concluded that Benjamin Bunny and his friends were not in danger.
'You'll be sure to let us know if you hear anything,' Sparky said, pushing his face close to Tony's. 'Won't you?'
'Er, yeah, 'course I will,' Tony promised, leaning away, his eyes flicking between us.
We were at the less prosperous end of town, where the mills and workers' cottages better described as slums once stood. Now it's a junction on the bypass, with a few run-down terraces left clinging to streets that terminate abruptly against the guard rail and don't figure in the council's road-sweeping plans. We came outside, squinting against the glare and the traffic-borne dust. An old man shuffled by using a Zimmer frame, slippers on his feet. He'd probably lived all his life within a hundred yards of that spot, in one of the few houses left standing. When he died, they'd knock it down and go back to their offices to wait for the next one. It's development by attrition.
'How's he supposed to cross the road?' Sparky wondered as we watched him dodder away.
'Cross the road?' I replied. 'Cross the road? Why would he want to cross the road? Roads are for cars.'
'Right. So where next?'
'Well, as we're talking about cars, let's go kick a few tyres.'
'Good idea. And why don't we walk?'
'Good idea.'
It's funny how second-hand car showrooms cluster together, challenging the would-be customer to find a better deal. There are three on the road out of town and over the years we'd had dealings with all of them.
The dazzle as we approached the first one hurt the brain. A Ford Escort convertible, the hood invitingly down, stood temptingly in front of all the others, bait for the impulse buyer. Car of the Week was emblazoned across its windscreen.
'Why doesn't mine shine like this?' I asked the proprietor when he swam out from under his stone.
'I don't know what you drive, sir,' he replied. 'But these are all quality motors, and that's reflected in the paintwork. Reflected in the paintwork! That's a good one, eh? Are you particularly interested in a cabriolet?'
'No, not really.'
'So did you have anything in mind?'
'All of them,' I said, showing my ID. 'Do you have papers for them all?'
His expression fell quicker than a politician's trousers. 'P-papers?' he stuttered. 'Papers? Er, yes, in the office. Is there… is there a problem, Officer?'
'Not at all, sir,' I replied, smiling like the same politician when he realises it's only the wife who's caught him, and she's not going to derail the gravy train. 'I'm sure everything's in order. We'd like a word with you about another matter, though, in the office, if you don't mind.'
We were wasting our time, and the other two dealers were no help. They hadn't made any big cash sales recently, and nobody had offered them goods in kind or suggested any sort of dodgy deal. Business was steady and wholesome, even though customers these days knew every trick in the book and were determined to rip them off.
'My heart's bleeding,' I said as we walked back to the car.
'You were too easy on them,' Dave admonished.
'I think they got the message,' I replied. 'If they don't know anything they don't know anything.'
'Everyone knows something. We should turn one of them over, then ask again.'
'Sadly, it's not that easy, and you know it. Where next?'
'The tattoo parlour, then the Golde and Silver Shoppe in the town centre.'
'Right. I might have a discreet boudoir scene done on my left thigh while we're there.'
Unfortunately the tattooist was busy, so it would have to be another day. We dragged him away from the young girl who was having an iguana added to the menagerie on her scapula, but he didn't know anything, 'know what I mean?' The manageress of Ye Olde Golde and Silver Shoppe used language that would make a Cub Scout blush and threatened to report us to the Council for Civil Liberties. You'd never have believed her old man was doing four years for receiving.
We lunched on a bench in the square. Every town should have a square, a focal point. Ours has just been refurbished at monstrous cost, but it looks good and the office workers and shoppers certainly enjoy it when the weather's fine. We had ham sandwiches in oven-bottom cakes, and tea from polystyrene beakers.
A girl, about six feet two, clomped by on platform soles. She had the longest legs, the briefest mini and the skimpiest top I could imagine.
Well, not quite imagine, but the longest, briefest and skimpiest I'd seen in a while. I turned my head to follow her, sandwich poised before my open mouth.
'You'll go blind,' Sparky warned.
'It's this warm weather,' I complained. 'It makes me feel poorly.'
'It certainly brings them out. What do you think of them?' He nodded towards the statue in the middle of the square.
It was a bronze, about half life-size, showing two doctors dressed rather differently; one Victorian, one Edwardian. J. H. Bell and F. W.
Eurich lived in Bradford, when the woollen industry was at its height and employed hundreds of thousands of people. Of all the afflictions that beset them, wool sorters disease was the most feared. A man might go to work perfectly healthy in the morning and be dead from it by supper-time. The French called it la mala die de Bradford. Dr. Bell reckoned it was caused by imported fleeces and was a form of anthrax.
Eurich took up the Petri dish and confirmed the link. He devised a way of treating the fleeces and the disease was eradicated. Pasteur was lauded for discovering how to protect animals against the disease, but the good doctors had gone un recognised for their work with humans until Heckley decided to honour them.
'It's somewhere fpr the pigeons to sit,' I said.
'Did you vote?' Dave asked. The local paper, the Gazette, had conducted a referendum on who should grace the new square.
'Mmm.' I finished my sandwich and rolled the paper into a ball, trying to wipe my hands on it.
'Who for?'
'Them.' I nodded towards the doctors.
'Really? I'd never heard of them.'
'Neither had I until someone nominated them. Who did you vote for?'
'Denis Law.'
'Denis Law! A foot baller I should have known.'
'He gave pleasure to millions,' he retorted, primly.
'He was the best, but he didn't save any lives.'
Dave took my empty cup and wrapper and walked over to a bin with them.
When he was seated again he said: 'Do you think we'll catch them, Charlie?'
The pigeons that had been strutting round our feet like battery-driven toys waddled over to the next bench to see if the pickings were any better there. 'We've got to, Dave,' I answered. 'Nigel thinks that someone might already be dead, sitting tied in their chairs because the message wasn't passed on.'
'I've thought the same,' he said. 'Maybe we should put out an appeal.
Check your neighbours, if you haven't seen them for a while. Something like that.'
'I'll mention it to Gilbert. I'll have to get back, make some calls.
Are you all right for seeing a few more miscreants?'
'I've a long list, but I'm not hopeful. This morning's been a waste of time.'
'So what do you conclude from that?' I asked him.
'Dunno,' he replied. 'They could be new boys in town. Or new to the job but clever with it. Or everybody's scared of them.
Or maybe they're from way outside the area.'
'All the jobs are centred on Heckley,' I said.
'What's fifty miles these days? They could be from the Midlands, travelling north for every job. Or from the north-east. It's probably too hot for them up there. Who knows?'
'Like I said, I'll do some ringing round.' I stood up and swung my jacket over my shoulder.
