Lost River. Stephen Booth

Hussein Mosque, after the Iraqi leader donated two million pounds to build it. During the first Gulf War, the masjid had been fire-bombed, and excrement wrapped in pages of the Koran had been pushed through the letter box during prayers. So elders had decided to change the name, and now it was simply Jame Masjid, the main mosque.

      Just behind it, Fry could see the little parade of shops where Burger Bar Boys in a Ford Mondeo had sprayed bullets from two MAC-10 machine pistols, killing Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis as they left a New Year party, and putting the city firmly in the headlines.

      She supposed it was natural for her to worry about Jim and Alice Bowskill living in this area. Everyone worried about their parents. For a moment, she wondered if she ought to check whether they were registered with the Birchfield Dental Practice or the Churchill Medical Centre, if they used the post office here, or the one in Perry Barr. But it didn’t really matter.

      Fry turned on to Trinity Road and headed towards Aston. In the few hundred yards drive between the Jame Masjid and Villa Park, she passed the Ozzy Osbourne birthplace. The mosque, football, and heavy metal. Well, that came as close to summing up Birmingham as anything she could think of.