“When was this?” Banks asked.

“We didn’t have a firm date. He phoned two, maybe three weeks ago and said he’d get in touch with me again soon. He never did.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No. He said he was ringing from a public telephone, and his phone card ran out. What happened? Why would anyone murder Nick Barber?”

That explained why they hadn’t seen Tania’s number on Barber’s mobile or landline phone records, Banks thought. “I think it might be something to do with the story he was working on,” he said.

“The story? But how could it be?”

“I don’t know yet, but we haven’t been able to find any other lines of inquiry.” Banks told her a little about Barber’s movements in Yorkshire, in particular his unsatisfactory meeting with Vic Greaves.

“Poor Vic,” she said. “How is he?”

Banks didn’t know how to answer that. He’d thought Greaves was clearly off his rocker, if not clinically insane, but he seemed to function well enough, with a little help from Chris Adams, and he was certainly high on Banks’s list of suspects. “Same as usual, I suppose,” he said, though he didn’t know what was usual for Vic Greaves.

“Vic was one of the sensitive ones,” Tania said, “much too fragile for the life he led and the risks he took.”

“What do you mean?”

Tania stubbed out her cigarette before answering. “There are people in the business whose minds and bodies can take an awful lot of substance abuse – Iggy Pop and Keith Richards come to mind, for example – and there are those who go on the ride with them and fall off. Vic was one who fell off.”

“Because he was sensitive?”

She nodded. “Some people could eat acid as if it were candy and have nothing but a good time, like watching their favorite cartoons over and over again. Others saw the devil, the jaws of hell or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the horrors beyond the grave. Vic was one of the latter. He had Hammer-horror trips, and the visions unhinged him.”

“So LSD caused his breakdown?”

“It certainly contributed to it. But I’m not saying something wouldn’t have happened anyway. Certainly the emotions and some of the images were in his mind already. Acid merely released them. But maybe he should have kept the cork in the bottle.”

“Why did he keep taking it?”

Tania shrugged. “There’s really no answer to that. Acid certainly isn’t addictive in the way heroin and coke are. Not all his trips were bad. I think maybe he was trying to get through hell to something better. Maybe he thought if he kept on trying, then one day he would find the peace he was looking for.”

“But he didn’t?”

“You’ve seen him yourself. You should know.”

“Who was he riding with?”

“There wasn’t any one particular person. It was meant as a sort of metaphor for the whole scene back then. The doors of perception and all that. Vic was a poet and he loved and wanted all that mystical, decadent glamour. He admired Jim Morrison a lot, even met him at the Isle of Wight.” She smiled to herself. “Apparently, it didn’t go well. The Lizard King was in a bad mood, and he didn’t want to know poor Vic, let alone read his poetry. Told him to fuck off. That hurt.”

“Too bad,” said Banks. “What about the rest of the band’s drug intake?”

“None of them was as sensitive as Vic, and none of them did as much acid.”

“Robin Merchant?”

“Hardly. I’d have put him down as one of the survivors if it hadn’t been for the accident.”

“What about Chris Adams?”

“Chris?” A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “Chris was probably the straightest of the lot. Still is.”

“Why do you think he takes such good care of Vic Greaves? Guilt?”

“Over what?”

“I don’t know,” Banks said. “Responsibility for the breakdown, something like that?”

“No,” Tania said, shaking her head vigorously. “Far from it. Chris was always trying to get Vic off acid, helping him through bad trips.”

“Then why?”

Tania paused. It was quiet outside, and Banks couldn’t even hear any birds singing. “If you ask me,” she said, “I’d say it was because he loved him. Not in any homosexual sense, you understand – Chris isn’t like that, or Vic, for that matter – but as a brother. Don’t forget, they grew up together, knew each other as kids on a working-class estate. They shared dreams. If Chris had had any musical talent, he’d have been in the band, but he was the first to admit he couldn’t even manage the basic three rock chords, and he certainly couldn’t carry even the simplest melody. But he did turn out to have good business sense and vision, and that’s what shaped the band after all the tragedies. It was all very well to tune in, turn on, drop out and say, Whatever, man, but someone had to handle the day-to-day mechanics of making a living, and if someone trustworthy like Chris didn’t do it, you could bet your life that there were any number of unscrupulous bastards waiting in the wings ready to exploit someone else’s talent.”

“Interesting,” said Banks. “So in some ways Chris Adams was the driving force behind the Mad Hatters?”

“He held things together, yes. And he helped us with a new direction when both Robin and Vic were gone.”

“Was it Chris who invited you to join the band?”

Tania twisted a silver ring on her finger. “Yes. It’s no secret. We were going out together at the time. I met him at Brimleigh. I’d seen him a couple of times before, when my friend Linda got me into Mad Hatters events, but we hadn’t really talked like we did at Brimleigh. I had a boyfriend then, a student in Paris, but we soon drifted apart, and Chris was in London a lot. He’d phone me and finally I agreed to have dinner with him.”

“Brimleigh’s something else I want to talk to you about,” said Banks. “If you can cast your mind back that far.”

Tania gave him an enigmatic smile. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind,” she said. “But if you’re going to send me leafing through my back pages, I think we’re going to need some coffee, don’t you?” She dumped the cat unceremoniously on the floor and headed into the kitchen. The animal hissed at Banks and slunk away. Banks was surprised that Tania had no one to make the coffee for her, no housekeeper or butler, but then Tania Hutchison was full of surprises.

While she was gone, he gazed around the room. There was nothing to distinguish it particularly except a few modernist paintings on the walls, originals by the look of them, and an old stone fireplace that would probably make it very cozy on a winter evening. There was no music playing and no evidence of a stereo or CDs. Nor was there a television.

Tania returned shortly with a cafetière, mugs, milk and sugar on a tray, which she set on the low wicker coffee table. “We’ll give it a few minutes, shall we? You do like your coffee strong?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“Excellent.” Tania lit another cigarette and leaned back.

“Can we talk about Brimleigh?”

“Naturally. But as I remember it, the man who killed Linda was caught and put in jail.”

“That’s true,” said Banks. “Where he has since died.”

“Then…?”

“I just want to get a few things clear, that’s all. Did you know the man, Patrick McGarrity?”

“No. I’d met him on a couple of occasions, when I accompanied Linda to her friends’ houses in Leeds, but I never spoke with him. He seemed an odious sort of character to me. Pacing around with that silly smile on his face, as if he was enjoying some sort of private joke at everyone else’s expense. Gave me the creeps. I suppose they only put up with him because of the drugs.”

“You knew about that?”

“That he was a dealer? It was pretty obvious. But he could only have been small-time. Even most dealers had more class than him, and they didn’t smell as bad.”

“Did you see him at Brimleigh?”

“No, but we were backstage.”

“All the time?”

“Unless we went out front to the press enclosure to see the bands, and, of course, when Linda took her walk in the woods. But we were never with the general audience, no.”