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“The owners have a web site, but don’t ask me owt about that. I only see to the cleaning and general maintenance.”
“I understand,” said Banks. “Any idea where Nick came from?”
“No. He didn’t have any sort of foreign accent, but he wasn’t from around here. Down south, I’d say.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about him?”
“I only ever saw him the once,” Mrs. Ta
“How old would you say he was?”
“Not old. Mid-thirties, maybe. I’m not very good at ages.”
Car headlights shone through the window and soon the small house was filled with SOCOs. Peter Darby, the photographer, and Dr. Glende
“Anything you can tell us, Doc?” Banks asked after a few minutes.
Dr. Glende
“Sorry,” said Banks. He peered at the corpse. “Anyway, he spoiled my Friday evening, too, so anything you can tell me would help.”
“Well, for a start, he’s dead. You can write that down in your little notebook.”
“I suspected as much,” said Banks.
“And don’t be so bloody sarcastic. You realize I was supposed to be at the Lord Mayor’s banquet by now drinking Country Manor and munching vol-au-vent?”
“Sounds bad for your health,” Banks said. “You’re better off here.”
Glende
“Time of death?”
“Not more than two or three hours. Rigor hasn’t started yet.”
Banks looked at his watch. Five past nine. Mrs. Ta
“Almost certainly not,” said Glende
“Some hope,” said Banks, seeing yet another weekend slip away. Why couldn’t murderers commit their crimes on Mondays? It wasn’t only the prospect of working all weekend that made Friday murders such a pain in the arse, but that people tended to make themselves scarce. Offices closed, workers visited relatives, everything slowed down. And the first forty-eight hours were crucial in any investigation. “Anyway,” he said, “the poker was close to hand, which probably means that whoever did it didn’t come prepared to kill. Or wanted to make it look that way.”
“I’ll leave the speculation to you. As far as I’m concerned, he belongs to the coroner now. You can remove the body whenever Cartier-Bresson here has finished.”
Banks smiled. He noticed Peter Darby stick his tongue out at Glende
By now it was impossible to ignore the activity in the rest of the house, which was swarming with SOCOs. Thick cables snaked through the conservatory, attached to bright lights which cast shadows of men in protective clothing on the walls. The place resembled a film set. Feeling very much in the way, Banks edged out toward the conservatory. The wind was still raging, and at times it felt strong enough to blow away the whole frail structure. It didn’t help that they had to leave the door open to let the cables in.
Detective Sergeant Stefan Nowak, the crime scene coordinator, arrived next, and after a brief hello to Banks and A
There are people who will stand for hours watching others work, Banks had noticed. You see them at building sites, eyes against the knotholes in the high wooden fences as the mechanical diggers claw at the earth and men in hard hats yell orders over the din. Or standing in the street looking up as someone on scaffolding sandblasts the front of an old building. Banks wasn’t one of them. That kind of thing was a perverse form of voyeurism as far as he was concerned. Besides, there was nothing much more he could do at the house now until the team had finished, and his thoughts moved pleasantly to the candlelit pub not more than thirty yards away. The people in there would have to be interviewed. Someone might have seen or heard something. One of them might even have done it. Best talk to them now, while they were still in there and their memories were fresh. He told Winsome and Templeton to stay with Stefan and the SOCOs and to come and get him if anything important came up, then he called out to A
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, 8th September, 1969
When Chadwick was satisfied that things were ru
Close up, Hayes looked older than Chadwick would have expected. Perhaps it was the stress of the weekend, but he had lines around his eyes and his jaw was tense. Chadwick put him in his late thirties, but with the hairstyle and the clothes, he could probably pass for ten years younger. He had about three or four days’ stubble on his face, his fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and the first two fingers of his left hand were stained yellow with nicotine.
“Mr. Hayes,” Chadwick began. “Maybe you can help me. I need some background here. How many people attended the festival?”
“About twenty-five thousand.”
“Quite a lot.”
“Not really. There were a hundred and fifty thousand at the Isle of Wight the weekend before. Mind you, they had Dylan and the Who. And we had competition. Crosby, Stills and Nash and Jefferson Airplane were playing in Hyde Park on Saturday.”
“And you had?”
“Biggest draws? Pink Floyd. Led Zeppelin.”
Chadwick, who had never heard of either, dutifully made a note of the names after checking the spelling with Hayes. “Who else?”
“A couple of local groups. Jan Dukes de Grey. The Mad Hatters. The Hatters especially have been getting really big these past few months. Their first LP is already in the charts.”
“What do you mean, local?” Chadwick asked, making a note of the names.