A week before Robin Ellacott enters Chapman Farm she travels to the West Midlands city of Coventry to interview an ex-member of the United Humanitarian Church, and one of the original members of the Aylmerton Community, Sheila Kennett.

The evening before the interview, Robin has a date with Murphy.

‘The row happened on Wednesday evening in a bar near Piccadilly Circus. Robin, who was due to leave for Coventry at five o’clock the following morning, hadn’t really fancied a mid-week trip to the cinema in the first place. However, as Murphy had already bought the tickets, she felt she couldn’t object’ (Chapter 16).

The following day, Robin drives to Coventry.

‘Her journey up the M1 was uneventful and therefore offered few distractions from her unsatisfactory musings. However as she approached Newport Pagnell service station, where she’d been planning to stop for coffee, Ilsa called’ (Chapter 16).

Ilsa is calling to discuss Strike’s choice of contraception.

‘‘I’d like to see Nick’s face if Bijou gets herself knocked up on purpose. I don’t s’pose you know—?’

‘Ilsa,’ said Robin, cutting across her friend, ‘if you’re about to ask me whether I quiz Strike on his contraceptive habits—” (Chapter 16).

Seventy miles north west of Denmark Street, Newport Pagnell is a service station located between J14 and J15 of the M1 motorway near to Milton Keynes. Fully opened in 1960, it’s famous for being one of the two first service stations for the UK’s new motorway network.

She arrives at Sheila’s “small, shabby bungalow” at five minutes to twelve.

Coventry lies approximately 109 miles from the Agency office in Denmark Street, and has a long and interesting history since its Roman fort origins and early Middle Ages city status. One of its famous inhabitants is Lady Godiva, wife of 11th Century Anglo Saxon Earl of Mercia, Leofric.

Legend has it that the citizens of Coventry were suffering due to Leofric’s harsh taxation and called on his wife for help. Her husband told her would consider their plea if she rode a horse naked through the streets of Coventry. She agreed and after making a proclamation that all citizens must shut their doors and windows as she rode by, did as her husband asked. However one man, a tailor, did watch her naked progression and afterwards was forever known as “Peeping Tom”.

In The Running Grave, Robin witnesses and is the recipient of a behaviour named for the city she visits. Thought to originate during the English Civil War and often ascribed to officers in the British Army who have indulged in improper behaviour, to be “sent to Coventry” is a British idiom meaning to ostracise someone, to behave as though they have ceased to exist.

“Emily was no longer standing on her crate. She’d remained there for a full forty-eight hours, ignored and unmentioned by all who passed as though she’d always stood there and always would” (Chapter 57).

Coventry is located here: