But he had been questioned by the police. And his girlfriend or whatever she was had gone missing the night he was supposed to meet her, found dead near Oxley Hall soon after. Christopher remembered him joking about how getting laid was guaranteed, since that was apparently all she wanted him for.
‘I’m her bloody sex toy, man,’ he had joked, and Christopher had felt the burn of humiliation. Sophie wouldn’t change her mind halfway through, he had thought at the time. Sophie knew what she wanted, and Adam knew how to give her that very thing.
But of course now she was dead, along with the others. And in one of the many crude pictures that had been shown on the news and in the papers, the Ripper had been drawn with reddish hair. Adam pulled women to him without a thought. And he was often out late at night – had been since Christopher had known him. This last year, when the Ripper had gone quiet, corresponded to when he and Adam had worked together in the Fenton. Adam would not have been able to get away so easily. And now, now when only the month before last the Ripper had struck again, Adam had taken a job at a club – unsociable hours, every reason not to get home until long after Christopher was asleep in bed.
Adam didn’t go home in the holidays, he had a troubled relationship with his father, had once bragged that he could go from conversation to copulation quicker than it would take most men to eat a bag of chips. All his shared confidences – what if they were not real? What if they were an act, designed to manufacture intimacy, trust, so better to pull the wool over Christopher’s eyes? He had always wondered why Adam would choose him, Christopher, so dull and studious when he himself was so sociable, so full of chutzpah. Christ, he had even got Christopher to be his alibi! Was it possible that this whole time, Adam had been out there, in the dark, murdering women – women on the game and sometimes innocents, as they were called?
He tried to stop his thoughts but could not. It was Adam who had suggested that just the two of them share a house. Fewer housemates – fewer witnesses. Adam had chosen Christopher not despite but exactly because of how he was, because he knew that Christopher would never twig what was really going on: too dim, too wrapped up in history and books, often absent at weekends. And the name – Jack. Where had he got that from? Why that name in particular if not because he had heard it from Christopher?
‘No,’ he said again, into his beer. ‘No, no, no.’
* * *
That evening, Christopher found the customary message on the table: Gone to work. Don’t wait up. See you in the morning. Adam didn’t even bother to write a note any more. He simply pulled this envelope out from the cutlery drawer where it now lived and threw it onto the table whenever he needed it. Christopher picked it up and put it back in the drawer, out of sight.
He made tea with three teaspoons of sugar and took it upstairs to bed. The sweet heat soothed him, but he was still preoccupied. Perhaps bed would be the best option – go to sleep; forget about it. Things would look different in the morning.
He got into bed but his eyes stayed open as if pinned. Above him, on the slant of the roof over his bed, Stevie Nicks looked down from on high. Ah, Stevie. He got out of bed, slid Rumours from its sleeve and placed it carefully on the turntable. To the opening bars of ‘Second Hand News’ and with the album cover in his arms, he crept back across the room and lay once more in the darkness. The second track, ‘Dreams’. Stevie Nicks took him always to Phyllis, to that first meeting, to her car, to the two of them listening to that fragile, throaty voice. Stevie Nicks would lead you by the hand into the darkness – she would lay down her coat and have you lie on it with her. She would not tell you no when you were too far gone to stop. She would pull back her waistcoats and her skirts, she would unbutton her blouse made of cotton and shake her long wavy hair, and she would sing in that low voice with all its promises close in your ear, Stay with me a while…
He set the album sleeve down; let it slide onto the bedroom floor.
At 3 a.m., he woke. Something had disturbed him. A noise then: it sounded like a shoe dropping to the floor. Adam. Christopher lay for a moment, his insides knotted in angst, before throwing off the covers. Better to face him now, if only to reassure himself. Not as if he would sleep anyway. He crept downstairs. The smell of toast sailed up from the kitchen. Adam was whistling softly, tunelessly, all but hidden behind the kitchen wall but for the serving hatch. By the angle of his head, Christopher could tell he was spreading butter on his toast. He looked up, eyed Christopher through the frame of the hatch.
‘Why aye, Christopher Robin. What’s the matter – couldn’t sleep?’
‘No,’ said Christopher, inwardly reeling at the north-eastern accent – although it was possible the pitch was not as deep as the voice on the tape. You are no nearer catching me now… He pulled his dressing gown tight and tied the belt.
‘You look worried, man,’ said Adam, appearing now at the door of the kitchen, one red-socked foot on the step that led up to the living room.
‘I’ve been thinking. I’m not going to stay in Leeds over the summer this time,’ Christopher said.
Adam frowned, bit into his toast. A blob of strawberry jam landed on his chin. He pushed it off with his middle finger and sucked it clean. ‘That’s a shame. How come?’
‘I think I’m going to move in with Phyllis. With my family.’
‘But we’ll have a much better time here, you know that, don’t you? God knows, you might even get laid for a legendary second time.’
Adam – always thinking of sex. He was predatory all right, but enough to follow a woman late at night? Enough to take what he wanted then kill her – or kill her if she didn’t give him what he wanted?
‘Late shift?’ Christopher managed to ask.
‘Finished at two. Had a pint after with the others.’
It was a little after three. If he’d caught a bus or walked up the back way, the timings worked.
‘So. Did you hear the tape?’
Adam’s eyes widened. ‘The Ripper? Yeah. Fucking hell, we listened to it on the radio.’ He shook his head. ‘Here’s us all thinking he’s a Yorkshireman and he’s from my neck of the woods. He sounds like my Uncle Pete. Tell you what, I’m glad that tape hadn’t come out before poor Sophie was taken. What with me a bloody Geordie. Enough to send shivers down your spine, isn’t it?’ His eyes were still wide. He slurped his tea and took another bite of toast. ‘Sorry, did you want a brew?’
Christopher sighed. His head was spinning. He pressed his hands to his knees.
‘Are you all right, man? You gone dizzy or something?’
‘I’m all right. Light-headed. Must’ve got up too quickly or something.’
‘Can I get you some tea?’
Adam wasn’t the Ripper. Of course he wasn’t. Christopher had been ridiculous even to think it. The murders had started before any of them had come to Leeds. Adam wouldn’t even have passed his driving test back then. Adam was funny and kind and loved women. He loved them. It was impossible.