“I don’t really see as it has anything to do with your investigation, but we just drifted apart. We really did. It was easy, so easy we never even noticed it happening.” She waved her cigarette arm theatrically in the direction of both of them. “I mean, he went one way—variety shows, lousy pop songs, quiz programs, bad movies—and I went another—Granny Takes a Trip, psychedelia, dope, acid, country weekends with the Maharishi, the whole shebang. Even us pop girls had a bit of fun, you know. I made a solo album, a folky sort of thing, like Vashti Bunyan, but it went nowhere. I had a nice voice. They all said so. New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Record Mirror. Even Danny said I had a nice voice.”

Where had Banks heard that before? Linda Palmer. Perhaps it was a line Caxton used with all the girls. Suddenly, Banks remembered what he had been racking his brains over since they had arrived. The Tri-Lites. Carol Canning had been one of the original Tri-Lites, so named before the term had been hijacked for lights of three different wattages. They were a girl group popular in the early sixties. He wouldn’t have known that to look at her now, of course, and he had been a bit too young back then to appreciate their obvious charms, but her mention had jogged his memory. They had enjoyed a period of chart success from about 1961 until 1965 when their sort of music started falling out of fashion. They wore knee-length dresses and had bouffant hairdos, all trying to copy Helen Shapiro, Kathy Kirby or Susan Maughan. Banks remembered seeing them once or twice on Top of the Pops. In the mid-sixties they tried to imitate the American sound popular at the time, but they were no match for Tamla Motown. Banks remembered that Carol had tried to go solo in the late sixties, jump on the hippie bandwagon, but her career had quickly foundered.

“The Tri-Lites,” he said.

“Oh, don’t. Please. For my sins. They were wigs, you know. The big hair.”

“Fooled me.”

“And awfully hot onstage, or under the studio lights. I don’t think people ever noticed how much we sweated doing a show. We were all pretty ripe when we got off. Stripped right down and jumped in a lukewarm bath soon as possible. As often as not with some randy young lad from one of the bands.” She winked. “You know what they say. When the music’s over, it’s time to have fun.”

“Never heard that one,” said Banks. “I thought it was ‘turn out the lights.’”

“Don’t you turn out the lights when you want to have fun, Superintendent?”

“And after the solo album?” Banks asked. “What then?”