DC GERRY MASTERSON WALKED DOWN ELMET HILL TO talk to Granville Myers, who headed the local Neighborhood Watch. She had talked to Myers before, while investigating the attack on Lisa Bartlett, and thought it was unlikely that he or any of his team would know anything about the death of Howard Stokes. It had taken place beyond the park, in what might well have been a foreign country. But the visit still had to be made. The residents of the hill area were already complaining about the lack of police presence—hence the Neighborhood Watch—especially since Lisa’s sexual assault a month ago.

Elmet Hill was a strange area. For a start, on printed town maps the main road was always referred to as Elmet Street, but nobody ever called it that. The tree-lined hill that curved like a bow on its way from North Market Street down to Cardigan Drive was known to all as Elmet Hill, and along its path it radiated a number of winding side streets—a Close, a Terrace, a Crescent, a Way, among others—which made up the area locals referred to as simply “the hill.” It was not to be confused with The Heights, of course, Eastvale’s poshest enclave. Gerry had often thought how strange it was to have all three in a row, running downhill from east to west: richest, less rich, poor.

Beyond the small park at the bottom of Elmet Hill ran Cardigan Drive, and over the street stood the decaying and mostly empty streets of the doomed Hollyfield Estate. A popular pub called The Oak stood at the southeastern corner of Elmet Hill and Cardigan Drive, on the edge of the park, and its beer garden looked out on the trees and the narrow tributary of the River Swain that ran through the park.

The people fortunate enough to live in the pleasant, leafy streets around Elmet Hill were grateful for the short green belt that separated them from Hollyfield, and most people in the neighborhood were in favor of the new development, although the idea of Elmet Hill being extended through the park at the bottom to form a link with the proposed new shopping center was a bugbear. Nobody really wanted more traffic running up and down the hill, and nor did they want to lose their park. There were counterproposals, and the local citizens’ committee were hopeful they could get some changes made to the present plan.