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
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?”
