I can’t place him.’

He sits up slightly in his seat: ‘I didn’t see him. Sorry. Where is he?’

‘Doesn’t matter, just wondered who he was.’ I pick up a glass and drink some more, lost -

‘Peter?’

I look up from the drink: ‘Richard. Merry Christmas.’

‘If only,’ he says.

The man is tall and gaunt, pale as a ghost, the black mask in his hand and a blood-red shirt only accentuating his grim pallor, mumbling.

‘What?’

He asks: ‘We talk?’

I stand up, nodding, leaving my cigar in the ashtray, and follow Richard Dawson through the tables and out into the Lobby -

Richard Dawson, businessman, Chairman of one of the local Conservative Parties, a friend .

He’s shaking, sweating.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

He says: ‘Do you know Bob Douglas?’

Ghosts -

Again the ghosts of Christmases past:

Again the Strafford Shootings -

Again the wounded coppers:

Sergeant Robert Craven and PC Bob Douglas .

I nod: ‘Used to. Why?’

‘Well, I’ve been using him as a security advisor. Anyway, late last night he calls to tell me that he’s heard that I’m the subject of a bloody police investigation; then at lunchtime today my bank in Didsbury calls and says that a couple of detectives have taken away all their financial records pertaining to my accounts with them.’

‘What?’

‘I’m in bloody shock.’

‘You should’ve called straight away’

‘I didn’t want to. I’d seen you were over in Leeds and I don’t like to take advantage of the fact that we’re friends or anything.’

‘Richard! What are friends for?’

He smiles wanly.

‘Let’s sit down,’ I say, walking us over to a pair of crimson and gold lobby chairs.

‘Spoiling your evening,’ he mumbles again.

‘Rubbish. Start from the beginning.’

‘That’s a good question in itself. I didn’t know there was a beginning, didn’t know anything had started until last night.’

‘What about Bob Douglas? When did he come on the scene?’

‘End of October, start of November. I was worried about the house. He came out and had a look, tightened things up. I got to know him, like him.’

‘You know about -’

‘Yeah, yeah. Told me all about it. Why? What do you know about him?’

‘I went over there after the shootings, but he was sedated so I never actually spoke to him. By all accounts he was a good bloke. Good copper. When he left, he went kicking and screaming.’

‘That’s what he said. Ten years in the police, then out on his arse.’

I nod: ‘So after the house, what kind of stuff was he doing for you?’

‘Consulting. Insurance work. Nothing heavy.’

‘Until last night?’

‘Yes. Called about midnight. Said he’d been out and about, you know. And he’d heard from a so-called reliable source that I’d been targeted for investigation.’

‘A reliable source?’

‘A policeman. One of your lot.’

‘He say who?’

‘Said he couldn’t.’

‘He say why you were being investigated?’

He looks down at his hands, the carpet: ‘Financial irregularities. Supposedly’

‘What kind of financial irregularities?’

‘We don’t know. That’s all he heard.’

‘Did he get a name? Of the man in charge?’

‘Roger Hook.’

Fuck .

‘What about the bank? They give you anything more?’

‘No,’ he’s shaking his head. ‘Bloody humiliating though, I can tell you. Your bank manager, your golf partner and friend, calling you at home to tell you that the police have been in asking about you, taking away their records on you.’

‘I’m sorry, Richard.’

‘You know this Roger Hook?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘It doesn’t make any difference. You’ve nothing to hide.’

He looks up from the carpet, his hands: ‘Who knows what they’ll find.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘There’s nothing to find, is there?’

His eyes still aren’t meeting mine.

‘Richard,’ I say. ‘Tell me there’s nothing to find.’

‘Who knows?’

‘You do, for Chrissakes man.’

‘Look -’

‘Jesus, Richard.’

‘I need your help.’

I look him in the eye, hold him there, tell him: ‘There’s nothing I can do for you.’

‘Pete -’

I stand up, ready to walk.

‘There’s something else,’ he says.

I stop.

‘About you,’ he says.

‘Me? What about me?’

‘You asked me why, why I was being targeted?’

I nod.

‘Douglas said it’s down to you.’

‘What is? What are you talking about?’

‘This. I’ve been singled out because I’m friends with you.’

‘Rubbish. Utter rubbish.’

He has hold of my arm: ‘Peter -’

‘Douglas is wrong. You’re wrong.’

‘To put you in your place, that’s what they told him.’

I turn away, freeing myself from his grip.

Him: ‘What are you going to do?’

I turn back: ‘Nothing.’

‘You’re just going to leave me up to my neck in all this?’

‘There’s nothing I can do, Richard. You’re under investigation.’

‘Because of you, I am.’

I’m walking away again, deaf to him -

But he has the last word, across the lobby and through the Dining Room doors, spinning me round, hissing into my face: ‘What are friends for, eh Pete?’