Saving Regent Retail Park

Again! So rarely Mickey gets a paid job these days. Yet again, he's being asked to do a favour for a friend. But it is an old comrade from Mickey's days in the Army, and it is such a silly ask - to get young Billy to a meeting in the east of Salford, the city Mickey lives in. The only reason Bill can't do it for himself is that his Service days didn't go all that well for him. He's in a wheelchair now. Mickey feels bad about it - he came out unscathed - but also a little bit guilty that he hasn't visited his old pal in a long time, even though they are living a few mere miles apart.

That's just the start of Mickey's regrets. By the end of the day, Mickey seems to have lost the young man completely, along with a minibus stuffed full of sightseers. Mickey was driving behind the vehicle. It can't just have disappeared! Plus, two smart young men from the property company. They've gone too.

The whole convoy was on its way to view a recent property development. Nowhere near Salford, but the developers it was 'every bit as good' as the new plans for Mickey and neighbours, and the pair seemed anxious to give everyone the chance to go and marvel. A bit careless, therefore, and maybe an indication of things to come, that the smart young men led the vehicles into some kind of rabbit hole, and nobody - apart from Mickey - returned at the end of the day.

If only there was a kidnap note! Not at all. There seems no purpose behind the incident, no rhyme or reason. While the rest of the local residents busy themselves with drawing up petitions and canvassing support to stop the development in their own backyward, only Mickey, it seems, is conderned by the recent disappearence. He owes Billy! Desperate, Mickey is even willing to accept the help of a local Detective Inspector from Manchester City Police, an investigator who seemed willing to believe that Mickey was to blame, at the beginning. No, Inspector, things are much more curious.

Mickey tries very, very hard not to get distracted by politics. He wants this 'mystery' solved!