Entering the cold and drafty hallway, Banks felt as if he were entering one of those creepy mansions from the old Roger Corman films of Poe stories, The Fall of the House of Usher, or something. The long wainscoted hallway had paneled doors opening off each side, and there were obvious spaces on the walls where paintings had once hung. Banks tried some of the doors and found they opened to empty rooms in varied states of disrepair. Bits of ceiling had crumbled, and a veneer of plaster dust lay over everything. Banks kicked clouds of it up as he walked, and it made him cough, made his mouth dry.

At the end of the hall a moth-eaten, dusty old curtain covered French windows. Banks fiddled for the key and opened them. They led out to a broad empty balcony. Banks walked out and leaned against the cool stone of the balustrade to admire the view. Below him lay the empty granite-and-marble swimming pool, its dark bottom clogged with weeds, lichen and rubbish. Lower down the hillside the trees on the banks of the river Swain were red and brown and yellow. Some of the leaves blew off and swirled in the wind as Banks watched. Sheep grazed in the fields of the opposite daleside, dots of white on green among the irregular patterns of drystone walls. The clouds were so low, they grazed the limestone outcrops along the top and shrouded the upper moorland in mist.

Wrapping his arms around himself against the autumn chill, Banks went back inside the building and headed downstairs to the lower level, where he found himself in a cavernous room that he guessed must have been used as the recording studio. So this was where the Mad Hatters had recorded their breakthrough second album during the winter of 1969-1970, and several others over the years. There was no equipment left, of course, but there were still a few strips of wire lying around, along with a broken drumstick, and what looked like a guitar string. Banks strained but could hear no echoes of events or music long past.

He unlocked the doors and walked out to the edge of the swimming pool. There was broken glass on the courtyard and bottles and cans at the bottom of the pool, where it sloped down to the deep end. Banks saw what the estate agent meant, and guessed that local kids must have climbed the wall and had a party. He wondered if they knew the house’s history. Maybe they were celebrating Robin Merchant the way the kids flocked to Jim Morrison’s tomb in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Banks doubted it. He thought he heard a sound behind him, in the abandoned recording studio, and turned in time to see a mouse skitter through the dust.

He tried to imagine the scene on that summer night thirty-five years ago. There would have been music, and probably lights strung up outside, around the pool. Incense. Drugs, of course, and alcohol, too. By the early seventies, booze was coming back in fashion among the younger generation. There would also have been girls, half undressed or more, perhaps, laughing, dancing, making love. And when everyone was sated, Robin Merchant had… well, what had happened? Banks didn’t know yet. Kev Templeton was still in the basement of Western Area Headquarters going through the archives.

A gust of wind rattled the open door and Banks went back inside. There was nothing for him here except ghosts. Lord Jessop was dead of AIDS, poor sod, and Robin Merchant had drowned in the swimming pool. The rest of the Mad Hatters were still very much alive, though, and Vic Greaves was around somewhere. If he would talk. If he could talk. Banks didn’t know exactly what the official diagnosis was, only that everyone claimed he’d taken too much acid and gone over the top. Well, in a short while, with a little skill and a little luck, he would find out.

Wednesday, 17th September, 1969

It was a long time since Chadwick had walked along the Portobello Road. Wartime, in fact, one of the times he had been back on leave between assignments. He was sure the street had been narrower then. And there had been sandbags, blackout curtains, empty shop windows, rubble from bomb damage, the smell of ash, fractured gas lines and sewage pipes. Now the biggest mess was caused by construction on the Westway, an overhead motorway that was almost completed, and most of the smells were exotic spices that took him back to his days in India and Burma.

Chadwick had taken the afternoon train down to King’s Cross, a journey of about five hours. Now it was early evening. The market had closed for the day; the stallholders had packed up their wares and gone to one of the many local pubs. Outside the Duke of Wellington a fire-eater entertained a small crowd. The atmosphere was lively, the people young and colorful in brightly printed fabrics, flared jeans with flowers embroidered on them, or gold lamé caftans. Some of the girls were wearing old-fashioned wide-brimmed hats and long dresses trailing around their ankles. There were quite a few West Indians wandering the street, too, some also in bright clothes, with beards and fuzzy hairdos. Chadwick was sure he could smell marijuana in the air. He was also sure he looked quite out of place in his navy blue suit, although there were one or two business types mingling with the crowds.

According to his map, there were quicker ways of getting to Powis Terrace than from the Notting Hill Underground station, but out of interest he had wanted to wander up and down Portobello Road. He had heard so much about it, from the Notting Hill race riots of over ten years ago to the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman, connected to both the Kray twins and the Profumo affair of 1963. The area had history.

Now the street was full of chic boutiques, hairdressers and antique shops with bright-painted facades. There was even a local fleapit called the Electric Cinema, showing a double bill of Easy Rider and Girl on a Motorcycle. One shop, Alice’s Antiques, sold Edwardian policemen’s capes, and for a moment Chadwick was tempted to buy one. But he knew he wouldn’t wear it; it would just hang at the back of his wardrobe until the moths got at it.

Chadwick turned down Colville Terrace and finally found the street he was looking for. At the end of the block someone had drawn graffiti depicting Che Guevara, and underneath the bearded face and beret were the words LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION in red paint, imitating dripping blood. The terraced houses, once majestic four-story Georgian-style stucco, were now dirty white, with stained and graffiti-covered facades – THE ROAD OF EXCESS LEADS TO THE PALACE OF WISDOM and CRIME IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF SENSUALITY. Rubbish littered the street. Each house had a low black metal railing and gate, which led down murky stone steps to the basement flat. The broad stairs leading up to the front door were flanked by two columns supporting a portico. Most of the doors looked badly in need of a paint job. Chadwick had heard that the houses were all divided into a warren of bedsits.

There were several names listed beside the intercom at the house he wanted. Chadwick had timed his visit for early evening, thinking that might be the best time to find Tania Hutchison at home. The problem was that he didn’t want her to be warned of his visit. If she had had anything to do with Linda’s murder, then there was a chance she would scarper the minute she heard his voice. He needed another way in.

Tania’s flat, he noted, was number eight. He wondered how security-conscious the other tenants were. If drugs were involved, probably very, though if someone was under the influence… He decided to start with the ground floor and after getting no answer went on up the list. Finally he was rewarded by a bad connection with an incomprehensible young man in flat five, who actually buzzed the door open.

The smell of cats’ piss and onions was almost overwhelming; the floor was covered with drab cracked lino and the stair carpet was threadbare. If it had had a pattern once, it was indiscernible from the dull gray background now. The walls were also bare, apart from a few telephone numbers scribbled around the shared pay phone. Out of habit, Chadwick made a note of them.