Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two (12 page)

RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN

Police yesterday stepped up the hunt for the so-called Yorkshire Kipper, the man police believe could be responsible for the murders of four prostitutes and assaults upon three other women, following a fourth attack on Saturday morning
.
Mrs Linda Clark, aged thirty-six of Bierley, Bradford, was attacked on wasteland off Bowling Back Lane, Bradford, following a night out at the city’s Mecca Ballroom
.
Mrs Clark suffered a fractured skull and stab wounds to her stomach and back, after accepting a lift from a driver on the Wakefield Road. Mrs Clark will undergo a second operation later this week
.
The police issued the following description of the vehicle and the driver they would like to question in relation to the attack upon Mrs Clark
:
The man is white, approximately thirty-five years old, about six feet tall and of a large build. He has light brown shoulder-length hair and thick eyebrows. He was driving a white or light-coloured Ford Cortina Mark II with a black roof. Police urged any member of the public with information to contact the Bradford Incident Room direct on 476532 or 476533 or their local police station as a matter of some urgency
.
I stopped typing and opened my eyes.
I walked upstairs and placed the sheet of paper in Bill’s tray.
I started to walk away but then I turned back, took out my pen and in red ink I wrote across the top:
It’s not him
.

I walked down the steps and out of the dark and into yet more. The Press Club, Sunday-night busy.
George Greaves, head down on the table, the laces of his boots tied together, Tom and Bernard struggling to light their own fags.
‘Busy day?’ said Bet.
‘Yep.’
‘He’s keeping you on your toes, this Ripper of yours.’
I nodded and tipped the Scotch down my throat.
Steph squeezed my elbow. ‘Another?’
‘Just to be sociable.’
‘Not like you, Jack,’ she laughed.
Bet filled the glass again. ‘Don’t know, he had a visitor earlier.’
‘Me?’
‘Young guy, skinhead.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I’ve seen him before, but for life of me I can’t remember his name.’
‘Did he say what he wanted?’
‘No. Another?’
‘Only sociable, I suppose.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
‘I’ll say,’ I said and downed the next one.
I paused upon the stair and then opened the door.
The room was empty, the windows open, my dirty curtains booming like grey sails on a big old Bride Ship bound for a New World, the warm night air fingering through me.
I sat down and poured myself another taste of Scotland, drank it, and picked up my book but began to drowse.
And that was when she came to me, there in the foothills I thought so fucking high, like I’d come so very, very far.
She put her hands over my eyes, cold as two dead stones:
‘Did you miss me?’
I tried to look round but I was so weak.
‘Did you miss me, Jackie boy?’
I nodded.
‘Good,’ and she put her mouth on mine.
I fled her tongue, her hard long tongue.
She stopped, her hand on my cock.
‘Fuck me, Jack. Fuck me like you fucked that whore before.’
The road consists of six narrow garages, each splattered with white graffiti, the doors showing remnants of green paint. They lie off Church Street, the garages forming a passage to the multi-storey car park at the other end. All six garages are owned by a Mr Thomas Morrison who died intestate and the garages have thus fallen into disrepair and disuse. Number 6 has become a home of sorts for the homeless, destitute, alcoholics, drug-addicted and prostitutes of the area
.
It’s small, about twelve feet square, and entered through either of the double doors at the front. There are packing cases for tables, piles of wood and other rubbish. A fierce fire has been burning in a makeshift grate and the ashes disclose the remains of clothing. On the wall opposite the door is written
The Fisherman’s Widow
in wet red paint. In every other space are bottles, sherry bottles, bottles of spirits, beer bottles, bottles of chemicals, all empty. A man’s pilot coat doubles as a curtain over the window, the only one, looking out on nothing
.
I woke, his breath still warm and rank upon my pillow.
They had my books off my shelves, strewn across the room, all my little Jack the Ripper books, the whole bloody lot of them, and my tapes too, they had them out of my bottom drawer, all of my little tapes in all of their little cases with all of their neat little dates and places, all of them strewn across the room, my cuttings too.
She flew across the room, a scrap of paper between her teeth:
Preston, November 1975
.
I was on my feet on my bed then on the floor on my knees:
I suffer your terrors; I am
desperate
.
A diary.
I suffer your terrors; I am
desperate
.
There had been a diary.
I pulled the room apart, the six of them whirling and wailing in murderous cacophony, books in the air, tapes on the floor, cuttings to the wind, fingers in my ears, their hands across my eyes, their lies, my books, his lies, my tapes, her lies, my cuttings, her fucking diary:
I suffer your terrors; I am
desperate
.
The telephone was ringing.

The John Shark Show
Radio Leeds
Monday 6th June 1977

Chapter 9

Fuck Oldman.
Fuck Noble.
Fuck Rudkin.
Fuck Ellis.
Fuck Donny Fairclough.
Fuck the fucking Ripper.
Fuck Louise.
Fuck them all.
She’s gone:
I’m gone
In a hell.
Battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me.
In a hell of fireworks.
I’m out of her room and back across the hall, through the door, Keith gone, Karen looking up from the bed with a ‘not again, the fuck …’ and I pull her from the bed, across the floor, just a pair of pink knickers, tits out, shouting into her face, ‘She’s gone, taken her stuff, where she go?’ and she’s under me, hands across her face because I’m slapping the shit out of her because if anyone knows where Janice is it’s Karen Burns, white, twenty-three, convicted prostitute, drug addict, mother of two, and I slap her again and then I look down at her bleeding lips and nose, the bloody smears on her chin and neck, her tits and arms, and I pull off her pink knickers and drag her back to the bed and pull open my trousers and push it into her and she’s not even struggling, just shifting my weight on the bed so I come out and now she’s looking up at me and I slap her again and turn her over and she starts struggling, saying we don’t need to do it like this but I just push her face down into the dirty sheet and bring my cock up and stick it in her arse and she’s screaming and it’s hurting me but I keep going until I come and fall back on to the floor and she’s lying there on the bed, semen and blood running down her thighs, her arse in my face, and I get up and do it again and this time it doesn’t hurt and she’s quiet and then I come and go.
In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone.
I’m lying on the floor of the phone box, it’s dark outside except for the bonfires and street lights, the fireworks and the headlights, the big Chapeltown trees bending over me, the owls in the trees with their wide, wide fucking round eyes, and I’m cursing Maurice fucking Jobson, Uncle Maurice, the Owl, my guardian angel, with his
least she’s from a police family. Knows the score
speech and all that
you need anything, you let me know
bollocks: well come down here to this fucking box and get me out of here and bring her back to me, come on cunt before I take a knife to those wings, those stinking black wings, those stinking black fucking wings of death, come on and bring her back to me, here in my little red box, here in my dark age, my stone age, the dead age, cradling the receiver, bring her back to see me crying, see me weeping, see me sobbing in a ball on a phone box floor, the hair in my hands, the bloody hair in my hands, the bloody clumps of hair in my hands.
In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone.
‘The fuck …’
I’ve got Joe fucking Rose by his throat, heavy smoke across the room, mattress against the window, two sevens painted on every surface, the dumb stoned fucking chimpanzee shitting his pants.
‘I’ll kill you.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘So tell me …’
He’s shaking, white-ball-eyes to the ceiling, stuttering: ‘Janice?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know where she is, man. I swear.’
I’ve got my fingers up his nose, my keys to those big brown eyes of his.
‘Please man, I swear.’
‘I will kill you.’
‘I know it man, I know it.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Tell you what? I don’t know where she is.’
‘You know she’s gone?’
‘Every fucker does.’
‘So tell me something no fucker knows.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like who was pimping her?’
‘Who was pimping her? You’re joking right?’
‘Do I look like I’m fucking joking?’
‘Eric, man.’
‘Eric Hall?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘She was his grass.’
‘Fuck that. He was pimping her.’
‘You’re lying to me Joe.’
‘You didn’t fucking know?’
I grip his throat.
‘I swear it, man. Eric Hall was pimping her. Ask anyone.’
I stare into those big brown eyes, those big brown blind eyes of his and wonder.
‘Look, she’ll be back,’ he’s saying. ‘Like a boomerang, like the lot of them.’
I let go and he drops to the floor.
I walk towards what’s left of the door, all shattered wood and splattered sevens.
‘Cept the ones your Captain Jack gets,’ he’s still saying. ‘Cept the ones that pirate takes.’
‘You call me, Joe. The second you hear the slightest thing, you call me.’
He’s nodding, rubbing his throat.
‘Or I’ll come back and I will fucking kill you.’
In a hell of fireworks, she’s gone and I’m alone on the street.
I dial again, no Louise.
I dial again and again, no Louise.
I dial the hospital but they won’t put me through.
I dial York and ten minutes later the Sister tells me Mr Ronald Prendergast died this morning of the haemorrhage caused by the injuries sustained during the robbery.
I look up and see the sky through the trees.
See more rain.
I dial again, no Louise.
I dial again and again, no Louise.
I dial the hospital but they hang up.
Fuck Karen Burns.
Fuck Joe Rose.
Fuck Ronald Prendergast.
Fuck the fucking Ripper.
Fuck Maurice.
Fuck Bill.
Fuck Louise.
Fuck them all.
She’s gone:
I’m gone
In hell.
Battering down doors, battering down people, kicking in doors, kicking in people, searching for her, searching for me.
In hell in a stolen car.

Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall, out of the Bradford HQ at Jacob’s Well, and that’s where I am, Jacob’s Well, waiting in a stolen car, his car, Eric’s car, the one I took from his drive out in Denholme:
No-one home, the taxi gone, my money with it.
Round the back of Eric’s little castle, through the rain on the panes, the nets and the gaps in the curtains, kicking in his back door, through the stink of the family pets, the family photos, into his study with the big windows and views of the golf course, through his boxes of medals, his old coins, looking for anything, any piece of Janice, any little piece of her, finding nothing, taking the housekeeping and the keys to his brand new Granada 2000 in Miami fucking blue.
Cunt.
Down the Halifax Road, on to Thornton Road, through Allerton and into Bradford, one road straight to Jacob’s Well.
Radio on:
‘Mr Clive Peterson, the sub-postmaster at Heywood Road, Rochdale, was found unconscious early this morning after challenging intruders on his premises. Police on both sides of the Pennines were examining the possibility of a link to a similar series of crimes in the Yorkshire area
.
‘Mr Ronald Prendergast of New Park Road, Selby, died this morning having failed to regain consciousness after he disturbed intruders at his sub-post office on
4
June. Mr Prendergast is the second sub-postmaster to have been killed in as many months. A spokesman for the Post Office said …’
Cunts.
Foot down.
One road straight to him, to Eric Hall, Detective Inspector Eric Hall.
Cunt.
In an empty Bank Holiday car park, trying to think straight, trying to get some quiet in my brain, the rain drumming on the roof, the radio droning on:
‘The RAC described conditions as the worst in years
Bitter winds and rain forecast.
‘Weather is the only enemy to the biggest party in twenty-five years …’
Wanting a party of my own, getting out of Eric’s car to find a phone box.
In hell in a stolen car, the lights all red.
I’m sat on the bonnet of his brand new Miami-blue Granada 2000, waiting for him.
He comes across the deserted car park, a sheepskin coat in summer, rain flattening his thin fair hair and crap ‘tache, and he sees me, clocks the car, his car, and starts running, about to go fucking mental like I knew he would, and it hits me then how far I’ve come and it can’t be more than 5 p.m. on Monday 6 June 1977, but it hits me then there’s no way back from here.
This is where I am:
‘You fucking cunt,’ he’s screaming. ‘That’s my fucking car. How you, what the …’ and he pushes me off the bonnet on to the ground, jumping on top of me, the pair of us rolling about in the puddles, him punching me once in the side of the head.
But that’s all he’s getting.
I hit back, once, twice, getting him down, the side of his face flat on the car park tarmac:
‘Fuck is she, Eric?’
He struggles, but when he speaks his lips bleed into the floor.
I pull him up by the thin bits of shit he calls hair:
‘Fuck is she?’
‘How the fuck I know, you cunt. She’s your fucking tart …’
I smash his skull down into the ground and pull it back and his eyes are rolling about and I’m thinking stop it, stop it, stop it, you can’t do that again, you can’t do that again, you cannot do that again or you’ll kill him, you’ll kill him, you will kill him, and there’s blood pouring from his scalp and I’m fucked here and I grip his face between my hands until he focuses and I say:
‘Eric, don’t make me do that again.’
And he’s nodding but I don’t know what that means.
‘Eric, I know you were pimping her.’
And he’s still nodding but it could mean fucking anything.
‘Eric, come on.’
And I slap him across his pink fat cheeks with the bits of car park stuck there between the broken blood vessels and fucked-up blood pressure.
‘Eric …’
He’s coming back, the nodding slowing.
‘Eric, I know what you were doing, so just tell me where she is?’
He looks at me, the whites of his eyes red-streaked nicotine, the blacks wide in the blue, and through the spit he says:
‘I pimped her before. She asked me …’
My fists clench, he flinches, but I stop:
‘Eric, the truth …’
There are tears running down him.
‘It’s the truth.’
I pick him up, the pair of us falling about like a couple of ballroom drunks.
I lean him against the bonnet of his Miami-blue Granada 2000:
‘So where is she?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in over six months.’
I dust down his coat, knocking the gravel and scraps of paper off him:
‘You’re a liar, Eric. And not a very good one.’
He’s breathing heavily, sweating worse in that sheepskin coat of his.
I tell him:
‘She got picked up on Friday night.’
He swallows, shaking.
‘Here. In Manningham.’
‘I know.’
‘I know you know, cunt. Because she called you, didn’t she Eric? Wanted to meet you.’
He’s shaking his head.
‘What did she want, Eric?’
I pick a piece of shit off his collar and wait.
He closes his eyes, nodding:
‘Money, she wanted money’
‘And?’
‘Said she had some stuff, information.’
‘What kind?’
‘She didn’t say?’
‘Eric …’
‘Robberies, she didn’t say anything else. She was on the phone.’
I stroke his cheek:
‘And you arranged to meet her, didn’t you?’
He’s shaking his head.
‘But you sent the Van, didn’t you?’
He’s shaking that head, faster.
‘And they picked her up, didn’t they?’
Faster.
‘Thought you’d teach her a lesson, didn’t you?’
Side to side, faster.
‘And she told them to call you, didn’t she?’
Faster.
‘So they called you, didn’t they?’
And faster.
‘You could have made them go away, couldn’t you?’
He’s shaking.
‘Could have made them stop it, couldn’t you?’
And I grip that fat fucking face and an inch away I scream:
‘So why the fuck didn’t you, you piece of fucking fucking fucking shit!’
His eyes, his weak watery eyes, they frost over:
‘She’s yours, you took her.’
I have him now, in my hands, I have him, and I could kill him, batter his skull into the tarmac until it shattered, tip him into the boot of his brand new Miami-blue Granada 2000 and drive him up on to the Moors, or down into a quarry, or off into a lake, or over the edge and into the sea.
But I don’t.
I push the fat fucking cunt off the bonnet of his car and I get inside.
And he just stands there, in front of his Miami-blue Granada 2000, staring through the windscreen at me sat behind the wheel, his wheel.
I start the car, his car, thinking,
move or I will kill you with your own car
.
He steps to the side, his mouth moving, a black slow-motion hole of threats and promises, treats and curses.
I put my foot down.
And I’m gone
In hell in a stolen car, the lights all red, the world lost.
Straight out of Bradford, the A650 Wakefield Road into Tong Street, Bradford Road, King Street, under the M62, under the Ml and into Wakefield, out on to the Doncaster Road, out to the one place left, the last place left:
The Redbeck Cafe and Motel.
I sit there, in another lonely car park, Heath Common before me, three big black unlit bonfires against the clearing evening, waiting for their witches.
I reach into my pocket and take out my keys.
And there it is, Room 27.
In hell in a stolen car, the lights all red, the world lost like us.
In my dream I was sitting on a sofa in a room. A nice sofa, three seats. A nice room, pink
.
But I’m not asleep, I’m awake
In hell.