Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace Read Free Book Online

But what about this?” I said, pointing at the headline on his desk. “What about Clare?”
    Hadden was shaking his head, staring at his paper. “Appalling.”
    I nodded, knowing I’d lost.
    He said, “But it’s Christmas and it’ll either be solved tomorrow or never. Either way it’s going to die a death.”
    “Die a death?”
    “So we’ll let Jack handle it for the most part.”
    “But…”
    Hadden’s smile was fading. “Anyway, I have a couple of other things for you. Tomorrow, as a favour to me, I want you to go out to Castleford with Barry Cannon.”
    “Castleford?” My stomach hollow, my feet searching for the floor, unable to fathom the depth.
    “Barry’s got this notion that Marjorie Dawson, John Dawson’s wife, will actually see him and provide him with corroboration on everything he’s dug up on her husband. I think it’s somewhat unlikely, given the woman’s mental history, but he’ll go anyway. So I’ve asked him to take you along.”
    I said, “Why me?” Playing it dumber than dumb, thinking Barry was right and just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you don’t have every bloody reason to be.
    “Well, if it ever did come to anything there would be arrests and prosecutions and what-have-you and you, as this paper’s North of England Crime Correspondent,” smiled Hadden. “You would obviously be up to your neck in it. And, as a favour to me, I want you to make sure that Barry doesn’t go off the bloody deep end.”
    “The deep end?”
    Hadden looked at his watch and sighed, “What do you know about what Barry’s been doing?”
    “Dawsongate? Just what everyone knows, I suppose.”
    “And what do you think? Just between you and me?” He was leading me, but I’d no idea where we were going or why.
    I let myself be led. “Between you and me? I think there’s definitely a story there. I just think it’s more up Construction Weekly’s street than ours.”
    “Then we think alike,” grinned Hadden, picking up a thick manila envelope and handing it across the desk to me. “This is all the work that Barry’s done so far and submitted to the legal department.”
    “The legal department?” I felt like fucking Polly the bleeding Parrot.
    “Yeah. And, frankly, the legal boys reckon we’d be lucky to print one single bloody sentence of it.”
    “Right.”
    “I don’t expect you to read it all, but Barry doesn’t tolerate fools so…”
    “I see,” I said, patting the fat envelope on my knee, eager to please if it meant…
    “And finally, while you’re out that way, I want you to do another piece on the Ratcatcher.”
    Fuck.
    “Another piece?” New depths, my heart on the floor.
    “Very popular. Your best piece. Lots of letters. And now that neighbour…”
    “Mrs Sheard?” I said, against my will.
    “Yep, that’s her. Mrs Enid Sheard. She phoned and said she wants to talk.”
    “For a price.”
    Hadden was frowning. “Yeah.”
    “Miserable bitch.”
    Hadden looked mildly annoyed, but pressed on. “So I thought, after you’ve been over to Castleford, you could pop in and see her. It’d be just right for Tuesday’s supplement.”
    “Yeah. OK. But, I’m sorry, but what about Clare Kemplay?” It came from despair and the pit of my belly, from a man seeing only building sites and rats.
    Bill Hadden looked momentarily taken aback by the pitiful whine of my question, before he remembered to stand up and say, “Don’t worry. As I say, Jack’11 hold the fort and he’s promised me he’ll work as a team with you. Just talk to him.”
    “He hates my guts,” I said, refusing to move or hum along.
    “Jack Whitehead hates everybody,” said Bill Hadden, opening the door.
    Saturday teatime, downstairs the office thankfully quiet, merci fully devoid of Jack fucking Whitehead, the Sunday Post already in bed.
    Leeds United must have won, but I didn’t give a fuck.
    I’d lost.
    “Have you seen Jack?”
    Kathryn alone at her desk, waiting. “He’ll be at