The first book in the Red Riding Quartet series, 2000

Friday 13 December 1974.

All we ever get is Lord fucking Lucan and wingless bloody crows,” smiled Gilman, like this was the best day of our lives.

Waiting for my first Front Page, the Byline Boy at last: Edward Dunford, North of England Crime Correspondent; two days too fucking late.

I looked at my father’s watch.

· AM and no bugger had been to bed; straight from the Press Club, still stinking of ale, into this hell:

The Conference Room, Millgarth Police Station, Leeds.

The whole bloody pack sat waiting for the main attraction, pens poised and tapes paused; hot TV lights and cigarette smoke lighting up the windowless room like a Town Hall boxing ring on a Late Night Fight Night; the paper boys taking it out on the TV set, the radios static and playing it deaf:

“They got sweet FA.”

“A quid says she’s dead if they got George on it.”

Khalid Aziz at the back, no sign of Jack.

I felt a nudge. It was Gilman again, Gilman from the Man chester Evening News and before.

“Sorry to hear about your old man, Eddie.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, thinking news really did travel fucking fast.

“When’s the funeral?”

I looked at my father’s watch again. “In about two hours.”

“Jesus. Hadden still taking his pound of bloody flesh then.”

“Yeah,” I said, knowing, funeral or no funeral, no way I’m letting Jack fucking Whitehead back in on this one.

“I’m sorry, like.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Seconds out:

A side door opens, everything goes quiet, everything goes slow. First a detective and the father, then Detective Chief Super intendent George Oldman, last a policewoman with the mother.