‘Ten minutes,’ he reminded him. ‘If you’re not here when I get back, I’m telling Estelle.’
Bertie gulped. ‘Steady on, old chap.’
Chapter 49
Poe studied the map, then tucked it into the back of his jeans. Covered it with his shirt. If Ezekiel Puck was the man they were looking for, he would be surveillance aware. Poe wanted to look as though he was visiting friends and that meant not wandering around like he was lost.
The address Bradshaw had given him was in the middle of what Poe thought of as a mid-range estate. Wasn’t cheap, but neither was it at the high end of the housing market. Three main groups of people would live there – first-time buyers, retirees and divorcees.
Poe studied the gardens. Tried to work out which group Ezekiel Puck belonged to.
Gardens could tell you a lot about an estate’s demographics. The retirees’ gardens would be well kept. The lawns would be green and trimmed to the bone. The borders would be packed full of flowers – perennials and annuals. Lots of colour. There would be bird baths and hanging baskets. By contrast, the gardens of the divorced group would be neglected. The divorced group would see this kind of estate as an insult to the memory of what they’d lost. And they would refuse to make the best of it. They’d grow resentful of their homes and their new neighbours. Tending their gardens would be seen as a sign they’d accepted their lot in life. The first-time buyers’ gardens would fall somewhere in the middle. They were always eyeing the next rung on the housing market so their gardens would be functional and neat, ready to be shown the minute a promotion at work beckoned.
Poe was generalising, of course. There was no reason why a recently divorced dad couldn’t be green-fingered, just as there was no reason a pensioner couldn’t hate gardening with a passion. But it was a rule of thumb that had served him well in the past.
He reached Ezekiel Puck’s house and walked straight past. Barely glanced at it. It was no help anyway. His garden was neat but not fussy. Hardwearing, evergreen shrubs and the lawn had been paved over. Low maintenance. It offered no insight into the man who lived there.
Poe decided to employ an old detective’s trick. The old invent-a-frivolous-excuse-to-talk-to-one-of-the-suspect’s-neighbours ruse. He chose the house next door to Puck’s. Marched up the garden path and tapped on the door. No answer.
But this was Yorkshire, and that meant people stuck their beak into other people’s business. Which is what happened.
‘’Ere, lad, you after Bungalow Joe?’ a man said.
He was around seventy. Sounded like he had his granny’s teeth in. He wore a flat cap. His trousers were held up with braces. Poe wouldn’t have been surprised to see he had an ‘I ♥ Geoffrey Boycott’ tattoo.
‘Bungalow Joe?’ Poe said. ‘Why’s he called that?’
The man leaned over the fence that separated the two properties. ‘Because he used to live in a bungalow.’
A no-nonsense reply.Fucking Yorkshire.
‘Is he not in?’
‘No, lad. Bungalow Joe’s visiting his daughter in . . .’ – he paused to spit on the ground – ‘bloody Burnley.’
‘Not a fan of Lancashire, I take it,’ Poe said, keen to get him gossiping. People like this were an absolute goldmine, but only if you didn’t ask them direct questions. Ask them something direct and they’d clam up tighter than a fish’s bum.
‘Richard were protecting those princes when he put ’em in the Tower of London. He didn’t bloody kill ’em. They were ’is own flesh an’ blood.’
Poe was treated to a ten-minute diatribe on the Wars of the Roses, and why the battles between the house of York and the house of Lancaster for the English throne were all down to the house of Lancaster deliberately misunderstanding what had happened to the rightful heirs.
Poe said nothing. Lancashire and Yorkshire had been arguing about the Princes in the Tower for centuries. He let the Yorkshireman’s anger wash over him. When he’d tired himself out, he said, ‘I’m thinking of moving to this estate. Joe said he could show me the ropes. Which streets to avoid, that kind of thing.’
‘It’s a decent place to live, lad,’ the old man said. ‘Never any trouble and we look out for each other.’
‘How well do you know your neighbours?’
‘Know some better than others.’
‘Joe?’
‘Known Joe over forty years, I reckon.’
Poe gestured at Ezekiel Puck’s house. ‘What about this house? Can’t say I approve of what they’ve done with their garden.’
‘Me neither, lad. A garden should be green, not grey.’
‘I think Joe mentioned him actually. Tall man?’ Poe put his hand six inches above his head. ‘Has a strange name?’
