TO TREAT THE WHOLE AFFAIR AS A JOKEIt was 9.15, considerably later than usual for Yarrow, normally he was the first in. He did not sleep well and was always awake long before dawn and had got into the habit of getting to work early, finding that the half hour or so before the other officers arrived helped clear his mind for the day’s business.
West Garside was generally a quiet town, relatively crime-free compared to its big sister Sheffield, 16 miles away on the A59.
Before the killing of Ethel Palmer, the murder of Peter Cushman for which Frankie Starling was hanged and the senseless death of Rosie Palmer had been the biggest crimes to hit West Garside since before the war when the two Barnett brothers, James and Jonathon, had bludgeoned Eli Mendelson, a jeweller with a shop on Claybou
