Behind her, somebody said, "There's no b.l.o.o.d.y paper down there."

Hilda Merkinson knocked her gla.s.s over and a thin veil of lager spilled across the table and onto her sister's lap. "Hilda! For goodness sake."

"d.a.m.n it," Hilda said.

Edna threw a spare serviette across the table and turned around. Billy Roberts was sliding into his seat on the next table.

Sitting across from Billy, Jack Hanlon burst into a loud laugh. "You didn't use your hands again, did you, Billy? You'll never sell any meat on Monday-smell'll be there for days."

Billy smiled broadly and held his hand out beneath his friend's nose. Jack pulled back so quickly he nearly upturned his chair. He took a drink of Old Peculiar, swallowed and shook a B&H out of a pack lying on the table. "If you must know," Billy said, lighting the cigarette and blowing a thick cloud up towards the ceiling, "I used my hanky." He made a play of reaching into his pocket. "But I washed it out, see-" And he pretended to throw something across the table to his friend. This time, gravity took its toll and Jack went over backwards into the aisle.

As Jack got to his feet and righted his chair, Billy said, "I flushed it, didn't I, daft b.u.g.g.e.r. But I was worried for a few minutes when I saw there wasn't any paper course, by that time, I'd done the deed. They need to check the b.l.o.o.d.y things more regular." He blew out more smoke.

"Aren't you going to tell somebody, Billy?" Helen Simpson asked, her eyes sparkling as they took in Billy Roberts's quiffed hair.

"Can't be a.r.s.ed," Billy said. "There's some poor sod down there now probably still down there: he'll have something to say about it when he gets out," he added as he did a quick glance at the entrance to see if he could see anybody returning who looked either a little sheepish or blazing with annoyance.

"That'll be Arthur." Edna looked over her shoulder at Betty. "I bet that's my Arthur," she said. She tapped Billy on the shoulder. "That'll be my Arthur," she said again.

"What's that, Mrs Clark?" Billy said, turning. "What's your Arthur gone and done now?"

"He went to the toilet ages ago. Billy says there might not be any paper. There'll be h.e.l.l to pay if there isn't."

Harriet Merkinson shuffled around in her handbag, produced a thick bundle of Kleenex and she held them out. "Here, why don't you take him these?"

Edna nodded. "Thanks, er-"

"Harriet," said Harriet.

"Thanks, Harry-good idea." She pa.s.sed the tissues back to Billy and gave a big smile. "Here, be an angel, Billy and go back down and push these under the door for me."

"You haven't been down to the gents, have you, Mrs Clark?" There was a sn.i.g.g.e.r at the last part from Jack Hanlon. "You can't get sod all under them doors."

"Well, can't you knock on his door or something?" She nodded to the table behind her. "He hasn't even finished his meal."

Hilda looked across at Arthur's plate and noted that it didn't look much different to her sister's the only difference was that one meal was finished with and the other wasn't.

When he got back to the toilet, Billy saw one of the young waiters about to go into each cubicle to fasten a new roll of tissue into the dispenser. "Somebody tell you, did they? Was it Arthur Clark?"

The boy shook his head, his cheeks colouring. "It was some bloke, don't know what he's called," the waiter said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Said he'd come down and a lot of the-" The boy paused, searching for the word.

"Traps?" Billy ventured.

The boy smiled. "Said a lot of the traps didn't have no paper."

"When was that?" Billy asked.

"Well, when he was down here, I suppose," he said, frowning and holding up an armful of toilet rolls. "I just said-"

"No, when was it this other bloke mentioned about there been no paper."

"Oh," the boy gasped. "I see." He frowned and chewed his lip. "A while back. I had to get the key to the stock cupboard first and I was still collecting dishes."

Outside the entrance to the toilet there was a sudden burst of high-pitched giggling. "There's a b.l.o.o.d.y waiter in there!" a girl's voice said. Billy chuckled. Presumably only the waiter's presence was preventing the girl from coming into the gents with her partner and not the fact that the toilet area was filled with men, young and old, either standing at the urinals or washing at the basins. Alcohol was a wonderful thing and no denying.

The chuckling continued and was complemented by the sound of feet hurriedly ascending the 45 steps back to the ballroom. A man Billy didn't know wafted through the doors, unzipping his flies and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Billy exchanged nods with the man and turned his attention back to the waiter. He was still smiling until he saw that the door to the cubicle which had been occupied while he was down here was still firmly closed.

"Has somebody just gone in there? I mean, while you've been down here."

The boy glanced at the closed door and shook his head. "Not while I've been down here."

Billy looked down at the Kleenex in his hand and felt the waiter look down at them at the same time. He jammed them into his jacket pocket, walked across and tapped gently on the door. "h.e.l.lo?"

There was no response.

"He'll be sleeping it off, lad, whoever he is," a stocky bald man confided to Billy as he held his hands under the automatic drier. "You'll need to knock louder than that."

Billy nodded slowly. He rapped the door three times and said, "Mister Clark-are you in there? We've got toilet paper out here if you've run out."

No answer.

The bald man finished his hands off on the back of his trousers and moved across so that he was standing alongside Billy. Although he was short, a good six inches shorter than Billy and three or four beneath the lofty height of the young waiter, the bald man had a commanding air about him. The waiter shuffled to one side to give the man more room.

The bald man hit the door several times with a closed fist and shouted, "Come on, mate, time to get up. You'll be needing a hammer and chisel if you stay in there much longer, never mind b.l.o.o.d.y toilet paper."

Still no answer.

"He must be a b.l.o.o.d.y heavy sleeper," Billy said. "Either that or he's p.i.s.sed as a newt."

The bald man turned to the waiter. "Is there any way into these things? I mean, some way of getting in when they're locked."

"I don't know," the waiter said.

"Well, can you find somebody who does know? And can you do it b.l.o.o.d.y sharpish?"

The waiter turned around and ran to the door and disappeared, his clumping feet echoing up the steps to the ballroom.

The man lifted his hands and felt around the door. "Do you know this bloke, whoever he is?"

Billy shook his head. "No. Well, I do; I know his name and that, but I don't really know him. His wife asked me to come down."

The man nodded. "Why was that, then?" he said, turning around.

"Well, there's no paper in any of the toilets."

"How did his wife know that?"

"She heard me telling them on my table. I'd just got back from, you know-"

"Having a c.r.a.p, I know, get on with it lad."

Billy straightened his shoulders. He would usually square up to anyone who spoke to him like that after all, he wasn't a lad: he was almost 25 but there was something about the bald man that made him shrink back from confrontation. "That trap was closed when I came down here and it was still closed when I went back up."

The bald man reached into his inside pocket and removed a packet of Marlboro. While lighting a cigarette he said to Billy, "Did you hear anything while you were down here?"

Billy shrugged. "Like what?"

The man blew smoke out. "Groans, plops, farts, throwing up the usual."

"No; no, I didn't."

The man nodded. He hammered on the door again, louder this time. "What did you say his name was?"

"Arthur Clark."

"Not the bloke who wrote 2001, I suppose? I loved that picture."

"I don't think so," Billy said with a chuckle.

"No, me neither." He hammered again. "Mister Clark, if you can hear me, open the door. It's the police."

Billy was watching the door but when he heard that he turned to the man. "Are you really the police? I mean, are you a, a copper?"

Before the man could answer, the waiter came back into the toilet. He was trailing behind a tall man with bushy eyebrows that met over his nose. His face, which was scowling, was a mask of excess, folds of skin lined with broken blood vessels. He said, "What's going on?"

"Who are you?" the bald man asked.

"Sidney Poke. I'm the manager of the Regal."

The bald man nodded. "Any way into these things when they're locked on the inside?"

Sidney Poke said, "Who are you?"

The bald man jammed his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, pulled a credit-card holder from his inside pocket and shuffled through the little plastic flaps. He found what he was looking for and held it out for inspection. "Detective Inspector Malcolm Broadhurst, Halifax CID," he said.

"What's the problem, Inspector?" Sidney Poke said, his manner suddenly less aggressive.

"Somebody's in there and we can't get them to open the door. Been there a while, this lad says," Malcolm Broadhurst said nodding at Billy Roberts.

"Who is it? Who's in there?" Sidney Poke asked Billy.

"Never mind who he is," the policeman said. "How do we b.l.o.o.d.y well get in to him?"

Sidney Poke shrugged. "I suppose we have to knock the door down."

Malcolm Broadhurst nodded. "Why did I know you were going to say that? Right-" He threw his cigarette on the floor and ground it with his foot. "One of you go upstairs and call for an ambulance just to be on the safe side."

A blond-haired man said, "I'll do it," and disappeared at a run out of the toilet.

The policeman took hold of Billy's left arm and squeezed the biceps. "What do you do for a living, lad?"

"I'm a butcher."

"Just the job," he said, and he stepped back out of the way. "Right, break that b.l.o.o.d.y door down and, daft as it sounds, try not to go mad: he could be on the floor at the other side."

As he squared up to the door, Billy said, "How the h.e.l.l do I do that? Knock the door down but go steady, I mean."

"Just do your best. Now, you others stand back and give him room."

The door jamb splintered on the sixth try. It came away on the eighth, still fastened but only loosely.

"Brilliant job, lad," Broadhurst said taking Billy's arm. He pulled him back and stepped close to the door, squinting through the small gap that had appeared. "It's still fastened, but only just."

He stepped back and frowned. "No time to b.u.g.g.e.r about looking for something to prise it open. If the fella couldn't hear all that din then he's in a bad way." He stepped back and nodded to Billy. "Break it down, lad."

Billy pulled himself back onto his left foot and hit the door with all his strength. The lock snapped and they heard something a screw, maybe, or part of the actual lock-clatter inside the cubicle. The door stopped against something on the floor.

Malcolm Broadhurst pushed Billy out of the way and, holding the door, squeezed his way into the cubicle. When he was inside, the policeman closed the door again.

They heard shuffling.

"Is he all right?" Sidney Poke asked. Billy thought it was a pretty stupid question.

For a few seconds there was no answer and then the policeman said, "He's dead." Then, after a few seconds more of shuffling sounds and sounds of exertion, he said, "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l fire."

Billy said, "What is it?"

When the door opened again the policeman was rubbing his face, looking down at the floor.

Billy and Sidney Poke and the young waiter whose name was Chris and for whom this was his first night working at the Regal-followed Malcolm Broadhurst's stare.

Arthur Clark was now sitting up against the side wall of the cubicle, the toilet paper dispenser-containing almost a full roll of paper just above and to the side of his left ear. He was fully clothed but his shirt had been ripped apart at the stomach. Worse than that, the man's flesh looked to have been flayed, with thick red welts and deep gashes covering the skin, and the top of his light grey trousers seemed to have been dyed black around the waistband: but they knew the original colour had been a deep red.

Chris the waiter gagged and turned away, his hand clamped over his mouth as he made for the washbasins. He made it just in time. When he was through, he leaned his head on his hand to one side of the basin and, in a surprised voice, said, "Hey, that's where they were."

The boy crouched down and reached his hands to the deep metal basket on the floor between his basin and the one next to it. When he stood up he was holding an armful of toilet rolls, some full and still thick and some partly used.

"b.l.o.o.d.y idiots," said Sidney Poke. "Do anything for a laugh but they wouldn't think it was so d.a.m.ned fun-"

"Get everyone out, Mister Poke," the policeman said. His voice sounded tired. "Get everyone back upstairs. But not you, butcher boy," he said, turning to Billy. "You can give me a hand getting him out of here."

The toilet was completely empty when they finally struggled out with Arthur Clark and laid him on the floor beside the washbasins.

"He looks like he's been got at by a wild animal," Billy said. "And scared to death, by the look on his face."

The policeman shook two Marlboros from his pack and handed one to Billy. "Give it up tomorrow," he said as he held his lighter under Billy's cigarette.