be a misspelling of “Helter Skelter,” a Beatles song from
It had not occurred to Chadwick that the crimes had anything in common with the Brimleigh Festival murder. Los Angeles was a long way from Yorkshire. Still, if people who listened to Beatles songs and called the police pigs could do something like that in Los Angeles, then why not in England?
Chadwick would have interviewed the musicians himself, but they lived as far afield as London, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Ireland and Glasgow, some of them in small flats and bedsits, but a surprising number of them owned country estates with swimming pools or large detached houses in nice areas. He would have spent half his life on the motorway and the rest on country roads.
He had hoped that one of the interviewers might at least have sniffed out a half-truth or a full-blown lie, then he would have conducted a follow-up interview himself, however far he had to travel, but everything came back routine: no further action.
A lot of the bands whose names he had seen in connection with Brimleigh were playing at another festival, in Rugby, that weekend: Pink Floyd, the Nice, Roy Harper, the Edgar Broughton Band and the Third Ear Band. He sent Enderby down to Rugby to see if he could come up with anything. Enderby seemed in his element at the prospect of meeting such heroes.
Two of the bands at Brimleigh had been local. Chadwick had already spoken briefly with Jan Dukes de Grey in Leeds during the week. Derek and Mick seemed pleasant enough young lads beneath the long hair and unusual clothes, and both of them had left the festival well before the time of the murder. The Mad Hatters were in London at the moment but were expected back up north early in the following week, to stay at Swainsview Lodge, Lord Jessop’s residence near Eastvale, where they were to rehearse for a forthcoming tour and album. He would talk to them then.
It was half past two in the afternoon by the time DC Gavin Rickerd managed to make it over to Western Area Headquarters in Eastvale. Banks was due to sit in on the Nicholas Barber postmortem at three, but he wanted to get this out of the way first. He had rung Annie at Fordham, and they had given each other a quick update, agreeing to meet in the Queen’s Arms at six o’clock.
“Come in, Gavin,” said Banks. “How are things going in Neighborhood Policing? Teething troubles?”
“Busy. You know how things are with a new job, sir. But it’s fine, really. I like it.” Rickerd adjusted his glasses. He was still wearing old-fashioned National Health specs held together at the bridge with sticking plaster. It had to be a fashion statement of some sort, Banks thought, as even a poor DC could certainly afford new ones. The words “fashion statement” and Gavin Rickerd hardly seemed a match made in heaven, so maybe it was an antifashion statement. He wore a bottle-green corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches and brown corduroy trousers a bit worse for wear. His tie was awkwardly fastened and his shirt collar bent up on the left side. From the top pocket of his jacket poked an array of pens and pencils. His face had the pasty look of someone who didn’t get outside very much. Banks remembered the way Kev Templeton used to take the piss out of him mercilessly. He had a cruel streak, did Templeton.
“Miss the thrust and parry of policing on the edge?” Banks asked.
“Not really, sir. I’m quite happy where I am.”
“Ah, right.” Banks had never really known how to talk to Richard. Rumor had it that he was a bona fide trainspotter, that he actually stood out at the end of cold station platforms in Darlington, Leeds or York, come rain or shine, scanning the horizon for the Royal Scotsman, the Mallard, or whatever they called it these days. Nobody had actually seen him, but the rumor persisted. He also had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and was reputed to be a whiz at puzzles and computer games. Banks thought he was probably wasted in Eastvale and should have been recruited by MI5 years ago, but at the moment their loss was his gain.
One thing Banks did know for certain was that Gavin Rickerd was a fanatical cricket fan, so he chatted briefly about England’s recent Ashes victory, then he said, “Got a little job for you, Gavin.”
“But, sir, you know I’m neighborhood Policing now, not CID or Major Crimes.”
“Yes,” said Banks. “But what’s in a name?”
“It’s not just the name, sir, it’s a serious job.”
“I’m sure it is. That’s not in dispute.”
“The superintendent won’t like it, sir.” Rickerd was starting to look decidedly nervous, glancing over his shoulder at the door.
“Been warned off, have you?”
Rickerd adjusted his glasses again.
“Okay,” Banks said. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble. You can go. It’s just that I’ve got this puzzle I thought you might be interested in. At least, I think it could be a puzzle. Whatever it is, though, we need to know.”
“Puzzle?” said Rickerd, licking his lips. “What sort of puzzle?”
“Well, I was thinking maybe you could have a look at it in your spare time, you know. That way the super can’t complain, can she?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Like a little peek?”
“Well, maybe I could just have a quick look.”
“Good lad.” Banks handed him a photocopy of the page from Nick Barber’s copy of
Rickerd squinted at it, turned it this way and that, and put it down on the desk. “Interesting,” he said.
“I was thinking that you like mathematical puzzles and things, know a bit about them. Maybe you could take it away with you and play around with it?”
“I can take it away?”
“Of course. It’s only a photocopy.”
“All right, then,” said Rickerd, evidently charged with a new sense of importance. He folded the piece of paper carefully into a square and slipped it into the inside pocket of his corduroy jacket.
“You’ll get back to me?” said Banks.
“Soon as I’ve got something. I can’t promise, mind you. It might just be some random gibberish.”
“I understand,” said Banks. “Do your best.”
Rickerd left the office, pausing to glance both ways down the corridor before he dashed off toward the Neighborhood Policing offices. Banks glanced at his watch and pulled a face. Time to go to the postmortem.
Chadwick was hoping to get away early, as he and Geoff Broome had tickets for Leeds United’s away game with Sheffield Wednesday. At about ten o’clock, though, a woman who said she lived on the Raynville Estate rang to say she thought she recognized the victim. She didn’t want to commit herself, saying the sketch in the paper wasn’t a very good likeness, but she thought she knew who it was. Out of respect for the victim, the newspapers hadn’t published a photograph of the dead girl, only an artist’s impression, but Chadwick had a photo in his briefcase.
This wasn’t the kind of interview he could delegate to an underling like the inexperienced Simon Bradley, let alone the scruffy Keith Enderby, so before he left he rang Geoff Broome with his apologies. There would be no problem getting rid of the ticket somewhere in Brotherton House, Geoff told him. After that, Chadwick went down to his aging Vauxhall Victor and drove out to Armley, rain streaking his windscreen.
The Raynville Estate was not among the best of the newer Leeds council estates, and it looked even worse in the rain. Built only a few years ago, it had quickly gone to seed, and those who could afford to, avoided it. Chadwick and Janet had lived nearby, on the Astons, until they had managed to save up and buy their semi just off Church Road, in the shadow of St. Bartholomew’s, Armley, when Chadwick was promoted to detective inspector four years ago.
The caller, who had given her name as Carol Wilkinson, lived in a second-story maisonette on Raynville Walk. The stairs smelled of urine and the walls were covered with filthy graffiti, a phenomenon that was starting to spring up in places like this. It was just another sign of the degeneracy of modern youth as far as Chadwick was
