Bad Tidings

FIVE

Henry dashed back to the hospital to find no change in his mother’s condition. Leanne had settled herself in for the duration, saying she would be fine when he explained he had some work to do, but would stay local, maybe fifteen minutes away tops, if needed.

He drove through the still quiet streets of Blackpool, down to the promenade, and found a place to park near the motel at which David Peters had last been seen. Henry had considered going straight to visit the dead man’s wife, but decided to start his own investigation from the point at which Peters was last seen alive. Then he would visit the scene where his body had been discovered, on the edge of a farm in Poulton-le-Fylde.

Henry paid his parking fee — nothing was free in Blackpool, even on a public holiday — and walked the short distance to the motel on Talbot Road. He entered and approached the reception desk, not knowing if this was even worth a revisit, a year down the line. But Henry liked to get the feel of a crime, this was the last place Peters had been seen breathing and he wanted to do a mini recreation of events.

He knew from the file that Peters had been in a room with the ‘other woman’, the lady who managed one of his shops for him. Henry, Rik and DC Tope had had a quick look at the CCTV footage seized from the motel that had captured Peters arriving and leaving the establishment that fateful night. The disk had been in the murder file.

Peters had arrived alone, paid in cash, given a false name and gone up to the room. This had all been videoed, as had the arrival of the shop manageress twenty minutes later. The two had then indulged in their carnal desires for each other — although, having read the witness statement taken unwillingly from the woman, her recollection had been a bit muted. Peters had departed, about an hour and a half after he’d arrived, and the CCTV showed him skulking out of the motel. The woman stayed for the night, and the camera caught her leaving the following morning.

So Peters had left and then not been seen until his charred body was discovered a week later in the remains of the chicken coop.

Henry mulled all this through his mind as he stood at the reception desk waiting for someone to notice him. He flashed his warrant card enticingly.

A clerk, a young man of mid-European origin, blinked at him with an air of boredom, unconcerned that a cop was at the desk. He was obviously confident that his immigration papers were in order, Henry thought. Henry tried to explain why he was here, but it was either too complicated for the man, whose grasp of English was tenuous at best, or he wasn’t terribly interested. A bit of both, Henry guessed.

He did, however, understand the words ‘manager’ and ‘I want to see’.

This turned out to be a smart young lady who was English, and Henry’s explanation to her was received and understood. Henry also recognized her from the CCTV footage as the receptionist who had booked Peters in. And she remembered him, but only because the police had been to see her previously and had taken a statement. Henry had read through it while in his temporary office at the hospital. It was an unremarkable piece of writing, confirming what the CCTV showed and nothing more.

He asked her if she recalled anything further that might be of use, but she said no.

The room Peters had used for his little liaison was unoccupied, so Henry asked for the key and went to visit it, even though he realized it wouldn’t be of much use to him, other than to get a sense of a victim’s final hours.

There was nothing special about it. Just a basic, reasonably comfortable motel room, clear, functional.

Henry sighed as he looked around.

The room where Peters had fucked his mistress, then left alive, and never been seen breathing again — although someone would have seen him, not just the killer, because Peters had stepped out of the motel into a bustling Christmas Eve town. But no witnesses had been found, despite a flurry of press activity following the discovery of the body.

Henry left the room, handed the key back in and exited the motel onto Talbot Road, standing outside the front doors, trying to work out which direction Peters had taken. He had spun a line to his wife that he was out having a pint with a friend that night — a friend who had been tracked down and who denied having had any contact with Peters for over three months and had made no arrangements to meet him that night.

So, having had a shag, Peters left the hotel and was probably killing time before his return home. It was likely, Henry thought, that he would have headed to a town centre pub to have the said drink and ensure his breath reeked of beer.

Henry shivered as a blast of cold wind swept in from the very grey-looking Irish Sea, and seemed to wrap him in a shroud. He wondered if it was the ghost of the dead man, the one who had probably stood in this spot a year before, imploring Henry to catch his killer.

He also wondered if what he was doing was a complete waste of time.

Still, he went through the motions. He turned right and walked slowly towards the town centre, realizing the futility of his actions. Put simply, Peters could have gone in any direction and found a pub. He could have spent hours in one, or going from one to the next, to the next. There were a lot of hours to play with and no sightings to help pinpoint Peters’ movements.

Henry walked disconsolately through the streets, shivered again, then made his way back to his car, realizing a couple of things that should have been followed up at the time. First, it was unlikely that the killer was operating alone. From what Henry had seen of Peters in the footage and from post-mortem photographs, he was a biggish guy and for one person to have lifted him from the street was stretching it. He was already convinced that two or more offenders were involved — which gave Henry a bit of heart. Lone killers were notoriously difficult to catch, but more than one equalled weakness. The other thing that Henry wondered about was the name that Peters had used at the motel. Was there any significance in it, or was it just randomly plucked out of nowhere?

His mind swirled with all these thoughts, but he was enjoying the process. Back in the car, he called Jerry Tope.

‘This is one of the best Christmas Days I’ve ever had,’ Tope whinged.

‘I’m having a doody, too,’ Henry assured him.

‘Yeah, yeah. . sorry to hear about your mum, by the way. Rik told me.’

‘Thanks. You got anywhere yet?’

‘No. . so far the overnight mispers aren’t likely victims. I’m just piecing together what we know about the actual victims. Nothing’s really jumping out yet.’

Henry asked Tope to consider his thoughts about Peters’ assumed name and the ‘more than one killer’ scenario, and also asked him to do a national check for similar crimes — kidnaps, followed by bodies being shot and dumped and set on fire, particularly around Christmas time.

Then Henry called Rik Dean to check on his progress on the opposite side of the county. Getting no reply, he left a voice message,

He decided to visit the scene where Peters’ body had been discovered, thinking dismally that this had all the hallmarks of being a long drawn-out investigation, not made any easier by coming to it late.

Whenever possible, Henry liked to be in at the death.

Another person not especially happy to see Henry on Christmas Day was Bernadette Peters. She opened her front door suspiciously to him. He gave her his best lopsided grin (it was getting a little overused on that day), which became a ‘sorry to disturb you’ expression as he introduced himself.

‘I’m actually just having my Christmas dinner. . but, hey, what the hell, it’s only an M amp;S meal for one. I can zap it back in the microwave. Come in.’ She stood back and let him walk past her. She was still dressed in her sleeping attire, a long towelling dressing gown tied tightly over her nightdress and a pair of fluffy, tatty slippers.

Henry thanked her and entered the lounge of the house, which was situated in Blackpool’s north shore on the boundary with Bispham. It was a careworn semi in need of a lot of TLC.

She had been watching TV with a tray balanced on her knees, on which was her plated-up microwaveable turkey dinner for one. She moved past Henry and picked up the tray, giving him a sidelong glance. ‘I really pushed out the boat this year. . it’s usually a Tesco one.’ She went into the kitchen.

Henry felt a slight jolt within him. Nothing connected with the investigation, but something that stabbed at his own failings as a man and husband. He had an inner vision of the countless Christmas Days that Kate had been forced to endure without him because of ‘work commitments’. He knew she had often prepared meals of proper turkey, slaved over a hot stove, only for them to go to waste, but at the time it hadn’t meant anything much to Henry, not being home at Christmas. Kate had always laughed it off. He swallowed dryly.

And here he was again, working on 25 December. His mouth went tight in self-loathing.

Mrs Peters emerged from the kitchen and Henry smiled again, noting that under the drabness of her unkempt appearance, she was very attractive. ‘Obviously I don’t know why you’re here, but I guess it’s about David. Can I offer you a brew?’

‘That would be great. Tea? Just milk.’

‘Coming up. I’ll go back in here’ — she pointed to the kitchen — ‘and you can have a minute or two doing what detectives do — snoop. I don’t mind.’

Henry chuckled and said, ‘Only on TV.’ But when she disappeared, he snooped, taking in the room, the fixtures and fittings, the framed photographs on the fireplace, one of which was of her and her dead husband. Henry picked it up and studied it, wondering how happy she thought they’d been at the time.

‘Don’t know why I keep it there.’

Henry spun guiltily as she came back in from the kitchen, bearing two mugs of tea, handing one across to him.

‘What do you mean?’

She screwed up her face and sat on the settee, pondering the question. ‘Dunno,’ she frowned. ‘I thought we were OK-ish. Not ab-fab, if you know what I mean, just pretty standard. Dull, unremarkable, rubbed along all right, mostly, tolerated each other. Clearly he thought I was a boring cow. Two kids — who, incidentally, I haven’t seen for six months — then, Wham!’

Henry took a seat on an armchair.

‘He’s having a sordid affair and then he’s murdered. Double-wham, actually. I’m still not sure I can believe either. He wasn’t exactly a Romeo, but mind you, that bitch isn’t exactly Angelina Jolie — but hey! These things happen.’ She sounded sad, resigned and, despite using the word ‘bitch’, not resentful.

‘You think the two are connected, the affair and the murder?’

‘It’d make sense, but I doubt it. Her husband isn’t a killer.’

‘What about you?’

‘If I’d found out about the affair, maybe I would’ve been.’ She looked slyly at Henry. ‘Is that why you’re here? Has some evidence come to light that says I’m the killer?’

‘Now you’re teasing me,’ Henry chided. ‘No is the answer to that, but I am investigating David’s murder.’

‘Isn’t there a link to another murder — a woman in Blackburn?’

‘You know about that?’

‘I got told — and asked a lot of questions.’

‘Do you think he knew the woman?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t know her. . that said, it seemed I didn’t know very much about him at all.’

Henry nodded sagely, not wanting to say anything trite, like ‘No one ever really knows someone else,’ just to sympathize with her. He looked at her, saw a lost soul.

‘So no ideas?’

‘No — and don’t think I haven’t thought about it.’

‘How would you describe your husband?’

‘Dour, intelligent enough, not especially creative. . just a bloke, bit of a country bumpkin in some ways.’

‘What about the year leading up to his death? Was there anything unusual about it, did anything unusual happen? Did he change at all?’

‘No, seemed the same old self. . but it wasn’t a great year. A bit distant, more than usual. Now whether that was because he was seeing Stella. . fuck, Stella,’ she sneered. ‘What a name! Tart’s name.’ She became thoughtful, then said, ‘Maybe he had changed. . we were both a bit too insulated from each other. . drifted apart.’

‘How long had you been married?’

‘Best part of twenty years. . we sort of met at college.’

‘Do you think he kept secrets from you?’

‘What, other than the sordid affair? Probably. Don’t all men?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘I’ve just been to have a quick look at the place where David’s body was found,’ Henry said. ‘Does that mean anything to you? Is there any reason you can think of as to why he should’ve ended up there? Is there any significance to it?’

She shook her head. ‘Been asked that before. I gave a detailed statement.’

‘I know. I’ve read it. I’m sorry if I’m covering old ground’ — actually, he wasn’t — ‘but sometimes things come back to people and other things start to have meanings that weren’t there before. And, of course, I’ve taken charge of the investigation, so it’s important for me to get a handle on it.’

‘On Christmas Day?’

Henry’s eyes roved quickly around the room. It was decorated in a desultory way, as if there was no heart or feeling behind the hanging baubles or the weary-looking Christmas tree. Nor was there any sign of presents, or wrapping paper. He guessed she was a lonely woman who lived in a grey world. He smiled at her. ‘Good point. . sorry to disturb you, but at least you know that we’re still investigating your husband’s death. It won’t necessarily bring you good cheer, but I hope it reassures you.’

‘Do you think you’ll get whoever did it?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘You sound confident.’

‘That’s because I am.’ And, he thought smugly to himself, Because I’m friggin’ good at it.

There was nothing to report from Jerry Tope, other than more grumblings about his spoiled Christmas, but he let Henry know he was still working on the backgrounds of the two victims to see where their paths might have crossed in the past, if at all. He said he was having problems accessing the national database to cross-check the MOs with any similar murders elsewhere in the country. He moaned that he had been forced to revert to Google, which was throwing up a lot of dross. There was nothing of interest on the missing person front, either. He finished by asking when he could go home.

Henry checked his watch, his mind swilling with ghosts of Christmases ruined.

‘Finish what you’re doing but leave it at a point where you can pick it up straight away when you come back in, and go home. I apologize for dragging you in, so go and have a nice rest of the day with Marina’ — that was Tope’s mono-browed, moustachioed wife — ‘and be in bright and early on the twenty-seventh.’

Henry thought he could actually feel the wafts of disbelief as Tope’s eyelids fluttered rapidly.

‘You certain, Henry? You mean I can actually have Boxing Day off?’

‘Yeah, go for it,’ Henry said, ignoring the cheeky irony. ‘Have you got some special home-made wine ready?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Tope suddenly became enthusiastic. He was a purveyor of home brewing and wine making. ‘A special nettle wine. Been laid down for six months. Lovely.’

Henry blanched, but said, ‘Go — enjoy, see you day after tomorrow.’

‘Oh, did you discover anything interesting?’

‘Nah, bit of a waste, really.’

Henry ended the call and checked the time. Three p.m. and the day was already beginning to draw in, dark winter clouds thickening across the sky, spats of icy rain starting to blob down on the car windscreen. He called up Rik Dean, who answered this time and gave Henry a succinct account of his day, which was also quite fruitless. Henry told him to go home, too, and come back in on the 27th when they would start to pull together a murder squad of some description.

Henry then sat in his car, mulling. More than anything he wanted to see Alison again today, especially since things had progressed in their relationship — and though he knew it was very base of him, he was eager to jump into bed with her and consummate the event. He couldn’t quite see how that was going to happen, at least not today.

His mother was awake and she watched him enter the room through watery, almost sightless eyes. Leanne was still by the bed, a grim expression on her face. Henry gave her a reassuring wink, then said to his mother, ‘Hi, Mum, how you doing?’

‘Is that you, Henry?’

‘It is.’

‘Where have you been?’

‘Working, Mum.’

She looked at Leanne. ‘Sweetie, can I have a moment with your dad?’

Leanne rose and left the room, grimacing. She touched Henry’s arm on the way out. He settled into her vacated chair and asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Grim,’ she gasped, and lay her head back on the plumped-up pillows.

‘What do you know?’ he asked her.

‘Everything. . my heart stopped, didn’t it?’

‘It did, so they zapped you and restarted it. Simple. Like jump-starting a car.’

She took a long breath. ‘Don’t let them do that again, Henry.’

His throat instantly went dry and dread skittered through him, suddenly making him feel very weak. ‘What d’you mean, Mum?’

‘Henry.’ She reached out blindly for him and he took her hand. ‘I’ve passed the ninety mark, outlived your father by fifteen years — and most of the people I’ve ever known. I’m lucky. I’ve never been really ill and I don’t want to start being a burden on anyone. . no, shush. I know what would happen. I’m not stupid. I knew I was OK last time. . this time I know I won’t be. I’m tired. My body’s had enough and I’d rather go out on top than as a root vegetable.’

‘Mum!’

‘That said, if I get better — great, but I won’t. So if the ticker packs up again, do not let them restart it. Hear me?’

Henry stared mutely at their interlocked hands.

‘Promise me.’

‘OK,’ he muttered, not certain if he would or wouldn’t.

The subsequent discussion with Leanne was very tense and tearful as Henry brought her into the picture about DNR. It ended with a long hug that made Henry feel quite good, actually. The last few months had been quite fraught with Leanne, especially after she had ended up back home after a disastrous break-up which had been followed by using the house, in Henry’s words, as ‘a knocking shop’, as a series of boyfriends came and went — and always went if Henry was about, hence the friction.

They had patched things up, more or less, and ironically it seemed that his mother’s ill-health had helped things between them.

Henry wondered briefly about the living arrangements at his house in Blackpool.

With Lisa there on and off, Leanne a permanent fixture, and his other daughter Jenny on the way up from Bristol (she would want to spend time there with her aunt and little sister, no doubt), and if Alison came and went, he would be completely surrounded by women again, as he had been all his life. He partly pined for a son and often worried why his issue hadn’t ‘manned-up’.

But that train had long gone, not even worth thinking about.

And as much as female relatives annoyed the crap out of him, he had a bit of a warm glow to think they were all going to be back in one place.

Plus Alison: an addition who had been met with much hostility from Leanne, but who had recently moved into the toleration phase, if not quite acceptance. He did worry about how Leanne might react to the news of the engagement, though. It would probably set her back.

‘Chaos,’ he thought and shook his head at the prospect.

Leanne looked up at him with moist eyes and said, ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Life, death and the universe,’ he said philosophically and smiled. ‘Let’s just see how it all pans out, eh?’

‘Hey.’

‘Hey you,’ Alison replied.

Henry was walking down a hospital corridor, mobile phone attached to his ear, having called Alison on the landline at the Tawny Owl. The mobile phone signal out there in the wilds was iffy at best.

‘How’s it going?’ he asked lamely.

‘Good. We’re about to open for the afternoon-stroke-evening. The locals are already queued up outside and the dining room’s fully booked until eight, which means we’ll get through about eighty covers all told. Forty quid a head, plus drinks. . it’s a living. What’s happening with you?’

‘Mum’s awake.’ He told Alison of the DNR conversation he’d just had with Leanne, which brought from her noises of genuine sympathy.

She asked what his next move was. ‘I really want to be up there with you,’ he moaned, ‘but I’m going to stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Jenny’s imminent and I’d like to see her. And I still need to speak to Lisa, because it’ll be me and her who make the final DNR decision. When mum’s bedded down for the night, I’ll come up.’

‘You don’t have to. I’ll be exhausted, and so will you.’

‘In which case you’ll be unable to fend off my advances. . and I’d like to make some.’

Alison giggled. ‘OK, look forward to it. What about your work, though?’

‘Sacking it for the day, unless something really compelling turns up.’

They exchanged a few lovey-dovey words and ended the call.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent by his mother’s bedside. Jenny, his eldest, did arrive, weary and bedraggled from her long journey up from the south-east, but still looking particularly beautiful to Henry. His first child, still very, very special. There were lots of hugs and kisses and tears, then she went to freshen up at Henry’s house, promising to return to the hospital later.

One person who failed to appear was Lisa. Henry called her a few times but got no answer.

Only as he walked along another hospital corridor did he have a lurching thought. Here he was, waiting for someone to be reported missing from home who could be the possible victim of a kidnapper/killer, yet he’d never considered that Lisa, his own kid sister, fitted the profile of the previous two victims. She was about the right age — being quite a bit younger than Henry — and had been born in Hyndburn.

He flicked open his phone and called Rik Dean, her ex-fiance. ‘Have you heard anything from Lisa yet?’ Henry asked.

‘Should I have?’ he said, a hurt tone in the words.

‘No, maybe not,’ Henry conceded. ‘That said, I haven’t heard anything either and I’ve been calling her all day. I’m getting a bit concerned.’

Rik uttered a cynical harumph. ‘She’s ditzy and it’s not unlike her to do something like this. I mean, she’s hardly likely to be our killer’s next victim. . is she?’ Rik’s voice changed on the last two words as the penny slotted home.

‘Life is full of coincidences,’ Henry said, ‘and I doubt whether she is the next victim, but from a welfare point of view I’d like to know she’s OK. She has been pretty cut up about you two splitting,’ he fibbed a little.

‘It was her freaking fault. Why’s she blubbering?’ Rik demanded.

‘Uh — dunno. . Look, do you know who the guy is she’s. . er. . seeing?’ It was a delicate question. Henry had never enquired, didn’t really want to know if he was honest.

‘I do.’ Henry could almost hear Rik’s teeth gnashing.

Henry waited, nothing came. ‘Well, bloody tell me. He might know where she is.’

‘Peregrine Astley-Barnes,’ Rik said primly.

Henry registered the name. ‘As in Astley-Barnes the jewellers?’

‘One and the same.’

‘The millionaire jewellers?’

‘Henry — you’re twisting the knife here.’

‘Sorry, mate.’

‘I wouldn’t mind, but she met the stuck-up bastard through her work and then we bought our engagement ring from him.’

Henry was glad Rik couldn’t see his grin. The Astley-Barnes family, Henry knew, were diamond retailers, at the very high end of that particular market. They had four stores in Lancashire, two on the coast, two inland, and others in Manchester, Chester and York. They were the kinds of stores with security guards and doors that locked you in — or out — of the shops with thick, unbreakable, plate-glass windows.

‘You bought an engagement ring from them? How much does an inspector earn these days?’

‘Crippled me,’ Rik admitted. ‘I wouldn’t mind but she’d already started seeing the twat, so I don’t know why she let me go through with the purchase.’ Lisa made intricate silver jewellery, very exquisite, and sold it through shops like the Astley-Barneses’.

‘You got a number for him?’

‘Oh yes,’ Rik said ominously. ‘And car details and bank details. .’

‘Stop right there. I haven’t heard that,’ Henry said. ‘If you’re going to get yourself in data protection shit, I don’t want to know. Just give me the guy’s number.’

As much security as the Astley-Barnes family had, it did not make them immune to becoming the victims of crime. Armed robberies at their shops were infrequent, but when they did happen they were usually very violent affairs resulting in severe beatings for the staff and oodles of rocks being stolen. Nor were the family completely safe in their own homes. Henry had once dealt with what is known as a Tiger Kidnapping, when a member of the family was held hostage while other family members were forced to open up the shops and hand over diamonds, otherwise there would be serious bloodshed.

The problem for the robber on that occasion was that the police had a tip-off and were ready and waiting. In a carefully planned operation run by Henry, the whole gang had been caught and subsequently convicted.

In his dealings with the family Henry had found them to be pleasant and not in the least stuck-up, as Rik insinuated. They were clearly members of the upper class, whose fortunes could be traced back to nineteenth-century diamond fields in South Africa.

He phoned the number Rik had given him. It rang, then dropped onto voicemail. Henry left a short message. Then he called Lisa again and left one for her, too. Hopefully, if the two of them were together, maybe holed up in a shag-pad somewhere, they’d put two and two together and get in touch. As he slotted his phone back into his jacket pocket, it rang.

‘Hooray,’ he said and answered it, thinking it might be Lisa.

‘Henry? It’s me, Jerry.’

‘Not gone home?’

‘I wish.’

‘What’s up?’

‘I might have something. .’

‘I’ve been looking at the two victims, as you asked, doing the backgrounds and all that. First thing is, Peters was born in September, Blackshaw in December, both in the same year. So they were both the same age as each other, one slightly older.’

Henry listened hard, wishing he was face to face with Tope. Ingesting vital information over a mobile phone line wasn’t easy, and Tope had a knack for dramatic suspense that was often irritating.

‘And they were both born in Hyndburn.’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘Now, I’ve also been trawling for similar murders in other parts of the country and I’ve unearthed one that looks similar — but this is from Google, so I haven’t got all the details I need. . but. . three years ago, Christmas Eve, a female was abducted and turned up dead — shot and burned near Leeds. She was born in the February of the year after our two. In Hyndburn. A woman by the name of Ella Milner.’

Henry screwed up his face, his urge to say, ‘And?’ hard to suppress.

‘The Leeds MO is similar to ours, so I won’t go into it. . but if you look at the dates of birth it means that the victims were all in the same school year, though not necessarily at the same school.’

‘Right.’ Henry still didn’t gee him along. He picked some flaky skin out of his right ear with his fingernail.

‘OK,’ Tope said. ‘Regarding the birthplaces: all three were born in Hyndburn — except they weren’t.’

Henry frowned.

‘I’ve dug through all the records I can and the thing is, their births were registered in Hyndburn, but all three were actually born in their houses in Belthorn, which is a village on the outskirts of Hyndburn, overlooking Blackburn. But it comes under Hyndburn, such are the vagaries of local authority boundaries, hence how the births were registered. Geographically, it’s nearer to Blackburn.’

‘I know Belthorn. Out on the moors.’

‘Exactly, a small place out in the wilds, but with two primary schools, Belthorn School and the Methodist School.’

Henry’s ring piece twitched, a sure sign of excitement.

‘So, yeah. . and you know I just said that just because they were the same age, it didn’t mean they went to the same school? Well guess what? They did all go to the same school — ta-dah! Belthorn School, to be precise. . they were all there in the same year. And, in fact, having trawled through the internet, I’ve even found a picture of the class they were in on some website dedicated to the history of the village. And all three are in it, sat there like little innocent babies.’

‘How old would they be?’

‘We’re talking about the late 1970s, so eleven. . just before they moved on to whichever high school they went to. I haven’t got that far yet.’

‘Two things. First, well done, Jerry. Second, why didn’t we know this already?’

Tope did not reply. In the background Henry heard a phone.

‘Just let me get that, Henry,’ Tope said, giving Henry a moment to take in this information. It was a relief of sorts: at least Lisa hadn’t been born in Belthorn, if that was the connection between the victims, even though she was in the right age group, and she hadn’t been at school in Belthorn, either. Like Henry, she’d been to school in Accrington. Not far away, but far enough.

Tope returned to the phone. ‘Henry, that was the FIM just bringing me up to speed with mispers. . I think we might have one that fits the bill. . let me get back to you.’