With its infamous tilt of six degrees off the vertical it was down-at-heel Lynn’s answer to Pisa. Briefly famous thanks to the BBC’s Restoration series, the tower’s principal role was now to offer a home to the town’s pigeons. The birds tended to cluster on Warren’s windowsill, shuffling and scratching. As Shaw sat in the secretary’s office facing the nameplate reading Chief Constable, he reflected that Warren had done well to avoid – no doubt following protracted discussions – the withering prefix acting. Warren opened his own door. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘I hope this isn’t bad news, Peter, especially on a fucking Sunday.’ Or any news at all, thought Shaw. Warren had thirteen months left before he handed over to his successor, and if he managed to negotiate that period of time without disaster he’d be Sir Max Warren – not bad for a kid who’d left school in Shepherd’s Bush without a school certificate. More to the point, it would be Lady Margaret Warren.
