‘If you ask me – I reckon she had some dirt on him.’

‘Dirt? Like –’

‘Oh, she knew all kinds of stuff about everybody. I don’t know what his specific poison was, and I don’t know what she’d need the money for, but I certainly wouldn’t have put blackmail past her.’

‘OK. Wow. That’s a lot. We – are you OK with answering more questions?’

‘It depends. If you’re here to interrogate me further as a suspect, then –’

‘No, we’re –’

‘I was always the musician. Before she was. Dorothy in the community Wizard of Oz, if you can believe. Meanwhile Roxy didn’t pick up a guitar until she was sixteen, maybe, and of course she was the best right away with the voice of an angel. I was making good money in the summers, playing for tourists, but after, Roxy split my profits in half. Then by a third. I never hated the girl, though. How could I? Damn if I wouldn’t use my pipes and eyelashes to get one up on her, had I been blessed with her set of pipes and eyelashes. And that’s my truth.’

I don’t want to lose her. ‘I bet you weren’t too upset while she was hidden away, then?’

‘Ha.’

‘Do you remember anything about the night Roxy went missing?’ I ask.

‘Before she’d fallen pregnant with Sylvia, she’d been offered a contract or some beginning stage of a record deal – I don’t remember any more. Obviously things changed – but in any case, she still wanted to move to Nashville and she was playing her last show that night, some kinda big send-off hurrah. I didn’t stay for her whole set because I wasn’t feeling well that day, but I still made an appearance as I wanted to make amends. I congratulated her and she seemed fine. Happy, even, which wasn’t like her. Oh, actually …’

Lenore wanders into another room without saying where she’s going or what she’s doing, and returns with a photo album. She drops it on the coffee table with a deafening boom and flips through, humming to herself – I think it’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ – before landing on the page she wants us to see. She jabs the picture with her finger. ‘There.’

And there they are, clear as day – a young Lenore and Roxy in The Indigo Lounge. Both smiling, Lenore moreso than Roxy. Roxy’s wearing an emerald green jacket, her guitar slung round her. Ellis exhales in delight.

‘That’s amazing,’ I say. ‘Do you mind if I take a picture?’

Lenore shakes her head. ‘Again, I didn’t stay for long, so I hadn’t noticed anything odd. Word after that night, though, was that Roxy and Mary Anne had argued about something, as always.’

‘Do you know anyone who was there that night, who might have seen what happened after?’ I ask.