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“That was cruel,” said Robin. “Martin loved Luke like his own son, did his best for the boy, even if they didn’t always agree. Luke was no angel, you know. He could be difficult.”
“I’m sure he could,” said A
“Certainly not.”
“He never said anything to you?”
“I don’t even believe he had a girlfriend.”
“Everyone says he was mature for his age, and he was a good-looking boy, too. Why shouldn’t he?”
“He just never…”
“It might have been someone he didn’t feel he could bring home to meet his parents. Maybe even Liz Palmer, the girl in the group.”
“You think that’s why he was killed? Because of this girl?”
“We don’t know. It’s just one possibility we’ve been looking at. What about Lauren Anderson?”
“Miss Anderson? But she was his English teacher. You can’t think…”
“I don’t know. It’s not as if these things don’t happen. Rose Barlow?”
“Rose? The head teacher’s daughter? Well, she came round to the house once, but it was all perfectly i
“Rose Barlow came to your house? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“But it was ages ago.”
“February? March?”
“Around that time. Yes. How do you know?”
“Because somebody else noticed Luke and Rose were spending time together then, thought maybe they were going out together.”
“I don’t think so,” said Robin. “It was something to do with a school project.”
“Did she visit often?”
“Only the once.”
“And she never came back?”
“No.”
“Did Luke ever talk about her?”
“Except to say that he’d ended up doing most of the project himself, no. Look, I don’t understand all this, all your questions. Don’t you think he just wandered off and someone kidnapped him?”
“No,” said A
“Then what?”
A
Michelle had made three important discoveries before lunch that day, and it seemed a nice goal to set oneself. Who was it, she tried to remember, who had made it a point to believe six impossible things before breakfast? Was it Alice in Through the Looking Glass?
Well, the things Michelle had discovered were far from impossible. First, she had gone back to the log book for the summer of 1965 and found the reference to the Mandeville house. On the first of August that year, an anonymous informant had telephoned the station with allegations of underage sex and homosexuality. The possibility of drug-taking was also mentioned. A young DC called Geoff Talbot had gone out to make inquiries and had arrested two men he said he found naked together in a bedroom there. After that, nothing more appeared on the case except a note that all charges were dropped and an official apology issued to Mr. Rupert Mandeville, who, she discovered from an Internet search, had served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1979 to 1990 and was granted a life peerage in 1994.
It took Michelle a bit longer to track Geoff Talbot down, as he had left the police force in 1970 to work as a consultant with a television company. Eventually, through a patient perso
After that, Michelle had enlisted DC Collins’s aid and discovered through local land registry records that Donald Bradford’s shop had been owned by a company linked to Carlo Fiorino, the late but unlamented local crime kingpin. The company had also owned Le Phonographe discotheque and several other newsagents’ shops in the Peterborough area. Ownership of Bradford’s shop went to the Walkers when he sold, but many of the other shops remained under Fiorino’s control well through the new town expansion into the seventies.
What it all meant Michelle wasn’t too sure, but it looked very much as if Carlo Fiorino had set up the perfect retail distribution chain for his wholesale porn business, and who knew what else besides? Drugs, perhaps? And maybe even some of those advertising cards in the newsagents’ windows weren’t quite so i
All this she told to Banks as she drove through a steady drizzle down the A1 to Barnet. As they talked, she kept a keen eye on her rearview mirror. A gray Passat seemed to stay on their tail a bit too long and too close for comfort, but it finally turned off at Welwyn Garden City.
“Bradford must have got Graham involved somehow, through the magazines,” said Banks. “But it didn’t stop there. He must have come to the attention of Fiorino and Mandeville, too. It helps to explain where all that extra money came from.”
“Look, I know he was your friend, Alan, but you have to admit that it looks as if he was up to some unsavory stuff, as if he got greedy.”
“I admit it,” said Banks. “The photo must have been Graham’s insurance. Evidence. He could use it to blackmail Bradford into paying him more money, only he didn’t know what he’d got himself into. Word got back to Fiorino, and he signed Graham’s death warrant.”
“And who carried it out?”
“Bradford, most likely. He didn’t have an alibi. Or Harris. I mean, we can’t rule him out completely. Despite what his ex-wife told you, he could have kept the commando knife, and if he was being threatened with exposure as a homosexual, he might have been driven to kill. Remember, it wouldn’t only have meant his career back then, but jail, and you know how long coppers survive behind bars.”
“Jet Harris searched Graham Marshall’s house personally just after the boy disappeared,” said Michelle.
“Harris did that? Searched the house? How do you know?”
“Mrs. Marshall mentioned it the first time I went to talk to her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now… a superintendent conducting a routine search?”
“He must have been after the photo.”
“Then why didn’t he find it?”
“He obviously didn’t look hard enough, did he?” said Banks. “Adolescents are naturally very secretive. Sometimes, by necessity, they have an unca
“I suppose so,” Michelle said. “But does that make Harris a murderer?”
“I don’t know. It’s not proof. But he was in it. Deep.”
“I also rang Ray Scholes this morning,” Michelle said. “Remember, the detective who investigated Donald Bradford’s murder?”
“I remember.”
“It turns out there was a Fairbairn-Sykes knife among Bradford’s possessions.”
“What happened to it?”
“Forget it. It’s long gone. Sold to a dealer. Who knows how many times it’s changed hands since then?”
“Pity. But at least we know it was in his possession when he died.”
“You said the photo was evidence,” Michelle said, “but what of? How?”
“Well, there might have been fingerprints on it, but I think it was more dangerous because people would have known where it was taken. I doubt there are that many Adam fireplaces around, and probably none quite as distinctive as that one. The rug, too.”
“You’re thinking of the Mandeville house?”
“Sounds a likely place to me. I’m certain it was all co