“It had better be,” Chadwick said. “Pity you had to flush everything you had down the toilet when that’s not what I came about.”

It only lasted a moment, but Chadwick noticed the look of annoyance that flashed across Nokes’s features before the practiced shrug. “I’ve got nothing to hide from the fuzz.”

“While we’re talking,” said Chadwick, “let’s agree on a few ground rules. It’s not fuzz, or pigs, it’s DI Chadwick and DS Enderby. Okay?”

“Whatever you want,” Nokes agreed, lighting the cigarette.

“Right. I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way. Now let’s get to the real subject of our visit: Linda Lofthouse.”

“Linda?”

“Yes. I assume you’ve heard the news?”

“Bummer, man,” said Nokes. “I was trying to write a song for her when you guys arrived. It’s okay, I mean, I’m not blaming you for interrupting me or anything. It wasn’t going very well.”

“Sorry to hear that,” said Chadwick. “I don’t suppose you thought for a moment to come forward with information?”

“Why, man? I haven’t seen Linda in a while.”

“When was the last time?”

“Summer. July, I think. Same time Rick was up.”

“Rick?”

“Rick Hayes, man. He put on the festival.”

“Was he with Linda Lofthouse in July?”

“Not with her, just here at the same time.”

“Did they know one another well?”

“They’d met, I think. Linda’s cousin’s Vic Greaves, you know, the keyboard player in the Mad Hatters, and Rick promoted some of their gigs in London.”

“Were they going out together?”

“No way, man.” Nokes laughed. “Linda and Rick? You must be joking. She was way out of his league.”

“I thought he made plenty of money from the concerts.”

“It’s not about money, man. Is that all you people ever think of?”

“So what was it about?”

“It was a spiritual thing. Linda was an old soul. Spiritually she was lifetimes ahead of Rick.”

“I see,” said Chadwick. “But they were here at the same time?”

“Yes. That time. Linda crashed here but Rick was staying in some hotel in town. Didn’t stop him trying to pick up some bird to take back with him, but he ended up going alone.”

“Why was he here?”

“I used to know him a few years ago, when I lived in London. We’re sort of old mates, I suppose. Anyway, he’d come up to check out something at Brimleigh Glen for the festival, so he dropped by to see me.”

Chadwick filed all that information away for his next talk with Rick Hayes, who was proving to be even more of a liar than he had at first appeared to be. “You say Linda hasn’t been here since July?”

“That’s right.”

“Have you seen her since then?”

“No.”

“Were you at Brimleigh?”

“Of course. Rick scored us some free tickets.”

“Did you see her there?”

“No.”

“Where were you between one and one-twenty on Sunday night?”

“How do you expect me to remember that?”

“Led Zeppelin had just started, if that refreshes your memory.”

“Yeah, right. I sat through the whole set in the same place. We were in the middle, quite near the front. We got there early on Friday and staked out a good space.”

“Who was with you?”

Nokes nodded toward the front room. “Julie there, and the others from the house. There were five of us in all.”

“I’ll need names.”

“Sure. There was me, Julie, Martin, Rob and Cathy.”

“Full names, please, sir,” DS Enderby interrupted. Nokes gave him a pitying look and told him.

“Are any of the others at home now?” Chadwick asked.

“Only Julie.”

“We’ll send someone over later to take statements. Now about Linda. Did she stay here around the time of the festival?”

“No. She knows she’s welcome here anytime she wants, man. She doesn’t have to ask, just turn up. But I don’t know where she was staying. Maybe in a tent or out on the field or something. Maybe she was with someone. Maybe they had a car. I don’t know, man. All I know is this is freaking me out.”

“Stay calm, Mr. Nokes. Try a few deep breaths. I hear it works wonders.”

Nokes glared at him. “You’re taking the piss.”

“Not at all.”

“This is very upsetting.”

“What? That Linda was murdered or that you’re being questioned?”

Nokes ran the end of his index finger over some grains of salt on the tablecloth. “All of it, man. It’s just so heavy. You’re laying a real trip on us, and you’re way off course. We’re into making love, not killing.”

His whiny voice was starting to grate on Chadwick. “Tell me about Linda.”

“What about her?”

“When did you first meet?”

“Couple of years ago. Not long after I moved here, May, June 1967, around then.”

“And you came up from London?”

“Yeah. I was living down there until early ’67. I’d seen the sort of stuff that was happening, and thought I could make some of it happen up here. Those were really exciting times – great music, poetry readings, light shows, happenings. Revolution was in the air, man.”

“Back to Linda. How did you meet?”

“In town, in a record shop. We were both looking through the folk section, and we just got talking. She was so alone. I mean, she was changing, but she didn’t know it, trying to find herself, didn’t know how to go about it. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Know what I mean?”

“So you helped her to find herself?”

“I invited her around here from time to time. I gave her a few books – Leary, Gurdjieff, Alan Watts. Played music for her. We talked a lot.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No way. She was six months pregnant.”

“Drugs.”

“Of course not.”

“How long did she stay here?”

“Not very long. After she’d had the baby she came here for a while, maybe a month or two the winter of ’67, then she went to London early in ’68. After that she’d crash here when she was up visiting.”

“What did she do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Work? Earn a living? Did she have a job?”

“Oh, that shit. Well, she didn’t when I first met her, of course. She was still living with her parents. Then the baby… Anyway, she made really beautiful jewelry, but I don’t think she got much money for it. Gave most of it away. Clothes, too. She could fix anything, and make a shirt from any old scraps of material. She was into fashion, too, did some of her own designs.”

“So how did she make money?”

“She worked in a shop. Biba. It’s pretty well known. They just moved to Kensington High Street. Do a lot of ’30s nostalgia stuff. You know the sort of thing: all floppy hats, ostrich feathers and long satin dresses in plum and pink.”

“Do you happen to know her address in London?”

Nokes gave him an address in Notting Hill.

“Did she live alone or share?”

“Alone. But she had a good friend living in the same house, across the hall. Came up here with Linda once or twice. American girl. Her name’s Tania Hutchison.”

“What does she look like?”

“Like a dream. I mean, she’s like a negative image of Linda, man, but just as beautiful in her own way. She’s got long dark hair, really long, you know. And she has a dark complexion, like she’s half Mexican or something. And white teeth. But all Americans have white teeth, don’t they?”

It sounded like the girl Robin Merchant had described. So what, if anything, did this Tania Hutchison have to do with Linda Lofthouse’s murder?

There was nothing more to be got from Dennis Nokes, so Chadwick gave Enderby the signal to wrap up the interview. He would send someone to talk to the others later. He didn’t really think that Nokes and his pals had had anything to do with Linda Lofthouse’s murder, but now he at least knew where she had been living, and this Tania woman might be able to tell him something about Linda’s recent life. And death.

Before heading to interview Vic Greaves the following day, Banks first called at Swainsview Lodge out of curiosity, to soak up the atmosphere. He got the keys from the estate agent, who told him they had kept the place locked up tight since there had been reports from local farmers of someone breaking in. She thought it was probably just kids, but the last thing they needed, she said, was squatters or travelers taking occupation of the place.