Linda also had a small record player, and beside it stood a stack of LPs similar to those Yvonne had. There was nothing really personal in the room, at least not that Chadwick could find. One drawer held a couple of letters from her mother and some old photographs taken with her father. There were no diaries or notebooks – whatever she had been carrying with her at Brimleigh had disappeared – and very little else apart from her birth certificate and post office book showing that she had £123 13s 5d in her account, which seemed rather a lot to Chadwick. She had also set up a sewing machine at a makeshift table, and there were a few bolts of printed fabric lying around. In her small wardrobe hung many long dresses and skirts of bright print fabrics and other materials.

He searched under the drawers and tried the cupboards and wardrobe for false bottoms but found nowhere that might have provided a good hiding place for drugs. If Tania knew this was what he was doing, she didn’t say anything. She just leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded.

As far as food was concerned, the pickings were slim. Linda had no oven, only a gas burner beside the little sink, and the contents of her cupboard consisted of brown rice, chickpeas, muesli, tahini, mung beans and various herbs and spices. There was no refrigerator, either, and no sign of meat, vegetables or dairy products, except for a bottle of sterilized milk on the table. Frugal living indeed.

Frustrated, Chadwick stood by the door and gave one last look around. Still nothing.

“What will happen to it now?” Tania asked.

“I suppose it’ll be relet eventually,” he said. “For the moment I’ll get the local police to come in and seal it off until we’ve done a thorough search. What do you know about Rick Hayes?”

Tania locked Linda’s door and led Chadwick back to her room, where they resumed their previous positions.

“Rick Hayes, the promoter?”

“That’s the one.”

“Nothing much. I chatted with him a couple of times. He’s a bit of a creep. If you must know, he tried to pick me up, suggested we go to his caravan.”

“And?”

“I told him to get lost.”

“How did he react?”

“He laughed and said he liked a girl who spoke her mind. Look, Hayes is one of those men who asks every girl he meets to sleep with him. He thinks the odds are pretty good. If nine out of ten tell him what they think of him, or slap his face, there’s always the tenth who might say yes.”

“He knew Linda, is that right?”

“They’d met before, yes. Once we went backstage at a Mad Hatters concert at the Roundhouse and Rick was there. He’s harmless enough, really. To be honest, he’s far too taken with himself to really give much thought to anyone else.”

“But if someone he wanted turned him down, do you think he could get violent?”

Tania gave him a sharp look. “I… I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never really thought about it. He’s got a bit of a temper. I saw him laying into one of the security guards, but that was just… I don’t know, some sort of a power trip, I thought. You’re not suggesting he might have killed Linda because she wouldn’t let him fuck her?”

If the word was meant to shock Chadwick, it did. He wasn’t used to such language coming from the mouths of such lovely young women. He was damned if he was going to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, though. “Did you see him leave the enclosure during the time you were there?”

“No. Mostly he was coordinating with the performers and roadies, making sure the equipment got set up right and everything went smoothly. There were a few problems with the PA system and so on that he also had to deal with. And he acted as MC, introducing the bands. He was really pretty busy all the time. I don’t think he’d have had a chance to slip away even if he’d wanted to.”

“So he was always in sight?”

“Pretty much. Not always, but most of the time you’d see him out the corner of your eye here and there, running around. There was always somebody wanting him for something.”

“Where was he while Linda was in the woods?”

“I don’t know. Like I told you, I went round to the front to get a good view.”

“Was he there?”

“No. He introduced the band, then he left the stage.”

“Did you see him after that?”

“Come to think of it, no. But I don’t believe it. I don’t believe he could have had anything to do with what happened.”

“Probably not,” said Chadwick, standing to leave. “It just pays to cover all the angles, that’s all.” He lingered at the door. “Before I leave, tell me how Linda was behaving these past few weeks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”

“No.”

“Was she upset, depressed or worried about anything?”

“No, she was her usual self. She was saving up to go to India. She was really excited about that.”

Chadwick, who had spent time in India before seeing action in Burma during the war, didn’t understand what there was to get excited about. As far as he was concerned, the place was filthy, hot and unsanitary. Still, it explained the reason for the £123 13s 5d in her post office account. “Is that all?”

“As far as I know.”

“Had she fought or argued with anyone recently?”

“Not that I know. I doubt it, anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

“Linda didn’t like scenes or arguments. She was a peaceful person, easygoing.”

“Did anyone threaten her in any way?”

“Good Lord, no.”

“Was anybody bothering her?”

“No. The only thing that was at all upsetting her was Vic Greaves. They weren’t close or anything, but they were family, and on the two or three occasions we saw the Mad Hatters, he seemed to be getting worse. She thought he ought to be getting treatment, but whenever she mentioned it to Chris, he just said shrinks were government brainwashers and mental hospitals were prisons for the true visionaries. I suppose he had a point.”

“Did either you or Linda try to do anything about Greaves?”

“What do you mean?”

“Persuade him to get treatment.”

“Linda did once, but he refused point-blank.”

“Did you try to change Chris Adams’s mind?”

“It wasn’t his decision,” Tania said. “Look, nobody was going to be party to getting Vic Greaves certified. Simple as that.”

“I see,” said Chadwick. The decision didn’t surprise him after the time he had spent with the Mad Hatters. He would be talking to them again soon anyway. He opened the door and went into the hall. “Many thanks, Miss Hutchison.”

“No problem.”

“I must say you seem to be one of the most sensible people I’ve talked to since all this began.”

Tania gave him an enigmatic smile. “Don’t count on it,” she said. “Appearances can be deceptive.”

Thursday, 18th September, 1969

Perhaps it was the spices he had smelled in Portobello Road that sparked it – they say smell is closest to memory – or maybe it was even going to see The Battle of Britain after his visit to Tania Hutchison that brought it all back, but Chadwick awoke in his hotel bed at 3:00 a.m. in a cold sweat. He couldn’t say that it was a dream, because it had actually happened, but he had buried it so deeply in his subconscious that when it rose up, as it did from time to time, it did so in a jumble of images so vivid they were almost surreal.

Buried under two bodies, mouth and nose full of sand on Gold Beach, the air all smoke and fire, bullets cracking and thudding into the sand nearby, blood seeping through his uniform, the man on top of him whimpering as he died, crying for his mother. Charging the bunkers with Taffy in Burma. Taffy wounded, his guts poking out, stumbling forward into the gunfire, diving into the bunker of Japanese soldiers, knowing he was going to die and pulling the pin on his hand grenade. Bits of people raining down on Chadwick: an eyeball, pieces of brain, blood and tissue.