David Peace - 1977

In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone.

I’m lying on the floor of the phone box, it’s dark outside except for the bonfires and street lights, the fireworks and the headlights, the big Chapeltown trees bending over me, the owls in the trees with their wide, wide fucking round eyes, and I’m cursing Maurice fucking Jobson, Uncle Maurice, the Owl, my guardian angel, with his least she’s from a police family. Knows the score speech and all that you need anything, you let me know bollocks: well come down here to this fucking box and get me out of here and bring her back to me, come on cunt before I take a knife to those wings, those stinking black wings, those stinking black fucking wings of death, come on and bring her back to me, here in my little red box, here in my dark age, my stone age, the dead age, cradling the receiver, bring her back to see me crying, see me weeping, see me sobbing in a ball on a phone box floor, the hair in my hands, the bloody hair in my hands, the bloody clumps of hair in my hands.

In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone.

‘The fuck…’

I’ve got Joe fucking Rose by his throat, heavy smoke across the room, mattress against the window, two sevens painted on every surface, the dumb stoned fucking chimpanzee shitting his pants.

‘I’ll kill you.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘So tell me…’

He’s shaking, white-ball-eyes to the ceiling, stuttering: ‘Janice?’

‘Tell me.’

‘I don’t know where she is, man. I swear.’

I’ve got my fingers up his nose, my keys to those big brown eyes of his.

‘Please man, I swear.’

‘I will kill you.’

‘I know it man, I know it.’

‘So tell me.’

‘Tell you what? I don’t know where she is.’

‘You know she’s gone?’

‘Every fucker does.’

‘So tell me something no fucker knows.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like who was pimping her?’

‘Who was pimping her? You’re joking right?’

‘Do I look like I’m fucking joking?’

‘Eric, man.’

‘Eric Hall?’

‘You didn’t know?’

‘She was his grass.’

‘Fuck that. He was pimping her.’

‘You’re lying to me Joe.’

‘You didn’t fucking know?’

I grip his throat.

‘I swear it, man. Eric Hall was pimping her. Ask anyone.’

I stare into those big brown eyes, those big brown blind eyes of his and wonder.

‘Look, she’ll be back,’ he’s saying. ‘Like a boomerang, like the lot of them.’

I let go and he drops to the floor.

I walk towards what’s left of the door, all shattered wood and splattered sevens.

‘Cept the ones your Captain Jack gets,’ he’s still saying. ‘Cept the ones that pirate takes.’

‘You call me, Joe. The second you hear the slightest thing, you call me.’

He’s nodding, rubbing his throat.

‘Or I’ll come back and I will fucking kill you.’

In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone on the street.

I dial again, no Louise.

I dial again and again, no Louise.

I dial the hospital but they won’t put me through.

I dial York and ten minutes later the Sister tells me Mr Ronald Prendergast died this morning of the haemorrhage caused by the injuries sustained during the robbery.

I look up and see the sky through the trees.

See more rain.

I dial again, no Louise.

I dial again and again, no Louise.

I dial the hospital but they hang up.

Fuck Karen Burns.

Fuck Joe Rose.

Fuck Ronald Prendergast.

Fuck the fucking Ripper.

Fuck Maurice.

Fuck Bill.

Fuck Louise.

Fuck them all.

She’s gone:

I’m gone

In hell.

Battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me.

In hell in a stolen car.

Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall, out of the Bradford HQ at Jacob’s Well, and that’s where I am, Jacob’s Well, waiting in a stolen car, his car, Eric’s car, the one I took from his drive out in Denholme:

No-one home, the taxi gone, my money with it.

Round the back of Eric’s little castle, through the rain on the panes, the nets and the gaps in the curtains, kicking in his back door, through the stink of the family pets, the family photos, into his study with the big windows and views of the golf course, through his boxes of medals, his old coins, looking for anything, any piece of Janice, any little piece of her, finding nothing, taking the housekeeping and the keys to his brand new Granada 2000 in Miami fucking blue.

Cunt.

Down the Halifax Road, on to Thornton Road, through Allerton and into Bradford, one road straight to Jacob’s Well.

Radio on:

‘Mr Clive Peterson, the sub-postmaster at Heywood Road, Rochdale, was found unconscious early this morning after challenging intruders on his premises. Police on both sides of the Pennines were examining the possibility of a link to a similar series of crimes in the Yorkshire area .

‘Mr Ronald Prendergast of New Park Road, Selby, died this morning having failed to regain consciousness after he disturbed intruders at his sub-post office on 4 June. Mr Prendergast is the second sub-postmaster to have been killed in as many months. A spokesman for the Post Office said…’

Cunts.

Foot down.

One road straight to him, to Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall.

Cunt.

In an empty Bank Holiday car park, trying to think straight, trying to get some quiet in my brain, the rain drumming on the roof, the radio droning on:

‘The RAC described conditions as the worst in years

Bitter winds and rain forecast.

‘Weather is the only enemy to the biggest party in twenty-five years…’

Wanting a party of my own, getting out of Eric’s car to find a phone box.

In hell in a stolen car, the lights all red.

I’m sat on the bonnet of his brand new Miami-blue Granada 2000, waiting for him.

He comes across the deserted car park, a sheepskin coat in summer, rain flattening his thin fair hair and crap ‘tache, and he sees me, clocks the car, his car, and starts running, about to go fucking mental like I knew he would, and it hits me then how far I’ve come and it can’t be more than 5 p.m. on Monday 6 June 1977, but it hits me then there’s no way back from here.

This is where I am:

‘You fucking cunt,’ he’s screaming. ‘That’s my fucking car. How you, what the…’ and he pushes me off the bonnet on to the ground, jumping on top of me, the pair of us rolling about in the puddles, him punching me once in the side of the head.

But that’s all he’s getting.

I hit back, once, twice, getting him down, the side of his face flat on the car park tarmac:

‘Fuck is she, Eric?’

He struggles, but when he speaks his lips bleed into the floor.

I pull him up by the thin bits of shit he calls hair:

‘Fuck is she?’

‘How the fuck I know, you cunt. She’s your fucking tart…’

I smash his skull down into the ground and pull it back and his eyes are rolling about and I’m thinking stop it, stop it, stop it, you can’t do that again, you can’t do that again, you cannot do that again or you’ll kill him, you’ll kill him, you will kill him, and there’s blood pouring from his scalp and I’m fucked here and I grip his face between my hands until he focuses and I say:

‘Eric, don’t make me do that again.’

And he’s nodding but I don’t know what that means.

‘Eric, I know you were pimping her.’

And he’s still nodding but it could mean fucking anything.