‘Well, I’m not sure/ said Granger. ‘It’s just that David Senior …
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well, I don’t know what connection you think he has to Neil. But they were … they had a relationship.’
‘Do you know anything else about David Senior?’
‘He used to work at the chemicals factory with Neil. Thai’s where they met, but that’s all I know about him.’
‘Does he ride a motorbike?’
Granger frowned. ‘Not as far as I know. Why?’
‘We were told that some of your brother’s friends were bikers.’
‘If it was Neil’s neighbours who told you that, they probably meant me. I ride a motorbike.’
‘Probably,’ said Kitchens, as if that had confirmed what he suspected.
Now Granger looked a bit uncomfortable, perhaps feeling that he hadn’t helped as much as he hoped he would.
‘There was something else.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘You were asking me about antiques and things …’
‘Have you remembered something?’
‘I’m not sure. But there was a small box on the mantelpiece in Neil’s house when I went there on Saturday. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I don’t remember ever seeing it there before.’
Cooper searched his memory. He thought he had done pretty well checking the CD player, but he had never noticed the box.
‘What was it made of?’ he said.
‘It was metal. Bronze or brass, I couldn’t tell. About this big ‘ Granger held his hands a few inches apart.
Kitchens looked at Cooper, who shook his head. ‘Well, well,’ said Kitchens. ‘Let’s see if anyone else has noticed it.’
As soon as Philip Granger had left, DI Kitchens’ manner changed. Cooper had to lengthen his stride to follow the DI back to his office.
‘Is there a rush, sir?’ he said.
‘We have to get on to it straight away,’ said Kitchens.
‘This bronze or brass box, you mean?’
‘Well, there’s that as well.’
‘And … ?’
‘I need to get somebody to work turning over the local arse bandits. They’ll be shitting themselves knowing one of their bum chums has got himself done in.’
‘But, sir, didn’t you just say … ?’
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‘Of course I did.’ Kitchens stopped suddenly. ‘You’ve got to be sensitive with bereaved relatives, you know, Cooper. Didn’t they tell you that in training?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, then. Do you want to do bandits or box?’
‘Box/ said Cooper.
Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin were on the M6 motorway, approaching the junction with the M5 north of Birmingham. They were already well inside the vast urban sprawl at the heart of the Black Country. It couldn’t have looked more different from the empty wastes of peat moor around Withens.
‘Is the Black Country the place where black pudding comes from?’ said Murfin.
‘Of course it isn’t.’
‘Well, I just wondered, like. I know Bakewell pudding comes from Bakewell, so I thought ‘
‘No, Gavin, it doesn’t.’
‘OK/
They were passing through the western edge of Smethwick, having taken the wrong exit from the M5 when Murfin got excited about seeing the West Bromwich Albion football ground. Fry was starting to feel edgy as they came closer to her old stamping grounds. The feeling of tension was like steel springs trying to pull her into the air, so that she hardly seemed to be touching her car seat. But she knew she mustn’t take out her own edginess on Gavin Murfin.
‘What about blackberry crumble, then?’ said Murfin.
‘No, Gavin! Now, will you shut up about it?’
‘All right/
Fry remembered all too clearly shopping with her friends in Birmingham or at the Merry Hill shopping centre, touring the Birmingham clubs, drinking lager while she listened to the boys talking about West Brom.
They drove through Langley and hit traffic at the junction with the A4123 Wolverhampton Road, where the signs all seemed to point to the Merry Hill shopping centre. It had been Fry’s shopping mecca as a teenager, the place where all her friends had gone to meet on a Saturday - not to spend money, because they didn’t have any. Well, not unless somebody had nicked a few quid from their mum. They went just to walk around, to be there and be
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seen there. It made you part of the crowd, part of the
