Piece Of My Heart

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Detective Superintendent Gervaise had called another progress meeting in the incident room, as the boardroom had now become known, for early Wednesday morning. The team lounged around the polished table sipping coffee from styrofoam cups and chatting about last night’s television, or Boro’s prospects for the weekend’s football. The corkboards had acquired more crime scene photographs, and the names and details of various people connected with the victim were scrawled across the whiteboard.

Annie Cabbot sat next to Winsome and DC Galway, on loan from Harrogate CID, and tried to digest what Banks had told her over an early breakfast in the Golden Grill. The presence in the area of two people connected with the Mad Hatters, the band on whom Nick Barber had been writing a major feature, seemed too much of a coincidence for her, too. She knew far less about the group and its history than Banks did, but even she could see there were a few skeletons in those closets worth shaking up a bit.

Detective Superintendent Gervaise clicked in on her shiny black heels, smoothed her navy pinstripe skirt and sat down at the head of the table, gracing everyone with a warm smile. A chorus of “Good morning, ma’am” rose up from the assembled officers.

She turned first to Stefan Nowak and asked if there was anything more from forensics.

“Not really,” said Stefan. “Naturally, there are numerous fibers and hairs remaining to be analyzed. The place was supposed to be thoroughly cleaned after each set of guests, but nobody’s that thorough. We’ve got a list of the last ten renters from the owner, so we’ll check against their samples first. It was a busy summer. Some of them live as far afield as Germany and Norway. It could take a long time.”

“Prints?”

“The poker was wiped clean, and there are nothing but blurs around the door and conservatory entrance. Naturally, we’ve found almost as many fingerprints as we have other trace evidence, and it’ll all have to be sifted, compared to existing records. As I said, it will take time.”

“What about DNA?”

“Well, we did find traces of semen on the bedsheets, but the DNA matches that of the victim. We’re trying to separate out any traces of female secretion, but no luck so far. Apparently, he used condoms and flushed them down the toilet.” He glanced toward Annie for confirmation. She nodded.

“We know who this… companion… was, don’t we, DI Cabbot?”

“Yes,” said Annie. “Unless there was someone else, which I’d say he hardly had time for, Kelly Soames admits to sleeping with the victim on two occasions: Wednesday evening, which was her night off, and Friday afternoon, between the hours of two and four, when she rearranged a dental appointment so she could visit his cottage.”

“Resourceful girl,” Superintendent Gervaise reflected. “And Dr. Glendenning estimates time of death between six and eight on Friday?”

“He says he can’t be any more precise than that,” replied Stefan.

“Not earlier?”

“No, ma’am.”

“All right,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Let’s move on. Anything from the house-to-house?”

“Nothing positive, ma’am,” said Winsome. “It was a miserable night even before the blackout, and most people shut their curtains tight and stayed in.”

“Except the killer.”

“Yes, ma’am. In addition to the couple in the Cross Keys and the New Zealander in the youth hostel who thought she saw a light-colored car heading up the hill, away from Moorview Cottage, between seven-thirty and seven-forty-five, we have one sighting of a dark-colored four-by-four going up the same lane at about six-twenty, before the power cut, and a white van at about eight o’clock, while the electricity was off. According to our witnesses, though, neither of these stopped by the cottage.”

“Not very promising, is it?” said Gervaise.

“Well, one of them could have stopped further up the lane and walked back. There are plenty of passing places.”

“I suppose so,” Superintendent Gervaise conceded, but it was clear her heart wasn’t in it.

“Oh,” Winsome added, “someone says he saw a figure running across a field just after dark, before the lights went out.”

“Any description?”

“No, ma’am. He was closing his curtains, and he thought he saw this dark figure. He assumed it was someone jogging and ignored it.”

“Fat, thin, tall, short, child, man, woman?”

“Sorry, ma’am. Just a dark figure.”

“Which direction was the figure running?” Banks asked.

Winsome turned to face him. “The shortcut from Fordham to Lynd-garth, sir, across the fields and by the river. It’s a popular jogging route.”

“Yes, but probably not after dark. Not in that sort of weather.”

“You’d be surprised, DCI Banks,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Some people take their exercise very seriously indeed. Do you know how many calories there are in a pint of beer?”

Everyone laughed. Banks wasn’t convinced. Vic Greaves didn’t drive, so Adams had said, but it wasn’t very far from his cottage to Fordham, and that would have been the best route to take. It cut the journey almost in half. He made a note to get Winsome to talk to this witness again, or to do it himself.

“What about this Jack Tanner character?” Gervaise asked. “He sounded like a possible.”

“His alibi holds water,” said Templeton. “We’ve talked to six members of his darts team and every one of them swears he was in the King’s Head playing darts from about six o’clock until ten.”

“And I don’t suppose he was drinking Britvic Orange, either,” said Gervaise. “Maybe we ought to get Traffic to keep an eye on Mr. Tanner.”

Everyone laughed.

“So do we have any promising lines of inquiry yet?” Gervaise asked.

“Chris Adams suggested that Nick Barber had a cocaine problem,” Banks said. “I’m not convinced, but I’ve put in a request for the Met drugs squad to look into it. But there’s something else.” He told her about Vic Greaves’s breakdown and the drowning death of Robin Merchant at Swainsview Lodge thirty-five years ago, and the feature Nick Barber had been writing for MOJO.

“It’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t?” said Gervaise, when he had finished. “I’ve always been a bit suspicious of events from so far in the past reaching forward into the present. Sounds like the stuff of television. I’m more inclined toward the most obvious solution – someone closer to hand, a jilted lover, cheated business partner, whatever. In this case, perhaps some disgruntled drug dealer. Besides, I take it this Merchant business was settled at the time?”

“After a fashion,” said Banks.

“What are you suggesting?”

“DS Templeton dug up the paperwork, and it looks to have been a rather cursory investigation,” Banks said. “After all, a major rock star and a peer of the realm were involved.”

“Meaning?”

Christ, Banks thought, do I have to spell it out for you? “Ma’am, I should imagine nobody wanted a scandal that might in any way touch the establishment and make it to the House,” he said. “There’d been enough of that sort of thing over the previous few years with Profumo, Kim Philby and the rest. As it was, the tabloids no doubt had a field day. Sex and drug orgies at Lord Jessop’s country manor. A deeper investigation might have unearthed things nobody wanted brought to the surface.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Banks, this is paranoid conspiracy rubbish,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Honestly, I’d have thought better of you.”

“Well,” Banks went on, unfazed, “the victim’s personal belongings are all missing, including his laptop and mobile, and he was definitely silenced for good.”

“We do know that he had a laptop and mobile?”

“The girl, Kelly Soames, says she saw them when she visited him, ma’am,” said Annie.

Gervaise frowned as if she had a bad taste in her mouth and tapped her pen on the blank pad in front of her. “People have been killed or beaten up for a mobile phone or less. I’m still not convinced about this girl, DI Cabbot. She could be lying. Talk to her again, see if her story’s consistent.”

“Surely you don’t really believe that she might have killed him?” Annie asked.

“All I’m saying is that it’s possible.”

“But she was working in the pub at the time. There are plenty of witnesses to vouch for her.”

“Except when she was supposed to be going to the dentist’s on Friday afternoon, but was in actuality in bed with a man she’d only just met, a man who was found dead not long after. The girl can obviously lie with the best of them. All I’m saying is it’s suspicious, DI Cabbot. And the MO fits. Crime of passion. Maybe he slighted her, asked her to do something she found repugnant? Perhaps she found out he had another girlfriend. Maybe she left the pub for a few moments later on, in the dark. It wouldn’t have taken long.”

“That would involve some premeditation, not a crime of passion, ma’am,” said Annie, “and the odds are that she would have also got some blood on her.”

“Perhaps this sense of being wronged built up in her until she snapped when the lights went out, and seized her opportunity before they got organized with candles? I don’t know. All I’m saying is that it’s possible, and that it makes a good deal more sense than any conspiracy rooted deep in the past. Either way, push her a bit harder, DI Cabbot. Do I make myself clear? And, DS Nowak?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Have a word with the pathologist, Dr. Glendenning. See if you can push him a bit on time of death, find out if there’s any possibility that the victim could have been killed around four rather than between six and eight.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Stefan gave Annie a quick glance. They both knew Dr. Glendenning could not be pushed on anything.

“And let’s have the girl’s father in,” Superintendent Gervaise went on. “He disappeared for long enough around the time of the murder. If he found out that this Barber character was having casual sex with his daughter, he might have taken the law into his own hands.”

“Ma’am?” said Annie.

“What, DI Cabbot?”

“It’s just that I sort of promised. I mean, I indicated to the girl, to Kelly, that is, that we had no need to tell her father about what happened. Apparently he’s a bit of a disciplinarian, and it could go badly for her.”

“All the more reason to have a close look at him. It might already have gone badly for Nicholas Barber. Have you thought of that?”

“No, ma’am, you don’t understand. It’s her I’m worried about. Kelly. He’ll hit the roof.”

Superintendent Gervaise regarded Annie coldly. “I understand perfectly well what you’re saying, DI Cabbot. It serves her right for jumping into the bed with every man she sees, then, doesn’t it?”

“With all due respect, there’s no evidence to suggest that she does anything of the kind. She just happened to like Nick Barber.”

Superintendent Gervaise glared at Annie. “I’m not going to argue sexual mores, especially with you, DI Cabbot. Ask around. Find out. The girl must have had other partners. Find them. And find out if anyone’s ever paid her for it.”

“But, ma’am,” Annie protested. “That’s an insult. Kelly Soames isn’t a prostitute, and this case isn’t about her sex life.”

“It is if I say it is.”

“I talked to Calvin Soames,” Banks cut in.

Superintendent Gervaise looked over at him. “And?”

“In my opinion, he didn’t know what was going on between the victim and his daughter.”

“In your opinion?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“He couldn’t have been hiding it?”

“He could, I suppose,” Banks admitted, “but if we’re assuming that he did it out of anger or righteous indignation, I think he would have been far more likely to be wearing his heart on his sleeve. He would have been angry when I was questioning his daughter about Barber, but he wasn’t.”

“Did you suggest they had slept together?”

“No,” said Banks. “I merely asked her about her dealings with Barber as a customer in the Cross Keys. While her father was watching us, I was watching him, and I believe that if he’d known there was more to it than that, it would have shown in his expression, his behavior, or in something he said. In my opinion, he’s not the sort of man accustomed to being sly.”

“And it didn’t?”

“No.”

“Very well. I’d be more convinced, however, if I could witness his reaction to being told what his daughter had been up to.”

“But, ma’am-”

“That’s enough, DI Cabbot. I want you to pursue this line of inquiry until I’m satisfied there either is or isn’t something to it.”

“It’ll be too late for Kelly Soames then,” Annie muttered under her breath.

“DS Templeton?” said Banks.

Templeton sat up. “Sir?”

“Did you manage to locate Detective Sergeant Enderby?”

Templeton shifted uneasily in his chair. “Er… yes, sir, I did.” He looked at Superintendent Gervaise while he was speaking.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Well, ma’am,” Templeton said, “DCI Banks asked me to track down the detective who investigated the Robin Merchant drowning.”

“This is the drug addict who fell into the swimming pool thirty-five years ago?”

“Yes, ma’am, though I’m not certain that he was actually an addict. Not technically speaking.”

Superintendent Gervaise sighed theatrically, ran her hand over her layered blond hair, then looked at Banks. “Very well, DCI Banks. I see you’re hell-bent and determined on following this up, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll bear with you for the moment and assume there might be something in it. But DI Cabbot sticks with the Soameses. Okay?”

“Fine,” said Banks. He turned to Templeton. “Well, then, Kev. Where is he?”

Templeton glanced at Superintendent Gervaise again before answering. “Er… he’s in Whitby, sir.”

“That’s nice and handy, then, isn’t it?” Banks said. “I quite fancy a day at the seaside.”

The sun was out again when Banks began his descent from the North York Moors down into Whitby. It was a sight that always stirred him, even in the most gloomy weather, but today the sky was milky blue, and the sun shone on the ruined abbey high on the hill and sparkled like diamonds on the North Sea beyond the dark pincers of the harbor walls.

Retired Detective Inspector Keith Enderby lived in West Cliff, where the houses straggled off the A174 toward Sandsend. At least his fifties pebbledash semi had a sea view, even if it was only a few square feet between the houses opposite. Other than that, it was an unremarkable house on an unremarkable estate, Banks thought, as he pulled up behind the gray Mondeo parked at the front. “Mondeo Man.” A journalistically contrived representative of a certain kind of middle-class Briton. Was that what Enderby had become?

On the phone, Enderby had indicated that he was keen enough to talk about the Robin Merchant case, and in person he welcomed Banks into his home with a smile and handshake, introduced his wife, Rita, a small, quiet woman with a halo of pinkish-gray hair. Rita offered tea or coffee and Banks went for tea. It came with the requisite plate of chocolate digestives, arrowroots and Kit Kats, from which Banks was urged to help himself. He did. After a few pleasantries, at a nod from her husband, Rita made herself scarce, muttering something about errands in town, and drove off in the gray Mondeo. “Mondeo Woman,” then, Banks thought. Enderby said something about what a wonderful woman she was. Banks agreed. It seemed the polite thing to do.

“Nice place to retire to,” Banks said. “How long have you been here?”

“Going on for ten years now,” Enderby said. “I put in my twenty-five years and a few more besides. Finished up as a DI in South Yorkshire Police, Doncaster. But Rita always dreamed of living by the seaside and we used to come here for our holidays.”

“And you?”

“Well, the Costa del Sol would have suited me just fine, but we couldn’t afford it. Besides, Rita won’t leave the country. Foreigners begin at Calais and all that. She doesn’t even have a passport. Can you believe it?”

“You probably wouldn’t have liked it there,” Banks said. “Too many villains.”

“Whitby’s all right,” said Enderby, “and not short of a villain or two, either. I could do without all those bloody Goths, mind you.”

Banks knew that Whitby’s close association with Bram Stoker’s Dracula made the place a point of pilgrimage for Goths, but as far as he knew they were harmless enough kids, caused no trouble, and if they wanted to wear black all the time and drink a little of one another’s blood now and then, it was fine with him. The sun flashed on the square of sea through the houses opposite. “I appreciate your agreeing to talk to me,” Banks said.

“No problem. I just don’t know that I can add much you don’t already know. It was all in the case files.”

“If you’re anything like me,” Banks said, “you often have a feeling, call it a gut instinct or whatever, that you don’t think belongs in the files. Or a personal impression, something interesting but that seems irrelevant to the actual case itself.”

“It was a long time ago,” Enderby said. “I probably wouldn’t remember anything like that now.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Banks. “It was a high-profile case, I should imagine. Interesting times back then, too. Rubbing shoulders with rock stars and aristos and all that.”

“Oh, it was interesting, all right. Pink Floyd. The Who. I met them all. More tea?”

Banks held out his cup while Enderby poured. His gold wedding band was embedded deeply in his pudgy finger, surrounded by a tuft of hair. “You’d have been how old then?” Banks asked.

“In 1970? Just turned thirty that May.”

That would be about right, Banks guessed. Enderby looked to be in his mid-sixties now, with the comfortable paunch of a man who enjoys his inactivity and a head bereft of even a hint of a hair. He made up for the lack with a gray scrubbing-brush mustache. A delicate pink pattern of broken blood vessels mapped his cheeks and nose, but Banks put it down to blood pressure rather than drink. Enderby didn’t talk or act like a boozer, and his breath didn’t smell of Trebor Extra-Strong mints.

“So what was it like working on that case?” Banks asked. “What do you remember most about the Robin Merchant investigation?”

Enderby screwed up his eyes and gazed out of the window. “It must have been about ten o’clock by the time we got to the scene,” he said. “It was a beautiful morning, I do remember that. Clear. Warm. Birds singing. And there he was, floating in the pool.”

“What was your first impression?”

Enderby thought for a moment, then he gave a brief, barking laugh and put his cup down on the saucer. “Do you know what it was?” he said. “You’ll never believe this. He was on his back, naked, you know, and I remember thinking he’d got such a little prick for a famous rock star. You know, all the stuff we heard back then about groupies and orgies. The News of the World and all that. We assumed they were all hung like horses. It just seemed so incongruous, him floating there all shriveled, like a shrimp or a seahorse or something. It was the water, of course. No matter how warm the day was, the water was still cold.”

“That’ll do it every time. Were the others up and around when you arrived?”

“You must be joking. The uniforms were just rousing them. If it hadn’t been for Merchant’s drowning and our arrival, they’d probably have slept until well into the afternoon. They looked in pretty bad shape, too, some of them. Hungover and worse.”

“So who phoned it in?”

“The gardener, when he arrived for work.”

“Was he a suspect?”

“Nah, not really.”

“Many hangers-on and groupies around?”

“It’s hard to say. According to their statements, everyone was a close friend of the band. I mean, no one actually admitted to being a groupie or a hanger-on. Most of the guys in the band were just with their regular girlfriends.”

“What about Robin Merchant? Was he with anyone that night?”

“There was a girl asleep in his bed,” said Enderby.

“Girlfriend?”

“Groupie.”

“According to what I’ve read,” Banks said, “the thinking at the time was that Merchant had taken some Mandrax and was wandering around the pool naked when he fell in at the shallow end, hit his head on the bottom and drowned. Is that right?”

“Yes,” said Enderby. “That was what it looked like, and that’s what the pathologist confirmed. There was also a broken glass on the edge of the pool with Merchant’s fingerprints on it. He’d been drinking. Vodka.”

“Did you consider other possible scenarios?”

“Such as?”

“That it wasn’t accidental.”

“You mean somebody pushed him?”

“It would be a natural assumption. You know what suspicious minds we coppers have.”

“True enough,” Enderby agreed. “I must admit, it crossed my mind, but I soon ruled it out.”

“Why?”

“Nobody had any motive.”

“Not according to what they told you.”

“We dug a bit deeper than that. Give us some credit. We might not have had the resources you’ve got today, but we did our best.”

“There was no friction within the band?”

“As far as I know there’s always friction in bands. Put a group of people together with egos that big and there has to be. Stands to reason.”

Banks laughed. Then he thought of Brian and wondered if the Blue Lamps were due for a split before too long. Brian hadn’t said anything, but Banks sensed something different about him, a certain lack of excitement and commitment, perhaps, and his turning up out of the blue like that was unusual. He seemed weary. And what about Emilia? Was she the Yoko Ono figure? Still, if Brian wanted to talk, he would get around to it in his own time; there was no use in pushing him. He’d always been that way. “Any-thing in particular?” he asked Enderby.

“Let’s see. They were all worried about Vic Greaves’s drug intake, for a start. His performances were getting more and more erratic, and his behavior was unreliable. Apparently, he’d missed a concert engagement not that long back, and the rest of them were still a bit pissed off at him for leaving them in the lurch.”

“Did Greaves have an alibi?”

Enderby scratched the side of his nose. “As a matter of fact, he did,” he said. “Two, actually.”

“Two?”

Enderby grinned. “Greaves and Merchant were the only two band members who didn’t have regular girlfriends. That night, Greaves happened to be in bed with two groupies.”

“Lucky devil,” said Banks. “I’d never have thought he had it in him.” He remembered the bald, bloated figure with the hollow eyes he had seen in Lyndgarth.

“According to them, he didn’t,” said Enderby. “Apparently he was too far gone to get it up. Bloody waste, if you ask me. They were lovely-looking girls.” He smiled at the memory. “Not wearing very much, either, when I interviewed them. That’s one of the little things you don’t forget in a hurry. Not so little, either, if you catch my drift.”

“Could Greaves not have sneaked away for a while during the night? They must have both slept, or passed out, at some time.”

“Look, when you get right down to it, any one of them could have done it. At least anyone who could still walk in a straight line. We didn’t really set great store by the alibis, as such. For a start, hardly any of them could remember much about the previous evening, or even what time they finally went to bed. They might have been wandering about all night, for all I know, and not even noticed Merchant in the swimming pool.”

“So what made you rule out murder so quickly?”

“I told you. No real motive. No evidence that he’d been pushed.”

“But Merchant could have got into an argument with someone, gone a bit over the top.”

“Oh, he could have, yes. But no one says he did, so what are we supposed to do, jump to conclusions and pick someone? Anyone?”

“What about an intruder?”

“Couldn’t be ruled out, either. It was easy enough to get into the grounds. But again, there was no evidence of an intruder, and nothing was stolen. Besides, Merchant’s injuries were consistent with falling into a swimming pool and drowning, which was what happened. Look, if you ask me, at worst it could have been a bit of stoned and drunken larking around that went wrong. I’m not saying that’s what happened, because there’s no proof, but if they were all stoned or pissed, which they were, and they started running around the pool playing tag or what have you, and someone tagged Merchant just a bit too hard and he ended up in the pool dead… Well, what would you do?”

“First off,” said Banks, “I’d try to get him out of there. There was no way I could be sure he was dead. Then I’d probably try artificial respiration, or the kiss of life or whatever it was back then, while someone called an ambulance.”

“Aye,” said Enderby. “And if you’d had as much drugs in your system as they had, you’d probably have just stood there for half an hour twiddling your thumbs before doing anything, and then the first thing you’d have done is get rid of your stash.”

“Did the drugs squad search the premises? There was no mention in the file.”

“Between you and me, we searched the place. Oh, we found a bit of marijuana, a few tabs of LSD, some mandies. But nothing hard.”

“What happened?”

“We decided, in the light of everything else – like a body to deal with – that we wouldn’t bring charges. We just disposed of the stuff. I mean, what were we to do, arrest them all for possession?”

Disposed of? Banks doubted that. Consumed or sold, more likely. But there was no point in opening that can of worms. “Did you get any sense that they’d cooked up a story between them?”

“No. As I said, half of them couldn’t even remember the party. It was all pretty fragmented and inconclusive.”

“Lord Jessop was present, right?”

“Right. Probably about the most coherent of the lot. That was before he got into the hard stuff.”

“And the most influential?”

“I can see where you’re going with this. Of course nobody wanted a scandal. It was bad enough as it was. Maybe that’s why we didn’t bring drugs charges. There’d been enough of that over the past two or three years with the Stones bust, and it was all beginning to seem pretty ridiculous. Especially after The Times ran that editorial about breaking a butterfly on a wheel. Within hours we had them all banging at the door and jumping over the walls. The News of the World, People, Daily Mirror, you name them. So even if someone else had been involved in a bit of horseplay, the thinking went, then it had still been an accident, and there was no point in inviting scandal. As we couldn’t prove that anyone else had been involved and no one was admitting to it, that was the end of it. Tea’s done. Fancy another pot?”

“No, thank you,” said Banks. “If there’s nothing more you can tell me, I’d better be off.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“It wasn’t disappointing.”

“Look, you never did really tell me what it was all about. Remember, we’re in the same job, or used to be.”

Banks was so used to not giving out any more information than he needed to that he sometimes forgot to say entirely why he was asking about something. “We found a writer by the name of Nick Barber dead. You might have read about it.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar,” said Enderby. “I try to keep up.”

“What you won’t have read about is that he was working on a story about the Mad Hatters, on Vic Greaves and the band’s early days in particular.”

“Interesting,” said Enderby. “But I still don’t see why you’re asking about Robin Merchant’s death.”

“It was just something Barber said to a girlfriend,” Banks said. “He mentioned something about a juicy story with a murder.”

“Now you’ve got me interested,” said Enderby. “A murder, you say?”

“That’s right. I suppose it was probably just journalistic license, trying to impress his girlfriend.”

“Not necessarily,” said Enderby.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Robin Merchant’s death was accidental, but that wasn’t the first time I was out at Swainsview Lodge in connection with a suspicious death.”

“Really?” said Banks. “Do tell.”

Enderby stood up. “Look, the sun’s well over the yardarm. How about we head down to my local and I’ll tell you over a pint?”

“I’m driving,” said Banks.

“That’s all right,” said Enderby. “You can buy me one and watch me drink it.”

“What took you out there?” Banks asked.

“A murder,” said Enderby, eyes glittering. “A real one that time.”

Saturday, 20th September, 1969

“She won’t come out of her room,” Janet Chadwick said as she sat with her husband eating tea on Saturday evening, football results on the telly. Chadwick was filling in his pools coupon, but it was soon clear that the £230,000 jackpot was going to elude him this week, just as it had every other week.

Chadwick ate some toad-in-hole after giving it a liberal dip in the gravy. “What’s wrong with her now?”

“She won’t say. She came dashing in late this afternoon and went straight up to her room. I called to her, knocked on her door, but she wouldn’t answer.”

“Did you go in?”

“No. She has to be allowed some privacy, Stan. She’s sixteen.”

“I know. I know. But this is unusual, missing her tea like this. And it’s Saturday. Doesn’t she usually go out Saturday night?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have a word with her after tea.”

“Be careful with her, Stan. You know how on edge she seems these days.”

Chadwick touched his wife’s wrist. “I’ll be careful. I’m not really the terrible child-gobbling monster you think I am.”

Janet laughed. “I don’t think you’re a monster. She’s just at a difficult age. A father doesn’t always understand as much as a mother does.”

“I’ll tread gently, don’t worry.”

They finished their tea in silence, and while Janet went to wash the dishes, Chadwick went upstairs to try to talk to Yvonne. He tapped softly at her door but got no answer. He tapped again, a little louder, but all he heard was a muffled “Go away.” There wasn’t even any music playing. Yvonne must have had her transistor radio turned off. Another unusual sign.

Chadwick reckoned he had two choices: leave Yvonne to her own devices, or simply walk in. Janet would favor the former, laissez-faire approach, no doubt, but Chadwick was in a mood to take the bull by the horns. He’d had enough of Yvonne’s sneaking around, stopping out all night, her secrets and lies and prima-donna behavior. Now was the time to see what was at the bottom of it. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and walked in.

The outrage he expected didn’t come. The curtains were closed, the lights off, giving the room a dim, twilit appearance. It even disguised the untidy mess of clothes and magazines on the floor and bed. At first, Chadwick couldn’t see Yvonne, then he realized she was on her bed, under the eiderdown. When his eyes adjusted, he could also see that she was shaking. Concerned, he perched on the edge of the bed and said softly, “Yvonne. Yvonne, sweetheart. What’s wrong? What is it?”

She didn’t react at first, and he sat patiently waiting, remembering when she was a little girl and came to him when she had nightmares. “It’s all right,” he said, “you can tell me. I won’t be angry with you. I promise.”

Her hand snaked out from under the eiderdown and sought his. He held it. Still she said nothing, then she slowly slid the cover off her face, and he could see even in the weak light that she had been crying. She was still shaking, too.

“What is it, love?” he asked. “What’s happened.”

“It was horrible,” she said. “He was horrible.”

Chadwick felt his neck muscles tense. “What? Has somebody done something to you?”

“He’s ruined everything.”

“What do you mean? You’d better tell me from the start, Yvonne. I want to understand, honestly I do.”

Yvonne stared at him, as if trying to come to a decision. He knew he came across as strict and straight and unbending, but he really did want to know what was upsetting her, and not with a view to punishment this time. Whatever she thought, and however difficult it was, he really did love his daughter. One by one, the terrible possibilities crowded in on him. Had she found out she was pregnant? Was that it? Like Linda Lofthouse when she was Yvonne’s age? Or had someone assaulted her?

“What is it?” he asked. “Did somebody hurt you?”

Yvonne shook her head. “Not like you think.” Then she launched herself into his arms and he could feel her tears on his neck and hear her talking into his shoulder. “I was so scared, Daddy, the things he was saying. I really thought he was going to do something terrible to me. I know he had a knife somewhere. If I hadn’t run away…” She collapsed into sobs. Chadwick digested what she had said, trying to keep his fatherly anger at bay, and gently disentangled himself. Yvonne lay back on her pillows and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. She looked like a little girl. Chadwick handed her the box of tissues from the dresser top.

“Start at the beginning,” he said. “Slowly.”

“I was at Brimleigh Festival, Dad. I want you to know that before I start. I’m sorry for lying.”

“I knew that.”

“But, Dad?…How?”

“Call it a father’s instinct.” Or copper’s instinct, he thought. “Go on.”

“I’ve been hanging around with some people. You wouldn’t like them. That’s why… why I didn’t tell you. But they’re people like me, Dad. We’re into the same music and ideas and beliefs about society and stuff. They’re different. They’re not boring, not like the kids at school. They read poetry and write and play music.”

“Students?”

“Some of them.”

“So they’re older than you?”

“What does age matter?”

“Never mind. Go on.”

Yvonne looked a little uncertain now, and Chadwick realized he would have to keep his editorial comments to a bare minimum if he hoped to get the truth from his daughter. “Everything was fine, really it was. And then…” She started trembling again, got herself under control and went on. “There’s this man called McGarrity. He’s older than the others and he acts really weird. He always scared me.”

“In what way?”

“He’s got this horrible, twisted sort of smile that makes you feel like some sort of insect, and he keeps quoting things – T. S. Eliot, the Bible, other stuff. Sometimes he just paces up and down with his knife.”

“What knife?”

“He’s got this knife, and he keeps just, you know, tapping it against his palm as he walks.”

“What kind of knife is it?”

“A flick-knife with a tortoiseshell handle.”

“Which palm does he tap it against?”

Yvonne frowned, and Chadwick realized again he would have to be careful. It could wait. “Sorry,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Go on.”

“They say… Steve says, he’s a bit weird because he had electroshock therapy. They say he used to be a great blues harmonica player, but since the electric shocks he can’t play anymore. But I don’t know… He just seems weird to me.”

“Is this the man who bothered you?”

“Yes. I went over there this afternoon to see Steve – he’s my boyfriend – but he wasn’t in and only McGarrity was there. I wanted to go but he insisted I stay.”

“Did he force you?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say he forced me, but I was uncomfortable. I was just hoping Steve and the others would get back soon, that’s all.”

“Was he on drugs?”

Yvonne looked away and nodded.

“Okay. Go on.”

“He said some terrible things.”

“About what?”

“About the girl who was killed. About those dead people in Los Angeles. About me.”

“What did he say about you?”

Yvonne looked down. “He was rude. I don’t want to repeat it.”

“All right. Stay calm. Did he touch you?”

“He grabbed my arm and he touched my face. He was just so frightening. I was terrified he was going to do something.”

Chadwick felt his teeth grinding. “What happened?”

“I waited until he had his back turned to me and I ran away.”

“Good girl. Did he come after you?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t look.”

“Okay. You’re doing fine, Yvonne. You’re safe now.”

“But, Dad, what if he…”

“What if he what? Was he at Brimleigh?”

“Yes.”

“With you?”

“No, he was wandering around the field.”

“Did you see him go in the woods?”

“No. But it was dark most of the time. I wouldn’t have seen.”

“Where did it happen this afternoon?”

“Just down the road, Springfield Mount. Look, Dad, they’re all right, really, the others, Steve. It’s just him. There’s something wrong with him, I’m sure of it.”

“Did he know Linda Lofthouse?”

“Linda? I don’t… yes, yes, he did.”

Chadwick’s ears pricked up at the familiarity with which Yvonne mentioned Linda’s name. “How do you know? It’s all right, Yvonne, you can tell me the truth. I’m not going to be angry with you.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Yvonne smiled. It was an old ritual. “It was at another house, on Bayswater Terrace,” she said. “There’s three places people, like, gather, to listen to music and stuff. Springfield Mount and Carberry Place are the other two. Anyway, sometime during the summer I was with Steve, and Linda was there. McGarrity too. I mean they didn’t know one another, they weren’t close or anything, but he had met her.”

Chadwick paused a moment to take it all in. Bayswater Terrace. Dennis, Julie and the rest. So Yvonne was part of that crowd. His own daughter. He held himself in check, remembering he’d promised not to be angry. Besides, the poor girl had been through a trauma, and it had taken a lot for her to open up; the last thing she needed now was a lecture from her father. But it was hard to keep his rage inside. He felt so wound up, so tight, that his chest ached.

“You met Linda, too?” he asked.

“Yes.” Tears filled Yvonne’s eyes. “Once. We didn’t talk much, really. She just said she liked my dress and my hair, and we talked about what a drag school can be. She was so nice, Dad, how could anyone do that to her?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Chadwick said, stroking his daughter’s silky blond hair. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think it was him? McGarrity?”

“I don’t know that, either, but I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”

“Don’t be too hard on Steve or the others, Dad. Please. They’re all right. Really they are. It’s only him, only McGarrity who’s weird.”

“I understand,” said Chadwick. “How do you feel now about getting up and having something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well, at least come downstairs and see your mother. She’s worried sick about you.”

“Okay,” said Yvonne. “But give me a few minutes to get changed and wash my face.”

“Right you are, sweetheart.” Chadwick kissed the top of her head, left the room and headed for the telephone, jaw set hard. Later tonight, someone was going to be very sorry he had ever been born.