She also had to admit that she was intrigued to meet someone who had been a friend of Graham Marshall’s, especially as this Banks, despite a touch of gray in his closely cropped black hair, didn’t look old enough. He was slim, perhaps stood three or four inches taller than her five foot five, had an angular face with lively blue eyes, and a tan. He showed no great clothes sense but was dressed in basic Marks amp; Sparks casuals – light sports jacket, gray chinos, blue denim shirt unbuttoned at the collar – and the look suited him. Some men his age only looked good in a business suit, Michelle thought. Anything else made them the male version of mutton dressed up as lamb. But on some older men casual looked natural. It did on Banks.
“Is it to be DI Hart, then?” Banks asked.
Michelle glanced sideways at him. “I suppose you can call me Michelle, if you want.”
“Michelle it is, then. Nice name.”
Was he flirting? “Come off it,” Michelle said.
“No, seriously. I mean it. No need to blush.”
Angry at herself for letting her embarrassment show, Michelle said, “Just as long as you don’t start singing the old Beatles song.”
“I never sing to a woman I’ve just met. Besides, I imagine you must have heard it many times.”
Michelle graced him with a smile. “Too numerous to mention.”
The pub had parking at the back and a big freshly mown lawn with white tables and chairs where they could sit out in the sun. A couple of families were already there, settled in for the afternoon by the look of it, kids running around and playing on the swings and slide the pub provided in a small playground, but Michelle and Banks managed to find a quiet enough spot at the far end near the trees. Michelle watched the children play as Banks went inside to get the drinks. One of them was about six or seven, head covered in lovely golden curls, laughing unself-consciously as she went higher on the swings. Melissa. Michelle felt as if her heart were breaking up inside her chest as she watched. It was a relief when Banks came back with a pint for himself and a shandy for her, and set two menus down on the table.
“What’s up?” he asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have,” she said. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Banks was diplomatic, she noted, curious about her mood, but sensitive and considerate enough to leave well enough alone and pretend to be studying the menu. Michelle liked that. She wasn’t very hungry, but she ordered a prawn sandwich just to avoid being questioned about her lack of appetite. If truth be told, her stomach still felt sour from last night’s wine. Banks was obviously ravenous, as he ordered a huge Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and gravy.
When their orders were in, they sat back in their chairs and relaxed. They were in the shade of a beech tree, where it was still warm, but out of the direct sunlight. Banks drank some beer and lit a cigarette. He looked in good shape, Michelle thought, for someone who smoked, drank and ate huge Yorkshire puddings and sausages. But how long would that last? If he really was Graham Marshall’s contemporary, he’d be around fifty now, and wasn’t that the age that men started worrying about their arteries and blood pressure, not to mention the prostate? Still, who was she to judge? True, she didn’t smoke, but she drank too much and ate far too much junk food.
“So what else can you tell me about Graham Marshall?” she asked.
Banks drew on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. He seemed to be enjoying it, Michelle thought, or was it a strategy he used to gain the upper hand in interviews? They all had some sort of strategy, even Michelle, though she would have been hard-pushed to define what it was. She thought herself quite direct. Finally, he answered, “We were friends at school, and out of it, too. He lived a few doors down the street, and for the year I knew him there was a small gang of us who were pretty much inseparable.”
“David Grenfell, Paul Major, Steven Hill and you. I’ve only had time to track down and speak to David and Paul on the phone so far, though neither of them was able to tell me very much. Go on.”
“I haven’t seen any of them since I left for London when I was eighteen.”
“You only knew Graham for a year?”
“Yes. He was a new kid in our class the September before he disappeared, so it wasn’t quite a full year even. His family had moved up from London that July or August, the way quite a lot of people were already doing then. This was before the huge influx; that came later in the sixties and the early seventies, the new town expansion. You probably weren’t around then.”
“I certainly wasn’t here.”
“Where, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I grew up in Hawick, border country. Spent most of my early police career with Greater Manchester, and since then I’ve been on the move. I’ve only been here a couple of months. Go on with your story.”
“That explains the accent.” Banks paused to sip beer and smoke again. “I grew up here, a provincial kid. ‘Where my childhood was unspent.’ Graham seemed, I don’t know, sort of cool, exotic, different. He was from London, and that was where it was all happening. When you grow up in the provinces, you feel everything’s passing you by, happening somewhere else, and London was one of those ‘in’ places back then, like San Francisco.”
“What do you mean by ‘cool’?”
Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. Michelle wondered how he’d got it. “I don’t know. Not much fazed him. He never showed much emotion or reaction, and he seemed sort of worldly-wise beyond his years. Don’t get me wrong, though; Graham had his enthusiasms. He knew a lot about pop music, obscure B-sides and all that. He played guitar quite well. He was crazy about science fiction. And he had a Beatle haircut. My mother wouldn’t let me have one. Short back and sides all the way.”
“But he was cool?”
“Yes. I don’t know how to define the quality, really. How do you?”
“I think I know what you mean. I had a girlfriend like that. She was just like… oh, I don’t know… someone who made you feel awkward, someone you wanted to emulate, perhaps. I’m not sure I can define it any more clearly.”
“No. Just cool, before it was even cool to be cool.”
“His mother said something about bullying.”
“Oh, that was just after he arrived. Mick Slack, the school bully. He had to try it on with everybody. Graham wasn’t much of a fighter, but he didn’t give up, and Slack never went near him again. Neither did anybody else. It was the only time I ever saw him fight.”
“I know it’s hard to remember that far back,” said Michelle, “but did you notice anything different about him toward the end?”
“No. He seemed much the same as always.”
“He went on holiday with you shortly before he disappeared, so his mother told me.”
“Yes. His parents couldn’t go that year, so they let him come with us. It’s good to have someone your own age to hang about with when you’re away for a couple of weeks. It could get awfully boring with just parents and a younger brother.”
Michelle smiled. “Younger sister, too. When did you last see Graham?”
“Just the day before he disappeared. Saturday.”
“What did you do?”
Banks gazed away into the trees before answering. “Do? What we usually did on Saturdays. In the morning we went to the Palace, to the matinee. Flash Gordon or Hopalong Cassidy, a Three Stooges short.”
“And the afternoon?”
“In town. There was an electrical shop on Bridge Street that used to sell records. Long gone now. Three or four of us would sometimes crowd into one of those booths and smoke ourselves silly listening to the latest singles.”