Nineteen Eighty Read Online Free PDF Page A

ever seen him.
‘Can I sit down?’
He’s staring straight up at me, his eyes black and tiny holes.
‘George?’
‘Fuck off Hunter.’
There’s a hand at my elbow, Noble whisking me away.
‘We’ll meet in Millgarth at six,’ he’s telling me.
I’m nodding, staring back at Oldman, him back into space, black and tiny.
‘He doesn’t mean it. He’s had a shock that’s all,’ Noble is saying.
Nodding, staring into my own space –
White and huge –
Lost.
‘What was all that about?’ Murphy is shaking his head, reversing out of the car park.
Radio on:
‘Big changes were ordered today in the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper
‘He didn’t know,’ I say.
‘You’re fucking joking?’
‘Mr Ronald Angus, the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, announced that a brains trust of senior detectives from around the country and a leading forensic scientist are being drafted in to the hunt for the man who has now claimed
‘They don’t waste any bloody time, do they?’
‘No.’
‘ Mr Angus also confirmed that Mr George Oldman, Assistant Chief Constable and Head of West Yorkshire CID, has been relieved of his command of the inquiry.’
We drive up the motorway, the Ml, listening in silence as the stories eventually change, as they move on to two and a half million unemployed, a job lost every two minutes, on to the H Blocks and the Eastern Bloc, to a local woman who cut her own throat with a pair of electric hedge clippers.
‘Jesus,’ mutters Murphy as we approach Leeds. ‘What a fucking place.’
Leeds –
Wakefield deserted and barren, Leeds twice that hell and more –
A collision of the worst of times, the worst of hells –
The Medieval, the Victorian, and the Concrete: The dark arches, black mists and broken windows of industrial decay, industrial murder, industrial hell –
Dead city abandoned to the crows, the rain, and the Ripper.
And today, this day:
Friday 12 December 1980 –
It looks no different than we remember, than we feared –
Dread spectre from a woken nightmare –
A past trapped in a future, here and now: Friday 12 December 1980 –
Screaming in the wind –
A bloody castle rising out of the bleeding rain, a tear in the landscape –
Leeds, the grim and concrete medieval:
Dead city –
The crows, the rain, and the Ripper –
The Ripper, King –
The King of Leeds.
In a cold and rotting café, in the shadow of an industrial estate, we drink cold and rotting tea to kill the time, lorry drivers eating the fish special, kids playing the slot machine.
It’s pitch black as we pull into the underground car park beneath Millgarth Police Station, Kirkgate Market closing up. Moments later and we’re running back up the ramp and into the rain, the lift not working, the market gutters overflowing with rotten vegetables and foul water, Murphy cursing Leeds and Yorkshire, their coppers and their killer.
‘Assistant Chief Constable Noble please.’
The fat sergeant on the desk, his face and hands covered in boils, he sniffs up: ‘And you are?’
‘Assistant Chief Constable Hunter and Chief Superintendent Murphy from Manchester.’
He wipes his nose in his fingers: ‘Wait over there.’
‘We have an appointment,’ hisses John Murphy.
‘Fat lot of bloody good that’ll do you if he’s not in.’
I lead Murphy over to plastic chairs under bright strip lights, the smell of wet police dogs rank and strong.
‘Fuck him,’ mutters Murphy.
‘He’s not worth it, John.’
And we sit in silence, staring at the boot marks on the linoleum floor, picking off the dog hairs, waiting –
Waiting for it to start.
And sitting here, staring into the black marks, the dog hairs, I realise how long I’ve been waiting –
Waiting for it all to stop:
Five years –
Five years to come back and right the wrongs, to make it right, make it all worthwhile –
The five years of marriage and miscarriage, of wet pillows and bloody sheets, of doctors and priests, of the drugs and the tests, the broken promises and plates –
Five years of –
‘Manchester? You can go up.’
‘About fucking time,’ says