Piece Of My Heart

CHAPTER EIGHT

Banks hadn’t been to London since Roy’s death, or since the terrible tube and bus suicide bombings that summer, and he was surprised, getting off the GNER InterCity at King’s Cross that lunchtime, at how just being there brought a lump to his throat. It was partly Roy, of course, and partly some deep-rooted sense of outrage at what the place had suffered.

King’s Cross Station was the usual throng of travelers standing gazing up at the boards like people looking for alien spacecraft. There was nowhere to sit; that was the problem. The station authorities didn’t want to encourage people to hang around the station; they had enough problems with terrorists, teenage prostitution and drugs as it was. So they let the poor buggers stand while they waited for their trains.

A uniformed constable met Banks and Annie at the side exit, as arranged, and whisked them in a patrol car through the streets of central London to Cromwell Road and along the Great West Road, past the roadside graffiti-scored concrete-and-glass towers of Hammersmith to Nick Barber’s Chiswick flat, not far from Fuller’s Brewery. It was a modern brick low-rise building, three stories in all, and Barber had lived at the top in one of the corner units. The police locksmith was waiting for them.

When the paperwork had been completed and handed over, the lock yielded so quickly to the smith’s ministrations that Banks wondered whether he had once used his skills to less legitimate ends.

Banks and Annie found themselves standing in a room with purple walls, on which hung a number of prints of famous psychedelic poster art: Jimi Hendrix and John Mayall at Winterland, 1 February, 1968; Buffalo Springfield at the Fillmore Auditorium, 21 December, 1967; the Mad Hatters at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, 6 October, 1968. Mixed with these were a number of framed sixties album covers: Cheap Thrills, Disraeli Gears, Blind Faith, Forever Changes and Sir Peter Blake’s infamous Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Custom shelving held a formidable collection of CDs and LPs, and the stereo equipment was top of the line Bang amp; Olufsen, as were the Bose headphones resting by the leather armchair.

There were far too many CDs to browse through, but on a cursory glance Banks noticed a prevalence of late-sixties to early-seventies rock, stopping around Bowie and Roxy Music, and including some bands he hadn’t thought of in years, like Atomic Rooster, Quintessence, Dr. Strangely Strange and Amazing Blondel. There was also a smattering of jazz, mostly Miles, ’Trane and Mingus, along with a fair collection of J. S. Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart.

One shelf was devoted to magazines and newspapers in which Nick Barber had published reviews or features, and quickie rock bios. Some recent correspondence, mostly bills and junk mail, sat on a small worktable under the window. There was no desktop computer, Banks noticed, which probably meant Barber did all his work on the fly on his laptop, which had been taken.

The bedroom was tidy and functional, with a neatly made double bed and a wardrobe full of clothes, much the same as the ones he’d had with him in Yorkshire: casual and not too expensive. There was nothing to indicate any interests other than music, apart from the bookshelves, which reflected fairly catholic tastes in modern fiction, from Amis to Wodehouse, with a few popular science-fiction, horror and crime novels mixed in – Philip K. Dick, Ramsey Campbell, Derek Raymond, James Herbert, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Elroy and George Pelecanos. The rest were books about rock and roll: Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Peter Guralnick.

A filing cabinet in a corner of the bedroom held copies of contracts, lists and reviews of concerts attended, expense sheets and drafts of articles, all of which would have to be taken away and examined in detail. For the moment, though, Banks found what he needed to know in a brief note in the “Current” file referring to “the matter we discussed” and urging Barber to go ahead and get started. It also reminded him that they didn’t pay expenses up front. The notepaper was headed with the MOJO logo and an address at Mappin House, on Winsley Street in the West End. It was dated 1st October, just a couple of weeks before Nick Barber left for Yorkshire.

There were several messages on Nick’s answering machine: two from an anxious girlfriend, who left him her work number, said she hadn’t seen him for a while and wanted to get together for a drink; another from a mate about tickets to a Kasabian concert; and one offering the deal of the century on double-glazing. As far as Banks could see, Nick Barber had kept his life clean and tidy and taken most of it with him on the road. Now it had disappeared.

“We’d better split up,” he said to Annie. “I’ll try the MOJO offices and you see if you can get any luck with the girl who left her work number. See if there’s anything else you can find around the flat that might tell us anything about him, too, and arrange to have the files and stuff taken up to Eastvale. I’ll take the tube and leave you the driver.”

“Okay,” said Annie. “Where shall we meet up?”

Banks named an Italian restaurant in Soho, one he was sure they hadn’t been to together before, so it held no memories for them. They’d have to take a taxi or the tube back to their hotel, which was some distance away, just off Cromwell Road, not too far from the magnificent Natural History Museum. It was clean, they had been assured, and unlikely to break the tight police budget. As Annie busied herself listening to Barber’s phone messages again, Banks left the flat and headed for the underground.

Melanie Wright dabbed at her cheeks and apologized to Annie for the second time. They were sitting in a Starbucks near the Embankment, not far from where Melanie worked as an estate agent. She said she could take a break when Annie called, but when she found out about Nick Barber’s murder, she got upset and her boss told her she could take the rest of the afternoon off. If Nick had a “type,” then Annie was at a loss to know what it was. Kelly Soames was gamine, pale and rather naive, whereas Melanie was shapely, tanned and sophisticated. Perhaps the only similarities were that both were a few years younger than him, and both were blondes.

“Nick never let anyone get really close to him,” Melanie said over a Frappuccino, “but that was okay. I mean, I’m only twenty-four. I’m not ready to get married yet. Or even to live with someone, for that matter. I’ve got a nice flat in Chelsea I share with a girlfriend, and we get on really well and give each other lots of space.”

“But you did go out with Nick?”

“Yes. We’d been seeing one another for a year or so now, on and off. I mean, we weren’t exclusive or anything. We weren’t even what you’d call a couple, really. But we had fun. Nick was fun to be with, most of the time.”

“What do you mean, most of the time?”

“Oh, he could be a bit of a bore when he got on his hobbyhorse. That’s all. I mean, I wasn’t even born when the bloody sixties happened. It wasn’t my fault. Can’t stand the music, either.”

“So you didn’t share his enthusiasm?”

“Nobody could. It was more than an enthusiasm with him. I mean, I know this sounds weird, because he was really cool and I got to meet all sorts of bands and stuff – I mean, we even had a drink with Jimmy Page once at some awards do. Can you believe it? Jimmy Page! Even I know who he is. But even though it all sounds really cool and everything, being a rock writer and meeting famous people, when you get right down to it, it’s a bit like having any kind of all-consuming hobby, isn’t it. I mean, it could have been train-spotting, or computers or something.”

“Are you saying Nick was a bit of a nerd?”

“In some ways. Of course, there was more to him than that, or I wouldn’t have hung around. Nerds aren’t my type.”

“It wasn’t just for the bands, then?”

She shot Annie a sharp, disapproving glance. “No. I’m not like that, either. We really had fun, me and Nick. I can’t believe he’s gone. I’ll miss him so much.” She dabbed at her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Melanie,” said Annie. “I don’t mean to be insensitive or anything, but in this job you tend to get a bit cynical. When was the last time you saw Nick?”

“It must have been about two weeks ago, a bit over.”

“What did you do?”

She gave Annie a look. “What do you think we did?”

“Before that.”

“We had dinner.”

“At his place?”

“Yeah. He was a fair chef. Liked watching all those cooking programs on TV. Can’t stand them myself. You ask me what I can make, and I say reservations.”

Annie had heard it before, but she laughed anyway. “Was there anything different about him?”

Melanie thought for a moment, frowning, then she said, “It was just a feeling I got, really. I mean, I’d been around him before when he was pitching for a feature. It always mattered to him – I mean, he loved it – but this time, he was sort of anxious. I don’t think he’d got the green light yet.”

“Why do you think he was anxious? That he wouldn’t get the assignment?”

“Maybe it was partly that, but I think it was more that it was personal.”

“Personal?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask me why. I mean, Nick was fanatical about all his projects, and secretive about the details, but I got the sense that this one was a little more personal for him.”

“Did he tell you what, or who, he was working on?”

“No. But he never did. I don’t know if he thought I’d tell someone else who’d get to it first, but, like I said, he was always secretive until he’d finished. Used to disappear for weeks on end. Never told me where he was going. Not that he had any obligation to, mind you. I mean, it’s not like we were joined at the hip or anything.”

“Did he say anything at all about it?”

“Just once, that last night.” She gave a little laugh. “It was a funny sort of thing to say. He said it was a very juicy story and it had everything, including murder.”

“Murder? He actually said that?”

Melanie started crying again. “Yes,” she said. “But I didn’t think he meant his own.”

Monday, 15th September, 1969

The Mad Hatters, Enderby explained as he negotiated the winding country roads with seeming ease, consisted of five members: Terry Watson on rhythm guitar and vocals, Vic Greaves on keyboards and backup vocals, Reg Cooper on lead guitar, Robin Merchant on bass and vocals and Adrian Pritchard on drums. They had formed about three years ago after they met at Leeds University, and so were considered a local band, though only two of them – Greaves and Cooper – actually came from Yorkshire. For the first year or so they played only gigs around the West Riding, then a London promoter happened to catch one of their shows at a Bradford pub and decided they’d fill a niche in the London scene with their unique blend of psychedelic pastoral.

“Hold on a minute,” said a frustrated Chadwick. “What on earth is ‘psychedelic pastoral’ when it’s at home?”

Enderby smiled indulgently. “Think of Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh set to rock music.”

Chadwick winced. “I’d rather not. Go on.”

“That’s about all, sir. They caught on, got bigger and bigger, and now they’ve got a best-selling LP out, and they’re hobnobbing with rock’s élite. They’re tipped for even bigger things. Roger Waters from Pink Floyd was telling me just yesterday in Rugby that he thought they’d go far.”

Chadwick was already getting tired of Enderby’s name-dropping since the weekend, and he wondered if it had been a mistake to send him down to interview the Brimleigh Festival groups who were appearing in Rugby. He hadn’t even found out anything of interest in two days, and reported that there had only been about three hundred people there. And he still hadn’t got a haircut. “What the hell does Lord Jessop have to do with this?” he asked, changing the subject. “This place does belong to him, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. He’s young, rich, a bit of a longhair himself. He likes the music, and he likes to be associated with that world. Bit of a swinger, you might say. Actually, he’s away a lot of the time, and he lets them use his house and grounds for rest and rehearsals.”

“Simple as that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Chadwick gazed out at the landscape, the valley bottom to his left where the river Swain meandered between wooded banks, and the rising slope of the daleside opposite, a haphazard pattern of drystone walls and green fields until about halfway up, where the grass turned brown and the rise ended in gray limestone outcrops along the top, marking the start of the gorse-and-heather moorland.

It was a fine day, with only a few high white clouds in the sky. Even so, Chadwick felt out of his element. It wasn’t as if he had never visited the Dales before. He and Janet had had many rides out there when Yvonne was younger and he got his first car, a Reliant three-wheeler that rocked dangerously in even the slightest crosswind. He wasn’t untouched by the beauty of nature, but he was still a city boy at heart. After a short while the open country did nothing for him except make him miss the damp pavements, the noise and bustle and crowds even more.

If he had his way, they would spend their holidays exploring new cities, but Janet liked the caravan. Yvonne wouldn’t be coming with them for very much longer, he thought, so he might just be able to persuade Janet to take a trip to Paris or Amsterdam, if they could afford it, and broaden her horizons. Janet had never been abroad, and Chadwick himself had only been on the Continent during wartime. It would be interesting to revisit some of his old haunts. Not the beaches, battlefields or cemeteries – he had no interest in them – but the bars, cafés and homes where people had opened their doors and hearts and shown their gratitude after liberation.

“Here we are, sir.”

Chadwick snapped out of his reverie as Enderby pulled off the narrow track onto the grass. “Is this it?” he asked. “It doesn’t look like much of a place.”

What he could see of the house beyond its high stone wall and wooden gate was an unremarkable building of limestone with a flagstone roof and three chimneys. It was long and low with very few windows; all in all, a gloomy-looking place.

“This is just the back,” said Enderby as they approached the gate. It opened into a flagged yard, and the path led to a heavy red door with a large brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. “Tradesman’s entrance.”

Enderby knocked on the door, and they waited. The silence was oppressive, Chadwick thought. No birds singing. Even the sound of a rock band rehearsing would have been preferable. Well, on second thought…

The door opened and a young man of about thirty in a paisley shirt and flared black denim jeans greeted them. His chestnut hair wasn’t as long as Chadwick would have expected, but it did hang over his collar. “You must be the police,” he said. “I’m Chris Adams, the band’s manager. I don’t see how we can help you, but please come in.”

Enderby and Chadwick followed him into a broad paneled hallway with doors leading off to the left and right. The dark wood gleamed, and Chadwick caught a whiff of lemon-scented polish. At the far end a set of French windows framed a stunning view of the opposite daleside, an asymmetrical jumble of fields and drystone walls, and below them, at the bottom of the slope, was the river. The doors, Chadwick noticed as he got closer, led out to a terrace with stone balustrades. A table, complete with umbrella, and six chairs stood in front of the doors.

“Impressive,” said Chadwick.

“It’s nice when the weather’s good,” said Adams. “Which I can’t say is all that often in this part of the world.”

“Local?”

“I grew up in Leeds. Went to school with Vic, the keyboards player. It’s down here.”

He led them down a flight of stone steps and Chadwick realized then that they had entered the house on its highest level and there was a whole other floor beneath. At least half of it, he noticed as they walked in through the door, was taken up by one large room, at the moment full of guitars, drums, keyboard instruments, microphones, consoles, amplifiers, speakers and thick, snaking electrical cords: the rehearsal studio, mercifully silent except for the all-pervading hum of electricity. More French windows, these ones open, led out to a patio area in the shadow of the terrace above. Just beyond that, across a short stretch of overgrown lawn, was a granite and marble swimming pool. Why anyone would want an outdoor swimming pool in their backyard in Yorkshire was beyond Chadwick, but the rich had their own tastes, and the wherewithal to indulge them. Perhaps it was heated. Sunlight reflecting from the surface told him the pool was full of water.

Four young men sat around in the large room smoking cigarettes and chatting and laughing with three girls, and one lay on a sofa reading. On a table by one wall stood a variety of bottles – Coca-Cola, gin, vodka, whiskey, brandy, beer and wine. Some of the others seemed to have drinks already, and Adams offered refreshments, but Chadwick declined. He didn’t like to feel beholden in any way toward people who might very well be, or might soon become, suspects. Everyone was wearing casual clothes, mostly jeans and T-shirts, some tie-dyed in the most outrageous patterns and colors. Very long hair was the norm for both men and women, except for Adams, who seemed a shade more conservative than the rest. Chadwick was wearing a dark suit and muted tie.

Now that he was here, Chadwick didn’t know exactly where to start. Adams introduced the band members, who all said hello politely, and the girls, who giggled and retreated to one of the other rooms.

Fortunately, one of the group members stepped forward and said, “How can we help you, Mr. Chadwick? We heard about what happened at Brimleigh. It’s terrible.”

It was Robin Merchant, bass and vocals, and clearly the spokesman. He was tall and thin and wore jeans and a jacket made of some satiny blue material with zodiac signs embroidered on it.

“I don’t know that you can,” said Chadwick, sitting down on a folding chair. “It’s just that we have information the girl was in the backstage area at some point on Sunday evening, and we’re trying to find out if anyone saw her there or talked to her.”

“There were a lot of people around,” said Merchant.

“I know that. And I also know that things might have been, shall we say, a wee bit chaotic back there.”

One of the others – Adrian Pritchard, the drummer, Chadwick thought – laughed. “You can say that again. It was anarchy, man.”

They all laughed.

“Even so,” Chadwick said, “one of you might have seen or heard something important. You might not know it, what it is, but it’s possible.”

“Does the tree fall in the woods if no one is there to hear it?” chimed in the one on the sofa. Vic Greaves, keyboard player.

“Come again?” said Chadwick.

Greaves stared off into space. “It’s a matter of philosophy, isn’t it? How can I know something if I don’t know it? How can I know that something happens if I don’t experience it?”

“What Vic means,” said Merchant, jumping to the rescue, “is that we were all pretty much focused on what we were doing.”

“Which was?”

“Pardon?”

“What were you doing?”

“Well, you know,” said Merchant, “just relaxing in the caravan, practicing a few chord changes, or maybe having a drink or something, talking to guys in the other bands. Depends what time it was.”

Chadwick doubted it. Most likely, he thought, they were taking drugs and having sex with groupies, but none of them was going to admit that. “What time did you perform?”

Merchant looked to the others for confirmation. “We went on about eight, just after, right, and we played an hour set, so we were off again just after nine. After the roadies moved the equipment around and set up the light show, Pink Floyd came on after us, about ten, then Fleetwood Mac, then Led Zep.”

“And after your set? What did you do?”

Merchant shrugged. “We just hung around, you know. We were pretty wired, the adrenaline from performing and everything – I mean, it went really well, a great gig, and a big one for us – so we needed a couple of drinks to come down. I don’t know, we just listened to the other bands, that sort of thing. I spent a bit of time in the caravan reading.”

“Reading what?”

“You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“Try me.”

“Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice.”

“Never heard of it,” said Chadwick with a smile.

Merchant gave him a sharp, penetrating glance. “As I said, I didn’t think you would have done.”

“Did you stay until the end?”

“Yeah. Jesse said we could stay here for the night, so we didn’t have too far to go.”

“Jesse?”

“Sorry. Lord Jessop. Everyone calls him Jesse.”

“I see. Is he here now?”

“No, he’s in France. Spends quite a bit of his time there, down in Antibes. We saw him last month when we did a tour there.”

“In France?”

“Yeah. The album’s selling really well there.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Was Lord Jessop at Brimleigh?”

“Sure. He went down to Antibes maybe last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

All of a sudden a loud, violent buzzing noise cut like a chain saw through Chadwick’s head.

“Sorry.” A sheepish Reg Cooper, lead guitarist, apologized. “Feedback.” He put his guitar down carefully. The noise ebbed slowly away.

“Boring you, am I, laddie?” said Chadwick.

“No,” Cooper muttered. “Not at all. I said I was sorry. Accident.”

Chadwick held Cooper’s gaze for a moment, then turned his attention back to Robin Merchant. “Let’s get back to the eighth of September,” he said. “We think the girl was killed between about one o’clock and twenty past one in the morning, while Led Zeppelin were playing a song called ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby.’” Such language came only with difficulty from Chadwick’s mouth, and he noticed some of the others smirk as he spoke the words. “I understand that they’re very loud,” he went on, ignoring them, “so it’s unlikely anybody heard anything, if there was anything to hear, but were any of you in Brimleigh Woods at that time?”

“The woods?” said Merchant. “No, we didn’t go there at all. We were backstage, up front in the press enclosure, or in the caravan.”

“All of you? All the time?” Chadwick scanned the others’ faces.

They all nodded.

“‘If you go down to the woods today…’” Vic Greaves intoned in the background.

“Why would we go to the woods, man?” said Adrian Pritchard. “All the action was backstage.”

“What action?”

“You know, man… the birds… the…”

“Shut up, Adrian,” said Merchant. He turned back to Chadwick and folded his arms. “Look, I know what preconceptions you coppers have of us, but we’re clean. You can search the place if you like. Go on.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Chadwick. “You knew we were coming. But I’m not interested in drugs. Not at the moment, anyway. I’m more interested in what you were doing when this girl died, and in whether any of you saw her or talked to her.”

“Well, I told you,” said Merchant. “We never went near the woods, and how do we know if we saw her or not when none of us knows her name or what she looked like.”

“You didn’t see the papers?”

“We never bother with them. Full of establishment lies.”

“Anyway,” Chadwick said, reaching for his briefcase. “I was getting to that. As it happens I now have a fairly recent photograph. It should interest you.” He took out the photograph of Linda with the members of the Mad Hatters and passed it to Merchant, who gasped and stared, openmouthed. “Is that… Vic?” He passed it to Vic Greaves, who still lay sprawled on a sofa smoking and looking, to Chadwick, quite out of it. Greaves stirred and took the photo. “Fuck,” he said. “Fucking hell.” And the photo slipped out his hands.

Chadwick went over and picked it up, standing over Greaves. “Who is it?” he asked. “You know her?”

“Sort of,” said Greaves. “Look, I don’t feel too good, Rob. My head, it’s… like snakes and things coming back, you know, man… like I need…” He turned away.

Merchant stepped forward. “Vic’s not too well,” he said. “The doctor says he’s suffering from fatigue, and his emotional state is pretty fragile right now. This must be a hell of a shock for him.”

“Why?” asked Chadwick, sitting down again.

He gestured toward the photo. “That girl. It’s Linda. Linda Lofthouse. She’s Vic’s cousin.”

Cousin. Mrs. Lofthouse had never mentioned that. But why should she? He hadn’t asked her about the Mad Hatters, and she had probably been in shock. Still, this was a new development worth following. Chadwick looked at Vic Greaves with more interest. By far the scruffiest of the bunch, he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in four or five days and his skin was deathly pale, as if he never saw the sun, his face dotted with angry red spots. His dark hair stuck out in tufts as if he had slept on it and not washed or combed it for a week. His clothes looked rumpled, slept-in, too. There was a well-thumbed paperback on the sofa beside him called Meetings with Remarkable Men.

“Were they particularly close?” Chadwick asked Robin Merchant.

“No, not really, I don’t think. I mean, you know, just cousins. She grew up in Leeds, and Vic’s family lived in Rochdale.”

“But we understand she lived in London,” Chadwick said. “Isn’t that where you all live now?”

“It’s a big place.”

Chadwick took a deep breath. “Mr. Merchant,” he said, “I appreciate that you lads are busy, not to mention famous, and no doubt wealthy. But a young girl has been brutally murdered at a festival in which you were taking part. She was seen backstage talking to two of you, and now it appears that one of you is also her cousin. Is there any particular reason Mr. Greaves over there is suffering from fatigue, that his emotional state is distressed? That’s exactly the kind of thing that killing someone might do to you.”

A stunned silence followed Chadwick’s controlled tirade. Greaves tossed on the sofa and his book fell to the floor. He put his head in his hands and groaned. “Talk to him, Rob, talk to him,” he said. “You tell him. I can’t handle this.”

“Look,” said Merchant. “Why don’t we take a walk outside, Inspector. I’ll answer all your questions as best I can. But can’t you see it’s upsetting Vic?”

Upsetting Vic Greaves was not Chadwick’s main concern, but he thought he might be able to get a bit more information out of Robin Merchant, who seemed the most levelheaded of the lot, if he did as requested. He gestured to Enderby to stay with the others and accompanied Merchant out to the flagged patio down the slope toward the swimming pool.

“Ever use it?” Chadwick asked.

“Sometimes,” Merchant answered with a smile. “For midnight orgies on the two days in August when it’s warm enough. Jesse tries to keep it cleaned up, but it’s difficult.”

“Lord Jessop isn’t a relation, too, is he?”

“Jesse? Good Lord, no. He’s a patron of the arts. A friend.”

They stood by the side of the pool looking out across the dale. Chadwick could see a red tractor making its way across one of the opposite fields toward a tiny farmhouse. The hillside was dotted with sheep. He glanced down at the swimming pool. A few early autumn leaves floated on the water’s scummy surface, along with a dead sparrow.

“All right, Mr. Merchant,” said Chadwick. “Am I to take it you’re the leader of the group?”

“Spokesman. We don’t believe in leaders.”

“Very well. Spokesman. That means you can speak for the others?”

“To some extent. Yes. It’s not that they can’t speak for themselves. But Vic, as you can see, is not exactly a social charmer, though he’s a great creative force. Adrian and Reg are okay but they’re not especially articulate, and Terry is way too hip to talk to the fuzz.”

“You sound educated.”

“I’ve got a degree, if that’s what you mean. English literature.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You’re not meant to be. It’s just a piece of paper.” Merchant kicked a couple of loose pebbles with his foot. They plopped into the swimming pool. “Can we get this over with? I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but we do have a tour to rehearse for. Contrary to what a lot of people think, rock bands aren’t just a random collection of layabouts with minimal musical ability and loud amplifiers. We take our music seriously, and we work hard at it.”

“I’m sure you do. I think if I ask you direct, simple questions and you answer them straightforwardly, we’ll soon be done here. How about that?”

“Fine. Ask away.” Merchant lit a cigarette.

“Was it Mr. Greaves who got the backstage pass for Linda Lofthouse?”

“It was me,” said Merchant.

“Why you?”

“Vic’s not… I mean, as you can see, he doesn’t deal well with rules, people in authority, stuff like that. It intimidates him. It was his cousin, but he asked me to do it for him.”

“So you did?”

“Yes.”

“She would have picked this up where?”

“At the entrance to the backstage area.”

“From security, I assume?”

“Yes.”

That meant either they’d missed out on questioning the guard who had given Linda the pass, or he had forgotten or lied about it. Well, Chadwick thought, people lie often enough to the police. They don’t want to get involved. And there’s always that little bit of guilt everybody carries around with them.

“Could she come and go as she pleased?”

“Yes.”

“What were you talking about when you were photographed with her?”

“Just asking if she was having a good time, that sort of thing. It was very casual. We only chatted for a couple of minutes. I didn’t even know that someone had taken a photo of us.”

“Was she having a good time?”

“So she said.”

“Was anything bothering her?”

“Not as far as I could tell.”

“What was her state of mind?”

“Fine. Just, you know, normal.”

“Was she worried about anything, frightened by anything?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to her again after the photo was taken, later in the evening?”

“No.”

“See her?”

“Only around, you know, from a distance.”

“Did she have a flower painted on her cheek later?”

Merchant paused for a moment, then said, “As a matter of fact, she did. At least, I think it was her. There was some bird doing body art in the enclosure.”

Well, Chadwick thought, there went one theory. Still, it would be useful to track down the “bird,” if possible, and establish for certain whether she had painted the flower on Linda’s cheek. “How well did you know Linda?”

“Not well at all. I’d met her in London a couple of times. Once when we were doing the album she got in touch with Vic through his parents and asked if she could sit in on the studio sessions with a friend. She’s interested in music – as a matter of fact we let her play a little acoustic guitar on one track, and her and her friend did some harmonies. They weren’t bad at all.”

“What friend?”

“Just another bird. I didn’t really talk to her.”

“Did Linda ever go out with anyone in the group?”

“No.”

“Come off it, Mr. Merchant. Linda Lofthouse was an exceptionally attractive girl, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“There’s no shortage of attractive girls in our business. Anyway, she didn’t strike me as the sort to take up with a rock musician.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that she seemed like a decent, well-brought-up girl, just a little brighter than most and with broader interests than her friends.”

“She had a baby.”

“So?”

“You have to sleep with someone to get pregnant. She did it when she was fifteen, so how can you tell me that on the strength of two meetings she wasn’t ‘that’ sort of girl?”

“Call it gut instinct. I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. She just seemed a nice girl, that’s all. Didn’t give off that kind of vibe. You get to recognize it, especially in this business. Take those three you saw when you came in.”

“So Linda wasn’t going out with anyone in the group?”

“No.”

“What about the other groups at the festival?”

“She might have talked to people, but I didn’t see her hanging around with anyone in particular for very long.”

“What about Rick Hayes?”

“The promoter? Yeah, I saw her with him. She said she knew him in London.”

“Was he her boyfriend?”

“I doubt it. I mean, Rick’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong, but he’s a bit of a loser in that department, and they weren’t acting that way toward one another.”

Chadwick made a mental note. Losers in love often found interesting and violent ways to express their dissatisfaction. “Do you know if she had a boyfriend? Did she ever mention anyone?”

“Not that I recall. Look, have you ever thought that it was something else?”

“What do you mean?”

“They might have thought that it was something other than murder.”

“They?”

“Figure of speech. Whoever did it.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“So I see. I don’t know. I’m just speculating. Not everyone sees the world the same way as you do.”

“I’m coming to realize that.”

“Well… you know… I mean, murder is just a word.”

“I can assure you it’s more than that to me.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. But that’s you. I’m just trying to show you that other people think differently.”

Chadwick was beginning to think he had wandered into a Wednesday Play. Desperate to get back to more tenable ground, he asked, “Do you know where she lived?”

Merchant seemed to come back from a long way off and gather his thoughts before answering in a tired voice. “She had a room on Powis Terrace. Notting Hill Gate. That’s what she said that time she came down to the studio, anyway.”

“You don’t know the number?”

“No. I wouldn’t even know the street except when she said Notting Hill I asked her about it, because it’s a great neighborhood. Everyone knows Notting Hill – Portobello Road, Powis Square and all that.”

Chadwick remembered Portobello Road from some leave he had spent in London during the war. “Expensive?”

“Bloody hell, no. Not for London, at any rate. It’s all cheap bedsits.”

“You said you met her a couple of times in London. When was the other time?”

“A gig at the Roundhouse last year. October, I think it was. One of the ones Rick Hayes promoted. Again, she asked Vic to get her and a friend backstage passes and he delegated it to me.”

“The same friend who sat in on the recording session with her?”

“Yeah. Sorry, but, like I said, I didn’t talk to her. I can’t remember her name.”

Chadwick stared out across the dale again. The tractor had disappeared. Cloud shadows raced across the fields and limestone outcrops as the breeze picked up. “Not much of a memory, have you, laddie?” he said.

“Look, I’m sorry if I’m not sounding helpful,” said Merchant, “but it’s the truth. Linda was never part of the entourage, and she wasn’t a groupie. She got in touch with Vic exactly three times over the past two years, just to ask for little favors. We didn’t mind. It was no problem. She was family, after all. But that’s all there was to it. None of us went out with her and none of us really knew her.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“Back to last Sunday. Where were you all between one and twenty past one that night?”

Merchant flicked his cigarette end into the swimming pool. “I don’t really remember.”

“Were you with the others listening to Led Zeppelin?”

“Some of the time, yeah, but they’re not really my thing. I might have been in the caravan reading, or in the beer tent.”

“That’s not much of an alibi, is it?”

“I wasn’t aware I’d need one.”

“What about the others?”

“They were around.”

“Your manager, Mr. Adams. Was he there?”

“Chris? Yeah, he was somewhere around.”

“But you didn’t see him?”

“I don’t really remember seeing him at any particular time, no, but I did see him now and then in passing.”

“So any one of you could have gone out to the woods with Linda Lofthouse and stabbed her?”

“But nobody had any reason to,” Merchant said. “We didn’t hang out with her, didn’t really know her. I just got the passes for her, that’s all.”

“Passes?”

“Yeah, two.”

“You didn’t say this before.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Who was the other pass for?”

“Her friend, the girl she was with.”

“The same one you saw her with at the Roundhouse and the recording session? The one whose name you can’t remember?”

“That’s the one.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Merchant shrugged.

“If you got her a pass, you must know her name.”

“I didn’t look at it.”

“Did you see her later, at the festival?”

“Once or twice.”

“Were they together?”

“The first time I saw them, yes. Later on they weren’t.”

“What do you know about this girl?”

“Nothing. She was a friend of Linda’s and that they sang together in clubs. I think they shared a pad or were neighbors or something.”

“What does she look like?”

“About the same age as Linda. Long dark hair, olive complexion. Nice figure.”

“What time did you last see her?”

“I don’t know. When Pink Floyd were on. It must have been close to midnight.”

“And were the two of them together?”

“I didn’t see Linda then, no.”

“What was this other girl doing?”

“Just standing around with a group of people drinking and chatting.”

“Who?”

“Just people. Nobody in particular.”

So who was she? Chadwick wondered. And why hadn’t she reported her friend missing? Not for the first time he began to wonder about the mental faculties of the world he was dealing with. Didn’t these people care if someone stole their sleeping bag, or, worse, if someone close to them simply disappeared? He didn’t expect them to see the world as he did, with danger at every turn, but surely it was simple common sense to worry? Unless something had happened to her friend, too. He wouldn’t find that out by hanging around Swainsdale Lodge, he decided, and the thought of trying to talk to any of the others again brought on a headache.

Chadwick thanked Robin Merchant for his time, said he would have to talk to Vic Greaves at some point when he was feeling better, then they went back inside. Enderby, looking pleased with himself, held out a copy of the Mad Hatters LP and asked Merchant if he would sign it. He did. The others were slouching in their chairs smoking and sipping drinks, Reg Cooper picking a quiet tune on his guitar, Vic Greaves apparently asleep on his sofa, tranquilized to the gills. The sound system was buzzing in the background. Chris Adams showed them out, apologizing for Greaves and promising that if there was anything else they needed, they should just get in touch with him, gave them his phone number and left them at the door.

“Where did you get that?” Chadwick said in the car, pointing to the LP. “He gave it to me. The manager. I got them all to sign it.”

“Better hand it over,” said Chadwick. “You wouldn’t want anyone to think you’d been accepting bribes, would you?”

“But, sir!”

Chadwick held his hand out. “Come on, laddie. Give.”

Reluctantly, Enderby handed over the signed LP. Chadwick slipped it into his briefcase, suppressing a little smile as Enderby practically stripped the gears getting back to the road.