1 In the Beginning
West Yorkshire: Seaton copes with the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. Gen.2.23
“One dull thud of an heavy hammer should have been enough.”
But he struck her twice. He took her purse, ran off down snicket across Birstall’s yard, past pigpens, over fields and on to main road. He was seen twice according to Old Bill. Once running across cobbles that led to Birstall’s barn - dog had barked apparently and their Eileen had looked out of kitchen window. He was wearing black, she said, running shoes and a hood. She saw him chuck hammer into nettles at side of tractor.
Jimmy Hepplethwaite and Chantelle Tunstall saw him leap a fence, cut right across field and run down to main road. They thought he was getting on a bike; they certainly heard one start up and then saw headlights moving off down Denton Road in direction of Branley. It was dark and they couldn’t verify clothing or anything, but Jimmy said he thought that bloke’s head was covered up.
“That one dull thud should have done though.” Police kept saying that when they came round. Detective Inspector Walton was his name.
“An heavy hammer like that. He din’t need to hit her twice. Second blow caught her where skull meets spine. It broke her neck. That were unnecessary even if you was desperate for cash.”
They reckoned it was a junky that did it. He was either high at time or else desperate for another fix. He got thirty-four pence, her Co-op Divvy card and a second-class stamp. So he’d be getting no fix if it were a junky.
That’s all she had on her. Thirty-four pence. Six and eight in old money. She always used to go on about that my mam.
“Six and eight - that were how much a record used to cost when I were a lass. That’s thirty-four pence in today’s money.”
It was funny an all, six and eight, because that’s how old she was - sixty-eight. Not funny in a way that you’d want to laugh, but strange. Like numerology. She’d had me when she was thirty-nine and I was born at nine thirty. Then she married my dad. After I was born. You didn’t need numerology to work that one out. But I hadn’t worked it out. Not then.
She used to say a lot of daft things my mam. Stuff you wouldn’t necessarily take notice of. “There’s always an anecdote to any poison,” she’d say.
And what happened to her was poison I can tell you. Poison created by society. But it all stopped that night. For her it did anyroad. They reckon she would have been dead a second after that first dull thud. The second blow was unnecessary they said. Kept saying it. Unnecessary.
‘Smash and Grab’, ‘Pointless Crime’, ‘Hooded Druggy Could Strike Again - Villagers Warned’. It was all in papers. Local ones like. Old Bill was round for a few weeks then it all died down. They offered me a bit of counselling but I said no. They’d tried me with therapy when I was still at school and it didn’t do any good. I said it was all a dreadful shock but I’d manage. We weren’t sort who needed counselling or owt like that but it was kind of them to ask.
They never caught the bugger neither. To be honest they lost interest. That night, the night she was found, was dark. Dark with a wild wet wind - that kind of furious wind that makes you not want to stop at door when someone is talking to you, so you ask them in, then you feel ashamed, not ashamed, but embarrassed about state of house.
Any road they came in. D.I. Walton with two big coppers and a small female one with blond hair and nice lipstick and all. She just looked round house really, while they talked to me. All four of us squashed in our front room. They were nice at start. Then they started saying I should own up. They went on as if it was obvious that I’d done it, and they’d find weapon and my prints would be all over it, and on a night like this they’d have footprints and it would be easier if I just told truth. I said I didn’t know what they were on about and then they said, “The one dull thud of an heavy hammer should have been enough.”
I know why they kept putting it like that. They were after a confession. But you only confess if it is you that’s done it. And it wasn’t me so I just sat quiet.
Then I said, “Is she dead?”
Then they said, “She’s dead all right. Second strike snapped her neck.”
Then I said nowt. I just shook and stared into what was left of fire. I remember two big lumps of glowing coal shifting on their own; they dropped and ground together sending a few sad sparks of yellow light up sooty back of chimney.
Then female one came back downstairs, sat on edge of chair, and put an arm round me. She pulled me to her and I cried. A grown lad like me. Cried. I haven’t cried since I was a little kid but it all came out. I could feel her bosom under uniform pressing on my face. It was soft like a feather pillow wrapped in a mac. And the fire dipped again, without sparks this time, and that’s the last time they accused me. I think they were just trying it on. Ninety-percent of murders are committed by a family member or close friend they said. So I suppose they have to go down that road at start.
Then she got back up that woman copper and stood over in front of mantelpiece making room seem even darker. Main bloke was talking to me again. His voice was like them shards of a thorn bush – sharp and hard, liable to dig right into you then snap. But I was having none of it. When you know its not you that’s done summat you can focus on summat else. And that’s exactly what I did.
I just kept looking at that woman. She had a nice shape to her an all. All wrapped up in copper’s black. My eyes went up to her face and only thing that I thought didn’t look right was her hair. It was too blond for rest of her. If she’d been my missus, I thought, I would have got her to dye it black. But she had nice lips and good cheekbones and then she caught me looking and her eyes changed. There was a flash of something. Something like something with a power inside it. Something I’d never felt coming from any woman. Like frost. Like fire.
So I looked back at bloke and said, “Look it were me mam. She were only thing I had left in world. She looked after me and brought me up and that. So why would I…”
And then my eyes welled up – like Old Mother Shipton’s Spring, and went down to floor and then back to fire again.
And by then she’d moved. Moved away from mantelpiece, and that bit of panic, that fragment of fear, that tiny moment of terror went with her.
They never caught him though. I don’t think they ever really tried. She was an old woman. She was no one important and they were busy. That’s way it goes.
There was an odd atmosphere in village after that though. People looking at people - strange like. Muffled talk in shops, street and pub.
First reaction of a lot of folk was to think that Stringy Billy was at bottom of it all. Either he had done it or he knew summat about it. People thought Stringy Billy knew a load of stuff he didn’t know. He didn’t know owt and that was truth. And it wasn’t Stringy Billy who did that to my mam neither. He couldn’t have done it.
And even if he had, he’d have owned up. Straight off. That was how Stringy Billy was.
It didn’t stop folk being wary of him though. You get a murder in your village and you’ll see. Everyone supports everyone. Everyone’s everyone’s friend, but only in that kind, concerned Christian kind of way. Underneath there’s whisperings. There’s pointings, with nods, with looks and sideways glances. No one trusts no one. Because underneath we are all capable of murder. And people know that. Underneath.
Underneath we could all take an heavy hammer, hit someone over head and walk away as if nowt had happened. It could have been any of us villagers, they all thought.
It was none of us, they all hoped.
I thought for years that they’d get the bastard who’d done it. But like I said they lost interest. They found hammer - there were no fingerprints. They found a black hooded jacket - but there were no fibres or nowt else on it that could help. Footprints, on that wet night, were too smudgy but they reckoned whoever had done it had big feet. He was wearing size twelve trainers. Only Jimmy Gordon at pub had feet that size and no one suspected him for a minute.
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I knew it wasn’t Stringy Billy.
Police gave up. Time moved on, but case remained open.
There were many a night though when I’d look into a tired old fire and feel that ghostly shiver when coals moved. One day, one night like that, could change everything. Completely change your whole life. I thought of that uniformed bosom against my face, her blond hair and bright red lipstick, and the voice of that big copper saying.
“One dull thud of an heavy hammer should have been enough.”
Over and over and over again.