Chapter 4

On the surface, it had seemed a simple enough question to ask: Where were the Graham Marshall case files? In reality, it was like searching for the Holy Grail, and it had taken Michelle and her DC, Nat Collins, the best part of two days.

After first trying Bridge Street, in the city center, which served as Divisional Headquarters until Thorpe Wood opened in 1979, Michelle and DC Collins drove from station to station all across the Northern Division—Bretton, Orton, Werrington, Yaxley, Hampton—discovering that some of them were relatively new, and that the premises used in 1965 had long since been demolished and covered over by new housing estates or shopping centers. What complicated matters even more was that the original forces—Cambridge, Peterborough, Ely and Huntingdon—had amalgamated into the Mid-Anglia Constabulary in 1965, necessitating a major overhaul and restructuring, and had become the present-day Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 1974.

As one helpful duty constable after another suggested possibilities, Michelle had begun to despair of ever finding the old paperwork. About the only bright spot on the horizon was that the weather had improved that morning, and the sun was poking its lazy way through greasy rags of cloud. But that made the air humid, and Michelle was about to throw in the towel around lunchtime. She’d drunk a bit too much wine the previous evening, too—something that was happening rather too often these days—and the fact that she didn’t feel a hundred percent didn’t help much either.

When she finally did track the paperwork down, having sent DC Collins to Cambridge to make inquiries there, she could have kicked herself. It was deep in the bowels of Divisional Headquarters, not more than thirty feet or so below her office, and the civilian records clerk, Mrs. Metcalfe, proved to be a mine of information and let her sign out a couple of files. Why hadn’t Michelle thought to look there in the first place? Easy. She had only been at Thorpe Wood for a short time, and no one had given her the grand tour; she didn’t know that the basement was the repository for much of the county force’s old paperwork.

The noise level was high in the open-plan squad room, phones ringing, men laughing at dirty jokes, doors opening and closing, but Michelle was able to shut it all out as she put on her reading glasses and opened the first folder, which contained maps and photos of the Hazels estate, along with a summary of any relevant witness statements that helped pin down Graham’s progress on the morning of August 22, 1965.

One useful hand-drawn map showed Graham’s paper round in detail, listing all the houses he delivered to and, for good measure, what newspapers they took. The poor lad must have had a hell of a heavy load, as many of the Sunday papers were bulky with magazines and supplements.

At the eastern end of the estate, Wilmer Road separated the Hazels from an area of older houses, soon to be demolished. It was at the T-junction between Wilmer and Hazel Crescent that Graham had delivered his last newspaper, a News of the World, to Mr. and Mrs. Halloran, who lived in the corner house.