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17, 18,
2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, , 21, 22, 23
Six rows. Many numbers duplicated, and no list going beyond 30. A calendar of some kind, then? Ringed dates? But why were they ringed and, perhaps even more to the point, which months, which year did they refer to? And why were some days missing? It should be possible to find out, Banks thought, perhaps with the help of a computer, then he realized that each group was not even necessarily from the same month, or the same year. They could be strings of days taken over a period of, say, thirty years. His spirits fell, and he cursed Nick Barber under his breath for not being more clear with his notes, realizing that this might be the clue he was looking for, perhaps the only one Nick had left, and he felt about as far from understanding it now as he ever had.
A
Banks was quiet as A
“And?”
“Definite possibilities for the numbers in the back of the book. There are links to other fan sites with tour dates and all sorts of esoteric information. I’ll need a lot more time to follow up on it all.”
“Maybe when we get back.”
“Sounds good.”
Yvo
The house was a semi with a bay window in a pleasant, leafy neighborhood where you wouldn’t be afraid to let your children play in the street. Yvo
“This is all very intriguing,” said Yvo
“Have you heard about the death of a music journalist called Nick Barber?” Banks asked.
“I think I saw something in the paper,” Yvo
“Near Lyndgarth,” said Banks.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Nick Barber was working on a story about a group called the Mad Hatters. Do you remember them?”
“Good Lord. Yes, of course I do.”
“In September 1969, there was a pop festival in North Yorkshire at Brimleigh Glen. Remember? You would have been about fifteen.”
Yvo
“You might also remember then that a young girl was found dead when the festival was over. Her name was Linda Lofthouse.”
“Of course I remember. It was my father’s case. He solved it.”
“Yes. A man called McGarrity.”
A
Yvo
She was a poor liar, A
“Dad told me about him, of course. He sounded like a terrible person.”
“Look, Yvo
“How could knowing about back then possibly help you now?”
“Because,” said Banks, “we think the cases might be linked. Nick Barber was Linda Lofthouse’s son. She gave him up for adoption, but he found out who his mother was and what happened to her. That gave him a special interest in the Mad Hatters and the McGarrity case. We think that Nick had stumbled across something to do with his mother’s murder, and that he was killed for it. Which means that we have to look very closely at what happened at Brimleigh and afterward. Someone who worked on the case with your father let slip that McGarrity had possibly terrorized another girl, but that never came up at the trial, or in the case notes. We also heard that Mr. Chadwick had a bit of trouble with his daughter, that she was perhaps ru
Yvo
“Yvo
“But it was all so long ago,” Yvo
“That would describe quite a lot of sixteen-year-olds,” A
It broke the ice a little, and Yvo
“And McGarrity?”
“McGarrity was a sort of hanger-on, older, not really part of the crowd, but they couldn’t summon the energy or find a reason to kick him out, so he drifted from place to place, sleeping on floors and in empty beds. Nobody really liked him. He was weird.”
“And he had a knife.”
“Yes. A flick-knife with a tortoiseshell handle. Nasty thing. Of course he said he lost it, but…”
“But the police found it in one of the houses,” said Banks. “Your father found it.”
“Yes.” Yvo
“It’s my job. I read the trial transcripts, but they didn’t tell me about the girl he terrorized, the one your father asked him about during the interrogation.”
“I suppose not.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Me?”
“You knew McGarrity. Something happened. How else could you explain your father’s zeal in pursuing him or his reticence to pursue the issue? He abandoned all his other leads and concentrated on McGarrity. Now I’d say that was a little personal, wouldn’t you?”