Free Nineteen Eighty by David Peace Page B

other police officer.’
‘So why the secrecy?’
‘Well, that said, Richard Dawson is known socially by a number of senior police officers, as well as a number of other prominent local persons. So we’re treading carefully.’
‘As should you,’ says Clement Smith, those black eyes on me –
I sigh, sitting back in my chair.
Smith continues: ‘There could be a lot of fallout – especially if the press start jumping to the same bloody conclusions as one of my own Assistant Chief Constables.’
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Thought of being stuck over in Yorkshire, hearing all these stories…’
‘Two days and cursed bloody place is making you paranoid.’
‘No more than usual,’ I smile.
‘Now you know how you make other folks feel then,’ laughs Hook.
‘Was that the point?’ I say, not smiling.
‘No,’ says Detective Chief Inspector Hook.
‘Then you better tell Ronnie to keep it shut – he’s the one been telling Douglas bollocks about secret squads and putting me in my place.’
‘Sorry,’ he says, fucked off. ‘He’s got a big mouth and talks bollocks.’
Smith’s staring at Hook now, the black eyes on him –
‘I’ll take care of it,’ says Hook.
Smith stands up and says: ‘Can I go home now?’
Back down in the car park and there’s a man standing by my car.
Familiar, he looks familiar –
Me: ‘Can I help you?’
He raises a hand and shakes his head, walking over to another car –
A white one.
‘Wrong motor,’ he says, smiling.
I get in my car –
The black one.
And then somewhere over the Moors, I remember it’s a Sunday and almost Christmas and I suddenly hate myself, wondering what the fuck I thought I was doing, what the fuck I thought I was going to do, the bad dreams not leaving, just staying bad, like the headaches and the backache, the murder and the lies, like the cries and the whispers, the screams of the wires and the signals, like the voices and the numbers:
Thirteen .
5:00 p.m.
Sunday 14 December 1980:
Millgarth, Leeds.
Dark outside, darker in:
A ritual –
A séance:
Round the table, hands and knees touching, between the cardboard boxes and the gorged files –
Mike Hillman is calling up the dead, passing out photographs, saying:
‘Theresa Campbell, murdered 26 June 1975. 26-year-old mother of three and convicted prostitute. Partially clothed, bloodstained body was discovered on Prince Philip Playing Fields, Scott Hall, by Eric Davies, a milkman.’
Peel –
‘Post-mortem revealed multiple stab wounds to abdomen, chest, and throat inflicted by a blade 4 inches in length, ž of an inch in width, one edge sharper than the other; severe lacerations to the skull and fractures to the crown, possibly inflicted by an axe. A white purse with Mummy on the front, containing approximately Ł5 in cash, was also noted to be missing from the deceased’s handbag. Neither murder weapons or purse have ever been found.’
He stops to let the pictures speak –
They all look up from the six by fours, all but DS Marshall –
Are there tears in her eyes?
‘Those are the facts,’ he says, repeating: ‘The facts. The rest is hearsay; but here goes –
‘Campbell had spent the evening at the Room at the Top nightclub in Sheepscar. She was last seen attempting to stop motorists at the junction of Sheepscar Street South and Roundhay Road, Leeds at 1:00 a.m.
‘According to the witnesses you have listed before you, it is believed that an articulated lorry with a dark-coloured cab and a tarpaulin-sheeted load stopped at the junction of Roundhay Road and Sheepscar Street South alongside Campbell and it is believed she had a conversation with the driver.
‘This location is the main route from the Al Wetherby Roundabout to the Leeds Inner Ring Road which services HGVs travelling on the M62, either east or west.’
Hillman pauses; we all glance up, all but Marshall –
A tune in my head, a song from somewhere:
I only have eyes for you –
The dream still here, here in my mouth, hanging in the room, the taste in my mouth –
The taste of blood, the smell:
‘They call it