Bingham and the Lost Years

On the pretext of enjoying a walking break, Binghams youngest son, Ben, supported by Binghams wife, Lina, persuades his father to investigate the case of a young man, Raymond Dowdall, who has been imprisoned fourteen years for a murder of a young woman, Janet Bawley a murder his family and friends insist he did not commit. Troubled by the young mans helplessness in the face of authority rather than convinced of his innocence, Bingham begins encouraging the people of Upton-on-Churnet to talk. On his first night in the small, Staffordshire town, he seeks out Raymonds parents; walking back to the public house, where he and Ben are staying, through a fine autumnal drizzle, he is threatened. His curiosity piqued and his ever-present faith in the value of womens gossip intact, he goes for a haircut at the local salon, where he rouses old memories, and then speaks with the young mans employer, an estate agent. While Ben pursues their search, Bingham immerses himself in what he calls a sense of place, in his view important in the search for any truth, and meets a young policewoman, Mehreen Choudhury. She offers her help, while at the same time expressing the forces view that previous investigations merely left a bad feeling behind, reinforcing the publics opinion that police corruption was involved, a judgement the force has found it impossible to live down. Ben turns up a witness, a young woman police did not take seriously and who received threats to mind her own business, obliging her to move away from the town and forget what had happened. Bingham meets the murdered womans best friend eager to clear the towns view of Janets morals, and the newspaperman, John Hayes, who has never given up on his belief that Raymond Dowdall was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. As their search progresses and memories are shaken, those powers in the community who value friendship above integrity act: Ben is run down, Lina is drawn into the fray, Binghams home is the target of an arson attack and the murdered womans husband at last opens his wifes notebook a book he has kept in a closed drawer since her death. This is the eighth Bingham novel and the first in which Binghams youngest son plays an active role.