The pub had been built in the sixties, at the same time as the estate. And it was in the same style. Squat and dull, with wooden panels beneath the windows, the rest of the walls prefab concrete. The reinforced glass door boasted a bright green poster announcing the week’s entertainment.

Race Nite – Tuesdays

Karaoke – Wednesdays

Bingo – Thursdays

She pulled the door open. Just inside was another sign:

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A DRUG-FREE ZONE. RESPECT.

‘We’re to believe that, are we?’ he whispered as they stood there and took in the surroundings.

‘You ain’t seen nothing. Come on.’

The main lounge was comfortable enough, with a pool table and dart board to one side, tables and chairs on the other side, and a long bar lined with lager pumps at the back. No real ale in sight. It wasn’t the kind of place that would have attracted him, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

There were a couple of dozen drinkers, well-inked young lads, some older blokes in baggy jogging pants, one or two in work clothes and boots. And every one of them watched, pint in hand, as the odd couple made their way through to the bar.

It was not until they got there that Joe realized: apart from Rita there was only one woman. She was standing on the other side of the counter, and she didn’t look happy to see them.

‘Evenin’,’ Rita said.

‘She’s not here,’ the woman said.

‘Joe, this is Karen Cullen,’ Rita said. ‘Pleased to see you too, Karen!’

Karen Cullen was in her fifties, short, trim, with spiky, inch-long dyed-blonde hair. She was not ugly, but her expression was. Joe knew it well. The expression of someone who spends their life on the hardened edges of life, where an air of tight-lipped nastiness is the best way of facing the day-to-day. Over the years he’d developed a kind of sympathy for people like this, especially women; once you got them into the interview room their vulnerabilities poured out of them like water from a tap.

‘Who’s not here?’ he said, pushing his warrant card part-way across the bar as discreetly as he could. ‘Joe Romano, Leeds CID.’

‘Lisa, who do you think? We heard. Boyfriend’s dead. Now you lot’re here causing more trouble for her.’

‘When did you last see her?’

The woman sighed. She looked at Joe, and just for an instant the hardness receded.

‘’Bout teatime. She came, told us and went.’

‘Did she say anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Craig Shaw,’ said Rita. ‘He’d been getting some aggro. That’s what we heard.’

‘Aye well, comes with the job, you’d’ve thought.’

‘You’d’ve thought?’ Rita said, and got a faceful of silent derision for her trouble. ‘OK, we’ll have a word later. Is the big man around?’

‘League meeting in the back.’

‘Right, let’s go.’

Joe already knew better than to argue. But then: