make people nervous, which was no doubt the effect he wanted. There was also some talk about him terrorizing a young girl. He was a thoroughly unpleasant character.”
“Did this other young girl come forward?”
“No. It was just something that came up during questioning. McGarrity denied it. We got him on the other charges, and that gave us all we needed.”
“You met him?”
“I sat in on some of the interviews. Look, I don’t know why you want to know all this now. There’s no doubt he did it.”
“I’m not doubting it,” said Banks, “I’m just trying to find a reason for Nick Barber’s murder.”
“Well, it’s got nothing to do with McGarrity.”
“Nick Barber was writing about the Mad Hatters,” Banks went on, “and Vic Greaves was Linda Lofthouse’s cousin.”
“The one that went bonkers?”
“If you care to put it that way, yes,” said Banks.
“How else would you put it? Anyway, I’m afraid I never met them. DI Chadwick did most of the North Riding side of the investigation with a DS Enderby. I do believe they interviewed the band.”
“Yes, I’ve talked to Keith Enderby.”
Bradley sniffed. “Bit of a scruff, and not entirely reliable, in my opinion. Rather more like the types we were dealing with, if you know what I mean?”
“DS Enderby was a hippie?”
“Well, not as such, but he wore his hair a bit long, and on occasion he wore flowered shirts and ties. I even saw him in sandals once.”
“With socks?”
“No.”
“Well, thank the Lord for that,” said Banks.
“Look, I know you’re being sarcastic,” said Bradley with a smug smile. “It’s okay. But the fact that remains is that Enderby was a slacker, and he had no respect for the uniform.”
Banks could have kicked himself for letting the sarcasm out, but Bradley’s holier-than-thou sanctimony was starting to get up his nose. He felt like saying that Enderby had described Bradley as an arse-licker, but he wanted results, not confrontation. Time to hold back and stick to relevant points only, he told himself.
“You say you think this writer was killed because he was working on a story about the Mad Hatters, but do you have any reason for assuming that?” Bradley asked.
“Well,” said Banks, “we do know about the story he was working on, that he mentioned to a girlfriend that it might involve a murder, and we know that Vic Greaves now lives very close to the cottage in which Nick Barber was killed. Unfortunately, all Barber’s notes were missing, along with his mobile and laptop, so we were unable to find out more. That in itself is also suspicious, though, that his personal effects and notes were taken.”
“It’s not very much, though, is it? I imagine robbery’s as common around your patch as it is everywhere these days.”
“We try to keep an open mind,” said Banks. “There could be other possibilities. Did you have any other suspects?”
“Yes. There was a fellow called Rick Hayes. He was the festival promoter. He had the freedom of the backstage area and he couldn’t account for himself during the period we think the girl was killed. He was also left-handed, as was McGarrity.”
“Those were the only two?”
“Yes.”
“So it was the knife that clinched it?”
“We knew we had the right man – you must have had that feeling at times – but we couldn’t prove it at first. We were able to hold him on a drugs charge, and while we were holding him we turned up the murder weapon.”
“How long after you first questioned him?”
“It was October, about two weeks or so.”
“Where was it?”
“In one of the houses.”
“I assume those places were searched as soon as you had McGarrity in custody?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t turn up the knife then?”
“You have to understand,” said Bradley, “there were several people living in each of these houses at any one time. They were terribly unsanitary and overcrowded. People slept on the floors and in all kinds of unlikely combinations. There was all sorts of stuff around. We didn’t know what belonged to whom, they were all so casual in their attitudes toward property and ownership.”
“So how did you find out in the end?”
“We just kept on looking. Finally, we found it hidden inside a cushion. A couple of the people who lived there said they’d seen McGarrity with such a knife – it had a tortoiseshell handle – and we were fortunate enough to find his prints on it. He’d wiped the blade, of course, but the lab still found blood and fiber where it joined the handle. The blood matched Linda Lofthouse’s type. Simple as that.”
“Did the knife match the wounds?”
“According to the pathologist, it could have.”
“Only
“He was in court. You know what those barristers are like. Could have been her blood, could have been the knife. A blade consistent with the kind of blade… blah blah blah. It was enough for the jury.”
“The pathologist didn’t try to match the knife with the wound physically, on the body?”
“He couldn’t. The body had been buried by then, and even if it had been necessary to exhume it, the flesh would have been too decomposed to give an accurate reproduction. You know that.”
“And McGarrity didn’t deny killing her?”
“That’s right. I was there when DI Chadwick presented him with the evidence and he just had this strange smile on his face, and he said, ‘It looks like you’ve got me, then.’”
“Those were his exact words. ‘It looks like you’ve got me, then’?”
Bradley frowned with annoyance. “It was over thirty years ago. I can’t promise those were the exact words, but it was something like that. You’ll find it in the files and the court transcripts. But he was sneering at us, being sarcastic.”
“I’ll be looking at the transcripts later,” said Banks. “I don’t suppose you had anything to do with the investigation into Robin Merchant’s death?”
“Who?”
“He was another member of the Mad Hatters. He drowned about nine months after the Linda Lofthouse murder.”
Bradley shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
“Mr. Enderby was able to tell me a bit about it. He was one of the investigating officers. I was just wondering. I understand DI Chadwick had a daughter?”
“Yes. I only ever saw her the once. Pretty young thing. Yvonne, I think she was called.”
“Wasn’t there some trouble with her?”
“DI Chadwick didn’t confide in me about his family life.”
Banks felt a faint warning signal. Bradley’s answer had come just a split second too soon and sounded a little too pat to be quite believable. The clipped tones also told Banks that he perhaps wasn’t being entirely truthful. But why would he lie about Chadwick’s daughter? To protect Chadwick’s family and reputation, most likely. So if Enderby was right and this Yvonne had been in trouble, or
“I’m afraid not. Grown up and married, I should imagine.”
“What about DI Chadwick?”
