'A fortnight ago,' I admitted.
'Honest?'
'You mean it doesn't show?'
'I thought you were an old hand.'
'Bullshitting doesn't become you. I prefer it when you're being awkward. My dad's a sergeant at Heckley; it runs in the family.'
'Is that why you joined Leeds City? To get out from under him?'
'I suppose so.'
'What did you do before?'
'I'd just left art college. I've a shiny new degree in art, if you know anyone who needs one. So far it's earned me commissions for two police dance posters. What did you do?'
'Three years in the army. Waste of time. Me and discipline don't go.'
'I can believe that.' Something over the road caught my eye. 'Come and look at this,' I said. We walked across the street to the burnt-out house. The number, thirty-two, was written in chalk on one of the bricks beside the door. A patch of peeling paint showed where it had originally been.
'That's been done recently,' I said, examining the numbers.
'To help the postman,' Dave suggested. 'Maybe they received a lot of mail. It was a hostel… court papers, that sort of thing. Important stuff.'
I walked to next door. The number thirty was neatly painted on the wall. 'Postmen can usually count in twos,' I said. 'Maybe someone chalked the number nice and clearly so someone else knew they'd found the right house.'
'You mean… the arsonist.'
I sighed and felt myself deflate. 'Nah,' I admitted. 'It's just crazy guesswork.'
'It might not be,' Dave said, interested. 'Just suppose someone did come and write the number on the wall. What would they do with the chalk?'
'Get rid of it.'
'Right. Would you say chalk carried fingerprints?'
'I doubt it. No, definitely not.'
'So you might as well just chuck it away?'
'As soon as you'd done with it.'
'Right, but if you lived here you'd take it inside and put it back wherever you found it.' Dave stood facing the door, pretended to write the number, turned around and mimed tossing a piece of chalk into the little garden.
The soil in every other yard was as hard as concrete, but this had recently absorbed a few thousand gallons of water and firemen's boots had trampled all the weeds into it. We didn't see any chalk.
'Let's look at the other side,' Dave suggested.
And there it was a half-inch piece of calcium carbonate, just the size teachers hate, nestling under the wall where the stomping boots couldn't reach it. I braved the mud and picked up the evidence between my finger and thumb. 'Exhibit A,' I said, triumphantly.
Dave repeated his mime. 'Maybe it's at that side because he was left-handed,' he concluded.
'Possibly.'
'And not very tall. I had to stoop to do the number.'
'You're as tall as me.'
'I know, but it's written two bricks below the painted number. I reckon he suffers from duck's disease.'
'Or he's a she,' I suggested.
Dave nodded enthusiastically. 'Or he's a she.'
We gave the piece of chalk to the PC in the car and told him to invite CID round. We left it at that, not going into our leaps of conjecture about the culprit. They're supposed to be the ones with the imagination, not we poor wooden tops 'Fancy a pint and a Chinese?' I asked Dave, smiling with satisfaction as I dusted the mud and chalk from my fingers.
'I'd prefer a curry,' he replied.
'Awkward to the last,' I said. 'Curry it is. Let's go.'
In the car I asked him if he came from Leeds. He just said he didn't.
'So, is it a secret?' I asked.
'Heckley,' he responded, and I could sense the amusemenj in his voice.
I glanced across at him. 'Really?'
'Really.'
'I don't remember you.'
'I remember you. I wasn't sure at first. You played in goal for the grammar school.'
'That's right.' I grinned at the memory. Recognition at last.
Dave said: 'I played for the secondary modern. We beat you in the schools' cup final.'
I was nearly laughing now. 'Only by a penalty,' I replied.
'You let it in.'
'It was a good one. Unstoppable.'
'I thought it went between your legs.'
'No it didn't!' I insisted, indignantly. 'It was a cracker, straight into the bottom left-hand corner. I didn't have a chance.'
'Thanks.'
I pulled into the kerb and looked across at him. 'Was that you?'
'One of my finer moments.'
'You big sod!'
We both ordered vindaloos. In those days it wasn't curry unless it stripped the chromium plating off the cutlery. I took a big gratifying draught of lager and said: 'So, how are you finding the job?' I wanted a moan, so I thought I'd invite him to have first go.
He bit off a piece of chapati, holding it in his good hand, before replying. 'It's OK. I've never really wanted to do anything else.
Just be a copper, ever since I was a kid. A detective, preferably, in the suit and the white socks…' He fingered his imaginary lapels.
'But after this morning… now, I'm not so sure.'
'I don't think there'll be many days like today,' I said.
'One's enough. Let's just say I learned something this morning, about myself. What about you?'
'Me?' I thought he'd never ask.
'Mmm.'
I tipped some more pilau rice on to my plate. 'I don't know,' I replied. 'Do you want this last bit?'
'Please.'
I passed it across to him. 'To be honest, I'm having second thoughts.
I only came into the job to make my dad happy. Family firm and all that. I wasn't under pressure or anything, but I knew that was what he wanted, not an art student for a son. And I didn't want to be a teacher, nuh-uh. In a way, it was the easy option. My ambition was to make inspector, prove I could do it, but I don't know if I'll stick it that long.'
'You make it sound easy.'
I shrugged and wiped my mouth. 'That's just the plan. Maybe I'll fail. So why didn't you join East Pennine?'
'I tried. They wouldn't have me.'
'Oh, I'm sorry.' As an afterthought I added: 'Perhaps they were full.'
'Perhaps.' He caught the waiter's attention and ordered two more drinks.
'Just an orange for me,' I said, almost apologetically. I felt a prat, and deservedly so. I'd taken for granted what Dave had struggled for, but I never gave another thought to the lesson he said he'd learned that morning, not for another twenty-odd years.
The waiter placed the drinks in front of us and asked if we'd enjoyed the meal. We nodded profusely and
