“Inspector. What a surprise,” Hayes said. “Sit down. Can you just hang on a moment? I’ve been trying to get hold of this bloke forever.”
Chadwick waited, but instead of sitting, he wandered around the office, a practice that he found usually made people nervous. Framed signed photos of Hayes with various famous rock stars hung on the walls, unfamiliar names, for the most part: Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton. Filing cabinets stuffed with folders. He was opening drawers in a cabinet near the window when his snooping obviously made Hayes worried enough to end his phone call prematurely.
“What are you doing?” Hayes asked.
“Just having a look around.”
“Those are private files.”
“Yes?” Chadwick sat down. “Well, I’m a great believer in not wasting time sitting around doing nothing, so I thought I’d just use a bit of initiative.”
“Have you got a search warrant?”
“Not yet. Why? Do I need one?”
“To look at those files you do.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think there’s anything there of interest to me. The reason I’m here is that you’ve been lying to me since the moment we met, and I want to know why. I also want to know what you have to do with the murder of Linda Lofthouse.”
“Linda Lofthouse?”
“Don’t play games with me, laddie,” Chadwick snarled, his Glaswegian accent getting stronger the more angry he became. “You’ll only lose. That’s the victim’s name.”
“How was I to know?”
“It’s been in the papers.”
“Don’t read them.”
“I know, they’re all full of establishment lies. I don’t care whether you read the papers or not. You saw the body at Brimleigh. You were there at the scene even before I arrived.”
“So?”
“You were in a perfect position to mislead us all, to tamper with evidence. She was right there, lying dead at your feet, and you told me you hadn’t seen her before.”
“I told you later that I might have seen her backstage. There were a lot of people around and I was very busy.”
“So you said. Later.”
“Well?”
“There were two important things I didn’t know then, things you could have told me but didn’t.”
“You’ve lost me. What are you talking about?”
Chadwick counted them off on his fingers. “First, that the victim’s name was Linda Lofthouse, and second, that you knew her a lot better than you let on.”
Hayes picked up a rubber band from his desk and started wrapping it around his nicotine-stained fingers. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, and his lank hair needed a wash. He was wearing jeans and a red collarless shirt made of some flimsy material. “I’ve told you everything I know,” he said.
“Bollocks. You’ve told me bugger all. I’ve had to piece it all together from conversations with other people. You could have saved me a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not my job to save the fuzz trouble.”
“Enough of that phony hippie nonsense. It doesn’t suit you. You’re a businessman, a filthy capitalist lackey, just like the rest, no matter how you dress and how infrequently you wash. You knew Linda Lofthouse through Dennis Nokes, the house on Bayswater Terrace, Leeds, and through her cousin Vic Greaves of the Mad Hatters. You also knew Linda’s friend Tania Hutchison, the girl she was with at Brimleigh, but you didn’t bother to tell us that, either, did you?”
Hayes’s jaw dropped. “Who told you all this?”
“That doesn’t matter. Is it true?”
“What if it is?”
“Then you’ve been withholding important information in a murder investigation, and that, laddie, is a crime.”
“I didn’t think we were living in a police state yet.”
“Believe me, if we were, you’d know the difference. When did you first meet Linda Lofthouse?”
Hayes glowered at Chadwick, still playing with the rubber band. “At Dennis’s place,” he said.
“When?”
“I don’t know, man. A while back.”
“Weeks? Months? Years?”
“Look, Dennis is an old mate. Whenever I’m in the area I drop by and see him.”
“And one time you did this, you met Linda?”
“That’s right. She was staying at Dennis’s.”
“
With
Dennis?”
“No way. Linda was untouchable.”
So it looked as if Nokes was telling the truth about that, at least. “This would have been the winter of 1967, early 1968, right?”
“If you say so.”
“How often have you seen her since?”
“Just a couple of times, you know.”
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
“I’ve done some concerts with the Hatters, and she was at one of them. I met her up at Dennis’s again, too, but I didn’t, like,
know
her or anything. I mean, we weren’t close. We were just around the same scene sometimes, like lots of other people were.”
“So why did you lie about knowing her if it was all so innocent?”
“I don’t know, man. I didn’t want to get involved. You guys would probably take one look at me and think I did it. Besides, every minute I was standing around in that field I was losing money. You don’t know what this business is like, how hard it is just to break even sometimes.”
“So you lied because you thought that if you told the truth I’d keep you from your work and you’d lose money?”
“That’s right. Surely you can understand that?”
“Oh, I can understand it well enough,” said Chadwick. “You’re speaking my language now. Concern over money is a lot more common than you think.”
“Then…?”
“What were you doing after you introduced Led Zeppelin on Sunday night?”
“Listening to their set whenever I had a moment. They were incredible. Blew me away.”
“Where were you listening?”
“Around. I still had things to do. We were looking to pack up and get out of there as soon as possible after the show, so I couldn’t waste time. As it turned out…”
“But where did you go to listen to them? The press enclosure was roped off in front of the stage. Apparently that was the best place to watch from. Did you go there?”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t have time to just stand there and watch. I had other things to do. It was pandemonium around there, man. We had people falling off the stage stoned and people trying to sneak in the front and back. Managers wanted paying, there were cars blocking other cars, limos turning up for people, pieces of equipment to be accounted for. I tell you, man, I didn’t have time to kill anyone, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. I mean, what possible motive could I have for killing Linda? She was a great bird. I liked her.” He lit a cigarette.
“I notice you’re left-handed,” Chadwick said.
“Yeah. So?”
“The killer was left-handed.”
“Lots of people are.”
“Do you own a flick knife?”
“No way, man. They’re illegal.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you know the law.”
“Look, are we finished? Because I’ve got a lot of phone calls to make.”
“We’re finished when I say we are.”
Hayes bristled but said nothing.
“I hope you realize the extent of the trouble you’re in,” Chadwick went on.
“Look, I did what anybody would do. You’ve got to be crazy these days to give the fuzz an inch, especially if you’re a bit different.”
“In your case, it didn’t work, did it? I’ve found out anyway. All we need now is one person, just one person who saw you leaving the backstage area for the woods while Led Zeppelin were playing. Are you so sure that no one saw you? After all, we’ve discovered all your other little lies. Why not this one?”
“I did not leave the enclosure, and I didn’t see Linda leave, either.”
“We’re reinterviewing all the security personnel and everyone else we can think of who was there. Are you certain that’s the story you want to stick to?”
“I did not leave the enclosure. I did not go into those woods.”
“What did you do with the knife?”
“I can’t believe this! I never had a knife.”
Chadwick spread his hands on the table, the gesture of a reasonable man laying out his cards. “Look, Mr. Hayes, I’m not persecuting you because you’re different. In fact, I don’t believe you’re that much different from most of the petty villains I come into contact with. You just wear a different uniform, that’s all. Why don’t you make it easy on us all and tell me how it happened?”
“I want my solicitor.”
“What about Tania Hutchison? Did you try it on with her, too?”
“I’m not saying another word.”
“But it was Linda you really wanted, wasn’t it? Linda, who seemed so unattainable. ‘Untouchable.’ Isn’t that the word you used? She was so beautiful. Thought you weren’t good enough for her, did she? Even your money and your famous contacts didn’t impress her, did they? So how did it happen? She wandered off into the woods. You did your emcee duties, and when everyone was enthralled and deafened by Led Zeppelin, you followed Linda into the woods. She rejected you again, and this time was once too many. She was having her period. Did she tell you that? Did you think it was just an excuse? Well, you were wrong. It was true. Maybe you were high? Maybe you’d been taking drugs? You could probably plead that you weren’t responsible for your actions. But she turned her back on you for the last time. You grabbed her from behind and stabbed her. Then, when you realized what you’d done, you knew you had to throw us off the scent. It was a clumsy attempt, but the best you could come up with under pressure. You walked to the edge of the field, were lucky enough to steal a sleeping bag without being seen, and the body was still undiscovered when you got back to it. You shoved her in the sleeping bag–very carelessly, I might add, and that was my first indication she hadn’t been killed in it–and you carried her to the field. While everyone’s attention was riveted on the stage, in the dark, you set the sleeping bag down at the very edge of the crowd and hurried back to your duties. I don’t suppose it took long. Was there a lot of blood to wash off your hands? I don’t think so. You rubbed them on the leaves, then you rinsed them off in the beck. Did you get any on your clothes? Well, we can always check. Where did you hide the knife?”
As Chadwick talked, Hayes turned pale. “It’s one thing accusing me of all this,” he said finally, “but it will be quite another proving it.”
“All we need is one witness who saw you leave the enclosure at the relevant time.”
“And the non-existent knife.”
That was clever of him, Chadwick thought. The knife would help a lot, especially if it had Hayes’s fingerprints and Linda Lofthouse’s blood on it. But cases had proceeded on less, and been won on less. Hayes might get a haircut and wear a suit for the jury, but people could still see through him.
Chadwick leaned forward and picked up Hayes’s telephone. “I’m going to call a contact at West End Central,” he said, “and in no time we’ll have search warrants for your office, your house and anywhere else you’ve spent more than ten minutes over the past two weeks. If there are any traces of Linda’s blood, believe me, we’ll find them.”
“Go ahead,” said Hayes, with less confidence than he was aiming for. “And as soon as you’ve done that, I’ll have my solicitor down here and sue you for wrongful arrest.”
“I haven’t arrested you,” said Chadwick, dialing. “Not yet.”
“Yes, I know what Mandrax is. Or was,” Banks said to Annie over an off-duty pint in the Queen’s Arms early that evening.
It was dark outside, and the pub was noisy with the after-work crowd, along with those who never worked and had been there all day, mostly loud kids with foul mouths telling fart jokes over the pool table in the back. A big mistake that table was, Banks had told Cyril, the landlord, but he had replied that he had to move with the times, or the younger crowd would all go to the Duck and Drake or the Red Lion. Good riddance, Banks thought. Still, it wasn’t
his
livelihood.
The mix of accents said a lot about the changing Dales; Banks could discern London, Newcastle and Belfast mixed in with the locals. The yob factor was getting stronger in Eastvale,
too. Everyone had noticed, and it had become a matter of concern, written up in the newspaper, argued over by members of the council and local MPs. That was why Neighbourhood Policing had been set up and Gavin Rickerd transferred, to keep tabs on known troublemakers and share that intelligence with other communities.
Even the police station’s location right on the edge of the market square didn’t seem to make any difference to the drunken louts who ran wild after closing time every Saturday night, leaving a trail of detritus and destruction in their wake on the ancient cobbles, not to mention the occasional bleeding human being. Town-centre shopkeepers and pub landlords scrubbing away the vomit and sweeping up broken glass on a Sunday morning was a common sight for the Eastvale churchgoers.
“Mandrax was a powerful sedative,” Banks said. “A sleeping tablet, known affectionately as ‘mandies.’ Been off the market since the seventies.”
“If they were sleeping pills,” Annie asked, “why didn’t they just put people to sleep?”
Banks took a swig of Black Sheep, the only pint he was allowing himself before the drive home to Gratly. “That’s what they were supposed to do. The thing was, if you mixed them with booze and rode out the first waves of tiredness, they gave you a nice, mellow buzz. They were also especially good for sex. I expect that was why Robin Merchant was naked.”
“Were they?”
“What?”
“Good for sex?”
“I don’t know. I only took two once and I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. I fell asleep.”
Annie patted his arm. “Poor Alan. So, was Merchant on his
way towards an assignation or was he just taking a post-coital stroll?”
“What did the files say?” Banks asked.
“They were remarkably silent on the subject. No one admitted to sleeping with him. Of course, if he’d been in the water all night, it would have been difficult for the pathologist to tell whether he’d had sex or not.”
“Who was his girlfriend at the time?”
“No one in particular,” said Annie. “No information on Robin Merchant’s sexual habits or preferences made it to the offcial case notes.”
“This Enderby character might remember something, if and when Templeton tracks him down.”
“Maybe he was gay?” Annie suggested. “Him and Lord Jessop in the sack together? I could see why they might want to suppress that.”