“So how did he get there and where did he come from?” asked DC Gerry Masterson.

“That we don’t know,” admitted Banks. “And we need answers. Out of town, most likely, I’d say. There aren’t any Middle Eastern families living in Eastvale, as far as I know. It’s possible he was a student, I suppose, but I’d say he was too young to be at the college. Again, that can be easily checked. He may have been visiting friends in the area. Something else we’ll have to follow up on. Wherever he’s from, someone dumped him on our patch and it’s our job to find out who. We’ve got an appeal out with the media, so someone will have to collate the responses, should any come in. The ACC has authorized a working budget, AC Gervaise has okayed overtime and civilian staff to man the murder room, and we have extra uniformed officers pounding the streets.

“Mrs. Grunwell, in whose wheelie bin the body was found, says that she put the rubbish out at ten o’clock on Sunday night, as usual, and she heard a car nearby between eleven and eleven-thirty that same night. She also thought she heard someone kick or bump into the bin about the same time. She’s eighty-five, but in my estimation, we can take her as a reliable witness on these points. We also got confirmation of the car and the bump from two other houses at that end of the street, so we can probably accept that the body was dumped between eleven o’clock and eleven-thirty on Sunday night. Not so late that there might not have been someone about, but it was a Sunday, and things tend to get quiet fairly early then, even on the East Side Estate. What we don’t know, in addition to who dumped him, of course, is where he came from or how far he was driven. Gerry, any theories?”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to drive very far with a body in your boot, would you, guv? Or in your back seat. I mean, you might get pulled over for speeding or driving through a red light or something. It’s risky. There’d also be traces in the car. Blood, for a start, if he was stabbed. You know how hard it is to get rid of those sorts of things completely.”

“You’re saying you think he wasn’t transported far, then?”

“That would be my guess.”

Banks nodded. “OK. Sounds reasonable.”

“That may indicate that whoever did it knows the area,” said Annie. “Its reputation. Knows that we might not be too surprised to find a dead drug user dumped there.”

“Good point.”

“What about CCTV?” Gerry asked.

“There isn’t any functioning CCTV on the East Side Estate and not a hell of a lot nearby, either. Right now, it’s important for us to keep circulating the computer-generated photo. We’ve already been sending copies around the media and liaising with local police and representatives from Middle Eastern communities and mosques in Bradford, Dewsbury, Leeds, Huddersfield and other nearby towns and cities. The problem is that we don’t know whether he’s from Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or any of the dozen or more other countries that make up what we call the Middle East. We don’t even know if he was a Muslim, though we are making inquiries in mosques. It could be a lengthy process, or we could get lucky.” Banks paused and sipped at his bitter, tepid coffee. “We also need to know why he was dumped. And perhaps more specifically, why he was dumped in Eastvale.”