Nineteen Seventy-Seven: The Red Riding Quartet, Book Two Read Online Free PDF Page A

Marie Watts, was she a prostitute then?’
Oldman turned to Noble, and Noble leant into Oldman’s microphone and said, ‘At this point in our investigation, we can neither confirm nor deny such reports. However, we have received information that Mrs Watts was known in the city as something of what we would describe as a good-time girl.’
Good-time girl .
The whole room thinking, slag .
Oldman pointed to another man.
The man stood and asked, ‘What specific similarities have led you to investigate a possible connection?’
Oldman smiled, ‘As I say, there are some details of these crimes that we are unable to make public. However, there are some obvious similarities in the location of the murders, the age and lifestyles of the victims, and the way in which they were killed.’
I was drowning:
Blood, thick, black, sticky blood, matting her hair with pieces of bone and lumps of grey brain, slowly dripping into the grass on Soldier’s Field, slowly dripping over me .
At the back, I raised a hand above the water.
Oldman looked over the heads at me, frowned for a moment, and then smiled. ‘Jack?’ he said.
I nodded.
A couple of people down the front turned round.
‘Yes, Jack?’ he said again.
I stood up slowly and asked, ‘Are these the only three murders under consideration at the moment?’
‘At the moment, yes.’
Oldman nodded and pointed at another man.
I sat back in my chair, drained, relieved, the questions and answers still flying around me.
I closed my eyes, just for a bit, and let myself go under.

    The dream is strong, black and blinding at first, then slowly settling, hovering quietly behind my lids .
Open my eyes and she’ll still be there :
A white Marks & Spencer’s nightie, soaked black with blood from the holes he’s left .
It’s January 1975, just a month after Eddie .
The fires behind my eyes, I can feel the fires behind my eyes and I know she’s back there, playing with matches behind my eyes, lighting her own beacons .
Full of holes, for all these heads so full of holes. Full of holes, all these people so full of holes. Full of holes, Carol so full of holes .
‘Jack?’
There was a hand on my shoulder and I was back.
1977.
It was George, a copper holding the door for him, the room now empty.
‘Lost you for a minute back there?’
I stood up, my mouth dirty with old air and spit.
‘George,’ I said, reaching for his hand.
‘Good to see you again,’ he smiled. ‘How’ve you been keeping?’
‘You know.’
‘Aye,’ he nodded, because he knew exactly how I’d been keeping. ‘Hope you’re taking it easy?’
‘You know me, George.’
‘Well, you tell Bill from me that he better be taking good care of you.’
‘I will.’
‘Good to see you again,’ he said again, walking over to the door.
‘Thanks.’
‘Give us a call if you need anything,’ he shouted over from the door, saying to the younger officer, ‘Finest journalist I ever met, that man.’
I sat back down, the finest journalist Assistant Chief Constable George Oldman ever met , alone in the empty room.

    I walked back through the heart of Leeds, a tour of a baked, bone-dry hell.
My watch had stopped again and I strained to hear the Cathedral bells beneath the noise; the deafening music from each shop I passed, the car horns punched in anger, hot angry words on every corner.
I looked for the spire in the sky, but there was only fire up there; the midday sun high and black across my brow.
I put my hand to my eyes just as someone walked straight into me, banging right through me, hard; I turned and watched a black shadow disappear down an alley.
I chased into the alley after it but heard horse’s hooves fast upon the cobbles behind me but then, when I turned, there was only a lorryload of beer trying to edge up the narrow street.
I pressed my face into the wall to let it pass and came away with red paint down the front of my suit, all over my hands.
I stepped back and stared at the ancient wall and the word written in red:
Tophet .
I stood in the alley in the shadows of the sun,