Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  Yvonne’s heart pounded in her chest. She still had one card to play. “McGarrity told me you’ve been seeing someone else.”

  Steve laughed. “If only you could hear yourself.”

  “Is it true?”

  “What if I have?”

  “I thought we… I mean… I didn’t…”

  “Oh, Yvonne, for God’s sake, grow up. You sound like such a child sometimes. We can both see whoever we want. I thought that was clear from the start.”

  “But I don’t want to see anyone else. I want to see you.”

  “What you’re really saying is that you don’t want me to see anyone else. You can’t own someone, Yvonne. You can’t control their affections.”

  “But it’s true.”

  Steve turned away his face. “Well, I don’t want to see you. That’s just not on anymore.”

  “But-”

  “I mean it. And you won’t be welcome at Bayswater Terrace or Carberry Place, either. They got raided as well, in case you didn’t know. People got busted, and they’re not happy with you. Word gets around, you know. It’s still a small scene.”

  “So what should I have done? Tell me what I should have done.”

  “You shouldn’t have done anything. You should have kept your stupid mouth shut. You should have known bringing the pigs in would only mean trouble for us.”

  “But he’s my father. I had to tell someone. I was so upset, Steve, I was shaking like a leaf. McGarrity…”

  “I’ve told you before he’s harmless.”

  “That’s not the way he seemed to me.”

  “You were stoned, the way I hear it. Maybe your imagination was running away with you. Maybe you even wanted him to touch you. Maybe you should run away with your imagination instead.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Steve sighed. “I can’t trust you anymore, Yvonne. We can’t trust you anymore.”

  “But I love you, Steve.”

  “No you don’t. Don’t be stupid. That’s not real love you’re talking about, that’s just romantic schoolgirl crap. It’s possessive love, all jealousy and control, all the negative emotions. You’re not mature enough to know what real love is.”

  Yvonne flinched at his words. She felt herself turn cold all over, as if she had been hit by a bucket of water. “And you are?”

  He stood up. “This is a fucking waste of time. Look, I’m not arguing with you anymore. Why don’t you just go? And don’t come back.”

  “But, Steve-”

  Steve pointed to the door and raised his voice. “Just go. And don’t send your father and his piggy friends around here again or you might find yourself in serious trouble.”

  Yvonne got slowly to her feet. She had never known Steve to look or sound so cruel. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Never mind. Just fuck off.”

  Yvonne looked at him. He was bristling with anger. There was clearly going to be no more talking to him. Not this afternoon, maybe not ever. Feeling the tears start to burn down her cheeks, she turned away from him abruptly and left.

  “It’s not so much what he said or did, Guv,” said Winsome, “it was the pleasure he took in doing it.”

  Annie nodded. She was treating Winsome to an after-work drink in the Black Lion, off an alley behind the market square, away from the prying eyes and ears of Western Area Headquarters. Winsome was visibly upset, and Annie wanted to get to the bottom of it. “Kev can be insensitive at times,” she said.

  “Insensitive?” Winsome took a gulp of her vodka and tonic. “Insensitive? It was more like bloody sadistic. I’m sorry, Guv, but I’m still shaking. See?”

  She stuck her hand out. Annie could see it was trembling slightly. “Calm down,” she said. “Another drink? You’re not driving, are you?”

  “No. I can walk home from here. I’ll have the same again, thanks.”

  Annie went to the bar and got the drinks. There was nobody else in the place except the barmaid and a couple of her friends at the far end. One of them was playing the machines, and the other was sitting down watching over two toddlers, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other. Every time one of the little boys started to cry or make any sort of noise, she told him to shut up. Time after time. Cry. Shut up. Cry. Shut up. There was a tape of old music playing loudly – “House of the Rising Sun,” “The Young Ones,” “Say a Little Prayer for Me,” “I Remember You” – the sort of stuff Banks would remember, competing with the TV blaring out Murder She Wrote on one of the Sky channels. But the noise certainly drowned out anything Annie and Winsome were talking about.

  Annie was going to get a Britvic Orange for herself, as she had to get back to Harkside, but she was still furious after her session with Superintendent Gervaise, feeling far from calm, and she needed another bloody stiff drink herself, so she ordered a large vodka with her orange juice. If she had too much, she’d leave the car and get one of the PCs to drive her home, or get a taxi if the worst came to the worst. It couldn’t cost all that much. She had been thinking of moving to Eastvale recently, as it would be convenient for the job, but house prices there had gone through the roof, and she didn’t want to give up her little cottage, even though it was now worth nearly twice what she had paid for it.

  Winsome thanked Annie for the drink. “That poor girl,” she said.

  “Look, Winsome, I know how you feel. I feel just as bad. I’m sure Kelly thinks I’m the one who betrayed her trust. But DS Templeton was only doing his job. Superintendent Gervaise had asked him to check the girl’s story against her father’s and that was the way he did it. It might seem harsh to you, but it worked, didn’t it?”

  “I can’t believe you’re defending them,” Winsome said. She took a gulp of vodka, then put the drink down on the table. “You weren’t there or you’d know what I’m talking about. No. I’m not working with him again. You can transfer me. Do what you want. But I won’t work with that bastard again.” She folded her arms.

  Annie sipped her drink and sighed. She had been foreseeing problems ever since Kevin Templeton got his promotion. He had passed his sergeant’s boards ages ago, but he didn’t want to go back to uniform and he didn’t want to transfer, so it took a while for this opportunity to come up. Then he nipped a possible serial killer’s career in the bud and became the golden boy. Annie had always found him just a bit too full of himself, and she worried what a little power might do to his already skewed personality. And if he thought she didn’t notice the way he had practically drooled down the front of her blouse the other day, then he was seriously deluding himself. The thing was, he got the job done, as he had done now. Banks did, too, but he managed to do it without treading on everyone’s toes – only the brass’s, usually – but Templeton was one of the new breed; he didn’t care. And here was Annie defending him when she knew damn well that Winsome, who had also passed her boards with flying colors and didn’t want to leave East-vale, would have been a much better person for the job. Where is positive discrimination when you really need it? she wondered. Obviously not in Yorkshire.

  “I shouldn’t have made a promise I couldn’t possibly keep,” Annie said. “The blame’s entirely mine. I should have done it myself.” She knew that she had deliberately not made any such promise to Kelly Soames, but she felt as if she had.

  “Pardon me, Guv, but like I said, you weren’t there. Listen to me. He enjoyed it. Enjoyed every minute of it. The humiliation. Taunting her. He drew it out to get more pleasure from it. And in the end he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. I don’t know if that’s the worst part of it all.”

  “Okay, Winsome, I’ll admit DS Templeton has a few problems.”

  “A few problems? The man’s a sadist. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  Winsome shifted in her chair. “Don’t laugh, but there was something… sexual about it.”

  “Sexual?”

  “Yes. I can’t explain it, but it was like he was getting off on his power
over her.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was just me, reading things wrongly. It wouldn’t be the first time. But there was something really creepy about the whole thing, even when the girl was being sick-”

  “Kelly was physically sick?”

  “Yes. I thought I’d told you that.”

  “No. How did it happen?”

  “She was just sick.”

  “What did DS Templeton do?”

  “Just carried on as if everything was normal.”

  “Have you told anyone else what happened?”

  “No, Guv. I’d tell Superintendent Gervaise if I thought it would do any good, but she thinks the sun shines out of Kevin Templeton’s arse.”

  “She does, does she?” That didn’t surprise Annie. Just the mention of Gervaise made her bristle. The sanctimonious cow, putting Annie on statement reading, a DC’s job at best, and making gibes about her private life.

  “Anyway,” Winsome went on, “I don’t have to put up with it. There’s nothing in the book says I have to put up with behavior like that.”

  “That’s true,” said Annie. “But life doesn’t always go by the book.”

  “It does when you agree with what the book says.”

  Annie laughed. “So what do you want to do about it?”

  “Dunno,” said Winsome. “Nothing I can do, I suppose. ’Cept I don’t want to be near the creep anymore, and if he ever tries anything I’ll beat seven shades of shit out of him.”

  Annie laughed. The phrase sounded odd coming from Winsome with her Jamaican lilt. “You can’t avoid him all the time,” she said. “I mean, I can do my best to make sure you’re not paired up or anything, but Superintendent Gervaise can overrule that if she wants, and she seems to want to interfere with our jobs a bit more than Superintendent Gristhorpe did.”

  “I liked Mr. Gristhorpe,” said Winsome. “He was old-fashioned, like my father, and he could be a bit frightening sometimes, but he was fair and he didn’t play favorites.”

  Well, Annie thought, that wasn’t strictly true. Banks had certainly been a favorite of Gristhorpe’s, but in general Winsome was right. There was a difference between having favorites and playing them. Gristhorpe hadn’t set out to build a little empire, pick his teams and set people against one another the way it seemed Gervaise was doing. Nor did he interfere in people’s private lives. He must have known about her and Banks, but he hadn’t said anything, at least not to her. He might have warned Banks off, she supposed, but if he had, it hadn’t affected their relationship either on or off the job.

  “Well, Gristhorpe’s gone and Gervaise is here,” said Annie, “and for better or worse we’ve got to live with it.” She looked at her watch. She still had half her drink left. “Look, I’d better go, Winsome. I’m not over the limit yet, but I will be if I have any more.”

  “You can stay at mine, if you like.” Winsome looked away. “I’m sorry, Guv, I don’t mean to be presumptuous. I mean, you being an inspector and all, my boss, but I’ve got a spare room. It’s just that it helps talking about it, that’s all. And I don’t know about you, but I feel like getting rat-arsed.”

  Annie thought for a moment. “What the hell?” she said, finishing her drink. “I’ll get another round.”

  “No, you stay there. It’s my shout.”

  Annie sat and watched her walk to the bar, a tall, graceful, long-legged Jamaican beauty about whom she knew… well, not very much at all. But then she didn’t really know very much about anyone, when it came right down to it, she realized, not even Banks. And as she watched, she smiled to herself. Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, if she did stay at Winsome’s and Superintendent Gervaise found out. What would the sad cow make of that?

  Monday, 22nd September, 1969

  “But we’ve got no real evidence, Stan,” Detective Chief Superintendent McCullen argued on Monday morning. They were in his office and rain spattered the windows, blurring the view.

  Chadwick ran his hand over his hair. He’d thought this out in advance, hadn’t done anything else but think it over, all night. He didn’t want Yvonne involved; that was the main problem. He had seen the bruise McGarrity had caused on her arm, and it was enough to bring assault charges, but once he went that route he wouldn’t be able to do anything for Yvonne. She was upset enough as it was, and he didn’t want to drag her through court. If truth be told, he didn’t want his name tainted by his daughter’s folly, either. He thought he could make a decent case without her, and he laid it out carefully for McCullen.

  “First off, he’s got form,” he said.

  McCullen raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “The most recent’s for possession of a controlled substance, namely LSD. November 1967.”

  “Only possession?”

  “They think he dumped his stash down the toilet when he heard them coming. Unfortunately, he still had two doses in his pocket.”

  “You said most recent?”

  “Yes. The other’s a bit more interesting. March 1958.”

  “How old was he then?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “And?”

  “Assault causing bodily harm. He stabbed a student in the shoulder during a town-and-gown altercation in Oxford, which apparently is where he comes from. Unfortunately the student happened to be the son of a local member of Parliament.”

  “Ouch,” said McCullen, a sly smile touching his lips.

  “It didn’t help that McGarrity was a teddy boy as well. Apparently the judge didn’t like teds. Threw the book at him. He was a Brasenose man, too, same as the student. Gave McGarrity eighteen months. If the wound had been more serious, and if it hadn’t been inflicted defensively during a scuffle – apparently the gown lot were carrying cricket bats, among other weapons – then he’d have got five years or more. Another interesting point,” Chadwick went on, “is that the weapon used was a flick-knife.”

  “The same weapon used on the girl?”

  “Same kind of weapon.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s not much more,” Chadwick said. “We spent yesterday interviewing the people at the three houses who knew McGarrity. He definitely knew the victim.”

  “How well?”

  “There’s no evidence of any sort of relationship, and from what I’ve found out about Linda Lofthouse I very much doubt that there was one. But he knew her.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Everyone said he was an odd duck. They often didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he had a habit of playing with a flick-knife.”

  “What kind of flick-knife?”

  “Just a flick-knife, with a tortoiseshell handle.”

  “Why did they put up with him?”

  “If you ask me, sir, it’s down to drugs. Our lads found five ounces of cannabis resin hidden in the gas meter at Carberry Place. Apparently the lock was broken. We think it belonged to McGarrity.”

  “Defrauding the gas company too, I’ll bet?”

  Chadwick smiled. “Same shilling, again and again. The drugs squad think he’s a mid-level dealer, buys a few ounces now and then and splits them up into quid deals. Probably what he used the knife for.”

  “So the kids tolerate him?”

  “Yes, sir. He was also at the festival, and according to the people he went with he spent most of the time roaming the crowd on his own. No one can say where he was when the incident occurred.”

  McCullen tapped his pipe on the ashtray, then said, “The knife?”

  “No sign of it yet, sir.”

  “Pity.”

  “Yes. I suppose it might be a coincidence that McGarrity simply lost his knife around the same time a young woman was stabbed with a similar weapon, but we’ve gone to court with less before.”

  “Aye. And lost from time to time.”

  “Well, the judge has bound him over on the dealing charge. No fixed abode, so no bail. He’s all ours.”

  “Then get crack
ing and build up a murder case if you think you’ve got one. But don’t get tunnel vision here, Stan. Don’t forget that other bloke you fancied for it.”

  “Rick Hayes? We’re still looking into him.”

  “Good. And, Stan?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Find the knife. It would really help.”

  Some people, Banks realized, never travel very far from where they grow up, and Simon Bradley was one of them. He had, he said, transferred several times during his career, to Suffolk, Cumbria and Nottingham, but he had ended up back in Leeds, and when he had retired in 2000 at the age of fifty-six and the rank of superintendent, Traffic, he and his wife had settled in a nice detached stone-built house just off Shaw Lane in Headingley. It was, he told Banks, only a stone’s throw from where he grew up in more lowly Meanwood. Beyond the high green gate was a well-tended garden that, Bradley said, was his wife’s pride and joy. Bradley’s pride and joy, it turned out, was a small library of floor-to-ceiling shelves, where he kept his collection of first-edition crime and thriller fiction, primarily Dick Francis, Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James and Colin Dexter. It was there he sat with Banks over coffee and talked about his early days at Brotherton House. Sitting in the peaceful book-lined room, Banks found it hard to believe that just down the road was Hyde Park, where one of that summer’s suicide bombers had lived.

  “I was young,” Bradley said, “twenty-five in 1969, but I was never really one of that generation.” He laughed. “I suppose that would have been difficult, wouldn’t it, being a hippie and a copper at the same time? Sort of like being on both sides at once.”

  “I’m a few years behind you,” said Banks, “but I did like the music. Still do.”

  “Really? Dreadful racket,” said Bradley. “I’ve always been more of a classical man myself: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.”

  “I like them, too,” said Banks, “but sometimes you can’t beat a bit of Jimi Hendrix.”

  “Each to his own. I suppose I always associated the music too closely with the lifestyle and the things that went on back then,” Bradley said with distaste. “A sound track for the drugs, long hair, promiscuity. I was something of a young fogy, a square, I suppose, and now I’ve grown up into an old fogy. I went to church every Sunday, kept my hair cut short and believed in waiting until you were married before having sex. Still do, much to my son’s chagrin. Very unfashionable.”