‘Aye, it were just after 10. I know ‘cos the news come on … come on‘t telly in the back bar, no sound. Never knew the point of that. Why have the telly on wi’ no sound? Still, that’s how I knew it were 10 o’clock, or just after. Ten past, maybe.’
‘And you say you saw lights on in the Hall? How can you see the Hall from here?’ Hobson asked as he stood outside Jimmy Dixon’s cottage. ‘You can’t see from here, can you?’ he repeated brusquely, implying a lie.
The day was bitter cold and he wanted to wrap up this farce as soon as possible and be done with it once and for all, and discrediting the witness to imaginary lights in the hall was the first step.
‘Nay, not from here,’ Dixon answered, as though talking to a fool, which perhaps he was. ‘Out there. On’t main road, just as you get past t
