"Yeah. Want to go see her?"
"We might as well. She may give us a different perspective on the cosy world of Grainger's superstores."
Sylvan Fields is a rambling estate on the edge of Heckley, although it might be more accurate to say that Heckley is a small industrial and market town on the edge of the Sylvan Fields estate. Most of the houses date from the between-the-wars era, built for heroes, what was left of them, in a wave of compassion and social engineering. All went well for a couple of generations, but by the seventies the decline was well under way and accelerating. Nobody knows what the mechanism is, although thousands of theses have been written on the subject. Greater freedom, less respect for authority, prosperity, poverty, lower morals, breakdown of family life? Who can say? Alcohol and drugs, the advent of the motor car? Rock and roll and the Pill?
How about Y-fronts? Perhaps the decline in standards and increased tendency for violence, particularly amongst young men, was brought about by something as simple as the introduction and widespread use of snug-fitting underwear, causing the testes to overheat with the subsequent over-production of testosterone. Thinking about it, I could not rfecall a single case of a burglar or mugger being described by witnesses as wearing a kilt.
Dave passed me his notebook and I found the address. "28, Windermere Drive," I told him. "Know where it is?"
"No problem."
"Anywhere near where you lived?"
"No, we were at the rough end. Shirley lived in the next street, Buttermere Drive."
I didn't speak as Dave negotiated the estate, avoiding the bricks that strewed the road and the various wheeled devices dotted about the place like exhibits in a sculpture park: old prams, shopping trolleys and a couple of burnt-out cars. A dog chased out of a gateway at our car, then changed its mind and trotted back whence it came. There was a community centre on a corner that I'd seen a picture of in the Heckley Gazette when a local councillor cut the tape, its walls already sprayed with graffiti. Jeb and Shaz believed in advertising their feelings for each other.
I think Dave sensed what I was thinking, so he said: "There are some nice people live here, Charlie. They're not all yobs, y'know."
"I know that, Dave."
The litter thinned out and the houses changed colour. The council has a segregation policy, lumping most of the problem tenants at one end of the estate, together with the single mums, divorcees and rent-evaders. The best tenants, the ones who've had the foresight and wherewithal to buy their homes, are on the north side. Now the gardens were tidy, the hedges trimmed or replaced by brickwork, and the houses painted in individual styles. Burglar alarms adorned walls instead of satellite dishes. Dave turned into Windermere Drive and we looked for house numbers.
The girl was called Rebecca. She was born north of the tracks but was heading south, fast. It must be heartbreaking for parents to bring up a child to be polite, speak in sentences and take an interest in the world outside, only to see all their hard work swept aside by street culture as the kid reaches puberty.
Rebecca was eating Pringles, watching television, as her mother showed us through into the front room. The house was spotless but cluttered in a familiar way. They just didn't make them big enough for a growing family. She was dumpy and pasty-faced, with a mouth that permanently drooped at the corners.
"Two gentlemen to see you, Becky," her mother said. "About when you worked at Grainger's. It's about this food scare."
Becky's gaze switched from the TV to me and back again as she felt for her mouth with another Pringle. Her mother invited us to sit down and asked if we'd like a cup of tea.
"No thanks," Dave said, "but can we have the TV off, please." In a fantasy story Becky's glare would have turned him to stone.
"How long did you work at Grainger's, Becky?" Dave asked.
Realising, probably for the first time ever, that pressing the red button caused the moving images to go away, Becky turned on the settee to face her interrogator. "'Bout six months," she replied.
"Did you like working there?"
"No."
"What was the problem?"
"Itwa'borin"' "Have you seen anything on telly about the scare we're hav-ing?"
"A bit."
"Did you ever see anything suspicious while you were at Grainger's?"
"Suspicious? Like what?" Her mouth re-formed into a snarl, as if she thought the question ridiculous.
"Like anybody tampering with food. Tinned food in particular."
"No."
"Nothing that you can remember?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I've said so, 'aven't I?"
"Becky!" her mother admonished.
"Are you looking for another job?" I asked.
She turned to me and I felt the chill of her disdain. "There is nowt," she stated.
"But you're looking?"
"I'm trying to get my 'ead together."
"I understand you were moved from the store floor into the warehouse," Dave said.
Becky's expression changed quickly, from a brief flash of embarrassment, through glee and back to bored stiff again, like a shaft of light through a crack in a wall.
"That cow had me moved," she said.:
"Becky!"
"Well she is."
"Which cow would that be, Becky?"
"Mrs Brown. Sharon stuck-up Brown cow." '[Her mother said: "Becky, will you try to be polite to the gen? tlemen."
"It's OK," I told her with a grin. "We get much worse."
"Why did she have you moved?" Dave asked.
"I dropped things."
Her mother coughed. "Becky's always had this problem," she explained. "She's all fingers and thumbs, keeps dropping things."
"What did you drop?" Dave asked.
The look of glee returned and lingered this time. "Jars of things."
"What sort of things?"
"Beetroot. Pickled onions. Things like that."
"Big jars?" Dave asked. Now he was smiling.
"Yer. Right big jars."
I stood up and stretched, rotating my shoulders a couple of times. "Could we have a word in the kitchen, please?" I said to Becky's mum, and moved towards the door.
The sun shone in through the window and there was a pleasing smell coming from the oven. "That cup of tea would be most welcome," I said. She clicked the switch on the kettle and it rumbled into life.
"Sugar and milk?"
"No, just black. Has Becky always been a problem?"
She nodded and turned away from me, and I heard her sniff a couple of times.
"We learned that Becky had left under a bit of a cloud," I said, "and we've been looking for someone with a grudge. It's obviously not your daughter but we thought she might have some ideas, give us an insider's view of the company. DC Sparkington will tease it out of her if she's seen anything."
Her mother poured the tea and handed me a mug.
"Thank you. Is Becky looking for another job?"
"There isn't anything," her mother replied. "She goes to the job centre — sometimes I take her — but the only jobs she could do are in catering. And what with her little problem…"
"It sounds difficult."
"It is. We thought she'd be all right at Grainger's, but we were wrong. Now she doesn't seem bothered. Trouble is, there's no incentive for someone like her. She was on minimum wage, which wasn't too bad for a girl with Becky's qualifications, and most welcome, believe me, but she sees other girls on the estate who are much better off. Girls who went to school with her and are living the life of Riley, getting benefits and the rent paid because they've got kiddies."