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 didn’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.”