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senseless then pissing on him as he lay on the ground. Or they’d drive him to some desolate, out of town location in the middle of night and leave him there, beaten and disorientated, to find his way back. Eventually they kicked him to death and dumped his body in the river. Two coppers from the old police HQ at Millgarth.
    Then there was the Yorkshire Ripper. The long, desperate search for Sutcliffe was coordinated from the same building, Millgarth’s old rafters straining under the weight of tons of paperwork, the place run through with desperation and chaos, an entire police force going after one man, and going mad in the process. And they only got him by chance. After that it was torn down. The new Millgarth: hard but honest, the face of modern policing, helping to draw a line under the Oluwale affair. Still called
Millgarth
, though. That’s what they should have changed; the name, not the building.
    John waits in one of four plastic seats bolted to the floor in the station’s small public entrance. On the wall behind him is a framed photo of Sergeant John Speed, fallen in the line of duty, 1984. He remembers it well. They’d been told about it at school, a moment of civic grief in a year of hatred, the miners’ strike tearing Yorkshire apart, just a few years after the Ripper had done the same.
    It’s strange, he thinks as he re-reads the inscription to Sergeant Speed’s gallantry, that he’s always admired the police, despite the fact that they’ve been trying to put his dad behind bars for as long as he can remember. And there are plenty more heroes in the force, alongside the fallen ones. Den for one. She was there for him the night Joe was killed and she’s been there for him ever since. There’s heroism in that.
    What now, though? Young female detective sleeping with John Ray? He wouldn’t blame Den if she ended it.
Think of your career
, someone’s gotta be whispering into her ear at this very minute.
Don’t throw it all away, Den, not for scum like that.
He wouldn’t blame her, either. Probably best for both of them, one way and another.
    He’s been told to wait for Detective Inspector Baron. Familiar name. Steve Baron led the investigation into Joe’s murder. That night two years ago: Den was first on the scene, Constable Danson as she was then, but Baron arrived not long after, sprinting over from Millgarth as soon as the shooting was called in.
Bad on bad
, they call it, criminal on criminal. A lot happened that night, though. Bad
and
good. He met Den, for one thing. But was it good for her, in the long run? Perhaps only bad comes from bad if you’re police.
    Den made it out of uniform after the Joe Ray case, and Baron became her boss. She’s mentioned him a few times since: good copper, not too great on compassion. CID are a funny bunch, though. They can show unending respect for the biggest arsehole in plain clothes if he’s good at his job. And Baron is good. Den never mentions him with much warmth, but a certain admiration lies close to the surface. Most young DCs would be well pleased if their careers went the way of Baron’s.
    The Inspector arrives. Nods a good morning. Hardly opens his mouth. No hand shake. Straight through the double doors.
    They take the first interview room they come to, sit on either side of a bare table, just like in the TV dramas. In normal circumstances John might make a comment. But nothing’s gonna be normal now, not with the Mondeo gone.
    Baron’s slightly sharp mid-blue suit complements his extra-short hair. Both are meant to make him look intelligent, hard and hungry. It works, up to a point. The hair, though, is also meant to disguise a receding hairline. He can only be mid-thirties, if that.
    “You’ve already met DC Steele,” Baron says as all three men take their seats.
    Across the table, Steele’s face is sallow, his mouth slightly twisted, as if he’s stifling the urge to vomit. After a while John realises that it’s his natural