It was only appropriate that I pick up the book in Shudehill. It begins:

'Like all great cities the story of Manchester's foundation is a mixture of fact and fable and the passage of time makes it harder and harder to separate the two. A city whose prosperity depends on its location and climate, legend has it that there were once four giants who were walking across the surface of the planet. In those far off days the rivers and lakes, seas and oceans were almost dry and creatures such as the giants could walk for thousands of miles without being impeded. They were lonely creatures hoping to find others of their kind, their wanderlust a result of some instinctual imperative. In the dark, wet fog of Manchester these four giants would eventually meet without knowing. One by one, exhausted by their travels, they would collapse, having at last found a spot in which they felt able to rest. Around each of their heads a cloud would form and so obscure them from the others who would arrive after. These four giants then, each unknowing of the other's existence, sat back to back, exhausted of life and would expire in this unknown place, never quite realising how close they were to their brothers. They took each other's breath as the wind and heard each other's tears as the rain. And they thought that this was a Godforsaken place at the very end of the world. As time passed their remains would turn into hills, the four hills of Manchester, from out of which the cotton industry and the industrial revolution and therefore the whole expanse of what we now call modern civilisation would appear. In a very real sense, just as the twins Romulus and Remus led to the Roman empire these four giants created the world that we know today. And just as the Roman empire declined so did the city of Manchester. The legend ends in a familiar way: that when the four hills of Manchester are joined back together, the city will rise again to regain its rightful place.'

'This aint a lending library you know,' comes the voice from the counter. I look up, mumble my apologies and take the book over to the counter. 'I was looking for the price, there doesn't seem to be one,' I say, in order to explain. 'A fiver will do,' the man says, and although I know it is extortionate I hand over the note without another word. Only the man's cackling as I leave the shop worries me, and I realise, stepping out into another grey afternoon, that I had not seen more than the shadow of the bookseller's face. I put the book in my briefcase without another word. I check the time. It seems my browsing has made me forget all things. I end up several minutes late for my interview, my face red, my conversation garbled, and I fail to get the job.

It was over five years before I came back to Manchester. Things were changing, I could see that. From Victoria to Piccadilly was now served by a tram network. I was visiting a friend this time. I had come across the book whilst looking for the A-Z and put both in my bag; intending to read about 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' on the journey over there. Instead I got talking to a middle-aged couple, dressed to the nines and drinking red wine from plastic cups. They'd just been to Ladies Day at Ascot. They asked me what I did: I told them, I run marathons. 'No,' they asked, 'I meant what do you do for a living.' I laughed, for it was a common misunderstanding, one that my choice of phrase perpetuated. 'I organise marathons,' I said, 'for other people to run in.' It is true I also organise other things, sales conferences for the dental profession and cross-stitch festivals. Somehow the marathons line sounded more glamorous. And it is true I had once run in a marathon only to fall down with cramp after fourteen miles. The mental cramp had set in earlier. Now I simply liked to watch, pleased that my organisational skills were such that a thousand or so runners from all over the world could find their way to the same starting place at the same time. The man asked for my card. I asked him what he did. 'Something to do with business' was his enigmatic reply. He wasn't about to divulge anymore. I began reading 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' that night in my sleepless, drunken post-nightclub state. My friend had long gone to bed, and I sat downstairs, surrounded by sleeping bags and pillows. I flicked through the early chapters, it was a standard dull town history, the occasional black and white print holding far more of interest than the surrounding words. I read occasional paragraphs on Chartism and the Manchester Guardian, I read of Charlotte Bront's visit to Mrs. Gaskell on Plymouth Grove, then a prosperous suburb. I flicked through the pages to the final chapter. It returned to the legend that had begun the book.

'Legends always have a kernel of truth in them. That Manchester's geography and climate were the reason for its prosperity are not in doubt, consider then how that landscape was formed, was it simply a matter of chance? For before the industrial revolution the growth of Manchester was by no means certain or likely. Yet what begins with the rain and the atmosphere feeds down into where and how people live. It was the massive growth in the population of Manchester that made its lack of parliamentary representation so iniquitous and which led to both the Co-operative movement and the Labour movement. Karl Marx expected revolution to happen not amongst the rural peasantry of Tsarist Russia, but here in England, in the industrial north.'

There was nothing here I didn't know already, but I was fascinated by whether the hills of Manchester still existed. I turned to the very last page. It was half ripped out. Had that always been the case? I shook the book, but no loose paper fluttered to the ground.

'We can only conjecture on the legend, and like all legends a thousand re-tellings has made it impossible to have a definitive version of the tale. All that can be said, from looking at the current map of central Manchester, that maybe the giants live on, not as massive piles of granite, but in the names that are given to various old areas of the city, for where else did names come from than from the old folk tales, the nomenclature of tradition? We can trace a finger down the roads that now link the four hills of Manchester, but perhaps all we need is their names: Cheetham Hill, Shudehill, Knott Hill and....'

The missing half a page, cut off to hide the last named hill from me. I pulled out my A-Z and checked each and every square of each and every page. When I eventually fell asleep I was no wiser. My friend woke me the next morning to see the A-Z open at the page for central Manchester, where I had drawn a line, almost matching the route of the current trams, from Cheetham Hill Road, to Shudehill, through Piccadilly and over to the Knott Hill area behind Deansgate station. I had drawn a large question mark at the end of the page.

'Planning another marathon?' he said jokingly.
I woke up. Planning another marathon......
'There's someone on the 'phone for you,' my friend said, explaining why he had woke me up.
Incredibly, it was the business man I had met on the train earlier.
'How did you find me here?' I asked, puzzled.
'It wasn't easy,' he laughed, but would say no more.I tried to remember who knew I was here, but the answers wouldn't come.
'What can I do for you?'
'I want you to arrange a marathon for Manchester.'
'Really?'
'Really. I think it would be just what the city needs. A street race like in London, perhaps starting and ending in the centre, the details I'm sure I can leave to you.' I was still foggy with sleep. I asked for his number, I would ring him back.

I took a couple of paracetamol, drank a pint of cola, had a scalding shower and went out for a full English breakfast. Slowly the day began to feel less painful.

I had both my A-Z and 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' with me. I carried them with me as a talisman, I simply didn't know what it was that was confusing me, but I felt I had to retrace my steps, and that when I did so I would solve the riddle. Somehow I had to find the fourth hill.

On foot now, the city seemed flat, yet entering on one of the raised Victorian railway bridges you would seem to be floating in the air, like something from an episode of Flash Gordon. I walked the tram ways, the back alleys, the streets filled with people and the alleyways where even the rats were scarce. I was wandering aimlessly, yet purposely, checking street signs, looking for clues. Eventually I found myself returning to Shudehill. I went into where I had bought 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' years before. It was a different shop altogether, brighter, full of remaindered books rather than the musty old piles of second-hand stock I remembered. A young assistant smiled at me.

I asked her: 'What happened to the old shop?'
'What old shop?'
'Don't you remember, this place used to be a second hand shop, it's not long ago, four or five years perhaps.'
'When I was only twelve,' she laughed, 'sorry I don't remember.'
The shop was empty, so she was happy enough for me to just stand there, as I desperately attempted to remember anything about that previous visit. I had 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' in my hand and leafed through it once more. Something fell from between the pages and onto the floor. I looked shocked.
'Well pick it up, why don't you? I'm the one who has to keep the floor tidy,' she said, suddenly impatient with me.
I did as she told me, but I was almost scared to see what was on the paper. I turned it over disappointed. It wasn't the missing half page at all, but a small black and white photograph of an old man.
The assistant peered over.
'How'd you get a picture of Mr. Moorlake?'
'Mr. Moorlake?'
'Yes, he runs the bookshop across the road.'

I dropped everything and left in an instant. Across the road was a newsagents, next to it a door leading above the shop. The words above the door were very faded, but when you knew what you were looking for you could just about make them out: 'Moorlake Antiquarian Books.'

I opened the door, and found myself in a dark passage. I walked up a staircase that creaked with my weight and entered another door at the top. I entered that very same shop as I had bought 'The Four Hills Of Manchester' from, yet somehow the shop had moved. The same smell, the same dustiness, and by the looks of it the exact same books as all those years ago. There was nobody there.

'Hello?' I queried, expecting someone to pop their head up from under one of the book-laden tables. There was no reply. I scanned the books to see if they were ordered in a particular way. In the exact same place as all those years before I found another copy of 'The Four Hills Of Manchester.'

Or was it?

I realised, with some anger, that in my rush I had left my copy across the road. I picked up this copy and opened at the first page:

'Like all great cities the story of Manchester's foundation is a mixture of fact and fable...'

It was the same book. I flicked to the end. I couldn't believe it, the page was ripped in the exact same place.

'This aint a lending library you know,' came the voice from the counter.
'I...wanted to buy this book,' I said
'A fiver will do,' the man replied.
'But the book's got the last page ripped.'
'Let me have a look.'
I handed it to him, but still I couldn't make out his face.
'That's because the book isn't finished....' he said.
'Isn't finished?'
'Books need finishing, especially books like this, old books, full of legends. Take a look...'
He handed the book back to me, open at a particular page.

'One other legend concerning the birth of Manchester saw a race being run to determine the exact area of the city. Young men were trained to run as accurately as metronomes so that the time they took to run around a particular area could be used to accurately measure that area....'

I looked up. But the old man had disappeared into the shadows.
I left, dazed, uncertain, the book under my arm.
A marathon.... I rang up the businessman off the train.
'Yes, I'll do it,' I said.
'Good, good.'
I suddenly realised I knew nothing at all about him, not even his name. I asked him and he told me.
'Morton,' he said. 'Morton Hill.'
'The Four Hills Of Manchester' was open on the very last page in front of me, opened by the wind. There was no longer half a page missing.