'Will do. First of all I'd like to say that all your managers have been very co-operative. These days, what with all the red tape, political correctness and civil rights that we are beset with, it would have been easy for any one of them to obstruct the enquiry, but they didn't and we're grateful. I believe you're just passing through.'
'That's right. You're lucky to catch me. I'm on my way to play in a pro-am at St Andrew's. Charity do on the Old Course. Won't be back until Monday.'
Golf, not hunting. Near enough, though. I said: 'Sounds fun. In that case, as we won't be able to contact you, it would be helpful if you could issue an instruction to your managers to keep up with the co-operation.'
'No problem, Inspector. I'll put Sebastian onto it straight away.'
'Smashing. Thanks for that. Now, if we can ask you a few questions pertinent to the enquiry…'
He'd always tried to play fair, he told us, and as far as he knew had no business enemies. Some of the stores were built on greenfield sites and opposition, both locakand from organised groups, had been vocal, but the applications had gone through. Supermarkets were what people wanted. He hadn't cancelled any big contracts causing companies to go bust, and he'd received no threats or demands for money.
'You will,' I told him, 'but most will be from cranks, opportunists. It's important that any that arrive are sent straight to us with the minimum of handling.'
He said that he understood and he would include that in the message to his managers. When he started looking at his watch we stood up to leave. We shook hands again and as he walked us to the door I said: 'Your wife's an architect, I believe.',
'That's right. She's a partner in a practice.'
'In London?'
'Head office is in London, but she works from home most of the time.'
'Oh. Did she design the extension?' I tried to think of a grander word than extension, but couldn't.
'The leisure and office complex? That's right. With her own fair hands.'
'She must be a clever lady.',.
'Yes, she is.'
But there was no pride in his voice as he said it.
'So what do you think?' I asked as we drove out through the gate.
'He'satwat.',;
'Another one! But a rich twat, wouldn't you say?'.,
'And that.'
'With no enemies.'
'If you believe that you'll stand for the drop o' York.'
'He seemed concerned about the victims.'
'The only thing he's concerned about is his profits.'
'And his golf handicap?'
'Aye, and I bet he cheats at that.'
'Is your ulcer playing up?'
'It could be. Did you ring her?'
'Who?'
'Who! Who do you think? Rosie.'
'No, I didn't.'
He snorted disdainfully and concentrated on driving. A woman was negotiating her way across the High Street with a baby buggy and Dave held up the traffic for her. She smiled a thank you and tipped buggy and youngster it contained violently backwards to mount the kerb. A Reward poster fastened to a lighting column caught my eye. I twisted in my seat as we accelerated away and saw that it was for a lost cat. Approaching the turn-off for the nick I said: 'Have you got the address of that girl in your notebook? The one who was relocated by Robshaw. It was somewhere in the Sylvan Fields.'
'Yeah. Want to go see her?'
'We might as well. She may give us a different perspective on the cosy world of Grainger's superstores.'
Sylvan Fields is a rambling estate on the edge of Heckley, although it might be more accurate to say that Heckley is a small industrial and market town on the edge of the Sylvan Fields estate. Most of the houses date from the between-the-wars era, built for heroes, what was left of them, in a wave of compassion and social engineering. All went well for a couple of generations, but by the seventies the decline was well under way and accelerating. Nobody knows what the mechanism is, although thousands of theses have been written on the subject. Greater freedom, less respect for authority, prosperity, poverty, lower morals, breakdown of family life? Who can say? Alcohol and drugs, the advent of the motor car? Rock and roll and the Pill?
How about Y-fronts? Perhaps the decline in standards and increased tendency for violence, particularly amongst young men, was brought about by something as simple as the introduction and widespread use of snug- fitting underwear, causing the testes to overheat with the subsequent over-production of testosterone. Thinking about it, I could not rfecall a single case of a burglar or mugger being described by witnesses as wearing a kilt.
Dave passed me his notebook and I found the address. '28, Windermere Drive,' I told him. 'Know where it is?'
'No problem.'
'Anywhere near where you lived?'
'No, we were at the rough end. Shirley lived in the next street, Buttermere Drive.'
I didn't speak as Dave negotiated the estate, avoiding the bricks that strewed the road and the various wheeled devices dotted about the place like exhibits in a sculpture park: old prams, shopping trolleys and a couple of burnt-out cars. A dog chased out of a gateway at our car, then changed its mind and trotted back whence it came. There was a community centre on a corner that I'd seen a picture of in the Heckley Gazette when a local councillor cut the tape, its walls already sprayed with graffiti. Jeb and Shaz believed in advertising their feelings for each other.
I think Dave sensed what I was thinking, so he said: 'There are some nice people live here, Charlie. They're not all yobs, y'know.'
'I know that, Dave.'
The litter thinned out and the houses changed colour. The council has a segregation policy, lumping most of the problem tenants at one end of the estate, together with the single mums, divorcees and rent-evaders. The best tenants, the ones who've had the foresight and wherewithal to buy their homes, are on the north side. Now the gardens were tidy, the hedges trimmed or replaced by brickwork, and the houses painted in individual styles. Burglar alarms adorned walls instead of satellite dishes. Dave turned into Windermere Drive and we looked for house numbers.
The girl was called Rebecca. She was born north of the tracks but was heading south, fast. It must be heartbreaking for parents to bring up a child to be polite, speak in sentences and take an interest in the world outside, only to see all their hard work swept aside by street culture as the kid reaches puberty.
Rebecca was eating Pringles, watching television, as her mother showed us through into the front room. The house was spotless but cluttered in a familiar way. They just didn't make them big enough for a growing family. She was dumpy and pasty-faced, with a mouth that permanently drooped at the corners.
'Two gentlemen to see you, Becky,' her mother said. 'About when you worked at Grainger's. It's about this food scare.'
Becky's gaze switched from the TV to me and back again as she felt for her mouth with another Pringle. Her mother invited us to sit down and asked if we'd like a cup of tea.
'No thanks,' Dave said, 'but can we have the TV off, please.' In a fantasy story Becky's glare would have turned him to stone.
'How long did you work at Grainger's, Becky?' Dave asked.
Realising, probably for the first time ever, that pressing the red button caused the moving images to go away, Becky turned on the settee to face her interrogator. ''Bout six months,' she replied.
'Did you like working there?'
'No.'
'What was the problem?'
'Itwa'borin'' 'Have you seen anything on telly about the scare we're hav-ing?'
