Piece of My Heart by Peter Robinson

Author:Peter Robinson [Robinson, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2009-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

“Kev. What have you dug up?” Annie Cabbot asked, when a dusty and clearly disgruntled DS Templeton trudged over to her desk and flopped down on the visitor’s chair early that afternoon.

Templeton sighed. “We ought to do something about that basement,” he said. “It’s a bloody health hazard.” He brushed some dust off his sixty-quid Topman distressed jeans and plonked a collection of files on the desk. “It’s all here, ma’am,” he said. “What there is of it, anyway.”

“Kev, I’ve told you before not to call me ma’am. I know that Superintendent Gervaise insists on it, but that’s her prerogative. A simple ‘Guv’ will suffice, if you must.”

“Right, Guv.”

“Give me a quick rundown.”

“Top and bottom of it is,” said Templeton, “that there was no full investigation, as such. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death, and that was the end of it.”

“No reservations?”

“Not so far as I can tell, Guv.”

“Who was in the house at the time?”

“It’s all in that file, there.” Templeton tapped a thick buff folder. “For what it’s worth. Statements and everything. Basically, there were the band members, their manager, Lord Jessop, and various assorted girlfriends, groupies and hangers-on. They’re all named on the list, and they were all questioned.”

Annie scanned the list quickly and put it aside. No one she hadn’t expected, though most of the names meant nothing to her.

“It happened after a private party to celebrate the success of their second album, which was called–get this–He Whose Face Gives No Light Shall Never Become a Star.”

“That’s Blake,” Annie said. “William Blake. My dad used to quote him all the time.”

“Sounds like a right load of bollocks to me,” Templeton said. “Anyway, the album was recorded at Swainsview Lodge over the winter of 1969–1970. Lord Jessop had let them convert an old banquet room he didn’t use, first into a rehearsal space and then into a private recording studio. Quite a lot of bands used it over the next few years.”

“So what happened on the night of the party?”

“Everybody swore Merchant was fine when things wound up around two or three o’clock, but the next morning the gardener found him floating on his back, naked in the pool. The post-mortem found a drug called Mandrax in his system.”

“What’s that?”

“Search me. Some kind of tranquilizer?”

“Was there enough to kill him?”

“Not according to the pathologist. But he’d been drinking, too, and that enhances the effects, and the dangers. Probably been smoking dope and dropping acid, as well, but they didn’t have toxicology tests for them back then.”

“So what was the cause of death?”

“offcially, he slipped on the side of the swimming pool, fell in the shallow end, smashed his head on the bottom and drowned. The Mandrax might have slowed down his reactions. There was water in his lungs.”

“What about the blow to the head? Any way it could have been blunt-object trauma?”

“Showed impact with a large flat area rather than a blunt object.”

“Like the bottom of a swimming pool?”

“Exactly, Guv.”

“What did the party guests say?”

“What you’d expect.

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