The Coach and Horses Inn stood to one side of the green in a village a few miles from Birch Hall. The inn dated back to the mid-eighteenth century and had been an important coaching inn on the Great North Road between London and Scotland. In recent years the A1 had been moved a few miles to the east and straightened to speed up the increasing volume of traffic and the inn had lost its primary source of custom. It was frequented now only by locals and was never busy except at weekends.
Early one weekday evening, Sy and his two assistants sat drinking beer at a corner table in the public bar. The room was otherwise empty. George, the barman, emerged from the cellar where he had been changing barrels, just as Phil Yates and Harry Rooke entered and walked up to the bar. George wondered if the
