David Peace - 1980

‘Fuck knows and, to be honest, who the fuck cares.’

‘Something does bother me, John – but I can’t put my finger on it.’

‘I can: the same old Yorkshire horse-shit we get every time we come over here,’ he yawns. ‘But if you want me to add this to the list, after your mate Tricky Dicky Dawson, then I’ll ask around.’

I can’t tell if he’s pissed off with me, or trying to piss me off -

I push away the cold tea: ‘She said Eric had notes, copies of stuff, some tapes. She gave them to Maurice Jobson, but never heard anything back. She reckons they prove that the Ripper didn’t kill Ryan, and back up a lot of other stuff too.’

Murphy upright, interested: ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. I was thinking, you’re doing Janice Ryan right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Eric Hall’s name is bound to be in there somewhere, bound to come up. And Bob Fraser.’

He’s nodding.

‘So why don’t you ask Craven to let you see the file on Eric and the one on Fraser? See if Eric’s tapes and stuff is in there.’

‘What stuff?’

‘Eric’s notes. Anything?’

‘Right. And if it’s not?’

‘She’s got copies.’

‘Yeah, suppose so,’ he says, staring away over my shoulder and out the window.

‘You OK?’

‘Ah, you know,’ he says, standing up. ‘It’s fucking Liz McQueen next, isn’t it?’

The room upstairs -

Smaller and darker than ever -

Another call for the dead, reverse charges:

I say: ‘Elizabeth McQueen?’

The Spaghetti Lady -

‘This is me,’ says Murphy. ‘And I’ll keep it brief.’

The room is hushed, Craven a notepad out for the first time, waiting for John to begin:

‘On Monday 28 November 1977, the naked body of a woman was found in Southern Cemetery, Manchester. She was later identified as Elizabeth McQueen, born on October 31 1946 in Edinburgh. McQueen was married with two children and had two cautions for soliciting. Death had resulted from brain damage caused by several blows to the head from either a hammer or an axe. The lower body had a number of lacerations, which had been inflicted after death by a sharp instrument. An attempt had also been made to sever her head. No weapons have ever been recovered.

‘McQueen had been last seen on Saturday 19 November 1977 when she’d left her home in Kippax Street, Rusholme. It has always been the belief that she met her death shortly afterwards.

‘When she left her home she was carrying a handbag which was initially not recovered. A workman found the bag on December 5. Hidden in the lining of the bag was a brand new five-pound note.

‘I was in charge of this Inquiry.’

Murphy pauses, stops dead, then says: ‘And I fucked it up.’

Silence -

It’s always the way -

‘As I say, our initial search of the crime scene failed to recover the missing handbag. We lost time and we never got it back.’

Another pause, another stop, another silence -

‘Before the bag turned up, I’d come over to Wakefield and met with George Oldman. We’d decided that while there were similarities, there were also several dissimilarities.’

On the dark stair, we miss our step -

I’m staring down at George’s press release before me:

‘We have no reason to believe at this stage that there is any connection between the murder in Manchester and the ones I am investigating.’

‘Then we found the bag and the fiver, and the rest you know.’

Another release, John’s:

‘We have a line of enquiry which is directly connected with the murder of a woman in Manchester and we are following that line of enquiry in the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police area. There is a team of detectives from Greater Manchester who are working with detectives from West Yorkshire. We will be visiting factories in the Bingley, Shipley and Bradford areas and are interviewing all male employees. As to any links with the unsolved murders in West Yorkshire, it is far too early to draw any conclusion and Mr Oldman and myself are keeping an open mind.’

Murphy staring at the tabletop, silent -

An open mind -

I say: ‘Any questions?’

Silence -

‘Break then.’

On the bright stair, John Murphy his head in his hands -

I put a hand on his shoulder -

He looks up, eyes red.

I say: ‘I’m going to head over to Wakefield for the press conference; try and get a word with Maurice as well.’

He nods.

‘You OK to hold the fort here?’

He nods again.

‘I reckon this is a good place to pause, take stock. Also we could do with a recap on the ones that got away: Jobson, Bird, Peng, Clark, and Kelly, yeah?’

‘Right.’

I look at my watch:

Eleven -

I say: ‘I’ll meet you back at the Griffin about sixish?’

‘Fine.’

I stand up.

He looks back down at the stair again.

‘John?’ I say.

He looks up.

‘You’re too hard on yourself.’

‘No, I’m not,’ he says. ‘That’s just it.’

The Road to Wakey Fear -

Rain, rain, and a bucket load of pain:

The Four Horsemen riding on the radio waves, the Ripper laughing at their heels, whip in hand:

2,133,000 record jobless, Helen Smith, the Yorkshire Ripper; all hostages alive and well .

Abba and the football, winter:

The wet lanes, the dark tires, the wet trees, the dark skies, and here she comes again, here she comes again, here she comes again, here she comes again, banging on my head with a piece of rock -

The Wakey turning, braking hard:

Never let her slip away -

And then it was Nineteen Seventy Five again, war across the UK:

Wood Street -

Wakefield, January 1975:

Me and Clarkie sat across from Maurice Jobson -

Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson, legend:

The Owl.

The Strafford, always the bloody Strafford.

Four dead:

Derek Box.

Paul Booker.

William ‘Billy’ Bell.

And the barmaid, Grace Morrison.

Box, Bell, and Morrison: D.O.A. Christmas Eve 1974.

Booker never going to make it, dead on Christmas Day.

Craven and Douglas: ‘hero cops on the mend’ with a visit and a handshake from the Home Secretary.

January 1975 -

Maurice Jobson, legend, said: ‘Some bloody Christmas that was, eh?’

‘Anything new?’

‘No.’

‘What about Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas?’

‘Doing OK, like the papers say.’

‘Anything more from them?’

‘No. Dougie still can’t remember a thing. Bob, nothing new.’

‘But he’s…’

‘The ranting’s stopped, aye.’

I opened up my notebook and said: ‘So there’s not a lot more than shots fired at the Strafford, they respond, up the stairs, bodies, smoke, four blokes in hoods with shotguns, more shots, beaten, left for dead. That’s it?’

‘That’s your lot,’ nodded Maurice .

‘I’d still like to speak to them.’

Maurice all smiles: ‘And you will, Pete. You will’

But I didn’t.

Two hours later the call from home -

On the dark stair, we miss our step -

There are corridors and passages, some lit and some not, there were doors and there were locks, some will open, some would not .

And that was that, until now -

1980 -

On the dark stair:

I knock twice.

‘Pete,’ he says, on his feet, hand out.

‘This a bad time?’