Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace

Author:David Peace
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1998-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

I let the paper fall to the floor.

“I was right.”

Jack said, “You think so?”

I turned to Hadden. “You know I was. I said they were connected.”

“Which ones are they talking about Jack?” asked Hadden.

“Jeanette Garland and Susan Ridyard,” I said, tears in my eyes.

“For starters,” said Jack.

“I rucking told you.”

“Language, Edward,” muttered Hadden.

I said, “I sat in this office, I sat in Oldman’s office, and I told you both.”

But I knew it was over.

I sat there at the end of it all with Hadden and Jack White-head, my hand frozen with pain. I looked from one to the other, Jack grinning, Hadden fiddling with his glasses. The room, the outer office, the streets beyond, all suddenly silent. For one moment I wondered if it was snowing outside.

For just one moment, and then it started again:

“Have you got an address?” I asked Hadden.

“Jack?”

“54 Newstead View.”

“Newstead View! That’s the same fucking street.”

“What?” Hadden, drained of patience.

“James Ashworth, the lad who found her body, he lives on the same bloody street as this bloke.”

“So?” smiled Jack.

“Fuck off, Jack!”

“Please watch your language in my office.”

Jack Whitehead had his arms up in mock surrender.

I saw red, red, and only red, my head alive with pain. “They live on the same bloody street, in the same town, ten miles from where the body was found.”

“Coincidence,” said Jack.

“You reckon?”

“I reckon.”

I sat back, my right hand heavy with still blood, feeling the same heaviness creep over everything, like it was snowing here in this room, here in my brain.

Jack Whitehead said, “He coughed for them. What more do you want?”

“The fucking truth.”

Jack was laughing, really laughing, big fat belly laughs.

We were pushing Hadden too far.

Quietly, I said, “What did they get him on?”

Hadden sighed, “Faulty brakelights.”

“You’re joking?”

Jack had stopped laughing. “Wouldn’t pull over. Panda car gives chase. They haul him in, out of the blue he coughs for all this.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“Transit van,” said Jack, avoiding my eyes.

“What colour?”

“White,” smiled Jack, offering me a cigarette.

I took the cigarette, thinking of Mrs Ridyard and her posters, sitting in her neat front room with its spoiled view.

“How old is he?”

Jack lit his cigarette and said, “Twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two? That’d make him only sixteen or seventeen in ‘69.”

“So?”

“Come on, Jack?”

“What’s he do?” Hadden asked Jack, but looking at me.

“Works for a photo lab. Develops photos.”

My head awash, swimming with school girl photos.

Jack said, “It feels wrong doesn’t it, Scoop?”

“No,” I whispered.

“You don’t want it to be him, I know.”

“No.”

Jack leant forward in his chair. “I was the same. All that hard work, all those hunches, and it just doesn’t sit right.”

“No,” I muttered, adrift in a white transit van plastered with photographs of the smiling, fair-haired, little dead.

“It’s a bitter pill, but they got him.”

“Yeah.”

“You get used to it,” winked Jack as he stood up unsteadily. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Hadden said, “Yeah, thanks Jack.”

“Big day, eh?” said Jack, closing the door behind him.

“Yeah,” I said blankly.

The room was quiet and still smelt of Jack and drink.

After a few seconds, I said, “What happens now?”

“I want you to do the background on this Myshkin feller.

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