“Never heard of it,” said Chadwick with a smile.

Merchant gave him a sharp, penetrating glance. “As I said, I didn’t think you would have done.”

“Did you stay until the end?”

“Yeah. Jesse said we could stay here for the night, so we didn’t have too far to go.”

“Jesse?”

“Sorry. Lord Jessop. Everyone calls him Jesse.”

“I see. Is he here now?”

“No, he’s in France. Spends quite a bit of his time there, down in Antibes. We saw him last month when we did a tour there.”

“In France?”

“Yeah. The album’s selling really well there.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“Was Lord Jessop at Brimleigh?”

“Sure. He went down to Antibes maybe last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

All of a sudden a loud, violent buzzing noise cut like a chain saw through Chadwick’s head.

“Sorry.” A sheepish Reg Cooper, lead guitarist, apologized. “Feedback.” He put his guitar down carefully. The noise ebbed slowly away.

“Boring you, am I, laddie?” said Chadwick.

“No,” Cooper muttered. “Not at all. I said I was sorry. Accident.”

Chadwick held Cooper’s gaze for a moment, then turned his attention back to Robin Merchant. “Let’s get back to the eighth of September,” he said. “We think the girl was killed between about one o’clock and twenty past one in the morning, while Led Zeppelin were playing a song called ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby.’” Such language came only with difficulty from Chadwick’s mouth, and he noticed some of the others smirk as he spoke the words. “I understand that they’re very loud,” he went on, ignoring them, “so it’s unlikely anybody heard anything, if there was anything to hear, but were any of you in Brimleigh Woods at that time?”

“The woods?” said Merchant. “No, we didn’t go there at all. We were backstage, up front in the press enclosure, or in the caravan.”

“All of you? All the time?” Chadwick scanned the others’ faces.

They all nodded.

“‘If you go down to the woods today…’” Vic Greaves intoned in the background.

“Why would we go to the woods, man?” said Adrian Pritchard. “All the action was backstage.”

“What action?”

“You know, man… the birds… the…”

“Shut up, Adrian,” said Merchant. He turned back to Chadwick and folded his arms. “Look, I know what preconceptions you coppers have of us, but we’re clean. You can search the place if you like. Go on.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Chadwick. “You knew we were coming. But I’m not interested in drugs. Not at the moment, anyway. I’m more interested in what you were doing when this girl died, and in whether any of you saw her or talked to her.”

“Well, I told you,” said Merchant. “We never went near the woods, and how do we know if we saw her or not when none of us knows her name or what she looked like.”

“You didn’t see the papers?”

“We never bother with them. Full of establishment lies.”

“Anyway,” Chadwick said, reaching for his briefcase. “I was getting to that. As it happens I now have a fairly recent photograph. It should interest you.” He took out the photograph of Linda with the members of the Mad Hatters and passed it to Merchant, who gasped and stared, openmouthed. “Is that… Vic?” He passed it to Vic Greaves, who still lay sprawled on a sofa smoking and looking, to Chadwick, quite out of it. Greaves stirred and took the photo. “Fuck,” he said. “Fucking hell.” And the photo slipped out his hands.

Chadwick went over and picked it up, standing over Greaves. “Who is it?” he asked. “You know her?”

“Sort of,” said Greaves. “Look, I don’t feel too good, Rob. My head, it’s… like snakes and things coming back, you know, man… like I need…” He turned away.

Merchant stepped forward. “Vic’s not too well,” he said. “The doctor says he’s suffering from fatigue, and his emotional state is pretty fragile right now. This must be a hell of a shock for him.”

“Why?” asked Chadwick, sitting down again.

He gestured toward the photo. “That girl. It’s Linda. Linda Lofthouse. She’s Vic’s cousin.”

Cousin. Mrs. Lofthouse had never mentioned that. But why should she? He hadn’t asked her about the Mad Hatters, and she had probably been in shock. Still, this was a new development worth following. Chadwick looked at Vic Greaves with more interest. By far the scruffiest of the bunch, he looked as if he hadn’t shaved in four or five days and his skin was deathly pale, as if he never saw the sun, his face dotted with angry red spots. His dark hair stuck out in tufts as if he had slept on it and not washed or combed it for a week. His clothes looked rumpled, slept-in, too. There was a well-thumbed paperback on the sofa beside him called Meetings with Remarkable Men.

“Were they particularly close?” Chadwick asked Robin Merchant.

“No, not really, I don’t think. I mean, you know, just cousins. She grew up in Leeds, and Vic’s family lived in Rochdale.”

“But we understand she lived in London,” Chadwick said. “Isn’t that where you all live now?”

“It’s a big place.”

Chadwick took a deep breath. “Mr. Merchant,” he said, “I appreciate that you lads are busy, not to mention famous, and no doubt wealthy. But a young girl has been brutally murdered at a festival in which you were taking part. She was seen backstage talking to two of you, and now it appears that one of you is also her cousin. Is there any particular reason Mr. Greaves over there is suffering from fatigue, that his emotional state is distressed? That’s exactly the kind of thing that killing someone might do to you.”

A stunned silence followed Chadwick’s controlled tirade. Greaves tossed on the sofa and his book fell to the floor. He put his head in his hands and groaned. “Talk to him, Rob, talk to him,” he said. “You tell him. I can’t handle this.”

“Look,” said Merchant. “Why don’t we take a walk outside, Inspector. I’ll answer all your questions as best I can. But can’t you see it’s upsetting Vic?”

Upsetting Vic Greaves was not Chadwick’s main concern, but he thought he might be able to get a bit more information out of Robin Merchant, who seemed the most levelheaded of the lot, if he did as requested. He gestured to Enderby to stay with the others and accompanied Merchant out to the flagged patio down the slope toward the swimming pool.

“Ever use it?” Chadwick asked.

“Sometimes,” Merchant answered with a smile. “For midnight orgies on the two days in August when it’s warm enough. Jesse tries to keep it cleaned up, but it’s difficult.”

“Lord Jessop isn’t a relation, too, is he?”

“Jesse? Good Lord, no. He’s a patron of the arts. A friend.”

They stood by the side of the pool looking out across the dale. Chadwick could see a red tractor making its way across one of the opposite fields toward a tiny farmhouse. The hillside was dotted with sheep. He glanced down at the swimming pool. A few early autumn leaves floated on the water’s scummy surface, along with a dead sparrow.

“All right, Mr. Merchant,” said Chadwick. “Am I to take it you’re the leader of the group?”

“Spokesman. We don’t believe in leaders.”

“Very well. Spokesman. That means you can speak for the others?”

“To some extent. Yes. It’s not that they can’t speak for themselves. But Vic, as you can see, is not exactly a social charmer, though he’s a great creative force. Adrian and Reg are okay but they’re not especially articulate, and Terry is way too hip to talk to the fuzz.”

“You sound educated.”

“I’ve got a degree, if that’s what you mean. English literature.”

“I’m impressed.”

“You’re not meant to be. It’s just a piece of paper.” Merchant kicked a couple of loose pebbles with his foot. They plopped into the swimming pool. “Can we get this over with? I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but we do have a tour to rehearse for. Contrary to what a lot of people think, rock bands aren’t just a random collection of layabouts with minimal musical ability and loud amplifiers. We take our music seriously, and we work hard at it.”