He looked out of the window, but couldn’t see much on the street. The lights from Hollowgate and the windows of the Market Square pubs reflected off the wet pavements and refracted through the drizzle that had started falling just before dusk. Eight o’clock, and the centre of Edendale looked deserted. The car park by the town hall was almost empty.

Cooper knew all the warnings about forming a relationship with another police officer. When it was someone of a different rank that you worked with closely, it was definitely a problem. But this wasn’t another police officer. Close, though, in a way.

Finally, the door opened and the waiter hurried over. She looked around the restaurant, saw him immediately, and smiled. Cooper waved. He put down his menu and stood up as the waiter brought her to the table. They kissed chastely on the cheek. Her skin was cool and slightly damp from the rain.

‘I’m not late, am I?’

‘No.’

She was wearing tailored cream trousers, but he was used to seeing her in trousers. She looked a lot better than when she was bundled up in one of those thick blue sweaters the SOCOs wore, or a white paper crime-scene suit. Very unflattering.

‘You look great, Liz,’ he said.

The back wall of Hudson and Slack’s vehicle compound bordered the railway line where it ran through a cutting between Fargate and Castleton Road. Later that night, after the last train had passed through Edendale, three figures in hooded sweatshirts made their way along the cutting. They moved confidently, as if sure there would be no one to observe them from the industrial units on the other side of the line.

When they reached the compound, the biggest of the three men used a pair of bolt cutters to open a gap in the weld-mesh fence, and they clambered over the wall. Within a few minutes, they had jemmied open a rear door of the funeral director’s, with only a splintering of wood and the occasional grunt of effort. Then the company’s new security system activated, and the burglar alarm began to scream. But no one was interested in committing burglary.

No one spoke as they entered a store room. Two of them kicked open inner doors, while the third swilled petrol from a plastic container on to the floor and furniture, drenching a stack of chairs and a spare desk, spraying fuel into the adjoining rooms as far as he could reach. Then he lit a petrol- soaked rag and tossed it through the doorway as his companions ran out.

With a dull roar, a blaze flared instantly. Flames engulfed the store room and burst from the open door to lick at the stones of the outside wall. Windows cracked as air was sucked in and drew the blaze deeper into the building. Paintwork scorched as the building filled with billowing black clouds. A smoke alarm burst into life and added its noise to the security system. The three men moved with sudden urgency as they raced back across the compound towards the wall.