Salamanca.’

‘Not with you, Jack.’

‘Not many are, Arthur, not many are,’ Frost said, feeling suddenly very alone.

Detective Constable Derek Simms, having dropped off DS Waters in Denton High Street, now found himself snarled up in traffic. He regarded the almost black Georgian buildings that lined the northern perimeter of Market Square; he’d never before stopped to consider how filthy the place was. Perhaps it really was turning into a dump, as his mother constantly bemoaned. Denton’s former glory as a very pretty market town seemed a distant shadow, not that he’d remember – his parents always complained how it had been ruined by a splurge of building in the mid 1960s, transforming it into what government officials called a ‘new town’, the purpose of which was to generate new business and industry. Much of that ‘transformation’ started and finished with the Southern Housing Estate, a sprawling urban mess of council houses, purpose built for the London over-spill. Twenty years later, Denton’s population had swelled and with it a tide of crime and unemployment, but very little in the way of increased prosperity, leaving the town very much the poorer relation to upmarket Rimmington, which remained untouched by the developers’ hands. Not that Simms minded. The more crime, the more experience for him and the more fun the job; though he could curse the bleeding traffic. Given the recession and high unemployment, why were there so many motors on the road?

And he needed a pee, badly. Prior to dropping Waters off the pair had stopped in at the Bird in Hand, to shake off the solemnity of the church service, and to warm up – St Mary’s had been cold as a tomb. They’d reflected on how depressing it all was. Dead at thirty-six. Although, being only twenty-four, thirty seemed old to Derek Simms.

Frost had invited them both back to his in-laws’ house for what by the sounds of it was going to be a full-blown wake, lasting the whole day, but they excused themselves on account of being technically on duty, even though Waters had arranged to see his girlfriend and view a flat. After only six months the pair were moving in together. Jesus, talk about a whirlwind romance. Wouldn’t catch me doing that, Simms snorted, fumbling in his pocket for cigarettes. He figured the big man was on the rebound from his recent divorce, but wouldn’t dream of saying so. They certainly had tongues wagging around Eagle Lane; interracial relationships were unheard of, especially within the police force. John Waters, the token black member of the Denton force, and diminutive blonde Kim Myles turned heads on a daily basis.

As Simms waited for the lights to change, Morrison’s, the undertakers, caught his eye, causing him to reflect again on the morning. He had seen Mary Frost only once, years ago, when she had stormed into the station late one night demanding to know where the hell Jack was. She’d been pretty but scary, with bright red lipstick and elaborate 1950s-style hair – fiery but somehow still quite cute. She clearly thought Frost had been out all night misbehaving; it transpired he’d been sleeping in the cells. That was marriage for you.

He turned on the police radio, feeling slightly guilty that he hadn’t done it sooner, but then for all Johnson knew he was still at the funeral. Within minutes it crackled into life.

‘Yep, Simms here.’

‘Where the dickens have you been?’ Johnson sounded out of sorts.

‘At the funeral, Sarge, along with everybody else. What’s wrong, the daylight not agreeing with you?’

‘Less of your lip, laddy. The service was over an hour ago. You were supposed to be on call after that. You’re needed; Sue Clarke has gone off straight from her nightshift to check out what might be a human foot in one of Nev Sanderson’s fields. And that’s not the half of it.’

‘Eh?’ Simms scratched his head. ‘OK, sorry, it was hard to get away – you know how it is at these things.