David Peace - 1980

STOP .

HISS -

Cries -

Whispers -

More hell:

‘How much do you love me?’

STOP .

HISS -

Cries -

Cries -

Cries:

‘Spirits will kill Hunter!’

STOP

Silence -

Tape over.

Silence -

Between these walls, silence -

Walls tattooed with shadows silent, silent pain -

Maps, charts, photographs of pain -

The silent pain of the photographs -

Grace Morrison, Billy Bell, Paul Booker, and Derek Box -

Across the maps, the charts, and the photographs -

Swastikas and sixes -

Shadows, swastikas and sixes -

Six six sixes -

(Silent shadows, silent sixes).

Sat among the silence, sat upon the table -

The smashed and splintered, stained and shattered table -

Sat upon the low table in the centre of the room -

Wings, huge and rotting things -

Big black things that weigh me down, heavy -

Stop me standing -

Sitting on the table, his shotgun on my knees -

Staring at the sixes -

Silent sixes, waiting -

Six six sixes .

Across the sixes -

Across the swastikas, across the shadows -

Across them all -

The blood across the wall -

Head off, face gone, beard gone -

His head blown off -

Bob Craven -

Between the table and the bar -

Bob Craven, silent -

Tape off.

Silence -

Silence until -

Until outside I hear car tires on the car park -

The rotten, uneven car park -

Puddles of rain water and motor oil under wheels -

Car lights illuminating a door -

A door to an upstairs room -

A door banging in the wind, in the rain -

The car lights stop before the door -

The door to an upstairs room -

The door banging in the wind, in the rain -

More doors banging, slamming -

Car doors slamming -

Boots across the car park -

The rotten, uneven car park -

Puddles of rain water and motor oil underfoot -

Boots upon the dark stone stairs;

I look down at the shotgun across my knees -

Sat among the silent sixes, on the table -

On the table -

Wings, huge and rotting things -

Big black raven things that weigh me down, heavy -

Stop me standing -

Sitting on the table, the shotgun on my knees -

Staring at the sixes -

Silent sixes, waiting -

The door banging in the wind, in the rain -

They open the door -

Two figures in the doorway at the end of the passage -

Two shotguns -

The passage is dark and they can smell the stink of another shotgun -

The stink of bad things, the stink of death -

The stink of the Strafford .

They step inside -

A rotting, eaten mattress against a window -

They walk down the passage to the front -

To the bar -

They pull open another door -

The door to the bar -

The last door -

Two figures in the doorway -

Two shotguns -

Two figures and two shotguns:

Alderman and Murphy -

Richard Alderman and John Murphy -

The shotgun across my knees -

The silent sixes, the shadows -

Wings, huge and rotting things -

Big black raven things that -

That weigh me down, heavy and burnt -

That stop me standing -

That stop me -

Stop me -

– a shot .

David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet, GB84, The Damned Utd , and Tokyo Year Zero . He was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, and has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the German Crime Fiction Award, and the French Grand Prix de Roman Noir for Best Foreign Novel. He lives in Yorkshire.

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