David Peace: 1977

The second book in the Red Riding Quartet series, 2001

Beg Again

Tuesday 24 December 1974:

Down the Strafford stairs and out the door, blue lights on the black sky, sirens on the wind.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Running, fucked forever – the takings of the till, the pickings of their bloody pockets.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Should have finished what he started; the coppers still breathing, the barmaid and the old cunt. Should have done it right, should have done the bloody lot.

Fuck, fuck.

The last coach west to Manchester and Preston, last exit, last chance to dance.

Fucked.

The John Shark Show

Radio Leeds

Sunday 29th May 1977

Leeds.

Sunday 29 May 1977.

It’s happening again:

When the two sevens clash …

Burning unmarked rubber through another hot dawn to another ancient park with her secret dead, from Potter’s Field to Soldier’s Field, parks giving up their ghosts, it’s happening all over again.

Sunday morning, windows open, and it’s going to be another scorcher , red postbox sweating, dogs barking at a rising sun.

Radio on: alive with death.

Stereo: car and walkie-talkie both:

Proceeding to Soldier’s Field .

Noble’s voice from another car.

Ellis turns to me, a look like we should be going faster.

‘She’s dead,’ I say, but knowing what he should be thinking:

Sunday morning – giving HIM a day’s start, a day on us, another life on us. Nothing but the bloody Jubilee in every paper till tomorrow morning, no-one remembering another Saturday night in Chapeltown .

Chapeltown – my town for two years; leafy streets filled with grand old houses carved into shabby little flats filled full of single women selling sex to fill their bastard kids, their bastard men, and their bastard habits.

Chapeltown – my deal: MURDER SQUAD.

The deals we make, the lies they buy, the secrets we keep, the silence they get .

I switch on the siren, a sledgehammer through all their Sunday mornings, a clarion call for the dead.

And Ellis says, ‘That’ll wake the fucking nig-nogs up.’

But a mile up ahead I know she’ll not flinch upon her damp dew bed.

And Ellis smiles, like this is what it’s all about; like this was what he’d signed up for all along.

But he doesn’t know what’s lying on the grass at Soldier’s Field.

I do.

I know.

I’ve been here before.

And now, now it’s happening again.

‘Where the fuck’s Maurice?’

I’m walking towards her, across the grass, across Soldier’s Field. I say, ‘He’ll be here.’

Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Noble, George’s boy, out from behind his fat new Millgarth desk, between me and her.

I know what he’s hiding: there’ll be a raincoat over her, boots or shoes placed on her thighs, a pair of panties left on one leg, a bra pushed up, her stomach and breasts hollowed out with a screwdriver, her skull caved in with a hammer .

Noble looks at his watch and says, ‘Well, anyroad, I’m taking this one.’

There’s a bloke in a tracksuit by a tall oak, throwing up. I look at my watch. It’s seven and there’s a fine steam coming off the grass all across the park.

Eventually I say, ‘It him?’

Noble moves out of the way. ‘See for yourself.’

‘Fuck,’ says Ellis.

The man in the tracksuit looks up, spittle all down him, and I think about my son and my stomach knots.

Back on the road, more cars are arriving, people gathering.

Detective Chief Superintendent Noble says, ‘The fuck you put that sodding siren on for? World and his wife’ll be out here now.’

‘Possible witnesses,’ I smile and finally look at her:

There’s a tan raincoat draped over her, white feet and hands protruding. There are dark stains on the coat.

‘Have a bloody look,’ Noble says to Ellis.

‘Go on,’ I add.

Detective Constable Ellis slowly puts on two white plastic gloves and then squats down on the grass beside her.

He lifts up the coat, swallows and looks up at me. ‘It’s him,’ he says.

I just stand there, nodding, looking off at some crocuses or something.

Ellis lowers the coat.

Noble says, ‘He found her.’

I look back over at the man in the tracksuit, at the man with the sick on him, grateful. ‘Got a statement?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ smiles Noble.

Ellis stands up. ‘What a fucking way to go,’ he says.

Detective Chief Superintendent Noble lights up and exhales. ‘Silly slag,’ he hisses.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Fraser and this is Detective Constable Ellis. We’d like to take a statement and then you can get off home.’

‘Statement.’ He pales again. ‘You don’t think I had anything…’

‘No, sir. Just a statement detailing how you came to be here and report this.’

‘I see.’

‘Let’s sit in the car.’

We walk over to the road and get in the back. Ellis sits in the front and switches off the radio.

It’s hotter than I thought it would be. I take out my notebook and pen. He reeks. The car was a bad idea.

‘Let’s start with your name and address.’

‘Derek Poole, with an e . 4 Strickland Avenue, Shadwell.’

Ellis turns round. ‘Off Wetherby Road?’

Mr Poole says, ‘Yes.’

‘That’s quite a jog,’ I say.

‘No, no. I drove here. I just jog round the park.’

‘Every day?’

‘No. Just Sundays.’

‘What time did you get here?’

He pauses and then says, ‘About sixish.’

‘Where’d you park?’

‘About a hundred yards up there,’ he says, nodding up the Roundhay Road.

He’s got secrets has Derek Poole and I’m laying odds with myself:

2-1 affair.

3-1 prostitutes.

4-1 puff.

Sex, whatever.

He’s a lonely man is Derek Poole, often bored. But this isn’t what he had in mind for today.

He’s looking at me. Ellis turns round again.

I ask, ‘Are you married?’

‘Yes, I am,’ he replies, like he’s lying.

I write down married.

He says, ‘Why?’

‘What do you mean, why?’

He shifts in his tracksuit. ‘I mean, why do you ask?’

‘Same reason I’m going to ask how old you are.’

‘I see. Just routine?’

I don’t like Derek Poole, his infidelities and his arrogance, so I say, ‘Mr Poole, there’s nothing routine about a young woman having her stomach slashed open and her skull smashed in.’