“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?”