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three?”
    “It’s Ashraf’s investigation, Mike. We’re pooling information, that’s all.”
    “Boss, they’re not convinced we’re going in the right direction as it stands.”
    “Aren’t they?”
    “No. Janson was gobbing off about having to do the Khalid case all by herself.”
    “What you’d expect.”
    “Aye, but that’s a point too. She’s easily the weakest officer on the team, and she’s all Dave’s got to work with in the field.”
    “Yeah, I just–”
    “Didn’t want her messing up the Trevor case?”
    Renwick didn’t answer.
    “We’re overstretched as it is. Add this case to the load, you’ll make it worse.”
    “I can handle Janson.”
    “Sod Janson. It’s Banstead I’m thinking of. He gets a sniff there’s trouble at t’mill, he’ll throw you to the wolves. You know that.”
    “Wanna know something, Mike?”
    “Alright.”
    “I don’t give a shit, as long as we find Roseanne Trevor alive.”
    “And Tahira Khalid?”
    “Yes, her too.”
    “But Roseanne Trevor most of all.”
    “Yes! Alright?”
    “Is it though, boss? Alright, I mean?”
    “What do you want from me, Mike?”
    He was silent.
    “I can’t handle another Julie Baldwin, Mike. Just can’t.”
    “Boss–”
    “I know. I’m supposed to be objective. I’m being as objective as I can. But there is a link. I’m sure of that.”
    “Well... not me you’ve got to convince.”
    “You’re not happy, Mike, put in for a transfer. Or tell Banstead to pull me off the case.”
    “Don’t talk wet.” He was silent for a while. “Anyroad. Cracked the whip on Janson back at the station. Told her you knew what you were doing and to shut up and get on with the job.”
    Pause. “Thanks, Mike.”
    “Any time.”
    “No. Thank you.”

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    M ANCHESTER, SEVEN-THIRTY PM. The city centre was almost quiet; a lull between tides. The office workers had gone (except those who’d gone straight to the pub from work) and the late-night revellers were yet to arrive in force. The closest Vera came to liking the bastard North was times like this, when it seemed no-one was there.
    Outside the Opera House, Christmas lights glowing all along Quay Street, she smoked a cigarette and yearned for home; the house on the Downs, where nobody spoke with a Lancashire burr or said thee or thou . That was home now. Not here.
    In a few hours there’d be men bellowing threats at each other in the street; girls crying on steps, vomiting in gutters. Bestial: drink, fuck, fight, puke. The bastard North. The black sun.
    For an instant the hand that held the cigarette looked like a bird’s claw. She blinked, and it was a hand again. But she could see the skin drawn tight across the bones, the veins raised. Age always showed in the throat and hands, the wrists. God. How many years left? Morbid thoughts. It was coming back here that did it. This place. Everything she’d fled from was here; she could gladly turn her back on it, never return. But for Allen it was different. He came back, always, year on year.
    “Got to do it, sis,” he’d say. “Our bread and butter, this neck of the woods.” And yes, the pickings up here were rich, every time. But that wasn’t it, not really. He was like a moth, circling a lamp. Or a tongue probing a wound, unable to leave it alone to heal as best it might. They’d go to Manchester, to Liverpool – even, once, to Blackburn. But never to the heart of it; never to Shackleton Street and Adrian Walsh. Never to the Dunwich. Never to Kempforth. Orbiting the black sun, never flying into it. She could live with that. She thought.
    There was a steel box on the wall for spent cigarettes. Vera ground out the last of her Sobranie, dropped the extinguished stub into the box and went back inside. Tiny embers danced in the air, died before they touched the ground.
     
     
    T EN TO EIGHT. Backstage. Everything was ready. Vera heard the murmuring from the stalls. They loved him here. All those cow’s