“We’ve checked and double-checked, and we can’t find any record with Lancashire. There’s only the occurrence book entry with the Leeds Police. They don’t remember anything about it.”

“Then it can’t have gone any further. I mean, it’s hardly surprising Blackpool wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Summer season’s big business there. Lots of name stars. Lots of paying customers. Mustn’t upset the apple cart.”

“Could it have been buried?”

“That’s possible,” Bradley admitted, scratching his cheek. “Things did go astray on occasion, and there wasn’t exactly anything to bury, was there, if as far as it went was an occurrence book entry? As I said, it was another time. Different rules. Besides, Danny Caxton was a big shot around the station. Rubbed shoulders with the chief constable. I think even Chiller got to go to one of his dinner dances, but not the lowly likes of yours truly.”

“Too bad.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t a fan myself. More of a Mantovani man.”

It was certainly true about the different rules back then, Banks knew. The advent of the PACE rules in the eighties along with the updating or repealing of many old acts had changed policing a great deal. On the other hand, Banks thought, there were bent coppers taking bribes to look the other way and lose evidence today, just as there were back then. Maybe it was a bit harder to get away with it these days—so many watchdogs—but it still happened. And sometimes orders came from above to look the other way if a notable person was involved, especially if said notable person had something on notable police persons. That was human nature, and it could only be tempered by rules and law, not completely controlled. You could slide about on the moral scale as much as you wanted, or you could convince yourself that you were certain what was right and what was wrong. Whichever way Banks thought about it, however, ignoring a fourteen-year-old girl’s claims of having been brutally raped came under “wrong.” But he realized there was no sense in arguing moral relativism or the tenor of the times with Bradley. The man had been a lowly DC, and it had been nearly fifty years ago. As he said, another age. Best stick to trying to prize out a bit more information.

“Caxton lived in Otley at the time,” Banks said. “And he was a local big shot. Charity events and the like. Prime high-ranks territory out there, isn’t it? Lawnswood? Bramhope? Poole?”

“You think he put the kibosh on it? I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened that way,” Bradley admitted. “But it’s more likely there was simply no substance to the complaint. No leads. Nothing to investigate. If the case was buried, though, the orders would have had to have come from higher up than Chiller.”