Free Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

looked at the gravel and wanted a slash.
    “You coming or what, you pisshead?” said Barry, unlocking his car door.
    “I’m going the other way,” I said.
    Barry opened the door. “See you then.”
    “Yeah, see you.” I turned and started to weave across the car park.
    “Eddie!”
    I turned round and squinted into the fading winter sun.
    “You’ve never had that urge to go and deliver us all from evil then?”
    “No,” I shouted across the empty car park.
    “Liar,” laughed Barry, pulling shut his car door and starting the engine.

PM Sunday afternoon, Castleford, waiting for the bus to Pontefract, glad to be out of the madness of Barry Gannon. Three and a half pints and almost glad to be going back to my rats.
    The Ratcatcher: a story that had touched the hearts of York shire folk.
    The bus was coming up the road. I stuck out my thumb.
    The Ratcatcher: Graham Goldthorpe, the disgraced music teacher turned council Rat Man who had strangled his sister Mary with a stocking and hung her in the fireplace last Mischief Night.
    I paid the driver and went to the back of the deserted single-decker to smoke.
    The Ratcatcher Graham Goldthorpe, who had then taken a shotgun to his troubled mind and its visions of plague upon plague of dirty brown rats.
    Mandy Sucks Paki Cocks , said the back of the seat in front of me.
    The Ratcatcher: a story close to the heart of Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent, the former Fleet Street Hack turned Prodigal Son who had shaken and shocked a county with his troubled tale and its visions of plague upon plague of dirty brown rats.
    Yorkshire Whites , said the next seat.
    The Ratcatcher: my first story at the Post and a Godsend with my father and Jack fucking Whitehead both in hospital.
    I rang the bell wishing Jack Whitehead dead.
    I stepped off the bus into the end of a Pontefract afternoon. I hid another cigarette inside my father’s old coat and beat the whip of a winter wind on the third attempt.
    Ratcatcher Country.
    It took me the exact length of the JPS to reach Willman Close from the bus stop, nearly treading in some bloody dogshit as I stubbed it out.
    Dogshit in Willman Close, that would have really pissed Graham Goldthorpe off.
    It was already dark and most of the Close had the lights on their Christmas trees all lit up. Not Enid Sheard though, the miserable bitch.
    Not the Goldthorpes either.
    I cursed my life and knocked on the glass door of the bungalow, listening to the barking of the huge Alsatian, Hamlet.
    I’d seen it a hundred times before during my all-too-brief stint on Fleet Street. The families, the friends, the colleagues, and the neighbours of the dead or the accused, the very people who would act so offended, so appalled, so insulted, and even so angry at the mere mention of cash for their story. The self same families, friends, colleagues, and neighbours of the dead or the accused, the very people who would telephone a month later, suddenly so eager, so keen, so helpful, and so fucking greedy to mention cash for their story.
    “Who is it? Who is it?” The miserable bitch wouldn’t even switch on the hall light, let alone open the door.
    I hollered through the door, “It’s Edward Dunford, Mrs Sheard. From the Post , you remember?”
    “Of course I remember. Today’s Sunday, Mr Dunford,” she screamed back over the noise of Hamlet the Alsatian.
    “My editor,- Mr Hadden, said you telephoned and wanted to speak with one of his reporters,” I shouted through the rippled glass.
    “I telephoned last Monday, Mr Dunford. I do my business during the working week, not on the Lord’s Day. I’d thank you and your Boss to do the same, young man.”
    “I’m sorry Mrs Sheard. We’ve been very busy. I’ve come a long way and I don’t usually work…” I was mumbling, won dering whether Hadden had lied to me or just mixed up the dates.
    “All I can say is, you better have my money then, Mr Dunford,” said Mrs Enid Sheard as she opened the