David Peace - 1974

Paul picked up his bowl and upended it over the plate of rice, mixing it all in together.

The waiter said, “Would you like nans, Mr Box?”

“Aye, Sammy. And another round.”

“Very good, Mr Box.”

I took the spoon from my curry bowl and let a small amount slide on to the rice.

“Get stuck in, lad. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”

I took a forkful of curry and rice, felt the fire in my mouth, and drained my pint.

After a minute, I said, “Yeah, that’s all right that is.”

“All right? It’s fucking delicious is what it is,” laughed Box with an open red mouth.

Paul nodded, breaking into a matching curry grin.

I took another forkful of curry and rice, watching the two fat men edging nearer to their plates with every mouthful.

I remembered Derek Box, or at least I remembered the stories people used to tell about Derek Box and his brothers.

I took a mouthful of yellow rice, looking over to the kitchen door for the next pint.

I remembered the stories of the Box Brothers practising their high-speed getaways down Field Lane, how kids would come down and watch them on a Sunday morning, how Derek was always the driver and Raymond and Eric were always the ones jumping in and out of the cars as they sped up and down Church Street.

The waiter returned with another silver tray of beer and three flat nan breads.

I remembered the Box Brothers getting sent down for robbing the Edinburgh Mail Train, how they claimed they’d been fitted up, how Eric had died inside just weeks before their release, how Raymond had moved to Canada or Australia, and how Derek had tried to enlist for Vietnam.

Derek and Paul were ripping their nans apart and wiping their bowls clean.

“Here,” said Derek Box, tossing me half a nan.

Having finished, he smiled, lit a cigar, and edged his chair back from the table. He took a big pull off his cigar, examined the end, exhaled and said, “Were you an admirer of Barry’s work?”

“Mm, yeah.”

“Such a waste.”

“Yeah,” I said, the lights catching the beads of sweat in Derek Box’s fair hairline.

“Seems a pity to let it go unfinished, so much of it unpub lished, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t know…”

Paul held out the Ronson for me.

I inhaled deeply and tried to flex the grip of my right hand. It hurt like fuck.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on at the moment, Mr Dunford?”

“The Clare Kemplay murder.”

“Appalling,” sighed Derek Box. “Bloody appalling. There aren’t words. And?”

“That’s about it.”

“Really? Then you’re not continuing your late friend’s crusade?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“I was led to believe you were in receipt of the great man’s files.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’m not a grass, Mr Dunford.”

“I know, I’m not saying you are.”

“I hear things and I know people who hear things.”

I looked down at a forkful of rice lying cold upon my plate. “Who?”

“Do you ever drink in the Strafford Arms?”

“In Wakefield?”

“Aye,” smiled Box.

“No. I can’t say that I do.”

“Well, maybe you should. See, upstairs is a private club, bit like your own Press Club. A place where a businessman such as myself and an officer of the law can get together in a less formal setting. Let our hair down, so to speak.”

I suddenly saw myself on the back seat of my own car, the black upholstery wet with blood, a tall man with a beard driving and humming along to Rod Stewart.

“You all right?” said Derek Box.

I shook my head. “I’m not interested.”

“You will be,” winked Box, his eyes small and lashless, straight from the Deep.

“I don’t think so.”

“Give it to him, Paul.”

Paul reached down under the table and brought out a thin manila envelope, tossing it across the dirty plates and empty pints.

“Open it,” Box dared me.

I picked up the manila envelope and stuck my left hand inside, feeling the familiar sheen of glossy enlargements.

I looked across the white tablecloth at Derek Box and Paul, visions of little girls wearing black and white wings stitched into skin swimming through the lunchtime bitter.

“Take a fucking look.”

I held the envelope down with my grey bandages and slowly removed the photographs with my left. I pushed back the plates and the bowls and laid out the three enlarged black and white photographs.

Two men naked.

Derek Box was grinning, a slash for a smile.

“I hear you’re a bit of a cunt man, Mr Dunford. So I apologise for the vile content of these snaps.”

I moved each picture apart.

Barry James Anderson, sucking the cock and licking the balls of an old man.

I said, “Who is it?”

“Well, how the mighty have fallen,” sighed Derek Box.

“They’re not very clear.”

“I think you’ll find they’re clear enough to Councillor and former Alderman William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert Shaw, should you ever wish to present him with a couple of snaps for his family album.”

The old body came into focus, the flabby belly and the skinny ribs, the white hairs and the moles.

“Bill Shaw?”

“I’m afraid so,” smiled Box.

Christ.

William Shaw, Chairman of the new Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and the West Yorkshire Police Authority, a former regional organiser of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, representing that union on the National Executive Com mittee of the Labour Party.

I stared at the swollen testicles, the silhouettes of the knotted veins in his cock, the grey pubic hairs.

William Shaw, brother of the more famous Robert.

Robert Shaw, the Home Office Minister of State and the man widely tipped Most Likely to Succeed.

Councillor Shaw, the Man Most Likely to Suck.

Fuck.

Councillor Shaw as Barry’s Third Man?

Dawsongate .

I said, “Barry knew?”

“Aye. But he lacked the tools, so to speak.”

“You want me to blackmail Shaw with these?”

“Blackmail’s not the word I had in mind.”

“What word had you in mind?”

“Persuade.”

“Persuade him to do what?”

“Persuade the Councillor that he should bare his soul of all his public wrongdoings, safe in the knowledge that his private life shall remain exactly that.”

“Why?”

“The Great British Public get the kind of truth they deserve.”

“And?”

“And we,” winked Box. “We get what we want.”

“No.”

“Then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

I looked down at the black and white photographs lying on the white tablecloth.

“And what kind of man was that?” I asked.

“A brave one.”

“You call these brave?” I said, pushing the photographs away with my grey right hand.

“In these times, yes I do.”

I took a cigarette from my pack and Paul reached across the table with the Ronson.

I said, “He’s not married is he?”

“Makes no odds,” smiled Box.

The waiter came back carrying an empty tray. “Ice-cream, Mr Box?”

Box waved his cigar in my direction. “Just one for my friend here.”

“Very good, Mr Box.” The waiter began piling the dirty plates and glasses on to the silver tray, leaving only the ashtray and the three photographs.

Derek Box ground out his cigar in the ashtray and leant across the table.

“This country’s at war, Mr Dunford. The government and the unions, the Left and the Right, the rich and the poor. Then you got your Paddys, your wogs, your niggers, the puffs and the perverts, even the bloody women; they’re all out for what they can get. Soon there’ll be nowt left for the working white man.”