David Peace - 1980

‘What?’

‘Sti rip sll iwl lik Hunter!’

‘What are you fucking saying? Tell me!’

Silence, his body empty, his face on his chest -

Dripping -

I step forward from the door and right the chair.

Dripping -

Drawn to his skull, I cannot look away.

Dripping -

Out of the shadows, in the patch from the window, I look down on the top of his scalp and the hole he’d made.

Dripping -

I want to touch, to put a finger in that hole, but I dare not.

Dripping -

Instead, I walk backwards to the door and open it.

I step out into the corridor, looking for Leonard -

I see him coming down the corridor towards me.

I glance back into the room -

Jack Whitehead unbound and upon his knees, gazing to the ceiling in suppliant pose, hands clasped in prayer.

He turns, a torrent of tears upon his cheeks -

Dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping -

‘Close the door,’ he says. ‘Please close the door.’

‘He’s loose,’ I shout at the approaching orderly -

‘Jesus,’ says Leonard, going in to his charge. ‘Not again.’

I am standing in a red phonebox somewhere in the dark on the way back into Leeds -

I say: ‘Would it be possible to meet?’

‘Of course.’

‘About seven? In the Griffin?’

‘Fine.’

‘Thank you,’ I say and hang up.

I knock on the door of her hotel room.

Helen Marshall opens the door, hair matted and eyes red again, the top button of her blouse undone.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

‘They called it a day.’

‘Are you busy? You doing anything now?’

‘No.’

‘I want you to meet someone. Do you mind?’

‘No,’ she smiles. ‘I don’t mind.’

From the high-backed chair, the Reverend Martin Laws rises.

‘Reverend Laws, this is Detective Sergeant Helen Marshall.’

They shake hands.

‘DS Marshall is part of my team,’ I say. ‘And, to be honest, I’d prefer our conversations from now on to be conducted in the presence of DS Marshall or another member of my team.’

Laws is nodding, smiling: ‘I’m not under arrest, am I?’

‘No,’ I say, without a smile.

We all sit down.

The lounge is empty but for an old woman and a child reading a comic.

‘Reverend Laws,’ I say. ‘Do you mind telling us how you came to meet Mrs Hall and when that would have been?’

‘About two years ago. She’d heard of my work.’

‘Your work?’

The man leans forward in his chair, his hat on his lap, his bag between his boots, and he says: ‘I stop suffering.’

‘How had she heard of you?’

‘The word gets around, Mr Hunter.’

‘So she just rang you up out of the blue?’

‘I wouldn’t say it was the blue, Mr Hunter. But yes, she just rang me up.’

‘And what did she want?’

‘What everyone wants.’

‘Which is?’

‘For the suffering to stop.’

‘And that’s what you did?’

‘I can see you’re not a believer Mr Hunter, but that’s what I try and do.’

‘Stop suffering?’

‘Yes.’

‘How?’ asks Helen Marshall, suddenly.

Martin Laws turns his head slightly and stares at Helen Marshall, silent, just staring -

‘How?’ she says again, looking down at her own hands.

‘I make it go away,’ he smiles.

‘But how?’

‘Magick,’ he laughs.

Tired, I say: ‘Mr Laws, would you mind calling Mrs Hall and asking when it might be convenient to see her?’

‘You wouldn’t prefer to do it yourself?’

‘I’d like us all to be there.’

Mr Laws stands up and walks over to the telephone on the front desk.

‘Are you OK?’ I ask DS Marshall.

‘I’m sorry, I think I’m just tired.’

‘Do you want to go up?’

‘No, I’ll be OK.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ she snaps.

Mr Laws comes back over.

‘Do you want to take my car?’

‘We’ll follow,’ I say.

In the car, the drive to Denholme -

In the dark, Helen Marshall beside me.

‘You know what happened to her?’

‘I hate this place,’ she nods, staring out at the black Yorkshire night.

In the car, the drive to Denholme -

In the dark.

We pull up behind the old green Viva in front of a lonely house, its back to the endless night of a golf course.

It’s Sunday 19 June 1977 -

‘You’d think she would have moved,’ says Helen Marshall.

Back from church, evensong -

We walk up the drive, towards Mrs Hall and the Reverend Martin Laws.

I come home, open the door, and they grab me, drag me by hair into the dining room and Eric, sitting there in front of the TV with his throat cut -

She’s pulling at the skin around her neck.

‘Evening, Mrs Hall,’ I say.

‘Good evening, Mr Hunter.’

‘This is Detective Sergeant Marshall. I hope you don’t mind her coming along?’

‘Not at all,’ says Mrs Hall, shaking her head. ‘Please come in.’

Then they tie my hands behind my back and leave me on the floor at his feet, in his blood, while they go into the kitchen, making sandwiches from our fridge, drinking his beer and my wine, until they come back and decide to have their fun with me, there on the floor in front of Eric -

Here in the front room, in front of the TV, we sit down on the big golden sofa, displays of coins and medals in ornate cases.

They strip me and beat me and put it in my vagina, in my bottom, in my mouth, their penises, bottles, chair legs, anything -

Mrs Hall is in the kitchen, making tea, the Reverend Laws watching the road through the bay windows.

They urinate in my face, cut chunks of my hair off, force me to suck them, lick them, kiss them, drink their urine, eat their excrement -

She comes back with a pot of tea and four cups on a tray.

We drink the milky weak brew in silence.

I put down my cup and say: ‘Did Eric have a study or anything?’

She stands up: ‘It’s this way.’

Leaving Helen Marshall with Laws, I follow Mrs Hall out of the front room and into the back of the house.

She opens a door and leads me into a cold room with French windows staring out at the golf course.

Mrs Hall puts on a light, our thin deformed bodies frozen in the cold, cold room, reflected in the black glass -

Among the coins and medals, more coins and medals -

I say: ‘I’d like to take a look at Eric’s files, if that’s OK?’

‘Wait here,’ she says and leaves me.

I walk over to the windows and strain to see into the night -

There is nothing to see.

Mrs Hall comes back with a large cardboard supermarket box and puts it down on the desk.

I ask her: ‘These are the copies of all the stuff you gave Maurice Jobson?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Help yourself.’

I open the flaps and pull out envelopes and folders.

‘There’s quite a bit,’ I say. ‘I’ll need to take it with me?’

She doesn’t speak, just looks at the box on the desk.

‘You’ll get it all back, I promise.’

‘I’m not sure I want it back,’ she says, quietly.

I close the flaps: ‘Thank you.’

‘I just hope it helps,’ she says, staring at me.

I cough and ask her: ‘How did you meet Mr Laws?’

‘I was given his name?’

‘May I ask who by?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

Then they take me to the bathroom and try to drown me, leaving me unconscious on the floor for my son to find -

‘But Jack’s in hospital. In Stanley Royd?’

‘And where do you think I’ve been for the last three years, Mr Hunter?’