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the lad in short trousers who’d gone bird nesting with this constable in Sparrows’ Copse, long ago. Now he was the new Woodend – a Scotland Yard man who was only in Whitebridge to solve a crime that the locals seemed unable to solve themselves.
    But even taking the change in circumstances into account, you could still push things too far.
    â€˜It’s good to see you, an’ all, Sid,’ he said, patting the other man on the shoulder. He grinned. ‘So, is this a chance meetin’ – or are you here to make us feel like VIPs?’
    â€˜I’m here to take you to police headquarters, sir,’ PC Sid Smart said, looking, as he spoke, at Bannerman, to see if he’d got the tone right. ‘Mr Sanderson said he wanted to see you the moment you arrived.’
    Aye, Woodend thought, he probably had.
    â€˜They tell me you’re a local chap, Mr Woodend,’ the chief constable said, gesturing to the two men from London to take a seat in front of his desk. ‘If that’s the case, it’s surprising we’ve never run into each other before.’
    No, it isn’t – not really, Woodend thought. Not when you remember that my dad worked in a mill, and your dad was the part-owner of one.
    â€˜Yes, that is strange,’ he said aloud.
    â€˜You, on the other hand, definitely remind me of someone, Sergeant Bannerman,’ the chief constable continued. ‘You’re not related to Samuel Bannerman, the polo player, by any chance?’
    â€˜Yes, sir, he’s my father,’ Bannerman said.
    â€˜Is he, by God! He has a damn fine seat, your father. We played against his team at Hurlingham once, and they gave us a real thrashing.’
    Bannerman smiled. ‘My father does like to win,’ he admitted.
    â€˜Indeed he does,’ Sanderson agreed. ‘And I should imagine that you take after him.’
    The whole conversation was getting far too cosy – far too tea-and-cucumber-sandwiches – for Woodend’s liking.
    â€˜Do you think we could talk about the Lilly Dawson murder now, sir?’ he suggested.
    â€˜Yes, I suppose it is time we got down to discussing the more unsavoury aspects of life,’ the chief constable conceded – though he did still manage to look slightly offended at being pushed into it quite so quickly. ‘Let me start by laying down what I consider to be the ground rules.’
    â€˜All right,’ Woodend agreed cautiously.
    â€˜While I’m more than willing to assist with your investigation in any way I can, I hope you’ll be able to appreciate that, with a second major murder case on my hands, my resources are somewhat stretched,’ Sanderson said.
    He sounded as if he was addressing a press conference, rather than talking to colleagues, Woodend thought.
    And Bannerman obviously felt that too, because he leant forward, rested his hands on the chief constable’s desk, and – with a cold edge to his voice that Woodend had never heard before – said, ‘With respect, sir, we’re not here by our own choice – we came because you requested us to,’
    â€˜I . . . err . . . beg your pardon, Sergeant?’ the chief constable said, clearly taken aback.
    â€˜We’re here to do the job you asked us to do, and in return we have every right to expect you to provide us with everything we need to see that job through to the end,’ Bannerman amplified.
    The lad certainly wasn’t lacking in confidence, Woodend thought, and – in a way – it was a pleasure to watch him cutting this stuffed-shirt down to size. But however ineffective it might turn out to be, they did still need the chief constable’s cooperation.
    â€˜I don’t expect we’ll require a great deal of help from your officers, sir,’ he interjected quickly, before the chief constable had time to express the outrage which was probably building up inside him.