Piece Of My Heart

CHAPTER TWELVE

Friday, 19th September, 1969

Detective Chief Superintendent McCullen called a meeting for Friday afternoon in the incident room at Brotherton House. The town hall dome looked dark and forbidding against the iron-gray sky, and only a few shoppers were walking up the Headrow toward Lewis’s and Schofield’s, struggling with their umbrellas. Chadwick was feeling a little better after a decent and nightmare-free sleep in his own bed, helped along considerably by the news that Leeds United beat SK Lyn Oslo 10-0 in the first round of the European Cup.

Photos were pinned to the boards at the front of the room – the victim, the scene – and those present sat in chairs at the various scattered desks. Occasionally a telephone rang and a telex machine clattered in the distance. Present were McCullen, Chadwick, Enderby, Bradley, Dr. O’Neill and Charlie Green, a civilian liaison from the forensic laboratory in Wetherby, along with a number of uniformed and plainclothes constables who had been involved in the Lofthouse case. McCullen hosted the proceedings, calling first on Dr. O’Neill to summarize the pathology findings, which he did most succinctly. Next came the lab liaison man, Charlie Green.

“I’ve been in meetings with our various departments this morning,” he said, “so I think I can give you a reasonable précis of what we’ve discovered so far. Which isn’t very much. Blood analysis determines that the victim’s blood is group A, a characteristic she shares with about forty-three percent of the population. As far as toxicology has been able to gather so far, there is no evidence to suggest the presence of illegal substances. I must inform you at this point, though, that we have no test for LSD, a fairly common drug among… well, the type of people we’re dealing with. It disappears from the system very quickly.

“As you all know, the areas around where the body was found, and where the victim was stabbed, have both been searched exhaustively by our search teams and by specially trained police dogs. They turned up a small amount of blood at the scene, some on the ground and more on some nearby leaves. The blood matches the victim’s group and we submit that the killer used the leaves to wipe her blood from his hands and perhaps from the murder weapon, a narrow, single-edged blade, the kind you often find on a flick-knife. There are no footprints in the woods, and the footprints found near the sleeping bag were so muddled as to be useless.

“Upon examination, the sleeping bag yielded traces of the victim’s blood, along with hair and… er… bodily fluids that contain the respective blood types of Ian Tilbrook and June Betts, neither group A, by the way, who claimed the sleeping bag was stolen from them while they sought out a better viewing position on the field.”

“In all this, then,” said McCullen, “there are no traces of the killer? No blood? No hair?”

“We still have unidentified hairs, some taken from the tree trunk near which the girl was killed,” said Green. “As you know, hair comparison is weak, to say the least, and it often doesn’t stand up in court.”

“But you do have hairs, and they might belong to the killer?”

“Yes. We also have some fibers, again some from the tree and some from the victim’s dress, but they’re common blue denim, which I’m sure just about everyone was wearing, and black cotton, which is also common. There’s a chance we might be able to make a match if we had the clothes, but I’m afraid these fibers aren’t going to lead us to anything you can’t get at Lewis’s or Marks amp; Spencer’s.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Just one more thing, really.”

McCullen raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”

“We found stains on the back of the girl’s dress,” Green said, hardly able to stop the smile spreading across his large mouth. “They turned out to be semen, a secretor, type A blood, same as the victim. Hardly conclusive, of course, but certainly interesting.”

McCullen turned back to Dr. O’Neill. “Doctor,” he said, “do we have any evidence of recent sexual activity on the part of the girl?”

“As I said to DI Chadwick at the postmortem, the victim was menstruating at the time she was killed. Now, that doesn’t rule out sexual activity, of course, but vaginal and anal swabs reveal absolutely no signs of it, and the tissue shows no signs of tearing or bruising.”

“Was she on the pill?” McCullen asked.

“We did find evidence of oral contraception, yes.”

“So perhaps,” Chadwick said, “our killer got his pleasure by ejaculating on the victim, not in her.”

“Or perhaps he couldn’t help himself, and it happened as he was stabbing her. Was there a great deal of semen, Mr. Green?”

“No,” said Green. “Minute traces. As much as might have seeped through a person’s underpants and jeans, say.”

“So what do we know about our killer in total, Mr. Green?” he asked.

“That he’s between five foot ten and six feet tall, left handed, wore blue denim jeans and a black cotton shirt or T-shirt, he’s a secretor, and his blood type is A.”

“Thank you.” McCullen turned to Enderby. “I understand you’ve got something for us, Sergeant?”

“It’s not much, sir,” said Enderby, “but DI Chadwick asked me to track down the girl who was doing the body painting backstage at Brimleigh. It seems there’s some question about the flower painted on the victim’s face, whether it was pre-or postmortem.”

“And?”

“Robin Merchant, one of the members of the Mad Hatters, told DI Chadwick that he saw her with a painted flower on her face late that evening. Her friend Tania Hutchison can’t remember. Hayes was also uncertain. If she did have one, we were wondering if the killer did it for some reason, sir.”

“Did he?”

“I’m afraid we still don’t know for certain. The body painter was a bit… well, not so much stupid as sort of lost in her own world. She couldn’t remember who she painted and who she didn’t. I showed her the victim’s photograph, and she thought she recognized her. Then I showed her the design, and she said it could have been one of hers, but she didn’t usually paint cornflowers.”

“Wonderful,” said McCullen. “Do any of these people have the brains they were born with, I wonder?”

“I know, sir,” said Enderby, with a grin. “It’s very frustrating. Should I continue my inquiries?”

McCullen looked at Chadwick. “Stan? You’re in charge.”

“I’m not sure if it’s relevant at all,” Chadwick said. “I simply thought that the drawing of such a flower by the killer indicated a certain type of mentality.”

“A nutcase, you mean?” said McCullen.

“To put it bluntly, yes,” said Chadwick. “And while I’m not saying our killer didn’t do it, I’m beginning to think that if he did, it’s simply another clumsy attempt at sleight of hand, like moving the body.”

“Explain.”

Chadwick took Green’s place at the front by the boards. “Yesterday in London, with the permission of the local police at West End Central, I questioned Rick Hayes, the festival promoter. He’s lied to me on a couple of occasions, and when I confronted him with this, he admitted to knowing the victim previous to the festival. He denies any sexual involvement – and I must add that a couple of other people I have spoken with regard this as highly unlikely, too – but he did know her. He’s also the kind of man who asks just about every girl he meets to hop into bed with him, so I’m thinking there’s a chance that if he was attracted to Linda and she rejected him… well, I think you can see where I’m going.”

“What about his alibi?” McCullen asked.

“Shaky, to say the least. He was definitely onstage at one o’clock to introduce the last group. After that, who knows? He claims he was in the backstage enclosure paying people – I gather a lot of this sort of thing operates on a cash-in-hand basis, probably to avoid income tax – and seeing to various problems that came up. We can reinterview everyone who was there, but I don’t think that’ll get us anywhere. The point is that things were so chaotic back there when Led Zeppelin were playing that Hayes could easily have followed Linda out of the compound, stayed away for long enough to kill her and get back without really being missed. Don’t forget, it was dark as well as noisy, and most people were at the front of the stage watching the band. The drugs they take also make them rather narcissistic and inward-looking. Not a very observant lot, by and large.”

“Have we enough to hold him?”

“I’m not sure,” said Chadwick. “With West End Central’s help we searched his Soho office and his flat in Kensington and turned up nothing.”

“Is he left-handed?”

“Yes.”

“The right height?”

“Five foot eleven.”

“So it’s all circumstantial?”

“We’ve had worse cases, but there’s nothing to directly link him to the murder, without the weapon, except that he knew the victim, he fancied her, he had a bit of a temper, he’s left-handed and his alibi’s weak. He’s not a nutcase, so if he did paint the flower on her cheek, he did so to make us think it was the work of a nutcase.”

“I see your point,” said McCullen. “He still sounds like the best bet we’ve got so far. He could have ditched the knife anywhere. Talk to the kid who found the body again, ask him at what point Hayes turned up and what sort of state he was in. And organize another search of the woods.”

“Yes, sir,” said Chadwick. “What do we do about him in the meantime?”

“We’ve got enough to hold him, haven’t we? Let’s bring him back up here and treat him to a bit of Yorkshire hospitality. Arrange it with West End Central. I’m sure there must be someone down there looking for a chance to come up and watch tomorrow’s game.”

“Which game would that be, sir?”

McCullen looked at him as if were mad and said, “Which game? There is only one game, as far as I know.”

Chadwick knew he meant the Yorkshire Challenge Cup at Headingley, knew McCullen was a rugby man, so he was teasing. The others knew it, too, and they were grinning behind cupped hands.

“Sorry, sir,” said Chadwick. “I thought you meant Leeds and Chelsea.”

McCullen grunted. “Football?” he said with scorn. “Nothing but a bunch of sissies. Now enough of your cheek and get on with it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Chadwick.

The end cottage was quiet when Banks walked up to the door at around nine o’clock. He had called on Jean and Susan Murray, who shared the flat above the post office, just to let them know that he was there and they weren’t to worry. Jean Murray’s account of events in person was no more coherent than what Winsome had repeated on the phone. Noise. Lights. Things breaking. A domestic tiff, Banks would have guessed, except that he was certain Vic Greaves had been alone when he left, and he wasn’t in any kind of shape to argue coherently with anyone. Banks had also considered calling in Annie, but there was no point in dragging her in all the way from Harkside for what might turn out to be nothing.

He had parked his car by the green again, next to a silver Merc, because it wouldn’t fit up the lane. He looked at the Merc again and remembered it was the same one he had seen when he left Lyndgarth in the late afternoon. Wind thrashed the bare branches in the streetlights, casting eerie shadows over the cottage and the road. The air smelled of rain that hadn’t started falling yet.

The front curtains were closed, but Banks could see a faint light shining inside. He walked down the path and knocked on the door. This time, it was answered quickly. The man who stood there, framed by the light, had a red complexion, and his thinning gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which gave the effect of his having a bulbous, belligerent face, as if Banks were seeing it through a fish-eye lens. He was wearing a leather jacket and jeans.

“What the fuck do you want?” he said. “Are you the bastard who came round earlier upsetting Vic? Can’t you sick bastards just leave him alone? Can’t you see he’s ill?”

“He did look rather ill to me,” said Banks, reaching inside his pocket for his warrant card. He handed it over, and the man examined it before passing it back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, running his hand over the top of his head. “Excuse me. Come in. I’m just used to being so protective. Vic’s in a hell of a state.”

Banks followed him in. “You’re right, though,” he said. “It was me who was here earlier, and he did get upset. I’m sorry if I’m to blame.”

“You weren’t to know.”

“Who are you, by the way?”

The man stuck out his hand. “Name’s Chris. Chris Adams.”

Banks shook. Adams had a firm grasp, although his palm was slightly sweaty.

“The Mad Hatters’ manager?”

“For my sins. You understand the situation, then? Sit down, sit down.”

Banks sat on a cracked vinyl armchair of some indeterminate yellow-brown color. Adams sat at an angle to him. All around them were stacks of papers and magazines. The room was dimly lit by two table lamps with pink-and-green shades. There didn’t seem to be any heat, and it was chilly in the cottage. Banks kept his coat on. “I wouldn’t say I understand the situation,” he said. “I know Vic Greaves is living here, and that’s just about all I know.”

“He’s resting at the moment. Don’t worry, he’ll be okay,” said Adams.

“You take care of him?”

“I try to drop by as often as I can when I’m not away in London or L.A. I live just outside Newcastle, near Alnwick, so it’s not too long a journey.”

“I thought you were all living in America?”

“That’s just the band – most of them, anyway. I wouldn’t live there if you paid me a fortune in gold bullion. Right now, there’s plenty to do at this end, organizing the forthcoming tour. But you don’t want to know about my problems. What exactly can Vic do for you?”

Now that he was here, Banks wasn’t entirely sure. He hadn’t had time to plan an interview, hadn’t even expected to see Chris Adams this evening; he had come in response to Jean Murray’s call. Perhaps that was the best place to start.

“I’m sorry I upset Mr. Greaves earlier,” he began, “but I had a phone call a short while ago from someone in the village complaining about shouting and things breaking.”

Adams nodded. “That would have been Vic. When I got here it must have been shortly after you left. I found him rolled up in a ball on the floor counting. He does that when he feels threatened. I suppose it’s sort of like sheep turning their backs on danger and hoping it will go away.”

“I thought maybe he was on drugs or something.”

Adams shook his head. “Vic hasn’t touched drugs – at least nonprescription drugs – in over thirty years or more.”

“And the noise, the breakages?”

“I got him to sleep for a while, then, when he woke after dark, he got disoriented and frightened. He remembered your visit, and he got hysterical, had one of his tantrums and smashed a couple of plates. It happens from time to time. Nothing serious. I managed to calm him down eventually, and he’s sleeping again now. Small village. Word gets around.”

“Indeed,” said Banks. “I’ve heard stories, of course, but I had no idea he was so fragile.”

Adams rubbed at his lined forehead, as if scratching an itch. “He can function well enough on his own,” he said, “as you’ve no doubt seen. But he finds interaction difficult, especially with strangers and people he doesn’t trust. He tends to get angry, or to just shut down. It can be very distressing, not just for him, but for whoever is trying to talk to him, as you no doubt found out, too.”

“Has he been getting any professional help?”

“Doctors? Oh, yes, he’s seen many doctors over the years. None of them have been able to do much except prescribe more and more drugs, and Vic doesn’t like to take them. He says they make him feel dead inside.”

“How does he get in touch with you?”

“Pardon?”

“If he needs you or wants to see you. Has he got a phone?”

“No. Having a telephone would only upset him.” Adams shrugged. “People would find out his number. Crazy fans. That’s what I thought you were, at first. He gets enough letters as it is. Like I said, I just drop by whenever I can. And he knows he can always get in touch with me. I mean, he knows how to use a phone, he’s not an idiot, and sometimes he’ll phone from the box by the green.”

“Can he get around?”

“He doesn’t drive, if that’s what you mean. He does have a bicycle.”

A bicycle wasn’t much good for many of these steep country roads, Banks thought, unless you were especially fit, and Greaves didn’t look that healthy. But Fordham, he reminded himself, was only about a mile away, and you didn’t need a car, or even a bicycle, to cover that sort of distance.

“Look, what’s going on?” Adams asked. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here. Why do you want to know about Vic?”

“I’m investigating a murder,” said Banks, eyes on Adams to judge his reaction. There wasn’t one, which was odd in itself. “Ever heard of a man called Nicholas Barber?”

“Nick Barber? Sure. If it’s the same man, he’s a freelance music journalist. Been writing about the Hatters on and off for the past five years or so. Nice bloke.”

“That’s the one.”

“Is he dead, then?”

“He was murdered in a cottage a little over a mile from here.”

“When was this?”

“Just last week.”

“And you think…?”

“I happen to know that Barber was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. He found Greaves up here and came to talk to him, but Greaves freaked out and sent him packing. He was planning on coming back, but before he could, he was killed and all his work notes were stolen.”

“Of course he’d get nothing out of Vic. He doesn’t like talking about the old days. They’re painful for him to remember, if indeed he can remember much about them.”

“Makes him angry, does it? Gives him a tantrum?”

Adams leaned forward, face thrust out aggressively. “Now, wait a minute. You surely can’t be thinking…” Then he leaned back. “You’ve got it all wrong. Vic’s a gentle soul. He’s got his problems, sure, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. He’s no more capable of-”

“Your confidence in him is admirable, but he certainly strikes me as being capable of irrational or violent behavior.”

“But why would he hurt Nick Barber?”

“You’ve just said it yourself. He’s not good at interaction, especially with strangers or people he doesn’t trust, people he perceives as a threat. Maybe Barber was after information that was painful for Vic to remember, something he’d buried long ago.”

Adams relaxed and sat back in his chair. The vinyl squeaked. “That’s a bit fanciful, if you don’t mind my saying so. Why would Vic perceive Nick Barber as a threat? He was just another fucking music journalist, for crying out loud.”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Banks.

“Well, good luck to you, but I honestly can’t see you getting anywhere. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree on this one. And besides, I’d guess there were plenty of heavy people more interested in Nick Barber than Vic.”

“What do you mean?”

Adams gave a twisted smile, put his finger to one nostril and sniffed through the other one. “Had quite a habit, so I heard. They can be very unforgiving, some of those coke dealers.”

Banks made a note to check into that area of Barber’s life, but he wasn’t going to be deflected so easily. “Did he talk to you?”

“Who?”

“Nick Barber. He was doing a feature on the Hatters reunion, after all. It would only have been natural.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I suppose he just hadn’t got round to it,” Banks said. “Early days. Were you present when Robin Merchant drowned in the swimming pool at Swainsview Lodge?”

Adams looked surprised at the change of direction. He took a packet of Benson amp; Hedges from his jacket pocket and lit one, not offering the packet to Banks. Banks was grateful; he might have accepted one. Adams inhaled noisily, and the smoke curled in the dim, chilly light of the pink-and-green-shaded table lamps. “I wasn’t present at the drowning, but I was in the lodge, yeah, asleep, like everybody else.”

“Like everybody else said they were.”

“And like the police and the coroner believed.”

“We’ve had a lot of success lately with cold cases.”

“It’s not a cold case. It’s an over and done with case, dead and buried. History.”

“I’m not too sure about that,” said Banks. “Did you drop by to see Vic last week at all?”

“I was in London most of last week for meetings with promoters. I called in to see him on my way back up north.”

“What day would that be?”

“I’d have to check my calendar. Why is it important?”

“Would you check, please?”

Adams paused a moment, obviously not used to being given orders, then pulled a PDA from his inside pocket. “Isn’t it wonderful, modern technology?” he said, tapping it with the stylus.

“Indeed,” said Banks. “It’s one of the reasons we’ve had such a high success rate with cold cases. New technology. Computers. DNA. Magic.” Banks wasn’t too sure about it himself, though. He was still trying to master a laptop computer and an iPod; he hadn’t got around to PDAs yet.

Adams shot him an angry glance. “Are we talking about last week?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I would have seen him on Wednesday, on my way back from London. I’d been down there since the previous weekend.”

“Wednesday. Was there anything odd or different about his behavior, anything he said?”

“No, not that I noticed. He was quite docile. He was reading a book when I arrived. He reads a lot, mostly nonfiction.” Adams gestured to the magazines, books and papers. “As you can see, he doesn’t like to throw anything away.”

“He didn’t tell about anything unusual or frightening happening, about Nick Barber or anyone else coming to see him?”

“No.”

According to John Butler at MOJO, Nick Barber had tracked down Vic Greaves to this cottage and paid him a visit, but Butler hadn’t known the actual day this had happened. Vic had freaked out, refused to talk, become angry and upset, and Barber had said he was going to try again. The phone call to Butler had been made on Friday morning, probably from the telephone box by the church.

If Vic Greaves hadn’t told Adams about his meeting with Barber, then it must have happened as late in the week as Thursday, perhaps, and Barber might have tried again on Friday, the day of his murder. Kelly Soames said he had been in bed with her between two and four, but that still left him virtually all day. Unless, of course, either Kelly Soames or Chris Adams was lying, in which case all bets were off. And of the two, Banks felt that while Kelly Soames would lie to protect herself from her father, Adams might have any number of less forgivable reasons for doing it.

“Where were you on Friday?” Banks asked.

“Home. All weekend.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Sorry. I’m afraid my wife was away, visiting her mother.”

“Can you give me the names and addresses of some of the people you met with in London, and the hotel you were staying at?” Banks asked.

“Am I hearing you right? Are you asking me for an alibi now?”

“Process of elimination,” said Banks. “The more people we can rule out straightaway, the easier our job is.”

“Bollocks,” said Adams. “You don’t believe me. Why don’t you just come right out and admit it?”

“Look,” said Banks, “I’m not in the business of believing the first thing I’m told. Not by anybody. I’d be a bloody useless detective if I were. It’s a job, nothing personal. I want to get the facts straight before I come to any conclusions.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Adams, tapping his way through the PalmPilot and giving Banks some names and numbers. “And I was staying at the Mont-calm. They’ll remember me. I always stay there when I’m in town. I’ve got a suite. Okay?”

“Appreciate it,” said Banks.

They heard a bang from upstairs. Adams cursed and headed out. While he was gone, Banks took as good a look as he could around the room. Some of the newspapers were ten years old or more, the same with the magazines, which meant Greaves must have brought them with him when he moved in. The books were mostly biography or history. One thing he did find of interest, on the table half hidden under the lamp, was a business card that had Nick Barber’s Chiswick address printed on it and his Fordham address scribbled on the other side. Had Barber left this for Vic Greaves when he paid his visit? It should be possible to check it against a sample of his handwriting.

Adams came back. “Nothing,” he said. “His book slipped off the bed to the floor. He’s still out.”

“Are you staying here overnight?” Banks asked.

“No. Vic’ll sleep right through till morning now, and by then he’ll have forgotten whatever upset him today. One of the marvels of his condition. Every day is a new adventure. Besides, it won’t take me too long to drive home, and I have a lovely young wife waiting for me there.”

Banks wished he had someone living with him, but even if he had, he realized, it wouldn’t be possible with Brian and Emilia around. How ironic, he thought. They could do whatever they wanted, but he didn’t feel he could spend the night with a woman in his own house while they were there. Chance would be a fine thing. Banks felt nervous about going home, fearing what he might disturb. He’d phone them on his way, when he got within mobile range, just to warn them, give them time to get dressed, or whatever.

He showed Adams the card. “I found this pushed under the lamp over there,” he said, “only the edge was showing. Did you put it there?”

“Never seen it before,” said Adams.

“It’s Nick Barber’s card.”

“So what? That doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves he was here at least once.”

“But you already know that.”

“It also has his Fordham address written on it, so anyone who saw it here would know where he was staying when he was killed. Nice meeting you, Mr. Adams. Have a safe drive home. I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon.”

Saturday, 20th September, 1969

While Chadwick was cheering on Leeds United to a 2-0 victory over Chelsea at Elland Road that Saturday afternoon, Yvonne walked over to Springfield Mount to meet Steve and the others. Judy was going to make a macrobiotic meal, then they’d smoke a joint or two and take the bus into town. There was a bunch of stuff happening at the Adelphi that night: poets, a blues band, a jazz trio.

She was surprised, and more than a little put out, when McGarrity opened the door, but she asked for Steve, and he stood aside to let her in. The place was unusually quiet. No music or conversation. Yvonne went into the front room, sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette, glancing at the Goya print, which always seemed to mesmerize her. A moment later McGarrity strolled through the door with a joint in his hand and said, “He’s not here. Will I do?”

“What?”

McGarrity put a record on and sat in the armchair opposite her. He had that sort of fixed, crooked smile on his face, cynical and mocking, that always made her feel nervous and ill at ease in his presence. His pale skin was pockmarked, as if he’d scratched it when he had chicken pox as a child, the way her mother said would happen to her, and his dark hair was greasy and matted, flopping over his forehead and almost covering one dark brown eye. “Steve. He’s out. They’re all out.”

“Where are they?”

“Town Street, shopping.”

“When will they be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should come back later.”

“No. Don’t go so soon. Here.” He handed her the joint.

Yvonne hesitated, then put her cigarette in the ashtray, accepted it and took a couple of drags. A joint was a joint, after all. It tasted good. Quality stuff. She recognized the music now: the Grateful Dead, “China Cat Sunflower.” Nice. She still felt uncomfortable with the way he was looking at her, though, and she remembered the other night at the Grove, when he’d touched her and whispered her name. At least he didn’t have his knife in his hand today. He seemed normal enough. Still, she felt edgy. She shifted on the sofa and said, “Thank you. I should go now.”

“Why are you being so rude? You’ll share a joint with me, but why don’t you want to stay and talk to me?” He handed her the joint again and she took another couple of drags, hoping it would set her at ease, calm her down. What was it about him that disturbed her so? The smile? The sense that behind it lay only darkness?

“What do you want to talk about?” she said, handing the joint back to him and picking up her cigarette again.

“That’s better. I don’t know. Let’s talk about that girl who got killed last week.”

Yvonne remembered McGarrity’s knife, and that he had been wandering the crowds at Brimleigh during the festival. A terrible thought leaped into her mind. Surely he couldn’t have…? She began to feel real fear now, a physical sensation like insects crawling all over her skin. She looked at the Sleep of Reason and thought she could see the bats flying around the sleeping man’s head, biting at his neck with vampire teeth. The cat at his feet licked its lips. Yvonne felt an electric tingling in her arms and in the backs of her legs. ee-lek-triss-attee. God, that hash was strong. And the song had changed. It wasn’t “China Cat Sunflower” anymore, but “What’s Become of the Baby?” a creepy sound montage of disembodied voices and electronic effects. “Linda?” she heard herself saying in a strange, distant voice that could have been someone else’s. “What about her?”

“You met her. I know you did. Wasn’t she pretty? Sad, isn’t it? But it’s an absurd and arbitrary world,” he said. “That sort of thing could happen to anyone. Anywhere. Anytime. The pretty and the plain alike. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport. Not with a bang but a whimper. One day you’ll understand. Have you read about those people in Los Angeles? The rich people who got butchered? One of them was pregnant, you know. They cut her baby out of her womb. The newspapers are saying they were killed by people like us because they were rich piggies. Wouldn’t you like to do something like that, little Von? Kill the piggies?”

“No. I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Yvonne blurted out. “I believe in love.”

“His scythe cuts down the innocent and the guilty alike. And the dead shall rise incorruptible.”

Yvonne put her hands over her ears. Her head was spinning. “Stop it!”

“Why?”

“Because you’re making me nervous.”

“Why do I make you nervous?”

“I don’t know, but you do.”

“Is it exciting?”

“What?”

He leaned forward. She could see the decay on his front teeth, bared in that arrogant, superior smile. “Being nervous. Does it make you excited?”

“No, it makes me nervous and you excited.”

McGarrity laughed. “You’re not as stupid as you look, are you, little Von? Even when you’re stoned. And here was me thinking the only reason Steve wanted you was for your cunt. But it is a pretty little cunt, isn’t it?”

Yvonne felt herself flushing to the roots of her being with anger and embarrassment. McGarrity was looking at her curiously, as if she were some unusual specimen of plant life. The owls in the Goya print seemed to be whispering in the sleeper’s ear just as the song’s eerie voices were whispering in her head.

“You don’t need to show me it,” he said. “I’ve already seen it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve watched you. With Steve.”

Yvonne’s jaw dropped. She stubbed out her cigarette so hard the sparks burned her fingers, and tried to stand up. It wasn’t easy. Somehow or other, she couldn’t believe how, she found herself sitting down again, and McGarrity was beside her, grasping her arm. Hard. His face was so close to hers she could smell smoke and stale cheese on his breath. He let go of her arm and started rolling a cigarette. She thought she should make a run for it, but she felt too heavy to move. The joint, she thought. Opiated hash. It always did that to her, gave her a heavy, drifting, dreamy feeling. But this time the dream was turning into a nightmare.

He reached forward and touched her cheek with his finger just as he had done at the Grove. It felt like a slug. “Yvonne,” he whispered. “What harm can it do? We believe in free love, don’t we? After all, it’s not as if you’re the only one, you know.”

Her chest tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Steve. Do you think you’re the only pretty girl who comes around here to take her clothes off for him?”

Yvonne desperately wanted to get away from McGarrity’s cloying and overbearing presence, but even more desperately she wanted to know if he was telling the truth. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

“Yvonne: Fridays and Saturdays. You’re just his weekend hippie. Tuesdays and Wednesdays it’s the lovely Denise. Let me see now, who’s Monday, Thursday and Sunday? Is it the same one all three days, or is it three different ones?”

He was looking at her with that mocking smile on his face again.

“Stop it!” she said. “I won’t believe you. I want to go home.” She tried to rise again and proved a little more successful this time. She was still dizzy, though, and soon fell back.

McGarrity stood up and started pacing up and down, muttering to himself. She didn’t know if it was T. S. Eliot or the book of Revelations. She could see the bulge at the front of his jeans, and she knew he was getting more excited every second. She didn’t trust him, knew he had that knife somewhere. Unless… Christ, he had probably had his way with Linda and killed her and got rid of the knife. That was why he didn’t have it. Yvonne’s mind was spinning. Why didn’t Steve and the others come home? What were they doing? Had he killed them all? Was that it? Were they all lying upstairs in their rooms in pools of blood with flies buzzing around? The ideas flashed and cracked electrically in her brain, bouncing around her mind like the thunderstorm in the painting.

Yvonne sensed that now was the time, while he was distracted. She went through it quickly in her head first, visualizing herself do it. She would have to be fast, and that would be the hardest part. She was still disoriented because of the hash he had drugged her with. She would have only one chance. Get to the door. Get outside fast. How did it open? Yale lock. In or out? In. So twist to the left, pull and run. There would be people out there, in the street, in the park. It was still light outside. She could make it. Twist to the left, pull and run.

When McGarrity was at the far end of the room, by the window, his back turned to her, Yvonne summoned up all her energy and made a dash for the door. She didn’t know if he was after her or not. She bounced off the walls down the hallway, reached the door, twisted the Yale and pulled. It opened. Daylight flooded her like warm honey. She stumbled a bit on the top step but ran down the garden path and out of the gate as fast as she could. She didn’t look round, didn’t even listen for his footsteps following her. She didn’t know where she was running. All she knew was that she had to run, run, run for her life.