“Won’t be a moment.”

Margaret Lofthouse disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt to give private expression to her grief as she boiled the kettle and filled the teapot in the time-honored, comforting ritual. A clock ticked on the mantel beside a framed photograph. Twenty-five to one. Broome and his pal would be well on their way to Sheffield by now, if they weren’t there already. Chadwick got up to examine the photograph. It showed a younger Margaret Lofthouse, and the man beside her with his arm around her waist was no doubt her husband. Also in the picture, which looked as if it had been taken outside in the country, was a young girl with short blond hair staring into the camera.

Margaret Lofthouse came back with a tray and caught him looking. “That was taken at Garstang Farm, near Hawes, in Wensleydale,” she said. “We used to go for summer holidays up there a few years ago, when Linda was little. My uncle owned the place. He’s dead now and strangers have bought it, but I have some wonderful memories. Linda was such a beautiful child.”

Chadwick watched the tears well up in her eyes. She dabbed at them with a tissue. “Sorry,” she said. “I just get all choked up when I remember how things were, when we were a happy family.”

“I understand,” said Chadwick. “What happened?”

Margaret Lofthouse didn’t seem surprised at the question. “What always seems to happen these days,” she said, with a sniffle. “She grew up into a teenager. They expect the world at the age of sixteen these days, don’t they? Well, what she got was a baby.”

“What did she do with the child?”

“Put him up for adoption – it’s a boy – what else could she do? She couldn’t look after him, and Jim and I were too old to start caring for another child. I’m sure he’s gone to a good home.”

“I’m sure,” agreed Chadwick. “But it’s not the baby I’m here to talk about, it’s Linda.”

“Yes, of course. Milk and sugar?”

“Please.”

She poured tea from a Royal Doulton teapot into fragile-looking cups with gold-painted rims and handles. “This was my grandmother’s tea set,” she said. “It’s the only real thing of value I own. There’s nobody left to pass it on to now. Linda was an only child.”

“When did she leave home?”

“Shortly after the baby was born. The winter of 1967.”

“Where did she go?”

“London. At least that’s what she told me.”

“Where in London?”

“I don’t know. She never said.”

“You didn’t have her address?”

“No.”

“Did she know people down there?”

“She must have done, mustn’t she? But I never met or heard of any of them.”

“Did she never come back and visit you?”

“Yes. Several times. We were quite friendly, but in a distant sort of way. She never talked about her life down there, just assured me she was all right and not to worry, and I must say, she always looked all right. I mean, she was clean and sober and nicely dressed, if you can call them sort of clothes nice, and she looked well fed.”

“Hippie-style clothing?”

“Yes. Long, flowing dresses. Bell-bottomed jeans with flowers embroidered on them. That sort of thing. But as I said, they was always clean and they always looked good quality.”

“Do you know how she earned a living?”

“I have no idea.”

“What did you talk about?”

“She told me about London, the parks, the buildings, the art galleries – I’ve never been there, you see. She was interested in art and music and poetry. She said all she wanted was peace in the world and for people to just be happy.” She reached for the tissues again.

“So you got along okay?”

“Fine, I suppose. On the surface. She knew I disapproved of her life, even though I didn’t know much about it. She talked about Buddhism and Hindus and Sufis and goodness knows what, but she never once mentioned our true Lord Jesus Christ, and I brought her up to be a good Christian.” She gave a little shake of her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I could have tried harder to understand. She just seemed so far away from me and anything I’ve ever believed in.”

“What did you talk to her about?”

“Just local gossip, what her old school friends were up to, that sort of thing. She never stopped long.”

“Did you know any of her friends?”

“I knew all the kids she played with around the estate, and her friends from school, but I don’t know who she spent her time with after she left home.”

“She never mentioned any names?”

“Well, she might have done, but I don’t remember any.”

“Did she ever tell you if anything or anyone was bothering her?”

“No. She always seemed happy, as if she hadn’t really a care in the world.”

“You don’t know of any enemies she might have had?”

“No. I can’t imagine her having any.”

“When did you last see her?”

“In the summer. July, it would be, not long after Jim…”

“Was she at the funeral?”

“Oh, yes. She came home for that in May. She loved her father. She was a great support. I don’t want to give you the impression that we’d fallen out or anything, Mr. Chadwick. I still loved Linda and I know that she still loved me. It was just that we couldn’t really talk anymore, not about anything important. She’d got secretive. In the end I gave up trying. But this was a couple of months after Jim’s death, just a flying visit to see how I was getting along.”

“What did she talk about on that visit?”

“We watched that man walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong. Linda was all excited about it, said it marked the beginning of a new age, but I don’t know. We stayed up watching till after three in the morning.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m sorry. Nothing else really stood out, except the moon landing. Some pop star she liked had died and she’d been to see the Rolling Stones play a free concert for him in Hyde Park. London, that is. And I remember her talking about the war. Vietnam. About how immoral it was. She always talked about the war. I tried to tell her that sometimes wars just have to be fought, but she’d have none of it. To her all war was evil. You should have heard it when Linda and her dad went at it – he was in the navy in the last war, just toward the end, like.”

“But you say Linda loved her father?”

“Oh, yes. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say they saw eye to eye about everything. I mean, he tried to discipline her, got on at her for staying out till all hours, but she was a handful. They fought like cat and dog sometimes, but they still loved one another.”

It all sounded so familiar to Chadwick that the thought depressed him. Surely all children weren’t like this, didn’t cause their parents such grief? Was he taking the wrong approach with Yvonne? Was there another way? He felt like such a failure as a parent, but short of locking her in her room, what could he do? When Yvonne went on about the evils of war, he always felt himself tense up inside; he could never even enter into a rational argument about it for fear he would lose his temper, lash out and say something he would regret. What did she know about war? Evil? Yes. Necessary? Well, how else were you going to stop someone like Hitler? He didn’t know much about Vietnam, but he assumed the Americans were there for a good reason, and the sight of all these unruly long-haired youngsters burning the flag and chanting antiwar slogans made his blood boil.

“What about the boyfriend, Donald Hughes?”

“What about him?”

“Is he the father?”

“I assume so. I mean, that’s what Linda said, and I think I know her well enough to know she wasn’t… you know… some sort of trollop.”

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s all right, I suppose. Not much gumption, mind you. The Hugheses aren’t exactly one of the best families on the estate, but they’re not one of the worst, either. And you can’t blame poor Eileen Hughes. She’s had six kids to bring up, mostly on her own. She tries hard.”