Sunday 26 January 1975.
‘Reverend Laws,’ I said, my hand in my pocket.
‘Jack,’ he smiled. ‘It’s been too long,’
‘Not long enough.’
‘Jack, Jack. Always the same, always so sad.’
I was thinking, not here, not in the street.
I said, ‘Can we go somewhere. Somewhere quiet?’
He nodded at the big black building looming over the Scarborough, ‘The Griffin?’
‘Why not.’
The Reverend Martin Laws led the way, walking ahead in his stoop, a giant too big for this world or the next, his grey hair protruding from under his hat, licking the collar of his coat. He turned to hurry me along, through the passers-by, past the shops, between the cars, under the scaffolding and into the dim lobby of the Griffin.
He waved at some seats in the far corner, two high-backed chairs under an unlit lamp, and I nodded.
We sat down and he took off his hat, placing it on his lap, his case at his calves.
He smiled at me again, through his long grey stubble and his dirty yellow skin, an old newspaper, just like mine.
He smelt of fish.
A Turkish waiter approached.
‘Mehmet,’ said Reverend Laws. ‘How are you?’
‘Father, so good to have you back. We are fine, all of us. Thank you.’
‘And the school? The little one settled in?’
‘Yes, Father. Thank you. It was just as you said.’
‘Well, if there’s ever anything more I can do, please…’
‘You’ve been too kind, really.’
‘It was nothing. My pleasure.’
I coughed, fidgeting in my jacket.
‘Are you ready to order, Father?’
Reverend Laws smiled at me. ‘Yes, I believe we are. Jack?’
‘Brandy, please. And a pot of coffee.’
‘Very good, sir. Father?’
‘A pot of tea.’
‘Your usual?’
‘Thank you, Mehmet.’
He bowed quickly and was gone.
‘Lovely, lovely man. Not been here that long, just since the trouble.’
‘Good English.’
‘Yes, exceptional. You should tell him, be your friend for life.’
‘I wouldn’t wish it on him.’
Reverend Laws smiled again, that same quizzical smile of faint disbelief that either melted or froze you. ‘Come on now,’ he said. ‘You’re being too hard on yourself. I enjoy being your friend.’
‘It’s hardly mutual.’
‘Sticks and stones, Jack. Sticks and stones.’
I said, ‘She’s back.’
He looked down at the hat in his hands. ‘I know.’
‘How could you?’
‘Your call the other night. I could feel…’
‘Feel what? Feel my pain? Bollocks.’
‘Is that why you wanted to meet me? To abuse me? It’s OK, Jack.’
‘Look at you, you hypocritical cunt, sat there all pompous and papal in your dirty old raincoat with your hat on your cock and your little bag of secrets, your cross and your prayers, your hammer and your nails, blessing the fucking wogs, turning the tea into wine. It’s me Martin, it’s Jack, not some lonely little old woman who hasn’t had a fuck in fifty years. I was there, remember? The night you fucked up.’
I’d stopped and he was just sat there.
The night Michael Williams cradled Carol in his arms one last time.
Just sat there, the hat revolving in his fingers.
The night Michael Williams…
He looked up and smiled.
The night…
I opened my mouth to start up again, but it was the waiter he was smiling at.
Mehmet put down the drinks and then took a small envelope from his pocket and pressed it into the Reverend’s hands.
‘Mehmet, I couldn’t. There’s no need.’
‘Father, I insist,’ he said and was gone.
I looked round at the Griffin’s lounge, watching the waiter scurry off back to his hole down below, an old woman with a walking stick trying to stand up from another high-backed chair, a child reading a comic, the dark yellow light at the front desk, the old brochures and paintings and lights almost gone, and it didn’t seem such a mystery why the Reverend Martin Laws was drawn to the Griffin Hotel, looking as it did for all the world like an old church in need of repair.
He leant forward, the hat still between his fingers, and said, ‘I can help you.’
‘Like you helped Michael Williams?’
‘I can make it go away’
‘Well you certainly got rid of Carol.’
‘Make it stop.’
I looked down at his hat, at the long fingers white at the tips. ‘Jack?’
I said, ‘I want it to stop. To end.’
‘I know you do. And it will, believe me.’
‘Is there only that way. The one way.’
‘I have a room. We can go upstairs right now and it’ll all be over.’
I was staring at the old woman with the walking stick, at the child in the corner, the brochures and the paintings, the light fading.
Jubela, Jubelo…
‘Not today,’ I said.
‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘I know’
I walked back through City Square, the moon almost full up in the blue night sky, back through the Friday night boys and girls and the start of the Jubilee Weekend, its threat of rain and promise of a fuck, through City Square and back to the office, knowing what could have been in an upstairs room, back to what would be waiting in another, there on my desk in amongst the rain and the fucks.
It was already starting to spit a bit.
I put down the toilet lid and took the letter from my pocket.
I was thinking about fingerprints and what the police would say but then how would they expect me to know and I knew there wouldn’t be any anyway.
I stared again at the postmark: Preston.
Posted yesterday.
First-class.
I used the end of my pen to slit the top of the envelope.
Still using the pen, I prised the paper out.
It was folded in two, the red ink leaking through the underside, a lump between the sheets.
I opened it up and tried to read what he’d written.
I was shaking, vinegar in my eyes, salt in my mouth.
It wasn’t going to end like this.
‘I’ll call George Oldman,’ said Hadden, still staring at the piece of heavy writing paper on his desk, not looking at the contents to the side.
‘Right.’
He swallowed, picked up the phone and dialled.
I waited, the moon gone, the rain here and the night out.
It was late in the evening, one hundred years too late in the evening.
A uniformed copper had come straight over to the Yorkshire Post Building, bagged the envelope and contents, and then driven Hadden and me straight here, to Millgarth, where we’d been ushered up to Detective Chief Superintendent Noble’s office, George Oldman’s old one, where they sat, Peter Noble and George, waiting for us.
‘Sit down,’ said Oldman.
The uniform put the clear plastic bags on the desk and made himself scarce.
Noble picked up a pair of tweezers and laid out the envelope and letter.
‘You’ve both handled it?’ he asked.
‘Just me.’
‘Don’t worry about that. We’ll take your prints later,’ said Oldman.
I smiled, ‘You’ve already got them.’
‘Preston,’ read Noble.
‘Posted?’
‘Looks like yesterday’
Both of them looked like they were off somewhere deep.
Hadden was on the edge of his seat.
Noble placed the letter back in the clear bag and pushed it over to George Oldman, followed by the envelope and smaller parcel.
He read:
From Hell.
Mr Whitehead,
Sir, I send you skin I took from one women, which I preserved for you. Other bits I fried and ate and it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that cut it off if you only wait a while longer.