Michael drove the hire car slowly down the street. The city dropped away into the valley: slate rooftops shining black in the pale sun, new flats, domed mosques, Victorian warehouses no longer stacked with bales of Australian wool, and towering mill chimneys that had neither smoke nor pur- pose. Beyond the bowl of the city the distant Yorkshire moors were a dark smudge. Michael remembered the old saying: If you can see the moors on the other side of town it’s going to rain. If you can’t see them it’s already raining.