Piece Of My Heart

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Because of roadworks and poor weather on the M1, it took Banks almost three hours to drive to Tania Hutchison’s house on Friday morning, and when he got to Tania’s village he was so thoroughly pissed off with driving that the beautiful rolling country of the English heartland was lost on him.

He had spent the latter part of Thursday afternoon, and a good part of the evening, reading over the files on the Linda Lofthouse investigation and the Patrick McGarrity trial transcripts, all to little avail, so he had not been in the best of moods when he got up that morning. Brian was still in bed, but Emilia had been puttering around the place with a smile on her face and had made him a pot of coffee and some delicious scrambled eggs. He was getting used to having her around.

Tania’s house, perched on the edge of a tiny village, wasn’t especially large, but it was built of golden Cotswold stone, with a thatched roof, and it must have cost her a pretty penny. The thing that surprised Banks most was that he could drive right up to her front gate; there was no security, no high wall or fence, merely a privet hedge. He had rung earlier to let her know he was coming, to get directions, and to make sure she would be in, but he had told her nothing about the reason for his visit.

Tania greeted him at the door, and though there was no one else present, Banks knew he would have been able to pick her out of a crowd easily. It wasn’t that she looked like a rock star or anything, whatever a rock star looked like. She was more petite than he had imagined from seeing her onstage and on television, and she certainly looked older now, but it wasn’t so much the familiarity of her looks as a certain class, a presence. Charisma, Banks supposed. It wasn’t something he came across often in his line of work. For a moment, Banks felt absurdly embarrassed, remembering the teenage crush he had had on her. He wondered if she could tell from his behavior.

Her clothes were of the casual-expensive kind, understated designer jeans and a loose cable-knit sweater; she was barefoot, toenails painted red, and her dark hair, in the past so long and glossy, was now cut short and laced with delicate threads of gray. There were lines around her eyes and mouth, but otherwise her complexion seemed flawless and smooth. She wore little makeup, just enough to accentuate her full lips and her watchful green eyes, and she moved with a certain natural grace as Banks followed her through a broad arched hallway into a large living room, where a lacquered grand piano stood by the French windows, and the floor was covered with a lush Persian carpet.

The other thing Banks noticed was a heavy glass ashtray, and Tania wasted no time in lighting a cigarette once she had curled up in an armchair and gestured for Banks to sit opposite her. She held the long, tipped cigarette in the V of her index and second fingers and took short, frequent drags. He felt like smoking with her, but he suppressed the urge. There was a fragility and a wariness about her, as well as class and charisma, as if she’d been hurt or betrayed so many times that once more would cause her world to crumble. Her name had been romantically linked with a number of famous rock stars and actors over the years, and with equally famous breakups, but now, Banks had read recently, she lived alone with her two cats, and she liked it that way. The cats, one marmalade and one tabby, were in evidence, but neither showed much interest in Banks.

As he made himself comfortable, Banks had to remind himself that Tania was a suspect, and he had to put out of his mind the vivid sexual fantasies he had once entertained about her and stop acting like a tongue-tied adolescent. She had been at Brimleigh with Linda Lofthouse and had later been a member of the Mad Hatters. She had also been present at Swainsview Lodge on the night Robin Merchant drowned. She had no motive for either crime, as far as Banks knew, but motives sometimes had a habit of emerging later, once the means and the opportunity were firmly nailed in place.

“You weren’t very forthcoming over the telephone, you know,” she said, a touch of reproach in her husky voice. Banks could still hear hints of a North American accent, though he knew she had been in England since her student days.

“It’s about Nick Barber’s murder,” he said, watching for a reaction.

“Nick Barber? The writer? Good Lord. I hadn’t heard.” She turned pale.

“What is it?”

“I spoke to him just a couple of weeks ago. He wanted to talk to me. He was doing a piece on the Mad Hatters.”

“Did you agree to talk to him?”

“Yes. Nick was one of the few music journos you could trust not to distort everything. Oh, Christ, this is terrible.” She put her hand to her mouth. If she was acting, Banks thought, then she was damned good. But she was a performer by trade, he reminded himself. As if sensing her grief, one of the cats made its way over slowly and, with a scowl at Banks, leaped onto her lap. She stroked it absently and it purred.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were close, or I would have broken the news a bit more tactfully. I assumed you knew.”

“We weren’t close,” she said. “I just knew him in passing, that’s all. I’ve met him once or twice. And I liked his work. It’s a hell of a shock. He was planning to come by and talk to me about my early days with the band.”

“When was this?” Banks asked.

“We didn’t have a firm date. He phoned two, maybe three weeks ago and said he’d get in touch with me again soon. He never did.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No. He said he was ringing from a public telephone, and his phone card ran out. What happened? Why would anyone murder Nick Barber?”

That explained why they hadn’t seen Tania’s number on Barber’s mobile or landline phone records, Banks thought. “I think it might be something to do with the story he was working on,” he said.

“The story? But how could it be?”

“I don’t know yet, but we haven’t been able to find any other lines of inquiry.” Banks told her a little about Barber’s movements in Yorkshire, in particular his unsatisfactory meeting with Vic Greaves.

“Poor Vic,” she said. “How is he?”

Banks didn’t know how to answer that. He’d thought Greaves was clearly off his rocker, if not clinically insane, but he seemed to function well enough, with a little help from Chris Adams, and he was certainly high on Banks’s list of suspects. “Same as usual, I suppose,” he said, though he didn’t know what was usual for Vic Greaves.

“Vic was one of the sensitive ones,” Tania said, “much too fragile for the life he led and the risks he took.”

“What do you mean?”

Tania stubbed out her cigarette before answering. “There are people in the business whose minds and bodies can take an awful lot of substance abuse – Iggy Pop and Keith Richards come to mind, for example – and there are those who go on the ride with them and fall off. Vic was one who fell off.”

“Because he was sensitive?”

She nodded. “Some people could eat acid as if it were candy and have nothing but a good time, like watching their favorite cartoons over and over again. Others saw the devil, the jaws of hell or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the horrors beyond the grave. Vic was one of the latter. He had Hammer-horror trips, and the visions unhinged him.”

“So LSD caused his breakdown?”

“It certainly contributed to it. But I’m not saying something wouldn’t have happened anyway. Certainly the emotions and some of the images were in his mind already. Acid merely released them. But maybe he should have kept the cork in the bottle.”

“Why did he keep taking it?”

Tania shrugged. “There’s really no answer to that. Acid certainly isn’t addictive in the way heroin and coke are. Not all his trips were bad. I think maybe he was trying to get through hell to something better. Maybe he thought if he kept on trying, then one day he would find the peace he was looking for.”

“But he didn’t?”

“You’ve seen him yourself. You should know.”

“Who was he riding with?”

“There wasn’t any one particular person. It was meant as a sort of metaphor for the whole scene back then. The doors of perception and all that. Vic was a poet and he loved and wanted all that mystical, decadent glamour. He admired Jim Morrison a lot, even met him at the Isle of Wight.” She smiled to herself. “Apparently, it didn’t go well. The Lizard King was in a bad mood, and he didn’t want to know poor Vic, let alone read his poetry. Told him to fuck off. That hurt.”

“Too bad,” said Banks. “What about the rest of the band’s drug intake?”

“None of them was as sensitive as Vic, and none of them did as much acid.”

“Robin Merchant?”

“Hardly. I’d have put him down as one of the survivors if it hadn’t been for the accident.”

“What about Chris Adams?”

“Chris?” A flicker of a smile crossed her face. “Chris was probably the straightest of the lot. Still is.”

“Why do you think he takes such good care of Vic Greaves? Guilt?”

“Over what?”

“I don’t know,” Banks said. “Responsibility for the breakdown, something like that?”

“No,” Tania said, shaking her head vigorously. “Far from it. Chris was always trying to get Vic off acid, helping him through bad trips.”

“Then why?”

Tania paused. It was quiet outside, and Banks couldn’t even hear any birds singing. “If you ask me,” she said, “I’d say it was because he loved him. Not in any homosexual sense, you understand – Chris isn’t like that, or Vic, for that matter – but as a brother. Don’t forget, they grew up together, knew each other as kids on a working-class estate. They shared dreams. If Chris had had any musical talent, he’d have been in the band, but he was the first to admit he couldn’t even manage the basic three rock chords, and he certainly couldn’t carry even the simplest melody. But he did turn out to have good business sense and vision, and that’s what shaped the band after all the tragedies. It was all very well to tune in, turn on, drop out and say, Whatever, man, but someone had to handle the day-to-day mechanics of making a living, and if someone trustworthy like Chris didn’t do it, you could bet your life that there were any number of unscrupulous bastards waiting in the wings ready to exploit someone else’s talent.”

“Interesting,” said Banks. “So in some ways Chris Adams was the driving force behind the Mad Hatters?”

“He held things together, yes. And he helped us with a new direction when both Robin and Vic were gone.”

“Was it Chris who invited you to join the band?”

Tania twisted a silver ring on her finger. “Yes. It’s no secret. We were going out together at the time. I met him at Brimleigh. I’d seen him a couple of times before, when my friend Linda got me into Mad Hatters events, but we hadn’t really talked like we did at Brimleigh. I had a boyfriend then, a student in Paris, but we soon drifted apart, and Chris was in London a lot. He’d phone me and finally I agreed to have dinner with him.”

“Brimleigh’s something else I want to talk to you about,” said Banks. “If you can cast your mind back that far.”

Tania gave him an enigmatic smile. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind,” she said. “But if you’re going to send me leafing through my back pages, I think we’re going to need some coffee, don’t you?” She dumped the cat unceremoniously on the floor and headed into the kitchen. The animal hissed at Banks and slunk away. Banks was surprised that Tania had no one to make the coffee for her, no housekeeper or butler, but then Tania Hutchison was full of surprises.

While she was gone, he gazed around the room. There was nothing to distinguish it particularly except a few modernist paintings on the walls, originals by the look of them, and an old stone fireplace that would probably make it very cozy on a winter evening. There was no music playing and no evidence of a stereo or CDs. Nor was there a television.

Tania returned shortly with a cafetière, mugs, milk and sugar on a tray, which she set on the low wicker coffee table. “We’ll give it a few minutes, shall we? You do like your coffee strong?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“Excellent.” Tania lit another cigarette and leaned back.

“Can we talk about Brimleigh?”

“Naturally. But as I remember it, the man who killed Linda was caught and put in jail.”

“That’s true,” said Banks. “Where he has since died.”

“Then…?”

“I just want to get a few things clear, that’s all. Did you know the man, Patrick McGarrity?”

“No. I’d met him on a couple of occasions, when I accompanied Linda to her friends’ houses in Leeds, but I never spoke with him. He seemed an odious sort of character to me. Pacing around with that silly smile on his face, as if he was enjoying some sort of private joke at everyone else’s expense. Gave me the creeps. I suppose they only put up with him because of the drugs.”

“You knew about that?”

“That he was a dealer? It was pretty obvious. But he could only have been small-time. Even most dealers had more class than him, and they didn’t smell as bad.”

“Did you see him at Brimleigh?”

“No, but we were backstage.”

“All the time?”

“Unless we went out front to the press enclosure to see the bands, and, of course, when Linda took her walk in the woods. But we were never with the general audience, no.”

“I’ve read through the files and trial transcripts,” said Banks, “and apparently you weren’t worried about her?”

“No. We both knew we might go our separate ways. She knew I was heading off to Paris the next day, and she told me she’d probably stay with friends in Leeds, so I had no cause to worry. The very last thing you expected at a festival back then was a murder. This was before Altamont, remember, coming hot on the heels of successes at Woodstock and the Isle of Wight. Everyone was high on rock festivals. The bigger the better.”

“I appreciate that,” said Banks. “Did you see her talking to anyone in particular?”

“Not really. I mean, we talked to a lot of people. There was a sort of party atmosphere, and I must admit it was a big thrill to be hanging out with the stars.” She gave Banks a coy smile. “I was still an impressionable young girl back then, you know. Anyway, Linda spent a bit of time with the Hatters, but she would, wouldn’t she? I mean it was Vic got us the passes in the first place, and he was her cousin, even if they weren’t especially close.”

“Did anyone show unusual interest in her?”

“No. People chatted her up, if that’s what you mean. Linda was a very attractive girl.”

“But she didn’t go off with anyone?”

“Not that I knew of.” Tania leaned forward and pressed the plunger on the cafetière, then she carefully poured two mugs. She added milk and sugar to her own, then offered them to Banks, who declined. “Linda was in a very spiritual phase then, into yoga and meditation, Tibetan Buddhism. She wasn’t into drugs and I don’t think she was into men all that much.”

“Did you actually see her leave the enclosure?”

“Not as such, no, but she told me she was going for a walk. I was heading to the front to see Led Zeppelin, and she said she needed a bit of space, she’d catch up with me later.”

“So where was Linda when you last saw her?”

“Backstage.”

“Was she with anyone?”

“A group of people.”

“Including?”

“I can’t really remember that far back. Some of the Hatters were there.”

“Vic Greaves?”

“Vic was around, but he took some acid after the show and… who knows where he was? Most people went round the front. It was a real crush in there, I do remember that. People trying to cop a feel in the crowd. I couldn’t say for certain who was there and who wasn’t.”

“So you didn’t see Linda head for the woods?”

“No. Look, you’re not saying Vic might have done this, are you? Because I don’t believe that. Whatever his problems, Vic was always a gentle soul. Still is, only he’s a bit disturbed. They caught the killer fair and square. They found his knife with Linda’s blood on it. I’d seen McGarrity with that knife, myself, at Bayswater Terrace.”

“I know,” said Banks. “But he maintained at the trial that he was framed, that the knife was planted.”

Tania snorted. “He would, wouldn’t he? You of all people should know that.”

Banks had read all about McGarrity’s bumbling efforts at defending himself in court, and he had no doubts that the man had been his own worst enemy. But if Vic Greaves had killed his cousin Linda, it made much more sense of later events, including Nick Barber’s murder. Greaves certainly had a violent streak, as he had made evident at the cottage after Banks’s visit. Perhaps, Banks thought, Greaves wasn’t quite as crazy as he made himself out to be. But he couldn’t tell Tania this. She was partisan; she would stick by her friends. He sipped some coffee. It was strong and full of flavor. “Delicious,” he said.

She inclined her head at the compliment. “Blue Mountain. Jamaica.”

“Did you know that Linda had an illegitimate child?”

“Yes. She told me she gave him up for adoption. She was only sixteen at the time.”

“And that child was Nick Barber?”

“He… what? My God! No, I didn’t know that. How… I mean, that’s an incredible coincidence.”

“Not really,” said Banks. “Plenty of people are adopted. Maybe Nick came by his love of music through Linda’s genes, I don’t know about that, but the knowledge did give him a particular interest in the Mad Hatters when he found out his birth mother was actually related to one of them. Then, when he found out she had been murdered, I should imagine his journalistic curiosity got him sniffing around that, too.”

“You don’t think it was anything to do with what happened to him, do you?”

“Only in that it set him on the course that led to his death. He probably wouldn’t have been writing that story and found out what he did – if, indeed, that’s what happened – if his mother hadn’t been Linda Lofthouse. But there again, maybe he would have done it anyway. He was already a Mad Hatters fan. I just find it a curious detail, that’s all. You were at Swainsview Lodge the night Robin Merchant died, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Tania. Banks couldn’t be certain, but he thought he detected a certain reticence, or tightness, slip into her tone.

“What was he like?”

“Robin? Of all of them, he was probably the brightest and the most intellectual. The weirdest, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“He always seemed remote, unreachable, to me. You couldn’t touch him. You didn’t know where he was, what he was thinking. Yet on the surface he was always friendly and pleasant enough. He was well educated and well read, but musically a bit plodding.”

“What was he like with the girls?”

“Oh, they all fancied Robin. He was so pretty with that mass of dark curls and all, but I’m not sure… I mean, I don’t think he really cared that much for anyone, underneath it all. I didn’t know him long, but he never had any sort of relationship during that time. It was all rather mechanical for him. He took what he was offered, then cast them aside. He was more into metaphysical and occult things.”

“Black magic?”

“Tarot cards, astrology, eastern philosophy, the cabala, that sort of thing. A lot of people were into it back then.”

“As they are again now,” said Banks, thinking of Madonna and all the other stars who had discovered the cabala of late, not to mention Scientology, which had also been a powerful presence in the late sixties. If you just wait, everything comes around again.

“I suppose so,” Tania said. “Anyway, Robin was usually immersed in some book or other. He didn’t say much. As I said, I didn’t really know him. Nobody did. His life outside the band was a mystery to all of us. If he had one.”

“Did Linda like him?”

“She said he was cute, yeah, but like I said, she was into other things at the time. Men weren’t really high on her list of priorities.”

“But she wasn’t off them completely?”

“Oh, no. I’m sure she’d have been interested if the right person had come along. She was just tired of the attitude some of the guys had. Free love. What they thought it meant was that they could screw any woman they wanted.”

“What about relations between Robin and Vic Greaves?”

“Nothing unusual, really. Robin seemed upset sometimes that Vic got more of his songs performed, but Vic was the better songwriter. Robin’s lyrics were too arcane, too dark.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, as far as I know. It was nothing more serious. Mostly they got along just fine.”

“And the rest of the band?”

“Same. There were disagreements, of course, as there always are when groups of people spend too much time cooped up together, but they weren’t at each other’s throats all the time, if that’s what you mean. I’d say, as things go in this business, as a group they were a pretty well-behaved bunch of kids, and I’ve seen some bad behavior in my time.”

“And after you joined?”

“Everyone treated me with respect. They still do.”

“What were the other members like as individuals?”

“Well, Vic was the sensitive poet, and Robin, as I said, the intellectual and the mystic. Reg was the angry one. The working-class boy made good with a bloody great chip on his shoulder. He’s over it now, more or less – I think a few million quid might have had a bit to do with that – but it was what drove him back then. Terry was the quiet one. He’d had a rough background. Apparently his father died when he was just a kid and his mother was really weird; I think she ended up in an institution eventually. He was troubled, but he never really talked about it. He seems to be a bit better adjusted these days. At least he manages to smile and speak a civil word now and then. And Adrian, well, he was the joker, the fun-lover. Still is. Laugh a minute, Adrian.”

“And you?”

Tania raised her delicately arched eyebrows. “Me? I’m the enigmatic one.”

Banks smiled. “What about your relationship with Chris Adams?”

“It faded over time. It’s hard to keep a relationship going, the punishing schedule we had those first two or three years. We were touring or recording constantly. But we’re still friends, have been ever since.”

“The night Robin Merchant drowned,” Banks said, “did you really expect the police to believe that you were all sound asleep in bed?”

She seemed taken aback by the question, but she answered without much hesitation. “They did, didn’t they? Death by misadventure.”

“But you weren’t all asleep all the time, were you?” Banks pressed, shooting in the dark, hoping for a hit.

Tania looked at him, her green eyes disconcerting. He could tell she was trying to weigh him up, figure out what he knew and how he might have found out. “It’s a long time ago,” she said. “I can’t remember.”

“Come off it, Tania,” Banks said. “Why did you all lie?”

“For God’s sake, nobody lied.” She shook her head, puffing on her third cigarette. “Oh, what the hell. It was just a lot easier that way. None of us killed Robin. We knew that. Why would we? If we’d said we were all up and about, they’d only have asked more stupid questions, and we were all a bit the worse for wear. We just wanted to be left alone.”

“So what really happened?”

“I honestly don’t know. I was drunk, if you must know.”

“Drugs?”

“Some of the others. I stuck to vodka. Believe it or not, I never did anything else, except for a few tokes once in a while. Anyway, it was a big house. People were all over the place. You couldn’t possibly keep track of one another even if you wanted to.”

“Were people out by the swimming pool?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t. If anybody saw Robin in there, then they knew it was too late to do anything for him.”

“So you just left him there until the gardener came the next morning?”

“You’re putting words into my mouth. I’m not saying that’s what happened. I didn’t see him there, and I don’t know for a fact that anyone else did.”

“But someone could have?”

“Of course someone could have, but what use is could have, especially now?”

“And someone could have pushed him in.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe things weren’t all as peachy as you say they were.”

Tania sat forward. “Look, I’ve had enough of this. You come into my house and call me a liar to my face…”

“I’m not the one calling you a liar. You’ve already admitted you lied to the police in 1970. Why should I believe you now?”

“Because I’m telling the truth. I can’t think of any reason on earth why any of us would have wanted Robin dead.”

“I’m just trying to find the connection between then and now.”

“Well, maybe there isn’t one. Have you thought of that?”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that. But put yourself in my position. I have one definite murder in September 1969, and though the killer was apparently caught and jailed, there’s still room for doubt in my mind. We have another death in June 1970, easily explained as an accident at the time, but now you tell me that people were up and about most of the night; maybe there’s some doubt about that, too. And the common factor to all of these: the Mad Hatters. And Nick Barber was going to write their story, specifically Vic Greaves’s story, and he made reference to a murder.”

Tania drew on her cigarette, thought for a moment. “Look,” she said, “I know when you put it like that it sounds suspicious, but they’re all just coincidences. I was at that party when Robin died, and to my recollection there were no arguments. Everyone just had a good time and that was that. We all went off to bed – I was with Chris at the time – but it was hard to sleep, a hot night, and maybe people got the munchies, whatever, and wandered around, went to raid the fridge. I mean, I heard people around the place on and off. Voices. Laughter. Vic was tripping, as usual. Maybe some of the group even swapped partners. It happened.”

“You weren’t asleep the whole time?”

“Of course not.”

“And Chris Adams was with you all night?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, Tania.”

“Well, I… I mean, maybe not every minute of the night.”

“So you woke up and he wasn’t there?”

“It wasn’t like that. For crying out loud, are you trying to blame Chris now? What is it with you?”

“Believe it or not,” said Banks, “I’m just trying to get at the truth. Maybe it was a lark. Maybe someone was playing around with Robin beside the pool and he slipped and fell. An accident.”

“In that case, why does it matter now? Even if Robin wasn’t the only one by the pool at the time, if it was an accident anyway, why does it matter?”

“Because if someone feels threatened by the truth, and if Nick Barber was close to that truth, then…” Banks spread his hands.

“Couldn’t there be some other explanation?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Robbery?”

“Well, Nick’s laptop and his mobile were stolen, but that just supports the theory that someone didn’t want people to know what he was doing.”

“His girlfriend or something, then. A jealous lover. Aren’t most people killed by someone they know, someone close to them?”

“True enough,” said Banks. “And it’s an area we’ve been looking into, along with a drug connection, but we’ve had no luck there yet.”

“I just don’t see how the past could have had anything to do with it. It’s over. Judgments were handed down.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years as a detective,” Banks said, “it’s that the past is never over, no matter what has been handed down.”

Banks was on his way back from visiting Tania Hutchison when two uniformed constables brought Calvin Soames into Western Area Headquarters in Eastvale. Annie Cabbot had them put him in an empty interview room and let him wait there awhile.

“Where did you find him?” she asked one of the PCs.

“Daleside above Helmthorpe, ma’am,” he said. “He was hiding in an old shepherd’s shelter. Must have been there all night. Fair shivering, he was.”

“Is he okay?”

“He seems all right. It might be a good idea to have a doctor check him out, though, just to be on the safe side.”

“Thanks,” said Annie. “I’ll put in a call to Dr. Burns. In the meantime, I think I’ll have a little chat with Mr. Soames myself.”

Annie called Winsome over and noticed Templeton looking at them anxiously from behind his desk. “What is it, Kev?” she called out. “Sudden attack of conscience? Bit late for that, isn’t it?” She immediately regretted her outburst, but it had no effect on Templeton, who just shrugged and got back to his paperwork. Annie could have throttled him, but that way he’d win.

Calvin Soames looked wet, cold and miserable. And old. At least there was some heat in the otherwise bleak interview room, and the constable had had the foresight to give him a gray blanket, which he wore over his shoulders like a robe.

“Well, Calvin,” said Annie, after dealing with the preliminaries, and making it clear on the tape that Soames had refused the services of a duty solicitor, “what have you been up to?”

Soames said nothing. He just stared at a fixed point ahead of him, a nerve at the side of his jaw twitching.

“What’s wrong?” Annie said. “Cat got your tongue?”

Still Soames said nothing.

Annie leaned back in her chair, hands resting on the desk. “You’ll have to talk eventually,” she said. “We already know what happened.”

“Then you don’t need me to tell you, do you?”

“We do need to hear it in your own words.”

“I hit her. Something snapped and I hit her. That’s all you need to know.”

“Why did you hit Kelly?”

“You know what she did.”

“She slept with a man she liked. Is that so terrible?”

“That’s not what he said.”

Annie looked puzzled. “What who said?”

Soames looked at Winsome. “You know who,” he said.

“He means Kev Templeton, Guv,” Winsome said.

Annie had worked that out for herself. “What did DS Templeton say?” she asked.

“I won’t repeat the words he used,” Soames said. “Vile, terrible things. Disgusting things.”

So Templeton’s inflammatory language had set Soames off on his rampage, Annie thought, as if she needed more evidence of his culpability. Even so, she cursed him again under her breath. “What about the drink?”

Soames scratched his head. “I won’t say I’m proud of that,” he said. “I used to be a hard-drinking man, but I got it under control, down to a couple of pints for the sake of being sociable. I let myself…” He stopped and put his head in his hands. Annie wasn’t certain what the next words were, but she thought she heard him say, “…her mother.”

“Mr. Soames,” she said gently. “Calvin, would you speak clearly, please?”

Soames wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. “I said she was just like her mother.”

“What was her mother like?”

“A good-for-nothing slut.”

“Kelly said she thought you were talking to her as if she were her mother. Is that true?”

“I don’t know. I just saw red. I don’t know what I was saying. Her mother was younger than me. Pretty. The farm… it wasn’t her sort of life. She liked the town and the parties and the dances. There were men. More than one. She didn’t care whether I knew about them or not. She flaunted it, laughed at me.”

“Then she died.”

“Yes.”

“That must have torn you apart,” said Annie.

Soames gave her a sharp glance.

“I mean she caused you so much pain, but there she was, dying, thanks to medical incompetence. You must have felt for her despite how she hurt you.”

“It was God’s judgment.”

“How did Kelly react to all this?”

“I tried to keep it all from her,” he said. “But she’s turned out to be just the same.”

“That’s not true,” Annie said. She was aware that the tape was running and she was exceeding her role as interviewer, but she couldn’t help it. Let Superintendent Gervaise give her another bollocking, if that was what it came down to. “Just because Kelly slept with someone, it doesn’t mean she was a slut or any other of those words men like to call women. You should be talking to your daughter, not beating her with a chair leg.”

“I’m not proud of what I did,” said Soames. “I’ll face the consequences.”

“Damn right, you will,” said Annie. “And so will Kelly, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s lying there in a hospital bed because of you, and do you know what? She’s worried about you, about what will happen to you.”

“I sinned. I’ll take my punishment.”

“And what about Kelly?”

“She’ll be better off without me.”

“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Annie didn’t trust herself to continue the interview. She shoved a statement sheet over to him and stood up. “Look, write down in your own words exactly what happened, what you can remember of it, then DC Jackman here will see that it’s typed up for you to sign. In the meantime, the police surgeon will be coming in to look you over, just routine. Anything else you want to say?”

“Kelly? How is she?”

“Recovering,” said Annie, her hand on the doorknob. “It’s nice of you to ask.”