Piece Of My Heart

“We dug a bit deeper than that. Give us some credit. We might not have had the resources you’ve got today, but we did our best.”

“There was no friction within the band?”

“As far as I know there’s always friction in bands. Put a group of people together with egos that big and there has to be. Stands to reason.”

Banks laughed. Then he thought of Brian and wondered if the Blue Lamps were due for a split before too long. Brian hadn’t said anything, but Banks sensed something different about him, a certain lack of excitement and commitment, perhaps, and his turning up out of the blue like that was unusual. He seemed weary. And what about Emilia? Was she the Yoko Ono figure? Still, if Brian wanted to talk, he would get around to it in his own time; there was no use in pushing him. He’d always been that way. “Any-thing in particular?” he asked Enderby.

“Let’s see. They were all worried about Vic Greaves’s drug intake, for a start. His performances were getting more and more erratic, and his behavior was unreliable. Apparently, he’d missed a concert engagement not that long back, and the rest of them were still a bit pissed off at him for leaving them in the lurch.”

“Did Greaves have an alibi?”

Enderby scratched the side of his nose. “As a matter of fact, he did,” he said. “Two, actually.”

“Two?”

Enderby grinned. “Greaves and Merchant were the only two band members who didn’t have regular girlfriends. That night, Greaves happened to be in bed with two groupies.”

“Lucky devil,” said Banks. “I’d never have thought he had it in him.” He remembered the bald, bloated figure with the hollow eyes he had seen in Lyndgarth.

“According to them, he didn’t,” said Enderby. “Apparently he was too far gone to get it up. Bloody waste, if you ask me. They were lovely-looking girls.” He smiled at the memory. “Not wearing very much, either, when I interviewed them. That’s one of the little things you don’t forget in a hurry. Not so little, either, if you catch my drift.”

“Could Greaves not have sneaked away for a while during the night? They must have both slept, or passed out, at some time.”

“Look, when you get right down to it, any one of them could have done it. At least anyone who could still walk in a straight line. We didn’t really set great store by the alibis, as such. For a start, hardly any of them could remember much about the previous evening, or even what time they finally went to bed. They might have been wandering about all night, for all I know, and not even noticed Merchant in the swimming pool.”

“So what made you rule out murder so quickly?”

“I told you. No real motive. No evidence that he’d been pushed.”

“But Merchant could have got into an argument with someone, gone a bit over the top.”

“Oh, he could have, yes. But no one says he did, so what are we supposed to do, jump to conclusions and pick someone? Anyone?”

“What about an intruder?”

“Couldn’t be ruled out, either. It was easy enough to get into the grounds. But again, there was no evidence of an intruder, and nothing was stolen. Besides, Merchant’s injuries were consistent with falling into a swimming pool and drowning, which was what happened. Look, if you ask me, at worst it could have been a bit of stoned and drunken larking around that went wrong. I’m not saying that’s what happened, because there’s no proof, but if they were all stoned or pissed, which they were, and they started running around the pool playing tag or what have you, and someone tagged Merchant just a bit too hard and he ended up in the pool dead… Well, what would you do?”

“First off,” said Banks, “I’d try to get him out of there. There was no way I could be sure he was dead. Then I’d probably try artificial respiration, or the kiss of life or whatever it was back then, while someone called an ambulance.”

“Aye,” said Enderby. “And if you’d had as much drugs in your system as they had, you’d probably have just stood there for half an hour twiddling your thumbs before doing anything, and then the first thing you’d have done is get rid of your stash.”

“Did the drugs squad search the premises? There was no mention in the file.”

“Between you and me, we searched the place. Oh, we found a bit of marijuana, a few tabs of LSD, some mandies. But nothing hard.”

“What happened?”

“We decided, in the light of everything else – like a body to deal with – that we wouldn’t bring charges. We just disposed of the stuff. I mean, what were we to do, arrest them all for possession?”

Disposed of? Banks doubted that. Consumed or sold, more likely. But there was no point in opening that can of worms. “Did you get any sense that they’d cooked up a story between them?”

“No. As I said, half of them couldn’t even remember the party. It was all pretty fragmented and inconclusive.”

“Lord Jessop was present, right?”

“Right. Probably about the most coherent of the lot. That was before he got into the hard stuff.”

“And the most influential?”

“I can see where you’re going with this. Of course nobody wanted a scandal. It was bad enough as it was. Maybe that’s why we didn’t bring drugs charges. There’d been enough of that over the past two or three years with the Stones bust, and it was all beginning to seem pretty ridiculous. Especially after The Times ran that editorial about breaking a butterfly on a wheel. Within hours we had them all banging at the door and jumping over the walls. The News of the World, People, Daily Mirror, you name them. So even if someone else had been involved in a bit of horseplay, the thinking went, then it had still been an accident, and there was no point in inviting scandal. As we couldn’t prove that anyone else had been involved and no one was admitting to it, that was the end of it. Tea’s done. Fancy another pot?”

“No, thank you,” said Banks. “If there’s nothing more you can tell me, I’d better be off.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“It wasn’t disappointing.”

“Look, you never did really tell me what it was all about. Remember, we’re in the same job, or used to be.”

Banks was so used to not giving out any more information than he needed to that he sometimes forgot to say entirely why he was asking about something. “We found a writer by the name of Nick Barber dead. You might have read about it.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar,” said Enderby. “I try to keep up.”

“What you won’t have read about is that he was working on a story about the Mad Hatters, on Vic Greaves and the band’s early days in particular.”

“Interesting,” said Enderby. “But I still don’t see why you’re asking about Robin Merchant’s death.”

“It was just something Barber said to a girlfriend,” Banks said. “He mentioned something about a juicy story with a murder.”

“Now you’ve got me interested,” said Enderby. “A murder, you say?”

“That’s right. I suppose it was probably just journalistic license, trying to impress his girlfriend.”

“Not necessarily,” said Enderby.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Robin Merchant’s death was accidental, but that wasn’t the first time I was out at Swainsview Lodge in connection with a suspicious death.”

“Really?” said Banks. “Do tell.”

Enderby stood up. “Look, the sun’s well over the yardarm. How about we head down to my local and I’ll tell you over a pint?”

“I’m driving,” said Banks.

“That’s all right,” said Enderby. “You can buy me one and watch me drink it.”

“What took you out there?” Banks asked.

“A murder,” said Enderby, eyes glittering. “A real one that time.”