Michelle knocked on the dark green door. Mrs. Marshall, a frail-looking woman, stooped and gray-haired, face lined with care, answered and led her into a small living room and bade her sit on a plum velour armchair. Michelle had met the Marshalls before, during the identification process, but hadn’t yet visited them at home. Everything in the room was so tidy and spotless that she felt a momentary twinge of guilt over her own unwashed breakfast dishes, unmade bed and the dust balls in the corner. Still, who was there to see them but her?

Bill Marshall, incapacitated by a stroke, looked at Michelle, blanket over his knees, walking stick by his side, slack-jawed, a little drool collecting at the corner of his mouth, one half of his face drooping lower than the other, as if it had melted like a Dali clock. He had been a big man, that much was obvious, but now his body had withered with disease. His eyes were alive, though, the whites a little cloudy, but the gray irises intense and watchful. Michelle said hello to him and thought she saw his head move just a fraction in greeting. Though he couldn’t speak, Mrs. Marshall had assured Michelle that he could understand everything they said.

Among the framed photographs on the mantelpiece above the electric fire, one was of a young boy, aged about thirteen or fourteen, hair in a “Beatle” cut popular in the early sixties, wearing a black polo neck, standing on a promenade with the sea in the background and a long pier off to one side. He was a good-looking kid, Michelle noticed, perhaps a little feminine, soft and delicate in his features, but he’d probably have grown up to be a real heartbreaker nonetheless.

Mrs. Marshall noticed her looking. “Yes, that’s our Graham. It was taken on the last holiday he had. We couldn’t go away that year – Bill had a big job to finish – so the Bankses took him to Blackpool with them. Their lad Alan was a good mate of his. Mr. Banks took that photo and gave it to us when they came back.” She paused. “No more than a week or so later, and Graham was gone forever.”

“He looks like a fine boy,” Michelle said.

Mrs. Marshall nodded and sniffed.

“I don’t want to bother you for long,” Michelle began, “but as you can imagine, finding your son after all this time has come as a bit of a shock to us, too. I need to ask a few more questions, if that’s all right?”

“You’ve got your job to do, love. Don’t worry about us. We did our mourning years ago. Most of it, anyhow.” She fingered the collar of her dress. “Funny, though, how it all just seems like it happened only yesterday, now you’ve found him.”

“I haven’t seen the reports yet, but I understand there was a full investigation in 1965, when Graham first disappeared?”

“Oh, yes. And I can’t fault them. They did their best. Searched high and low. Jet Harris himself was in charge, you know. At his wits’ end he was when all their efforts turned up nothing. He even came to search our house for clues himself.”

Detective Superintendent John Harris – nicknamed Jet after both his speed and his resemblance to The Shadows’ bass guitarist – was still a legend around divisional headquarters. Even Michelle had read the small biographical pamphlet published by one of the local bobbies with a literary bent, and she had been impressed by it, from his lowly birth in the Glasgow slums in 1920 to his Distinguished Conduct Medal with the Royal Naval Commandos in the Second World War, his rise through the ranks to detective chief superintendent, and his legendary retirement party in 1985. His framed photograph hung on the wall near the front entrance, and his hallowed name was mentioned only with suitably hushed awe. Michelle could imagine how his failure to solve the Graham Marshall case must have galled him. Harris had a reputation not only for closing cases quickly, but for hanging on and not letting go until he got a conviction. Since his death from cancer eight years ago, he had become even more revered. “It’ll have been done properly, then,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. Sometimes one just slips through the cracks.”

“Don’t apologize, love. I’ve got no complaints. They turned over every stone they could find, but who’d think to dig there, eight miles away? I mean, they could hardly dig up the whole county, could they?”

“I suppose not,” Michelle agreed.

“And there were those missing kids out Manchester way,” Mrs. Marshall went on. “What they later called the Moors Murders. It wasn’t until a couple of months after our Graham disappeared, though, that Brady and Hindley got caught, and then it was all over the news, of course.”

Michelle knew about Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderers, even though she had been only a child at the time. As with Jack the Ripper, Reginald Christie and the Yorkshire Ripper, the horror of their acts was etched into the consciousness of future generations. She hadn’t realized, though, just how closely their crimes were linked chronologically with Graham Marshall’s disappearance. It might have been natural for Detective Superintendent Harris at least to assume that Graham’s disappearance could somehow be linked with the victims of Brady and Hindley. On the other hand, Peterborough was over a hundred and thirty miles from Manchester, and Brady and Hindley tended to stick to their own neck of the woods.

Before Michelle could formulate her next question, another woman walked into the room. She bore a strong facial resemblance to the boy in the photograph – the same small, straight nose, oval chin and well-defined cheekbones – only the feminine aspects were even more enhanced in her. She wore her gray-streaked hair long, tied in a ponytail, and was casually dressed in a dark blue T-shirt and jeans. She was a little too thin for comfort, or perhaps Michelle was jealous, always feeling herself to be five or ten pounds overweight, and the stress of recent events showed in her features, as it did in Mrs. Marshall’s.

“This is Joan, my daughter,” Mrs. Marshall said.

Michelle stood and shook Joan’s limp hand.

“She lives in Folkestone, teaches at a comprehensive school there,” Mrs. Marshall added with obvious pride. “She was going on her holidays, but when she heard… well, she wanted to be with us.”

“I understand,” said Michelle. “Were you and Graham close, Joan?”

“As close as any brother and sister with two years between them can be in their teens,” said Joan with a rueful smile. She sat on the floor in front of the television and crossed her legs. “Actually, I’m not being fair. Graham wasn’t like most other boys his age. He even bought me presents. He didn’t tease me or torment me. If anything, he was very protective.”

“From what?”

“Sorry?”

“What did he have to protect you from?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything in particular. You know, just in general. If anyone tried to bully me or anything like that.”

“Boys?”

“Well, I was only twelve when he disappeared, but yes, there were a couple of over-amorous local lads he sent packing.”

“Was Graham a tough lad?”

“Not really,” said Mrs. Marshall. “Mind you, he never backed away from a fight. When we moved and he first went to school here, there was a bit of bullying – you know, the way they always like to test the new kid – but in his first week our Graham took on the school bully. He didn’t win, but he put up a good fight, blacked an eye and bloodied a nose, so nobody bothered him after that.”

Michelle was wondering how difficult it would be for someone to abduct and murder Graham Marshall if he could put up a good fight. Might it have taken two people? Might he have been drugged or knocked unconscious first? Or was it someone he knew and went with willingly? “You said you moved up here?” Michelle went on. “Would that be from the East End?”

“It still shows, does it, after all these years? Once a Cockney, always a Cockney, I suppose. Not that I’m ashamed of it. Yes, we came from Bethnal Green. We moved around a fair bit because of Bill’s work. He’s a bricklayer. Or he was. We’d only been here a year or so when it happened. Graham had just finished third form at the local grammar school.”