Piece of My Heart (15 page)

“Like what?”

“I don’t remember, but it was all ‘cosmic’ this and ‘cosmic’ that, and there was this awful droning music in the background, like someone rubbing a hacksaw on a metal railing.”

“Do you remember any names?”

“I think one of them was called Dennis. It seemed to be his place. And a girl called Julie. She was blowing bubbles and giggling, like a little kid. Linda had been there before, I could tell. She knew her way around and didn’t have to ask anyone, you know, like where the kettle or the toilet was or anything.”

“What happened?”

“I wanted to go. I mean, I knew they were taking the mickey because I didn’t talk the same language or like the same music. Even Linda. In the end I said we should leave, but she wouldn’t.”

“So what did you do?”

“I left. I couldn’t stick any more of it. I went to see
You Only Live Twice
by myself.”

There couldn’t have been that many hippies in Leeds during the summer of 1967. It might have been the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco, but Leeds was still a northern provincial backwater in many ways, always a little behind the times, and
it was only over the past two years or so that their numbers had grown everywhere. The Leeds drugs squad hadn’t even been formed until 1967. Anyway, if there was a Dennis still living on Bayswater Terrace, it shouldn’t be too hard to find him.

“How often did you see her after that?”

“A couple of times, then after the baby was born, you know, when I tried to make things up between us. Then she went down south and her bloody mother wouldn’t even give me an address.”

“And finally?”

“I got over her. I’ve been going out with someone else for a while now. Might get engaged at Christmas.”

“Congratulations,” said Chadwick, standing up.

“I’m really sorry about Linda,” Hughes said. “But it was nothing to do with me. Honest. I was here working all last weekend. Ask the boss. He’ll tell you.”

Chadwick said he would, then left. When he turned on the car radio he found that Leeds had beaten Sheffield Wednesday 2–1, Allan Clarke and Eddie Grey scoring. Still, he hadn’t missed the game for nothing; he now knew who the victim was and had a lead on some of the people she’d knocked around with in Leeds, if only he could find them.

7

T
he Soames farm was about half a mile up a narrow walled lane off the main Lyndgarth to Eastvale road, and it boasted the usual collection of ramshackle outbuildings, built from local limestone, a muddy yard and a barking dog straining at its chain. It also presented the unmistakable bouquet of barnyard smells. Calvin Soames answered the door and with a rather grudging good afternoon let Banks in. The inside was dim with dark, low beams and gloomy hallways. The smell of roast beef still lurked somewhere in the depths.

“Our Kelly’s in the kitchen,” he said, pointing with his thumb.

“That’s all right,” said Banks. “It’s you I came to talk to, really.”

“Me? I told you everything I know the other night.”

“I’m sure you did,” said Banks, “but sometimes, after a bit of time, things come back, little things you’d forgotten. May I sit down?”

“Aye, go on, then.”

Banks sat in a deep armchair with a sagging seat. The whole place, once he could see it a bit better, was in some disrepair
and lacked what they used to call a woman’s touch. “Is there a Mrs. Soames?” he asked.

“The wife died five years ago. Complications of surgery.” Soames spat out these last words, making it clear that he blamed the doctors, the health system, or both, for his wife’s untimely death.

“I’m sorry,” said Banks.

Soames grunted. He was a short, squat man, almost as broad as he was tall, but muscular and fit, Banks judged, wearing a tight waistcoat over his shirt, and a pair of baggy brown trousers. He probably wasn’t more than about forty-five, but farming had aged him, and it showed in the deep lines and rough texture of his ruddy face.

“Look,” Banks went on, “I just want to go over what you told us in the pub on Friday.”

“It were the truth.”

“Nobody doubts that. You said you left the Cross Keys at about seven o’clock because you thought you might have left the gas ring on.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you done that before?”

“He has,” said a voice from the doorway. “Twice he nearly burned the place down.”

Banks turned. Kelly Soames stood there, arms folded, one blue-jeaned hip cocked against the door jamb in a graceful curve, flat stomach exposed. She certainly was a lovely girl, Banks thought again; she was fit, and she knew it, as the Streets would say. He’d been spoiled for lovely girls this morning, what with Brian’s Emilia turning up, too.

Should he have said something? Brian and Emilia obviously just assumed they were going to sleep together under
his roof, but he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. His own son. What if he
heard
them? But what else could he have done? Made an issue of it? His parents, of course, would never have stood for such a thing. But attitudes changed. When he was young, he had left home and got a flat in London so he could sleep with girls, stay out late and drink too much. These days, parents allowed their kids to do all that at home, so they never left, had no reason to; they could have all the sex they wanted, come home drunk and still get fed and get their washing done. But Brian was only visiting. Surely it would be best just to let him and Emilia do what they usually did? Banks could imagine the kind of atmosphere it would create if he came on all disciplinarian and said, “Not under my roof, you don’t!” But the whole thing, the assumption, the reality, still made him feel uneasy.

Despite her cocky stance, Kelly Soames seemed nervous, Banks thought. After what Annie had told him about her exploits, he wasn’t surprised. She must be worried that he was going to spill the beans to her father.

“Kelly,” said Mr. Soames, “make a cup of tea for Mr. Banks here. He might be a copper, but we still owe him our hospitality.”

“No, that’s all right, thank you,” said Banks. “I’ve already had far too much coffee this morning.”

“Please yourself. I’ll have a cuppa myself, though, lass.”

Kelly slouched off to make the tea, and Banks could imagine her straining her ears to hear what they were talking about. Calvin Soames took out a pipe and began puffing at some vile-smelling tobacco. Outside, the dog barked from time to time when a group of ramblers passed on the footpath that skirted the farm property.

“What did you think of Nick Barber?” Banks asked.

“Was that his name, poor sod?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t say as I thought much, really. I didn’t know him.”

“But he was a regular in your local.”

Soames laughed. “Dropping by the Cross Keys for a pint every day or so for a week doesn’t make anyone a regular around these parts. Tha should know that.”

“Even so,” said Banks, “it was long enough at least to be on greeting terms, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose so. But I can’t say as I have much to do with visitors myself.”

“Why not?”

“Do you need it spelling out? Bloody Londoners come up here buying properties, pushing prices up, and what do they do? They sit in the poncy flats in Kensington and just pull in the cash, that’s what they do.”

“It brings tourism to the Dales, Mr. Soames,” said Banks. “They spend money.”

“Aye. Well, maybe it’s all right for the shopkeepers,” Soames went on, “but it doesn’t do us farmers a lot of good, does it? People tramping over our land morning, noon and night, ruining good grazing pasture.”

As far as Banks had heard, absolutely nothing ever benefited the farmers. He knew they had a hard life, but he also felt that people might respect them more if they didn’t whine so much. If it wasn’t EU regulations or footpath access, it was something else. Of course, foot-and-mouth disease had taken a terrible toll on the Dales farms only a few years ago, but the effects hadn’t been limited to farmers, many of whom had been compensated handsomely. The pinch had also been felt by local businesses, particularly bed and breakfast establishments, cafés and tea rooms, pubs, walking-gear shops and market
stallholders. And they hadn’t been compensated. Banks also knew that the outbreak had driven more than one ruined local businessman to suicide. It wasn’t that he had no sympathy for the farmers; it was that they often seemed to assume they were the only ones with any rights, or any serious grievances, and they had more than enough sympathy for themselves to make any from other sources seem quite super fluous. But Banks knew he had to tread carefully; this was marshy ground.

“I understand there’s a problem,” he said, “but it won’t be solved by killing off tourists.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened,” said Banks.

Kelly came back with the tea, and after she had handed it to her father, she lingered by the door again, biting her fingernail.

“Nobody around here would have murdered that lad, you can take it from me,” said Soames.

“How do you know?”

“Because most know you’re right. CC benefits from the holidaymakers, and so do most of the others. Oh, people talk a tough game, that’s Dalesmen for you. We’ve got our pride, if nowt else. But nobody’d go so far as to kill a bloke who’s minding his own business and not doing anyone any harm.”

“Is that your impression of Nick Barber?”

“I didn’t see much of him, like I said, but from what I did see, he seemed like a harmless lad. Not mouthy, or full of himself, like some of them. And we didn’t even murder them.”

“When you came home on Friday to check on the gas ring, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“No,” said Soames. “There were one or two cars on the road–this was before the power cut, remember–but not a lot. It was a nasty evening even by then, and most folks, given the choice, were stopping indoors.”

“Did you see anyone near the cottage where Nick Barber was staying?”

“No, but I live the other way, so I wouldn’t have.”

“What about you, Kelly?” Banks asked.

“I was in the pub all the time, working,” said Kelly. “I never left the place. You can ask CC.”

“But what did you think about Nick Barber?”

This was clearly dangerous ground, and Kelly seemed to become even more nervous. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. But Banks wasn’t worried about her. She didn’t know how far he was going to go, but without giving Kelly’s secret away, he wanted to keep his eyes on Calvin to see if there was any hint that he had known what was going on between his nubile daughter and Nick Barber.

“Don’t know, really,” said Kelly. “He seemed a pleasant enough lad, like Dad says. He never really said much.” She examined her fingernails.

“So neither of you knew why he was here?”

“Holiday, I suppose,” said Calvin. “Though why anyone would want to come up here at this time of year is beyond me.”

“Would it surprise you to hear that he was a writer of some sort?”

“Can’t say as I ever really thought about it,” said Calvin.

“I think he was mostly just looking for a secluded place to work,” said Banks, “but there might also be another reason why he was up here rather than, say, in Cornwall or Norfolk, for example.” Banks noticed Kelly tense up. “I don’t know if he was writing fiction or history, but it’s possible that, either way, he might have been doing some research, and there might have been someone he wanted to see, someone he’d been looking for with some connection to the area, maybe to the past. Any ideas who that might be?”

Calvin shook his head, and Kelly followed suit. Banks studied them. He thought himself a reasonable judge, and he was satisfied from the reactions and body language he had seen that Calvin Soames did not know about his daughter shagging Nick Barber, which gave him no real motive for the murder. No more than anyone else, anyway. Whether Kelly had a motive, he didn’t know. True, she had been working at the time of the murder, but she admitted to seeing Barber in the afternoon, and if the doctor was at all wrong about the time of death, he could have been dead when she left him. But why? They’d only known one another a few days, according to Annie, and they’d both had a bit of fun without any expectation of a future.

It would be good to keep an open mind, as ever, Banks thought, but for now his thoughts moved towards London and what they might find out from Nick’s flat.

Monday, September 15, 1969

One thing that disappointed Chadwick as he rifled through the stack of Brimleigh Festival photographs on Monday morning was that they had all, except for a few obviously posed ones, been taken in daylight. He should have expected that. Flash doesn’t carry a great distance, and it would have been useless for shots of the crowd at night, or of the bands performing.

One photographer did seem to have got backstage, though; at least several of his photographs were taken there, candids. Linda Lofthouse showed up in three of them; the flowing white dress with the delicate embroidery was easy to spot. In one she was standing, chatting casually with a mixed group of long-haired people; in another she was with two men he didn’t recognize; and in the third she was sitting alone, staring into the distance. It was an exquisite photograph, head and
shoulders in profile, perhaps taken with a telephoto lens. She looked beautiful and fragile, and there was
no
flower painted on her cheek.

“Someone to see you downstairs, sir,” said Karen, popping her head around his door and breaking the spell.

“Who?” Chadwick asked.

“Young couple. They just asked to see the man in charge of the Brimleigh Festival murder.”

“Did they, indeed? Better have them sent up.”

Chadwick glanced out of his window as he waited, sipping his tepid coffee. He was high up at the back and looked out over British Insulated Callender’s Cables Ltd. up Westgate towards the majestic dome of the town hall, blackened like the other buildings by a century of industry. A steady flow of traffic headed west towards the Inner Ring Road.

Finally, there was a knock at his door and Karen showed in the young couple. They looked a bit sheepish, the way most people would in the inner sanctum of police headquarters. Chadwick introduced himself and asked them to sit down. Both were in their early twenties, the young man with neatly cut short hair and a dark suit, and the girl in a white blouse and a black miniskirt, blonde hair pulled back and tied behind her neck with a red ribbon. Dressed for work. They introduced themselves as Ian Tilbrook and June Betts.

“You said it was about the Brimleigh Festival murder,” Chadwick began.

Ian Tilbrook’s eyes looked anywhere but at Chadwick, and June fidgeted with her handbag on her lap. But it was she who spoke first. “Yes,” she said, giving Tilbrook a sideways glance. “I know we should have come forward sooner,” she said, “but we were there.”

“At the festival?”

“Yes.”

“So were thousands of others. Did you see something?”

“No, it’s not that,” June went on. She glanced at Tilbrook again, who was staring out of the window, took a deep breath and went on. “Someone stole our sleeping bag.”

“I see,” said Chadwick, suddenly interested.

“Well, the newspapers said to report anything odd, and it was odd, wasn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you come forward earlier?”

June looked at Tilbrook again. “He didn’t want to get involved,” she said. “He’s up for promotion at the Copper Works, and he thinks it’ll spoil his chances if they find out he’s been going to pop festivals. They’ll think he’s a drug-taking hippie.
And
a murder suspect.”