now.”
“But what about education? You said your father was a professor. Surely he would want you to go to university?”
She gave him a curious, almost pitying look. “What my father wants doesn’t come into it,” she said. “It’s my life. I might go to university one day, but it’ll be when I want to, not when someone else decides for me.” Tania shook her hair back and lit another cigarette.
Chadwick thought he saw a mouse scurry across the kitchen floor. He gave a little shudder. It wasn’t that mice scared him, but the idea of living with them held no appeal. “I’d like to know more about Linda,” he said. “I understand she was a shopgirl?”
Tania laughed. “‘Shopgirl.’ How very quaint and English. I suppose you could say that. She worked at Biba, but she wanted to be a designer. She was good, too.”
“Wouldn’t they be worried about her not coming back?”
“She took the week off.”
“So there was a plan?”
“There were possibilities, that’s all. There were some people in St. Ives she wanted to see. Maybe she was going to stay in Leeds a few days, see her friends and her mother and then go down there. I don’t know. She also had a friend living on Anglesey she wanted to visit. What can I say? Linda was a spontaneous sort of person. She just did things. That’s why I wasn’t worried about her. Besides, you don’t think… I mean, we were with people who are into love and peace and all that, and you just don’t expect…” Tears ran down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This is all too much.”
Chadwick gave her a few minutes to compose herself and wipe away the tears, then he said, “When Linda left the enclosure for the woods, did you see anyone follow her?”
Tania thought for a moment, sucked at her cigarette and flicked some ash. “No,” she said.
“Did you see anyone else go out around that time?”
“Not that I remember. Most of us were excited about Led Zeppelin, getting ready to go round the front and get our minds blown.”
“Could she have arranged to meet someone? Could the headache have been an excuse?”
Tania gave him a blank look. “Why would she? If she’d been going to meet someone, she’d have said so. It wasn’t Linda’s way to be sly and sneaky.”
Christ, Chadwick thought, it was a lot easier when you were dealing with ordinary folk, most of whom lied and cheated as easily as they breathed, rather than this lot with their fancy ideals and high-handed attitudes. “Did you notice anyone paying her undue attention?” he asked.
“Linda’s a beautiful girl. Of course there were people talking to her, maybe trying to make an impression, pick her up.”
“But nobody succeeded?”
Tania paused. “Linda wasn’t seeing anyone this past while,” she answered. “Look, I’ve seen what the newspapers say about us. The
“And drugs?”
“Out of the picture, too. I’m not saying she’d never smoked a joint or dropped a tab of acid, but not for a while. She was moving on, evolving.”
“I understand the two of you performed musical duets together?”
Tania looked at him as if she didn’t understand, then she managed a brief smile. “
“Can I have a look at Linda’s flat?”
Tania bit her lip. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t. I mean…”
“You can come with me, keep an eye on me. It’ll have to be done eventually. Officially.”
Finally, Tania said, “Okay. I’ve got a key. Come on.”
She led him across the hall. Linda’s room was the same shape as Tania’s, but like a mirror image. It was more luxuriously furnished, with a couple of patterned rugs on the floor and a stylized painting of a man sitting cross- legged under a tree, surrounded by strange symbols, on the wall. Chadwick recognized the signs of the zodiac from the newspaper horoscopes Janet read. There was also a small bookcase full of volumes on mysticism and the spiritual life and packs of variously scented joss sticks. An acoustic guitar, similar to the one in Tania’s room, leaned against the wall.
Linda also had a small record player, and beside it stood a stack of LPs similar to those Yvonne had. There was nothing really personal in the room, at least not that Chadwick could find. One drawer held a couple of letters from her mother and some old photographs taken with her father. There were no diaries or notebooks – whatever she had been carrying with her at Brimleigh had disappeared – and very little else apart from her birth certificate and post office book showing that she had ?123 13s 5d in her account, which seemed rather a lot to Chadwick. She had also set up a sewing machine at a makeshift table, and there were a few bolts of printed fabric lying around. In her small wardrobe hung many long dresses and skirts of bright print fabrics and other materials.
He searched under the drawers and tried the cupboards and wardrobe for false bottoms but found nowhere that might have provided a good hiding place for drugs. If Tania knew this was what he was doing, she didn’t say anything. She just leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded.
As far as food was concerned, the pickings were slim. Linda had no oven, only a gas burner beside the little sink, and the contents of her cupboard consisted of brown rice, chickpeas, muesli, tahini, mung beans and various herbs and spices. There was no refrigerator, either, and no sign of meat, vegetables or dairy products, except for a bottle of sterilized milk on the table. Frugal living indeed.
Frustrated, Chadwick stood by the door and gave one last look around. Still nothing.
“What will happen to it now?” Tania asked.
“I suppose it’ll be relet eventually,” he said. “For the moment I’ll get the local police to come in and seal it off until we’ve done a thorough search. What do you know about Rick Hayes?”
Tania locked Linda’s door and led Chadwick back to her room, where they resumed their previous positions.
“Rick Hayes, the promoter?”
“That’s the one.”
“Nothing much. I chatted with him a couple of times. He’s a bit of a creep. If you must know, he tried to pick me up, suggested we go to his caravan.”
“And?”
“I told him to get lost.”
“How did he react?”
“He laughed and said he liked a girl who spoke her mind. Look, Hayes is one of those men who asks every girl he meets to sleep with him. He thinks the odds are pretty good. If nine out of ten tell him what they think of him, or slap his face, there’s always the tenth who might say yes.”
“He knew Linda, is that right?”
“They’d met before, yes. Once we went backstage at a Mad Hatters concert at the Roundhouse and Rick was there. He’s harmless enough, really. To be honest, he’s far too taken with himself to really give much thought to anyone else.”
“But if someone he wanted turned him down, do you think he could get violent?”
Tania gave him a sharp look. “I… I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never really thought about it. He’s got a bit of a temper. I saw him laying into one of the security guards, but that was just… I don’t know, some sort of a power trip, I thought. You’re not suggesting he might have killed Linda because she wouldn’t let him fuck her?”
If the word was meant to shock Chadwick, it did. He wasn’t used to such language coming from the mouths of such lovely young women. He was damned if he was going to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, though. “Did you see him leave the enclosure during the time you were there?”
