“Search me. Some kind of tranquilizer?”
“Was there enough to kill him?”
“Not according to the pathologist. But he’d been drinking, too, and that enhances the effects, and the dangers. Probably been smoking dope and dropping acid, as well, but they didn’t have toxicology tests for them back then.”
“So what was the cause of death?”
“Officially, he slipped on the side of the swimming pool, fell in the shallow end, smashed his head on the bottom and drowned. The Mandrax might have slowed down his reactions. There was water in his lungs.”
“What about the blow to the head? Any way it could have been blunt-object trauma?”
“Showed impact with a large flat area rather than a blunt object.”
“Like the bottom of a swimming pool?”
“Exactly, Guv.”
“What did the party guests say?”
“What you’d expect. Everyone swore they were asleep at the time, and nobody heard anything. To be honest, they probably wouldn’t have even noticed if they were all full of drugs and he just fell in the pool. Not much to hear. He was already unconscious from hitting his head.”
“Any speculation as to why he was naked?”
“No,” said Templeton. “But it was par for the course back then, wasn’t it? Hippies and all that stuff. Free love. Orgies and whatnot. Any excuse to get their kit off.”
“Who carried out the investigation?”
“Detective Chief Inspector Cecil Grant was SIO – he’s dead now – but a DS Keith Enderby did most of the legwork and digging around.”
“Summer 1970,” said Annie. “He’ll be retired by now, most likely, but he might still be around somewhere.”
“I’ll check with Human Resources.”
“Kev, did you ever get the impression, reading through the stuff, that anyone put the kibosh on the investigation because a famous rock band and a peer of the realm were involved?”
Templeton scratched his brow. “Well, now you come to mention it, it did cross my mind. But if you look at the facts, there was no evidence to say that it happened any other way. DS Enderby seems to have done a decent enough job under the circumstances. On the other hand, they all closed ranks and presented a united front. I don’t believe for a minute that everyone went to sleep at two or three in the morning and heard nothing more. I’ll bet you there were people up and about, on the prowl, though perhaps they were in no state to distinguish reality from fantasy. Someone could easily have been lying to protect someone else. Or two or more of them could have been in it together. Conspiracy theory. The other thing, of course, is that there was no motive.”
“No strife within the band?”
“Not that anyone was able to put their finger on at the time. Again, though, they weren’t likely to tell the investigating officers about it if there was, were they?”
“No, but there might have been rumors in the music press. These people lived a great deal of their lives in the public eye.”
“Well, if there was anything, it was a well-kept secret,” said Templeton. “I’ve checked some of the stuff online and at that time they were a successful group, definitely going places. Maybe if someone dug around a bit now, asked the right questions… I don’t know… it might be different.”
“Why don’t you see if you can track down this Enderby, and I’ll have a chat with DCI Banks.”
“Yes, Guv,” said Templeton, standing up. “Want me to leave the files?”
“Might as well,” said Annie. “I’ll have a look at them.”
Rick Hayes’s Soho office was located above a trattoria in Frith Street, not too far from Ronnie Scott’s and any number of sleazy sex shops and strip clubs. Refreshed by an espresso from the Bar Italia across the street, Chadwick climbed the shabby staircase and knocked at the glass pane on the door labeled HAYES CONCERT PROMOTIONS. A voice called out for him to come in, and he entered to see Hayes sitting behind a littered desk, hand over the mouthpiece of his telephone.
“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
