Festival, page 4
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Yes, and no, sir. In the ordinary way one wouldn’t think anything of it, but in this case I thought I’d better go into it. It’s just that there was an old Mini van there from about midday yesterday, and still there last night.’
‘Were you able to look inside it?’
‘Yes, sir. It wasn’t locked. Nothing much in it but some rather battered camping gear – sleeping bag, a few cooking things and some clothes. You know where cars park at the top of the road – it’s not a proper parking place, but a flattish open space where the road reaches the Downs, and people leave cars there when they go for a walk. Well, the Mini van was there when I got up, with about half a dozen other cars. Some had people in them – they drive up and sit in their cars to look at the view. There was nobody in the van, and all the people I asked said it had been there when they came. I waited for the people in the other cars to come back, and I struck lucky with one lot, a middle-aged married couple who’d been for a long walk up by the Wansdyke. They’d left their own car a bit after midday, and they remembered seeing the Mini van drive up as they were leaving. They didn’t take much notice of it, but thought that it was driven by a woman.’
‘Could you get the time any more precisely?’
‘Yes, sir, I’m coming to that. The couple had a radio in their car, and I asked if they’d been listening to it. That reminded them, and they said yes, they had been listening, and in fact they’d waited for a few minutes to hear the end of a programme before they started on their walk. I’ve checked on the programme – it was one that finished at 12.15.’
‘So the van would have driven past my house shortly before 12.15?’
‘Yes, sir. There’s no other way up to the parking place, so it must have used your road. And naturally I thought about the timing we’d worked out, and it seemed important to get hold of the driver of the van. I waited around, but no one turned up. I’ve had a watch kept on the van all night, and I’ve just had a report that no one has been near it, and it’s still there unattended. So I’m going up with a relief for the man on watch, and to give the van a thorough going over, for fingerprints or anything else.’
‘You’ve done a good job. We’d better try to trace the owner through the registration.’
‘I’ve put that in hand already, sir. I wish now that I’d done it yesterday, but there was no reason to suppose that the driver wouldn’t come back, and by the time I’d given up for the night the registration offices were closed. It’s an old Surrey registration, but an ancient van like that may have been through half a dozen owners, and the present owner may live anywhere. With luck, something may have come in by the time I get back.’
‘Can we think of times again? How long do you reckon it would take the van to get from my house to the end of the road on the Downs?’
‘I checked the distances yesterday. Your house is just a mile and a half from the main road, and from your house to the Downs as near as anything is a mile and a quarter. It’s steep – for just over half the distance there’s a gradient of one in seven. And it’s a winding road, so that no one is likely to go fast, or, indeed, to be able to go fast. I’d put around 15–20 mph as the normal limit, for an elderly Mini perhaps rather less. That would make it at least five minutes. The married couple said they’d listened to the radio until 12.15, then they turned it off, locked the car, and went off. They had a bag with sandwiches and things for lunch, and they both had walking sticks. They’d have to collect their things. That would take a minimum of about three minutes – they weren’t hurrying, and they may have sat for half a minute or so after turning off the radio. I think they couldn’t have left earlier than 12.18, and it may easily have been 12.20, or even a minute or two after that.’
‘They say they saw the van as they were walking off?’
‘Yes, sir, and that’s not very precise. On the other hand they think they noticed a woman driver, and if they’d got far from the parking place I doubt if they’d have seen anything through a windscreen.’
‘So the van may have got there at any time between, say, 12.18 and 12.20, within a few minutes, depending on just how long the other people took to lock up and leave their car. And that means that the van will have passed my house between, say, 12.12 and 12.15. Allow margins for error either way and we could say between 12.10 and 12.20.’
‘That’s about what I reckoned, sir, and it brings us very near the approximate time we worked out for the kidnapping. The driver of the van could tell us whether any car passed her on your road, either between your house and the main road, or above your house.’
‘If the times you got are anything like accurate the married couple you talked to should have noticed a car leave.’
‘They said they didn’t, but they were listening to their radio, and not looking out for cars. They said there were a couple of other cars there when they came, but the van was the only vehicle they saw arrive. It’s possible – just possible, sir – that the van driver may have seen a car come out of the drive of your house. We’ve got to find her.’
‘I agree. And you’ve done one merciful thing, Inspector – even if she can’t tell us anything, you’ve given us something to be getting on with, a practical job to think about. Queer that she left the van all night. I wonder where she can have got to? Did you get any sort of description of her from the married couple?’
‘Nothing, except that they thought the driver was a woman. You see, sir, I was expecting someone to come for the van, so I only really asked about times. But I’ve got the couple’s name and address, of course – Mr and Mrs Semple, and they live near Abingdon. If we can’t trace the driver and want to put out a description, I can see them again, though I doubt if they can tell us much.’
‘Probably not. You did what you could at the time, and I’m very grateful to you for sticking to an inquiry that scarcely became important until last night. You must have spent hours hanging around up there. And no food all day! What time did you manage to eat?’
‘That doesn’t matter, sir. As I said before, you’d do the same for me.’
*
Piet had to fight against wanting to go out and examine the Mini van himself, but he knew that he mustn’t. That investigation was in the hands of Inspector Lovell, and it would hurt feelings, and be neglecting his other duties, if he tried to do all the looking for Jo himself. The loneliness of command struck here with special force – to command other people is inevitably a lonely job, and when the job concerns your own family and personal happiness the loneliness is devastating. But Piet knew what he had to do – carry on with his visit to Earl’s Down.
It was about eight miles from Marlborough, reached by a turning from the same main road that was his own way home, but beyond the turning that led to his house. He took only his driver with him – they were short enough of men, anyway, and Jo’s disappearance added to the policing of the festival was a strain on all resources. Constable Farrow was a good driver, and a good policeman, of the old-fashioned ‘village bobby’ sort. That, indeed, is what he had set out to become, for his father had been the village policeman in a village near Devizes, and it had always seemed natural to John Farrow that he should follow his father. Post-war society and the motor car had changed all that, and when Farrow joined the force after National Service in the Army the village copper was dying out. Having done National Service in the Transport Corps, and having considerable aptitude as a mechanic, it was natural that he should become a police driver. He had driven Piet’s predecessor – Piet had kept on as many officers as he could in their old jobs – and his particular value was his intimate knowledge of the area. The camping kit found in the Mini van made Piet wonder if the driver might have had anything to do with the festival, and he asked Farrow how far the parking place at the end of the Stable Hill road was from Earl’s Down.
‘If you mean by road, sir, you’d have to go back to the main road and go the same way as we’re going now – it would be all of six or seven miles. But if you mean as the crow flies, it wouldn’t be all that far. I’ve walked all those Downs as a boy; my dad was a great walker. It would be a stiffish climb from the parking place up to the Wansdyke, but not more than a quarter of a mile. Once across the Wansdyke it would be only a mile or so to the Wick Earl’s end of Earl’s Down – good walking, too, on fine soft turf.’
A young woman had been found unconscious at Earl’s Down around half-past one, allowing for time lags while the people who found her went for help, say sometime after 1.15. The woman driver of the van had turned up at the parking place a few minutes after 12.15. Could she have got from one place to the other in the time? If she was fit and a reasonably good walker it was certainly possible. But why should she want to? If she was bound for the festival she wouldn’t have gone to the parking place, unless she’d missed the road and taken a wrong turning. But if she’d done that she wouldn’t have left the van parked where it was – she’d have driven back the way she came, perhaps after asking directions from the people in the car. And there was nothing to link the young woman found injured at Earl’s Down with the van – it couldn’t even be taken as certain that the van driver was a woman, for the couple who ‘thought’ they’d seen a woman in the van hadn’t looked at all closely, and could quite easily be mistaken. Nevertheless, it was a little strange that the van should have been left on the edge of the Downs all night, apparently with camping equipment in it. There would be nothing strange in someone’s leaving a van while going off to camp for the night, but in that case why leave a sleeping bag and the other things in the van? A moment of thought later showed Piet that there need be nothing in this argument – the van might have carried camping equipment for more than one person.
*
Piet heard the festival before he could see it. The track to the Wick Earl’s end of the Down, where the buildings of the old army camp were situated, made a U-turn round a shoulder of hillside to get there. The thump-thump of a band and the amplified voice of a singer came round the hill. No wonder the farmer had complained! But the Wick Earl’s farm was some distance away to the right, and presumably the noise came from the new band-platform, which would be nearer the road than the farm.
It was a free festival, open to all comers, so that there was no gate for the collection of money or the showing of tickets. There was, however, a barrier constructed out of oil drums with a red and white striped pole laid across them, and a policeman on duty there. He recognised Piet’s car, saluted and removed the pole.
Having a police post at the entrance to the camp was part of Piet’s own organisation, plans drawn up after a series of conferences with officers of the various county council services, and representatives of the festival. Finding anyone who was prepared to accept any responsibility for the festival had been the hardest job of all, and the problem was never solved. A weekly pop newspaper – The Musical Echo – had given much publicity to the proposal to hold a Festival, but disclaimed any responsibility for organising it. The members of two particular pop groups, the Double Dealers and Hard Knocks seemed to form the main core of the performers, but they, too, said that they had nothing to do with the organisation. Both groups had business managers, but neither was willing to admit that the festival was any part of their business – their groups were appearing, they said, for free, to please the fans, and that was all there was to it. Several other groups, less well known in the world of pop music but all, apparently, with devoted followers, were also appearing during the week, but all equally disclaimed that the festival itself was anything to do with them. In the end, the government ministry concerned had persuaded the newspaper, the Double Dealers and Hard Knocks, to send people – they refused to be called representatives – to meetings, on what had to be the unsatisfactory condition that none of them would be committed to any decisions taken. Their people, however, had turned out to be better than Piet had feared. They had no power to commit anyone to anything, but they did co-operate in the actual discussion of arrangements to cater for the huge crowds expected to attend the assembly at Earl’s Down. Their particular value at the earlier meetings was to make explicit the objections which the fan-public might be expected to have to the efforts of any authority to maintain order. Thus Piet’s suggestion of having a police post at the entrance was denounced as offputting, and making ‘pigs’ visible from the start. Piet’s patient explanation that his officers had no wish to interfere with the lawful activities of anyone, but that a police post at the entrance could be useful in telling people where to go, and in helping generally with information, gradually got across. In the end it was accepted that police disinterestedness should at least be given a trial, and also that it would make for a better festival if tents could be put up in more or less orderly rows, if people would use the latrine pits dug and screened by the public health people, and if efforts could be made to keep the fans out of the more ruined buildings. One of the old brick huts was patched up to provide a centre from which a catering contractor – one of the few people with an obvious commercial interest in the festival – could dispense hot dogs, cups of tea and the rest of his wares, but the other buildings were so far gone that they were considered a health hazard in themselves. The firmly non-representative people on the fan side of the fence would not commit themselves to the extent of trying to produce any group of people to help with the carrying out of simple rules, but they did agree that in their personal capacities they would accept the rules as reasonable, and even, on the whole, helpful. The Musical Echo printed the proposed rules in a quite objective article, and went as far as to urge the fans to cooperate.
Inspector Donaldson took Piet on a tour of the site. Most people, it seemed, had cooperated fairly well, except for a minority who refused to bother with the official latrines, on the ground that they were too far away from the tents. They had defecated in the ruined buildings, and even outside against their walls. ‘They’ll have to be burned down when these people have gone; there’s nothing else for it,’ the Inspector said. ‘How anyone can endure the stench beats me. I talked to one youngster and asked him why he did it. He was perfectly frank. He said he lived in a squat where the water had been turned off because of a burst pipe, and the people living there had got used to having filth around the place.’
‘I suppose if we tolerate such conditions in big towns we can’t expect people to change their habits in the country, but it’s heart-rending that human beings can’t have more self respect,’ Piet said.
‘Well, sir, they’re a mixed lot. There’s families here with young children, some of them so dirty that we’ve had to call in the social welfare people, others as clean and well-cared for as in any decent home.’
‘Have you had much trouble with drink?’
‘Yes, but it could have been worse. A lot of the fans are still resentful that the justices wouldn’t give a licence for the site, because of the pub and the big marquee extension they permitted at Wick Episcopi. Having to walk a mile or so to and from the pub hasn’t kept everybody sober, but it has meant that being sick, and urinating, and the rest of it have been spread over a wider area. There’s been some fighting and we’ve had to make about half a dozen arrests, but again I think the walk has helped to work off violence. Drugs are more of a problem.’
‘I was coming to that. Judging by the figures up to yesterday, you haven’t made many arrests.’
‘Eight, sir, all for possessing, mostly cannabis, but a couple of LSD and one that may be heroin, though that was yesterday and we haven’t had the analyst’s report yet. There must be at least one pusher, possibly more, but we haven’t got on to him or her yet. The arrests we’ve made are all small fry, with the possible exception of the heroin case, though there is no evidence so far that the chap – a young man around twenty-four – had more than he was using for himself. A lot of time has been taken up with inquiries about that girl who was taken to hospital.’
‘How is she?’
‘In a bad way. She hadn’t recovered consciousness by early this morning, and they’ve put her on some sort of life-support machine. We’ve had an officer at the hospital all the time, but it’s not been possible to interview her yet. There should be a report from the hospital in the next half-hour or so.’
‘Have you found out who she is?’
‘No, sir, I’m sorry to say we’ve made no progress at all. I put three men on the job of questioning the fans – more than we could spare with all the other cases coming up, and the routine work to be done – but we’ve got nowhere. Of course there are thousands of people here, and they come and go, but you’d have thought somebody would have noticed the girl missing. We haven’t even discovered how she got here. A surprisingly large number of fans came in their own transport, motorbikes and cars – some pretty rough old bangers, and as soon as I can spare a man I’m going to have some tyre-checking done, but some quite decent cars, too. A lot hitch-hiked, and either walked from the main road, or got a lift to the camp from people coming in their own transport. There’s no parked vehicle unaccounted for, so it looks as if she must have hitched, but we’ve found nobody so far who remembers giving her a lift.’
