Banks and Watson wound their way through the narrow streets leading from Hartley Central railway station up to the Parish Church. Much to the Vicar’s frustration, the Detective Chief Inspector refused to give any detail as to what had happened at St Martin’s, other than there had been a fatality in suspicious circumstances. The two men knew each other through freemasonry, though outside this particular circle, they rarely came into contact or conversed. Watson was a Methodist and (Banks suspected) a Liberal. TAB had attempted to recruit the DCI to the Parish Church choir, given the policeman’s fine bass voice, but Watson would have none of it, preferring to spend his free evenings singing in the men-only Hartley Glee Union, freed from the demands of ‘the missus’ and five ‘nippers’, with...

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