Lenore considers for a moment, softly pensive. ‘You’d be good talking to Henry. He owns The Indigo Lounge now but was there that night, bartending. Oh, and –’ she leans in close – ‘Have you met the police chief?’

‘Booker?’

‘He might have been paying her close attention, if you know what I mean.’ Mine and Ellis’s collective confusion is enough to get her to elaborate. ‘Had a bit of a crush from what I recall.’

This is fascinating. I’m typing everything into my phone. Booker? ‘Do you remember the day everyone realized she was gone?’

‘God, yes.’

‘Can you talk a bit about what you recall?’

‘Well, that it all started wrong. I’d wanted to get the earliest ferry to the mainland – which, my mistake, it was Labor Sunday anyways so the first ferry wouldn’t have been out till noon – but by then everyone had got word that Frank had found her guitar and that nobody knew where Roxy was. Which, of course, wasn’t unusual in itself. The guitar, though – that was hideously unusual. Loved that thing more than life. That’s how everyone knew something was different this time.’

‘It wasn’t unusual that nobody knew where Roxy was?’

‘Oh no. Roxy would disappear for – God, days at a time, really.’

‘Where would she go?’

‘Who knows?’ Lenore sips her drink. ‘She’d get the ferry to the mainland and hitch-hike. I remember someone had even mentioned they found her lumbering out of the woods one time, all straggly with leaves in her hair and her guitar slung on her back. But that was only a rumour. Be gone for days in a row, worry her poor mother sick. It’s an absolute miracle she lived that long after the way her daughter treated her.’

I’m suddenly very conscious of Ellis next to me.

‘Constance never came to her gigs. I’m not even sure she’d ever heard her sing.’

‘Do you think it would have changed anything? If she had?’

Lenore shrugs. ‘Well, how would I know?’

‘Did they have a bad relationship?’

She seems less conscious of Ellis. ‘Oh, dreadful. Terrible. Roxy was always free-spirited, and her mother wasn’t especially spirited in any sense of the word, more spiritual, and her daughter worried her sick. Here’s what you need to know about Roxy. Has anyone told you about her? Ellis, did your great-granny ever tell you what she was like?’

Ellis shakes his head.