David Peace - 1977

‘You want to talk money first?’

‘I don’t want any fucking money. That’s not why I’m here.’

‘OK,’ I said, sure he was lying, thinking money, attention, revenge . ‘You want to tell me why you are here then?’

His eyes were moving through the people as they came in, saying, ‘When you listen to what I’m going to say, when you see what’s in here, then you’ll understand.’

Attention .

I pointed to the empty glasses. ‘You want another?’

‘Why not?’ he nodded and I signalled to the barmaid.

We sat there, saying nothing, waiting.

The barmaid brought over the drinks.

The house lights dimmed.

He leant forward, glancing at his watch.

I leant in to meet him, like we were going to kiss.

He spoke quickly but clearly:

‘Clare Strachan, the woman they say the Ripper did in Preston, well I knew her. Used to live round here, called herself Morrison. She was mixed up with some people, not very nice people, people I am very fucking afraid of, people I never ever want to meet again. Understand?’

I sat there nodding, saying nothing, nodding, thinking lots:

Revenge .

The lights at the front changed from blue to red and back again.

His eyes danced across the room and back to me.

‘I made a lot of mistakes, got in way over my head, I think she must have done the same.’

I stared straight ahead, the band about to come on. He tipped his Scotch into his pint.

‘You say, she must have. Why?’ I said. ‘What makes you think that?’

He looked up from his pint, head on his lips, and smiled. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

From the front of the stage a man in a velvet dinner jacket bellowed into a loud microphone:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, they say we’re dying, say we’re dead and buried, well they said the same about these boys but here to prove them wrong, back from the dead, from beyond the grave, the living dead themselves, please give a big Yorkshire Clubland welcome to the New Zombies!’

The blue curtain went up, the drums started, and the song began.

‘She’s Not There ,’ said the skinhead, looking at the stage.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said.

He turned back to me. ‘Spot of late night reading,’ he said and passed the bag under the table.

I took it and started to open it.

‘Not here,’ he snapped, nodding to the side: ‘Bogs.’

I got up and walked through the empty tables, glancing back at the pale youth in the black suit, head bobbing to the keyboards from the stage.

‘Give you hand if you want,’ he called after me.

I shut the cubicle door and closed the toilet lid, sat down and opened the plastic bag.

Inside was another bag, a brown paper bag.

I opened the brown bag and pulled out a magazine.

A nack mag, pornography.

Cheap pornography.

Amateurs:

Spunk .

The corner of one page was folded down.

I turned to the marked page and there she was:

White hair and pink flesh, wet red holes and dry blue eyes, legs spread and flicking her clit.

Clare Strachan.

I was hard.

I was hard and she was dead.

I came out of the toilets, back into the ballroom, the skinny woman in the long pink dress dancing alone in front of the stage, one hundred stark albino faces staring back at the bar where four coppers were talking to the barmaid, pointing at our empty table.

Two of the police suddenly ran outside.

The other two were looking at me.

I had the bag in my hands.

I was afraid, really fucking scared, and I knew why.

The policemen walked through the tables, coming towards me, getting nearer.

I started back the other way towards my table.

I felt a hand on my elbow.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

‘The gentleman who was at your table, do you know where he might have gone?’

‘I’m sorry, no. Why?’

‘Would you mind stepping outside for a moment, sir?’

‘No,’ I nodded, letting myself be led through the tables, the band still playing, the pink lady still dancing, the ghosts still watching me.

Outside it was raining again and we stood together, the three of us under the canopy.

The two policemen were both young and nervous, unsure: ‘May I have your name please, sir?’

‘Jack Whitehead.’

The one looked at the other. ‘From the papers?’

‘Yep. Do you mind if I ask what this is about?’

‘The man who was at your table, we believe he may have stolen that Austin Allegro over there.’

‘Well I’m sorry Officer, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Don’t even know his name.’

‘Anderson. Barry James Anderson.’

Bells ringing, peeling back the years .

The two other policemen were coming back across the car park, wet and out of breath.

‘Fuck,’ said the older of the two, head down, hands on his knees.

‘Who we got here?’ asked the other.

‘Says he’s Jack Whitehead from the Post ,’

The fat, older copper looked up, ‘Fuck me it is and all. Talk of the bloody devil.’

‘Don,’ I said.

‘Been a while,’ he nodded.

Not nearly fucking long enough, I was thinking, the day complete; this plagued day of blighted visions and wretched memory, no stones unturned, no bones still sleeping, the dead abroad, wrought from the living.

‘This is Jack Whitehead,’ Sergeant Donald Humphries was saying, the rain heavy on the canopy above our heads. ‘It was him and me who found that Exorcist job that night I was telling you about.’

Yeah, I thought, like he ever talked about anything but that night, like for a moment he understood the things we saw that night, that night we stood before the hills and the mills, before the bones and the stones, before the living and the dead, that night Michael Williams lay naked in the rain upon his lawn and cradled Carol in his arms and stroked her bloody hair for one last time.

But maybe I was doing him a disservice, for the smile went behind a clouded face and he shook his head and said, ‘How’ve you been Jack?’

‘Never better. And yourself?’

‘Can’t complain,’ he said. ‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’

‘Bit of supper,’ I said.

He pointed to the bag in my hand and smiled, ‘Spot of shopping and all?’

‘Less than 200 days to Christmas, Don.’

I drove back, hitting eighty.

I did the steps in a heartbeat, opened the door, boots off and on to the bed, opened the mag, glasses on and into Clare:

Spunk .

Issue 3 – January 1975 .

I turned it over, nothing.

I opened up the inside, something:

Spunk is published by MJM Publishing Ltd. Printed and Distributed by MJM Printing Ltd, 270 Oldham Street, Manchester, England .

I went over to the telephone and dialled Millgarth.

‘Detective Sergeant Fraser please.’

‘I’m afraid Sergeant Fraser went off -’

‘Telephone down, back to the bed, back to – Carol, striking Clare’s pose.

‘This what you like?’

‘No.’

‘This what your dirty little Chinese bitch does?’

‘No.’

‘Come on, Jack. Fuck me.’

I ran into the kitchen, opened the drawer, took out the carving knife.

She had her fingers up her cunt, ‘Come on, Jack.’

‘Leave me alone,’ I shouted.

‘You’re going to use that are you?’ she winked.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘You should take it Bradford,’ she laughed. ‘Finish what he started.’

I flew across the room, the knife and a boot in my hands, on to the bed, battering her head, her white skin streaked red, her fair hair dark, everything sticky and black, laughter and screams until there was nothing left but a dirty knife in my hand, grey hairs stuck to the heel of my boot, drops of blood across the crumpled colour spread of dear Clare Strachan, fingers wet and cunt red.