“Okay, I told him,” Yvonne said. “McGarrity frightened me. We were alone together in the front room at Springfield Mount, and he frightened me.”

“What did he do?”

“It wasn’t so much anything he did, just the way he talked, looked at me, grabbed me.”

“He grabbed you?”

“My arm. Just a bruise. And he touched my cheek. It made me cringe. Mostly it was the things he said, though. He wanted to talk about Linda, and when that got him all excited he started going on about those murders in Los Angeles. We didn’t know who did it then – Manson and his family – but we knew the people had been butchered and someone had written PIGGIES on the walls in blood. He found all that exciting. And he said… he…”

“Go on, Yvonne,” Annie urged her.

Yvonne looked at her as she answered. “He said he’d, you know, watched me with my boyfriend, and that now it was going to be his turn.”

“So he threatened to rape you?” Annie said.

“That’s what I thought. That’s what I was scared of.”

“Did he have his knife?” Banks asked.

“I didn’t see it.”

“What did he say about Linda Lofthouse?”

“Just how pretty she was, and how it was sad that she had to die, but that it was an absurd and arbitrary world.”

“Is that all?”

“Then he talked about the Manson murders and asked me if I would like to do something like that.”

“What happened next?”

“I made a break for it and ran for my life. He was pacing, spouting gibberish.”

“And then what?”

“I told my father. He was furious.”

“I can understand that,” said Banks. “I have a daughter myself, and I’d feel exactly the same way. What happened next?”

“The police raided Springfield Mount and a couple of other hippie pads that night. They gave everyone a hard time, brought some drugs charges against them, but it was McGarrity they really wanted. He’d been at the festival, you see, at Brimleigh, and plenty of people had seen him wandering around near the edge of the woods with his flick-knife.”

“Did you think he did it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. I never really questioned it.”

“Yet he went on to deny it, said he was framed.”

“Yes, but all criminals do that, don’t they? That’s what my father told me.”

“It’s pretty common,” said Banks.

“So there. Look, what is this all about? He’s not due to be released, is he?”

“You need have no worries on that score. He died in prison.”

“Oh. Well, I can’t say I’m heartbroken.”

“What happened after the arrest and everything?”

Yvonne shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe what an absolute idiot I was. My father let my boyfriend at Springfield Mount know that he was my father and told him to stay away from me. Steve, his name was. What an awful self-obsessed little prick. But a good-looking one, as I remember.”

“I’ve known one or two like that myself,” said Annie.

Banks glanced at her, as if to say, “We’ll get back to that later.”

“Anyway,” Yvonne went on, “it was the usual story. I thought he loved me, but he just wanted me out of the way. It was so embarrassing. You know, it’s funny, but the thing I remember most about the room is the Goya print on the wall. El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. The one of the sleeping man surrounded by owls, bats and cats. It used to scare me and fascinate me at the same time, if you know what I mean.”

“Did you go there again, after the raid?”

“Yes. The next day. Steve didn’t want to know me. None of them did. He spread the word that I was a copper’s daughter, and I was ostracized by the lot of them.” She snorted. “Nobody wants to share a joint with a copper’s daughter.”

“What did you do?”

“I was really hurt. I ran away from home. Took all the money I could and went to London. I had one address there, Lizzie, a girl who’d stayed at Springfield Mount once. She was nice and let me sleep in a sleeping bag on her floor. But it wasn’t very clean. There were mice, and they kept trying to get into the sleeping bag, so I had to hold it tight around my neck, and I couldn’t really get any sleep.” She gave a little shiver. “And there were even more weird people about than there had been in Leeds. I was very depressed, and I started to get frightened of my own shadow. I think Lizzie got really fed up with me. She talked about negative energy and stuff like that. I was feeling lost, then, really out of place, like I didn’t belong anywhere and nobody loved me. Typical adolescent angst, I can see now, but at the time…”

“So what did you do?”

“I went back home.” She gave a harsh laugh. “Two weeks. That was the sum of my life’s big adventure.”

“And how did your parents react?”

“Relief. And anger. I hadn’t rung them, you see. That was cruel of me. If my daughter did that, I’d be beside myself, but that’s how selfish and how upset I was. My father, being a policeman, always thought the worst. He had visions of me lying dead somewhere. He even told me that at first he thought something had happened to me, and that maybe it had something to do with McGarrity or the others taking revenge on me for shopping them. But he couldn’t do anything official because he didn’t want people to know. It must have torn him apart. He took his duty as a policeman so seriously.”

“Didn’t want people to know what?”

“About me and those hippies.”

“What was your father like during the investigation and trial?”

“He was working very hard, very long hours. I remember that. And he was very tense, tightly wound. He started getting chest pains, I remember, but it was a long time before he would go to the doctor. We didn’t talk much. He was under a lot of strain. I think he was doing it for me. He thought he’d lost me, and he was taking it out on McGarrity and everyone else involved. It wasn’t a comfortable time in the house, not for any of us.”

“But better than mice in the sleeping bag?” Annie said.

Yvonne smiled. “Yes, better than that. But we were all glad when it was over and McGarrity was convicted. It seemed to take forever, like a big black cloud over our heads. I don’t think the trial started until the following April, then it went on for about four weeks. Things were pretty tense. Anyway, in the meantime I went back to school, got on with my A levels, then I went to university in Hull. This would be the early seventies. There were still a lot of longhairs about, but I kept my distance. I’d learned my lesson. I applied myself to my studies, and in the end I became a schoolteacher and married a university professor. He teaches here, at Durham. We have two children, a boy and a girl, both married now. And that’s the story of my life.”

“Did you ever hear your father express any doubts about McGarrity’s guilt?” Banks asked.

“No. Not that I can remember. It’s as if he was on a crusade. I can’t imagine what he would have done if McGarrity had got off. It doesn’t bear thinking about. As it was, the whole thing ruined his health.”

“And your mother?”

“Mum stood by him. She was a brick. She was devastated when he died, of course. We both were. But eventually she remarried and lived quite happily. She died in 1999. We were close right until the end. She only lived a short drive away, and she loved her grandchildren.”

“That’s nice,” said Annie. “We’ve nearly finished now. The only other thing we want to ask you about is the death of Robin Merchant.”

“The Hatters’ bass player! God, I was absolutely gutted. Robin was so cool. They were one of my favorite bands, back when I used to listen to pop music, and we’d sort of claimed them as our own, too. You know they were from Leeds?”

“Yes,” said Annie.

“Anyway, what about him?”

“Did your father say anything about it?”

“I don’t think so. Why would he…? Oh, yes. My God, this is taking me back. He talked to them during the McGarrity thing, and he got me an LP signed by all of them. I think I’ve still got it somewhere.”