didn’t have a particularly bad reputation, which was good news. God only knew what Yvonne saw in the dump.
Dr. O’Neill–whose full post-mortem report had yielded nothing to dispute the cause of death–had estimated the victim’s age at between seventeen and twenty-one, so it was conceivable that she had left home and was living by herself at the time of her murder. In which case, what about her friends, boyfriends, colleagues at work? Either they didn’t know what had happened, or they hadn’t missed her yet. Did she even have a job? Hippies didn’t like work, Chadwick knew that. Perhaps she was a student, or on holiday. One interesting point that Dr. O’Neill had included in his report was that there was a parturition scar on the pelvic bone, which meant that she had given birth to a baby.
DC Bradley had viewed all the television footage of the festival and spoken with newspaper reporters who had attended the event. He had learned precisely nothing. The victim was nowhere to be seen on the film, which more often than not panned over a sea of young, idealistic faces, and cut back and forth from the gymnastic displays of the bands on stage to close-shot interviews with individual musicians and revellers. Perhaps it might all be of some use in the future, when they had a suspect or needed to pick someone out of the crowd, but for the moment it was useless.
Bradley had also contacted the festival’s press officer, Mick Lawton, and made a start phoning the photographers. Most were cooperative, had no objection to the police looking at their photographs and would be happy to send prints. After all, they had been taken for public consumption in the first place. What a difference it was from asking reporters to name sources.
The experts were still combing the area where the victim had been killed and the spot she had been moved to, collecting all the trace evidence for later analysis. If nothing else, it might provide useful forensic evidence in a trial. The lab had already reported back on the painted cornflower on the victim’s cheek, informing Chadwick that it was simple grease-paint, available in any number of outlets. The flower was still one small detail the police had not yet made public.
When it came to questioning the stars themselves, Enderby’s original doubts proved to be remarkably prophetic. It got done, mostly, but in a perfunctory and unsatisfactory way, as far as Chadwick was concerned, usually by the local forces, who had only minimal briefing in the case. There was more than one provincial DI just dying to have a crack at his local rock star, to bring in the dogs and the drugs search team, despite the fiasco of the Rolling Stones bust a couple of years ago, but asking a few questions about a poxy festival up north hardly excited anyone’s interest. These long-haired idiots might be stoned and anarchic, the thinking mostly went, but they’re hardly likely to be bloody murderers, are they?
Chadwick preferred to keep an open mind on the subject. He thought of the murders in Los Angeles, a story he had been following in the newspapers and on television, just like everyone else. According to the reports, someone had broken into a house in Benedict Canyon, cut the telephone wires and murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate, who had been eight and a half months pregnant at the time she was stabbed to death. Later that night, another house had been broken into and a wealthy couple had been killed in a similar way. There was much speculation about drug orgies, as the male victims had been wearing hippie-type clothing and drugswere found in one of their cars. There was also talk about a “ritualistic” aspect to the murders: the word PIG had been written in blood on the front door of Sharon Tate’s house, and DEATH TO PIGS had been written on the living-room wall of the other house, also in blood, and HEALTHER SKELTER inside the fridge door, which the authorities took to be a
Dr. O’Neill–whose full post-mortem report had yielded nothing to dispute the cause of death–had estimated the victim’s age at between seventeen and twenty-one, so it was conceivable that she had left home and was living by herself at the time of her murder. In which case, what about her friends, boyfriends, colleagues at work? Either they didn’t know what had happened, or they hadn’t missed her yet. Did she even have a job? Hippies didn’t like work, Chadwick knew that. Perhaps she was a student, or on holiday. One interesting point that Dr. O’Neill had included in his report was that there was a parturition scar on the pelvic bone, which meant that she had given birth to a baby.
DC Bradley had viewed all the television footage of the festival and spoken with newspaper reporters who had attended the event. He had learned precisely nothing. The victim was nowhere to be seen on the film, which more often than not panned over a sea of young, idealistic faces, and cut back and forth from the gymnastic displays of the bands on stage to close-shot interviews with individual musicians and revellers. Perhaps it might all be of some use in the future, when they had a suspect or needed to pick someone out of the crowd, but for the moment it was useless.
Bradley had also contacted the festival’s press officer, Mick Lawton, and made a start phoning the photographers. Most were cooperative, had no objection to the police looking at their photographs and would be happy to send prints. After all, they had been taken for public consumption in the first place. What a difference it was from asking reporters to name sources.
The experts were still combing the area where the victim had been killed and the spot she had been moved to, collecting all the trace evidence for later analysis. If nothing else, it might provide useful forensic evidence in a trial. The lab had already reported back on the painted cornflower on the victim’s cheek, informing Chadwick that it was simple grease-paint, available in any number of outlets. The flower was still one small detail the police had not yet made public.
When it came to questioning the stars themselves, Enderby’s original doubts proved to be remarkably prophetic. It got done, mostly, but in a perfunctory and unsatisfactory way, as far as Chadwick was concerned, usually by the local forces, who had only minimal briefing in the case. There was more than one provincial DI just dying to have a crack at his local rock star, to bring in the dogs and the drugs search team, despite the fiasco of the Rolling Stones bust a couple of years ago, but asking a few questions about a poxy festival up north hardly excited anyone’s interest. These long-haired idiots might be stoned and anarchic, the thinking mostly went, but they’re hardly likely to be bloody murderers, are they?
Chadwick preferred to keep an open mind on the subject. He thought of the murders in Los Angeles, a story he had been following in the newspapers and on television, just like everyone else. According to the reports, someone had broken into a house in Benedict Canyon, cut the telephone wires and murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate, who had been eight and a half months pregnant at the time she was stabbed to death. Later that night, another house had been broken into and a wealthy couple had been killed in a similar way. There was much speculation about drug orgies, as the male victims had been wearing hippie-type clothing and drugswere found in one of their cars. There was also talk about a “ritualistic” aspect to the murders: the word PIG had been written in blood on the front door of Sharon Tate’s house, and DEATH TO PIGS had been written on the living-room wall of the other house, also in blood, and HEALTHER SKELTER inside the fridge door, which the authorities took to be a
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