“Well,” Banks said, raising his glass, “here’s to Graham. In the long run, I suppose it’s best they found him. At least his parents can lay his bones to rest now.”

“True enough,” said Harry.

“Amen,” said Norman.

“Didn’t Graham’s father use to drink here?” Banks asked.

Arthur Banks laughed. “He did. He was a rum customer, Bill Marshall, isn’t that right, Harry?”

“A rum customer, indeed. And a couple of bricks short of a full hod, too, if you ask me.”

They all laughed.

“In what way was he rum?” Banks asked.

Harry nudged Banks’s father. “Always the copper, your lad, hey?”

Arthur’s brow darkened. Banks knew damn well that his father had never approved of his choice of career, and that no matter how well he did, how successful he was, to his father he would always be a traitor to the working class, who traditionally feared and despised coppers. As far as Arthur Banks was concerned, his son was employed by the middle and upper classes to protect their interests and their property. Never mind that most coppers of Arthur’s own generation came from the working classes, unlike today, when many were middle-class university graduates and management types. The two of them had never resolved this problem, and Banks could see even now that his father was bothered by Harry Finnegan’s little dig.

“Graham was a friend of mine,” Banks went on quickly, to diffuse the tension. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”

“Is that why you’re down here?” Norman asked.

“Partly, yes.”

It was the same question Mrs. Marshall had asked him. Perhaps people assumed that because he was a policeman, and because he knew Graham, he would be assigned to this particular case. “I don’t know how much I can help,” Banks said, glancing sideways at his father, who was working on his beer. He had never told either of his parents about what had happened down by the river, and he wasn’t about to do so now. It might come out, of course, if his information led anywhere, and now he had an inkling of what the many witnesses who lied to avoid disclosing a shameful secret had to be anxious about. “It’s just that, well, I’ve thought about Graham and what happened on and off over the years, and I just thought I ought to come and try to help, that’s all.”

“I can understand that,” said Norman, relighting his pipe. “I think it’s been a bit of a shock to the system for all of us, one way or another.”

“You were saying about Graham’s father, Dad?”

Arthur Banks glanced at his son. “Was I?”

“You said he was strange. I didn’t know him well. I never really talked to him.”

“Course not,” said Arthur. “You were just a kid.”

“That’s why I’m asking you.”

There was a pause, then Arthur Banks looked over at Harry Finnegan. “He was shifty, wouldn’t you say so, Harry?”

“He was indeed. Always an eye for a fiddle, and not above a bit of strong-arm stuff. I wouldn’t have trusted him as far as I could throw him. And he was a big talker, too.”