Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  Some people found McGarrity okay, but he gave Yvonne the creeps. She had asked Steve once why they let him hang around, but all Steve had said was that McGarrity was harmless really; it was just that his mind had been damaged a bit by the electric shock treatment they’d given him at the mental home when he deserted from the army. Besides, if they wanted a free and open society, how could they justify excluding people? There wasn’t much to say after that, though Yvonne thought there were probably a few people they wouldn’t like to have in the house: her dad, for example. McGarrity had been at Brimleigh, too, but luckily he’d wandered off and left them alone.

  Yvonne could feel Steve’s hand on her thigh, gently stroking, and she turned to smile at him. It was all right, really it was all right. Her parents didn’t know it, but she was on the pill, had been since she’d turned sixteen. It wasn’t easy to get, and there was no way she would have asked old Cuthbertson, the family doctor. But her friend Maggie had told her about a new family-planning clinic on Woodhouse Lane where they were very concerned about teenage pregnancies and very obliging if you said you were over the age of consent.

  Steve kissed her and put his hand on her breast. The dope they were smoking wasn’t especially strong, but it heightened her sense of touch as it did her hearing, and she felt herself responding to his caresses, getting wet. He undid the buttons on her school blouse and then she felt his hand moving up over her bare thighs. Jimi Hendrix was singing “ 1983” when Steve and Yvonne toppled onto the floor, pulling at one another’s clothing.

  Monday, 8th September, 1969

  Chadwick leaned back against the cool tiles of the mortuary wall and watched Dr. O’Neill and his assistant at work under the bright light. Postmortems had never bothered him, and this one was no exception, even though the victim had reminded him earlier of Yvonne. Now she was just an unfortunate dead girl on the porcelain slab. Her life was gone, drained out of her, and all that remained were flesh, muscle, blood, bone and organs. And, possibly, clues.

  The painted cornflower looked even more incongruous in this harsh steel-and-porcelain environment, blooming on her dead cheek. Chadwick found himself wondering, not for the first time, whether it had been painted by the girl herself, by a friend or by her killer. And if the latter, what was its significance?

  Dr. O’Neill had carefully removed the bloody dress, after matching the holes in the material to the wounds, and set it aside with the sleeping bag for further forensic testing. So far they had discovered that the sleeping bag was a cheap popular brand sold mainly through Woolworth’s.

  The doctor bent over the pale naked body to examine the stab wounds. There were five in all, he noted, and one had been so hard and gone so deep that it had bruised the surrounding skin. If the hilt of the knife had caused the bruising, as Dr. O’Neill believed it had, they were dealing with a single-edged four-inch blade. A very thin, stiletto-type blade, too, allowing that it was a bit bigger than the actual wounds, owing to the elasticity of the skin. One strong possibility, he suggested, was a flick-knife. They were illegal in Britain but easy enough to pick up on the Continent.

  Judging by the angles of the wounds, Dr. O’Neill concluded that the victim had been stabbed by a strong left-handed person standing behind her. The complete lack of defense wounds on her hands indicated that she had been so taken by surprise that she had either died or gone into shock before she knew what was happening.

  “She may not have seen her killer, then,” said Chadwick, “unless it was someone she knew well enough to let that close?”

  “I can’t speculate on that. You can see as well as I can, though, that there appear to be no other injuries to the surface of the body apart from that light bruising on the neck, which tells me someone held her in a stranglehold with his right arm while he stabbed her with his left. We’ll be testing for drugs, too, of course – it’s possible she was slipped something that immobilized her: Nembutal, Tuinal, something like that. But she was standing when she was stabbed – the angles tell us that much – so she must have been conscious.”

  Chadwick looked down at the body. Dr. O’Neill was right. Apart from the faint discoloration on her neck and the mess around her left breast, she was in almost pristine condition: no cuts, no rope burns, nothing.

  “Was he taller than her?” Chadwick asked.

  “Yes, judging by the shape and position of the bruises and the angle of the cuts, I’d estimate by a good six inches. She was five foot four, which makes him at least five foot ten.”

  “Would you say the bruising indicates a struggle?”

  “Not necessarily. As you can see, it’s fairly mild. He could simply have had his arm loosely around her neck, then tightened it when he stabbed her. It probably all happened so quickly he didn’t need to restrain her. We already know there are no defensive wounds to the hands, which indicates she was taken by surprise. If that’s the case, she would have slumped as she died, and his arm could have caused the bruising then.”

  “I thought bodies didn’t bruise after death.”

  “This would have been the moment before death, or at the moment of death.” Dr. O’Neill turned his attention to the golden hair between the girl’s legs and Chadwick felt himself tense. So like Yvonne’s when he had seen her naked that time by accident at the caravan. How embarrassed they had both felt.

  “Again,” said Dr. O’Neill, “we’ll have to do swabs and further tests, but there doesn’t appear to be any sign of sexual activity. There’s no bruising around the vaginal areas or the anus.”

  “So you’re saying she wasn’t raped, she didn’t have sex?”

  “I’m not committing myself to anything yet,” said Dr. O’Neill sharply. “Not until I’ve done an internal examination and the samples have been analyzed. All I’m saying is there are no obvious superficial signs of forced or rough sexual activity. One thing we did find was a tampon. It looks as if our victim was menstruating at the time of the murder.”

  “Which still doesn’t rule out sexual activity altogether?”

  “Not at all. But if she did have sex, she had time to put another tampon in before she was killed.”

  Chadwick thought for a moment. If sex had been the reason for her death, then surely there would have been more signs of violence, unless they had been lovers to begin with. Had they made love first, then dressed, and while she was leaning back on him in the afterglow, he killed her? But why, if sex had been consensual? Had she, perhaps, refused, said she was having her period, and had that somehow angered her attacker? Were they really dealing with a nutcase?

  As often as not, Chadwick knew, investigations, including the medical kind, threw up more questions than answers, and it was only through answering them that you made progress.

  Chadwick watched as O’Neill and his assistant made the Y incision and peeled back the skin, muscle and soft tissues from the chest wall before pulling the chest flap up over her face and cutting through the rib cage with an electric saw. The smell was overwhelming. Raw meat. Lamb, mostly, Chadwick thought.

  “Hmm, it’s as I suspected,” said Dr. O’Neill. “The chest cavity is filled with blood, as are all the other cavities. Massive internal bleeding.”

  “Would she have died quickly?”

  Dr. O’Neill probed around and remained silent a few minutes, then he said, “From the state of her, seconds at most. Look here. He twisted the knife so sharply he actually cut off a piece of her heart.”

  Chadwick looked. As usual, he wished he could see what Dr. O’Neill did, but all he saw was a mass of glistening, bloody organ tissue. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said.

  Dr. O’Neill’s assistant carefully started removing the inner organs for sectioning, further testing and examination. Barring any glaring anomalies, Chadwick knew it would be a few days before he received the results of all this. There was no real reason to stick around, and he had more than enough things to do. He left just as Dr. O’Neill started up the saw to cut through the victim’s skull and remove
her brain.

  Saturday morning dawned fresh and clear, and Helmthorpe had that rinsed and scoured look; the streets, limestone buildings and flagstone roofs still dark with rain, but the sun out, the sky blue and a cool wind to rattle the bare branches.

  Banks fiddled with the attachment that let him play the iPod through the car stereo and was rewarded by Judy Collins singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” in a voice of such aching beauty and clarity that it made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sandy Denny’s lyrics had never seemed so doom-laden; they made him think about his brother Roy. Almost as a rebuke, it seemed, the Porsche coursed smoothly and powerfully through the late-autumn landscape.

  After she had eaten the lasagna and drunk one small glass of wine, Annie had driven off to Harkside and left Banks to his own devices. It was after two in the morning, but he had poured himself a glass of Amarone and listened to Fischer-Dieskau’s 1962 Winterreise in the dark before heading for bed with a head full of gloomy thoughts. Even then he hadn’t been able to sleep. It was partly heartburn from eating so late – he wished he had taken one of Nick’s antacids, as he had none in the house – and partly disturbing dreams during those brief moments when he did nod off. Several times he awoke abruptly with his heart pounding and a vague, terrifying image skittering away down the slippery slopes of his subconscious. He had lain there taking slow, deep breaths until he had fallen asleep about an hour before the alarm went off.

  The team gathered in the boardroom, crime scene photos pinned to the corkboard, but the whiteboard was conspicuously empty apart from the name, “Nick.” An incident van had been dispatched to Fordham earlier in the morning, fitted out with phones and computers. Information collected there would be collated and passed on to headquarters. Banks was officially the Senior Investigating Officer, appointed by Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin, and Annie was his deputy. Other tasks would be assigned to various officers according to their skills.

  Since Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe had retired two months ago, they had been given a temporary replacement in Catherine Gervaise. There were those who muttered that Banks should have got the job, but he knew it had never been on the cards. He had got on well enough with ACC McLaughlin, “Red Ron,” and with the chief constable himself, on those rare occasions when they met, but he was too much of a loose cannon. If nothing else, running off to London to look for his brother, and getting involved in all that followed from that, had put several nails in the coffin of his career. Besides, he didn’t want the responsibility, or the paperwork. Gristhorpe had always left him alone to work cases the way he wanted, which meant he ended up doing a lot of the legwork and streetwork himself, because that was the way he liked it.

  Catherine Gervaise was cool and distant, not a mentor and friend the way Gristhorpe had been, and under her rule he found that he had to fight harder for his privileges. She was an administrator through and through, an ambitious woman who had risen quickly through the ranks via accelerated-promotion schemes, management and computer courses and, some said, by affirmative action. This would be her first major investigation at Western Area Headquarters, so it would be interesting to see how she handled it. At least she wasn’t stupid, Banks thought, and she should know how best to use her resources.

  Some were put off by her posh accent and Cheltenham Ladies’ College background, but Banks was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, as long as she left him alone. The one thing they had in common, he discovered, was that she also had season tickets to Opera North, and he had seen her at a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with her husband. He didn’t think she had noticed him. At least, she hadn’t let on. In appearance, she wore little makeup and was rather severe, with short blond hair, rather unexpected cupid’s-bow lips and a trim figure. In dress she was conservative, favoring navy suits and white blouses, and in manner she was no-nonsense, remaining aloof and either not getting the squad room humor, or not wishing to show that she did.

  The superintendent asked for a summary of what they had so far, which wasn’t much. The blood-spatter analysis was consistent with the theory that Nick had been bashed over the back of the head with a poker as he had been turning away from his killer, perhaps walking toward his cigarettes. After that, he had been hit once or twice more – they wouldn’t know until Dr. Glendenning performed the postmortem – no doubt to make sure he was dead.

  “Have we got any further identifying the victim?” Superintendent Gervaise asked next.

  “A little, ma’am,” said Winsome. “At least the local memory tag on his license plate number indicates the car was registered in London.”

  “It’s not hired?”

  “No. We finally got a look inside with the help of the garage. Unfortunately, there was nothing inside to indicate who he was, either.”

  “So someone really wanted to throw sand in our eyes.”

  “Well, ma’am, it’s a fairly new car, and he might not have been the kind of person who lives out of it, but it certainly looks that way. Whoever did it must have known he could only have slowed the investigation down, though.” Winsome looked at Banks, who nodded for her to go on. “Which probably means that he wanted to give himself a bit of time to get far enough away and arrange an alibi.”

  “Interesting theory, DC Jackman,” said Gervaise. “But that’s all it is, isn’t it, a theory?”

  “Yes, ma’am. For the moment.”

  “And we need facts.”

  That was pretty much self-evident in any investigation, Banks thought. Of course you wanted facts, but until you got them you played around with theories, you used what you did have, then you applied a bit of imagination, and as often as not you came up with an approximation of the truth, which was what he thought Winsome was doing. So Ms. Gervaise wanted to establish herself as a just-the-facts, no-fancy-theories kind of superintendent. Well, so be it. The squad would soon learn to keep their theories to themselves, but Banks hoped her attitude wouldn’t completely crush their creativity, and wouldn’t stop them from confiding their theories in him. It was all very well to come in with an attitude, but it was another thing if that attitude destroyed the delicate balance that had already been achieved over time.

  They were drastically short of DCs, having recently lost Gavin Rickerd, their best office manager, to the new neighborhood policing initiative, where he was working with community support officers and specials to tackle the antisocial behavior that was becoming increasingly the norm all over the country, especially on a Saturday night in Eastvale. Gavin hadn’t been replaced yet, and in his absence the job this time had gone to one of the uniformed constables, hardly the ideal choice, but the best they could do right now.

  Banks wanted Winsome Jackman and Kev Templeton doing what they did best – tracking down information and following leads – and when it came to that, Detective Sergeant Hatchley had always been a bit slow and lazy. His physical presence used to help intimidate the odd suspect or two, but these days the ex-rugby player’s muscle had gone mostly to fat, and the police weren’t allowed to intimidate villains anymore. Villains’ Rights had put paid to that, or so it sometimes seemed, especially since a burglar had fallen off the roof of a warehouse he had broken into last summer, then sued the owner for damages and won.

  “I’m trying to get in touch with the DVLA in Swansea,” Winsome said, “but it’s Saturday. They’re closed and I can’t seem to track down my contact.”

  “Keep trying,” said Superintendent Gervaise. “Is there anything else?”

  Winsome consulted her notes. “DS Templeton and I interviewed the people in the Cross Keys and took statements. Nothing new there. And when the lights came on we made a quick check of their outer clothing for signs of blood. There were none.”

  “What’s your take on this?” Gervaise asked Banks.

  “I don’t have enough facts yet to form an opinion,” Banks said.

  The irony wasn’t lost on Superintendent Gervaise, who pursed her lips. She looked as if
she had just bitten into a particularly vinegary pickle. Banks noticed Annie look away and smile to herself, pen against her lips, shaking her head slowly.

  “I understand you entered a licensed premises during the early stages of the investigation yesterday evening,” Gervaise said.

  “That’s right.” Banks wondered who had been talking, and why.

  “I suppose you know there are regulations governing drinking whilst on duty?”

  “With all due respect,” Banks said, “I didn’t go there for a drink. I went to question possible witnesses.”

  “But you did have a drink?”

  “While I was there, yes. I find it puts people at ease. They see you as more like they are, not as the enemy.”

  “Duly noted,” said Gervaise dryly. “And did you find any cooperative witnesses?”

  “Nobody seemed to know very much about the victim,” Banks said. “He was renting a cottage, not a local.”

  “On holiday at this time of year?”

  “That’s what I wondered about.”

  “Find out what he was doing there. That might help us get to the bottom of this.”

  Quite the one for dishing out obvious orders, was Superintendent Gervaise, Banks thought. He’d had bosses like that before: State the obvious, the things your team would do anyway, without even being asked, and take the credit for the results. “Of course,” he said. “We’re working on it. One of the staff might know a bit more than she’s letting on.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Her manner, body language.”

  “All right. Question her. Bring her in, if necessary.”

  Banks could tell by Superintendent Gervaise’s clipped tone and the way her hand strayed to her short layered locks that she was getting bored with the meeting and anxious to get away, no doubt to send out a memo on drinking while on duty, or the ten most obvious courses to pursue during a murder inquiry.

  “If that’s all for now, ladies and gentlemen,” she went on, stuffing her papers into her briefcase, “then I suggest we all get down to work.”