Read Nineteen Seventy-Four Online
Authors: David Peace
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals
Fuck.
“
Reckless talk costs lives
.”
I took out my dirty grey handkerchief and started the dusting.
Five minutes later I closed the door to the kitchen and went back into the house.
I sat down on the sofa next to their plans, their schemes, their fucked-up dreams, and thought of my own, the shotgun in my lap.
The house was quiet.
Silent.
I stood up and walked out of the front door of Shangrila.
I drove back to the Redbeck, the radio off, the wipers squeaking like rats in the dark.
I parked in a puddle and took the black bin-bag from the boot. I limped across the car park, every limb stiff from my time underground.
I opened the door and went in out of the rain.
Room 27 was cold and no home, Sergeant Fraser long gone.
I sat on the floor with the lights off, listening to the lorries come and go, thinking of Paula and barefoot dances to
Top of the Pops
just days ago, from another age.
I thought of BJ and Jimmy Ashworth, of teenage boys crouched in the giant wardrobes of damp rooms.
I thought of the Myshkins and the Marshes, the Dawsons and the Shaws, the Fosters and the Boxes, of their lives and of their crimes.
Then I thought of men underground, of the children they stole, and of the mothers they left.
And, when I could cry no more, I thought of my own mother and I stood up.
The yellows of the lobby were brighter than ever, the stink stronger.
I picked up the receiver, dialled, and put the coin to the slot.
“Hello?”
I dropped the coin in the box. “It’s me.”
“What do you want?”
Through the double glass doors, the pool room was dead^
“To say I’m sorry.”
“What did they do to you?”
I looked round at the brown lobby chairs, looking for the old woman.
“Nothing.”
“One of them slapped me, you know.”
I could feel my eyes stinging.
“In my own house, Edward!”
“I’m sorry.”
She was crying. I could hear my sister’s voice in the back ground. She was shouting at my mother. I stared at the names and the promises, the threats and the numbers, scribbled by the payphone.
“Please come home.”
“I can’t.”
“Edward!”
“I’m really sorry, Mum.”
“Please!”
“I love you.”
I hung up.
I picked the receiver up again, tried to dial Kathryn’s number, couldn’t remember it, hung up again, and ran back through the rain to Room 27.
The sky above was big and blue without a cloud.
She was outside in the street, pulling a red cardigan tight around her, smiling.
Her hair was blonde and blowing in the breeze.
She reached out towards me, putting her arms around my neck and shoulders.
“I’m no angel,” she whispered into my hair.
We kissed, her tongue hard against mine.
I moved my hands down her back, crushing our bodies closer together.
The wind whipped my face with her hair.
She broke off our kiss as I came;
I woke on the floor with come in my pants.
Down to my underpants at the sink of my Redbeck room, luke warm grey water slopping down my chest and on to the floor, wanting to go home but not wishing to be anyone’s son, photo graphs of daughters smiling in the mirror.
Crosslegged on the floor of my Redbeck room, unravelling the black bandages around my hand, stopping just short of the mess and the flesh, ripping another sheet with my teeth and binding my hand with the strips, worse wounds grinning from the wall above.
Back in my muddy clothes at the door of my Redbeck room, swallowing pills and lighting cigarettes, wanting to sleep but not wishing to dream, thinking this’ll be the day that I die, pictures of Paula waving bye-bye.
Chapter 12
Rock On
.
Christmas bloody Eve.
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?
I
drove down the Barnsley Road into Wakefield, homes switching off their Christmas lights,
The Good Old Days
finished.
I had the shotgun in the boot of the car.
I crossed the Calder, went up past the market, and into the Bullring, the Cathedral trapped in the black sky up above.
Everything was dead.
I parked outside a shoe shop.
I opened the boot.
I took the shotgun out of the black bin-bag.
I loaded the gun in the boot of the car.
I put some more shells in my pocket.
I took the shotgun out of the boot.
I closed the boot of the car.
I walked across the Bullring.
On the first floor of the Stafford the lights were on, down stairs everything dark.
I opened the door and went up the stairs one at a time.
They were at the bar, whiskys and cigars all round:
Derek Box and Paul, Sergeant Craven and PC Douglas.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Part 2
was on the jukebox.
Barry James Anderson, his face black and blue, dancing alone in the corner.
I had a hand on the barrel, a finger on the trigger.
They looked up.
“Fucking hell,” said Paul.
“Drop the gun,” said one of the coppers.
Derek Box smiled, “Evening, Eddie.”
I told him what he already knew. “You killed Mandy Wymer?”
Box turned and took a big pull on a fat cigar. “Is that right?”
“And Donald Foster?”
“So?”
“I want to know why.”
“Ever the journalist. Take a wild bloody guess, Scoop.”
“Over a fucking shopping centre?”
“Yeah, over a fucking shopping centre.”
“What the fuck did Mandy Wymer have to do with a shop ping centre?”
“You want me to spell it out?”
“Yeah, spell it out.”
“No architect, no shopping centre.”
“So she knew?”
He was laughing, “Fuck knows.”
I saw little dead girls and brand new shopping schemes, scalped dead women and the rain off your head.
I said, “You enjoyed it.”
“I told you from the start, we’d all get what we wanted.”
“Which was?”
“Revenge and money, the perfect combination.”
“I didn’t want revenge.”
“You wanted fame,” hissed Box. “It’s the same.”
There were tears running down my face, on to my lips.
“And Paula? What was that?”
Box took another big pull on his fat cigar. “Like I said, I’m no angel…”
I shot him in the chest.
He fell back into Paul, air hissing out of him.
Rock ‘n’ Roll
I reloaded.
I fired again and hit Paul in his side, knocking him over.
Rock ‘n’ Roll
.
The two policemen stood there staring.
I reloaded and fired.
I hit the short one in the shoulder.
I started to reload but the tall one with the beard stepped forward.
I turned the shotgun round and swung the handle into the side of his face.
He stood there looking at me, his head to one side, a little bit of blood dripping from his ear on to his jacket.
Rock ‘n’ Roll
.
The room was filled with smoke and the strong smell of the shotgun.
The woman behind the bar was screaming and there was blood on her blouse.
A man at a table by the window had his mouth open and his hands up.
The tall policeman was still standing, eyes blank, the short one crawling towards the toilets.
Paul was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling, opening and closing his eyes.
Derek Box was dead.
BJ had stopped dancing.
I pointed the gun at him, chest high.
I said, “Why me?”
“You came so highly recommended.”
I dropped the gun and went back down the stairs.
I drove back to Ossett.
I parked Eraser’s Maxi in a supermarket car park and walked back to Wesley Street.
The Viva was alone in the drive, my mother’s house all dark and asleep beside it.
I got into the car and switched on the engine and the radio.
I lit my last cigarette and said my little prayers:
Clare, here’s one for you.
Susan, here’s one for you.
Jeanette, here’s one for you.
Paula, they’re all for you.
And the unborn.
I sat there, singing along to
The Little Drummer Boy
, with those far-off days, those days of grace, coming down.
Waiting for the blue lights.
Ninety miles an hour.
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