Piece Of My Heart

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Annie jotted something down, then turned back to the computer monitor and scrolled. It was Monday morning. On Sunday, most of the team had taken a well-deserved day off, their first since Nick Barber’s murder almost two weeks ago. Annie had spent the morning doing household chores, the afternoon on the Mad Hatters web site and the evening enjoying that long bath and the trashy magazines she had been promising herself. At lunchtime, she had gone out with Banks, Brian and Emilia to the Bridge in Grinton. Emilia had been absolutely charming, and Annie had been secretly awestruck to meet an up-and-coming actress. More so than by meeting Banks’s rock star son, whom she had met before, though Brian had also, in his way, been charming and far less full of himself than she remembered from previous occasions they had met. He seemed to have matured and become comfortable with his success, no longer the young tearaway with something to prove.

The coffee at her right hand was lukewarm, and she made a face when she took a sip. There was plenty of activity around her in the squad room, but she was still on the Web, oblivious to most of it as she felt herself finally zooming in on the mystery of the numbers in the back of Nick Barber’s book.

It wasn’t such an esoteric solution after all, she realized with a sense of disappointment. It didn’t suddenly make everything clear and solve the case, and it was nothing she wouldn’t have expected him to make a note of anyway.

She hadn’t found everything she wanted at the official Mad Hatters web site, but she had found links there that took her to more obscure fan sites, as Nick Barber must have done in Eastvale Computes. But all the owner had heard was the snatch of song that played when he accessed the official site. Now she negotiated her way through bright orange and red Gothic print, black backgrounds with stylized logos and flashing arrows. All signs that some young web designer was eager to show off and lacked restraint. Before long, her eyes were starting to buzz, and her eyeballs felt as if they had been massaged with sandpaper.

Once she had the final string jotted down, she printed the whole document, bookmarked the web site URL and closed the browser. Then she rubbed her eyes and went in search of a fresh cup of coffee, only to find that it was her turn to make a fresh pot. When she finally got back to her desk, it was close to lunchtime and she felt like a break from the office.

“I was just thinking about you,” she said when Banks popped his head around the door and asked her how she was getting on. “I’m feeling cooped up here. Why don’t you take me to that new bistro by the castle and we go over what I’ve found so far?”

“What?” said Banks. “Lunch together two days in a row? People will talk.”

“A working lunch,” Annie said.

“Okay. Sounds good to me.”

With Templeton’s deepening frown following them, Annie picked up her papers and they walked out into the cobbled market square. It was a fine day for the time of year, scrubbed blue sky and just a hint of chill in the wind, and a couple of coachloads of tourists from Teesside were disembarking by the market cross and making a beeline for the nearest pub. The church clock struck twelve as Banks and Annie crossed the square and took the narrow lane that wound up to the castle. The bistro was down a small flight of stone stairs about halfway up the hill. It had only been open about three months and had garnered some good local reviews. Because it was early, only two of the tables were occupied already, and the owner welcomed them, giving them the pick of the rest. They chose a corner table, with their backs to the whitewashed walls. That way nobody would be able to look over their shoulders. Little light got through the half-window, and all you could see were legs and feet walking by, but the muted wall lighting was good enough to read by.

They both decided on sparkling mineral water, partly because Annie rarely drank at lunchtime and Banks said he was beginning to find that even one glass of wine so early in the day made him drowsy. Banks went for a steak sandwich and frites and Annie chose the cheese omelette and green salad. The food ordered and fizzy water poured, they began to go over the results of her morning’s work. Soft music played in the background. East-vale’s idea of Parisian chic: Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf, a little Françoise Hardy. But it was so quiet as to be unobtrusive. Banks broke off a chunk of baguette, buttered it and looked at Annie’s notes.

“Put simply,” she said, “it’s the Mad Hatters tour dates from October 1969 to May 1970.”

“But that’s eight months, and there are only six rows.”

“They didn’t tour in December or February,” Annie said. She showed Banks the printout from the web site. “I got this all from a site run by what must be their most devoted fan. The trivia some of these people put out there is amazing. Anyway, it must have been a godsend to a writer like Nick Barber.”

“But is it all accurate?”

“I’m sure there are errors,” Annie said. “After all, these web sites are unedited, and it’s easy to make a mistake. But on the whole I’d say it’s probably pretty close.”

“So the Mad Hatters were on tour the sixth, eighth, ninth, twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-fifth of October? That’s how it goes?”

“Yes,” said Annie. She handed him the printout. “And these were the places they played.”

“The Dome, Brighton; the Locarno Ballroom, Sunderland; the Guild-hall, Portsmouth. They got around.”

“They certainly did.”

“And the ringed dates?”

“Just three of them, as you can see,” said Annie. “The twelfth of January, the nineteenth of April and the nineteenth of May. All in 1970.”

“Any significance in those two nineteenths?”

“I haven’t figured out the significance of any of the ringed dates yet.”

“Maybe it was one of his girlfriends’ periods?”

Annie gave him a sharp nudge in the ribs. “Don’t be rude. Anyway, periods don’t come that irregularly. Not usually, at any rate.”

“So you did consider it?”

Annie ignored him and prepared to move on just as their food arrived. They took a short pause to arrange papers, plates and knives and forks, then carried on. “The first gap is three months, the second is one.”

“Drug scores?”

“Perhaps.”

“What about the venues?”

Annie consulted her notes. “On the twelfth of January, they were playing at the Top Rank Suite in Cardiff, on the nineteenth of April, they were at the Dome in Brighton, and on the nineteenth of May, they were at the Van Dyke Club in Plymouth.”

“You can’t get much more diverse than that,” said Banks. “Okay. Now we need to find out if there’s any significance at all to those dates and places.”

The owner came over to see if everything was all right. They assured him it was, and he scooted off. That kind of solicitude wouldn’t last long in Yorkshire, Annie thought, finding herself wondering if his French accent was as false as his hairpiece. “I’ll enlist Winsome’s aid after lunch,” she said. “You?”

“I think it’s time I paid another visit to Vic Greaves,” said Banks. “See if I can get any more sense out of him this time. I was thinking of taking Jenny Fuller along, but she’s off on the lecture circuit, and there’s no on else around I can really trust for that sort of thing.”

“Be careful,” said Annie. “Remember what happened to Nick Barber when he got too interested in Greaves.”

“Don’t worry. I will.”

“And good luck,” Annie added. “By the sound of him, you’ll need it.”

Banks cut off a lump of glutinous brown gristle from his steak and put it on the side of his plate. The sight of it made Annie feel vaguely queasy and very glad to be a vegetarian. “You know,” Banks said, “I still can’t decide whether Greaves is truly bonkers or just a genuine English eccentric.”

“Maybe there isn’t much of a difference,” Annie said. “Have you thought of that?”

There were plenty of cars parked on Lyndgarth’s village green early on Monday afternoon, and several groups of walkers in serious gear had assembled for briefings nearby. Banks found a spot to park near the post office and headed up the lane to Vic Greaves’s cottage. He was hoping that the man might be a bit more coherent this time and had a number of questions prepared to jog the ex-keyboard player’s memory if he needed to. Since his last visit he had come to believe that Stanley Chadwick had been seriously misguided about Patrick McGarrity’s guilt, for personal reasons, and he now knew that not only had Greaves been Linda Lofthouse’s cousin, but that Nick Barber was her son, which meant that Greaves and Barber were also related in some complicated way that Banks couldn’t quite figure out. But most important, it meant connections between the different cases, and connections always excited Banks.

He walked up the short path and knocked on the door. The front curtains were closed. No answer. He remembered the last time, how it had taken Greaves a while to answer, so he knocked again. When he still got no answer, he walked around to the back, where there was a small cobbled yard and a storage shed. He peeked through the grimy kitchen window and saw that things were in pretty much the same spotless order as they had been when he had first visited Greaves.

Curious, Banks tried the back door. It opened.

He was treading on dangerous ground now, he knew, entering a suspect’s premises alone, without a search warrant. But he thought that, if he had to, he could justify his actions. Vic Greaves was mentally unstable, and Banks feared that he might have come to some harm, or harmed himself in some way. Even so, he hoped he didn’t stumble across the one piece of vital evidence that linked Greaves inextricably with Barber’s murder, or with Linda Lofthouse’s, or he might have a hard time getting it admitted in court. What he would do, he decided, was not touch anything and return with full authorization if he had to.

As he entered, Banks felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. Annie had been right in her warning. If he indicated that he was at all close to the truth, then Greaves might lash out, as Banks thought he had done at Nick Barber. He might already know who was at his door, might be lying in wait, armed and ready to attack. Banks moved cautiously through the dim kitchen. At least all the knives were in their slots in the wooden block where Greaves kept them. Banks stood still in the doorway that led through to the living room and listened. Nothing but the wind whipping the tree branches and the distant sounds of a car starting and a dog barking.

From what he could make out in the pale light that filtered through the curtains, the living room was just as it had been, too, with newspapers and magazines piled everywhere. Banks stood at the bottom of the stairs and called out Greaves’s name again. Still no answer.

Tense and alert, he started to walk up the stairs. They creaked as he moved. Every once in a while he would pause, but still he heard nothing. He stood on the upstairs landing and listened again. Nothing. It was a small cottage, and in addition to the toilet and bathroom there were only two bedrooms. Banks checked the first and found it almost as full of newspapers and magazines as the living room. Then he went into the second, which was obviously Greaves’s bedroom.

In one corner lay a mattress heaped with sheets and blankets. It reminded Banks of nothing so much as a nest of some kind. Carefully, he poked around with his toe in the bedsheets, but no one was there, either hiding or dead. Though the sheets were piled in an untidy mess, they were clean and smelled of apples. There was nothing else in the room except a wardrobe and a dresser full of old, but clean and neatly folded, clothes and underwear.

After a cursory glance in the toilet and bathroom, which told him nothing, Banks went back downstairs into the living room. It was an ideal opportunity for him to poke around, but it didn’t seem as if Greaves had anything worth poking around for. There were no mementos, no Mad Hatters memorabilia, no photos or keepsakes of any kind. In fact, as far as Banks could tell, the cottage contained nothing but a few basic toiletries, clothes, kitchenware and newspapers.

Idly, he started looking at some of the papers on the top of the pile: Northern Echo and Darlington amp; Stockton Times, along with the Yorkshire Evening Post dating back about three years, as far as he could tell. The magazines covered just about everything from computing, though Greaves had no computer as far as Banks had seen, to coin collecting, though there were none on the subject of rock music, or music of any kind. Many of the magazines still had free gifts stuck to their covers, and some hadn’t even been removed from their cellophane wrapping.

Finding nothing of interest among the papers, Banks headed for the shed in the backyard. It had a padlock, but it was already open, just hanging there loosely on the hasp. Banks opened the door. He expected more newspapers, at the very least, but the shed was empty. It had no particular smell except for soil and wood. Spiders went about their webs in the corners and one particularly large specimen scuttled across the window. Banks shuddered. He had hated spiders ever since he had found one under his pillow when he was about five.

Banks closed the door behind him and left it as it was. There was one thing, he guessed, that should have been there but wasn’t: Vic Greaves’s bicycle. So had Greaves gone rideabout, or had he gone somewhere specific?

Banks went back to his car and took out his mobile. The signal was poor, but at least there was one. Chris Adams answered almost immediately.

“Mr. Adams,” said Banks. “Where are you?”

“At home. Why?”

“Do you have any idea where Vic Greaves is?”

“I’m not his keeper, you know.”

“No, but you’re the closest he’s got to one.”

“Sorry, no. I don’t know. Why?”

“I’ve just been to see him and his bike’s not there.”

“He does go out from time to time.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

“He just rides. I don’t know where he goes. Look, are you telling me there’s some reason to be worried?”

“Not at all. I’m just trying to find him to ask him a few more questions.”

“What about?”

“Things seem to be coming to a head. I think we’re almost there.”

“You know who killed Nick Barber?”

“Not yet, but I think I’m getting close.”

“And Vic knows this?”

“I don’t know what he knows. I’ll bet he can be remarkably perceptive at times, though.”

“You never know with Vic. What goes in, what goes straight through.”

“Any idea where he might go?”

“No. I told you. He goes for bike rides from time to time. Helps keep him in shape.”

“If you hear from him, please let me know.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing, Mr. Adams.”

“Yes?”

“The night Robin Merchant drowned. Were you up and around at the time?”

“Who told you that?”

“Were you?”

“Of course not. I was fast asleep.”

“You and I both know that’s a load of bollocks, Mr. Adams, and the police probably knew it even then. They just didn’t have any evidence to suggest Robin Merchant might have been murdered, or that his death might have been caused by someone else in some way.”

“This is absurd. Is it Tania? Have you been talking to Tania?”

“Why would that make a difference?”

“Because she was pissed. If you’ve talked to her, she’s no doubt told you we were what they call an item at the time. Her drug of choice was alcohol. Vodka mostly. She was probably so drunk she didn’t know her arse from her elbows.”

“So you weren’t up and about?”

“Of course not. Besides, Tania’s got it in for me. We haven’t exactly been on the best of terms these past few years.”

That wasn’t exactly what Tania had told him, Banks remembered. Who was lying? “Oh. Why’s that?”

“A mixture of business and personal matters. And none of your business, really. Now, look, this connection’s getting worse and worse. I’m going to hang up now.”

“I’d like to talk to you again. Can you come by the station?”

“I’ll be passing nearby on my way to London next week. I’ll try to drop in if I have the time.”

“Try to make time. And ring first.”

“I will if I can remember. Good-bye, Mr. Banks.”

As Banks was putting his mobile away, he noticed he had voice mail waiting. Curious, he pressed the button and after the usual introduction heard Annie’s voice. “I hope things are going well with Vic Greaves,” she said. “Winsome and I seem to be making some progress here and we’d like to have a chat with you about the possibilities we’ve raised. Can you come back to the station as soon as you have a moment? It could be important. Cheers.”

Well, Banks thought, turning his car toward Eastvale and slipping in an old Roy Harper CD, Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion, at least someone was making progress.

Winsome said she didn’t need to use the online computer anymore, so they adjourned to the privacy of Banks’s office. The market square was busy with tourists and shoppers coming in and out of the narrow streets that radiated from it. The day was warming up, so Banks opened his window about six inches to let some fresh air in. The noise of the cars, snatches of music, laughter and conversations all sounded distant and muffled. A whiff of diesel fumes from the revving coaches drifted in.

“You’ve been busy, by the looks of it,” Banks said as Winsome dropped a pile of paper on his desk.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ve been on the telephone or the Internet over three hours now, and I think you’ll find the results very interesting.”

“Go ahead.”

They sat in a semicircle around Banks’s desk so they could all see. “Well,” Winsome began, pulling out the first sheet, “let’s start with twelfth January, 1969. Top Rank Suite, Cardiff.”

“What happened there?” Banks asked.

“Nothing. At least not at the Top Rank Suite.”

“Where, then?”

“Hold your horses a minute,” said Annie. “Let Winsome tell it her own way.”

“I spoke with the archivist at one of the big newspapers down there,” Winsome went on, “the South Wales Echo, and he seemed surprised that somebody else was asking him about that particular date.”

“Somebody else?”

“Exactly,” Winsome went on. “It seems that Nick Barber did quite a bit of background work before he went up to Yorkshire, specifically into the Mad Hatters tour dates between the Brimleigh Festival and Robin Merchant’s death.”

“Which makes me wonder why he needed to check the web sites at Eastvale Computes and jot what he found down in the back of his book,” said Annie.

“John Butler, the editor at MOJO, told me that Barber was meticulous about checking his facts,” said Banks. “He checked everything at least twice before he went after a story. I should imagine he was getting it right, preparing for another chat with Vic Greaves.”

“Makes sense,” said Annie. “Go on, Winsome.”

“Well, sometimes he had to contact the local papers to see if they kept back issues, but mostly he didn’t need to. Most of what he wanted is available at the British Library Newspapers Catalogue, and he could read the papers on microfilm at the library’s newspaper reading room. His London phone records, by the way, show quite a few calls to the library, as well as to the local newspapers concerned, in Plymouth, Cardiff and Brighton.”

“What did he discover?”

“In the first place,” Winsome went on, “I should guess that he was simply looking for reviews of Mad Hatters performances. Maybe a few little quotes from the time to spice up his article. As you said, sir, he was thorough. And it looks as if he was also trying to get a broader context of the times, you know, little local snippets about what was going on that day in Bristol or Plymouth, what was of interest to the people there, that sort of thing. Background.”

“Nothing unusual in that, either,” Banks said. “He was a music journalist. I imagine he was also scrounging around for any old photos or live bootleg recordings he could find.”

“Yes, sir,” Winsome said. “Obviously he couldn’t research every gig – they played over a hundred towns and cities during that period – but he did cover a fair bit of ground in the reading room. I’ve spoken to the librarian he dealt with down there, and she was able to give me a list of what he did get around to and fax me prints from the microfilm reader of the newspapers for the three dates in question. She was very helpful. Sounded quite excited to be part of a police investigation. Actually, it was the issues on the days after the gigs that interested Barber, of course.”

“Because that was when the reviews appeared,” said Banks.

“Exactly. Well,” Winsome went on, there’s nothing especially interesting in the reviews. Apparently they were in good form that night, even Vic Greaves. It’s another item of news that I suspect was more interesting to Nick Barber.” She picked a sheet from her pile and turned it on the desk so that Banks could read it. “I’m sorry about the quality, sir,” she said, “but it was the best she could do at short notice.”

The print was tiny and Banks had to take out his reading glasses. The story was about a young woman called Gwyneth Harris, who was found dead in Bute Park, near the city center of Cardiff, at six o’clock in the morning of thirteenth January, by an elderly man walking his dog. Gwyneth had, apparently, been held from behind and stabbed five times in the heart with a blade resembling that of a flick-knife. There were no more details.

“Jesus Christ,” said Banks. “Linda Lofthouse.”

“There’s more,” said Annie, nodding to Winsome, who slipped out another sheet.

“Monday, twentieth April, 1970. The Brighton amp; Hove Gazette, the day after the Mad Hatters played at the Dome there. Not very well, apparently. The reviewer mentioned that Greaves in particular seemed barely conscious, and at one point Reg Cooper had to go over to him and direct his fingers to the right keys for the chords. But there’s a piece about a young girl called Anita Higgins found dead on a stretch of beach not far from the West Pier.”

“Stabbed?” said Banks.

“Yes, sir. This time from the front.”

“And I suppose the same thing happened at the third circled gig?”

“Western Evening Herald, Wednesday, twentieth May, 1970, a review of the Mad Hatters gig and an item about Elizabeth Tregowan, aged seventeen, found dead in Hoe Park, Plymouth. This one was strangled.”

“So if it was the same person,” said Banks, “he was getting bolder, more daring, more personal. The first two he didn’t even want to see him, the third he stabbed from the front and the last he strangled. Is that all?”

“Yes, sir,” said Winsome. “There may be more, but these are the only three Nick Barber got around to uncovering. It must have been enough for him.”

“It’s enough for anyone,” said Banks. “If you count Linda Lofthouse at Brimleigh, that’s four girls been murdered within close proximity to a Mad Hatters gig. Were any of them at the concerts? Had they any connection with the group?”

“We don’t know yet,” Annie said. “Winsome thought it best to bring you up-to-date as soon as possible on this, and we’ve still got a lot of legwork to do. We need follow-up stories, if any are available, and we need to get on to the local forces, see what they’ve got in their archives. You know we never give everything out to the newspapers.”

“There’s one more thing,” Winsome said. “It might be of interest, I don’t know, but the Mad Hatters were on tour in France most of August 1969.”

“So?” said Banks.

“The flick-knife,” said Winsome. “They’re illegal here, but you can get them easily enough in France. And I don’t think they had metal detectors all over the place back then.”

“Right,” said Banks. “Excellent work. So where does this lead us? Before he left for Yorkshire, Nick Barber found out about a trail of bodies after Mad Hatters gigs in the late sixties and early seventies, starting with that of his birth mother. Clearly the local forces at the time had no communication about these killings, which isn’t surprising. Even as late as the eighties lack of inter-force communications botched the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. Stanley Chadwick thought he’d got his man, for good reason, so he had no further interest in the case. He also had problems of his own to deal with. Yvonne. Besides, one of the victims was strangled, not stabbed. Different MO. Even if Chadwick had come across the story, which is unlikely, it wouldn’t have meant anything to him. And who’d be looking at the Mad Hatters as a common denominator?”

“Clearly Nick Barber was,” said Annie. “Before his second interview with Vic Greaves, on the day of his murder, Friday, he went to Eastvale Computes in the morning to verify his dates, and he made a note of what he found – what he already knew – in the back of a book he was carrying. We already know from the landlord of the Cross Keys that Barber was in the habit of carrying a book with him when he went for a drink or a meal.”

“Lucky for us he was so thorough,” said Banks, “seeing as all his other research material was stolen.”

“So you think Vic Greaves is the killer?” Annie asked.

“I don’t know. When you put it like that, it does sound a bit absurd, doesn’t it?”

“Well, somebody killed those girls,” Annie argued. “And Vic Greaves was definitely around for each one.”

“Why did he stop?” Banks asked.

“We don’t know that he did,” Annie answered. “Though I’d guess he just became too disorganized to function. Obviously Chris Adams’s been shielding him, protecting him.”

“You think Adams knows the truth?”

“Probably,” Annie said.

“Why would he shield Greaves?”

“They’re old friends. Isn’t that what you said Tania Hutchison told you? They grew up together.”

“What about Robin Merchant?”

“He might have found out.”

“So you think Greaves killed him, too?”

“It wouldn’t have been difficult. Just a little nudge.”

“Trouble is,” said Banks, “we’re not likely to get much sense out of Greaves.”

“At least we can try.”

“Yes.” Banks stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Great work, Winsome. Carry on with the follow-up. Get all you can from the locals.”

“Where are you going?”

“I think I know where Vic Greaves is,” said Banks. “I’m going to have a word with him.”

“Don’t you think you should take backup, sir?” said Winsome. “I mean, if he really is the one, he could be dangerous if you corner him.”

“No,” said Banks, remembering that Annie had given him the same warning. “That’s one thing that’ll likely lose him to us for good. He can’t handle social interaction, and he’s especially afraid of strangers. I can only imagine how he’ll react if a few carloads of coppers turn up. At least he’s seen me before. I don’t think I’ve got anything to fear from him.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Annie.

So did Banks as he started the Porsche and negotiated his way out of East-vale toward Lyndgarth. He recalled the fear he had felt searching Greaves’s cottage and it made his mouth dry. People as disturbed as Vic Greaves could sometimes summon up amazing, almost superhuman, strength. At least Banks had told Annie and Winsome where he was going before he set off and asked them to give him a twenty-minute start before they sent in a patrol car as backup. He couldn’t be certain that Greaves was where he thought he was, he realized as he crossed the bridge over the Swain and headed for Lyndgarth, but he had a damned good idea.

The estate agent had told him that someone had been seen in the vicinity of Swainsview Lodge, and Greaves had turned uncommunicative at the mention of the place. It must have had very strong associations for him from a particular period of his life, and it would be natural enough for him to gravitate there in times of stress or confusion. Or so Banks hoped as he parked on the bleak daleside and the wind whipped at his face when he opened the car door.

The door through which he had previously entered was securely locked, and Banks was certain nobody could get in that way. An unpaved lane ran down the hill by the side of the lodge to the riverside hamlet of Brayke, and at the top of the lane was a side entrance leading to two large garages, both also locked. A fairly high drystone wall ran down the hill parallel to the lane, but it would be easy enough for anyone to climb, Banks thought, especially in one section which had lost a few stones. You might not be able to get into the house without breaking a window, he realized, but anyone could gain access to the grounds.

Banks’s first clue was a bicycle partially hidden in the ditch and covered with a blue plastic sheet held down by two stones, flapping in the wind. Clearly Greaves couldn’t get himself and his bicycle over the wall, too.

Convinced that he was right now, Banks hopped the wall and found himself in the garden beyond the swimming pool, where the vast neglected lawn started its long slope down to the river. He moved up to the edge of the pool, the familiar dark cracked stone covered with moss and lichens, and the pool itself choked with weeds, littered with broken glass and empty Carlsberg tins.

He called out Vic Greaves’s name, but the wind blew it back. There were shadows everywhere and Banks found himself jumping at each one, a heavy knot at the center of his chest. He was in the open, he realized, and wished he could be more certain of his assessment that Vic Greaves was harmless.

An empty Coke tin came skittering out of the grass onto the patio and Banks turned, tense, ready to defend himself.

When he reached the side of the pool closest to the house, he thought he could see something sticking out from behind one of the pillars under the upper terrace, close to where the French windows from the studio opened into the courtyard. The area was in the shadows, so it was hard to be sure, but he thought it was the lower half of a leg, with the trousers tucked into the boot. When he got closer, he saw it was actually a bicycle clip.

“Hello, Vic,” he said. “Aren’t you going to come out?”

After what seemed like a long time, the leg moved and Vic Greaves’s shiny bald head appeared from behind the pillar.

“You remember me, don’t you, Vic?” Banks said. “There’s no need to be afraid. I came to see you at the cottage.”

Still Vic didn’t respond or move. He just kept looking at Banks.

“Come on out, Vic,” Banks said. “I just want to ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

“Vic’s not here,” the small voice said finally.

“Yes, he is,” said Banks.

Vic held his ground. Banks circled a little, so he could at least get a better view. “All right,” he said. “If you want to stay there, stay. I’ll talk to you from here, okay?”

The wind was howling in the recess made by the overhanging terrace, but Banks could just about make out Greaves’s agreement. He was sitting with his back to the wall, hunched over, arms hugging his knees to his chest.

“I’ll do the talking,” said Banks, “and you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong. Okay?”

Greaves studied him with serious, narrowed eyes and said nothing.

“It goes back a long time,” Banks began. “To 1969, when the Mad Hatters played the Brimleigh Festival. There was a girl backstage called Linda Lofthouse. Your cousin. She got a backstage pass because of you. She was with her best friend, Tania Hutchison, who became a member of the band about a year later. But that’s getting ahead. Are you with me so far?”

Greaves still didn’t say anything, but Banks could swear he detected a flicker of interest in his expression.

“Cut forward to late on that last night of the festival. Led Zeppelin were playing and Linda needed a little space to clear her head, so she went for a walk in the woods. Someone followed her. Was that you, Vic?”

Greaves shook his head.

“Are you sure?” Banks persisted. “Maybe you were tripping, maybe you didn’t know what you were doing, but something happened, didn’t it? Something changed that night, something snapped in you, and you killed her. Perhaps you didn’t realize what you’d done, perhaps it was like looking down on someone else doing it, but you did it, didn’t you, Vic?”

Finally, Greaves found his voice. “No,” he said. “No, he’s wrong. Vic’s a good boy.” His words were almost blown into silence by the wind.

“Tell me how I’m wrong, Vic,” Banks went on. “Tell me what I’m wrong about. I want to know.”

“Can’t,” said Greaves. “Can’t tell.”

“Yes, you can. Am I wrong about how it happened? What about Cardiff? What about Brighton? And Plymouth? Were there any others?”

Greaves just shook his head from side to side, muttering something Banks couldn’t hear for the wind.

“I’m trying to help you,” said Banks, “but I can’t help if you don’t tell me the truth.”

“There is no truth,” said Greaves.

“There must be. Who killed those girls? Who killed Nick Barber? Did he find out? Is that why? Did he confront you with the evidence?”

“Why don’t you leave him alone?” said a deep voice behind Banks. “You can tell he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Banks turned and saw Chris Adams standing by the pool, ponytail blowing in the wind, bulbous face red, potbelly sagging over his jeans. Banks walked over to him. “I think he does,” he said. “But seeing as you’re here, why don’t you tell me? I think you know as much about it as he does.”

“It was all over and done with years ago,” said Adams.

“You may wish it was, but it isn’t. That’s what Nick Barber found out about, isn’t it? So Vic here killed him.”

“No, that’s not what happened.”

“What about the girl in Cardiff? The one in Plymouth? What about them?”

Adams paled. “You know?”

“It wasn’t that hard once we started following in Nick Barber’s footsteps. He was thorough, and even his killer didn’t manage to obliterate everything he’d found out. Why have you been protecting Vic Greaves all these years?”

“Look at him, Mr. Banks,” said Adams. “What would you do? He’s my oldest friend. We grew up together, for crying out loud. He’s like a baby.”

“He’s a killer. That means he could kill again. You weren’t able to supervise him twenty-four hours a day. I imagine you only came down here because I phoned you and told you things were coming to a head, that I was close to finding out who killed Nick Barber. You guessed where Vic was. He’s been here before, hasn’t he? And told you about it, too, I’ll bet.”

“The place does seem to attract him,” said Adams calmly. “But you’re wrong about the rest. Vic’s no killer.”

At first Banks thought Adams was blowing smoke, but something snagged at his mind, a little thing, and it pulled until it brought a number of other little things tumbling into the open with it. As the wind howled around his head, Banks found himself rearranging the pieces inside and putting them together in a different pattern, one he could have kicked himself for not seeing sooner. He still wasn’t sure about everything yet, but it was all starting to add up. Was Greaves left-handed? He tried to remember from their meeting which hand Greaves had been stirring the stew with, but he couldn’t.

He was certain of one thing, though: when he was watching the Mad Hatters DVD the previous evening with Brian, he had noticed that Robin Merchant played his bass left-handed, like Paul McCartney. He had simply registered it unconsciously at the time, not really made anything of it, or tried to link it to the case. But now, as he thought about it, he realized that the last killing they knew of was on the nineteenth of May, about a month before Robin Merchant’s drowning. Unless there were other, later, incidents that Barber hadn’t uncovered, the timing worked. He glanced at his watch. He had been at Swainsview Lodge for only ten minutes.

“Robin Merchant,” he said.

“Bravo,” said Adams. “Robin Merchant was one sick puppy, as they say. Oh, he was glib and charming enough on the surface, but beyond that it was a case of Jekyll and Hyde. His mind was polluted by all that Aleister Crowley stuff he immersed himself in. Have you heard about Crowley?”

“I know the name,” said Banks.

“He was a drug addict and a womanizer, the self-proclaimed ‘wickedest man in the world.’ The Great Beast. His motto was, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’ Robin Merchant took him quite literally. Do you know Robin even tried to justify his ‘sacrifices,’ as he called them to me? He had no conscience, even before he got involved in drugs and black magic and all that shit. It just made him worse, made him think he was more godlike – or more devil-like, I should say. But he hid it so well. He got obsessed with those Los Angeles murders, too, the ritualistic elements. He thought he saw some sort of occult significance in them. I don’t know if you remember, but they finally caught Manson that October, and Robin started to identify with him and his power trip. He saw himself as some sort of messenger of darkness. He didn’t murder rich piggies, though. He murdered beauty and purity. The flower was his signature.”

“What happened?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because you know I’ll find out.”

Adams sighed and stared across the pool as if he were staring across forty years of bad history. He reached in his pockets for a cigarette, dipped his head and cupped his hand to light it against the wind. “I saw him,” he said finally. “The fifth time, in Winchester. You don’t know about that one, do you?”

“No,” said Banks.

“That’s because I saved her life.” Adams spoke without any hint of vanity or self-satisfaction, as if he were stating a mere fact. “I had my suspicions about Robin, and I was about the only one who ever bothered to read the newspapers back then. I saw our reviews, and I read the stories about those girls. At first I thought nothing of it. It’s hard to really believe that the person sitting next to you on the tour bus is a killer. But I should have known. It all kept adding up. Things he said, the way he talked about people. Then I remembered Brimleigh. The first. I still couldn’t be certain it was Robin, couldn’t accept it, I suppose, but I didn’t know where he was at the time.

“Anyway, at Winchester – this would be June, just a week or so before his death – I followed him after the show. There was a girl taking a shortcut through a cemetery, of all places, the fool, and that’s where he pounced. I was just behind him. I shouted something. It was dark, and I don’t know if he recognized me, but he growled at me like some sort of wild animal, then he belted off like nobody’s business. The girl was all right. I made sure she got home okay without letting on who I was. I don’t know if she reported the incident or not, but I heard nothing more of it. Now the problem became what to do about Robin. I talked to him. He didn’t deny it. That’s when he gave me all that Aleister Crowley and Charles Manson crap, trying to justify himself and his actions. I couldn’t let him go on killing people, but at the same time… a trial, conviction… It was unthinkable. I mean, back then, a rock band could get away with most things, but murder… especially that kind of murder. We’d have been tarnished forever, especially in the wake of the Manson family trial. We’d never have survived. The band would never have survived. Vic. I couldn’t allow that to happen to the others after all the hard years they’d put in. Fortunately, the problem took care of itself.”

“No,” said Banks. “You killed Robin Merchant. You weren’t in bed with Tania Hutchison that night. You went to confront him, here, by the pool. I’m not sure whether you intended to kill him, but you saw something unstoppable in him, and you felt you had no other choice. It worked perfectly. So easy.” He glanced over to the terrace. Vic Greaves was still there, apparently listening. “But someone saw you, didn’t he, Chris? Vic saw you.” Fifteen minutes had now passed since Banks arrived.

“I’m not admitting to killing anybody,” said Adams. “You think what you like. You can’t prove a thing.”

“And you killed Nick Barber,” Banks went on. “It was your silver Mercedes the tourist couple and the girl in the youth hostel saw that night. The running figure was just a jogger. It was foolish of me to think that Vic could have done anything like that himself. Everyone was right about him. He might be a bit off in the head, but he’s a gentle soul at heart. Vic was upset, and he told you in that roundabout way of his that a music journalist had come around pestering him with questions about the past, about Brimleigh, Linda Lofthouse and the other murders. Cardiff. Brighton. Plymouth. Questions to which only you and Vic knew the answers. The journalist said he was going to come back. He’d left his card. You didn’t think Vic could take the strain of another interview. You thought he would soon break down and tell all, given what he’d witnessed all those years ago, so you killed Barber. You couldn’t kill Vic, could you, even though he was the one who was carrying the secret, the most obvious victim? Did you know that Linda Lofthouse was Nick Barber’s birth mother?”

Adams put his fist to his chest and seemed to stagger back a pace or two as if he had been hit. “My God, no!” he said. “I’m not admitting to anything,” he went on. “I talked to Robin, yes, made sure that he knew I knew, and that I was watching him. That’s all. The rest was an accident.”

“You killed him to make certain. You knew he wouldn’t stop, that there would be more victims. And you knew he’d get caught eventually and bring it all tumbling down.”

“The world’s a safer place without him, and that’s a fact. But I’m still not admitting anything. I’m guilty of no crime. There’s nothing you can do to me. Anyway, it would have been very easy just to reach out and…” Adams reached out his arm to demonstrate and let his hand fall on Banks’s shoulder. Then he smiled sadly, “…and just give a little push.” Almost twenty minutes now. The cavalry would arrive in moments.

But he didn’t push. Banks, who had tensed, ready for a struggle, felt the hand relax on his shoulder, and he knew that Adams was about to turn away, that he had reached the end of his resources. Killing Nick Barber and seizing his notes was one thing, but killing a copper in cold blood was quite another.

It all happened at once. Before Banks could move or say anything, he heard footsteps running down the lane, and someone shouted out his name. Then he heard a terrible scream from his left and a dark powerful figure came hurtling forward, crashing right into Adams and toppling both of them over into the deep end of the empty pool. The cavalry had arrived, but they were too late.

By the time Annie and Winsome arrived on the scene, the ambulances had been and gone. It was getting dark, and the wind was howling through the trees and the nooks and crannies of Swainsview Lodge fit to wake the dead. The SOCOs had lit the scene with bright arc lamps and were still strutting about in their white boilersuits like spacemen on a mission. There were spatters of blood at the bottom of the pool mixed in with the other detritus. Annie saw Banks standing alone, head bowed, by the poolside and walked over to him, touching him gently on the shoulder. “Okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

“I heard what happened.”

“Greaves thought Adams was going to do to me what he saw him do to Robin Merchant all those years ago. Then the uniforms came dashing down the lane and frightened him. It’s nobody’s fault. I doubt that anyone could have foreseen it and stopped him.”

“Wasn’t Adams going to push you in?”

“No. He ran out of steam.”

“But you think Greaves witnessed Adams push Merchant?”

“I’m certain of it. He was on LSD at the time. That was what sent him over the edge. Can you imagine it? Adams has taken care of him ever since, protected him, as much for his own sake as anything. Persuaded him not to talk, maybe even persuaded him that it happened some other way. Greaves was so confused. He couldn’t trust his own judgment. But when he saw Adams rest his hand on my shoulder by the pool…”

“It all came back?”

“Something like that, in whatever fragmented and chaotic way Greaves’s mind works these days. However it happened, he snapped. He’d been like a coiled spring all those years. Adams protected him from anything that was likely to push him toward the snapping point. But when Barber appeared with his questions about Plymouth, Cardiff and Brighton, it was too much. Greaves had heard Adams’s conversation with Merchant at the pool, so somewhere in his messed-up mind he knew about these things, what Merchant had done. But he couldn’t confront it. He told Adams, who was terrified that Barber would push too hard and crack the veneer. So he killed him. Barber didn’t think he had anything to fear. He knew who Adams was, thought he’d come to talk to him. He was just having a chat, turning away, reaching for his cigarettes, then Adams picked up the poker, seized the moment. Luckily for him, he still had time to gather Barber’s stuff before the power cut.”

“Can we prove it?”

“I don’t know. He’s tired of it all, but he wouldn’t admit to anything. He’s not stupid. You should have seen him down there, crying like a baby, cradling Greaves’s head in his lap, even though he must have been in considerable pain himself.”

“What’s the extent of his injuries?”

“Dislocated shoulder, couple of broken ribs, cuts and bruises, according to the paramedics.”

“And Greaves?”

“Landed badly. Broke his neck. Died instantly.”

Annie was silent for a moment, staring into the harshly lit swimming pool. “Maybe it’s a blessing.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “God knows he was a tortured soul.”

“What now?”

“We try to get as much evidence as we can on Adams. He’s not getting away with this. Not if I can help it. We’ll go over the forensics, check and re-check witness statements, interview the entire village again, probe his alibi, the lot. There has to be something there to link him to Barber’s murder. Not Merchant’s. That’s too long ago, and there’s no way we’ll get him for that now.”

“Stefan says he’s got some prints and hair from the living room that don’t match anyone else’s so far.”

Banks looked at her, a hint of a smile on his face. “Then I’d say we’ve got him, wouldn’t you? An amateur like Adams would never be able to clean up completely after himself. Besides, when the fact that Greaves is dead sinks in, I think we’ve also got a better chance of appealing to his conscience. He’s got no one to protect anymore.”

“What about the Mad Hatters? The past? The reputation? Aren’t they supposed to be doing some reunion tour?”

“There’s every chance none of it will get out, anyway. Cardiff. Brighton. Plymouth. Why should it if Adams pleads guilty? Those cases are long over, and the killer died more than thirty-five years ago. Maybe the local forces can put a tick in a box and claim another success in their statistics of crimes solved, but that’ll be about as far as it goes.”

“Until another Nick Barber comes along.”

“Perhaps,” said Banks. “But that’s none of our business.”

“Winsome talked to people in Plymouth and Cardiff who were able to dig up the old files,” Annie said.

“And?”

“In the file, it said that each girl had a flower painted on her cheek. A cornflower.”

Banks nodded. “Merchant’s signature. Just like Linda Lofthouse.”

“They didn’t release that to the general public.”

“Funny, isn’t it?” said Banks. “If they had, we might not be here now.” He turned up the collar of his jacket. His teeth were chattering.

“Cold?” Annie said.

“Getting there.”

“By the way,” she said, “I just saw Kev Templeton come storming out of Superintendent Gervaise’s office with a face like a slapped arse.”

Banks smiled. “So there is some justice in the world.” He glanced at his watch. Seven-thirty. “I’m starving,” he said, “and I could do with a stiff drink. How about it?”

“Sure you’re up to it?”

Banks gave her an unreadable glance, his features cast into planes of light and shadow by the bright arc lights, his eyes a piercing blue. “Let’s go,” he said, turning away. “I’ve finished here.”

Monday, 29th September, 1969

The deserted stretch of canal ran by a scrapyard where the pattering rain echoed on the piles of rusty old metal. Stanley Chadwick walked along the towpath with his raincoat collar turned up. He knew that what he was about to do was wrong, that it went against everything he believed in, but he felt that it was the only way. He couldn’t just leave things to chance because, in his experience, chance had no history of supporting the right side without a little help. And he was right; of that he was certain. Proving it was another matter.

Yvonne had been gone almost a week, run away from home. Janet had found some items of her favorite clothes missing, along with an old rucksack they used to carry pop and sandwiches in when they went on family hikes from the Primrose Valley caravan. Chadwick was worried about his daughter, but at least he knew that no immediate harm had come to her. Not that the cities were safe for vulnerable sixteen-year-old girls, but he was certain that she wasn’t as foolish as some, and he hoped that she would soon come back. He couldn’t make her disappearance official, set the country’s police forces looking for her, so he would just have to bide his time and hope she got homesick. It tore at his heart, but he could see no other way. For the moment, he and Janet had told curious friends and neighbors that Yvonne had gone to stay with her aunt in London. She probably had gone to London, anyway, Chadwick realized. Most runaways ended up there.

The figure approached from under the Kirkstall Viaduct, as arranged. Jack Skelgate was a small-time fence who rather resembled a ferret, and he had been useful to Chadwick as an informer on many occasions. Chadwick had chosen Skelgate because he had so much on him he could send him away for the next ten years, and if there was one thing that terrified Skelgate more than anything else, it was the idea of prison. Which, Chadwick had often thought, ought to have made him consider another, more honest, occupation, but some people just don’t manage to make the connection. They don’t get it. That’s why the jails are always full. Like so many of the people Chadwick had met and interviewed over the past couple of weeks, Skelgate was as thick as two short planks, but this would play to Chadwick’s advantage.

“Miserable bloody day, innit,” said Skelgate by way of greeting. He was always sniffling, as if he had a permanent cold.

“There was a burglary in Cross Gates the other night,” Chadwick said. “Someone drove off with fifty canteens of cutlery. Nice ones. Silver. I wonder if any of them happened to find their way into your hands?”

“Silver cutlery, you say? Can’t say as I’ve seen any of that in quite a while.”

“But you’d let me know if you did?”

“Of course I would, Mr. Chadwick.”

“We think the Newton gang might be behind it, and you know how interested I am in putting them away.”

Skelgate cringed at the words, even though they referred to someone else. “The Newtons, you say. Nasty lot, them.”

“They may be planning other raids. If you happen to hear anything, we could come to the usual arrangement.”

“I’ll keep my ears open, Mr. Chadwick, that I will.” Skelgate looked around with his ferrety eyes. Paranoia was another trait of his; he always thought someone was watching or listening in. “Is that all, Mr. Chadwick? Can I go now? Only, I don’t want us to be seen together. Those Newtons are a violent bunch. Think nothing of putting a man in hospital for a month, they wouldn’t.”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open.” Chadwick paused, tensing as he realized he was reaching the point of no return. For weeks he had been moving among people who despised everything he valued, and somewhere in the midst of it all, he had become unglued. He knew this, and he also knew there was no going back. All he wanted was for Yvonne to come home and McGarrity to go to jail for the murder of Linda Lofthouse. Then, he hoped, perhaps he might find some peace. But deep down, he also knew that there was every chance peace would elude him forever. His strict religious upbringing told him he would be damning himself to eternal hellfire for what he was about to do. But so be it.

He felt a sudden heaviness in his chest. Not a sharp pain or anything, just a heaviness, the way he always thought the sort of heartbreak that torch singers describe would feel. He had felt it just once before, when he ran out of the landing craft on the morning of the sixth of June, 1944, but that day he had soon forgotten it in the noise and smoke, in dodging the mortar and machine-gun fire. “There is one more thing I’d like you to do for me,” he said.

Skelgate clearly didn’t like the sound of that. He was practically bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet. “What?” he said. “You know I do what I can for you.”

“I want a flick-knife.” There, he’d said it.

“A flick-knife?”

“Yes. With a tortoiseshell handle.”

“But why do you want a flick-knife?”

Chadwick gave him a hard look. “Can you get me one?”

“Of course,” said Skelgate. “Nothing could be easier.”

“When?”

“When do you want it?”

“Soon.”

“Same place, same time, tomorrow?”

“That’ll do fine,” said Chadwick. “Be here.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Skelgate said, then glanced around, saw nothing to worry about, and scurried down the towpath. Chadwick stood watching him go and wondered just what it was that had brought him to this godforsaken place on this ungodly mission. Then he turned in the other direction and walked back in the rain to his car.