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hopeless and the city’s newest arrivals. Only the immigrants ever escaped its dead-end streets.
    Finally, in one of the last hurrahs of the twentieth century, Bradfield city council had decreed that Gartonside was to be bulldozed and replaced with a planned housing estate of more spacious houses with parking spaces at the front and tiny gardens at the rear. A decade later, the first phase – the emptying of existing residents and the demolition of their former homes – was not yet complete. There were still a handful of streets in the shadow of Bradfield Victoria’s vast stadium where residents lingered on. And beyond them, a huddle of houses were boarded up, waiting for the wrecking crews to reduce them to rubble.
    Paula’s satnav still believed in the streets of Gartonside, which made her even later to the crime scene. By the time she reached Rossiter Street, the perimeter was well established with festoons of crime-scene tape and stony-faced uniforms in high-vis jackets. She added her car to the impromptu parking lot at the end of the street and logged into the scene. ‘Where’s DCI Fielding?’
    The constable with the clipboard nodded towards a mobile incident room parked further down the street. ‘In the van, getting suited and booted for the scene.’
    That was a relief. Not quite as late as she feared. When she’d finally said goodbye to Torin and found her way to the CID squad room, Paula had been taken aback by the absence of bodies. Instead of the usual buzz of chat and phone conversations there was a preternatural quiet broken only by the mutter of laptop keys struck by a couple of heavy-fingered operatives.
    The one nearest the door looked up and raised his unruly eyebrows. ‘You must be the new skip, right? McIntyre, yeah?’
    Paula was tempted to slap him down with a quick Sergeant McIntyre to you , but she didn’t know the lay of the land yet so she settled for, ‘And you are?’
    He pushed a thick fringe of black hair back from his shiny forehead. ‘Detective Constable Pat Cody.’ He gave an expansive sweep of his arm. ‘And this is Skenfrith Street CID. Only, most of the firm are on a shout. A murder, down Gartonside.’
    So much for hopes of a quiet day. ‘Is that where DCI Fielding is?’
    Cody gave a twisted little smile. ‘Got it in one. And she’s not very happy that her new bag man isn’t with her.’ The caterpillar eyebrows rose again. He was enjoying himself.
    Paula wasn’t about to explain herself to him. ‘You got an address for me?’
    ‘Rossiter Street, Gartonside.’
    ‘Do we have a number?’
    He smirked. ‘The numbers fell off those doors years ago. The houses are boarded up, waiting for the council budget to afford bulldozers. You’ll recognise the crime scene from the activity.’
    And so she had. Paula dodged the puddles and potholes and climbed the metal steps into the mobile incident room. As she entered, a tiny woman wrestling her body into a white protective suit paused to look her up and down. ‘McIntyre?’
    Clearly the standard form of address in this firm. ‘That’s right. DCI Fielding?’
    ‘That’s me. Nice of you to join us. Get suited up, quick as you like.’ There was something bird-like about Fielding. It wasn’t simply her size or her fine-boned appearance. Her eyes darted around, even as she climbed into her suit, and there was a quick jerkiness to her movements that made Paula think of a blackbird raiding the earth for worms.
    ‘I was taking a witness statement. Misper.’ Paula checked the pile of J-suits. Fielding had snaffled the only small. She settled for a medium and began the inconvenient process of getting into it.
    ‘That’s a bit beneath your pay grade.’ Fielding’s Scottish accent was the honey-seductive rather than the half-brick aggressive sort.
    ‘I happened to recognise the teenager who was reporting. I’ve actually met his mother. I thought it would save time if I dealt with it since the front counter was sticking to