‘All right. Well, firstly, none of us had seen much of her in a while because – well, it was understood she was being kept in. We all knew what happened there, of course. Mood had changed. If she was dark before, well, after she had Sylvia – that girl was a black hole.’ Henry palms his face. ‘Anyway, it’s Roxy’s last set, everyone’s drinking. And even if you didn’t like Roxy, you sure liked her music, so people were listening. Towards the end of the night Roxy’s in the middle of her set and something spooks her. Walks clean off the stage in the middle of the song, and Mary Anne follows her out. We all shared a kind of glance, you know, oh, they’re at it again, but the night was flying by and they did this all the goddamn time. They were out there for a while, bit of a commotion. Archie and Booker are inside nursing a couple drinks, shooting the shit, and eventually Mary Anne comes back in all distraught, like she’s been crying or something.’

‘Then what?’

A man approaches Henry from behind and claps him hard on the back, laughing about something. ‘Hey hey hey, hold on a goddamn second, I’m being interviewed!’ Henry says in veritable hysterics, then turns back to me and asks, ‘What the hell was I talking about?’

‘Mary Anne comes back in distraught.’

‘Right, right. Mary Anne’s pissed, then her and Archie have some sort of back and forth, then all of a sudden Archie’s packing up and blowing out of here, like it’s the end of the world or something. I think Booker and Mary Anne went along with him. Night was pretty much fizzled out by that point. This poor guy who went on afterwards, don’t remember what the fuck his name was but it was his first time playing here, came all the way from the mainland, and it was just about the worst crowd you could imagine. Was playing shitty Police covers and no one gave a single –’

‘Did they say anything about where they were going? The three of them?’

‘Not a word.’

‘Would any of them have wanted to hurt Roxy?’

‘Mary Anne, well, I didn’t know her well. Booker neither, but Archie wouldn’t hurt a fly as far as we all knew; and Archie, yeah, good luck asking him about any of this, because, well, you know, nobody’s home – but he’s always been protective over Mary Anne, so, I don’t know, maybe he would’ve hurt a fly for her.’

‘Someone mentioned that Booker might have had feelings for Roxy.’

‘Well, geez. Nah. I don’t know much about that.’

‘Are you aware if Roxy knew anyone on the mainland? Like, here’s what I’m saying – is there a universe where she did what she said she’d do, left and never came back?’