the town. Here, it was all cul-de-sacs and crescents, sweeps of privet, indoor toilets, but it had divided the town, had become the escape route for the whites after the Asian influx in the sixties. Mosques and minarets were sprinkled amongst the warehouses and wharf buildings now, the call to prayer the new church bells, and so the Whitcroft estate had become white-flight for those who couldn’t afford the countryside.
Jack pondered all of this as he sat in his car, a 1973 Triumph Stag in Calypso Red. Young mothers walked their prams on a road that circled the estate. The morning sun gave the place a glow and highlighted the deep green of the hedges, the gleam of the brickwork, and brought out the vivid violets and pinks and reds of the flower baskets. He could hear laughs and screams from the local school, which he could see through some blue railings on the curve of the road.
But that was just gloss.
The entrance to the estate was marked by two rows of shops that faced each other across gum-peppered paving stones, making a funnel for the cold winds that blew in from the moors that the estate overlooked. A Chinese takeaway and a grocer occupied three units, along with a bookmaker’s and a post office. On the otherside, a launderette and a chemist. There were grilles on the windows and the doors looked old and dirty.
Behind the shops were blocks of housing, four houses to each small row, with pebble-dashed first floors and England stickers in the windows. Some had paint on the walls or wooden boards over the windows. They formed cul-de-sacs that were connected by privet-lined ginnels, so that the quick routes were the most dangerous. Crisp packets and old beer cans lodged themselves in the hedges.
There were small signs of affluence though. The streets were busy with workmen in overalls and young office girls heading out to work, calling in for newspapers or cigarettes at the grocer’s. There were porch extensions, gleaming double-glazing, new garden walls. The estate wasn’t just for lost causes. A private security van patrolled every thirty minutes, with bald men in black jackets who stared at Jack as they went past. Maybe Dolby wasn’t going to get the article he wanted.
Jack climbed out of his car and wandered towards the shop, looking for some local views. Outside the shop, a young mother stood over her pram with a cigarette in her hand, cheap gold flashing on each finger, her hair pulled back tightly.
Jack gave the door of the shop a push. It let out a tinkle as he went in, and he pretended to browse through the magazines until the shop became empty. He went to the counter.
The man behind it barely looked up. Middle-aged and with a cigarette-stained moustache, he was flicking through a newspaper and only stopped reading when Jack coughed.
‘Jack Garrett,’ he said, and tried a smile. ‘I’m a reporter, writing about the estate.’ He pointed towards the windows. ‘What’s it like for you, with the grilles and the bars?’
He stared at Jack, weighing up whether to answer or not. ‘The council ruined this place,’ he said, eventually.
‘How so?’
‘Because they turned it into a dumping ground,’ he said. ‘Have everyone in one place, so they said.’
‘Have you been here long?’
‘More than twenty years,’ he said. ‘I inherited it from my father, back when this was a decent place to live.’
‘What went wrong?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like people want to work anymore. The young girls get a house when they get pregnant, but the father never moves in. Or, at least, that’s what they tell everyone, but I see them leaving in the morning.’
‘I see people heading out to work,’ Jack said. ‘It doesn’t seem that destitute.’
‘There are still some people left that make me proud to live here, but it’s getting harder every day.’
‘Why is that?’
‘The kids,’ he said. ‘They hang around here all evening, circling customers on their bikes, asking people to buy their booze and fags for them, because I know most are too young. If I try and get rid of them, I get abuse. All my customers want is to come in and buy some milk or something, maybe some cans for later, but the kids put them off.’
‘Have you spoken to their parents?’ Jack said.
The shopkeeper gave a wry smile. ‘Drunk most of the time.’
Jack returned the smile and guessed his predicament. ‘You sell them the booze,’ he said.
‘They’d only go somewhere else for it. And they do mostly, stocking up on the three-for-two offers. They come here when they run out, or when they want to start early and don’t want to drive to the supermarket.’
‘Do the police come round much?’ Jack said.
The shopkeeper scoffed. ‘Hardly ever, and when they do, the kids treat it like a game, looking for a chase. They shout abuse and then starburst whenever the van doors open. Sometimes one of them trips and the police catch them, but nothing ever happens.’
‘Is that why the estate has private security?’ Jack said.
‘It makes people feel safer.’
‘Who pays for it?’
‘Whoever wants it.’
‘What about drugs?’ Jack said. ‘Could the police be doing more about that around here?’
‘No, not drugs around here,’ he said. ‘Maybe some weed, but it’s booze mainly. Always has been. I’m not saying that no one round here does drugs, but the kids that cycle around causing trouble aren’t on drugs. They’re pissed.’
‘You don’t paint a glowing picture,’ Jack said.
He nodded to the voice recorder in Jack’s hand. ‘And I bet you won’t either, by the time it makes the paper.’
When Jack started to protest, the shopkeeper jabbed his finger at the paper. ‘I read them as well as sell them, and I’ve seen the way the Telegraph has gone.’ Then he returned to whatever had occupied his attention before.
Jack turned away, frustrated, and left the shop. He watched the cars heading in and out of the estate. They were mainly old Vauxhalls and Fords, most driven by young men who didn’t look like they could afford the insurance. His phone buzzed in his pocket. When he checked the screen and saw that it was Dolby, he thought about not answering, but he knew he needed to keep on Dolby’s good side.
He pressed the button. ‘Dolby, what can I do for you?’
‘There’s been another murder,’ he said, his voice a little breathless. ‘A young woman.’
Jack paused as he tried to work out what he meant, but then his mind flashed back to the young woman found in a pipe by the reservoir on the edge of town a few weeks earlier, a gruesome find for a father and son on an angling trip.
‘Whereabouts?’
Dolby told him, and Jack realised that he was only half a mile away.
‘Do you want me to cover it?’ Jack said.
‘I’m
