I parked the car in a pay and display behind the National Film and Television Museum. I walked round to the museum foyer and found a telephone booth which miraculously contained a phone book. I looked up the Seagull Project, and copied its address and number into my notebook. I checked my watch and decided I deserved a coffee, so I walked upstairs to the coffee bar and settled myself down in a window seat looking out over the city center.

The pale spring sun had broken through the gray clouds, and the old Victorian buildings looked positively romantic. Built on the sweatshops of the wool industry, the once prosperous city had fought its urban decay and depression by jumping on the tourism bandwagon that’s turning England into one gigantic theme park. Now that the nearby Yorkshire countryside had been translated into The Brontë Country, Bradford had seized its opportunity with both hands. Even the biscuits in the tearooms and snack bars are called Brontë. But it was the Asian community who’d really revitalized the city’s slum areas, producing oases of industrial and wholesaling prosperity. I’d been around a few of those in the past few weeks, hot on the trail of Billy Smart’s personal mobile circus.

I tore my eyes away from the view and looked up the Seagull Project’s address in my street directory. Stick’s information was sound so far. The street was third on the left, off the hill that climbed up the side of the Alhambra Theater. I finished my coffee and set out on foot.

Five minutes later, I was outside two three-story stone-built terraced houses that had been knocked together with a board on the front proclaiming “Seagull Project.” I stood around uncertainly for a few minutes, not at all sure what was the best way to play

I eventually settled on my course of action. More lies. If my childhood Sunday School teacher ever finds out about me, she’ll put me straight to the top of the list for the burning fire. I walked up the path and turned the door handle. I walked into a clean, airy hallway painted white with gray carpeting. A large sign pointing to the left read “All visitors please report to reception.”