Gravy Train walking tour #1

Stuck in Birmingham during lockdown and sick of pounding the same old streets? Then why not try discovering some of the locations in my books? This is one of several walking (or cycling, for the longer ones) trails that I’ll hopefully be posting on here in the next week or two, with routes, distances, and interesting things to see along the way. I hope they help to inspire you.

To start off, a nice easy stroll centred on the suburb of Moseley. This forms one of the main locations of my dark crime caper ‘Gravy Train’ and the walk includes the settings for Fred’s courtyard workshop, Vernon Ball’s criminal HQ, and the bench where grass Todd meets his police contact Suzanne.

Walk #1: Moseley to Cannon Hill Park

Distance: approx 1.5 miles (and the same back!)

Route:

1. Start in the centre of Moseley. If you’re not local and on foot, there’s parking in a small car park off the Alcester Road or in some of the surrounding streets plus a good bus service (no 50) which passes right through the ‘village’ centre. Head along Alcester Road as far as Woodbridge Road and turn down here. A short distance on the right is a gated archway leading to a courtyard of apartments. There was a dairy operating out of the courtyard at one time and it’s one of the models I based Fred’s car mechanics business on.

2. Retrace your steps, cross over Alcester Road and head down Chantry Road (opposite Woodbridge Road). This is a fascinating street full of large, late Victorian houses, many of them uniquely decorative and some so vast they have their own coach-houses. The ones on the left-hand side back onto the private Moseley Park; there’s a locked gate into the park near the bottom of the hill. It’s one of these houses that forms the lair for crime boss Vernon Ball, with its basement flat, its garden, and its view over the park and pool. I couldn’t possibly say which particular house, but here’s a general street view to give you some idea.

3. At the end of Chantry Road turn left into Park Hill, past more impressive Victorian houses, then find a safe place to cross either Salisbury Road or Edgbaston Road until you’re on the diagonally opposite corner. From here walk a short distance along Edgbaston Road to one of the main entrances to Cannon Hill Park.

4. Cannon Hill Park is a vast city park donated to the people of Birmingham by Miss Louisa Ryland and opened in 1873. It covers over 80 acres – more if you add the woodland, conservation areas and nature reserve next to it, and there are lots of different walks and paths to choose. Look out for the foundations of the old glasshouse, the boating lake, the scale model of the Elan Valley reservoirs which provide the city’s water supply – and the bench where Todd met Inspector Suzanne Charlton, and got pecked by a duck.

5. After a good mooch round the park (and a takeaway coffee from the cafe, assuming it’s open and assuming you’re allowed to) retrace your steps to Moseley.

I hope the walk inspires you to explore this historic and interesting corner of Birmingham but please bear in mind that current restrictions mean you can’t travel outside of your ‘local area’ (whatever that means) for exercise. So if you’re based outside the city, please bookmark this for another day! And if you’d like to read about the various locations of ‘Gravy Train’ in more detail, why not treat yourself to a copy of the book? You can find it here.

Water disorder

I was amused to see this headline on the local Midlands BBC news feed yesterday, about a giant “water fight” that seems to have got out of hand.

Not only does this feature Birmingham, but it happened in Cannon Hill park, by the Midland Arts Centre, not a hundred yards from the location I was writing about in my blog post a few days ago. Perhaps Todd and Cynthia went back to settle old scores?!

I’m intrigued to know what a water fight is, anyway. The article is remarkably unhelpful, but I’m picturing those big plastic squirty water pistols, or perhaps even paper/plastic “water bombs” filled in the boating lake. Am I being hopelessly naïve? Anyone got any better ideas?

Gravy Train locations #3: Todd’s bench

It doesn’t sound like much of a location for a crime book, does it? A simple wooden bench at the local park. It’s the sort of place you lounge around on a hot day with a book and an ice-lolly, or perch for a few minutes to watch the ducks. Or use as a meeting place when you’re a grass waiting for your police handler, perhaps?

Obviously, it’s the latter in ‘Gravy Train’. When Todd decides to spill the beans he needs somewhere to meet the police inspector he liaises with, in order to pass on his reports. I could have chosen somewhere dark and secretive, but that seemed a little too formulaic – and a little too risky for Todd. Get caught with a female copper in a place no one would ever go and it’s hard to explain it away. Get caught chatting by the boating lake and you can at least say you’re catching up with an old flame. Which in his case isn’t so far from the truth.

He risked a sideways glance. Not in uniform now, just jeans and a belted mac. Was she off-duty, or did she always dress like that? She was plumper than before, but it had been eleven years. Eleven years during which she’d joined the police and risen through the ranks like yeast through dough. Not like him. He was still at the unproven stage; unleavened, lumpy, raw. He cleared his throat. “Yeah. It’s him, isn’t it? Lord High fucking Ball himself.”

“Oh? Last I heard you were happy working for him.”

He thought about that one. Stared out across the lake, full of ducks and model boats. Thought he saw Bradley’s pallid face, rising from the waters like some Arthurian legend he’d read about at school. He blinked. Nope, not going mad. It was just someone’s over-enthusiastic Labrador. “Not like it used to be,” he said at last. “All gone tits up. I’m not comfortable with some of – well, with what he’s asking me to do.”

“Which is…?”

He swallowed. She wasn’t supposed to ask him that. He couldn’t answer, anyway, not without incriminating himself. “Just… general crap. I want out. Thought maybe…” He stared at the lake again, the trees, the grass, the plants and picnickers and people having fun. He remembered fun, too, once. Fun with her, back in the day. But that had been years ago.

The setting I chose is Cannon Hill park in south-east Birmingham. It was donated to the city as meadow-land by local benefactor Miss Louisa Ann Ryland in 1873 and opened soon afterwards, and it’s perfect in so many ways. For starters, it’s just a short walk from where Todd is based, living in Vernon Ball’s basement in nearby Chantry Road. He can scuttle down there, have his meeting with Inspector Charlton, and still get back in time to wash the car. And secondly, it’s huge. A vast green open space covering over 200 acres, in fact, with 80 acres of formal parkland and 120 acres of woodland and “conservation areas”. It’s the most popular public park in Birmingham, and gets plenty of visitors, so there’s less chance of Todd having to hang around the woods by himself. There are several different entrances for him to sneak in and out of, and plenty of secluded corners and unusual features to hide in or behind.

These include statues, a massive memorial to the fallen of the Boer War, the footings of an old hot-house or conservatory, a working scale model (above) of the Elan Valley reservoirs in Wales that supply Birmingham with its drinking water, and most remarkable of all, an entire medieval pub, the Golden Lion, that was transported and re-erected in the park from nearby Deritend. Along the park’s northern edge it’s bounded by one of Birmingham’s small rivers, the Rea, and also by the modern buildings of the Midlands Arts Centre or MAC (below), which is where Cynthia and her friends appeared from to give Todd a near-heart attack.

“Goodness me, you do turn up in some very unusual places,” said a voice dripping with vinegar.

It was Cynthia, emerging from the MAC café behind them with a screeching gaggle of her friends. Noisier than the fucking geese. No wonder the ducks had fled.

Thank Christ – thank fucking Christ – Charlton was still not in uniform. Even so, she’d been on the local news a time or two, reporting progress on this case or that. It wasn’t impossible that Cynthia would recognise her. What to say? What to do? Think, man, think.

Charlton herself turned into an unlikely guardian angel. “Oh, hello, another girlfriend, Todd? Which one’s this?”

“No, no. No. Nothing like that.” He was stammering, he must look like a fucking idiot, but thanks to her, it looked like domestic embarrassment. Nothing worse. “This is Cynthia Ball. My employer’s wife, you know. Cynthia, Suzanne. Suzanne, Cynthia.”

“Delighted, I’m sure.” Cynthia took Charlton’s outstretched hand in a brief, limp grip, then lost interest in anything so dull. “Just the chauffeur, darling,” he heard her say to her friends. “Out with some woman. How sweet.”

He puffed out his cheeks, wondered if this was how it felt to have an actual heart attack. “Fuck me, that was close.”

Todd hangs onto his cover – just – but the ducks do get their revenge. That particular episode is based on personal experience, which should give everyone a laugh. As for Cannon Hill, it’s still one of my all-time favourite parks, even if I now associate it with big tough guys getting pecked on the arse!

The book is currently on offer as part of the #indiecrimecrawl week, and will also be included in other deals across the summer.

Check my website to keep up with all the latest news, or head to the Down & Out Books bookstore and quote “indiecc20” (until 21st July) to catch that crime crawl deal.

Wet money and ducks

No, not my Christmas wish list, but a few of the things mentioned in my latest interview. And it’s an interview with a notable (perhaps even bonkers) difference, because I’ve been interviewing myself!

This is all thanks to fellow crime writer Nigel Bird, who runs a feature on his blog called ‘Dancing with Myself’, where authors both ask, and answer, their own questions. It’s a fun way of getting us to talk about ourselves, and previous victims have included Lisa de Nikolits, David Simms and Tom Leins, all of them worth checking out.

In my case I chatted (wittered?) about where the idea for ‘Gravy Train’ first came from, whether the characters were based on real people or not, what the link to Pink Floyd is, and what I’m working on now.

The picture shows the actual (ahem) bench that I used, in Birmingham’s Cannon Hill park. You can follow the trail at Nigel’s blog. Just watch out for that duck!