It was a long time since Chadwick had walked along the Portobello Road. Wartime, in fact, one of the times he had been back on leave between assignments. He was sure the street had been narrower then. And there had been sandbags, blackout curtains, empty shop windows, rubble from bomb damage, the smell of ash, fractured gas lines and sewage pipes. Now the biggest mess was caused by construction on the Westway, an overhead motorway that was almost completed, and most of the smells were exotic spices that took him back to his days in India and Burma.
Chadwick had taken the afternoon train down to King’s Cross, a journey of about five hours. Now it was early evening. The market had closed for the day; the stallholders had packed up their wares and gone to one of the many local pubs. Outside the Duke of Wellington a fire-eater entertained a small crowd. The atmosphere was lively, the people young and colorful in brightly printed fabrics, flared jeans with flowers embroidered on them, or gold lame caftans. Some of the girls were wearing old-fashioned wide-brimmed hats and long dresses trailing around their ankles. There were quite a few West Indians wandering the street, too, some also in bright clothes, with beards and fuzzy hairdos. Chadwick was sure he could smell marijuana in the air. He was also sure he looked quite out of place in his navy blue suit, although there were one or two business types mingling with the crowds.
According to his map, there were quicker ways of getting to Powis Terrace than from the Notting Hill Underground station, but out of interest he had wanted to wander up and down Portobello Road. He had heard so much about it, from the Notting Hill race riots of over ten years ago to the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman, connected to both the Kray twins and the Profumo affair of 1963. The area had history.
Now the street was full of chic boutiques, hairdressers and antique shops with bright-painted facades. There was even a local fleapit called the Electric Cinema, showing a double bill of
Chadwick turned down Colville Terrace and finally found the street he was looking for. At the end of the block someone had drawn graffiti depicting Che Guevara, and underneath the bearded face and beret were the words LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION in red paint, imitating dripping blood. The terraced houses, once majestic four-story Georgian-style stucco, were now dirty white, with stained and graffiti-covered facades – THE ROAD OF EXCESS LEADS TO THE PALACE OF WISDOM and CRIME IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF SENSUALITY. Rubbish littered the street. Each house had a low black metal railing and gate, which led down murky stone steps to the basement flat. The broad stairs leading up to the front door were flanked by two columns supporting a portico. Most of the doors looked badly in need of a paint job. Chadwick had heard that the houses were all divided into a warren of bedsits.
There were several names listed beside the intercom at the house he wanted. Chadwick had timed his visit for early evening, thinking that might be the best time to find Tania Hutchison at home. The problem was that he didn’t want her to be warned of his visit. If she had had anything to do with Linda’s murder, then there was a chance she would scarper the minute she heard his voice. He needed another way in.
Tania’s flat, he noted, was number eight. He wondered how security-conscious the other tenants were. If drugs were involved, probably very, though if someone was under the influence… He decided to start with the ground floor and after getting no answer went on up the list. Finally he was rewarded by a bad connection with an incomprehensible young man in flat five, who actually buzzed the door open.
The smell of cats’ piss and onions was almost overwhelming; the floor was covered with drab cracked lino and the stair carpet was threadbare. If it had had a pattern once, it was indiscernible from the dull gray background now. The walls were also bare, apart from a few telephone numbers scribbled around the shared pay phone. Out of habit, Chadwick made a note of them.
Now he just had to find number eight. It wasn’t on the ground floor, nor the first, but on the second floor, facing the front. That landing had another shared pay phone, and again Chadwick copied down the numbers. It smelled a little better up here, mostly due to the burning incense coming from one of the rooms, but the bulb was bare and cast a thankfully weak light on the shabby decor. Chadwick could hear soft music coming from inside number eight, guitars and flutes and some sort of oriental percussion. A good sign.
He tapped on the door. A few moments later, it opened on the chain. He wasn’t in yet, but he was close. “Are you Tania Hutchison?” he asked.
“I’m Tania,” she said. “Who wants to know?”
Chadwick thought he detected an American accent. Only a thin strip of her face showed, but he could see what Dennis Nokes had meant about her good looks. “I’m Detective Inspector Chadwick,” he said, holding up his warrant card. “It’s about Linda Lofthouse.”
“Linda? Of course.”
“Do you mind if I come in?”
She looked at him for a moment – he could see only one eye – and he sensed she was calculating what was her best option. In the end the door shut, and when it opened again it opened all the way. “All right,” she said.
Chadwick followed her into an L-shaped room, the smaller part of which was taken up with a tiny kitchen. The rest was sparsely furnished, perhaps because there was so little space. There was no carpet on the floor, only old wood. A mattress covered in red cheesecloth and scattered with cushions sat against one wall, and in front of that stood a low glass table holding a vase of flowers, a copy of the
Tania stretched out on the mattress, leaning against the wall, and Chadwick grabbed one of the hard-backed kitchen chairs. The room seemed clean and bright, with a colorful abstract painting on the wall and a little light coming in through the sash window, but there was no disguising the essential decrepitude of the house and neighborhood.
The woman was as Dennis Nokes and Robin Merchant had described her, petite, attractive, with white teeth and glossy dark hair down to her waist. She was wearing flared jeans and a thin cotton blouse that left little to the imagination. She reached for a packet of Pall Mall filter-tipped and lit one. “I just found out yesterday,” she said, blowing out smoke. “About Linda.”
“How?”
“The newspaper. I’ve been away.”
“How long?”
“Nine days.”
It made sense. Chadwick had only discovered Linda Lofthouse’s identity from Carol Wilkinson on Saturday, so it hadn’t really hit the papers and other news media until Monday, and now it was Wednesday, ten days since the Brimleigh Festival had ended and the body was discovered. Looking at Tania, he could see that she had been crying; the tears had dried and crusted on her flawless olive skin, and her big green eyes were glassy.
“Where were you?” Chadwick asked.
“In France, with my boyfriend. He’s studying in Paris. The Sorbonne. I just got back yesterday.”
“I assume we could check that?”
“Go ahead.” She gave him a name and a telephone number in Paris. It wasn’t much use to Chadwick. The guy was her boyfriend, after all, and he would probably swear black was white for her. But he had to go through the motions.
“You
“Sure.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.”
Tania blew out some smoke and reached for the ashtray on the table, cradling it on her lap between her crossed legs.
“What happened there?” Chadwick went on.
“What do you mean, ‘What happened there?’ Lots of things happened there. It was a festival, a celebration.”
“Of what?”
