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they’re quite a popular band,” he said finally, “but they haven’t got half the following of the Beatles.”
    â€œThe Beetles?” Woodend repeated. “As in Colorado beetles – the marrow grower’s worst nightmare, the Ghenghis Khans of the cabbage patch?”
    If there was a joke in there somewhere Hopgood couldn’t see it, and merely shook his head.
    â€œNot beetles like that, sir,” he said. “Beatles – with an ‘a’. They’re the real stars around Liverpool, but they’re away performing somewhere in Germany at the moment.”
    Woodend turned to his sergeant. “Should I have heard of these Beatles, Bob?” he asked.
    Rutter shrugged. “Probably not, sir. It’s certainly a new name to me.”
    Woodend took another sip of his drink. “Is this club . . . this Cellar place . . . open again now?” he asked Hopgood.
    â€œYes, sir. Forensics gave it the all clear yesterday.”
    â€œThen I think I’ll go have a look at it.”
    Hopgood glanced down at his wristwatch. “It’d be better to leave it for an hour or two, sir.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œIt’s dinnertime. The place’ll be full of kids right now.”
    â€œThen I’d say right now is
exactly
the right time to pay it a visit,” Woodend told him.
    Looking up, Woodend could see the tops of the grim Victorian warehouses, their brickwork blackened by a hundred years of industrial soot, their iron pulleys hanging from upper-storey doors like sinister gibbets. Looking down he could see the cobbles, worn smooth and shiny, first by horses’ hooves, and then by pneumatic tyres. This street would have looked exactly the same in Charles Dickens’ time, he thought, and maybe the great man had actually walked along it while the plot for one of his magnificent novels was still buzzing around in his head. It made the chief inspector shiver just to think about it.
    Outside the door he was heading for stood a young man in a cheap suit. He was around twenty-four, Woodend guessed. He had the body of a weightlifter, and the look of a man who would never knowingly walk away from a fight. He showed no interest in the chief inspector until it became obvious that Woodend was intending to enter the club, then he took two steps to the left to bar the way.
    â€œThis is a private club,” Rick Johnson said. He sneered. “Anyway, it wouldn’t be of any interest to an old feller like you. I mean, there aren’t any strippers or mucky goin’s on.”
    Always nice to get off on the right foot with somebody, Woodend thought. He put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out his warrant card.
    Johnson examined it suspiciously. “You don’t look like a chief inspector,” he said.
    â€œAn’ you don’t look like the kind of door keeper you’d usually find outside a nice little dance club like this,” Woodend countered. “Have a lot of trouble in there, do you?”
    â€œNah,” Johnson said dismissively. “I have to tell somebody to leave once in a while, but it never gets as far as throwin’ punches. Most of the customers are girls anyway, an’ what lads we do get are pencil pushers from the shippin’ companies, an’ couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.”
    â€œSo why you?” Woodend asked.
    â€œYou what?”
    â€œWhy employ a heavy when one isn’t needed?”
    The question seemed to embarrass Rick Johnson, and for a few seconds he groped for an answer. Then he said, “I asked Mrs Pollard for the job, an’ she gave it to me.”
    â€œAn’ what were you doin’ before that?”
    â€œYou ask a lot of questions,” Johnson said aggressively.
    â€œI know,” Woodend agreed. “It’s what I get paid for.” He pulled out his packet of Capstan Full Strength, and offered one to Johnson, who refused.