Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

Chapter 5

Nick Lowe’s The Convincer ended and Banks slipped in David Gray’s White Ladder. As he approached the turn-off to Peterborough, he wondered what to do first. He had rung his parents to let them know he was coming, of course, so perhaps he should go straight there. On the other hand, he was closer to Police HQ, and the sooner he introduced himself to Detective Inspector Michelle Hart, the better. So he headed for the police station in its idyllic setting just off the Nene Parkway, between the nature reserve and the golf course.

In the reception area, he asked to speak to the detective in charge of the Graham Marshall investigation, introducing himself only as Alan Banks, a childhood friend. He didn’t want to appear to be pulling rank or even introduce himself as a fellow copper, at least not at first, not until he saw which way the wind was blowing. Besides, just out of curiosity, he wanted to know how they treated an ordinary member of the public who came forward with information. It would do no harm to play a bit of a game.

After he had been waiting about ten minutes, a young woman opened the locked door that led to the main part of the station and beckoned him inside. Conservatively dressed in a navy-blue suit, skirt below the knees, and a button-down white blouse, she was petite and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair parted in the middle and tucked behind her small, delicate ears. She had a jagged fringe that came almost down to her eyes, which were a startling green, a color Banks remembered seeing somewhere in the sea near Greece. Her mouth was slightly down-turned at the edges, which made her look a bit sad, and she had a small, straight nose. All in all, she was a very attractive woman, Banks thought, but he sensed a severity and a reserve in her – a definite “No Entry” sign – and there was no mistaking the lines that suffering had etched around her haunting and haunted eyes.

“Mr. Banks?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

Banks stood up. “Yes.”

“I’m Detective Inspector Hart. Please follow me.” She led him to an interview room. It felt very strange being on the receiving end, Banks thought, and he got an inkling of the discomfort some of his interviewees must have felt. He looked around. Though it was a different county, the basics were still the same as every interview room he had ever seen: table and chairs bolted to the floor, high window covered by a grille, institutional green paint on the walls, and that unforgettable smell of fear.

There was nothing to worry about, of course, but Banks couldn’t help feeling just a little nervous as DI Hart put on her silver-rimmed oval reading glasses and shuffled the papers around in front of her, as he had done many times himself, to draw out the tension and cause anxiety in the person sitting opposite. It touched the raw nerve of his childhood fear of authority, even though he knew he was authority himself, now. Banks had always been aware of that irony, but a situation like this one really brought it home.

He also felt that DI Hart didn’t need to act this way with him, that she was putting on too much of a show. His fault, perhaps, for not saying who he was, but even so, it was a bit heavy-handed to talk to him in an official interview room. He had come in voluntarily, and he was neither a witness nor a suspect. She could have found an empty office and sent for coffee. But what would he have done? The same, probably; it was the “us and them” mentality, and in her mind he was a civilian. Them.

DI Hart stopped playing with her papers and broke the silence. “So you say you can help with the Graham Marshall investigation?”

“Perhaps,” said Banks. “I knew him.”

“Have you any idea at all what might have happened to him?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Banks. He had intended to tell her everything but found it wasn’t as easy as that. Not yet. “We just hung around together.”

“What was he like?”

“Graham? It’s hard to say,” said Banks. “I mean, you don’t think about things like that when you’re kids, do you?”

“Try now.”

“He was deep, I think. Quiet, at any rate. Most kids joked around, did stupid stuff, but Graham was always more serious, more reserved.” Banks remembered the small, almost secret smile as Graham had watched others act out comic routines – as if he didn’t find them funny but knew he had to smile. “You never felt you were fully privy to what was going on in his mind,” he added.

“You mean he kept secrets?”

“Don’t we all?”

“What were his?”

“They wouldn’t have been secrets if I knew them, would they? I’m just trying to give you some sense of what he was like. There was a secretive side to his nature.”

“Go on.”

She was becoming edgy, Banks thought. Rough day, probably, and not enough help. “We did all the usual stuff together: played football and cricket, listened to music, talked about our favorite TV shows.”

“What about girlfriends?”

“Graham was a good-looking kid. The girls liked him, and he liked them, but I don’t think he had anyone steady.”

“What kind of mischief did he get up to?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to incriminate myself, but we broke a window or two, did a bit of shoplifting, played truant, and we smoked cigarettes behind the cycle sheds at school. Pretty much normal stuff for teenagers back then. We didn’t break into anyone’s home, steal cars or mug old ladies.”

“Drugs?”

“This was 1965, for crying out loud.”

“Drugs were around back then.”

“How would you know? You probably weren’t even born.”

Michelle reddened. “I know King Harold got an arrow in his eye at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and I wasn’t born then.”

“Okay. Point taken. But drugs…? Not us, at any rate. Cigarettes were about the worst we did back then. Drugs may have been increasingly popular with the younger generation in London, but not with fourteen-year-old kids in a provincial backwater. Look, I should probably have done this before, but…” He reached into his inside pocket and took out his warrant card, laying it on the desk in front of her.

Michelle looked at it a minute, picked it up and looked more closely, then slid it back across the desk to Banks. She took off her reading glasses and set them on the table. “Prick,” she whispered.

“Come again?”

“You heard me. Why didn’t you tell me from the start you were a DCI instead of playing games and stringing me along, making me feel like a complete fool?”

“Because I didn’t want to give the impression I was trying to interfere. I’m simply here as someone who knew Graham. Besides, why did you have to come on so heavy-handed? I came here to volunteer information. There was no need to put me in an interview room and use the same tactics you use on a suspect. I’m surprised you didn’t leave me here alone to stew for an hour.”

“You’re making me wish I had.”

They glared at each other in silence for a few moments, then Banks said, “Look, I’m sorry. I had no intention of making you feel foolish. And you don’t need to. Why should you? It’s true that I knew Graham. We were close friends at school. We lived on the same street. But this isn’t my case, and I don’t want you to think I’m pushing my nose in or anything. That’s why I didn’t announce myself at first. I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have told you I was on the Job right from the start. Okay?”

Michelle gazed at him through narrowed eyes for a while, then twitched the corners of her lips in a brief smile and nodded. “Your name came up when I was talking to his parents. I would have got in touch eventually.”

“The powers that be not exactly overwhelming you with assistance on this one, then?”

Michelle snorted. “You could say that. One DC. It’s not a high priority case, and I’m the new kid on the block. New girl.”

“I know what you mean,” Banks said. He remembered first meeting Annie Cabbot when she was put out to pasture at Harkside and he was in Outer Siberia back in Eastvale. That hadn’t been a high priority case to start with, either, but it had turned into one. He could sympathize with DI Hart.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I didn’t know you were a copper. I suppose I should call you ‘sir’? Rank and all?”

“Not necessary. I’m not one to stand on ceremony. Besides, I’m on your patch here. You’re the boss. I do have a suggestion, though.”

“Oh?”

Banks looked at his watch. “It’s one o’clock. I drove down from Eastvale this morning without stopping and I haven’t had a thing to eat. Why don’t we get out of this depressing room and talk about Graham over lunch? I’ll pay.”

Michelle raised on eyebrow. “You asking me out to lunch?”

“To discuss the case. Over lunch. Yes. Dammit, I’m hungry. Know any decent pubs around here?”

She gazed at him again, apparently appraising him for any imminent risk he might pose to her. When she couldn’t seem to think of anything, she said, “Okay. I know a place. Come on. But I’m paying my own way.”

What a stupid bloody decision it had been to take to the high ground, Annie Cabbot thought as she trudged illegally up the footpath, trying to avoid the little clusters of sheep droppings that seemed to be everywhere, and failing as often as not. Her legs ached and she was panting with effort, even though she thought of herself as pretty fit.

She wasn’t dressed for a walk in the country, either. Knowing she was visiting the Armitages again that morning, she had dressed in a skirt and blouse. She was even wearing tights. Not to mention the navy pumps that were crippling her. It was a hot day, and she could feel the sweat trickling along every available channel. Stray tresses of hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead.

As she climbed, she kept glancing behind at the shepherd’s shelter, but nobody approached it. She could only hope that she hadn’t been spotted, that the kidnapper, if that was what this was all about, wasn’t watching her through binoculars from a comfortable distance.

She found a spot she thought would do. It was a gentle dip in the daleside a few yards off the footpath. From there she could lie on her stomach and keep a close eye on the shelter without being seen from below.

Annie felt the warm, damp grass against her body, smelled its sweetness as she lay flat on her stomach, binoculars in hand. It felt good, and she wanted to take off all her clothes, feel the sun and earth on her bare skin, but she told herself not to be such a bloody fool and get on with the job. She compromised by taking off her jacket. The sun beat down on the back of her head and her shoulders. She had no suntan lotion with her, so she put the jacket over the back of her neck, even though it felt too hot. Better than getting sunstroke.

When she had got settled, there she lay. Waiting. Watching. Thoughts drifted through her head the way they did when she settled down to meditation, and she tried to practice the same technique of letting them go without dwelling on them. It started as a sort of free association, then went way beyond: sunlight; warmth; skin; pigment; her father; Banks; music; Luke Armitage’s black room; dead singers; secrets; kidnapping; murder.

Flies buzzed around her, snapping her out of the chain of association. She waved them away. At one point, she felt a beetle or some insect creeping down the front of her bra and almost panicked, but she managed to get it off her before it got too far. A couple of curious rabbits approached, twitched their noses and turned away. Annie wondered if she would end up in Wonderland if she followed one.

She took long, deep breaths of grass-scented air. Time passed. An hour. Two. Three. Still nobody came to pick up the briefcase. Of course, the shepherd’s shelter was off-limits because of foot-and-mouth, as was all open countryside, but that hadn’t stopped Martin Armitage, and she was certain it wouldn’t stop the kidnapper, either. In fact, it was probably why the place had been chosen: little chance of anyone passing by. Most people in the area were law-abiding when it came to the restrictions, because they knew how much was at stake, and the tourists were staying away, taking their holidays abroad or in the cities instead. Normally, Annie obeyed the signs, too, but this was an emergency, and she knew she hadn’t been anywhere near an infected area in weeks.

She wished she had something to eat and drink. It was long past lunchtime now, and she was starving. The heat was also making her thirsty. And there was something else, she realized, a more pressing urge: she needed to go to the toilet.

Well, she thought, looking around and seeing nothing but sheep in every direction, there’s a simple remedy for that. She moved a few yards away from her flattened spot on the ground, checked for nettles and thistles, then took off her tights, squatted and peed. At least a woman could do that during surveillance in the countryside, Annie thought with a smile. It was a bit different if you were sitting cooped up in your car on a city street, as she had found out more than once in the past. Before she had finished, two low-flying jets from a nearby U.S. airbase screamed over, seeming no more than twenty feet or so from her head. She wondered if the pilots had got a good view. She gave them the finger, the way Americans did.

Back on her stomach, she tried her mobile again on the off chance that it might just have been local interference before, but still no luck. The moor was a dead zone.

How long should she wait? she wondered. And why hadn’t he come? The money was just lying there. What if he didn’t come before nightfall and the lovers returned, more important things than foot-and-mouth on their minds? Several thousand quid as well as a quick bonk would be an unexpected bonus for them.

Her stomach rumbling, tongue dry against the roof of her mouth, Annie picked up the binoculars again and trained them on the shelter.

Michelle drove Banks to a pub she knew near the A1, wondering more than once on the way why she was doing this. But she knew the answer. She was bored with routine, bored first with tracking down the paperwork, and then bored with reading through it. She needed to get out, blow the cobwebs away, and this was the opportunity to do that and work as well.

She also had to admit that she was intrigued to meet someone who had been a friend of Graham Marshall’s, especially as this Banks, despite a touch of gray in his closely cropped black hair, didn’t look old enough. He was slim, perhaps stood three or four inches taller than her five foot five, had an angular face with lively blue eyes, and a tan. He showed no great clothes sense but was dressed in basic Marks amp; Sparks casuals – light sports jacket, gray chinos, blue denim shirt unbuttoned at the collar – and the look suited him. Some men his age only looked good in a business suit, Michelle thought. Anything else made them the male version of mutton dressed up as lamb. But on some older men casual looked natural. It did on Banks.

“Is it to be DI Hart, then?” Banks asked.

Michelle glanced sideways at him. “I suppose you can call me Michelle, if you want.”

“Michelle it is, then. Nice name.”

Was he flirting? “Come off it,” Michelle said.

“No, seriously. I mean it. No need to blush.”

Angry at herself for letting her embarrassment show, Michelle said, “Just as long as you don’t start singing the old Beatles song.”

“I never sing to a woman I’ve just met. Besides, I imagine you must have heard it many times.”

Michelle graced him with a smile. “Too numerous to mention.”

The pub had parking at the back and a big freshly mown lawn with white tables and chairs where they could sit out in the sun. A couple of families were already there, settled in for the afternoon by the look of it, kids running around and playing on the swings and slide the pub provided in a small playground, but Michelle and Banks managed to find a quiet enough spot at the far end near the trees. Michelle watched the children play as Banks went inside to get the drinks. One of them was about six or seven, head covered in lovely golden curls, laughing unself-consciously as she went higher on the swings. Melissa. Michelle felt as if her heart were breaking up inside her chest as she watched. It was a relief when Banks came back with a pint for himself and a shandy for her, and set two menus down on the table.

“What’s up?” he asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have,” she said. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Banks was diplomatic, she noted, curious about her mood, but sensitive and considerate enough to leave well enough alone and pretend to be studying the menu. Michelle liked that. She wasn’t very hungry, but she ordered a prawn sandwich just to avoid being questioned about her lack of appetite. If truth be told, her stomach still felt sour from last night’s wine. Banks was obviously ravenous, as he ordered a huge Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and gravy.

When their orders were in, they sat back in their chairs and relaxed. They were in the shade of a beech tree, where it was still warm, but out of the direct sunlight. Banks drank some beer and lit a cigarette. He looked in good shape, Michelle thought, for someone who smoked, drank and ate huge Yorkshire puddings and sausages. But how long would that last? If he really was Graham Marshall’s contemporary, he’d be around fifty now, and wasn’t that the age that men started worrying about their arteries and blood pressure, not to mention the prostate? Still, who was she to judge? True, she didn’t smoke, but she drank too much and ate far too much junk food.

“So what else can you tell me about Graham Marshall?” she asked.

Banks drew on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. He seemed to be enjoying it, Michelle thought, or was it a strategy he used to gain the upper hand in interviews? They all had some sort of strategy, even Michelle, though she would have been hard-pushed to define what it was. She thought herself quite direct. Finally, he answered, “We were friends at school, and out of it, too. He lived a few doors down the street, and for the year I knew him there was a small gang of us who were pretty much inseparable.”

“David Grenfell, Paul Major, Steven Hill and you. I’ve only had time to track down and speak to David and Paul on the phone so far, though neither of them was able to tell me very much. Go on.”

“I haven’t seen any of them since I left for London when I was eighteen.”

“You only knew Graham for a year?”

“Yes. He was a new kid in our class the September before he disappeared, so it wasn’t quite a full year even. His family had moved up from London that July or August, the way quite a lot of people were already doing then. This was before the huge influx; that came later in the sixties and the early seventies, the new town expansion. You probably weren’t around then.”

“I certainly wasn’t here.”

“Where, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I grew up in Hawick, border country. Spent most of my early police career with Greater Manchester, and since then I’ve been on the move. I’ve only been here a couple of months. Go on with your story.”

“That explains the accent.” Banks paused to sip beer and smoke again. “I grew up here, a provincial kid. ‘Where my childhood was unspent.’ Graham seemed, I don’t know, sort of cool, exotic, different. He was from London, and that was where it was all happening. When you grow up in the provinces, you feel everything’s passing you by, happening somewhere else, and London was one of those ‘in’ places back then, like San Francisco.”

“What do you mean by ‘cool’?”

Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. Michelle wondered how he’d got it. “I don’t know. Not much fazed him. He never showed much emotion or reaction, and he seemed sort of worldly-wise beyond his years. Don’t get me wrong, though; Graham had his enthusiasms. He knew a lot about pop music, obscure B-sides and all that. He played guitar quite well. He was crazy about science fiction. And he had a Beatle haircut. My mother wouldn’t let me have one. Short back and sides all the way.”

“But he was cool?”

“Yes. I don’t know how to define the quality, really. How do you?”

“I think I know what you mean. I had a girlfriend like that. She was just like… oh, I don’t know… someone who made you feel awkward, someone you wanted to emulate, perhaps. I’m not sure I can define it any more clearly.”

“No. Just cool, before it was even cool to be cool.”

“His mother said something about bullying.”

“Oh, that was just after he arrived. Mick Slack, the school bully. He had to try it on with everybody. Graham wasn’t much of a fighter, but he didn’t give up, and Slack never went near him again. Neither did anybody else. It was the only time I ever saw him fight.”

“I know it’s hard to remember that far back,” said Michelle, “but did you notice anything different about him toward the end?”

“No. He seemed much the same as always.”

“He went on holiday with you shortly before he disappeared, so his mother told me.”

“Yes. His parents couldn’t go that year, so they let him come with us. It’s good to have someone your own age to hang about with when you’re away for a couple of weeks. It could get awfully boring with just parents and a younger brother.”

Michelle smiled. “Younger sister, too. When did you last see Graham?”

“Just the day before he disappeared. Saturday.”

“What did you do?”

Banks gazed away into the trees before answering. “Do? What we usually did on Saturdays. In the morning we went to the Palace, to the matinee. Flash Gordon or Hopalong Cassidy, a Three Stooges short.”

“And the afternoon?”

“In town. There was an electrical shop on Bridge Street that used to sell records. Long gone now. Three or four of us would sometimes crowd into one of those booths and smoke ourselves silly listening to the latest singles.”

“And that night?”

“Don’t remember. I think I just stayed in watching TV. Saturday nights were good. Juke Box Jury, Doctor Who, Dixon of Dock Green. Then there was The Avengers, but I don’t think it was on that summer. I don’t remember it, anyway.”

“Anything odd about the day at all? About Graham?”

“You know, for the life of me I can’t remember anything unusual. I’m thinking perhaps I didn’t know him very well, after all.”

Michelle was getting the strong impression that Banks did know something, that he was holding back. She didn’t know why, but she was certain that was the case.

“Number twelve?” A young girl carrying two plates wandered into the garden.

Banks glanced at the number the bartender had given him. “Over here,” he said.

She delivered the plates. Michelle gazed at her prawn sandwich, wondering if she’d be able to finish it. Banks tucked into his Yorkshire pudding and sausages for a while, then said, “I used to do Graham’s paper round before him, before the shop changed owners. It used to be Thackeray’s until old man Thackeray got TB and let the business run into the ground. That’s when Bradford bought the shop and built it up again.”

“But you didn’t go back?”

“No. I’d got an after-school job at the mushroom farm down past the allotments. Filthy work, but it paid well, at least for back then.”

“Ever have any trouble on the paper round?”

“No. I was thinking about that on my way here, among other things.”

“No strangers ever invited you inside or anything?”

“There was one bloke who always seemed a bit weird at the time, though he was probably harmless.”

“Oh?” Michelle took out her notebook, prawn sandwich still untouched on the plate in front of her, now arousing the interest of a passing bluebottle.

Banks swatted the fly away. “Better eat it soon,” he said.

“Who was this bloke you were talking about?”

“I can’t remember the number, but it was near the end of Hazel Crescent, before you crossed Wilmer Road. Thing was, he was about the only one ever awake at that time, and I got the impression he hadn’t even gone to bed. He’d open the door in his pajamas and ask me to come in for a smoke or drink or whatever, but I always said no.”

“Why?”

Banks shrugged. “Dunno. Instinct. Something about him. A smell, I don’t know. Sometimes when you’re a kid you’ve got a sort of sixth sense for danger. If you’re lucky, it stays with you. Anyway, I’d already been well trained not to accept sweets from strange men, so I wasn’t going to accept anything else, either.”

“Harry Chatham,” Michelle said.

“What?”

“That’ll be Harry Chatham. Body odor, one of his characteristics.”

“You have done your homework.”

“He came under suspicion at the time, but he was eventually ruled out. You were right to stay away. He did have a history of exposing himself to young boys. Never went further than that, though.”

“They were sure?”

Michelle nodded. “He was on holiday in Great Yarmouth. Didn’t get back until that Sunday night. Plenty of witnesses. Jet Harris gave him the third degree, I should imagine.”

Banks smiled. “Jet Harris. Haven’t heard his name in years. You know, when I was a kid growing up around there, it was always, ‘Better keep your nose clean or Jet Harris will get you and lock you up.’ We were terrified of him, though none of us had ever met him.”

Michelle laughed. “It’s still pretty much the same today,” she said.

“Surely he must be dead by now?”

“Eight years ago. But the legend lingers on.” She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. It was good. She realized she was hungry after all and had soon devoured the first half. “Was there anything else?” Michelle asked.

She noticed Banks hesitate again. He had finished his Yorkshire pudding, and he reached for another cigarette. A temporary postponement. Funny, she’d seen the signs before in criminals she’d interviewed. This man definitely had something on his conscience, and he was debating whether to tell her or not. Michelle sensed that she couldn’t hurry matters by pushing him, so she let him put the cigarette in his mouth and fiddle with his lighter for a few moments. And she waited.

Annie wished she hadn’t given up smoking. At least it would have been something to do as she lay on her belly in the wet grass keeping an eye on the distant shepherd’s shelter. She glanced at her watch and realized she had been lying there over four hours and nobody had come for the money.

Under her clothes, and the jacket protecting the back of her neck, Annie felt bathed in sweat. All she wanted to do was walk under a nice cool shower and luxuriate there for half an hour. But if she left her spot, what would happen? On the other hand, what would happen if she stayed there?

The kidnapper might turn up, but would Annie go running down the daleside to make an arrest? No, because Luke Armitage certainly wouldn’t be with him. Would she have time to get to her car in Mortsett and follow whoever picked up the money? Possibly, but she would have a much better chance if she were already in the car.

In the end, Annie decided that she should go back down to Mortsett, still keeping an eye on the shelter, and keep trying until she found someone home with a telephone, then sit in her car and watch from there until relief came from East-vale. She felt her bones ache as she stood up and brushed the loose grass from her blouse.

It was a plan, and it beat lying around up here melting in the sun.

Now that it was time to confess, Banks was finding it more difficult than he had imagined. He knew he was stalling, playing for time, when what he should do was just come right out with it, but his mouth felt dry, and the words stuck in his throat. He sipped some beer. It didn’t help much. Sweat tickled the back of his neck and ran down his spine.

“We were playing down by the river,” he said, “not far from the city center. It wasn’t developed quite as much as it is today, so it was a pretty desolate stretch of water.”

“Who was playing with you?”

“Just Paul and Steve.”

“Go on.”

“It was nothing, really,” Banks said, embarrassed at how slight the events that had haunted him for years now seemed on this bright afternoon sitting under a beech tree with an attractive woman. But there was no backing out now. “We were throwing stones in the water, skimming, that sort of thing. Then we moved down the riverbank a bit and found some bigger stones and bricks. We started chucking those in to make a big splash. At least I did. Steve and Paul were a bit farther down. Anyway, I was holding this big rock to my chest with both hands – it took all my strength – when I noticed this tall, scruffy sort of bloke walking along the riverbank toward me.”

“What did you do?”

“Held on to it,” said Banks. “So I didn’t splash him. Always the polite little bugger, I was. I remember smiling as he got nearer, you know, showing him I was holding off dropping the rock until he was out of range.” Banks paused and drew on his cigarette. “Next thing I knew,” he went on, “he’d grabbed hold of me from behind and I’d dropped the rock and splashed us both.”

“What happened? What did he do?”

“We struggled. I thought he was trying to push me in, but I managed to dig in my heels. I might not have been very big, but I was wiry and strong. I think my resistance surprised him. I remember smelling his sweat and I think he’d been drinking. Beer. I remembered smelling it on my father’s breath when he came back from the pub sometimes.”

Michelle took her notebook out. “Can you give me a description?”

“He had a ragged dark beard. His hair was greasy and long, longer than usual back then. It was black. Like Rasputin. And he wore one of those army greatcoats. I remember thinking when I saw him coming that he must be hot in such a heavy overcoat.”

“When was this?”

“Late June. It was a nice day, sort of like today.”

“So what happened?”

“He tried to drag me away, toward the bushes, but I managed to squirm out of his grasp, one arm at any rate, and he swung me around, swore at me and punched me in the face. The momentum broke me loose, so I ran.”

“Where were your friends?”

“Back up by the road by then. A good hundred yards away. Watching.”

“Didn’t they help you?”

“They were scared.”

“They didn’t call the police?”

“It all happened so fast. When I got free, I ran off and joined them and we never looked back. We decided not to say anything to our parents because we weren’t supposed to be playing down by the river in the first place, and we were supposed to be at school. We thought we’d get into trouble.”

“I can imagine you did. What did your parents say about your face?”

“They weren’t too pleased. I told them I’d got into a bit of a scrap at school. All in all, I suppose it was a lucky escape. I tried to put it out of my mind, but…”

“You couldn’t?”

“Off and on. There’s been lengthy periods of my life when I haven’t thought of it at all.”

“Why do you see a connection with what happened to Graham?”

“It seemed too much of a coincidence, that’s all,” said Banks. “First this pervert trying to push me in the river, dragging me into the bushes, then Graham disappearing like that.”

“Well,” said Michelle, finishing her drink and closing her notebook, “I’d better go and see if I can find any trace of your mystery man, hadn’t I?”