Bus-stop
The bus-stop in Rothwell, outside Leeds, at seven-thirty on a gloomy December morning. Bus to work at a library supply firm. No-one around. Passing cars loom and lighten the interior, then pass into the greyness of the day. Drizzle. No-one around. The woman waits and watches for the bright interior of relief that the bus will bring: the friendly exchange with the driver and the lurch into the seat; familiar travelling faces and forms; the comfort of not being alone in the bus shelter on a lonely strip of dual carriageway… No bus. No-one around. The cars and the time pass by. She glances up and down the dark pavement; peers through the road grime of the window at the outline of the van in the lay-by: fifty yards of a woman’s fear are one step for the out-sized monster of imagination, heart beating, with hammer blows. Van door opens; burly shape steps down and to the rear doors. No-one else around. Her heart is banging in her; her grip on her bag-strap is knuckle pale in the gloom, but she has no eyes for that. A door slams; an engine churns into life and an ordinary van man’s day goes on. The bus stops; she gets on, with the over-the-shoulder dread of every woman in Yorkshire. It is 1979 and each murder takes its toll on the collective consciousness. I am that woman.
Christina James, crime novelist 
We all, as writers, can imagine what might happen next but in that place at that time it must have been uppermost in everyone’s minds. A scary post.
I remember it as an occasional feeling of unease which grew into a permanent and vivid fear. Thanks, Rosalind, for popping in and for your RT.
I found this via Rosalind’s RT. It’s very unsettling. I was there too and remember the same feelings – you’ve expressed them exactly, and the feelings were entirely justified because you really didn’t know who was next. The Ripper went on so long that I think everyone must have been only one or two moves away. My sister was in the same class at Leeds Uni as the last victim. My husband, before I met him, was interviewed by police because he hired vans a lot (he drove the Sheffiled Uni caving society around) and I went to a class in the Teacher’s Centre at the end of the lane in which he was eventually arrested. I can trot out these statements because I still think about it – as obviously you do too. It’s a great piece, but I sort of wish I hadn’t read it – which must mean you’ve done your job well!
Anabel, thank you. We WordPress folk do find each other eventually! There was indeed a sense of proximity wherever you were in Yorkshire. The police were stopping cars in random checks and the fear was palpable. It lives in me still.
Briliantly written, Christina. A chilling account of what must have been frightening times,
Fiona
Thanks, Fiona. The number of different locations made it a possibility anywhere; it seemed that no woman was safe and the fact that the investigation was not producing any results made the perpetrator all the more formidable in our minds. Frightening indeed.