Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  “Where were you listening?”

  “Around. I still had things to do. We were looking to pack up and get out of there as soon as possible after the show, so I couldn’t waste time. As it turned out…”

  “But where did you go to listen to them? The press enclosure was roped off in front of the stage. Apparently that was the best place to watch from. Did you go there?”

  “No. Like I said, I didn’t have time to just stand there and watch. I had other things to do. It was pandemonium around there, man. We had people falling off the stage stoned and people trying to sneak in the front and back. Managers wanted paying, there were cars blocking other cars, limos turning up for people, pieces of equipment to be accounted for. I tell you, man, I didn’t have time to kill anyone, even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t. I mean, what possible motive could I have for killing Linda? She was a great bird. I liked her.” He lit a cigarette.

  “I notice you’re left-handed,” Chadwick said.

  “Yeah. So?”

  “The killer was left-handed.”

  “Lots of people are.”

  “Do you own a flick-knife?”

  “No way, man. They’re illegal.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you know the law.”

  “Look, are we finished, because I’ve got a lot of phone calls to make?”

  “We’re finished when I say we are.”

  Hayes bristled but said nothing.

  “I hope you realize the extent of the trouble you’re in,” Chadwick went on.

  “Look, I did what anybody would do. You’ve got to be crazy these days to give the fuzz an inch, especially if you’re a bit different.”

  “In your case, it didn’t work, did it? I’ve found out anyway. All we need now is one person – just one person – who saw you leaving the backstage area for the woods while Led Zeppelin were playing. Are you so sure that no one saw you? After all, we’ve discovered all your other little lies. Why not this one?”

  “I did not leave the enclosure, and I didn’t see Linda leave, either.”

  “We’re reinterviewing all the security personnel and everyone else we can think of who was there. Are you certain that’s the story you want to stick to?”

  “I did not leave the enclosure. I did not go into those woods.”

  “What did you do with the knife?”

  “I can’t believe this! I never had a knife.”

  Chadwick spread his hands on the table, the gesture of a reasonable man laying out his cards. “Look, Mr. Hayes, I’m not persecuting you because you’re different. In fact, I don’t believe you’re that much different from most of the petty villains I come into contact with. You just wear a different uniform, that’s all. Why don’t you make it easy on us all and tell me how it happened?”

  “I want my solicitor.”

  “What about Tania Hutchison? Did you try it on with her, too?”

  “I’m not saying another word.”

  “But it was Linda you really wanted, wasn’t it? Linda, who seemed so unattainable. ‘Untouchable.’ Isn’t that the word you used? She was so beautiful. Thought you weren’t good enough for her, did she? Even your money and your famous contacts didn’t impress her, did they? So how did it happen? She wandered off into the woods. You did your MC duties, and when everyone was enthralled and deafened by Led Zeppelin, you followed Linda into the woods. She rejected you again, and this time was once too many. She was having her period. Did she tell you that? Did you think it was just an excuse? Well, you were wrong. It was true. Maybe you were high? Maybe you’d been taking drugs? You could probably plead that you weren’t responsible for your actions. But she turned her back on you for the last time. You grabbed her from behind and stabbed her. Then, when you realized what you’d done, you knew you had to throw us off the scent. It was a clumsy attempt, but the best you could come up with under pressure. You walked to the edge of the field, were lucky enough to steal a sleeping bag without being seen, and the body was still undiscovered when you got back to it. You shoved her in the sleeping bag – very carelessly, I might add, and that was my first indication she hadn’t been killed in it – and you carried her to the field. While everyone’s attention was riveted on the stage, in the dark, you set the sleeping bag down at the very edge of the crowd so we wouldn’t link her with the backstage lot and hurried back to your duties. I don’t suppose it took long. Was there a lot of blood to wash off your hands? I don’t think so. You rubbed them on the leaves, then you rinsed them off in the beck. Did you get any on your clothes? Well, we can always check. Where did you hide the knife?”

  As Chadwick talked, Hayes turned pale. “It’s one thing accusing me of all this,” he said finally, “but it will be quite another proving it.”

  “All we need is one witness who saw you leave the enclosure at the relevant time.”

  “And the nonexistent knife.”

  That was clever of him, Chadwick thought. The knife would help a lot, especially if it had Hayes’s fingerprints and Linda Lofthouse’s blood on it. But cases had proceeded on less, and been won on less. Hayes might get a haircut and wear a suit for the jury, but people could still see through him.

  Chadwick leaned forward and picked up Hayes’s telephone. “I’m going to call a contact at West End Central,” he said, “and in no time we’ll have search warrants for your office, your house and anywhere else you’ve spent more than ten minutes over the past two weeks. If there are any traces of Linda’s blood, believe me, we’ll find them.”

  “Go ahead,” said Hayes, with less confidence than he was aiming for. “And as soon as you’ve done that, I’ll have my solicitor down here and sue you for wrongful arrest.”

  “I haven’t arrested you,” said Chadwick, dialing. “Not yet.”

  “Yes, I know what Mandrax is. Or was,” said Banks to Annie over an off-duty pint in the Queen’s Arms early that evening.

  It was dark outside, and the pub was noisy with the after-work crowd, along with those who never worked and had been there all day, mostly loud kids with foul mouths telling fart jokes over the pool table in the back. A big mistake that table was, Banks had told Cyril, the landlord, but he had replied that he had to move with the times, or the younger crowd would all go to the Duck and Drake or the Red Lion. Good riddance, Banks thought. Still, it wasn’t his livelihood.

  The mix of accents said a lot about the changing Dales; Banks could discern London, Newcastle and Belfast mixed in with the locals. The yob factor was getting stronger in Eastvale, too. Everyone had noticed, and it had become a matter of concern, written up in the newspaper, argued over by members of the council and local MPs. That was why Neighbourhood Policing had been set up and Gavin Rickerd transferred, to keep tabs on known troublemakers and share that intelligence with other communities.

  Even the police station’s location right on the edge of the market square didn’t seem to make any difference to the drunken louts who ran wild after closing time every Saturday night, leaving a trail of detritus and destruction in their wake on the ancient cobbles, not to mention the occasional bleeding human being. Town-center shopkeepers and pub landlords scrubbing away the vomit and sweeping up broken glass on a Sunday morning was a common sight for the Eastvale churchgoers.

  “Mandrax was a powerful sedative,” Banks said. “A sleeping tablet, known affectionately as ‘mandies.’ Been off the market since the seventies.”

  “If they were sleeping pills,” Annie asked, “why didn’t they just put people to sleep?”

  Banks took a swig of Black Sheep, the only pint he was allowing himself before the drive home to Gratly. “That’s what they were supposed to do. The thing was, if you mixed them with booze and rode out the first waves of tiredness, they gave you a nice, mellow buzz. They were also especially good for sex. I expect that was why Robin Merchant was naked.”

  “Were they?”

  “What?”

  “Good for sex?”

  “I don’t know. I only took two once and I did
n’t have a girlfriend at the time. I fell asleep.”

  Annie patted his arm. “Poor Alan. So, was Merchant on his way toward an assignation or was he just taking a post coital stroll?”

  “What did the files say?” Banks asked.

  “They were remarkably silent on the subject. No one admitted to sleeping with him. Of course, if he’d been in the water all night, it would have been difficult for the pathologist to tell whether he’d had sex or not.”

  “Who was his girlfriend at the time?”

  “No one in particular,” said Annie. “No information on Robin Merchant’s sexual habits or preferences made it to the official case notes.”

  “This Enderby character might remember something, if and when Templeton tracks him down.”

  “Maybe he was gay?” Annie suggested. “Him and Lord Jessop in the sack together? I could see why they might want to suppress that.”

  “There’s no evidence to suggest that Lord Jessop was gay,” said Banks. “Apparently he liked the ladies. For a while, at any rate.”

  “What happened?”

  “He became a heroin addict, though he functioned well enough for years. Many addicts do, if they can get a regular and reliable supply. But heroin doesn’t do a lot for your sex drive. In the end he got AIDS from an infected needle.”

  “You’d think he could afford clean needles, wouldn’t you, him being a lord and all?”

  “He was broke by then,” Banks said. “Apparently, he was rather a tragic figure toward the end. He died alone. All his friends had deserted him, including his rock-star pals. He’d spent his inheritance, sold off most of his land. Nobody wanted to buy Swainsview Lodge, and he had no heirs. He’d sold everything else he had.”

  “Is that where he died, Swainsview?”

  “Ironically enough, yes,” said Banks. “That place has a sad history.”

  They both paused to take in the implications of that, then Annie said, “So they caused disorientation and tiredness, these mandies?”

  “Yes. I mean, if Robin Merchant had been taking mandies and drinking, he could easily have lost his footing. I suppose when he hit his head on the bottom of the shallow end he’d already be feeling the effects of the drug and might have drowned. It’s like Jimi Hendrix, in a way, you know, choking on his own vomit because he had so much Vesperax in his system that he couldn’t wake up and stop it happening. Usually the body’s pretty good at self-preservation – gag reflexes and such – but certain drugs can inhibit or depress those functions.”

  Across the room, a white ball cracked into a triangle of reds, breaking the frame and launching a new game. Someone started arguing loudly and drunkenly about the rules.

  “So what happened to Mandrax?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t know the exact details, but they took it off the market in the late seventies. People soon replaced it with Mogadon, which they called ‘moggies.’ Same sort of thing, but a tranquilizer, not a sedative, and probably not as harmful.”

  Annie sipped some beer. “But someone could have pushed him, couldn’t they?”

  “Of course they could. Even if we could find a motive, though, we might have a devil of a job proving it after all this time. And strictly speaking, it’s not our job.”

  “It is if it’s linked to Nick Barber’s murder.”

  “True enough. Anyway, I can’t see Vic Greaves being much help.”

  “That really upset you, didn’t it, talking to him?”

  “I suppose it did,” said Banks, toying with his beer mat. “I mean, it’s not as if he was one of my idols or anything, but just to see him in that state, to see that emptiness in his eyes up close.” Banks gave an involuntary shudder.

  “Was it drugs? Was he really an acid casualty?”

  “That’s what everyone said at the time. You know, there was even a kind of heroic stature about it. He was put on a pedestal for being mad. People thought there was something cool about it. He attracted a cult following, a lot of weirdos. They still hound him.” Banks shook his head. “What a time. The way they used to glorify tramps and call madmen visionaries.”

  “You think there was something else to it?”

  “I don’t know how much LSD he took. Probably bucketfuls of the stuff. I’ve heard he’s done a few stints in various psychiatric establishments over the years, along with group therapy and any other kinds of therapy that happened to be fashionable at the time, but as far as I know there’s still no official diagnosis. None of them seemed to know exactly what his problem was, let alone cure him. Acid casualty, psychotic, schizophrenic, paranoid schizophrenic. Take your pick. None of it really matters in the long run. He’s Vic Greaves and his head’s fucked. It must be hell inside there.”

  Brian and Emilia were in the entertainment room watching La Dolce Vita on the plasma screen when Banks got home. They were on the sofa, Brian sitting up with his feet on the pouf, his arm around Emilia, who leaned against him, head on his chest, face hidden by a cascade of hair. She was wearing what looked like one of Brian’s shirts. It wasn’t tucked in at the waist because she wasn’t wearing anything to tuck it into. They certainly looked as if they had made themselves at home during the couple of days they’d been around, and Banks realized sadly that he had been so busy he had hardly seen them. A tantalizing smell drifted from the kitchen.

  “Oh, hi, Dad,” said Brian, putting the DVD on pause. “Got your note. We were out walking around Relton way.”

  “Not a very nice day for it, I’m afraid,” said Banks, flopping onto one of the armchairs.

  “We got soaked,” said Emilia.

  “It happens,” said Banks. “Hope it didn’t put you off?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Banks. It’s beautiful up here. I mean, even when it’s gray and rainy it’s got a sort of romantic, primitive beauty, hasn’t it? Like Wuthering Heights.”

  “I suppose it has,” said Banks. He gestured toward the screen. “And call me Alan, please. Didn’t know you were Fellini fans. It’s one of your Uncle Roy’s. I’ve been trying to watch them all. Bergman. Truffaut. Chabrol. Kurasawa. I’m getting quite used to the subtitles now, but I still have a bit of trouble following what’s going on half the time.”

  Brian laughed. “I heard someone talking about La Dolce Vita a while ago, how great it was, and there it was, right in front of me. Emmy here’s an actress.”

  “I thought I’d seen you somewhere before,” Banks said. “You’ve done TV, right?”

  Emilia blushed. “A little. I’ve had small parts in Spooks, Hustle and Bad Girls, and I’ve done quite a bit of theater, too. No movies yet.” She stood up. “Please excuse me a moment.”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s that smell?” Banks asked Brian when she had left the room.

  “Emilia’s making us dinner.”

  “I thought we’d get a take-away tonight.”

  “This’ll be better, Dad, believe me. You took us out on Sunday. Emilia wants to repay you. She’s a gourmet cook. Leg of lamb with garlic and rosemary. Potatoes dauphinois.” He put his fingers to his lips and made a kissing sound. “Fantastic.”

  “Well,” said Banks, “I’ve never been one to turn down a gourmet meal, but she doesn’t have to feel obliged.”

  “She likes doing it.”

  “Then I’d better open a nice bottle of wine.”

  Banks walked to the kitchen and opened a bottle of Peter Lehmann Australian Shiraz, which he thought would go well with the lamb. When Emilia came in, she was wearing jeans, with the shirt tucked in at the waist and her long hair tied back in a simple ponytail. She smiled at him, cheeks glowing, and bent to open the oven. The smell was even stronger.

  “Wonderful,” said Banks.

  “It won’t be long now,” said Emilia. “The lamb and potatoes are almost done. I’m just going to make a salad. Pear and blue cheese. That’s okay, isn’t it? Brian said you like blue cheese.”

  “It’s fine,” said Banks. “Sounds delicious, in fact. Thank you.”

 
; Emilia flashed him a shy smile, and he guessed she was a little embarrassed because he’d caught her with her trousers down, so to speak.

  Banks poured a glass of Shiraz, offered one to Emilia, who said she’d wait until later, then went back to sit with Brian, who had now turned off the DVD and was playing the first Mad Hatters CD, which Banks had bought at the HMV on Oxford Street, along with their second and third albums.

  “What do you think of it?” he asked Brian.

  “It must have been quite something in its time,” Brian said. “I like the guitar and keyboards mix they’ve got. That sounds quite original. Really spacey. It’s good. Especially for a debut. Better than I remember. I mean, I haven’t listened to them in years.”

  “Me, neither,” said Banks. “I met Vic Greaves today. At least, I think I did.”

  “Vic Greaves? Jesus, Dad. He’s a legend. What was he like?”

  “Strange. He spoke in non sequiturs. Referred to himself in the third person a lot.” Banks shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone says he took too much LSD.”

  Brian seemed deep in thought for a few moments, then he said, “Acid casualties. Makes it sound like war, doesn’t it? But things like that happened. It’s not as if he was the only one.”

  “I know that,” said Banks, finding himself starting to wonder about Brian. He was living the rock-star life, too, as Vic Greaves had. What did he get up to? How much did he know about drugs?

  “Dinner’s ready!” Emilia called out.

  Banks and Brian got up and went into the kitchen, where Emilia had lit candles and presented the salad beautifully. They talked about Brian’s music and Emilia’s acting ambitions as they ate, a pleasant relief for Banks after his distressing encounter with Vic Greaves. This time, Banks actually got as far as dessert – raspberry brûlée – before the phone rang. Cursing, he excused himself.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Winsome here. Sorry to bother you, Guv, but it’s Jean Murray. You know, from the post office in Lyndgarth. She rang about five minutes ago about Vic Greaves. Said she was out walking her dog and heard all sorts of shenanigans up at the house. Lights going on and off, people shouting and running around and breaking things. I thought I should tell you.”