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The next morning, Culverhouse phoned ahead to Alan Carnegie, agreeing to meet him at a coffee shop in the centre of Mildenheath. He was fine with that, as in his experience people tended to talk more openly and freely on neutral ground. In their own home they were far more guarded and tended to feel as though they were in control of the situation, whereas in a police station they tended to go into lockdown mode and say nothing of very much interest until the law got heavy and they had to either arrest or caution them — something they obviously couldn’t do with witnesses.
It was fair to say that a large percentage of the local population weren’t particularly keen on speaking to the police. Mildenheath had a bit of a reputation locally as being a town that had a high crime rate — someth
