Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

Chapter 17

Glad you could come, Alan,” said Mrs. Marshall, sticking out her black-gloved hand. “My, my. You’ve been in the wars.”

Banks touched his lip. “It’s nothing,” he said.

“I hope you’ll come back to the house for drinks and sandwiches.”

They were standing outside the chapel in the light drizzle after Graham’s funeral. It had been tasteful enough, as such things went, Banks thought, though there was something odd about a funeral service for someone who has been dead over thirty years. They had the usual readings, including the Twenty-third Psalm, and Graham’s sister gave a short eulogy throughout which she verged on tears.

“Of course,” Banks said, shaking Mrs. Marshall’s hand. Then he saw Michelle walking down the path under her umbrella. “Excuse me a moment.”

He hurried along after Michelle. During the service, he had caught her eye once or twice and she had looked away. He wanted to know what was wrong. She had said earlier that she wanted to talk to him. Was it about last night? Was she having regrets? Did she want to tell him she’d made a mistake and didn’t want to see him again? “Michelle?” He put his hand gently on her shoulder.

Michelle turned to face him. When she looked him in the eye, she smiled and lifted the umbrella so it covered his head, too. “Shall we walk awhile?”

“Fine,” said Banks. “Everything okay?”

“Of course it is. Why do you ask?”

So there was nothing wrong. Banks could have kicked himself. He’d got so used to feeling that his every move, every meeting, was so fragile, partly because they had been like walking on eggs with Annie, that he was turning normal behavior into perceived slights. They were police officers in public – in a bloody chapel, for crying out loud. What did he expect her to do? Make doe eyes at him? Walk over to his pew and sit on his knee and whisper sweet nothings in his ear?

“This morning, in the station, I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed last night, but I could hardly say that in the cop shop, could I?”

She reached over and touched his sore lip. “I enjoyed it, too.”

“Are you coming back to the house?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t like that sort of thing.”

“Me, neither. I’d better go, though.”

“Of course.”

They walked down one of the narrow gravel paths between graves, carved headstones dark with rain. Yews overhung the path and rain dripped from their leaves onto the umbrella, tapping harder than the drizzle. “You said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes.” Michelle told him about Dr. Wendell’s tentative identification of the Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife and Harris’s wartime record.

Banks whistled between his teeth. “And you say Jet Harris was a commando?”

“Yes.”

“Bloody hell. That’s a real can of worms.” Banks shook his head. “It’s hard to believe that Jet Harris might have killed Graham,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, what possible motive could he have had?”

“I don’t know. Only what we speculated about yesterday, that he was somehow connected with Fiorino and the porn racket and Graham fell foul of them. Even so, it’s hard to imagine someone in Harris’s position doing a job like that himself. And we don’t really have any hard evidence; it’s all just circumstantial. Anyway, he’s not the only candidate. I remembered Mrs. Walker – you know, the woman in the newsagent’s – said something about Donald Bradford being in a special unit in Burma. I checked. Turns out it was a commando unit.”

“Bradford, too? That complicates things.”

“Well, at least we know that Bradford had some sort of involvement with pornography. We don’t even have any evidence that Harris was bent yet,” said Michelle. “Only Shaw’s behavior. Which brings me to our interview with Des Wayman.”

“What did he have to say for himself?”

Michelle told him about Wayman’s assertion that Shaw was behind last night’s attack. “He’d deny he ever said it if we challenged him, and I’m sure Shaw will deny it, too.”

“But we know it’s true,” said Banks. “That gives us an edge. It was a stupid move on Shaw’s part. It means he’s worried, getting desperate. What about the burglary at your flat, the van that tried to run you down?”

Michelle shook her head. “Wayman knows nothing about that. Shaw must have got someone else, maybe someone a bit brighter. My impression is that Wayman is okay for the strong-arm stuff but couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag.”

“Like Bill Marshall?”

“Yes. You think we should have a chat with Shaw?”

“Soon. It’d be nice to know a bit more about Harris first.”

“I’ll call you later.”

“Okay.” Michelle turned and carried on walking down the path.

“Where are you going now?” Banks asked.

She slowed, turned and smiled at him. “You’re a very nosy fellow,” she said. “And you know what happens to nosy fellows, don’t you?” Then she walked on, leaving Banks to gape after her. He could swear he saw her shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Okay, Liz, are you going to tell us the truth now?” Annie asked once the interview room was set up and the tapes turned on.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, Ryan and me,” Liz said.

“I have to remind you that you’re entitled to a lawyer. If you can’t afford one we’ll get a duty solicitor for you.”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t need a lawyer. That’s like admitting I did it.”

“As you like. You know we found drugs in your flat, don’t you?”

“There wasn’t much. It was only… you know, for Ryan and me.”

“It’s still a crime.”

“Are you going to arrest us for that?”

“Depends on what you have to tell me. I just want you to know that you’re in trouble already. You can make it better by telling me the truth, or you can make it worse by continuing with your lies. What’s it to be, Liz?”

“I’m tired.”

“The sooner we’re done with this, the sooner you can go home. What’s it to be?”

Liz nibbled at her trembling lower lip.

“Maybe it would help,” said Annie, “if I told you we found traces of Luke’s blood under your bathroom sink.”

Liz looked at her, wide-eyed. “But we didn’t kill Luke. Honest, we didn’t!”

“Tell me what happened. Convince me.”

Liz started crying. Annie passed her some tissues and waited till she calmed down. “Did Luke call at your flat the day he disappeared?” she asked.

After a long silence, Liz said, “Yes.”

“Good,” breathed Annie. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But we didn’t do him any harm.”

“Okay. We’ll get to that. What time did he arrive?”

“Time? I don’t know. Early in the evening. Maybe sixish.”

“So he must have come straight from the market square?”

“I suppose so. I don’t know where he’d been. He was a bit upset, I remember, because he said some of the kids from the school had pushed him around in the square, so maybe he had come straight from there.”

“What happened in the flat?”

Liz looked down at her chewed fingernails.

“Liz?”

“What?”

“Was Ryan there?”

“Yes.”

“All the time? Even when Luke arrived?”

“Yes.”

So that put paid to Annie’s theory that Ryan had interrupted something between Liz and Luke. “What did the three of you do?”

Liz paused, then took a deep breath. “First we had something to eat,” she said. “It must’ve been around teatime.”

“Then what?”

“We just talked, went through a few songs.”

“I thought you did your rehearsals in the church basement.”

“We do. But Ryan’s got an acoustic guitar. We just played around with a couple of arrangements, that’s all.”

“And then?”

Again, Liz fell silent and her eyes filled with tears. She rubbed the back of her hand across her face and said, “Ryan rolled a joint. Luke… he’d… like he was a virgin, you know, when it came to drugs. I mean we’d offered to share before but he always said no.”

“Not that night?”

“No. That night he said yes. The first time. It was like he… you know… wanted to lose his virginity. I don’t know why. I suppose he just felt it was time.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing much at first. I think he was disappointed. A lot of people are the first time.”

“So what did you do?”

“We smoked some more and it seemed to work. It was pretty strong stuff, opiated hash. He got all giggly at first, then he went sort of introspective.”

“So what went wrong?”

“It was when Ryan put that Neil Byrd CD on. You know, that new compilation, The Summer That Never Was.”

“He did what?” Annie could imagine what effect something like that might have on Luke if he was under the influence of strong cannabis. Maybe it wasn’t a seriously dangerous drug, but it could cause paranoia in people, and it intensified and exaggerated emotions. Annie knew; she’d smoked it more than once in her teenage years. Reining in her temper, she asked, “How did Luke react to the music?”

“He freaked. He just freaked. Ryan was thinking it would be a neat idea to do a Neil Byrd song, you know, with Luke singing. I mean, it’d get a lot of attention.”

“Didn’t you realize how confused Luke was about his real father? Didn’t you know he never listened to Neil Byrd’s music?”

“Yes, but we thought this was a good time to try it,” Liz protested. “We thought his mind was, you know, open to new things, mellow from the dope, that it was more likely he’d see how beautiful his father’s work was.”

“When he was disoriented, ultrasensitive?” Annie shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a lot more stupid than I thought you were. Stupid or so selfish and blinkered it amounts to much the same thing.”

“But that’s not fair! We didn’t mean any harm.”

“Fine,” said Annie. “Let’s just say you were guilty of poor judgment and move on. What happened next?”

“Nothing at first. It seemed as if Luke was just listening to the song. Ryan was playing the chords along with it, trying a little harmony. All of a sudden Luke just went crazy. He knocked the guitar out of Ryan’s hand and went over to the CD player and took the CD out and started trying to break it in two.”

“What did you do?”

“Ryan struggled with him, but Luke was, like, possessed.”

“What about the blood?”

“In the end Ryan just punched him. That was where the blood came from. Luke ran into the bathroom. I was just behind him, to see if he was all right. There wasn’t much blood, it was only like a nosebleed. Luke looked in the mirror and started going crazy again and banging the mirror with his fists. I tried to calm him down, but he pushed past me and left.”

“And that was it?”

“Yes.”

“Neither of you went after him?”

“No. We figured he just wanted to be by himself.”

“A disturbed fifteen-year-old having a bad drug experience? Oh, come on, Liz. Surely you can’t be that stupid?”

“Well we were stoned, too. I’m not saying we were, like, the most rational we could be. It just seemed… I don’t know.” She lowered her head and sobbed.

Though she believed Liz’s story, Annie found it hard to dredge up any sympathy. Legally, however, any charges that could be brought against them were minor. If reckless negligence could be proved, then they could, at a stretch, be convicted of manslaughter, but even though they had given Luke drugs, Annie reminded herself, she still didn’t know how he had died, or why.

“Do you know where he went after he left your flat?” Annie asked.

“No,” said Liz between sobs. “We never saw him again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Did you or Ryan give Luke any Valium, to calm him down, perhaps?”

Liz frowned and looked at Annie through her tears. “No. We didn’t do stuff like that.”

“So you never had any Valium in the house?”

“No.”

“And there’s nothing more you can tell me?”

“I’ve told you everything.” She looked up at Annie with red eyes. “Can I go home now? I’m tired.”

Annie stood up and called for a uniformed officer. “Yes,” she said. “But don’t wander too far. We’ll be wanting to talk to you again.”

When Liz had been escorted away, Annie closed the interview room door behind her and sat down again and held her throbbing head in her hands.

“Another drink, Alan?”

Banks’s beer glass was half-full, and he had just arranged to go out drinking that evening with Dave Grenfell and Paul Major, so he declined Mrs. Marshall’s offer and ate another potted-meat sandwich instead. Besides, the beer was a neighbor’s home brew, and it tasted like it.

“You know, I’m glad we did this,” Mrs. Marshall went on. “The service. I know it probably seems silly to some people, after all this time, but it means a lot to me.”

“It doesn’t seem silly,” said Banks, looking around the room. Most of the guests were family and neighbors, some of whom Banks recognized. Dave’s and Paul’s parents were there, along with Banks’s own. Pachelbel’s “Canon” played in the background. Graham would have hated it, Banks thought. Or probably not. If he’d lived, his tastes would no doubt have changed, as Banks’s had. Even so, what he really wanted to listen to was “Ticket to Ride” or “Summer Nights” or “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

“I think it meant a lot to all of us,” he said.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Marshall said tearfully. “Are you sure you won’t have some more?”

“No, thank you.”

Mrs. Marshall wandered off. Banks noticed Bill Marshall in his armchair by the fireplace, a blanket over his knees despite the muggy day. The windows were all open, but it was still too stuffy in the house. Banks saw Paul talking to a couple he didn’t recognize, probably old neighbors, and Dave was chatting with Graham’s sister Joan. His own parents were talking to Mrs. and Mrs. Grenfell. Feeling the call of nature, Banks set his glass down on the sideboard and went upstairs.

When he had finished in the toilet, he noticed that the door to Graham’s old room was open, and he was surprised to see that the space-rocket wallpaper he remembered from years back was still on the walls. Drawn by the odd sight, he wandered into the small bedroom. Of course, everything else had changed. The bed was gone, along with the small glass-fronted bookcase Banks remembered, mostly full of science fiction. The only familiar object stood in a case leaning against the wall. Graham’s guitar. So they had kept it all these years.

Certain that no one would mind, Banks sat down on a hard-backed chair and took the guitar out of its case. Graham had been so proud of it, he remembered. Of course, he had wanted an electric one, a Rickenbacker like the one John Lennon played, but he had been chuffed to death with the secondhand acoustic his parents had bought him for Christmas 1964.

Banks remembered the fingering, even after so long, and strummed a C chord. Way out of tune. He grimaced. Tuning it would be too much of a job for the moment. He wondered if Mrs. Marshall wanted to keep it as a memento, or if she would consider selling it. If she would, he’d be glad to buy it from her. He strummed an out-of-tune G seventh, then moved to put the guitar back in its case. As he did so, he thought he heard something slip around inside it. Gently, he shook the guitar, and there it was again: something scraping inside.

Curious, Banks loosened the strings so that he could slip his hand inside. With a bit of juggling and shaking he managed to grab hold of what felt like a piece of stiff, rolled-up paper. Carefully he pulled it out, noticing the dried Sellotape Graham had used to stick it to the inside of the guitar. That made it something he had tried to hide.

And when Banks unrolled it, he saw why.

It was a photograph: Graham sprawled on a sheepskin rug in front of a large, ornate fireplace, arms behind him, hands propping him up, legs stretched out in front. He was smiling at the camera in a flirtatious and knowing manner.

And he was absolutely stark naked.

Michelle was lucky to find a parking spot about a hundred yards from the former Mrs. Harris’s pretentious pile of mock Tudor on Long Road, Cambridge, opposite the grounds of Long Road Sixth Form College. It was still drizzling outside, so she took the umbrella from the back of her car.

It hadn’t been too hard to track down Jet Harris’s ex-wife. The biographical pamphlet told Michelle that her maiden name was Edith Dalton and that she had been married to Harris for twenty-three years, from 1950 to 1973, and that she was ten years his junior. A few discreet inquiries around the office yielded the information that a retired civilian employee, Margery Jenkins, visited her occasionally, and she was happy to give Michelle the address. She also told her that the former Mrs. Harris had remarried and was now called Mrs. Gifford. Michelle hoped that the nature of her inquiries didn’t get back to Shaw before she got the information she needed, whatever that was. She wasn’t even sure what Mrs. Gifford could, or would, tell her.

A slim, elegantly dressed gray-haired woman answered the door, and Michelle introduced herself. With a puzzled but interested expression Mrs. Gifford led Michelle to her large living room. There was no clutter, just a white three-piece suite, various antique cabinets stuffed with crystal, and a large sideboard against the wall. Mrs. Gifford offered nothing in the way of refreshments but sat, legs crossed, and lit a cigarette from a gold lighter. She had a calculating look about her, Michelle noticed – around the eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the strict set of her jaw and sharp angles of her cheeks. She was also very well-preserved for her seventy-plus years and had a deep tan, the sort she couldn’t have got in England so far this summer.

“The Algarve,” she said, as if she had noticed Michelle looking. “Got back last week. My husband and I have a nice little villa there. He was a doctor, a plastic surgeon, but he’s retired now, of course. Anyway, what can I do for you? It’s been a long time since the coppers came to call.”

So Edith Dalton had landed on her feet after twenty-three years of marriage to Jet Harris. “Just information,” said Michelle. You’ve heard about the Graham Marshall case?”

“Yes. Poor lad.” Mrs. Gifford tapped her cigarette against the side of a glass ashtray. “What about him?”

“Your husband was in charge of that investigation.”

“I remember.”

“Did he ever talk about it, tell you any of his theories?”

“John never talked about his work to me.”

“But something like that? A local boy. Surely you must have been curious?”

“Naturally. But he made a point of not discussing his cases at home.”

“So he didn’t have any theories?”

“Not that he shared with me.”

“Do you remember Ben Shaw?”

“Ben? Of course. He worked closely with John.” She smiled. “Regan and Carter, they used to think of themselves. The Sweeney. Quite the lads. How is Ben? I haven’t seen him for years.”

“What did you think of him?”

Her eyes narrowed. “As a man or as a copper?”

“Both. Either.”

Mrs. Gifford flicked some ash. “Not much, if truth be told. Ben Shaw rode on John’s coattails, but he wasn’t half the man. Or a quarter the copper.”

“His notebooks covering the Graham Marshall case are missing.”

Mrs. Gifford raised a finely penciled eyebrow. “Well, things do have a habit of disappearing over time.”

“It just seems a bit of a coincidence.”

“Coincidences do happen.”

“I was just wondering if you knew anything about Shaw, that’s all.”

“Like what? Are you asking me if Ben Shaw is bent?”

“Is he?”

“I don’t know. John certainly never said anything about it.”

“And he would have known?”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “John would have known. Not much got by him.”

“So you never heard any rumors?”

“No.”

“I understand your husband was a commando during the war.”

“Yes. A real war hero, John was.”

“Do you know if he owned a Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife?”

“Not that I saw.”

“He didn’t have any mementos?”

“He gave everything up when he was demobbed. He never talked about those days much. He just wanted to forget. Look, where is all this leading?”

Michelle didn’t know how to come straight out with it and ask her if her ex-husband was bent, but she got the impression that Mrs. Gifford was a hard one to deceive. “You lived with Mr. Harris for twenty-three years,” she said. “Why leave after so long?”

Mrs. Gifford raised her eyebrows. “What an odd question. And a rather rude one, if I may say so.”

“I’m sorry, but-”

Mrs. Gifford waved her cigarette in the air. “Yes, yes, you’ve got your job to do. I know. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I waited until the children left home. It’s amazing how much one will put up with for the sake of the children, and for appearances.”

“Put up with?”

“Marriage to John wasn’t a bed of roses.”

“But there must have been some compensations.”

Mrs. Gifford frowned. “Compensations?”

“The high life.”

Mrs. Gifford laughed. “The high life? My dear, we lived in that poky little semi in Peterborough almost all our married life. I’d hardly call that the high life.”

“I don’t know how to say this diplomatically,” Michelle went on.

“Then bugger diplomacy. I’ve always been one to face things head-on. Come on, out with it.”

“But there seem to be some anomalies in the original investigation into the Graham Marshall disappearance. Things seem to have been steered in one direction, away from other possibilities, and-”

“And my John was the one doing the steering?”

“Well, he was the senior investigating officer.”

“And you want to know if he was being paid off?”

“It looks that way. Do you remember Carlo Fiorino?”

“I’ve heard the name. A long time ago. Wasn’t he shot in some drug war?”

“Yes, but before that he pretty much ran crime in the area.”

Mrs. Gifford laughed. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said, “but the image of some sort of Mafia don running crime in sleepy old Peterborough is… well, to say the least, it’s ridiculous.”

“He wasn’t Mafia. Wasn’t even Italian. He was the son of a POW and a local girl.”

“Even so, it still sounds absurd.”

“Where there are people, there’s crime, Mrs. Gifford. And Peterborough was growing fast. The new town expansion. There’s nothing anyone likes better than a quickly expanding market. People want to gamble, they want sex, they want to feel safe. If someone supplies them with all these needs, there’s quite a tidy profit to be made. And the job’s made all the easier if you have a senior policeman in your pocket.” She didn’t mean it to come out so bluntly, but she wanted to get Mrs. Gifford to take her seriously.

“So you’re saying John was on the take?”

“I’m asking you if you noticed anything that might indicate he was receiving extra money, yes.”

“Well, if he was, I never saw any of it. I can tell you that much.”

“So where did it all go? Wine, women and song?”

Mrs. Gifford laughed again and stubbed out her cigarette. “My dear,” she said, “John was strictly an ale and whiskey man. He also had a tin ear, and you can forget the women. I’ve not told anyone except my present husband this, but I’ll tell you now: John Harris was queer as a three-pound note.”

“Another round?”

“My shout,” said Banks.

“I’ll come with you.” Dave Grenfell got up and accompanied Banks to the bar. For old times’ sake, they were in The Wheatsheaf, where the three of them had drunk their very first pints of beer at the age of sixteen. The place had been tarted up over the years, and now it seemed a lot more up-market than the shabby Victorian backstreet boozer it had been all those years ago. Probably got the lunchtime crowd from the new “business park” over the road, Banks guessed, though now, early in the evening, it was practically deserted.

Over the first pint, they had caught up with one another to the extent that Banks knew Dave, as his father had said, still worked as a mechanic in a garage in Dorchester and was still married to Ellie, whereas Paul was cheerfully unemployed and gay as the day is long. Coming hot on the heels of his hearing Mrs. Gifford’s revelations about Jet Harris over the phone from Michelle, this last discovery shocked Banks only because he had never spotted any signs of it back when they were kids. Not that he would have recognized them. Paul had seemed to leer over the porn just as much as the others, laugh at the jokes about poofs, and Banks was sure he remembered him having a steady girlfriend at one point.

Still, back in 1965, people denied, pretended, tried to “pass” for straight. Even after legalization, there was so much stigma attached to it, especially on the more macho working-class estates where they had all lived. And in the police force. Banks wondered how hard it had been for Paul to come to terms with himself and come out. Clearly Jet Harris had never been able to do so. And Banks was willing to bet a pound to a penny that someone had known about it, and that someone had used the knowledge to advantage. Jet Harris hadn’t been bent; he’d been blackmailed.

As Dave prattled on about how gobsmacked he was to find out Paul had turned into an “arse-bandit,” Banks’s thoughts returned to the photo he had found in Graham’s guitar. He hadn’t told Mr. or Mrs. Marshall, hadn’t told anyone except Michelle, over his mobile phone, when he took the photo up to his room before meeting the others in The Wheatsheaf. What did it mean, and why was it there? Graham must have put it there, Banks assumed, and he did so because he wanted to hide it. But why did he have it in his possession, why had he posed for it, who took it, and where was it taken? The fireplace looked distinctive enough. Adam, Banks guessed, and you didn’t find those just anywhere.

Banks could begin to formulate a few answers to his questions, but he didn’t have enough pieces yet to make a complete pattern. Two things he and Michelle had agreed on for certain during their phone conversation: the photo was in some way connected with Graham’s murder, and Donald Bradford and Jet Harris were involved in whatever nasty business had been going on. Maybe Carlo Fiorino and Bill Marshall, too. But there were still a few pieces missing.

They carried the drinks back to the table, where Paul sat glancing around the room. “Remember the old jukebox?” he said.

Banks nodded. The Wheatsheaf used to have a great jukebox for a provincial pub outside the city center, he remembered, and they spent almost as much money on that as they did on beer. The sixties of familiar, if sentimental, memory was in full bloom then, when they were sixteen: Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” the Flowerpot Men singing “Let’s go to San Francisco,” The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.”

“What do you listen to now, Alan?” Dave asked Banks.

“Bit of everything, I suppose,” Banks said. “Jazz, classical, some of the old rock stuff. You?”

“Nothing much. I sort of lost interest in music in the seventies, when we had the kids. Never really got it back. Remember Steve, though, the kind of stuff he used to make us listen to on Sunday afternoons? Dylan and all that.”

Banks laughed. “He was ahead of his time, was Steve. Where the hell is he, anyway? Surely he must have heard, someone must have been in touch with him.”

“Hadn’t you heard?” Paul said.

Banks and Dave both stared at him. “What?”

“Shit. I thought you must know. I’m sorry. Steve’s dead.”

Banks felt a shiver up his spine. The Big Chill. It was one thing to get to an age when the generation ahead started dying off, but another thing entirely to face the mortality of your own generation. “What happened?” he asked.

“Lung cancer. About three years ago. I only know ’cos his mum and dad kept in touch with mine, like. Christmas cards, that sort of thing. I hadn’t actually seen him for years. Apparently he had a couple of kids, too.”

“Poor sod,” said Dave.

After a brief silence, they raised their glasses and drank a toast to the memory of Steve, early Dylan fan. Then they toasted Graham again. Two down, three to go.

Banks looked closely at each of his old friends and saw that Dave had lost most of his hair and Paul was gray and had put on a lot of weight. He started to feel gloomy, and even the memory of Michelle naked beside him failed to dispel the gloom. His lip burned and his left side ached from where his assailant had kicked him. He felt like getting pissed, but he knew when he felt that way that it never worked. No matter how much he drank he never reached the state of oblivion he aimed for. Even so, he didn’t have to watch what he drank. He wasn’t driving anywhere that night. He had thought he might try to get in touch with Michelle later, depending on how the evening went, but they hadn’t made any firm arrangements. Both needed time to absorb what had happened between them, Banks sensed. That was okay. He didn’t feel that she was backing off or anything, no more than he was. Besides, she had a lot to do. Things were moving fast.

Banks looked at his cigarette smoldering in the ashtray and thought of Steve. Lung cancer. Shit. He reached forward and stubbed it out even though it was only half smoked. Maybe it would be his last. That thought made him feel a bit better, yet even that feeling was fast followed by a wave of sheer panic at how unbearable his life would be without cigarettes. The coffee in the morning, a pint of beer in the Queen’s Arms, that late evening Laphroaig out by the beck. Impossible. Well, he told himself, let’s just take it a day at a time.

Banks’s mobile rang, startling him out of his gloomy reverie. “Sorry,” he said. “I’d better take it. Might be important.”

He walked out into the street and sheltered from the rain under a shop awning. It was getting dark and there wasn’t much traffic about. The road surface glistened in the lights of the occasional car, and puddles reflected the blue neon sign of a video rental shop across the street. “Alan, it’s Annie,” said the voice at the other end.

“Annie? What’s happening?”

Annie told Banks about the Liz Palmer interview, and he could sense anger and sadness in her account.

“You think she’s telling the truth?”

“Pretty certain,” said Annie. “The Big Man interviewed Ryan Milne at the same time and the details check out. They haven’t been allowed to get together and concoct a story since they’ve been in custody.”

“Okay,” said Banks. “So where does that leave us?”

“With a distraught and disoriented Luke Armitage wandering off into the night alone,” Annie said. “The thoughtless bastards.”

“So where did he go?”

“We don’t know. It’s back to the drawing board. There’s just one thing…”

“Yes.”

“The undigested diazepam that Dr. Glendenning found in Luke’s system.”

“What about it?”

“Well, he didn’t get it at Liz and Ryan’s flat. Neither of them has a prescription and we didn’t find any in our search.”

“They could have got it illegally, along with the cannabis and LSD, then got rid of it.”

“They could have,” said Annie. “But why lie about it?”

“That I can’t answer. What’s your theory?”

“Well, if Luke was freaking out the way it seems he was, then someone might have thought it was a good idea to give him some Valium to calm him down.”

“Or to keep him quiet.”

“Possibly.”

“What next?”

“We need to find out where he went. I’m going to talk to Luke’s parents again tomorrow. They might be able to help now that we know a bit more about his movements. I’ll be talking to Lauren Anderson, too, and perhaps Gavin Barlow.”

“Why?”

“Maybe there was still something going on between Luke and Rose, and maybe her father didn’t approve.”

“Enough to kill him?”

“Enough to make it physical. We still can’t say for certain that anyone murdered Luke. Anyway, I’d like to know where they both were the night Luke disappeared. Maybe it was Rose he went to see.”

“Fair enough,” said Banks. “And don’t forget that Martin Armitage was out and about that night, too.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“What’s happened with him, by the way?”

“He appeared before the magistrates this afternoon. He’s out on bail till the preliminary hearing.”

“What about Norman Wells?”

“He’ll mend. When will you be back?”

“Tomorrow or the day after.”

“Getting anywhere?”

“I think so.”

“And what are you up to tonight?”

“School reunion,” said Banks, walking back into the pub. An approaching car seemed to be going way too fast, and Banks felt a momentary rush of panic. He ducked into a shop doorway. The car sped by him, too close to the curb, and splashed water from the gutter over his trouser bottoms. He cursed.

“What is it?” Annie asked.

Banks told her, and she laughed. “Have a good time at your school reunion,” she said.

“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.” He ended the call and returned to his seat. Dave and Paul had been making uneasy small talk in his absence, and Dave seemed glad to see him come back.

“So you’re a copper,” said Paul, shaking his head when Banks sat down again. “I still can’t get over it. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said you’d end up a teacher or a newspaper reporter or something like that. But a copper…”

Banks smiled. “Funny how things turn out.”

“Very queer, indeed,” muttered Dave. His voice sounded as if the beer was having an early effect.

Paul gave him a sharp glance, then tapped Banks’s arm. “Hey,” he said, “you’d have had to arrest me back then, wouldn’t you? For being queer.”

Banks sensed the tension escalating and moved on to the subject he’d been wanting to talk about from the start: Graham. “Do either of you remember anything odd happening around the time Graham disappeared?” he asked.

“You’re not working on the case, are you?” asked Dave, eager to be given a change of subject.

“No,” said Banks. “But I’m interested in what happened. I mean, I am a copper, and Graham was a mate. Naturally, I’m curious.”

“Did you ever tell them about that bloke by the river?” Paul asked.

“It didn’t lead anywhere,” Banks said, explaining. “Besides, I think it’s a lot closer to home.”

“What do you mean?” Paul asked.

Banks didn’t want to tell them about the photograph. Apart from Michelle, he didn’t want anyone to know about that if he could help it. Maybe he was protecting Graham’s memory, but the idea of people seeing him like that was abhorrent to Banks. He also didn’t want to tell them about Jet Harris, Shaw and the missing notebooks. “Do you remember Donald Bradford?” he asked. “The bloke who ran the newsagent’s.”

“Dirty Don?” said Paul. “Sure. I remember him.”

“Why did you call him Dirty Don?”

“I don’t know.” Paul shrugged. “Maybe he sold dirty magazines. It’s just something my dad called him. Don’t you remember?”

Banks didn’t. But he found it interesting that Paul’s dad had known about Bradford’s interest in porn. Had his own father known? Had anyone told Proctor and Shaw all those years ago when they came to conduct the interviews? Was that why the notebooks and action allocations had to disappear, so that suspicion wouldn’t point toward Bradford? Next to the family, Donald Bradford should have come under the most scrutiny, but he had been virtually ignored. “Did Graham ever tell you where he got those magazines he used to show us inside the tree?”

“What magazines?” Dave asked.

“Don’t you remember?” Paul said. “I do. Women with bloody great bazookas.” He shuddered. “Gave me the willies even then.”

“I seem to remember you enjoyed them as much as the rest of us,” said Banks. “Do you really not remember, Dave?”

“Maybe I’m blanking it out for some reason, but I don’t.”

Banks turned to Paul. “Did he ever tell you where he got them?”

“Not that I remember. Why? Do you think it was Bradford?”

“It’s a possibility. A newsagent’s shop would be a pretty good outlet for things like that. And Graham always seemed to have money to spare.”

“He once told me he stole it from his mother’s purse,” said Dave. “I remember that.”

“Did you believe him?” Banks asked.

“Saw no reason not to. It shocked me, though, that he’d be so callous about it. I’d never have dared steal from my mother’s purse. She’d have killed me.” He put his hand to his mouth. “Oops, sorry about that. Didn’t mean it to come out that way.”

“It’s all right,” said Banks. “I very much doubt that Graham’s mother killed him for stealing from her purse.” On the other hand, Graham’s father, Banks thought, was another matter entirely. “I think there was more to it than that.”

“What?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know. I just think Graham had something going with Donald Bradford, most likely something involving porn. And I think that led to his death.”

“You think Bradford killed him?”

“It’s a possibility. Maybe he was helping distribute the stuff, or maybe he found out about it and was blackmailing Bradford. I don’t know. All I know is that there’s a connection.”

“Graham? Blackmailing?” said Dave. “Now, hold on a minute, Alan; this is our mate Graham we’re talking about. The one whose funeral we just went to. Remember? Stealing a few bob from his mum’s purse is one thing, but blackmail…?”

“I don’t think things were exactly as we thought they were back then,” said Banks.

“Come again?” said Dave.

“He means none of you knew I was queer, for a start,” said Paul.

Banks looked at him. “But we didn’t, did we? You’re right. And I don’t think we knew a hell of a lot about Graham, either, mate or not.” He looked at Dave. “For fuck’s sake, Dave, you don’t even remember the dirty magazines.”

“Maybe I’ve got a psychological block.”

“Do you at least remember the tree?” Banks asked.

“Our den? Of course I do. I remember lots of things. Just not looking at those magazines.”

“But you did,” said Paul. “I remember you once saying pictures like that must have been taken at Randy Mandy’s. Don’t you remember that?”

“Randy Mandy’s?” Banks asked. “What the hell’s that?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember, either,” said Paul, exasperated.

“Obviously I don’t,” said Banks. “What does it mean?”

“Randy Mandy’s? It was Rupert Mandeville’s place, that big house up Market Deeping way. Remember?”

Banks felt a vague recollection at the edge of his consciousness. “I think I remember.”

“It was just our joke, that’s all,” Paul went on. “We thought they had all sorts of sex orgies there. Like that place where Profumo used to go a couple of years earlier. Remember that? Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies?”

Banks remembered Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. The newspapers had been full of risqué photographs and salacious “confessions” around the time of the Profumo scandal. But that was in 1963, not 1965.

“I remember now,” said Dave. “Rupert Mandeville’s house. Bloody great country mansion, more like. We used to think it was some sort of den of iniquity back then, somewhere all sorts of naughty things went on. Whenever we came across something dirty we always said it must have come from Randy Mandy’s. You must remember, Alan. God knows where we got the idea from, but there was this high wall and a big swimming pool in the garden, and we used to imagine all the girls we fancied swimming naked there.”

“Vaguely,” said Banks, who wondered if there was any truth in this. It was worth checking into, anyway. He’d talk to Michelle, see if she knew anything. “This Mandeville still around?”

“Wasn’t he an MP or something?” said Dave.

“I think so,” Paul said. “I remember reading about him in the papers a few years ago. I think he’s in the House of Lords now.”

“Lord Randy Mandy,” said Dave, and they laughed for old times’ sake.

Conversation meandered on for another hour or so and at least one round of double Scotches. Dave seemed to stick at a certain level of drunkenness, one he had achieved early on, and now it was Paul who began to show the effects of alcohol the most, and his manner became more exaggeratedly effeminate as time went on.

Banks could sense Dave getting impatient and embarrassed by the looks they were receiving from some of the other customers. He was finding it harder and harder to imagine that they had all had so much in common once, but then it had been a lot easier and more innocent: you supported the same football team, even if they weren’t very good; you liked pop music and lusted after Emma Peel and Marianne Faithfull; and that was enough. It helped if you weren’t a swot at school and if you lived on the same estate.

Perhaps the bonds of adolescence weren’t any more shallow than those of adulthood, Banks mused, but it had sure as hell been easier to make friends back then. Now, as he looked from one to the other – Paul growing more red-faced and camp, Dave, lips tight, barely able to keep his homophobia in check – Banks decided it was time to leave. They had lived apart for over thirty years and would continue to do so without any sense of loss.

When Banks said he had to go, Dave took his cue, and Paul said he wasn’t going to sit there by himself. The rain had stopped and the night smelled fresh. Banks wanted a cigarette but resisted. As they walked the short distance back to the estate, none of them said much, sensing perhaps that tonight marked the end of something. Finally, Banks got to his parents’ door, their first stop, and said good night. They all made vague lies about keeping in touch and then walked back to their own separate lives.

Michelle was eating warmed-up chicken casserole, sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc and watching a television documentary on ocean life when her telephone rang late that evening. She was irritated by the interruption, but thinking it might be Banks, she answered it.

“Hope I didn’t disturb you,” Banks said.

“No, not at all,” Michelle lied, putting her half-eaten food aside and turning down the volume with the remote control. “It’s good to hear from you.” And it was.

“Look, it’s a bit late, and I’ve had a few drinks,” he said, “so I’d probably better not drop by tonight.”

“You men. You take a girl to bed once, and then it’s back to your mates and your beer.”

“I didn’t say I’d had too much to drink,” Banks replied. “In fact, I think I’ll phone for a taxi right now.”

Michelle laughed. “It’s all right. I’m only teasing. Believe me, I could do with an early night. Besides, you’ll only get in trouble with your mother. Did you find out anything from your old pals?”

“A bit.” Banks told her about Bradford’s “Dirty Don” epithet and the rumors they used to hear about the Mandeville house.

“I’ve heard of that place recently,” Michelle said. “I don’t know if Shaw mentioned it, or if I read about it in some old file, but I’ll check up on it tomorrow. Who’d have thought it? A house of sin. In Peterborough.”

“Well, I suppose, strictly speaking, it’s outside the city limits,” said Banks. “But going by the photo I found in Graham’s guitar and the information you got from Jet Harris’s ex-wife, I think we’d better look into anything even remotely linked with illicit sex around the time of Graham’s murder, don’t you?”

“That’s it!” Michelle said. “The connection.”

“What connection?”

“The Mandeville house. It was something to do with illicit sex. At least it was illicit back then. Homosexuality. There was a complaint about goings-on at the Mandeville house. I read about it in the old logs. No further action taken.”

“Tomorrow might turn into a busy day, then,” said Banks.

“All the more reason to get an early night. Can you stick around to help, or do you have to head back up north?”

“One more day won’t do any harm.”

“Good. Why don’t you come to dinner tomorrow?”

“Your place?”

“Yes. If I can tempt you away from your mates in the boozer, that is.”

“You don’t have to offer dinner to do that.”

“Believe it or not, I’m quite a good cook if I put my mind to it.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment. Just one question.”

“Yes?”

“I thought you told me you hadn’t seen Chinatown.”

Michelle laughed. “I remember saying no such thing. Good night.” And she hung up, still laughing. She noticed the photo of Ted and Melissa from the corner of her eye and felt a little surge of guilt. But it soon passed, and she felt that unfamiliar lightness again, a buoyancy of spirit. She was tired, but before calling it a night, she went into the kitchen, pulled out a box of books and flipped through them before putting them on her shelves. Poetry for the most part. She loved poetry. Including Philip Larkin. Then she hefted out a boxful of her best china and kitchenware. Looking around at the mostly empty cabinets, she tried to choose the best place for each item.