'Drive on,' ordered Trotter.

As the car moved forward Pascoe said, 'You were telling me about Mr Trotter's career, sir.'

Aye, and I'm looking forward to telling you about yours, lad, thought Dalziel savagely.

He said, 'Not much more to tell. Spent so much time serving time, it soon worked out he were the only conscript left in Her Majesty's Army. Last bloody National Service Man. The Wyfies were almost proud of him!'

The Wyfies?'

The West Yorkshire Fusiliers.'

'Good Lord, I think they were the lot my great-grandfather served in.'

'You one of them army bastards? I might have known,' snarled Trotter.

'Hold on,' protested Pascoe. 'He got killed in the Great War, that's all the army connection I've got.'

'What the hell were he doing in the Wyfies?' demanded Dalziel accusingly. 'Got lost when he went to sign on, did he?'

'No, sir, I'm sorry to say he was a Yorkshireman. But we try to keep it quiet,' retorted Pascoe.

This near blasphemous insubordination momentarily caused Dalziel to forget the shotgun, but as he leaned forward to administer a just rebuke, Trotter screwed it in another quarter inch. This time Dalziel let out a gasp of pain as he subsided. And as his wrath faded, the thought came into his mind that probably both the insolence and the insouciance came from the same source. The boy was scared out of his tiny mind.

He found the thought quite comforting. Last thing a man up shit creek needs is a red-blooded hero willing to use his dick as a paddle.

And Pascoe thought: sitting there like Heckmondwyke's answer to Buddha, is he really as unfazed as he looks? Or is his brain so atrophied, he's simply incapable of appreciating the situation? What the blazes has he done to make this madman hate him so much? One thing's for certain: whatever it was, this isn't the time to bring it up!