“Have you come to help with the investigation?”

“I don’t know that I can,” said Banks. “But if they want any help from me, I’d be happy to give it.”

“She seems very nice. The girl they sent round.”

“I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”

“I told her I can’t imagine what she can do that Jet Harris and his boys didn’t do back then. They were very thorough.”

“I know they were.”

“But he just seemed to have…vanished. All these years.”

“I’ve often thought about him,” Banks said. “I realize I didn’t actually know him for very long, but he was a good friend. I missed him. We all missed him.”

Mrs. Marshall sniffed. “Thank you. I know he appreciated the way you all accepted him when we were new here. You know how difficult it can be to make friends sometimes. It’s just so hard to believe that he’s turned up after all this time.”

“It happens,” said Banks. “And don’t give up on the investigation. There’s a lot more science and technology in police work these days. Look how quickly they identified the remains. They couldn’t have done that twenty years ago.”

“I just wish I could be of some use,” said Mrs. Marshall, “but I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary at all. It just came like a lightning bolt. Out of the blue.”

Banks stood up. “I know,” he said. “But if there’s anything to be discovered, I’m sure DI Hart will discover it.”

“Are you going already?”

“It’s nearly teatime,” Banks said, smiling. “And my mother would never forgive me if I didn’t turn up for tea. She thinks I need fattening up.”

Mrs. Marshall smiled. “Better go then. Mustn’t cross your mother. By the way, they can’t release the body yet, but Miss Hart said she’d let me know when we can have the funeral. You will come, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Banks. When he looked over to say good-bye to Mr. Marshall, he had a sudden flash of the big, muscular man he used to be, the sense of physical menace he had somehow conveyed. Back then, Banks remembered with a shock, he had been afraid of Graham’s dad. He never had any real reason to feel that way, but he had.

She should have packed it in long ago, Michelle realized, but she was loath to give up without finding at least some trace of Banks’s mystery man, if any existed. Besides, the material itself gave her an interesting picture of the times, and she found herself becoming quite fascinated by it all.

It hadn’t been a bumper crime year for Peterborough in 1965, but the fast-growing city had its share of some of the more newsworthy national problems, Michelle was fast discovering. Mods and rockers clashed at some city center pubs, cannabis was beginning to insinuate its way into the lifestyles of the young and rebellious—despite what Banks had said—and the pornography trade was blossoming in the shape of tons of German, Danish and Swedish magazines covering every perversion you could imagine, and some you couldn’t. Why not Norwegian or Finnish, too? Michelle wondered. Weren’t they into porn? Burglary and armed robbery were as common as ever, and the only thing that seemed new today was the increase in car theft.