Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  Bradley had also contacted the festival’s press officer, Mick Lawton, and made a start phoning the photographers. Most were cooperative, had no objection to the police looking at their photographs and would be happy to send prints. After all, they had been taken for public consumption in the first place. What a difference it was from asking reporters to name sources.

  The experts were still combing the area where the victim had been killed and the spot she had been moved to, collecting all the trace evidence for later analysis. If nothing else, it might provide useful forensic evidence in a trial. The lab had already reported back on the painted cornflower on the victim’s cheek, informing Chadwick that it was simple greasepaint, available in any number of outlets. The flower was still one small detail the police had not yet made public.

  When it came to questioning the stars themselves, Enderby’s original doubts proved to be remarkably prophetic. It got done, mostly, but in a perfunctory and unsatisfactory way as far as Chadwick was concerned, usually by the local forces who had only minimal briefing in the case. There was more than one provincial DI just dying to have a crack at his local rock star, bring in the dogs and the drugs search team, despite the fiasco of the Rolling Stones bust a couple of years ago, but asking a few questions about a poxy festival up north hardly excited anyone’s interest. These long-haired idiots might be stoned and anarchic, the thinking mostly went, but they’re hardly likely to be bloody murderers, are they?

  Chadwick preferred to keep an open mind on the subject. He thought of the murders in Los Angeles, a story he had been following in the newspapers and on television, just like everyone else. According to the reports, someone had broken into a house in Benedict Canyon, cut the telephone wires and murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate, who had been eight and a half months pregnant at the time she was stabbed to death. Later that night, another house had been broken into and a wealthy couple had been killed in a similar way. There was much speculation about drug orgies, as the male victims had been wearing hippie-type clothing and drugs were found in one of their cars. There was also talk about a “ritualistic” aspect to the murders: the word PIG had been written in blood on the front door of Sharon Tate’s house, and DEATH TO PIGS had been written on the living room wall of the other house, also in blood, and HEALTHER SKELTER inside the fridge door, which the authorities took to be a misspelling of “Helter Skelter,” a Beatles song from The White Album. What little inside knowledge Chadwick had been able to pick up on the grapevine indicated that the police were looking for members of some obscure hippie cult.

  It had not occurred to Chadwick that the crimes had anything in common with the Brimleigh Festival murder. Los Angeles was a long way from Yorkshire. Still, if people who listened to Beatles songs and called the police pigs could do something like that in Los Angeles, then why not in England?

  Chadwick would have interviewed the musicians himself, but they lived as far afield as London, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Ireland and Glasgow, some of them in small flats and bedsits, but a surprising number of them owned country estates with swimming pools or large detached houses in nice areas. He would have spent half his life on the motorway and the rest on country roads.

  He had hoped that one of the interviewers might at least have sniffed out a half-truth or a full-blown lie, then he would have conducted a follow-up interview himself, however far he had to travel, but everything came back routine: no further action.

  A lot of the bands whose names he had seen in connection with Brimleigh were playing at another festival, in Rugby, that weekend: Pink Floyd, the Nice, Roy Harper, the Edgar Broughton Band and the Third Ear Band. He sent Enderby down to Rugby to see if he could come up with anything. Enderby seemed in his element at the prospect of meeting such heroes.

  Two of the bands at Brimleigh had been local. Chadwick had already spoken briefly with Jan Dukes de Grey in Leeds during the week. Derek and Mick seemed pleasant enough young lads beneath the long hair and unusual clothes, and both of them had left the festival well before the time of the murder. The Mad Hatters were in London at the moment but were expected back up north early in the following week, to stay at Swainsview Lodge, Lord Jessop’s residence near Eastvale, where they were to rehearse for a forthcoming tour and album. He would talk to them then.

  It was half past two in the afternoon by the time DC Gavin Rickerd managed to make it over to Western Area Headquarters in Eastvale. Banks was due to sit in on the Nicholas Barber postmortem at three, but he wanted to get this out of the way first. He had rung Annie at Fordham, and they had given each other a quick update, agreeing to meet in the Queen’s Arms at six o’clock.

  “Come in, Gavin,” said Banks. “How are things going in Neighborhood Policing? Teething troubles?”

  “Busy. You know how things are with a new job, sir. But it’s fine, really. I like it.” Rickerd adjusted his glasses. He was still wearing old-fashioned National Health specs held together at the bridge with sticking plaster. It had to be a fashion statement of some sort, Banks thought, as even a poor DC could certainly afford new ones. The words “fashion statement” and Gavin Rickerd hardly seemed a match made in heaven, so maybe it was an antifashion statement. He wore a bottle-green corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches and brown corduroy trousers a bit worse for wear. His tie was awkwardly fastened and his shirt collar bent up on the left side. From the top pocket of his jacket poked an array of pens and pencils. His face had the pasty look of someone who didn’t get outside very much. Banks remembered the way Kev Templeton used to take the piss out of him mercilessly. He had a cruel streak, did Templeton.

  “Miss the thrust and parry of policing on the edge?” Banks asked.

  “Not really, sir. I’m quite happy where I am.”

  “Ah, right.” Banks had never really known how to talk to Richard. Rumor had it that he was a bona fide trainspotter, that he actually stood out at the end of cold station platforms in Darlington, Leeds or York, come rain or shine, scanning the horizon for the Royal Scotsman, the Mallard, or whatever they called it these days. Nobody had actually seen him, but the rumor persisted. He also had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and was reputed to be a whiz at puzzles and computer games. Banks thought he was probably wasted in Eastvale and should have been recruited by MI5 years ago, but at the moment their loss was his gain.

  One thing Banks did know for certain was that Gavin Rickerd was a fanatical cricket fan, so he chatted briefly about England’s recent Ashes victory, then he said, “Got a little job for you, Gavin.”

  “But, sir, you know I’m neighborhood Policing now, not CID or Major Crimes.”

  “Yes,” said Banks. “But what’s in a name?”

  “It’s not just the name, sir, it’s a serious job.”

  “I’m sure it is. That’s not in dispute.”

  “The superintendent won’t like it, sir.” Rickerd was starting to look decidedly nervous, glancing over his shoulder at the door.

  “Been warned off, have you?”

  Rickerd adjusted his glasses again.

  “Okay,” Banks said. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble. You can go. It’s just that I’ve got this puzzle I thought you might be interested in. At least, I think it could be a puzzle. Whatever it is, though, we need to know.”

  “Puzzle?” said Rickerd, licking his lips. “What sort of puzzle?”

  “Well, I was thinking maybe you could have a look at it in your spare time, you know. That way the super can’t complain, can she?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Like a little peek?”

  “Well, maybe I could just have a quick look.”

  “Good lad.” Banks handed him a photocopy of the page from Nick Barber’s copy of Atonement he had got from the SOCOs.

  Rickerd squinted at it, turned it this way and that, and put it down on the desk. “Interesting,” he said.

  “I was thinking that you like mathematical puzzles and things, know a bit about
them. Maybe you could take it away with you and play around with it?”

  “I can take it away?”

  “Of course. It’s only a photocopy.”

  “All right, then,” said Rickerd, evidently charged with a new sense of importance. He folded the piece of paper carefully into a square and slipped it into the inside pocket of his corduroy jacket.

  “You’ll get back to me?” said Banks.

  “Soon as I’ve got something. I can’t promise, mind you. It might just be some random gibberish.”

  “I understand,” said Banks. “Do your best.”

  Rickerd left the office, pausing to glance both ways down the corridor before he dashed off toward the Neighborhood Policing offices. Banks glanced at his watch and pulled a face. Time to go to the postmortem.

  Saturday, 13th September, 1969

  Chadwick was hoping to get away early, as he and Geoff Broome had tickets for Leeds United’s away game with Sheffield Wednesday. At about ten o’clock, though, a woman who said she lived on the Raynville Estate rang to say she thought she recognized the victim. She didn’t want to commit herself, saying the sketch in the paper wasn’t a very good likeness, but she thought she knew who it was. Out of respect for the victim, the newspapers hadn’t published a photograph of the dead girl, only an artist’s impression, but Chadwick had a photo in his briefcase.

  This wasn’t the kind of interview he could delegate to an underling like the inexperienced Simon Bradley, let alone the scruffy Keith Enderby, so before he left he rang Geoff Broome with his apologies. There would be no problem getting rid of the ticket somewhere in Brotherton House, Geoff told him. After that, Chadwick went down to his aging Vauxhall Victor and drove out to Armley, rain streaking his windscreen.

  The Raynville Estate was not among the best of the newer Leeds council estates, and it looked even worse in the rain. Built only a few years ago, it had quickly gone to seed, and those who could afford to, avoided it. Chadwick and Janet had lived nearby, on the Astons, until they had managed to save up and buy their semi just off Church Road, in the shadow of St. Bartholomew’s, Armley, when Chadwick was promoted to detective inspector four years ago.

  The caller, who had given her name as Carol Wilkinson, lived in a second-story maisonette on Raynville Walk. The stairs smelled of urine and the walls were covered with filthy graffiti, a phenomenon that was starting to spring up in places like this. It was just another sign of the degeneracy of modern youth as far as Chadwick was concerned: no respect for property. When he knocked on the faded green door, a young woman holding a baby in one arm opened it for him, the chain still on.

  “Are you the policeman?”

  “Detective Inspector Chadwick.” He showed his warrant card.

  She glanced at it, then looked Chadwick up and down before unfastening the chain. “Come in. You’ll have to excuse the mess.”

  And he did. She deposited the baby in a wooden playpen in a living room untidy with toys, discarded clothing and magazines. It – he couldn’t tell whether it was a girl or a boy – stood and gawped at him for a moment, then started rattling the bars and crying. The cream carpet was stained with only God knew what, and the room smelled of unwashed nappies and warm milk. A television set stood in one corner, and a radio was playing somewhere: Kenny Everett. Chadwick only knew who it was because Yvonne liked to listen to him, and he recognized the inane patter and the clumsy attempts at humor. When it came to radio, Chadwick preferred quiz programs and news.

  He took the chair the woman offered, giving it a quick once-over to make sure it was clean, and plucking at the crease in his trousers before he sat. The maisonette had a small balcony, but there were no chairs outside. Chadwick imagined the woman had to be careful because of her baby. More than once a young child had crawled onto a balcony and fallen off, despite the guardrail.

  Trying to distance himself from the noise, the smell and the mess, Chadwick focused on the woman as she sat down opposite him and lit a cigarette. She was pale and careworn, wearing a baggy fawn cardigan and shapeless checked slacks. Dirty blond hair hung down to her shoulders. She might have been fifteen or thirty.

  “You said on the phone that you think you know the woman whose picture was in the paper?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure. That’s why I took so long to ring you. I had to think about it.”

  “Are you sure now?”

  “Well, no, not really. I mean, her hair was different and everything. It’s just…”

  “What?”

  “Something about her, that’s all.”

  Chadwick opened his briefcase and took out the photograph of the dead girl, head and shoulders. He warned Carol what to expect, and she seemed to brace herself, drawing an exceptionally deep lungful of smoke. When she looked at the photo, she put her hand to her chest. Slowly, she let the smoke out. “I’ve never seen a dead person before,” she said.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  She passed the photo back and nodded. “Funnily enough, this looks more like her than the drawing, even though she is dead.”

  “Do you know who she is?”

  “Yes. I think it’s Linda. Linda Lofthouse.”

  “How did you know her?”

  “We went to school together.” She jerked her head in a generally northern direction. “Sandford Girls’. She was in the same class as me.” At least the victim was local, then, which made the investigation a lot easier. Still, it made perfect sense. While many young people would have made the pilgrimage from all parts of the country to the Brimleigh Festival, Chadwick guessed that the majority of those attending would have been from a bit closer to home – Leeds, Bradford, York, Harrogate and the surrounding areas – as the event was practically on their doorstep.

  “When was this?”

  “I left school two years ago last July, when I was sixteen. Linda left the same year. We were almost the same age.”

  Eighteen and one kid already. Chadwick wondered if she had a husband. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, which didn’t mean much in itself, but there didn’t seem to be any evidence of male presence as far as he could see. Anyway, the age was about right for the victim. “Were you friends?”

  Carol paused. “I thought so,” she said, “but after we’d left school we didn’t see much of one another.”

  “Why not?”

  “Linda got pregnant after Christmas in her final year, just before she turned sixteen.” She looked at her own child and gave a harsh laugh. “At least I waited until I’d left school and got married.”

  “The father?”

  “He’s at work. Tom’s not a bad bloke, really.”

  So she was married. In a way, Chadwick felt relieved. “I meant the father of Linda’s child.”

  “Oh, him. She was going out with Donald Hughes at the time. I just assumed, you know, like…”

  “Did they marry, live together?”

  “Not that I know of. Linda… well, she was getting a bit weird that last year at school, if you must know.”

  “In what way?”

  “The way she dressed, like she didn’t care anymore. And she was more in her own world, wherever that was. She kept getting into trouble for not paying attention in class, but it wasn’t as if she was stupid or anything, she even did okay in her O levels, despite being pregnant. She was just…”

  “In her own world?”

  “Yes. The teachers didn’t know what to do with her. If they said anything, she’d give them a right clever answer. She had some nerve. And that last year she sort of stopped hanging around with us – you know, there were a few of us – me, Linda, Julie and Anita used to go down the Locarno on a Saturday night, have a good dance and see if there were any decent lads around.” She blushed. “Sometimes we’d go to Le Phonograph later if we could get in. Most of us could pass for eighteen, but sometimes they got a bit picky on the door. You know what it’s like.”

  “So Linda became a bit of a loner?”

  “Yes.
And this was before she got pregnant. Quiet. Liked to read. Not schoolbooks. Poetry and stuff. And she loved Bob Dylan.”

  “Didn’t the rest of you?”

  “He’s all right, I suppose, but you can’t dance to him, can you? And I can’t understand a word he’s singing about, if you can call it singing.”

  Chadwick didn’t know whether he had ever heard Bob Dylan, though he did know the name, so he was thankful the question was rhetorical. Dancing had never been a skill he possessed in any great measure, though he had met Janet at a dance and that had seemed to go well enough. “Did she have any enemies, anyone who really disliked her?”

  “No, nothing like that. You couldn’t hate Linda. You’d know what I mean if you’d met her.”

  “Did she ever get into any fights or serious disagreements with anyone?”

  “No, never.”

  “Do you know if she was taking drugs?”

  “She never said so, and I never saw her do anything like that. Not that I’d have known, I suppose.”

  “Where did she live?”

  “On the Sandford Estate with her mum and dad. Though I heard her dad died a short while ago. In the spring. Sudden, like. Heart attack.”

  “Can you give me her mother’s address?”

  Carol told him.

  “Do you know if she had the child?”

  “About two years ago.”

  “That would be September 1967?”

  “Around that time, yes. But I never saw her after school broke up that July. I got married and Tom and me set up house here and all. Then little Andy came along.”

  “Have you ever bumped into her since then?”

  “No. I heard that she’d moved away down south after the baby was born. London.”

  Maybe she had, Chadwick thought. That would explain why she hadn’t been immediately missed. As Carol had said, the likeness in the newspaper wasn’t a particularly good one, and a lot of people don’t pay attention to the papers anyway. “Have you any idea what happened to the baby, or the father?”