‘I ran into the lad who worked for him. Gary Dawson. Gary used to help Warren Leach with the milking and stuff, but he said he’d just walked out on him. He said Warren was in a terrible temper all the time these days. So I decided not to go up to Ringham Edge. He can be an awkward bugger at the best of times, Warren. In a temper, he’s nasty. I can do without that.’

‘And what about Totley? Do you know it?’ asked Cooper.

‘I know it.’

‘Not many farmers up there. Not much ratting to do.’

‘I do all sorts of jobs.’

Weenink was peering through the back windows of the van. They were painted over, but some of the paint had flaked off on the inside, and there were a few small gaps where the glass was clear.

‘What’s the going rate for scrap metal then, these days?’ he asked.

‘Hey,’ said Teasdale, whose attention had been on Cooper. ‘What are you doing there?’

‘Scrap, eh?’ said Cooper. ‘The lady at Totley was right, then.’

‘It’s legal,’ said Teasdale sullenly.

Cooper nodded. ‘It depends how you go about it,’ he said. And Teasdale scowled at him.

‘Are you sure you weren’t at Ringham Edge Farm?’ asked Weenink.

‘It would be helpful all round if we could eliminate you,’ said Cooper.

Teasdale kicked the nearest tyre of his van. A few lumps of mud fell out of the tread. ‘All right. Gary Dawson told me it’d be a waste of time, but I went up there anyway. I need the money I get from jobs like that. They pay me next to nothing here, and it won’t last forever. You have to take the work where you can find it.’

‘That’s a bit more like it,’ said Cooper. ‘Now we know where we are. What time was this?’

‘About half past two, maybe.’

‘And were you at the farm long?’

‘Five minutes. Just long enough for Leach to give me a mouthful of abuse. I wasn’t standing for that, so I cleared off. I know things are bad up there, but there’s no excuse for that, is there?’

It was getting dark by the time Martin Stafford was brought into Divisional Headquarters at West Street. Stafford hadn’t seemed surprised to see the police outside the door of his flat in Congleton. In fact, he had made a point of taking a careful note of their names and numbers from their warrant cards, as if they had brought him information that would be useful.