David Peace - 1974

She was sobbing.

He was sobbing.

I was sobbing.

“It’ll never be over until you tell me who you fucking hit.”

“No!”

“It’s not over.”

“No!”

“It’s not over.”

“No!”

“It’s not over, Johnny.”

He was coughing tears and bile. “It is.”

“Tell me, you piece of shit.”

“I can’t.”

I saw the moon in the day, the sun in the night, me fucking her, her fucking him, Jeanette’s face on every body.

I had him by the throat and hair, the hammer in my bandaged hand. “You fucked your sister.”

“No.”

“You were Jeanette’s fucking father, weren’t you?”

“No!”

“You were her father.”

His lips were moving, bubbles of bloody spit bursting on them.

I leant close into his face.

Behind me, she said, “George Marsh.”

I span round, reaching out and pulling her into us. “Say again.”

“George Marsh,” she whispered.

“What about him?”

“On the Dewsbury Road. It was George Marsh.”

“George Marsh?”

“One of Donny’s foremen.”

“ Under those beautiful new carpets, between the cracks and the stones .”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

I let go of them and stood up, the hall suddenly much bigger and lighter.

I closed my eyes.

I heard the hammer drop, Kelly’s teeth chattering, and then everything was small and dark again.

I went over to the phone and took out the telephone direc tory. I went to the Ms and the Marshes and found the G. Marshes. There was one in Netherton at 16 Maple Well Drive. The telephone number was 3657. I closed the directory.

I picked up a soft floral phonebook and turned to the Ms.

In fountain pen, George 3657 .

Bingo.

I closed the book.

Johnny Kelly had his head in his hands.

Mrs Foster was staring up at me.

“ Under those beautiful new houses, between the cracks and the stones .”

“How long did you know?”

The eagle eyes were back. “I didn’t,” she said.

“Liar.”

Mrs Patricia Foster swallowed, “What about us?”

“What about you?”

“What are you going to do with us?”

“Pray God forgives the fucking lot of you.”

I walked towards the front door and Donald Foster’s body. “Where are you going?”

“To finish it.”

Johnny Kelly looked up, bloody fingerprints on his face. “You’re too late.”

I left the door open.

“ Under those beautiful new carpets, between the cracks and the stones .”

I drove Eraser’s Maxi back into Wakefield and out through Horbury, the rain beginning to sleet.

I sang along to Christmas songs on Radio 2 and changed to Radio 3 to avoid the News at Ten, listening to England lose the Ashes down under instead, shouting out my own news at ten:

Don Foster dead.

Two fucking killers, maybe three.

Me next?

Counting the killers.

Pushing the Maxi out Netherton way, the sleet now suddenly rain again.

Counting the dead.

Tasting gun metal, smelling my own shit.

Dogs barking, men screaming.

Paula dead.

There were things I had to do, things I must finish.

“ Under those beautiful new carpets, between the cracks and the stones .”

I asked in Netherton Post Office and an old woman who didn’t work there told me where Maple Well Drive was.

Number 16 was a bungalow like the rest of the street, much like Enid Sheard’s, much like the Goldthorpe’s. A neat little garden with a low hedge and a bird table.

Whatever George Marsh had done, it hadn’t been here.

I opened the little black metal gate and walked up the path. I could see TV pictures through the nets.

I knocked on the glass door, the air making me gyp.

A chubby woman with grey permed hair and a tea-towel opened the door.

“Mrs Marsh?”

“Yes?”

“Mrs George Marsh?”

“Yes?”

I pushed the door hard back into her face.

“What the bloody hell?” She fell back on her arse into the house.

I barged in over the Wellington boots and the gardening shoes. “Where is he?”

She had the tea-towel over her face.

“Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him.” She was trying to stand.

I slapped her hard across her face.

She fell back down.

“Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen him.”

The hard-faced bitch was wide-eyed, thinking about some tears.

I raised my hand again. “Where?”

“What did he do?” There was a gash above her eye and her lower lip was already swelling.

“You know.”

She smiled, a pinched little fucking smile.

“Tell me where.”

She lay there on top of the shoes and the umbrellas looking straight back up into my face, her dirty mouth in a half-open smile like we were thinking about having a fuck.

“Where?”

“The shed, up on the allotments.”

I knew then what I would find.

“Where is it?”

She was still smiling. She knew what I would find.

“Where?”

She raised up the tea-towel. “I can’t…”

“Show me,” I hissed, grabbing her by the arm.

“No!”

I pulled her up on her feet.

“No!”

I swung the door back.

“No!”

I dragged her down the path, her scalp red raw beneath her tight grey perm.

“No!”

“Which way?” I said at the gate.

“No, no, no.”

“Which fucking way?” I tightened my grip.

She spun round, looking back and beyond the bungalow.

I pushed her through the gate and marched her round the back of Maple Well Drive.

There was an empty brown field behind the bungalows, rising steeply up into the dirty white sky. There was a gate in a wall and a tractor path and, where the field met the sky, I could see a row of black sheds.

“No!”

I pulled her off the road and pushed her up against the dry stone wall.

“No, no, no.”

“Shut your bloody mouth you fucking bitch.” I gripped her mouth in my left hand, making a fish head of her face.

She was shaking but there were no tears.

“Is he up there?”

She looked straight at me, then nodded once.

“If he isn’t, or if he hears us coming, I’m going to fucking do you, you understand?”

She was looking straight at me, again she nodded just once.

I let go of her mouth, make-up and lipstick on my fingers.

She stood against the stone wall, not moving.

I took her by the arm and pushed her through the gate.

She stared up at the black line of sheds.

“Move,” I said, shoving her in the back.

We started up the tractor path, its trenches full of black water, the air stinking of animal shit.

She stumbled, she fell, she got back up.

I looked back down at Netherton, the same as Ossett, the same as anywhere.

I saw its bungalows and terraces, its shops and its garage.

She stumbled, she fell, she got back up.

I saw it all.

I saw a white van bumping up this path, throwing its little cargo around in the back.

I saw a white van bumping back down, its little cargo silent and still.

I saw Mrs Marsh at her kitchen sink, that fucking tea-towel in her hand, watching that van coming and going.

She stumbled, she fell, she got back up.

We were almost at the top of the hill, almost at the sheds. They looked like a stone-age village, built from the mud.

“Which one’s his?”

She pointed to the end one, at a patchwork of tarpaulin and fertiliser sacks, corrugated iron and house bricks.

I went ahead, dragging her along behind me.

“This one,” I whispered, pointing at a black wooden door with a cement sack for a window.