David Peace - 1974

“Perverts,” shouted one of the boys.

“Here,” laughed the boy with the hammer, standing on the chair. “You best not be one.”

“There’s a dead cat upstairs in the bath,” I said as I got into the car.

“We know,” giggled the youngest boy. “We fucking killed it, didn’t we?”

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, all good children go to heaven.

I sat in my car across the road from Fitzwilliam Junior and Infants.

It was going up to five and the school lights were still on, illuminating walls of Christmas drawings and paintings inside.

There were children playing soccer in the dark playground, chasing after a cheap orange ball in a pack of baggy trousers and dark wool sweaters with those big yellow stars.

I sat freezing in the Viva, my bandages stuffed up into my armpit, thinking of the Holocaust and wondering if Michael John Myshkin had gone to this school.

After ten minutes or so, some of the lights went out and three fat white women came out of the building with a thin man in blue overalls. The women waved goodbye to the man as he walked over to the children and tried to take their ball from them. The women were laughing as they left the school gates.

I got out of the car and jogged across the road after the women.

“Excuse me, ladies?”

The three fat women turned round and stopped.

“Mrs Myshkin?”

“You’re joking?” spat the largest woman.

“Fress are you, love?” smirked the oldest.

I smiled and said, “ Yorkshire Post .”

“Bit late aren’t you?” said the largest.

“I heard she worked here?”

“Until yesterday, aye,” said the oldest.

“Where’d she go?” I asked the woman with the steel-rimmed spectacles who hadn’t said anything.

“Don’t look at me. I’m new,” she said.

The oldest woman said, “Our Kevin says one of your lot is putting them up in some posh hotel over in Scarborough.”

“That’s not right,” said the new one.

I stood there, thinking fuck, fuck, fuck.

There were shouts from the playground and a charge of monkey boots.

“They’re going to put that bloody window through,” sighed the largest woman.

I said, “You two worked with Mrs Myshkin, yeah?”

“For more than five years, aye,” said the oldest.

“What’s she like then?”

“Had a hard life, she has.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well he’s on Sick because of dust…”

“The husband was a miner?”

“Aye. Worked with our Pat,” said the largest.

“What about Michael?”

The women looked at each other, grimacing.

“He’s not all there,” whispered the new woman.

“How do you mean?”

“Bit slow, I heard.”

“Does he have any mates?”

“Mates?” said two of the women together.

“He plays with some of the young ones on his street, like,” said the oldest woman, shuddering. “But they’re not mates.”

“Ugh, makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?” said the new woman.

“There must be someone?”

“Don’t pall around with anyone much, not that I know.”

The other two women both nodded their heads.

“What about people from work?”

The fattest woman shook her head, saying, “Doesn’t work round here, does he? Castleford way?”

“Aye. Our Kevin said he’s at some photographer’s.”

“Mucky books, I heard,” said the new one.

“You’re having me on?” said the oldest woman.

“What I heard.”

The man in the blue overalls was stood back at the school gates, a padlock and a chain in his hands, shouting at the children.

“Bloody kids these days,” said the largest woman.

“Bloody nuisance they are.”

I said, “Thanks for your time, ladies.”

“You’re welcome, love,” smiled the older one.

“Anytime,” said the largest lady.

The women giggled as they walked away, the new one turning round to wave at me.

“Merry Christmas,” she called.

“Merry Christmas.”

I took out a cigarette and fumbled in my pockets for some matches, finding Paul’s heavy Ronson lighter.

I weighed the lighter in my left hand and then lit the ciga rette, trying to remember when I’d picked it up.

The pack of children ran past me on the pavement, kicking their cheap orange football and swearing at the caretaker.

I walked back to the padlocked school gates.

The caretaker in the blue overalls was walking across the playground, back to the main building.

“Excuse me,” I shouted over the top of the red painted gates.

The man kept walking.

“Excuse me!”

At the door to the school the man turned round and looked straight at me.

I cupped my hands. “Excuse me. Can I have a word?”

The man turned away, unlocked the door, and went inside the black building.

I leant my forehead against the gate.

Someone had tattooed Fuck out of the red paint.

Into the night, wheels spinning.

Farewell Fitzwilliam, where the night comes early and nowt feels right, where the kids kill cats and the men kill kids.

I was heading back to the Redbeck, turning left on to the A655, when the lorry came screaming out of the night, slamming its brakes on hard.

I braked, horns blaring, skidding to a stop, the lorry inches from my door.

I stared into the rearview mirror, heart pounding, headlights dancing.

A big bearded man in big black boots jumped down from his cab and walked towards the car. He was carrying a big black fucking bat.

I turned the ignition, slamming my foot down on to the accelerator, thinking Barry, Barry, Barry.

The Golden Fleece, Sandal, just gone six on Thursday 19 December 1974, the longest day in a week of long days.

A pint on the bar, a whisky in my belly, a coin in the box.

“Gaz? It’s Eddie.”

“Where the fuck you sneak off to?”

“Didn’t fancy Press Club, you know.”

“You missed a right bloody show.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Jack totally fucking lost it, crying…”

“Listen, do you know Donald Foster’s address?”

“What the fuck do you want that for?”

“It’s important, Gaz.”

“This to do with Paul Kelly and their Paula?”

“No. Look, I know it’s Sandal…”

“Yeah, Wood Lane.”

“What number?”

“They don’t have fucking numbers on Wood Lane. It’s called Trinity Towers or something.”

“Cheers, Gaz.”

“Yeah? Just don’t fucking mention my name.”

“I won’t.” I said, hanging up and wondering if he was fucking Kathryn.

Another coin, another call.

“I need to speak to BJ.”

A voice on the other end, mumbling from the other end of the world.

“When will you see him? It’s important.”

A sigh from the ends of the earth.

“Tell him, Eddie called and it’s urgent.”

I went back to the bar and picked up my pint.

“That your bag over there?” said the landlord, nodding at a Hillards plastic bag under the phone.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said and drained my pint.

“Don’t be leaving bloody plastic bags lying around, not in pubs.”

“Sorry,” I said, walking back over to the phone, thinking fuck off.

“There’s me thinking it could be a bomb or anything.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I muttered as I picked up Michael John Mysh-kin’s sketch book and the photos of Councillor William Shaw and Barry James Anderson, thinking it is a bomb you stupid fucking cunt.

I parked up on the pavement outside Trinity View, Wood Lane, Sandal.

I stuffed the plastic bag back under the driver’s seat with A Guide to the Canals of the North , stubbed out my cigarette, took two painkillers, and got out.