Chapter Ten — Leeds Before Dawn

Frank Salters left the house shortly before dawn.

The rain had finally stopped.

He drove towards the city centre, where Leeds was beginning the slow transformation from night into morning. The first buses moved along the roads. Delivery vans appeared. Lights came on in offices. Workers unlocked shop doors. Somewhere near the station, a train pulled into the platform carrying people who knew nothing about the dead man, the murderer or the strange chain of events which had unfolded while they slept.

Salters stopped beside the river.

The Aire was dark beneath the bridges.

He stood watching the water.

Behind him, Leeds was waking.

The Corn Exchange, Kirkgate Market, Briggate, City Square, the station and the old streets around the river all stood in the grey morning light, looking innocent again.

That was the peculiar quality of cities.

They absorbed everything.

The footsteps of murderers.

The footsteps of detectives.

The footsteps of the innocent.

And when morning came, they gave almost nothing back.

Salters put his hands into his coat pockets.

His fingers touched the photograph of the address in Seacroft.

He took it out and looked at it once more.

Then he folded it carefully and put it away.

There would be other murders.

Other houses.

Other clocks stopped at impossible hours.

Other men who believed that if they arranged the facts carefully enough, they could arrange the truth itself.

Frank Salters looked towards the city.

The first pale light had begun to appear behind the buildings.

And somewhere beyond the waking streets, another secret was already waiting.

He walked on.