Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  “Yes,” said Chadwick. “Well, thanks very much, Mr. Forbes. We’ll be off for those fish and chips now.” He signaled for Bradley to drive off as he wound up the window, leaving Forbes staring after them. They had a laugh about Forbes, though Chadwick believed there might be something in what he’d said about foreign students fomenting dissent. They soon found the fish-and-chip shop and sat in the car eating.

  When Chadwick had finished, he screwed up the newspaper, then excused himself, got out of the car and put it in the rubbish bin. Next he went into the telephone booth beside the fish-and-chip-shop and dialed home. Janet answered on the third ring. “Hello, darling,” she said. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong,” said Chadwick. “I was wondering about Yvonne. How is she today?”

  “Back to normal, it seems.”

  “Did she say anything about last night?”

  “No. We didn’t talk. She left for school at the usual time and gave me a quick peck on the cheek on her way out. Look, let’s just leave it at that for the time being, darling, can’t we?”

  “If she’s sleeping with someone, I want to know who it is.”

  “And what good would that do you? What would you do if you knew? Go over and beat him up? Arrest him? Be sensible, Stan. She’ll tell us in her own time.”

  “Or when it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, never mind,” said Chadwick. “Look, I have to go. Don’t bother keeping dinner warm tonight. I’ll probably be late.”

  “How late?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t wait up.”

  “What is it?”

  “Murder. A nasty one. You’ll hear all about it on the evening news.”

  “Be careful, Stan.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  Chadwick hung up and went back to the car.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Bradley asked, window rolled down, halfway through his post-fish-and-chips cigarette. The car’s interior smelled of lard, vinegar and warm newsprint.

  “Yes,” said Chadwick. “Right now, I think we’d better head back to Brimleigh Glen and see what’s been happening there, don’t you?”

  Monday, 8th September, 1969

  The search team had fastened tape to the four trees that surrounded the little grove deep in Brimleigh Woods, about two hundred yards from where the body had been found. The woods were dense enough that, from there, you couldn’t see as far as the field, and any noise would certainly have been drowned out by the music.

  The police dog had found the spot easily enough by following the smell of the victim’s blood. Officers had also marked off the route the dog had taken, and painted little crosses on the trees. Every inch of the path would have to be searched. For the moment, though, Chadwick, Enderby and Bradley stood behind the tape gazing down at the bloodstained ground.

  “This where it happened?” Chadwick asked.

  “So the experts tell me,” said Enderby, pointing to bloodstains on the leaves and undergrowth. “There’s some blood here, consistent with the wounds the victim received.”

  “Wouldn’t the killer have been covered in blood?” Bradley asked.

  “Not necessarily,” said Enderby. “Peculiar things, stab wounds. Certainly with a slashed neck artery or vein, or a head wound, there’s quite a lot of spatter, but with the heart, oddly enough, the edges of the wound close and most of the bleeding is internal, it doesn’t spurt the way many people think it does. There’s quite a bit of seepage, of course – that’s what you’re seeing here and in the sleeping bag – and I doubt he’d have got away with his hands completely clean. After all, it looks as if he stabbed her five or six time and twisted the blade.” He gestured to the edge of the copse. “If you look over there, though, by the stream, you can see that little pile of leaves. They’ve got traces of blood on them, too. I reckon that he tried to wipe it off with the leaves first, then he washed his hands in the running water.”

  “Get it all collected and sent to the lab,” said Chadwick, turning away. He wasn’t usually sentimental about victims, but he couldn’t get the image of the innocent-looking girl in the bloodstained white dress out of his mind, and he couldn’t help but think of his own daughter. “When did the doctor say he’d get around to the postmortem?”

  “He said he’d try for later this afternoon, sir,” said Enderby.

  “Good.”

  “We’ve interviewed most of the people on security duty,” Enderby added.

  “And?”

  “Nothing, I’m afraid, sir. They all agree there was so much coming and going, so much pandemonium, that nobody knows who was where when. I’ve a good suspicion most of them were partaking of the same substances as the musicians and guests, too, which doesn’t help their memories much. Lots of people were wandering around in a daze.”

  “Hmm,” said Chadwick. “I didn’t think we could expect too much from them. What about the girl?”

  “No one admits definitely to seeing her, but we’ve got a couple of cautious maybes.”

  “Push a bit harder.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  Chadwick sighed. “I suppose we’d better arrange to talk to the groups who were backstage at the time, get statements, for what they’re worth.”

  “Sir?” said Enderby.

  “What?”

  “You might find that a bit difficult, sir. I mean… they’ll have all gone home now, and these people… well, they’re not readily accessible.”

  “They’re no different from you and me, are they, Enderby? Not royalty or anything?”

  “No, sir, more like film stars. But-”

  “Well, then? I’ll deal with the two local groups, but as far as the rest are concerned, arrange to have them interviewed. Get someone to help you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Enderby replied tightly, and turned away.

  “And, Enderby.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t know what the standards are in North Yorkshire, but while you’re working for me I’d prefer it if you got your hair cut.”

  Enderby reddened. “Yes, sir.”

  “Bit hard on him, weren’t you, sir?” said Bradley, when Enderby had gone.

  “He’s a scruff.”

  “No, sir. I mean about questioning the groups. He’s right, you know. Some of these pop stars are a bit high and mighty.”

  “What would you have me do, Simon? Ignore the fifty or so people who might have seen the victim with her killer because they’re some sort of gods?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Come on. Let’s head back home. I should be in time for Dr. O’Neill’s postmortem if I’m lucky, and I want you to go to Yorkshire Television and the BBC and have a look at the footage they shot of the festival.”

  “What am I looking for, sir?”

  “Right now, anything. The girl, anyone she might have been with. Any odd or unusual behavior.” Chadwick paused. “On second thought, don’t worry about that last bit. It’s all bound to be odd and unusual, given the people we’re dealing with.”

  Bradley laughed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Just use your initiative, laddie. At least you won’t have to watch the doctor open the poor girl up.”

  Before they walked away, Chadwick turned back to the bloodstained ground.

  “What is it, sir?” Bradley asked.

  “Something that’s been bothering me all morning. The sleeping bag.”

  “Sleeping bag?”

  “Aye. Who did it belong to?”

  “Her, I suppose,” said Bradley.

  “Perhaps,” Chadwick said. “But why would she carry it into the woods with her? It just seems odd, that’s all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was after midnight when the lights came back on, and the wind was still raging, now lashing torrents of rain against the windows and lichen-stained roofs of Fordham. The coroner’s van had taken the body away, and Dr. Glendenning had said he would try to get the postmortem do
ne the following day, even though it was a Saturday. The SOCOs worked on in the new light just as they had done before, collecting samples, labeling and storing everything carefully. So far, they had discovered nothing of immediate importance. One or two members of the local media had arrived, and the police press officer, David Whitney, was on the scene keeping them back and feeding them titbits of information.

  Banks used the newly restored electric light to have a good look around the rest of the cottage, and it didn’t take him very long to realize that any personal items Nick might have had with him were gone except for his clothes, toiletries and a few books. There was no wallet, for example, no mobile, nothing with his name on it. The clothes didn’t tell him much. Nothing fancy, just casual Gap-style shirts, a gray-pinstripe jacket, cargos and Levi’s for the most part. All the toiletries told him was that Nick suffered from, or worried that he might suffer from, heartburn and indigestion, judging by the variety of antacids he had brought with him. Winsome reported that his car was a Renault Mégane, and to open it you needed a card, not a key. There wasn’t one in sight, so she had phoned the police garage in Eastvale, who said they would send someone out as soon as possible.

  There was nothing relating to the car on the Police National Computer, Winsome added, so she would have to get the details from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea as soon as she could raise someone, which wouldn’t be easy on a weekend. If necessary, they could check the National DNA Database, which held samples of the DNA not only of convicted criminals but of anyone who had been arrested, even if they had been acquitted. The public railed about its attacks on freedom, but the database had come in useful more than once for identifying a body, among other things.

  They would find out who Nick was soon enough, but someone was making it difficult for them, and Banks wondered why. Would knowing the victim’s identity point the police quickly in the direction of the killer? Did he need time to make his escape?

  It was clear that only one of the two bedrooms had been used. The beds weren’t even made up in the other. From what Banks could see at a cursory glance, it looked as if both sides of the double bed had been slept on, but Nick might have been a restless sleeper. Peter Darby had already photographed the room, and the SOCOs would bag the sheets for testing. There was no sign of condoms in any of the bedside drawers, or anywhere else, for that matter, and nothing at all to show who, or what, the mysterious Nick had been, except for the paperback copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement on the bedside table.

  According to the Waterstone’s bookmark, Nick had got to page sixty-eight. Banks picked up the book and flipped through it. On the back endpaper, someone had written in faint pencil six uneven rows of figures, some of them circled. He turned to the front and saw the price of the book, £3.50, also in pencil, but in a different hand, at the top right of the first inside page. A secondhand book, then. Which meant that any number of people might have owned it and written the figures in the back. Still, it might mean something. Banks called up a SOCO to bag it and told him to be sure to make a photocopy of the page in question.

  Frustrated by this early lack of knowledge of the victim, Banks went back downstairs. Usually he had a person’s books or CD collection to go on, not to mention the opinions of others, but this time all he knew was that Nick did the Independent crossword, was reading Atonement, was polite but not particularly chatty, favored casual clothing, perhaps suffered from indigestion, smoked Dunhills and wore glasses. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to help start figuring out who might have wanted him dead and why. Patience, he told himself, early days yet, but he didn’t feel patient.

  By half past twelve, he’d had enough. Time to go home. Just as he was about to get PC Travers to fix up a lift for him, Annie edged over and said, “There’s not a lot more we can achieve hanging around here, is there?”

  “Nothing,” said Banks. “The mechanics are all in motion and Stefan will get in touch with us if anything important comes up, but I doubt we’ll get any further tonight. Why?”

  Annie smiled at him. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving and, as I remember, Marks and Spencer’s vegetarian lasagna heats up a treat. You know what they say about an army marching on its stomach and all that.”

  Monday, 8th September, 1969

  Yvonne Chadwick accepted the joint that Steve passed to her and drew deeply. She liked getting high. Not the hard stuff, no pills or needles, only dope. Sex was all right, too, she liked that well enough with Steve, but most of all she liked getting high, and the two usually went together really well. Music, too. They were listening to Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, and it sounded out of this world.

  Take now. She was supposed to be at school, but she had taken the afternoon off. It was only games and free periods, anyway; the new term hadn’t really got under way yet. There was a house just up the road from her school, on Springfield Mount, where a group of hippies lived: Steve, Todd, Jacqui, American Charlie, and others who came and went. She had become friendly with them after she met Steve upstairs at the Peel, on Boar Lane, one night in April when she’d gone there with her friend Lorraine from school. She had just turned sixteen the month before, but she could pass for eighteen easily enough with a bit of makeup and high heels. Steve was the handsome, sensitive sort of boy, and she had fancied him straightaway. He’d read her some of his poetry, and while she didn’t really understand it, she could tell that it sounded important.

  There were other houses she visited where people were into the same things, too – one on Carberry Place and another on Bayswater Terrace. Yvonne felt that she could turn up at any one of them at any time and feel as if she really belonged there. Everyone accepted her just as she was. Someone was always around to welcome her, maybe with a joint and a pot of jasmine tea. They all liked the same music, too, and agreed about society and the evils of the war and stuff. But Springfield Mount was the closest, and Steve lived there.

  The air smelled of sandalwood incense, and there were posters on the walls: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, a creepy Salvador Dalí print and, even creepier, Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters. Sometimes, when she was smoking really good dope, Yvonne would lose herself in that one, the sleeping artist surrounded by creatures of the night.

  Mostly, they all just sat around and talked about the terrible shape the world was in and how they hoped to change it, end the war in Vietnam, free the universities from the establishment and their professor lackeys, put a stop to imperialism and capitalist oppression. Yvonne couldn’t wait to go to university; as far as she was concerned, that was where life got really exciting, not like boring old school, where they still treated you like a kid and weren’t interested in what you thought about the world. At university you were a student, and you went to demos and things. Steve was a second-year English student, but the term wasn’t due to start for a couple of weeks yet. He’d told her he would get her into all the great concerts at the university refectory next term, and she could hardly wait. The Moody Blues were coming, and Family and Tyrannosaurus Rex. There were even rumors of the Who coming to record a live concert.

  They had already seen a lot of great local gigs together that summer: Thunderclap Newman at the town hall; Pink Floyd, Colosseum and Eire Apparent at Selby Abbey. She regretted missing the Isle of Wight – Dylan had been there, after all – but her parents wouldn’t let her go that far. She had two years to wait to go to university, and she had to get good A levels. Right now, that didn’t look like a strong possibility, but she’d worry about that later; she had just started in the lower sixth, so there was plenty of time yet to catch up. After all, she had managed to get seven very good O levels.

  She had to admit, as she grinned through the haze of smoke, that things were looking pretty good. Sunday had been great. They had gone to the Brimleigh Festival – she, Steve, Todd, Charlie and Jacqui – and they had stayed up all night on the field sharing joints, food and drink with their fellow revelers. Steve had dropped aci
d, but Yvonne hadn’t wanted to because there were too many people around and she worried about getting paranoid. But Steve had seemed okay, though she’d got worried at one time when he disappeared for more than an hour. When it was all over, they went to Springfield Mount for a while to come down with a couple of joints, and then she went home to get ready for school, narrowly avoiding bumping into her father.

  She hadn’t dared tell her parents where she was going. Christ, why did she have to have a father who was a pig, for crying out loud? It just wasn’t fair. If she told her new friends what her old man did for a living, they’d drop her like a hot coal. And if it wasn’t for her parents she could have gone to Brimleigh on Saturday, too. Steve and the others had been there both nights. But if she’d done that, she realized, they wouldn’t let her out on Sunday.

  They were sitting on the living room floor propped up against the sofa. Just her and Steve this time; the others were all out. Some of the people who came and went she wasn’t too sure about at all. One of them, Magic Jack, was scary with his beard and wild eyes, although she had never seen him behave in any other way than gently, but the most frightening of all – and thank God he didn’t turn up very often – was McGarrity, the mad poet.

  There was something about McGarrity that really worried Yvonne. Older than the rest, he had a thin, lined parchment face and black eyes. He always wore a black hat and a matching cape, and he had a flick-knife with a tortoiseshell handle. He never really talked to anyone, never joined in the discussions. Sometimes he would pace up and down tapping the blade against his palm, muttering to himself, reciting poetry. T. S. Eliot mostly, “The Waste Land.” Yvonne only recognized it because Steve had lent her a copy to read not so long ago, and he had explained its meaning to her.