David Peace - 1974

“ Backdoor Barry. Fucking puff .”

“Saw him around where?”

“Just around. Cup of tea?” He said, rooting around in the back of the wardrobe.

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

I lit a cigarette and picked up a dirty plate for an ashtray.

“Here,” said BJ, handing me a Hillards carrier bag from the back of the wardrobe. “He wanted you to have this if anything happened to him.”

“If anything happened to him?” I repeated, opening the bag. It was stuffed full of cardboard folders and manila envelopes. “What is it?”

“His life’s work.”

I stubbed out my cigarette in dried tomato sauce. “Why? I mean, what made him leave it here?”

“Say it: why me, you mean,” sniffed BJ. “He came round here last night. Said he needed somewhere safe to keep all this. And, if anything happened to him, to give it to you.”

“Last night?”

BJ sat down on the bed and took off his jacket. “Yeah.”

“I saw you last night, didn’t I? In the Press Club?”

“Yeah, and you weren’t very nice were you?” His shirt was covered in thousands of small stars.

“I was pissed.”

“Well, that makes it all right then,” he smirked.

I lit another cigarette and hated the sight of the little queer and his star shirt. “What the fuck was your business with Barry?”

“I’ve seen things, you know?”

“I bet,” I said, glancing at my father’s watch.

He jumped up from the bed. “Listen, don’t let me keep you.”

I stood up. “I’m sorry. Sit down, please. I’m sorry.”

BJ sat back down, his nose still in the air. “I know people.”

“I’m sure you do.”

He was on his feet again, stamping his feet. “No, fuck off. Famous people.”

I stood up, my hands out. “I know, I know…”

“Listen, I’ve sucked the cocks and licked the balls of some of the greatest men this country has.”

“Like who?”

“Oh no. You don’t get it that easy.”

“All right, then. Why?”

“For money. What else is there? You think I like being me? This body? Look at me! This isn’t me.” He was on his knees, screwing up his star shirt. “I’m not a puff. I’m a girl in here,” he screamed, leaping to his feet and tearing down one of the Karen Carpenter pin-ups, screwing it up in my face. “She knows what it’s’like. He knows,” he said, turning and kicking the stereo, sending Ziggy scratching to a halt.

Barry James Anderson fell to the floor by the record player and lay with his head buried, shaking. “Barry knew.”

I sat back down and then stood back up again. I went over to the crumpled boy in his silver star shirt and maroon trousers and picked him up, gently putting him down on the bed.

“Barry knew,” he whimpered again.

I went over to the Dancette and put the needle on the record, but the song was depressing and jumped, so I turned off the music and sat back down in the stale armchair.

“Did you like Barry?” He’d dried his face and was sitting up, looking at me.

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know him that well.”

BJ’s eyes were filling up again. “He liked you.”

“Why’d he think something was going to happen to him?”

“Come on!” BJ jumped up. “Fuck. It was obvious.”

“Why was it obvious?”

“It couldn’t go on. He had so many things on so many people.”

I leant forward. “John Dawson?”

“John Dawson’s just the tip of the fucking iceberg. Haven’t you read this stuff?” He flicked his wrist at the carrier bag at my feet.

“Just what he gave the Post ,” I lied.

He smiled. “Well, all the cats are in that bag.”

I hated the little sod, his games, and his flat. “Where did he go last night after here?”

“He said he was going to help you.”

“Me?”

“That’s what he said. Something to do with that little girl in Morley, how he could tie it all together.”

I was on my feet. “What do you mean? What about her?”

“That’s all he said…”

Consumed by a vision of wings stitched into her back, of cricket ball tits on him, I flew across the room at Barry James Anderson, shouting, “Think!”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

I had him by the stars on his shirt, pressed into the bed. “Did he say anything else about Clare?”

His breath was as stale as the room and in my face. “Clare who?”

“The dead girl.”

“Just he was going out to Morley and it would help you.”

“How the fuck would that help me?”

“He didn’t-bloody- say! How many more times?”

“Nothing else?”

“Nothing. Now fucking let go will you.”

I grabbed his mouth and squeezed hard. “No. You tell me why Barry told you this,” I said, tightening my grip on his face as hard as I could before letting go of him.

“Maybe because my eyes are open. Because I see things and I remember.” His bottom lip was bleeding.

I looked down at the silver stars clasped in my other hand and let them fall. “You know bugger all.”

“Believe what you want.”

I stood up and went over to the Hillards bag. “I will.”

“You should get some sleep.”

I picked up the bag and walked over to the door. I opened the door and then turned back to the bedsit hell with one last question. “Was he drunk?”

“No, but he’d been drinking.”

“A lot?”

“I could smell it on him.” Tears were running down his cheeks.

I put down the carrier bag. “What do you think happened to him?”

“I think they killed him,” he sniffed.

“Who?”

“I don’t know their names and I don’t want to know.”

Haunted, “ There are Death Scjuads.in every city, in every country .”

I said, “Who? Dawson? The police?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why then?”

“Money, what else? To keep those cats in that bag of yours. To put them in the river.”

I stared across the room at a poster of Karen Carpenter hugging a giant Mickey Mouse.

I picked up the carrier bag. “How can I reach you?”

Barry James Anderson smiled. “442189. Tell them Eddie called and I’ll get the message.”

I wrote down the number. “Thank you.”

“Mention it.”

Back down Spencer Place in a sprint, foot down into Leeds and on to Motorway One, hoping to fuck I never saw him again:

Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Dark , theories racing:

The rain on the windscreen, the moon stolen.

Cut to the chase:

I knew a man who knew a man.

“ He could tie it all together… ”

Angels as devils, devils as angels.

The bones of the thing:

ACT LIKE NOTHING’S WRONG.

I watched my mother sleeping in her chair and tried to tie it all together.

Not here.

Up the stairs, emptying carrier bags and envelopes, scattering files and photographs across my bed.

Not here.

I scooped the whole bloody lot into one big black bin-sack, stuffing my pockets with my father’s pins and needles.

Not here.

Back down the stairs, a kiss upon my mother’s brow, and out the door.

Not here.-

Foot down, screaming through the Ossett dawn.

Not here.

Dawn at the Redbeck Cafe and Motel, Tuesday 17 December 1974.

I’d driven all night and then come back here, as though it all came back here.

I paid two weeks up front and got what I paid for:

Room 27 was round the back, two bikers on one side and a woman and her four kids on the other. There was no phone, toilet, or TV. But two quid a night got me a view of the car park, a double bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a sink, and no questions.