Michelle had been joking when she told Banks she was getting paranoid, but she was beginning to think that every time she visited the archives, Mrs. Metcalfe rang Detective Superintendent Shaw. Here he was again, preceded by the dark chill of his shadow, on the threshold of the tiny room.

“Any progress?” he asked, leaning against the door.

“I’m not sure,” said Michelle. “I’ve been going over the old crime reports for 1965 looking for some sort of connection with Graham’s disappearance.”

“And have you found any?”

“Not directly, no.”

“I told you you were wasting your time.”

“Maybe not entirely.”

“What do you mean?”

Michelle paused. She had to be careful what she said because she didn’t want Shaw to know that Banks had tipped her off to the Kray connection. That would send him into a tantrum she could well do without. “I was reading over the reports and statements on a protection racket investigation in July 1965, and Graham’s dad’s name came up.”

“So? Where’s the connection?”

“A club on Church Street called Le Phonographe.”

“I remember that place. It was a discotheque.”

Michelle frowned. “I thought disco was in the seventies, not the sixties.”

“I’m not talking about the music, but the establishment itself. Clubs like Le Phonographe offered memberships and served meals, usually an inedible beef burger, if my memory serves me well, so they could sell alcohol legally after regular closing time. They’d stay open till three in the morning, or so. There’d be music and dancing, too, but it was usually Motown or soul.”

“You sound familiar with the place, sir.”

“I was young once, DI Hart. Besides, Le Phonographe was the sort of place you kept an eye on. It was a villains’ club. Owned by a nasty piece of work called Carlo Fiorino. Used to like to pretend he was Mafia, wore the striped, wide-lapel suits, pencil-thin mustache, spats and everything—very Untouchables—but his father was a POW who ended up staying on after the war and marrying a local farm girl out Huntingdon way. Plenty of local villains hung out there, and you could often pick up a tip or two. And I don’t mean for the three-thirty at Kempton Park.”

“So it was a criminal hangout?”

“Back then, yes. But petty. People who liked to think they were big players.”

“Including Bill Marshall?”

“Yes.”

“So you knew about Bill Marshall’s activities?”

“Of course we did. He was strictly a minor presence. We kept an eye on him. It was routine.”

“What was this Carlo Fiorino’s game?”

“Bit of everything. Soon as the new town expansion was well under way he turned Le Phonographe into a more up-market club, with decent grub, a better dance floor and a casino. He also owned an escort agency. We think he also got into drugs, prostitution and pornography, but he was always clever enough to stay one step ahead, and he played both sides against the middle. Most of the time.”

“What do you mean, sir?”