David Peace - 1980

Lit match, gone -

Dark Jack. Lit match, gone -

Like dark Jack, out -

Seeing through his eyes: Winter, collapse -

Dark Jack. Winter, collapse -

Like dark Jack, out -

Seeing through his eyes:

1980 -

Out, out, out.

Thursday 18 December 1980.

Stanley Royd Hospital, Wakefield.

I’m sitting in the car park, my back on fire -

In flames, waiting for Hook, striking matches -

The hum of pop times, Northern songs -

Listening to the news:

Civil Service strikes, air strikes, Ripper strikes ,

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie -

Out, out, out .

No mention of Douglas and his daughter -

No mention of the war -

The murder and the lies, the lies and the murder .

Black and white, the sky and the snow -

Black and white, the photographs and news.

A tap on the window -

‘Morning,’ mouths Hook through the window.

I get out of the car -

It’s freezing -

The air grey, the trees black -

The nests still empty.

‘Nice place,’ says Hook, a black doctor’s bag in one hand.

‘Lovely,’ I smile and lead the way up the steps to the inside -

Again, the warm and sickly sweet smell of shit.

The woman in white puts down the black telephone and says: ‘Can I help you?’

Warrant cards out, Hook says: ‘We’re here to see Jack Whitehead.’

She nods.

I add: ‘Is Leonard about?’

She shakes her head: ‘He’s gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Quit.’

‘Bit sudden, wasn’t it? He was here on Tuesday’

‘Called up yesterday, said he’d had enough.’

‘We’ll need an address,’ says Hook. ‘And a surname,’ I say.

She looks from Hook to me and back again -

‘Marsh,’ she frowns. ‘Lived up Netherton way, I’ll have to look out the address.’

‘If you would,’ smiles Hook.

There’s a pause -

‘Can you take us up?’ I ask.

She shakes her head: ‘I’ll have to call Mr Papps, he’s in charge. He can take you up.’

She picks up the phone and asks for Mr Papps.

‘He’ll be with you in five minutes,’ says the woman in white.

We wait, standing amongst the furniture, watching the skin and bones shuffling past, watch them coming to a stop, standing, watching us watch them, waiting.

‘He’ll be with you in five minutes,’ says the woman in white again.

I turn away from their stares, reading the etched tracts in the lower green half of the wall:

Here house hex’d .

‘What do you think?’ asks Hook.

‘About?’

‘This Leonard Marsh bloke?’

‘I don’t know,’ I shrug. ‘He was hardly a bloke. Twenty at most. I thought he was a trustee or something. Didn’t realise he was staff.’

‘He had access to Whitehead?’

‘Yep,’ I nod.

‘Gentlemen?’

We turn back from the green and cream wall -

‘Mr Papps?’ says Hook.

The small chubby man in the blue blazer with the gold buttons nods: ‘Sorry to have kept you waiting.’

‘No problem,’ says Hook. ‘This is Peter Hunter, Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester and I’m Chief Inspector Roger Hook, also of Manchester.’

Mr Papps keeps on nodding, shaking our hands: ‘Yes, the call was a bit vague. I’m not sure really how I can…’

I tell him: ‘Unfortunately, at this stage, it’s difficult to be anything other than vague. So I’m afraid you’ll have to bear with us, if you don’t mind.’

He’s still nodding: ‘You were on the telly the other day, weren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I came here on Tuesday. I believe I spoke to you on the phone?’

‘My assistant,’ says Mr Papps. ‘Is this about the Yorkshire Ripper then?’

‘No,’ says Roger Hook. ‘It’s not.’

I say: ‘I spoke to one of your patients, Jack Whitehead.’

Mr Papps, still nodding, thinking too much: putting two and two together and getting four.

‘We’d just like to clarify a few things Mr Whitehead said and also get a bit more background on him,’ I half-lie.

‘Is there anywhere we can talk?’ asks Hook.

‘This way,’ says Mr Papps and he leads us into a big cold room with big cold windows, all big black shadows thanks to the big black trees outside -

We sit shivering in more second-hand furniture.

‘What do you want to know?’ asks Papps.

‘Everything,’ says Hook. ‘Starters, when was Mr Whitehead admitted?’

‘Here?’

We nod.

‘Well, he’s been here since the September of 77.’

Me: ‘He was in Pinderfields before that though?’

‘Yes,’ says Papps. ‘I think it was the June that he was admitted.’

Hook: ‘With a nail in his head?’

‘Yes,’ says Papps, lowering his voice.

‘And he did that himself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

In this cold and black room Mr Papps is sweating, fiddling with the gold buttons on the blue blazer: ‘You don’t know about his wife, his ex-wife?’

‘No,’ says Hook.

Nothing, I say nothing -

Mr Papps, he wipes his brow and he tells Hook: ‘In January 1975, a man called Michael Williams believed he was possessed by an evil spirit. A local priest tried to perform an exorcism, however something went wrong and Williams ended up killing his wife and running naked through the streets of Ossett covered in her blood. The woman’s name was Carol Williams. She was Jack Whitehead’s ex-wife. Williams killed her by hammering a nail into the top of her skull. Worse, Whitehead was there. Saw it all.’

‘He was there?’

‘Yes, Mr Hook. He was there.’

‘Why?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘And Williams?’

‘I believe he’s in Broadmoor, but I’m not certain.’

‘So in 1977 Whitehead tried to do it to himself?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘The top of his skull.’

‘No, the place?’

‘The Griffin Hotel, Leeds.’

Hook turns to me: ‘That’s where you lot are staying, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I nod.

‘Bloody hell. Did you know?’

‘No,’ I lie.

He turns back to Papps: ‘And so he was brought to Pinderfields, and then here?’

‘Yes.’

‘You wouldn’t think you could survive, would you?’

I’m thinking of hollows and heads, craters and craniums, the pictures on the wall.

‘Actually, quite the contrary,’ says Mr Papps. ‘In the ancient world, a hole in the head was often used as a cure of other trauma or depression. Hippocrates wrote of its merits.’

Me: Trepanation?’

Papps is nodding: ‘Yes, trepanation. Apparently John Lennon was interested in it. And, as I say, it was quite common in the ancient world.’

‘But this is the modern world,’ says Hook. ‘And John Lennon’s dead.’

‘Yes,’ says Papps. ‘The modern world.’

I ask: ‘So what progress has he made?’

‘You’ve met him? Not much.’

Hook: ‘Is he likely to?’

Papps is shaking his head: ‘Hard to say.’

‘He’s on medication?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can you write out his prescriptions for us, the names of the drugs?’

Papps nods.

Me: ‘Visitors?’

‘Not many. I’d have to check.’

‘Would you?’

Papps nods again.

I say: ‘The lady on the desk, she tells us that Leonard Marsh has left you?’

‘Yes,’ says Papps.

‘Was he in charge of Mr Whitehead?’

‘Not in charge, no. But he certainly had helped look after him for quite a time. Since he got here.’

‘Whitehead?’

‘Yes,’ says Papps.

‘Why did he leave?’

‘Leonard? I’m not sure, just had had enough he said.’