Finally, the cortege was ready. The four of them piled into the sleek black limousine the home provided and followed the hearse through streets of dark millstone-grit houses to the cemetery. In the distance, tall mill chimneys poked out between the hills.

After a short service, they all trooped outside for the graveside ceremony. Frank loosened his tie so he could breathe more easily. The vicar droned on: “In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased? Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts…” A fly that must have been conned into thinking it was still summer buzzed by his face. He brushed it away.

Steven stepped forward to cast a clod of earth down on the coffin. The vicar read on: “For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to receive unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed…” It should have been Josie dropping the earth, Frank thought. Steven never did get on with the kid. At least Josie had loved her son once, before they grew apart, and she must still feel a mother’s love for him, a love which surely passes all understanding and forgives a multitude of sins.

All of a sudden, Frank noticed Josie look beyond his shoulder and frown through her tears. He turned to see what it was. There, by the line of trees, stood about ten people, all wearing black polo-necks made of some shiny material, belts with silver buckles and black leather jackets, despite the warmth of the day. Over half had skinhead haircuts. Some wore sunglasses. The tall, gaunt one looked older than the rest, and Frank immediately guessed him to be the leader.

They didn’t have to announce themselves. Frank knew who they were. As sure as he knew Jason was dead and in his grave. He had read the tract. As the vicar drew close to the end of his service, the leader raised his arm in a Nazi salute, and the others followed suit.

Frank couldn’t help himself. Before he could even think about what he was doing, he hurried over and grabbed the leader. The man just laughed and brushed him off. Then, as Frank attempted to get at least one punch in, he was surrounded by them, jostling, pushing, shoving him between one another as if he were a ball, or as if they were playing “pass the parcel” at some long-ago children’s party. And they were laughing as they pushed him, calling him “Granddad” and “Old man.”

Frank flailed out, but he couldn’t break away. All he saw was a whirl of grinning faces, shorn heads and his own reflection in the dark glasses. The world was spinning too fast, out of control. He was too hot. His tie felt tight again, even though he had loosened it, and the pain in his chest came on fast, like a vise gripping his heart and squeezing.

He stumbled away from the group, clutching his chest, the pain spreading like burning needles down his left arm. He thought he could see Maureen laying into one of youths with a piece of wood. He could just hear her through the ringing and buzzing in his ears. “Leave him alone, you bullies! Leave him alone, you fascist bastards! Can’t you see he’s an old man? Can’t you see he’s poorly?”

Then something strange happened. Frank was lying on the ground now, and, gently, slowly, he felt himself begin to float above the pain, or away from it, more like, deeper into himself, detached and light as air. Yes, that was it, deeper into himself. He wasn’t hovering above the scene looking down on the chaos, but far inside, seeing pictures of himself in years long gone.

A number of memories flashed through his mind: flak bursting all around the bomber like bright flowers blooming in the night, as Frank seemed to hang suspended above it all in his gun turret; the day he proposed to Edna on their long walk home in the rain after the Helmthorpe spring fair; the night his only daughter, Josie, was born in Eastvale General Infirmary while Frank was stuck in Lyndgarth, without even a telephone then, cut off from the world by a vicious snowstorm.

But his final memory was one he had not thought of in decades. He was five years old. He had trapped his finger in the front door, and he sat on the freshly scoured stone step crying, watching the black blood gather under the fingernail. He could feel the warmth of the step against the backs of his thighs and the heat of his tears on his cheeks.

Then the door opened. He couldn’t see much more than a silhouette because of the bright sunlight, but as he shaded his eyes and looked up, he knew it was the loving, compassionate, all-healing figure of his mother bending over to sweep him up into her arms and kiss away the pain.

Then everything went black.

“Ah, Banks. Here you are at last.”

As soon as he heard the voice behind him on his way back to his office from the coffee machine, Banks experienced that sinking feeling. Still, he thought, it had to happen sometime. Might as well get it over with. Gird his loins. At least he was on his own turf.

Their enmity went back for some time; in fact, Banks thought, it probably started the moment they met. Riddle was one of the youngest chief constables in the country, and he had come up the fast way, “accelerated promotion” right from the start. Banks had made DCI fairly young, true, but he had made it the hard way: sheer hard slog, a good case clearance record and a natural talent for detective work. He didn’t belong to any clubs or have any wealthy contacts; nor did he have a university degree. All he had was a diploma in business studies from a polytechnic – and that from the days before they were all turned into second-string universities.

For Riddle, it was all a matter of making the right contacts, mouthing the correct buzzwords; he was a bean-counter, at his happiest looking over budget proposals or putting a positive spin on crime figures on “Look North” or “Calendar.” As far as Banks was concerned, Jimmy Riddle hadn’t done a day’s real policing in his life.

Hand on the doorknob, Banks turned. “Sir?”

Riddle kept advancing on him. “You know what I’m talking about, Banks. Where the hell do you think you’ve been these past few days? Trying to avoid me?”

“Wouldn’t think of such a thing, sir.” Banks opened the door and stood aside to let Riddle in first. The chief constable hesitated for a moment, surprised at the courtesy, then stalked in. As usual, he didn’t sit but started prowling about, touching things, straightening the calendar, eyeing the untidy pile of papers on top of the filing cabinet, looking at everything in that prissy, disapproving way of his.

He was immaculately turned out. He must have a clean uniform for each day, Banks thought, sitting behind his rickety metal desk and reaching for a cigarette. However strict the anti-smoking laws had become lately, they still hadn’t stretched as far as a chief inspector’s own office, where not even the chief constable could stop him.

To his credit, Riddle didn’t try. He didn’t even make his usual protest. Instead, he launched straight into the assault that must have been building pressure inside him since Monday. “What on earth did you think you were doing bringing in those Asian kids and throwing them in the cells?”

“You mean George Mahmood and his mates?”

“You know damn well who I mean.”

“Well, sir,” said Banks, “I had good reason to suspect they were involved in the death of Jason Fox. They’d been seen to have an altercation with him and his pal earlier in the evening at the Jubilee, and when I started to question George Mahmood about what happened, he asked for a solicitor and clammed up.”

Riddle ran his hand over his shiny head. “Did you have to lock all three of them up?”

“I think so, sir. I simply detained them within the strict limits of the PACE directive. None of them would talk to us. As I said, they were reasonable suspects, and I wanted them where I could see them while forensic tests on their clothing were being carried out. At the same time, Detective Sergeant Hatchley was trying to locate any witnesses to the assault.”