Piece Of My Heart

by Peter Robinson

  “When was this?”

  “Just last week.”

  “And you think…?”

  “I happen to know that Barber was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. He found Greaves up here and came to talk to him, but Greaves freaked out and sent him packing. He was planning on coming back, but before he could, he was killed and all his work notes were stolen.”

  “Of course he’d get nothing out of Vic. He doesn’t like talking about the old days. They’re painful for him to remember, if indeed he can remember much about them.”

  “Makes him angry, does it? Gives him a tantrum?”

  Adams leaned forward, face thrust out aggressively. “Now, wait a minute. You surely can’t be thinking…” Then he leaned back. “You’ve got it all wrong. Vic’s a gentle soul. He’s got his problems, sure, but he wouldn’t harm a fly. He’s no more capable of-”

  “Your confidence in him is admirable, but he certainly strikes me as being capable of irrational or violent behavior.”

  “But why would he hurt Nick Barber?”

  “You’ve just said it yourself. He’s not good at interaction, especially with strangers or people he doesn’t trust, people he perceives as a threat. Maybe Barber was after information that was painful for Vic to remember, something he’d buried long ago.”

  Adams relaxed and sat back in his chair. The vinyl squeaked. “That’s a bit fanciful, if you don’t mind my saying so. Why would Vic perceive Nick Barber as a threat? He was just another fucking music journalist, for crying out loud.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Banks.

  “Well, good luck to you, but I honestly can’t see you getting anywhere. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree on this one. And besides, I’d guess there were plenty of heavy people more interested in Nick Barber than Vic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Adams gave a twisted smile, put his finger to one nostril and sniffed through the other one. “Had quite a habit, so I heard. They can be very unforgiving, some of those coke dealers.”

  Banks made a note to check into that area of Barber’s life, but he wasn’t going to be deflected so easily. “Did he talk to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Nick Barber. He was doing a feature on the Hatters reunion, after all. It would only have been natural.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “I suppose he just hadn’t got round to it,” Banks said. “Early days. Were you present when Robin Merchant drowned in the swimming pool at Swainsview Lodge?”

  Adams looked surprised at the change of direction. He took a packet of Benson amp; Hedges from his jacket pocket and lit one, not offering the packet to Banks. Banks was grateful; he might have accepted one. Adams inhaled noisily, and the smoke curled in the dim, chilly light of the pink-and-green-shaded table lamps. “I wasn’t present at the drowning, but I was in the lodge, yeah, asleep, like everybody else.”

  “Like everybody else said they were.”

  “And like the police and the coroner believed.”

  “We’ve had a lot of success lately with cold cases.”

  “It’s not a cold case. It’s an over and done with case, dead and buried. History.”

  “I’m not too sure about that,” said Banks. “Did you drop by to see Vic last week at all?”

  “I was in London most of last week for meetings with promoters. I called in to see him on my way back up north.”

  “What day would that be?”

  “I’d have to check my calendar. Why is it important?”

  “Would you check, please?”

  Adams paused a moment, obviously not used to being given orders, then pulled a PDA from his inside pocket. “Isn’t it wonderful, modern technology?” he said, tapping it with the stylus.

  “Indeed,” said Banks. “It’s one of the reasons we’ve had such a high success rate with cold cases. New technology. Computers. DNA. Magic.” Banks wasn’t too sure about it himself, though. He was still trying to master a laptop computer and an iPod; he hadn’t got around to PDAs yet.

  Adams shot him an angry glance. “Are we talking about last week?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I would have seen him on Wednesday, on my way back from London. I’d been down there since the previous weekend.”

  “Wednesday. Was there anything odd or different about his behavior, anything he said?”

  “No, not that I noticed. He was quite docile. He was reading a book when I arrived. He reads a lot, mostly nonfiction.” Adams gestured to the magazines, books and papers. “As you can see, he doesn’t like to throw anything away.”

  “He didn’t tell about anything unusual or frightening happening, about Nick Barber or anyone else coming to see him?”

  “No.”

  According to John Butler at MOJO, Nick Barber had tracked down Vic Greaves to this cottage and paid him a visit, but Butler hadn’t known the actual day this had happened. Vic had freaked out, refused to talk, become angry and upset, and Barber had said he was going to try again. The phone call to Butler had been made on Friday morning, probably from the telephone box by the church.

  If Vic Greaves hadn’t told Adams about his meeting with Barber, then it must have happened as late in the week as Thursday, perhaps, and Barber might have tried again on Friday, the day of his murder. Kelly Soames said he had been in bed with her between two and four, but that still left him virtually all day. Unless, of course, either Kelly Soames or Chris Adams was lying, in which case all bets were off. And of the two, Banks felt that while Kelly Soames would lie to protect herself from her father, Adams might have any number of less forgivable reasons for doing it.

  “Where were you on Friday?” Banks asked.

  “Home. All weekend.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Sorry. I’m afraid my wife was away, visiting her mother.”

  “Can you give me the names and addresses of some of the people you met with in London, and the hotel you were staying at?” Banks asked.

  “Am I hearing you right? Are you asking me for an alibi now?”

  “Process of elimination,” said Banks. “The more people we can rule out straightaway, the easier our job is.”

  “Bollocks,” said Adams. “You don’t believe me. Why don’t you just come right out and admit it?”

  “Look,” said Banks, “I’m not in the business of believing the first thing I’m told. Not by anybody. I’d be a bloody useless detective if I were. It’s a job, nothing personal. I want to get the facts straight before I come to any conclusions.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Adams, tapping his way through the PalmPilot and giving Banks some names and numbers. “And I was staying at the Mont-calm. They’ll remember me. I always stay there when I’m in town. I’ve got a suite. Okay?”

  “Appreciate it,” said Banks.

  They heard a bang from upstairs. Adams cursed and headed out. While he was gone, Banks took as good a look as he could around the room. Some of the newspapers were ten years old or more, the same with the magazines, which meant Greaves must have brought them with him when he moved in. The books were mostly biography or history. One thing he did find of interest, on the table half hidden under the lamp, was a business card that had Nick Barber’s Chiswick address printed on it and his Fordham address scribbled on the other side. Had Barber left this for Vic Greaves when he paid his visit? It should be possible to check it against a sample of his handwriting.

  Adams came back. “Nothing,” he said. “His book slipped off the bed to the floor. He’s still out.”

  “Are you staying here overnight?” Banks asked.

  “No. Vic’ll sleep right through till morning now, and by then he’ll have forgotten whatever upset him today. One of the marvels of his condition. Every day is a new adventure. Besides, it won’t take me too long to drive home, and I have a lovely young wife waiting for me there.”

  Banks wished he had someone living with him, but
even if he had, he realized, it wouldn’t be possible with Brian and Emilia around. How ironic, he thought. They could do whatever they wanted, but he didn’t feel he could spend the night with a woman in his own house while they were there. Chance would be a fine thing. Banks felt nervous about going home, fearing what he might disturb. He’d phone them on his way, when he got within mobile range, just to warn them, give them time to get dressed, or whatever.

  He showed Adams the card. “I found this pushed under the lamp over there,” he said, “only the edge was showing. Did you put it there?”

  “Never seen it before,” said Adams.

  “It’s Nick Barber’s card.”

  “So what? That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “It proves he was here at least once.”

  “But you already know that.”

  “It also has his Fordham address written on it, so anyone who saw it here would know where he was staying when he was killed. Nice meeting you, Mr. Adams. Have a safe drive home. I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon.”

  Saturday, 20th September, 1969

  While Chadwick was cheering on Leeds United to a 2-0 victory over Chelsea at Elland Road that Saturday afternoon, Yvonne walked over to Springfield Mount to meet Steve and the others. Judy was going to make a macrobiotic meal, then they’d smoke a joint or two and take the bus into town. There was a bunch of stuff happening at the Adelphi that night: poets, a blues band, a jazz trio.

  She was surprised, and more than a little put out, when McGarrity opened the door, but she asked for Steve, and he stood aside to let her in. The place was unusually quiet. No music or conversation. Yvonne went into the front room, sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette, glancing at the Goya print, which always seemed to mesmerize her. A moment later McGarrity strolled through the door with a joint in his hand and said, “He’s not here. Will I do?”

  “What?”

  McGarrity put a record on and sat in the armchair opposite her. He had that sort of fixed, crooked smile on his face, cynical and mocking, that always made her feel nervous and ill at ease in his presence. His pale skin was pockmarked, as if he’d scratched it when he had chicken pox as a child, the way her mother said would happen to her, and his dark hair was greasy and matted, flopping over his forehead and almost covering one dark brown eye. “Steve. He’s out. They’re all out.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Town Street, shopping.”

  “When will they be back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe I should come back later.”

  “No. Don’t go so soon. Here.” He handed her the joint.

  Yvonne hesitated, then put her cigarette in the ashtray, accepted it and took a couple of drags. A joint was a joint, after all. It tasted good. Quality stuff. She recognized the music now: the Grateful Dead, “China Cat Sunflower.” Nice. She still felt uncomfortable with the way he was looking at her, though, and she remembered the other night at the Grove, when he’d touched her and whispered her name. At least he didn’t have his knife in his hand today. He seemed normal enough. Still, she felt edgy. She shifted on the sofa and said, “Thank you. I should go now.”

  “Why are you being so rude? You’ll share a joint with me, but why don’t you want to stay and talk to me?” He handed her the joint again and she took another couple of drags, hoping it would set her at ease, calm her down. What was it about him that disturbed her so? The smile? The sense that behind it lay only darkness?

  “What do you want to talk about?” she said, handing the joint back to him and picking up her cigarette again.

  “That’s better. I don’t know. Let’s talk about that girl who got killed last week.”

  Yvonne remembered McGarrity’s knife, and that he had been wandering the crowds at Brimleigh during the festival. A terrible thought leaped into her mind. Surely he couldn’t have…? She began to feel real fear now, a physical sensation like insects crawling all over her skin. She looked at the Sleep of Reason and thought she could see the bats flying around the sleeping man’s head, biting at his neck with vampire teeth. The cat at his feet licked its lips. Yvonne felt an electric tingling in her arms and in the backs of her legs. ee-lek-triss-attee. God, that hash was strong. And the song had changed. It wasn’t “China Cat Sunflower” anymore, but “What’s Become of the Baby?” a creepy sound montage of disembodied voices and electronic effects. “Linda?” she heard herself saying in a strange, distant voice that could have been someone else’s. “What about her?”

  “You met her. I know you did. Wasn’t she pretty? Sad, isn’t it? But it’s an absurd and arbitrary world,” he said. “That sort of thing could happen to anyone. Anywhere. Anytime. The pretty and the plain alike. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport. Not with a bang but a whimper. One day you’ll understand. Have you read about those people in Los Angeles? The rich people who got butchered? One of them was pregnant, you know. They cut her baby out of her womb. The newspapers are saying they were killed by people like us because they were rich piggies. Wouldn’t you like to do something like that, little Von? Kill the piggies?”

  “No. I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Yvonne blurted out. “I believe in love.”

  “His scythe cuts down the innocent and the guilty alike. And the dead shall rise incorruptible.”

  Yvonne put her hands over her ears. Her head was spinning. “Stop it!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re making me nervous.”

  “Why do I make you nervous?”

  “I don’t know, but you do.”

  “Is it exciting?”

  “What?”

  He leaned forward. She could see the decay on his front teeth, bared in that arrogant, superior smile. “Being nervous. Does it make you excited?”

  “No, it makes me nervous and you excited.”

  McGarrity laughed. “You’re not as stupid as you look, are you, little Von? Even when you’re stoned. And here was me thinking the only reason Steve wanted you was for your cunt. But it is a pretty little cunt, isn’t it?”

  Yvonne felt herself flushing to the roots of her being with anger and embarrassment. McGarrity was looking at her curiously, as if she were some unusual specimen of plant life. The owls in the Goya print seemed to be whispering in the sleeper’s ear just as the song’s eerie voices were whispering in her head.

  “You don’t need to show me it,” he said. “I’ve already seen it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve watched you. With Steve.”

  Yvonne’s jaw dropped. She stubbed out her cigarette so hard the sparks burned her fingers, and tried to stand up. It wasn’t easy. Somehow or other, she couldn’t believe how, she found herself sitting down again, and McGarrity was beside her, grasping her arm. Hard. His face was so close to hers she could smell smoke and stale cheese on his breath. He let go of her arm and started rolling a cigarette. She thought she should make a run for it, but she felt too heavy to move. The joint, she thought. Opiated hash. It always did that to her, gave her a heavy, drifting, dreamy feeling. But this time the dream was turning into a nightmare.

  He reached forward and touched her cheek with his finger just as he had done at the Grove. It felt like a slug. “Yvonne,” he whispered. “What harm can it do? We believe in free love, don’t we? After all, it’s not as if you’re the only one, you know.”

  Her chest tightened. “What do you mean?”

  “Steve. Do you think you’re the only pretty girl who comes around here to take her clothes off for him?”

  Yvonne desperately wanted to get away from McGarrity’s cloying and overbearing presence, but even more desperately she wanted to know if he was telling the truth. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Yvonne: Fridays and Saturdays. You’re just his weekend hippie. Tuesdays and Wednesdays it’s the lovely Denise. Let me see now, who’s Monday, Thursday and Sunday? Is it the same one all three days, or is it three different ones?” />
  He was looking at her with that mocking smile on his face again.

  “Stop it!” she said. “I won’t believe you. I want to go home.” She tried to rise again and proved a little more successful this time. She was still dizzy, though, and soon fell back.

  McGarrity stood up and started pacing up and down, muttering to himself. She didn’t know if it was T. S. Eliot or the book of Revelations. She could see the bulge at the front of his jeans, and she knew he was getting more excited every second. She didn’t trust him, knew he had that knife somewhere. Unless… Christ, he had probably had his way with Linda and killed her and got rid of the knife. That was why he didn’t have it. Yvonne’s mind was spinning. Why didn’t Steve and the others come home? What were they doing? Had he killed them all? Was that it? Were they all lying upstairs in their rooms in pools of blood with flies buzzing around? The ideas flashed and cracked electrically in her brain, bouncing around her mind like the thunderstorm in the painting.

  Yvonne sensed that now was the time, while he was distracted. She went through it quickly in her head first, visualizing herself do it. She would have to be fast, and that would be the hardest part. She was still disoriented because of the hash he had drugged her with. She would have only one chance. Get to the door. Get outside fast. How did it open? Yale lock. In or out? In. So twist to the left, pull and run. There would be people out there, in the street, in the park. It was still light outside. She could make it. Twist to the left, pull and run.

  When McGarrity was at the far end of the room, by the window, his back turned to her, Yvonne summoned up all her energy and made a dash for the door. She didn’t know if he was after her or not. She bounced off the walls down the hallway, reached the door, twisted the Yale and pulled. It opened. Daylight flooded her like warm honey. She stumbled a bit on the top step but ran down the garden path and out of the gate as fast as she could. She didn’t look round, didn’t even listen for his footsteps following her. She didn’t know where she was running. All she knew was that she had to run, run, run for her life.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN