Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  “What did Linda say?”

  “She gave him his marching orders, then not long after that, she was gone herself.”

  “Do you know if he ever bothered her at all?”

  “I don’t think so. She never said, never even mentioned him or the baby again.”

  “Did he ever come here after that, asking about her?”

  “Just once, about three weeks after she’d left. Wanted to know her address.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I didn’t know. Of course he didn’t believe me, and he made a bit of a fuss on the doorstep.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I sent him packing. Told him I’d set Jim on him if he came back again, and shut the door in his face. He left us alone after that. Surely you don’t think Donald could have…?”

  “We don’t know what to think yet, Mrs. Lofthouse. We have to look at all possibilities.”

  “He’s a bit of a hothead, anyone will tell you that, but I very much doubt that he’s a murderer.” She dabbed at her eyes again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I still can’t seem to take it in.”

  “I understand,” said Chadwick. “Is there anyone you’d like me to get to stay with you? Relative? Neighbor?”

  “Mrs. Bennett next door. She’s always been a good friend. She’s a widow, like me. She understands what it feels like.”

  Chadwick stood up to leave. “I’ll let her know you want her to come over. Look, before I go, do you have a recent photograph of Linda I could borrow?”

  “I might have,” she said. “Just a minute.” She went over to the sideboard and started rummaging through one of the drawers. “This was taken last year, when she came home for her birthday. Her father was a bit of an amateur photographer.”

  She handed Chadwick the color photograph. It was the girl in the sleeping bag, only she was alive, a half-smile on her lips, a faraway look in her big blue eyes, wavy blond hair tumbling over her shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll let you have it back.”

  “And you’ll keep in touch, won’t you? About the arrangements.”

  “Of course. I’ll also send someone to drive you to the hospital and back to make the formal identification.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and stood with him at the door, holding a damp tissue to her eyes. “How can something like this happen to me, Mr. Chadwick?” she said. “I’ve been a devout Christian woman all my life. I’ve never hurt a soul and I’ve always served the Lord to the best of my ability. How can He do this to me? A husband and a daughter, both in the same year?”

  All Chadwick could do was shake his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I knew the answer.”

  “Just outside Sheffield” turned out to be a quaint village on the edge of the Peak District National Park, and the house was a detached limestone cottage with a fair-sized and well-tended garden, central door, symmetrical up and down mullioned windows, garage and outbuildings. In the Dales, Annie guessed, it would be valued at about half a million pounds these days, but she had no idea what prices were like in the Peak District. Probably not much different. There were many similarities between the two areas, with their limestone hills and valleys, and both drew hordes of tourists, ramblers and climbers almost year-round.

  Winsome parked by the gate and they made their way down the garden path. A few birds twittered in the nearby trees, completing the rural idyll. The woman who opened the door to them had clearly been crying. Annie felt grateful she hadn’t been the one to break the news. She hated that. The last time she had told someone about the death of a friend, the woman had actually fainted.

  “Annie Cabbot and Winsome Jackman from North Yorkshire Major Crimes,” she said.

  “Yes, come in,” said the woman. “We’ve been expecting you.” If the sight of a six-foot black woman surprised her at all, she didn’t show it. Like many others, she no doubt watched crime programs on TV and had got used to the idea of a multiracial police force, even in such a “white” enclave as the Peaks.

  She led them through a dim hallway where coats hung on pegs and boots and shoes were neatly aligned on a low slatted rack, then into an airy living room with French windows that led to the back garden, a neatly manicured lawn with stone birdbath, white plastic table and chairs and herbaceous borders. Plane trees framed a magnificent view over the fields to the limestone peaks beyond. The sky was mostly light gray, with a hint of sun hiding behind clouds somewhere in the north.

  “We’ve just got back from church,” the woman said. “We go every week, and it seemed especially important today.”

  “Of course,” said Annie, whose religious background had been agnostic, and whose own spiritual dabbling in yoga and meditation had never led her to any sort of organized religion. “We’re very sorry about your son, Mrs. Barber.”

  “Please,” she said. “Call me Louise. My husband, Ross, is making some tea. I hope that will be all right?”

  “That’ll be perfect,” said Annie.

  “You’d better sit down.”

  The chintz-covered armchairs all had spotless lace antimacassars, and Annie sat carefully, not quite daring to let the back of her head touch the material. In a few moments a tall, rangy man with unruly white hair, wearing a gray V-neck pullover and baggy cords, brought in a tray and placed it on the low glass table between the chairs and the fireplace. He looked a bit like a sort of mad scientist character who could do complex equations in his head but had trouble fastening his shoelaces. Annie admired the framed print of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte over the mantelpiece.

  Once tea had been served, and everyone was settled, Winsome took out her notebook and Annie began. “I know this is a difficult time for you, but anything you can tell us about your son would be helpful right now.”

  “Do you have any suspects?” Mr. Barber asked.

  “I’m afraid not. It’s early days yet. We’re just trying to piece together what happened.”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to harm our Nicholas. He was harmless. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

  “It’s often the innocent who suffer,” said Annie.

  “But Nicholas…” He let the sentence trail off.

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  Ross and Louise Barber looked at one another. “No,” Louise said. “I mean, he never mentioned anyone. And like Ross says, he was a gentle person. He loved his music and his books and his films. And his writing, of course.”

  “He wasn’t married, was he?” They had not been able to find a record of a wife, but Annie thought it best to make sure. If a jealous wife had caught wind of what Barber was up to with Kelly Soames, she might easily have lost it.

  “No. He was engaged once, ten years ago,” said Ross Barber. “Nice girl. Local. But they drifted apart when he moved to London. More tea?”

  Annie and Winsome said yes, please. Barber topped up their cups.

  “We understand that your son was a music journalist?” Annie went on.

  “Yes,” said Louise. “It was what he always wanted. Even when he was at school, he was editor of the magazine, and he wrote most of the articles himself.”

  “We found out from the Internet that he’s done some articles for MOJO and written a couple of biographies. Can you tell us anything else about his work? Did he write for anyone in particular, for example?”

  “No. He was a freelancer,” Ross Barber answered. “He did some writing for the newspapers, reviews and such, and feature pieces for that magazine sometimes, as you said. I’m afraid that sort of music isn’t exactly to my taste.” He smiled indulgently. “But he loved it, and apparently he made a decent living.”

  Annie liked pop music, but she hadn’t heard of MOJO, though she knew she must have seen it in W. H. Smith’s when she was picking up Now, Star or Heat, the trashy celebrity gossip magazines she liked to read in the bath, her one secret vice. “You didn’t approve of your son’s interest in rock music?” she ask
ed.

  “It’s not that we’re against it, or anything, you understand,” said Ross Barber. “We’ve just always been a bit more inclined toward classical – Louise sings with the local operatic society – but we’re happy that Nicholas seemed to pick up a love of music at a very early age, along with the writing. He loves classical music, too, of course, but writing about rock was how he made his living.”

  “He was lucky, then,” said Annie. “Being able to combine his two loves.”

  “Yes,” Louise agreed, wiping away a tear with a lacy handkerchief.

  “Do you have any copies of his articles? You must be proud of him. A scrapbook, perhaps?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Louise. “It never really entered our heads, did it, darling?”

  Her husband agreed. “It wouldn’t mean anything to us, you see, what he was writing about. The names. The records. We would never have heard of any of them.”

  Annie wanted to tell them that wasn’t the point, but it would clearly do no good. “How long has he been doing this for a living?” she asked.

  “About eight years now,” Ross answered.

  “And before that?”

  “He got a BA in English at Nottingham, then he did an MA in film studies, I think, at Leicester. After that he did a bit of teaching and wrote reviews, then he got a feature accepted, and after that…”

  “He never studied journalism?”

  “No. I suppose you might say he got in through the back door.”

  “What’s your profession, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I was a university professor,” said Ross Barber. “Classics and Ancient History. Rather dull, I’m afraid. I’m retired now, mind you.”

  Annie was trying frantically to puzzle out why anyone would want to kill a music journalist, but she couldn’t come up with anything. Except drugs. Kelly Soames had said that she and Nick smoked a joint, but that meant nothing. Annie had smoked a few joints in her time, even while she was a copper. Even Banks had smoked joints. She wondered about Winsome and Kev Templeton. Kev’s drug of choice was probably E washed down with liberal amounts of Red Bull, but she didn’t know about Winsome. She seemed a clean-living girl, with her passion for the outdoors, and for potholing, but surely there had to be something. Anyway, it didn’t help very much knowing that Nick Barber smoked marijuana occasionally. She imagined it was par for the course in the rock business, whichever end of it you were in.

  “Can you tell us anything about Nick’s life?” she asked. “We have so little to go on.”

  “I can’t see how any of it would help you,” said Louise, “but we’ll do our best.”

  “Did you see him often?”

  “You know what it’s like when they leave home,” Louise said. “They phone and visit when they can. Our Nick was no better or worse than anyone else in that regard, I shouldn’t think.”

  “So he was in touch regularly?”

  “He phoned us once a week and tried to drop by whenever he could.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Her eyes filled with tears again. “Just the week before last. Friday. He was on his way up to Yorkshire, and he stopped over for the night. We always keep his old room ready for him, just in case.”

  “Was there anything different about him?”

  “Different? What do you mean?”

  “Did he seem fearful in any way?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Was he depressed about anything?”

  The Barbers looked at one another, then Louise replied. “No. Maybe a little preoccupied, but certainly not depressed. He seemed quite cheerful, as a matter of fact. Nick was never the most demonstrative of children, but he was generally even-tempered. He was no different this time from any other time he called by.”

  “He wasn’t anxious about anything?”

  “Not as far as we could tell. If anything, he was a bit more excited than usual.”

  “Excited? About what?”

  “He didn’t say. I think it might have been a story he was working on.”

  “What was it about?”

  “He never told us details like that. Not that we weren’t interested in his work, but I think he realized it would mean nothing to us. Besides, it was probably a ‘scoop.’ He’d learned to become secretive in his business.”

  “Even from you?”

  “The walls have ears. He’d developed an instinct. I don’t think it really mattered to whom he was talking.”

  “So he didn’t mention any names?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Did he tell you why he was going to Yorkshire?”

  “He said he’d found what sounded like a quiet place to write, and I think there was someone he wanted to see who lives up there.”

  “Who?”

  Mrs. Barber spread her hands. “I’m sorry. But I got the impression it was to do with what he was working on.”

  Annie cursed under her breath. If only Nick had named names. If he’d thought his parents had the least interest in his passion, then he probably would have, despite his journalistic instinct to protect his scoop. “Is that what he was excited about?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you add anything, Mr. Barber?”

  Ross Barber shook his head. “No. As Louise said, the names of these groups and singers mean nothing to us. I think he’d learned there was no point in mentioning them. I’m afraid I glaze over in discussions like that. No doubt members of his own generation would be very impressed, but they went right over our heads.”

  “I can understand that,” said Annie. “What do you know about Nick’s life in London?”

  “He had a nice flat,” said Louise. “Didn’t he, Ross? Just off the Great West Road. We stayed there not so long ago on our way to Heathrow. He slept on the sofa and let us have his bedroom. Spotless, it was.”

  “He didn’t live or share with anyone?”

  “No. It was all his own.”

  “Did you meet a girlfriend or a close friend? Anyone?”

  “No. He took us out for dinner somewhere in the West End. The next day we flew to New York. Ross and I have old friends there, and they invited us for our fortieth wedding anniversary.”

  “That’s nice,” said Annie. “So you don’t really know much at all about Nick’s life in London?”

  “I think he worked all the hours God sent. He didn’t have time for girlfriends and relationships and that sort of thing. I’m sure he would have settled down eventually.”

  In Annie’s admittedly limited experience, if someone had reached the age of thirty-eight without “settling down,” you were a fool if you held your breath and waited for him to do so, but she also knew that many more people were holding off committing to relationships for much longer these days, herself included. “I know this is a rather delicate question,” Annie asked, “and I don’t want it to upset you, but did Nick ever have anything to do with drugs?”

  “Well,” said Ross, “we assumed he experimented, of course, like so many young people today, but we never saw him under the influence of anything more than a couple of pints of bitter, or perhaps a small whiskey. We’re fairly liberal about things like that. I mean, you can’t teach in a university for as long as I did and not have some knowledge of marijuana. But if he did use drugs at all, they didn’t interfere with his job or his health, and we certainly never noticed any signs, did we?”

  “No,” Louise agreed.

  It was a fair answer, if not entirely what Annie had expected. She sensed that Ross Barber was being as honest as he could be. The Barbers clearly loved their son and were distraught over his death, but there seemed to have been some sort of communication gap between them. They were proud of his achievements, but not interested in the actual achievements themselves. Nick might well have interviewed Coldplay or Oasis, but Annie could just imagine Ross Barber saying, “That’s very nice, son,” as he pored over his ancient tomes. She couldn’t think of anything else
to ask and glanced over at Winsome, who shrugged. Perhaps Banks would have done better; perhaps she wasn’t asking the right questions, but she couldn’t think of any more. They would have a quick look in Nick’s room, just in case he had left anything of interest, then maybe catch a pub lunch somewhere on the way back. After that, Annie would check in at the incident van and give Banks a ring. He’d want to know what she had found out, no matter how little it was.

  Saturday, 13th September, 1969

  The young man in the greasy overalls was standing with a spanner in his hand surrounded by pieces of a dismantled motorbike when Chadwick arrived at the garage later that afternoon. According to the car radio, Leeds were one nil up.

  “Vincent Black Lightning, 1952,” the young man said. “Lovely machine. How can I help you?”

  Chadwick showed his warrant card. “Are you Donald Hughes?”

  Hughes immediately looked cagey, put down the spanner and wiped his hands on his greasy overalls. “Maybe,” he said. “Depends why you want to know.”

  Chadwick’s immediate inclination was to tell the kid to stop messing about and come up with some answers, but he realized that Hughes might not know yet about Linda’s murder, and that his reaction to the news could reveal a lot. Perhaps a softer approach would be best, then, at least to start with.

  “Maybe you’d better sit down, laddie,” he said.

  “Why?”

  There were two fold-up chairs in the garage. Instead of answering, Chadwick sat on one. A little dazed, Hughes followed suit. The dim garage smelled of oil, petrol and warm metal. It was still raining outside and he could hear the steady dripping of water from the gutters.

  “What is it?” Hughes asked. “Has something happened to Mum?”

  “Not as far as I know,” said Chadwick. “Read the papers much?”

  “Nah. Nothing but bad news.”

  “Hear about the festival up at Brimleigh Glen last weekend?”