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limp.’
    He held up his hands in apology for the dodgy joke. Clarke declined his offer of a swig, so he placed the bottle precariously on the desk and stretched. ‘What a day. Well, Allen is right, the press will want a statement.’
    ‘Bloody farmer, couldn’t keep it to himself.’
    ‘No surprise, really, a town this size – not every day a limb pops up in a potato field.’
    He was right, of course, they’d be lucky if they could keep it under wraps for long. They sat in silence for a minute.
    ‘How was …’
    ‘This morning?’ Simms finished her dangling sentence. ‘Odd. Frost had left all the arrangements to Hanlon. Big Eagle Lane contingent – even Winslow from County – which seemed strange given that most of them hadn’t even met his missus.’
    ‘But you were all there to support Jack – surely that was the point?’
    ‘I guess.’ Simms’s tone was dismissive. ‘Still, I would’ve thought by now at least some of them would have made it back here. It’s nearly three and the place is like a graveyard, if you’ll excuse the pun.’
    Charles Pierrejean was glad to be outside the Simpson residence, however briefly. What a bunch of ignorant fuckwits, he thought, as he opened the car door to retrieve a fresh pack of Gauloises. Oh, you don’t sound like one of those Frogs – positively one of us, hawhaw! And all that crap about the World Cup … on a day like this. C’est incroyable . No respect. He was indeed as English as he was French, but when presented with such peasants he sunk into detached embarrassment.
    Pierrejean had been in Denton for six weeks. He had met the Braziers early last summer, in his father’s family-run restaurant in the Dordogne. It was there one evening that Julian had posited the idea of opening a business in Denton. Charles had a passion for antiques, inherited from his middle-class English mother, far greater than the one for cooking Pierrejean senior wished to instil in him; but it was a passion that went beyond the fringes of legality. England had been hard hit by recession, but, Brazier argued, the flipside was that leases had become cheap, and the well-heeled, who were more affluent than ever, were eager for something to put their money into. Denton had its fair share of nouveaux riches, such as Brazier’s own in-laws, the Simpsons, and was ripe for the taking, all it needed was someone with the right skills and contacts, such as he.
    Pierrejean was well-educated, cultured but unscrupulous; he and his business colleague, Gaston Camus, knew they could exploit the boorish upper-middle class of provincial Britain and were looking for an ‘in’. Somewhere out of the way, a place that wouldn’t draw attention to itself, and in particular that wouldn’t attract the scrutiny of the French authorities. Denton would be ideal.
    The Simpsons were exactly the kind of people Pierrejean and his shady contacts had in their sights. Thanks to over-inflated City salaries and bonuses enjoyed by Simpson and his ilk, they had money to burn and liked to advertise the fact with showy, expensive furniture and decor. However, the shop itself thus far was seeing little custom, hence he found himself here, cringing at a funeral wake of somebody he didn’t know, which had no sign of ending, and with the most bizarre collection of people he’d ever encountered in one place.
    He sniffed the English autumn air. Rain again. It was just coming up to three, and in the time it took to smoke his cigarette his hands were cold enough for him to wish he had gloves. What a miserable, wet country this is, he grumbled to himself, flicking soggy leaves off his Citroën windscreen. God, he thought, making his way back to the house, something better improve, either the weather or business – he could barely imagine anything more grim than a winter in Denton.

Thursday (4)
    Mullett knew he should leave the Rimmington house – it was growing dark outside – but then he stiffened upon noticing his