Part 1
Yorkshire wants me

C h a p t e r 1

‘All we ever get is Lord fucking Lucan and wingless bloody crows,’ smiled Gilman, like this was the best day of our lives:

Friday 13 December 1974.

Waiting for my first Front Page, the Byline Boy at last: Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent; two days too fucking late.

I looked at my father’s watch.

9 a.m. and no bugger had been to bed; straight from the Press Club, still stinking of ale, into this hell:

The Conference Room, Millgarth Police Station, Leeds.

The whole bloody pack sat waiting for the main attraction, pens poised and tapes paused; hot TV lights and cigarette smoke lighting up the windowless room like a Town Hall boxing ring on a Late Night Fight Night; the paper boys taking it out on the TV set, the radios static and playing it deaf:

‘They got sweet FA.’

‘A quid says she’s dead if they got George on it.’

Khalid Aziz at the back, no sign of Jack.

I felt a nudge. It was Gilman again, Gilman from the Manchester Evening News and before.

‘Sorry to hear about your old man, Eddie.’

‘Yeah, thanks,’ I said, thinking news really did travel fucking fast.

‘When’s the funeral?’

I looked at my father’s watch again. ‘In about two hours.’

‘Jesus. Hadden still taking his pound of bloody flesh then.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, knowing, funeral or no funeral, no way I’m letting Jack fucking Whitehead back in on this one.

‘I’m sorry, like.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

Seconds ou...