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Blood Relatives
Stevan Alcock
An incredible debut novel: a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, ‘full of daring, authenticity and wit’ (Rachel Cusk).LONGLISTED FOR THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE‘The milkman found her. On Prince Philip Playing Fields. He crossed the dew-soaked grass toward what he took to be a bundle of clothes, but then he came across a discarded shoe, and then t’ mutilated body. her name wor Wilma McCann.’Leeds, late 1975 and a body has been found on Prince Philip Playing Fields. Ricky, teenage delivery van boy for Corona pop, will be late for The Matterhorn Man. In the years that follow until his capture, the Yorkshire Ripper and Rick’s own life draw ever closer with unforeseen consequences. Set in a time in England's history of upheaval and change – both personal and social – this is a story told in an unforgettable voice.
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Copyright (#u4cd7cea9-0925-57c6-807d-028e1e6c01d6)
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)
Copyright © Stevan Alcock 2015
The right of Stevan Alcock to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Cover photographs © Evening Standard/Getty Images (boys); Jack Hickes/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (Arndale bus stop)
Source ISBN: 9780007580842
Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007580859
Version: 2015-12-02
Dedication (#u4cd7cea9-0925-57c6-807d-028e1e6c01d6)
For Peg
Contents
Cover (#uaa78f331-b30a-5c67-949e-df7892d6439d)
Title Page (#u2a6194ab-42ab-5672-91ca-5db8ae8aa718)
Copyright (#ulink_f38e606d-f399-5bde-bb32-22f4f93bb09a)
Dedication (#ulink_c0106c07-e27d-5387-a747-28b11b9e94e6)
I
Wilma McCann (#ulink_ab9f3eea-349d-5851-9b71-bc389afd7601)
Emily Jackson (#ulink_65070489-5fe3-5792-bea5-ce6787b4a2b8)
Marcella Claxton (#ulink_6ed08925-1b7e-53b5-921e-563ac3ef0170)
Irene Richardson (#ulink_b7f95978-de2f-590f-abb9-13e828e27a01)
Patricia ‘Tina’ Atkinson (#ulink_bdb46620-5540-5f8b-af8b-2c5ba3fcd205)
II
Jayne MacDonald (#ulink_6996b709-eb20-5609-b7e3-0a12a6e0a9f5)
Maureen Long (#ulink_fd523794-0263-5835-874e-e343ded8401b)
Jean Royle (also known as Jean Jordan) (#ulink_80ab78b5-4190-535e-ad55-ee0c7dae0eb2)
Marilyn Moore (#ulink_842c2f46-7317-5047-8720-d906683a1d18)
Yvonne Pearson (#ulink_90b58579-3fe8-5fff-8dff-ce07c71b3287)
Helen Rytka (#ulink_faf2f714-e96c-5529-8691-02ddc16a12dd)
Vera Millward (#ulink_f3d61cbb-9885-5ca1-9b88-af34be077876)
Josephine Whitaker (#ulink_f9dbae87-0162-58ae-bcd4-23a6ea0f2a98)
Barbara Leach (#ulink_d070ab9d-2511-50a4-aa72-7f9cca73d888)
III
Jacqueline Hill (#ulink_78d65ec7-c9b7-5ecb-93d7-f8a530bd3787)
Acknowledgements (#u975177ee-574e-5af0-9ca2-a55705cdf56b)
About the Publisher (#u9f63f86d-15c8-53ba-b538-509ed39f9068)
I (#u4cd7cea9-0925-57c6-807d-028e1e6c01d6)
Wilma McCann (#u4cd7cea9-0925-57c6-807d-028e1e6c01d6)
30/10/1975
The milkman found her. On Prince Philip Playing Fields. He crossed the dew-soaked grass toward what he took to be a bundle of clothes, but then he came across a discarded shoe, and then t’ mutilated body.
Her name wor Wilma McCann.
An hour earlier, wi’ t’ daybreak a mere streak across t’ Leeds skyline, Wilma McCann’s two kids wor found by t’ police, waiting in their nightclothes at a bus stop in t’ Scott Hall Road, hoping to see their mother on t’ next bus from town.
Later on t’ morning the milkman made his gruesome discovery, after he’d told the police, made a statement, phoned his missus from a box on Harehills Lane, the milk float wor working almost parallel wi’ our Corona Soft Drinks wagon up and down Harehills’ red-brick back-to-backs. It worn’t usual for him to be in this street at the same time as us. He wor running way late. Eric, my driver, parped the horn. The milk-float driver beckoned us over, his face taut and joyless.
‘Stay here, Rick. Watch the van. Summat’s up.’
This irked me. My mind wor already racing ahead to t’ end of t’ working day, to t’ terraced house in t’ cul-de-sac where t’ Matterhorn Man lived, and now Eric wor blathering on wi’ t’ milkman and the day wor stretching itsen out before me.
I plonked both feet sulkily on t’ dashboard and mulled on t’ lines of washing slung between t’ backs of t’ terraces. Billowing sheets, flapping underwear and wind-socked nylon shirts. Washing slowed us down even more than some poor cow’s corpse. I’d have to march before t’ wagon wi’ a long pole and hoist up all t’ washing so our grimy vehicle could sneak beneath. The women would hear t’ van and look out skittishly as we passed, watching to make sure their pristine laundry worn’t soiled on t’ line.
Then we’d stop. Stacking half a dozen bottles up each forearm we’d move deftly from back kitchen doorstep to back kitchen door; from Asian kitchens where t’ hands of t’ women wor stained wi’ turmeric, to t’ kitchens of black women who laughed and joked wi’ us in their patois, to Ukrainian and Polish kitchens and English kitchens. Kitchens filled wi’ t’ smells of spices and baking, dank kitchens of stomach-churning grease, dirt and indifference.
Over t’ road, the milkman and Eric wor still confabbing. The milkman wor pointing somewhere. I swore, slammed my fist hard against t’ cab door, clambered out onto t’ back of t’ wagon and noisily dragged some crates about.
It wor a friggin’ age before I heard the whine of t’ milk float pulling away and saw Eric bustling over, face like a pig’s arse. He sat in t’ cab, clutching the steering wheel wi’ both hands and staring flatly ahead.
‘So?’
‘So he found a body this morning.’
‘What? A dead one?’
‘Uh-huh. Thinks she wor done over last night.’
Eric picked at his teeth wi’ his forefinger, leaned over t’ round-book.
‘Number 43 wants a crate of cream soda.’
Cos of all t’ palaver over t’ body it wor late morn before I found mesen propping up the door frame of Mrs Husk’s living room, bottle of ginger beer dangling ’tween my fingers. Mrs Husk wor slower than any corpse, and only a smidgen of t’ hour from becoming one. She’d grind time to a halt if she got her way. I should have been in and out of there an age back.
‘Oeff!’ spluttered Mrs Husk. ‘My leg.’
I looked on as she doubled over in her chair, rubbing her calf, picking uselessly at the fraying edges of her bandaging. Her heavy brown wig had slipped slightly to show wisps of white hair, floating and anchored, like sheep-wool traces caught on barbed wire.
‘Oeff,’ she repeated, eyeing me beadily. ‘It don’t get no better.’
Nor would it. I prayed the old cuckoo wouldn’t ask me to rewrap it. Not again. Not today of all days. I worn’t a friggin’ nurse, fer Chrissakes, I wor here to deliver pop. Her leg wor so ulcerated and pitted, it wor like massaging cold chicken skin. Not even industrial depot soap could rid my hands of t’ stink of her ointment.
The day wor stacked against me.
The milkman had found a body.
Mrs Husk wanted her leg seeing to.
I would be too late for t’ Matterhorn Man.
Mrs Husk motioned me further in, her jaw slackening and closing wordlessly, like a ruminant chewing cud.
‘Best I stay over here, Mrs Husk, stood in some doggy-do earlier on.’
Which wor a lie. Course, I’d wanted to clap eyes on t’ corpse. Couldn’t be any worse than t’ cat I’d found in a water barrel wi’ a ligature round its neck. Just a quick gander at death, then I’d go and sell pop. People die, people are born and people buy pop.
Mrs Husk wor levering hersen out of her chair wi’ both arms.
‘Oeff!’
My nostrils flared, catching the manky whiff of her room. Such a dingy room, the floral wallpaper a discoloured shade of piss, the moth-eaten rugs scarcely hiding the bare floorboards. Two mangy armchairs wor angled toward a gas fire that hissed bleakly from t’ fireplace, the stuffing oozing from one of them. She slept in here, the old bird, slept in one of them there armchairs.
She took the new bottle of ginger beer from me and shuffled off into t’ kitchen. That’s it, under t’ sink, go on, that’s where you keep it, behind that grubby gingham cloth. Mrs Husk wor faithful to her one bottle of ginger beer.
Still, I thought, scratching my knackers through t’ hole in my pocket, she ain’t a bad old crow. Not one of them cringeing, whingeing old crones on t’ round who peer at you through t’ crack of their door chains, or clack-clack their dentures at you about young folk or darkies or t’ war.
The old littered the round, holed up in their stinking flats and decrepit houses, smelling of stale piss and imminent death. She might wear a hairnet and have a whiffy leg, but there wor summat brusque about Mrs Husk. She never apologised for being old. Not Mrs Husk.
She edged her way over to t’ table by t’ window, where she set down t’ empty.
‘Bugger the doggy-do, come in proper while I get you t’ money.’
Her dappled old hands quivered as she reached for a buff envelope from behind t’ mantel clock. The clock had an assured tock-tock and an expensive chime. An heirloom, perhaps. Even t’ most addled old girl would notice if that went walkies, and Mrs Husk’s mind wor lemon sharp. That clock wor probably the only thing of value she had. Then again, maybe she wor secretly loaded. The elderly accumulate. They hoard, they store, they stash.
Summat brushed against my feet. Lord Snooty, her unfeasibly fat tomcat, lurking under t’ table, blinking up at me like it knew what I wor thinking.
I said, ‘I can’t stay long, we’re running late.’
‘I thought maybe you worn’t coming. That you’d missed me out again.’
‘Would I do that, Mrs Husk?’
She tucked an errant lock of hair beneath her net, looked at me askance. I twitched to be gone as she painfully counted out t’ money for t’ ginger beer. She always got it wrong. Her hands hovered shakily over t’ coins; she wore a gold wedding ring, and another ring on t’ same finger set wi’ some fat dark stone. The rings seemed welded into her bony finger; anyone wanting to remove ’em would have to hack ’em off.
‘They found a body this morning,’ I said.
Mrs Husk ceased moving coins around. She examined the pile of coppers, tanners and bobs as if she wor reading t’ tea leaves.
‘A body? My, my. It’s a rum world, ain’t it lad?’
One by one she placed the coins in my hand.
‘Is that right, then?’
She wor four pence short. ‘Aye. That’s it.’
In t’ evening I lay sprawled across my bed in a sour mood, watching two flies playing tag. By t’ time we’d finished the round it wor too late for me to pay my usual visit to t’ Matterhorn Man.
