“I understand there’s a problem,” he said, “but it won’t be solved by killing off tourists.”

“Do you think that’s what happened?”

“I don’t know what happened,” said Banks.

Kelly came back with the tea, and after she had handed it to her father she lingered by the door again, biting her fingernail.

“Nobody around here would have murdered that lad, you can take it from me,” said Soames.

“How do you know?”

“Because most know you’re right. CC benefits from the holidaymakers, and so do most of the others. Oh, people talk a tough game, that’s Dalesmen for you. We’ve got our pride, if nowt else. But nobody’d go so far as to kill a bloke who’s minding his own business and not doing anyone any harm.”

“Is that your impression of Nick Barber?”

“I didn’t see much of him, like I said, but from what I did see he seemed like a harmless lad. Not mouthy, or full of himself, like some of them. And we didn’t even murder them.”

“When you came home on Friday to check on the gas ring, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

“No,” said Soames. “There were one or two cars on the road – this was before the power cut, remember – but not a lot. It was a nasty evening even by then, and most folks, given the choice, were stopping indoors.”

“Did you see anyone near the cottage where Nick Barber was staying?”

“No, but I live the other way, so I wouldn’t have.”

“What about you, Kelly?” Banks asked.

“I was in the pub all the time, working,” said Kelly. “I never left the place. You can ask CC.”

“But what did you think about Nick Barber?”

This was clearly dangerous ground, and Kelly seemed to become even more nervous. She wouldn’t look him in the eye. But Banks wasn’t worried about her. She didn’t know how far he was going to go, but without giving Kelly’s secret away, he wanted to keep his eyes on Calvin to see if there was any hint that he had known what was going on between his nubile daughter and Nick Barber.

“Don’t know, really,” said Kelly. “He seemed a pleasant enough lad, like Dad says. He never really said much.” She examined her fingernails.

“So neither of you knew why he was here?”

“Holiday, I suppose,” said Calvin. “Though why anyone would want to come up here at this time of year is beyond me.”

“Would it surprise you to hear that he was a writer of some sort?”

“Can’t say as I ever really thought about it,” said Calvin.

“I think he was mostly just looking for a secluded place to work,” said Banks, “but there might also be another reason why he was up here rather than, say, in Cornwall or Norfolk, for example.” Banks noticed Kelly tense up. “I don’t know if he was writing fiction or history, but it’s possible that, either way, he might have been doing some research, and there might have been someone he wanted to see, someone he’d been looking for with some connection to the area, maybe to the past. Any ideas who that might be?”

Calvin shook his head, and Kelly followed suit. Banks studied them. He thought himself a reasonable judge, and he was satisfied from the reactions and body language he had seen that Calvin Soames did not know about his daughter shagging Nick Barber, which gave him no real motive for the murder. No more than anyone else, anyway. Whether Kelly had a motive, he didn’t know. True, she had been working at the time of the murder, but she admitted to seeing Barber in the afternoon, and if the doctor was at all wrong about the time of death, he could have been dead when she left him. But why? They’d only known one another a few days, according to Annie, and they’d both had a bit of fun without any expectation of a future.

It would be good to keep an open mind, as ever, Banks thought, but for now his thoughts moved toward London and what they might find out from Nick’s flat.

Monday, 15th September, 1969

One thing that disappointed Chadwick as he riffled through the stack of Brimleigh Festival photographs on Monday morning was that they had all, except for a few obviously posed ones, been taken in daylight. He should have expected that. Flash doesn’t carry a great distance, and it would have been useless for shots of the crowd at night, or of the bands performing.

One photographer did seem to have got backstage, though; at least several of his photographs were taken there, candids. Linda Lofthouse showed up in three of them; the flowing white dress with the delicate embroidery was easy to spot. In one she was standing, chatting casually with a mixed group of long-haired people, in another she was with two men he didn’t recognize, and in the third she was sitting alone, staring into the distance. It was an exquisite photograph, head and shoulders in profile, perhaps taken with a telephoto lens. She looked beautiful and fragile, and there was no flower painted on her cheek.

“Someone to see you downstairs, sir,” said Karen, popping her head around his door and breaking the spell.

“Who?” Chadwick asked.

“Young couple. They just asked to see the man in charge of the Brimleigh Festival murder.”

“Did they, indeed? Better have them sent up.”

Chadwick glanced out of his window as he waited, sipping his tepid coffee. He was high up at the back and looked out over British Insulated Callender’s Cables Ltd. up Westgate toward the majestic dome of the town hall, blackened like the other buildings by a century of industry. A steady flow of traffic headed west toward the Inner Ring Road.

Finally, there was a knock at his door and Karen showed in the young couple. They looked a bit sheepish, the way most people would in the inner sanctum of police headquarters. Chadwick introduced himself and asked them to sit down. Both were in their early twenties, the young man with neatly cut short hair and a dark suit, and the girl in a white blouse and a black miniskirt, blond hair pulled back and tied behind her neck with a red ribbon. Dressed for work. They introduced themselves as Ian Tilbrook and June Betts.

“You said it was about the Brimleigh Festival murder,” Chadwick began.

Ian Tilbrook’s eyes looked anywhere but at Chadwick, and June fidgeted with her handbag on her lap. But it was she who spoke first. “Yes,” she said, giving Tilbrook a sideways glance. “I know we should have come forward sooner,” she said, “but we were there.”

“At the festival?”

“Yes.”

“So were thousands of others. Did you see something?”

“No, it’s not that,” June went on. She glanced at Tilbrook again, who was staring out of the window, took a deep breath and went on. “Someone stole our sleeping bag.”

“I see,” said Chadwick, suddenly interested.

“Well, the newspapers said to report anything odd, and it was odd, wasn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you come forward earlier?”

June looked at Tilbrook again. “He didn’t want to get involved,” she said. “He’s up for promotion at the Copper Works, and he thinks it’ll spoil his chances if they find out he’s been going to pop festivals. They’ll think he’s a drug-taking hippie. And a murder suspect.”

“That’s not fair!” said Tilbrook. “I said it was probably nothing, it was just a sleeping bag, but you kept going on about it.” He looked at his watch. “And now I’m going to be late for work.”

“Never mind about that, laddie,” said Chadwick. “Just tell me about it.”

Tilbrook sulked, but June took up the story again. “Well, the papers said she was found in a blue Woolworth’s sleeping bag and ours was blue and from Woolworth’s. I just thought… you know.”

“Can you identify it?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. They’re all the same, aren’t they?”

“I suppose you both… er… it was big enough for the two of you… you spent some time in it over the weekend?”

June blushed. “Yes.”

“There’ll be evidence we can match. You’ll still have to look at it.”