In Cleckheaton there was traffic. But only on the main road, and only passing through. There was an air of quiet desolation at this time of the day, as if those who worked here had all packed up and gone home in a rush, and now its empty Victorian buildings looked down, challenging your right to be here, daring you to stay. There was a faded grandeur, hints of an affluent past peeping out from behind bland, modern shopfronts; old buildings with clocks and classical stonework high up, but on the ground floor hair salons and pound shops. It was reminiscent of a seaside resort in winter, closed up against the cold, expecting nothing, promising nothing. But not threatening. Not a mean place. Almost kind, in its way.

Fortunately, the pub was nowhere near as desolate. It was about half-full, a decent Friday night crowd at the bar. Joe got himself a pint and chose a table by the window, in full view of the whole room. Kirklees District had agreed to cooperate on the Shaw murder. His new partner, DS Scannon, was supposed to be here, although he couldn’t see an obvious candidate. He checked his texts and nursed his drink for a minute or two.

Cleckheaton. He ran the word around in his mind. He’d only been here once before, ages ago, in search of the perfect pork pie after a tip-off about a butcher’s shop. He pulled up Google Maps. A few miles away was Batley. He’d been right about Lisa Cullen. Not long after he left her flat, she was seen driving off in a black BMW. An unmarked car had followed her to a pub in Batley, the registered landlord a Mr Daniel Cullen.

Joe was still thinking about pies when he noticed someone come into the pub. He wasn’t the only one. She didn’t actually push her way to the bar, it was more a matter of other drinkers making way for her, like the nervous dither of gazelles when a wildebeest stops by a watering hole in the Serengeti. She stood square on and waited to be served, arms out on the counter, head back, not a trace of patience in her substantial frame. And she made no sideways glance, no attempt to see if he was there.

He’d begun to think that perhaps it wasn’t her, when she got her drink and turned. Then there was no doubt about it. She walked over, a slight roll of the shoulders, a pint of lager in her hand. If he hadn’t been sitting snugly behind a bar table, he might have cowered, just a fraction.

‘Joe Romano, right? Gotta be. Rita Scannon.’