Nineteen Eighty Read online

  ‘With all due respect, one investigation was over five years ago and failed to reach any conclusion, aside from making me possibly the most unpopular copper in the North. And the second one was over before it began.’

  ‘Eric Hall,’ Evans says to the other two.

  I look down at the cup of cold instant coffee on the table before me, the light reflecting in its black surface.

  ‘Hunter the Cunt, they call you,’ laughs Sir John Reed.

  I look up at him.

  ‘That bother you, does it?’ Reed asks.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘So there’s your answer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I make spies of them despite themselves,’ he smiles.

  ‘General Napier,’ I say.

  Sir John Reed has stopped smiling: ‘You know your history.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know my history.’

  Outside it’s snowing.

  There is blood on my windscreen, a dead gull on the lawn.

  I switch on the windscreen wipers and drive back alone across the M62, alone between the articulated lorries crawling slowly along, the weather stark, the landscape empty –

  Just murder and lies, lies and murder:

  ‘The Yorkshire Ripper has claimed his thirteenth victim, as police confirmed that Laureen Bell, aged twenty, was killed by the man responsible…’

  It’s after 8:00 when I get home.

  Joan is watching TV Eye.

  ‘They’re repeating that Mind of the Ripper,’ she says.

  I sit in front of the TV, watching the faces swim by.

  I am forty years old, Joan thirty-eight.

  We have no children.

  I can’t sleep –

  I never can.

  My back bad, getting worse and worse, day by day.

  Always awake, sweating and afraid, eyes wide in the dark beside Joan.

  The radio on –

  Always on:

  Hunger strikers near death, thirty-two murdered in one LA weekend;

  Gdansk, Tehran, Kabul, the Dakota;

  The North of England –

  No law.

  I get out of bed and go downstairs.

  I can hear the rain against the window pane, behind the curtains.

  I go into the kitchen and put the radio on and wait for the kettle to boil.

  The rain against the pane, a song on the radio:

  ‘Don’t be afraid to go to hell and back –’

  I open my briefcase and take out the red ring-binder, the red ring-binder they gave me:

  Murders and Assaults upon Women in the North of England.

  The kettle’s boiling, whistling:

  Everyone gets everything they want.

  I unlock the back door and take the tea and the red ring-binder out into the black garden and the rain. I walk down the side of the garage to the shed I built at the back. I take the key from my dressing gown pocket and unlock the door to the shed.

  I am cold, freezing.

  I go inside, lock the door behind me and put on the light.

  My room –

  One door, one light, no windows; the smell of earth and damp, old exhaust fumes and ageing gardening gloves; a long desk across the length of the back wall, two grey metal filing cabinets standing guard on each of the side walls. Between them, on top of the desk, a computer and keyboard, a black and white portable television, a CB radio, a cassette recorder and a reel to reel, a typewriter. Under the desk, across the floor, wires and cables, plugs and adapters, boxes of paper, stacks of magazines and newspapers, tins and jars and pots of pens and pencils and paperclips.

  I perch the tea on top of the red ring-binder on the corner of the desk and I switch on the two-bar electric heater and the computer –

  Anabasis:

  The bastard bits of an Acorn with Memorex RAMpacks, pirated parts from Radionics and Tandy, an unopened ZX80 still in its box, the whole machine covered in cassette tapes and blu-tack.

  I sit down at the desk and stare at the wall above Anabasis:

  At one map and twelve photographs –

  Each photograph a face, each face a letter and a date, a number on each forehead:

  I take the tea off the red ring-binder and open the first page:

  Contents:

  Divided by the years:

  1974:

  Joyce Jobson, attacked Halifax, July 1974.

  Anita Bird, attacked Cleckheaton, August 1974.

  1975:

  Theresa Campbell, murdered Leeds, June 1975.

  Clare Strachan, murdered Preston, November 1975.

  1976:

  Joan Richards, murdered Leeds, February 1976.

  Ka Su Peng, attacked Bradford, October 1976.

  1977:

  Marie Watts, murdered Leeds, May 1977.

  Linda Clark, attacked Bradford, June 1977.

  Rachel Johnson, murdered Leeds, June 1977.

  Janice Ryan, murdered Bradford, June 1977.

  Elizabeth McQueen, murdered Manchester, November 1977.

  Kathy Kelly, attacked Leeds, December 1977.

  1978:

  Tracey Livingston, murdered Preston, January 1978.

  Candy Simon, murdered Huddersfield, January 1978.

  Doreen Pickles, murdered Manchester, May 1978.

  1979:

  Joanne Thornton, murdered Morley, May 1979.

  Dawn Williams, murdered Bradford, September 1979.

  He’s already written the next chapter:

  1980:

  Laureen Bell, murdered Leeds, December 1980.

  My chapter –

  The last chapter.

  I close the red ring-binder, the red ring-binder they gave me –

  Nothing new.

  I look up at the wall, the map and the photographs, the letters and the dates, the numbers:

  Seven years, thirteen dead women, seven of them mothers, twenty orphaned children.

  Reed’s voice echoing around the shed:

  ‘What do you know?’

  My words echoing back:

  ‘Not much more than I’ve read in the papers.’

  Echoing back round my head, this shed, this room –

  My room –

  The War Room –

  My obsessions:

  Murder and lies, lies and murder –

  See them, smell them, taste them.

  The War Room –

  My War:

  Motherless children, childless mothers.

  I am forty years old, Joan thirty-eight.

  We have no children, we can’t.

  Somewhere back on the Moors, the visibility down to yards, I’d made that deal again:

  I catch him, stop him murdering mothers, orphaning children, then you give us one, just one.

  transmission two in cleckheaton on Cumberland avenue attractive anita bird on monday the fifth of august nineteen seventy four day clive had hidden every pair of my shoes grabbed my head and plunged it into a bucket of cold water he was a mental man who had been advised to keep away from women for at least five years but he had bought me a colour television and we made up but e was frightened of him and feeling a bit tearful playing crying in the chapel as e brought in the sheets from outside and folded them in the kitchen the kitten missing so e went to look for it and out of shadows the darkness he steps well dressed he was and smelt of soap a good looking waiter Italian or greek he wanted to come in for a cup of tea his racing eyes and dainty hands and in a yorkshire way he says do you fancy it not on your life e say and then the hammer comes down one two three times and he pulls down her panties and he raises her blouse and slashes her stomach and wants to stab but then the light goes on and the man is asking what is going on who is out there who is making all that noise come on what is going on out there nothing to worry about you go back inside everything is all right now are you sure yes nothing to worry about but she will need a twelve hour operation to remove the splinters of brain from her skull the last rites to live behind wir
es and alarms alone with her cats and her pictures of christ and david soul and khalid aziz the three inch dents in her head and the hair she cuts herself crying in the chapel e am in my own world the curtains pulled in a housecoat with her cats walking in the middle of the road scared of the shadows and the men behind her when six months before the mystery man had come to the corner shop and left messages every day for a week would she go out with him for an evening for a few drinks and spot of supper and he drove her into bradford to a city centre restaurant and she cannot remember which but she knows all waitresses wore black long skirts and he was friendly in a yorkshire way and he knew all about her even though they had never met before and he said his name was michael gill or was it gull a doctor gull he lived with his grandmother who was old and ill and that he also had a cat they finished their meal and he drove her home to cleckheaton and no he would not come in for a coffee because he had to go home to put grandmother to bed and he did not even give her a kiss on the cheek and she never saw him again and six months later she lay in the street the blows from cuban heeled boots and the lacerations across her stomach the kind that west indian boyfriends like her clive inflict upon girlfriends who have been unfaithful do you fancy it not on your life and then the hammer comes down one two three times he pulls down her panties and he raises her blouse slashes her stomach and she is not anita now she is anna and she will never be anita again cos anita died that night on cobblestones and times e wish e had not had that operation e wish e had died with her on cobblestones for then e would have known nothing but the blackness and nothing more for if e had known what lay ahead for me e would have refused what they term a life saving operation for my life is not saved it is lost so e have had fifteen thousand pounds compensation no amount of money can give me back my anonymity can give me back my boyfriends no money can remove the stigma of the ripper can give me back my doctor gull or was it gill michael gill fifteen thousand pounds compensation to live behind wires and alarms with my cats and pictures of christ scared of the shadows and the men behind me alone do you fancy

  Chapter 2

  7:00 a.m.

  Friday 12 December 1980.

  Manchester Police Headquarters.

  The eleventh floor.

  The Assistant Chief Constable’s office –

  My office.

  I’ve got my suitcase by the door, the radio on:

  ‘The early Christmas exodus is expected to continue from universities and colleges across the North of England as the President of the NUS issued the following statement:

  ‘Anyone who goes to any of the Northern Universities today will know immediately the pall this Yorkshire Ripper has cast over the whole student population …’

  Going through the tray on my desk, the Christmas cards.

  ‘And in other news, it was announced that 30,000 pigs are to be slaughtered in an attempt to stop the further spread of swine fever …’

  I hear the door across the corridor open and close.

  I put the last papers in their folders and go out into the corridor.

  I stand before the door of the Chief Constable and knock.

  ‘Come.’

  I open the door.

  Chief Constable Clement Smith is behind his desk.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say.

  He doesn’t look up.

  I stand, waiting.

  Eventually he says: ‘So you took it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Chief Constable looks up; his close-cropped hair, full black beard and dark eyes giving Clement Smith one expression:

  Orthodox.

  ‘I’ve been asked to put together a team to assist me,’ I say.

  Silence.

  ‘I’d like to take John Murphy and Alec McDonald, plus DI Hillman and DS Marshall from Serious Crime.’

  ‘Helen Marshall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know you can have up to three more?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you spoken to these people?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you got a timetable in mind?’

  ‘With your permission, I’d like to get everyone together this morning.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ve got to be over in Wakefield for the afternoon press conference and I’d like to take John Murphy with me for that.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m due to meet Chief Constable Angus, George Oldman and Pete Noble, and then make a start.’

  Silence.

  ‘If that’s OK with you?’

  Eventually he says: ‘I’ve been instructed to give you whatever you need.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  A pause, then: ‘I’ll have them meet in your office at ten.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Clement Smith nods and goes back to the work on his desk.

  I walk to the door.

  ‘Peter,’ he says.

  I turn around.

  ‘You made up your mind pretty quickly?’

  ‘Not something I felt I could refuse.’

  ‘You could have,’ he says. ‘I would have.’

  ‘I think it’s an honour, sir. An honour for the Manchester force.’

  He goes back to the work on his desk again.

  I open the door.

  ‘Peter,’ he says again.

  I turn around.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ he says. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  10:00 a.m.

  My office.

  Detective Chief Superintendent John Murphy: Manchester-Irish, mother knew mine, early fifties, over twenty years’ CID experience, a couple of tours with me in A10, direct involvement in the so-called Ripper Hunt having been in charge of the 1977 Elizabeth McQueen investigation.

  Detective Chief Inspector Alec McDonald: Scots, Glasgow-bred, late forties, five years with Vice, five years Serious Crime, direct involvement with the Ripper through the 1978 Doreen Pickles investigation.

  Detective Inspector Mike Hillman: mid thirties, five years A10 with me, extensive anti-corruption work, now Serious Crime.

  Detective Helen Marshall: early thirties, ten years Vice and Drug Squads, now Serious Crime.

  The best we have –

  Their eight bright and shining eyes on me:

  ‘Thank you all for coming and at such short notice.’

  Nods and smiles –

  ‘I’ll get straight to it: I’ve been asked by the Home Office to head an investigation into the murders and assaults on women in the North of England publicly referred to as the work of the Yorkshire Ripper. Murders that as of yesterday now total thirteen.’

  No nods, no smiles –

  ‘The brief of the investigation is to review and to highlight areas of concern, to advise alternative strategies, and to pursue and arrest the man responsible.’

  Eight eyes on me –

  ‘I’ve asked you here this morning as I would like each one of you to be a part of this investigation. However, it is going to mean that you will be seconded from your present duties, that you will be over in Yorkshire a hell of a lot, that you will be away from your families, working twenty-four-hour days, seven-day weeks, limited time off.’

  No nods, no smiles, just stares –

  ‘You know the demands and I would not wish to presume upon any of you. But I have worked with each of you and I believe you are the best people for this job.’

  Hard stares –

  ‘So, if you cannot commit, say so now.’

  Silence, then –

  John Murphy: ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Thank you, John.’

  Alec McDonald: ‘In.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mike Hillman: ‘I hate bloody Yorkshire, but go on then.’

  ‘Thanks, Mike.’

  Helen Marshall: ‘I’ll have to get someone to feed the dog, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I sit back down in my chair: ‘Thank you, all of you. I knew I could
count on you.’

  Smiles again, the stares gone.

  ‘In a bit, John and myself will get over to Wakefield for their afternoon press conference. Everyone else should take the opportunity to hand over their present duties. Chief Constable Smith’s office will issue all the necessary authorisation later this morning.

  ‘After the press conference, I have got a meeting scheduled with Chief Constable Angus and Assistant Chief Constable Oldman. John’ll secure the offices and arrange hotels for us. But let’s provisionally agree to meet in Leeds tomorrow morning at nine, location to be confirmed later today?’

  Nods.

  ‘Questions?’

  Mike Hillman: ‘They know we’re coming?’

  ‘Brass, yes; but not their lads or the press and we should keep it that way.’

  Nods again.

  Alec McDonald: ‘You want us to start boxing up our files on McQueen and Pickles?’

  ‘Not straight off. Let’s see what they’ve got over there first.’

  A nod.

  Silence, then –

  I say: ‘OK? Until tomorrow.’

  We all stand up.

  ‘And thanks again,’ I say, eight bright eyes shining back.

  The best –

  Mine.

  *

  Over the Moors again, between the articulated lorries, stark and empty, snow across their cold, lost bones –

  John Murphy and myself, the memories neither cold nor lost –

  Ours.

  The football exhausted, my hands tight on the wheel, eyes on the road, silent.

  After a few minutes I put the radio on, listeners phoning Jimmy Young about the death of John Lennon, about the hostages in Iran and the Third World War, about a factory in Germany that needs no people, just machines, and about the Yorkshire Ripper, mainly about the Yorkshire Ripper:

  ‘We’ll paper every surface with a thousand posters saying: The Ripper is a Coward …’

  Murder and lies, war:

  The North after the bomb, machines the only survivors.

  Murder and lies, lies and murder.

  Murphy says: ‘When were you last over this way?’

  ‘Yesterday’

  ‘No, I mean with A10?’

  ‘Should have been Bradford Vice, 1977. Remember all that?’

  He nods: ‘All set to come right? Interviews, the lot, then –’

  ‘Case closed.’

  ‘Muddy waters, eh Pete?’

  ‘You could stand your truncheon in it, John.’