Michelle had always hated nostalgia snobs, as she called them, and in her experience, the sixties ones were the worst of the lot. She suspected that Banks was one. To hear them talk, you’d think paradise had been lost or the seventh seal broken now that so many of the great rock icons were dead, geriatric, or gaga, and nobody wore beads and caftans anymore, and you’d also think that drug-taking was an innocent way to spend a few hours relaxing, or a means of reaching some exalted spiritual state, instead of a waste of lives and a source of money for evil, unscrupulous dealers.

The archives office was quiet except for the buzzing of the fluorescent light. Silence is a rare thing in a police station, where everyone is pushed together in open-plan offices, but down here Michelle could even hear her watch ticking. After five. Time for a break soon, some fresh air perhaps, and then back down to it.

Reading the crime reports for August, she sensed rather than heard someone approaching the office, and when she looked up, she saw it was Detective Superintendent Benjamin Shaw.

Shaw’s bulk filled the doorway and blocked some of the light from coming in. “What you up to, DI Hart?” he asked.

“Just checking the old logs, sir.”

“I can see that. What for? You won’t find anything there, you know. Not after all this time.”

“I was just having a general look around, trying to get some context for the Marshall case. Actually, I was wondering if—”

“Context? Is that one of those fancy words they taught you at polytechnic? Bloody time-wasting sounds more like it.”

“Sir—”

“Don’t bother to argue, Inspector. You’re wasting your time. What do you expect to find in the dusty old files, apart from context?”

“I was talking to one of Graham Marshall’s friends earlier,” she said. “He told me he was approached by a strange man on the riverbank about two months before the Marshall boy disappeared. I was just trying to see if any similar incidents were on file.”

Shaw sat on the edge of the desk. It creaked and tilted a little. Michelle worried that the damn thing would break under his weight. “And?” he asked. “I’m curious.”

“Nothing so far, sir. Do you remember anything odd like that?”

Shaw frowned. “No. But who is this ‘friend’?”

“He’s called Banks, sir. Alan Banks. Actually, it’s Detective Chief Inspector Banks.”

“Is it, indeed? Banks? The name sounds vaguely familiar. I take it he didn’t report the incident at the time?”

“No, sir. Too scared of what his parents might say.”

“I can imagine. Look, about this Banks chap,” he went on. “I think I’d like a little word with him. Can you arrange it?”

“I’ve got his phone number, sir. But…” Michelle was about to tell Shaw that it was her case and that she didn’t appreciate his poaching her interviews, but she decided it wouldn’t be diplomatic to alienate one of her senior officers at such an early stage of her career in Peterborough. Besides, he might be helpful, having been involved in the original investigation.