'Have you heard about the wooden tops Jeff Caton asked as he joined us in my office on Monday morning.
'What have they done now?' Nigel enquired.
'Used up this month's overtime to nab a busker and an old lady collecting for the Sally Army. Apparently they had a crackdown on the unlicensed vendors in the town centre, but unfortunately they appear to have had wind of it. They were all elsewhere and Adey's furious.'
Dave said: 'Charlie buys all his clothes off them, don't you, boss?'
'Not all,' I replied. 'I get some in the market.'
'What, fakes?' Nigel asked.
'They're not fakes,' I told him. 'They just have different labels.
They're made on the same machines from the same materials to the same patterns as the designer ones that you fashion victims are daft enough to buy.'
'The quality isn't as good,' Jeff declared.
'Of course it is.'
'I don't believe it.'
'Neither do I,' Nigel added.
'Listen,' I began. 'How much would you pay for a pair of Levi 501s?'
'About forty quid,' Jeff said and Nigel nodded.
'Well, I bought a pair in the market last week for fifteen pounds.'
'Genuine 501s?'
'The real thing. They'd just made a slight mistake with the labels and rejected the whole batch.'
'So what did the label say?'
'Elvis 150s.'
'Elvis 150sV they scoffed in unison. You try to help them, to pass on the benefits of your accrued wisdom, but they just won't listen.
'Any chance of talking about work?' Dave wondered.
'Right!' I said, clapping my hands together. 'Enough of the tomfoolery. It's time to get our act together. Jeff?'
'Yes, boss.'
'You may have become aware that Dave and I have been preoccupied with something.'
'I'd noticed you're never here when I want you.'
'Sorry about that. Nigel will fill you in with the details but you'll probably see even less of us for a while. I want you to take over the robbery job, with Maggie. Don't be afraid to give the others plenty to do and let them get on with it. Nigel will oversee the day-to-day stuff but keep up to date with this other job and liaise between us all. You can stay now, if you want, otherwise we'll have a meeting on Friday afternoon to swap notes. OK?'
Jeff nodded. 'Fair enough. I'll float off, if you don't mind. I've plenty to do.'
'Right.'
'I'll see you later,' Nigel called after him as he closed the door.
I opened a window to let some fresh air in and gathered the papers on my desk into a tidy pile. 'We'll have a quick recap, for your benefit, Nigel,' I began. 'Interrupt if you require more detail. If we consider the fire, and forget all the conjecture about Fox and Crosby, we believe that, a) a girl with purple hair possibly marked the house that burnt down, b) Duncan Roberts knew a girl with purple hair, c) Duncan recently confessed to starting the fire, d) a girl with purple hair was on a psychology course at Leeds Uni at the right time. She was called Melissa Youngman.'
Nigel said: 'So it looks as if she put him up to it?'
'Mmm,' I agreed. Turning to Dave I asked: 'Are you on Melissa's trail?'
'You bet,' he replied. 'Had no luck over the weekend, everywhere was shut, but I've sent my feelers out. Should have something later this morning.'
'Great. Let me know as soon as anything comes through. Once we discover who she is we should be up and running.'
I was downstairs, talking to the beat boys, when the desk sergeant waved to me, his hand over the telephone. 'Somebody in a call box Charlie,' he said. 'Asking for you. Won't give his name.'
I took the phone from him and made a writing gesture. He pushed a pad under my hand and pressed a pencil between my fingers. 'This is DI Priest,' I said. 'How can I help you?'
'It's me, Mr. Priest. O'Keefe,' came a gruff voice.
'Hello, O'Keefe,' I said. 'What do you want?'
'I might 'ave sum mat for you.'
'Information?' I asked, just to confirm that he wasn't talking about a pair of thirty-six-inch inside-leg Wranglers.
'Yeah.'
'Right. Fire away.'
'Not on the phone, and my money's run out. I'm set up in Halifax.'
'Near the Piece Hall?'
'That's right.'
'OK. I'll be with you in half an hour.' I put the phone down and shoved the pad back across the counter.
'O'Keefe?' the desk sergeant asked. 'You mean old Walleye who sells jeans an' things?'
'His name is Wally,' I told him.
'Yeah, but everybody pronounces it Wall-eye.'
'I don't,' I replied, turning to leave.
He said: 'Wait a minute! If he's working for you… I don't suppose it was you who… no, you wouldn't… would you…?'
But I was halfway up the stairs, going for my jacket, before he synchronised his thoughts and his power of speech, so I never discovered what I might or might not have done.
On the drive to Halifax I listened to Radio Four and caught a sketch about Groucho Marx trying to buy a wooden Indian. I nearly drove off the road. Halifax is a handsome town with an ugly past. They had the guillotine here long before France adopted it, and at one time the death penalty was administered for stealing a shilling's worth of wool.
Not for nothing did vagrants pray: 'From Hell, Hull and Halifax may the good Lord deliver us.' The town is built of stone, out of wool. The fine buildings and institutions hide the fact that it was also built on slavery. Not the African sort, who were transported thousands of miles and sold like cattle. These slaves still retained a fundamental freedom: they could work or starve, the choice was theirs. The mill owner had no investment in them, and no responsibility for their welfare. When they didn't work, through age or injury, sickness or circumstance, they didn't get paid. There are no stone monuments to the thousands who died of the diseases of squalor, or who tangled with the newfangled machinery. They grew crooked-boned and bronchitic from sixteen hours a day in the mill, and if they survived all that a new horror awaited them. They developed cancer of the mouth, from 'kissing the shuttle'.
The Piece Hall is built around a cobbled quadrangle, with archways to allow one into a scene straight from the past. The building itself is three storeys high and comprised of an endless series of rooms, each big enough, just, to hold a weaver's loom. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the weavers produced 'pieces', hence the name, for display down below. Nowadays it's a market, selling everything from eyelash curlers to cylinder head gaskets. There's the odd cabbage and carpet there, too, and it wouldn't have been a surprise to find a wooden Indian.
But O'Keefe wasn't there. He normally sets up shop outside, safe from the protests of the stall holders who pay dearly for the privilege of being on hallowed ground, but he wasn't near either entrance. I saw a shady figure selling gold chains from a suitcase but decided not to ask him. I was strolling around the street outside the hall, half looking for him, half admiring the shadows on the stone buildings, when O'Keefe tapped on the window of a cafe and beckoned me in.
'Thought I'd missed you,' I said, sitting down.
'Sorry about that, Mr. Priest,' he replied. 'Sold out. Just waiting for my supplier to make anuvver delivery.'
