Thursday morning Manchester airport told me that Delta flight number DL064 from Atlanta was delayed two hours, which suited me just fine. I had long sessions on the phone with Les Isles and Tregellis, and a progress meeting with Mr. Wood. I was working for three bosses and it was hard to juggle things so everyone was equally informed and no feelings were hurt. Fortunately, Tregellis was a long way away, Les trusted me and regarded me as an extension of his team, and Gilbert gave me a free hand, so I was able to do what I wanted.
One of our motorcyclists was waiting for me when I returned from Gilbert's office. He was nursing two videos. "Ah, well done," I said as I took them from him.
"My pleasure, sir," he replied with a grin.
"Nice little ride, was it?"
"Smashing." His helmet and leathers were shimmering with the carcasses of dead flies.
"Well, take it steady, and thanks."
The old idea of an identity parade, with the suspect lined up alongside seven other short, bald-headed men, is rapidly fading. They were always a pain to organise and expensive in time and money. Video film and links are taking over. We can use recordings of the suspect, mixed in with images of similar looking characters off the files, and let the victim examine them at his or her leisure. They don't even have to be in the same city. The security cameras in Kendal nick had captured Kingston's likeness on tape during his two visits, helped by a little careful manipulating of his position. The ID team had produced a video for me showing several stills of him, together with an assortment of similarly built policemen in civvies, visiting solicitors, and various friends, relatives and villains. I posted one straight off to Tregellis, via the internal mail, and watched the other in the main office. It was good.
I'd intended to take Annette with me to Manchester because I wanted her to be our contact with Melissa and her boyfriend, but Gilbert had asked her to produce some figures for a survey about overtime and sick leave.
The Home Secretary had been given warning of a question he was about to be asked in Parliament, so everything had to stop until we had an answer. The sun was still shining, but the temperature had dropped by quite a bit. It was bright and pleasant, rather than oppressive. I gave myself plenty of time and stopped for a chicken burger at the services. As usual, when I used the loo I found that someone with pubic alopecia had beaten me to it.
I was still early. I called in at the Immigration office and they confirmed that Melissa was on the flight, which was a pleasant surprise. Piers had told me that she didn't seem to realise that once she had left the USA it was unlikely that they'd let her back in. He hadn't tipped her off about this small point and we were looking forward to breaking it to her after she'd given us what she wanted.
I wandered up to the spectator's gallery to watch the big jets taking off, and caught myself humming "In the Early Morning Rain'. There's a shop up there that sells aviation magazines, spotters' guides and plastic models of famous crashes. Hanging in a corner was a sheepskin flying jacket, circa WWII, marked down from 300 to 199. Wow! I thought, this'll work wonders for my image. I'd wear it to the office tomorrow, regardless of the weather.
But the sleeves were miles too short. The rest of it fitted, but I held my arms forward to demonstrate the problem and exchanged disappointed smiles with the sales lady. I went back to Arrivals and stood with the blank-faced straggle of people waiting for flight DL064.
Shifty-looking taxi drivers held boards under their arms with scrawled names across them, and a well-dressed elderly man in a chauffeur's cap stood patiently to attention. Once he'd been the terror of the parade ground, and now he was someone's lackey. That'd be me soon, I thought.
The rest were bleary-eyed sons-in-law or parents, come to pick up their loved ones after yet another holiday of a lifetime.
I'd have recognised her at half a mile, but she still took my breath away. I stepped forward in front of them, and the immigration official shadowing them gave me a nod and peeled off. "Miss Youngman?" I said.
"The former Miss Youngman," she said, almost smiling. "Now I'm Mrs.
Slade. Meet my husband of twenty-four hours, Jade Slade." "How ya doin'?" he said.
"Fine," I lied. "DI Priest." Shit fuck bugger, I thought. She's done us.
The extravagances of the seventies had been toned down, and of course, our tastes have developed over the years. Her hair was red again, cropped short and carelessly styled, but nothing that you wouldn't see any day in any small town. She wore a nose ring and extravagant eye make-up not heavy lashes and shadow, but paint and speckles all around them with black lipstick. Underneath the muck was one of those faces that can launch a young girl to fame and fortune or blight her life with a string of wrong men because the decent ones don't think they stand a chance. She was beautiful, and ageing well, and I could understand anybody falling for her. Nancy Spungeon had become Zandra Rhodes.
He was something else. Short, pot-bellied, with one of those hillbilly beards that looks as if it's just been shampooed. He wore faded denims held up by a broad belt heavily inlaid with silver and turquoise. She was in a brown leather suit. I led them to my car and told them about the Station Hotel, in Heckley, where we'd booked them a room for the week.
"Do they have a pool?" he asked.
I apologised for the lack of a pool.
On the motorway I said: "I understand you write poetry, Mr. Slade."
"That's right," he replied.
"Will I have heard any?"
"Do you read redneck poetry?"
"No."
"Then you won't."
I told Melissa that she was booked into Heckley General Hospital tomorrow at about four thirty, to have her teeth fixed. Then, if she was up to it, we'd do a taped interview with her the following day, Saturday. All leave was cancelled for the first team. She mumbled responses in the right places and we rode the rest of the way in silence. He said: "Jeez!" under his breath when he saw the Station Hotel, and that was the sum total of our conversation. I didn't mind;
I had no desire to be on first-name terms with either of them. I wrote Annette's name and number on a page of hotel notepaper and left them to unpack.
Back at the nick I rang Tregellis but had to settle for Piers. "The eagle has landed," I said. We talked for a while about tactics and when he'd hung up I rang Les Isles and had the same conversation all over again.
Agent Mike Kaprowski wasn't in his office but a colleague introduced himself and told me that he was familiar with the case. "I just met Melissa Youngman off the plane," I told him, 'except that she's not called Youngman any more because she's got herself married. To this poet feller, Jade Slade."
"Aw, shit!" he exclaimed. "You know what that means?"
"We'll have to buy them a present?"
"Yeah, and that, goddammit! OK, Charlie, thanks for letting us know.
I'll tell Mike and he'll get back to you. Adios."
"Adios." I put the phone down.
"AdiosV said a voice behind me. "Adiosl Who was that, Speedy Gonzales?"
I half-turned and grinned at Sparky. "Just my friends in the FBI,"I told him.
He flopped into the spare chair. "What did they want?"
"They've run out of white chalk, wondered if we had any to spare.
Actually, I rang them. Melissa's arrived, but she married her boyfriend in a touching little ceremony in the airport lounge just before they left the USA."
"What difference does that make?"
I told him.
"The crafty little cow," he said.
"It does look as if we underestimated her," I admitted.
"Charlie…" he began.
"Mmm."
"When you interview her… what's the chances of being in on it?"
I looked at him and said: "I wouldn't have it any other way, Dave."
He gripped his knees and said: "Thanks."
"But just remember she's co-operating with us."
"I will," he replied, 'but I still reckon she's in this up to her ears.
She's gonna get away with murder, probably literally."
"I think you're right," I replied, 'but it's the only way we'll get Kingston, and he's the senior partner."
"I've been thinking about Kingston," he told me. "If he killed Fox to silence him, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't kill Danielle whatsername, the hooker, too, for the same reason. In the past he killed, or caused people to die, for financial gain. Now he's killing to save his skin. He's in a panic, thinking on his feet."
"And that will be his downfall, Dave. Do you think he might have a go at Melissa?"
"Possibly. Does he know she's over here?"
"We haven't told him."
"But she might, if she knows where he lives. Just for old times' sake."
"Great," I said. "We'd better keep an eye on her."
We booked a DC into the Station Hotel, posing as a travelling Punch and Judy man, and Annette went round to introduce herself to our guests.
Friday afternoon she took Melissa and Jed Clampitt to the hospital to get for free what would have cost them a fortune back home. It was a cloudy day and I spent it in the office, typing my notes and memories into a more accessible format. Six of us had pie and chips for lunch in one of Heckley's more traditional pubs.
Nine o'clock in the evening Annette rang me to say that Melissa had been through the wringing machine and they'd decided to keep her in overnight. She'd be discharged in the morning, no problem, but an interview might be asking too much of her.
"In that case," I decided, 'tell her Monday morning, at Heckley nick.
You make sure she's there, please, Annette." I rang the others to tell them that they could have the weekend off after all.
Saturday I did an hour in the office, then went home to finish the Jackson Pollock painting. It took me until ten at night plus two visits to B amp; Q for materials, but it looked smashing. If JP had done it you'd be talking above five million for it. I'd ask for fifty quid, for the kids' ward, and probably not get it. Sunday I completed the one that had originally been inspired by the tapeworm drawing done by Janet Holmes. It was ragged blocks of oranges and yellows, with a jagged flash of lime green coming up from the bottom left corner that danced before your eyes. I was pleased with that one, too. They'd look great surrounded by all those scenes of Malhamdale in autumn.
She still hadn't sent me a postcard.
Monday morning I rose early. I hadn't slept very well, worrying that Melissa might be taking us for a ride. After a cup of tea I decided that it was unlikely. We were, after all, offering her immunity from prosecution on charges of God-knows-what. I was just running the shower when the phone rang.
"It's Jeff," it said, breathlessly. "The Transit's on the move."
"It can't be," I complained, looking at my watch. "I've an appointment at nine."
"We can manage. I've scrambled the chopper and alerted the ARV. Now I'm just rounding up the troops."
I was going to miss this, and I was annoyed. "OK," I said. "Take everybody you need, plus a few more, but not Sparky and Annette; and alert our neighbours. We can't afford to lose them, so the more the merrier. Lift them whenever it's convenient. In the garden but before they enter the house would be ideal, but on no account let them get in the house. It would be nice, though, to know what their target was.
Nobody hurt, that's the priority, Jeff, unless, of course, it's them.
No, I didn't say that. Anything you want me to do?"
"Not at the moment, boss."
"Get on with it then. I'll be in the control room if you need me."
Dammit, I thought. Dammit. I'd wanted to scramble the chopper. Jeff had decided that the best thing was for him to ring Mr. Nelson at seven o'clock every morning. If the boys were there, he'd say wrong number; if they'd come home and left the house Jeff would tell him to report the van stolen and give him a crime number. Mr. Nelson then had to ring the Tracker people and report it missing. They would double-check with us before activating the transponder in the van, enabling the receivers in our vehicles to pinpoint it. Tracker only acted after a report of theft; we didn't have carte blanche to follow anyone who had the device fitted.
I had a hasty shower and nearly broke the speed limit on the way to the nick. The car park was surprisingly devoid of police cars but Dave's Escort was in its usual place.
He was in the control room, listening to the action. "We could put Melissa back an hour," he suggested, temptingly.
"No," I replied. "They can handle it."
The radios were on talk-through, so we could hear everything. "Target heading south," someone said, which was bad news, because everyone had gone straight to the motorway, which was north. Jeff came on and directed all the unmarked cars in the right direction, sharing them out between the different routes. At this stage they just wanted to be close. The pandas and the ARV were told to take their time.
"Zulu ninety-nine, we have contact with target," came over the airwaves, against a background of the chum-chum-chum of the chopper's blades. "On A616, just beyond Debberton, travelling slowly."
Jeff asked for the positions of his cars, and rerouted where necessary.
We studied the big map and the duty sergeant made a guess about some posh houses between Debberton and Holmfirth. I told him to pass it on to Jeff.
Zulu ninety-nine told us that the van had stopped in a lay-by and they were veering off to avoid being spotted.
"Lima Mike. Just passing target." That was Maggie.
"Ten twenty."
"Lima Oscar, we have target under observation. Zulu ninety-nine stay away until they move again."
"Ten twenty. Do you copy, Zulu ninety-nine?"
"Zulu ninety-nine, ten twenty."
"Lima Mike standing by."
Gilbert came in and asked for an update. I showed him where they were on the map. "Unlike you not to be out there, Charlie," he said.
"Oh, you know how I like to delegate," I replied.
"Lima Oscar, target on the move." We all turned to the control desk, as if looking at the loudspeakers would give us a picture of the scene.
The Transit drove about a quarter of a mile and turned up a gravel track. "They probably stopped to put their masks on," Dave suggested.
"Zulu ninety-nine, we have them. T2 out of vehicle, opening gate to a house. Suggest you go-go-go."
Accelerators were flat to the floor, tyres were squealing, but we could see none of it. "Zulu ninety-nine, T2 has seen us. He's back in the van and they're aborting."
"Lima Mike, I'm turning into the lane, Lima Oscar behind me. We'll block the lane." A silence, then: "Lima Mike, they're out and running.
Giving chase."
We all laughed and relaxed. Gilbert went up to his office and I rang Annette at home, in case she'd forgotten what day it was. Five minutes later a breathless Maggie panted: "Lima Mike to XL."
"Go ahead, Maggie," the controller told her.
"We have a ten twelve. Will bring Tl and T2 to Heckley, out."
Jeff came on, saying: "All units ten three. Thank you and good morning."
"Let's go," I said to Dave. "We can't stand here all day listening to them playing cowboys and Indians. What's all this ten twenty stuff?"
They were half an hour late. Annette brought them in, apologising, and Dave set eyes on Melissa for the first time. She was wearing no make-up, which was a shock, and her cheeks were swollen. I suspected that the dark glasses were to hide black eyes. Nigel's wisdom teeth had been removed, and he said it gave your face quite a hammering. Jade Slade was with her, wearing an embroidered shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, like he was expecting line dancing. The duty solicitor looked a treat, as always, in his blue suit and regimental tie.
"Are you fit enough to answer questions?" I asked, because I was concerned about the quality of her answers, not her health.
"Let's get on with it," she said.
"Okey-do key I set the tape running and did the spiel and asked everyone to introduce themselves. Dave and I were at one side of the table, Melissa and the solicitor at the other, with Slade rocked back against the wall near the video player I'd asked for. He was holding one of our polystyrene beakers, and at first I thought he'd bought a coffee from the machine. When I saw him lift it towards his mouth and spit into it I thought: It's not that bad. When he did it again, a few moments later, I realised he was chewing tobacco.
"Mrs. Slade," I began, 'did you attend Essex University in 1969?"
"Yes."
"And after that did you attend Paris, Edinburgh, Manchester, Los Angeles, Durham and Leeds universities?"
"If you say so."
"What do you say?"
"I say this has fuck-all to do with why I'm here."
"Did you meet a lecturer called Nick Kingston at Essex?"
"I might have done."
"Did you?"
"I don't remember. I met him somewhere."
"But you already knew him when you moved to Leeds?"
"Yes."
"What was the nature of your relationship?"
"Were we fucking, you mean? Of course we were."
Dave shuffled. When he was settled again I said: "Have you contacted Kingston during this visit?"
She looked uneasy and turned to the solicitor. He shrugged, not knowing if this was relevant to anything. Slade said: "Is this part of the deal?"
"What deal?" I asked.
"You know, the fuckin' deal."
I turned to Melissa. "Mrs. Slade, to have it on the record, could you tell us what you are expecting from this meeting."
"I'll tell you what she's expecting," Slade shouted. "She puts the finger on this Kingston, and you give her immunity from prosecution.
That's the fuckin' deal, ain't it?"
I told Slade that we'd make better progress if he let his wife answer the questions. We weren't interested in his comments or opinions. She smiled at him and he spat into the cup and let his chair plop down on to all four legs.
"What are you expecting, Mrs. Slade?" I asked again.
"What he said," she replied. "I tell you about Kingston and you let me go."
"I have no power to grant you immunity from prosecution," I explained.
"Nobody has. However, I can assure you that this force and two others involved with the Kingston case will not actively pursue any charges against you or follow up any evidence relating to these of fences that may implicate you. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
"Would you like your solicitor to discuss it with you?"
"No."
"Very well, what can you tell us about Nick Kingston?"
"I've got a statement," Melissa said, bringing a page of Station Hotel notepaper from the inside pocket of her jacket. She unfolded it and we sat back, listening.
"In June or July 1975," she began, "I was having a sexual relationship with a university lecturer called Nick Kingston. I was infatuated with him and completely under his spell. He was a very charismatic man. He told me that he was renting a house in Chapeltown, Leeds, to use as a postal address for a mail order business he was just starting. The number on the house had worn off, so he asked me to write it on again, in chalk, so the postman would find it when the orders started coming in. He said he couldn't do neat numbers. He took me there one evening and I wrote the number thirty-two on the wall. A few days later he asked me to show a boy where it was. He was going to work for Nick, pick up the orders, or something. About a week after that the house was burnt down and some people lost their lives." She refolded the paper and slid it across the table towards me.
I placed my pen on it and pushed it back, saying: "Could you sign it, please."
She unfolded the statement, took the pen in her left hand and scrawled her signature across the bottom. I didn't look but I just knew that Dave's eyes had flickered my way.
We sat in silence for a while, then I said: "What colour was your hair then?"
She looked flustered, and turned to her solicitor. He decided it must be a leading question and came out with the usual is-it-relevant response.
"I'd like to know," I replied.
"I can't remember," she said.
"Was it purple?"
"I don't know."
"Was the boy you took to the house Duncan Roberts?"
"I'm not sure. Duncan rings a bell, but I never heard his surname."
"Are you sure he wasn't your boyfriend?"
"Positive."
"You didn't have an affair with him?"
"Not that one, but I had lots of boyfriends. It was never a problem for me."
I wanted to grill her about her relationship with Duncan, but managed to hold off. She'd already been threatened with the little we knew, when Piers and Graham saw her in America. That's why she was here, and I didn't want to reveal how fragile our case against her was. I asked Dave to start the video and explained to the tape recorder what we were doing.
The first image appeared, a still taken by a CCTV camera, with the number 1 in the corner. "If you recognise Kingston please say the number," I told her.
"That's him," she said, after a while.
"Number?"
"Eight."
There were sixty-five pictures, and seven of them were Kingston. She got all seven.
"Thanks," I said. "I think that's everything. We'll try to get you on a flight on Wednesday, if that suits you."
"The sooner the fuckin' better," Slade said, and flung his cup of spit into the waste bin.
Annette was waiting upstairs. Dave went to put the kettle on and I told her that Bonnie and Clyde were finding their own way back to the hotel. She was relieved of baby-sitting duties. "Thank God for that," she sighed. "They're the most thoroughly disagreeable couple I've ever met. Give me the Sylvan Fields lot any day."
"What did you find out about the telephone?" I asked. We were paying their bill, so the hotel had no qualms about feeding us the information.
"Ah! You're not going to like this. They've spent every waking hour on the phone. Several calls to Directory Enquiries, but we can't tell who they asked for; more to various parts of England, as if she's been renewing acquaintances; and several long calls to the USA. I've asked for a printout. It's as if they've deliberately run up the bill, because we're paying."
"They're anarchists, Annette," I said. "That's what anarchists do.
They'll probably put the plugs in and leave the taps running when they check out. I'd better have a word with BT."
Dave shouted: "How many sugars, Annette?"
"None, thank you," she called back.
"Listen, Annette," I said, quietly. "I'm sorry I didn't ask you to sit in on the interview, but Dave's been in on this since 1975. It's personal."
"That's OK, Mr. Priest," she replied.
I'm growing to like Annette. She's a good sport and has a pleasant nature. That Mr. Priest never fails to put me in my place, though.
Dave came in, carrying three teas, which says a lot for my department.
I found some custard creams and we told Annette all about Kermit Shermit and his filthy habits.
The others came filtering back, high on adrenalin and braggadocio.
Maggie had socked one of the Nelson brothers and the other had fallen into a stream. Good living in Tenerife had not equipped them for cross-country running. Masks and baseball bats were recovered from the Transit and a hand-drawn map was found showing directions to the house they'd intended to rob. Somebody was doing the leg work for them. Jeff sent the map to fingerprints.
We all shared in the success, and a bonus was that I didn't have to do the paperwork. In the middle of all the laughing I heard my phone ringing.
"CID, Call It Done," I said into it.
"Is that Inspector Priest?"
"Yes."
"Morning, Mr. Priest. It's Sergeant Watson from Division. As you know, the ACC leaves at the end of the week, and there's a presentation to him on Thursday night. I understand that you sometimes do cartoons for these events, and was wondering if you could knock one up for him?"
"Gosh, that's three whole days away," I replied. "I would think I could knock one up in that time. I could probably knock up a Sistine Chapel ceiling in three days."
"Oh, right, Mr. Priest. You'll send it over, will you."
"Will do."
I looked in my drawer to make sure the one I'd done three weeks earlier was still there. I didn't particularly like the ACC, so this had been a good opportunity to embarrass him. Not many people knew this, but a long time ago, when he was a humble superintendent in another division several hundred miles away, he had too much to drink at a chief constable's leaving bash and messed his trousers. He rang his wife to ask her to bring him a spare pair and skulked in the car park until she arrived with them. He took them from her, thanked her profusely, and sneaked back into the toilets to change. He took off the offending garment, stuffed it out of the window and removed the new one from the bag his good lady had handed him. It was a skirt she'd collected from the cleaner earlier in the day. My drawing recaptured the incident in all its bladder-wrenching humiliation.
It also reminded me that I needed two frames for the abstracts I'd done. One of our uniformed PCs is a dab hand at woodwork and has a nice little sideline turning out door stops and wooden apples that he sells for charity. No wooden Indians, though. I rang him and he promised to make the frames for me. He pointed out that the exhibition was next Sunday and I'd left it a bit late. I'd thought it was weeks away.
We had a debriefing in the afternoon, eating ice creams that we'd sent out for. Barry and Len Nelson had been interviewed and fed into the sausage machine for processing. They were looking at twenty years each. I deflated the euphoria by saying that we'd missed a vital opening. The bar they part-owned was called the Pigeon Pie. "And the yob we arrested for using Joe McLelland's credit card was wearing a Pigeon Pie T-shirt." I said. "We should have asked him about it."
"T-shirts from pubs in Tenerife are ten-a-penny," someone stated.
"Fair enough," I agreed, licking the runny bits from round the edges, 'but it was still a link, and we missed it."
Jeff sid: "Ah, but with luck like yours, boss, we can afford the odd mistake." He pulled the chocolate flake out and used it as a spoon.
"What do you mean, luck?" I demanded, with mock affront.
"Going to the rhubarb sheds like you did. That was dead jam my "Luck had nothing to do with it. Good detective work, that's what it was. Right, Dave?"
"Right, Charlie," he mumbled with his mouth full.
"So how did you know to look there?" Jeff asked.
"In the rhubarb sheds?"
"Mmm."
"I'll tell you. Remember what O'Keefe said about elephant?"
"Mmm."
"So what did we call rhubarb when we were kids?"
Tusky," someone chipped in.
"There you go, then."
Jeff shook his head in disbelief.
Later, as we left for home, Dave said: "You didn't really make the link between tusky and elephant, did you?"
We were in the car park. I looked over my shoulder, then under my car and behind his. When I was absolutely sure we were alone I leaned closer and said: "I might have done."
I called in the supermarket for some ready meals and filled up with petrol. It's over three pounds a gallon now. That's something else not many people know. My favourite checkout girl was there but I went to someone else just in case she's beginning to wonder about me. Three times in a month is stalker territory.
The council had written to me to ask my address and if I still lived alone. I put es No Yes No Yes No. An insurance company reminded me that I was at a dangerous age and somebody else thought that I'd benefit from listening to the best bits of every piece of classical music ever recorded. Nearly two years of it, for only 149.99. No postcards. I had chicken korma, a currant square and tea, followed by a short snooze in an armchair.
Action is the best antidote for lethargy so I washed the car. The next-door neighbour couldn't believe his eyes and sent for his wife to come and see. "There's no hose pipe ban, then?" he whined.
"It's odd numbers this week," I explained.
"Oh," he said, and nodded knowingly.
I was flicking round the channels, trying to decide whether to watch TV or stand on one leg for a couple of hours, when the phone rang.
"Charlie Priest," I intoned into it, almost absent-mindedly.
"Charlie, it's Arthur." Arthur's the duty sergeant.
"Hello, Arthur," I said. "What's gone wrong now?"
"Bloke been after you. Said I'd give you his number. He's called Nick Kingston; do you know him?"
"Kingston? Yes, I know him. Fire away."
I didn't ring him immediately. I went over all the possibilities in my head and rehearsed the answers. Les Isles was planning to see him and I concluded that Kingston wanted to grill me about that. Les and I had agreed that he'd say we were involved in two separate inquiries; him into Fox's death, me into the fire of 1975.
He must have been waiting by the phone, and answered with a cheery:
"Nick Kingston."
"DI Priest," I said. "You've been after me."
"Charlie!" he gushed. "Thanks for ringing. Have you seen the forecast?"
"The forecast? What forecast?" I asked.
"The weather for tonight," he explained. "Bright and clear, but best of all, it's a full moon, and it rises at just after one. It'll be another world up there, Charlie. Francesca and I are going up Helvellyn. Fancy coming with us, eh?"
"Helvellyn?" I mumbled. This hadn't been in my expectations.
"That's right. High enough, but nice and straightforward. We'll see the stars in all their glory, and then the biggest moon you've ever seen in your life will come over the horizon. It's a perfect night, I guarantee you'll never forget it. Power will be in the air. Shall we wait for you?"
"Oh, er," I stumbled. "Er, it'll take me a couple of hours to get there."
"Good man, Charlie. You're in for a treat. Shall we say the car park at Patterdale, at midnight?"
I looked at my watch. "I've my boots to find," I said. "I might be a few minutes late."
"We'll wait for you. See you soon."
I knew exactly where my boots were. Right where I took them off last time. The kettle had just boiled so I made a flask of coffee and pushed it into my rucksack with a packet of biscuits and a sweater. I donned a thicker shirt and my Gore-Tex jacket and turned the lights out.
First stop was Heckley nick. I punched the code into the lock on the back door and let myself in. We were in the lull before the pubs shut.
The front desk was deserted and the station was as quiet as I've ever heard it. No cheerful banter from the cells, no drunken snoring from the locker room. Behind the desk, the door to the sergeants' office was firmly shut, which was unusual. I tiptoed over to it, paused, then threw the door open.